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Hi everyone, I actually signed one of these contracts as a local elected official. We had no money, laying off teachers and cops 3 years in a row. Cable compa

by jbooth 13y ago

Hi everyone, I actually signed one of these contracts as a local elected official. We had no money, laying off teachers and cops 3 years in a row. Cable company shows up and offers to fund our public access TV and hook up a bunch of electronics, to the tune of $100-200k or so as part of the contract. What the fuck do you think we did? Yeah, we signed the contract, but it was their demands (we did have both comcast and verizon in the market, at least). We came cheap, because the fans of the free market have starved local governments of resources. The cable companies have way more resources than any given local government except for a few cities. They're the ones playing the tune, we marched to it. Blaming it on local governments is willfully stupid.

adventured 13y ago
So you're saying that local governments have less funds to spend today than they did 15 years ago? I don't think so. I wasn't aware America still had a free market, much less one that sprung up in the last 10 / 15 / 30 years to deprive local governments of their massive spending binge over that time. The data I've seen indicates total government expenditures have doubled over 15 years, and it's even faster at the local level. The local + state spending haul is close to $2.6 trillion annually now. It's practically another federal government system in size. What has actually happened is local and state governments ballooned in size massively since the late 1970s. Having over expanded without any means to actually pay for it, all based on insanely optimistic (fraudulent?) economic projections, now those governments are having to shrink due to their own poor management. California is perhaps the greatest - and most well documented - example of this, both at the state and local level.
- jbooth 13y ago
  So you're saying that local governments have less funds to spend today than they did 15 years ago? I don't think so. Relative to costs, yes. Their funding has gone up, in general, by less than inflation[1]. Then account for the fact that their costs involve a lot of healthcare benefits that suffer 15% inflation, and relatively few things like electronics that get cheaper over time. When you talk about things like 'ballooned in size', you're really missing the picture. Money that goes straight out of our coffers to the health fund isn't bigger government. It's more money, same amount of government. [1] In my case in Massachusetts, it was strictly 2.5% revenue growth a year, a figure that's less than inflation in most years, certainly in the early 2000s which is the time period I'm talking. Commenters below illustrate a similar picture for California, your favored example.
- cube13 13y ago
  >California is perhaps the greatest - and most well documented - example of this, both at the state and local level. California's problem is mostly because of their ballot propositions, especially the effects of prop 13, which limits property taxes to 1% of the original sale price. There are many additional propositions which have passed that increase spending(especially for schools and other services), which make it pretty much impossible for the budget to be balanced, because the state and municipalities have almost no way of increasing taxes, nor can they realistically cut spending.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > California's problem is mostly because of their ballot propositions, especially the effects of prop 13, which limits property taxes to 1% of the original sale price. The limit is to 1% of the current assessed "full cash value", not the original sale price. However, there is also a limit that the assessed "full cash value", despite the name, can increase no more than 2% per year excluding new construction (and quite a lot of classes of improvements are expressly excluded from counting as "new construction") and changes of ownership (and certain changes of ownership don't count, as well.) The net effect of which is that the property tax base can fall rapidly with real estate market collapses, but expands only slowly with real estate market booms (and, particularly, that property that doesn't change hands frequently tends to be taxed at a low nominal rate applied to a value that is vastly below its actual market value.)
- kenster07 13y ago
  I think what he saying is that large cable corporations are significantly wealthier than most local governments, and the stats would agree.
fredBuddemeyer 13y ago
willfully stupid is a perfect description - of your government. had you opened the process to any kind of competitive process you would find your coffers filled. i did this work ages ago and paid several hundred dollars just for the right to pass each home. the cable companies laugh at local governments, all the way to the bank.
- jbooth 13y ago
  We thought we did pretty well, double dipping by hitting up both comcast and verizon. Maybe we could have played hardball and refused to renew the contracts, but who do you think wins there? Take away people's TV? You crazy? Then we'd have gotten the same people lambasting us here (because they're shills) killing us for driving too hard a bargain (because they're shills).
tmzt 13y ago
What exactly does the public access TV station do for the community? How does something like that fit into the modern world where the price of a TV studio (or handheld HD) is not prohibitive, and the content can be distributed via the internet? Does the franchise protect the company recouping the cost of the physical plan or is it more of a monopoly on providing video service locally? Both cable and phone have their own extent systems and are not competing for physical access to some right of way, or what ever mechanism or reason the multichannel operators have long used to justify this system. I haven't closely followed the so-called "national franchise" debate that took place a few years ago, other than that it was defeated. The phone companies are talking about abandoning the POTS system on an accelerated schedule, but at the same time Verizon failed to invest in FIOS expansion, leaving the replacement for POTS low speed, long-distance ADSL service. The cable companies have very belatedly been working on introducing an IP-based system based on a home gateway, similar to what AT&T's Uverse system uses. I found it very interesting when the head of Cox Communications commented at a recent talk (in March I think) that he visited the valley 5 years ago, and then proceeds to talk up Palm. I can understand why a local community would embrace and accept this solution to their fiscal problems, but we should debate whether the franchise system is holding us back technologically on regional and national level.
- jbooth 13y ago
  Hey, missed this earlier. What exactly does the public access TV station do for the community? How does something like that fit into the modern world where the price of a TV studio (or handheld HD) is not prohibitive, and the content can be distributed via the internet? Lots of people still use TV, and yes, the costs of the equipment they provided are relatively low. But we were starved for cash, that's why we could be bought cheaply. Does the franchise protect the company recouping the cost of the physical plan or is it more of a monopoly on providing video service locally? It's sort of a monopoly, in our case it was a duopoly. They have to come to an agreement with the town to provide service, but it doesn't (usually) prohibit the town from bringing in other providers. If I recall correctly, there were clauses that other providers couldn't come in for cheaper than they did. I haven't closely followed the so-called "national franchise" debate that took place a few years ago, other than that it was defeated. A version of this came up in MA when I was there, as a state wide franchise. It was basically a way for them to get access everywhere, for cheaper, without paying the towns and paying a smaller aggregate total to the state instead. I was opposed to that (not that I had a voice), because we needed every cent we could get from whatever source. I agree that the net sum of the system is pretty silly.

by jbooth 13y ago

adventured 13y ago

So you're saying that local governments have less funds to spend today than they did 15 years ago? I don't think so. I wasn't aware America still had a free market, much less one that sprung up in the last 10 / 15 / 30 years to deprive local governments of their massive spending binge over that time. The data I've seen indicates total government expenditures have doubled over 15 years, and it's even faster at the local level. The local + state spending haul is close to $2.6 trillion annually now. It's practically another federal government system in size. What has actually happened is local and state governments ballooned in size massively since the late 1970s. Having over expanded without any means to actually pay for it, all based on insanely optimistic (fraudulent?) economic projections, now those governments are having to shrink due to their own poor management. California is perhaps the greatest - and most well documented - example of this, both at the state and local level.

jbooth 13y ago
So you're saying that local governments have less funds to spend today than they did 15 years ago? I don't think so. Relative to costs, yes. Their funding has gone up, in general, by less than inflation[1]. Then account for the fact that their costs involve a lot of healthcare benefits that suffer 15% inflation, and relatively few things like electronics that get cheaper over time. When you talk about things like 'ballooned in size', you're really missing the picture. Money that goes straight out of our coffers to the health fund isn't bigger government. It's more money, same amount of government. [1] In my case in Massachusetts, it was strictly 2.5% revenue growth a year, a figure that's less than inflation in most years, certainly in the early 2000s which is the time period I'm talking. Commenters below illustrate a similar picture for California, your favored example.
cube13 13y ago
>California is perhaps the greatest - and most well documented - example of this, both at the state and local level. California's problem is mostly because of their ballot propositions, especially the effects of prop 13, which limits property taxes to 1% of the original sale price. There are many additional propositions which have passed that increase spending(especially for schools and other services), which make it pretty much impossible for the budget to be balanced, because the state and municipalities have almost no way of increasing taxes, nor can they realistically cut spending.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > California's problem is mostly because of their ballot propositions, especially the effects of prop 13, which limits property taxes to 1% of the original sale price. The limit is to 1% of the current assessed "full cash value", not the original sale price. However, there is also a limit that the assessed "full cash value", despite the name, can increase no more than 2% per year excluding new construction (and quite a lot of classes of improvements are expressly excluded from counting as "new construction") and changes of ownership (and certain changes of ownership don't count, as well.) The net effect of which is that the property tax base can fall rapidly with real estate market collapses, but expands only slowly with real estate market booms (and, particularly, that property that doesn't change hands frequently tends to be taxed at a low nominal rate applied to a value that is vastly below its actual market value.)
kenster07 13y ago
I think what he saying is that large cable corporations are significantly wealthier than most local governments, and the stats would agree.

fredBuddemeyer 13y ago

willfully stupid is a perfect description - of your government. had you opened the process to any kind of competitive process you would find your coffers filled. i did this work ages ago and paid several hundred dollars just for the right to pass each home. the cable companies laugh at local governments, all the way to the bank.

jbooth 13y ago
We thought we did pretty well, double dipping by hitting up both comcast and verizon. Maybe we could have played hardball and refused to renew the contracts, but who do you think wins there? Take away people's TV? You crazy? Then we'd have gotten the same people lambasting us here (because they're shills) killing us for driving too hard a bargain (because they're shills).

tmzt 13y ago

What exactly does the public access TV station do for the community? How does something like that fit into the modern world where the price of a TV studio (or handheld HD) is not prohibitive, and the content can be distributed via the internet? Does the franchise protect the company recouping the cost of the physical plan or is it more of a monopoly on providing video service locally? Both cable and phone have their own extent systems and are not competing for physical access to some right of way, or what ever mechanism or reason the multichannel operators have long used to justify this system. I haven't closely followed the so-called "national franchise" debate that took place a few years ago, other than that it was defeated. The phone companies are talking about abandoning the POTS system on an accelerated schedule, but at the same time Verizon failed to invest in FIOS expansion, leaving the replacement for POTS low speed, long-distance ADSL service. The cable companies have very belatedly been working on introducing an IP-based system based on a home gateway, similar to what AT&T's Uverse system uses. I found it very interesting when the head of Cox Communications commented at a recent talk (in March I think) that he visited the valley 5 years ago, and then proceeds to talk up Palm. I can understand why a local community would embrace and accept this solution to their fiscal problems, but we should debate whether the franchise system is holding us back technologically on regional and national level.

jbooth 13y ago
Hey, missed this earlier. What exactly does the public access TV station do for the community? How does something like that fit into the modern world where the price of a TV studio (or handheld HD) is not prohibitive, and the content can be distributed via the internet? Lots of people still use TV, and yes, the costs of the equipment they provided are relatively low. But we were starved for cash, that's why we could be bought cheaply. Does the franchise protect the company recouping the cost of the physical plan or is it more of a monopoly on providing video service locally? It's sort of a monopoly, in our case it was a duopoly. They have to come to an agreement with the town to provide service, but it doesn't (usually) prohibit the town from bringing in other providers. If I recall correctly, there were clauses that other providers couldn't come in for cheaper than they did. I haven't closely followed the so-called "national franchise" debate that took place a few years ago, other than that it was defeated. A version of this came up in MA when I was there, as a state wide franchise. It was basically a way for them to get access everywhere, for cheaper, without paying the towns and paying a smaller aggregate total to the state instead. I was opposed to that (not that I had a voice), because we needed every cent we could get from whatever source. I agree that the net sum of the system is pretty silly.