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Xfinity issues continue; city, Xfinity say they're working to address problems
Dee Kennedy took a photo of the broken waste pipe, which appears to have been broken and pinched.
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RIO RANCHO — Construction has uprooted Rio Rancho's foundation as Xfinity joins the limited amount of available service providers, and not all residents are happy about it.
As Thanksgiving approaches, several people are taking to social media and other local media to complain about the construction in front of their homes. People are reporting holes being left in their yards, trash being left by the crews and now sewage lines being hit amid construction.
Many people are blaming the city of Rio Rancho for allowing the construction in the first place, others are demanding action from the city or Comcast, which owns Xfinity, some are simply complaining about the issues, and there are a few who say they will speak in public comment at the next city council meeting about it.
One family has been completely jarred from normal life because of the work.
A home turned hazardous
It was Halloween night, and renter Dee Kennedy was getting ready to hand out candy when her daughter alerted her of a gross situation in the bathroom at their home in North Hills.
Kennedy was working from home, and her new husband was sleeping in preparation for the night shift.
"My daughter and my grandkids had came over because they wanted to trick-or-treat in our area. I'm upstairs, working; my daughter comes up and tells me that the toilet's overflowing, but I thought it was just my grandkids put something in there and I said, 'Go plunge it,' you know, the normal. They go to try to plunge the toilet, and she comes up and says it won't even plunge," she said.
When she came downstairs to see what was going on, she found the toilet overflowing with water.
She had one of her grandkids run upstairs to get her husband and tried to clean up the water with paper towels and a mop, but there was too much water. By the time her husband came down, the water had seeped out of the bathroom and onto the living room carpet. She said they were throwing any towel they could find onto it to soak up the water, including her "nice towels."
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"It's now going everywhere. So I'm like, this is bigger than the mop. So he's throwing our blankets now," she said.
They got it clean enough and turned the water off, hoping that would stop the issue. It did, for a short time. While this was going, it was still Halloween for her grandkids.
"Meanwhile, of course, my grandkids are running around. They're excited," she said.
She went out to talk to the neighbors and get ready for the evening.
"I was excited because I haven't seen this many kids since the razor blades in the candy situation. We usually don't do Halloween, because it's not our faith-based holiday, but my grandkids were there. So, at least I can go get a couple bags of candy and put in there," she said.
She went to get candy from the nearby Walgreens and shortly returned home to a much worse situation.
"I go through the garage and I open the door and I hear this 'shhhh. ... The toilet was literally a fountain. It is just coming up, and it just dumping like a water fountain," she said while gesturing with her hands.
She was amazed that much water was coming out of it.
"By this time, I looked down and there is actual bowel movements in the water and toilet paper ,and I'm like, 'Oh my gosh,' and I'm looking at the damage ... It's now covering the whole living room, dining area and going towards the front door in the living room. The water is now past the staircase, which has carpet that's soaking up in there. It's on the rugs, it's on the couch, it's on the chairs. It's on everything," she said. "I'm sitting there in shock because I'm standing there in my shoes, and it's past the rubber parts. It's so much water; it's gallons."
She attempted to suck up the water with a 6-gallon shop vacuum, but it couldn't keep up with the flow of water. She says they filled it up 10 times before giving up. They didn't know what to do.
To their luck, Kennedy remembered a neighbor was in the plumbing business and asked for their help. He was able to find the home's exit valve and release the pressure from the home. They said the plumbing needed to be snaked and advised Kennedy to call the city.
"So we call the city. The city pretty much says that sounds like a plumbing problem; that has nothing to do with us," she said.
Her family knows another plumber who was able to help her out the next day.
"He came and snaked it, and he says, 'Your pipes are collapsed,'" Kennedy said.
Using a camera, he was able to see the collapsed pipe was at the edge of her driveway.
"He goes, 'This right here is the contractor Xfinity hired.' Then, my husband was on his way to work and sees the contractors and says, 'Hey, y'all busted my pipes.' They said, 'Oh we have done this to a lot of people. It's fine; we'll fix it,'" she said.
She says the contractors came and looked at the damage by digging up the spot where the pipe busted. But after they dug it up, she said, they just left.
"What was interesting was they had no uniforms, no jackets," she said.
This experience has not been cheap for Kennedy either.
"Just the plumber alone was 300 and some odd dollars that we paid out of pocket because our homeowner is out of state," she said.
On top of that, insurance is coming out of her rent. The owner's insurance company, however, is the one part of her experience that was good.
"He sent out a crew to come and accept the damages. He scanned the walls to see how bad it is. They said it's on the walls. We're gonna knock the walls down and if it's already in the living room, that means it's come through from underneath the staircase into the living room, and it's in there, too. Everything that sewage touched is considered contaminated, meaning it all has to go," she said. "They're going to rip the walls up from the floor to 2 feet high. And all the walls in the house downstairs have to be ripped out. Not only that, all the wood flooring, all the carpet has to come up."
One of the worst parts is all of their belongings on the first floor were contaminated, including some boxes that had the Kennedy's wedding gifts in them. All of their furniture, some of it family heirlooms, was contaminated.
The insurance company also determined the sewage damage was bad enough that the wood floors were buckling and with each footstep water squished out to the edge of the flooring. They also found the sewage water seeped through the walls into the kitchen and garage.
She added that when the insurance agents came they finally got some information. She says the agents contacted the city, the courts and other avenues to try to figure out where the lines on the property are but were unsuccessful. They also found that several homes were impacted by the line break.
Due to how bad the contamination was, Kennedy's family had to move out. Currently, they are paying for an Airbnb.
"We just moved two days ago. So we've been in there and the house starting to mildew faster from the water in the walls. And it was weird because when you come home, all the furniture, we had to get rid of it. So all I could do is go sit up upstairs on the bed and wait 'til they could find us a place," she said.
The home still hasn't been taken care of. She says despite contacting Comcast several times, she has not heard from them. After her interview with the Observer, she got a note from Comcast on her door saying to call the offices if she needs help.
"Actually, on one of my Facebook posts, we put it on their website. We still haven't heard anything back from them. The only person that reached out was the contractor initially; when he came in, they wanted to walk around the see how bad it was, and that's when he even got to walk and heard the water and he was like, 'Oh it's OK; we'll take care of it. This was our fault,'" she said.
The absolute worst part of the whole ordeal for Kennedy is that she won't be able to have traditional holidays with her family. Because of the extent of the damage, the home won't be completely rid of sewage and fixed until next year, according to the insurance agent.
"The worst part for me is being displaced during the holidays because I'm a big Christmas person. I'm the person that decorates the yard, decorates the house. I have family over, friends over. Now, I'm at a place where I can't even have company. Can't decorate, put a tree up or nothing. This is me and my husband's first Christmas together," she said shaking her head and trying not to cry. "All we could do is make the best of it."
City of Rio Rancho
The city of Rio Rancho says it has been in regular contact with Xfinity/Comcast since their expansion project began in regard to reports and claims of damage and subsequent repair and cleanup by Xfinity/Comcast.
They referenced the Sept. 27 special work session meeting specifically. In the hour-long meeting, city council and the mayor heard from Comcast and expressed some of their constituents' grievances.
Mayor Gregg Hull and council at the time were grateful for the ongoing communication with Comcast but expressed disappointment in the execution of the construction.
"This is a fiber to the premises build that when complete will include about 3.6 million feet of fiber and past 45,000 homes and businesses in Rio Rancho. And that means that Rio Rancho residents and businesses will have access to the best-in-class fiber Network. It's highly scalable, and that means we'll be able to offer multi-gigabit speeds and keep base with the future needs of Rio Rancho as technology grows as does the city. So far, we've constructed approximately 1 million feet of fiber and passed approximately 12,000 homes and businesses, and we anticipate the project completion in 2026, so we do have a ways to go," area vice president Chris Dunkeson said at that meeting. "We want to make sure we get this right. I know that the construction process has been painful, especially when it comes to damage to utility lines, and so we take damage to utility events very seriously."
Fiber to the premises (FTTP) refers to a technology where optical fiber cables are directly installed to individual buildings like homes, businesses, or apartments.
At the time of that meeting, Dunkeson said they had about 215 cut utilities, or damages to utilities. About half of those were under investigation between Comcast/Xfinity and the Public Regulation Commission.
"I expect at the end about half of those will be that fault for the operators and on Comcast, based on the trends we're seeing for what we're getting back initially," he told council.
He said the goal of the company is to make sure that those utility damages are minimal and few and far between.
"And our commitment to Rio Rancho remains unchanged. Our commitment to the residents is to continue to improve as we build our processes to improve to make it easier for the residents for us to work throughout the city," he said.
He also said there could be many reasons for the problems, including unmarked streets and that he understands restoration is important for Rio Ranchoans.
"We are committed to a 100% restoration as we work through the neighborhoods, to leave them as we found them," he said.
Hull began his message to Dunkeson by saying he believes when the project is done, the city will be better for it. He also said Dunkeson and his team have been communicative. However, he and the councilors expressed their constituents' distress.
"We talk about landscaping damage and and when you drill under the streets, utility damage. We're very, very, very, very concerned about drilling on unmarked streets when we know there's utilities, and just because you say, 'We called it in and they didn't mark it, so it wasn't marked. We have a free pass,' I guess the PRC can get into whether that's the city's fault or PNM's fault or gas companies' fault or Comcast's fault. As a former OSHA trainer and a safety guy that's running a drill and I roll up on a street and I'm expected to even drop a pair of post hole diggers, if I see it's not marked, I'm going to back off until I figure out why it's not marked. I'm not just going to stick a drill in the ground because I can," Hull said.
Councilor Bob Tyler was openly displeased and expressed how his excitement for the project has turned sour.
"When you guys first came here, I was excited, right? I thought, man, we're going to get more options. I'm not so excited anymore. There's going to be other options besides you all because we've approved other things. With that being said, you need to understand our community. I don't know if any of you all live here. I live in Rio Rancho, so you need to understand the community. The community is a very small community, so when you all make a mistake, it gets blamed on us directly. We're the first persons they're going to call and say, 'Hey this is going on; this isn't going on'. When I drive down the road and I see the damage that y'all are doing, I'm not impressed," he said.
He added that he wouldn't want to be a customer if that's what the company is going to do to the city. He also demanded fixes to the problem, saying that maybe the project happened at too fast a pace.
In agreement, Councilor Karissa Culbreath asked Comcast/Xfinity to identify "root causes" of the problems.
"I'm looking to hear corrective actions and I'm looking to hear preventative actions, right? So that's really what I am looking to hear. I hear some of those things around like what the root causes were some of them as counselor Tyler pointed out, just may have been working too fast, right? And not taking the time to slow down and and do things right. And we know that that can certainly, that really becomes a corporate responsibility to give the the workers the space and the time and to not put the burden of productivity at the sake of quality, right? So, quality should always supersede productivity," she said.
Councilor Nicole List started off by thanking Comcast but quickly went into the emotional and financial burden that has been laid on residents.
"I don't think anybody shows up to work and says, 'Hey, how can I create chaos today? And how can I do a subpar job?' However, it's occurring, and when in a 10-day stretch, you have day care centers evacuated and you have schools evacuated, you are putting an emotional and financial burden on a massive part of the community," she said, referencing an early September utility break.
List, who works in education, became emotional, saying she felt sad for the kids and their families during that time.
"It is much greater than just an inconvenience and unacceptable. I think that the mayor kind of had already alluded to it, but there's no reason there's not a checks and balance," she said.
She also talked about the displacement and financial burdens people have felt.
"This is people's lives. It is not just an inconvenience, but you are literally affecting their lives. And I just hope you do better going forward. I'm excited to have you here. I am hopeful that things go well. You haven't even got to my district yet, so I am praying that it continues to improve. But my heart hurts for what these families had to go through, and that needs to stop," she said.
Councilor Deb Dapson simply said that they shouldn't have to be mitigating as a fix "instead of it having happened at the very start; that kind of upsets me," she said.
The full meeting video can be watched on rrnm.gov.
"While Xfinity/Comcast has improved on their processes over time and since they began work in Rio Rancho, based on the nature of the work, there is no way to guarantee, for example, that a water line won’t be cut in the future," the city stated in an email Nov. 21.
The city encourages those with issues or concerns to contact Xfinity/Comcast at rrnm.gov/4858/Comcast-Expansion-Project-in-Rio-Rancho or report an issue to the city directly via its Report Rio Rancho system at rrnm.gov/2703/Report-Rio-Rancho.
"Per the non-exclusive franchise agreement granted to Xfinity/Comcast, they have an obligation to restore property," the city said, noting that a cover memo of the agreement explains the limitations to deny requests, which can be found at cloudfront.net/riorancho.
The city apologized for any inconvenience experienced by Xfinity/Comcast’s expansion. "We do believe that when construction/expansion work is completed, the community will benefit greatly by increased service options, which residents have been contacting City officials about for many years," it stated.
Comcast Director Julianne Phares Nov. 22
Does Comcast/Xfinity have anything to say about these allegations?
Comcast takes the construction process, safety and the impact on Rio Rancho very seriously. As is true with any construction process of this size, scale and complexity, issues sometimes arise. We understand that construction can be disruptive, and prioritizing safety and minimizing the impact to residents is our top priority. We are actively working with impacted residents on repair and restoration.
Comcast’s construction partner maintains a dedicated phone number (505-273-7893) and email address (customerresponsecenter@cablecomllc.net) that residents can contact at any time for questions, concerns or to report an issue. Before construction begins and throughout the process, we provide residents with multiple notifications via door tags, yard signs and direct mail, which include the dedicated phone number and email address for this project. Additionally, folks can learn more about what to expect during construction at newmexico.comcast.com/network/.
Since the contractor is third party, does the company take any responsibility for hiring them? Has the company used this contractor before or is this the first time? Will the company continue to use them in light of these allegations?
Comcast’s construction business partner, Cablecom, has more than 50 years of experience in telecommunications and fiber construction. Cablecom has worked with Comcast on construction projects throughout New Mexico to expand and enhance our next-generation fiber network and connect more New Mexicans to reliable and secure internet.
Does the company often run into these issues when installing new fiber optics or is this a first?
Comcast is proud to work with the city of Rio Rancho to bring our next generation fiber network to connect more people in the community. As is true with any construction process of this size, scale and complexity, issues sometimes arise. We understand that construction can be disruptive, and prioritizing safety and minimizing the impact to residents is our top priority.
Will the company help these people in any way? (i.e. paying for any damages or extra costs like displacement costs)
Throughout the construction process, Comcast is committed to restoring all construction areas back to the way we found them. If residents have an issue, they should reach out to us right away at customerresponsecenter@cablecomllc.net or 505-273-7893.
Will the company work with the city of Rio Rancho to address any of these issues?
Comcast is collaborating with the city of Rio Rancho to ensure our fiber expansion proceeds as smoothly as possible for both residents and businesses. We understand that construction can be disruptive, and we appreciate the feedback we’ve received. We are actively addressing these concerns.To keep everyone informed throughout the expansion process, we are committed to providing timely updates. This includes door tags, direct mail, yard signs, additional signage before construction begins and a dedicated project website so everyone knows what to expect. We will continue to prioritize restoration and rigorous quality control throughout the project. We value the partnership with the city and the community.
