In a formal proclamation Monday, Bunten announced his city will be known as "Google" -- Google, Kansas.
"It's just fun. We're having a good time of it," he said of the unofficial name change, which will last through the end of March. "There's a lot of good things that are going on in our city."
The unusual move comes as several U.S. cities elbow for a spot in Google's new "Fiber for Communities" program. The Web giant is going to install new Internet connections in unannounced locations, giving those communities Internet speeds 100 times faster than those elsewhere, with data transfer rates faster than 1 gigabit per second.
Cities have until March 26 to tell Google they're interested in the venture. Google says it will pick one or more cities for the pilot project. "We'll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people," Google says in an online post.
The company has said U.S. Internet speeds are falling behind the global standard, and it wants to fix things itself by installing new broadband cable.
Bunten hopes the proclamation, which he read at a special City Council meeting on Monday, will catch Google's attention and make the Internet company decide to use Topeka as its guinea pig. The document renames Topeka as "Google, Kansas -- the capital city of fiber optics."
Google declined to comment on whether it's taking the whole "Google, Kansas" thing seriously.
The mayor believes that faster Internet connections would inspire young people to stay in the city and would encourage business development.
But Bunten laughed at the idea that he might make the name switch permanent if Google decides to invest in his 123,400-person city's Internet network.
"Oh, heavens no, Topeka?" he said during a phone interview. "We are very proud of our city and Topeka is an Indian word which means 'a good place to grow potatoes.' We're not going to change that."
Do people grow potatoes in Topeka these days?
