Hello, I hope you are all well today. Thanks to all of you who wrote to the mayor and city council on behalf of our community. Many of you received a response from the COB that seemed believable on its face, but then you soon realized that it was full of lies. So some have asked me to pick it apart. In short, you're right. The COB response is a list of lies. 
I'll go ahead, summarize the responses, and then outline how every item in the e-mail response from the COB was a lie.
1. Half-truth (aka lie)
The COB will invest about $8 million in the existing network over the next decade. 
Why it's a lie: While the neighboring City of Mount Vernon installs 144 count single mode fiber in 2x2" schedule 40 PVC conduit for about $180K a mile, and their network pays for its own expansion using a leasing model via an OpenAccess network, the COB always takes their numbers from WAVE and other special interests. This means that they often quote over a million per mile for the same work. So, by COB rates $8 million won't even cover 5 miles or about 1/6th of the area of the city. Since the COB if approximately 29 sq. miles this is insufficient and will NOT result in an improved network over most of the city.  The COB refuses to lease their excess fiber in an OpenAccess manner like Mount Vernon and many other cities do, even though doing so would mean the network would pay for itself and its own expansion. It also means we could really help the poor by giving them real FTTP connections for virtually nothing like Chattanooga, does. So it's not close to enough. They just want to pretend that they care to get you to stop "bothering" them. Which is lying.

2. The COB will address digital equity and affordability. No, they won't. Big telecom offerings for the poor have proven to be prohibitively expensive and virtually worthless with low speeds, well below even the pitiful Federal and State standards, provided on unreliable and even obsolete infrastructure. The only way to address the issue is to allow us to utilize the existing, city-wide, public fiber network. 

3. The BAG (aka BAW) Broadband Advisory Workgroup, met longer than expected. Yes, they did because it was filled with big telecom reps. and all of the telecoms had a seat at the table. WAVE even had 2 voting representatives. Every time there was a delay it was because someone like Commissioner Deshmane pushed for something that was actually good for the public, like a Dig Once policy, and special interests made sure it was ultimately removed from consideration and was not even considered in their report. Remember, that's why they produced their virtually worthless report and allowed WAVE executive Melissa Miller to write it. Here's the article.
https://www.nwcitizen.com/entry/how-to-get-nothing-done/writers/jon-humphrey

4. This is a 10-year plan. NO it's not, or at least not in any meaningful way. Also, any future mayor can overturn anything in this "plan" over the next 10 years. So they may not even put in the inadequate amount of fiber mentioned in #1.

5. They say a municipal-network would bankrupt the city, even after most Bellinghammers told them they want one! How can that be true when we already have a city-owned public network?! Sure, they refuse us access to it, but how can it cost too much to have a network that already exists? They are lying to you. 

So, what is this response from the COB? It's broadband-washing. Just like green-washing, they think we're dumb enough to believe that doing next to nothing over the next 10 years is somehow acceptable. Compare it to what they tell us about climate change. They tell us they'll deal with it by 2050 even as the CO2 count keeps going up. Essentially, they tell you they will deal with climate change after most of Southern, CA finishes burning to the ground, Miami is totally underwater and even we start to run out of fresh water to drink. In the broadband world they tell you that, long after we have a need for multi-gig symmetrical service, they still won't offer it city-wide, and then we can try to fight them all over again. 

What to do?
Don't accept it! Demand a new BAW free from big telecom influence. Demand a Dig Once Policy. Demand OpenAccess to our existing resources and future resources and that we at least meet the Mount Vernon standard. 

Democrats Acting like Trump?
Those of you who know me, know I'm a Bernie supporter. However, the Democrats get angry when we compare them to Trump. "How dare we," they say.
Well why shouldn't we. In this case, and for the last 10 years, they have done everything Musk would have told Trump to do and then Trump would regurgitate. I mean, we don't even have net-neutrality back meaning that Democrats still support free-speech censorship by the telecoms just like Trump does. They have done similar things when it comes to most other issues. Sure, they pretend to care about us when they talk, but most of the time in their actions they behave exactly the same way Trump would. We can do better. We need to turn the now Trump Democrats back into the Whatcom Democrats. But right now, calling them Trump Democrats is accurate, at least from a broadband standpoint. They're using the same playbook and for no reason. We have existing resources, we should be using them. They're lying to us again, because they don't care about us.