CITY HALL, ALGONA— During the April 27, 2026 City Council meeting, Mayor Troy Linnell finally addressed resident frustrations over Ezee Fiber’s chaotic fiber-optic installation, which has torn up streets and punctured gas, water, and sewer lines since the first quarter of the year.
Yet his revelations—detailed only in the council chamber—raise serious questions about transparency.
If the mayor has truly taken decisive action, why has none of it appeared in official city statements, website updates, or public reports?
According to Linnell’s claims, he “sat them down, shut them down for two weeks,” and negotiated new rules: Ezee Fiber would now work “one section at a time” and “slow their roll down.”
He said crews must call the city immediately upon hitting unmarked utilities.
In response, a concerned resident at the meeting expressed that she had direct contact with Washington 811 and that their Executive Director, Don Evans, would now investigate why Ezee Fiber repeatedly fails to locate Algona’s underground lines.
This raises the question, why hadn’t the City already made contact with Washington 811?
Why would a concerned resident be the first to take this step, instead of our elected officials of whom it is a required duty?
Linnell also fielded questions about black asphalt patches as “final work” and offered an optimistic completion date: end of May.
These details were news to the public.
The city’s official website still lists only a vague March 25th “Ezee Fiber internet” notice.
No press release, no updated news item, and no mention of the 811 investigation or section-by-section agreement appears on algonawa.gov or recent council postings.
This wasn’t the first time damage made headlines.
In March 2026, after two gas-line ruptures forced neighborhood evacuations and multiple water-line strikes, Linnell suspended Ezee Fiber’s work for four days.
KING5 News covered the story; the mayor himself told reporters the incidents were “avoidable.”
Ezee Fiber issued a boilerplate apology and promised better oversight.
Work resumed. Yet here we are in early May, with the same mayor describing the same problems and offering the same brand of personal intervention—only this time at a council meeting.
Residents have every right to be skeptical.
Construction began somewhere between January and March; months later, black patches dot the streets and Linnell is still “inviting” conversation.
An end-of-May finish date sounds convenient—especially after multiple shutdowns and no documented progress reports.
The mayor handed out his personal contact information to the individual concerned resident, but yet again the public receives no written timeline, no independent verification of the 811 probe, and no city-maintained damage log available to the public.
Algona deserves better than piecemeal disclosures delivered only when residents show up to complain.
If Mayor Linnell has genuinely forced Ezee Fiber to change course and secured an investigation into locate failures, those actions should have been posted on the city website and social media, summarized in a newsletter, and shared with the same urgency he shows on camera.
Until official records back up the claims, his April 27th performance looks less like leadership and more like damage control—delivered one council meeting at a time.