SCOTT CITY SIGNS CABLE CONTRACT

SCOTT CITY -- As Scott City Clerk Nona Walls read council members' names in a roll-call vote to approve a contract with the city's cable television supplier, Ward 1 Councilwoman Ladonna Phelps turned to a fellow council member, held up two fingers and whispered the words, "Two years."

That is how long it has taken the Scott City Council to reach an agreement with Falcon Cable Television, headquartered locally in Sikeston.

For the last 20 months, the city and Falcon were at an impasse, the former demanding services it had not received; the latter all but ignoring the city's requests. But in recent months -- after a sweeping change of management at Falcon -- the city and the company began to see eye to eye.

"We worked our butts off on this," said Ward 3 Councilman Ron Oller, who sat with Phelps, City Attorney Frank Siebert and representatives of Falcon for three hours last week, hammering out details of the 10-year contract approved by the council Tuesday.

"This is really a good contract," said Phelps. "A lot of hard work went into this, and I believe that it is the best possible arrangement for the people of Scott City."

Falcon has agreed to provide the city with recording and broadcasting equipment for its own local access channel at no cost.

"We have also been assured that when a citizen has a complaint it will be dealt with in a timely fashion; most will be remedied in 24 hours," said Phelps. "That, in particular, was very important to us."

City leaders began to consider abandoning Falcon in March 1993, when service to the area hit an all-time low and customer dissatisfaction was soaring.

At one point, Scott City looked into the possibility of going into the cable business. The council contacted city leaders in Paragould, Ark., a city that successfully took over its own cable programming several years ago.

A few weeks later Scott City council members discussed applying to the Federal Communications Commission to serve as a cable regulator for the area.

"We were really fed up," said Phelps. "We were getting nowhere fast."

But in recent months, Falcon representatives have expressed a concern with keeping Scott City in its good graces.

"They gave us almost everything we wanted in this contract," said Phelps. "Of course, we had to give a little, too.

"The company wanted three years to implement a new system in the area," she said. "We gave them a year to design a system and two years to implement it."

The contract will take effect when signed by the company prior to the next meeting of the council July 18. Falcon had been operating under a series of extensions since its contract with the city expired in December 1992.

"I can't tell you how relieved we are that this is all over and how happy we are that this all worked out," said Phelps following Tuesday's council meeting. "Up until a few minutes ago, I never thought we'd see this day."

Falcon also serves Chaffee, Oran, Benton, Bell City and Marble Hill.