The Marshall County Commissioners were presented with an ordinance pertaining to an initiative to get the county certified as a broadband-ready community.
Culver Town Manager Jonathan Leist, who is a member of the Marshall County Broadband Planning Committee, told the commissioners on Monday that the committee has been working on a long-term plan over the past year on how to attract more broadband to Marshall County. The county was awarded a planning grant in the amount of $50,000 to come up with an outlook of broadband capabilities for the county.
The process is at a point where the commissioners were given an ordinance for consideration on Monday.
“You’ll be doing some things like appointing a single point-of-contact. We’ve talked about Marshall County Economic Development Corporation and doing that through Jerry’s [Chavez] office. That’s what we’ve seen in the other counties and communities that have already adopted this. The others are just procedural things like permits for broadband expansion plans will be reviewed in a timely fashion and they can be submitted electronically – things like that,” explained Leist.
He noted that the ordinance draft is patterned after what is recommended by the state for this process.
The ordinance was approved on the first reading with a unanimous vote.
Leist added that the committee has learned a lot about broadband services in the past year.
“So far, much of what we’ve focused on is really just learning all the basics of contacting services. We have about seven or eight companies we’ve profiled. We found out where their towers are, what speeds they have, what prices they charge, and how many customers they have. We also did a large survey back in August where we had about 500 people responded and took a speed test and let us know what kind of service they have, who their provider is and what their speed is, all of that kind of stuff.”
The final draft plan should be presented to the commissioners for approval in either January or February.
