Customers tell Rigas, borough council of Zito Media glitches / By Martha Knight

James Rigas of Zito Media Communications had been invited to attend the Port Allegany Borough Council meeting Monday night, but must have felt like less than an honored guest as a good many members of the public, and two council members, voiced complaints about his company’s television cable, digital phone and internet services.

Rigas provided a presentation, in printed form, for borough officials, listing the various challenges such companies face in today’s market and with multiplying demands on communications services. Growing uses of communications and media consumption devices and streaming services are putting greater pressures on the systems involved.

Rigas said the company has been increasing capacity and will continue to do so.

Council member Dave Fair led off the discussion of concerns about service quality. He had invited local Zito Media customers to contact him with their service issues, hoping to help the borough council assess the company’s performance. Zito Media has a franchise from the borough making it the exclusive cable television company in the borough. That monopoly also provides entrée to the company’s sale of other services.

After Fair and others had recounted a number of negative experiences with service and complaint handling, council president Andrew Johnson halted the discussion because of the other business items on the agenda. Rigas said he would like to know of all the service problems and work on the individual matters raised with the customers involved. It was agreed Fair would provide liaison.

Council went into executive session to discuss a personnel issue, namely negotiations with its non-uniformed employees, meaning the public works crew. Borough negotiators believe a settlement has been reached, but later, in the public meeting, on the advice of solicitor Chista Schott, they voted not to finalize it or proceed with hiring to replace two retiring crew members until the union has ratified the new pact. A special meeting will be held

The council will hold budget sessions on November 18, 19 and 20 at 6 p.m., or as many of those dates as are needed to prepare the 2015 budget. Those meetings are open to the public.

The date of the December meeting was changed to December 8, to avoid meeting on the first day of deer season.

There was discussion of street lighting along Edison Bates Drive, the street leading to the Seneca Highlands Career and Technical Center (CTC). The borough pays for the electricity for the lights.

The lights, which are seen as inadequate and in need of repair or replacement, have been rejected for adoption by Penelec. The company considers them and the electrical supply to them obsolete.

The CTC “is not interested” in owning the lights or replacing them.

Borough manager Richard Kallenborn said it has been discovered that about a third of the street is in Liberty Township. He said it would be unlawful for the borough to expend funds on lights outside its borders.

As for the Recreation Authority, its lack of funds precludes helping with a light replacement project.

Mayor George Riley reported that he had communicated with various officials concerning a possible solution. He said that McKean County Commission Chairman Joe DeMott, a former mayor of Port Allegany, had arranged for county economic development director Sherri Geary to confer on the problem with local officials to work toward a solution.

Council member Sam Dynda asked whether it is all right for the borough to pave and care for the portion of Edison Bates Drive outside the borough. Kallenborn said that in case of an audit some of the aid funds for that work might have to be given back.

Johnson informed council that he had heard from Catlin Avenue resident Rikiya Tanaka that Tanaka will remove the large trailer from the street, where it has been parked several months. 

Borough police had discovered that the borough lacks an ordinance forbidding parking in or blocking a cartway, or traffic lane, of a borough street.

Fair had pressed for enactment of such an ordinance, but some other council members had thought such matters should be settled by mutual consent among neighbors.

“He said he was tired of seeing his name in the papers about this,” Johnson said, as to why Tanaka had decided to move the trailer at least for the winter.