Building the nation’s first public internet utility on the shoulders of Tacoma’s Click Cable TV network was a grandiose dream that many community leaders have been reluctant to let go.
Now the dream is finally over, dispelled by the realities of multi-million dollar technology upgrades and an ultracompetitive broadband market dominated by industry Goliaths and moving at gigabit speed.
The prospect of a new citywide tax, which was dead on arrival, also didn’t help.
In place of the dream, city officials are forging ahead on a down-to-earth alternative: a partnership that will let Tacoma retain Click as a valuable telecom asset while handing over business operations, marketing and customer service to a private operator.
They’ll also hand over one more thing: an uncertain level of financial risk that Tacoma residents shouldn’t be saddled with.
“Doing it by ourselves is just a lot of risk to our city, our ratepayers and our citizens,” Mayor Victoria Woodards concluded Tuesday at a joint study session of the Tacoma City Council and the Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU) board.
We’re relieved that even the most starry-eyed dreamers have awakened to reality at last. Chances are, you’ll be relieved, too.
Would you support paying $10 a month in new taxes – a base cost charged to every Tacoma household regardless of whether they’re Click customers? That’s what it would take to put our network on a competitive footing, according to an analysis of the so-called “public option” that the city’s technology consultant presented Tuesday.
Would you also be willing to pay an undetermined rate for residential broadband services – somewhere between $22 and $89.50 a month? Rates would depend on several variables, such as how much market share a rebooted Click could steal from the big boys.
And would you be willing to pay all this while no longer receiving cable TV, the service on which Click was founded 20 years ago? The public option laid out Tuesday would ditch cable while placing a premium on high-speed internet.
If these details leave you feeling queasy, you’re not alone. Several officials at Tuesday’s meeting expressed growing trepidation, including the most staunch advocates of what’s been called the “all in” plan to keep Click public.
City Council member Ryan Mello was among those who wanted to see an analysis of the public option before fully buying into the public-private approach. He said Tuesday he now has a “lot of caution and concern” about generating the necessary revenue through a new tax, which likely would require a public vote.
Such doubts are definitely warranted, though painfully slow to develop. The logic of using private capital to reinvent Click seems pretty clear and was first proposed more than three years ago.
The city has been scrambling for a way to pay for its homegrown telecom network after years of subsidies from TPU electric ratepayers, which a judge in March ruled illegal. Tacoma leaders previously scrapped a plan to use up to $10 million annually from Tacoma Power to expand the network into retail cable, internet and phone service.
The council also promised last spring that it would defend a dozen core principles in developing a broadband system. Among them: low-income affordability, net neutrality, competition, financial stability, job options for Click staff and consumer privacy.
At the top of the list: public ownership of assets.
The city should certainly negotiate those values into a contract to the greatest extent possible.
That process will get underway in September, as the city’s consultant begins negotiating with three potential partners: Tacoma-based Rainier Connect, Kirkland-based Wave Broadband and Europe-based Yomura Fiber.
The goal is to have a contract approved in 2019.
We say the sooner, the better. Customer expectations are rising fast. Comcast and CenturyLink are making significant investments in their fiber networks. If Tacoma wants to join this game, it better not wait until the two-minute warning
TPU board member Bryan Flint, another dreamer who’s come around gradually to the benefits of a public-private partnership, said it well on Tuesday:
“The longer we take,” he said, “the more risk we have.”
This story was originally published August 29, 2018 1:51 PM.