What would you consider more of a win here: everybody in town has internet that they pay for through the city (either via taxes or fees), or Los Alamos owns and operates its own network? The model used for the other utilities may not work, for example the DOE puts up the money the lab uses to buy electricity which effectively subsidizes the town's costs, but they need power and don't really have much of an alternative (unless they fire up the reactors again...). The lab already has their own backbone connection so I doubt they're going to be interested in buying internet services from the town.
The best win is that the County owns the last mile fiber and customers buy service that they choose. Part of the reason I prefer that has to do with issues like net-neutrality.
You are correct about the other utilities. The Feds actually built some of the infrastrucure and simply gave it to the County when they gave up running it.
You are sort of correct about the lab's backbone connection. However that connection is owned and operated by the phone company, now called Lumen. Lumen sells capacity on that link to Comcast.
The lab is not going to be interested in buying service from the County, but as a consequence of the pandemic they have said that they are interested in supporting employees working from home. Working from home with the available Internet connections is difficult.
Seems like that last item is the thread to pull on--get the DOE to cough up some dough to help ensure that lab employees have reliable home access. If you dangle the promise of federal money you can probably get Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties interested in the idea too. So now I'm thinking your manager needs political experience above anything else.
