Posted on: Thursday, November 8, 2001
Maui firm defies order to remove cable lines
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau
The state could be stuck with a bill of up to $50,000 for the removal of cable television lines left behind by a small Maui company that defied an order to shut down.
Kahului-based Cable Partners II Inc., doing business as Kua Aina Cablevision, was awarded a state franchise in December 1997 to serve portions of Ha'iku and Kula — areas that weren't served at the time by any other cable company.
But the firm ran into difficulty complying with the terms and conditions of the nonexclusive franchise, according to court records.
Cable Partners failed to provide three channels for public, educational and government access. It also failed to establish a customer service center, pay the state's annual franchise fee and turn in required financial statements and reports on such things as customer complaints.
"We tried to work with them, but we weren't getting anywhere,'' said Clyde Sonobe, administrator of the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs' Cable Television Division.
After the company failed to respond to an order to comply, the department's director revoked the franchise in March 2000 for five years and ordered it to stop providing cable television to subscribers and to remove its cable from the public right of way.
But Cable Partners, which apparently had no more than 100 customers, kept operating and collecting what little revenue it could get, according to court records.
The cable system still was operating in May 2000, and subsequent checks by state officials — in October of 2000 and January of this year — determined the system was still working in defiance of the order. A subscriber told officials he was still receiving service and paying his bill.
Ha'iku resident Robin Imonti, a Kua Aina subscriber until April of this year, said she was happy with the small cable company.
"If there was a problem, you could just call and talk to somebody, and they would take care of it,'' she said.
However, Imonti did recall that there were no public access channels.
The state went to court to halt Cable Partners II and in August Maui Circuit Court Judge Joseph Cardoza ordered the company to shut down and reimburse the state for the cost of removing miles of cable lines.
Whether the state will ever be repaid for the work is unclear. The company never appeared at any of its court hearings, and the state hasn't heard from Michael Carroll, the firm's top officer, in some time, Sonobe said.
Attempts by The Advertiser to reach Carroll were unsuccessful, and the Kua Aina Cablevision phone number has been disconnected.
The state has awarded a contract to Time Warner, which does business on Maui as Hawaiian Cablevision, to remove the cable lines from telephone polls. The job is estimated to cost $42,000, Sonobe said, but more money is available if the company runs into any problems.
Sonobe said Time Warner, the primary cable cable company on Maui, won the three-month contract because of the need to hire someone who wouldn't confuse the Cable Partners' cables with Time Warner's.
