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Utah City Defends Broadband Project
by Michael Martinez
Local officials in Utah this week lashed out against a recent report that said their municipal high-speed Internet project is broken and beyond repair.
The city of Provo issued a 36-page response to a Reason Foundation report that documented the financial problems of the $39.5 million iProvo network, which is publicly owned and operated.
According to the foundation, which promotes "libertarian principles" including free markets, iProvo is bleeding money and unlikely to ever come out of the red. The report also said the city's fiber-optic system has failed to provide broadband service at prices competitive to those offered by dominant firms in the market.
"Both the Reason Foundation and the author of their report, Steven Titch, have strong ties to the telecommunications industry," Mayor Lewis Billings said. "This report cannot in any way be considered objective."
In its written response, the city said that Titch authored the report without interviewing any city staff members or elected officials involved with iProvo. The city also disputed Titch's claim that it will be impossible to attract the amount of subscribers needed to compete in the market.
"The project is on track, is growing, and is now fully covering all of its operating costs and contributing significantly to its capital costs," the city said. "As telecommunications technologies continue to evolve to broadband applications, as the need for more bandwidth capacity and services continues to grow, and as more and more of our residents and businesses subscribe to services offered over the iProvo network, the financial gap will close."
The city's rebuttal to Titch's report cited consulting work he did for Qwest Communications International, which provides broadband service in Provo. The city said his ties to the company should preclude him from being "considered an objective or unbiased source for information about iProvo."
Titch told The Deseret Morning News this week that he has not done any work for Qwest since 2003. He said he was hired as a consultant for the company by HLB Communications after a series of accounting scandals in 2000 and 2001, and that he never worked directly with any Qwest employees while on that assignment.
"There's no denying we had a point of view and chose to highlight things so they'd stand out more than you'd get from someone who supports municipal broadband projects," he said. "My report stands out there as a part of the public policy debate."
Iowa Judge Says Traffic Cameras Are Illegal
A judge in Iowa on Tuesday ruled that the red-light and speed cameras deployed in one city violate state law.
AP reports that Judge Gary McKendric ruled that Davenport's policy for collecting fines from its recently deployed fleet of traffic cameras conflicts with the motor-vehicle code. The city was sued by a pair of drivers who were ticketed by the cameras.
The city installed the cameras over the past two years. Davenport officials said they plan to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
The court this week agreed to review a similar case won by Davenport last July. The Iowa Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of a driver ticketed after a traffic camera flagged him for violating the speed limit. The suit claimed that Davenport does not have the authority to levy the fine.
"It's actually quite possible that since we're about two months ahead of the case that came down yesterday, the court could kind of slow our case down to allow the other case to catch up and consolidate them," ICLU Executive Director Ben Stone told The Des Moines Register.
Washington To Revisit Online Sales Tax
In their upcoming legislative session, lawmakers in Washington state will revisit proposals to impose sales taxes on online and mail-order purchases.
The News Tribune reported Tuesday that state House Speaker Frank Chopp, a Democrat, is planning to drop a streamlined sales-tax proposal again when the legislature convenes this year. The state Senate approved such a bill last year, but a proposal died in Chopp's chamber.
Kristin Jacobsen, a spokeswoman for Gov. Christine Gregoire, told the newspaper that Gregoire supports imposing the tax because she believes it will level the playing field between brick-and-mortar retailers and those who sell goods in Washington remotely.
Republican state Rep. Dan Roach is likely to meet resistance in the House because some lawmakers are concerned about how it would affect municipalities. Some cities have argued that they stand to lose millions in revenues under the proposal.
Kentucky Mulls New Campaign Finance Rules
Election officials in Kentucky are considering proposals to require electronic disclosures of campaign finance records.
AP reported this week that John Rogers, the chairman of the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance, said such a system would allow his staff to easily make disclosures available online. He added that few candidates in the Bluegrass State have filed electronically in the past.
Secretary of State Trey Grayson said the state also should consider requiring candidates to file more frequent reports. By doing so, he said the process would become more transparent, and election officials could consider raising the cap on individual contributions.
Colorado 'Safe Surfing' Effort Leads To Arrests
Law enforcers in Colorado have made 58 arrests since a state law targeting online sexual predators was implemented, according to statistics released Wednesday by state Attorney General John Suthers.
The "Safe Surfing Initiative," which requires Internet service providers to retain data for 90 days and makes the online solicitation of children a felony, was signed into law last summer. According to Suthers, prosecutors filed 34 charges for Internet luring alone in the last six months of 2006. The state also filed 14 charges for Internet sexual exploitation.
"The success of these laws is just the first step," Suthers said.
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