Annette Meeks is from the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, a group that advocates for free market and limited government. She has voiced her opinion on broadband and especially local government funding in broadband in the past. The Minnesota Star Tribune has published an Opinion piece she wrote about Willmar’s research into getting better broadband for residents…

Here we go again. Several Minnesota communities regrettably have been at the forefront of some of the most prolific municipal broadband failures in the country. As CEO of an organization that tracks wasteful government spending, I hoped we were done documenting muni-broadband failures. Yet it appears that we are not: Some Willmar city officials seem determined to risk taxpayer funds by investing in a project that could rack up $33 million in debt owed by taxpayers if the project fails.

I have been writing about the ongoing project; the City has been working with consultants, Hometown Fiber, on a plan to get better broadband. The plans were on the agenda of a recent Willmar City Council meeting; before that meeting Charter Communications offered an alternate plan. How to resolve the difference between the two proposals and/or find a way to collaborate has been a hot topic all February. Meeks outlines the various stages and sides of the discussion from the perspective of someone whose top concern is taxes. It’s an interesting lens…

Finally, one must ask the most important question: Is the Connect Willmar Initiative the highest priority for city tax revenue in 2025?
Whether you agree with the leadership of the new administration in Washington or not, one of the most bipartisan and popular initiatives launched thus far has been to seek out waste and fraud in our federal government.
Taxpayers are tired of paying high taxes that fund unrestrained government spending, which often provides little or no substantial services to the very same taxpayers footing the bill. But most important, city officials need to discern the difference between critical city services (building and maintaining city roads, prompt snow removal, affordable sewer and water services, and many others) and services that taxpayers can find if and when they need it and contract with a private service provider, all without government intervention. Government should only build what the private sector cannot or will not build.

Willmar city officials are making a huge and risky $33 million bet that they can beat the odds of many other communities across the country and build an internet project that will succeed. Since there isn’t one successful government-owned open-source internet network in the entire country, I think the odds are pretty good that Willmar will sadly join the legions of failed municipal operations that will regretfully leave city taxpayers paying a bill for a service they didn’t want and a network they don’t need.

You can get a glimpse of heat of the discussion in the comments to the opinion piece.