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Page Number: 25.0

6  MANHATTAN COMMUNITY ACCESS CORP. v. HALLECK 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

stance  of  government  speech.    This  case  thus  turns  first 
and foremost on whether the public-access channels are or 
are not purely private property.3 

1 
  This  Court  has  not  defined  precisely  what  kind  of  gov-
ernmental  property  interest  (if  any)  is  necessary  for  a 
public  forum  to  exist.    See  Cornelius  v.  NAACP  Legal 
Defense  &  Ed.  Fund,  Inc.,  473  U. S.  788,  801  (1985)  (“a 
speaker  must  seek  access  to  public  property  or  to  private 
property dedicated to public use”).  But see ante, at 11, n. 3 
(appearing to reject the phrase “private property dedicated 
to public use” as “passing dicta”).  I assume for the sake of 
argument  in  this  case  that  public-forum  analysis  is  inap-
propriate where the government lacks a “significant prop-
erty interest consistent with the communicative purpose of 
the forum.”  Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consor-
tium,  Inc.  v.  FCC,  518 U. S.  727,  829  (1996) (THOMAS,  J., 
concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). 
  Such  an  interest  is  present  here.    As  described  above, 
New  York  State  required  the  City  to  obtain  public-access 
channels  from  Time  Warner  in  exchange  for  awarding  a 
cable  franchise.    See  supra,  at  2.    The  exclusive  right  to 
use  these  channels  (and,  as  necessary,  Time  Warner’s 
infrastructure) qualifies as a property interest, akin at the 
very least to an easement. 
  The last time this Court considered a case centering on 
public-access channels, five Justices described an interest 
like  the  one  here  as  similar  to  an  easement.    Although 
JUSTICE  BREYER  did  not  conclude  that  a  public-access 
channel  was  indeed  a  public  forum,  he  likened  the  cable 

—————— 

3 As  discussed  below,  it  is  possible  that  some  (or  even  many)  public-
access  channels  are  government  speech.    The  channels  that  MNN 
administers,  however,  are  clearly  better  thought  of  as  a  public  forum 
given the New York regulations mandating open and equal access.  See 
infra, at 9–10, and n. 7.