The Fayette Citizen-News Page
Wednesday, October 27, 1999
County ponders MediaOne, AT&T transfer Thursday

By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Fayette's lead cable franchise negotiator is hopeful that the takeover of MediaOne by AT&T Communications will bring relief to beleaguered local customers.

A discussion of transferring the cable franchise to the new owner is on the County Commission agenda Thursday night, and assistant county manager Chris Cofty said he is recommending that the commission approve the transfer.

Local customers have complained of frequent and prolonged lapses in service, and reactions that range from indifference to downright rudeness on the part of MediaOne customer service representatives when they call to report the outages. Customers say they often have to wait on hold for 30 minutes or longer when they call customer service.

“I have met with AT&T officials to make them cognizant of the ongoing problems we've had with MediaOne,” said Cofty, adding that he has forwarded copies of his large file of customer complaints to AT&T vice president for law and governmental affairs Sylvia Anderson, and to company CEO C. Michael Armstrong.

“They have written a letter back saying that they are aware of the ongoing problems,” said Cofty. “They can't fully address them because they don't own the company yet... but they have let us know that they have tremendous resources in cable operations management available to them,” he added.

Transfer of the county's franchise agreement from MediaOne to AT&T is, in a way, a formality, recognizing the pending merger of the two companies. But Fayette officials had at one time discussed holding up the transfer to put more pressure on MediaOne to clear up customer service problems in the county.

But, “It's really two separate issues,” Cofty said this week. The transfer should be based on AT&T's fitness to serve the county, not past problems with MediaOne, he said.

“I've looked at the financial and operational services in the cable industry, and they more than exceed the qualifications to operate a cable system,” he said of AT&T.

And now that he is sure the company is aware of past problems, Cofty said he can recommend the transfer without reservation. “They won't have acquired something and then say, `We didn't realize there was this magnitude of complaints.' They have indicated they will address those issues.

“They can't fix everything overnight,” he said, “but they are committed to rebuild the cable system in the county.

AT&T has promised to replace Fayette's aging system with new, state-of-the-art technology by November 2000, one month earlier than MediaOne had promised the upgrade.

Also on the County Commission agenda Thursday will be further discussion of he fate of the Dorsey house, a historic home that is in the path of the county's planned jail/courthouse construction project.

Commissioners gave city of Fayetteville officials 30 days to come up with a plan for saving the house from the wrecking ball, and that time is up. Fayetteville city manager Mike Brant said the city and historical organizations will ask for more time.

In other business, the commission will:

Discuss appointment of a Planning Commission member and a Zoning Board of Appeals member.

Fred Bowen's term on the Planning Commission has expired, and David Bartosh's term on the Zoning Board of Appeals has expired. Both men have offered to serve another term if the commission so desires.

Consider public works director Lee Hearn's recommendation that the county buy a Cat 963 track loader from Yancey Brothers for $182,547. The purchase is included in the department's budget.

Conduct public hearings on two rezoning requests, both involving changes from subdivision categories to A-R (agricultural-residential).


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