CITY, CABLE OFFICIALS DIFFER OVER DISCLOSURES

TCI Cablevision of Missouri officials Monday told members of the Cape Girardeau Cable TV Citizens Committee that the company has complied with financial disclosure requirements set out in its franchise agreement with the city.

But members of the committee and City Attorney Warren Wells said the city still lacks some financial statements that the previous cable operator in the city filed regularly.

An inquiry into city records last month by John Treu, assistant city attorney, revealed the city had no record of various financial statements required by the franchise agreement.

Dan DeLaney, the state manager for TCI Cablevision of Missouri, attended Monday's meeting of the committee to address some of the concerns that surfaced at the July meeting.

Committee chairman Michael Maguire said that although TCI has filed annual reports from the parent company, specific information on the local office's assets, technological improvements, facilities, expansion plans and financial resources were lacking.

Wells said information filed with the city doesn't include itemization of the company's local costs, expenditures and profits.

But DeLaney said the company has filed all the materials required by law and he wasn't certain what the city wanted.

At the July 22 meeting, Treu reported that annual reports to shareholders, income statements, balance sheets and statements of cable television properties were filed with the city in 1983-85. But in 1986, only the financial balance sheet was reported by the company.

From 1987 to 1990, TCI apparently either failed to comply with any of the disclosure requirements or the city is missing statements of operations pertaining to the items.

Maguire said the committee needs as much information as possible in order to consider the terms of a new franchise and to assure that TCI has complied with the existing agreement. Also, without proper financial statements, the city is unable to verify that TCI is paying the proper annual franchise fee to the city 5 percent of the company's gross operating revenues.

DeLaney said some of the disclosures requested by the committee were submitted in the past as part of rate increases proposed by the company. Such rate increases previously were subject to city approval, but since the Federal Cable Act took effect in 1986, the cable industry has been free from rate regulation.

Committee member David Barklage, who's also a member of the Cape Girardeau City Council, said TCI agreed to file the statements, regardless of the specific requirements of federal law or the local franchise.

"A lot of that was because we'd never got the statements," Barklage said. "We felt a very important obligation as a council to have that information for the public."

DeLaney said the company would furnish the city with a proposal within 60 days that will include much of the information the committee is seeking. He said the proposal will detail much of the past performance of the local cable company, its resources and its plans for the future.

"It's basically information to use as a starting point for negotiations," DeLaney said. "Obviously, there's some things you're not happy with in the franchise."

"That's an understatement," said Wells.