In 2013, the City Council decided that an important step in advancing fiber and wireless expansion was to develop a Fiber-to-the-Premises Master Plan and Wireless Network Plan. This Council initiative was titled “Technology and the Connected City.” These plans were intended to establish a roadmap for future fiber and wireless planning.  As part of this initiative, in 2014 the City Council also directed the City Manager to appoint a Fiber and Wireless Citizen Advisory Committee to work with City staff. The Committee’s role was to provide feedback on these plans with objective and judicious advice from a citizen perspective to the City Manager and the Council. The Committee was structured in a way for individual citizens to share opinions and perspectives, study issues, and develop recommendations in a focused, small group structure.  The Committee was expanded from 6 to 11 members in 2016.

The Committee’s valuable guidance has been much appreciated; however, given the City’s fundamental design principle of fully leveraging and expanding the fiber network to support a communications platform for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition  systems (SCADA), and wireless communications support for Public Safety and Utilities, staff submitted a report to the City Council on June 24, 2019, recommending the assignment of the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) to assume the sole advisory role and serve as the public input forum for fiber and wireless expansion initiatives, and the sunsetting of the Committee.  The Council approved sunsetting the Committee, along with a recommendation to re-issue the Fiber-to-the-Node Request for Proposals to begin a multi-phase fiber network expansion to support AMI, SCADA systems and wireless communication technologies for City staff.  Here is the link to the Council staff report:

CMR 9620: Authorize issuance of new RFP for phased fiber expansion with the UAC as a public input forum (June 24, 2019)
https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/72075