tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post4177341050465270418..comments2023-03-26T00:18:37.805-04:00Comments on aShortChronicle: Mi-Connection comments raise the recurring question..."What is the plan?"Rick Shorthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-57804346137820529292017-06-25T07:38:11.958-04:002017-06-25T07:38:11.958-04:00Faron, it's more like $1m every 125 days.Faron, it's more like $1m every 125 days.Rick Shorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-55128496748914097072017-06-25T07:37:58.421-04:002017-06-25T07:37:58.421-04:00Faron, it's more like $1m every 125 days.Faron, it's more like $1m every 125 days.Rick Shorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-9708610351013061102017-06-24T23:57:31.132-04:002017-06-24T23:57:31.132-04:00Town Board members are trustees of the publics tax...Town Board members are trustees of the publics tax money. It is their responsibility to not take unnecessary risk with it. Prestige / Mi was unnecessary. "You don't gamble with other people's money". Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03951712485302277887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-5590258829773559102017-06-24T18:30:07.030-04:002017-06-24T18:30:07.030-04:00wish there was a 'Like' button for your re...wish there was a 'Like' button for your response Eric. <br />Are they still losing $1,000,000 every 90 days? how long would a private business do that before going under? Good thing they have big gov't to keep them afloat.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13167669391201256800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-13823709292183867492017-06-24T15:50:32.904-04:002017-06-24T15:50:32.904-04:00Do your duty by signing up with the government pro...Do your duty by signing up with the government provider?? I can't tell, is this sarcasm from Mr. Maier? What if the town bought a grocery store, or a coffee shop, or an insurance company, would it also be the duty of Davidson residents to patronize those as well? I complain a lot about the money pit that is HFFA here in Huntersville, but at least our town had the sense to stay out of the MiC deal.Eric Rowellhttp://shortchronicle.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-53070928069045107292017-06-24T13:52:22.682-04:002017-06-24T13:52:22.682-04:00Thanks Sandy for the level headed response. And o...Thanks Sandy for the level headed response. And of course you are correct, true bankruptcy isn't really an option. Maybe a better choice of words from Town Hall would have been "extreme financial distress".<br /><br />Laurie Venzon's post at the link provided here gives a detailed account of the history of MiC. It also has current numbers. $67m in debt vs a $50m valuation. If those are true then the $17m shortfall under an immediate sale at that value would be divided $11.9m to Mooresville and $5.1 to Davidson. (Note, her numbers are better than the ones I used in the original post.)<br /><br />That $5.1m wouldn't even be described as financial distress if financed out for 20 years. (The proposed new Town Hall is twice that much by way of comparison.) Would taking an additional $5 million hit be good? No, it would not. It would however take the risk of unforseen business impacts from competition, economic downturn, and greater long term subsidies off the table. Of course a $50m value only exists if someone is willing to pay it. Finally,while the projections of a future break even date of 2022 provided in the same document might be good to hear, we've been hearing dates for many years. What happens of it looks like those dates won't be met 12 months, 24 months down the road? When do we change course?<br /><br />Answers to those questions and a realistic plan are what the town needs to hear.Rick Shorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-22541037669900788272017-06-24T11:21:00.841-04:002017-06-24T11:21:00.841-04:00One correction to the above...an outstanding quest...One correction to the above...an outstanding question this Blog has to the towns is who is David Auger's replacement. Mayoral candidate Laurie Venzon just posted at Save Davidson Facebook group. Included is a statement that Auger has agreed to stay on for a while longer. When a response from the towns is received it will be posted here.Rick Shorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-81923781150549295022017-06-24T11:18:56.345-04:002017-06-24T11:18:56.345-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Rick Shorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-27941091522884968212017-06-24T11:15:29.010-04:002017-06-24T11:15:29.010-04:00Here is a link to a post this morning for a histor...Here is a link to a post this morning for a history of MiC.<br /><br />https://www.facebook.com/groups/1613511632246150/1880838058846838/Rick Shorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-8752225750214470782017-06-24T11:13:38.850-04:002017-06-24T11:13:38.850-04:00Davidson cannot file bankruptcy without approval o...Davidson cannot file bankruptcy without approval of the Local Government Commission (State Treasury) and the consent of a federally mandated percentage of its creditors. Because of this requirement I believe the talk of bankruptcy should not even be on the table. Nor should we go back in time and debate the wisdom in the decision that was made. In my opinion we should turn our debate to plans for extraction and the financial limitations we have because of the indebtedness. I am personally of the opinion that Davidson should not be in the utility business. We have all made bad decisions in our lives but the true test of our mettle is how we rebound. Market value will determine how and when we can experience the least hurtful withdrawal. It is an extremely difficult decision as to when you sell a business, entailing many variables. You may make a profit or you may take a big hit but at least you have stopped the bleeding. I would be very surprised if anyone could devise a set plan for how to deal with MI but would only hope we are pursuing a definable goal. Let's all be respectful of opinions of others which can always lead to productive debate. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04107150435169153527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-40266412494540891662017-06-24T11:09:10.402-04:002017-06-24T11:09:10.402-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Rick Shorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-87649515668117325182017-06-24T10:04:44.472-04:002017-06-24T10:04:44.472-04:00Bob, nobody wants the town to fail. The fact that...Bob, nobody wants the town to fail. The fact that you keep throwing that out to smear people who disagree with you is very telling however.<br /><br />Real solutions that operate in the real world need to be based in reality. Just telling people to sign up because it is their "duty" doesn't meet that criteria.<br /><br />MiC has decent penetration rates where it operates and the service is Ok. The EBITDA is slightly above industry average thanks to the work of David Auger who unfortunately is retiring. This shows that it currently is a decently run company from an operational perspective. (I am a subscriber to data services btw and am decently satisfied.) However, if your “plan” to make it profitable is for MiC to greatly exceed those industry metrics that is simply not dealing in reality. Plus, where do you draw the line? As I said, I am a data subscriber. However, I don’t have voice or video. We are a cell phone only household and use streaming services which better meet our needs. Does that somehow make me a bad citizen because I am not a Triple Play subscriber? Personally, I believe my “duty” is to my family, not to bail out the poor decisions of people who seriously damaged this town through a poor, yet “progressive”, decision as you put it.<br /><br />The underlying problem is the towns paid way too much for it because they were in way over their heads taking this "risk". Gambling with the town's future would be a more accurate description. Davidson chose to gamble. Cornelius and Huntersville chose to be responsible and not. Did they experience a technological disaster as you imply Davidson would have experienced because they chose not to go along with the MiC gamble? Of course they didn’t. People who truly care about their town and who care about its future don’t gamble with it over a “progressive” idea. The fact that you use the term progressive to describe the MiC deal shows who was/is truly playing politics here.<br /><br />You also hide behind the boogeyman of evil big corporations being behind the problems at MiC. The truth is that the telecom industry is massively capital intensive. A small player like MiC will always be playing catchup. It will never be an innovator when it comes to new services. That is the reality. Competition will only increase over time. Customer churn will only worsen. In the out years this stands to be potentially much worse than the situation is now, today. Fantasies of everyone signing up aren't going to change those realities.<br /><br />What I won't accept and you should not either are unsubstantiated threats of bankruptcy from the dais at Town Hall. If bankruptcy is a real possibility under all sets of reasonable assumptions, then the public deserves to know the details of why. The implication behind that threat is that MiC today is worth substantially less than even very low estimates. If that is the case, the public deserves to know.<br />Rick Shorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-28290762887093457252017-06-24T00:57:22.646-04:002017-06-24T00:57:22.646-04:00They took a chance. Have you ever taken a chance,...They took a chance. Have you ever taken a chance, and screwed up-- especially other people's lives? Leaders do that, all too frequently. Wannabeleaders sit back and throw stones with 20-20 hindsight. Actually the MI deal, at the time was brilliant-- to many. It was idiotic to others. Granted one was very wrong, the other very right. I know many smart people who lost much in the totally unexpected financial crash and tech down-swing at the time. Also, there were some major corporate actors in this thing that purposely steered the purchase to fail, so that Davidson would fail, and would be an example to any other government entity that tried to interfere with their monopolies. After corrupting the deal, they had the nerve to use Davidson's "failure" as justification for forbidding any other NC municipality from owning utilities-- including cable and Internet. OK to screw up Police, Fire, and Water, but don't screw with a multi-billion $ industry. At the time, Adelphia and TWC, the two commercial players received terrible customer service ratings, were dragging their feet with digital upgrades. Davidson's Internet was terrible at the time-- and threatening its viability. Adelphia's executives were charged with massive fraud, and had to sell their neglected systems. So, given those realities the town tried something that would truly serve the community-- the way it did with police, fire, medic, water, sewer, roads, etc, etc, etc. So, my pov is just subscribe, and the problem will go away. If you feel so compelled to make a political statement that could really bankrupt the town, and have it de-chartered by the NC legislature, who will raise everyone's taxes much more that that simple cable subscription, which will therefore devalue property in Davidson, and leave everyone who needs to sell and in a really bad position. Would you rather be governed by Charlotte, or by Eastern NC counties? So, tell me how you disagree with this-- what is a better option for the future? I was there, and went to many meetings-- before and after, what did I miss? Another solution might be to give free Internet and basic cable to all Davidson residences-- and pay for it with a reasonable tax. Antiquity and many private developments do this, but then the Eastern NC counties would probably not allow this. Do you really want Davidson to become Kinston?<br /><br />Robert Maierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04299111599085662935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-68712813634116914042017-06-23T06:55:42.473-04:002017-06-23T06:55:42.473-04:00Bob, thanks for the comment. While I disagree wit...Bob, thanks for the comment. While I disagree with it pretty much in its entirety, it does show the kind of thinking that got the town in this predicament with the decision to buy the company in the first place.Rick Shorthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15157326884806088327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4936584745769131524.post-29506366229827744932017-06-22T22:00:07.763-04:002017-06-22T22:00:07.763-04:00If all Davidson taxpayers subscribed to MI connect...If all Davidson taxpayers subscribed to MI connection, the company would be highly profitable- and Davidson would be in a much more solid financial position- without the worry of selling parkland, and other town properties. But people love shooting themselves in their feet to prove a point. Perhaps if the mayor and town board paraded up Main Street, every Friday at noon, whipping their naked backs with cat 'o nine tails, showing their sincere apologies for taking a progressive risk in buying the system, just maybe those angry anti-government folks will stop thinking of themselves long enough to subscribe to MI connection and do their community-- that they profess to love so much-- a favor, and sign up. This is the only real answer. Cancel directTV TWC, etc. and do your duty. I've talked to too many 'Davidsonians' who are vengeful, angry anti-government people seeking revenge... I just wonder, and the purpose of this lesson?<br />Robert Maierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04299111599085662935noreply@blogger.com