A public hearing will be held at the Cook County courthouse Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 10:30 a.m. regarding the county board’s intention to consider an ordinance creating a countywide fiber optic communications network.
In a November 12 memo on behalf of the Cook County broadband/ fiber optic committee, county Information Technology Director Danna MacKenzie wrote, “Thecommittee asks for the board’s consideration in approving this ordinance so that the commission can begin their work laying the foundation for this new enterprise.”
At the November 17 county board meeting, MacKenzie said the committee believes now is the right time to establish a technical commission to oversee agreements with Boreal Access and Arrowhead Electric Cooperative and seek a general manager to run the network.
The draft ordinance establishes a commission of five voting members appointed by the county board and including one member of the county board. The county information technology director and auditor- treasurer would be non-voting members of the commission.
Requests for proposals went out for design services and construction management of the network. Seven “well-qualified” responses came from across the country, MacKenzie said. She pointed out that the company to be hired would not carry out the actual construction of the network; the committee hopes local construction companies would bid on that part of the project.
The county will not hear until at least the end of the year on whether it will be awarded a federal stimulus grant that would pay for two-thirds of the project. The federal government received well over 2,000 applications for projects such as this.
According to MacKenzie, both public and private entities have applied. Eighty percent of the applications have been challenged by private companies, including Cook County’s application, which has been challenged by CenturyTel, MacKenzie said. She added that Lake County’s application has been challenged by Mediacom.
Cook County’s grant application states that the grant money would not be used to build fiber optic infrastructure in either Grand Portage, where CenturyTel currently offers high-speed Internet, or Grand Marais, where Qwest currently offers high-speed Internet. Fiber optics would still be installed in those two communities with other sources of funding, however, either from the upcoming 1% Cook County Sales and Use Tax or from bonds that would be paid from fiber optic network revenue.
Proponents of a countywide fiber optic Internet, phone, and TV network believe that private companies have not been offering enough of the products Cook County users need. In the last couple of years, many Gunflint Trail residents and business owners have been frustrated by repeated outages in CenturyTel phone service, and others throughout the county have been told by satellite Internet provider WildBlue that they would have to wait indefinite periods of time for repairs when their systems have gone down.
On November 3, the citizens of Cook County voted down the opportunity to authorize the county to own a telephone system as part of the proposed fiber optic network. The broadband/fiber optic committee continues to pursue the project anyway and is investigating its options from here.
A public hearing to consider an ordinance to implement the 1% tax will be held at 10:00 a.m. on December 1. On November 17, Commissioner Bob Fenwick said he believes that after that hearing, the county board should take the lead in pursuing capital improvement projects authorized by the tax.
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