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COUNTY SEEKS FEDERAL FUNDING FOR BROADBAND STUDY
Mike McCagg
ccSCOOP News
Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of articles about Internet access in Columbia County.
08-21-09 – 11:00 a.m. - County officials last month submitted a grant request for $200,000 in federal stimulus funds to study the expansion of broadband Internet access to Columbia County.
Kenneth Flood, Commissioner for Planning and Economic Development, said the request was submitted on July 17, seeking funding to conduct a full study of the county's needs. Flood told ccSCOOP on Tuesday, "We plan to look at how it can be done, what is needed, the best solution, and where we can do it." |
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Board of Supervisors Chairman Art Baer (R-Hillsdale) said securing broadband access to the county is a critical issue. “It’s a critical priority to the county. It’s one of the issues right up there with cell phone coverage that we as a county must address,” said Baer. “It’s a priority, and we are pushing for it with all of the means we can.”
The county and the Columbia Economic Development Corporation would provide additional funds to complete the study, Flood added. He said the planning process in preparation for submitting the request for stimulus funds was intensive. He and other county officials met with the NYS Office of Technology to formalize the proposal and receive input. The agency was charged by Governor David Paterson with coordinating requests for stimulus funds for technology initiatives throughout the state.
The source of funding is the $4.7 billion allocated for the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to be distributed in grants and some low-interest loans with the goal of providing broadband (high-speed Internet access) to areas with no access and improved broadband service to underserved areas.
If the funds are awarded, Flood said, the county's goal would be to complete the study in time to submit a request for more stimulus funding next year to begin to address the findings of the study.
If the county’s grant application is not successful, it may not mean an end to county’s efforts to secure broadband access for all its residents. Baer said of the study, “One way another, we will do it.”
“If it’s not going to happen with stimulus funds,” Baer said, “we need to find a way to do it. I’ll bring it back to the board, and we will find a way to do it.”
Broadband access has been a huge issue for the county for several years, in part as a result of the increasing numbers of second-home owners who want to be able to work from their homes in the more rural parts of the county. It is also an economic development issue. Businesses that could operate well in the county’s rural settings—for example, law offices, financial investment firms, graphic design studios—require high-speed access to the Internet, which is not available in many of the more rural parts of the county.
Even residents of the more populated areas of the county often have a hard time getting basic DSL access to the Internet. One resident living on Route 9 in the hamlet of Stottville—just a mile north of Greenport’s retail center—had to wait for more than a year for DSL service to be brought to his area.
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