Start-Up Due Next Month : Cable Firm to Miss Another Deadline

United Cable Television of Los Angeles will fail to meet a city-imposed Jan. 31 deadline for beginning cable service to East San Fernando Valley homes, company officials said Monday.

As a result, starting Feb. 1, the company will face fines of $100,000, plus $500 for each day it fails to complete installation of the first 270 miles of the long-delayed 1,140-mile East Valley system.

As of Monday, United had strung about 125 miles of cable, said its president, William Cullen.

United was fined $121,875 by the Los Angeles City Council last October after the company failed to meet a June 30, 1985, deadline for installing the first 50 miles of the system.

At that time, United successfully appealed to the council to give it until Jan. 31 of this year to install the first 270 miles before assessing any more penalties.

The company now expects to begin service to the first East Valley residents, living around its transmission facility at San Fernando High School, on April 1, Cullen said.

United attorney Scott Adler said the company plans to ask the City Council to waive any fines stemming from the latest delays.

Subscribers Will Be ‘Victims’

Cullen said that, if the city insists on imposing the fine, it will simply be passed on to East Valley cable subscribers. “They’re going to be the victim,” he said. “If the city thinks those fines are going to make us build faster, they’re wrong.”

United officials have maintained all along that it is in their interest to install the system as fast as possible. Until they complete the system, officials said, United cannot begin to recover the $10 million already invested in construction.

United, awarded the East Valley cable franchise in September, 1983, originally was supposed to finish the system in December, 1985. But a year ago, the council gave United a 10-month extension. And then, last October, the company received a second 10-month extension--until July 31, 1987--to complete the system.

United officials last October expressed confidence that they would be able to meet the Jan. 31 deadline.

Monday, however, Adler conceded that company officials had been “overly optimistic.”

“We’re building as fast as we can,” Cullen said. He blamed the latest delays on “forces beyond our control,” most notably disputes with the city Department of Water and Power, whose approval United needs to string cable on utility poles.

Cullen said DWP has prevented United from installing cable faster by insisting that the company correct any deficiencies in work already done before stringing more cable.

“We’re not at odds with DWP,” Adler said. “They just cannot clear the way for us and simultaneously monitor what we’ve done at a pace that we would like.”

DWP officials were unavailable for comment because of the holiday. However, DWP officials said earlier that they want to scrutinize the cable company’s work on power poles. If wires are not properly spaced, they said, workers will face danger of electrocution.

Delay With Subcontractor

Work on the cable system also was held up for six weeks late last year, Cullen said, when one of United’s subcontractors was ordered to replace 7,000 “steps” that DWP claimed were improperly installed on several hundred utility poles. The steps were installed by the subcontractor to enable United cable crews to climb the poles to string the cable.

The order was issued after a United crew member fell off a pole and twisted a knee when one of the steps he was using to climb the pole came loose, Cullen said. DWP, after an inspection, claimed the steps were the wrong size, Cullen said.