Lincoln, Illinois
Public Hearing
August 24, 2010
The City of Lincoln Public Hearing met in the Council Chambers on Tuesday, August 24,
2010.
There were ten Aldermen present (Alderman Anderson, Alderman Armbrust, Alderman
Bacon, Alderman Busby, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel,
Alderman O’Donohue, Alderman Tibbs, and Alderman Wilmert) and none absent. Also
present were City Attorney Mr. Bates, City Treasurer Mr. Conzo, Mayor Snyder and
Recording Secretary Mrs. Riggs.
Mayor Snyder called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. on the Comcast Evaluation. He
said it was an evaluation session that was being convened pursuant to our franchise
agreement. It is an agreement that the City of Lincoln has with its cable provider which is
currently Comcast. Just to bring everybody up to level playing field here. The franchise
agreement states this about the evaluation sessions. It says the sessions will be conducted
within 30 days of the 10th, 16th, and 2nd anniversary of the franchise agreement. Just to
note that September 1 is the 16th Anniversary so that is why we are holding this. All
evaluation sessions will be open to the public and notice of such session will be published
in the local newspaper which it was. Topics that may be discussed at the sessions may
include but are not limited to new technology, system performance, service, complaints,
programming, FCC rules and regulations, and any other topic deemed relevant. This
is what we are deemed here tonight to hear your comments about these matters.
Eric Notto said he owns Notto Technology Consulting here in town and he has Comcast
internet and their phone service at his office and he has their services at his house. His
office is at 503 Woodlawn Road and it opened in February. He went to Verizon and
got phone service and it was more than they said it would be. He switched to Comcast
and he has two phone lines, fax line, call forwarding, caller id, call waiting, unlimited
long distance and true high speed internet. He has about 18 mbpgs down and 2 up.
He needs those speeds because he does a lot of remote support so he doesn’t have to
charge his clients to drive two hours there and back to work on their computers to save
time and money and Verizon cannot provide those speeds. His bill with Comcast is
$176.73 per month versus almost $200.00 with Verizon. He felt that Comcast was more
than reasonable. He also had letters from Midwest Record Storage (Diane Slack) and
one from Heritage Packaging (Greg Basford) who also had high praises for Comcast.
Celeste Rogers said she is also a cable and internet subscriber through Comcast. In her
line of work she hears a lot of people say different things concerning Comcast since we
are also on Cable. They have very high accolades for the speeds for internet and things
like that and service. There are some things that they have questions about which I am
going to relay today at the evaluation session. Channels 2-98 which is normal capacity
for most tv’s purchased today 31 channels are unused or in use only for cable box
subscribers.
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Public Hearing
August 24, 2010; Page -2-
Mrs. Rogers said there are many stations provided on our service for example WGN 9 is
also on a higher band with 115 and it is also HD 931. Some subscribers feel they are
being forced to accept the higher quality with no choice of using the lower band with as
well because they are going to be limited or some of those services are no longer
available. Part of the contract in 3-13-9b there are lower band width channels that can be
used for capacity and additional access channel for the provision of education,
governmental entities that is available if they are not being used. 3-13-19c1 of the
contract which is part of this evaluation session it outlines in 3-6 the City’s steps in
determining how to use that evaluation session as well. In c2 of that line the provisions
for subscribers’ satisfaction survey every even year beginning the sixth year of the
contract. She asked if those were open to the public and if so where are they available for
those particular results. In 3-13-9f it does not distinguish but says that Comcast at their
own expense will film full Council meetings of the city. It does not determine or
distinguish what types of meetings to be filmed and she felt this to be a full Council
meeting and your workshops are full Council meetings yet only the two voting are in
session and it might be helpful to the public to know what your discussion is before you
vote on particular meetings as well. In 3-13-13 it states that the city may regulate the
rates. In an economy when most other business providers, manufacturers are lowering
prices to help stabilize our economy here and sustain our economy and our businesses
that are here from gas stations, restaurants and even when you buy shampoo they have
lowered those particular rates however we are still subject to hikes here for Comcast. I
understand the services that are provided and we are very appreciative of those services
but there needs to be some process for valuation process as stated by the contract for
determining those rates.
Alderman Tibbs said she has had a couple of comments with regards to the changing
of the channels. People have their favorites and all of a sudden they get put someplace
else where they can’t unless they go to a higher cost. That is one complaint that she has
received.
Mrs. Rogers said she understood with technology at those higher band widths there is
also higher quality but she also didn’t understand herself and some of the people that she
has talked to don’t understand why the lower band widths are still not available as part of
the service.
Alderman Horn said since you mentioned it just now is there any way we can get our
Tuesday night meetings on film instead of the Monday night meetings. The Monday
night meetings are usually yes or no and Tuesday night is when we have the meat
of discussion and we’ve asked several times and we have never gotten an answer.
Mrs. Rogers said that would be a Comcast determination.
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Public Hearing
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Mayor Snyder said he knew there was also been some interest in taping those and
showing them on other evenings. I know that you guys have a contract where you have
certain times that you have channel 5 would those other evenings interfere with those
times you have set forth in the contract.
Mrs. Rogers said if we can come to an agreement when you want those replayed. There
are also, as I mentioned before, those 31 stations that aren’t being used at all and it
could be used for that and we would more than happy to outline an agreement for those.
Mayor Snyder said he knew that she had mentioned about the subscriber survey portion
here and he knew there were some Comcast people here who could maybe address it
better than he can. He had inquired about that earlier and he believed that there was some
type of legislation passed which overrode this requirement. It would be nice to have that
and they do give us just some minimal satisfaction just some customer complaint data.
He said they did get that but he didn’t think it was a full customer satisfaction survey.
Mrs. Rogers said she just wanted to know if that was available and to access that.
Alderman Anderson said she had some comments and that they weren’t necessarily for
Mrs. Rogers. She knew of at least one occasion and she thought there were more where
they had specifically asked during a public presentation of cable to have our Tuesday
night meetings aired. She felt they should air all of them. The response was they would
check into it and get back to you and she has heard that from other things and they
never get back to them and she considered that unacceptable. Two things brought to
her attention the past couple of weeks were general complaints with regards to cable in
general. There is not consistency from one channel to another the volume is good and the
commercial comes on and blows you out of the room and she sees other heads shaking.
Alderman Tibbs said is there a reason why that camera doesn’t work all the time. Mrs.
Rogers said that is Comcast and not channel 5. Alderman Tibbs said he walked out the
other night because it wasn’t working.
Alderman Wilmert said he had a couple of constituents call. Their complaint didn’t
surround pricing as much or even strange behavior of service but just outages that is
residential. He said he could say from personal experience from a business service
the company he works for has had a great deal of trouble recently with their business
class service in terms of internet. That is their business so he would let the CEO
and IT persons speak on behalf of that but just by way of feedback from the things
that he is personally aware of there was a frustration level also with trying to call
in and get a hold of people and being routed to (he thought) Oak Brook, Illinois.
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Public Hearing
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Alderman Wilmert said even the local people that most of them know, they have nothing
but absolute respect for and know some of the techs personally have their hands tied
and can’t get to you or work with you, even advise you because they have to wait for
a trouble ticket to come in from somewhere else in the state or Kentucky or wherever
it is. He realized they deal with that to some degree when you have a company that
size but any rate just expressing and relaying the frustrations that were related to him.
Alderman O’Donohue said the two complaints that he received were for the lack of local
service. They are not complaining about the people that work at the local store but they
are saying that it should be like it used to with calls coming out of there. The other one
was a general sense of foul play as Mrs. Rogers said about using the box now for more
channels and not having the access to the basic level. It was the opinion that they are
trying to force everyone into the whole box situation and charging them $8.00 to $10.00
for that box.
Mayor Snyder said he didn’t think there was a definite date for when that switch
over will occur. He thought the public would like to know when it happens.
Alderman Busby said my daughter does a lot of business by computer and holds meetings
in Europe, China, Caribbean and last week she was on a meeting in Europe and the whole
thing just shut down. She went down to his house and worked with his computer for
about three hours and it shut down. When you are doing your business and you have to
have your internet for your business and it shuts down on you and you are in a meeting
something is not right. He had told her it was her computer and when his shut down he
knew it wasn’t the computers.
Alderman Anderson said she would mentioned that she had individuals tell her that
when they really wanted to get some service and they have trouble getting through on the
800 line getting things resolved and have to punch about 16 different things to try find
someone every time they called they got a different story. They said if they went out to
the office since you can’t call there the girls in the local office are very friendly and very
helpful and seemed to get things resolved. That is not always eligible for some people to
get out there. It would be nice for the people that issues with this to be able to call and
talk to someone local.
Mayor Snyder said Mrs. Rogers you mentioned the provision in the agreement that talks
about the channel that is to be shared with local origination, public access, education
access and governmental access. Obviously what you do is the local origination portion
and right now we only have one channel what is the proper mix for four things to fit in
that one channel. He asked if there was a proper mix and a need for additional channel.
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Public Hearing
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Mrs. Rogers said she didn’t know if there was a proper mix or an actual equation that
makes that. She was referring to is the fact that we have those empty channels to be able
to provide more things for schools, churches and things like that who have the capacity
and the desire to air those things. Right now with the agreement that they have at CITV
it eliminates people using certain times of the broadcast because CITV is already using
that and it might be available at other times to use that are at 3 in the morning and things
like that.
Mayor Snyder said generally the time when you have it allotted is morning through
evening.
Mrs. Rogers said it depends on the day and they have made those allowances for
what they prior to February due to the change. Saturdays and Sundays are a different
schedule. Monday through Friday most of the daytime and evening is taken.
Ms. Sandy Johnson said she lives out at the Westville Subdivision. Some of her items
had been addressed. She would like see the Tuesday night meetings because she felt
they would have a better understanding of what is going on up here. She also wanted to
see the County Board meetings, if that is possible for them to be telecast. A local phone
number would be great and she sends her husband out to Comcast and the girls are very
nice out there. We really need a local number where we can talk to them when we have
a problem. They recently had problems, they are on their second box in the living room,
and she thought she was having a problem with it cutting in and out. It may only be 20-
30 seconds but you are still missing out on something there that you really want to hear.
She is getting ready to send her husband out with the box. The box in the kitchen they
had disconnected because of the same thing. A representative has been sent out and
rewired. As a senior citizen they keep raising the rates a little bit at a time and eventually
you are better to get rid of it and hook back up to your own.
Mr. Charles Anderson said he lives on North College Street across from the High Rise.
The only complaint that he had was when the gentlemen come out they know all this
stuff and poor guys like me that are not adapted to modern technology find it very hard to
consume so much in such a short period of time. You have to run between the office and
home trying to figure out if it works. He has the bundle for cable, internet and phone. He
found it satisfactory as far as price is concerned. He has had some problems with them.
His wife likes to listen to WJBC in Bloomington of a morning. There was just racket
on the radio. They called an electrician for the certain plug that was needed and it cost
him $180.00 and he told them they didn’t need the plug and by process of elimination the
electrician found a bad Comcast box. The electrician took it out and exchanged it and it
has worked fine since. He went out with the $180.00 bill and got an adjustment. Most of
the programs are geared toward young people. He thought they would find there was a
lot of drama and would like to see programs for their age group.
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Mr. Anderson said he thought RFD would be nice to have on and WGN carries a lot
of older programs. He also commented on not having a local person answering a local
number. He felt that the people coming out to install this for older people should take
ample time to teach older people the technology they have never learned because it was
not available to them.
Mayor Snyder asked Mr. Anderson when he got his box if someone came out and install
it or was it sent to him.
Mr. Anderson said there are 52 buttons and they just don’t understand it. He thought if
they had a little more time with them.
Mr. Conzo said he agreed with the technology part of it and that he has the same
problems. He asked if it would help if they would bring more detailed instruction
manuals.
Mr. Anderson said he had not received a manual. He said most people his age have the
bundle.
Alderman Tibbs said she could remember Mr. Anderson when he was her mailman and
thanked him for his service. She wanted to know if he was charged to get the box.
Mr. Anderson said when the man came out did everything.
Ms. Libby Stein said she is the actual government affairs person for the Lincoln area.
She thanked them for having them present tonight and appreciated the opportunity to be
here. She wanted to talk about Comcast they are a proud and committed partner to the
Lincoln community. We came to serve the Lincoln residents in 2008 and since then they
have made significant investments to offer the most cutting edge products and services
to improve customer service and to make a difference by supporting various non profit
organizations. In just over two years they have launched more products that customers
have been asking for such as more HD, on demand, more sports programming as well
as super fast and reliable internet speeds. They have also worked hard in customer
service in providing tools, new technologies for their employees and introducing the
new customer guarantee that backs up their products by offering a 30 day money back
guarantee if a customer isn’t 100% satisfied. They have also focused on the Lincoln
Community. They have been making grant donations, compensation such as Community
Action partnership for our Comcast cares day which is a national day where our
employees, families and friends get out and volunteer in the community and they also
provide in kind service to schools so that they can help people to learn and develop. She
appreciated all the feedback. They had taken good notes about what the concerns are
and they will follow up. She wanted to address a couple of things that were brought up.
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Public Hearing
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Ms. Stein said one of the things the digital network enhancement the switchover of
that. She wanted to explain why they were doing this. Basically as a cable operator you
have so much band width. That band width is a pretty special commodity. One analog
channel takes up the same space as 6-10 digital channels or three HD channels so when
you are trying to free up band width and migrating things to digital it makes the most
sense to free up band width and launch new products. That is what their customers are
asking them for (HD channels, more on demand, higher internet speeds) and by freeing
up band width they will be able to launch what they are calling the world more which
is a lot more channels, products, interactive services and higher speeds. The original
switchover date was September and it has been moved out to be somewhere around
November 16. One of the things they are doing to address this is as they said they are
moving people’s digital but they did research that basically showed them that an average
household has three tv sets so with that in mind we are giving three pieces of equipment
free. She knew that it was confusing for the elderly and her parents are elderly as well.
They are willing to set up some technology forums or some senior education workshops
if you feel that is necessary. We certainly don’t want people to be confused and we want
them to understand what we are doing and the technology so if that is something the city
would like us to do they would be perfectly willing to do so. One of the other things was
as far as taping the other Council meetings. They are perfectly willing to do so. She
thought it would be in Mrs. Rogers’ agreement to get some air time in order to be able to
do it. They are perfectly willing to tape the additional meetings if you decide that is what
you want to do. Somebody brought up outages and she knew that last week they had a
major outage that affected around 200 customers. They had one of their power supplies
burn up and they had to replace the power supply. The outage was about an hour. She
knew there were other individual issues and said what she would do is follow up with
some of those individuals after the meeting and make sure she gets those resolved.
Alderman Anderson said she understood space could be made available for all of city
meetings but it was brought up that it would be nice to have county meetings also. They
are also another major governmental body area. She understood that at one time they
were tape recorded and asked if that was something she was willing to.
Ms. Stein said yes it was something to consider and she had not actually had a request
from Terry Carlton but she could certainly reach out to him and see if it is something that
he would be interested in.
Mayor Snyder said so what would be the next steps in this process to get specifically our
Tuesday meetings going to be possibly taped and then run. Ms. Stein said they would
get with Mrs. Rogers and sit down and discuss it and see what they needed to do to move
forward and then follow up with him. Alderman Anderson asked if there was a time
frame on that. Ms. Stein thought they could probably do it in a week or couple of weeks.
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Alderman Wilmert asked if he was right that they were basically cannibalizing some of
the lower channels in order to make room for more channels. He presumed the city and
county meetings would be on analog channels.
Ms. Stein said keep in mind that even though we are doing this digital network
enhancement we will still have a basic analog lineup which will be 2-23 or 24. The
Council meetings are aired on Channel 5 so it will still remain an analog channel and still
be a part of our basic service.
Alderman Wilmert said I am given to understand that there were to be some available
that we are not using or something like that and asked if those were in the analog band.
Ms. Stein said the ones they are digitizing is everything above 24 and so in essence
because. It is not that we aren’t using them we are still using them it’s just that they may
be mapped to another channel. We are still using those channels and it’s not like they are
not being used.
Alderman Wilmert thought they were coming from different places and wondered
if they had something else available in the analog range for these other services that
we are going to utilize and haven’t yet. Alderman O’Donohue said basically the
question is channel 5 the only channel we have for local origination for schools and for
anything else that might be done and asked if Ms. Stein was saying that Channel 5 is
the only channel they have available. Ms. Stein said right now that is the only channel.
Alderman O’Donohue asked if there was going to be something in the future. Ms.
Stein said right now channel 5 is the channel that is shared between local origination,
governmental access and education and there is nothing in the plans at this point to
add. Alderman Anderson said could there be. Ms. Stein said it was something they had
discussed with the Mayor before but you know set up discussions and talk about it again.
Mayor Snyder said he’s had discussions since our last conversation with individuals
from Lincoln High School and Lincoln College and knew those two educational facilities
are interested in the educational access piece there so he would like to have further
discussion with her on that. It sounds like if the public has tapes, DVDs or discs they
would like to have run as public access their only options are either late night or early
morning. He asked if that was really public access. He thought there was room to have
discussions about it. Obviously the cable channels are valuable and you’re trying to save
as much space as you can but there may be some interest there that we would like to
pursue as a community.
Ms. Stein said she thought they could have those discussions. Alderman O’Donohue said
time frame that too. Ms. Stein said she would follow up with the Mayor and see when
they can get together.
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Mayor Snyder asked if there were other comments.
Alderman Tibbs said the complaints and calls that she gets are very similar to what
Alderman Anderson was talking about. We need to be able to have much better
communications. What we have right now is that you call and you touch this number and
you go to this number and by the time you are on hold and whatever then you possibly
and get someone (don’t have a problem with this) but she is hearing impaired and when
she gets someone that doesn’t speak fluent English it does create a big problem for her.
She had been with Comcast for quite some time and has been without your services
only twice in maybe 2 or 3 years. She had a neighbor call her this week and say can you
tell me how much you like Comcast. She had two neighbors hook up this week. What
she does have a problem with is the communications on the telephone no local number
but you go out to the office and they are absolutely wonderful and they seem to get
everything taken care of and is well worth your time.
Ms. Stein said she knew that a lot of times people don’t like 800 numbers but from their
business sense it makes more sense and it is more efficient for them as a company. She
said she would take her concerns back. She said if they get complaints and feel free and
she would give them one of her cards and to feel free to direct them her way. She is not
a technical expert but she could certainly hook you up with those folks that are. She has
people that call her directly to help with issues and she is willing to do that. She told
them there are online chat with representatives.
Alderman Neitzel said the frustration, for her, is that it’s not an 800 number but a local
number and we get an 800 exchange and if they were going to have an 800 number then
take the local number out. The people that call think they are going to talk to somebody
local and they aren’t.
Mayor Snyder said let him highlight the things that he had written down and he wanted
to make sure they were on the same page. There was an issue brought up about the
subscriber survey and he knew that he a discussion and wanted the details on that.
Ms. Stein said it was covered under the Illinois State Statutes. Mayor Snyder said he
thought Alderman Anderson raised a question or issue and didn’t know if it was the
individual channels or Ms. Stein’s but the consistency across the channels. Ms. Stein
said she would check that and they have had that issue in other areas and thought it was
just a technical glitch that she needed to look into. Mayor Snyder said Alderman Wilmert
mentioned the business class internet problems and didn’t know if there was anything
different there than residential service but it might be something to look into. Ms. Stein
said she had not heard that they had a lot of issues but she would go back and talk with
the technical folks as well.
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Alderman Wilmert said Mark has been on site at Integrity Data and wasn’t related to the
outage that Ms. Stein had mentioned previously.
Mayor Snyder said the next one he had written down was not having a local number. He
understood that it was better for her business but these are our local citizens asking for
that and if you could give us a good answer for that one. It was also mentioned about
the city’s ability to regulate rates and didn’t know with the current legal structure if they
had the ability to do that and if she could look into that and explain where things are.
Ms. Stein said the rates are handled by the FCC. Mayor Snyder said several people
brought up about the rate increases.
Ms. Stein said they are sensitive and understood that the price increases are the most well
liked and are sensitive to that. They are trying to introduce packages that present the
most value to our customers. We do run promotions all throughout the year and like any
business, they know they are in economically challenged times but like any business their
costs are going up as well. Programming costs are going up and just the cost of business
is going up.
Mayor Snyder said it would be nice if household incomes would go up as well. Also,
Ms. Stein mentioned about some technology forums or technology workshops or
how you could better communicate with the customers that might have difficulty
in understanding the technical issues and asked what she was thinking about there.
Ms. Stein said they could afford some opportunities there and whether they went out
to senior centers and just set up some technology forums to help folks she thought that
sounded like a good approach.
Mayor Snyder said if she could describe what those would be just so they could say yes
they need those or they want those just give us a menu and we'll feel free to pick from it.
He asked if there was anything else that anyone had.
Alderman Wilmert said he had someone that was asking what a franchise fee was and
they were talking about their phone bill and the 18 different taxes that are on there
and the 911 emergency this, local tax, state tax but as far as cable and asked what the
franchise fees were. Ms. Stein said the franchise fee is, for the City of Lincoln it is
actually 5% of gross revenues and it is a huge calculation on gross revenues and is
money they collect from customers but is automatically remitted back to the City.
Alderman Anderson said Ms. Stein did not mention but she really wanted a response or
something worked out so that we can get all of our meetings aired. Ms. Stein said she
would certainly follow up on that.
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Mayor Snyder read a letter from the Chamber of Commerce. He thanked everyone for
attending.
Mayor Snyder closed the hearing at 6:58 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Risa Riggs
Recording Secretary
City of Lincoln