Recent Stories with tag municipal

"Do you want to go FASTER?" courtesy of our Flickr pool member Great_Beyond

Reprinted with permission from Community Broadband Networks.

If Seattle moves forward on the Community Fiber Network it has been considering, it will be the largest such network in the nation. However, as we recently noted, progress has been slow. Reclaim the Media recently noted progress toward publicly owned fiber in Edmonds and asked why Seattle is stuck in the mud on the issue.

The City's "Seattle Jobs Plan" devotes a significant mention of a publicly owned fiber network as a smart investment:

Seattle’s economic prosperity, its ability to deploy effective public safety systems, and its determination to reduce gridlock and greenhouse gases are increasingly dependent on its communication systems. Currently, the communication systems serving Seattle businesses and residents are controlled by a few private companies, using older technology. With a lack of competition, there is little incentive to invest in more innovative technologies.

Although some of Seattle’s larger institutions have migrated to their own fiber networks, these types of networks are unavailable to residents and Seattle’s small businesses. Multiple surveys indicate that 70% of Seattle households want to see more telecommunications competition. A recent study listed global cities with the fastest broadband connections; not a single U.S. city was listed in the top 20. A network of municipal fiber optic cables would instantly put Seattle at the top of the list of U.S. cities capable of supporting next-generation, data-intensive businesses, making it a potential hub for a number of fast-growing industries.

But the network requires a significant amount of planning:... (more)

Governor Gregoire

CNBC asked Governor Gregoire to respond to analyst Meredith Whitney's comparison of states to banks, pre-financial crisis. Here's what Whitney said in late September:

The similarities between the states and the banks are extreme to the extent that states have been spending dramatically and are leveraged dramatically. Municipal debt has doubled since 2000, spending has grown way faster than revenues.

Whitney said what reminded her most strongly of the banks' situation was the absence of "reliable data on state spending and debt."

Governor Gregoire chose to play off the phrasing, saying that, "We're in crisis mode. We the states are not in pre-crisis at all." That's no doubt true, but it evades Whitney's point that state spending and debt now represent a separate economic danger from the banks' credit meltdown, and that transparency is hard to come by. In fairness, Washington's credit rating is quite good, but with the caveats that a) if credit ratings were infallible, we wouldn't be in the crisis we're in, and b) things can change very quickly.

Gregoire noted that Washington has trade to rely on; unusually, we don't have a trade deficit with China. And state economists see mainly good news in that relationship for the future. Yet the state has to figure out how to avoid a $3 billion deficit over the next two years, and cuts have approached the bone. CNBC says:

In August, Gregoire announced plans for four- to- seven percent budget cuts across the board, as well as a phase-in of $51 million in cuts to state welfare aid. The cuts will disqualify nearly 2,500 families from child-care subsidies in October, and an additional 5,500 families from cash welfare benefits in February.... (more)