CITY BACKS CABLE COMPLAINTS; MEDIAONE WARNED TO RESPOND OR LOSE PERMITS.

Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

Tuned in to residents' complaints about local cable TV services, city officials are channeling their resources to address problems associated with ongoing technological upgrades.

City officials on Thursday fired off a letter to Teresa Elder, MediaOne senior vice president of the western region, outlining grievances customers have had on disrupted service, lengthy outages, poor customer service and the installation of aboveground transmitters encased in hollow shells made to look like rocks.

``People are frustrated. It's not just the rocks, it's the power outages,'' Santa Clarita spokeswoman Gail Ortiz said. ``We're seriously considering denying the building permits for work in the Saugus area, until Valencia is finished in a timely manner.''

Steven Sawyer, director of infrastructure services for MediaOne, said company officials knew the letter was forthcoming from the city's Administrative Services Department, given the recent degree of public unrest.

``I've had close contact with the city's staff, so I'm seeing it from their side as well as ours,'' Sawyer said. ``We would like an opportunity to respond to the city and lay out the scope of the problem and the amount of outages in the area.''

MediaOne is aware of 60 complaints from Santa Clarita customers, he said, noting there are about 32,000 households in the city served by the company.

Outspoken customers who previously complained to city officials about MediaOne on Thursday were satisfied that city officials backed up their demands for improvements.

``I hope this indicates to MediaOne and other utilities that they cannot just autocratically come in and do whatever they want,'' said Valencia resident Bill Spaniel, whose complaints about a MediaOne rock on his front lawn brought its removal earlier this week.

``I understand MediaOne's situation,'' said Spaniel, who credited Sawyer for his responsiveness to customers. ``But they could handle things better than they have.''

Although the aboveground pedestal was removed from his lawn, Spaniel has other grievances, he said, such as the company's failure to notify customers beforehand about ongoing work and lengthy outages.

A recent outage blacked out Tuesday night's Major League Baseball All-Star game, which angered local baseball fans who missed the American League's 4-1 win, as well as a pregame ceremony featuring Hall-of-Famers Ted Williams, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron.

Art Donnelly, another Valencia resident who publicly called for the removal of fake rocks from his lawn and neighborhood, agreed: ``Whether it's work done to our front lawns or outages we want some prior notification.''

``That is our policy, to let people know when we'd be doing work in their area and to expect an outage,'' Sawyer said. ``The workers are supposed to leave door hangers for customers, giving them advance warning that their cable would be out, from about 9 a.m. to about 4 p.m.''

He said outages may be related to broad-band upgrades being installed by MediaOne, which serves all of Santa Clarita. Workers are upgrading the current system to enhance picture quality and provide for high-speed computer and modem access and digital phone service.

However, the outage during the All-Star game on Tuesday was not planned, Sawyer said, but resulted from an equipment failure that could not be predicted.

MediaOne officials now are aware of earlier problems of subcontractors failing to notify customers about work in their areas, he said, but have worked with them to ensure that proper notification policies be followed - for both equipment installations and outages.

``We're going to keep the heat on until that communication gap is slimmer,'' Donnelly said.