I can summarize the lesson pretty simply: Don’t compromise with the incumbents, don’t give in to the temptation to look reasonable. Defeat the bill.

In Louisiana, what looked like a merely onerous compromise was never honestly used as such by the corporations that demanded state protection from local competition. They immediately reneged on agreed upon interpretations hammered out behind closed doors, went back to the legislature for “amendments” at the very next session, used the law a as the basis for lawsuits the last of which went to the state supreme court and resulted in victory for the community. Along the way an entirely new state regulatory apparatus created to restrain price breaks the community wanted to give its citizens. That’s not to mention, of course, the ugly public relations battle the incumbents waged in an attempt to defeat what was obviously the will of the community.

4 million dollars and 4 years later the project finally got underway. Even though It is now completing its buildout and is meeting all its goals and is providing the city with what is arguably the nations most powerful large network that success was hard-won; it was a bruising battle intended to intimidate Lafayette and any city that wanted to follow its lead in Louisiana.

The so-called “Fair Competition Act” was anything but.

Don’t concede an inch. Lafayette’s learned that you can’t regard these guys as honest negotiators.