Next week all members of the Rancho Murieta Association will receive in the mail a copy of an eleven page legal opinion that took at least (you pick a number) billable hours to prepare.  If my mechanic now charges $75 an hour to tune my engine, I can only imagine what a lawyer can charge, and we are paying for it.  To paraphrase what Director Cox recently said, the question you ask your lawyer determines the opinion you get.   I'm sure a means to stop our proxy effort was the driving requirement of Jack Cooper's request.  Previously Jack's legal opinions were never made public and if he chose to read from them, he only cherry-picked selected passages that reinforced his own opinions (which is not a bad thing, we all do that).  By making this document public we are allowed to read its entire content and conduct a form of quality assurance on its statements to see if we are being represented by competent counsel and if they are in fact doing their homework.   

This legal opinion, although meant to stop our proxy drive, brings to light much of what is in the Cable Television Agreement.  This document is a strong directive for the Board to address the entire business structure of the cable enterprise, and confront the meaning of basic service.  When talking about basic service the terms "not for profit" and "provided at cost" are repeated many times and if followed for all services, change the fiscal complexion from cash cow to higher dues and a lot of work to only break-even.    The Agreement is not being followed and was never considered when the 1,2,5 plan was formulated.  That plan only addressed the technical aspects of the cable system and its authors did not address the marketing and fiscal implications.  Their only apparent fiscal planning assumed that the user pay segment of the plan (upgrades to HD and full digital service plus premiums) could offset the substantial cost of increased programming.   In reality, the majority of the capital infused into the system was not for deferred maintenance (the publicly stated reason, which justified using reserves) but was to provide the platform to market second tier content on a user pay basis. It was this carrot that made several board members believe that there could be a sustainable revenue source from the user pay services that could help the Association in the rough water that lay ahead.  Somewhere along the way that idea got lost, maybe in the personnel purges last year.  Nonetheless, someone made a poor business decision to provide unencrypted HD because we could technically do it. That was a dumb decision. We are now providing those services, as basic (HD programming is not a basic or bottom tier feature provided by any satellite operator in the world nor is the Golf Channel). Little incentive now exists to upgrade to the digital service now that HD programming is part of "our" basic.  That move eliminated about one third of the potential market. No additional revenue is available other than dues increases to sustain this much-expanded basic package.  Our single major cost is content (programming), and we are in the process of adding much more content to the basic tier.  The dues will have to be increased or a complete restructuring of the programming being offered as basic will have to be made.  That is what can happen when you have the techno-nerds rather than the bean-counters making the decisions. 

The legal opinion also pointed in an indirect way, to the 800-pound gorilla that is standing in the corner that few have yet noticed.  On page 9, second paragraph, is a brief seven word parenthetical that dismisses the possibility that RMA may soon be given a cease and desist order to suspend its "exclusivity" contract.  I find it interesting that Berding and Weil are so conversant with FCC regulations and the legal intricacies of the Telecommunications Act to make such a statement.  The tarnish on their credentials or at least a lack of proper discovery is apparent in the statement that no public lands are crossed by our cable infrastructure.  We not only cross public rights-of-way we also provide service outside the PUD; so much for their other argument that the cable system is part of our common area.  One thing is always true about opinions, including this one, like noses or ear lobes (you can select any anatomical feature) we all have one.