MuniWireless

It comes as no surprise that the mayor of Toledo, Ohio, has announced he’s putting the city’s proposed Wi-Fi network on hold. Given the nasty politics that have plagued the project nearly from its start, one wonders where it will go from here.It comes as no surprise that the mayor of Toledo, Ohio, has announced he’s putting the city’s proposed Wi-Fi network on hold. As we reported last week, the city council delayed a vote on a proposed $2.16 million contract with MetroFi following political eruptions that resulted in the exit of the city’s IT director along with the plan she developed to make the network a “revenue neutral” project for the city.

The council agreed to reconsider the proposal at a July 11 meeting after the mayor was unable to come up with his own plan at the last concil meeting. Rather than negotiate the retrieval of the revenue-neutral plan with his departed IT director, Dr. Patsy Scott, the mayor is backing off the project. In recent comments to The Toledo Blade, he indicated his administration will continue to work toward a proposal, one that would not use taxpayer money–whatever that means. It would seem that the mayor is looking for a gift horse to provide free service to Toledo and its residents with no interest in turning a profit for itself.

That, essentially, was what Toledo was looking for in its RFP. It is significant that the RFP attracted only one proposal. That was from MetroFi which sought revenue guarantees from the city as anchor tenant. Buckeye Cable Systems submitted a letter of interest with no real proposal.

The mayor neglects to mention that the plan from Dr. Scott, whom he fired rather than let retire following a nasty spat two weeks ago, would have met the commitment to MetroFi through savings realized from the efficiencies the network produced.

As Glenn Fleishman of Wi-Fi Net News observes: “Of course, if you have a five-year plan that could be revenue neutral, you’re risking that it won’t be, but you’re not per se spending taxpayer dollars; and, no savings from efficiency were calculated. ”

The mayor’s position also neglects what this debacle has already cost taxpayers of the city in the cost of time and effort to develop the revenue-neutral proposal the mayor is leaving on the drawing board. But that’s politics.

Click here to read Glenn’s comments.

Click here to read The Toledo Blade’s story.

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