SEV Mission
The mission of the Sylvania Electronic Village is to keep the Sylvania Community at the forefront of technical advances and to improve the quality of life.

SEV History
The Sylvania Electronic Village (SEV) was formed as a non-profit corporation  in 1995 to bring low cost Internet access and to serve the community of Sylvania, Ohio.  Membership and the services provided by the Sylvania Electronic Village are available to everyone living or working within the Sylvania School District, rather than just the City itself, because the area encompassed by the School District most accurately defines what we all consider to be the community of Sylvania. There are also no dues associated with SEV membership.

The SEV originally purchased and maintained its own modems, email server and Web hosting server with funds provided by the City of Sylvania.  As the early Internet access equipment became outdated, the SEV realized its role would be changing. 

Today
Today the SEV has negotiated contracts on behalf of the Sylvania Community for lower-cost Internet Access, Telephone Services and WlFi  Hotspots with American Broadband and Telecommunications, a company that started right here in Sylvania.

As much as possible, SEV functions were originally, and still are,  performed by volunteers.  Members donate their time for SEV functions as there are still no employees. 

The Sylvania Electronic Village charges no more for services that are required to permit it to operate, because this permits the greatest number of people to participate in, and thereby benefit from, the services it provides.  The SEV attempts to extend to the identity of the Sylvania community into the realm of the Internet through local Web sites and personal home pages.

Web hosting may be provided free-of-charge on our Web server or by the ISP to residents and other non-profit community organizations in the Sylvania area.  Web pages cannot be used for commercial or business solicitations.  Web pages must not contain vulgarity; pornography; unlawful, threatening, abusive, profane information; information or software containing a virus, worm, or other harmful component; information, software or other material which is protected by copyright or other proprietary rights, without obtaining permission of the copyright owner. Individuals must maintain and design their own pages. The SEV is not responsible for and does not reflect views and opinions, which may be expressed on personal pages. The SEV has the absolute and unrestricted right to terminate publisher's access to the Site at such time and under such conditions and circumstances as the SEV, in its sole discretion, deems appropriate, and to delete any and all directories and files that constitute or contain the Site. The SEV shall have the right to refuse to post or to remove from the Site any web pages, files, information, or materials that it determines, in its sole discretion, to be unacceptable, undesirable, or in violation of the SEV's policies or procedures. SEV also reserves the right to remove sites for violations as stated above. If web sites are found by SEV to be in violation of the above terms and conditions, the content will be removed or disabled. An effort will then be made to contact the web site owner to advise him of the violation and the SEV’s action.

Origins
The origins of the Sylvania Electronic Village are found in two conversations that took place in early 1995.

The first conversation was between Marshall A. Bennett, Jr. and the wife of a good friend. The friend had just been diagnosed as having a form of cancer. The wife had spent the preceding day doing research into her husband's condition at the library of the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo. Unfortunately, her research failed to reveal anything that would allow her to speak more knowledgeably with her husband's physician when they were scheduled to meet later that week.

Prompted by this conversation, Marshall Bennett, who had only recently started to study the Internet, went home to see what kind of information could be found on the Internet. In short order he found his way to Oncolink, a site sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh dealing with cancer issues. From there he found his way to the National Cancer Institute, where he discovered an extensive library of information relating to the diagnosis and treatment of cancers. In less than an hour Mr. Bennett was able to locate and download nearly one hundred pages of relevant articles that he delivered to his friend's wife later that day.

The research prompted by this conversation demonstrated in a very concrete manner the breadth of the information available on the Internet, and how it could be used to benefit people in their daily lives.

The next conversation occurred shortly thereafter. It was between Mr. Bennett and an another friend who had a son attending St. John's, a Jesuit high school located in Toledo, Ohio. The friend told Mr. Bennett that St. John's had made a strong commitment to educate its students in the use of the Internet by placing several computer terminals in its library from which the students could access the Internet and all of its resources. At the time, the students of the Sylvania School District did not have similar opportunities.

This conversation highlighted the importance of training our sons and daughters in the use of the Internet so they will be better equipped to meet the challenges of the future.

These two conversations gave rise to a simple idea. If the people of Sylvania were going to be able to meet the challenges of the future, they needed to have unlimited access to the Internet.

Initial Study and Evaluation
There were many barriers to making this concept a reality. Perhaps the most significant was that at the time commercial providers of Internet access were charging as much as $6.95 per hour of access time. Hourly fees of this kind placed Internet access beyond the means of most families. If universal access and use were ever to become a reality, a different approach had to be taken.

That different approach was first proposed by Marshall Bennett to the Sylvania City Council in January of 1995. Mr. Bennett was a member of Council at the time. He proposed the formation of a special committee to study whether the City of Sylvania should take a leadership role in the provision of Internet access to the community. Council agreed, and directed Mr. Bennett to form the committee and report back with its conclusions.

Marshall proceeded to form the Sylvania Internet Access Committee. Its member included a cross section of community organizations; Sr. Nancy Ann Surma and Ms. Bina Issac of Lourdes College, Mr. David Stanley of the Sylvania School District, Dr. Alan Flaschner of the Sylvania Community Improvement Corporation, Mr. Dorwin Kujawski of the Sylvania Chamber of Commerce, and Ms. Peggy Watts and Mr. John Grayczyk of the City of Sylvania.

While the committee was formed in February of 1995, it did not actually meet until June. The delay was prompted by the fact that the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments was separately studying the establishment of an Internet access site that would be available to the entire Toledo area. The TMACOG study committee met several times in the first six months of 1995, each time making progress toward the establishment of a region wide system.

But with the passage of time it became apparent that any region wide Internet access system would suffer from a number of problems. First, it would be overwhelmed by demands on its resources. Dial-in phone lines would be flooded with calls, resulting in frequent busy signals for those seeking access. Perhaps more important, a region-wide system would not encourage the extension of the character of each community into the realm of the Internet. Smaller communities like Sylvania would get lost in the system.

Unfortunately, the TMACOG study committee also revealed one very important fact; the provision of Internet access involved highly technical issues. While Marshall Bennett was fairly knowledgeable in the operation of computer software, he did not have the ability to handle the many technical issues attendant to the establishment of an Internet access site. Unless something unexpected happened, it seemed that Sylvania would need to wait until the TMACOG system came on line. The City of Sylvania simply did not have the technical expertise required to implement the project on its own.

But then, as often happens, the unexpected occurred. In early June of 1995, Marshall Bennett received a call from Robert Reese. Mr. Reese was an employee of Flower Hospital, a hospital located in Sylvania. He had been assigned the task of bringing Internet access to the physicians and employees of Flower Hospital, and in the course of his research had learned that the City was studying the possibility of bringing similar access to the residents of Sylvania. In that initial call Mr. Reese suggested that Flower Hospital might be willing to work together with the City to bring Internet access to the entire community, with Flower Hospital assuming the responsibility for the issues requiring technical expertise. This offer made all the difference.

Suddenly a crucial missing element, technical expertise, was available to the project. What had seemed impossible, the development of a Sylvania based Internet access site, no longer seemed so. The study committee that had been formed earlier in the year was activated, and Robert Reese and Dr. Duane Gainsburg, a physician practicing at Flower Hospital, were added as members.

The committee of the whole met several times, and various committee members separately spent hundreds of hours studying the possibility of setting up an Internet access site here in Sylvania. Mr. Reese provided invaluable technical assistance in evaluating the hardware and software needs of the project. In the end, the committee determined that such a program was both feasible and in the best interests of the citizens of Sylvania.

Sylvania City Council's Decision to Fund the Project
Marshall Bennett presented the conclusion of the study committee to Sylvania City Council at its meeting of August 7, 1995. There was a lengthy discussion, after which Mr. Bennett proposed and Council approved the drafting of funding legislation for the project. On August 22, 1995, Sylvania City Council unanimously adopted an ordinance providing funding for the project. Council authorized the payment of up to $100,000 per year for three years to insure the operation of the Village. This funding provided the financial security needed to make the project a reality, for it insured the payment of its basic operating expenses. The adoption of the funding legislation was, of course, only one step along the way to making the Sylvania Electronic Village a reality.

The Building of the Sylvania Electronic Village
Shortly after the funding legislation was adopted, an Ohio nonprofit corporation, the Sylvania Electronic Village, Inc., was formed to be the entity that actually provided Internet access services to the residents of the Sylvania area. The founding board members of the Village were Marshall A. Bennett, Jr., Esq., Dr. Patrick Bernardo, Superintendent of the Sylvania School District, Sr. Nancy Ann Surma of Lourdes College, and Mr. William Glover, President of Flower Hospital.

At the first meeting of the Board of Directors, the following persons were elected as the initial officers of the Sylvania Electronic Village; Marshall A. Bennett, Jr., Esq., President, Dr. Duane Gainsburg, Vice-President, Lori Decker, Esq., Secretary, and John Nolan, C.P.A., Treasurer. Mr. Robert Reese was named Executive Director of Operations.

Mr. Reese formed a Technical Committee to study the technical aspects of the system that would be required by the Village. This committee included representatives from various companies involved in the provision of equipment and services needed to access the Internet.

Ken Armstrong, another employee of Flower Hospital, formed a Business Committee to study those things that would be required from a non-technical perspective to make the Village a reality. The members of this committee studied everything from the design of the home pages for the Village to the contents of the packages that would be mailed out to new members. They also confirmed four principles at the core of the Sylvania Electronic Village.

1. The services provided by the Village would be available to everyone living or working within the Sylvania School District, rather than just the City itself, because the area encompassed by the School District most accurately defines what we all consider to be the community of Sylvania.
2. The Village would charge no more for services that was required to permit it to operate, because this would permit the greatest number of people to participate in, and thereby benefit from, the services it provides.
3. The services would be made available on a flat fee basis, because this removed the disincentive to use that would exist if services are charged for on an hourly basis.
4. The Village would attempt to extend to the identity of the Sylvania community into the realm of the Internet through home pages and news groups dealing with Sylvania issues.

In October, orders were placed for all the equipment needed to set up the access site. These items began to arrive and be installed in November. By the last week of November the system was up and running for testing. As of the writing of this history, the system is due to come on line for the public on December 15, 1995.

In a press release issued shortly after Sylvania City Council adopted the funding ordinance, Marshall Bennett stated the following:

I am very excited about what this means for the community. This village will provide our citizens and businesses with access to the information and educational opportunities available on the Internet at a price that will be far below that charged by commercial vendors. This cheap access will encourage the use of the Internet, and will allow our citizens and businesses to compete much more effectively in the Information Age. The local information and communications facilities of the Sylvania Electronic Village will transform the way our citizens and businesses interact with one another. When the Sylvania Electronic Village comes on line in November, Sylvania will be a 21st century community.

While the impact that the Sylvania Electronic Village will ultimately have upon our community is yet to be determined, what is clear even today is that the Village and the services it provides will help Sylvania, its residents, and its businesses meet the challenges of the future.

December 10, 1995

Early SEV Volunteer in the Control Room.