Google potential
If the city of Kissimmee were to land an experimental fiber optics Internet communication project being offered by Google, what a coup that would be.
On Tuesday, city officials unveiled a video about Kissimmee, which was sent to Google as part of an application, that they hope will make the city stand out among the hundreds of others nationwide vying for the project.
The new service would deliver Internet speeds 100 times faster than what most Americans currently use. At 1 gigabit per second, a person using the system could download a full dual-layer Blu-ray disc in 6.7 minutes.
What would be the advantages if the city were to land this project? Initially, it would allow residents and businesses to download data as fast as a host server would allow and as fast as the system feeding into the new network would support. As a corollary, a local user also could transmit at the 1 gigabit per second rate.
We might even have businesses – such as Internet cafes – sprouting up that would provide the Google Internet service to visitors. Even businesses that host various Internet services might locate in Kissimmee to take advantage of the system.

School Board vendor policy
It didn’t take long for the Osceola County School Board to discard a system it established  a year earlier for selecting construction management firms, dropping a three-tiered system that allocated points based on whether a company was local, regional or state.
There essentially is no longer any preferences given for being local in the new policy. In addition, the policy lacks concrete penalties for a construction management firm that does not live up to promises of hiring local firms once it gets a job. There is only the vague threat that a firm might not be seen so favorably when being considered for future projects.
For vendors providing professional services to the district, a one-tiered system has been adopted, giving extra points for being local.
Let’s hope the new policies for construction managers and professional services promotes widespread local vendor participation in contracts and that the selection process, especially for construction management firms, is objective.