Chris Perone-D Norwalk will be on the local radio tomorrow on a segment called “Movers Shakers and Lawmakers.” Local radio covering actual local news is a rarity these days, but WSTC/WNLK - 1400/1350 carries on. Chris should be on around
8:40 AM on Monday (June 11). As a preview, he’s planning to talk about the recent WIFI bill he was instrumental in passing and the a short legislative recap. (Insert your own joke on that one.)

The top question I had was where they were with the actual budget now that the session closed. Chris says they are very close to a budget right now, even though there are rumors that swirl elsewhere in blog land that perhaps other issues will be dragged into the special session.

But back to the WIFI bill. According to Chris, the cost to municipality should be zero. The funding mechanism, and amazingly this bill is not the usual unfunded mandate that seems to spring forth from Hartford like feathers in a hen house. LOCEF funds, state aide. an be used. Municipal WIFI was added to the list to use LoCIP funds, to the rest of us that would be Local Capital improvement funds to pay for it. Which in reality meant just adding WIFI to the list of things that are ok for municipalities to create funding requests for.

But I was curious as to what the process of getting municipal WIFI here in Norwalk would entail. Perone described the underground cable network, I think called the MAN or municipal area network, that currently connects the city buildings to each other. I vaguely remember the great push for the MAN during the Knopp administration, with the focus on linkage between Fire and Police headquaters. Perhaps the surveillance cameras are the offshoot of that build out. But the basic step is that Norwalk, as in the city,
the city would submit a plan and describe how to use funding to develop a WIFI program.

Ofcourse my vision is akin to what Middletown has done which is to provide free WIFI along their main street. You open your lap top and you are connected. Philadelphia has accomplished this feat in a bigger scale. The cool thing they added to it was that they deliver a gateway web page welcoming you to Philadelphia and then make it easy to locate municipal resources, like parking areas. SO essentially I was asking Chris about how we get from funding to actual implementation.

“I believe within one of the departments there’s an IT department, they would analyze the needs of Norwalk and decide to go ahead with it. If either the mayor of the council members were interested in it they would work through the IT department to make it happen, ” he explained, “and of course I ]m available to meet with them as well. And to discuss solutions and alternatives.”

The component of the bill is to create a 10 member board to analyze the the plans that have been executed around the country and thus be in a position to weigh in on the plans submitted to them as well as think big picture and think about statewide implementation. “Rhode Island,” Chris said, “is already down that path of statewide service. We’re not that much bigger than they are, so its a feasible idea.”

The board is designed to have at least half of its members have experience in the with broadband or IT experience. The other half would be public sector experience set. While Chris is part of the selection committee, he wouldn’t mind being on the board itself, and that would be a good thing.

The status of the bill resides with the governor, who has not signed it yet, but Chris thinks that without any opposition, the bill passed unanimously in both houses, it looks like Rell will sign it. Assuming the Lou DeLuca debacle doesn’t distract her from it.

I asked Chris about the DeLuca situation and specifically if he had read the entire indictment. Reading the indictment, or bill, or whatever I think is the number one question anyone should ask before seeking an opinion on a matter. Chris admitted that he had only read the summary of the FBI indictment. And to that he said, “its’ pretty damning. But we have to let the process work, DeLuca has to abide what his constituents and caucus think.” Ah, a good political answer, which I quickly pointed out. Chris laughed and added, “I’m surprised that he hasn’t resigned.” Better.

Apparently there will be some investigation about it up in Hartford. Chris was pretty sure that DeLuca was going to fight it. Which seems odd considering that he pled guilty, and that his story keeps changing, because he keeps getting contradicted. But assuming the special session is short, the legislators won’t return to Hartford till February of next year. That is a long time for the story to wax and wane. But here’s the link to the actual arrest affidavit and the FBI press release on the indictment here.