Phillip "Not a Time Warner Cable Employee" Dampier

One of the most vociferous critics of the publicly-owned cable system serving the communities of Mooresville, Cornelius and Davidson, N.C. has been exposed as an employee of Time Warner Cable.

MI-Connection, the community-owned cable system, has been subjected to withering criticism since town leaders purchased it from bankrupt Adelphia Cable in 2007.  The efforts to rebuild the system to current standards has proved time-consuming and expensive, and ongoing expenses will require an investment of at least $17 million over the next three years to keep the cable system up and running.  Despite the fact Time Warner Cable has run into larger, more expensive headaches rebuilding similar rundown Adelphia systems they purchased in Ft. Worth, Texas and Los Angeles, critics of community cable have pounced on the costly rebuild to attack public involvement in private enterprise and suggest city officials have not competently run the operation.

Some of the loudest criticism has come in the comment sections of local newspapers and media sites.  Just as Fibrant has faced similar attacks in the comment section of the Salisbury Post, critics of MI-Connection have piled on in newspapers like the Davidson News and Hunterville’s Herald Weekly.  One of the loudest critics of all, Andy Stevens, even started a blog devoted to attacking what he calls “Government Cable.”

David Boraks, editor of the Davidson News, has reported extensively on MI-Connection, and he reads the comments that follow his articles published online, including those written by Stevens.

In a story written today by Boraks, the Davidson News revealed a fact that consumers, the media, and local officials deserved to know — Stevens works for Time Warner Cable.  That revelation comes despite repeated earlier denials from Stevens when asked by reporters and local officials if he worked for the cable company.

Mooresville, North Carolina

How did the newspaper find out about Mr. Stevens’ day job?

MI-Connection board chair John Venzon has gotten fed up reading unrelenting, and often fact-free attacks on the publicly owned cable system he oversees.  Venzon told the Herald Weekly he used to ignore the often anonymous critics of the local cable system, but he’s changing tactics.  Venzon and some other MI-Connection supporters have jumped into the online debate, correcting false information and taking on some of the cable system’s loudest critics, including Stevens.

As part of that effort, Venzon decided to publicly disclose a recent encounter with Stevens at a local shopping center.  Venzon was especially interested to find Stevens wearing a Time Warner Cable uniform, driving a Time Warner Cable truck.

Venzon went public on the Davidson News website Friday:

I would like to point out that today we confirmed that Andy Stevens, a frequent attendee at our board meetings and vocal community critic works for Time Warner Cable. He was greeted by one of our employees while in a TWC uniform and driving one of their logo-ed vehicles. He has been active in using our publicly available information to turn our potential customers against us and to stir up fear, uncertainty and doubt about MI-Connection while hiding his motives. He does not live in our town or service area, so he does not ‘have a dog in the fight’ unless you consider who signs his paycheck. Could I attend competitors’ regular board meetings to see what they are doing?

To make matters worse, he has used the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to every communication between the towns, the board and management. So Time Warner does in fact sit in our meetings … and we are required to provide the meeting notes.

In corporate America, this would constitute espionage. In our situation, it is free and legal. I find it deplorable. I hope you agree.

I believe we should be required to report information just as publicly traded companies do and would adhere to all such requirement. That system promotes transparency to shareholders on a quarterly basis. In addition, we would continue to attend town board meetings and community roundtables to disclose information to citizens.

In another setting, I would be happy to debate the merits of public ownership of a utility that promotes the well being of its citizens and businesses within their community. However, we are in the midst of executing a decision that was made several years ago and are responsible to grow the business.

I do not mind a fair fight, and we must win based on the value of our products and services. However, don’t unfairly give advantage to our competitors and put our citizens at greater risk.

Boraks

Boraks has gotten an admission from Stevens he does, in fact, work for Time Warner Cable, a pertinent detail omitted from Stevens’ anti-MI-Connection blog.  Before deleting about a dozen articles attacking the community cable system, Stevens even noted on the home page of his website, “As I have a full time job, this effort will be accomplished during my free time (evenings and weekends),” without bothering to disclose what that job was.  His “About” section didn’t make mention of his employer either.

The now-defunct blog of secret Time Warner Cable employee Andy Stevens

Now that Time Warner Cable, a regular critic of community-owned broadband, has been put in the embarrassing position of having an employee indirectly do its dirty work, a company spokesman was reduced to telling Boraks they cannot control what their employees do.

But apparently behind closed doors, all is not sweetness and light between Stevens and his employer.  Stevens’ highly active blog suddenly was deprived of all its content after revelations about his employer made the newspaper.  Bing’s cache of Stevens’ site (which Stop the Cap! has captured) shows he had plenty to say about the cable system — none of it good.  That all changed today.

Boraks opined in his piece in the News that Stevens ongoing denials of involvement with Time Warner Cable and his lack of disclosure left him concerned.

Indeed, Stevens’ efforts to hide his employer’s identity and his subsequent decision to bring his blog down after the cat was let out of the bag suggests there is nothing for Stevens or Time Warner Cable to be proud of in their relentless, often sneaky efforts to bring community-owned competition to its knees.  When it comes to protecting duopoly profits of local cable and phone companies in North Carolina, it’s total war on all fronts.

Cable One or Cellular One?

Cable One is unique among America’s top-10 large cable system owners for its nearly incomprehensible broadband usage policies, only fully disclosed to customers after they sign up for service.

The cable company, owned by the owners of the Washington Post, have been tinkering with their broadband pricing and Internet Overcharging schemes as they embark on upgrades to DOCSIS 3 broadband service.  The result: faster broadband service priced like a cell phone plan.

Currently, Cable One controls usage of their customers with a daily usage ration coupled with a speed throttle.  For customers, it means keeping track of usage, time of day, and whether you are in the over-usage doghouse with speeds cut in half.

Stop the Cap! went through the sign-up procedure offered online at the Cable One website, suggesting we were new customers in the Anniston, Alabama area.  While the company is quick to disclose speeds and plan features, it takes some deep wading through an Acceptable Use Policy for new customers to unearth the company’s extensive and complicated limits on broadband usage.  The company doesn’t even like to disclose they are throttling your speeds in half as a punishment.  Instead they refer to them as ‘Standard Speeds’:

Company officials have been telling Cable One customers some of these complicated usage formulas are about to be relaxed as they introduce their new 50Mbps DOCSIS 3 broadband service.  With Cable One delivering service primarily in small cities and rural areas, the arrival of 50Mbps broadband has generated considerable excitement, until customers learned the cable company has decided to market it like a cell phone plan.

Cable One primarily serves small cities and towns in the central and northwestern United States.

“The new 50Mbps plan is downright bizarre here in Fargo, N.D.,” writes Stop the Cap! reader Paul.  “It actually costs less than their 10Mbps plan — I was quoted $45 a month for the broadband-only option, $35 if I signed a two year contract.  That actually saves me money as I currently spend just over $50 a month for their 10Mbps plan.”

But Paul learned the super fast broadband plan comes with some major strings attached.

“It is limited to 50GB of usage per month on what they are calling their ‘data plan,'” Paul shares.  “The customer service representative said it was like ordering a data plan with your wireless phone.”

Currently, the 50GB limit is the only data plan on offer, and the usage cap does not apply to usage overnight from midnight until noon the following day.  But those exceeding it at other times face a $0.50/GB overlimit fee.

Paul also says Cable One appears to be ready to dispense with the complicated speed throttle it uses on its mainstream 3-12Mbps broadband plans.  Cable One traditionally gave customers a daily usage allowance ranging from 1-11GB, after which accounts were subject to throttled speeds for the next 24 hours.

“Customers have complained about the slow speeds, throttles, and usage limits for years, if only because they couldn’t navigate all of them and Cable One’s usage measurement tool is often offline or inaccurate,” Paul writes.

“I first learned about Stop the Cap! when Cable One tried to charge some of our local residents $1,000 for cable equipment lost in a fire,” Paul says.  “Cable One has been so bad my wife was hoping Mediacom… Mediacom, would deliver us from them with a buyout.”

Cable One is an example of a cable company that has gone all out with Internet Overcharging, delivering customers an expensive and speed throttled broadband experience.

“Even though the lower price for the 50Mbps plan looks nice, it’s not if you start going over the limit,” Paul says.  “Sorry, broadband is not cell phone service.”

He is sticking with his current 10/1Mbps service plan.

Cable One representatives argue very few customers exceed any of the company’s plan limits, less than 1 percent exceeding them consistently.

Soldiers starting basic training or preparing to deploy overseas have a lot on their minds.  Worrying about their AT&T cell phone service isn’t supposed to be one of them.

Stop the Cap! has been hearing from soldiers in several states who are sharing similar stories about AT&T insisting on hefty early termination fees when calling to suspend or cancel service because of military training or deployment abroad.  Cell phones are prohibited during basic training, which lasts 10 weeks.  So why pay for a service you cannot use for two and a half months?

The Chicago Tribune shared the story of Nathaniel Jungheim, of Chicago, who faced an intransigent AT&T when he called to put his account on hold during basic training.

“They informed me that they have recently changed how they handle military accounts and said I would have to pay $10 a month plus taxes to keep my account in suspension,” he said.

Jungheim said he complained and was told he would either have to pay the monthly fee or $275 to terminate his contract.

“I asked to speak to a supervisor but was told they would say the same thing,” Jungheim said.

Those “changes” are likely illegal under the Service Member Civil Relief Act, a federal law which protects America’s soldiers from predatory practices from bankers, property management companies, insurance companies, and yes, cell phone companies.

Text of S. 3023 [110th]: Veterans’ Benefits Improvement Act of 2008
Oct 10, 2008: Became Public Law No: 110-389

SEC. 805. TERMINATION OR SUSPENSION OF CONTRACTS FOR CELLULAR TELEPHONE SERVICE FOR CERTAIN SERVICEMEMBERS.

(a) In General- Title III of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (50 U.S.C. App. 531 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 305 the following new section:

SEC. 305A. TERMINATION OR SUSPENSION OF CONTRACTS FOR CELLULAR TELEPHONE SERVICE.

(a) In General- A servicemember who receives orders to deploy outside of the continental United States for not less than 90 days or for a permanent change of duty station within the United States may request the termination or suspension of any contract for cellular telephone service entered into by the servicemember before the date of the commencement of such deployment or permanent change if the servicemember’s ability to satisfy the contract or to utilize the service will be materially affected by such deployment or permanent change. The request shall include a copy of the servicemember’s military orders.

(b) Relief- Upon receiving the request of a servicemember under subsection (a), the cellular telephone service contractor concerned shall–
(1) grant the requested relief without imposition of an early termination fee for termination of the contract or a reactivation fee for suspension of the contract; or
(2) in the case that such servicemember is deployed outside the continental United States as described in subsection (a), permit the servicemember to suspend the contract at no charge until the end of the deployment without requiring, whether as a condition of suspension or otherwise, that the contract be extended.

AT&T doesn’t feel the law applies to them, however, judging from complaints we’ve been receiving from readers.

Stop the Cap! came up on a private military forum open to service members, and ever since, we’ve heard some stunning complaints about AT&T and suspicions the phone company is hoping to rely on soldiers not fully understanding their rights.  Remarkably, all of the complaints have been about AT&T.  Verizon and Sprint reportedly treat the troops with considerably more respect.

“I was ordered to Europe last November and wanted to call and cancel my AT&T service and ran straight into a brick wall with those people,” shares Elizabeth.  “They told me they don’t suspend accounts for anyone, only cancel them, and demanded $200 in early cancel fees to be paid immediately on my credit card or they would ruin my credit.”

Nathan, who is now serving in rural Alaska, shared a similar story.  On his third call to AT&T, the representative offered him just one choice — a $10 a month suspended plan, if he agreed to extend his service contract when he got back.

“I was reading off of AT&T’s own website stating the company would cancel my service with no penalty, but the operator could have cared less,” Nathan writes.  “If I didn’t like it, he would charge me $300 to immediately cancel my contract and that was that.”

Nathan got the distinct impression the representative was accusing him of ripping off AT&T for a new phone he wanted to “walk away” with free and clear.

JJ managed to get a supervisor to “do him a favor” and cancel his contract with no penalty, but only if he faxed over his military ID, birth certificate, driver’s license, orders of deployment, and a copy of a major credit card for “verification purposes.”

“I told them to forget it — I was not about to send some low paid AT&T call center guy every form of ID I had so I could discover my identity stolen when I got back,” JJ said.

“AT&T cares less about the troops who defend their right to exist in a free United States; they only care about money and that is disgusting and unpatriotic,” JJ shares.

Another customer, deployed overseas, was told to report to an AT&T store in the United States to discontinue service — there was no other way to cancel penalty-free.

As has been so often the case, when media attention shines a bright light on potentially illegal business practices or bad service, relief is soon in sight, for at least a few people.

The Problem Solver called Brooke Vane, a spokeswoman for AT&T, and described Jungheim’s situation.

Vane emailed Thursday to say AT&T adheres to the federal Service Member Civil Relief Act, which provides guidelines for how companies deal with those who are called to duty.

Vane instructed Jungheim to call AT&T’s customer care phone number again and go through the process of suspending service.

“Once he meets the requirements, including providing us with his orders, as required by law, we can process this request,” Vane said.

Thursday evening, Jungheim called AT&T and spoke to a representative.

“I faxed over my deployment orders … so I should be a go,” he said.

He will not be charged the $10 a month.

AT&T's website for servicemembers makes it easy to buy more of their products and services, but doesn't deliver much help to those who want to put their accounts on hold or leave. (Click image to visit site.)

Stop the Cap! recommends you arrange to cancel or suspend service as soon as you have a date in hand for basic training or deployment abroad.  Then call AT&T at 1-800-331-0500 and notify them you need to fax your written request to discontinue service, penalty-free, and are including a copy of your military orders.  By declaring your intent, you will present yourself as knowledgeable about your rights, and are less likely to encounter resistance from AT&T.

Do not fax or mail copies of any forms of personal identification.  They are not required under the law and there is no reason to expose yourself to identity theft.  We recommend you consider service cancellation over service suspension, because it lets you walk away from AT&T free and clear.  You will lose your cell phone number, but when you return, you can sign up as a new customer and receive a new phone discount.

Always write down the name and extension of the person you spoke with along with the time and date of your call and keep it in a file until you are assured the request was processed properly.

If you encounter problems, insist that your call be escalated to a supervisor.  If that fails, two of our readers reported they had near instant resolution to their ongoing problems with AT&T by calling their member of Congress or two Senators.

Among the public interest groups that have historically steered clear of the fight against usage caps and usage based billing is Public Knowledge.

Stop the Cap! took them to task more than a year ago for defending the implementation of these unjustified hidden rate hikes and usage limits.  Since then, we welcome the fact the group has increasingly been trending towards the pro-consumer, anti-cap position, but they still have some road to travel.

Public Knowledge, joined by New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission expressing concern over AT&T’s implementation of usage caps and asking for an investigation:

[…] Public Knowledge and New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative urge the Bureau to exercise its statutory authority to fully investigate the nature, purpose, impact of those caps upon consumers. The need to fully understand the nature of broadband caps is made all the more urgent by the recent decision by AT&T to break with past industry practice and convert its data cap into a revenue source.

[…] Caps on broadband usage imposed by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can undermine the very goals that the Commission has committed itself to championing. While broadband caps are not inherently problematic, they carry the omnipresent temptation to act in anticompetitive and monopolistic ways. Unless they are clearly and transparently justified to address legitimate network capacity concerns, caps can work directly against the promise of broadband access.

The groups call out AT&T for its usage cap and overlimit fee model, and ponder whether these are more about revenue enhancement than network management.  The answer to that question has been clear for more than two years now: it’s all about the money.

The two groups are to be commended for raising the issue with the FCC, but they are dead wrong about caps not being inherently problematic.  Usage caps have no place in the North American wired broadband market.  Even in Canada, providers like Bell have failed to make a case justifying their implementation.  What began as an argument about congestion has evolved into one about charging heavy users more to invest in upgrades that are simply not happening on a widespread basis.  The specific argument used is tailored to the audience: complaints about congestion to government officials, denials of congestion issues to shareholders coupled with promotion of usage pricing as a revenue enhancer.

If Bell can’t sell the Canadian government on its arguments for usage caps in a country that has a far lower population density and a much larger rural expanse to wire, AT&T certainly isn’t going to have a case in the United States, and they don’t.

The history of these schemes is clear:

1. Providers historically conflate their wireless broadband platforms with wired broadband when arguing for Internet Overcharging schemes.  When regulators agree to arguments that wireless capacity problems justify usage limits, extending those limits to wired broadband gets carried along for the ride.  Dollar-a-holler groups supporting the industry love to use charts showing wireless data growth, and claim a similar problem afflicts wired broadband, even though the costs to cope with congestion are very different on the two platforms.
2. Providers argue one thing while implementing another.  Most make the claim pricing changes allow them to introduce discounted “light user” plans.  But few save because true “pay only for what you use” usage-based billing is not on offer.  Instead, worry-free flat use plans are taken off the menu, replaced with tiered plans that force subscribers to guess their usage.  If they guess too little, a stiff overlimit fee applies.  If they guess too much, they overpay.  Heads AT&T wins, tails you lose.  That’s a clear warning providers are addressing revenue enhancement, not network enhancement.
3. Claims of network congestion backed up with raw data, average usage per user, and the costs to address it are all labeled proprietary business information and are not available for independent inspection.

There are a few other issues:

In the world of broadband data caps, the caps recently implemented by AT&T are particularly aggressive. Unlike competitors whose caps appear to be at least nominally linked to congestions during peak-use periods, AT&T seeks to convert caps into a profit center by charging additional fees to customers who exceed the cap. In addition to concerns raised by broadband caps generally, such a practice produces a perverse incentive for AT&T to avoid raising its cap even as its own capacity expands.

In North America, only a handful of providers use peak-usage pricing for wired broadband.  Cable One, America’s 10th largest cable operator is among the largest, and they serve fewer than one million customers.  Virtually all providers with usage caps count both upstream and downstream data traffic 24 hours a day against a fixed usage allowance.  The largest — Comcast — does not charge an excessive usage fee.  AT&T does.

Furthermore, it remains unclear why AT&T’s recently announced caps are, at best, equal to those imposed by Comcast over two years ago.  The caps for residential DSL customers are a full 100GB lower than those Comcast saw fit to offer in mid-2008. The lower caps for DSL customers is especially worrying because one of the traditional selling points of DSL networks is that their dedicated circuit design helps to mitigate the impacts of heavy users on the rest of the network. Together, these caps suggest either that AT&T’s current network compares poorly to that of a major competitor circa 2008 or that there are non-network management motivations behind their creation.

AT&T has managed to create the first Internet version of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, combining Comcast's 'tolerated' 250GB cap with AT&T's style of slapping overlimit fees on data plans from their wireless business.

As Stop the Cap! has always argued, usage caps are highly arbitrary.  Providers always believe their usage caps are the best and most fair around, whether it was Frontier’s 5GB usage limit or Comcast’s 250GB limit.

AT&T experimented with usage limits in Reno, Nevada and Beaumont, Texas and found customers loathed them.  Comcast’s customers tolerate the cable company’s 250GB usage cap because it is not strictly enforced — only the top few violators are issued warning letters.  AT&T has established America’s first Internet pricing version of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup: getting Comcast’s tolerated usage cap into AT&T’s wireless-side overlimit fee.  The bitter aftertaste arrives in the mail at the end of the month.

Why establish different usage caps for DSL and U-verse?  Marketing, of course.  This is about money, remember?

AT&T DSL delivers far less average revenue per customer than its triple-play U-verse service.  To give U-verse a higher value proposition, AT&T supplies a more generous usage allowance.  Message: upgrade from DSL for a better broadband experience.

Technically, there is no reason to enforce either usage allowance, as AT&T DSL offers a dedicated connection to the central office or D-SLAM, from where fiber traditionally carries the signal to AT&T’s enormous backbone connection.  U-verse delivers fiber to the neighborhood and a much fatter dedicated pipeline into individual subscriber homes to deliver its phone, Internet, and video services.

A usage cap on U-verse makes as much sense as putting a coin meter on the television or charging for every phone call, something AT&T abandoned with their flat rate local and long distance plans.

Before partly granting AT&T’s premise that usage limits are a prophylactic for congestion and then advocate they be administered with oversight, why not demand proof that such pricing and usage schemes are necessary in the first place.  With independent verification of the raw data, providers like AT&T will find that an insurmountable challenge, especially if they have to open their books.

[flv width=”640″ height=”368″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bell’s Arguments for UBB 2-2011.flv[/flv]

Canada’s experience with Usage-Based Billing has all of the hallmarks of the kind of consumer ripoff AT&T wants Americans to endure:

• A provider (Bell), whose spokesman argues for these pricing schemes to address congestion and “fairness,” even as that same spokesman admits there is no congestion problem;
• Would-be competitors being priced out of the marketplace because they lack the infrastructure, access, or fair pricing to compete;
• Big bankers and investors who applaud price gouging and are appalled at government checks and balances.

Watch Mirko Bibic try to rationalize why Bell’s Fibe TV (equivalent to AT&T U-verse) needs Internet Overcharging schemes for broadband, but suffers no capacity issues delivering video and phone calls over the exact same line.  Then watch the company try and spin this pricing as an issue of fairness, even as an investor applauds the company: “I love this policy because I am a shareholder.  That’s all I care about.  If you can suck every last cent out of users, I’m happy for you.”  Finally, watch a company buying wholesale access from Bell let the cat out of the bag — broadband usage costs pennies per gigabyte, not the several dollars many providers want to charge.  (11 minutes)

It’s time for every consumer across the country to help our friends in North Carolina, who are now facing the prospect of a Broadband Dark Age with the passage of a cable-industry-written bill designed to protect their monopoly prices and deliver America’s worst broadband experience.

The grand lie that is the Level Playing Field/Local Government Competition Bill (H.129) claims it will protect broadband competition in the state.  It will, if you are Time Warner Cable facing top-rated, super-fast service from community broadband networks that compete with them in communities like Salisbury and Wilson.

The power to protect North Carolina’s broadband future is now in the hands of Gov. Bev Purdue.

The North Carolina Senate abdicated their responsibility to serve the interests of state residents.  On Tuesday, they voted 39-10 for this consumer atrocity:

Yesterday, the House added insult to injury voting 84-32 for the bill custom written by and for Time Warner Cable:

Not a single Republican in the House stood up for you.

Faison

Several legislators that still remember they represent the interests of voters and not out of state big cable and phone companies were appalled.

Rep. Bill Faison (D-Caswell, Orange), who has been a champion of better broadband across North Carolina, reminded the Assembly the bill should have been named the Time Warner Cable Anti-Competition Bill, written by a New York City-based company that will prevent cities from using their collective buying authority to provide themselves (finally) with the broadband service the private sector has steadfastly refused to deliver.

Faison noted Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt made $27 million in compensation last year — the same as the entire cost of Wilson’s GreenLight fiber-to-the-home cable system.

Faison openly pondered what the cable company has been paying to employ the six full time lobbyists who have been trolling the halls of the state legislature for months, and exactly how much next year’s rate increase will be to pay for their services.

Even the former chairman of the state Republican party called H.129 an enormously arrogant piece of legislation.

Luebke

Another hero for consumers, Rep. Paul Luebke (D-Durham), noted the bill’s immediate impact will be to keep rural North Carolina a broadband desert.  Luebke called H.129 a bad bill that denies service even to communities where no broadband service exists.

But Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable) wanted to ensure no one could say there was a broadband problem in North Carolina, so she supported an amendment that allows areas to be declared served if even a single home has broadband service in a particular census block.  That provision delivers beneficial protection to CenturyLink, who can spend their time, money, and attention on a merger with Qwest, the last remaining independent Baby Bell.  While they focus on making themselves bigger through mergers and acquisitions, the phone company faces no competitive pressure to expand service in rural North Carolina, and will face no meaningful competition for the indefinite future.

While Gov. Purdue’s office has made noises about vetoing this bad legislation, it is essential that we let the governor know we need an absolute commitment on her part to veto H.129.  We’ve seen how Big Telecom plays their dirty pool, so we cannot afford to sit back and allow their lobbyists to wear the governor down.

Gov. Purdue

When Time Warner Cable tried to slap an Internet Overcharging scheme on consumers in New York, North Carolina, and Texas in 2009, Stop the Cap! made a commitment to join forces with all of the impacted communities to present a united consumer front against provider abuses.  H.129 qualifies.  That’s why we urge everyone to contact Gov. Purdue and let her know she must veto H.129, an anti-consumer, anti-broadband bill.

Please call -and- e-mail her office:

• E-Mail: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 919 733 2391

Minor Correction Made 5/6 – 5pm ET: We made an error referring to a census tract instead of a census block in the original piece.  One of our readers dropped us a note correcting us, which we are happy to do.  A “tract” actually has many “blocks” in it.