Quote from Clubb’s article:

Alderman Matt Villa, D-11th ward, chairman of the public utilities committee, said he has worked with representatives from the mayor’s office, technology director Mike Wise and the communications division on this arrangement over the last year.

“It did not happen overnight,” Villa said.

Wise said it would cost the city $7 million to build its own Wi-Fi system. He said the city will pay nothing under the deal with AT&T, which will buy and install the equipment. AT&T then would encourage people to purchase higher-speed Wi-Fi service.

The deal is not exclusive, Wise said. Other providers also could offer Wi-Fi.

* * * *

The article says three aldermen voted against the bill and cites Aldeman Terry Kennedy as being concerned that the agreement could be viewed as political.

* * * *

It might be interesting to find out how often over the last year the item was on the published agendas of the meeting Alderman Villa had to develop the deal. The bill appears to be BB # 416, which is online. However, I have not found the incorporated agreement online.

* * * *
Board minutes on the bill:
Mr. Villa moved for third reading and final passage of Board Bill #416CS
Seconded by Mr. Schmid
Carried by the following vote:
ayes: Troupe, Flowers, Ford-Griffin, Shelton, Young, Conway, Ortmann, Vollmer, Villa,
Heitert, Wessels, Gregali, Florida, Baringer, Roddy, Schmid, Jones-King, Boyd, Hanrahan,
Kirner, Williamson, Carter, Krewson, President Shrewsbury. 24
noes: Bosley, Kennedy, Waterhouse. 3
present:0

The “process” involved in adopting the measure is, in my
opinion, typical of the city’s politics. (I’ve lived here
since 1957.) Basically a small, secretive group, known as
Civic Progress, does what it wants to do. Not all of the Civic Progress members are city residents. The predecessor of AT&T was Southwestern Bell Corporation. The predecessor of SBC was Southwestern Bell, then headquartered in St. Louis and one of the city’s big downtown employers. When
Southwestern Bell was around, its president probably was a
member of Civic Progress.

My neighborhood, Forest Park Southeast, is adjacent to the
Washington University Medical Center. WUMC has had a long
interest in the neighborhood. It is one of the largest
employers in the region. It has a close relationship with
the alderman for its area and my neighborhood. Probably it
has a Civic Progresss seat.

In short, there is a network that runs the city.

Back in 2001, I worked on a proposal for a cooperative (as
in early electrical and telephone cooperatives) to bring
high speed wireless to my neighborhood. See
http://stlouis.missouri.org/forestparksoutheast/whatsnew/coop01.htm.
My idea was to get WUMC to provide a “wholesale”
link to the backbone at the medical center; a few buildings
in the neighborhood have lines of sight to medical center
buildings. The buildings in the neighborhood, both business
and residential, are close together, without trees between
them. It seemed to me that the environment was better than
that on college campuses that already had wireless networks.

When I mentioned the project to the WUMC official assigned
to oversee the neighborhood’s redevelopment, he immediately
suggested that he thought something could be worked out with
Southwestern Bell. My impression was that he had a business
deal in mind, a deal that a majority of residents could not
afford. I did not pursue the matter with him.

When I brought up the subject to a city agency responsible
for revitalizing impoverished neighborhoods, the staff
responded that its technical staff I would have to prove the idea would work before anything could be done. The existence of networks at colleges and a few other places was not convincing, I did not think I had the resources for site surveys, and I had other things to do.

Ordinary folks are not part of the network that runs the
city. Nor, in my experience, is the network that does run the city interested in diversification of outlooks.

Another opinion about how the city operates (and the
environment for the current “free” wifi program):
http://stlouis.missouri.org/forestparksoutheast/whatsnew/20020914showcase.htm