The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutCC 1981-06-26 Minutes*' 1NCOK111MIM.15 18 96 OF WiEETING 'HELv ON .rune 26, 1981 PREPARED B�' TI IE OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK CITY HALL. RALPH G.. ONGIE CITY CLERK 1O, 'IM�7( CI�OONMISSIQi fflAF &IDA (SPECIAL) sLUCT JUNE 26, 1981 THE CITY COMMISSION WILL CONDUCT ONLY TWO REGULAR MEETINGS EACH MONTH -THE FIRST MEETING DEDICATED TO CITY BUSINESS AND THE SECOND MEETING DEDICATED TO PLANNING AND ZONING ITEMS rSOI NANCEION l�1UIi0� 0, PAGE NO, M-81-601 28 0 0 DUE TO THE LACK OF A QUORUM, AND PREVIOUS TO THE OPENING OF THE SPECIAL CITY COMMISSION MEETING WHICH HAD BEEN CALLED FOR THE PURPOSES OF HEARING AND RECEIVING THE CONSULTANT'S REPORT IN CONNECTION WITH CABLE TELEVISION APPLICANTS, THE FOLLOWING REFLECTS SOME COMMENTS WHICH WERE MADE AWAITING THE ARRIVAL OF TEH NECESSARY NUMBER OF COMMISSIONERS TO CONSTITUTE QUORUM AND THEREBY BE ABLE TO CALL THE PUBLIC HEARING. Mayor Ferrz:------- 1:20, as you know, I was here at 1:00 and then I went around looking - Father was here - I went looking for the other members of the Commission. Mr. City Attorney, Commissioner Plummer has written a memorandum now earlier in the week that he had to be absent today and so he, therefore, announced it ahead of time that he would not be here. Commissioner Lacasa has called his office and said that he could not be here for an hour and I don't know where Commissioner Carollo is, his secretary doesn't know, the question, therefore, is can we proceed? This is not an official Commission Meeting as such, is it? Mr. Robert F. Clark: Yes, it is, Mayor. Mayor Ferre: Oh, it is, we must have a quorum. There is no way we can begin our proceedings without a quorum? Mr. Clark: You could begin your proceedings as simply two members of the Com- mission, it would not have the formal requisite of a meeting, there is nothing Mayor Ferre: Could that create a legal problem in the future? Mr. Clark: So long as there is no action taken, you have no power to take any action. Mayor Ferre: All we're doing today, as I understand it is receiving the report, Mr. Manager, from our consultant. Mr. -Gary: Yes, sir. Mayor Ferre: And we are going to be reviewing his conclusions. Commissioner Lacasa will be here by the time we get to ask questions. Father Gibson and I will have heard the full presentation, then the other members of the Commis- sion will have the right as they have had in the past when other things like this have happened of reviewing the results or certainly listening to the tape or reading the transcript. Now, is that acceptable legally? We're not going to h-i a;,y decisions today. Mr. Clark: The City Commission had scheduled a meeting to be briefed by the City's consultant. By your calling of a Special Meeting because of the accel- erated time schedule that purpose is still the purpose of this meeting and it would be my recommendation and my opinion that the meeting that you're going to have, and it cannot commence until three Commissioners are here. Mayor. Ferre: Gentlemen, I'm awfully sorry because you're going to have to wait T wn>>ld say another 45 minutes but I make no apologies for anybody but I want you to understand, those of you that are from out of town that the City Commission job is a part time job, it is not a full time job, it is not very highly paid and the fact is that we work very hard. We were here last night 01 JUN 2 61981 until 2:15 in session and we started at 9:00 in the morning, so please understand that there are reasons, I'm sure, for the absence of the three members of the Commission. But I will, as soon as we get the third mem- ber in we will commence. I will be in my office. Mr. Clerk, as soon as another member of the Commission walks in would you please inform me? I'll be in my office. At...3:05 o'clock p.m. Mayor Ferre: ..... We are over two hours late in this presentation. We obviously do not have a quorum and I do not think it is fair to continue waiting so we're going to do the following: The resolution that the City Commission adopted yesterday which is in relationship to the time schedules of the evaluation of proposals submitted by the cable television companies, we set a series of schedules and one of the things that we said was that on July 7th there would be a 4:00 P.M. Public Hearing and what we will do is we will begin discussion for informational purposes, this is not a for- mal Commission Meeting, this does not in any way comply with the resolution passed yesterday that we would start on June 26th at 1:00 P.M. and conduct a Public Hearing. This, therefore, is not a Public Hearing at this time, until such time, if we get a third member and then it will become a Public Hearing. Now, we may not be able to go the full length this afternoon so what we will do is we will, perhaps, get a presentation maybe for an hour, we'll ask some questions and hopefully we'll have a quorum by then, if not, we will continue this public hearing on July 7th at 4 P.M. and have maybe an extra hour. Mr. Clark: Mr. Mayor, if you have the schedule, at 4:00 P.M. on July 7th for the purpose of 'laving the general public input it would be suggested that if the other members of the Commission would prefer to have another hour earlier than 4:00.... Mayor Ferre: We would start at 3:00. So in other words on July 7th we would start at 3:00, hopefully we would then comply with the legal aspects. Okay, let us then begin, Mr. Manager. Mr. Gary: Mr. Mayor, you have before you the initial evaluation prepared by Telecommunications Management Corporation with regard to the cable TV bids that were received by the City. After this report was pre- pared there were comments which were allowed by the applicants to the con- sultant and as a result of that, a final response has been prepared and you should have it before you. At this time, I would like for Mr. Carl Pilnick who represents Telecommunications Management Corporation to give you an overview of the process, an overview of his evaluation and the steps that should be followed to proceed with the Cable TV Franchise. Mr. Carl Pilnick: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Commissioner Gibson, I will try to keep my remarks fairly brief and allow as much time as possible. I think I would like to start by giving you an overview of the process itself and perhaps some suggestions as to what you might want to consider for the future. As Mr. Gary said, you now have the cable companies' criti- cisms of our evaluation report, you have our response to those criticisms, I think altogether they provide a reasonably complete written record of each of the companies' positions and our response to that. Some of the items, as indicated in the report, are perhaps questions of judgement rather than questions of absolute right or wrong and we have tried to in- dicate in the evaluation report our reasons for making all of the comments that we have made. A.n any event, when you complete your public hearing you will have at that time the verbal presentations by each company. Each com- pany will take the time that you allow to tell you why they think that their application should be accepted and why, in effect, they're the best company for the City of Miami. Any time after the public hearing, the Commission obviously can make its selection. And the only point that I would make with respect to the process is I think that the process does not end there. I think that...... Mayor Ferre: Excuse me, it looks like Commissioner Lacasa just walked in and since he is already here we may as well just wait another minute and then make it official. Commissioner Lacasa, could we get you in here now? See, people all want to talk.... Oh, here we are. Okay. This is an official City of Miami Commission Meeting and it is a Public Hearing for the 26th of June, advertised at 1:00 P.M. but starting at 3:10. 32 J U ►V 2 61981 0 MINUTES OF SPECIAL MEETING CITY COMMISSION OF MIAMI, FLORIDA On the 26th day of June, 1981, the City Commission of Miami, Florida met at its regular meeting place in the City Hall, 3500 Pan American Drive, Miami, Florida in Special Session for the purpose of a briefing to be made to the City Commission by Telecommunications Management Corporation regarding the results of their evaluation process in connection with Cable Television. The meeting was called to order at 3:10 O'Clock P.M.. by Mayor Maurice A. Ferre with the following members of the Commission present: Commissioner Armando Lacasa Vice -Mayor (Rev.) Theodore R. Gibson Mayor Maurice A. Ferre ALSO PRESENT: Howard V. Gary, City Manager AT Robert F. Clark, Assistant City Attorney (O' DIIIIS NOTE INSERTED ST Ralph G. Ongie, City Clerk co`>ltlssloNhtt's REQUEST) *NOTE: Commissioner J.L. ABSENT: (Plummer notified the Commission Commissioner Joe Carollo Io,. his inability to attend this Commissioner J. L. Plummer, Jr� ,t t<« ti... < t11L Cur."mis- sion Was polled, j)revious to the holdin, of tliis Meeting. Mayor Ferre: This is an Official City of Miami Commission Meeting and it is a Public Hearing for the 26th of June, advertised at 1:00 P.M., but starting at 3:10 P.M. Mr. Lacasa: Mr. Mayor, the reason for the delay in my particular case was that I was presenting the Keys of the City of Miami to the Minister of Tourism of the Republic of Spain. Mavor Ferre: We have been here for two hours and I'm sure that there was a good reason for your not being here but I wanted - we've held up the presenta- tion up until now, we are just starting so you have not missed anything at this point. Mr. Pilnick. Mr. Carl Pilnick: Fine. Let me just repeat the introduction then. I think that with the written documents that you have including the report that we delivered today you probably have a fairly complete background on each com- pany's position, their offer and our view of that. With the July 7th Meeting you will get in addition the verbal presentations from each company, you will also get whatever input members of the public or any of the community organizations wants to make and at the conclusion of that hearing you will probably have sufficient information to make your decision at whatever time you choose. What I would like to point out is that I think the process does not -end there and that perhaps -.._e of the most important parts of the process, perhaps from my point of view even more than selecting a particular company is the negotiation and the coming to an agreement of the final franchise award ordinance which should not simply be an award in teh sense of presenting the franchise to a particular company but should be a contractual document which has legally enforceable provisions to make sure that whoever you select you're going to get what that company has promised. If you have read the voluminous pages of the proposals, you'll find perhaps 500 pages of commit- niez,ts az,13 promises and not one single word as to what happens if the company doesn't meet the promises, so that I think that is very important. I think it is not sufficient to rely on the power of terminating the franchise as the only remedy you have. That is an over -kill type of penalty, it is like threatening to drop the atomic bomb, you just don't do it in most cases because once a company has their cable on the poles, once they have many thousands of subscribers, threatening to terminate is a very drastic penalty and it is usually only done in cases where the company has completely fallen 133 (APIENUEU) JUN 2 61981 0 0 down on the job. So that revocation of the franchise in my opinion is not an adequate penalty to take care of a large number of possible violations of franchise commitments that a company may make. So what I am suggesting is that, again, regardless of which company you select the process from then on has to be looked at just as carefully. You have to draw an agreement which has sufficient enforceability clauses in it, a variety of penalties that can be made appropriately in fraction, you have to take all of the commitments that the company has promised in their proposal and put a sched- ule deadline, penalty attached to each one or the ability of the City to do that and you have to have a document that expresses in writing every- thing you expect to get over the next 15 years. If you don't get it in the final franchise agreement it is possibly unlikely that you're going to get it at all. So I can't stress too highly the fact that there is a consider- able amount of work that the City has to become involved in after you select a company. I would suggest one other approach and that is when you make your selection I would not make the selection on the basis of saying a partic- ular company has been selected as the company to receive a franchise. I would suggest that you select a particular company as a leading contender and by leading contender that would mean that you have selected that company as the company to try to arrive at a final agreement with and they would be your first choice but it is contingent upon arriving at that agreement and if you don't arrive at a satisfactory final agreement with all of the enforce- ability clauses that you'd like then I think you should be free to go to a second company. So that I think you retain your bargaining power if you select a contender rather than simply award a franchise, do your negotiation during the period before you have a final franchise agreement and then fin- ally vote on the final franchise agreement and approve that. The only com- ment I'll make is that of the three documents that you will have, you will original enabling cable television ordinance, you have the com- panies' proposals and you'll have a final franchise agreement ordinance. of those three documents, I think probably the most important one will be the final franchise award ordinance because that is the contract that you'll be living with for 15 years. I'll be happy to answer any questions about that, but I would point out that regardless of all the good will that any company may indicate I would look upon this essentially as a business ar- rangement, as a contractual arrangement and I don't think that you can ex- pect a company to put one pickle more into the system than they are con- tractually obligated to. Now, with respect to the evaluation itself, a couple of points I do want to stress. We evaluated in our original eval- uation the proposals that the companies provided. We did not evaluate the companies and I think there is a significant difference there. What we are evaluatinq is the offers that the companies made to you. There is nothing in the evaluation report that tells you whether Company A or Company B is a better company. What our job is is to evaluate which company made you a better offer. Now, once you decide which company made you a better of- fer, you may want to take into account the question of which company you think is a better company. You may want to take into account the questions of track record, how companies have performed in other areas or in other communities. In many cases, I think you will find that large companies particularly have a spotty and mixed track record, they may have a good record in one city and a poor record in some other city and that is due to a variety of factors. Some systems that have been bought rather than built and some are older systems. But apart from that, I think one important reason that companies do have a mixed record is the franchise agreement that I kept referring to. In any city where the franchise agreement is a Lne page piece of paper, that in effecu _ays we give you the franchise and.you just give us the franchise fee, there is no obligation on the part of the company and in any case where a company may not be doing what the City expects it to have done the answer is it is not in the franchise agreement. And I've known of many large companies that have excellent records in cities where the franchise agreement is farily tight and is en- forceable and the same company can have a poor record in another city where the franchise agreement is not enforceable. But in any event, I .J.. 1.. 0..-Z uyain that what you have in the evaluation has nothing to do with how good the company is. What it does tell you, I think in our opin- :c:., is :•rrwt the company has offered you and I think that is your first nrnrPgs• Your first process is to decide which is the best offer and then after you have decided which is the best offer you may wish to go further You may wish to consider evaluation factors that were not in the evaluation at all. i,� don't evaluate the question of ownership, for example, as there is no way that an outside consultant can come into a community and tell you whether local owners or one form of ownership is better or worse than another, you have to maize those decisions yourself, you have to decide whether that is u ri_. -.L ..,z whether it doesn't matter. ::cti•., our method that we used was a method that was requested by the City. The City issued its re- quest for proposals, the City in its request for proposals indicated a number 0 • of factors that would be used to evaluate the proposals. We used all those factors but we were asked to list the strengths and weaknesses of each com- pany in each area. We were not asked, as a matter of fact, we were asked specifically not to rank companies and not to give the Commission an order that we felt the companies deserved to be ranked in. We have followed that procedure and we have listed for each of the items in the RFP whether a company is strong in that area or weak in that particular area. I would say again what we have put in the report in writing and that is that simply adding up the number or strengths or the number of weaknesses that a partic- ular company has might give you some indication of the overall value of the proposal but it is not the only item to be considered. A great many of those factors are at least in our opinion different in importance. Some of the factors may be very important, some of the factors may be negligible in im- portance. I think each of you will have to look at not only our opinion as to strengths and weaknesses in each category but also how important you think each category is. If you think that one category such as rates or such as financial capability or any of the others, you think that one is more import- ant to you than another then you may want to look at the strengths and weak- nesses of the companies in that particular area and give that more weight than you would give the others. With respect to the second report, you prob- ably have not had an opportunity to review that, in general, we responded to each complaint that the five applicants submitted, we tried to give our reasons for either agreeing or disagreeing with their complaint, we indicated where we felt there should be a change in a strength or a weakness rating because of a comment or complaint that a cable company made. I think if you look at the final table in the second report you will find that there is not a substantial difference.... Mayor Ferre: Is that page 31, figure 6? Mr. Pilnick: Yes, that is correct. On page 31 we indicate the original strengths and weaknesses and then the modified or new recommended strengths and weaknesses as a result of the consideration of the cable companies com- plaints. There are some changes, there were some points that were raised that were very valid where we made errors in the original evaluation. There were other points made by some of the companies where on reflection we felt we agreed with them. I think in most cases we probably have indicated that we did not agree with the complaints and indicated that we didn't feel any change was justified. So that by looking at that table on page 31 you can get an immediate feeling as to the impact that the complaints of the compan- ies have had on our conclusions and I think although there were some changes I don't think, at least in my opinion they were very significant, and I think that at least to me indicates that the general evaluation, the first evaluat- ion report I think in general should be taken as a reasonably valid comparison. I'll point out again many of the items are judgement items. When you're talk- ing about something like programming or even some of the technical areas you're balancing a lot of factors and there is no right or wrong, there are differences of professional opinion. There are also many rankings or many strengths and weaknesses that are relative. A company that has been listed as having a weak- ness in a particular area taken by itself might still be able to give you a very good system, it might still be able to give you a system as good or better than other systems around the country. All we're point out is that if a company was given a weakness in a particular area and another company a strength that we felt that what the other company was offering was more desirable, that doesn't mean that the one that is less desirable is bad. I L..ink as a general state- ment you have a collection of five good bids, you have five which taken on the average are as good as major cities have been getting in the last six months to a year so that I think your first objective then is to get good proposals has been achieved. That doesn't necessarily mean I think they are all equal but I think that they're all a high quality level. No matter which company you select, I think it is important to realize that the cable system will be offering a very broad array of services, many of them have nothing to do with entertainment, many of them have nothing to do with residents in their homes. Just as a brief summary, you're going to get all the entertainment services from whichever company you select and those entertainment services will in- clude television programming, special cable programming, local and community programming, pay television, almost everything that is available in the way of video entertainment now will be provided by all of the applicants. You'll be getting informational programming, essentially new developments which pro- vide text information from various data bases that are available throughout the country whether it is a news data base or a stockmarket data base or sports information, many of these new services are becoming offered on a relatively common basis. You'll be getting a variety of non -entertainment services to home residents. All the companies have indicated they would provide alarm monitoring service, fire and burglar alarms initially as soon o� SUN � 61981, 0 • as the system is activated. Many of them have indicated that they would provide services such as home shopping, home banking, energy management, some of these services are technically feasible right now but may not be economically feasible. Home banking, home shopping, energy management are all being tested on cable systems in various other parts of the country, I think it is inevitable that the ones that prove to be economically sound will be offered here too. You'll be getting institutional services where either City agencies or schools and colleges or commercial institutions like banks will be communicating with each other in many cases on a closed circuit basis without communicating with people in their homes at all so that the cable system basically is really a dual purpose network, it is a home system to provide entertainment services to homes, it is also a very high capacity communications system that will provide many communications services to institutional users on a more effective and lower cost basis than other medium can provide those services today. In terms of the future, I think some of these services may have a much stronger impact in terms of revenues generated and the number of users that they have now and at the end of 15 years when your franchise term expires, you may find that the enter- tainment portion of it is a considerably smaller portion of the total in terms of either revenues or services than it is at the beginning of the franchise tern, so that I think again when you select a company to award a franchise to you should be looking at the whole range of services that can be provided and try to take into account what the various companies are proposing not only for the initial activiation of the system but throughout the 15 year franchise term. I think you will find when I talk about questions of judgement, I think you will find in reading the comments and the complaints of thL. various com- panies which you have in the second report that many of the companies don't aarpe with each other with respect to how items should be classified in terms of being a strength or a weakness and obviously each company feels that its own approach should be considered as the best. I think it is only when you look at the differences of opinion between the companies themselves that you will be able to consider our opinion and decide whether you feel it is credible or not. I think that you probably when you review these reports would do bet- ter to look at the report as a total package rather than concentrate on indi- vidual items. I think you will be hearing from now until the time you make a selection from various representatives of each company and each company will try to highlight the areas they are strong in and, of course, will try to ignore or play down the areas that they're not so strong in. And it is like the blind man and the elephant, each representative that you get from a cable company will be emphasizing the part of the elephant that represents a strnegth for them and I think your responsibility essentially is to look at the entire pack- age that is being offered. I don't think there is any one company that is nec- essarily the strongest in all the areas and it may not be possible to be strong- est in all the areas because there is a cost to provide many of these different capabilities and the company that is strongest in all areas may be the highest cost system. But I think that what you have to look at is you're buying a system that has perhaps 15 or 20 different important features and it is the majority of the features and how they balance each other off that you really should be concerned with. If you feel that one feature is much more important than the others that is your prerogative but the only point I would stress is that I think if you look only at a single item and ignore most of the rest of it that you'll be doing yourselv a disservice, that you really are trying to select the best overall package. With that, I think rather than going into specific items I would be happy to answer any questions on the part of the Commission. Mayor Perre: I would like to thank you, that twenty minutes was general and geographic in nature and you covered all of the generalities. I think we need to get into a little bit more specific fields and what I would like to do, let ine start off by asking a series of questions which I don't expect for you to answer as I ask them, and I'll ask them again as we get into it, I just want you to keep in mind and then I'll ask Commissioner Gibson and rrnriric^ir)nrnr Lacasa to do the same if they wish and then you can get into the more specific areas. In the .first place, let me say that I quite agree with yc,;: ::;:; o_ all the documents that we're going to produce by far the most im- porLa,st une is going to be the final ordinance and the contract that we're going to sign with whoever the successful bidder is. To that end I would like to know whether or not you would be available to continue with the City in rendering an on -going service as a consultant during the negotiation pruc•eedinas? Mr. Pilnick: Yes, we would be available, certainly. I've already give your City Manager's Office a couple of sample franchise ordinances that have been negotiated recently that I think can serve as a guideline. 06 JUN n 6 WAT 0 i Mayor Ferre: We'll get into a lot more details on that. In the meantime, I would like for you to prepare what the cost of this is going to be and submit to the Manager so that can be discussed certainly by the July 7th Public Hearing. Mr. Pilnick: I will do that. Mayor Ferre: Second thing I would like from you is I would like the name of no less than three no more than five major national law firms, preferably, New York or Washington based, hopefully to have no connection with anybody here even thought that's almost impossible, but at least no contractual relationship with any local law firm; in other words, I would like to get one as independent as possible, who have in the past negotiated at least one or more similar contracts in this particular field of endeavor. I don't want any...in this case, Father, contrary to what we usually do to try to get local firms, that's exactly what I don't want, because I don't want the bias or the potential bias that comes from a local firm and I would like to have a totally independent, arms -length expert in the law, because this is a special world which not that many lawyers really are in tune with, and I really want to get somebody who knows the particular world of communica- tions. To that end, my main interest in this, is exactly what you've pointed out, is that this black -and -white, all -or -nothing approach is totally ridi- culous, it is hardly ever true that anyone is going to droD the atomic bomb, and it isn't that simple, and it is all these different areas of promises and,kept or broken promises, that we have to .... what is somebody says, all right, the state of the art is this and by 1985 we are going to have this stat-, you know, of the completion of this, and then it's never done. The aspects that concern me are... that it's easy to say that we are going to do this, and this, and this, and then in 1984, say, well, of the 8 things we said we were going to do in this area we can do two, but the others it's not our fault, we thought that General Electric would have that equipment ready, and Sony had this and that, and the delivery date for that was January 1984 but they've now delayed it for two years and there is no other....you know, so we get into all this stuff of -whose fault was it, and why wasn't it done, and why can't it be done?.... so I really need to make sure that if some- body contractually agrees to do something that they will do it, and that if they don't do it that there is a penalty. and I think that the whole question of what the penalties are and how the judgment is made, and whether we go to arbitration or whether we go through a Court proceeding -which I'd like to avoid, I would like to go in the direction of having quicker arbitration so that the decision -making process on defaults or on non-compliance is quicker and I really would like to go to an arbitration format that has certain mini- mum dates so that the decision -making process is quicker at the end. Now, the next area that I wanted to question you in, is in the five applicants, and I want to place this on the record. Is there any applicant...?, -you made this statement and I just want to reinforce it- is there any applicant that in your opinion, because of financial standing, backing, any investigations that you've made, contractual relationship in the past with others, the performance, the response, the offer. or any other reason, that you may think that it is totally unworthy of our consideration? Mr. Pilnick: I think they are all capable of building a system in the City of Miami that, if they follow their proposals, would be a good system. Mayor Ferre: So, in other words, all of these are worthy offers, as you said, some are better than others, and that, we'll get into, but none of these are so bad that you would disqualify anyone. Mr. Pilnick: Not at this time, no. Mayor Ferre: Next question, and I'm going to start...and I don't want any- body to misunderstand the way I'm approaching this, there is no implica- ��.. L. tl:c way I'm starting this, I just want to know, since the simplest... there are two firms in figure 6 in page 31 whose number of weaknesses are relatively low, I'm talking about Miami and Vision and I would like for you on those two cases to give us an overview of the two weaknesses in the one case and the four in the Vision, and then, I would like for you to expand and go right down the line and give us, if you would, please, a five-minute or perhaps maybe that may be the better way of doing it, let's not single out any one company, why don't you give us a five-minute overview of each one of the companies and give us the highlights of what you think are the 07 JUN 261981 weaknesses and strengths. Mr. Pilnick: Well, let me take the weaknesses first, I think, because there are fewer of them, and it might tend to focus on the areas of perhaps greatest controversy because no company is going to argue with any category where I've listed them as having strength. They will argue with the categories in which I've listed them in having weaknesses, so that perhaps I could focus on those first and then broaden out if you feel that that doesn't cover it. Mayor Ferre: Okay. Mr. Pilnick: If we start out with Miami Telecommunications. Originally, they were listed as having two weaknesses and if you refer to the first report, page 120, that gives you the areas that the companies were listed as having weakness- es in. If you'll notice, Miami Telecommunications had a weakness in the cate- gory of performance and other systems, and they had two weaknesses in the category of rate stability. If we try to examine each of those, performance and other systems. I think the reason they got a weakness in performance in other systems was the questions of how many... the question of experience, rele- vant experience in Miami. One of the items we used to determine the relative experience, an experience that would be particularly appropriate for Miami, is how many large systems the cable companies have operated. If you have operated a lot of small.... Mr. Lacasa: How many large systems? Mr. Pilnick: Large systems, systems with more than five hundred miles of cable which would be roughly, maybe, 50,000 subscribers or so. Mayor Ferre: How many of those are there in the country, by the way? Mr. Pilnick: Not an awful lot. There,,,, Mayor Ferre: Ten,..a hundred? Mr. Pilnick: No, there are probably more than a hundred but.... Mayor Ferre: A thousand? Mr. Pilnick: No. Each of the major companies might have... see, the largest companies in the industry, the top three or four, have perhaps 1,300,000 or 1,400,000 subscribers. The biggest system in the country is the one in San Diego with about 200,000 subscribers. There are two or three systems operating now at.... Mayor Ferre: 200,000 is the biggest. Mr. Pilnick: Yes. Mayor Ferre: Anything over 50,000 is large. Mr. Pilnick: Anything over 50.000 is large. Mayor Ferre: And there are over 100 with less than 200,000? Mr. Pilnick: Well, I wouldn't swear to the 100 but I think you are talking about something in that category. We are certainly not talking about any larger number, it's probably a smaller number. Of all the big companies, if any one has, perhaps, 10 or 15 systems above that size, then that's considered a very substantial, large system experience. And what we were trying to do is not say that there is any minimum that you have to have, or trying to relate the experience of big systems that the various applicants have. One item that we felt was relevant was whether a company had operated a lot of small systems, of a couple of thousand subscribers, and had no experience with big cities, or whether it did have experience with large systems. So we used a rough cut off of 500 miles and we tried to decide from the proposal information each having more than 500 miles of cable did each company operate. And Miami Telecommunications, by the information from their original proposal, did not have more than a couple of these systems. Now, in their complaints, they complained that they had listed a number of franchises which is what the RFP's asked for and that many franchises, many communities, are served by a single system. So they revised the information, 08 JUN 0461981 in effect, to provide information on the number of systems that they operated regardless of whether that system served several communities or not. And they've indicated in their second set of data the complaint data that they really did operate a number of systems with more than 500 miles of cable. As a result of that, we did remove one of the weaknesses that they had listed in their original proposal and that is the reason why their weaknesses -if you look on page 31- dropped from 3 to 2. The second area, was the area of rate stability and they got two weaknesses in that area. Mayor Ferre: Did you say stability? Mr. Pilnick: Rate stability, in other words, how many rate increases... first, how long a guarantee they'll give you to hold the original rates constant, and secondly, how many rate increases do they project over the 10 years. Mayor Ferre: Again, you are talking about Miami. Mr. Pilnick: Yes. They had on 'basic service' and 'pay service', they had a projected series of rate increases over the life of the franchise that they claimed was just enought to keep up with inflation. One of the requirements of the RFP was that every applicant use a standard 9% inflation factor, just to avoid the confusion that we would get if everybody used a different in- flation factor, so that cost, presumably, would go up at 9% a year. Four our of the five companies adjusted their rates, presumably to match the in- flation rate. One our of the five companies, Six Star Nielson, projected a lower rate increase than the 9% of inflation. So that, on a comparative basis, the Six Star proposal if those rates are believable, Six Star was credited with a strength an the others were credited with weaknesses. Again, we are saying that Miami Telecommunications or the others that had used the 9% in- _ flation on rates were unreasonable, we think it's a reasonable approach; we are saying that from the viewpoint of the benefit of the City, if the Company promises a lower series of rate increases and if it can be held to that pro- mise, then that would be of benefit to the City and the subscribers, so that was a relative weakness with respect to rates Miami Telecommunications got, and that weakness did not change as a result of the second review. Now, Vision Cable was credited with six weaknesses originally and with four weaknesses in the modified evaluation, and if we look again on page 120 of the basic report, Vision's weaknesses were in the areas of 'Automated Services', 'Access Production Facilities and Support', 'Rates' -two weaknesses in 'Rate Stability Area' and those two were exactly the same as for Miami Telecommunications. Essentially, they both took the same approach. Four of the five companies took the approach of trying to make the rate increases compatible with the inflation factor that would affect costs. And one weak- ness in the area of 'Relation to Needs of Miami', and I can talk about these specifically. There were two of the weaknesses that we have listed, actually one weakness in one area where we didn't consider it either weak or strong that we did change the strengths as a result of the Company's complaint. They complained that in our listing of their automated services, -automated are these bulletin board -type services- that we had left out an entire series of text services that they would provide and it is true, that we didn't credit them with that. Those are services where in any particular channel you have a choice of watching a television program or by pressing a bottom, instead of watching that television program, you can watch text information. That text information would be information about travel, schedules, or news or sports -or anything, but you use the same channel in effect for two different kinds of programs. And we felt, after reviewing the complaint, that essentially they were right so we changed two of the weaknesses to strengths in that area. Now, with respect to 'Access Facilities', Vision claimed that it should have had a strength where we gave it a weakness because it had .... we took, as one factor, the percentage of the total operating budget that would be used for local origination and community programming or access programming and how much the company would reserve for itself for programming of its own, and wliu� N� Lised was a percentage, the companies were requested to list those percentages in their applications and we took the highest percentages and credited those as strengths with respect to 'Access' and the lower percen- tages were credited as weaknesses. Vision claimed that even though it had a lower percentage of the total going to access that it's total budget was higher and that, therefore, the dollar amount would be just as high or higher than anybody else's and I didn't feel that that was a valid point that should be changed. They were given credit for their higher operating budget in one of the other areas and, essentially, we felt that the percentage that was to community programming was an important indication of how much 09 JUN 261981 emphasis each company would put on community programming as compared to their own programming. So that was an area that was rated as a weakness originally and there was no change. With respect to rates, we took a look at the two most important rates. The two most important rates are the monthly rate for basic service and the monthly rate for pay television service. Most subscribers will take a combination of both of those. We looked at each one individually and the company that got the lowest rates in basic service was given a strength, the company that had the higher rates in basic service was given a weakness. And we did the same thing for pay. Vision claimed that the two should have been combined and that you really should judge this on the basis of the total package price. I think that's a reasonable approach, I think that our approach was just as reasonable. That's a question of jugdment there. With relation to the last item in relation to needs of Miami, this was simply a typographical error. We had listed in the original report one strength and one weakness on this page 120, but if you go back to the tables where these numbers came from, we had listed Vision as having two strengths, so this was simply a correction of an error that was made in the original report. And as a result of all those, Vision's number of weaknesses dropped from a tabulation of 6 in the original report to a total of 4, in this report. Again, whether you con- sider any of these weaknesses as relative weaknesses or whether you con- sider them important at all I think is a question of the weight that you give to any particular category. Would you like me to go into weaknesses of the other applicants too or....? Mayor Ferre: Yes. :it. rl.tilick: all right. The applicant with the next lowest number of weaknesses is Cable Systems Miami. On the original report we had listed them as 11, on the modified evaluation we listed them as 9 weaknesses. Now, one of the complaints that Cable Systems has -I think I might mention this first because they feel that they were penalized in several different places as the result of one particular item. Cable Systems proposed not to provide, at least initially, not to provide a separate institutional network, the institutional network is one or more cable which connects all the insti- tutions in the community, -public agencies, schools, private businesses, in- dustry- and the general practice in most large cities is to have a separate network for that and then to connect that to the residential network at the distribution centers of the television system. So, normally you have one network which goes past all the homes in the community, and then another network which goes past all the major institutions of the community, and then you tie those two together. In this particular application, cable sys- tems proposed to provide only two cables. One would be used for residential services only and the other one would be used for a combination. Part residential services and part institutional services. They claim certain advantages on this approach. They did say in their proposal that if they used up all the capacity on that combined institutional residential cable that they would put a third cable in some time later. They claim advantages to this approach, my opinion is that it's not an advantage but a weakness. Regardless of whether you accept that it may be an advantage or a weakness, they feel that they were unfairly penalized because there were about three or four of these different items, that all had weakness attached to them because of the particular design -approach. For example, it affects the _construction schedule. If you are going to put two cables in now and then possibly another cable in 5 years from now, you have two construction phases rather than one and that may be considered a weakness. It affects the chan- nel capacity. If you have two cables you are going to have less total ca- pacity than three, and you may get penalized for having less residential capacity and less institutional capacity so there are about three or four items that they feel they got a weakness marked down and it was all basic- ally due to one decision, they call it double jeopardy. My own comment, is that the approach they took does have an impact on all these other items, and these other items that the RFP said the proposals were ^c-inci to be evaluated on, so that I don't deny that they may get a weakness in three or four areas because of the same point but I think it affects three or four areas. i•iayoi Terre: Is there a previous example of the usage of this system that we can fall back on and see whether it does or it doesn't work? Mr. Pilnick: Unfortunately no, because the whole concept of institutional „Lw «uo come into practice in th !,.zt three or four years. There to 1Q J U N 2 61981 i 0 are a lot of them being built in systems now. There isn't any one full network of this kind that's operating. Mayor Ferre: So we have no practical experience to fall back on. Mr. Pilnick: We have no practical experience but there are certain facts, I think that are undeniable. If you have an extra cable you have more capacity. If you have an extra cable that goes past the institution you don't get into this question of geography. The question of are they really going to run residential cable in the downtown area of Miami where you have a lot of undergrounding, where you may have conduit problems. Mayor Ferre: Is the only system that has that problem Cable Systems? Mr. Pilnick: The only one of the applicants proposing it here, -yes. So I think there are two questions there. First is whether they're right in their argument that their approach is better, my opinion is not. And secondly, the question of whether they're being penalized too heavily for this same particular item. If I go through all of their weaknesses in sequence, the first item that they got a weakness in was in the question of financial capability. And I'd like to make that clear. The assignment of a weakness was not because the company does not have enough financial capability to build the Miami system. We looked at a number of items with respect to financial capability. One is how much money they have available. But another item we looked at was how much do they have committed to other cable systems, either new franchises that they're committed to build in other cities, or old systems that they have to rebuild^: So, all of the applicants were asked to list how many dollars they have to spend over the next 5 years to build other systems? And then we took that total number of dollars as a percentage of the equity of the company and we tried to decide whether or not they ... might mean that the company could get financially strained later on. In other words, a company with a billion dollars worth of equity, it may have a lot of money, but if they've got $3,000,000,000 of commitments, then they may be strapped for money, perhaps even more than a company with less total. Mayor Ferre: And who did you find weak in that area? Mr. Pilnick: Well, we indicated that Cable Systems had one of the higher percentages of commitments to equity. Now, they took exception to that for a couple of reasons. One was a question of just what their commitments were. Simply a numerical question, and I think we're right in the numbers we used. Another was the fact that they point out that a couple of the other applicants either didn't provide information, or provided information that was not similar to the kind of information they provided. For example... Mayor Ferre: Did you find any of the other 4 have a similar problem? Mr. Pilnick: Well, it's all relative. I think that it is not a problem. Mayor Ferre: Yeah, but you see, it's relative but you're making a _judgement on it and you're saying somthing about cable... and I'm asking you is that the only one of these 5 companies where you would make that statement? Mr. Pilnick: This was one item in several items we looked at in financial capability. Probably the more important items are the items of whether they have the money available to build the Miami system and fully commit it. And in that more important area, I think all the applicants are qualified. This item is a sort of worse case item. This is an item that says what happens if a company gets 5 more franchises tomorrow? Or if a company decides to buy another company tomorrow, or if all of a sudden the pay television market becomes a poorer market than it is now and they don't get as much revenue as they expected to get? This is a question of how close to the edge they might be strained. So it's a guessing question and I think it's much less, in my opinion, much less important than the other questions. But Cable Systems, with the nubmers we used came up with one of the highest levels of commitment. You can argue from that, and some companies have that that shows they're more 11 Ju�� s� 2 1 0 0 Mr. Pilnick (continued): successful. If you do well on getting a lot of franchises, you're going to be strained more. Mayor Ferre: Again, my question is did you find that particular statement to be applicable in any way to any other firm other than Cable Systems? You just made a... Mr. Pilnick: I think it may be applicable to 2 others in the sense that the information provided was not as complete or as specific as I would like. Mayor Ferre: And which are the 2 others? Mr. Pilnick: Well, for example, the Vision... Cable Systems did point out, and I think correctly, the Vision bid listed equity of over $500,000,000 but no financial statements essentially privately held and you don't know whether that referred... whether that $500,000,000 refers to money that's available because they are the parent company of the applicant that would be building the Miami franchise, or whether it's committed to a lot of other different areas. We took the $500,000,000 as a measure of their equity because it was the only figure we had. But I think it's open to question. And if we got more specific figures it could turn out that perhaps their ratio would be as high or higher than Cable Systems. The... Mayor Ferre: Any other? Mr. Pilnick: Well, the Americable bid. Again, there you have the statement in the bid that any additional equity that's needed over and above the equity they feel is necessary to build th system would be provided by the general partner, Mr. Hermanoski. In the original application, he did not provide the information as to the extent of that equity or whether it was committed in other directions. In the complaints, in the critique that he submitted, there was a net worth statement for him that was added then. But again, I think that leaves something to be desired with respect to whether or not that money is available for this Miami system, if needed, or whether it may be possibly committed to otter projects. So there are 2 other of the applicants where I think there is reasonable question as to whether there might be a weakness in that area. There are several of the complaints that Cable System had that dealt with this question of the institutional network. I think I've stated my position there. So unless you'd like me to, I'll try to focus on the other comments they had. Cable System claimed that one area, satellite video services and automated services, that they really were proposing 20 services and we only credited them with 15. I think this is a typical example of... Mayor Ferre: Which company is this? Mr. Pilnick: Cable Systems. This is a typical example of what happens in these proposals. These proposals are put together usually by a number of people in a particular company. In 2 of these areas of the proposal where companies were specifically requested to list the programming they would provide, there was a chart given... Mr.Pilnick: ...where they have to fill in each channel number and what programming they would provide, and also in the executive summary, that Cable Systems provided, they had a very elaborate color picture of each television channel, and what they would provide. In those two areas of the proposal, they listed only 15. and those were the 15 that we listed. Back,in the back end of the proposallwhere they described general programming and described what each channel would include, there were 20 services listed. But I take that as essentially boiler plate material that they put into every proposal, and if there's a conflict between that and a specific listing that they were asked to do in response to a question, I take the specific listing and_I take the chart that they made up in several colors as being the formal commitment. So I think we're right and they are incorrect in that particular case. Now, Cable System complained that we didn't give them full credit for automated services because they will have a lot of community channels that will be available for community television programming. They claim that they will provide a keyboard in alpha -numeric character generator for each of those channels so that when it's not used for television programming, it's available for bulletin board -type programming. And they claim that just because they provide that keyboard, they should be given credit for that channel as being an automated channel too. And I disagree there because, you know, again, the example I used is to say that if you're going to provide a television camera for a particular channel, that's the same as claiming that you're going to provide a certain program service. Unless you state what information will be provided, and who is going to do the work of putting this information on the cable system, simply providing a piece of equipment that will allow you to do that, in my book doesn't mean that you have the service. So, I don't agree that because they provided the character generators that they're actually providing the services. There were some questions of fact where they claimed that we did not credit them with carrying certain channels, and I think we indicated that we did credit them with carrying channels. One of the things that we agreed, I think, with Cable Systems, they had a complaint that they proposed more hours of programming, local programming than the other applicants, and that this was important enough, I think, �to warrant a strength,and I think they're right in that Applicant Cable Svstems claimed that it was the only applicant proposing to provide addressable convertors to each subscriber, regardless of the tier of service that the subscriber wanted. and because of this. they should get one more strength than all the others. Now, they did get strengths in the area that this particular topic was covered. They want more than the other cable companies. That's a question of judgment. I think that this is a desireable feature, whether it's so desireable that you want to make a special category of it of its own, it is something that I would not recommend but I think it's arguable. They also claim that one of the other companies, Miami Telecommunications, in their pro-formas have not budgeted enough money to buy all the equipment that they said they were going to provide. And my general attitude on that is that we do want to look at the pro-formas to see they are reasonable, but again. if a company makes a commitment that they are going Lu provide certain equipment, I think the final franchise agreement shall hold them to that commitment regardless of whether they budgeted enough money. And that's one of the clauses that we have recommended, that regardless of whether the number of subscribers is as great as they project, or regardless of anything else that they assume, the commitments that they make should be enforceable. Mayor Ferre: I want to make a comment on that. I don't agree with that approach. I think before anything is finalized, we need to have some absolute financial commitment from an accepted source. Whether it's a .letter of credit from a bank, or an insurance company, or a major corporation, assuring that if a commitment is made ... because I don't want to get into the awarding of a franchise and then get into the litigation process as to whether or not, you know, that that's not a substantive change, or whether, whatever we do, somewhere along the line, and I don't know how we're going to approach this, wheter it's through a bank letter of credit, or a bonding procedure of some sort, but there has to be...I want it up front, not later on. The cheapest law work is always done in the beginning and not in the end. In the end, law work 13 J U R 2) 6 1981 Mayor Ferre (continued): is very expensive. Mr. Pilnick: There was a complaint by Cable Systems which I think maybe four of the companies made about the question of rates, the four companies that used the 9% inflation factor and costs, also used that in their rate increase projections. If you take 9% a year from 15 years, you get over 200% increase. So, they raised their rates to match that. One of the companies, as I indicated... Mayor Ferre: Who is they? Mr. Pilnick: 4 companies. All the 4 except 6 Star -Nielson, T think used the same inflation approach. Six Star- Neilson proposed, in some cases, 3% or 4% a year rate increases which would be less than their costs would be going up. I don't know whether they simply ignored the 9% inflation factor standard they were supposed to use, or whether they considered that and decided that they would still propose lower rate increases. Mayor Ferre: Does that mean that if Six Star -Nielson were the recipient that we could hold them to that? Mr. Pilnick: That could be one of the items that you could negotiate to hold them to. The question of how much these pro -forma projections are best guesses, and how much are commitments, I think is one of the things that has to be taken care of by the formal negotiation. Mayor Ferre: I'd like to have the clarification of law on that because, are we able to do that? Legally? Or is that something that once it's awarded, it gets challenged 5 years down the line saying the City of Miami has no legal authority to..if our costs have gone -up, we thought they'd be 4% but they've gone up 15% and we've got to increase. Mr. Pilnick: Well, there are some precedents and there are some problems, I think. One of the problems is that there are extensive efforts at the Federal level, and at various state levels to take away your power to regulate rates at all. In California, we already have a state law that says if the cable company meets certain requirements on channel capacity, and so forth, they can exempt themselves from rate regulation by the city regardless of what was in the original rate agreement. Mayor Ferre: Is that something that if Congress were to move on that 3 years from now would go back and wipe out previous agreements? Mr. Pilnick: It's possible. It's possible and that's one of the reasons why I think this question of rates has to be looked at from the point of view of what is real, and what is imaginary. What is real is probably the contractual guarantee that they won't raise their initial rates for some period of time. After that, you're playing a guessing game. After that, one part of the guessing game is do you want to hold them to their p=-sections? Another part of the guessing game is will you have the power to review rates at all? Mayor Ferre: We have to wind this portion up in the next 15 or 20 minutes, and I'd like to leave some space for questions and answers from other members of the Commission. So, could you wind up your... Mr. Pilnick: Yes. I think I've covered the major weaknesses that we listed for Cable Systems. There are 2 other companies, as you are aware, Lnat we've not covered here. They had a larger number of weaknesses. Mayor Ferre: Well, I think it's important that you cover everybody equally because otherwise, I think there might be a misunderstanding. Mr. Pilnick: I'll try to go very quickly then. All right, I'll take Americable and I'll list the weaknesses that we had in the original report. One weakness was in the financial capability area. As I indicated before, they stated in the application that additional equity, if rcquired, would be provided by Mr. Hermanoski and there was no information 14 2 J U N1 2 61981 0 0 Mr. Pilnick (continued): as to the extent of equity available. In the comments to our report, there was a Net Worth Statement attached. The second weakness of Americable was that they had a 3 year construction schedule, whereas several of the other companies had a 2 year schedule. They took issue with that. They claimed that they can build the system faster than anybody else, and other companies perhaps are stretching the truth when they promise 2 years. But again, assuming that that's an enforceable requirement, I think our opinion is that a 2-years schedule is better than a 3-year schedule. There were, in terms of programming, there were fewer services into the categories that we looked at, that Americable offered. They had some disagreement with us as to how you count the services. I think they counted as local origination a lot of channels that are programmed by others and we tried to be a little bit more precise, I think, on how we categorized them. But there were weaknesses listed in the programming area. There was a weakness listed in the degree of facilities and support that would be provided for local programming. They had a total capital budget of something like $630,000. The other 4 were somewhere between $500,000 and $2,500,000. They had a smaller institutional network in terms of length of cable than the others. They indicated that it was because they had a central hub in the City. In general, our position is that the longer that network is, the more institutions that can serve in the City and therefore, that's one item that I think would be a strength if the institution cable were longer. They had a single head end which means essentially one distribution center. All of the other companies proposed anywhere from 3 to 4 distribution centers. Their argument was that a single head and was good enough to provide good quality pictures to the residents of Miami, and I don't argue with that, but with more distribution centers, you usually have shorter lengths of cable, and shorter lenghts of cable usually means fewer amplifiers, less signal degradation, and more capability to upgrade the system later on. If you're stretching the system to the maximum extent of its capability, you have less ability to change things later. So, we rated that as a weakness. We took a look at the subscriber rates that they had averaged for the systems they actually were operating, not the rates they were proposing here, but the rates, the average rates of all the systems they were running. And Americable rates came out to be substantially higher on the average than the other applicants. That's one example of past history if you feel it's relevant. We indicated that at least on their original proposal, that they didnt' have any cable systems with more than 500 miles of plant. Their response in their critique was that if you consider all of their Miami -Metropolitan area systems as one sytem, that's more than 500 miles. That may be so, that would qualify them as having one system of the size that would be required in Miami, whereas many of the cable companies have more. The rates that they were proposing to chargelboth in the basic service and in the pay service were at the high end of all the applicants. That was rated as a weakness. With respect to the provisions for minority programming which was one of the questions that the RFP asked, the RFP specifically asked each applicant to indicate what they would do with respect to minority participation in programming, what facilities, what support they would provide. And our opinion was _ that a number of the other --plicants were offering considerably more than Americable was in that particular area. Now, in their response, I think it's fair to say Americable points out that a lot of what they think are their advantages were not included in the evaluation. They feel that local experience, local ownership, and the fact that they already are building systems in this area is a strong advantage. All right. Let me go to Six Star then. In terms of financial capability, 6 Star had the highest proposed debt equity ratio, which means they are borrowing more money in proportion than the others. There isn't anything wrong with that, except when I cable system runs into financial trouble. If it turns out to cost more than you expect, or if you don't get as much revenue as expected, then having a lot of borrowed money, particularly at high interest rates, normally squeezes the sytem a lot more than if you don't have that. So we felt that was a relative weakness. Six Star -Neilson proposed a 3-year schedule also, and compared to the 2-year schedule of some of the other applicants, that was considered a weakness. Six Star-Neison did get weaknesses in the area of programming with respect to the number of sattelite programs and automated programs L ..0 � -•` they were proposing. With respect to the access facilities and 15 JUN 261981 Mr. Pilnick (continued): support, they indicated that only 15% of their total operating budget would be available for access compared to 40%, 50%, 60% of other cable companies, so that we rated that as a weakness. Six Star -Neilson also listed only one.system which Iq finder construction as having more than 500 miles of plant. ,'end Six Star's proposed rates for basic service and for pay service were also at the high -end of the spectrum so they received weaknesses for that. With respect to commitments for public agencies, the applicants were asked what they would commit in terms of special benefits to public agencies. Six Star did not indicate in their proposal anything, so that they received a weakness in that area. With respect to provisions for minority programming, they did not respond directly to that where that ouestion was asked. They simply provided a public access policy and procedure manual, bur did not match many of the extra beneftis and grants that some of the other cable systems provided. And that was considered a weakness. I think that sums up the weaknesses of all the applicants. Mayor Ferre: Let me ask you, and let me say that in my attitude in this, as far as the entertainment portion, all cable television companies are going to provide adequate entertainment. I don't think that's going to be a major concern. What I am more interested in, and I'd like for you to give us an idea as to —with regards to community participation, minority participation, public servic,, availability, would you give us a quick run down in those general and specific areas as to the 5 -pplicants. In general terms. I'm sure we're going to get a lot more specific after the presentations are made. Mr. Pilnick: Let me point out, I think, I won't cover them all, but some of the major features that the applicants have proposed. Mayor Ferre: Then I'm going to ask you to —I'm going to ask if you're aware of the letter from Mr. Dooley, of Channel 2. I would hope that that has been made available to you. Has it, Clark? Mr. Dooley wrote both me and the City Manager. I don't know whether it was Grassie or Fosmoen, a rather long letter about the interest of public television in this whole process. And then the other, third question that I'm eventually going to get into is, Mr. Lizaso, who is in charge of our Leisure Services in Miami, wrote a series of letters, mainly to New Orleans, because it turned out that he was more impressed with New Orleans with regards to the cultural aspects. So, in those general areas. Do you want to comment? Mr. Pilnick: First, let me just indicate what the companies have, proposed. We have 2 areas that are called Relation to City Needs. And those include commitments to public agencies in the community, and provisions for minority programming. Where the applicants were specifically asked what they would do in those particular areas, and I'll just list what I think are some of the highlightse Americable, for example, in terms of commitment to public agencies said they would inter -connect this system to the County Operations Center and to the Educational Tele-Communications Center. Cable Systems offers $500,000 over 15 years funding for a Miami Cris,, Watch. Miami TCI will provide 3 mobile communications centers to the Police Department, provide computer assistance instruction software to the Fire Department for training, provide television transmitters for 6 emergency medical service units, and will provide 50 remote video cameras for crime surveillance. Vision Cable said they will donate $100,000 annually to the City to develop any institutional services the City thinks are important. With respect to provisions for minority and community i1! L11!rdu,ming, Cable Systems said it will commit an $8,500,000 fund over the life of the franchise for minority programming and training projects Tr gill have a minority television production training program. It will ^r ,.ide approximately $150,000 per channel to facilitate local minority channels. And they estimate the total will be about $1,800,000. Mayor rerre: In the total life? Mr. Pilnick: Over the life of the franchise, yes. They say they will provide a $1,100,000 commitment over the life of the franchise to purchase a saccelite uplight which is a msLtuiite transmitter that will t 16 JUN 2 61981 0 0 Mr. Pilnick (continued): allow you to transmit programs from Miami to the rest of the country. It will fund staff positions for community programming coordinators for black, Spanish, and women's programming. They will affiliate with a black entertainment television network to provide local black oriented programming. It will provide tele-don which is a text and graphics system. It will provide those terminals at numerous minority organizations. It will provide community and studio locations at different neighborhoods. They'll have members of minority groups in every advisory board to affect local programming. Mayor Ferre: This is all Cable System? Mr. Pilnick: This is still Cable Systems, yes. They will have many of their services in two and perhaps 3 languages. And they'll have EEO and affirmative action programs. They will also bring in multi -cultural television from Toronto which is a multi -language type of channel. And, they have a $3,600,000 project for the life of the franchise aimed at minority involvement. Minority Business Enterprise Administration Position to try to help minority businesses to get sub -contracts with their company. I've skipped a few but I think I've covered the major ones. Now, the second company, Miami Telecommunications will establish a vocational training program for the disadvantaged, committing $50,000 annually for 5 years. Will provide Spanish public television with $100,000 per year for administrative and programming costs. Will establish a cultural arts and ethnic heritage fund to disperse grants totalling about $1,500,000 over the life of the franchise. Will provide $50,000 in scholarships to Miami area colleges. Mayor Ferre: Over the period of the franchise? Mr. Pilnick: Yes. Will provide job and skills training at convenient locations throughout the City. Will provide Florida Memorial College with both and FM Radio and television access production studio. Will provide specialized programming for specific audiences. Will incorporate a non-profit organization to determine the policies and handle the administration of the public access network, and they will fund this organization with $125,000 for year 1, $175,000 for year 2, $200,000 for year 3, with a 7% increase each successive year. Will equip a Community Relations Auditorium at the Miami -Dade Community College, New World Center Campus. Will provide regional access centers and community viewing centers. Mayor Ferre: What does that mean for both them and Cable Systems, who had a similar statement, does that mean they are going to provide a studio do they say how big the sudios are? How much they'll cost? Are they going to be 10,000 square feet, or 2,000 square feet? Mr. Pilnick: Well, they have some of this information. One of the things that I have suggested to cities is to try to quantify this. In the first place, I think you want to get around the adjectives where they - say we'll do something that's great, and try to determine how much does that actually mean? So, we have asked some cable companies in other cities to take this list and put a price tag on. Mayor Ferre: Well, but for those of us that will be sitting here making decisions, we need to know that kind of information as we make the decision. Mr. Pilnick: Some of it has a price tag on it, some of the items don't. And I think that you may want to request each city in effect to put a price tag on the item. Mayor Ferre: Well, let me put it to you this way, Mr. Manager, as far as I'm concerned, I'm not about to vote on any of this until I have that information and it's specifically clear, black and white. So I understand what the hell it means. This thing of saying that we're going to have 4 community based centers for neighborhoods to ... what does that mean? I mean, does that mean it's going to be done 5 years, 10 years from now? Does it mean it's going to have a closet with 3 doors on it, or does it mean that it's going to be a space of 1,000 square feet, 10,000 square feet? What does it mean? 17 JUN 261981 6 0 Mr. Pilnick: I think another very important reason for trying to find out what these specific commitments are is that when you select a company, assuming you select the best one as far as you're concerned, you may in the final negotiation process want to redirect some of that funding. They may have picked items that you don't necessarily feel of the highest priority in the City. Mayor Ferre: We also...that's why I want to make sure that we have very good legal advice on this, because I don't want to get into the aspects that we now are going beyond, you know, what was originally, and we've renegotiated what System "A" had over System "C", and if we give it to System "B" then we incorporate....you know, that kind of thing, and end up getting into lawsuits. So we've got to 'stay within. -..I don't want any expansion or growth of the proposal, but I want what has been proposed to be very clearly specified as to what it means. And from what you're telling me, that is not the case. Mr. Pilnick: Well, I think many of these items are specific. Many are not. Mayor Ferre: Okay. And those that are not, need to be specific before we get...unless they are insignificant. And let me just say on the record, that as far as I'm concerned, when they are not specific, I'm throwing them out. If somebody says we're going to help neighborhoods and this and that, and there's no specifics to it, it's a worthless statement as far as I'm concerned. It means absolutely nothing. Mr. Pilnick: Well, that's the approach that I have taken in the past, and the cable industry has accused that of presumably selecting quantity over quality. And my only response is that I know what quantity means, I don't know what quality means in many cases. Mayor Ferre: All right now, you've covered neighborhoods, you've covered minority, you haven't touched on culture very much. Mr. Pilnick: Well, some of these have thrown culture in together. What they did in New Orleans a number of cultural organizations grouped together. Actually, about 60 different organizations. And they formed a Cultural Arts Coalition. And then they asked each of the applicants, before the applications were in, they asked each of the applicants what the}, would do for that Cultural Arts Coalition. Mayor Ferre: Well, Miami is not that far advanced. But I just want to say, again, on the record, that I expect that on the 7th or whenever it is that we get to hear all these presentations, that I want to hear specific information as to how the applicants intend ... and by cultural I don't mean the Miami Philharmonic, or whatever it's called these days. I mean the whole spectrum. I mean Grattelli, I mean the Opera, I mean the various black cultural organizations because I think that's a great great misunderstood misnomer. Sometimes we think that because we help the Philharmonic that we somehow have done our job in the cultural field. I think we also have the visual arts that have to be taken ... not only the performing arts, I think we also have to see where :he visual arts fit into all this. And I would like, Mr. Manager, through your offices, for you to put together the ...and there is already an organization in Miami, and it's called the... Mr. Pilnick: Cultural Arts Coalition. Mavor Ferre: Elie {resident, would like for t,11 right. I �-ith 2. Cultural Arts Coalition. And I would like for you to get and the board of directors informed and involved, and I them to be present at the presentations on the 7th of July. interrupted you and I'm sorry. You were through , I think, Mr. Pilnick: Yes. The only note of caution that I would give you, Mr. Mayor, is that if you ask the applicants for questions now on specific dollar amounts or on what they will do for the cultural arts, I think you have to be careful that you don't,in effectlask them to reopen their bids. 19 JUN 26 M1 6 0 Mayor Ferre: I know. Let me say that for the record so that we don't lay ourselves open for lawsuits in the future. I am in no way implying, and I am in no way saying, and I would be very upset if I see anybody then taking their basic bids and expanding it beyond the document they have submitted. You have to live within what you said. Now, to specify within it, or to amplify or to answer questions is something else. But I don't want any new items coming out at this point for the purposes of avoiding any future litigation. Unfortunately, we've run out of time and you still have 3 companies to cover in the general area. We'll have to come back. Mr. Pilnick: The two other companies, if I just might make a general statement, the two other companies in various different parts of their proposal, indicated that they would do similar things, mostly in generalities again, and not specific dollar commitments. In the area where they were asked to respond as to what they would do for minority programming, they did not respond, but they now claim that they have offered similar things in the rest of their proposal. I don't see any dollar quantification of those. Mayor Ferre: Let me..let me go back to the cultural aspects, I want to make sure that we understand each other, Mr. Manager. The Florida Philharmonic which is a very important part of this community, last year, during its full year season,probably reached an audience which is estimated of about 20,000 to 30,000 people. These are people who at one time or another heard the Philharmomic forum. Pace, for example, which is more of a community based cultural and has the full spectrum of music, it uses ensambles, wind ensambles from the Philharmonic, but takes them all over South Florida,reached 700,000 different people. Now, again, on the question of quantity and quality, I'm not passing the judgment that Mozart is better than Burt Bacharach but I think that we need to understand that culture means more than the Philharmonic. So when you get into the aspects of discussion of culture, I think we need to talk about the full spectrum because the Philharmonic is very important but how important is it to the black community? How important is it to the Hispanic community? I'm not passing a judgment against the Philharmonic, I'm saying that there's more to the cultural aspect than Just limiting it to that. And I would hope that as we discuss that aspect of it, that we get into a broader spectrum of it. Lastly, we didn't cover channel 2 and George Dooley's letter to the City. But I think that's something that I would hope you'd be ready to discuss after July 7th. Mr. Pilnick: There are other potential requirements, for example, your Police Department has indicated some interest in uses. I think much of this can be the subject, as I say, of negotiation after you select a company. Mayor Ferre: I would like to ask one more thing of you and then I'm finished as far as my questions are concerend, and that is I would ask that you be here the day before, and I would like, through the Manager's Office, or you can do it directly, for you to call the secretareis of each member of the Commission, and make yourself available for one to two hours for each one of us, and I would like to avail myself of those 2 hours, and if you would call my office, I would like to see you either on the 6th or on the 7th, in the morning before we meet at 3:00 o'clock. Mr. Pilnick: Is the 7th a Monday? Mayor Ferre: Our meeting is the 7th. The 7th is a Tuesday. But I vould like to have further conversations, and I think maybe the other members of the Commission would want to avail themselves of that. Mr. Gary: Mr. Mayor, with regard to quantification of various programs as proposed by the applicants, I think we need to resolve that issue before the July 7th second public hearing. I could recommend that that process be accomplished during the negotiation process with Mr. Pilnick and the laywer because I think we may be opening ourselves up to having a second go -round of bidding, which I think we would not want to accomplish. 19 JUN 261981 Mayor Ferre: Well, I want to know before I vote exactly what some of these nebulous statements mean. Now, if they can be clarified, otherwise, then I've got to take a red pencil and go through all these things and just scratch them out. Because if somebody says we will help the 5 different neighborhoods, and then they don't say what they're going to do, then that's a worthless statement as far as I'm concerned. I'll do it that way if that's what you're telling me legally... Mr. Clark: Mr. Mayor, each one of these 5 applicants had the opportunity to be as specific or as general or as evasive or as direct, or as indirect as they chose to be for the purpose of maintaining strict integrity throughout this entire process, their feet should be held to the fire. Mayor Ferre: Okay, sir, that's fine with me. And then what I want is any general statement is just struck from the record because when somebody says that they're going to do something or other in general terms, that doesn't mean anything. Mr. Gary: I think that will be accomplished by each member of the City Commission. And I think once we go through the negotiation process with the leading contender, that you obviously could suggest those type of things that the City wants to accomplish. Father Gibson: I did not understand. You said that you warted us to do what before the 7th? Mr. Gary: The issue was raised as to the quantification of the various minority programs that were proposed. And my concern is that if we do that we may be opening ourselves up into the integrity of the bidding process, which I would not want to jeopardize. I would recommend that each City Commissioner evaluate the proposal based on what was submitted to determine the value of what was proposed. Secondly, I would state to you that I think once we decide on who is the successful applicant, that during the negotiation process with Mr. Pilnick and the lawyer, - that you would begin to quantify at that point, which would be at least what was proposed, but nothing less than what was proposed. Father Gibson: I don't understand what you mean by successful applicant. If we are taking 5 companies, I have some problem with that language. A man is not a successful applicant until he meets these requirements. What was said by that consultant was that we take a position, that all of you, the 5 of you, are qualified, or you are applying until such time as, in our judgment, we think you're qualified. Now for instance, if you talk about minority participation and all that business, and until I am fully satisfied that you have met that requirement, man, you haven't qualified. Now, don't give me that jazz on paper. You know, minority doesn't mean a doggone thing, in my language, my understanding, until such time as you say I'm going to give you of the work force 'T' number are going to be black. b-1-a-c-k. Do you know what I mean by that? Don't give me no minority participation junk. I told the Federal government this about 3 years ago in Atlanta. And you know what? I live with it, it haunts us to death because what they do is when they want to get around, they use minority means women, homosexuals, latins, and there is only one minority in this country. Don't let nobody fool you. One. Mr. Consultant there's only one. Don't let anybody fool you. If you walk in this room, I'll tell you right now, nobody has to wonder about who I am. I have to wonder about who these other folk are. And I want to make sure we get that clear. How many people are going to be participating on that work force? Let me tell you what I'm interested in. I don't know what the others are. Where are the headquarters going to be? There's lot of difference between getting on the telephone and calling New York,over against, I can walk right down on 7th Avenue, or 21st Terrace, or Flagler Street. The difference is if I have to call New York to put me on hold. If I go on Flagler Street, you know doggone well going to either give me an answer or you aren't going to be able to close office that day. I want to make sure everybody understands that, and I want to know what percentage, I think I read it in here, but I want to ask. I'll ask it later. How many Diacks on the board? How many blacks on the workforce? What are you 20 JUN 261981 Father Gibson (continued): going to do to help these people to get qualified with? See, you can be a nothing, and if you have a desire to be a somebody, you know, there's a difference, Mr. Consultant. And I want you to tell me before I say okay, I want you to tell me that about these people. You are better qualified to find out than I,because where they can lie to me, they can't like to you because you do it daily for a living. Do you follow? Okay. That's what I'm paying you for, and I have some real problems, Mr. Gary. Every firm here, each of the 5, I take, sir, is all right until such time as, one of the rules we use in looking for priests, and I'm in the midst of it right now to succeed, we decided these 5 men we want to look at. And man, we go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. If you don't talk right, we go to number two. If you don't talk right, we go to nubmer 3. If you don't talk right we go to number 4, if you don't talk right we go to number 5. Do you understand what I'm saying? And that's what we ought to do with this. That's what you suggested and I don't like the narrowing of the term. I just want to make sure everybody understand where I am. What I'm saying to the 5 firms, man, in my book every one of you., can qualify right now. It all depends what the fringe benefits and all that you're going to offer me. That's how I'm going to vote. Because,as I said, if I call you, you put me on hold. If I walk down to your office, you're going to answer me in order to get out of that office because most offices around here don't have any back doors. You have to come out the front door and that's the only way yo,.i're going to get rid of me. I want to make sure, Mr. Mayor, that everybody understands where I stand. And Mr. Gary, delete from your thinking that terminology you just used. For me. I am Theodore. I don't know what the Mayor is going to say, I don't know what Mr. Lacasa is aoinQ to say. And don't kid, because when it's all over, I'm going to cast my own vote. Okay? And I want those things cleared up. Mr. Gary: Mr. Mayor. Mayor Ferre: Yes, sir. Mr. Gary: I'm in total agreement with what Commissioner Gibson is saying. As I stated earlier, what I meant about the successful applicant Commissioners, is that that would be pending successful negotiations. If the negotiations were not successful, we would go to the next firm in order. I guess what I was trying to accomplish was not to jeopardize the current bids by permitting us to open up the process whereby someone substantially changes his current application. And that's what I'm concerned about. And I was specifically addressing the concerns that the Mayor raised with regard to what, how many square feet were you going to put in this facility?, you know. where are you going to have it? They submitted their applications. Those that are specific, you know where they stand. Those that are not, I think you need to judge them or the value of what they have proposed based on what they have submitted. Now, if you allow a firm to come in here now and say I meant $1,000,000 or $2,000,000, another firm can say that you've permitted him to alter his bid, and therefore, we should start the process all ever again. And that's what we're trying to prevent from occurring. So I agree with you in the terms of the negotiation process, and that all 5 firms are qualified. What I'm trying to say is I don't want to change the application by permitting them now to go back and to add things to those applications. Father Gibson: Well, let me ask this. If a man says I'm going to give you a room for art, or whatever way you want to describe it, don't we have riZht to say to him, where will the room be, how many feet in the room? Would that necessarily change the specificity of that business? Mr. Gary: Yes, sir. And I would like... I'd like for the attorney to address that. But before we say that, they have given you a broad proposal. The specifics, as the Mayor stated earlier, have to be negotiated once you decide the order in which we negotiate. At that particular time, this City Commission has to develop an ordinance, or a sequence of items that you want to have accomplished. You tell us what we want them to provide for us as specifics. 21 JUN 2 61981 6 0 Mayor Ferre: But there's a danger in that too... Father Gibson: Right. Mayor Ferre: ...because it has to be within the spectrum of what that particular applicant put in his bid. For example, if the applicant said we are going to provide for 4 neighborhoods so and so, then I think vou.... but you can't go, I don't think, negotiate for 10. Or you can't say that besides that you also want, you know, to include the University of Miami, FIU and the Junior College Downtown Campus. Mr. Pilnick: In my experience, Mr. Mayor, I think you can. I think if you pick the company that you think is the leading contender, presumably the one that's made you the best offer, in your judgment, from that point on, it can be a negotiated process. Mayor Ferre: I'll tell you, you know, as Father Gibson says, Theodore speaks for Theodore. Well, I speak for me. Okay? And I want to tell you that as far as I'm concerned, I think that is a very dangerous thing to get into, and I think that we have to stay within general parameters of the bids because if we end up with a negotiated contract that is totally different from what was submitted, then I think, then we really subject ourselves to some kind of a litmus test as to whether or not we pass such a grade. Mr. Clark: Mayor? Mayor Ferre: Yes, sir. Mr. Clark: If your decision is reached on the basis of the proposal submitted and an order is established much the say way as Chapter 287 in the Compettive Consultants Negotiation Act, you rank them and you enter into a negotiation process. You instruct, if you want to conduct the negotiations, fine. If you want the Manager to, fine. You tell him that he is to negotiate and you will stay within the general terms, if they were general, then whatever result, whatever is the result of those negotiations... *savor Ferre: In other words, if somebody says that he's going to submit a Cranshaw mellon, you can't end up with a watermelon, you know. It's got to be within a relative, you know, you can't end up with a completely different thing. Mr. Pilnick: Exactly. I think that's correct. But I think you can add something to the basic proposal without changing it drastically. Mayor Ferre: All right, sir. Are there any other questions, statements that need to be made at this time? If not, we now conclude our... Mr. Gary: Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Ferre: Yes, sir. Mr. Gary: Do you want to talk about the format for the next meeting? Mayor Ferre: The format of the next meeting, I think, rather than 3:00 p.m., since we took 2 hours, maybe we ought to start at 2:00 p.m. and let the members of the Commission have 2 hours of this sort of give and take in discussion. A -A rhpn, we would start the 4:00 o'clock. And I would...I'd like Lu esLduliyii maybe, a... there's 5 applicants, that we get half an hour per applicant. That's two and a half hours, -and then I would like to hav half hour reserved on a total basis rebuttal for the 5 applicants which is another two and a half hours. So, you're talking about 5 hours at that first crack if we start at 4, you're talking about ending up at 9, we'd probably take an hour break for dinner, we'd end up some time that evening. I think, in my opinion, that we're not going to be ready to make a decision on the 7th of July, so we're going to have to have another hearing. I would hope that we could have that hearing fairly the 7th. By that I mean within the next week so that whatever thoughts we might have that might come out of these dicussions, 22 J U N 2 61981 Mayor Ferre (continued): and questions and so on. And I would hope that we can ... we said we would conclude this by July 15th, isn't that the date we had chosen? Mr. Gary: Yes, sir. Mayor Ferre: I see no reason why that can't be done. Mr. Gary: Mr. Mayor, -in my discussions with.... Mayor Ferre: Wait, wait. Do you have any objections to that format as I described it? Mr. Lacasa: No. Mayor Ferre: You don't Father? Mr. Gary: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Ferre: Yes, sir. Mr. Gary: My discussion with Mr. Pilnick is that based on his experience, _ the cable applicants may want to give a dog and poney show, a visual presentation. And we had discussed the possibility of them doing it here as is usually done. Mayor Ferre: Isn't that what I said? Mr. Gary: Well, a half hour presentation would be a demonstration of what they propose. Mayor Ferre: Yes. Mr. Gary: Okay. The second would be a question and answer period. Mayor Ferre: Yes. Go ahead. Mr. Gary: Do you want a half hour presentation... Mayor Ferre: Yes. Mr. Gary: ...and then right after them, a half hour question and answer? Mayor Ferre: I think to be fair to everybody, because if you start asking questions, I think that would be unfair to the next presentation. I think the thing to do is to let the 5 applicants have half an hour to make their presentation uninterrupted, no questions, no comments, nothing. At the end of that, we would then, just so that there's total fairness, at the beginning of the session, we're going to take a hat right here, or a coffee can which is more traditional in 'Miami, and we're going to put 5 numbers in their, and each one of the applicants will i pick and it will be a random choice as to the presentation, as to who is first and who is last. And in the ouestion answer period, we'll do absolutely the same thing so that there's absolutely no questions as to whether or not we're doing it by preference or alphabetically or any of that stuff. Okay? Now, anybody have any objections to the format? Is half an hour not sufficient? Do any of the... :'cz;:,ii. Mr. Kuten. Into the record, sir. Your name and address and who you represent, and then your question. Mr. Barry Kuten: This is really just a technical matter. My name is Barry Kuten. I'm an attorney. I represent Vision Cable. As to the presentations, we have to deal with equipment and setting it up for presentation. It's not all that horrendous. But if you were to only advise us at 4:00 o'clock on the 7th as to who is going to come first and so forth, you might have an equipment problem. 23 JUN 2 6 1981 • Mayor Ferre: I don't mind doing it right now. Mr. Kuten: Just so we would have some idea... Mayor Ferre: Are the 5 members present here? Father, do you have objections to this? Father Gibson: No, wait. Watch what's going to happen. Where are these people? Just send me ... bring one from each group here. One from each group up here. Mayor Ferre: Mr. Meyers. Into the record. Put everything into the record. Mr. Ken Meyers: Ken Meyers, attorney for Americable. Mayor and members of the Commission, we were under the understanding, at least it was said somewhere along the way, that these applications were going to be presented alphabetically. Mayor Ferre: Well, okay. I think that the question of presenting things alphabetically is really not the fair way to do it because then...I just don't think that that really answers. I think the thing to do is just... that way there is no way... Mr. Meyers: That's what had been mentioned earlier. Mayor Ferre: Well, okay. The Chair has the prerogative of changing that format so that it's totally fair to everybody. We'll do it at random. Father Gibson: This is the one time it doesn't have to be ladies first. Don't worry darling, you can't see the numbers. .layur i',ree: All right, would you tell us into the record who you represent and what... (INAUDIBLE BACKGROUND COMMENT PLACED OUTSIDE OF THE PUBLIC RECORD) Mayor Ferre: Vision is 3. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Americable number 2. Father Gibson: Number two? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Americable second. (INAUDIBLE BACKGROUND COMMENT PLACED OUTSIDE OF THE PUBLIC RECORD) Father Gibson: Number 1. Mayor Ferre: Who? Mr. Gary: Miami. TCI. Father Gibson: Who is next? Cable Systems is what? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Cable Systems is 4. Father Gibson: All right, next one. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Six Star Nielson is 5. Father Gibson: Okay, Mr. Mayor here is your .... Miami is number 1, Americable is number 2, Vision 3, Cable Systems 4, Six Star Nielson is 5. Mayor Ferre: One is Miami, two is Americable, three is Vision, four is Cable, all right, now, we have to do this again for the response tierpncp T don't think it's necessary then that the response be in the same 5e_yuence. So, do it again. Here you are. Mr. Al Cardenas: Mr. Mayor, if I may. Al Cardenas on behalf of Miami Telecommunications. We feel, Mr. Mayor, and Commissioners that it's fair in most of these proceedings that once a random picking fL dLne that the order be reversed for the second one so that people will be.... 24 JUN 261981 Mayor Ferre: I don't think really think it makes any... Mr. Cardenas: ..so that it's close to fair rather than luck of the draw on two separate occasions. Mayor Ferre: What's you feeling on that? He says that he'd rather have it... Father Gibson: Sir, I don't want anybody to think he has an advantage over there over somebody. I'll tell you what you do. We're going to set the rule. The rule is come up here and pick your number. Mayor Ferre: This is for the answer —this is the answer and question period. Father Gibson: Listen, I can pray hard tonight. I don't have any problems. Mr. Pilnick: Mr. Mayor, while you're drawing, I just want to, for the record, I want to indicate that in the second report we delivered, on page 31, figure 6, there is one typographical error. The number 30 for Miami should be 29. Mayor Ferre: Tell me again. Mr. Pilnick: Page 31 of the report we delivered today, the modified evaluation score for Miami is listed as 30. That should be 29. Mayor Ferre: Oh I see. It's 29 for Miami. The number of strenghts. Mr. Pilnick: That's correct. Father Gibson: Americable 4. Mayor Ferre: I don't understand what you just told me now. Because you said —sir, you said it was 29 and 3 before. Now it's 29 and 2. What happened to the ...? Mr. Pilnick: Yes. One of the weaknesses that they had listed before was changed to a neutral capacity. Neither a strength nor a weakness. So it reduces a weakness but it doesn't offset. Father Gibson: Look, again give me that last number. I have one missing. Where's Miami Cable. What's yours? (INAUDIBLE BACKGROUND COMMENT PLACED OUTSIDE OF THE PUBLIC RECORD) Father Gibson: Miami Cable is number 2? All right. Listen to this. Vision 1, Miami Cable 2, Six Star 3, Americable 4, Cable System 5. That is the order of the response, Mr. Clerk. Mayor Ferre: Let's read them into the record again to make sure we understand it. Americable has the second presentation and the 4th slot in the answer and question and rebuttal period. Cable System has the 4th presentation and is the 5th in the answer period. Miami is first in presentation and second in rebuttal and answer. Six Star Neilson is 5th in presentation and 3rd. And Vision is 3rd in presentation and 1st in the rebuttal period. ��;.. Gibson: Right. Mayor Ferre: Is there anything else procedurely that we need to... Mr. Gary: No, sir. Mayor Ferre: All right, now, for those of you that might feel bad about the selection and all that, I have a...I'm only speaking for myself, not for the Commission, but I feel that that will not be the and. I think we will have another session of discussion beyond that. 25 JUN 2 61981 Mayor Ferre (continued): Now whether or not all of you will be invited to that second series of discussion is something else. Father Gibson: Mr. Mayor, let's announce that time again, please. Mayor Ferre: 2:00 o'clock for a continuation of the presentation so that the rest of the members of the Commission will have an opportunity to ask questions in general. And then, at 4:00 o'clock we will start the presentations. A half hour each presentation, uninterrupted, except we may take a break in the middle for 5 minutes, and then..... UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: As I understand, Mayor, you did not expect, the Commission did not expect any critique or reply comments today from any of the applicants to.... Mayor Ferre: Did not. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: .... the comments of the consultant. Mayor Ferre: We do not. You incorporate that into your statements.... UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That would be incorporated on July 7th. Thank you. Mayor Ferre: One last thing Senator, before you leave. Mr. Manager, I think out of courtesy to all these 5 companies, could we make available to them a small working room or someplace where they can keep their papers, or you know, whatever. They may want to sit and talk about something, and rather than walk out in the heat of Miami, 26 � JUN 2 6 198 Mayor Ferre(cont'd): Are there five offices somewhere in the building where we could vacate for that afternoon? For example, I think we can volunteer your office, we can volunteer my office, we can volunteer.... Father —maybe any other member of the Commission? Mr. Gary: We can find some space for them, sir. Mayor Ferre: They should be separate, obviously. Mr. Gary: We'll give them my Conference Room, the Committee of the Whole, two offices up in my office and I'll find another one. Mayor Ferre: All right, we'll see you on the seventh. IN THIS PORTION OF THE MEETING, THE MAYOR CALLS A SPECIAL MEETING OF THE COMMISSION FOR THE PURPOSE OF SETTING FORTH FUTURE DATE REQUIREMENTS FOR CITY COMMISSION MEETINGS. Father, before you go, and —Armando, what happened last night, I think is something that has me very concerned and worried. Mr. Manager? Yesterday at 2:30 in the morning, I talked about the procedure and how long we had taken and what have you.I asked and there was some discussion.I.thoueht we had Passed a resolution about splitting the Zoning meetings, this has nothing to do with Cable T.V. Now, apparently, we had talked about it, one of the members of the Clerk's office said that we had passed a motion but had not passed a resolu- tion, and the other one said that he did not remember that we had done either. So, therefore, I would like to formalize it, okay? So that there is no ques- tion, and I would like to..Father, and I'll be happy to make the motion that from now on the City of Miami Commission meet in two regular meetings, hope- fully one meeting, dedicated to City business other than Planning and Zoning, and one meeting in Planning and Zoning. Now, if we need to go to a third meet- ing that we will go to a third meeting if necessary but that we only have two meetings during the month, one for Planning and Zoning, during the day, starting at 9:00 A.M. and another one starting at 9:00 A.M. for the regular agenda. I don't mind your taking an hour or two to put in emergency things in a zoning meeting that are not zoning matters and vice versa but let's try to keep them to two meetings during the day so that we don't have to go into night sessions. If that's not possible, then we have to go to a third, all -day, or day meeting. Mr. Gary: When do you want to start this? How about September? Mayor Ferre: No, sir..because of... Mr. Gary: July we are doing, and we've done advertisements.... Mayor Ferre: We are stuck in July, okay. Well, let me say that as of September, that's in the form of a motion. Can we get a motion to that effect? Mr. Lacasa: I move it. Rev. Gibson: Second. + P—re: Okay, this is a... I'm calling a Special Commission Meeting at this time for the purposes of legally setting the meeting date requirements, C:,ua��5ioner Lacasa moves, Commissioner Gibson seconds, that as of September and Irons there on, that the meetings of the City of Miami Commission be con- ducted as much as possible during the day, and that the meetings be two sessions a month, one for Zoning and Planning, one for other agenda items, and if we need to go beyond that, that we go to a third Commission meeting still two of which are to be held on the second and fourth Thursday of the month, and if we need to go to the third that we go to the fifth Thursday. Tc tbgv ncreptable? Okay, call the roll. 27 1►J .' 2 61981 The following motion was introduced by Commissioner Lacasa, who moved its adoption: MOTION No. 81-601 A MOTION OF THE CITY COMMISSION STIPULATING THAT, HENCEFORTH, THE CITY COMMISSION WILL CONDUCT ONLY TWO REGULAR MEETINGS EACH MONTH WITH THE FIRST MONTHLY MEETING TENTATIVELY DEDICATED TO CITY BUSINESS OTHER THAN PLANNING AND ZONING ITEMS AND THE SECOND MONTHLY MEETING DEDICATED TO PLANNING AND ZONING ITEMS; FURTHER PROVIDING THAT IF THERE ARE NON -PLANNING AND ZONING ITEMS THAT CANNOT WAIT FOR THE NON -PLANNING AND ZONING MEETING, THESE ITEMS, IN LIMITED NUMBER, COULD BE CONSIDERED AT THE PLANNING AND ZONING MEETING AND VICE -VERSA; FURTHER PROVIDING THAT IF NECESSARY, A NON -PLANNING AND ZONING MEETING COULD BE SCHEDULED ON THE FIFTH THURSDAY IN ANY MONTH HAVING FIVE THURSDAYS; AND FURTHER PROVIDING THAT ALL MEETINGS INCLUDING THE REGULAR MEET- TING FOR PLANNING AND ZONING ITEMS COMMENCE AT 9:00 A.M. Upon being seconded by Commissioner Gibson, the motion was passed and adopted by the following vote: AYES: Commissioner ARmando Lacasa Vice Mayor (REv.) Theodore R. Gibson :Mayor Maurice A. Ferre NOES: NONE. ABSENT: Commissioner Joe Carollo Commissioner J. L. Plummer, Jr. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to come before the City Commission, on motion duly made and seconded, the meeting was adjourned at 5:05 P.M. ATTEST: RALPH G. ONGIE City Clerk MATTY HIRAI Assistant City Clerk MAURICE A. FERRE Mayor JUN 2 61981