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In response to Council questions, City Engineer Luck added that all underground districts in Redwood City also have above ground pedestals; undergrounding of the tap mechanism would lead to a degradation of service and replacement problems Mr. Luck advised that his involvement with this project concerned technical reliability. He described the four alternatives listed in the staff report, and recommended Council approval of Alternative No.2: Allow TCI Cab1evision to proceed, but require specific mitigation measures. Tiffany Pino, Public Relations Supervisor, TCI Cablevision, Inc., described the rebuild program and notification process. In response to Council questions, Ms. Pino advised that she and her team had made door-to-door notifications and talked to many people regarding the pedestal policy and mitigation efforts, and TCI had received approximately 35 calls opposing the placement of pedestals Ms. Pino advised that TCI chose to house the Tap in pedestals and not gray boxes for security purposes; explained that Taps serve four houses using smaller cable to each gray box; and above ground pedestals were chosen for security, safety, reliability, maintenance, future expansion and economic reasons. Dane Ericksen, Hammett & Edison, Inc. Consulting Engineers, was hired by the City to determine the impacts of above ground and flush mounted cable service boxes. Mr. Ericksen stated that the technological disadvantage of undergrounding is clear cut: good designs do not exist; maintenance costs and outages increase, and the life span of flush mounted vaults is far less than above ground pedestals. Council Members discussed the information in the reports, including the instances of outages caused by flush mounted vaults and the number of customers affected; the experiences of various Bay Area cities, including Foster City which has above ground pedestals; the importance of the type of ground soil present; the Sacramento/Davis mitigation program; Woodhill Estates landscaping mitigation; and the current technology regarding flush mounted vaults and above ground pedestals. In response to Council questions, Mr. Erickson, explained the differences between telephone and TV cable and why comparisons are inappropriate; the market differences (number of subscribers) between telephone and TV cable services; and the functions of service at the tap for cable companies and service in the office for telephone companies. Mr. Erickson stated that once telephone companies set up hardware at the site they can effect changes from their offices, and telephones are found in 99.9% of the available market which allows services to stay "on-line." That is not so with TV cable companies: gray boxes cannot be put on every house, only those with TV cable service, and each change in service necessitates visiting the site and accessing the tap; and due to subscribers coming on and off line (churning), and active electronics, TV cable companies cannot use the same type of permanent fixtures the phone company can. Mr. Erickson added that the gray boxes are not as secure from theft as pedestals and therefore it did not make good business sense to house taps in gray boxes. In response to questions from Council regarding the latest technology, Mr. Erickson stated the limitations were physical, such as corrosion, not electronic. In response to Council questions, Mr. Erickson stated that his study did not address the issue of aesthetics; it described symptoms of degradation of service; corrosion; FCC, FAA and DOD requirements regarding shared frequencies and the cumulative leakage index. The results of his research show that at about the five year mark, the underground vaults start experiencing trouble, and have to be replaced between 8-10 years rather than the 20 years for above ground pedestals. Regular Meeting Agenda MINUTE BOOK NO. 52 May 16, 1994 Page No. 253 Page 4 -"O,~ ,"-,"~, ----'"~