Metro I-4 News

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Way back in 1861, the Mayor’s Office (John Jackson?) of the City of Tampa issued a promissory note for $299.58 to pioneer storekeeper Thomas Pugh Kennedy.
Now his great granddaughter Joan Kennedy Biddle wants to collect on the note. With 147 years of interest added at 8%, Biddle says the city owes her $22.7 million.
Nice. [...]

The Tampa Tribune reports that the developers of Trump Tower Tampa are close to giving up the ghost. One single financing option remains, and if that fails, they are ready to walk away and sell.
You might remember when Donald Trump welcomed everyone to get in on the ground floor of the “tallest building on [...]

I can just imagine:
“Sure, I can drive this. How hard can it be?”
Maybe you should at least check out the “quick start” page of the operator’s manual.
“Naw, I don’t need no instructions. I drove one last time it snowed in Tampa. Can’t be much different than that!”
Um… It last snowed in Tampa [...]

What makes a park a park?
As you know, Mayor Pam Iorio wants the area currently known as Curtis Hixon Park to be Tampa’s signature park. Iorio remains insistent in putting $15 Million into redesigning the already functioning green space.
And what do we get for $15 MILLION?
The city hired New York landscape architect Thomas [...]

Every so often, I watch Bright House techs climb the utility pole in the alley. There always seems to be someone with snow, or needing new service, or canceling service.

Like you, I have cable and I have an interest in not wasting money. So I check my bill. You might want to check yours. You’ll notice Bright House charges you $1.47 a month for “City of Lakeland Pole Attachment Fee”. That’s $17.64 a year.

Before September 2007 Bright House was charged a $20.28 per pole fee. That month the City of Lakeland raised the fee to $20.70 for 2008. Bright House immediately started charging customers the $1.47. But, according to the city, Bright House has neither paid what was due for 2007, nor the amount due for 2008.

Let a customer neglect to pay their cable bill for a year and see what happens.

You may ask, why isn’t Bright House charging $1.725 per month? (That’s the yearly $20.70 divided by 12.) I’d reply, well, that’s because they’re charging $3.16 per month.

Wait, didn’t I say $1.47 a month? That’s the new fee. We can be sure that we were already paying the $20.28 a year. It just wasn’t a line item. That was $1.69 a month. Add the $1.47 and $1.69 and you get…$3.16.

Bright House attaches to 40,942 poles in Lakeland. That means they owe the city $847,499.40 for 2008. Our next question is: how much do they collect?

There are a reported 60,150 Bright House subscribers whose service is attached to Lakeland poles. That means Bright House collected $1,219,842 in pole attachment fees in 2007. They’ll collect that much plus an additional $1,061,046 with the additional $1.47 per month fee. That means $2,280,888 for both fees for the year.

So they owe the city $847,499.40 and they collect $2,280,888.00 That means, um, two, carry the one, uh, Bright House will make $1,433,388.60 profit on pole attachment fees alone! Thats 23.83 a year profit on each and every subscriber.

With that kind of profit, I better get my MTV.

I called Bright House for their comment. I am still on hold. I’ll update when I get an answer.

Meanwhile, I’ll anticipate one comment. “We were eating the cost of the poles for 2007. The $1.47 per month is all we charge customers for pole fees.”

Well, they’ll still make a profit. 60,150 customers at 1.47 per month for 12 months is $1,061,046.00 per year. They owe the city $847,499.40. That is $213,546.60 profit per year.

Press “B” if you consider that gross profit.