BEWARE OF GEEKS BEARING GIFTS

Wi-fi Plan, Touted by Paper, Emanates from Firm with Negative Assets and Negative Net Worth and Negative Income and only One "Plant in Service"

Mayor gets Excited about yet another Half-Baked Plan

Echoes of PabstCity?

By Michael Horne
(C) milwaukeeworld.com

The Thursday, October 13th Milwaukee Journal Sentinel headline screamed from the top of the page: "Wi-Fi plan may give city a digital edge / Firm offers to create wireless network at no cost."
The story outlines the plans of a company named Midwest Fiber Networks LLC to provide the infrastructure for a citywide wireless internet system valued at more than $20 million.
Although a television news report indicated that service would be free in the city, that is not the case. Midwest would lease the system to other operators, who would presumably pay market rates for the product.
A key factor in the Midwest Fiber Networks proposal is that it would gain use of the city's underground conduit system, over one thousand miles of municipal asset that is over a century old, and carries such things as the city's internal communications for police and fire departments, and a number of other services, some of them confidential.
The Common Council has been considering some form of use of the conduit system for some time, and Joe Klein and I have written many times on this subject here at www.milwaukeeworld.com . Klein, who has a proposal of his own for broadband is the only person registered with the City of Milwaukee to lobby for broadband issues. Midwest Fiber Networks has not registered any lobbyist for its proposal, which would indicate they have been working on it for fewer than 15 days (the maximum amount of time one may pursue an issue without a lobbying license in the city) or that the firm simply couldn't be bothered.
Or, as you will see below, maybe the company didn't have enough cash to spring for a lobbying license.

The story in the paper Thursday was a surprise for some aldermen, since the mayor sprung it out of nowhere, and it does not seem likely he has fully vetted the firm or the concept it promotes. Especially troubling is the track record of Midwest Fiber Networks -- at least financially.
The outfit that promises a $20 million Trojan Horse for the City of Milwaukee showed an operating income in 2003 (the most recent year available) of ($269,000). That's negative $269,000, or what your accountant would call a loss. This was somewhat ameliorated by non-operating income of $163,000 for a total loss of $106,000. The year before, the firm lost $120,000, with non-operating income of $0. The company's assets consist of $11,000 in cash, $154,000 in accounts receivable and a $500,000 note receivable, for total assets of $665,000.
As you can see, except for the $11,000 in cash, the firm's assets mostly consist of people promising to lend the firm money and to pay their bills to the firm.
The company values its telecommunications plant in service -- its one and only telecommunications plant --at $1,226,000 for total assets of $1,891,000, while its long term debt -- its obligations under capital leases is $2,015,000. That leaves a stockholders equity of negative $245,000.

It is curious that both the Mayor and the Journal Sentinel have jumped at the wi-fi plan of this unknown company, especially since others have tried to present the mayor with a better and better-financed broadband proposals.

Journal Communications, the owner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel owns an outfit called Norlight, which is in the data transmission business, and I have placed two calls to that corporation to ask if Norlight has any involvement in this hastily-conceived project. [Journal Communications says Norlight has no involvement in the project.]

We shan't take the time here to talk about the distinctions of broadband and wi-fi, except to say that the latter is of limited use unless the former is substantially constructed and interconnected, of which there is no mention in the proposed plan. Recent examples in the Gulf Coast should be sufficient reminder of the necessity of an integrated plan.

The Journal Sentinel story correctly states that any proposal would require Common Council approval. This is one instance where the council should be particularly wary of hasty action, because the real asset that the city owns -- its incomparable underground, municipally-owned conduit system -- is the real prize in this game.
This system is truly an asset, albeit an underappreciated and undervalued one. It would be a shame if the city were to let go of it, or sell rights in it at a price below its value, which seems to be the path we are headed on.

The wi-fi is the window dressing. The underground conduit system is the asset. As I said at the top of the article, Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts.

I would appreciate your comments.
Michael Horne
horne@milwaukeeworld.com

FINLEY CRONY GETS SEAT AT GALA FUNDRAISER

The Milwaukee Public Museum is planning a gala fundraiser next week, and one of the purchasers of a table at the event informed the museum director that he would not be able to use his seats at the event. So what does Museum Director Dan Finley do? Invite some local big shots with deep pockets, and hope for a donation? No. Instead he invited his wife, who invited Dan Vrakas to the event. Vrakas is running to replace Finley as Waukesha County Executive. Rocket science? No, Political Science.

A Trip to Maryland

Imagine, Dear Reader, if you could,
Historical Cedarburg,
With a Bad Neighborhood

That is pretty much a description of Frederick, Maryland, a charming city settled by Germans in prerevolutionary times. It is in a fast-growing area, where rich farmland is sprouting entire suburbs with all the trappings. The Chief of Police in Frederick says gangs are one of his biggest problems, and sure enough, kids are growing up in culturally-deficient areas with absolutely nothing to do.
Last week an individual was killed in a hit-and-run accident. The driver was finally identified as a 16-year old who had been on his way to a memorial for an 18-year old who had been shot to death by police. These things happen all over.
Frederick City itself is one of those lovely communities filled with Colonial and Federal Era buildings, mostly brick, and some rivalling the finest of their type, with lovely fan windows and sidelights embracing massive doors. The buildings are densely packed together and a walking tour brings surprises at every turn, especially for a northerner whose cities are much newer.
One of the particular surprises is that Frederick includes a number of shabby districts that the locals fear. I, of course, marched through all of them. Except for the matter of painting and maintenance, it is quite hard to tell a poor person's home from that of the gentry. I have also experienced this phenomenon in Baltimore.
Of course, for many years this was a segregated city, so the locals know from instinct what is black and what is white, and I suppose in retrospect, the poorer neighborhoods might be a bit deficient in street maintenance, not to say that the wealthy areas are maintained all that well. (Sidewalks and curbs can last for centuries in this climate. Tuckpointing is virtually unknown. The place would dissolve after a couple of Wisconsin winters.)
One clear sign that I had entered a poor neighborhood was the presence of public housing. And, upon seeing the name of the project, I was flabbergasted. The project was named after native son Roger Taney, the Supreme Court Chief Justice who gave us the dreadful Dred Scott decision and the absurd separate-but-equal concept that set back this country for a century. Taney is buried in a walled cemetery downtown (and not a minute too soon, I feel).
But I, as a northerner, am simply flabbergasted that the local powers had the effrontery to name a housing project occupied largely by African Americans after the man who had cut them such a bad deal.
And I am bewildered that nothing has been done to change the name of the project to something respectable like Thurgood Marshall Homes, so I have embarked on a quest to meddle in the municipal affairs of Frederick to publicize this absurdity and to get the name changed -- hopefully within a year.
It is also significant that I mentioned the Taney Houses to some locals, and they, decent people all, never really had thought about this poor choice of names.

Taney Houses to be Demolished: Frederick, Md. Mayor

Milwaukee, October 14 2005: After I posted the above item about the Roger Taney Houses in Frederick, Maryland, I wrote the letter below to the mayor of the community.

She has responded, in the letter below, and brings the welcome news that the “segregated” (her words) housing project will be demolished within the next 45 days to be replaced with owner-occupied scattered site housing (as we might call it here).

Dear Your Honor:

I had reason to visit Frederick last week and walked through your lovely old city for quite a distance, examining places high and low.

I must say that I cannot fathom that you have what appears to be a public housing facility in your community named after Roger Taney, a local son.

My history books show that he was the author of the Dred Scott decision which gave us the separate but equal concept. I believe you need travel very little in the County of Frederick to find examples of the separate but tremendously unequal school facilities built in your area during that era. I noted a lovely red brick one dated 1904 or so not far from an older certainly not lovely wooden building built I'm not sure when for black students.

I have not yet been able to determine the entity responsible for the public housing in your city, but when I do so, perhaps with your assistance, I shall endeavor even from this distance to see that the name of the Taney project be changed to a less offensive name.

I have already posted my impressions on my website, which is listed below.
I welcome your interest in this matter.

Very truly yours,
Michael Horne
Editor / Publisher
www.milwaukeeworld.com

Good Morning Mr. Horne,

The City of Frederick is a city with a rich and diverse history. For instance, there were many Southern sympathizers during the Civil War -- with our City hall being burned down 2 times -- but our forefathers eventually helped preserve the Union.

The naming of old public housing units is a curiosity that goes back nearly 50 years (since I am not a native of Frederick and only 44, I can take no credit or blame for this titling of a building). I can take some credit for gaining the support of our US Senators Mikulski and Sarbanes to fund a Hope VI project in Frederick that is demolishing this segregated public housing and offering home ownership units throughout our city. Some things change slowly, but this is moving along quickly and will be demolished in about 40-45 days so you can take credit in your hometown of "fighting City Hall" and winning!

Take care,
Jennifer
JENNIFER P. DOUGHERTY

MAYOR
The City of Frederick

Because of the German heritage of Frederick County, about 40 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., where I am writing this missive, it is one of the few places south of the Mason-Dixon line where you can find a Lutheran Church of any vintage.
The Congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Frederick was organized in 1738 -- that's 110 years before members of that faith established their first church in Wisconsin, in Mequon. By 1743 the parishoners were in a log church on the Monacacy river -- oops, I have to run. I am going to race around the District of Columbia. Right now the lovely cousins of Julilly Kohler are giving me a place to crash, and I am hauling my suitcase there right now.
I'll get back to you later.
Michael Horne