Salinas and Hartnell College fail to marry in a deal to bring free dark fiber to East Campus.

It should have been an easy meeting of the minds: The city of Salinas needed to run high-speed internet fiber down Alisal Street to its new, still-in-the-works police station/community center. And Hartnell Community College has unused conduit, just sitting there already buried under ground.

Salinas came up with a plan, approved by City Council in February, that would have the city providing Hartnell with four strands of fiber for free, in perpetuity, in exchange for using the school’s already-installed backbone fiber lines. It would take less work and far less money for the city – no need to run its own conduit – and also enable it to turn a fiber line into a dark fiber network, something necessary for high-speed communications between City Hall in Oldtown and the new Salinas Police Service headquarters.

Hartnell would reap the rewards of being able to run that free fiber down to its East Campus. Under terms of the proposed deal, Hartnell could lease out space to install racks within its facilities to any internet service providers interested in using the city’s network, and to keep all of those revenues as well.

Instead of spending about $200,000 to run its own conduit, Salinas would spend about $15,000 to complete the connections on both ends. Win-win, right?

Turns out, not so much. While Salinas forwarded the proposal to Hartnell’s Board of Trustees for approval, the Hartnell board failed to take action. Salinas wanted a 10-year agreement, while Hartnell wanted only five years, and because the city has deadline-driven grants to fund the work, it had to move on. The deal died on the Hartnell table and now the city will fund its own conduit project.

“We decided we needed to find a different way,” Salinas City Manager Ray Corpuz says. “It wasn’t about issues with Hartnell, but about making sure the projects were delivered with what we needed them to deliver. We have construction dates and contractual obligations and funding committed.”

Hartnell President Willard Lewallen didn’t return a call requesting comment before deadline.

“I am deeply disappointed in the actions by the Hartnell College Board of Trustees surrounding this issue,” says Councilman Scott Davis, whose district includes the Alisal and Hartnell’s East Campus. “But what bothers me most is the fact our students will end up suffering the most.

“The lack of vision and leadership will also cost our community over $200,000 in unnecessary construction costs as we will continue to push forward to provide fiber-optic internet to all areas of Salinas.”