The City of Renton has taken the lens cap off in its campaign to get Google to test-market a new fiber-optic network in the city.

Kelley Balcomb-Bartok and Lisa Garvich, two communication specialists in the city’s Communication Division, teamed up to produce the minute-long video now showing on YouTube.

Using Garvich’s Flip camera, Balcomb-Bartok filmed some famous and not-so-famous faces extolling the words, “I (‘we’re’ if a crowd) am Google for Renton.”

Balcomb-Bartok did the film at lunch and on breaks. One extoller, Meeghan Black of Renton, asked if she could air the video this Wednesday night on “Evening Magazine,” which she hosts for KING 5 television.

There’s pastor Kirby Unti of St. Matthews Lutheran Church at Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park, a firefighter headed out on a call, a car dealer and Balcomb-Bartok’s wife and son.

As New Media types like to say, “it became this viral thing,” Balcomb-Bartok said.

The deadline is today (March 26) to apply with Google for consideration for the fiber-optic network, which has the potential to greatly increase Internet speeds. Iwen Wang, Renton’s finance director, is filling out the the city’s application.

Multiple cities, communities and counties with populations 50,000 to 500,000 could be chosen.

“We have great chances,” said Wang. “We are very competitive.

“Renton is really the most strategically located city in the Central Puget Sound area,” she said, with or near to major employment centers with a large employment base.

Renton’s housing is some of the most affordable and diverse in the region, she said.

“We have residents who can benefit from this,” she said. “We have businesses that can benefit from this.”

The City of Renton also owns about 100 miles of conduit, which means Google wouldn’t have to dig its own trenches, she said.

A decision on which cities will become the testing ground is expected by year’s end.