Hello, I hope you're doing well. Many towns around the US are building and/or expanding their public fiber networks and providing their citizens with much better service than the big telecoms for much lower prices. (I remind everyone again that the City of Bellingham has an existing public fiber network they refuse to give the public that paid for it access to.)
Hillsboro, OR is now joining the many other forward thinking towns that want to increase quality of life for their citizens now and in the future. Of course, that description still does NOT include Bellingham or Whatcom County. 
Here's the link to the Hillsboro network page.
https://www.hillsboro-oregon.gov/services/hilight
Why write about this town specifically with so many others doing it? 
Well because Hillsboro is good to compare to Bellingham. The cost of living is slightly lower, they offer access to many more Next-Generation tech jobs via big companies like Intel than we do, and now they are building their infrastructure to match. Hi-tech workers, and everyone else in Hillsboro, can enjoy broadband that truly compliments their lifestyles too. This public network will attract even more next-generation jobs and help Hillsboro address most of their social and economic concerns too.
What did our elected officials and political establishments do when I informed them of this development?
PUD: The Corproate Democrats had a Democratic party Rep. Todd Lagastee try to attack me on my articles on NWCitizen.com. He didn’t have the skill to do so successfully but he did try. The elected officials themselves no longer have the spine to speak to us honestly in public so they get others to do it now on their behalf. Cowardly is the only way to describe their approach to everything. 
Let’s be honest, he probably did this on behalf of the entire Corporate Democrat establishment linked to Sharon Shewmake because she, and especially party chair Andrew Reding, were angry with me for making legit ties between the Corproate Dems. and big telecom. Probably being the keyword. Insulating themselves from wrongdoing by refusing to have a real dialogue with the public is how the establishment rolls. They call it, “controlling the narrative.” It’s one of the many things they like to do instead of real, measurable, significant, work. 
Recently, the PUD started referring everyone to Comcast or WAVE for backhaul because even though Commissioner Grant ran on a public broadband platform, she is too immature to work on the issue anymore and probably lied about caring about it to get elected. She has apparently always been in the pocket of big telecom, as her insistance of hiring a pro-big telecom General Manager proved months ago. 
As you know, I’m party neutral. After all, it’s not like the Republicans have done well on this topic either. But the Dems. are the ones out there pathologically lying about it most recently, so it’s worthy of mention. The sad thing is that all they need to do is give us real progress and we could legitimately thank them. Imagine that, they do their jobs well for a change and we say thanks. As a worker, I just don’t understand why our elected officials and their special interest friends are so afraid of getting their hands dirty and doing some real work for a change. You know, like most of us have to do to pay for the ever increasing costs on all of our necessities. 
This time the Corporate Dems. Rep. was even arrogant enough to suggest that the town will "move ahead without the help of people they don't like." After, of course, outlining lots of corporate welfare handouts for special interests as part of their “plan.” It’s “the Corporate Dems way or the highway, especially when it doesn’t make any sense,” according to them anyway. 
Was he even insinuating that the Democrats will control everything that happens here or it simply won't happen? Like we have no choice other than them? That's funny Todd, cause the residents of the Geneva neighborhood just won their fight against DISH Network and they were made up of people from all over the political spectrum. Maybe it’s time for party lackies to remember that our elected officials are supposed to represent us not bully or threaten us on behalf of special interests.   
Others: No other elected officials or party reps. provided meaningful commentary either. No specifics were given by the parties or elected officials. Just lots of bullying and no timetable on when we’ll see any real progress. You know, the usge.  
Oh, by the way, the Nooksack Starlink project was a disaster because Satpal Sidhu and Grant insisted on backing it up with overpriced WAVE fiber instead of building real public fiber resources. Many experts told them that’s what was going to happen. Even Elon Musk told the entire country he needed more fiber on the ground to make Starlink work well, but that wasn’t going to get arrogant Sidhu or Grant to listen. 
So what do our elected officials say when we can show them we really need something? Well, nothing, they get stooges to troll you and delay progress as long as possible. 
So I guess we'll just add Hillsboro to the long list of towns that it's better to be in, especially if you're a young STEAM student or worker, because we just can’t get past the deep corruption here in Bellingham/Whatcom County and the best our officials have to offer us is apparently lies and bullying. Unless you’re a big candidate donor of course and then they’re for sale. 
So our political establishment will continue to do what they always do. Tell us nothing and do nothing significant. Oh and tell us after decades of waiting for progress that, “things take time and we need to wait at least another 15 years.” You know, on top of the 40 years we’ve seen no real progress in already. 
Here is the most useful thing I can tell you about the political parties in general. You should look at them like advertising agencies. You know, like the ones in Mad Men. You see, they don’t actually care if things work correctly. Their goal is just to get candidates elected. So if they can put a bunch of wires in a turd, get someone to sign up for service, and claim it’s progress to get a corrupt official elected, that’s what they’ll do. It’s up to us to keep holding them accountable and demanding real progress. To let them know that we realize this is not a new issue and that we notice that they’re intentionally dragging their feet on progress at a critical stage in our country’s history. 
I remind you all that Mount Vernon and Anacortes have public fiber networks too.