This shocking report on KentuckyWired — the statewide broadband project that was launched five years ago and is currently $100 million over budget and only one-third completed — is, again, not an analysis of the open records law, per se.
Instead, it confirms the immense value of the open records law, here referred to as the public records law, in exposing the problems with the state project, frequently characterized — fairly or not — as a "boondoggle," whose final cost to taxpayers over 30 years is estimated to be $1.5 billion.
Alfred Miller, the Courier Journal reporter who authored the article in partnership with ProPublica, effectively and aggressively used the open records law to expose the empty promises and secret compromises that have left the state with no viable alternative but to move forward with the project or risk even greater litigation costs to abandon the project.
It is the first of several installment and a testament to the value of the open records law in ferreting out the truth about a public project run amok.
