Executive Director's Column

March 19, 2010

Washington, DC

FCC - Local Decisions/Local Budgets

Last year, when ARRA, the stimulus package was passed, the legislation contained a provision calling for the Federal Communications Commission to come forth with a national broadband plan to speed up deployment, confront the digital divide, and provide high speed internet access to seven million homes that don’t have it now.

These are national goals supported through the years by the United States Conference of Mayors. The digital divide issue, making sure all citizens have access, was a big issue when President Clinton was in The White House. And it was our beloved late President, Dearborn Mayor Mike Guido who constantly kept this issue on our political radar screen.

The FCC national broadband plan was born in the national discussion to create jobs and strengthen our economy along with deployment and digital divide issues.

All these goals are well and good but over the past few months there were substantiated reports that the FCC national broadband plan, to be submitted to Congress this week, would limit local government rights-of-way authority. And further, information leaked out that the FCC would recommend imposing a less than fair market value as the standard for fair and market and reasonable rights-of way.

Through this period it has been difficult for us to understand the FCC process. It has lacked transparency that the Administration demanded of stimulus spending. And in light of the possible economic devastation limitations on our franchise fees, local government officials across the board, and staff have been hitting the FCC, The White House, and Congress hard on the economic consequences of imposing limitations on our local decisions. Surveys have shown millions of dollars would be lost for our local budgets. And our position has been that this is the wrong policy at the wrong time due to the worst national recession since the Great Depression. All this, again, comes from a so-called national plan written by someone, somewhere, who may or may not have an inkling as to the economic consequences to local budgets of so many governments faced with lay-offs and reductions of basic services.

We are pleased to report that the concern has been alleviated for the time being due to the fact that the FCC plan chose not to recommend this week detrimental changes affecting local government decisions to our local rights-of-ways which would have had a devastating effect on our already challenged budgets due to the possibility of huge losses of our franchise fees.

While we are pleased at this juncture this week, we must be even more vigilant as we monitor what Congress will do with this plan written by the FCC staff. Our issues seem to still be alive due to the fact that this FCC plan calls for the establishment of a task force of state, local, and tribal authorities to draft guidelines for rates terms and conditions for access to public rights-of-way. The establishment of such a task force is troubling in that as a membership organization representing a multitude of local governments that differ in so many ways, one thing is clear. It’s a local government’s right to establish their market rate on their property. It’s not a task force in Washington, DC or FCC staff that is responsible for running a city or country in these perilous economic times.

We are united in this effort with the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties. Together, we will continue to monitor the FCC and Congress on this most serious matter as we go forward representing the interests of mayors and cities throughout the nation.

President Kautz/Large Urban Counties

Conference President Kautz joined with the Large Urban County Caucus of the National Association of Counties last week as she attended meetings and addressed LUCC seeking partnership and coalition on a number of issues. Primarily, President Kautz is emphasizing the need for the urban counties and mayors to create local-metro coalitions to persuade Congress to provide more balanced transportation legislation as we face the mammoth transportation bill in front of us. President Kautz continues to point out that the traffic in our metro areas is not getting any better anywhere. She raises the serious question of metro officials being cut out or not involved in the billions of dollars that continue to go to state highway departments.

President Kautz has had experience on metro partnerships in her own Twin Cities-Minnesota metro area and her voice comes with a high degree of credibility. She will continue to stress the need for Congress to move the transportation funding needle more toward metro areas of cities and urban counties.

Mayor Palmer/Jobs/Morial-National Urban League

Past President Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer appeared before the special hearing on jobs and the Miller, Local Jobs for America Act, legislation before members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The CBC has been very much in the news over the past week as they met with President Obama expressing concern about joblessness in America.

The Miller bill, endorsed by The U.S. Conference of Mayors weeks ago, is continuing to gain support. There were four panels on this special day on this issue March 17. Mayor Palmer’s panel included Marc Morial, President and CEO of National Urban League, Benjamin Jealous, President and CEO of NAACP, and others.

Last week the Miller bill was rolled out in a national electronic press conference with Conference President Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz pledging our total support. It is our hope that once, and we hope soon, the healthcare issue is dealt with, we can focus on the Miller legislation which is a true jobs bill as compared to so many pieces of legislation that are being rolled out with the “jobs” label but do not have direct funding for our cities and counties.

Energy Block Grants/Department of Energy Partnership

Mayors are frustrated with statements coming from the Department of Energy and others in the Administration who seemed to be confused as to the question of whether or not city governments have actually received energy block grant program funds.

At our recent Leadership Meeting here in Washington, February 24 - 25, Executive Committee and Advisory Board members requested President Kautz to seek a meeting with Energy Secretary Chu. Today, we have 1,017 USA mayors within our Climate Center who have signed the Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Mayors want a partnership with the Federal Government. The green jobs/climate centered issue is today a top priority of The U.S. Conference of Mayors. The issue is not going away. Indeed, it will grow as we all realize that there is economic activity creating green jobs that will increase. Again, mayors want a partnership with the Federal Government. It’s that simple. We look forward to building the partnership as we go forward. It is most important.