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VILLAGE OF HASTINGS-ON-HUDSON
MAYOR SWIDERSKI'S
Mayor
Peter Swiderski
Dear Fellow Residents,
Here's the bottom line: Earlier this year, Verizon told the Village to "take or leave" a contract that would grant it the right to compete with Cablevision in Hastings for cable television delivery. Despite reservations, we said we'd take it. Now, after review, Verizon is changing the terms of the deal it had offered us. Its new proposal could cost the Village many thousands of dollars in revenue, not only from Verizon but also from Cablevision. The Board of Trustees is rejecting Verizon's proposal. If you'd like to have a choice of cable providers in the Village without paying higher taxes, we suggest you register your displeasure with its representative, John Butler, at 914-741-8700 or john.f.butler@verizon.com.
Now here are the details: Resuming negotiations with Verizon to provide residents with the choice of a cable television provider has been one of my priorities as mayor. I regret that the process has stalled once again.
Negotiations initially broke down when Verizon walked away from the table in March of 2007. Two weeks after becoming mayor, I requested a meeting with Verizon. This May, Verizon's negotiator indicated that it would be willing to resubmit the March 2007 version of the contract if we would accept it unconditionally. I scrutinized the contract with Trustee Quinlan and requested a couple of changes. Verizon rejected our changes and said, in effect, "Take it or leave it".
The Board of Trustees, while uncomfortable with Verizon's ultimatum, determined that the opportunity for competition and choice was worth accepting the offer. In late July, the Board unanimously indicated to Verizon that we would accept the March 2007 contract if it were submitted to us.
The contract was similar to that which we had signed with Cablevision. It called for an up-front, one-time payment of $61,358 by Verizon that we intended to use to finish equipping the studio in the Community Center for student and village programming. Verizon has paid such fees in Greenburgh and elsewhere when it signed their contracts in those municipalities and Cablevision paid it here. The contract also called for a monthly fee of seventy-five cents per subscriber that we planned to use to keep our cable TV operation, WHoH, running.
In August, we were told by Verizon that they were going to have to re-examine the contract that they had told us to "take or leave".
before they submitted it to us for signature.
After three months, Verizon last week submitted a draft version of the new contract. We were dismayed to discover that it had substantially changed the terms. Most importantly, Verizon dropped the one-time fee entirely, and reduced its monthly fee by 25%. Those fees had been in every version of the contract. The situation is compounded by a requirement we have to ensure that the financial terms for all franchisees are equal and that a "level playing field" exists. If we were to agree to Verizon's terms, Cablevision would undoubtedly seek to reduce its own fee structure and the Public Services Commission could rule in their favor.
In short, it would cost Hastings taxpayers many thousands of dollars to allow Verizon to come into our community and literally make millions of dollars over the 10-year term of the contract they propose. Cablevision enjoys over $3,000,000 income on its cable franchise here and has no trouble paying its franchise fees. Neither should Verizon.
We're sorry that Verizon has chosen to step away from its original offer and scuttle a process we are eager to conclude. We hope it reconsiders and we believe, as they did, too, until recently, that our franchise requirements are reasonable. Village residents should be aware that these negotiation problems do not, in any way, affect their existing Verizon telephone or internet service. It only affects the possibility of a new TV franchise.
You can express your unhappiness with Verizon's action by calling its representative, John Butler, at 914-741-8700 and/or by sending him an email at john.f.butler@verizon.com and telling him that, like us, you believe that Verizon's actions are inexplicable and unacceptable.
Sincerely,
Peter Swiderski
Mayor
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