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Valley View vs. Greenville
Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > March > 12
Friday, March 12, 2010
Guest column:Ohioans could pay more for worse phone service
This commentary was written by Ellis Jacobs, a senior attorney at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality in Dayton who often represents clients in telecommunications matters.
As if households in Ohio aren’t under enough financial stress, now the Ohio House and Senate are considering legislation that could make it harder to pay monthly home telephone bills.
If passed, the legislation would deregulate Ohio’s land-line telephone companies, allow residential rates to increase and weaken consumer protections and service quality.
Even with the spread of wireless telephones, many Ohioans still rely on traditional land-line home telephone service as their main or sole source of telecommunications. They rely on it because it provides unlimited minutes of use at a low, fixed, monthly rate.
They don’t just use it to call friends, family and neighbors, but for emergency services such as 911, medical alert buttons and alarm services. They need their land-line phone service to be reliable and affordable.
Here are some concerns about how telephone service in Ohio would be affected by this proposed law:
• Telephone companies would be able to raise their monthly rates for basic telephone service by $1.25 every year, even for those on the low-income Lifeline discount program. This could mean rate increases of up to 20-40 percent over the next few years.
• Telephone companies would be allowed to take up to three days to restore service outages, up from a current one-day rule. Companies have been able to meet the one-day requirement for many years. For those who rely on their home telephone, being without service for three days is unacceptable.
• The proposed legislation scales back educational efforts for the Lifeline program, which could prevent customers who need the help that this program offers, from knowing about it.
• Customers who have a package or bundle of telecommunication services — the majority of land-line telephone consumers in Ohio — will receive even fewer protections than those with just basic service. They would have only limited protections from “unfair or deceptive” practices. They would not be guaranteed access to 911 emergency services if disconnected for nonpayment, as they presently are. This could put vulnerable customers’ health and safety at risk.
The big phone companies argue that the legislature should allow them to raise rates and reduce service because they face competition. The irony of this should not be missed. Competition, after all, is supposed to lower rates and improve service.
The other argument I’ve heard for this legislation is that the phone companies are hurting financially and that if they get this deregulation, they will increase investment in Ohio. Neither part of this claim stands up to the facts.
AT&T Ohio averaged 11.4 percent return on equity during the past five years. Verizon averaged 15.8 percent over the same period. We should all be hurting like that.
Moreover, the history of telecommunication deregulation in Ohio shows that when a service or product is deregulated, not only does the price of it go up, but investment and jobs in Ohio go down.
From 2001 to 2008, during a period of deregulation, AT&T Ohio reduced its employee count by 40 percent. Verizon reduced its by 26 percent.
Ask yourself, if a company can take three days instead of one to repair a line, will it employ more or fewer people in those types of jobs?
Contact your state legislators. Tell them to defeat House Bill 276 and Senate Bill 162. This legislation is a bad deal for Ohio. It gives telephone companies all the benefits while leaving consumers empty-handed.
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Kevin Riley: When it comes to floods, at least we’re not Fargo
That March’s thaw came early and, with it, more than nine inches of rain in just five days.
People knew a flood threatened. After all, their city had flooded often, and during its centennial celebration, a historian predicted a flood that would put the city “out of existence.”
And very nearly, the flood of 1913 almost destroyed Dayton.
The descriptions of what happened during that defining event read like excerpts from a biblical tale of devastation. How our community reacted sounds like an even more far-fetched story.
Its first settlers set up the city for its day of reckoning because they placed it at the mercy of the rivers, which snake around it in what a Dayton Daily News writer once called a “sickle-like clutch of death.”
In 1913, the spring water rushed down the Miami Valley and, on March 25, the weak levee at Monument Avenue gave way.
By the end of the day, the intersection at Third and Main was under 11 feet of water. People were drowning, and buildings were collapsing. Then came the fires, as natural gas lines broke and high winds ignited nearby buildings.
People climbed onto trees, into attics and atop roofs. All they could do was pray and wait to be rescued; 123 died in Dayton and Harrison Twp.
View photos of 1913 Dayton flood.
The tragedy was overwhelming, but, once the water receded, determined citizens and leaders vowed that this would never happen again.
A public campaign was launched, and in just 10 days businesses and citizens raised a stunning $2 million. The community used the money to plan a flood-control system.
Local leaders and politicians pushed a bill through the legislature to create the Miami Conservancy District, covering nine counties. It oversaw the construction of an expansive $31 million system of dams and levees, which local citizens and governments paid for. That system has protected this region from floods since its completion in 1922.
We’re about to enter the season of floods, and it looks like it’s going to be a bad one for some places.
Fargo, N.D., on the banks of the Red River, is readying for its annual disaster. According to Mayor Dennis Walaker, the community is planning to assemble 1 million sandbags.
It’s “time to prepare, not time to panic,” he told me last week, seemingly resigned to another tough spring. Last year, the Fargo area was hit with devastating flooding, and, as a result, there seemed to be agreement on finding a permanent solution. But it’s not happening.
“It takes a long time to get all the stars aligned,” Walaker said.
He pointed out that Fargo is on the North Dakota-Minnesota border. That means two states, two counties and various parts of the federal government all have a say in any flood-control plan. He guesses any project would cost at least $1 billion and take at least six years to construct, provided everyone can agree.
Given Fargo’s problem and other responses to natural disasters today, our story remains remarkable.
First, the Miami Valley didn’t turn to Washington or Columbus. We paid for and figured out our own solution. Today, it’s unimaginable — and perhaps impossible — that a community would not ask for help from the federal government.
And what about the cost?
The community raised $2 million to create its plan. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $44 million today. Again, they raised it in 10 days.
The cost of the overall system of dams and levees was $31 million. That would translate to at least $336 million today, not counting legal costs, regulatory expenses and changes in property values (the conservancy district bought land for the project). It’s probably safe to say that it would cost us a billion dollars today to build the system we have.
Today we see our levees and dams as part of the landscape, but they are monuments to incredible political and social will for change. Some time this spring, when it’s been raining for days, go to one of the dams or stand atop a levee.
A good spot is at the Taylorsville Dam on the Great Miami River near Vandalia, where U.S. 40 goes across the top of the dam and there’s a small parking lot.
As you watch the roiling water the dam controls, consider our community’s finest hour, and whether we could muster the will to do something like that again.
