GILROY
– Only one person showed up to a televised City Council workshop
with Charter Communications Tuesday night to watch the company
respond to questions and concerns about its recent dealings.
GILROY – Only one person showed up to a televised City Council workshop with Charter Communications Tuesday night to watch the company respond to questions and concerns about its recent dealings.
Charter officials – who have faced fire from the Council recently – outlined their timeline to finish a system rebuild project and fielded inquiries ranging from technical questions to complaints about subpar reception quality.
And while they admitted they’re not exactly where they want to be with their Gilroy operations, they said they have invested heavily in the community and contrasted their involvement here with predecessor Falcon Cable, which Charter purchased in 2000.
Although Charter has “come a long way from the so-called ‘dark days’ of our predecessor, we are not yet where we want to be,” said John Adams, Charter’s regional vice president of operations.
For example, Adams touted Charter’s 24-hour customer service line, which he said now features more committed employees and not temps whose tenures were counted in weeks.
Officials said they expect to roll out the new channel lineup offerings in service area or “node” No. 15 in the Westwood/Third Street area today.
They said that leaves roughly 350 addresses in node 5 – surrounding the far northwest portion of Mantelli Drive – which are expected to roll out in the second week of June. The rebuild project is meant to offer Gilroyans expanded options for digital TV, music, movie and pay-per-view channels and Internet service.
“We are at the very last phase of the upgrade,” said Heinz Ludke, the company’s Gilroy marketing manager.
If the project is completed on that timeline, it would be just a few weeks before a deadline where the city could contractually begin pursuing monetary damages for the missed construction deadlines.
While the rebuild work was supposed to be complete by Dec. 31, 2002, Charter officials said in January that about 55 percent was done. Charter officials set an eight-week deadline but missed it with 87 percent of work complete in early April and declined to quote further deadlines.
Adams said the company has been recruiting recently, but the area’s general manager position will likely remain open “in the foreseeable future.” However, Charter has hired Jennifer Cunningham, an attorney and Gilroy resident, as the company’s new director of government affairs and community liaison.
Councilman Al Pinheiro said he’s heard from several residents who complained they did not get a choice about what structures – such as brick boxes or faux rocks – would be used to camouflage above-ground equipment placed in their yards during the rebuild.
Such customers were asked to contact Cunningham at 847-2020.
Officials also said they are working to address the city’s requests to keep two Monterey County stations in the lineup.
Charter announced plans to pull KION-46 and KCBA-35 from its local basic channel lineup and replace them with two Spanish-language channels, Azteca America’s KTNC-42 and Telefutura KFSF-66. City officials balked, saying news offerings on the Monterey County stations tend to cover the South County area more than San Francisco-based stations.
But Charter officials said federal rules require them to honor the requests of certain stations that ask to be added to the lineup, such as the Spanish-language stations in question.
They said they’re trying to jockey their lineup in response, but that is also difficult because laws give some stations certain positioning rights as well and half of the stations contacted have rejected requests to move.
“We run down a certain path and run into an obstacle,” Ludke said. “We’re still working on it.”
When asked what they would do for the local community, Charter officials said they sponsored local TV coverage of the city’s Memorial Day parade as well as a golf tournament benefiting area youth.
“We plan to be very involved in this community going forward,” Adams said.
Councilman Roland Velasco thanked the company for “good corporate citizenship” in that regard and asked for help at the Gilroy Youth Center as well.
The Council agreed to schedule Tuesday’s meeting at the urging of Mayor Tom Springer, who billed it as a way to prompt responsiveness from the company.
City officials have previously blasted Charter officials for the ongoing rebuild delays. They were subdued Tuesday.
“We appreciate the openness and honesty you’ve given us …,” Springer said, noting that the rebuild process “has not been an easy road for any of us.
“Hopefully we’ve come to the end of the process.”
