Government
Jun. 22, 2002
City Attorney Threatens to Pull Plug on Adelphia
LOS ANGELES - City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo appears ready to leverage his contract enforcement powers to ensure that the city gets an estimated $7 million in annual franchise fees from Adelphia Communications Corp. even if the cable company files for bankruptcy.
Delgadillo announced this week that he would pull the plug on the financially troubled company's lucrative Los Angeles cable franchises if it doesn't keep up timely payments to the city or fails to deliver an acceptable level of services to its customers.
The cable operator is scheduled to make a quarterly payment of $1.7 million on July 30 and was late with its last payment, Ana Garcia, Delgadillo's spokeswoman, said.
"We are at the bottom of the list of creditors if they file for bankruptcy," Garcia said.
Adelphia officials could not be reached for comment.
Adelphia is the city's second-largest cable provider with 250,000 customers in Eagle Rock, Sherman Oaks, Boyle Heights, West Los Angeles and the East San Fernando Valley.
The Coudersport, Pennsylvania-based company is trying to sell off the Los Angeles cable franchises and other assets to avoid bankruptcy but has had no takers.
In a letter Tuesday, Delgadillo told Adelphia officials that he would closely monitor the contracts and would advise the City Council to revoke or refuse to renew them when they expire in August.
"The residents of Los Angeles deserve high quality 'state of the art' cable service," Delgadillo said in a statement. "My office will continue to monitor Adelphia to ensure that the residents of Los Angeles receive the cable service they deserve and expect."
Among the complaints that Delgadillo used to support his threat of legal action were the company's failure to upgrade its infrastructure to add broadband and Internet service and its apparent inability to answer customer complaints within the time frame specified in its city contracts.
The city attorney also offered to help speed the legal transfer of the franchise agreements to another cable operator to prevent an interruption of service to residents in the affected areas.
Gina Keating
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