The Ferguson Group Blog

Wednesday News Roundup

Every Wednesday, the TFG Blog posts a series of articles published over the previous week that discusses topics of interest to local governments. Learn about emerging trends and keep up on key policy issues by browsing the TFG Wednesday News Roundup!

White House Creates New Cybersecurity Agency

On Tuesday, the White House announced the creation of a new agency designed to combat cyber threats and to coordinate digital intelligence among federal agencies. The $35 million Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center is designed to "connect the dots" among cyber threats facing the United States, "so that relevant departments and agencies are aware of these threats in as close to real time as possible," a White House official said in a statement. Read more...

Why Boston is Spending $20M on Affordable Housing

Boston has announced a $20 million affordable housing project that will redevelop 250 city-owned parcels of land into housing specifically for low- to middle-income families. The strategy is to help maintain affordability while infilling vacant land in urban neighborhoods. Read more...

Restoring the Concrete Jungle: How to Address Urban Blight in 2015

Reducing blight and preventing its spread is best achieved when the solution incorporates the interest and input of active and engaged citizens. Many cities are starting to harness innovative civic tech products to begin repairing and rebuilding some of the country’s most severely affected areas with help from residents. Read more...

NYC’s Plan for Free, Citywide Wi-Fi

Private companies are paying New York City $500 million to transform old pay phones into high-speed Internet hotspots. The plan is called LinkNYC, and it’s important for two reasons. One, it may be a plan other cities can copy -- there are certainly plenty of old public pay phones around. Two, it’s an example of reimagining old assets and connecting citizens to what is increasingly a vital and life-enhancing service: the Internet. Read more...

An Interactive Gathering for City Leaders

On February 11-12, Louisville will host the Governing Summit for Innovation, a meeting that will convene city leaders to discuss how to get more out of less through synergy and innovation. What makes the gathering unique is that every detail of the meeting, from the room setup to the discussion, is intentionally interactive and challenging. While this event is sold out because of the unique set up of the accommodations and the “everyone participates” format, those who are interested should make a note and watch Governing for similar opportunities in the future. Read more...

House Votes For Permanent Internet Tax Ban

Earlier this week, the House passed by voice vote legislation permanently banning internet access taxes – a blow to local and state governments counting on the tax as a current or future revenue stream. 

H.R. 3086, the “Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act,” permanently extends the moratorium first enacted in 1998 and removes the exemption enjoyed by seven states.  The bill does not address the matter of sales tax collected on interstate online purchases.  Wireless industry representatives supported passage.

Action now moves to the Senate where Sen. Ron Wyden has sponsored similar legislation.  Many local governments and organizations such as the National Association of Counties have voiced strong opposition to Senate offices.  Sen. Wyden said he is consulting with his colleagues regarding moving the bill forward but he has not indicated a timeframe within which he hopes see action on his bill.

The largest public Wi-Fi system comes to New York

Recently New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the largest free public Wi-Fi system in the United States will be built in the city of Harlem.  The network is being funded by a donation from the Fuhrman Family Foundation to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.

The network, which is expected to extend 95 blocks and provide free Wi-Fi to 80,000 Harlem residents, will be rolled out in three phases starting in May 2014. The project’s deployment is being overseen by the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications and the Technology Development Corporation, with technology provided by Sky-Packets.

Providing the residents of Harlem with free Wi-Fi access is one of many city programs (e.g., mobile computer labs, computer courses) focused on providing more residents, particularly low-income residents, access to the internet.

 

 

Infrastructure Advocacy Made Easier Through Apps

With just over one week of the August Congressional Recess remaining, you may want to consider providing some feedback to your Members of Congress before they return to DC. Luckily,  the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) has just made it very easy to do so.  ARTBA’s new “Transportation Construction Advocate App” allows the public  “to communicate with their elected officials about the importance of transportation investment to the U.S. economy and the need to fix the Highway Trust Fund.” It includes info on Members of Congress, talking points about highway funding for use during the break, and text notifications for news developments.

This cool new app follows on the heels of the “I’m Stuck” App from Building America’s Future, which I told you about last month, is available for both Android and Apple devices and can be downloaded through Google Play or iTunes.

 

It’s all in the numbers…

The bidding war for Nate Silver,  the statistician who made his mark with highly accurate 2008 and 2012 election predictions, is over and he’ll be moving from the New York Times to ESPN.  Before the 2008 campaign, Silver was a baseball statistician, but has gained a major following since then for his work in the political arena. Rest assured that Silver will still offer political analysis for ABC News which, like ESPN, is owned by Disney. 

With so many news outlets vying for Silver, it is clear that predictive analysis is BIG business. Every day we hear from clients that are using data to project staffing needs, catch criminals, create safer roads, and catch those “bad apples” that are gaming the system and exploiting government resources.  How do you use data to improve quality of life and efficiency in your community?

The Passing of a Senator

Today has been a somber day of steady rain as New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. News reports this past week cited how his passing was notable because he was the last sitting senator of the "greatest generation," that chamber's last veteran of World War II. His death came just months after Hawaii's Senator Daniel Inouye, a wounded veteran of that war, took his resting place among the nation's noted military and civilian leaders at Arlington.

It need be said that Senator Lautenberg's death on June 3, also is notable because it marked the passing of a champion of Federal policy to making communities healthier, the environment cleaner, and industry and travel safer and better. It was a personal agenda well suited to his home State of New Jersey but carried out with no less than the nation in mind. 

In his 28 years as a senator he served on virtually every committee and subcommittee that touched on authorizing and funding transportation, civil works and environmental policy. For a period he chaired the Transportation Subcommittee on Appropriations while as a senior member of the Environment & Public Works Committee. In recent years he also chaired the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine, Infrastructure, Safety and Security Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee.  His approach to legislating was to cover all the bases, or at least as many as he could. He championed improving airports and the aviation system, expanding the use of transit and passenger rail, modernizing freight transportation, bringing American port infrastructure to world standards, and securing them all from the those who would do us harm.  

He was appointed to the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism after the tragic downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and returned to the Senate, after a two-year hiatus, to help write and oversee anti-terrorism law after the downing of the World Trade Center towers. In those towers he had served on the Board of Commissioners for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey before being elected senator in 1982. That--and his building the Automatic Data Processing Corporation (ADP) from scratch--were parts of his resume about which he often enjoyed telling people if the occasion would allow.

Senator Frank Lautenberg put much effort into environmental issues. He devoted considerable time to the recovery of the old industrial wasteland through brownfields initiatives and Superfund legislation and to making the Toxic Substances Control Act more effective. He was protecting the coastline whether the recreation beaches or the nurturing marshlands. In his last year he walked the Jersey Shore in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, secured bi-partisan support for his toxic substances legislation and, from his wheel chair, cast his final vote in support of tighter gun legislation.

From start-to-finish Senator Frank Lautenberg was an advocate for his New Jersey and for improving the vitality of the United States by improving the quality of its people's lives and its means of commerce.

 

Want A Say on Bills Moving Through Congress?

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will give it to you.  Cantor announced that Cosponsor.Gov launched on June 4.  This is an expansion of the Citizen Cosponsor Project that “helps foster a national conversation between the American public and their elected officials.” 

Cosponsor.Gov will feature every bill and resolution introduced in the House, and will be searchable by title, sponsor, bill number, and issue area, and the tracker will show you exactly where the bill stands. You can “cosponsor” these bills and demonstrate your support for the measure.  The website’s platform is on Facebook, so your support for bills can be seen by all your FB friends.

A Little Help From My Friends

So many of the folks I work with are members of ICMA, the International City/County Management Association, so I follow their publications closely.  A few weeks ago I signed up for the ICMA SmartBrief, a fantastic daily email that provides news and some great advice on managing people and processes that applies not only to managers in the local government world, but also is truly universal.  Recent topics have included the impact of office design on worker productivity, how to keep control of a roomful of leaders, and giving credit where credit is due. It’s a useful publication, very readable, and I know that I can always use a little help from my friends in the form of practical advice.

Local Governments and Main Street Retailers see Progress in Senate Action

On Monday afternoon, the Senate approved a procedural motion that will allow the upper chamber to consider and vote on the Marketplace Fairness Act later this week.  This bill would allow state and local governments to enforce their sales and use tax laws on “remote sellers.”  These remote sellers include catalog and online retailers that do not have a physical presence in the state.  Right now, old U.S. Supreme Court case law prohibits state and local governments to enforce their sales and use tax laws because, at the time, the technology was not in place to make such collection and remittance possible without unduly burdening those remote sellers.  However, current technology has made it much easier to implement multijurisdictional tax laws.  States must first simplify their tax laws, and at least 24 already have.  Not only with this allow state and local governments to collect the $23 billion owed to them annually, but it will also level the playing field between remote and local retailers, as local retailers are required to collect and remit sales tax, and lose a lot of business to remote sellers.  As a consumer, I have mixed feelings about this legislation, but as a local government advocate, I see it for what it really is – fairness.

75 Yeas for Online Tax Fairness

Great news for all of us who care about a level playing field for state and local governments -- the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 Amendment to the Budget Resolution passed by a strong vote of 75 to 24. Votes on the budget amendment are non-binding, but this demonstrated strong support and clears the way for the bill to be acted upon soon.

Just to recap what this bill does,  this legislation would grant state and local governments the authority to collect taxes on internet and mail-order sales. Based on the 1992 Supreme Court’s decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, states are currently prohibited from collecting sales taxes from online retailers who do not have a physical presence in their state. The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates that state and local governments’ inability to collect sales tax from internet and mail-order sales can cost state and local governments up to $23 billion a year in missed revenue opportunities. The Marketplace Fairness Act would  give your state and local governments the power to enforce collection of sales tax from out of state online retailers.

 

See below to learn how your Senator voted…

 

Alphabetical by Senator Name

Alexander (R-TN), Yea Ayotte (R-NH), Nay Baldwin (D-WI), Yea Barrasso (R-WY), Nay Baucus (D-MT), Nay Begich (D-AK), Yea Bennet (D-CO), Yea Blumenthal (D-CT), Yea Blunt (R-MO), Yea Boozman (R-AR), Yea Boxer (D-CA), Yea Brown (D-OH), Yea Burr (R-NC), Yea Cantwell (D-WA), Yea Cardin (D-MD), Yea Carper (D-DE), Yea Casey (D-PA), Yea Chambliss (R-GA), Yea Coats (R-IN), Nay Coburn (R-OK), Yea Cochran (R-MS), Yea Collins (R-ME), Yea Coons (D-DE), Yea Corker (R-TN), Yea Cornyn (R-TX), Nay Cowan (D-MA), Yea Crapo (R-ID), Yea Cruz (R-TX), Nay Donnelly (D-IN), Yea Durbin (D-IL), Yea Enzi (R-WY), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Yea Fischer (R-NE), Yea Flake (R-AZ), Nay

Franken (D-MN), Yea Gillibrand (D-NY), Yea Graham (R-SC), Yea Grassley (R-IA), Nay Hagan (D-NC), Yea Harkin (D-IA), Yea Hatch (R-UT), Nay Heinrich (D-NM), Yea Heitkamp (D-ND), Yea Heller (R-NV), Nay Hirono (D-HI), Yea Hoeven (R-ND), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Nay Isakson (R-GA), Yea Johanns (R-NE), Yea Johnson (D-SD), Yea Johnson (R-WI), Yea Kaine (D-VA), Yea King (I-ME), Yea Kirk (R-IL), Yea Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Lautenberg (D-NJ), Not Voting Leahy (D-VT), Yea Lee (R-UT), Nay Levin (D-MI), Yea Manchin (D-WV), Yea McCain (R-AZ), Yea McCaskill (D-MO), Yea McConnell (R-KY), Nay Menendez (D-NJ), Yea Merkley (D-OR), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Yea Moran (R-KS), Yea

Murkowski (R-AK), Nay Murphy (D-CT), Yea Murray (D-WA), Yea Nelson (D-FL), Yea Paul (R-KY), Nay Portman (R-OH), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea Reed (D-RI), Yea Reid (D-NV), Yea Risch (R-ID), Yea Roberts (R-KS), Nay Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea Rubio (R-FL), Nay Sanders (I-VT), Yea Schatz (D-HI), Yea Schumer (D-NY), Yea Scott (R-SC), Nay Sessions (R-AL), Yea Shaheen (D-NH), Nay Shelby (R-AL), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Yea Tester (D-MT), Nay Thune (R-SD), Yea Toomey (R-PA), Nay Udall (D-CO), Yea Udall (D-NM), Yea Vitter (R-LA), Nay Warner (D-VA), Yea Warren (D-MA), Yea Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea Wicker (R-MS), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Nay