President's Message | December 2, 2019

A couple quick updates in the fight against the FCC’s Third Report and Order on Cable Franchising:

ACM along with municipal allies across the US supported a motion to stay the FCC’s Third Report and Order in Federal Court last week.  The stay motion says the FCC is wrong on the law when it tries to rewrite the Cable Act – something courts found when they reviewed the agencies earlier actions on the matter – and the agency will cause irreparable harm if the Order is allowed to proceed.   You can download and read the Order here.

 

The 6th Circuit Appeals Court will now consider the motion and the following legal challenge.  That’s because the FCC on Friday won its argument for the case to be moved to the circuit which heard the earlier case, Montgomery County et al vs FCC.

 

We’ll keep you posted on the legal challenge as it develops.  

 

In the meantime, we should all be asking Congress to pressure the FCC to not keep trying to rewrite the law – as FCC Chair Ajit Pai has promised to do when it comes to putting a dollar value on channel capacity so that franchise fees paid to cities and PEG facilities can be further diminished.  If you have a member of Congress on the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, please reach out to them in the next day or two as the subcommittee will be holding FCC oversight hearing this Thursday 12/5.

We are also counting down for Giving Tuesday tomorrow (12/3) – that’s the day many non-profits around the country are concentrating on telling their story and thanking people for their gifts and support to make a difference in their communities.  I know many of our members are doing Giving Tuesday campaigns – good luck on the day!

 

For the ACM Foundation, we are asking folks to consider a tax-deductible gift to support next year’s Emerging Leaders Institute, which we want to hold in Chicago.  With your help last year, we began the first Institute and trained 12 new leaders in our field.  We’d like to work with at least a dozen more in the Windy City in 2020!

 

Please go to this website to make your gift – and if we receive $3,000 in gifts on Tuesday, we’ll get another $1,500 in matching gifts from former ACM leaders. They believe in the power of giving and the need to encourage and build new leaders in ACM and our field.  I hope you’ll join them tomorrow with your gift!

 

Thank you!

Mike Wassenaar
ACM President & CEO