I am tragically late posting this, but there’s a meeting tonight at the LGBT Center on the future of Public Access TV in San Francisco.

6:00 PM, Tuesday August 12, 2008
The LGBT Center
1800 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Due to changes in state law that the cable companies were able to achieve, the money SF gets for Public Educational and Government (PEG) Programming is drastically reduced. In addition, the money can only be spent for capital purchases, not operations. PEG funding is used for what is commonly thought of as Public Access, but it’s also used for things like the broadcast (and webcast) of public meetings.

I have a confession. I am a huge podcast fan.

So it only made sense that I try out for myself.

The story on Nader and Gonzalez’s campaign stop in San Francisco is this week’s podcast. Here is the link Leftinsf Podcast

If you listen, you will immediately note that I am a beginner and my skills are still in the elementary level. But I will keep at it and hopefully improve over time.

How well does San Francisco’s city government monitor the former government services that it allows to be privatized? Does its monitoring practices imitate that of Utah, Alabama, Louisiana, or Maine…that is, none at all?

That alarmed question, among others, came up while reading the recent Progressive States Network (PSN) report on privatization. Privatizing In The Dark: The Pitfalls of Privatization & Why Budget Disclosure Is Needed, with a 50-State Comparison Of Privatization Trends made me feel as if privatization was to government health what deliberate bleeding of “bad blood” was to curing bodily illness.

I am leaving in a few hours for a three week vacation, but I will leave you with this report on the antics of Gavin Newsom’s pals at Earthlink. The Philadelphia city council called a hearing to get an update on the status of the municipal network Earthlink’s supposed to be running for them. No one from the company bothered to show up.

PHILADELPHIA — Council members seeking an update on the status of Philadelphia’s much-vaunted plan to turn the city into one gigantic Wi-Fi hot spot criticized the network provider’s decision not to send a representative to a Tuesday hearing on the issue.

This is the first weekend in four weeks that I am in San Francisco.

But 2nd Back-to-School Institute for Parents and Caregivers of African American Students were held today at the Civic Center Secondary School (formerly John Swett Elementary School). And once I was there, I was very glad that I went to this very informative workshop.

Kim-Shree Maufas was the only school board member in attendance. Carlos Garcia and SFUSD’s new assistant superintendent for social justice were both absent. But Rickey Jones, director of Pupil Services did a great (but disheartening) presentation to the 30 parents, teachers and community members in attendance.

Even though the deal it was supposed to whip up support for is long gone, the campaign for Newsom’s Prop J shambles forward like a zombie with only its hunger for brains (or, in this case, consultant dollars) to drive it forward.

Since there’s no real substance to the proposition, the slogans have become correspondingly sophisticated:

I mean what idiot’s gonna say no to free?

I also got a robocall from School Board Commissioner Hydra Mendoza advocating for Prop J. Her message was a little more nuanced (approximately “free, free, digital divide, free, free”), but certainly never mentioning that this magical Free Wi-Fi, were it to exist at all, would come at a price.

There’s been a bunch of navel gazing about the supposed failure of municipal wireless lately. Gavin Newsom’s blaming of the Supervisors to the contrary, San Francisco’s sour experience trying to get a network for free is not unique.

I have another op-ed in the Guardian this week, this time outlining why I and some of the city’s major unions and community groups are opposing Prop J. An excerpt:

Although it’s only a “declaration of policy,” Proposition J (the mayor’s wi-fi initiative) is garnering a lot of opposition. Taken at face value, the initiative seems like a no-brainer: of course we should have free, high-speed wi-fi for everyone, with adequate privacy and no public money, right now. The initiative makes it sound like all we have to do is bend over and pick up the golden wi-fi network lying in the street. Like other stories about precious paving, though, the reality is considerably less shiny.

I’ve been in and out of town, so I am late responding to this, but it looks like EarthLink has walked away from their proposed deal with San Francisco. This has, I think, some immediate political (in the narrow sense) ramifications for San Francisco, some pretty serious longer term problems and opportunities for San Franciscans, and raises some issues for the broader question of municipal networks–at least those provided by private companies.

I looks as if EarthLink’s plan to save its business by creating citywide Wi-Fi networks may be failing. The company (which is Gavin Newsom’s chosen partner for a San Francisco network) recently made news by announcing it would require cities to agree to be anchor tenants. It looks, however, like even that’s not enough.

But EarthLink officials, who declined to comment for this story, have expressed unease recently about the financial viability of wireless projects, which have yet to prove on a scale as large as Houston’s that they will draw enough customers to make a profit.