Leaders of a new non-profit organization are setting out on statewide mission to educate voters and city leaders about the risks associated with Opportunity Iowa, which they say would misuse taxpayer dollars, threaten cities financially and unfairly compete with private businesses.

“The Opportunity Iowa plan really has some serious concerns – financial concerns, impact on taxpayers through the impact on the communities – and we wanted to make sure that the communities and the taxpayers are aware of what was going on before these things came to a vote,” said Gerald Bair, former director of the Iowa Department of Revenue and Finance.

Bair and former state auditor Richard Johnson are the co-chairs to the advisory board of Project Taxpayer Protection, a non-profit organization formed to educate Iowans and city leaders on Opportunity Iowa, a statewide movement for the creation of municipal telecommunication utilities.

As the organization gains steam, Bair and Johnson are visiting cities throughout the state targeted by Opportunity Iowa, as well as pushing for the passage of House File 861, which they say provides effective safeguards should cities approve the creation of telecommunication utilities through a November referendum.

But not all see PTP as a valiant effort to educate Iowa taxpayers.

“We’re in support of the idea that voters ought to have the right to establish a municipal utility,” said Thomas Bredeweg, executive director of the Iowa League of Cities. “The Opportunity Iowa proposal is an idea, and if cities think it’s a good idea they need to get the facts.

“Where we draw the battle lines is where the folks who don’t think it’s a good idea want to prohibit folks from considering it, and that brings us out of the woodwork.”

PTP says it is not against the formation of municipal utilities, but rather opposes the concept of government competing with the private sector. Supporters of Opportunity Iowa counter by claiming that private telecommunications companies are providing inadequate service, and improvements are critical to future economic development.

“They’re trying scare tactics,” Bredeweg said. “What they want is to take this out of (voters’) hands. And those communities, in virtually all cases, are left with one provider.”

House File 861 includes several measures that Bair and Johnson describe as appropriate safeguards should voters, through a November referendum, approve the creation of municipal utilities. The bill would first require cities to complete a feasibility study that provides realistic revenue projections, which they say is the equivalent of a good business plan. The study would then be reviewed by a third party.

Bair and Johnson insist that the bill would not take the issue out of voters’ hands but merely ensure that they have enough information to make a wise decision.

“It essentially provides the local citizens to make that choice, but it makes the requirement that they have an informed choice, that it’s made based on disclosure of the costs or potential costs to the taxpayers,” Johnson said.

The cost, they added, could be immense. Johnson referred to the state’s involvement nearly 15 years ago in the formation of the Iowa Communications Network, which cost Iowa taxpayers between $400 million and $500 million. The Opportunity Iowa proposal, Johnson said, is patterned almost identically after that system, whose technological advantages have become practically obsolete over the past decade.

“The tremendous cost to the taxpayers with that system is something we don’t want to see,” he said. “The system never met the projections of the people who sold the system. The state is still being asked to subsidize it in a large way just to keep it operating.”

Bair and Johnson have also observed the need to educate city leaders about Opportunity Iowa, and the potential repercussions that could arise from a city-run communication utility, particularly if the city were to borrow on other aspects of city operations. If the venture proved risky, they say cities’ credit ratings could suffer, thus negatively affecting future economic development projects.

“It also sends a wrong message to those private communication companies that are trying to compete within the city, because they’re paying taxes and they are not on a level playing field,” Johnson said.

New York-based Mediacom Communications Corp., which has about 1,250 employees in Iowa and has invested $3 billion in the state, opposes the concept of government competing with private industry, particularly in cases where services are already being provided by one or more companies, according to Charles King, senior vice president of Mediacom Iowa.

“The whole premise – using taxpayer dollars to compete with private enterprise – we think is wrong,” he said.

Mediacom has and will continue to run commercials statewide that King said voice opposition to Opportunity Iowa and supports voter education.

The company, as well as other communication companies, has been lobbying at the Statehouse in support of House File 861. King said the bill provides adequate safeguards and helps to meet the need of educated voters, despite amendments that have removed additional safeguards.

“The issue here is that there is a lot of manipulation of the language that is before our legislators, and the simple facts of this are that no one that I’m aware of who is opposed to Opportunity Iowa is doing anything to restrict cities’ ability to conduct an election,” King said. “All they’re doing is providing information to the taxpayers of Iowa so they can make an informed decision, and I can’t understand why anybody would be opposed to that.

“If an educated voter makes it difficult to sell a faulty proposition, than so be it.”