October 5, 2005 Move The Tower Newsletter
There is quite a bit of interesting news to report:
More Shenanigans with Sauk County Government
I have written quite a bit in the past about the shenanigans going on in our county government. Well the hits (to the county taxpayers) just keep on coming. The September 28 Spring Green Home News reports in detail how Gene Wiegand, the county's "administrative coordinator" after eight years on the job retired on September 21. The board of supervisors in closed session voted to give Wiegand a year's salary, $81,261, plus accrued sick pay instead of a gold watch. Who do you think was immediately nominated to get Wiegand's open position and $81,261 a year salary? None other than supervisor Bill Wenzel, chairperson of the board, who was chairing the same meeting! Wenzel quickly stepped down as chairman for a few minutes in order to "avoid a conflict of interest"! Other board members apparently were too shocked to even second the motion. So someone immediately nominated another county employee to fill the job. The county attorney Todd "Loophole" Liebman tried to come to Wenzel's defense by objecting to the second motion, but he was ignored. After a thorough county-wide search for the most qualified candidate for this important position (lasting all of a few minutes), the board voted to hire some other county employee instead. The board then finished off the night by voting themselves a pay raise.
By the way, as reported in the September 8, 2004 Home News, Gene Wiegand stated that, "the county's communications towers will be linked by fiber optic cable with excess capacity to accommodate other uses, including high speed internet service for county residents that are not served by commercial providers." It is a year later and the county has found no one interested in using the "excess capacity" of the $3,000,000 fiber optic system. It is hard to imagine what business will spend millions to run buried cable to our homes when the same thing can be accomplished using inexpensive wireless technology.
Lone Rock Police Report Their Radios Are Not Working
The September 21, 2005 Home News reports, "Police Radio Failure is Lone Rock Issue". The article states that "The Village of Lone Rock was made aware of a potentially dangerous situation" because the department has been having trouble with their radios in recent weeks." I suggest that Lone Rock officials read the article read I posted on December 20, 2004, entitled, "The Koehnen Report - A Shocking Look at the 'Sloppy' Maintenance of the Sauk County Emergency Wireless Network". This report at http://www.highway60.com/movethetower/041220_NoMaintenance.htm dealt exactly with this issue. I included contains photos from the 2003 Koehnen report of the Spring Green tower which show the main antenna cable with a serious kink in it. I also show a photo I took in December 2004 showing that the county never fixed the problem. The December photo clearly shows that the kink has worsened. Perhaps the problem has worsened in the last ten months to the point that Lone Rock emergency radio service is now affected.
Last December the board voted to purchase or condemn and sieze the property on Thuli Road to build their tower-on-the-river. As pictured on the Move The Tower web site, the county has already begun burying the underground conduit for the fiber optic cable, but the word is THEY HAVE NOT YET ACQUIRED THE LAND FOR THE TOWER! Wazzup with dat?
The tsunami wave of wireless Internet is approaching. San Francisco has put out bids to connect the entire city and Google has offered to do it for free! The phone companies are crying because Voice Over Internet Protocol(VoIP?) will drive the cost of phone service down to more reasonable rates. Come on Sauk County residents, let's speak up and get in the race!
"SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said on Monday he considered wireless Internet access a fundamental right of all citizens...Making wireless access affordable to the entire population of San Francisco was a vital step to differentiating the city in order to make it more economically competitive on a state, national and global level, Newsom said. But the mayor also singled out the power of Wi-Fi as an alternative network to provide emergency information to all citizens in the event a natural disaster such as an earthquake were to strike the city and knock out other communications... Officials said 24 proposals had been turned into the city to deliver wireless Internet services, ranging from Web search company Google Inc., Cingular, the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier, to Internet service provider EarthLink? Inc. One company,...has proposed an advertising-supported plan for free wireless access, he said. That company appeared to be Google. "
Rising Energy Prices Has No Real Solution, Except Wireless!
Rising energy prices are the topic of many discussion these days. Many agree that conservation alone is not a viable solution. After all, when energy prices rise 70% a year, one time savings of 10% through conservation is not going to help much in the long run. Dramatic savings in energy are possible if people had high speed Internet service in every home. More people coulkd eliminate driving to work saving significant energy costs for themselves and their employers. China recently equalled the oil consumption of the US. India and other developing countries will continue to increase their consumption while global oil production has peaked. Gas prices will continue to rise in the years ahead.
I have posted a series of articles and papers written by Sauk County Supervisor Tom Kriegl on the Move The Tower web site. Mr. Kriegl has detailed the county's growing financial losses due to the board's spending on a new jail with excess jail cells. The county is spending $5,000,000 more per year since they built a larger jail several years ago. The sheriff and board speculated that they could "make money" by going into the jail reantal business. Their pans have not worked and taxpayers are paying for the miscalculation as the extra cells remain exmpty even though new staff were hired to guard the non-existent prisoners. Now the board and sheriff want to spend more money to refurbish the old cells so they can "make more money" by renting the old cells, too. Not suprisingly, Supervisor Kriegl was one of the few supervisors who voted against the communication tower project.
Move The Tower Web Site Has Google Search Engine
Ok, I admit it. The Move The Tower web site has a lot of information, but it is difficult to find what you are looking for. Well, that problem has been solved! I have added a Google search feature at the bottom of each page. You can enter any words you are interested in and get a Google search of the Highway60.com Move The Tower web site. Enjoy!
Mark Culverhouse
http://www.highway60.com/movethetower