PROVO -- It's time to put up or pay up for a struggling local cable TV company.
The City Council wants to start collecting more than $200,000 in fines that Provo Cable Co. has accrued the past two years. The family-owned firm violated its franchise agreement with the city when it failed to expand its system to cover at least 90 percent of Provo by October 1996.City officials also want Provo Cable to come up with a detailed plan and funding to complete the expansion.
"That's basically what we've waited for for two years," Robert West, assistant city attorney, told the council this week. If Provo Cable doesn't proffer a viable operating plan within a month or two, the city might sue the company to obtain the unpaid money.
Provo held off on exacting the fine to allow financially strapped Provo Cable to get back on its feet. Pleasant Grove-based Northstar Multimedia Communications, which bought the company from the Bill Nicol family after Nicol's death in 1995, is in the midst of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Members of the late owner's family re-acquired Provo Cable through U.S. Bankruptcy Court proceedings in October.
Mark Ramey, Provo Cable president, asked the council to give him a little more time.
"We received the same promises (to expand the system) from Northstar as the city got," he said. "Northstar bears some responsibility."
Crews are currently working on the cable lines, Ramey said. The company has about 2,500 subscribers, but only 45 percent of Provoans -- mostly in large apartment complexes -- have access to its channels.
Council Chairman Greg Hudnall isn't inclined to wait much longer.
"To be honest, I'm worn out," he said. "I'm ready to move."
Although the council has threatened to revoke Provo Cable's franchise, it and the city administration want to see the company compete with cable giant TCI Cablevision to keep rates down.
"I think it's important to have competition, but I also think it's important to level the playing field," said Mayor Lewis Billings, adding TCI has lived up to its agreement.