06-26-1980 VC WS-MMINUTES OF WORKSHOP SESSION
VILLAGE COUNCIL OF NORTH PALM BEACH, FLORIDA
HELD THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1980
Present: V. A. Marks, M.D., Mayor
Al Moore, Vice Mayor
Tom Valente, President Pro Tem
William H. Brown, Councilman
Harriet Nolan, Councilwoman
Paul J. Nicoletti, Village Manager
Herbert L. Gildan, Village Attorney
Dolores R. Walker, Village Clerk
Cheryl S. Collins, Deputy Village Clerk
Mayor Marks called the Workshop Session to order at 9:15 p.m. ROLL CALL
A1.1 members of the Council and Staff were present.
A discussion was held concerning a proposed resolution limiting LIMITING TERM OF
t}ie teen of advisory board members to two terms, requiring ADVISORY BOARD
advertisement in The Village Newsletter of vacancies on MEMBERS
advisory boards and creating a moratorium on service on
different advisory boards for a two-year hiatus. Vice Mayor
Moore requested that this item be placed on the agenda. It
failed 2/3 with Mayor Marks, President Pro Tem Valente and
Councilman Brown opposed. It will come back to Council on 3/26/81.
Councilman Brown placed this item on the
After a brief discussion
it
th agenda for discussion. AREAWIDE WASTE
,
was
e consensus of Council to
put this item on the next Regular agenda of 7/10/80 TREATMENT MANAGEMENT
. PLAN (208 PLAN)
A discussion was held concerning pledging financial support FIRE TRAINING
to provide South Technical Education Center with a combination FACILITY
burn building and drill tower in the training of our fire-
fighters. Council agreed to donate $500. The Village Manager
will obtain information concerning lobbying efforts on the
part of Palm Beach County, Palm Beach Gardens interest in
this matter, if any, and whether the Village will be refunded
the amount of $500 if the Center fails to meet its goal:
This item will be on the Regular agenda of 7/10/80.
T}iere being no further business to come before the Council, ADJOURNMENT
the meeting adjourned at 9:55 p.m.
Minutes recorded by; Cheryl S. Collins, Deputy Village Clerk
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which will comer the Carribean and Fla, so that you can watch the storm tracks.
We will have Roiders Invester's Services available to subscribers. They
will sell it directly to subscribers and lease the line from us. Their
service will range anywhere from $35 to $350 a month and for the top $350
a month service, you'll be able to have what amounts fo a quotron machine
in your house or office to give you the NYSE, ASE, OTC tickers, as they
occur not 15 minutes delay; you'll have a market-minder, market limiting
portfolio evaluation service. We think that there are enough people in NPB
that are affluent enough to be able to afford that. I would like to make
a correction to the le+bter I sent you. The commercial rates or condo rates
arc shown at $4.50 in the letter to go to $5.35; they are at $3.50 now and
t}ie subscriber rate sheet which I handed out to you earlier this evening
shows that change.
MR. BROWN:
I have been onthe cable ever since you've been here. Although, your programming
and the number of stations have been improved, in my opinion, the amount of
outages and no audio or video that doesn't appear on fhe screen advising
subscribers that there are technical difrficulties at the station, has gotten
worse. Your calls are probably reduced because you never can get the line.
Is there any way you can have a printout on the screen advising subscribers
that you are aware of the problem--do not call.
MR. PERRY:
The audio is not a problem at the station. There is no way that we know, with
state of
the existing/technology, where and exactly what trouble occurs on the caLle
until a subscriber calls. Part of those outages are caused by normal power
supplies which we have not been able to put in which is one of the reasons
we are coming to you for a rate increase tonight. We are adding a call director
device to the disptaching department which when you call up, should the lines
be busy, a message can be left saying that we have an outage in NPB and we
are working on it.
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The benefit of this is that if FP&L goes out in Palm Beach Gardens, where our
signal originates, our cable TV plant is powered by electricity and stand-by
power supplies will iuake us independent of FP&L outages, of which there are
many during the summertime. So a subscriber in North Palm Beach will not
he affected by an FP&L outage in Palm Beach GardaHS. In addition to that,
we need to spend, we feel and this is ~amtx*k our own judgment and not the
judgment of most cable companies because our position is that we want to serve
the Village, we're a small operation and we feel we've got to stay ahead of
ttie competition, we are going to rebuild the system by replacing all the
elecgronic components which have been in for the past 15 years. This will
cost us $25,000 and it will increase the ability of the system to deliver
additional channels. We will go from 12 to 30 channels and it will solve
some of the operating problems that we've had which have been caused by summer
heat affecting the quality of the signal cable-cast over the plant. We had
a fire in our office in May, that was of suspicious origin, and as a result
of that and the growth of our company, we are building a building which is
the
estimated to cost half a million dollars. We iaeed to put in for a/franchise
areas in this part of the county, $146,000 wothh of new 8rucks and electronic
test equipment. We are doubling the number of our technicians to serve
the areas of Palm Beach Shores, North Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Juno,add
Tequesta for an annual operating cost of $110,000. We are going from six to
12 technicians which will cut down the response time and I think it is something
tTie citizens of our franchise areas would like to see. There is an automatic
call directory for our dispatching lines to speed flog calls into the disptaching
number to permit the disptaching people to detevnine the number of calls
to let us know if we are ~l3sl¢aggk3ggxegx staffing our disptaching team
properly. The total bottom line allocated funds that we will put back into
t}~e area just for NPB next year, capital costs and annual operating expenses,
even
comes to $113,000. With approx. 3,800 subscribers, you can see that/the
return on that will not permit us to have a positive cash flow. It will give
us a P&L return of 7.2~ which is much less than FP&L or So. Bell is guaranteed
under the Public Service Commission which has no jurisdiction over us. We
plan to add additional signals in February; we're going to bring bac); Channel 6
out of Miami; we will put on Nickel-odian which is a Warner Communications
children's programming offering which runs from 10 in the morning 'til 8 at
night; Ted Turner's Cable News Network; the U.S.A, Network; a weather service
w}iich will be a combination, very similar to what you see on Channel 12's
color radar, alternating every 1Q minutes with a Noah colorized satellite
loop which will show the cold fronts coming over the country going into Fla
in tfie wintertime; and then in the summertime, you'll have a southerly aspect
Palm Beacli Gardens, we're on next week.
Juno Beach ,we have asked for an approval of $B.SO; holding it at $8.00
for the first year.
The Town of Lake Park has approved an $B.OD rate and we're going back to
ask for an approval of $8.50.
MRS. NOLhN:
' So in other words you are saying that Riviera is the only one that has not given
you the $8.50.
MR. PERRY:
We haven't asked for it yet. As I say, we got into this cycle much earlier
on in the year with Riviera Beach. Our franchise only includes Lone Pine
Estates in Riviera Beach. Teleprompter has the rest of Riviera Beach.
MR. MOORS:
Looking at all your figures and what you've done here, you've gone for years
at $6.50 and~rall of a sudden you want ever a 30% increase which seems very
unjustifiable ~n one chunk. You've had problems in the past and you should
]lave come back and said that you had~• a problem. You don't give me one year
of m£ actual costs ending 12/31/79 and you say th at you've never made a profit
but I don't have any information in front of me that shows where you have or not.
I think a 30'~ jump is tremendous--too much.
MR. PERRY:
Some members of various councils ®aid that they were glad that Ksx he waited
a reasonable length of time to come back and we would much rather spend the
time and pass on one rate increase. Others agreed with you and said that they
would .like him to come back for smaller increments every year...at the $8.00
rate, if we get it for the first year, the Village will have given us an
increase in rates which will have been less than 5'~%, which is certainly a
bargain these days when inflation has been running at about 15% the last year.
No other entertainment service that I can think of which is used so much in
the home'has increased ~t that small a rate over the course of the year.
As of July of last year, the average cable TV rate for basic cable service
in the state, was $7.83. If you put the CPI on that over the past 12 months,
you have an $8.88 rate. We are only asking for the next 12 months for an $8.00
rate. I weinted to stress the point that since we came before you last, all
of the cash flow that has come into the company, which, of course, is different
from P&L, we have put back into the operation, to improve it; to increase the
dumber of technicians. We have annual operating costs which escalate. We
compete for our people with FP&L and So Bell's rate increases so we have to
give our people good rate increases if good service is expected to be delivered
MR. PERRY: ~'-
I'll answer all those questions in order. The first is that we use the
Consumer Price Index because generally represents what consumers pay for
services; that is whey I made the equation between those ~hd the rates we charge.
Secondly, I don't believe that we've ever made a profit within the Village of
North Palm Beach and I lanow that as of 1970....if you will look ~n the page
' which is entitled "Statement of Operations, Village of North Palm Beach,"
for our fiscal year 1979, we had a pretax loss of $10,000 and a return on
our assets of negative 2.6%. In the adjacent column, entitled "Fiscal Year-End,
12/31/80," this contemplates placing into the revenues stream, rates at $8.00
for the entire year, which of course, is not going to happen but it was used
for comparative purposes in my discussions with your previous Village Manager,
he suggested that the presentation be made this way.
MR. VALENTE:
In essence, you're asking for $8.50; let's get on with it because this is
already September for all practical purposes...so your, kidding us by talking
about ~4~flt $8.31; you're really asking for $8.50.
MR. PERRY:
The $8.00 we would hold for twelve months after receiving the rate increase
' and have the option to go to $8.50 after that.
MRS. NOLAN:
You have the option without coming back ytere?
MR. PERRY:
Yes, without coming back to the Council.
MR. MOORS:
Ifave you done the same thing with the other communities? We, can't tell, from
your letter. All it says is $8.00.
MR. PERRY:
We're doing the same thing with the other communities. There is another sheet
of paper ("Recent Rate Increases")...I will explain that to you.
MR. MOORS: '
When you go to that page, how many have .approved....
MR. PERRY:
Riviera Beach has approved to $8.00; not to $8.50;
Palm Beach Shores has approved to $8.50; we and keeping the rate ~b $8.00 for 12 mos.
Palm Beach County 'is approved to $8.50, if we want to raise it to $8.50.
Lost Tree Village is approved to $8.00, if we want to raise it to $8.50.
Pending approvalac.'{
/Village of TeQuesta, we have asked for an $8.50 rate; we have said that we will
hold it at $8.00 for 12 months.
Jupiter Inlet Colony, we haven't met with yet.
MR. PERRY:
Perry Cable has served the Village for over 13 years. They
have made invested over a quarter of a million dollars.
They have inproved the quality of reception on Channels 2,
4, 7 and 10 from Miami; added Madison Square Gardens
' sports; added Channel 17 out of Atlanta; Seaspan which is
the live coverage of the U. S. House of Representatives;
t}ie first cable system~t in the area to bring the Dolphins
games into you; now carry Channel 34 full-time. We have
improved our time and weather channel; added an on-line
computer system to improve the efficiency of connecting
subscribers, answering billing questions and dispatching
technicians on service calls. We have increased our number
of phone lines by 100•,6 to improve the amount of phone
traffic in our office and we have instituted an automatic
calling device similar to what the airlines use in order
to effectively route calls in so that we can keep the number
of busy signals down to a minimum. We have reduced the trunk
run from our head-end by about 25$6 and we have reduced trouble
in the system
calls/by over 4096 since we were here last. He gave Council
some supplemental information which I hope will more clearly
Page.
demonstrate the position that we are in. The first/in the
three-page document, labeled"A~" shows in blue where our rates
up to the $6.50 and what our proposed initial rate of $8.00 is;
I'd like to clarify that rate of $8.00 a little bit later,
would be with respect to the Consumer Price Index over the
past 11 years. You can see that vertually in every six-month
period since we started operation, the only two times that we have
matched the Consumer Price Index, and that was for a very short
period of time, was in 1969 and in 1974 when we received our
rate increases. We started serving the Village in 1967.
MR. MOORS:
Based on the plats you gave us on the Index versus dollars,
what was your profft at the time, irregardless of what the
Consumer Price Index, because I don't believe that it applies
to the rate for the Village. There is too much in it that doesn't
concern us at all. Each time you received an increase, were you
making more profcit? Right now you say you want a return of 1096,
I believe or ifi it higher than that?
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Concerning the alleged marina at 641 Lighthouse Drive, BOATS DOCKED AT
it was determined that the only code violation which would 641 LIGHTHOUSE D
apply was operating a business in the Village; that an
attempt to obtain a signed deposition failed; that
continual on-site inspection and questioning may be
considered harassment; that any effort to regulate the
number of boats docked at one residence would be difficult;
that due to the time factor and the possibility that
circumstances have changed, it was suggested that when boats
begin gathering again, that this matter be taken up again and
pursued and perhaps recommend that the Planning Commission
amend the code to regulate the number of boats permitted at
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one residence.
Councilman Brown had not received the letter from Chuck UNIFORM ELECTION
Potter nor the minutes of the Municipal League meeting but DAY
this }iad failed for the same reasons that it failed five or
six years ago; that some municipalities would not go along
with it. It was suggested that the Village change its
election date to the second Tuesday in March and this may
require a charter change. The Village Attorney was asked to
check this out and draft whatever is needed.
Mayor Marks stated that he was told by a certain local judge RECOUPING LOSSES
that we have an open route that we can take the people back FRQ~1 VANDALISM
to court in reference to the one that we lost because we
could i~ot serve the subpoena on that juvenile, Everard; that
we can take the parents to small claim's court and recoup
our losses. The Mayor said that we should investigate and
let it be known that we are going after people like this;
Council concurred.
Regarding the most recent case of vandalism, Council requested
that the Village Manager keep them apprised of the proceedings.
' Mayor Marks stated that the former recreation director has filed
for unemployment against the Village as well as for unfair age FORMER RECREATION
DIRECTOR'S CASES
discrimination. The Village Manager's response was that the FILED AGAINST THE
former director filed for unemployment and the Village submitted VILL4GE
a protest and that there is a hearing coming up on that issue
next Wednesday; that the Village Manager has been asked to
appear at said hearing. Further, it is his opinion that we
have a more serious case involving age discrimination and that
we should put all our efforts into beating this when the
}gearing comes up. The Village Manager recommended that we
drop our protest of his (the former recreation director)
receiving unemployment compensation even though it hurts the
Village's rate. The Village Attorney concurred.
There being no further business to come before the Council, ADJOURNMENT
the meeting adjourned at 10:25 p.m.
Minutes recorded by: Cheryl S. Collins, Deputy Village Clerk
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