Hello all, I hope you're staying healthy and are well. This is just an update on the selection of the Broadband Advisory Group. I was informed by Public Works Director Eric Johnston a few days ago that selection of this group, originally slated for October 1st, was slowed down, partially due to the fact that all of the consulting firms the city approached to help them choose members declined to help them with this or other telecom resolutions, documentation, etc. I am sure that with all of the corruption surrounding telecom in Bellingham, no firm wants their name attached to the COB and telecom right now. Would you want to help Eric set up a sham broadband committee to protect big telecom when the pandemic has made the need for fiber so clear? I found out that in the background some people were directly asked to apply to the group. I'm sure this included Eric stacking the deck with pro big telecom people. Still, Mayor Fleetwood promised us he would be choosing the members and only 28 people applied. So what happened? The city has no further comment on the topic. So I am asking, again, that you contact them. Contact info is below.

Don't worry though, the county is in on the incompetence, mismanagement and corruption too via backdoor deals the public was not allowed to comment on. My latest article is included in this update. It includes real load test data. You know, like the COB, state and federal government intentionally don't use on big telecom connections. The county handed about $1 million, almost entirely to big telecom, for inadequate solutions that won't even be ready until next month in most cases. So by the time most people even benefit from this inadequate deal about 230 days will have passed since the lockdown. This $1 million could have paid for about 5 miles of conduit with 144 count fiber in it at Mount Vernon installation rates and any hotspots hooked up to it could have been provided for free to the public from then on.

While the Bellingham Public Schools are going to finally allow their sites to be used as safe internet cafes for a very limited number of people, something we suggested in April and offered to help setup, they are still resisting putting up external wireless hotspots like the WCC and the libraries have done. It's not a funding issue.

City Contact Info: smfleetwood@cob.org, ecjohnston@cob.org and ccmail@cob.org

County Contact Info: council@co.whatcom.wa.us and SSidhu@co.whatcom.wa.us 

Thanks in advance and please let me know what they say.