By G. Michael Dobbs
G. MICHAEL DOBBS
Chicopee will be the second community in Hampden County with its municipal broadband initiative and it will be interesting to see how other communities with a municipal utility respond to this program.
Westfield has offered its residents a choice and, according to the service’s installation map, much of that city has a choice between municipal service and commercial service.
If successful in Chicopee, I think other communities with the proper utility infrastructure should consider it. It would be a revenue generator for the community and it could give people the ability to see broadband is indeed as vital these days as electric, sewer and water service.
Competitively priced Internet service could be one of the leading factors in encouraging new business and growing existing businesses.
Jeff Cady of Chicopee Electric Light explained to me the fiber optic backbone of the service allows for both high speed downloads and uploads essential to businesses and a growing number of consumers.
Not all communities have access to broadband, especially in rural areas and the challenge confronting states now is how to get broadband everywhere. This is something the Commonwealth has been working towards for a long time.
Remember the Tennessee Valley Authority from history class? This is the program conducted during the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration to provide electricity to a huge area in the south: most of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small slices of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.
That’s a lot.
By having electricity, the economic development potential of these regions changed for the better.
Broadband will have a similar effect in my opinion.
So, Chicopee’s efforts will be watched and, if successful, I’m sure others would replicate it and well it should be. I just wish we had that municipal infrastructure in Springfield.
Some free advice
Note to candidates and please don’t take offense, but instead consider this free campaign advice from am old reporter. I don’t care what office you’re running for, but for the sake of all that’s holy please have an answer. It’s not enough to say you recognize a problem or concern. You need to explain what you’re planning to do to correct an issue.
It’s all about substance.
Everyone – well, almost everyone – trots out lines about police, infrastructure, schools and tax money spent as being our most important concerns.
Yes, they are. The way you impress potential voters is by offering solutions to these issues.
What are you going to do?
And please, I get the fact we are in a very difficult period in American history, but try to keep your discussions about the local issues you can actually affect.
It doesn’t matter if you align yourself with Trump or if you have nothing in common with the president. What matters is how you’re going to improve your community.
People are elected to office on the basis if they – as incumbents – have actually made positive improvements. Challengers get elected if they can communicate their plans for action effectively to voters.
Simply saying “I’m going to do something” is not as interesting as “This is my plan to address this situation.”
Perhaps it’s just reporter fatigue. I’ve been doing this job for a while and I’ve heard a lot of speeches and read a lot of press releases. The ones that impress me the most are those in which solutions are presented.
G. Michael Dobbs is the managing editor of Reminder Publishing LLC. He can be reached at [email protected].
