Joint Special Called Meeting

JOINT SPECIAL CALLED MEETING

There was a joint meeting held by the Spalding County Board of Commissioners and Board of Commissioners of the City of Griffin on Thursday, August 3, 2000 in their office in the Courthouse Annex in the City of Griffin, Spalding County, Georgia, beginning at 6:00 o’clock p.m. Those present from the County Commissioners were Commissioners Earle Childres, Martha McDaniel, Johnie McDaniel, M. Michael Kendall and Merrill Massengale. Also present were County Manager Mike Ruffin, Deputy County Manager William Wilson, County Attorney Jim Fortune and Executive Secretary Phyllis Doane.

Those present from the City Commissioners were Commissioners Anthony Dickson, Joanne Todd, Mayor Carlton Imes, Geraldine Jackson, Dick Slade, and Rodney McCord. Commissioner Tom Perdue was absent due to illness. Also present were Acting City Manager Lisa Hutcheson and City Attorney Drew Whalen.

Chairman Kendall called the Special Meeting to order for the County.

Mayor Imes called the Special Meeting to order for the City.

The purpose of the meeting was to receive Public Comment and discuss the renewal of cable franchise agreement with Insight Cable.

Chairman Kendall introduced Ms. Edith Spencer from Georgia Municipal Association who has worked actively in the negotiation process between the franchising authority and Insight Communications.

Ms. Spencer addressed the Boards regarding the draft agreement between the City and County and Insight Communications. She gave a brief background of the draft that they have prepared. She said according to federal law there are two broad arenas that a local government needs to examine when renewing a franchise, which is look at the current’s operators past performance and evaluate the needs of the community and citizens needs of cable for the future. She said that GMA has evaluated both of these arenas.

She explained the terms and conditions of the franchise agreement. She said the agreement is non exclusive; provides cable service and internet service, requires that the system be rebuilt in 30 months within the effective date of the franchise agreement to 750 MHz, which is in terms “state of the art” in the greater metropolitan Atlanta area. When the system is rebuilt the company has agreed to provide three channels for use of the local government, a public channel, a public education channel and a government channel and there will be funding to support those channels that will come from the company in a grant in the amount of $50,000. The proposed term for the franchise is ten years and can be extended if the company agrees to take the system up to 860 MHz. The company will pay the City and County 5% of their gross revenues. She said that the agreement entails an extensive customer service section and if breached there are provisions for punishing them. There will be free cable service to all local government facilities. At certain intervals during the franchise term , there will be an opportunity every three years for the City and County to meet together and address any problems and have those problems corrected and if problems not corrected, has the authority to revoke the franchise.

She said that GMA has worked with the company to try and get corrected the reception problems. She said that it has been reported to them that these interference problems are much better and if not, there are provisions in the agreement to get these corrected.

Ms. Spencer introduced Mr. Jim Stewart, Sr. Vice President of Operations, Insight Communications. Mr. Stewart addressed the Boards and stated he wanted to hear from the City and County Commissioners and also the customers of their company regarding their performance and how to improve it. He said the company wants to provide top quality service to the citizens of Griffin and Spalding County. He said that they have been associated with the City and County since 1988. There are presently 13,000 customers in this community to whom they serve with cable.

He said in 1992 the Griffin-Spalding cable system was rebuilt from 300 to 400 MHz and increased the channel capacity from 35 to 49 channels. He said Insight Cable was one of the first cable operators in the greater Atlanta area to deploy fiber optic cable, which improved, picture quality and system reliability and added new services. In 1999 Insight Cable was one of the first companies to be able to add digital cable service for their customers. He said they were now able to offer customers greater choice, convenience and value. He said Insight has 60% penetration in Griffin and Spalding County.

He said that Insight community involvement is very important to both the company and employees. He said the company was committed to offer educational opportunities to the teachers in Griffin-Spalding County through cable in the classroom project and provide free basic and classic service to the schools in the service area. Insight also provides cable service to fire stations and police facilities and local charitable groups. He said that customer service is their top priority. He said additional customer service personnel and phone lines had been added to take care of the customer’s needs. He said that they answer their phone calls within thirty seconds within 98% of the time and they have an on-time installation appointment rate of 99%. If late with the installation appointment, the installation is free. He said if we are late with a service call appointment, the customer is entitled to a $20.00 credit guaranteed. He said they strive to keep their monthly charges reasonable. He said they have committed to rebuilding the system in order to be able to provide more channels and basic services to their customers. The upgrade will require replacing over 400 miles of cable currently in the area.

He introduced the Griffin/Spalding County General Manager, Sonja Gardner and she introduced her staff.

At this time the floor was opened to public comment. The main concerns from the citizens were as follows:

(1) wanted Cspan2 added as additional basic service; (2) not enough channels on regular service; (3) paying to watch ballgames and local news; (4) repeat programs especially on the movie channel; (5) need variety of channels to play different movies; (6) competitive franchise not available; (7) need evaluation of adjoining services in other communities and their rates; (8) not happy with cable and invite competition; (9) why has it taken so long to come up with a new plan; (10) why can’t the contract be for five years rather than ten; (11) customer service concerns such as being put on hold for five to ten minutes and the huge window and dependability for installation and repairs; and (12) down time.

A question was asked how did you arrive at the fee for service. Mr. Stewart answered it is based on programming costs which vary in price. He said this past year their programming service went up by 22% and we raised our rates this past year by 3.6%. The total package of services rate is $28.81 and it is comparable to some systems. It’s not the highest and it is certainly not the lowest.

City Commissioner Joanne Todd and Acting City Manager Lisa Hutcheson left the meeting at 6:52 p.m.

Chairman Kendall asked who was the burden on if the City and County decided not to renew the contract. Mr. Kendall commented we need to know who has that burden of persuasion because if it is us, then we need to be regulating what it is they do more closer so we have a documentary case to support our decision whether to renew or not to renew. He said we need to be sure that the language in the new contract is real specific to this.

Commissioner Dick Slade commented that he was on the commission in 1990-1993 and went through the same rhetoric we are going through now. He said a lot of promises were made and the City and County signed the contract. He said in his opinion and comments from constituents the service has been bad and the down time has been bad until just recently. He said we were told in the 1990’s that we were going to have a “state of the art” system, which has not been fulfilled.

Mr. Stewart said that Insight does not make hollow promises because that is not the way we operate. He said that Insight wants to have a good working relationship with their customers and the City and the County. He said that they have thousands of franchises and have never gotten one revoked and have never gotten into a lawsuit with any franchise.

Mr. Stewart stated that the system is not “state of the art” right now and they recognize this and that it has to be rebuilt. He said that they should be able, barring no problems, have the system rebuilt in eighteen months.

Mr. Slade suggested that we let Insight do the rebuilt in phases of six months each over an eighteen month period. If each phase is not completed within the six months, the franchiser would find some way to penalize you for not completion of that phase. He spoke about the poor customer service.

Chairman Kendall asked each Commissioner to look at Section 8 of the New Contract “Oversee and Regulation” and make any suggestion to your Board and Insight personnel as to exactly what you think is necessary for us to do to oversee and regulate Insight’s performance.

Commissioner Slade stated that he did not receive his contract until today and had not had a chance to study it. He said that he was not really informed to discuss the contract tonight.

Commissioner Martha McDaniel commented that Insight is getting out of Spalding County $4.5 Million a year based on number of customers and cost of service. She said you are not giving us any more programming than you were before. She also asked about internet services.

Mr. Stewart commented that you have to have at least 50,000 customers to offer this service and that people pay for this extra service.

Commissioner Martha McDaniel commented that she feels like the frustration is that you offer these additional services in other places but you do not offer them here.

Commissioner Massengale asked Mr. Stewart what was the current financial investment they have in this system. Mr. Stewart answered approximately $13 Million. Commissioner Massengale asked for an example of how the rates could go down. Mr. Stewart stated this could happen by subscribing to just one package.

Commissioner Kendall commented that it is not practical in a small community to go out and get competition because cost-wise, it is probably prohibitive.

Mr. Stewart commented that from the comments made tonight the one flaw in the relationship is there have been problems that Insight has not been aware of and that is customer service.

County Manager Ruffin commented that the agreement we are under now is very skeletal and there are very few controls and the new agreement is radically different. He said this was something that concerned the staff and that is why we have something more elaborate now. He told the Board that he would provide copies of both agreements for their review.

Mayor Imes stated he feels a major concern in the community is how much we are paying for the service. He said it would be nice to have some references to other communities, similar to us in size, knowing how old the cable system was, how many customers they have, how many channels they are enjoying and how much they are paying for it. He said that way the people in the community could feel comfortable in paying. Mr. Stewart commented that he could provide the boards with this information.

Mr. Stewart was asked if the news media could get a copy of the agreement and if there was a web site where complaints could be e-mailed. Mr. Stewart commented that the web site address is insight-com.com and his e-mail address is stewart.j@insight-com.com. He said there was a place set up on the web site for consumers to respond.