Sunday, March 27, 2005
Florida bid for Hall of Shame
The Palm Beach Post reports
Under the [three bills pending before the Florida Legislature], if the phone or cable companies don't offer a proposal, the cities can go ahead with their own, but only after doing a feasibility study and asking residents to vote on the project at least once — twice if bonds would be used to finance it.Best law money can buy.
That would take anywhere from two to four years, one group says.
"No city would look at that process and say, 'Yeah! We're going to go down that road,' " said Barry Moline, executive director of the Florida Municipal Electric Association, which represents cities that own utilities.
The proposal also would bar cities that are offering the service as of May 1 from adding any more customers . . .
Moline and Craig Conn, a lobbyist for the Florida League of Cities, say the bill handicaps smaller, rural cities and towns, as well as poorer sections of large cities, where the major telecommunications companies don't offer high-speed Internet service.
"If the communities were being adequately served in the first place, then there's no impetus by the government entities to go and do this," Conn said.
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