OnLight Aurora, which manages the city of Aurora’s fiber network, has been financially mismanaged and is nearly $1 million in debt, Aurora Mayor John Laesch told the city council earlier this week.
The organization, which has both a business and nonprofit arm, is separate from the city but has an agreement to manage its fiber network. That network provides internet not only to city facilities but also to various businesses and organizations in the area.
During a presentation at a City Council Committee of the Whole meeting Tuesday, Laesch said the organization is currently operating at a $27,000 monthly deficit and has the resources to make it roughly to the end of the month. He has replaced the organization’s executive director, Charles Baker, with a volunteer as a cost-saving measure, and has made other cuts, he said at the meeting.
Baker told The Beacon-News that he believes his firing was unlawful and unjust. He and other former leadership at OnLight Aurora say this is an overreach by Laesch, and that he is doing this to go after those associated with the previous administration, which the current mayor has heavily criticized.
Some of the seats on OnLight Aurora’s governing board are reserved for Aurora elected officials and staff. Laesch said at the meeting Tuesday that he is recreating the board, starting with the automatically-appointed seats reserved for Aurora’s mayor and chief information officer.
But Baker said that Laesch cannot place himself on the board, despite the fact that a seat is reserved for his position as mayor. Most board members have resigned, he said, but those left have never met to install Laesch on the board or to approve Baker’s firing.
If OnLight were to dissolve, all of its assets would come back to the city, Laesch said. However, he said his goal is to keep OnLight up and running.
To curb the deficit he said is currently being faced by the organization, Laesch has worked to cancel rent at several spaces and is replacing its staff with a single volunteer director, according to a city news release. Plus, the Illinois Office of Broadband is also helping to get the organization back on track, the news release said.
“The system itself is stable and high performing,” Laesch said in the city news release. “We just need better financial management and a realistic plan for the future.”
Since 2018, OnLight Aurora has brought on one new customer but has lost 12, according to Laesch’s presentation on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the organization spent around $337,000 on so-called marketing expenses, his presentation alleged, with much of that money going to things like events, airfare, hotels, restaurants, sponsorships and direct cash withdraws, he said.
Baker said he disagrees with how the expenses were categorized by Laesch’s presentation and that, since he started in 2020, he has always been frugal with the organization’s money. He was not taking trips for just fun, he said, and many were to places he didn’t even want to go.
Plus, he was fired for cost-cutting reasons, not because of financial mismanagement, Baker said. In the letter of termination the city sent him, which he shared with The Beacon-News, it says the decision was made “solely due to the organization’s ongoing and significant financial challenges” and, later, that it was “not related in any way to your job performance” or any personal characteristics.
OnLight Aurora’s current financial troubles also came from what Laesch described as three failed attempts to bring fiber internet to residents’ homes, with one attempt costing around $113,000 in legal fees.
But Baker said the organization was on track to get that done and that a fully-vetted deal was ready which would have wiped away the organization’s debt and brought in revenue to the city within seven years. However, Baker said Laesch did not continue working on that project after he has inaugurated in May, although Baker said he tried to work with him.
The future of OnLight might include bringing fiber to residents’ homes, but first the goal is to stabilize the organization, according to Laesch. He said at Tuesday’s meeting that the immediate plan is to try and fix the organization’s finances, improve customer service, try to bring back lost customers, look to competitively price services and to respond to outages.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
