DC adopts broadband taskforce ordinance
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Dunn County Board has adopted an ordinance to create a broadband taskforce to work on bringing high speed Internet access to all areas of the county.
The county board suspended the rules for a second reading and approved the ordinance at the September 20 meeting on a first reading.
One of the goals of the taskforce will be to assist Internet service providers in applying for federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program funding, which will provide a little over $42 billion to expand high-speed Internet to all areas of the United States, and is expected to bring about $1 billion to Wisconsin.
To assist ISPs, the taskforce will, for example, evaluate broadband projects in Dunn County and provide letters of support for grant applications and, within the funding allocated, will approve matching funds for broadband grant applications.
The broadband taskforce will have nine members who are appointed by the county board chair.
One of the members will be a county board supervisor who serves on the Community Resources and Tourism committee and will serve for two years, will serve as chair of the broadband taskforce, and will be responsible for reporting taskforce actions and activities to the Community Resources and Tourism Committee, according to the ordinance.
Also serving two-year terms will be one representative from a K-12 school district, one representatives from health care and one representative from town government.
Serving one-year terms will be five at-large seats that can be filled by county board supervisors or representatives of the other groups.
The ordinance also states that taskforce members will be paid a per diem and will be paid for mileage at the rate established for county board supervisors attending meetings.
Taskforce members will attend regional broadband meetings, communicate with municipalities and service providers, will pursue funding opportunities and will work with third parties to develop programs to expand broadband throughout the county, according to the ordinance.
Workshop
Dan Dunbar, Dunn County’s chief information officer, reported at the September 12 Community, Resources and Tourism committee meeting on a two-day workshop he had attended at Northwood Technical College in Rice Lake that was offered by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and UW-Extension pertaining to BEAD funding.
The workshop was one of four workshops that will be held statewide, he said.
UW-Extension has put together a toolkit to help government agencies plan for BEAD funding, Dunbar said.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will be overseeing the BEAD grants, he said.
Each state has an NTIA representative, and the Wisconsin representative lives in Hudson, Dunbar said.
Wisconsin’s NTIA representative is Carah Koch, who also serves on the St. Croix County Board, representing four wards in the City of Hudson.
The state has completed the five-year plan that was part of the BEAD grant, Dunbar said.
Each county was expected to put together an initial taskforce to work on a five-year plan that was submitted to the state that the state then used for the state’s five-year plan.
Dunn County’s five-year plan taskforce met for about two months late last spring to work on the county’s plan, which was submitted to the state in mid to late late June.
LeAnn Ralph, staff writere for the Colfax Messenger/Tribune Press Reporter, and is also chair of the Town of Otter Creek, was one of the members of the initial taskforce as was Terry Nichols, a resident of the town of Colfax, and Jim Zons, county board supervisor from Colfax and chair of the Dunn County Community Resources and Tourism Committee, along with several others who attended as their time allowed.
Koch attended one of Dunn County’s meetings.
The state of Wisconsin is now working on the initial proposal for BEAD funding that will be submitted at the end of this year, Dunbar said.
The goal is for Wisconsin to receive approval of the initial proposal and to start receiving grant applications in June of 2024. The grant application process will last for a year, he said.
The “sub-grantees” (ISPs) will start work on installing additional broadband access over the next five years beginning in 2025, he said.
Dunn County is fortunate to have five cooperatives that have already been working to bring broadband Internet service to the county, including 24-7 Telcom, Mosaic Technologies, Nextgen Broadband, Ntec (Nelson Communications) and Bloomer Telephone, Dunbar said.
