HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda Packet - March 16, 1978 - CC c-
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AGENDA ITEM
DATE: March 16, 1978
TO: Mayor & City Council
FROM: Finance Officer
Attached is the copy of a letter from Mr. Ken Downes to Mr. Carl Newton
relating the history of Cable TV in Azusa from the adoption of the ordinance
on December 2, 1974, to the date of the letter on March 2, 1978.
Subsequent to the letter, Mr. Downes called me and related that the telephone
Company has now released all poles in the city for the stringing of cable.
Copies of the enclosures mentioned in Mr. Downes letter are on file in the
City Clerk's office and may be examined at your convenience.
Respectfully submitted,
E4,i) ii ,
Finance Officer
EAC/jl
•
KEN DOWNES /Associates
CABLE SERVICE OF AZUSA
408/354-1880
408/356-4995
408/354-5500
RECEIVED
1AR 1 ,. 197C March 5, 1978
51)04,Williams & Sorcl-i!I
Mr. Carl K. Newton
Burke, Williams & Sorensen
707 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, Calif. 90017
Dear Mr. Newton:
In response to your request for information regarding the cable tele-
vision franchise we hold from the City of Azusa, we have researched
the subject with the following results:
Your letter indicates correctly that the award Ordinance, No. I092,
was adopted December 2, 1974. It was published December 12, 1974
and became effective after 30 days on January 11, 1975. We filed
the acceptance documents within the required 60 day period on
March 3, 1975.
The required bonds and insurance certificates were filed at the time
of acceptance and continue to remain in force. Some modifications in
financing were required and were approved by the City, as required in
Title 14 of the Azusa Municipal code, on September 19, 1977.
We took the date of our acceptance as our authorization to proceed with
procurement of necessary permits, licenses and authorizations and filed
our application of April 28, 1975 with the Federal Communications Comm-
ission for a Certificate of Compliance. (A) To save time we had already
requested documents for the lease of utility pole space from General
Telephone Company of California, which we submitted on April 25, 1975. (B)
General Telephone's lease terms were difficult and they were at the time
in negotiations with the Public Utilities Commission and cable industry
representatives on pole lease terms so that the detailed negotiations _
of the needed pole lease were lengthy, culminating in receipt of the
needed lease on October 18, 1977. (C)
((To save bulk the A, B, C etc enclosures are only the first page of
letters, bulky reports, etc and include invoices and other documents
as appropriate to the reference.))
916 Cherrystone Drive, Los Gatos, California 95030
•
Mr. Newton - Pg 2
The Telephone Company again modified their lease agreement, this time
arbitrarily, and issued a new one on February 24, 1977 (D) which is in
force at this time.
Since the formal processes described were lengthy, we undertook a number
of preparations in advance.
Surveys of the Azusa public's interest in various cable services which
were essential to our planning were carried out with the assistance of
Azusa Pacific College personnel from December 1975 to January 1976 (E) .
A signal survey was undertaken in August, 1976 to provide additional
information required by the Federal Communications Commission and to
provide data for basic engineering of the system. (F) This was followed
by a detailed development program for cable services of several types
carried out by Washburn Associates from March to September 1977 (G)
Strand mapping of the entire City of Azusa, a preliminary to engineering
design and construction, was carried out between February and May 1977 (H)
Since the cable system includes provision for live programming from all
areas of the city as well as a sophisticated computer data system to
provide a wide variety of services to subscribers, rather substantial
design and engineering (substantially complete at this point) has been
required. Court-Mandell and Associates, consulting engineers in Santa
Monica, have been at work on this since approximately April 1977 (I)
Since October 1977 we have also had the engineering firm of Lolli and
Goodman of Palo Alto preparing computer designs and programming and
have ordered the two computers required for the system (One has been
received) . (J)
Frank Cross & Associates, acting as our Directors of Engineering were
retained in October 1977 and are continuing their supervision of con-
struction and engineering development. (K)
The details for a Cable Public Access Committee and for a Cable Tele
Vision Board, which are a part of the system's operating design as des-
cribed in our franchise proposal, were completed and forwarded to the
City in October 1975 - to be activated at the start of hook-up of sub-
scribers to the system. (L)
A proposal for system construction was received from RCA Corporation
in August 1977 after lengthy negotiation and engineering studies. (M)
however final contract award has been made to Multi-State Utility Service
Companies, Inc. of Signal Hill as having the most versatile capabilities
suited to system needs.
With a useable General Telephone pole-lease in hand, engineering of the
aerial first phase of the system was completed in January 1978. (N)
Prior to this, under the original temporary pole lease, we had submitted
the required applications for attachment to specific poles on December
Mr. Newton - pg 3
second 1977(0) . (The mechanism prescribed by the General Telephone pole
lease is that each pole to be used, together with its identification and
location data, must be included in a pole application and an application
fee paid. General Telephone then engineers required changes in their
plant and equipment for each pole, determines the cost, and bills the
cable company in advance. Upon payment General Telephone carries out
the work and when it is complete releases the pole for cable construction.
The cable company is prohibited from construction or any other activity
involving poles or telephone facilities until it receives a release from
General Telephone.)
Underground construction was ordered in December 1977 and is proceeding
as permitted by weather and soil water conditions, which have been unusual
for the past several weeks. The first section of aerial plant poles was
released by the telephone company on February 2, 1978. The ordinance
requires that construction begin within 120 days of receipt of such final
authorization. However, because of detailed prior preparations aerial
construction was started the following day, February 3, 1978. (P) Cable
construction is continuing as each section of pole line is released by
General Telephone Company.
Ordering of distribution, head-end and studio and additional computer
equipment has been undertaken, starting in February 1978 to coordinate
delivery schedules with completion of sections of distribution plant. (Q)
We are most mindful of the time required for all preparations necessary
to activate a complete cable system. Many of these must be done in the
design and engineering of the system and in the groundwork for the services
to be provided. Wherever possible we have attempted to do such work ahead
of the formal authorizations or permissions required so that it will be
ready when needed. Actual construction of the physical plant takes only
a minor portion of the total system development time. However this has
been underway since January 1978 and is continuing immediately upon the
release of each section of poles.
There have been a few other development activities essential to the system
which are complete or essentially so which I have not detailed here. I hope
this letter and its attachments are adequate for your purposes, and I will
be happy to furnish any additional .detail you may require.
Yours truly,
Kenneth L. Downes Jr.
KLD:ss