SAN FRANCISCO'S FRANCHISE agreement with Comcast, the local cable and Internet service provider, ends this year, and the city has a rare and critical opportunity to demand – and get – lower cable rates, better service, free Internet access, and a lot more money for community media. But city officials are already behind schedule on the negotiations, and they need to kick the process into high gear, now.

The franchise agreement allows Comcast to use the city's streets to deliver its services – in exchange for cash and other concessions. The deal is immensely valuable to the giant corporation: Comcast claims its franchises (which allow it to reach 21 million customers nationwide) are worth a total of $51 billion. In San Francisco alone, the company projects revenue of $1 billion over the next 10 years.

But as Camille T. Taiara reports on page 12, Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, is known for lousy service, exorbitant rates, and poor community and labor relations. The current franchise agreement gives the city only a small fraction of the benefits it ought to be getting and does little or nothing to take advantage of new technologies.

There's a long list of services that ought to be mandated in any new deal (and www.mediasf.org has a fairly comprehensive platform). Among the most important:

• Low-cost cable and Internet services for seniors and low-income people.

• Free cable-TV, Internet, and wireless access in all public buildings.

• Free cable and Internet for nonprofits.

• More money for local grassroots media production facilities.

• A strong consumer-protection policy with effective public oversight, including a Comcast-funded city ombudsperson to handle complaints.

And since broadband communication technology is changing so fast, the city needs to mandate a renegotiation window every few years, so San Francisco isn't stuck with a long-term contract that becomes hopelessly outdated halfway through.

None of this will be easy: Comcast is known for aggressive negotiation and is quick to sue cities that don't bow to its interests. And in the past, San Francisco has done an eminently lousy job with these deals, working out sweetheart contracts behind closed doors. The supervisors and the city attorney need to take a clear and strong public stand, now, on what the bottom line in the franchise talks will be and provide regular public updates as the negotiations proceed.

The city has the biggest bargaining chip of all. If Comcast balks even a little bit, the city should move immediately to create a municipal cable system, along the lines that Sup. Tom Ammiano has proposed. That's the ultimate answer to high rates and bad service by an unaccountable private monopoly.