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Does The Law Matter?I've heard plenty of people complaining about how the law doesn't seem to matter. I've seen it from attorneys. But overall, it seemed to me that the law had to matter; it's part of the foundation of the country, right? I still hold that in most cases, people do a pretty good job of upholding the law. Sometimes, however, people and groups forget that there are laws that have to be followed to maintain an orderly society... Watch the video below to see what the Town Board of Meredith, NY thinks of making sure that the requirements of the law have been fulfilled before the end. It's quite shocking. I was there. (I'm the loud guy you only see part of sometimes.) The video starts about 10 minutes into the franchise hearing... Update: July 20, 2008: Uploaded an example of what a fantastic franchise agreement looks like. It's a copy of the Verizon Franchise with NYC (54 pages, look on page 54 for the list of appendices. Note Appendix F: FTTP Upgrade Schedule (FTTP = Fiber To The Premise) and Appendix J: System Architecture. The Verizon Franchise Appenices copy. Look on Page 68 of 79 for the FTTP Upgrade Schedule. Look on pages 74-78 for the System Achitecture. NOTE: That is a gorgeous example of a "Plan" as is required by 16 NYCRR §895.1(b). Notice that it's a LOT more than a 1 page "map" as DTC's claimed "plan". [a part of 16 NYCRR §895.1(b), Required contents of franchises, says "...a decription of the system as constructed and as will be expanded or enhanced...". If it's an initial franchise, more info is required.] Now, compare the verizon Plan to DTC's! Click here to See the infamous "Attachment A". Update: July 15, 2008: It appears that DTC never even submitted an Application for Approval of a Certificate of Confirmation with the NYS Public Service Commission for its 2002 Initial Franchise Agreement with the Town of Meredith! The only towns on record on the PSC web site are Hamden (11/14/02, 01-V-1903) and Kortright (9/17/02, 01-V-1440). You can verify it by clicking on the following link, then clicking on the "Cable Orders & Opinions" link, then searching the next page for "DTC" to make it easy. Here's the link to get that info to verify it for yourself. If that's the case, then there's no possible way for the Franchise to get "renewed". I don't think it's possible to "renew" something that never officially existed. Now what does THAT say about the "Character" of a company? Who was in charge of making sure that the "initial" franchise agreement was submitted to the NYS DPS? Did the DTC rep know that "initial" agreement was never submitted? Do you think there should be some sort of investigation to find out more? By both the PSC and the DTC Board? What would happen? Do you know how Black's Law Dictionary defines misrepresentation? fraudulent misrepresentation? material misrepresentation? fraud? If you want to know, click here. I really don't know what to think about this development. I have a very difficult time believing that anyone would knowingly do any such thing. But people obviously have in the past, or the terms probably wouldn't even exist. Mr. Edwards just doesn't seem to me to be such a person who would do things with such intent. (I really am curious about it, though.) How does something THAT huge slip through any well-run company's administration? Hm. Really makes me wonder about the administration and communication lines within DTC... (Maybe an administrative "Policies & Procedures" review and overhaul might fix that in the future?) Update: July 14, 2008: I wrote a Letter to the Editor at The Daily Star about the requirements of the law (16 NYCRR §895.1(b)) not being filled in the franchise agreement, and ask a couple questions. Copy of Email I sent Kathleen at the PSC on 18 July 2008. The start of the story...Way into the morning on July 10th, 2008, I wrote a letter/notice to the NYS Public Service Commission (PSC) about the DTC franchise agreement being agreed upon by the town board. I spent the day after the meeting, which was July 8, 2008, in deep research into more laws. The night of the meeting, I added all the music and text to the video above. (Yeah, I haven't gotten much sleep.) It didn't seem right to me that the Meredith Town Board would not require that the applicable conditions of the law be filled. Hence, the letter to the PSC. On the morning of July 10, 2008, I called the PSC (~2.7mb) (NOTE: I edited out Ms. Hope's email address so she doesn't get a bunch of spam) to find out who I had to send the letter/notice to so it was properly and more promptly delivered. Plus, I wanted to alert them to the coming franchise agreement, and to please wait until they received my written communication before making any decision on it. The PSC was amazingly friendly, as you can hear in the call to the PSC. I emailed what I had written [1 | 2] (veryslightly modified from what I emailed, but the same as what I sent in hard copy, except my contact info has been removed from these docs.) to her. Later, the same day afternoon, and me still awake somehow, Ms. Hope (if it's Mrs., please let me know and I'll change it here...) called to clarify some information, and to let me know that she had sent a copy of the the letter I had emailed earlier up a level to the head of the Office of Telecommunications, Mr. Figliozzi. (Sorry, I did not record that call.) At this point in this cycle, it seems that, YES, the law DOES matter to the NYS Public Service Commission. Very cool. I'll write on this cycle as it progresses and I find out more. The next line here is to show you how I did my research into all the cool telecommunications stuff. It all started with me wanting local TV delivered by a local company so I could help support the local economy more. Since I'd already requested TV service from DTC three times, and been told that I couldn't get it, I started researching to find out HOW I could get it here. Since I'm one of the fastest and best researchers I know (true), and I soak up information like a huge super-sponge soaks up water, I thought it would be an interesting line of research. Little did I know what I would find out. It's been said that "ignorance is bliss", but to me that statement is more along the lines of "the less I know, the less responsibility I have to take in my environment". (I've never been a big Darwinian fan, and think that René DesCartes was right in his classic Mediations on First Philosophy when he wrote that (paraphrased) everything is caused. [Oh, he's the dude who wrote, although not in English, "I think; therefore, I am".] If everything is caused, and I can cause, then I can cause changes in my environment. That means that I don't have to "adapt" to my environment; I can cause my environment to adapt to me.) So in my next steps, I'll show you how I began my research. Yes, another video. You can see the first video of my discovery process.
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