Subject: [PA-ComNet]PA Council meeting on FTTH trial July 25, 7pm

From: "Marvin Lee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:02:32 -0700 (PDT)

The proposal by the City Staff to discontinue the FTTH trial is 
essentially a recommendation from the City Manager via his various staff 
members. The City Manager is himself under fire for his manipulative 
leading of Council and the Council is under fire from the community for 
its deference in following directions by the City Manager. Now here once 
again we have a prime example of this myopic approach to City government 
decisions, calling for the end of a highly popular FTTH trial with 
nothing to put in its place. What is most significant is not that the 
Staff hasn’t found a way to move FTTH forward, but that they have 
studiously avoided discussion of the basic issues with the community. 
Together the City Staff and their advisors simply went down the wrong road.

The original advocacy for the Fiber ring fourteen years ago and later 
FTTH was a joint product of the City Staff, PA ComNet and PA FiberNet 
representing the community which called for an open system, not one in 
which the City became provider, or as some have called it, Comcast lite. 
What is now about to happen is that something very much like that 
original open model is being reborn in the proposal offered by Yoriko 
Kishimoto and Bern Beecham which is essentially asking for what was 
proposed in 1999 at a community forum on FTTH, a private public 
cooperation for financing and building a rational high speed community 
wide communications system. (See PA-ComNet minutes including the very 
important community meeting on Oct. 7, 1999)

The decision of the City Manager and his staff to place this important 
issue on the Council agenda in mid-summer during the pre-school 
community vacation time to be taken up by what is essentially a lame 
duck Council is further proof of an attempt by the City Manager to 
circumvent the community and the Council.  Now is not the time to end 
this very successful demonstration of the technical superiority of FTTH 
for our community but rather to seek ways together with the community 
and all of our businesses to extend high speed access to the entire 
community through a cooperation between our City government, our 
community and our local and regional businesses. It is time for the 
Council to tell its staff in no uncertain terms who is running the City 
of Palo Alto and to tell the community and our businesses that we intend 
to grow high speed electronic communications in the best interests of 
all our residents, all of our businesses and our community as a whole.

Marvin Lee
1241 Harker Ave. Palo  Alto. CA 94301

[email-masked]   (650) 321-2285

  July 25, 2005

#############################################################
This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to
  the mailing list <[email-masked]>.
To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[email-masked]>
To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[email-masked]>
To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[email-masked]>
Send administrative queries to  <[email-masked]>