Building a TeleCommUnity

New alliance of local and county governments has been formed to speak out on issues of concern in federal telecommunications policy, such as zoning for towers and the enforcement of consumer protection laws.

by Roy Mark of www.internetnews.com [March 15, 2002]

Worried by an apparent abdication of responsibility by federal regulators, local and county officials are starting to organize.

The TeleCommUnity Alliance, a coalition of cities and counties, is launching a grassroots campaign to preserve local governments' interests in future federal telecommunications policymaking. Alliance representatives have met with congressional staff and have sent letters to members of the House and Senate Commerce Committees in which they presented the objectives of the organization and outlined policy priorities in a document called the Local Government Telecommunications Bill of Rights.

"TeleCommUnity does not seek to represent the interests of a single community," the Alliance said in a statement to lawmakers. "Rather, it was established to respond proactively to frequent attacks on legitimate local government efforts to protect taxpayers and the property rights of citizens. Such assaults occur regularly on the authority of local governments to zone placement of satellite dishes and cell towers, to manage and receive compensation for the use of public roads and other local government property, to tax telecommunications businesses and facilities, and to protect cable television subscribers."

Specifically, TeleCommUnity is calling upon Congress to affirm the following principles:

• Local governments must retain authority to manage public rights of way (PROW) and obtain fair and reasonable compensation for the public when private enterprise uses and occupies public rights of way

• Local governments must retain authority to enforce customer service and consumer protection laws and regulations, to ensure that broadband deployment does not harm public rights of way, and to promote broadband deployment to our communities

• Wireless public safety communications networks need adequate spectrum allocation and funding to overcome interference and interoperability problems

• Local governments' integral partnership role in providing homeland security measures must be respected

"This year, the telecommunications industry is conducting an all-out offensive to deny local governments the right to manage and be reasonably compensated for access to public rights of way," TeleCommUnity said in its letter. "Too many communities have been seriously damaged by uncontrolled construction of new telecommunications systems, in some cases causing floods, gas line explosions, cut communications lines, auto accidents and pedestrian injuries."

The Press Page of the TeleCommUnity website links to two lobbyists, (including one called Michael Bracy) of Bracy Williams & Company, a Washington, D.C. lobbyist firm that appears to have become part of Bracy Tucker Brown.

Michael Bracy's previous assignments appear to have included defending the rights of independent record labels and the rights of small, local broadcasters such as college radio stations.

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