Google Fiber for Petaluma - Nominate us by Midnight, March 26! http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi

Tomorrow is Google Fiber Day in Petaluma, made official by way of proclamation from the City Council at last week's Council meeting. Tomorrow hundreds - even thousands - of cities like us across the country will be making their final arguments to be selected as test site for Google's Fiber for Communities experiment.

For the uninitiated, Google is planning to select one or more communities of 50,000 to 500,000 people in which to install their fiber-based broadband. Google estimates the broadband speed that will be available at a reasonable cost will reach 1 gigabit / second, or over 100x the average user connection speed.

Sounds great, right? It definitely could be - and we need your help to make it happen. Our city IT Manager, Tim Williamsen, and his staff are working on the city's application - one piece of the puzzle. The other piece is for Petalumans to nominate their city. If you visit http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi, you'll find a link to nominate your city. If you've already nominated Petaluma, thank you! If not, there's still time (until Midinight tonight!) to submit your nomination. It only takes a few minutes to complete.

For Petaluma, the implications of having Fiber-based broadband are amazing. Residents will have access to lightning fast internet access at a competitive rate. Petaluma, home to a diverse population of artists, geeks, collaborators, entrepreneurs, and business leaders - all of whom who already demand rock solid bandwidth - would be able to innovate to new heights with Google Fiber.

In our schools, we'd instantly create a foundation on which to develop more competitive programs, enhance resources, and set our youth up for success. Broadband access at these speeds would offer our teachers many new tools for their teaching acumen - increased use of web based/online educational tools, cloud based learning, hosted testing, remote learning, streaming video, etc.

In its heydey, at the end of last century, Petaluma was the heart of Telecom Valley. Today's economic landscape is obviously very different, and we are both blessed to be home to wide variety of top notch technology companies AND currently have an estimated 40% commercial vacancy rate.

If selected as a test site for Google Fiber for Communities, we could potentially push 1 gigabit / second broadband to every office park and development in town. Petaluma would have an immediate advantage in attracting new business and stimulating the economic development needed to effectively fund city services.

Petaluma has a unique case of its own to make as to why we should receive one of Google's golden tickets. This is an amazing, unique, historic community filled with passionate and innovative people. Plus, three words - location, location, location. Our historic Downtown is unlike any other community's. We're the hub to wine country and the greater Bay Area. We're within driving distance from the Google campus in Mountain View. We're home to Leo Laporte, tech evangelist/rock star, and his nationally reaching TWiT livecasts (This Week in Technology). Google, if you're listening - more bandwidth = more robust TWiT = good thing.

A lot of people have banded together to make Petaluma's case that we're a player in the Google Fiber sweepstakes and to encourage all residents to nominate our city. The City Technology and Telecommunications Advisory Committee has partnered with city staff, local business leaders, community leaders - including Petaluma Pete and, most recently, Leo Laporte - to get the word out. We're using social media, video, limerick contests, and good old grassroots networking. Just this past weekend Leo was joined by Councilmember Tiffany Renée on his weekly 'This Week in Google' show, plugging Petaluma's case for selection - egged on by Leo's weekly co-hosts and Google gurus, Gina Trapani and Jeff Jarvis.

As I said a the top of this column - a lot of cities are jockeying to be one of maybe five test sites. One of those should go to Petaluma. We're the most uniquely qualified community. Help do your part! Visit http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi before midnight and nominate your city! Thank you!

Jaimey Walking Bear is a member of the City of Petaluma's Technology and Telecommunications Advisory Committee. By day he is a Marketing professional for O'Reilly Media, and otherwise is an active volunteer for Daily Acts and enthusiastic locavore.

We read this at the March 24 Technology and Telecommunications Advisory Committee meeting -

This is not an acceptance speech, just recognition for and thanks to a lot of people from all parts of Petaluma who all stepped up to contribute, nominate Petaluma and spread the word. The list is too numerous to mention everyone, but I will, in some logically fashioned order -

Thank you to you, the committee members for their support - Ted, Bruce, Dan, Jaimey, Ryan

to Committee members Jaimey and Ryan for pulling all kinds of networking strings, especially in Facebook

to new member Jason (hi to Jason watching in the early morning hours from Germany ) for his impassioned public comment and consistent follow up

to Council members Harris and Renee for followup and for Tiff's work with Leo Laporte

to the City Council and Mayor Torliatt for the proclamation written by Jason and for last minute action by Katie Crump of the CM office to get it done

to CM John Brown for giving me the green light and faith to run with it

to the Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Association and Petaluma Peoples' Service Center for spreading the word throughout the non-profit community.

to my exceptional IT staff, Doug, Robert, Dave, Jen and Jean who ran with less my usual help

Curt Bates and Public Works for data for section 5 and 6

Trae Cooper in GIS who did a lot legwork for section 2

Mike Cole of Petaluma City Schools for input from the school system

My fellow board members at PCA and PCA staff to get the work on the bulletin board on TV

Leo Laporte for his web, internet radio and TV help, getting us nominations from Canada and Great Britain

Jennifer Levini at Web Presence for the radio ideas

Bill Hammerman and Alan Fitch for the 2002 River of Change video and

to Bill contacting Mike Hatfield

to Mike Hatfield of Cyan Optics for the tremendous sales pitch

Petauma Pete aka John Maher for his constant drumming, or was that a piano? in the Argus' Petaluma360 forms and the flavor from the limerick contest

And how none of this would have been possible without the energy from Marth OHayer, Melissa Ambercrombie, Karen Nau, and Paul Francis who pushed the issue to all their networks. I want to say, how with everyone's busy schedules, it was heartening to see some pitch in feverishly, go on business trips and have others pick up the momentum.

The dozens of citizens who sent me emails saying they'd nominated Petaluma and

to our 1000 FB fans -

Petaluma really stepped up !! Notice we have support from virtually all aspects of Petaluma. One of Google's questions is how we wil gain and will we mesaure the level of community support. This should answer that question. No FB fan page or survey can show support like we did, like you did. Thank you, Petaluma !