PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 John J. Rigas, for the most part tight-lipped through Adelphia Communications\u2019 months-long slide into bankruptcy, his July arrest in New York and September indictment on federal fraud charges, spoke out bitterly about the new management\u2019s decision to move the company headquarters out of rural Pennsylvania.
\nThe decision by the new board of the bankrupt cable television provider to base the company in Denver started the near-octogenarian founder\u2019s telephone ringing.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve had phone calls from people in this area. They are saddened and disappointed,\u201d said Rigas, reached Tuesday at his home in Coudersport. \u201cSome of our people will be moving and we\u2019ll miss them.\u201d
\nRigas, 78, started the company with a small cable franchise in Coudersport in 1952.
\n\u201cAfter 50 years of building the system with my brother and the family, it naturally saddens all of us, because we worked so hard to build the company,\u201d Rigas said. After weeks of rumors, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s not an unexpected move, but it hurts.\u201d
\nRigas wouldn\u2019t comment on the long list of allegations that he and family members used the company\u2019s cash for personal purposes, such as buying the Buffalo Sabres, expanding personal cable company holdings, acquiring timberland and building a golf course. He said the allegations \u201care just that: allegations.\u201d
\nAs for the company\u2019s bankruptcy filing, his nationally televised arrest and his federal indictment, Rigas said, \u201cWhere we are at the present is something that would never have been scripted in my life.\u201d
\nDespite that, Rigas, who said he has found it extraordinary \u201cto watch children who have gone to school with my children come back and take a job with Adelphia,\u201d said many area residents continue to support him.
\n\u201cAt first there was some mixed feeling, but when I go downtown, where people used to wave and say \u2019Hi John\u2019 and shake my hand, when they see me they come up and give me a genuine hug,\u201d Rigas said.
\nRigas said he anticipated hearing the charges aired in court, maintaining, \u201cI think at the end of the day we\u2019ll be vindicated.\u201d
\nThe headquarters move had been rumored since Adelphia hired William Schleyer and Ron Cooper, both former executives with AT&T Broadband, as its new chief executive and operating officers on Jan. 17.
\nAT&T Broadband was headquartered in Denver until it was acquired by Philadelphia-based Comcast in November, and Cooper has a residence there.
\nThe move is planned by midyear, subject to approval by regulators and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Adelphia spokesman Eric Andrus said.
\nAround Coudersport, where Adelphia\u2019s rise from a local cable company to the nation\u2019s fifth largest cable provider brought unprecedented growth, the news was like hearing the other shoe drop.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a real shocker, and it really saddens me that they\u2019re moving the headquarters away,\u201d Potter County Commissioner Peggy Kelsey said. \u201cWe wish that they would change their minds and keep all the jobs here.\u201d
\n\u201cWe appreciate that the Rigas family had decided when they started Adelphia to have headquarters here,\u201d Kelsey said.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s certainly nothing that we had hoped for…,\u201d said Ken Wingo, another county commissioner. \u201cAnd I think the stockholders and the bankruptcy judge have to make the final determination on that.\u201d
\nAdelphia said about 1,400 of its 14,000 employees work at the Coudersport operations center, and most would be unaffected. \u201cThe headquarters would be about 150 people when it is up and running, clearly a small number of the Coudersport people,\u201d Andrus said.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014
\nOn the Net:
\nAdelphia Communications: http:\/\/www.adelphia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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