Spokane Municipal Code

Title 13 Public Utilities and Services

Chapter 13.15 Broadband Infrastructure

Section 13.15.030 Digital Strategy and Broadband Goals

1. The City of Spokane has a significant opportunity to be a primary partner and assist in making major investments in fiber infrastructure to influence the digital divide in our community. This results in better connected community members, facilities, educational and social service organizations, and operational infrastructure. This strategy facilitates large-scale internal and partner investment, prioritizes addressing the digital divide, and positively influences the digital infrastructure environment to encourage economic development, and future community connectivity needs.

2. The City of Spokane adopts a digital strategy and broadband goals to guide and inform investment and partnership:

1. Make digital equity a focus to increase broadband adoption by targeted infrastructure investment and programs that remove barriers, incentivize providers, and provide “lifeline” comparable services as required;

2. Connecting current and future City and regional partner services (Public safety, transportation, health, etc.);

3. Leverage conduit and fiber assets to enable this strategy and provide revenue to expand and minimize street disruption;

4. Establishing an urban focused digital infrastructure “organization” to market and manage capacity and connections while preserving current and future City operational needs;

5. Create resilient digital infrastructure loops providing three routes out of region including east to ensure high availability and redundancy;

6. Become a critically needed tool for economic development, workforce development, and business attraction; and

7. Review and determine the need to facilitate more high-speed bandwidth and local Cloud exchange services into the region by supporting development of a local Internet Exchange Point.

8. Develop a data privacy policy that emphasizes that the City of Spokane prioritizes data privacy and will act through transparent practices and informed consent, ensuring personal data collection will be minimized and used solely for legitimate purposes, and will include robust security measures that protect against unauthorized access.  The City’s data privacy policies and practices will be a condition of City partnership with third party providers.

3. The City of Spokane commits to prioritizing smart investment and grant matching to achieve the above goals. The City also supports the concept of partnership and shared investment, and shall promote the development of pilot projects to help inform and make future strategy and investment decisions. The City directs the following steps to support innovation, partnership, and initiatives that can deliver community value in the short and long term:

1. Develop the business plan and pro forma information for the City and its partners to identify realistic estimates of return on investment and the predicted economic benefit to the City once initial investments are paid off. Such business plan and pro forma will be used to prioritize the efforts and make incremental investments, if possible, to help phase efforts over time based on available grant and other resources.

2. Develop active partnerships where co-investment of budget, personnel, assets, or other contributions of economic value that will ensure projects are implemented. Partnerships should include cost and asset sharing agreements to facilitate making end connections by a provider or directly through the open public network.

3. As may be provided in its annual budget, the City of Spokane shall sponsor a matching investment program using current or future potential grant resources and revenue received from digital infrastructure as initial funds for investment. This includes federal and state grant resources, especially where broadband is a targeted activity. The City may also review internal financing options such as an SIP loan to match with other funds to reach the goals.

4. As may be provided in its annual budget, the City of Spokane shall support the development of an enterprise fund to properly capture current and new revenues generated from conduit or fiber leasing, or other supporting activities, to ensure those funds are available as a sustainable revenue stream to support ongoing efforts.

5. The City of Spokane endorses the development of quasi-municipal or non-profit organizations to focus effort and support of these community broadband goals while preserving City asset ownership, fiscal sustainability, and operational needs.

Date Passed: Monday, July 10, 2023

Effective Date: Friday, August 18, 2023

ORD C36404 Section 1