One day not long ago Cynthia Santomauro of North Caldwell woke up to discover that she was a happy warrior in a conflict of which she knew little and wanted no part.

Her discovery came in a letter from a state lawmaker, who thanked her for backing the great cause of consumer choice.

"Thank you for contacting my office in support of cable television choice," Assemblyman Jack McKeon wrote. "A competitive marketplace should result in lower price and better service."

More letters, e-mails and phone calls arrived in subsequent days from legislators praising Santomauro for her outspoken stand in favor of proposed laws to smash the state's cable monopolies.

She was dumbfounded.

"I never wrote any letters to anyone about cable TV - no e- mails, phone calls, nothing," said Santomauro, a lawyer who practices in Hackensack. "And I never gave anyone permission to use my name. So why am I suddenly in the middle of this lobbying campaign?"

It turns out Santomauro and at least two other people, possibly many more, are unwitting recruits in an expensive public relations war between New Jersey's traditional cable television providers and phone companies, such as Verizon, which promise more channels, lower rates and a host of new video services via a fiber optic network that will soon blanket the state.

The struggle between Verizon and Comcast which, along with Cablevision, controls 92 percent of the state's cable market, has split the Legislature and figures to be among the most bitter debates in Trenton this year. Although many observers agree that New Jersey's 33-year-old cable-franchising law is antiquated, key lawmakers aligned with the cable companies have blocked any change.

The combatants have hired teams of lobbyists and public relations representatives to persuade the Legislature and spin public opinion. Both sides are also establishing Web sites to offer testimony from regular citizens who purportedly support their point of view.

One Web site sponsored by Verizon, TVChoiceNJ.com, urges visitors to send copies of a sample e-mail to their mayors and legislators. It was just such a letter to which someone signed Santomauro's name without her knowledge.

A case of deception?

In an interview Thursday, Verizon spokesman Richard Young acknowledged Santomauro's letter was sent without her approval, but he could not explain how it happened or who was responsible. He said her name and e-mail address were taken from a card she filled out at the recent League of Municipalities Convention in Atlantic City.

A copy of the card provided by Young shows that it authorized Verizon only to register her name at TVChoice.com. Yet Santomauro, who is a second-term member of the North Caldwell Borough Council, says she has no memory of filling out the card. And she says she would never support Verizon publicly because, as a councilwoman, she has to vote on cable television issues.

She said she and her colleagues on the Borough Council declined a few months ago to sign a petition submitted by Verizon because they did not want to take sides in the cable war.

"When you're at a convention in Atlantic City, you're always throwing your business card in a fishbowl somewhere," said Santomauro, who recently won a pair of New Jersey Nets tickets in such a drawing. "But to take my card and fabricate letters with it is beyond the pale. I think it's criminal."

Santomauro says she has already complained to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office and is contemplating a lawsuit, because she thinks there may be "widespread deception" in the mail campaign. She pointed out that one of the unauthorized letters sent in her name was written under customized letterhead that made it appear as if was her personal stationery.

She added that North Caldwell Mayor Melvin Levine has received several pro-Verizon letters from people who may not even exist. The supposed author of one such letter, Peter Garafans of White Oak Drive, could not be found in several comprehensive databases searched by The Record.

The author of another pro-Verizon letter signed by Patricia Deschenes of Pinewood Drive in North Caldwell actually lives about 45 miles away in Keansburg in Monmouth County. In fact, there is no Pinewood Drive in North Caldwell.

Deschenes, who is a gym teacher at a public school in Newark, says she once signed a petition to protest her $58 monthly Comcast bill, but never gave anyone permission to use her name in letters and e-mails.

"If Verizon wants to pay to move me to North Caldwell, I'd love to go," Deschenes said.

Corrections promised

Young said the company has also received complaints from another man whose name was used without authorization. But he insisted these were isolated incidents that do not reflect what he said was "the fact that there is a groundswell" for cable television competition in New Jersey.

More than 16,000 people have already sent letters and e-mails in support of more choice, he said.

"This was obviously some kind of miscommunication in these few cases - it was certainly not intentional," Young said, adding that Verizon would send letters of correction to all lawmakers who received unauthorized communications. "We will do everything necessary to correct what happened. But the fact remains that people in New Jersey overwhelmingly want change at the grass roots."

Finding real grass-roots sentiment in the Jersey cable war can be tricky, however.

Young acknowledged that one of the most active groups lobbying for change, a non-profit organization called the New Jersey Consumers for Cable Choice, actually was created with $75,000 in "seed money" from Verizon.

Nevertheless, in press releases and interviews, the group and its executive director, Rachel Holland of Trenton, claim to be an independent coalition of community and civic groups. Holland has not disclosed the group's relationship with Verizon in several op-ed pieces published in New Jersey newspapers. She did not return phone calls Thursday and Friday.

"I think you'll find that in the cable debate, what often appear to be grass-roots groups are really Astroturf rolled out by one of the players," said Jonathan Rintels, executive director of the non- profit Center for Creative Voices in Media, who wrote an influential study of the rapidly changing cable market.

Billions at stake

Rintels said that in an environment where billions of dollars are at stake as cable firms and phone companies collide, there will be no shortage of overzealous combatants on both sides. Unauthorized letters and e-mails could be landing in lawmakers' in-baskets nationwide, he said.

In the end, Rintels predicted, there may be no way for cable giants Comcast and Time Warner to block phone companies from winning statewide franchises that, in New Jersey and most other places, are still awarded town by town.

"The future is with choice," he said. "People will save money with choice and, for a time anyway, we may get wider and more truly diverse programming. But, of course, there is no guarantee that the phone companies, in the long run, won't jack up their rates and restrict their channel choices just like the cable companies have."

Santomauro, who said she has gotten no satisfaction in numerous phone calls to Verizon during the past month, says she could not care less about who wins the cable war.

"Just get my name off those letters," she said.


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