Invasion of the Cable Snatchers
While the mayor and city council sat by with a rubber stamp, Houston wheeler-dealers carved out their own electronic empires.
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“The world was caving in on me,” said Sadowski. He spent his mornings going from one personnel agency to the next, his afternoons waiting for the phone to ring. He kept running over the events of the past two months in his mind. What happened? he asked himself. What did I do wrong? How could three city officials—Earle, Baer, and Mardis—give me a job and then tell me they had no authority to hire me? The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He had received only $900 from the city, and by his reckoning they owed him $1100 more for the time he had worked. In fact, morally they owed the full $4500 just to take the cast to trial. Finally he decided to pay Earle another visit.
In late November Sadowski walked into Earle’s office and found him jovial and apologetic. Again he promised that Sadowski would get $1100 more from the city. They talked for several minutes, and Sadowski’s harsh opinion of Earle began to mellow. Maybe he really believed I had a job, Sadowski thought. Perhaps he was ordered to fire me. As the conversation continued, Earle pulled out a franchise proposal for Southwest Houston Cable, a company Sadowski had not heard of before. Earle wanted Sadowski’s opinion—what did he think of this questionnaire?
Earle’s request sounded genuine enough, so Sadowski took a look at it. They went over the questions one by one, and Earle began to take notes on Sadowski’s comments. While they were talking, Ardie Baer happened by the office, and Earle waved him into the room. “Come on in, Ardie,” said Earle. “I want to get your opinion of this one, too.”
Baer came in and looked at the proposal. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone this,” he said, “but they’re not going to get one.”
Earle looked startled. “What do you mean?”
“They’re not going to get a franchise.”
“Who says?”
“Bob Collie.”
Earle tossed the proposal onto his cluttered desk and pushed his chair away in disgust. “I give up,” he said. “Why am I wasting my time on this if Bob Collie already knows who’s going to get franchises?”
Baer shrugged. “That’s just what I hear.”
On November 16, Billy Goldberg’s Southwest Houston Cable TV had officially filed its application for a franchise. His attorney, Alan Levin, was busily meeting with engineering consultants to prepare a presentation to the city council. But on November 27—two days before the scheduled hearing—Levin got some jolting news. The city council intended to vote on six franchises—including those of Gulf Coast, Houston Cable TV, MECA, and Westland—on the same day that Goldberg had his hearing. If Gulf Coast’s franchise was approved, where did that leave Goldberg?
Levin tried to find out what was happening, and after a series of phone calls, a compromise was reached. On November 29, with no discussion at all, the council tabled all six requests. A new hearing for Goldberg was set for December 12.
SADOWSKI WAS BACK AT CITY hall on December 12. He asked Earle the same question as before: “Where is my money?” Earle didn’t know, but he assured him it was forthcoming. The city is a bureaucracy; approval takes time. “In the meantime,” suggested Earle, “you might want to go downstairs to the council chambers. Another company is making a presentation.”
When Sadowski got there, Billy Goldberg was already at the lectern, explaining his proposal to bring cable TV to the Alief area. After a while, Ardie Baer walked in and slid into a seat next to Sadowski. They made small talk for a moment, then Baer leaned over to whisper in Sadowski’s ear.
“They’re not going to get one,” he said.
“You mean this man talking right now?”
“It’s already been decided,” said Baer.
“Does he know that?”
“No.”
“Then why was he asked to testify if the decision is already made?”
“Well he has the right to testify, so we’ve got to go through the motions.”
That council session ended on a curious note. After hearing Goldberg’s presentation, Mayor McConn asked a few perfunctory questions, and then Councilman Louis Macey moved that they approve Goldberg’s Southwest Houston Cable TV for a franchise. The motion was seconded but never voted on, because Councilman Frank Mann offered a substitute motion that quickly passed by a vote of 6-2. His motion was to refer Southwest’s application to the city attorney (Collie) and the director of public service (Earle) with the request “that other applicants be contacted to determine if something can be worked out for the adjustment of the boundaries of the areas to be served.”
Goldberg was incredulous: what boundaries? The council had never specified any boundaries, and yet seven members of the council voted for “the adjustments of the boundaries.” He learned soon enough what the boundaries were. He learned it not from city hall but form other cable companies. Three days later, presumably to comply with the wishes of the council, he met with Walter Mischer and Eddie Dyche, two of the principal investors in Houston Cable TV. They had an offer to make, according to a source who was at the meeting. Why not forget his application to serve the Alief area and invest in Houston Cable instead? There was still time to do that, and besides, their extensive territory in the northwest would be at least as lucrative as the area he wanted. In so many words, Goldberg told them that he wasn’t interested in any deals made outside the council chambers. He wanted the Alief area and nothing else, and he thought his engineering studies were as good as those of any other applicant. He would let the council decide.
The word spread that Billy Goldberg was causing trouble. Mischer had tried to work something out but had failed. But no one gave up right away. A few days later Goldberg received a call from a friend, who tried to persuade him to ask for areas in the northeast that could be detached from the application of Houston Community Cablevision. Goldberg refused, and then Mayor McConn suggested another scheme. Storer had the southeast, but they were from Florida. No one had any allegiances to them. Perhaps Goldberg would accept their entire territory, which included four times as many homes as he would have in Southwest Houston.
Goldberg finally blew up. “You don’t understand,” he told McConn. “I’m not in this just for the money. This is an area that I have built, it’s where I’ve spent millions of dollars over a number of years. I want to bring cable to this area, and only the council can decide whether I’m qualified to do it or not.” He also suggested that the other companies might be flirting with antitrust violations. When Olson set up a face-to-face meeting between Goldberg, Mischer, and Runnells, Goldberg agreed to attend on one condition: he would not discuss territories. The meeting was canceled.
Bob Sadowski was now forced to think about money almost all the time. He stopped going out for dinner. He didn’t dare spend money on movies. He thought seriously about moving to a less expensive apartment. Every day he noticed scores of jobs advertised in the paper, but his personnel agencies told him he was overqualified for all of them. Finally, he started asking around at advertising agencies, looking for anything that could get him and his wife through the winter. When that didn’t work, he wrote letters to the two universities where he had taught, asking them to cash in his retirement funds. The total haul: $1800.
ON JANUARY 10, 1979, the Houston City Council met in open session to vote, once and for all, on the cable TV companies that would serve the city. It took fifteen minutes to make the motions and count the votes. The winners: Gulf Coast, Houston Cable TV, Houston Community Cablevision, and Westland. The proposals submitted by MECA (the company owned by Storer) and Southwest Houston Cable were tabled—for reasons that no one could explain—until the following week. At the next meeting, MECA was approved as well. All areas of the city had been accounted for, and the council never had to set any service boundaries because, miraculously, the boundaries proposed by those five companies all fit together very nicely. Billy Goldberg got nothing.
Sadowski read in the next day’s Houston Chronicle that the franchises had been awarded. Incredibly, his capacity for surprise was still not exhausted. First he wondered what had happened to Cablecom. In the handwritten notes that Earle had been so anxious to get from him in November, Sadowski had clearly stated that Cablecom was the only applicant whose proposal was good enough to be approved without qualification.
Sadowski didn’t muse over the franchises for long, because he had something else on his mind: his money. Almost two months after his firing, he had been paid only $900, and he was just desperate enough to get angry at Earle once more. This time he took his wife with him to city hall. Earle listened to them politely—he had heard Sadowski’s complaint at least a dozen times—and finally stood up and motioned Sadowski to follow.
Earle and the Sadowskis left city hall, got into Sadowski’s car, and drove to a downtown bank. Then, while Sadowski and his wife waited outside, Earle went into the bank. He returned after a few minutes, and handed Sadowski $1000 in $100 bills. It was a loan, said Earle. Sadowski thanked him profusely.
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