EDISON – An ordinance on a cable contract in Edison will go through a revote after the motion passed with a 3- 3 tie vote during the Township Council’s July 9 meeting.
Councilman Dr. Sudhanshu Prasad had abstained, though he did not give a reason for doing so while casting his vote. Supporting the measure were council members AnnMarie Griffin-Ussak, Melissa Perilstein and Wayne Mascola. Council members Robert Diehl, Anthony Massaro and Antonia Ricigliano voted against it.
Immediately after Township Attorney Jeff Lehrer said that the tie vote meant the measure passed, questions on whether this was the case immediately arose, both from the audience that night and from the council later on. According to Ricigliano, the next day Lehrer met with Township Clerk Reina Murphy to further clarify his reasoning. In a conversation with the Sentinel on Monday, Murphy said that there will be a revote during an upcoming meeting. She noted that she had researched what the appropriate procedure was in the case of a tie vote, and said that past precedent indicated that the measure would have failed, not passed.
“Everything I personally looked up [said] that every time there was a tie, the vote failed. So, whether it was to adopt an ordinance, that vote would fail; if it was to reject an ordinance, that vote would fail also,” Murphy said in a phone interview.
A memo sent to the mayor and council from Murphy on July 14 stated that the ruling on whether a tie counts as approval “may have been flawed.” Therefore, the memo says that Murphy will not be submitting the ordinance to the mayor for his signature, nor certifying the ordinance for adoption until a revote takes place.
The ordinance will approve a new contract with Cablevision, allowing it to operate in Edison for the next 15 years. Should the township approve the contract, Cablevision will grant Edison $40,000 up front and then pay $10,000 a year for the next 14 years. This is in addition to the $250,000 franchise fee that the company would also pay. The current contract with Edison only has Cablevision paying the franchise fee.
Reservations over the ordinance mostly centered on the length of the contract, with some pointing out that 15 years is rather long and that new technologies would surely be available in this time frame. Opponents wondered, then, whether it was wise to bind the town to Cablevision when the future of media technology was so uncertain. Some noted that Verizon, for example, has been moving through the state to bring their television services.
Many other concerns about the contract centered around customers’ dissatisfaction with the overall level of service offered by Cablevision. Prasad, for example, had expressed some dissatisfaction that Asian channels were not offered in the basic package, despite almost a third of Edison’s population being of Asian descent. Others noted that Cablevision took five channels out of its programming but kept rates the same. Still more clamored for the ability to get “a la carte” channels, instead of having to buy a whole package for only three or four stations they actually watch.
Some, meanwhile, were worried about competitive viability, noting that Cablevision would be the only cable company in the area. Still others expressed concern that the consumers would end up having to pay the money that Cablevision was giving to the town, because the company would just pass extra costs to them.
Don Viapree, from the Department of Government Affairs for Cablevision, spoke after many talked about why they were worried. He noted that the contract is not exclusive and that other companies can move in to compete with Cablevision, and pointed out that Cablevision also competes with other technologies such as satellite television. He also said he believes that Verizon won’t be coming to Edison “anytime soon.” He also addressed the issue of a la carte programming by saying that the matter is currently being examined by the Federal Communications Commission, but also noted that to do so would require a change in current cable TV technology.
There were also some questions about rates, but it was noted that the state approves rate changes, so there’s little that can be done.
Perilstein, when casting her “yes” vote, echoed the sentiment that many of the things that concern her and other residents are really out of everyone’s hands. She noted that something is better than nothing, and held out hope that more competition will come to the area soon.
“I see competition coming in on a statewide level … as the industry gets more advanced … . I am hard-pressed to walk away from a $40,000 payment, and I think something is better than nothing,” said Perilstein.
Diehl, though, felt that 15 years in a contract was too long, and while he, too, admitted that not much can be done about the service or the rates, he still believes that the terms of the contract might be reworked to better favor the consumers, especially seniors.
“Fifteen years is a long time, and the technology has changed so much in 10, 15 years. My crystal ball doesn’t go that far,” said Diehl.