jeffrey glazer
My name is Jeff. I am a lawyer, professor, and entrepreneur. I have lived in Madison since 2007. I decided to run for office for a simple reason: I believe it is important to be an active and engaged citizen of the community. If I want my community to be better, I need to be an agent of change and do something about it.
Here are some examples of how I have been active in my community.
I currently sit on the City of Madison’s Public Market Development Committee, and actively work with the Madison Public Market Foundation’s Board and Committees to get the Market started, including working working with their Market Ready companies. I am on the Steering Committee for Forward Festival’s Badger Startup Summit. I am an organizer of Startup Weekend Madison. I am on the Board of Directors of the Platteville Farmer’s Market. I was on the Dunn’s Marsh Neighborhood Association for 5 years and its President for 2 years; I sat on the Allied Drive Taskforce; I was also on the Board of Directors for the Allied Wellness Center. I am past President of the Friends of the Arboretum for the UW-Madison Arboretum.
I have a wife, a dog, and a cat. I like reading, board games, camping, and hiking. I am terrible at guitar and am slightly better at spinning yarn.
High-speed broadband internet, not just mobile data but high-speed internet, is critical infrastructure that supports education, health care, entertainment, and even access to civil services.
But it’s not just the availability of high-speed internet that is important. We must also ensure that everyone can afford it and that everyone has the skills and tools to access it. Many of you are participating over Zoom today because you have high-speed internet available, you know how to access it, and you can afford it; if you’ve tried to do this meeting over a phone, you know that it is a far less optimal experience.
The county has decent high-speed internet availability. We aren’t the best in the country, but we’re far from the worst. But even Dane County has large areas that have negligible to little internet access. If you’re looking for stories, just ask Supervisor McGinnity.
Where we do a little better is accessibility. Dane County has numerous educational programs that help everyone gain the necessary skills and tools. For example, our Madison Public Library has tech training every Wednesday at 4p and the Oregon Public Library runs a tech training class on the last Thursday of every month.
The Madison Senior Center has a tablet loan program. DaneNet runs a county-wide laptop refurbishment program where they accept laptops and (after wiping them and refurbishing them) donate them to adults. In fact, that program was SO SUCCESSFUL, they are currently paused on accepting more laptops.
We can be better about getting people into these classes and the tools into people’s hands, but they are there for the taking.
However, affordability continues to be a problem in Dane County. Many of us pay $100 or more PER MONTH to have high-speed internet at home. Not all of us can afford that; in fact there is a very large percentage of Dane County that cannot afford $100/month for internet access.
To address this need, the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, has a program called the Affordable Connectivity Program. The Program provides a discount of up to $30 per month toward internet service for eligible households. Eligible households can also receive a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet from participating providers if they contribute more than $10 and less than $50 toward the purchase price. Any person is eligible if the household income is below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines. For a family of 4, this is any household in Dane County that makes below $55,500. There are other eligibility factors as well; for example, if you use SNAP or WIC, have Medicaid, are in Federal Housing Assistance; any of these make you eligible for the program.
Currently the program adoption rate in Dane County is below 20% of eligible households. If you are eligible or know someone who is eligible please apply.
You can find more information about the Program on the FCC's website. If you have any questions about the program or would like the Dane County Task Force to speak with your organization, please contact my office.
