The Aurora City Council is set to consider financial support for OnLight Aurora, a city-connected organization established to manage Aurora’s fiber network, amid ongoing budgetary issues at the organization.
Last year, Mayor John Laesch said that OnLight was nearly $1 million in debt after failed attempts to bring internet service to residents’ homes and “unregulated debit card expenses for marketing purposes” that took place before he took office. The city-owned fiber network managed by OnLight stretches for over 60 miles and provides internet access to city government facilities as well as other institutions, nonprofits and businesses in Aurora.
The Aurora City Council next week will consider a proposal to give OnLight either a loan or a grant of $80,000. That money is expected to help the organization catch up on outstanding bills and give it a small amount of operating cash for the near-term, Aurora’s Director of Fiscal Integrity and Operations Management, Brian Caputo, told Aurora aldermen at a meeting of the City Council’s Committee of the Whole on Tuesday evening.
“I think we all recognize they are facing some significant financial challenges,” Caputo said of OnLight Aurora.
In September, Laesch said that OnLight Aurora was losing $27,000 each month, a large part of which was because of debt payments. The organization got into that financial state, he said at the time, in part because of three failed attempts to bring internet service through city fiber to residents’ homes, including one that ended up costing over $110,000 in legal fees.
There was also roughly $337,000 in “unregulated debit card expenses for marketing purposes” since 2018, which included cash withdraws, sponsorships, airfare, lodging, limos or car services, restaurants and bars, “adult entertainment clubs” and political contributions, among others, according to Laesch’s presentation to the Aurora City Council last year.
Those formerly in charge of OnLight have disputed claims made by Laesch about what the organization spent money on, and also said he was overreaching in his power as mayor in order to target those associated with former Mayor Richard Irvin’s administration.
OnLight is no longer running a large monthly operational deficit due to efforts by the organization’s volunteer director, Austin FitzCorbett, Laesch recently told The Beacon-News.
Some strategic planning is set to be done to map out the long-term future of OnLight, Caputo said at the Tuesday meeting of the Committee of the Whole. That plan will determine whether the $80,000 Aurora is proposed to give OnLight will be a loan or a grant, he said.
“We’re not sure it’s reasonable that OnLight will be able to pay us back,” Caputo said. “We’re hopeful that they will.”
Laesch told The Beacon-News that the proposed $80,000 payment was a “temporary funding measure” to help pay bills, including large legal bills related to the organization’s previous efforts to bring the fiber connection to residents’ homes and other bills related to operations, he said. At Tuesday’s committee meeting, Caputo said the payment was to address the organization’s most pressing needs through mid-March.
In response to a question about what would happen if the City Council decided not to approve the payment, Caputo said at the meeting that, at some point, the operation would start to close down. Similarly, FitzCorbett said that the proposed payment was to “keep the lights on.”
Ald. Edward Bugg, 9th Ward, said the city was possibly not the best steward of its “great asset,” the fiber network. It is unfortunate that the city now needs to put money towards it because of past actions, but its necessary, he said.
This may not be the last time the Aurora City Council is asked to approve funding for OnLight, Caputo said at the meeting. Laesch told The Beacon-News that it will take more than this $80,000 to stabilize the organization.
Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward, called the currently-proposed payment a “Band-Aid,” which Caputo agreed with.
The city just went through a budget process where it had to dig itself out of a hole, she said, and this feels like the city is putting itself into another one.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com