"Google is coming - Google is coming!"
Well, not yet, but maybe. 
Our city officials and city PR people have until Friday, March 26th to make a push to attract Google's new fiber optic project, Google Fiber for Communities, to Spokane.

What's at stake:  Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We'll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

What you can do:  Join us this evening for a Flash Mob event - Hey Google, Pick Spokane! Flash Mob.  at 5:30 in Riverfront Park (details and RSVP HERE) Meet us--fellow fans of the Hey Google, Pick Spokane! Facebook page--at Riverfront Park to show your support. Come prepared to be photographed, videotaped, etc. Be there at 5:30 pm SHARP so we can get everybody into this group organized into a decent looking photography. Be ready to chill for a few minutes while we set you up and then at 6:00 p.m. we'll start rolling on our cameras and clicking away on cell phones, digital cameras, etc.
We're looking to get donations into signs that we can hold up. Invite all your friends, family, colleagues. Grab anybody you know in Spokane and join us for this grand and jolly event.

Is there an environmental advantage to this project?  Sure.  First and foremost, advancements in technology create solutions that are faster, safe, better and less costly than any known solutions.  So faster internet in Spokane would help all sectors of our society reach solutions - including environmental solutions, whether it be advancements in wastewater cleanup, air pollution reduction, energy efficiency, transportation efficiency, public safety, and frankly a higher quality of living that would attract smarter, more environmentally-conscious people who understand the importance of foresight and sustainability.
Then there's the green economy - clearly a high priority of the Obama administration.  High speed Internet access and related technologies, according to labor and environmental groups, would create green jobs and help lift the United States out of recession.  "In the same way that building the interstate freeway system brought the United States out of the post-World War Two recession ... a clean energy economy is exactly what we need in recession-bound America to put people back to work," said David Foster, executive director of Blue Green Alliance, an organization of unions and environmental groups.
According to a report released by the Blue Green Alliance, the Progressive States Network, the Sierra Club and the Communications Workers of America, "policies to support broadband technologies providing high-speed Internet access can reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions that spur climate change - maintaining that changing the way people and businesses use technology can cut carbon dioxide emissions by 13 percent to 22 percent by 2020, with a potential gross energy and fuel savings of $140 billion to $240 billion.

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