Click: TPU should invest in this public infrastructure

The Tacoma Public Utilities Board should consider the possibility that management is putting a thumb on Click’s accounting. Click is paying for at least 90 percent of the cost of maintaining the fiber optic network and the costs of broadband and cable TV services.

If Click’s parent utility, TPU, should be paying for more than 10 percent of the cost of the fiber optic network as a whole, then Click is operating in the black and is contributing surplus funds to the Tacoma Power budget.

In such a scenario, TPU board member Bryan Flint’s “all-In” public gigabit plan is simply directing management to use ratepayer funds to modernize publicly owned assets for utility purposes to serve utility customers. There is nothing controversial about that.

Investing in public infrastructure to secure reliable, not-for-profit utility services is what TPU has been doing for over a century, to the benefit of both ratepayers and the community at large.

This story was originally published September 26, 2016 at 10:33 AM with the headline "Click: TPU should invest in this public infrastructure."