Public Advocate Election on September 13

For those of you in New York City who are registered Democrats, here’s a reminder to go out and vote on September 13th (Tuesday) for Public Advocate.

Why is this relevant? One of the candidates is Andrew Rasiej, who has been promoting a plan to bring citywide Wi-Fi to New York. His platform, “Reconnecting New York”, speaks to the work NYCwireless has been doing bringing free Wi-Fi to underprivileged New Yorkers, and making this city a better place to live. The other candidates—Michael E Brown, Damon L Cabbagestalk, Jay Golub, Norman Siegel, and current Public Advocate Betsy F Gotbaum—have said nothing about how they will help New Yorkers get affordable broadband.

This is a big deal, and there’s lots of education that’s needed at the City Government level. Andrew mentioned to me that he recently ran into our Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who referred to him as “That Wi-Fi Guy”. Apparently Mr. Bloomberg then inquired about Wi-Fi technology, and asked: “Doesn’t that require us to tear up the streets in order to install it?”. If Andrew wins, he’ll certainly have his work cut out for him.