The City of Peoria’s cable franchise agreement with Comcast expired in 2006, and ever since then the City has been trying to negotiate a new agreement. Along the way, they have passed numerous temporary extensions and held a few public forums where residents could express their feelings about Comcast’s cable service.

Now the city has finally reached an agreement. One big change: it’s term is significantly shorter at five years (previous franchise agreements were for twenty). The shorter term means that “after two years, the renewal process will begin again.”

The proposed franchise agreement has another significant change: Comcast will cease providing a studio and equipment for public access programming, something the cable operator has done since its inception. Instead, that responsibility will fall to the city, who is apparently planning to outsource it to an unnamed “religious group” that is reportedly “ready to step in and run the public access channels” for reasons unknown. One can only speculate as to what effect this will have on public access programming.

Getting rid of public access responsibility is not unique to Comcast’s dealings in Peoria. Just last month, Springfield’s city council voted to take over their public access channel, “Access 4,” after Comcast ceased programming it. The State Journal-Register reports that “Comcast must provide three channels for public, educational and governmental access programming,” but the franchise agreement “doesn’t require Comcast to operate the channels.” The reason? “Comcast is doing what they have to do to cut back,” Springfield Mayor Tim Davlin was quoted as saying. In Peoria, they have already laid off George Bean, “manager of Peoria’s public access channel for almost 20 years.”