San Francisco’s average internet speeds don’t even rank in the top 100 municipalities in the country, but, like many other places, most of the city is wired with municipal fiber that’s used by government officials, police stations, and city colleges. In 2008, the city made some of that network available to low-rise public housing projects, but still doesn’t offer fiber to its other residents.
As a taxpayer, what’s upsetting is that cities develop this infrastructure using our money, yet then they simply sit on it, without selling it to anyone, and then claim that they don’t have enough money for various departments, and that the taxes have to be raised again (yes, I’m specifically talking about California).
If SF has so much fibre, WTF are they not cooperating with MonkeyBrains to bring it to the residents?
The power of large organizations in local politics is immense. Essentially, the small-level players (the people) are too focused on state and national politics, while the larger players (unions and corporations) are often so much larger than the medium-level players (independently wealthy individuals and smaller businesses or area organizations) that they drown them out.
As a particular example, I am from San Bernardino, CA, where my father spent 5 years as a City Councilman. In his final election (and just a year or so before the city’s bankruptcy) he campaigned on a platform of pension reform for public employees (who at that point could require at 50 years old with 90%+ of their average base pay across their career, with 100% coverage by the city for payments during their working years). The police and fire unions collectively spent over $100,000 on his opponent’s campaign. They won, and the man they backed still sits on the City Council.
It’s a frustrating situation where large organizations can exert power during elections to essentially pick who sits on the opposite side of the bargaining table in contract negotiations (for the unions) or who makes the laws regulating them (for businesses). The worst part is that it is often something people don’t even consider or notice until the after the fact, when people in power are making decisions that are bad for the people but good for their sources of funding, like stopping the usage of already built fiber infrastructure.
It would help to have increased publicity for local elections, but as news organizations are largely centralized in major cities and often cover vast regions, it’s difficult to get them to cover issues too local for concern of alienating the large portion of the audience that doesn’t live there.
Via http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Killing-MuniBroadband-Bans-First-Step-to-Helping-US-Broadband-129221.
As a taxpayer, what’s upsetting is that cities develop this infrastructure using our money, yet then they simply sit on it, without selling it to anyone, and then claim that they don’t have enough money for various departments, and that the taxes have to be raised again (yes, I’m specifically talking about California).
If SF has so much fibre, WTF are they not cooperating with MonkeyBrains to bring it to the residents?
The power of large organizations in local politics is immense. Essentially, the small-level players (the people) are too focused on state and national politics, while the larger players (unions and corporations) are often so much larger than the medium-level players (independently wealthy individuals and smaller businesses or area organizations) that they drown them out.
As a particular example, I am from San Bernardino, CA, where my father spent 5 years as a City Councilman. In his final election (and just a year or so before the city’s bankruptcy) he campaigned on a platform of pension reform for public employees (who at that point could require at 50 years old with 90%+ of their average base pay across their career, with 100% coverage by the city for payments during their working years). The police and fire unions collectively spent over $100,000 on his opponent’s campaign. They won, and the man they backed still sits on the City Council.
It’s a frustrating situation where large organizations can exert power during elections to essentially pick who sits on the opposite side of the bargaining table in contract negotiations (for the unions) or who makes the laws regulating them (for businesses). The worst part is that it is often something people don’t even consider or notice until the after the fact, when people in power are making decisions that are bad for the people but good for their sources of funding, like stopping the usage of already built fiber infrastructure.
It would help to have increased publicity for local elections, but as news organizations are largely centralized in major cities and often cover vast regions, it’s difficult to get them to cover issues too local for concern of alienating the large portion of the audience that doesn’t live there.