Reader comments
State auditor eyeing iProvo

If you're using my tax dollars to supplement our mayor�s pet project... You shouldn't have the luxury of "privacy". The fact is... taxpayers are picking up the tab... There needs to be some accountability.
Give the state auditors what they are asking for. The only reason to withhold information from the auditors is because you are afraid of what they will find and report.

Be responsible and cooperate George!

Hmm lets see here...
Recent negative media attention towards Utopia finances, now iProvo. I'm detecting a pattern here.
I think it would be in the best interests of the public to have full disclosure on finances related to issues paid for by taxes. Every tax cent should be open and accounted for as well as every meeting of public officials.
That said the recent "negative" light shown by the news media towards community internet infrastructre projects, seems to indicate a concerted effort to discredit them. I wonder how hard it would be to track the sources of this "information".
By the way, recent road construction projects are in the hundreds of millions of dollars and don't ever see a cent of revenue. How are iProvo and Utopia different than roads or watermains?

"Attempts to reach MStar by telephone and e-mail were unsuccessful on Friday."

This has been my experience more often than not as a customer of MStar when I've tried to reach them for service, especially email. They keep you on hold for nearly an hour if you call and NEVER respond to an email.

Could all this attention be related to an attempt by companies like Qwest and Comcast to limit competition by the new law we will see proposed next month to limit governments from competing with private companies? Next they will want to limit books in library's as they compete with bookstores and city recreation centers as they compete with Gold's Gyms, etc.

iProvo has been very upfront with their issues/problems and are working to correct them. If the annual report showed the companies behind in payments then what is the "news" story here. Does not sound like anything is being hidden?

Steve,

You're absolutely right roads are built for millions of dollars. However, unless they are toll roads, no one is competing for road revenues. Your road analogy is completely flawed. Iprovo was heralded as a revenue source for Provo and how it would pay for itself. Thus far it has fallen far short of those lofty expectations. Time will tell if it will survive or fail like many other municipal broadband projects

Well if nothing is being hidden then it should be no problem for full disclosure to the state auditor.
The fact remains that the project was sold on the basis of paying its own way and not using tax dollars. That clearly is not what is happening now. The million dollar transfers from the general fund should be explained to us taxpayers and we should have a say. Are these transfers actually lining the pockets of Mstar since they don't pay the city?

This project just gets worse and worse and yet for some reason the ones that have drove this project into the ground still have their jobs. Can anyone explain to me why?