Last month, I wrote about a recent opinion piece in the MN Star Tribune that questioned the need for public funding for broadband. Today, the MN Star Tribune has posted a counter to that piece by Gigi Sohn, the executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband, an organization dedicated to ensuring that communities have the freedom to choose what broadband network best serves their residents.

Community-owned broadband networks are thriving across the country. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Network Map shows a record 795 public networks delivering fast, affordable and reliable internet — hardly the “magical thinking” Annette Meeks described in her recent commentary in the Minnesota Star Tribune on the Connect Willmar Initiative. (“Municipal broadband: A zombie in our midst,” Feb. 24.)

The real “zombie in our midst” is the dark money-fueled misinformation campaigns that keep rising from the dead, recycling the same debunked talking points that big broadband incumbents have peddled for decades. These attacks follow a familiar pattern, aiming to slow the momentum of communities adopting publicly owned networks.

Take the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, the nonprofit organization that Meeks leads. Like other industry-backed groups, it trots out outdated claims that public broadband is a failure — ignoring the reality that most municipal networks are thriving. Just look at two of these — Idaho Falls and Ammon, Idaho. They are among the oldest and most successful public networks in the country. There are hundreds more examples across the United States.

Ironically, the Freedom Foundation claims to champion “individual freedom,” yet Meeks’ argument seeks to deny Minnesotans the freedom to choose the broadband network that best serves their needs. And since the Freedom Foundation is so focused on values, perhaps it should add transparency to its list: Who funds the foundation’s opposition to public broadband? Why do its arguments conveniently mirror those Big Cable has used for decades? No funders are listed on its website.

The Connect Willmar Initiative wasn’t born out of ideology — it was created because “local internet providers were not interested in improving Willmar’s internet infrastructure,” according to the city. Yet only after the initiative gained traction did Charter Communications swoop in, deploying its usual playbook. It propped up its fake consumer group, the Alliance for Quality Broadband — a front it has used elsewhere to derail public broadband efforts — and blanketed the area with Facebook ads and mailers warning that the initiative would “burn your tax dollars,” even though the city plans to pay for the network using bonds and other financial options, without an increase in taxes.

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.