The Michigan Daily-Friday, August 3, 1979-Page 7 b Tentative cable T V sale accord may be near BY JOHN GOYER A tentative agreement to sell Ann Arbor's finan- cially-troubled cable television system could be reached by next week, according to a consultant hired by the system's current owners. Representatives of the Denver-based Daniels and Associates, Inc., prospective buyer of the cable system, met yesterday with Ann Arbor Mayor Louis Belcher, City Cablecasting Commission Chairman Mark Ouimet, and representatives of Ann Arbor Cablevision, which now owns the system, according-to William Cullens, consultant for a management firm for Ann Arbor Cablevision. Cullens said he also par- ticipated in the negotiations. THE NEXT STEP in the purchase process, Cullen added, would be to secure the Cablecasting Com- mission's approval of a franchise agreement with the prospective buyer, "who looks like it will be Daniels and Associates.' The commission then would recommend to City in back taxes which Ann Arbor Cablevision will owe the Council members whether they should approve the city by the end of the summer. franchise agreement, a step which could be completed as early as this month, Cullen said. REPRESENTATIVES OF Daniels and Associates could not be reached for comment yesterday. Cullen also said Daniels and Associates would have to show City Council members evidence of its financial well-being. Asked if the company would have any The terms of the agreement under negotiation, problems proving financial soundness, Cullen replied, Cullen said, follow the conditions included in the city's "absolutely none." newly revised ordinance regulating cable TV. ANN ARBOR Cablevision, reportedly $4.5 million in debt, as in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings in Los Angeles. If the council approves an agreement, the sale of the cable system would not be closed until November or December, according to Charlene Ladd of the Cablecasting Commission. He said Daniels and Associates, Inc. had made an of- fer to Ann Arbor Cablevision "in excess of $5 million." The offer includes picking up the tab for about $332,000 The ordinance requires a company purchasing the system to provide two public access channels, to be ex- panded to four channels after two years of operation. That stipulation was mentioned two weeks ago as a possible obstacle to a purchase offer from John Muraglia of Daniels and Associates. He said two weeks ago that his company had not yet had the chance to review the revised ordinance, because the city attorney's office had not yet produced a certified copy of the ordinance. Cullen said yesterday the ordinance was still unavailable. Economy worse than expected, gov't says WASHINGTON (AP) - Less than three weeks after it predicted a mild recession, the Carter administration may be about to concede that a more serious downturn is in prospect both this year and next. A task force of administration economists says in a fresh assessment of the economy that unemployment probably will rise to 8.2 per cent next year, rather than the 6.9 per cent forecast just last July 12, a difference of about 1.3 million jobs. The assessment also concludes that the decline in economic output will amount to 1.4 per cent this year, down from the 0.5 per cent administration forecast. AND IT says inflation will be slightly worse, with consumer prices rising 11 per cent this year instead of the 10.6 per cent increase projected by the ad- ministration on July 12. However, the new figures are not of- ficial forecasts. They are part of an in- ternal working paper prepared by a task force of economists. While there was one report that they were prepared only in the past few days, an administration .source said they were known prior to the July 12 forecasts. He said it was a "good question" why the administration put out the earlier, more optimistic num- bers, knowing the outlook might be con- siderably more pessimistic. A NUMBER of things have happened to worsen the economic outlook in recent months. Chief among these is the 60 per cent increase in the price of world oil so far this year. But recent ac- tions by the Federal ReservehBoard to push up interest rates also have dim- med the outlook. The latest assessment tends to narrow what could be an embarrassing difference between the ad- ministration's July 12 official forecast and' a forecast issued by the Federal Reserve Board just a few days later. The board said unemployment could rise to 8.25 per cent by the end of next year and that economic- output could drop as much as two per cent this year, with inflation also being slightly worse than theadmirnistration forecast: , AIRPORT 79 A JENNINGS LANA PRODUCTION Al AIN DELON SUSAN BLAKELY ROBERT WAGNER SYLVIA KRISTEL EDDIE ALBERT BIBI ANDERSSON CHARO SYBIL DANNING JOHN DAVIDSON MONICA LEWIS ANDREA MARCOVICCI MERCEDES McCAMBRIDGE MARTHA RAYE AVERY SCHREIBER CICELY TYSON JIMMIE WALKER DAVID WARNER G EORGE KENNEDY "THE CONCORDE - AIRPORT 19 ERIC TH JENNS LAND LALOSCHIERIN JENNINS LANG DALOWELL RICH ~~ AME WELL.-F- SCH M PG ERINT ESITACE ORCIE II. --SHOWS DAILY AT- 12:00-2:20-4:40-7:05-9:35