It’s really feeling weird to talk about positive things the legislature is doing with muni telecom rather than rallying the troops to shoot down the awful stuff. In that vein is Sen. Jerry Stevenson’s SB114, a bill to allow cities to do a non-binding vote on how their citizens feel about… Continue reading
One of the big obstacles to Macquarie moving forward has been the lack of a binding public vote option. After the craziness in Orem with a citizen referendum overturning council action, I can’t see that they would be too keen to make a contract that can be unexpectedly nullified. Unfortunately, Utah… Continue reading
Now a year late on delivering MS2, most people have assumed that the Macquarie deal is dead and buried. With no real news (other than the leak of the draft MS2 proposal from earlier this year), there’s been no evidence that the deal is alive at all. So is it… Continue reading
Is Utah finally getting serious about broadband? Maybe. Rep. Stephen Handy is proposing a new Utah Broadband Outreach Center to spur more development in the state. Like the Utah Broadband Project, it would be attached to GOED and have a director appointed by the agency. Its stated purposes are to… Continue reading
Without any official action, HB60 died in the same fashion as SB190 and was sent back to rules to rot out the rest of the session without so much as a committee hearing. Between these two bills, municipal broadband advocates in Utah have racked up some big wins when we’re used… Continue reading
After seeing SJR18, it makes it obvious that some kind of broadband bill is likely to come to fruition next session. While the current session isn’t even over, legislators can start submitting new bills on May 13 for the 2015 session. If we get in early, we could have a… Continue reading
Wait, the legislature has a pro-broadband position in the works? I’m as shocked as you are. Best of all, it’s coming from Utah Taxpayers Association President Sen. Howard Stephenson. SJR18 encourages the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) to work with municipal governments to improve the process of building broadband infrastructure… Continue reading
SB190 is no more. Sen. John Valentine made a motion to send SB190 to the rules committee to be studied in the interim which passed the Senate. This effectively ends consideration of SB190 this year, though it’s possible it may come up again next year. Short version: we win. So… Continue reading
Once HB60 hit the wires, I was quick to file a GRAMA request to find out what kind of communication Rep. Curt Webb had been receiving on the bill. Most of it is angry emails from Utah residents, many of whom were not accepting Rep. Webb’s cut-and-paste boilerplate reply about… Continue reading
No sooner did Sen. John Valentine promise to UTOPIA and Macquarie to withdraw Amendment 2 to SB190 than he started telling constituents that he hasn’t made up his mind yet. As previously covered, this amendment would keep Macquarie from doing the same kind of utility fee deal in new cities… Continue reading