Dispute Hearing Held. Decision Coming July 16.
SEMO.net’s Dispute Hearing was held as scheduled with the Municipal Utilities Advisory Board. In attendance for the Advisory Board Dispute Hearing was Councilman Matthews, Chairman Bob Christian, Tucker Davis, and Richard Landers. Charles Moffit was on vacation. City Manager Bagby did not attend.
I was allowed to make my presentation about the multiple accounting errors I believe Mr. Bach made two years ago in setting the rates for Open Access and claiming that my company was subsidized. The board was attentive and engaged during the entire meeting and I appreciated the opportunity to share my dispute officially/publicly.
I asked the board to consider accepting my disputes as submitted but also, at the very least, to publically state that my company was never subsidized by the city of Poplar Bluff. Hopefully after seeing that the city profited more than $4000 each month off of SEMO.net, we can put that lie to bed and start moving forward from the damage it caused.
For those wondering what is next, I’ll give you my understanding:
According to the Dispute Policy, the Advisory Board must make their decision by the next scheduled meeting (7/16).
In the event the dispute isn’t resolved to my liking, I have the opportunity to appeal the decision to the City Council. The appeal would allow me to have a full Dispute Hearing with the City Council at the first meeting in August (6th). The City Council would render a decision by the following meeting (20th).
And should the Dispute not be resolved to my liking at that point, we will have our Jury Trial…maybe in October.
Today is the 18th, has there been no resolution as of yet? Just wondering what happened the 16th.
I’m sorry for the delay, but I just posted a blog about the decision.
http://blog.semo.net/2012/07/18/utility-board-decision-semo-net-owes-disputed-bills/
Brian,
You know you still have many PB citizens praying for you to have this fiasco ruled in your favor. I was pleased and suprised to See the letter to the editor last week from Terry Simmons pointing out the problems with the digital cable system and comparing City Cable’s rates for internet and cable to Cape’s. As he stated, Municipal Utility is not first and foremost in the business of internet and cable. Leave it to companies who know what they are doing!!!
Wishing the best for you Brian.
Just in case you all didn’t catch this statement in the local DAR newspaper here is a quote from tonight’s DAR paper. “There has been some confusion as to who is an internet service provider. The city is not an internet service provider. It is the city’s system.” Duncan emphasized. “The city has the right to terminate internet service providers at any time.” Problem is most of us didn’t want the internet providers terminated. What happened to our leaders listening to the voice of the people??? Isn’t the city “The People”??