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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-08-04 Transcription#2 Page 1 ITEM #2 CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS PRESENTED OR AMENDED Vanderhoef/ So moved. O'Donnell/ Second. Lehman/ Moved by Vanderhoe£, seconded by O'Dormell. Discussion. Kanncr/ I had a questions about correspondence #9, from MidAmerican. I'm checking into this I didn't have a chance but I'll check into this but I was wondering ah they are putting out a lot o£ stuff that I think are half truths and ah they are throwing out this letter ~rom Gold-Eagle Cooperative and I was wondering if we would ask Dale as a Council to check some of the facts on those. To see if those are indeed true. Did people read that letter? Lehman/ Yea. Vanderhoef/ ah, hah. Kanner/ And they are putting out some claims I don't know about their rates they are calling for kilowatt hours in the total cost and it seems a little outrageous to me and I was wondering if we could check on a few of those things. Dale, did you get a chance to look at that? Helling/ Yea, I thought I did. Lehman/ We got that a couple of.. Vanderhoef/ We had it mailed to us and then it came in the Lehman/ Yea, it was mailed to us. Vanderhoef/ Yea. Kanner/ Alright I never got it mailed but this was in our packet and we're accepting under correspondence. Lehman/ I really would rather wait and address all of those issues at the same time when we get that report back from Latham. I think there are a number of issues here that need to be addressed but it would appear to me that it would be the best t/me to do that when we get the report back and can dig into that in some sort of depth. Vanderhoef/ And we have more information at that point. O'Donnell/ I agree with that. Helling/ I would hope that your feasibility study would address some of these things but Vanderhoef/ That's what I thought. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of August 4, 2003. #2 Page 2 Helling/ when you are talking about fractions of a cent people could be all over the board. Lehman/ Right. Kanner/ Well, they are throwing out costs obviously it's to scare us in the way they are attempting to scare Gold-Eagle. I just think they are starting their attack right now and need to verify some of these things. We shouldn't let them linger out there in the public. Helling/ No, we can take a look at it and see if there's ... Atkins/ I think it's easy enough to track down. Figure out, with the report coming in it would be nice to respond to this in the same format as the report is in so you can draw some comparisons Lehman/ Do we know when we are going to get that from Latham? Atkins/ Soon. Helling/ I think now it's probably early September. Lehman/ Okay, so we're a month or so away. Helling/ Yes. Kanner/ Ho~v come its pushed back? I thought August was the first push back and now early August and now early September? Helling/ We had asked a number of people, local users, to respond and I know some of them are putting information together that the consultant wanted about there usage and that's information that they are getting from the individual communities and that will be part of the individualized report. My understanding is that Latham is contacting some of the folks locally to ask them again to respond. They sent them a letter earlier. That may be part of it. The other part of it I think is just getting everything together. The communities that are involved are going to get there's, as I understand it, at a little bit different time depending on how quickly that local information can be put together. Obviously with a bigger community there's more information to glean so it's just a combination of things that's the reason that it's been pushed back a little bit. Vanderhoeff Something that I noted, number 7, the letter from Bob Thompson on Historic Preservation Guidelines and he was using the ~veb and said there wasn't a map on the various historic or conservation districts? I didn't go on the web to check it out. Atkins/ Conservation and historic preservation districts? Karr/ They are working on that Steve. VanderhoefJ Are they? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of August 4, 2003. #2 Page 3 Atkins/ I knew it was being worked on. Vanderhoef/ Good. Atkins/ I don't know how far... Karr/ Mapping on the web requires a little bit more extra work, extra work and time. Vanderhoef/ Okay because we are going to be talking about it in a week or two and it would be nice to have that on there. Wilburn/ I presume that Third Base, Sports Bar, caught approval from the County Attorney's office? Kart/ Yes, they did. Wilburn/ Alright. Lehman/ Other discussion? Roll call, 6/0, Champion absent. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of August 4, 2003. #3 Page 4 ITEM #3 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION CONCERNING MEDIACOM COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION'S REQUESTED RATE INCREASE AND ESTABLISHING MAXIMUM PERMITTED RATES FOR BASIC CABLE SERVICE Vanderhoef/ Move the resolution. Lehman/ Moved by Vanderhoefi O'Donnell/ Second. Lehman/ Seconded by O'Donnell. Discussion. Pfab/ Dale, what ah what is fill in a little bit of background on what's going on there. Helling/ This is part of our limited regulatory power we have over cable rates. We have FCC gives us some regulatory power over only the basic rate. We do this every year. A couple of times we've disagreed ~vith the maximum permitted rate that they have calculated. This is probably the largest difference between what we calculate and what they calculate but it has to do with FCC formulas. As I said we do this every year I think this goes back to two years ago. Last year they were we disagreed with the maximum permitted rate but they were under that in their basic rate so there was no dispute. Their proposing this year to charge $14 per month. Our initial calculations indicate that $11.83 a month would be the maximum they could charge for the basic rate. Pfab/ There's about 16% difference in ...is that difficult for the City to calculate? Helling/ We use a consultant to do it. Yes, it is. It was supposed to be very simple but it's gotten very complicated. Pfab/ But at this point this your number's firm, the number here? $11.83 is firm? Helling/ Well, what we do is calculate it and declare the maximum calculated rate. They can respond with additional information. Ultimately its FCC or the courts who will decide what that might be. Pfab/ So what you're saying now the new rate will be $11.83? Helling/ No, they'll they will probably this was to go into effect August 1 according to what they said. They can go ahead and charge it. They are subject to rebating back to the customers if we prevail. Pfab/ Okay. Helling/ And it did happen a few years ago. Pfab/ So it, the last, it's not over yet. Helling/ It's just starting. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of August 4, 2003. #3 Page 5 Pfab/ Stay tuned, huh. Kanner/ I have a few more questions. So it gets appealed the first level to the FCC? Helling/ Well right now there is a process whereby we establish what we think is the maximum permitted rate, they supply additional information, our consultant will look that over. But ultimately it goes back to the FCC to determine whether or not their formulas are followed. I believe the last time it actually went past that and went to court. But we did prevail, this was several years ago and there was a smaller refund that went back to the customers. Kanner/ So if they go ahead and charge the $14 that means the onus is on us to instigate the appeal? Helling/ No, they have to provide additional information. We have a dispute now. My understanding is that they then respond to us and then when we have whatever additional information and we still have a disagreement then we...they may come back and look at our information and say well it's really this or that or something below $14 but above $11.83 and here's why and then we respond to that. But ultimately it goes to a different body to a neutral body to look at it and make that determination. May take a couple of years. Lehman/ Dale, this resolution denies their proposed rate increase? Helling/ Right. Lehman/ Which would seem to me to put the ball in their court? Helling/ Well, it's gotta be resolved. Yea, I think the ball is back in their court. Lehman/ Right. Helling/ Because we said $11.83, we have that claim. I suspect ultimately we're the ones that would have to Lehman/ prove it. Helling/ Yea. Vanderhoef/ Well as long as we deny it then they can't go ahead and start charging and Helling/ No, they can. Lehman/ I think they can. Vanderhoef/ They still can? Helling/ Under the rules they can go ahead and charge what they propose to charge but they are subject to rebating that if we prevail. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of August 4, 2003. #3 Page 6 Lehman/ Isn't that the same thing with utility companies too? I know the Board in Des Moines has required refunds in the past Helling/ Yes. Lehman/ if the increases haven't been able to be justified. Helling/ Yea. Lehman/ Alright. Kanner/ A few more questions on this Emie. So basic tier cable, that's just the minimum, this is what we contending the minimum so someone would basically pay this $11.83, I don't have cable and that's all that the would pay according to what we feel is the maximum amount for basic services of a few channels .... Helling/ Plus taxes and franchise fee pass through and that is just for the basic service. That would be the basic I don't know 20 channels including the local access channel, off air and a couple others. Kaimer/ And what do they pay now for that? Helling/ I don't know what the rate is now. Kanner/ Is it like $10 or something? Helling/ No, it's higher than that. Lehman/ Yea. Helling/ It's probably in the neighborhood of, well, it's probably between $11 and $12 but I'm not sure. Kanner/ But it's lower than what we're proposing as the maximum rate? Of $11.837 Helling/ I think it is, yea. Kanner/ And then, I have a couple of other things I didn't quite understand. There was some question about the City can not amortization of the annual PEG operating cost payment. Can you explain that? Helling/ No, I can't. I think it has to do with the money that they paid us that we then send to PATV and how and it's a question of how that then figures into that formula and then calculating their maximum permitted rate. But exactly how it works I can't tell you. I think I have told you before when the FCC put these regulations out they were suppose to be simple so everybody could do this and the Federal Register was like 100 and some pages of simplicity. Kanner/ And we're asserting that we're bearing some of the costs for cable subscribers outside of Iowa City and that we shouldn't be doing that, is that correct? Am I... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of August 4, 2003. #3 Page 7 Helling/ Again that has to do with the public accessment because we don't limit public access to just people within the City and so again that's another issue of that you know how that rolls into the overall formula because this has to do only with Iowa City's basic permitted rate and not Coralville, not North Liberty, or any adjutant jurisdictions. Kanner/ We're saying it's basically up to them if they want to collect from those cities at a higher rate to recover those cost but shouldn't put the burden on us for those costs. Helling/ We've always said that. Kanner/ And we're continuing to assert that. And then I think there's one other thing. They looked at figures from schedule B, its on page 119 of ours and page 9 of the packet, and they said one figure was exactly the same, contract, labor and converter maintenance of $5 million and that seems unusual and suspicious given the change in the number of remotes and converters. So is that going to be looked into? Helling/ Yes, that's part of hopefully they will respond to that in some fashion and our consultant will take a look at that. Kanner/ But they just didn't copy last year's form or make up figures or something like that. Pfab/ Our numbers were in their favor (can't hear) Kanner/ What? Pfab/ Our numbers were in their favor so they said (can't hear) Kanner/ Our numbers? This is their numbers on this form. Lehman/ All we are really saying is that we're not accepting their numbers. Right, basically. Helling/ Right, right. Some of the numbers they're looking for the coming year so some of their numbers are estimates as well. Kanner/ They didn't look good what they are submitting though. Lehman/ Well, I don't know enough about it to know what is good and what is not and again that's why we have a consultant. Other discussion? Roll call, 6/0, Champion absent. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council meeting of August 4, 2003.