What passes for courage these days?

This is at the “Growing a gigabit ecosystem” event discussed here last month when it was announced.

It’s a very strange description of “courage,” isn’t it?

Perhaps adding “political” as a modifier renders the term synonymous with “despicability.” Here is what “be in front and lead an issue, to be proactive” apparently means:

  • Using Certificates of Participation to fund the system, which do not require a vote of citizens

  • Knowing those citizens are still on the hook if the system loses money, which it did

  • Foisting this system on citizens even though private competitors for cable, phone, and Internet subscribers in Wilson included Time Warner, Embarq with Dish Network, DirecTV (cable competitor), and HughesNet (Internet competitor)

  • Stating that increases in electricity rates and property taxes on Wilson residents would be used to repay the debt service if there are not enough subscribers to the Greenlight service to pay for it

  • Expecting that the city would reap economic-development benefits by Greenlight pricing high-speed broadband far below market levels

  • Anticipating the primary beneficiaries of the system to be large businesses, not homeowners

  • Losing (for some reason, unexpectedly) $11 million by 2011

  • Borrowing from municipal electric and gas funds even as the City of Wilson’s electricity and gas rates were already higher than others’

  • Seeing your boondoggle inspire state law geared to prevent future municipalities from repeating your expensive foolishness; namely, the Level Playing Field Law of 2011, which:
    • requires future municipal broadband systems to comply with all federal, state, and local laws to which private providers are subject
    • prevents them from requiring subscribership from individuals or developments
    • limits their sources of revenue to those generated by the service, not from other services’ funds
    • forbids them from pricing services below cost
    • disallows municipalities from using non-voter-approved bonds to fund the service
    • requires payments in lieu of taxes to counties and the state equivalent to what a private company so situated would be required to pay.

  • challenging that law in federal court, even though it mostly exempted Greenlight, and losing

For more information on this, er, “politically courageous” system, please see my comments to the Federal Communications Commission, republished here.