The Town Board at its monthly meeting tonight will be asked to approve a $500,000 addition to the 2007-2008 budget to speed up engineering on upgrades to the local cable and internet system, Town Manager Leamon Brice said this morning. But the expense will be offset in December, when Davidson and Mooresville complete the purchase of the former Adelphia system, and close on financing to pay for the purchase and system upgrades.
Mr. Brice said the money is Davidson’s contribution to up-front transition expenses the towns are incurring before they close on financing for the purchase and upgrades. Members of the transition committee “want to advance the transition quicker than we earlier anticipated.”
“Mooresville is financing most of the transition,” Mr. Brice said. “In a sense of camaraderie and support, we’re going to front some of the money to advance the transition plan.”
The transition committee anticipates needing the $500,000 in October for additional engineering, “so we can start the upgrades as quickly as possible when we do take ownership,” he said. The money “would be repaid in December at the closing,” he said.
Town officials say the former Adelphia system, to be renamed MI-Connection, is badly in need of improvement, both to increase network speeds to a state-of-the-art level and to decrease the number of homes service on each network “node.” The latter issue contributes to slow internet speeds for cable modem customers and degraded picture quality for TV viewers.
MI-Connection also recently hired James R. Miller Jr. as general manager to oversee the system and upgrades.
ALSO TONIGHT
Other issues expected to come up at tonight’s meeting include an update on plans for an animal shelter in Huntersville, a presentation about the Villages of South Main development, a resolution on the North Corridor Commuter Rail project and discussion of the West Davidson Stakeholders Report. (Agenda on the town website.)
Meanwhile, some residents have said they may attend the meeting to ask Town Board members about the dismissal of community services officer Kenn Latzer. Mr. Latzer lost his job after he was charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty over the death of a cat he was transporting to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Control.
The town issued a statement this morning confirming Mr. Latzer’s firing, but saying it could not discuss the case in detail because of state laws restricting discussion of personnel matters.
LINKS
Sept. 6, 2007, “Cable system picks a manager.”
Sept. 9, 2007, Charlotte Observer, “Cable woes? He wants to hear from you.” A south Iredell man says his Time Warner Cable service is frequently interrupted and is pushing the company to upgrade equipment in his area off Brawley School Road. Time Warner says it inherited antiquated equipment from Adelphia, but offered no start date for upgrades.
Sept. 10, 2007, “Town fires Latzer after incident” (updated today)
