Since LUS announced its intentions to deliver phone, cable and Internet service to Lafayette residents nearly 16 months ago, the public utility has been engulfed in extensive legal battles with BellSouth and Cox Communications over the project. LUS has spent approximately $1.4 million on consultants, lawyers and marketing expenses related to the initiative, which was approved by a 24 percent margin in a public referendum July 16.
But Huval sees light at the end of the tunnel. LUS hits another milestone Sept. 1 when the Public Service Commission meets to adopt financing rules for the new venture. The PSC could be LUS' final hurdle before issuing bonds for the project. Opponents to the plan have until mid-October to contest the July 16 referendum, LUS' bond ordinance or the PSC ruling. Huval hopes that deadline will pass without further challenges to the LUS initiative, and the fiber build-out could begin in earnest in early 2006.
"This is a complicated process," Huval says. "There's a lot of work in the background that took place for this to happen."
The PSC staff has been working since last September on developing the accounting rules for LUS' new telecommunications division. The rules are based on state law and designed to create a level playing field for a public entity to compete with private telecom providers. LUS and the incumbent private providers, Cox Communications and BellSouth, have gone back and forth with the PSC and its staff to negotiate the rules. The staff's final recommendations, released last Wednesday, Aug. 24, appear to be a compromise that meets LUS approval.
"I think we have everything in the recommendation that LUS can live with," says Public Service Commissioner Jimmy Field, whose district covers Lafayette and Baton Rouge. "I'm not saying it's ideal," he adds. "But [LUS] understands that our responsibility was to set rules to make the competition fair given that this is the first time a government entity will be engaged in competition with private entities."
BellSouth and Cox Communications representatives did not return calls for comment on the PSC recommendations by press time. Cox has requested the chance to make oral arguments before the commission prior to the final ruling. (An amendment to the proposed rules requires the approval of three commissioners.)
Field has been a key ally for LUS and helped set up meetings between LUS representatives and public service commissioners.
"Jimmy has been on the commission for quite some time," Huval says. "And he knows the process better than we do. We know what it's like to deal with our [city-parish] council. Our biggest concern was not being as familiar with the PSC."
LUS also employed lobbyist Randy Haynie and several attorneys for the PSC negotiations, which recently turned in LUS' favor. The PSC staff's initial draft of rules in June followed an interpretation of the law advocated by BellSouth and would have prohibited LUS from using any utility revenues in paying off up to $125 million in bonds for the project. The staff's final recommendations for the rules ' released last Wednesday ' reversed that opinion and allow LUS' utilities division to cover the communications division should the bonds go into default. Without that change, it would have been very difficult to obtain a favorable interest rate on its loan.
"It was just a mistake for our recommendation to come out and say that you couldn't pledge the assets," says Field. The new rules also side with LUS' plea to allow money from its utility division to be loaned to its communications division at fair market rates. LUS has agreed with BellSouth and the commission's request to make an in-lieu of tax payment ' equal to what private providers pay ' during each year of operation.
Commissioner Dale Sittig, who represents several Acadiana parishes surrounding Lafayette, including St. Landry and Acadia, says he feels the final rules are fair to both sides.
"The rules are not set in favor of anybody or against anybody," he says. "The commission has no dog in this fight. We're doing exactly what the law says. Hopefully, everybody can get on board."
While only three votes are needed to approve the rules, Field says he is hoping for a unanimous decision. "I think to some degree they will give me some deference because it's in my area, and I know the situation very well, but in the end [the commissioners] will vote their own conscience."
Last week, Commissioner Foster Campbell reserved any comment on the staff's final rule recommendations because he had not yet had a chance to fully review them. Commissioners Jay Blossman and Lambert Bossiere did not return calls for comment.
Field says that LUS' plan has been selling itself.
"I've always felt like as a public service commission that we should be an instrument of economic development," he says. "We should help the state of Louisiana attract industry. We ought to open the door and allow them to try to do this and take the heat, so to speak, from the private entities, because we're losing a lot of industry in Louisiana. This might be a way we can attract high-tech jobs, and for that reason, because of the economic development angle, I believe the other commissioners realize that. We need to take that risk and go ahead and let LUS start this whenever they feel comfortable."
MAY 22 This post was written the day after the second line shooting in NOLA, by Brentin Mock. Mock is a friend of Deb "Big Red" Cotton, a blogger who was shot in the back and was seriously injured. It is a raw, emotional piece of writing, something the writer obviously felt he needed to get off his chest. But it raises questions that can't be easily dismissed, and might give some insight into where the source of these events truly is.
MAY 22 In this Baton Rouge Business Report post, Rolfe McCollister considers the privatization of bus service in Baton Rouge. After decades of under-funding, it is a mess, and although a tax (partially) passed last year, improvement hasn't happened yet. McCollister apparently feels it is time to let private business get in on the transit business.
MAY 22 This post on Bayou Buzz by Jeff Crouere urges the defeat of a bill that would grant modest pay increases over the next several years to the state's judges and clerks of court. The state is in no position to fund pay hikes, Crouere argues, with the pay increases costing a total of $9 million over several years. It sends the wrong message to the (proverbial) hard-working people of Louisiana, he says.
MAY 22 The Advocate reports here that State Treasurer John Kennedy is complaining about a meeting of the corporation that oversees the state's tobacco settlement. The Governor wanted it restructured, and he has some support, but not a lot. The corporation agreed with his plan, but Kennedy didn't, and it appears that the meeting was noticed in a manner completely different than that of all previous meetings. Kennedy's given to hyperbole, but in this case the fish don't smell too fresh.
MAY 22 In this Advocate story, Carencro Police Chief Carlos Stout says the recent federal indictment of a strip club owner is all wrong. The indictment alleges that drugs and prostitution went on with impunity because club staff made arrangements with "local" police. Stout says it never happened, and while his cops do work security in the parking lot, they're not allowed inside.
MAY 22 This amusing post in DIG Baton Rouge recounts an ad that ran on Craig's List recently; the advertiser was seeking tenants for a Beauregard Town house. He knew his market, and wrote an ad that the most ironical hipster couldn't resist. Apparently, he really did know his market, because the ad worked like a charm.
MAY 22 In this post in The Lens, Mark Moseley comments on the rhetoric Gov. Jindal employed in trying to save his tax "reform" package. One interesting point concerns Jindal's use of his brother, Nikesh, in a little story. Nikesh left Louisiana because of his inability to get a decent job, the story goes, but the story won't hold water: Nikesh lives in DC, which has an income tax level comparable to Louisiana, Moseley says. If income taxes caused the dismal situation, it should exist in DC too. Right?
MAY 22 This post by columnist John Maginnis traces the trajectory of the bill that would fund construction at community and technical colleges -- and bypass the Board of Regents and traditional higher ed funding mechanisms. Sure, it will bust the legislature's self-imposed debt limit, but some leges feel that there's more need (because there is more growth) in the community and technical college area than in the university area, he says.
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