My understanding is the following:
1) The mayor is trying not to say anything.
2) The official city recommendation is to do something like LA. The mayor knows this is the only way to go. The mayor is too gutless, however, to say that so he had something drawn up by a technical officer. He then passed it on to the Board of supervisors for their stamp of approval. All this for political "share the blame" cover.
3) The SF board of supervisors (http://www.cioma.com/sf_board.html), which are neighborhood elected officials, have some people that have swallowed the "open access" theme. They probably even believe that the 6,000+ ISPs in the USA can be on cable internet with no problem. They rejected the recommendation and are going to meet July 6, 1999 to draw something else up. Their statement is not official city policy, as I understand it, but a recommendation to the mayor.
4) So, basically, we have local neighborhood politicians, who know nothing about what is technically involved, possibly swallowing the "open access" theme. I have also heard that only 2 or 3 are real hard core open access people. We will hear something on July 6th.
5) It probably doesn't mean anything in the grand sceme of things, but if they say anything negative, AOL and whatever media freinds they can buy will do everything possible to create hysteria. It seems that most reporters don't have a clue about what is going on but they know that bad words sell papers for one day (which is all they are hired to do). |
