Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Milwaukee County Worse Than Private Contractor in Records Row

While the furor continues over a private contractor releasing social security numbers while working for Wisconsin, it seem that Milwaukee County has managed to give great comfort to those who claim government performs worse than the private sector.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Records released in error , county officials provided confidential records that:

...detail payments for tests and other costs linked to mental competency, paternity and guardianship cases...

While the release of social security numbers can plague a citizen for some time, the damage can be rectified. There are mechanisms for the federal government, the credit rating agencies, the financial services community, and the wronged individual to undo the damage.

For the individual or family, inadvertently outed by the release of records of everything from psychiatric to medical examinations, there is no way of reversing the damage. As noted in the article:

Clerk of Circuit Court John Barrett said he was thunderstruck...

..."I was dumbfounded by the breadth of information they gave out that was confidential," he said. Doing so violated the trust placed in the county to protect vulnerable individuals, he said...

To date those clamoring for heads to roll in state government  are not focusing on Milwaukee County and its executive.

AT&T's U-verse in Wauwatosa: "Fire to the Node"

Maybe somehow you missed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's story last week by Rick Barrett:  "AT&T Replacing Batteries - Device Blamed in U-verse Equipment Cabinet Blast in Tosa."

You probably didn't see the pictures from the 'Tosa Fire Department in telecom blog LightReading, but you should. Here are a couple:

 
Even Wigderson got in the act: "Cable Competition Could be Deadly."

But the best line came from Jeffrey Hevey, the Wauwatosa fire marshal:

"It's not like these things are blowing up left and right every day," he said. "Would I want to set up my granddaughter's play set next to one of these cabinets? Probably not. But if I were mowing the lawn, I wouldn't be looking over my shoulder, worried that the thing is going to blow up."

But Christmas Eve, when you're not mowing the lawn? Not to worry. AT&T told us last year, when these were exploding in Texas, that its testing showed the problem was a manufacturing defect and an isolated event, and the batteries were safe and stable.

Or maybe not.

 

-Barry Orton

Media Covers "Video Competition" Bill Signing and Partial Vetoes Despite Timing Designed To Bury Story

If you are Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, and you must sign a bad bill pushed heavily by one of your biggest financial supporters, and you've line-item vetoed some of the bill's worst provisions, which contained language that its legislative proponents specifically voted in both chambers not to amend, what do you do?

How about skipping a public signing ceremony, and releasing the veto message on, say, the Friday afternoon before Christmas, while doing a "feed the hungry" event at Second Harvest? That way, the story misses most television news on Friday, which had already overstuffed its audience with the "NFL Network and Big Ten Network at the Legislature" story the day before. The signing and vetoes story then lands in Saturday's newspapers, and sits largely unread as Wisconsin frantically shops itself into a stupor over the weekend in preparation for Tuesday's Holiday To Save the American Economy, formerly known as Christmas.

So Friday afternoon, my phone heated up with interviews from the working press trying to scope out What It Means, file a coherent story, and go home by dinnertime. Having read the veto message and the text of the actual vetoes, I was ready. This morning I was able to find out what it was I said to each reporter.

Despite the Governor's effort to bury it, the story ran page one above the fold in the Capital Times and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and page one in the local section of the State Journal.

As usual in this story, The Capital Times' coverage was solid.  Jeff Richgels and Judith Davidoff ("Prof: Don't hold breath for new services under state cable law") led with my prediction that:

Gov. Jim Doyle's signing of the state cable franchising bill isn't likely to mean AT&T -- a leading backer of the bill -- will bring its U-verse TV service to the Madison area anytime soon, one prominent observer said.

"I don't see it in Madison in any widespread way in 2008," said Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of telecommunications who has advised many communities in their dealings with cable companies.

Orton noted that AT&T has been reducing its rollout projections for U-verse in recent announcements.

"Every single estimate cuts back on the previous one," he said.

Richgels and Davidoff also nailed, in plain language, what Doyle's vetoes did and the likely impact on local access channels.

Mark Pitsch's Wisconsin State Journal story also did a very good job in outlining the vetoes, and covered the access angle as well.  I was happy with my quotes, which Mark used to frame the story:

Doyle 's vetoes hold the potential for substantial state oversight of the industry -- whereas the bill the Legislature sent to his desk sought to eliminate state regulation.

"The state will be a legitimate overseer of this industry rather than a rubber stamp to whatever the industry wants to do, " said Barry Orton, a UW-Madison telecommunications professor who urged Doyle to issue the vetoes on behalf of local governments and some lawmakers who opposed the bill.

"It means the cable companies and other providers won't be able to run roughshod over consumers. "

..."He's made a ridiculous bill only pretty bad, and that's good, " Orton said of Doyle.

Over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Steve Walters and Stacy Forster managed to cram in a list of all the vetoes, cover the impact on access channels,  add my framing ("Barry Orton, a University of Wisconsin-Madison telecommunications professor and consultant to local governments, called Doyle's vetoes courageous."), and then advanced the story by quoting Senator Jeff Plale, a chief sponsor, that there wouldn't be any attempt to override the vetoes.

Walters and Foster also skillfully managed to put the whole bill in context while quoting one of its most effective opponents, Rep. Gary Hebl, and its most effective shill, Thad Nation of TV4US:

Legislators who fought the bill said Doyle's vetoes improved it but predicted that rural areas will not be helped by competition and new telecommunications products.

"People in many areas of the state won't see any competition . . . because companies such as AT&T have no plans to provide service beyond their existing service footprint, which covers less than half of the state," Rep. Gary Hebl (D-Sun Prairie) said in a statement.

Thad Nation, executive director of TV4US Wisconsin, which ran hundreds of TV ads statewide pushing the bill, predicted that "prices will fall, services will improve and companies will have incentives and bring consumers new, exciting technologies."

TV4US reported $44 million in contributions in 2006 - including $43.9 million from one contributor it refused to identify on its Internal Revenue Service disclosure report.

A "small percentage" of that money was spent in Wisconsin in 2006, said Lizanne Sadlier, a TV4US official.

Sadlier said AT&T was a "significant contributor" to TV4US in 2006.

So maybe millions in advertising from "grassroots" TV4US had some impact on this process?  Could be.

- Barry Orton

(with apologies for lengthy and self-centered post)

Wisconsin Governor Signs "Video Competition" Bill: Partial Vetoes Put Lipstick, Mascara & Rouge on Pig

Without ceremony, Governor Jim Doyle signed AB 207 into law today, using his partial veto power to mitigate some of the worst aspects of the bill. 

The Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) was given significant powers the original bill restricted: rulemaking, setting the franchise term, state fees, applicant qualifications and revocation standards. So instead of being a rubber stamp, DFI will have some real oversight capability.

The cities didn't fare as well.  The Governor's veto message bragged that he restored municipalities' power to charge permit fees for use of public rights-of-way, but failed to mention that he didn't veto a provision that such fees could be deducted from other fees due the cities. He vetoed a bad limit on auditing fees, but also inexplicably vetoed a good provision added in the Senate that allowed municipal control of the aesthetics of facilities placed in the rights-of-way. So, in all, not much help.

Public, educational and governmental (PEG) access channels didn't get whole lot of help either.  The word "noncommercial" was vetoed, theoretically allowing them "the ability to air revenue-generating commercial programming," but the veto provides no specific help on funding cuts, technical signal quality or channel location.  Expressing concern and urging the Legislature to deal with the issues PEG channels present in follow-up legislation gives new meaning to the phrase "lip service."

AT&T is delighted by the signing, and seemingly unconcerned with the vetoes.

More reactions in the media tomorrow...stay tuned.

- Barry Orton

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: AT&T Accused of "Cherry Picking"

Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has it on p.1, top of the fold, but the online  p.1 headline and lede is more pointed than the actual story headline.

Online: AT&T Accused of "Cherry Picking"

AT&T in Milwaukee is being questioned about "cherry picking" areas where it wants to offer its new U-verse service, with little access in low-income areas.

Newspaper: AT&T U-verse Access Debated

City's low-income areas often lack cable alternative.

Rick Barrett and Ben Poston took the locations of AT&T's U-verse boxes and plotted them on a Milwaukee map of census tracts split out by income.  The result?  There will be 240 of AT&T's "service cabinets" in all; only 15 of them are in census tracts with median income of less than $24,130, which is the federal poverty threshold level for a family of five.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett says he's worried that AT&T will exclude some parts of the city from U-verse.

"I don't want to see a service map with a huge doughnut hole in it," he said.

That's what the map in the Journal Sentinel has on the North Side of Milwaukee, with several other
holes elsewhere in the city.

Critics and cable companies say AT&T has targeted more affluent, more densely populated areas. That's in contrast with cable companies that have been required to build their networks broadly, including low-income neighborhoods.

"The reality is that block by block, with no recourse or explanation, AT&T will decide who gets this wired video service," said Barry Orton, a telecommunications professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and a paid cable-television consultant to municipalities.

Not offering the service to neighborhoods based on income or race would be illegal.

But consumer protection in the Assembly bill has "so many loopholes built into it, that it makes Swiss cheese look solid," Orton added.

State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma) said she's worried that the proposed cable bill gives AT&T a defense for redlining because the company would have to meet only minimum service requirements for low-income neighborhoods.

After that, she said, the company could ignore service areas it doesn't think are profitable.

Exactly.

The Wisconsin Assembly is scheduled to approve the "video competition" bill today.  This story should not significantly change their vote.  The Governor may see the bill somewhat differently now, although he is expected to sign it.

- Barry Orton

Rural Electrification, Town Roads, Grandma's Telephone, and the Packers on Cable TV

It was not Milton Friedman's free market capitalism that brought electricity to rural Wisconsin and America. It was not Ronald Reagan's dismissal of government regulation that paved roads from the farm to town. It was not some silly Neocon view of the world that installed a telephone in Grandma's living room in some poor neighborhood of Milwaukee.

All of those changes were the result of government interference in the market place through regulation, taxation, and the redistribution of both public and private resources.

After the 1936 passage of the Rural Electrification Act, bureaucrats worked to assist electric utilities to wire rural America with low-interest loans and technical assistance. Congress decided that the social value of rural electrification would mean progress for farmers and their families. It was not some invisible hand that lead to the mechanization of American agriculture.

State legislatures and county boards voted to build paved roads to small towns and farms. That was a redistribution of tax dollars, mostly coming from wealthy city folks. Some of it was self interest, some of it not. After all, getting goods to market, through these public subsidies benefited the producer and the consumer.

Eighty years ago the telephone was a luxury. Yet state legislatures and their regulatory public service commissions made it clear to AT&T that if the behemoth wished to wire wealthy neighborhoods, they would have to provide service to the poor ones as well.

In every instance there were policy makers and consumers who along with the industry, weighed the costs and benefits of the regulations.  We did pretty well.

Now comes football and cable television. The political leaders, the policymakers, and the industry heavyweights are all on the playing field.  No one is looking out for the consumer.

As for public education, fuhgeddaboutit.

Wisconsin State Journal: "Cable Bill May Not be Boon to Consumers." Capital Times: "So What Else Is New?"

Last Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal ran a p.1 story on the "video competition" bill with the headline "Cable Bill May Not Be Boon To Consumers."

"I wouldn 't be holding my breath to see another wired competitor in Madison in less than two years, " said Barry Orton, a UW-Madison telecommunications professor and an opponent of the bill.

AT&T now offers its U-verse television services in parts of Racine and Milwaukee. But if the company decides to offer service in Madison or elsewhere, it won 't make a big announcement, AT&T spokesman Jeff Bentoff said. Rather, it will contact consumers individually through direct mail and door-to-door visits.

"When it 's available, we 'll let them know, " Bentoff said.

That approach suggests a desire to select the neighborhoods in which to offer service, Orton said, unlike typical cable agreements with local governments that require broad-based service.

"That 's what this bill is fundamentally about -- the ability to cherry-pick neighborhoods, " Orton said.

As to the headline, Vikki Kratz wrote in Isthmus, referring to the fact that the bill already passed both chambers of the legislature:

Now they tell us.

The Capital Times, on the other hand, has been all over this story both from the news and editorial sides.  Dave Zweifel reacted to the story Friday:

On Sunday the State Journal ran a front page story that suggested the new "cable reform" legislation might not save consumers money after all.

So what else is new?

The story confirmed what opponents of the legislation had been repeatedly saying as loudly as they could for months and months while AT&T and others filled campaign coffers in the state Legislature.

It's what we said in numerous editorials leading up to the final vote in the state Senate earlier this month and what several in-depth reports by our reporter Judith Davidoff revealed several weeks ago. Not only is this new law unlikely to save cable TV customers any money, it severely weakens the consumer safeguards that have been in place in Wisconsin since cable TV arrived on the scene.

- Barry Orton

 

 

"Video Competition" BIll's Supporters Coincidentally Get AT&T's Largest Contributions

The Capital Times editorial yesterday phrased it right:

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has come up with an especially telling -- and especially troubling -- illustration of the primary explanation for the endorsement by the state Senate of a rewrite of cable television regulations that harms consumers and communities while benefitting out-of-state telecommunications corporations.

The 23 senators who voted in favor of the legislation accepted a total of $1.2 million in campaign contributions from special interests that support the proposal, according to the Democracy Campaign.

In contrast, the nine senators who opposed the bill had accepted less than $100,000 in total contributions from the special interests.

Reduced to raw numbers: The average senator who supported the controversial measure -- which was crafted to benefit its chief proponent, AT&T -- collected $52,297 from interests associated with AT&T and its allies.

The average senator who opposed the bill had contributions from the same interests of around $11,000.

...Politicians always claim that patterns of contributions and votes are mere coincidences.

But these patterns are too consistent to be dismissed as mere coincidence.

Today's Cap Times has a story by Judy Davidoff that several legislators are drafting a bill to stop the kind of misrepresentation that TV4US used to push the "video competition" bill:

Rep. Joe Parisi is not giving up.

The Madison Democrat is still incensed that the group pushing for cable deregulation misrepresented his position on the bill, and he wants to put a stop to the practice.

Parisi and Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts, D-Middleton -- who also opposed the cable bill but was categorized as a supporter in documents submitted by TV4US to state lawmakers -- started seeking co-sponsors Wednesday on legislation that would prohibit special-interest groups from misrepresenting constituents' views to lawmakers.

Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, will also introduce a Senate version of the bill.

The legislation, according to an analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau, would require anyone submitting a communication to lawmakers with the names of constituents to first obtain "a written or electronic document which proves that the named constituent has taken a position in support of or in opposition to the proposal identified in the communication."

"The onus would be on the interest group to have some kind of documentation," Parisi said in an interview.

Meanwhile, Emily Mills at Dane101 tried to pin Senator Russ Decker down as whether or not the "video competition" bill was his priority, and apparently struck a nerve.  A very defensive comment from a "sallyjones" reads very much like it came from Barb Worcester, a senior staffer of Decker's and Chuck Chvala's wife:

Russ Decker never said it was a priority. John Nichols never interviewed him on the topic and has no quote to from Decker saying it is a priority. Go ahead and ask him. Decker was asked if we would schedule the bill everyone took that to mean it was a priority. This bill has been out there for months and the only reason people had some to build support for amendments to make it better is because Decker insisted it go to the Joint Finance Committee. Sen. Robson and others wanted the bill passed in the spring and there are direct quotes for that.

He also didn't put in the liquor provision. Some folks upset about the change in leadership are spreading rumors that just aren't true.

And as a woman I'm a little disappointed that other women would count a woman working in Decker's office as being in "cahoots." Have a little more respect for your own gender than letting people talk you into believing that a professional woman still gets her orders from her husband on what to do. (bold emphasis Waxing America's)

Talk about protesting a bit too much. This debacle never ends...

- Barry Orton

 

 

Cap Times: Veto "Video Competition" Bill and Naming Names

The Capital Times today called for the Governor to veto the "video competition" bill the Wisconsin Senate passed Thursday:

...Doyle should not hesitate to veto this corrupt legislation.

...If enacted, the quality of cable service in Wisconsin will
decline.  Cable bills will go up.

Rural areas and inner cities will be denied access to technological advances. The digital divide will grow wider.

And corporations will know that if they spread campaign money and lobbying influence around in the right way, they can game the system in Wisconsin.

The Cap Times also named names:

Madison-area state senators Fred Risser, Jon Erpenbach and Mark Miller all voted against the industry-promoted cable-television re-regulation bill. That put them on the losing end of the 23-9 vote to approve the measure.

Special credit goes to Monona Democrat Miller for his determined efforts to amend the measure.

Joining Risser, Erpenbach and Miller in voting to protect the rights of cable consumers was former Senate Majority Leader Judy Robson, D-Beloit.

On the side of the telecommunications conglomerates that want to create broad monopolies so that they can jack up prices while cutting the quality of service was new Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Schofield. Democrats joining him were Roger Breske of Eland, Spencer Coggs of Milwaukee, Dave Hansen of Green Bay, John Lehman of Racine, Jeff Plale of South Milwaukee, Jim Sullivan of Wauwatosa, Lena Taylor of Milwaukee and Robert Wirch of Kenosha. They all ought to hang their heads in shame.

Mike McCabe has the list of how much AT&T money each Democratic Senator took.

The Cap Times missed naming the few other Democrats who ought to be commended as voting against this mess: Senators Tim Carpenter, Pat Kreitlow, Julie Lassa, Robert Jauch, and Kathleen Vinehout.

Senators Jauch and Vinehout spent a lot of energy pointing out that their rural constituents would get screwed because wired video competition would never reach them and the current cable providers would then be unregulated. Their amendments all failed. The cable operators and their lobbyists sitting near me in the gallery (largely) kept their glee muffled.

Vinehout also defended the PEG interests with energy and heart.  She and her staff gained a lot of respect all through this process.

I've also new respect for Senators Risser and Miller, who both showed real leadership on this bill for many months.

For the record, I'm  proud of all of our local legislators for their votes on this one. Representatives Mark Pocan and Gary Hebl and their staffs worked especially hard for consumers, local governments, and PEG channels.

- Barry Orton

Wisconsin Senate Passes "Video Competition" Bill; Defeats Amendments To Make It More Consumer-Friendly

I just consumed another entire day watching the "Video Competition" bill progress towards becoming law in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Senate debated and defeated a long series of amendments that would make the bill more consumer-friendly, more responsive to rural needs, more supportive of local PEG channels, more limiting in its terms and conditions and less of a giveaway to the cable and phone companies, and more responsive to the future importance of broadband infrastructure to our economy.  Instead, the bill passed almost entirely as introduced in the Senate, and will need minimum adjusting to conform to the Assembly's version.  It's a triumph for Senator Jeff Plale (D- Milwaukee), the chief Senate sponsor, and newly elected Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston), who made passage his first priority.

Recognition for their efforts to amend and improve a bad bill must go to Senators Mark Miller (D-Monona), Kathleen Vinhout (D-Alma), and Judy Robson (D-Beloit), who worked hard to convince their colleagues that they were being sold a bill of goods. Almost all the Republicans voted as a bloc against their amendments, as did several Democrats.  It was a depressing process to witness, especially seeing many cable and phone company staffers and lobbyists watching their dollars at work.

Senate President Fred Risser (D-Madison) patiently and fairly presided over the session, and should be thanked for his many efforts to improve the bill in the last few months.

Senator Mike Ellis (R-Neenah) kept straying off the GOP reservation, as he is wont to do.  He kept pointing out the contradictions between what Sen. Plale was saying the bill would do, and the bill's actual language. At one point he said "Senator Decker is laughing all the way to I better not say where..." as Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) glared at him.

Special mention and a medal should go to Mary Cardona, head of the Wisconsin Association of PEG Channels, who pulled off a lobbying loaves and fishes act with meager resources and a real grass-roots coalition.  Most of the PEG-related improvements from the original bill and many of the other improvements resulted from her efforts, which included a great last-minute op-ed piece in the Capital Times:

AT&T wants a license to turn a quick buck and is about to get it.

Cable wants to extract greater profits from Wisconsin by getting rid of community investment and is about to get it.

Residents should be hopping mad.

- Barry Orton