Time Warner, fighting move to municipal broadband, hosted Maine lawmakers at resort

At the January 'Winter Policy Conference' at the Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth (ME), Maine's largest Internet provider, Time Warner, tried to convince legislators that government owned-broadband is a bad idea.

Time Warner invited Maine lawmakers to an overnight “Winter Policy Conference” at a resort, where guests were served steak dinners and some were put up for the night in rooms that retail for $205 to $355 per night. While lawmakers say they attended the event at the Inn by the Sea to become informed, others are not sure that such an “educational forum,” as Time Warner called it, is in the public interest. "If we want good public policy, there’s reason for all of us to be worried,” said Gordon Weil, a utilities expert who represented the interests of ratepayers before regulators as Maine’s first public advocate. Such treatment of legislators is “obviously intended to persuade them by more than the validity of the arguments; it’s intended to persuade by the reception they’re given.”