Rural County Council Acts to Prevent Duplicated Broadband Efforts

An ultrafast broadband tower is seen on a rural farm. (Sandra Mu/Getty Images)

LINCOLN — A rural Nebraska county board voted to do something a state commission refused to do, which is avoid duplicating taxpayer funds to deploy broadband Internet.

The Gage County Board’s decision came after two state senators urged board members to avoid wasting taxpayer funds by allowing two government grants to be used to serve the same area, just outside of Beatrice, with high speed internet service.

The senators, Bruce Bostelman of Brainard and Myron Dorn of Adams (who represents Gage County), told the county board that it didn’t make sense to subsidize a broadband project that was already subsidized by taxpayer funds. They said this funding should focus on areas that lack broadband service or that have inadequate Internet, rather than “overbuilding” where a project is already underway.

“When we start using funds to overbuild, we are taking funds from somewhere else,” said Bostelman, who chairs the Legislature committee that oversees telecommunications issues and has promoted more aggressive measures to deploy broadband.

Company considering its options

“This is a waste of taxpayer money,” said Gage County Commissioner Emily Haxby, who tried unsuccessfully to convince the Nebraska Public Service Commission to address overbuilding.

The Gage County Council’s May 1 decision, in a 5-2 vote, means that a $535,000 state Broadband Bridge Act grant to Pinpoint Communications will likely be rescinded and funds reallocated to other areas of the state.

A representative for Pinpoint Communications said Saturday that the Cambridge-based company is considering its options of appealing or overturning the ruling.

Technically, the Gage County Council voted to deny the use of their county’s right-of-way to deploy fiber Internet lines, but the issue and debate has extended far beyond this issue of how best to utilize the millions of dollars of federal and state funds dedicated to expanding high-speed Internet in areas that do not already have it.

The so-called “overbuilding” came after Gage County had already launched an innovative program, using $4 million from its federal American Rescue Plan Act allocation, to pay internet company NextLink Internet to expand broadband to 95 areas unserved and underserved rural communities in the southeast. Nebraska County.

But a second company, Pinpoint, which was building a high-speed Internet network in Beatrice, obtained a $535,000 state grant through the Nebraska Public Service Commission to expand service in the same area.

The issue of overlapping grants was first reported by the Examiner.

At the May 1 meeting, Pinpoint sought approval of a “public service license” to use the county’s right-of-way to begin construction of its fiber optic lines. Meanwhile, county board members were told that NextLink, the company contracted by the county, had already established its lines for the 23 sites in dispute.

Emily Haxby, a farmer and Gage County commissioner, is no stranger to the contested information used by the state for broadband grants. Last year, she used a laptop and help from the state’s public power districts to discover hundreds of “unserved” broadband locations in the state. The data resulted in more federal dollars for Nebraska to expand broadband. (Courtesy of Emily Haxby)

Haxby, a county board member who led the county’s broadband project, challenged the overlap of employee subsidies with the Public Service Commission, to no avail.

In March, the PSC rejected an appeal by NextLink to reconsider its grant to Pinpoint, saying the request for reconsideration was submitted a day late.

PSC Chairman Dan Watermeier stated in a March press release that NextLink did not follow appeals procedures, a process that is “not only set out in statute, but also well defined by the Commission,” and thus Pinpoint’s $535,000 grant would be approved.

But to meet the grant requirements, Pinpoint needed a utility permit from Gage County to use the right-of-way, and on May 1, that permit was denied.

It was the first time in five years, commissioners were told, that a normally approved public service license was denied.

At the meeting, Tom Shoemaker, president of Pinpoint, and his attorney Andy Pollock urged the county board to issue the “simple” permit and not worry about whether or not the PSC acted appropriately to award the overlapping grant.

Pollock said the only question that needed to be answered to issue the license was whether it would be used for “public use,” and that was clearly the case.

“The issue here is not to correct or question the Public Service Commission,” the lawyer said. That, he added, would be a question for the Nebraska Supreme Court, not the Gage County Council.

County Council urged to deny license

Haxby and Loel Brooks, a Lincoln attorney who has consulted with the county board on broadband issues, said commissioners have the power to reject a utility license. They added that a condition of the Broadband Bridge Act is that subsidies will not be awarded in areas that are already receiving government assistance.

Brooks said the PSC has a lot of problems ahead of it, but he couldn’t say exactly why the state commission hasn’t acted to eliminate overbuilding.

Haxby said he had informed PSC officials about the overlapping donations well before the appeal deadline, but a formal appeal, by NextLink, was delayed by a day.

Still, she said, it would be a waste of taxpayer funds to finance two broadband projects in the same area, and the correct course of action would be to reject the utility license so that the $535,000 grant could be redistributed elsewhere. place in Nebraska where it was needed. .

Bostelman said there was a limited amount of money to expand broadband in the state and that the PSC “failed” to prevent excess.

“We have to make sure every dollar is used in the best possible way,” he said.

Pollock said Saturday that Pinpoint was considering its options for overturning or appealing the Gage County Council’s action.

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