By Jonathan Selden
Call it compulsory buyers remorse.
Provo Mayor Lewis Billings told state legislators Thursday that Provo would sell the financially troubled cable television company it bought four months ago.
In exchange, they gave him some extra time to do it.
A proposed bill that would have required the city to sell Provo Cable by March 1 was amended in a legislative committee to give the city until Dec. 31.
Billings and one Provo legislator breathed a sigh of relief that the city would not have to sell the company at a 'fire sale' price.
'They need a year so they can sell those assets. They just want to get out of the retail business so they can get into the wholesale business,' said Rep. Stephen Clark, R-Provo.
The decision capped a long battle between House Assistant Majority Whip Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, and Provo, over the city''s plan to own and operate Provo Cable.
Provo bought the company in October to acquire its property and prevent it from going bankrupt, Clark said.
Since then, Billings and the city council have begun preparations to install an ultra-high tech system in its place.
'Provo does intend to construct a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network in our city to ensure that our residents and businesses have access to the infrastructure required for success in the 21st century,' Billings said in a Feb. 10 guest editorial in The Daily Herald.
But the city''s grand designs prompted Curtis to sponsor a bill to stop Provo from competing 'head to head with the private sector.'
'I do not believe that (public) enterprise funds should be put at risk to compete in the private sector for cable telecommunications,' he said.
According to Billings, that was never Provo''s intention.
'We''re going to create a big pipe. Our goal is to make it available to anybody that wants to use it,' he said.
Provo officials said that the city is making the improvements because private companies will not.
'The private sector is unwilling to step forward and put the infrastructure in,' said Steve Densley, president of the Provo-Orem Area Chamber of Commerce.
Billings said that private companies that claim Provo consumers do not demand such an advanced network have been 'extremely short sighted.'
'We aren''t going to be mediocre because we don''t have the courage and confidence to do this,' he said.