Four community public access channels hang in the balance as the Reno City Council and Charter Communications work toward an agreement that could move them from the analog to the digital tier.

Meanwhile, a consumer group, Resurge.tv, led by activist Andrew Barbano, is preparing to go to court against the city and Charter on behalf of Charter's ratepayers if this agreement is made.

Barbano said the move would give Reno control of community television and violate the rights of customers still on the analog.

"It's pure, unadulterated greed," Barbano said.

On Friday, Charter's general manager, Manny Martinez, sent a letter sent to Reno Councilman Dave Aiazzi, who has taken the council lead on this matter. Martinez delineated a proposal for those analog-only customers who do not have the equipment to convert to digital to receive a digital box to continue their public, educational and government (PEG) access channels.

The letter states that Charter would:

• Mail a waiver letter to all residential analog customers that would allow customers either to redeem the waiver in Charter's Reno office for use of a digital converter through Dec. 31, 2009 with free installation; customers who want to redeem the waiver must pick up their converter box by Feb. 28, 2009. Alternatively, they could redeem the waiver at Reno's RC Willey store for a discount on the purchase of a digital television set; RC Willey has established an expiration date of Dec. 31 on the discount.

• Maintain one analog PEG channel between the transition period to begin on or after Dec. 15 through Feb. 28, 2009 that would broadcast live each local government's meeting, including the Washoe County Commission and Reno and Sparks city councils, along with Sierra Nevada Community Access Television's (SNCAT) programming. After that date, the four PEG channels will be on the digital tier and customers with converter boxes will have until the end of 2009 to decide if they want to pay for the box to continue to receive the channels.

Aiazzi then responded with a settlement agreement asking for Charter to contribute $650,000 over the next 12 years. The money would not benefit the city, but would go to SNCAT, Aiazzi said.

"The city's not going to receive anything," Aiazzi said. "What was in the franchise agreement we currently have with Charter is that money (eventually would) support SNCAT to upgrade its cameras for its programming, but I don't think Charter is going to agree to that. The big fight is with the legislators who are trying to take power of the franchise agreement."

Charter is bound by a 2007 state franchise law that takes control of franchise cable agreements away from cities and counties.

"It may hurt taxpayers quite a bit if they continue to do this," Aiazzi said.

Barbano worries that the agreement would give Reno exclusive control of these community access channels. The city of Sparks and Washoe County have not responded, he said.

"The bottom line is that Aiazzi wants to buy Reno off with a $650,000 bribe and give Reno control of one remaining access station," Barbano said.

After reviewing Aiazzi's drafted agreement, Charter sent a follow-up letter on Monday adding more conditions, including maintaining the four PEG channels in the digital platform and withdrawing free services to local community buildings within Charter's distribution area. Instead, that second letter denotes, Charter would negotiate discounted video services in a multi-service contract.

George Jostlin, Charter's director of government affairs and public relations, said the company is working with the city to resolve the matter.

"We've continued to work toward a mutual agreement upon a solution to each side's satisfaction," Jostlin said. "Councilman Aiazzi's proposal was reviewed and there were issues that we had and have handled that directly with the councilman."

Jostlin said the funneling of the four PEG channels would not be a hindrance.

"The city of Sparks does varied events live on Monday, the county does live on Tuesday and Reno does live on Thursday and it's rare that you would find all four stations filled with duplicated programming," Jostlin said.

Charter has about 150,000 customers in the region, about half of which are in Washoe County. About 30,000 are still on analog with basic and expanded basic television.

An estimated 20,000 customers who currently do not have digital TV sets would have to lease converter boxes at $5 a month to have continued access to PEG channels.

Charter must convert all but the "must carry" channels to the digital tier by the end of February 2009.

Reno channel 13, Sparks channel 15, public access channel 16 and Washoe County channel 17 would be moved to the digital tier so that the remaining bandwidth space would be available for more high-definition channels.

The Reno City Council will continue its discussion of the settlement agreement on Monday at 10 a.m. Barbano said he will wait to find out the results of the council's discussion on Monday. Pending the outcome, he said he would sue as early as Nov. 20.