AMP: Over the river, but not out of the woods
When Alameda Power executed a successful, $15 million divorce with its troubled Telecom last November, the collective sighs of relief at 2000 Grand Street and City Hall were audible Island-wide. But newly released financial statements show the utility faced fresh difficulties this year, in the guise of higher costs, sharply reduced investment returns and lower [...]
Postscript: Alameda Power & Telecom
This week brought with it an epilogue of sorts in the story of Alameda’s telecommunications adventure: The release of the former Alameda Power & Telecom’s annual (independently audited!) financial review.
The report had to be held to include details of the sale of the telecom business to Comcast, in November, and it offers hints about the [...]
UPDATED The name game
Thursday night, the Public Utilities Board held its annualish planning workshop. Its main order of business: Figuring out a new name for the Island’s now telecom-less utility.
Instead of hiring a consultant, General Manager Girish Balachandran polled his staff, who came up with nearly three dozen suggested names for the newly single utility. The group then [...]
AP&T plots future tonight
Alameda Power & Telecom is holding its annualish planning workshop (and I say annualish because the last one was in November 2007) at 6 p.m. today at its headquarters, 2000 Grand Street.
This one’s being advertised as a biggie: According to the utility’s press release, they’ll be considering their very purpose – and more importantly, their [...]
“Finally, the financial bleeding has stopped”
Just as most of us were pounding out pie crusts and brining birds in anticipation of the Thanksgiving holiday, the Island’s two top elected financial hands – Treasurer Kevin Kennedy and Auditor Kevin Kearney – released a statement on the sale of Alameda Power & Telecom’s back half to Comcast on November 21st.
In it, the [...]
The cost of doing business
So a lot of people have asked, and I’ve been wondering myself: How much did Alameda’s adventure in telecom cost the city?
How’s $60 million grab you?
I’ve been back and forth with Alameda Power & Telecom’s diligent and ever-patient spokesman, Matt McCabe, on this, and did a little research on my own, which I’ll reference and [...]
Sold!
At around 12:30 this morning, the City Council unanimously gave the okay to sell the city’s troubled telecom to Comcast for $17 million (all told, they’ve netted the system’s bond holders $15.2 million in the deal). The sale will close Friday.
Voters approved the creation of the telecom a decade ago, apparently with the expectation that [...]
I read 549 pages of contract docs and all I got was this lousy …
So I told you last week that Alameda Power & Telecom would be posting buku contract documents outlining the proposed sale of the telecom part of their biz to Comcast on their website, right? But I didn’t expect you to read all that. No way. That’s why I did it for you.
The documents list the [...]
In transition
I got a nice e-mail last night from Andrew Johnson, regional vice president of communications for Comcast California, with a handy FAQ explaining how the transition will work if (probably when) the sale of Alameda Power & Telecom’s cable and Internet division to Comcast goes through next week.
The FAQ has a lot of information about [...]
TELECOM SALE IMMINENT
So here’s the deal on the deal: Comcast has offered Alameda Power & Telecom $17 million to take the boondoggle that is its cable and Internet business off the city’s hands. If the city accepts, Comcast could take over next Friday.
The deal would, as AP&T financial consultant Mark Northcross put it at a public workshop [...]
We’re down with OPP (on APT)
OPP being Other People’s Posts, of course. This time out, we’re talking about John Knox White’s recent post about the public workshop Alameda Power & Telecom is holding on Wednesday to discuss the future of the utility’s flagging telecom biz.
So what are the choices under consideration? A) Refinance the debt on the system and keep [...]
