Salisbury Seeks Consultant For Comcast Audit

SALISBURY -- Looking to move forward with a city audit of Comcast, the Salisbury City Council agreed last week to send out a Request for Proposal (RFP) to find a consultant willing to help conduct the audit and possibly negotiate a franchise agreement.

The decision was made in part because an informal consultant contacted by the city was easily able to point out problems with past Comcast arrangements, said officials.

“There were a [number of] ways in which he displayed the mistakes made and the money lost without us even noticing,” said Councilwoman Laura Mitchell.

City Administrator John Pick was also in favor of seeking outside help.
“I think it would be good to go through the RFP process,” he said.

Pick pointed out that just putting an RFP out for consideration would not be expensive. Once the proposal drew in responses, then the council could decide if the services would cost more than the expected savings.

The council asked Pick if it might be easier to just officially retain the informal consultant that had pointed out the errors in past Comcast deals, but Pick still recommended the RFP in the hopes of attracting the most cost efficient partner to the city. The council was unanimously in favor of at least putting the word out regarding the audit and franchise agreement.