SB190 passes from committee with Macquarie’s blessing

On a 4-0-3 vote, SB190 was amended and passed from the Senate Business and Labor Committee this morning. XMission founder Pete Ashdown and myself both spoke in opposition to the bill while Macquarie themselves endorsed the amended bill. Layton sent Gary Crane to represent them to oppose the unamended bill and support the amended bill. It now goes to the second calendar of the Senate for its first floor vote.

During the bill presentation, Sen. Valentine explained the rationale behind the bill as a potential ambiguity in the state code. As currently worded, it prohibits any subsidy of a municipal network by the city. His interpretation is that this could include a utility fee that covers existing bond debt but not operating expenses. Naturally, I disagree and think it’s silly to call paying your debts a subsidy. All the same, the state code now explicitly states that it’s not a subsidy provided that there’s a plan to waive the fee for the indigent.

Speaking of that provision, I found out that it was something the cities were all planning on doing anyway. In the end, SB190 codified what cities were already doing on their own, but only after first attempting to kill the Macquarie deal without input from UTOPIA cities. Kind of a useless bill if you ask me.

This doesn’t mean it’s all a done deal, however. The bill also needs to be voted on in the Senate, go to a House committee, then get voted on in the House. Amendments to the bill could be proposed at any step. Right now, the best thing you can do is email your legislators and make sure they’ll accept the bill as-is so we don’t get anything worse.