Referendum will help

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Referendum will help – a little

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Referendum will help – a little

Opinions

Thursday, 04 March 2010 02:26

In general, we don’t have a problem with the St. Cloud City Council decision to ask city voters in a non-binding referendum Nov. 2 whether they want to keep the citywide free WiFi service CyberSpot up and running for the general public’s use. A referendum would give officials some measure of the public’s opinion on this issue.
However, a referendum would mean that only registered voters casting ballots in the general election would be offering opinions. Some residents who might not be registered to vote or might not be U.S. citizens – yet pay property taxes – would be left out of the process.
We agree with Councilman Tom Griffin that CyberSpot has been a “political hot potato.” In September, a divided council voted to withhold $370,000 worth of maintenance for the public side of CyberSpot from the 2009-10 budget, with the service subsequently being turned off Feb. 1.
A problem is that the city cannot point to a specific number of residents who actually use the free WiFi and who get what they consider fast enough service through it. The problem with the proposed referendum is that it would do little, if anything, to help fill this information gap.
Some have argued that the service is essential for the elderly and students of online schools; others have said taxpayer money should not be used to provide the service. Still others say the original goal of the service – to aid in economic development – never occurred and never will.
An ongoing question over CyberSpot is how to pay for maintaining it. One council member suggested establishing a special assessment fee for that purpose, taking it out of annual budget talks. Another council member suggested that a percentage of property tax revenue be dedicated for it.
Because the city spent millions of dollars initially to install CyberSpot, it would be a shame to have invested that much to end up just providing WiFi to the police department for internal use. If a private-public partnership could be established to take this service over, great. And if residents using CyberSpot somehow must be charged a reasonable fee to maintain it, then so be it.
The bottom line is that if CyberSpot is to be kept, then it should have dedicated funding source to maintain it.