Update on Hillsdale undergrounding

Earlier this week I wrote about leaning on Comcast and Qwest to underground their cables next to the new Watershed Senior Housing Project.

Comcast jumped on the case and sent folks out to check out the site today.

Qwest was slow to respond, but its Oregon president, Judy Peppler, e-mailed me today that her staff is looking into the costs. She promised to get back to me soon. I would suggest that Qwest's bean-counters factor in the cost of good will—and ill, particularly in the competitive cable environment Qwest wants to create.

Wes Risher and I are also pressing Comcast, Qwest and PGE to move the pole that obscures the view of the landmark tower at the busy corner of SW Capitol Highway and Bertha Court.

I'll keep you posted on developments.

PS The Watershed should be ready for occupancy in late November.

The Hillsdale Underground strikes!

We were lying in wait, Wes Risher and I. We had in our sights two corporate giants.

Comcast and Qwest had been flushed out by last night's Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission hearing.

Because the hearing was about Qwest's bold bid to compete with Comcast in the Portland Cable TV market, Wes and I knew executive heavies would be out in the open.

We prepared to pounce, and we did.

We told the commissioners how neither communications colossus had buried its overhead cables in the underground conduits installed next to Hillsdale's new, landmark Watershed Senior Housing development.

See the photo: the Qwest and Comcast wires trail off to the right from the big, ugly pole on the left (more on that later).

PGE, wearing a white hat, put its wires underground along the side of the building. Note how the top cables disappear at the pole, which PGE owns.

Wes and I want all Capitol Highway's overhead clutter buried in the central Town Center, but last night we would take what we could get.



As the corporate brass prepared to walk away after the hearing, we cut 'em off. After introductions and pleasantries, we got to the point. "So how can you help us? The conduits are just waiting for your cables etc."

We displayed our public spirit, knowing both firms want to make nice with a public that soon will be choosing between their services.

It helped that KOIN-TV was there taking all this in.

It is not a time for bad PR.

So we had 'em. Who would do the right thing? Who would underground? Who would not? Would competition lead them both to underground righteousness?

Sanford Inouye, Comcast's vice president of government affairs, promised to have someone call me in the morning. Judy Peppler, president of Qwest in Oregon, asked that I e-mail her with the specifics in the morning.

Here's where we stand.

I e-mailed Judy. Actually I addressed her as "Ms. Peppler" (even though this IS Oregon). She can call me "Rick." I shared the specifics and did some overreaching (why not?) — perhaps Qwest, Comcast and PGE could band together and remove the obtrusive utility pole in front of the tower (see photo). I reminded her that Wes and I also had approached Comcast with the same undergrounding request.

It is now 12 hours since I sent my e-mail. I haven't heard back from Peppler, but then it's summer time and the living is easy, right?

Not so at Comcast. I'm into my second cup of coffee this morning and I get the call, the first of two from Comcast. They don't know what the problem is in Hillsdale because when conduit is provided Comcast ALWAYS underground.

Sounds like a deal.

Well, it's a deal when it's done, but so far in the niceness sweepstakes, Comcast is first off the line and building speed. Qwest is still in the blocks. (Yes, I know I've egregiously switched metaphors — and am flailing this one — but this is a heady time.)

No need to place bets. This is no contest — we want everyone to win, especially Hillsdale.

Plugs in the news?

We know how advertisers, concerned that TV viewers are TiVo-ing past commercials, have bought unavoidable "product placements" in programs themselves.

There's some sleaze to that to be sure, just as sold naming rights force us to utter commercial inanities like PGE Park or the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival.

But what to make of what's going down in this front page story in Sunday's New York Times about George Bush's relationship with Mexican immigrants in Texas?

First, a little context. The story notes that the president, relatively liberal on the issue of amnesty for illegal immigrants, has met strong opposition from many of his Texas Republican backers. That has created strains, as described in this troubling sentence:

"It is visible on a grand scale, with ... this state's two Republican United States senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, breaking with Mr. Bush on immigration in recent months after having followed his lead with Rolex reliability for most of his term."

"With Rolex reliability"?

Hello?

Where did that little plug come from? Was someone asleep on the copy desk? Will the reporter, Jim Rutenberg, be getting a check, or a Rolex, in the mail? Is the Times cutting story placement deals with Rolex and others "sponsors"?

What can we expect next?

Is the president in Allstate-worthy good hands?

Is his policy as American as a Chevy Silverado?

In short, is business at the Times so bad that it is selling paid sponsorships in its news stories?

I don't think so, but at a time when media seem desperately willing to sell just about anything to the highest bidder, product name dropping in news stories does more than simply raise this reader's brows.

Poleaxed in Hillsdale

Last week I joined four Portland General Electric (PGE) employees near the site of the new Watershed Senior Housing building, which is under construction.

We had gathered in the biting cold to get a PGE cost estimate to underground utilities from in front of the building to the east property line of Papa John’s Pizza, a distance of 150 feet.

City Commissioner Sam Adams had wanted to know the cost, necessary information if we are to ever start cleaning up the overhead blight in the town center. Adams, mind, has made no promises. Still, we can hope....

Anyway, when our group began talking, the PGE delegation announced that the cost would be $250 per linear foot. That included the works—trenching, conduit, underground vaults etc.

Of course that would be PGE’s cost to the City. Comcast and Qwest would have costs as well, but the major part of the work would be done by PGE, a privately owned utility that owns the poles.

The $250 number surprised me, because eight years ago, a group of us who studied undergrounding for the City put the high end cost at $100 per linear foot.

But times, and costs, change.

Using a range finder, a PGE engineer determined the distance, half the length of a football field.

The $250 per linear foot figure and the 150 feet led logically to a stunningly simple result: $37,500.

Done.

Not so fast.

The leader of the PGE delegation began to scratch his head. Studying the overhead blight, he looked doubtful and tetchy. He was clearly unhappy with such simple math.

He asked if we wanted to underground the new light pole wires on Bertha Court too. They probably could be done fairly simply by boring a conduit line under the sidewalk rather than trenching and tearing up the pavement.

Sure, I said. “The vision is to get rid of the wires—all of them.”

More uneasiness. He had out his calculator now. I have no idea what he was tapping into it—and still don’t.

Finally he said, “I’m going to have to give you a different, more realistic figure. One we can live with.”

Prepare yourself, I thought. “OK, what is it?” I invited.

“It’s somewhere between $100,000 and $120,000.”

It was cold. We had been standing around for 45 minutes. The new numbers must have numbed me too. The man clearly was in no mood to argue. He looked vaguely pained. Besides, what do I, an undergraduate history major, know about the cost of undergrounding utilities except what I had learned 45 minutes before, some quaint notion about $250/linear foot.

Adams had wanted to know the PGE estimate and I wrote him the figure, with no editorializing. (Now, nine days later, he still hasn't acknowledged my e-mail and the number.)

In the day or two following the meeting in the cold, the whole experience gnawed at me.

In the course of 45 minutes, the PGE estimate had TRIPLED!

Better now than later, I guess. (Think OHSU tram) But then it occurred to me that time had gone by since we met in the cold with the range finder and calculators.

Where are the costs today? Where would they be tomorrow?

Could they be tripling every 45 minutes?

I am prepared to believe anything...and nothing.