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TENSIONS ESCALATING OVER NORTH WOODS GOVERNMENT RUN BROADBAND
By Andy Post | February 11, 2011
(Update on Previous Post)
The Lake County Board of Commissioners has officially voted to terminate contract negotiations with National Public Broadband over a proposed $70 million public broadband project for desolate pockets of far northeastern Minnesota. After months of inconsistencies from NPB’s CEO Tim Nulty, the Board finally agreed it needed to search for a new contractor to build the network, which would be paid for mostly from federal Stimulus dollars given in a grant to the County last year.
The findings are also part of a larger national focus to recoup wasteful spending grants handed out from Obama’s Stimulus plan. The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota has authored a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee asking them to consider the government’s involvement in directly competing with private providers.
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Lake County Commissioners are weighing public vs. private involvement this week as they consider a final deal with National Public Broadband, a firm that has been part of a contract bid to construct a fiber optic broadband network for rural internet users in far northeastern Minnesota.
MDE has been following the work of the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota for several weeks as they cover the proposed taxpayer-funded $70 million fiber optic broadband network for rural Lake County residents. The project is being considered by the Lake County Board of Commissioners but is beginning to fall apart as new concerns arise about the troubled history of NPB’s CEO, Tim Nulty, who headed up a similar project in Vermont that has tanked financially. Most of the funds for this project would come from the federal stimulus package through the Dept. of Agriculture.
The contract negotiations took a turn for the worst this week when members of the board began questioning NPB leaders about some concerns they had. The Duluth News Tribune has been following this issue and reported:
Gary Fields, the chief financial officer for NPB, said he thought the negotiations were done.
“We had an agreement ready to go,” he said.
Fields and other representatives for NPB abruptly left Monday’s county meeting as Conrow began to present some of his concerns in what he called the seventh draft of the contract.
One of the NPB members said they were not going “listen to this (expletive).”
Lake County Fiber Optic Project Map; From NPB website release on Lake County Project
The Burlington, VT city-owned telecom network was constructed with a promise by Nulty that the project ‘would never be a burden to taxpayers’. Since its inception, the project has had multiple delays and logistical issues, costing taxpayers an extra $17 million in bailouts to keep it on track. The Burlington newspaper has a section of its website devoted to this failed project, and even cited the Minnesota pending contract in a story. The local county even appointed a special prosecutor to the fraudulent Burlington Telecom project.
Freedom Foundation’s Tom Steward makes a good case for why public broadband projects can be so risky, citing an absolute failure in a similar project in Moorhead a few years ago.
Be sure to contact Lake County Commissioners using contact information here. They have been meeting this week and just today held a meeting to negotiate a potential contract. Follow MDE and the Freedom Foundation for more news as this story develops.
Tags: DFL, Uncategorized
Topics: DFL, Uncategorized | 10 Comments »
10 Responses to “TENSIONS ESCALATING OVER NORTH WOODS GOVERNMENT RUN BROADBAND”
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January 24th, 2011 at 4:55 PM
If the private sector always does better, then why did the public sector invent and develop the Internet/ARPAnet? In fact, the U.S. government gave away rights for their technologies to companies like Network Solutions. Think about how great this is: your anti-government website that refuses to give ANY credit to its progenitors runs entirely on technologies like Apache/NCSA server, BIND DNS, e-mail, and the World Wide Web that were created by government funding in public universities. Now that’s freedom! Bask in it.
January 24th, 2011 at 5:56 PM
That’s a lie scoobrs. Everybody knows that AlGore invented the internet silly.
January 25th, 2011 at 1:54 PM
And don’t forget Gopher – considered to be a “pre-internet” developed at the U of M.
And can we please stop spreading the debunked “Al gore invented in the internet” meme. He never claimed that: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
January 25th, 2011 at 2:37 PM
You’re right AC, he did not “invent” the internet. He merely “created” the internet. How could I of missed such an important detail.
February 11th, 2011 at 6:05 PM
NPR is very improtant because we need journlisrts that are not owned by some coproration we need the ones that are for the publivc interest like the ones in npr. i think they do a fantastic job and I dont want those jerk faces like Bohner trying to cut their pay because some rich peopledont even want to pay there fair share of taxxes. I say more stimulilus money needs to be sent to Npr.
February 12th, 2011 at 9:33 AM
ROFLMAO! Sure Perry, we need reporters owned by Billionaire money manipulator George Soros.
February 12th, 2011 at 11:26 AM
Wade, I’m 99 percent sure that “perry” is being satirical.
February 12th, 2011 at 11:33 AM
I hope you’re right Sota, you’ll have to forgive me, with so many liberals like Eddie Kohler whining their way through life its difficut to understand if they are the run of the mill DUh ,Huffpo parasites or just another attempt at humor.
Seems to be too close to the liberals version of reality.
February 12th, 2011 at 1:46 PM
“TENSIONS ESCALATING OVER NORTH WOODS GOVERNMENT RUN BROADBAND”
There should be no Gov’t run broadband… it should be done privately.
Will someone show me in the State Constitution where it says taxpayers should be on the hook for providing broadband for anyone?
February 12th, 2011 at 1:50 PM
We already have satellite technology that is accessible anywhere… anyone there who wants web access has the freedom to subscribe without any cost to the taxpayers.
This is just more examples of out of control and irresponsible state spending. Supplying web access so people can play games on facebook and surf for web porn is not a priority nor the taxpayers responsibility to provide.