THE HARVARD VERSION OF WHY JANE CAMPBELL LOST THE ELECTION

Over dinner last week at one of her favorite restaurants in this Ivy League town, Campbell and her mother, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, spoke candidly about why they thought Campbell lost.

“Affection of the black community for Jane cost us in the white community,” said Brown Campbell, who was in town to talk to her daughter’s students about faith and politics.

To illustrate that point, she and her daughter recalled a comment made by a white resident during Campbell’s door-to-door campaigning on the West Side. They said the woman pointed to one of Campbell’s black campaign workers and complained that Campbell spent too much time on “people like that.”

White West Side voters thought Campbell was too tight with Black people... so they went out and voted for the Black guy. What a bunch of racists.

For the record, here's how the votes fell, ward-by-ward. And here's the one documented instance of "racial politics" in the campaign -- on Campbell's behalf.

I don't want to dislike Campbell personally. But with crap like this, she's making it hard to hold out.

George asks the pertinent question about her new consulting business.

democracy guy is stunned that this line is being taught in a Harvard classroom. Actually, it's not just Harvard -- it's the Kennedy School. And I don't find it stunning in the slightest... though it does make you wonder whether, and how, Campbell's students are hearing the other side of the story. You know, the African-American winner's side.

MARTY SWEENEY MEETS THE BLOGGERS

The podcast of MTB's interview with the new President of Cleveland City Council, recorded last Tuesday at Talkie's, is on line.

If you live in Cleveland and care about city politics this is a must-listen.

TAKE A MUSIC BREAK: Neil Young's new album "Living With War" is available for free listening here. I'm listening right now to "Shock and Awe".

Maxspeak says: If culture was a war, this would be like the landing at Normandy.

Yeah, well, it's pretty good.

COPE ACT IS ON THE FAST TRACK

From Defend Your Voice, the blog of Media Bridges in Cincinnati:

More bad news.

1. The COPE Act is expected to be voted on [by the full U.S. Houses of Representatives] next Thursday, May 4th.

2. The Senate is expected to add its on final bill into the mix a week later.

So... if you don't want this bill to become law, you have five days to let your Member of Congress know about it. The clock's ticking!

Dennis Kucinich
Stephanie Tubbs-Jones
Steven LaTourette
Sherrod Brown
Tim Ryan
Ralph Regula

TED STRICKLAND'S EXPLANATION OF HIS "COPE ACT" VOTE

Late yesterday afternoon Congressman Strickland responded to the request of this blog for an explanation of his "Yes" vote in Energy and Commerce for the Barton/Rush video-Internet franchising bill (the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Efficiency Act", or COPE Act).

I appreciate Congressman Strickland's prompt, straightforward response.

I also appreciate his commitment to pursue legislation to require "net neutrality" of nationally franchised video-Internet providers. I can't see how this commitment was served by helping send the COPE Act to the floor as a bipartisan proposal, which was the actual effect of Strickland's vote. But it's true that the escalating net neutrality fight can and will continue in other Congressional arenas, so his promise to "continue to strongly support efforts to ensure net neutrality, and ... stand with any effort to ensure fair and comprehensive access to the internet" does mean something.

But net neutrality is not the only issue with this bill. In fact, it's not really the most important issue, even though it's the one getting all the heat. I'm very disappointed that Congressman Strickland's statement simply regurgitates the core AT&T /Verizon argument for national franchising, without even acknowledging the existence of other serious problems at the heart of the bill.

The point of the COPE Act is to strip local communities of their historic leverage over existing and new cable/Internet providers' rates, channel offerings, customer service and neighborhood availability. It transfers their jurisdiction over neighborhood access ("redlining") issues, customer service complaints, public access resources, and even right-of-way disputes to the FCC -- a Washington bureaucracy that has neither the capacity nor the political inclination to deal with these community concerns seriously. (At the Committee's "opening statements" session Tuesday, Rep. Doyle of Pittsburgh had a very interesting comparison of the FCC's total complaint caseload with the much greater volume of cable TV complaints now being handled by local governments.)

By driving municipalities from the franchising table, the bill also eliminates one of the few tools available to communities to fund low-income technology inclusion and access programs. The states have already lost this leverage as "advanced telecommunications" slipped out from under the jurisdiction of public utility regulators. Now it's the cities' turn to lose. Under the COPE Act's federalized franchising system, we'll see no more regulatory negotiations of the kind that have provided most of the resources for community technology in Ohio, especially Cleveland, in the last decade. (See the second half of this post.) And there's no proposal of any kind to compensate states and cities for this lost leverage.

You'd think Congressman Strickland, who hopes to become a Governor who supports community technology centers as well as community broadband partnerships, would be more protective of local powers in this area. Instead, his statement simply repeats the AT&T/Verizon mantra: Federalizing the franchise process will "facilitate competition in the video market so that consumers have more choices and can benefit from lower cable prices. This bill.. will provide consumers with choices and savings that were, to this point, very difficult to realize under current guidelines."

Look, the telecoms don't need national franchising to start competing with cable in Ohio cities and villages. There's nothing stopping AT&T from seeking a local franchise right now to roll out its new LightSpeed service to compete with Time-Warner in Cleveland or Akron. The telecoms would certainly prefer to avoid dealing with local authorities -- for all the reasons described above. But does the Congressman imagine that, if the COPE Act doesn't pass, AT&T and Verizon will just give up on the high-speed converged-media market and leave it all to the cable companies?

As for unserved rural areas, there's nothing in the COPE Act to induce either the telecoms or the cable industry to build out higher-speed services in places where they don't offer DSL or cable modem service now. Do you think they intend to string fiber where they won't string coax or upgrade their copper lines?

The only part of the COPE Act that provides any real balance to its mortal attack on community franchising rights is Title 4, which establishes what could be called a "Community Right to Network". In a nutshell, it says to cities and villages: While you will no longer have any authority over the private companies that use your streets and poles to sell video services, they will no longer be able to stop you (by means of state or Federal legislation) from creating and selling your own public TV or Internet services. If there's not enough competition, the community can build an open infrastructure and lease it to other providers; if parts of the city aren't served by private infrastructures, the community can step in and build its own. If a city wants to build community computer centers or special low-income Internet rates into its own networking plan -- as Philadelphia is doing in its wireless project with Earthlink -- it's free to do so.

I'd have more confidence in Congressman Strickland's position if he showed some understanding of the importance of Title 4, and promised to be "a voice on the front lines fighting" for the Community Right to Network when the telecoms make their inevitable move to strip it from the bill.

UPDATE: STRICKLAND STATEMENT ON COPE ACT SUPPORT

I just got this in the email from Strickland campaign staffer Jesse Taylor, addressed to several dozen Ohio bloggers:

Ted's Statement on the COPE vote

"On Wednesday, I voted for an amendment to the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Efficiency Act of 2006 (COPE) to ensure "net neutrality" which ultimately failed. I also voted for the final version of the COPE Act in committee.

"My vote for the COPE Act was an effort to facilitate competition in the video market so that consumers have more choices and can benefit from lower cable prices. This bill, despite the regrettable exclusion of net neutrality language, will provide consumers with choices and savings that were, to this point, very difficult to realize under current guidelines.

"I continue to strongly support efforts to ensure net neutrality, and would stand with any effort to ensure fair and comprehensive access to the internet. There is still time to fight and win this battle, and I will be a voice on the front lines fighting to preserve equal access to the internet for all consumers and content providers."

HOUSE IGNORES PUBLIC, SELLS OUT THE INTERNET: A press release from SaveTheInternet.com via the Free Press.

TED? SHERROD? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Late last night I sent emails to the Brown and Strickland campaigns:

[Rep. Brown/Strickland] cast a "yes" vote this evening on the final version of the Barton/Rush video-Internet franchising bill in Energy and Commerce, after supporting Congressman Markey's unsuccessful amendment to strengthen net neutrality protections. This vote (for the final, unamended bill) is likely to be the subject of considerable blog criticism -- by me, among others.

In fairness, can you provide either a statement by the Congressman which I can quote, or a link to such a statement, explaining his rationale for this vote?

No response yet from either campaign.

BARTON/RUSH: WHEN THE DEAL GOES DOWN, BROWN AND STRICKLAND VOTE "YES"

Well, the deal just went down. And this time the news is all bad.

The entire "COPE Act", essentially unchanged from what the subcommittee marked up two weeks ago, was just approved by the full Energy and Commerce Committee 42 to 12. Eleven Democrats and one Republican voted against it.

Rep. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Ted Strickland voted for the final bill.

Yes, the bill that effectively wipes out community oversight of the cable industry. The bill that will allow nationally franchised video/Internet providers to redline neighborhoods and create "tiers" of Internet service. The bill that undermines net neutrality and threatens to "end the Internet as we know it." That bill. They voted "yes".

Which means, I guess, that it didn't really matter that...

[posted earlier]
BROWN, STRICKLAND SUPPORT NET NEUTRALITY AMENDMENT

Just watched the webcast Energy and Commerce Committee vote on the "Markey amendment" to strengthen the net neutrality section of the Burton/Rush video-internet franchising bill.

Here's the bad news: The amendment was defeated 34 to 22 on an almost straight party-line vote. Here's the Broadcasting & Cable coverage.

Here's the good news: Both Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland voted for the net neutrality amendment.

More good news, also from B&C: Municipal Net Bans Won't Be Grandfathered. An amendment to leave anti-muni-broadband laws in place in the fourteen states that have passed them (Ohio isn't one) was essentially shouted down on a voice vote. (It doesn't look like Rep. Buyer's promised amendment to get the "Pennsylvania law" put into the bill ever materialized.)

Markup is still in progress with a vote on the whole package coming soon. More later.

Update: Save The Internet's map has already changed. Lots more green dots now. But not enough.

COMMITTEE GATHERS TO CUT THE VIDEO-INTERNET FRANCHISING DEAL; SHERROD STILL AMONG THE MISSING

I just watched the webcast of the Energy and Commerce Committee's "opening statements" session on the Barton/Rush bill (the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006"). There were many empty chairs. Ohio's sole representative was GOP Congressman (and national franchising enthusiast) Paul Gillmor.

No sign of Sherrod Brown. Or Ted Strickland.

I wonder if they'll be in the room when the Committee gets down to the business of carving up the open Internet -- and what remains of local community initiative -- tomorrow morning.

(Kudos to Reps. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, who seem to have actually gone home during the recess and talked to some city officials in their districts about the bill's impact.)

IT'S FINALLY NEWS IN CLEVELAND

Yes, the words "net neutrality" have finally appeared in the Plain Dealer, courtesy of Cox News Service (the article is on the first page of today's business section but not on line.) Better late than never, I suppose.

Here's Save The Internet, the coalition described in the article. Among the extremely diverse groups joining to demand stronger protection of the open Internet are the Ohio Community Computing Network (disclosure: I'm the president of the OCCN board) and our national mother ship, the Community Technology Centers Network.

The PD's headline refers to the Energy and Commerce bill as "bipartisan". This in itself is a victory for the Republican majority, courtesy of Chicago's Black Panther Congressman, Bobby Rush. Selling out ordinary consumers, small businesses and communities to please major industry lobbyists -- and their check-writers -- is often a bipartisan undertaking in the Congress.

This map shows just how few (eight) of the fifteen Democrats on the Telecom and Internet Subcommittee showed up and voted for the net neutrality amendment offered by their leaders, Dingell and Markey, when the bill was "marked up" two weeks ago. (Note that Ohio's Sherrod Brown was not among them.) What will the map look like after the full E&C Committee does its business on this bill tomorrow? Will there be many more green dots? Stay tuned.

(Keep up to date with the Free Press news page. Also, Josh Marshall weighs in.)

Update: Harold Feld at wetmachine says there will be a move in tomorrow's markup to gut Section 401(a), which guarantees communities' "right to network" without state or Federal interference:

I am informed that Representative Steve Buyer from the state of Indiana will introduce an amendment tomorrow seeking to eliminate the good language on muni broadband with language similar to that in the Ensign Telecom rewrite bill that requires local governments to get permission from private industry before building a network (aka the “Pennsylvania Plan”).

... I fear that with all the focus network neutrality and local franchising, that people will lose track of one of the few good things in the bill and let it slip away.

A HORSE CAN ENDORSE, OF COURSE, OF COURSE

The horses at psychobilly democrat have posted a stunning appraisal of the Democratic candidates for the 13th District Congressional seat being vacated by Sherrod Brown. You gotta read this.

SHOWDOWN ON NATIONAL VIDEO/INTERNET FRANCHISING AND NET NEUTRALITY THIS WEEK... BUT IT'S NOT NEWS YET

It's Monday. The recess is over and Congress is re-convening. The House Energy and Commerce Committee takes up the Barton/Rush national video/Internet franchising bill tomorrow at 5 pm. "Markup" is scheduled for Wednesday.

The bill will have a major impact on cable TV franchises in Cleveland and other NEO communities. As drafted, it will also clear the way for a highly controversial "tiered Internet".

Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland are both Committee members. Neither statewide candidate for higher office has yet made any public comment about the proposal.

And the Plain Dealer has not printed a word about any of this. Not. One. Word.

Art Brodsky at TPM Cafe Friday:

Congress is going to hand the operation of the Internet over to AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. Democrats are helping. It's a shame.

Don’t look now, but the House Commerce Committee next Wednesday is likely to vote to turn control of the Internet over to AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and what’s left of the telecommunications industry. It will be one of those stories the MSM writes about as “little noticed” because they haven’t covered it.

Amen to that.

(See Matt Stoller's overview at MyDD today, including an animated explanation of "net neutrality.")

BLACKWELL AND COINGATE: PRESENT AT THE CREATION?

After a long MTB hiatus, I managed to drag my butt to yesterday's Meet The Bloggers session with Democratic State Treasurer candidate Richard Cordray. The audio isn't posted yet, but Jill has a long description.

Here's my headline from the interview: Cordray said that the first state deposit to a private BWC investment account controlled personally by Tom Noe was issued by the State Treasurer's office in 1998. Cordray, who's now the treasurer of Franklin County, says this handling of state funds was self-evidently improper and should have been blocked automatically by Treasury officials.

And who was State Treasurer at the time this occurred?

Ken "Coingate is Petro's fault" Blackwell.

MUST READ: I don't know why Ohio 2006 never got on my blogroll, but it's there now. See Yellow Dog Sammy's excellent on-scene coverage of the 11th District Caucus meeting the night before last.

A NEW KIND OF EXIT POLL

Just got this in the email from Judy Gallo of the Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition (link added):

From: Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 11:00 AM

Please post this notice to your list serves ASAP. Because time is so short, we hope you can do this today.Thank you very much for your help in this important election project.

April 20, 2006

Dear Friend of Voting Rights,

The Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition invites you to participate as an exit poll monitor in the Cuyahoga County primary elections on May 2, 2006. The purpose of this nonpartisan effort is to develop objective information to improve our election process, hopefully in time for the General Elections in November.

Based on past experience with voter problems and given the introduction of electronic voting machines, we have devised a short exit poll which will collect important data on potential key problems.

We are looking for volunteers who can spend a couple of hours on Election Day, polling voters as they leave the polls. Our goal is to cover select polls during the busiest parts of the day- early morning and late afternoon, early evening. Everyone who agrees with our Mission Statement... is invited to participate, regardless of party affiliation or position on other issues not included in the mission statement. This is strictly a non-partisan effort.

If you can contribute at least 2 hours and preferably 3+ hours on May 2, either in the morning (6:30-9:30am) or the evening (4:30-7:30pm) or both, please go ASAP to: www.ohioelectionvolunteer.org and sign up for the times most convenient for you. Forms and instructions will be sent in time for the May 2 polling. PLEASE SIGN UP AS SOON AS POSSIBLE - TODAY IF YOU CAN!!

With many thanks to you for helping to improve elections,

Yours sincerely,
Cynthia Samples and Roslyn Talerico, Co-Conveners, the Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition

TALES OF THE SAUSAGE FACTORY: SHUTTING OUT "CONTROVERSIAL" RELIGIOUS ADS

From Harold at wetmachine:

As some of you may recall, the United Church of Christ has found it difficult to buy air time for advertisements urging folks to come to church. Please note, that's BUY airtime. UCC has not asked for a freebie public service announcement.

Apparently, the message that Jesus ministers to everyone regardless of whether they are mainstream or not is still too “controversial” for mainstream networks. Worse, and further proof of the power of consolidation to supress debate, the cable networks owned or affiliated with the broadcast networks have now joined in the black out of UCC's controversial “God loves everyone” message. Even the Viacom gay and lesbian network has rejected the advertisement (apparently a church that actually welcomes members of their target audience is too controversial).

For anyone who laughs at the idea that a “free market” will willingly forgo revenues just to block potentially unpopular speech, I advise you to look again.

THE NATIONAL VIDEO/INTERNET FRANCHISING BILL: HOW WE SHOULD FEEL

In a comment on my last post, Jill asks: "How should we feel?... Can you sum what's at stake, or re-direct to a prior post where you discussed?"

Sure. Let's get boring. Here's how I feel personally about the bill that Energy and Commerce will start considering next week -- presumably with Congressmen Brown and Strickland in attendance.

1) Both the telecom and cable companies are seeking vertical integration of very large chunks of the Internet content, backbone and ISP markets. In Cleveland, the likely result is enhanced duopoly control of high-speed Internet service as it gets faster -- two dominant players (AT&T and Time Warner), each of which has the power (and the intent, apparently) to steer its customers toward its own preferred web content.

You could solve this problem by stopping the vertical integration -- you know, actual antitrust enforcement -- but that's no longer a serious option. You could require the two systems to act as "common carriers" for competitors, but that fight was lost (with respect to cable being an open network for ISPs) six or seven years ago. So vertically integrated companies with closed networks are what we're gonna get.

The "street argument" for the bill is, basically, we're better off with two of these companies in our community intead of just one. This would probably be true, all other things being equal. But of course other things won't be equal. The monopoly we have now (cable) has an element of control over its monopoly behavior -- the local franchising process, which gives consumers some leverage on program mix, rates, and equitable availability of service. The current House bill eliminates these vestiges of community control, substituting FCC "protections" that are essentially meaningless.

So first off, Congress should not be legislating to substitute a vertical duopoly for a regulated vertical monopoly, eliminating community regulation in the process.

But if that's what they're going to do, at least the substitute Federal regulation should be meaningful. At a minimum, it should prohibit the use of the vertical duopoly to steer Internet traffic to favored web sites and services. "Prohibit" means more than a slap-on-the-wrist fine for blocking a site or a user. It means putting an affirmative obligation on the franchised companies to offer both up and down services on a non-discriminatory basis. Failure to comply should bring either automatic loss of franchise, or the possibility of disadvantaged content providers to sue you for damages, or both.

2) Of course there's another approach to the vertical monopoly/duopoly problem -- enable more players to compete. If we're not going to impose Net Neutrality and open-network obligations on the big telecom and cable systems through regulation, at least we can make sure our network access, from top to bottom, isn't dependent on them.

That's what the Utopia project in Utah is doing, building city-owned residential fiber networks as an open last-mile infrastructure for use by multiple ISPs, television and phone providers. At a much lower bandwidth, it's what Philadelphia Wireless is doing... inducing Earthlink to create a third, wireless citywide data infrastructure that's open to other ISPs and networks including community nonprofits. It's what cities in other countries (notably Reykjavik in Iceland) have been doing for years. It's what some community wireless groups envision -- interconnected nets of community-owned APs that spread across regions or even the country.

Maybe it's where One Cleveland is taking northeast Ohio, eventually. I hope so.

Public policy should aim to expand the ability of all comers, public and nonprofit as well as private, to add to the diversity and openness of the network at all levels. A national franchise system may, in fact, help bring more private infrastucture builders into some communities by allowing them to compete only for "high-value customers" and ignore others. For the high-value customers themselves, this will be a good thing. But for the rest of us, public and community networks will be be needed to accomplish the same good competitive outcome.

To this end, the bill before Energy and Commerce has one excellent provision: Section 401(a), which says:

Neither the Communications Act of 1934 nor any State statute, regulation, or other State legal requirement may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting any public provider of telecommunications service, information service, or cable service (as such terms are defined in sections 3 and 602 of such Act) from providing such services to any person or entity.

If the rest of the bill is going to be passed, Section 401(a) must remain, without compromise.

3) Most of the funding for community computer access and literacy programs in Ohio has come from state and local regulatory bargains. From 1994 through 2000, consumer intervenors were able to secure over $5 million to support low-income technology access programs through PUCO case settlements with telephone companies. The biggest local CTC funding initiative, Cleveland’s $3 million Neighborhood Technology Fund, was created as part of the city’s 2000 franchise agreement with Adelphia Cable. These initiatives couldn't have happened under the all-Federal system now being pushed through Congress.

I freely admit to being an interested party here -- I work for the coalition that first proposed the Neighborhood Technology Fund deal. You may not share my interest in the slightest. But if you think the "digital divide" is a legitimate policy concern, you should be aware that the pending Energy and Commerce bill will eliminate the main tool Ohio state and local governments have used to address that concern.

Is there a way to fix this? I don't know. Maybe companies with national video/Internet franchises should be required to pay into the Universal Service Fund, and low-income IT programs should be made eligible for USF funding. But something needs to be done to compensate communities for this important (if unintended) effect of ending their franchise authority.

So to sum up, here's what I want Congress to do with this bill:

1) Preferably, just kill it. Too much bad stuff, not enough good stuff, and all the wrong people in the room to make it better.

But this is probably not in the cards, so at a minimum...

2) Place an affirmative obligation on nationally franchised TV/Internet providers to offer both up and down services on a non-discriminatory basis (i.e. Net Neutrality and no redlining of customers). Failure to comply should bring either automatic loss of franchise, or explicit standing for disadvantaged content providers to sue for damages, or both.

3) Keep Section 401(a), guaranteeing communities' "right to network" without state or Federal interference, in the bill without compromise.

4) Do something to compensate communities for the lost opportunity to bargain for community technology resources as part of franchise agreements.

SALON: THE CORPORATE TOLL ON THE INTERNET

Via Boing Boing via BFD, an excellent article by Farhad Manjoo explaining why the Congressional wrangle over "network neutrality" is a big deal.

If you have an opinion about this issue, right now is the time to let it be known. Hearings on the U.S. House bill that will decide the future of Net neutrality -- and the role of communities in network access -- will start in the full Energy and Commerce Committee next week.

Sherrod? Ted? Representative Sherrod Brown, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Ohio, is a member of Energy and Commerce. Representative Ted Strickland, the leading Democratic candidate for Ohio Governor, is also a member of that committee. As far as I can tell, neither of these Congressmen/candidates has commented publicly on the proposed legislation, or on the generic issue of Net neutrality, or on the generic issue of local communities' role in the future of information networks.

If anyone working for the Brown or Strickland campaigns, or their Congressional staffs, happens to read this, I'd really love to publish anything your Congressman has to say about these subjects.

Meanwhile, if you're an Ohio voter who thinks the future of the Internet is important -- that it's an issue that might actually affect how you vote this November -- you might want to let Representative Brown, Representative Strickland, and your own Representative know how you feel.

OHIO IS 29TH IN STATEWIDE BROADBAND PENETRATION

This article in Crain's Chicago Business makes me wonder how much of Cleveland still has no broadband access for small business.

But it also turned me on to the FCC's twice-a-year reports on high-speed Internet penetration by state and technology. I downloaded the most recent spreadsheet (it's the "zip files" of the June 2005 report) and did my own version of the chart in the Crain's article, including all fifty states and the District of Columbia, using 2004 Census population numbers. (My spreadsheet is posted here if you want it.)

The bottom line: With a broadband line for every 7.61 persons, Ohio ranks 29th among the fifty states -- 30th if you add the District of Columbia to the list, which you should, because it has the highest per capita broadband penetration in the country.

"END OF THE INTERNET" IS AT HAND: IS IT NEWS YET?

So here's the thing: Nine days ago, a U.S. House subcommittee approved a proposed bill by a bipartisan 21-4 margin, after slapping down a couple of amendments proposed by the committee's minority (Democratic) leadership. The legislation was written by the chairman of the full House committee, who says it will be acted on by that committee as soon as the House returns from its Spring break. It's strongly supported by the nation's single best-funded lobby (big telecom) and now includes major concessions to its main industry opponent (cable TV companies). The powerful chairman, who made all this happen in under three weeks, says the bill will go to a full House vote this summer and will pass.

The legislation in question...

-- ends thirty years of municipal authority over cable TV franchises, eliminating local communities' ability to ensure community-wide service, affect rates or channel availability, negotiate community benefits (like Cleveland's Neighborhood Technology Fund), or maintain robust public access programming

-- permits both new and existing cable/fiber providers, operating under "national franchises", to provide next-generation broadband hookups only where they choose within a community... and even to charge different rates in different neighborhoods

-- permits major owners of Internet backbone like AT&T and Verizon, who will also be dominant local providers of next-generation broadband, to abandon the longstanding principle of network neutrality in Internet service and create "tiers" of cost and access that steer their customers to favored websites. (This is what Jeff Chester and others have been warning is "the end of the Internet as we know it".)

For Cleveland and many nearby communities, the passage of this bill will make upcoming negotiations with Time-Warner on the takeover and renewal of Adelphia Cable's franchises pretty meaningless, since Time-Warner will soon be free to abandon those local franchises in favor of the national alternative.

There's every reason to expect this bill, the "The Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006", to pass the House soon after Chairman Joe Barton steers it through the full Energy and Commerce Committee in early May. There's also good reason to expect a version of national cable/Internet franchising to reach the U.S. Senate floor in the not-too-distant future. If it passes, there will be a conference committee dominated by Barton and his GOP Senate counterpart, they'll produce a "compromise" bill, and national franchising may become the law of the land by the end of the year.

You'd think this would be news, wouldn't you? I would. But apparently we'd be wrong. It can't be real news, because (as far as Google and I can determine) the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act" has not yet been mentioned by:

The Plain Dealer (except in Henry's blog)
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Associated Press
CBS, NBC, or ABC News
NPR
The vast majority of politics blogs of any stripe, including NEO blogs.

Honorable exceptions to that last generalization include Matt Stoller at MyDD, this Kos diarist, the aforementioned Jeff Chester (who's also been on Amy Goodman), Public Knowledge, Progress Report and a few others -- very few. (Update: Add the Huffington Post to the list.)

The lack of MSM and blogger interest in Northeast Ohio is especially strange, not just because of the impact of this legislation on cities trying to deal with Time-Warner (I promise you, people at City Hall are paying close attention), but also because Ohio's two top-of-the-ticket Democrats, Ted Strickland and Sherrod Brown, are both on Energy and Commerce and will have to vote on this whole mess in the next couple of weeks.

"WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD BY TALKING"

At wetmachine, Harold Feld recreates his speech from the Community Wireless Summit.

STEELYARD COMMONS SHRINKING?

Don't look now, but Cleveland's new shopping mall in the Flats seems to have gotten smaller in the last ten months.

You can check it out at the official Steelyard Commons website. Here's the site plan as of May 2005. And here's the "Current Lease Plan" map dated March 2006. Comparing the two, it appears that the site has been redesigned to:

Eliminate one of the four "major retail" stores (at 150,000 square feet, the second biggest) at the development's north end...

Add 40,000 to 50,000 net square feet of smaller retail, and...

Add a couple of outlots at the north entrance for Steak 'n' Shake and Dunkin' Donuts.

All told, it seems the developers have eliminated something like 100,000 square feet of leasable area -- 10% of the million square feet originally promised.

How will these changes affect the project's tax and employment projections? Unfortunately, no such updates have been added to the SYC "Economic Impact" page.

"WHO OWNS THE INTERNET? WE HAVE A MAP..."

From Ben Wurthen at CIO Blogs:

I’ve been following the net neutrality debate for a while now. Real briefly, the telecommunications industry is lobbying for the right to manage the traffic that flows over their networks as they see fit. For more read the post linked above. Everyone is focusing on the last mile, which makes sense because that is the part of the network where there is the most congestion. But getting rid of net neutrality would also give the companies that own the fiber and routers at the core of the Internet the ability to manage data there.

When I heard that AT&T was going to buy Bell South, I wondered how much of the backbone this new company would own. With all the attention on the last mile were we overlooking a burgeoning monopoly at the core?

That’s where this map comes in.

Here's Wurthen's map (it's a big PDF file).

(Found via firstmile.us.)

RUMOR MILL

BFD passes along a speculation by Paul Forsgren that the "big announcement" recently promised by One Cleveland/Community is that Time Warner Cable will move its headquarters from NYC to Cleveland and form some kind of partnership with 1C.

Great rumor. Is there any truth to it? Who knows? After all, we're bloggers. Let's make'em deny it.

CUYAHOGA ELECTION OFFICIALS INDICTED FOR TAMPERING TO AVOID '04 HAND RECOUNT

Oh. My. God.

Remember this?

Michael Vu is not one of the people indicted... yet. But is there some remaining argument about whether he should be fired?

BARTON BILL AMENDMENTS CLAIM TO ANSWER CRITICS ON NET NEUTRALITY AND REDLINING; DEMS, CONSUMER GROUPS ARE NOT CONVINCED

Henry Gomez points to a News.com story about "manager's amendments" to the telecom bill, circulated in advance of today's markup session in the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Here's a similar story from Broadcasting & Cable. The amendments give the FCC more explicit authority to punish "national franchise" cable/Internet providers for violations of the agency's own net neutrality policy and strengthen the bill's language against economic redlining. From the B&C article:

As advertised, the bill, which is being amended Wednesday, will contain stronger anti-red-lining language (red lining is not serving lower income and other less profitable customers) and stronger enforcement power over violations of the FCC's network neutrality principles, which encourage nondiscrimination in the provision of Internet service.

The bill will require the FCC to adjudicate complaints within 90 days, up the fine for violations to $500,000 per, and give the FCC additional enforcement authority.

The bill also allows for periodic audits of the national franchisee to make sure they are paying their franchise and PEG (public, educational and government) channel fees.

But Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey, a Democrat on the subcommittee who plans to introduce his own amendments in the markup session, is unconvinced:

Markey remains concerned about the bill's lack of buildout requirements for either new video entrants or cable incumbents once they, too, seek a national franchise. That, he says will allow companies to bypass some lower-income areas and to raise rates in others to subsidize competition for more lucrative customers.

Or, as Ben Scott of Free Press puts it in an email:"[The B&C article] leaves out the fact that the anti-redlining language is still a white wash job that leaves investigation and enforcement of redlining in all US towns and cities to the FCC, a federal agency with no track record of enforcing anything at the local level effectively."

Update: The Barton Bill, with the "manager's amendments", was approved by the subcommittee late today by a vote of 27 to 4, according to the National Journal's Insider Update. The four "no" votes were Democrats Dingell, Markey, Eshoo, and Doyle.

The closest vote of the day in the subcommittee, which includes eighteen Republicans and fifteen Democrats, was the 22-11 defeat of a Dingell/Markey anti-redlining amendment -- requiring the regional Bell operating companies,as they enter local cable TV markets with their brand-new national franchises, to “build out” services to all customers within each community. Another Dingell/Markey proposal to put more teeth in the bill's "Net neutrality" provision went down 23-8.

The bill now goes to the full Energy and Commerce Committee for action in late April or early May, and then to the full House (possibly with a stop at the Judiciary Committee).

(I'm told that Ohio Rep. Sherrod Brown, a subcommittee member, was absent from the markup session... though I don't know how to reconcile that with the reported 33 votes cast on the Dingell/Markey "buildout" amendment.)

NEGAWATTS AND PUBLIC POWER IN THE FREE TIMES

Another Foray Into Newsprint in today's Free Times (Electric Slide: Cleveland needs the power of negative thinking). If you're here because you saw the URL at the bottom of the column, welcome.

Some of the column's "missing links"...

Here's the Rocky Mountain Institute, with Amory Lovins' bio. Also an article about RMI's strategic plan for the San Francisco public power system.

Here's the Chicago experiment with hourly metering, run by the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

I've written a lot on Public Power's high rates... here and here are my last two posts on the subject. If you still think of CPP as a cheaper competitor to CEI/First Energy, check out this comparison of the two utilities' residential charges over the past thirteen months, based on my own CPP bills and the PUCO's monthly Ohio Utility Rate Survey:



And no, I don't know what "Electric Slide" means. Like writers always say, I don't write the headlines.

COLUMBUS TV STATIONS WON'T RUN MOVEON'S ANTI-PRYCE ADS

From Down With Tyranny.

More from Swing State Ohio, UAPA.

THE TELECOM BILL: MORE LINKS

Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey blogs at The Agonist: "Roadblocking the Information Superhighway by Negating Net Neutrality".

Testimony by Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, and Free Press at the March 30 hearing.

Jeff Chester at Digital Destiny says "Rep. Joe Barton and Co. destroy 'Community Communications'”.

Want to read the whole bill (at least the version circulated last Monday)? Here it is... all 34 pages.

And... the "final markup" session in the Energy and Commerce telecommunications subcommittee will be webcast live, starting at 5 p.m. this evening. Should be good clean politico-geek fun. (Real Player required.)

EAST OHIO'S REGULAR APRIL BILLS WILL BE CHEAPER THAN NOPEC'S "DEAL"

A month ago, I wrote:

NOPEC isn't going to save us. The new "aggregation" deal announced last week by the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council means that households in NOPEC cities, including Cleveland, will pay about $12.74 per mcf from April through September ($9.70 contract gas cost, plus 73 cents in sales tax on the gas, plus $2.30 for East Ohio's transportation charge). This will probably be no more than 2% or 3% cheaper than Dominion East Ohio's own rates, which will fall to a similar level for the same period. Then NOPEC has to negotiate a new -- and higher -- contract gas rate for bills starting in October.

Well, I was wrong. On Thursday, Dominion East Ohio filed its regular "utility rate" for April, and it's not 2%-3% higher than the ballyhooed NOPEC rate -- it's thirty-three cents cheaper!

So after all the press hype -- not to mention the cost of mailing all that pretty color-glossy literature to hundreds of thousands of homes -- it turns out what NOPEC is offering us is the chance to pay more for natural gas from now through October, unless we "opt out" of the offer and stay with Dominion's non-choice rate. Or unless they pull the plug on the offer, which I have to believe (and hope) is under consideration.

NOPEC's supplier for its $9.70 gas is Dominion's wholesale arm. At a community meeting two weeks ago, NOPEC spokesperson Bess Vrettos assured me they had very good reason to believe that the regular Dominion East Ohio rate would be going up in April. Did NOPEC's "expert" negotiators just get flat-out suckered?

And incidentally: This somewhat explosive information has been public at least since Friday. Has it been covered in the Plain Dealer, but is not showing up on their archive search? Or has the PD just missed it? John Funk, where are you?

WIRELESS SUMMIT NEWS: CONGRESSIONAL BATTLE LOOMS ON "NET NEUTRALITY" AND CITY CABLE FRANCHISE POWERS

Steve Goldberg and I got back from the Community Wireless Summit very late last night. Here's the big headline I wouldn't know about if I hadn't been there, because it's gotten very little coverage (none so far in the PD).

The U.S. House of Representatives is fast-tracking a telecom policy bill that, among other things, would:

1) Open the way for AT&T and other big broadband infrastructure providers to create "tiered Internet access" by charging extra fees for server and network priority... in effect, creating a passing lane on the information highway for preferred customers and business partners; and

2) Eliminate most municipal franchise authority over local cable TV by establishing "national franchising" in any city where the telecom (e.g. AT&T) establishes a new broadband video presence. A city like Cleveland (which faces franchise transfer and renewal negotiations with Time-Warner this Summer) could still collect franchise and public access fees, but would lose its right to enforce service in all neighborhoods, its voice in channel and rate issues, and its ability to negotiate other community benefits.

The bill is set for final markup this week by the Telecommunications Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, whose Chairman, Joe Barton of Texas, unveiled it just a week ago. Ohio E&C Committee members include Republican Paul Gillmor and Democrats Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland. Gillmor and Brown are members of the subcommittee.

On the up side, the Barton draft (as of Friday) would protect municipalities' right to build and operate their own networks. But this part of the draft is already under attack by some of Barton's GOP colleagues.

The best press coverage of the bill is being collected by the Free Press here. See also Sasha Meinrath's rundown.

The Democratic minority, led by John Dingell of Michigan and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, is denouncing the Barton bill for its failure to protect "net neutrality". I assume this also represents the views of committee members Brown (who will be directly involved in markup this week) and Strickland.

So we could be watching the emergence of the sleeper issue of the 2006 Ohio election -- Democrats vs. Republicans over "who will own the Internet" and set the terms of access for Ohio residents.

Other stuff from the Wireless Summit: Steve's laptop was kaflooey for much of the event but he managed this wiki entry. On the way home, Angela Stuber of Ohio Community Computing Network started a blog.

At the Summit website they've already linked to some podcasts as well as blog coverage by Lisa Yeo, Bob Babione, and Ken from Seattle Wireless.

Apparently we got out of town just in time.

NETWORK NETWORKING

So Goldberg is picking me up in a rented minivan in six hours and we're heading out for the National Summit for Community Wireless Networks in St. Louis, stopping in Columbus to pick up Katie and Robb, two Ohio Community Computing Network Vista volunteers.

Not being a laptopper myself, I probably won't get to blog much from the event even though we'll all be swimming in a sea of bandwidth. But I'll try to borrow a keyboard once or twice, and maybe the four of us can figure how to get some interviews posted.

Stay tuned.

GREAT DEBATES: Well, I missed them both (along with Jim Petro) but the Meet The Bloggers debates between the remaining Democratic candidates for Governor and Attorney General are posted, including the transcript of Strickland vs. Flannery.

Thanks to Gloria Ferris, we now have the Democratic candidates for governor on the record agreeing that Ohio's deregulation of electric rates was "bad for Ohio" (Flannery) and "a huge mistake" (Strickland). Strickland, at greater length:

I think what we’re seeing on the part of the utility companies today is a desire to reap the benefits of deregulation, while at the same time trying to push a kind of re-regulation that is to their benefit. So in other words, they want the best of both worlds. They want to be deregulated when it is to their financial advantage, and they want the guarantee of being able to recoup whatever investments they make in a new generation capacity. They want the State to guarantee that they will in fact not have to face that risk. So I think the situation we have today is intolerable... [W]e need a Governor who will have a strong consumer advocacy position, and make sure that the people who are appointed to the PUCO are people who have a track record of being concerned about the needs of the consumer.

Neither candidate explained exactly how a new governor or his PUCO might go about stuffing the deregulation genie back into its bottle. Nor did Strickland say how he feels about AEP's proposal to make consumers pre-pay to construct a new clean coal plant in Meigs County. Still, it's a good start. Thanks, Gloria.

NOT SO QUICKEN

The Detroit Free Press picked up on Dan Gilbert's Cleveland musings on Friday, without adding much information. But the FP piece also pointed to its own interview the day before with Peter Karmanos, the CEO of Compuware, which is headquartered in downtown Detroit:

Karmanos has been trying to talk Gilbert, the founder of Quicken Loans and Rock Financial (and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers) into moving his headquarters and 3,500 workers from Livonia and other suburbs to downtown Detroit.

"I've talked his ear off. We only have a few more shots. Dan Gilbert, myself, a few other people whose parents had businesses here, were actually born and raised in Detroit. ...

"So Dan has an affinity for the city that stretches beyond his business instincts. He's one of the last of the Mohicans because that situation doesn't exist much anymore. I would like very much to see them move that company down here.

"Because I think if they did that, as vibrant a place as they are, it would really, really resonate."

Sound familiar?

Livonia is twenty miles west of downtown Detroit -- just a little farther than from Mayfield to Public Square. Quicken Loan's 1,300 non-Livonia workers are all in other northwest Detroit suburbs -- Troy, Farmington Hills and Auburn Hills. So it's as natural for Detroit to speculate about getting Gilbert's headquarters to move downtown there as it was for boosters here to hope, once upon a time, for a Progressive building on Cleveland's skyline.

But Cleveland?

I think Roldo is right -- Gilbert's speculation about moving his whole operation to Cleveland was just a way of yanking some chains in Michigan.

The Jackson administration has been commendably cool about the whole thing. But if I were the mayor, I'd consider making this an opportunity for a friendly public discussion with Detroit's Kwame Kilpatrick about how nearby urban regions might cooperate, rather than compete, to attract and keep firms and jobs in our very similar neighborhoods.

Update 3/30: Steve Goldberg suggests a list of principles they could start with.

CLEVELAND: THE QUICKENING?

Mayor Jackson says he's against communities using tax breaks and other subsidies to raid each other's good jobs.

Does that apply to Livonia, Michigan?

In the glow of yesterday's announcement that Quicken Loans' promised 300-employee mortgage center will go into the M.K. Ferguson Plaza, owner Dan Gilbert threw some steaming red meat on the table:

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert is dangling the prospect of Cleveland as a potential site for a new national headquarters for his 3,500-employee Quicken Loans.

In announcing the April 3 opening of a mortgage office with 300 to 350 new $85,000-a-year jobs in Tower City Center, Gilbert on Thursday also said he wants to build a new national headquarters to replace his spread-out operations in Livonia, Mich., a Detroit suburb. The office leases there end in 2009. While that might seem a long time off, if the company is going to build, it needs to get started in the next year or so.

Quicken, for now, is considering moving only to areas where it already has operations, said Gilbert, Quicken's chairman and founder.

"Cleveland, because of the other businesses we have there now, is certainly a place we would look at," Gilbert, who bought Cleveland's NBA franchise for $375 million a year ago, said in a phone interview. "We're always open to talking."

The company is likely to make a decision in three to six months, he said.

However, the challenges of relocating 3,500 employees to a new state would be a factor in any decision, Gilbert said.

A high-priced factor, he didn't need to add. Quicken sought and got almost $5 million in subsidies for just 300 jobs in its new mortgage center:

The Ohio Department of Development is providing a 60 percent Job Creation Tax Credit for a 10-year term, which is valued at up to $4.5 million.

It is also providing a $300,000 Ohio Investment in Training Program grant. Ohio was in competition with Arizona, Nevada and Michigan.

What do you suppose the price tag might be for 3,500 high-tech headquarters jobs at "Forbes Magazine's 13th Best Employer"? But that won't stop our regional economic salivary glands from juicing up over Gilbert's dangling prime cut. After all, he's willing to look at us! He's open to talking!

So what does this story look like in Livonia, where all those happy employees work and pay taxes now? From the Detroit News, Friday, February 24:

Livonia, state woo Quicken Loans

Officials work to save jobs, keep the company's headquarters in the city once its lease is up in 4 years.

LIVONIA -- City and state officials are working to ensure the headquarters of Quicken Loans Inc./Rock Financial, one of the city's largest employers, does not leave the city, or Michigan, once its lease is up in four years.

"We're working very aggressively to keep Quicken here," said Jeff Bryant, Livonia's economic development director. "It's definitely a top priority."

Bryant, Mayor Jack Engebretson and former Mayor Jack Kirksey have had informal meetings with representatives of the company to urge them to stay.

The company confirmed in November it may need a larger headquarters when its 10-year lease at the complex on Victor Parkway, just east of Interstate-275, expires at the end of 2009.

With about 1,700 employees at its headquarters, local businesses would be affected if the company left, Kirksey said.

"Every time there's a closing of a plant or something dramatic happens, you realize you've lost some economic base," he said.

Quicken Loans is in discussions with a local real estate company to possibly purchase 35 acres at 39000 W. Seven Mile, the former site of Technicolor Home Entertainment Services, said Keith Pillow, spokesman for Thomson, SA, the parent company of Technicolor.

Elizabeth Jones, spokeswoman for Rock Financial, declined to comment on specific locations and would not confirm any meetings with government officials.

"We are still quite a ways from making any decisions, so we are not prepared to comment on any particular site that may or may not be under consideration," she said.

The company has 3,500 employees and is one of the fastest-growing companies in Metro Detroit, hiring 200 employees a month. Rock Financial has additional locations in Auburn Hills, Farmington Hills and Troy.

State Sen. Laura Toy, R-Livonia, who met with company representatives this week, said she is looking into possible tax incentives to convince the company to stay in her district, and at least in the state.

"We're trying to see where we could help them out," she said.

In 2000, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. gave the company a $6.1 million state tax credit over seven years after it revealed plans to expand and possibly move to Virginia.

The city kicked in its own 50 percent tax abatement over three years, amounting to a break of just less than $40,000, said Bryant.

(Notice that the headquarters Quicken needs to replace has 1,700 employees -- 3,500 is the company's total Michigan workforce. But the bigger number is the one Gilbert "dangled" in front of the PD.)

Gilbert is clearly a world-class gamesman -- and I'm not talking about basketball.

Is the Jackson Administration ready to be played?

WIRELESS IN PHILADELPHIA, PART 1

So I finally got the hotel wifi working with my Belkin card, checked four days of email , PD and blogs (great job on the Strickland/Flannery debate, everyone!), and got a chance to post something.

Bonnie and I are holed up with the dog at an Extended Stay America in Malvern... well, not actually in Malvern, but in an exurban office park moonscape nearby. I'm proud to relate that Bonnie gave her sister a kidney on Friday, so we're here while she heals enough to travel. Malvern is half an hour from downtown Philadelphia by car and an hour by train, so I haven't spent a lot of time in the city but I did manage to spend some time Monday with Derek Pew, the interim CEO of Wireless Philadelphia, and then got a tour Tuesday of the neighborhood wireless network run by the People's Emergency Center in West Philly.

I'll get to Philly Wireless when I have more time. For now I want to thank Derek and Corey Robinson of PEC for their time (Corey might actually read this, he seems to have been here before) and say a few words about the PEC system. It was described at length in this Civitium article in MuniWireless a few months ago. Here's a short version:

PEC started in the '70s as a shelter for abused and homeless women and has since expanded to provide all kinds of social and development services for a small, mostly Black low-income neighborhood around it. The neighborhood is a triangle between two main streets (Lancaster and Powelton Avenues) full of two-story rowhouses and a scattering of old commercial buildings -- one of which, a former abandoned warehouse, is PEC's beautifully renovated headquarters.

Several years ago, as part of its computer training and ownership program, PEC built a neighborhood wifi network. It's technically pretty simple. They have two Cisco access point antennas on the roof of their own center -- which is one of the neighborhood's highest points -- and antenna-and-bridge setups on other roofs around the neighborhood which have unobstructed lines of sight to one of the access points. The bridges receive the wifi signal from the center and rebroadcast it to nearby areas. Since most of PEC's target area is within a few hundred feet of an access point or bridge, the resulting wifi "cloud" covers pretty much the whole PEC neighborhood. The only router is back at the center, hooked up to a single Verizon DSL line.

Access to the PEC wifi isn't open to the general public -- it's password-protected and limited to neighbors who complete the Digital Inclusion training. They get a year of wifi Internet access for $5 a month, using USB clients that PEC provides with their recycled PCs. After a year, neighbors have to move on to a commercial service (Corey says PEC doesn't intend to get into the ISP business). That transition will become cheaper and easier when the city's EarthLink wireless is operational in the neighborhood, since most of PEC's trainees will probably qualify for one of the 25,000 low-income discounts EarthLink has agreed to provide -- enabling them to get continuing wifi service for $9.95 a month.

PEC's system isn't cheap -- Corey estimates the parts-and-labor cost of each new rooftop installation at around $3,000, including nearly $2,000 for the Cisco equipment. Remember, this is a neighborhood of maybe ten blocks with equipment on eight or nine rooftops, so it adds up to a very substantial investment to serve a couple of hundred households in a small turf. (Much of PEC's original hardware was donated by Cisco, a partner during the program's first couple of years, though not so much now).Cisco wifi hardware is considered very expensive but also very good... which may help explain PEC's success in getting a good network signal to PCs located deep inside brick rowhouses, using just ordinary little desktop client antennas.

Would this approach work in with less expensive hardware from other vendors, in a more spread-out neighborhood with bigger houses?

I don't know. But it seems to be working fine for PEC's neighborhood, right now.

More tomorrow.

QUESTIONS ABOUT WIRELESS PHILADELPHIA?

I'll be in Philadelphia next week with time on my hands, and I thought I'd use the occasion to find out more about the city's community wireless broadband project, the specifics of which are currently awaiting city council approval. So I called up Derek Pew, the interim CEO of Wireless Philadelphia, the nonprofit corporation in charge of the project, and made an appointment to talk on Monday. I'm also going to stop by the People's Emergency Center, which is operating a neighborhood wifi system for its low-income West Philadelphia constituents (see this PBS Newshour piece for more).

So... who's got questions you'd like me to ask?

STRICKLAND'S BROADBAND/COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTER PROPOSAL

I generally like Mark Naymik's political coverage, but I wish the PD had sent Henry Gomez with him to Ted Strickland's press conference at Rainbow Terrace yesterday. I don't think Henry would have missed part of Strickland's proposal that Naymik's story ignores completely. From the Strickland website:

Establish the Ohio Community Learning Centers Initiative, to boost the use of online and distance education services through Ohio's network of community technology centers.

Modeled on successful programs such as the Cuyahoga Community College's project at Rainbow Terrace, and over 300 community technology centers (CTCs) statewide, this program will mobilize CTCs with hands-on staff support and join them with the online learning resources of the Ohio Learning Network and the Ohio College Access Network. Using the base program E4ME, a free online course, this program will in its pilot phase serve 10,000 learners statewide with life skills coaching, basic computer and GED classes, while channeling successful learners into pathways for further advancement through community and technical colleges and other career training enterprises. It will provide individuals with hands-on counseling to take them from the informal learning environment of a CTC to open doors to higher education and formal certification. Implementing this program is estimated to be an annual investment of at least $5 million. The program will be paid for with savings gained by reforming state procurement of network connectivity.

Strickland spoke about this part of the proposal at length, but more important, he held the press conference at the Rainbow Terrace Learning Center to underline the point that digital inclusion is as much about training as about physical network access.

Apparently Naymik didn't get it. I'm glad Strickland does.

(Don't get me started on Blackwell.)

ARE OUR GAS PAINS UNNATURAL?

Alan Forman of Consumers United for Fair Utility Rates passed this along in an email this morning... it's an AP story but I can't find it linked anywhere. (Update: It's from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 7.)

Report blames lack of federal oversight for high natural gas prices
SAM HANANEL
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Too little oversight of financial markets - not supply and demand problems - are to blame for skyrocketing natural gas prices, top law enforcement officials in four Midwestern states said Tuesday.

Comparing natural gas trading to "the wild, wild West," the attorneys general from Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin urged Congress to increase regulation of markets they say are vulnerable to abuse and manipulation.

The officials - all Democrats - issued a six-month study of natural gas prices. They said they want to debunk the commonly held view that a lack of supply and surging demand are responsible for sharp price increases that have caused a 25 percent to 30 percent rise in winter heating bills in the Midwest and elsewhere.

"It's stunningly annoying to sit here and have to literally say the moon is not made of green cheese," Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon said at a news conference. "Supply and demand did not cause the spikes."

The price surge has affected more than half of all U.S. households that heat with natural gas. Many of those who rely on electric heat also have seen bills go up because a large number of power plants run on natural gas.

While natural gas prices are up about 28 percent this year, usage is down 5 percent. At the same time, supply has remained steady.

"How can you have demand down, and price up and supply level?" asked Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. "It doesn't make sense. To get to these big increases, you have to look at the financial side, at the trading."

The report prepared by Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America, concluded that one reason for the upward climb of prices is a huge influx of money into largely unregulated financial markets.

Under current law, Miller said, only about 20 percent of trades are reported. The lack of transparency allows traders to gain huge positions and potentially manipulate the market, he said.

"It's sort of like the wild, wild West in terms of trading," Miller said. "There's very little reporting of trades."

The officials urged Congress to make market trading more transparent by requiring registration of traders and reporting of all trades. They also want stricter limits on positions held by one entity, longer settlement periods for short- and long-term contracts, and restrictions on how much the price of natural gas can fluctuate before trading is temporarily halted for a cooling off period.

Sandy Crockett, a spokeswoman for the Natural Gas Supply Association, blamed the recent price spike on "unprecedented and massive supply disruptions" in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"Both the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have, in fact, concluded that this winter's price fluctuations were entirely consistent with market fundamentals at that time," she said in a written statement.

"We support their ongoing efforts to police natural gas markets for any evidence of manipulation or abuse," Crockett said, adding, "We remain comfortable with the level of oversight provided by these regulatory agencies."

Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said the report was commissioned before the hurricanes struck and took them into account. The report found the storms actually had little impact on supply because natural gas storage was at or near record levels both before and after the hurricanes struck the Gulf Coast.

ON THE NET

The report is on the Iowa Attorney General's Web site: http://www.iowaattorneygeneral.org/latest_news/releases/mar_2006/Natural_Gas.html

Notice whose state attorney general is not involved.

PHILADELPHIA WIRELESS: DEAL IS DONE

Posted March 1 on the City of Philadelphia website:

PHILADELPHIA - Mayor John F. Street announced today that four agreements have been signed allowing EarthLink and Wireless Philadelphia to bring wireless Internet service to every City neighborhood. When fully implemented, the initiative will turn Philadelphia into the nation’s largest WiFi hotspot and help to improve education, bridge the digital divide, enhance neighborhood development, and reduce the costs of government.

...Under the agreements, EarthLink will build, manage and maintain a wireless network over the City’s 135 square miles at no cost to taxpayers. EarthLink will install transmittal devices on approximately 4,000 of the City’s street lamp pole arms for which it will pay the City. In addition, EarthLink will provide City residents and visitors with free hotspots in 22 locations around Philadelphia, and provide the City with 3,000 free or discounted WiFi accounts and 700 discounted T-1 accounts to be used at the City’s option.

...Wireless Philadelphia, a non-profit entity incorporated by Mayor Street last March, will use the revenues it receives from EarthLink (5 percent of access revenue) and other monies raised to invest in educational and social programs to help Philadelphia citizens. $2 million of the amount EarthLink pays to the City also will be used for programs to help bridge the digital divide. Initial plans include purchasing 10,000 discounted computers for children and low-income residents to use and for associated training programs. Wireless Philadelphia will also be responsible for building awareness of the program among audiences across the City.

The costs of the service will be geared to users’ different needs. Economically disadvantaged users will be charged $9.95 a month while other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will be charged a wholesale rate that allows them to sell access for $20 a month or less to retail customers.

Here's the MuniWireless summary of the deal, and some comments.

The Daily News still likes the idea but wants more details before final City Council approval.

And this just in from north of the water... Toronto's municipal electric company announces plans to deploy wireless broadband citywide on the Philadelphia model.

I'm going to be in Philly the week after next. Lucky timing...

REALLY, REALLY BAD GAS PAINS

The PD's John Funk makes a heroic effort today to explain what's happening to natural gas bills, but it's very confusing -- even to your humble utility blogger, who has buried his nose in the subject for the last couple of weeks.

Here are the main things I think we all need to understand:

1) Overall, heating our homes with gas is nearly twice as expensive as it was just four years ago -- and it's going to stay that way.

Dominion's home gas bills spiked from around $5 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) to almost $11 in the first half of 2001, but fell back under $6 by spring 2002. This winter's spike, which took us to $16 per mcf in December, is also falling back due to the cheap short-term contracts Funk describes -- but the final price on our bills is unlikely to go much below $13 this summer, and then start pushing back upward for next heating season. In other words, $13-$15 per mcf is Dominion East Ohio's new "normal range".

To see the monthly ups and downs evened out, look at the chart below. The main graph line is the running average of home natural gas costs -- calculated each month for the previous twelve months -- while the little boxes represent the annual "floor", i.e. the lowest monthly cost per mcf during each calendar year. The blue box is the likely floor (IMHO) for 2006 -- around $13, some time this summer. (All monthly figures are from the PUCO's "Apples to Apples" comparison charts.)

2. NOPEC isn't going to save us. The new "aggregation" deal announced last week by the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council means that households in NOPEC cities, including Cleveland, will pay about $12.74 per mcf from April through September ($9.70 contract gas cost, plus 73 cents in sales tax on the gas, plus $2.30 for East Ohio's transportation charge). This will probably be no more than 2% or 3% cheaper than Dominion East Ohio's own rates, which will fall to a similar level for the same period. Then NOPEC has to negotiate a new -- and higher -- contract gas rate for bills starting in October.

3. There's really no way out of this -- for individual consumers or for the NEO economy -- but to invest in heating our homes a lot more efficiently, or invest in heating with something other than natural gas, or both.

MEET THE BLOGGERS UPDATE

I've had this weird cold-in-my-eye thing for the last week so it's been hard to look at a computer screen, let alone post regularly. But there's an accumulation of Meet The Bloggers news I have to pass along.

First, Wendy Hoke has a long, very insightful article about MTB at Creative Ink.

Second, there are newly posted transcripts of the MTB interviews with Chris Redfern and Marc Dann, as well as the MTB Salon with Roldo Bartimole. They're all great reads.

Third, MTB has a very busy two weeks coming up, with the MTB version of "sweeps week" scheduled for March 19-25: a Democratic gubernatorial candidates' debate (with Ted Strickland and Bryan Flannery) on the 19th, GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Petro on the 23rd, and 13th Congressional District candidate Capri Cafaro on the 25th.

I'll be in Philadelphia for at least part of sweeps week so I may miss a couple of these sessions, but you don't have to... they're all at Talkie's Coffee and all bloggers are welcome to participate.

PHO SAYS IT ALL!

An open letter to Brown and Hackett. Where do I sign?

WE GET LETTERS: In my first Free Times column a couple of weeks back, I poked fun at Cleveland's much-hyped "Digital Community" and "Intelligent Community" awards by way of getting to a serious concern -- the low rate of Internet access among city residents, and some concrete ways to improve it.

This morning's FT has a letter from Scot Rourke of OneCleveland, responding to the column's main point as well as to my snarkiness about the awards. Read it here (you have to scroll down a bit from the link.)

It's a serious comment from Scot, and I appreciate it. Let me repeat what I said in the column: OneCleveland is "a world class Good Thing", we're really lucky to have it, and Scot and his colleagues are entitled to all the recognition they can get. No way do I think that OneCleveland itself is "more concerned about winning awards than addressing community needs".

But I do think that Cleveland as a whole has no business posturing itself as a "world-class digital community" unless we do what's necessary to get the large majority of our citizens online. That's a long row to hoe, and we're just barely getting started. We're not investing enough in community IT training and support, we're behind many other cities in public commitment to affordable residential broadband, and we're mostly nowhere when it comes to taking advantage of open source software (though RealNEO's initiative -- in cooperation with OneCleveland! -- to develop drupal-based web resources for nonprofits is a major exception).

No one expects OneCleveland, or any other organization, to drive all these issues single-handedly. But Cleveland has to deal with them -- from the bottom up as well as the top down -- or we won't get to be the "world-class intelligent digital community" that we're all seeking.

So Scot, let's all work together on it. That's all I'm saying.

As for the snarkiness... well, you know, it's just that blogger thing. I'll try to keep it under control.

GAS COSTS SUCK IN THE FREE TIMES

The Free Times has offered me a chance to sound off in print every couple of weeks. My second Foray Into Newsprint is in today's edition (Heating Costs Suck: Rising natural gas prices draining millions from Ohio).

If you're here because you saw the URL at the bottom of the column, welcome.

The column has one glaring oversimplification: I ignored the whole issue of multiple natural gas suppliers offering "choice" to local consumers with various contract prices and terms. The column talks only about Dominion East Ohio, which is really the local distribution company for all those sources including its own affiliated supplier, Dominion East Ohio Energy.

I ignored the issue of "consumer choice" because a) it's way too complicated to describe in a 700 word piece, and b) it doesn't matter. Households throughout the Dominion East Ohio system have similar bills and similar increases no matter which suppliers they "choose" on paper. Those who ignore the "choice" option and just let Dominion East Ohio buy our gas for us are consistently at the lower-cost end of the PUCO's "Apples to Apples" comparison charts. Most important, almost all that gas, no matter who the suppliers might be, comes from outside our region through the Dominion pipeline... which is what the column is about.

But if you're interested, here's a comparison of Dominion East Ohio's non-choice "utility rate" (what my family pays) with the rates paid under contracts with "consumer choice" suppliers who appear on the PUCO charts for both February 2006 and February 2003:


Not much of a "choice", is it?