Cable Operators File New Tax Challenge

In a bid to avoid months of administrative hearings, Orange County’s cable television operators filed a new complaint in Superior Court here Thursday challenging a county tax policy that more than triples their collective property tax bills.

Thom Miller, an attorney for the cable firms, said the new complaint--which alleges the assessments are discriminatory--expands on the same arguments made in a suit set aside in August because the judge ruled the companies had not exhausted their administrative remedies.

The firms filed the amended complaint because they believe that a July administrative hearing on one of their assessment appeals satisfies the court’s earlier concern, Miller said. There is no need to go through 10 appeals hearings because each company is appealing the assessments on the same grounds, he said.

On Aug. 2, then-Superior Court Judge Gary Taylor ruled that there was no reason to sue until all the appeals had been decided. But because the appeals process is so slow, Miller said, Taylor recently met with both sides and told the cable companies to go ahead with plans to file their updated complaint on the strength of the one completed appeal.

In that case, a three-member appeals board ruled in favor of most of the arguments brought by Cablevision of Orange. The decision, however, is likely to be appealed by the county in a separate Superior Court action.

The cable companies initially sued Assessor Bradley L. Jacobs in May, claiming he had violated their civil rights by taxing them under a set of criteria not imposed on other companies.

Attorneys for Jacobs denied the allegations. Jacobs has declined to discuss the cases publicly.

The companies face large increases in their county property tax bills under the new assessment method. Their collective 1989 tax bills rose to $7.7 million from $2.4 million in 1988.

One of the companies protesting the assessments, Dimension Cable, is owned by Times Mirror Co., which also owns The Times.

Under the new assessment method, the assessor considers the income produced by the company and the selling price of similar properties. Under the old method, the basic assessment was made using the replacement cost of a cable firm’s property and equipment plus the value of the company’s “possessory interest,” or exclusive right to serve a particular community.

Judge Taylor has been elevated to the federal bench and the cases have been reassigned.