Moorpark Seeks Power to Set Cable TV Rates : Government: City Council votes to apply to the Federal Communications Commission for regulation authority.

Two years after a rise in Moorpark’s cable TV charges set off protests among residents, the Moorpark City Council on Wednesday took a first step toward regulating local cable television companies.

The council voted 4 to 0 to apply to the Federal Communications Commission for authority to set the basic rates that cable television companies impose on local residents, making Moorpark the second Ventura County city, after Thousand Oaks, to opt for regulating cable service.

The 1992 Cable Act passed by Congress last fall allows cities to begin applying for regulatory authority over cable companies on June 21.

And Moorpark officials said they don’t want to waste any time in reining in the two companies that provide cable service to the city’s 26,000 residents.

“Their customers are a captive audience and they can essentially do what they wish,” Mayor Paul W. Lawrason Jr. said Wednesday before the meeting. “They operate almost like a public utility.”

Indeed, most Moorpark residents live in newer neighborhoods where the homeowner associations prohibit outdoor antennas or satellite dishes.

“Cable service is not a luxury” for most residents, Councilman Scott Montgomery said. “It is indeed the only way you can get television reception.”

Since Congress deregulated the cable industry in 1984, Montgomery said, “cable TV rates have done nothing but skyrocket. They just keep going up and up.”

Ventura County Cablevision--the cable provider for most of the city’s households--now bills customers $21.50 per month for 35 channels. The price is 27% higher than what the provider charged for 33 channels two years ago.

Mountain Meadows Cable Television--the sole cable company for the 1,500 households in the exclusive Mountain Meadows neighborhood--charges $19.15 for 35 channels, or 9% more than what residents paid for 33 channels in 1991.

If the FCC approves Moorpark’s application to regulate the cable companies, city officials may be able to roll back the rates to some extent if they determine current charges are out of line with federal price guidelines, Montgomery said.

“At a minimum, we should be successful at restricting (future) increases,” he said. “We should be able to slow that down.”

If the FCC grants the city’s application, Moorpark officials would have power to regulate not only the companies’ monthly rates, but also to choose programming and to determine what, if any, additional charges cable companies can pass on to customers.

Two years ago, Mountain Meadows Cable Television decided to begin charging customers for each cable TV outlet in the residence, sparking a protest by consumers.

Although the per-outlet fee is standard in the cable industry, Mountain Meadows residents said they had been double-crossed by the neighborhood’s developer--Urban West Communities of Santa Monica, which owns the cable franchise and contracts with the San Francisco-based Entertainment Express to run it.

Homeowners said that when they bought their homes, Urban West salespeople encouraged them to install as many outlets as they wanted, promising they would never be charged for them.

When the residents--some of whom had installed 10 outlets--were suddenly billed $3.60 per outlet, they complained to city officials only to discover the city had no power to control cable charges.

Urban West eventually agreed to postpone the per-outlet charge for a time, but Mountain Meadows residents now pay $3.80 for each outlet being used, Moorpark Finance Director Richard Hare said.

Under federal rules, cable companies can contest a city’s application to regulate cable rates by proving there is honest competition between cable providers in the area.

Urban West spokesman Tom Zanic said his company does not intend to contest Moorpark’s application to the FCC for regulatory authority. “We intend to comply with the federal legislation,” Zanic said.

But Richard N. Yelen, marketing director of Ventura County Cablevision, said company officials have not yet decided whether to challenge Moorpark’s application to become a cable regulating agency.

Nevertheless, Yelen was outspoken in his opposition to the re-regulation of the cable industry. He questioned the notion that cable TV is like any other utility, saying that only 80% of Moorpark households subscribe.

“We are a form of entertainment,” he said. “People choose not to take it. They don’t choose not to have water.”

Yelen warned that residents should not necessarily expect the same quality of programming if the city holds down prices.

“When cable first started, it was a bunch of reruns and stuff,” Yelen said. Now, “much of what is on cable was developed for cable.”

And the cost of this new programming, he said, is passed on to cable customers.

“We are like any other business,” he said. “We are a money-making entity.”