CC Minutes - 05/22/02 Work Session

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Ms. Berrian if she had been concerned it took a year for the schedule to be done. Ms. Berrian said yes, she had been concerned in November 2000 when the upgrade stopped. Following discussion between the City and the corporation, a settlement stipulating a new schedule was arrived at in June 2001. Mr. Meisner indicated that Mr. Kelly had asked his questions, and he was prepared to support the resolution given that AT&T had signed the letter of agreement. Mr. Pap~ said he would like to see the resolution conditioned upon the letter of agreement, or the conditions of the letter included in the resolution. Ms. Berrian said she would designate the agreement as an exhibit to the resolution. Mr. Pap~ indicated that was acceptable. Mr. Pap~ expressed concern about the changes proposed by AT&T to the dispute resolution process because he thought it should be more local, and asked if the City was maintaining its position on that issue. Ms. Berrian said yes, and indicated that the City was on record with its positions, including that issue. She said there was a time line of six months to resolve the issues; if resolution did not occur in that time period, the City would have to determine its next steps, which could include legal action. Mr. Lidz added that the issue was in litigation and the City expected that if the franchising authorities prevailed in that litigation that AT&T would agree to modify the mandatory arbitration approach. If it did not, the local franchise authority would likely have to go to court. Mr. Pap~ determined from Ms. Berrian that AT&T had not rescinded the notification of mandatory arbitration, even though she continued to be involved with disputes and Mr. Inouye was very accommodating in resolving them. The City wanted the actual process rescinded. Mr. Pap~ asked if AT&T subscribers could be mailed a notice that there was an alternative to the method proscribed by AT&T, given that subscribers were not likely to be informed of the council's discussion. Ms. Berrian indicated staff would follow-up to see what could be done. Mr. Mecham noted that the AT&T bill included the number of the local franchise authority to contact with complaints or concerns. He clarified that there was still a local process; however, when a complaint escalated into a legal dispute, AT&T's new arbitration policy was triggered. Responding to a question from Mr. Farr, Ms. Berrian indicated she received calls of complaint about cable services on an average of once a day; the most recent calls concerned the removal of Cinemax from certain subscriber packages. She also received calls about billing disputes, programming, rate increases, the upgrade, and calls about long delays waiting for customer service. She indicated that 99 percent of those inquiries were quickly resolved. Mr. Fart noted that he had AT&T service and was very satisfied. He was happy to know that relatively minor problems, similar to those that might be experienced by customers of other retail businesses, were being experienced by AT&T customers. He said that he admired the way that Ms. Berrian had worked with AT&T to address the City's issues and reach resolution. Mr. Fart determined that Mr. Inouye and Ms. Berrian were satisfied with the process, and said he would support the resolution. Ms. Nathanson joined in Mr. Farr's remarks about staff's work in working toward resolution of the issues with AT&T. She disagreed with Mr. Fart's suggestion that AT&T was like other retail firms, pointing out that it had a monopoly on cable service delivery, which was why the City had a role in overseeing the franchise. She regretted that it required a near-threat of litigation to resolve the system upgrade issue. Ms. Nathanson continued to be concerned that not all the issues would be MINUTES--Eugene City Council May 22, 2002 Page 4 Work Session