CITY DELAYS REQUEST FOR CAPITAL SURVEY

The Cape Girardeau City Council has decided to delay a request for a survey of the city's cable television subscribers until system upgrades are complete.

The council agreed Monday night to request a survey from Charter Communications, as had been recommended by the Cable TV Advisory Board, within a month after completion of the current upgrades.

Charter Communications is upgrading the local cable system and adding new channels. The company expects upgrades to be finished by September but has until December to complete the necessary work.

The council accepted the recommendation of the Cable TV Advisory Board, which drafted a 20-question survey. Some minor changes were made to the survey questions, however. The board had requested that the survey be distributed in the July billing cycle.

The advisory board requested the survey of cable customers regarding service, programming and the public access channel. However, that recommendation wasn't a unanimous decision. Some board members felt that the timing for a survey wasn't right since Charter is in the midst of upgrades.

Charter has been operating in the area since March. A franchise agreement with the city was backdated to Jan. 1, 1998, when an original cable agreement was approved.

Jim Dufek, chairman of the Cable TV Advisory Board, suggested the council wait until Charter makes programming changes before requesting a survey. Delaying the survey would give Charter and the city time to begin a campaign telling people about the survey.

The survey would only be sent to cable television subscribers.

Dufek attended a study session prior to the council meeting to answer any questions from council members regarding the board's recommendation.

Charter has been installing cable modem in other cities like St. Louis and could do so in Cape Girardeau, Dufek said. Asking for a survey would be premature.

"It's in our best interest to way until it's all laid out with the other services," he said.

Daniel Rau, a member of the advisory board, disagreed. He attended the council meeting to say that the city should take advantage of an opportunity and ask for the survey now.

Rau helped draft the survey questionnaire that asks about satisfaction with current service, if subscribers have ever had any repair problems and what programs subscribers watch on the public access channel.

Subscribers need "an opportunity to be heard," Rau said.

Perhaps there are specific channels that people want to see on the cable system but don't have any idea how to request them, he said. The survey would offer that opportunity. "The people could dictate the changes."

Yet Charter has been the only cable company willing to consider adding or deleting channels in its lineup, Dufek said.

The issue of timing is critical, Rau said. The city could ask for two surveys before the end of its five-year contract period and hasn't yet. The city is in the third year of a franchise agreement.

In other business:

The council voted to deny a rezoning request for Jerry Lipps.

Lipps had sought to rezone a nearly 10-acre tract at 2355 Locust St. from M-1, light industrial district, to M-2, heavy industrial district. He intended to operate a ready-mix concrete plant.

The Planning and Zoning Commission had unanimously recommended denying the rezoning request. Lipps and his attorney, Al Lowes, requested a public hearing before the council.

The principal complaint from neighboring property owners isn't just the dust that the plant might create but the increase in traffic on Locust Street.

Locust Street is not paved, but Lipps said he would pave the street according to city standards. The council agreed it could limit the truck traffic to Locust Street only.

Terry Young, a neighboring property owner, questioned the need to rezone a tract of land for one business when all others in the area conform to the current zoning.

"What will M-2 do to that area?" Young asked. "What's next?"

City staff had requested that a contract be drawn up listing the terms for rezoning, but Mayor Al Spradling III said the matter could be addressed by motion alone.

The council passed an amendment that would have put stipulations on Lipps' business to upgrade Locust Street and use it for traveling in and out of the plant. The motion to rezone the property failed by a 3-4 vote. Richard "Butch" Eggimann, Jay Purcell and the mayor voted for the rezoning; Matthew Hopkins, Tom Neumeyer, Frank Stoffregen and Hugh White voted against rezoning.