[April 03, 2010] Betting mayors hope it's nothing but Net Tweet DURHAM, Apr 03, 2010 (The Herald-Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- That mayor from up there in West Virginia must think our mayor's a hillbilly or spends all day in coal mines or something. You've heard how the Google people are looking for cities where they can test their super-duper broadband networks that are supposed to have folks surfing the Web so fast that computer mice all over this land are liable to explode. Google people claim we'd be able to access stuff on the Internet more than 100 times faster than what we now consider real, real swift. So residents in cities all over this country are courting Google Fiber. And here comes Morgantown, W.Va., Mayor Bill Byrne, trying to be slick, dangling this here wager in front our Bull City Mayor Bill Bell: If Bob "Huggy Bear" Huggins' West Virginia Mountaineers tonight beat Mike "Coach K" Krzyzewski's Duke Blue Devils in the Final Four, then Bell on his mayoral stationery has to write a letter endorsing Morgantown's application to get some love from Google. "If they win, I'll do the same for him," Morgantown's mayor said. Oh, Bell jumped all over that! And that must be why city officials keep talking about how good things are happening in Durham, because Bell's a genius. The man is shrewd. He's real cool, and you don't see him doing a lot of jumping around when he's out in public. But he's sure-enough alive and his mind's always going, always a step ahead. So, yes, Bell took that bet. If Duke loses, he'll scribble some nice things about Morgantown. But that slick West Virginia mayor didn't put anything in the wager that would keep Bell from pulling out another sheet of paper and writing an even stronger letter telling the Google people that Durham -- with Duke and Durham Tech and NCCU and RTP and the Bulls and American Tobacco and, well ... -- has it going on. To see more of The Herald-Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.herald-sun.com. Copyright (c) 2010, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]