I think that initiatives such as this are most beneficial to the community that it serves. We investigated the same kind of initiative, but essentially ran into a lack of technical understanding and what being "connected" to the Internet is all about, especially when it comes to doing business not just locally, but regionally, nationally and internationally. The key emphasis should be "What Happen$ in the Community, $tay$ in the Community". You can find a plethora of information on our LinkedIn groups, for example, Rural and Remote Community Broadband, http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=1874069.

Consequently, I advocate that communities establish a community development cooperative which becomes far more encompassing and appealing to local residents, businesses, associations, and institutions. The cooperative can have both voting and non-voting shares and could be a local advocate for a community foundation, www.cof.org, to raise funding locally as well as through grants. The cooperative would have majority control, say 51% for example, in an enterprise, corporation, profit or non-profit, which would address the community's shortcomings. The remaining 49% could be used for raising additional funds through cash or cash in kind.

To focus the community's attention on your endeavors create a community information portal as a catalyst for doing business locally and to raise additional funds through advertising on this portal. This portal could be hosted anywhere at minimal expense anywhere initially, but inevitably be transferred back into the community on its own servers tied into an open source network to facilitate such things as public safety communications.

Hope this helps and I'm not being too succinct. If so, I would welcome your comments.