The Town of Mooresville may have to cough up at least $12 million more to finalize upgrades to the recently-purchased $80 million MI-Connection cable system.
A little background: Adelphia Communications Corp., which had a franchise in Mooresville, went bankrupt in 2002 and decided to sell its assets to Comcast Corp. and Time Warner in an effort to reimburse its creditors. Included in Adelphia's franchise agreement, however, was a clause that gave Mecklenburg County, along with the towns of Mooresville, Troutman, Davidson, Huntersville and Cornelius, the right of first refusal to purchase the cable system if Adelphia sold it.
After Adelphia went bankrupt, the municipalities formed a consortium to look into the feasibility of owning and operating the cable system. In the meantime, Time Warner was designated the system's “caretaker."
Mecklenburg County – which was originally supposed to fund the system – backed out of the consortium. Huntersville and Troutman did, too. Cornelius decided not to participate in the purchase of the system but agreed to turn over its subscribers to MI-Connection.
That left Mooresville and Davidson. Mooresville offered to fund the system, and Davidson guaranteed repayment of its share through subscriber fees.
Despite staunch public objections, the Town of Mooresville bonded $80 million, which was supposed to include the purchase of 10,500 subscribers and system upgrades … with a little extra cash flow for the first couple years.
Come to find out, though, the town gained more than 15,000 subscribers -- and they had to be paid for somehow. Rumor has it that some of the money earmarked for upgrades instead had to be dished out for the additional subscribers.
If the new cable system is going to finalize the upgrades that it originally planned and promised -- including fiber optic to local businesses, if I'm hearing correctly -- apparently it's going to need at least $12 million more to do it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
Actually.....it looks like they need $16 million more if you believe today's paper.
http://www.charlotte.com/239/story/538852.html
Enjoy your blog.
Now, let's see. Radar, Carney and Herring voted for this losing bottomless pit deal, and by breaking a tie, Thunberg successfully shoved it down all our throats. Good job guys. We are all rubbing our hands together waiting for all the money you told us the cable was going to start making us. What do they say about being "not the brightest bulb in the bunch"???
Could there really be 5,000 people in this town that are so clueless that their Adelphia email is gonna shut down this week and they're not going to know why?
I like all the new channels and the faster internet they got us....oh wait...they didn't.
The four elected officials who voted for cable despite the public outcry should all resign from their elected posts. Even the time for apologies and remorse has passed.
I'm still choking in disbelief that these (not my) officials would have the audacity to acquire a private business. The reason Adelphia went bankrupt is that markets work! When people or businesses make irresponsible choices with their resources they get weeded out of the market.
When the government makes irresponsible choices with our resources there’s no corrective force, so they either raise taxes or run a budget deficit. I have an idea, instead of spending money teaching kids how to be politically correct, why don’t we start increasing the number of mandatory economics classes in our schools so that one day we might have politicians who make decisions based on at least elementary economic principles.
Who wants to bet me that over the next ten years M-I (read YOUR) Connection will run a net loss?
Post a Comment