Now it's the Municipal Council's turn.

The council on Tuesday is expected to appoint a blue-ribbon panel to review the consultants' reports and help set a budget for the struggling broadband network.

"We don't want this to be a political thing between the mayor and the council," said Council Vice Chairman George Stewart, who will head the committee. "The mayor has used these consultants, so we think it is appropriate to have our own experts."

The city's administration said it welcomes the additional scrutiny.

"The consultants' reports are available to the public and anyone can offer comments and feedback," said spokeswoman Helen Anderson. Attempts to contact Billings, a staunch iProvo supporter, were not successful Friday.

One of the panel's members, Dan Campbell, was on the committee that recommended the creation of iProvo.

In late 2007, the city commissioned CCG Consulting and Franklin Court Partners. Their reports, released Thursday afternoon, recommended increasing revenues by charging city departments for using the network.

CCG's report suggested the city spend $2 million a year - the same as it now pays in subsidies to the network - for the city's future use of the system - and then have departments pay iProvo as they come online.

The city's reports were released the day after a libertarian group, The Reason Foundation, issued a study calling for the city to get out of the network business and sell it to a private provider.

dmeyers@sltrib.com