The NEWRULESEXPLORING COMMUNITY, MOBILITY, SCALE AND TRADE • WINTER 2000 Local Retailers Hit the Web Paving Our Electronic Dirt Roads Keeping the Minors Home Footloose and Label-Free The [ contents ] NEWRULESEXPLORING COMMUNITY, MOBILITY, SCALE AND TRAD Editor in Chief Features David Morris New Rules Staff 4 Local Retailers Hit the Web Nicholas Hanlon, Brian Levy, Stacy Mitchell, David Morris, Elizabeth Noll, In the flurry over the runaway growth of electronic commerce, Simona Fuma Shapiro one fact is rarely addressed: e-commerce is attracting consumer dollars that used to go to local stores. Now independent busi- Art Direction nesses are collaborating to bring online profits back to Main Holle Brian Street. By Stacy Mitchell ILSR President 9 Paving Our Electronic Dirt Roads Neil Seldman Although the Telecommunications Act reduced local authority, there are still many steps a community can take to ensure its cit- E-mail Addresses izens have an accessible, affordable information infrastructure. Individual e-mail addresses for The New Rules By Miles Fidelman staff: [first name’s initial plus last name]@ilsr.org. 13 Keeping the Minors Home The New Rules (ISSN 1521-9917) is published Home teams are pulled up by their roots as owners cash in on quarterly by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, stadium deals: it happened to the majors and now it’s happening 1313 5th Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414; tele- to minor league sports teams. Buying the team is one way to phone: 612-379-3815; fax: 612-379-3920; website: keep them at hometown’s home plate. By Daniel Kraker www.newrules.org. Washington, DC, office: 2425 18th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009; tele- phone: 202-232-4108; fax: 202-332-0463; website: 16 This Isn’t Your Father’s Free Trade www.ilsr.org. Send all subscription requests to the It wasn’t tariffs that brought 50,000 protestors to Seattle’s streets Minneapolis office: 1 year $35; $25 nonprofit in November. It was concern over issues like living standards, organizations, governmental agencies, libraries, social justice, environmental protection and political freedom. students; $45 foreign (U.S. funds drawn on U.S. Free trade, as administered by the WTO, is no longer about bank). For subscriptions of more than a year, how much tax to slap on an import. By David Morris multiple subscriptions, bulk copy sales, or for rights and permissions, contact Elizabeth Noll. 18 Footloose and Label-Free Labeling laws allow vendors to sell apples without telling con- The New Rules is printed with vegetable-based sumers whether they’re from Washington or Australia. inks containing no less than 20 percent vegetable Congress is looking at several bills that would require stricter oil on processed chlorine-free recycled paper labeling of produce and meat. By Simona Fuma Shapiro containing 50 percent post-consumer waste fiber. This publication is printed in the United States by Sexton Printing, a certified environmentally Departments responsible Great Printer. 1 JN 7 1 editor’s note Policies of place should be a priority in the November 2000 Cover Illustration election campaign. Ken Avidor/Avidor Studios 2place rules FCC okays microradio. West Virginia sues Wampler. San Francisco bans ATMs, banks sue. Boulder proposes local owner- ship preference. Dairy compact revived. [ editor’s note ] The Place of Place in the 21st Century he election campaign is in full product was made unless they wanted gear. From now until November, to favor domestic and local producers?: Tcandidates will bombard us a tendency viewed as downright sub- with zillions of words about taxes versive in a world governed by and deficits, military spending the World Trade Organization. and health care. These are all Globalization pervades all important issues, to be sure. areas of the economy. But no candidate or party Charles Dolan’s Cablevision has yet to address what owns the New York may be the key issue: Knicks and Rangers, as what is the place of place well as Madison Square in the 21st century? Garden. Rupert Murdoch’s When President vast communications and Clinton told us in 1997 entertainment empire that he wanted to “build a owns the Los Angeles bridge to the 21st century” Dodgers. Their relation- he was metaphorically ship to the place their telling us he was going to teams inhabit is tenuous. rely on old ideas to fashion Most readers of this magazine policies for the new millennium. live in cities where major league Do we really need more bridges? sports owners have threatened to The idea that mobility is our highest leave if residents didn’t cough up the good, and the distance from producer dough for a new stadium/arena/ to consumer an important measure of ballpark. At the major league level success, is outmoded and increasingly the sports owners, with the acquies- destructive. cence of Congress, have established This journal takes issue with that The idea that mobility is our rules that give communities only two single-minded focus. It discusses poli- choices: pay up or see their teams tics and policy from the ground up. highest good, and the distance depart. But as Daniel Kraker notes, An information economy is inher- the minor leagues are an entirely ently global in reach. But can infor- from producer to consumer an different ball game. When minor mation technologies be harnessed to league owners demand subsidies strengthen geographic communities? important measure of success, greater than the market value of the Stacy Mitchell, author of ILSR’s well- team, a growing number of commu- received book, The Home Town is outmoded and increasingly nities are saying, “Why not own it Advantage: How to Defend Your main ourselves?” Wouldn’t we prefer to Street Against Chain Stores...And Why destructive. root for a truly rooted home team? It Matters, addresses that question in This is the year we debate policy. her hopeful analysis of the new .com Or should. Who knows? If enough of ventures of the small business com- cities—and states—of the authority to us ask these kinds of questions, munity. “Buy via the web, if you act on behalf of their citizens in this maybe our candidates will be forced must, but buy from your local store,” arena. to tell us where they stand on the is their motto. Sometimes the contempt that important issue of place. What policies Miles Fidelman, president of the policymakers feel for place verges on would they propose if community Center for Civic Networking, persua- the absurd. Simona Fuma Shapiro really mattered? sively argues that cities must and can discusses one such area: country-of- As always, we welcome your feed- play a key role in designing a telecom- origin labeling. Free traders like Bill back and your support. munications system that serves the Clinton criticize such labeling as —David Morris public interest. Yet Congress and the protectionist. After all, why on earth courts are increasingly stripping would someone need to know where a Winter 2000 THE NEW RULES 1 [ place rules ] FCC Carves a Space for West Virginia Uses Consumer Law to Grassroots Radio Prosecute Packers One year after FCC Chair William Kennard intro- In an effort to mitigate the struggles of small poultry duced a tentative plan to legalize low power FM stations farmers, states have begun searching for ways to curb (see “Fighting Corporate Power with Low Power,” the power of large poultry processors to which the The New Rules, Summer 1999), the FCC has finally farmers are contracted and to which they grow authorized microradio. After the ruling Kennard increasingly indebted. Last year West Virginia proclaimed, “Today...we have thrown open the doors Attorney General Darrell V. McGraw challenged the of opportunity to the smaller, community-oriented state poultry industry by filing suit against Wampler broadcaster.” foods and its parent company. Using an old law in a The FCC’s action could create as many as 1,000 new way, the suit charges Wampler with “unfair nonprofit grassroots radio stations. The decision was methods of competition” and “deceptive acts or likely influenced by a flood of supportive letters sent practices” under the state’s Consumer Credit and to the FCC over the past year, what Mass Media Protection Act. The state alleges that the company Bureau Chief Roy Stewart said was the greatest “kind forecast false earnings projections and distributed of support...from ordinary people” that he has seen in poor quality chicks to its contracted poultry growers, his 30 years with the FCC. causing them to lose money. Groups like the National Lawyer’s Guild Upon word of the suit, Wampler immediately Committee for Democratic Communications had petitioned to move the lawsuit to federal court, where expressed concern that the initial rulemaking would the case would presumably come before the USDA’s have allowed ownership of microradio stations by Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Admin- large commercial broadcasters. The FCC’s final istration. The department has rarely enforced the decision addressed this concern by mandating that Packers and Stockyards Act and has never ruled low power stations be strictly nonprofit. Stations can’t against large poultry processors. In late August 1999, sell advertising, although they can seek NPR-style the U.S. District Court sent the case back to West underwriting. Virginia, stating “the state courts of West Virginia Only stations under 100W will be permitted, easing should first pass upon whether this unique theory of concerns that the ruling would only make room for a recovery is a legally viable one.” Further appeals from handful of large stations. To make room for the new Wampler are expected. micro-stations the FCC eliminated the long-standing For more information call Judy Morrison at the third adjacent channel protection, meaning that now National Contract Poultry Growers Association, microradio stations can operate on a frequency three 1-800-259-8100, or look up the website http:// channels away from an existing station.