I am voting “yes” on November 3rd for the formation of a city telecommunications utility. I don't have any big complaints or any burning issues that I want to address. I simply want to have more of a choice and a voice into what telecommunications providers I use. And, I would much rather pay my monthly telecommunications bills to a local entity than some national conglomerate. Even if nothing changes after the formation of this utility, I will be content knowing that people who understand all this better than me investigated what was best for the city of Vinton and its citizens.
Sincerely,
Frank Van Steenhuyse
Vinton
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Q: Why not do an engineering study first to answer some of the questions and have the vote after we know more facts?
A: It seems unnecessary to do an engineering study if the community isn’t interested in having local control and local service of its own telecommunications utility.
To me that sounds backward. I'm hesitant to approve creating the utility until I understand better why it's good, what its impact on my budget will be, what concrete benefits it will offer, etc. I'm concerned that approving the creation of the utility before the questions are answered will encourage an approach of "how" to do it rather than "whether" to do it.
I look forward to Vinton Today's investigation into the ballot initiative for more information.
IVinton responds:
Your questions are good ones, and with all complex decisions the answers aren’t cut and dried.
Let’s start with the concrete benefits of voting Yes. We would have a local group charged with the responsibility of investigating all options and the authority to consider all of the new opportunities afforded by advances in technology. We think it would be virtually impossible to do thorough due diligence, or enter into meaningful discussions with potential partners, both public and private, with a temporary committee reporting to the City Council. For those purposes we need to establish a Telecommunications Utility.
At this point there is no impact on your budget as the vote is giving the approval to investigate options…it does not give the approval to issue bonds to finance construction. If the utility believed they had identified a good option involving construction, that would require either a separate public vote or a separate council vote.
So we share a common goal; we want all options to be considered rather than concentrating on just one.
We also believe it’s vitally important to understand that Vinton is now one of just four communities in Benton County without modern telecommunications infrastructure in place or under construction, and that our prospects for growth are severely limited because we lack that infrastructure.