Broadband Committee — Minutes

Town of Sturgeon Bay Broadband Internet Committee Meeting Door County Library May 30 , 2024 Minutes 1. Call to Order : The meeting was called to order by David Wood at 3:02 PM. 2. Establish quorum : Committee members present: Jeff Feuersein, Cathy Eckers Virtual: David Wood, Randy Graf. Absent: Pam Kraase. Also present: Jessica Hatch (virtual) 3. Adopt agenda: A motion to adopt agenda made by Feuerstein and seconded by Eckers. Motion carried. 4. Approve minutes: A motion to approve minutes as corrected for the May 2, 2024, meeting made by Feuerstein; seconded by Feuerstein. Motion carried. 5. Correspondence: a. Wood had reached out to the Town of Egg Harbor and Town of Sevastopol to find out where things stand with their municipalities’ progress and AT&T. Except for the fact that they have signed contracts, they are in the same waiting stance as TOST. They are waiting for AT&T to receive the clarification from the Public Service Commission before AT&T proceeds. b. Wood and Feuersteinf had a monthly check-in meeting with Robyn at AT&T on May 17th. The means by which our town will disseminate information to the residents was discussed and the timeline for this. They also discussed trying to get residents on the town email list so that the information can be sent out via that platform. AT&T is being cautious with the progress because they do not want to jeopardize anything having to do with the grant awards. AT&T would like to sponsor some meetings with the taxpayers. 6. Public comment: None 7. Old business: a. Review address verification spreadsheet and policy. No action. The list is finalized, but changes will continue to be made as needed. At present, the number of drops on the list is at 652. Eckers questions if the town should release a public version of the address drop list. The consensus is that this is not something that will not be done, at least at this time. Graf is wondering if everything on the town website is working correctly as he had trouble with trying to access something on it. He will let us know if he believes something is not working correctly. b. Public education/outreach plan during construction. No action beyond what was discussed in item 5. A discussion was held as far as our committee. Jessica Hatch said that Baileys Harbor has a community association that has taken charge of their fiber project public education and outreach. She will send out the information on their town meeting that is happening shortly. 8. New business a. Update on grant and contract progress with AT&T. Wood stated that Robyn expects that the only changes needed in the contract to accommodate the PSC grant are the town’s contribution, which will go down because of the grant award, the start date to be set once the contract is signed, and any contingencies that are due to the grant language. (See additional narrative under correspondence.) One of the other things Wood thinks should happen is that the latest contract version should be shared with the members of the town board, letting them know that the numbers will change due to the grant award. b. Review project financing options. Feuerstein stated that he is still exploring the best financing options for the town based on the timeline of the draws needed according to the contract. If interest rates do go down, the Bureau of Public Lands will allow us to refinance. c. Feuerstein stated that the Wisconsin Towns Association polled towns on what they would like to see them assist with. Since we are currently ineligible for BEAD funding because we did receive the PSC grant, they asked them to see if this could be changed in order for us to receive more grant funding. Hatch stated that we will be deemed ineligible for that BEAD funding because no one is allowed to “double dip”. 9. Matters to be placed on a future meeting agenda: Discussing and defining what role this committee will have in the future. Since we do not have a community association, we want to look at what happens once the contract is signed. 10. Next meeting date: Thursday, June 13th, 2024 , from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in Meeting Room 1 of the Door County Library. Subsequent meetings are currently scheduled for June 27th and July 11th at the same time and location. 11. Motion to adjourn made by Graf, seconded by Feuerstein. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 3:48 pm. Respectfully submitted by Cathy Eckers, Recording Secretary