Lobby

0

By HOWARD FINE

Staff Reporter

A telecommunications company spent the most money during the first quarter to lobby L.A. officials on any single issue, displacing the usual roster of developers.

Topping the list released by the city Ethics Commission was Telecommunications Inc., which paid $132,656 to four lobbying firms to handle issues related to the transfer of its cable television franchise to AT & T; Corp., which last year bought the firm.

Coming in at No. 7 was Qwest Communications, which paid $55,250 to a local lobbying firm to gain approval for its purchase of a fiber-optic conduit system from Pacific Pipeline System.

“This is the first time I’ve seen telecom issues rising to such prominence in the three years that we’ve been itemizing these projects,” said Bruce Aoki, a spokesman for the commission.

More traditional projects were still prominent on the list. Browning Ferris Industries spent $130,000 in connection with its long-running attempt to expand its Sunshine Canyon Landfill in the northeast San Fernando Valley. (The city’s Planning Commission recently approved the expansion, which now goes before the City Council.)

Regent Properties, which came in third, paid $126,733 to lobbying firms as it seeks city approval for its Hollywood Marketplace project at Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street. And TrizecHahn Corp. paid $101,000 to lobbyists as the city moved to sell $137 million in revenue bonds to finance a parking structure and part of the planned Academy Awards theater at the Hollywood & Highland project.

But it was the telecom projects that were the most unusual feature of the list, which included spending through March 31. At the center of the lobbying frenzy is the spread of broadband technology.

On one side are cable companies and AT & T;, which are betting on cable modem technology. On the other are the local phone companies and Internet service providers using digital phone lines.

Each side is trying to establish its technology as the dominant means for piping the Internet, video and phone service into homes, while pressuring federal, state and local authorities to set rules on how much access competitors should have.

“It’s a war out there,” said Howard Sunkin, a lobbyist with Cerrell Associates, which represents TCI. “The war is nationwide, but L.A. is a major battlefield.”

Prompted in part by TCI’s merger with AT & T;, the city is reviewing its policy on access to cable wiring systems. Within the next few weeks, the Information Technology Agency is due to release a report outlining a policy on that access. The report is expected to go before the city’s Board of Information Technology in early June and then to the full City Council later in the month.

The access issue dominated a January hearing on the TCI-AT & T; merger held in the San Fernando Valley.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” said Alan Arkatov, president of the Board of Information Technology, which called the hearing. “It was the lobbyists’ full employment act. The lobbyists from both sides presented their cases very forcefully.”

Arkatov said the hearing brought to the fore many issues that the city will have to grapple with as it charts its policy on cable wire access.

“The question is, should we be regulating the embryonic stages of the Internet or should we let the market decide? It’s a tough balancing act,” he said.

No posts to display