Countywide broadband effort shelved

In September, county officials made plans to pursue state funding and federal stimulus money to cover the expense of providing high-speed internet access across the county. But now, the prospect of receiving grants and stimulus dollars isn't as rosy, and supervisors decided to put the brakes on a county-wide broadband initiative for the time being.
At a March 9 Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting, Orange County Director of Information Technology Vanetta Pledger explained that county officials faced a fast-approaching deadline in order to get the ball rolling on broadband. But even if the deadline is met, and the county is subsequently awarded funds from a Department of Housing and Community Development grant, it's unlikely that the federal funding would be available for the second - and more ambitious - part of the effort to bring more broadband access to Orange County.
To qualify for the community development block grant, county officials must schedule meetings with residents and employers, conduct a survey of local businesses' broadband needs, and issue a request for proposals for internet provider services - all prior to May 15. With those steps completed, and an application approved, the county could be awarded a total of $25,000, Pledger explained. Those funds would go towards completing a planning study. The planning study would determine if providing broadband access in Orange County qualifies for federal stimulus funds.
Pledger said the likelihood of stimulus dollars coming to Orange is slim. Only two projects in Virginia have been awarded federal money for broadband projects, and neither was anything close to Orange County's 90 percent geographical coverage initiative. An $18 million federal stimulus award already went to an 18-county collaborative interconnectivity project, Pledger said, and the other project dealt with the provision of high-speed internet near the Pentagon.
Orange County Administrator Julie Jordan said there's no precedent for a countywide broadband project in a locality of Orange County's size. And, she added, it will cost between $50,000 and $60,000 to put together the planning study which needs to be completed before applying for stimulus funds to help implement the broad-scale broadband plan.
And even if the county manages to secure what's left of grants and stimulus money, providing broadband to 90 percent of the county's geographic area will require erecting towers and coordinating with service providers. Service providers aren't likely to sign on without a guarantee that there will be demand.
Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Lee Frame said it would take an extraordinary effort and expense to bring all the pieces into place.
"We need the equivalent of a Rural Electrification Administration if we're going to do something like that," he said.
District 2 Supervisor Zack Burkett said taking on a project of that scale wasn't prudent amid an economic emergency.
"In a time [in which] we are scraping by for any dollar we can get our hands on, it doesn't seem practical to me to go on a wild goose chase," Burkett said.
But District 1 Supervisor Shannon Abbs wasn't ready to shelve broadband without exploring the options, she said, although the expense of doing so was daunting.
"How do you know you don't have the need if you haven't asked," Abbs asked.
"I don't think we can muster the necessary effort to get this done and frankly, manpower's got other things to do," Frame said.
District 3 Supervisor Teel Goodwin and District 4 Supervisor Grover Wilson agreed. Supervisors voted 4 to 1, with Abbs dissenting, to table the broadband issue.