consumer-oriented efforts of government have not been well received by the business community in all cases.

So in pausing and looking back both at weights and measures and consumer protection, the past nine months have been generally good ones for the new Dallas Department of Consumer Affairs in terms of overall effectiveness. None of our basic impressions as to how such a department should be organized have changed, although one significant planning error was made.

Our original estimate of the total man hours that added consumer protection responsibilities would require fell considerably short of the mark. As a result, it has been necessary to add seven new employees in consumer protection over and above the number first authorized in the current budget. We are particularly fortunate that management and council have supported us wholeheartedly, both in this area and with respect to other unanticipated needs.

As a final overview of the last nine months, let me stress that our original conviction that weights and measures and consumer protection are compatible functions is stronger than ever. Measured by any standard, the Dallas weights and measures program is better off now than It ever was on its own. We are better equipped, better staffed, and our people are much better paid. With regard to total activity, significantly more weights and measures cases were prosecuted during the first nine months of this fiscal year than were prosecuted during the same period last year under the old organization. Along with this, a number of needed changes and additions have been made to the weights and measures ordinance in conjunction with the development of new consumer protection ordinances.

On an everyday basis, we find that the two enforcement areas are similar in so many respects that it is often difficult to decide whether an individual complaint should be assigned for weights and measures or consumer protection investigation. The job duties are sufficiently related that employees in either division can be temporarily assigned to the other to cope with an emergency.

In conclusion, we feel that based on our experience in the City of Dallas, the combination of weights and measures and consumer protection into a single administrative agency has significantly increased the city's effectiveness in both areas. Weights and measures has provided a stable base for expansion, both in terms of long enforcement experience and established lines of contact with the business community. On the other hand, the public interest generated by consumer protection has focused on weights and measures the degree of attention it has deserved in the marketplace all along. As a result, the ritizens of Dallas are now aware that weights and measures enforceDent exists. For example, a short weight meat prosecution initiated hy the Department of Consumer Affairs makes the front pages and attracts every television camera in town. The same type prosecution initiated last year by the Weights and Measures Department did no seem to interest anyone at all.

Before this same Conference last year, Conference Executive Secretary Harold F. Wollin delivered an address entitled "The Future is Now.” One of the views that he expressed was as follows: "It is time I for a reevaluation of priorities in consumer affairs and for weight: and measures programs to be placed near the top---not the bottomof the consumer movement spectrum.” This expresses quite well what 20 we have tried to accomplish in the City of Dallas, Texas. At this le point we feel that we are definitely moving in the right direction.

DISCUSSION

MR. S. ANDREWS: (Florida): I would like to ask Bill a question regarding his program in which I am very interested. What is the nature of your citations, and in what court?

MR. KORTH: The citations we will be using will be approved by the State Judicial Council. We will use these mainly in minus errors which are very definitely against the consumer, where we are very aware that they are not maintaining their equipment. We will be using them also in the retail markets when we find scales above zero, and we will be using them on meat cases, undercover buys—this type of thing.

We do not yet know the percentages. We are trying to guess for the use of the court and ourselves but we do not know how many we will issue. I am sure we will issue quite a few right off the bat, and I am sure as soon as the word gets around, it will drop very fast. In our county we have about 400,000 people, but we are basically a small county where word travels very fast. I am sure with a few citations issued it is going to clear up a lot of our problems.

MR. ANDREWS: In what court will these be adjudicated?

Mr. Kortii: These will go to the Ventura County Municipal Court. They have jurisdiction in our county. They have nine courts but we have an advantage in that all of our citations will go to the central court. Then we can cite to any one of the courts within the county. We send them in to the central agency and they go out from there. but it is the local municipal court.

MR. ANDREWS: Will this be classified as a misdemeanor ?

MR. KORTII: It is a misdemeanor right now, yes. We did submit a bail forfeiture schedule which was developed with the State Association and which we felt was very fair. The judges took one look at it and threw it out. They said in California any violation of the Business Professions Code that does not have a bail schedule is a $500 fine and they feel this is where they should start. They felt it was about time this was stopped. Too many have had a free ride and they would

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ather have jurisdiction themselves rather than being stuck to a bail chedule. We will file a report with it so the judge does have complete nowledge of the background. Every violator will have had a notice f violation prior to receiving a citation. This would not be on his rst offense.

MR. ANDREWS: Will this require your inspectors to appear in court r will the information filed with the court suffice?

MR. KORTH: We have been advised that the District Attorney will andle that. We have worked very closely with the District Attorney. He is very aware of our operation and laws and with the report at his time they feel it will suffice.

MR. E. GRABOWSKI (Minneapolis, Minnesota): I would like to direct his question to the gentleman from Dallas. I thought I understood him to say that before they went into consumer affairs protection and the like they conducted a survey and the survey indicated that there was little fraud, misrepresentation and deceit. Then I thought he was going to say that there would be no need for the division. Then some of the statistics that came forth indicated that there was a tremendous amount of complaints, like 10,000. Would you please qualify the so called contradiction?

MR. VINCENT: Yes. What I said, I believe, was that we determined at that time that it appeared that the City of Dallas had a significantly lower level of consumer abuse in the marketplace than some other metropolitan areas of comparable size. We made a wee bit of a planning error there. There was a lot more out there than we thought. Does that answer your question? We based the original projection on all available indices as we knew them at that time.

MR. GRABOWSKI: Our division went into operation the first of March, and I am surprised with the exposure that we have had and the publicity that we have had from the news media, be it radio, television or the press. This is strictly my own opinion, but we are not getting the number of complaints that I had anticipated. I will say this though, from the complaints that we are getting we are resolving roughly 90 percent. We have not found it necessary as yet to go to court. We have resolved all of our complaints by mediation and conciliation. I would like to meet with you after the program and discuss your program in comparison to ours.

MR. VINCENT: I would enjoy it. Ours was a bit more like being in the Alamo for the first three to six months, but I would welcome the opportunity to discuss it with you.

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I am not an administrator of the consumer protection department:

sed: I am a politician and I sit in the State Senate. We have had a very interesting session for consumer protection this year and it has pointed out some difficulties that we have in our program in Minnesota. It has also pointed out some strengths and I think I would like to share them with you this morning.

The consumer protection situation in Minnesota is extremely fragmented. We have consumer protection functions in at least six completely separate departments of government plus a large number of completely autonomous boards, licensing boards and similar boards. that all have consumer protection functions of one sort or another.

The departments that have crime responsibility are the Department of Commerce which deals with securities, insurance, banking and that sort of thing; the Office of Consumer Services which is a fairly new department and which is growing with each session of the legislature by leaps and bounds; and the Attorney General, of course, who not only has some specific responsibilities of his own but serves as legal assistance to all the other departments. The Department of Agriculture deals with food related consumer protection for the most part Weights and Measures is stuck off in the Department of Public Service. which is the old Railroad Warehouse Commission in Minnesota. It is responsible for regulating the phone companies, the railroads and warehouses, as well as having the Department of Weights and Measures stuck in there.

In addition there are well in excess of 20 autonomous boards. In fact, several members of the Senate Research Staff this year tried to find all the autonomous boards in Minnesota and were unable to do so in only one session of the legislature. So, we have a very frag. mented situation.

In addition, we have had an unusual political situation in. Minnesota. The Democratic Farmer Labor Party, which is our state version of the Democratic Party, has not controlled both houses of the legis lature in 114 years since statehood. This year they control both houses of legislature. I am a member of that party. There is a lot of anxiety in our party to make a good record in our first shot at control and so there were a very large number of consumer protection bills passed. In each one of these bills the problems with fragmentation of consumer protection in Minnesota became more apparent.

Various legislators had their own ideas of which departments were more sympathetic to the consumer, which were more sympathetic to industry, and there was a great deal of yakking about where such and

such a new power should go. Let me give you an example by running quickly through some of the new legislation that we had and the departments it went into. The Department of Commerce has a normal sort of a state version of SEC responsibilities. They regulate banks and securities that are issued in Minnesota. The Insurance Department has a good deal of consumer protection responsibilities. In fact, we found that a very large number of complaints that consumers have are about insurance.

It seems consumers know two things about insurance. They know it costs a lot of money, and whatever happens you are not covered. So this is a great difficulty. In Minnesota we have what is called a File and Use Law, which means if an insurance company wants to increase its rates all it has to do is send a copy of those new rates to the Insurance Commissioners and he has no regulatory power over those

rates.

A member of the Governor's Advisory Council for Consumer Affairs had to buy new automobile insurance and he went to 28 agents of the same insurance company. He gave them all the same statistics-same car, same driver, everything like that-and he got 23 different rate quotes. This is a serious consumer protection problem.

The Insurance Department has been given some expanded powers this time. We have made it illegal for insurance companies to fail to respond to complaints from policyholders in a timely manner and they are required to enforce that law. In addition, we have cancelled the $5 fee the Insurance Department used to charge for investigating a complaint of an insurance cancellation. The Insurance Department felt that its job was consumer protection so they should not be charging consumers to protect them.

In addition, the Commerce Department has been given two fairly important new consumer protection responsibilities. One is in the area of franchise regulation. We find a lot of fairly major examples of consumer fraud in cases where businesses come in and sell franchises to people with promises of another MacDonald's, and the promises do not pan out. New franchise regulations require registration with the Commissioner of Securities of information dealing with financing, advertising, contracts, and policies. Disclosure of all this kind of information to the prospective franchisee is required. Also provided is a Bill of Rights, in effect, for franchisees including protection against unreasonable terminations, fees, and policies.

In addition, we have taken some interest in the problem of subdivided land sales. I am sure you have heard about some of these A schemes. Some of them are very legitimate, of course, but there are some fly-by-night operators who sell people extremely small lots with no access and no sewage and mislead the consumers drastically. The Department of Commerce has been given considerable power to regulate this kind of sale as well.

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DEPOSITED BY THE