Sandy Lyon <water@spacestar.net>
July 15, 2001

My friends of SOUL,

It was with great disappointment that I read the "article" that Peg (bless her heart) forwarded to us from Tom Still, the editor of the Wis State Journal.
In his blantantly pro-utility speech he mentions Wood Communications. It must be noted for SOUL that Wood Communications is THE PR firm that did all the PR work for the Ladysmith mine and the Exxon/Crandon mine. "We The People" is anything but. It is and has been a PR outfit that masquerades as representing the people. I am ashamed that Wis. Public Radio has anything to do with them. But, I'm not by any means surprised. James Klauser, former Exxon head lobbyist/Thompson Sec.of Admin./Wi. Electic Vice Pres. and the first mining exec to talk about the "mining district" of N. Wi.,  is also now on the Board of Regents which governs Wi. Public Radio.

His plans for Wi. strongly support "our line" hooking up with his. "Our line" supplying his mine, etc.

This article blames the people of northern Wisconsin for their "energy use" which he says is driving the need for more lines. It's like blaming the woman who got raped for wearing what she was wearing and therefore caused her own rape.

The Tom Still mentioned "Citizens Energy Summit" will be anything but that. It takes place not in Northern Wis., but in the James Klauser sponsored Monona Terrace in Madison. Real homey, eh? Beware my friends for a PR blast from every direction.

It is "We The People's" job to limit the debate. They will not be coming to us for inclusion. I have been closely aware of these folks for a very long time (and that's why I blasted that PR guy so bad when we were down in Madison. They should more rightly be called "We The PR Firm".

Sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings. Thanks Peg for your continued vigilance.

Sandy

here's the Tom Still speach. (and by the way, boycott Wi. State Journal and if you get the chance, tell Wis. Public Radio what you think of this)

Power for the People: Civic Journalism and Wisconsin’s Search for Energy 
Solutions
From: http://www.wtpeople.com/energy_art.asp?id=91

6/27/01 
provided by Thomas W. Still
By Thomas W. Still 
Delivered June 27, 2001, Municipal Electric Utilities of Wisconsin, 
Stevens Point 
Hi, I'm from the Madison news media, and I'm here to help you. 
I detect a hint of skepticism in your reaction - sort of like when Gov. 
Gray Davis tells California electric utilities he's doing what's good 
for them, and it will only hurt for a while. 
In answer to your first question: Yes, just like actress Sharon Stone's 
husband, I, too, was bitten by a Komodo dragon. With the warm, wet 
weather in southern Wisconsin these days, we're seeing a lot of dragon 
bites. Or maybe they're just giant mosquitoes. 
Thank you for inviting me to your convention, and thank you Dave 
Benforado for being such a reliable source to me and so many of my 
colleagues in the news business. You see, reliability is not just a goal 
for those who work in the energy business - it's a goal for those of who 
must report on and analyze energy in a way that is meaningful to our 
readers, viewers and listeners. Those same folks, coincidentally, are 
your customers. 
Newspapers and utility companies have a lot in common, when you stop to 
think about it. Although our ownership may change and our technology 
will change, reliable delivery is essential to our business. If one of 
us misses a single day of service, the phones light up and you would 
think the world is coming to an end. I guess the major difference is 
that we only need to toss our product as far as your front porch and 
that's good enough. You actually have to deliver your product INSIDE 
people's homes through tiny wires. 
There's another, more subtle, similarity between utility companies and 
newspapers, one that very few people are likely to notice unless they're 
working in one business and dealing regularly with the other, but which 
is important for the citizens of Wisconsin. That similarity is this: In 
order to be successful, both businesses must be deeply rooted in their 
communities. They must know what makes those communities work - or why 
they're not. And they must accept that their long-term success is tied 
directly and irretrievably to the overall success of the community. 
A newspaper that does nothing to replenish the economic, cultural, 
social and democratic stock of its community is merely taking from that 
community, not giving. Experience tells me the same goes for a utility, 
whether it is investor-owned or municipal. Neither one of us can say, 
"I'm fed up," and move our operations to Mexico. It doesn't work that 
way in the news business and it certainly doesn't in the utility 
business, either. 
A few years back, researcher Richard Harwood described the layers of 
civic life that exist in every American community. The most visible 
layers are routinely covered by journalists - the "official" layer of 
elected and appointed public officials, the "quasi-official" layer of 
business and civic leaders who keep themselves and their institutions in 
the public eye, and a "private" level of citizens who more or less 
navigate life on their own, sometimes engaging the official and 
quasi-official layers, but mostly not. 
Another layer is less apparent to many journalists, but it may be the 
most important when it comes to truly understanding what makes a 
community tick. It's called "third places." 
Most of journalism operates within the official, quasi-official and 
private layers of civic life. We journalists don't always do a good job 
of tapping into Harwood's "third places," which is the layer of civic 
conversations and spaces where people gather to talk, swap opinions and 
accomplish things together. These are places that can range from 
churches and synagogues to barber shops and bowling alleys, from 
community socials and child care centers to, increasingly, Internet chat 
rooms and social clubs or associations. 
By failing to tap into the conversations that take place in "third 
places," journalists can miss important stories that are taking place in 
their communities. At a minimum, they can miss a chance to enrich those 
stories that may begin in the official or quasi-official layers before 
disappearing into the seemingly trackless swamp of public opinion. 
Newspapers and, in particular, their editorial pages, can, and should, 
become "third places" for civic life. The most effective newspapers are 
those that offer readers a place to connect with their communities. The 
newspapers of the 21st century must be more than a soapbox, where 
competing voices shout out the gripe of the day. They must be places 
where readers can expect to find perspective, analysis and the 
ingredients for solving civic problems. Newspapers should be pathways 
through the civic swamp, allowing those who travel it to see that their 
community is not an incomprehensible and dangerous wilderness, but a 
diverse and stimulating place that is teeming with life. 
I raise this bit of journalistic philosophy because I strongly suspect 
the solutions to Wisconsin's current energy problems can be found by 
looking in those "third places." Ultimately, of course, it will be the 
Public Service Commission and other arms of government that will say 
"yea" or "nay," but that's not where the ideas will be born. They will 
originate on Main Street and everywhere where people get together to 
talk about what kind of energy future they want for Wisconsin. 
As representatives of your utilities, you want to be a part of that 
conversation. You want to know what people think about their electrical 
power supply. 
1. 1. Do they think it's reliable? 
2. 2. Do they think it costs too much, or is it priced just about right? 
3. 3. Do they worry that it's being generated in a way that will hurt 
the environment? 
4. 4. Do they want more power but worried that someone will build a 
power plant or a transmission line too close to their back yard? 
5. 5. Do they recognize that their own energy habits are part of what's 
driving the need for more energy? 
6. 6. Do they know that Wisconsin needs about 300 MW of generation per 
year for the next 10 years to avoid electrical power shortages? 
7. 7. Are they worried about our increasing reliance on natural gas as a 
fuel source for our generating plants, given recent price fluctuations? 
8. 8. Most important, are they getting the information they need to make 
rational choices, or are they listening to a few shrill voices that have 
a talent for dominating the energy discussion? 
As people in the energy business, you care about the answers to those 
questions. As a journalist, I care about the answers to those questions, 
too. 
That's why I and my colleagues in We the People/Wisconsin, the nation's 
oldest, continuously operated civic journalism project, have decided to 
devote the lion's share of our 2001 agenda to a project we've titled 
"Powering Wisconsin." It is our attempt to get beyond the "official" 
coverage of the energy debate in Wisconsin and to explore those "third 
places" in the search for answers. 
We the People/Wisconsin is a multi-media partnership that includes the 
Wisconsin State Journal, Wisconsin Public Radio and Television, WISC-TV 
in Madison (the CBS affiliate) and Wood Communications Group, a public 
relations and consulting firm in Madison. We also involve other news 
organizations, depending on their needs and ours. We're probably best 
known for our election debates - governor, U.S. Senate, Supreme Court 
and DPI - but we spend about half of our time trying to gauge citizen 
opinion on major issues. Energy is one such issue. 
Of late, We the People/Wisconsin has tried to organize a year's worth of 
coverage around a single topic. We did that in late 1999 and 2000 when 
we focused on health. Toward the end of that year, we began to think 
about what should be next on our citizens' agenda. We followed with 
great interest the Wisconsin Economic Summit in Milwaukee, which I 
helped to moderate, and where energy was an unexpectedly hot topic. And 
were intrigued by research conducted by Jim Wood of Wood Communications. 
His polling indicated that while most opinion leaders believed Wisconsin 
had a serious energy problem, the average citizen did not. 
"Brown-outs? What brown-outs?" those citizens seemed to be saying. "We 
expect to flip the switch and have the lights come on, as surely as the 
sun rises in the east every morning." 
Later, in a poll conducted for Wisconsin Public Radio by St. Norbert 
College in DePere, we learned that even when people acknowledged there 
was an energy problem in Wisconsin - they believed it could be solved by 
renewable energy sources and conservation alone. That's a lot of 
windmills and insulation, folks. 
That gap between the reality of the public policy dilemma and the state 
of the public mind is no small matter. Unless the citizens of Wisconsin 
become attuned to the fact that their home state is living on borrowed 
time when it comes to energy, it will be difficult, if not impossible, 
for a consensus to emerge on how to deal with the problem. 
For example, if people don't believe there's an energy problem, they 
won't: 
1. 1. Listen to arguments for more generation, either by Wisconsin-owned 
utilities or independent power producers. 
2. 2. Accept the need for more transmission capacity in a state that 
stands almost as an energy island. 
3. 3. Re-examine their own perceptions about nuclear energy, which were 
shaped by the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents so many years 
ago. 
4. 4. Take a realistic view of the role of renewables and conservation, 
which can help but which cannot solve the problem alone. 
5. 5. Recognize that the rising demand for energy begins at home and at 
work, where nearly everything comes attached to a cord with a plug on 
the end. 
6. 6. Understand that when everyone says, "Not in my backyard," all the 
lights go out in the front yard and throughout the house. 
Beginning in late May, the partners in We the People/Wisconsin launched 
"Powering Wisconsin" with coverage that will run through the summer. The 
goal is to first make people aware of the nature of Wisconsin's problem, 
then listen to its citizens as they make choices for the state's energy 
future. 
We began with a roundtable discussion that included a cross-section of 
energy experts from across Wisconsin, including Dave Benforado. We are 
now planning to host town hall meetings in selected communities across 
Wisconsin to ask people to "build-their-own" solution to the problem. 
With the help of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, we are 
developing an easy yet informative exercise that will help citizens see 
the true costs - economic and environmental - of various energy sources. 
Finally, we will bring together citizens from across the state in late 
September for a "Citizens' Energy Summit" at the Monona Terrace 
Convention Center in Madison. I hope to see some of you there. At that 
summit, we will put the finishing touches on a "Citizens' Energy Plan" 
to be delivered to the PSC, the Legislature and the governor. We don't 
want to pretend to be energy experts, however, we do want to pass on the 
knowledge that we gain through our listening and our reporting. 
Already, our coverage has generated major reports on Wisconsin's summer 
energy forecast, the future of nuclear energy, the prospects for 
renewable energy and the governor's energy plan - which is the first in 
20 years and a sign that politicians at the top are paying attention. At 
each step along the way, we have asked our readers to comment, and they 
have responded with e-mails, phone calls and letters to the editor. 
In short, we're trying to reach into those "third places" to enrich the 
energy debate in Wisconsin and to bring a wide range of voices to the 
discussion. If we are successful at doing so, we will NOT have 
accomplished all that new or different, but merely followed in the 
Wisconsin tradition of building solutions from the bottom up. 
I'm reminded of a joke about our energy-poor friends to the west: 
"How many Californians does it take to change a light bulb?" 
"Only one. It's flipping the switch that takes a crowd these days." 
Here in Wisconsin, we don't want to wait until we've got a 
California-style crisis. Let's involve the crowd NOW so flipping the 
switch only takes one person tomorrow.  
Thank you. (wonder who Still means here by that "one" person, Avi Bie or the interm governor, or maybe Klauser himself)
http://www.wtpeople.com/energy_art.asp?id=91 

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