Campaign 2008: Finding UTOPIA-Friendly Candidates

One of the biggest problems facing supporters of municipal broadband projects is a distinct lack of information on where a candidate stands. All too often, you'll only find out where they are after it's too late and we get an SB66 heaped upon us. To that end, I've decided that it's time that we know which candidates are UTOPIA-friendly and which ones are not.

On March 7, the candidate registration period for state and county offices opened up. It'll close on March 17. At that point, I'm going to send the following list of questions to each candidate and post their responses on the wiki.

1. Do you generally support or oppose projects like UTOPIA and iProvo?
2. What is the basis for your support or opposition?
3. Is your support or opposition based on the general concept or specific implementations used in UTOPIA and/or iProvo?
4. What is your position on the regulation of incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) such as Qwest?
5. What is your position on the regulation of incumbent cable companies such as Comcast?
6. What role, if any, should the state play in allegations of unfair business practices leveled at incumbent carriers such as Qwest and Comcast?
7. What proposals or concepts do you support to bring better broadband access to rurals Utahns?
8. What proposals or concepts do you support to improve average broadband speeds to be better competitive on an international basis?
9. What proposals or concepts do you support to increase competitive options for Internet, television and telephone services?
10. Do you have any other related comments you would like to add?

Each time I receive a response from a candidate, I'll post it on the wiki with a link from a post on the main page. As part of this, I'm also going to include some background information on each question to provide some neutral basis for the question. You'll be able to track all candidate positions from the wiki. Naturally, anyone that can contribute more information (such as offices up for grabs, candidates who are running, their voting history if they've held office before, etc.) would be very helpful.