Sir Thomas More first created the name
"Utopia" as the label for a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean.
Translated from Greek, it means, literally, "no place."
Ironically, that's exactly where the Utah
Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) finds itself, 10 years
and hundreds of millions of dollars after it was first proposed.
A recent legislative audit concludes that the UTOPIA
project has squandered a great deal of the money that they raised in bond
proceeds, with over 40 percent of the bond funds being used to cover operating
deficits and debt service. That wasn't how the money was supposed to be used,
but, then again, not much about UTOPIA has gone according to plan.
UTOPIA administrators say they agree with the
conclusions of the audit, and all indications are that they're making a good
faith effort to make things right. But the problems aren't procedural — they're
structural.
All the lipstick in the world won't make this pig
look any better. UTOPIA should never have been built in the first place.
UTOPIA's board now claims that profitability is only
three years away. Given the network's track record, we wouldn't be willing to
bet any more of the taxpayers' money on it.
Ten years in "no place" is more than
enough.
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