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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBbTF Minutes 07-28-2021 Broadband Task Force —July 28, 2021 Attendees: Sally Kadle Jim Northrup Earl McKee Sally Greene Terri Buckner Doug Noell Catharine Rice Todd Broucksou Kathy Zopfi Patricia Hull Travis Myren Victoria Deaton Action Items: • Talk to BOCC about Durham Tech and cost of training- Comm Greene/McKee • Ask OC Planning staff to provide a memo of potential permitting delays and ways to expedite the permitting process—Jnorthrup • Invite Craig/Michael to present to Task Force—Jnorthrup • Check with Dean of Durham Tech about training—Victoria Deaton • Outline sorts of training needed for community colleges—Travis/Victoria • Sorting/weighting matrix fleshed out—Jnorthrup (goal 2 weeks) • Consult with Legal about ownership of fiber—Jnorthrup • Sanitize RFP; have a clean version for review by 8/6 and for discussion on 8/11 -JNorthrup • Need to know from Legal if we can ask vendors questions prior to release of RFP-JNorthrup Agenda: 5:30 PM Welcomes and introductions-Greene/McKee 5:33 PM Approve Minutes (July 21 and 22, 2021) -Greene/McKee/Group 5:35 PM Provider Meeting Debrief-Green/McKee 5:50 PM Next Steps (RFP) Greene/McKee/Group 6:15 PM Old Business/New Business/Housekeeping-Greene/McKee 6:30 or 7 PM Adjourn Notes: Meeting started at 5:34pm Approve Minutes (July 21 and 22, 2021)Greene/McKee/Group Todd so moves; seconded —minutes for 7/21 and 7/22 are approved Provider Meeting Debrief—Greene/McKee • Comm Greene—pleased with number of vendors and interested what they had to say and timelines they gave; matrix doc was very popular YAY Kathy!; doesn't know next steps and not sure how to move forward with RFP • Jim—JN and Catharine reviewed the provider debrief doc; simplifying the RFP; looking at vendor meeting notes and using responses to refine RFP and scoring matrix to make sure we have good questions and a weighted scoring matrix • Catharine—did such a great job; great turnout; $5mil brought a good response to the table; educational; one of the benefits is that shows we can simplify RFP;figuring out what kind of weighting system and what priorities are; narrow down top 3; many providers suggested pumping the brakes on the RFP; State participation may or may not affect how county spends the money; 1) spend county's money and go ahead without knowing state plan or 2)wait for State's legislation before moving forward; possibly put out a simplified RFP now?; asks for how much participation the vendor wants from the county;Jim prefers to have RFP ready by the last week in August or first week in Sept (4-6 weeks start to finish); should be able to review all vendor info on spreadsheet then review RFP and remove all unnecessary language then have group review in mid-August; #1 priority for Jim is to get RFP finalized • Comm McKee—does what Jim proposes align what vendors were asking for? Vendors were suggesting 7 weeks from meeting last week; McKee encourages not to wait for state legislature because all other counties are pushing for money too so go ahead and get lined up to getstarted;Todd—many vendors asked for 90 days but waiting for the state to get it through their process would put us behind the curve • Victoria—vendors said if all counties are moving forward at the same time, might be supply chain issues ( • Terri—one of the things the vendors said was that they need support from OC; Durham and Alamance Tech for training/employment of students;work with Planning staff to work out permitting process in advance—start this work early, pre-planning; also how to handle County ownership of fiber? Ownership defined by#of strands or#of conduits? • Comm McKee- Makes sense to do as much concurrently as possible but would RFP amendment be problematic?Would permitting expediting be a BOCC thing? • Terri—amendment can be done; can say working with Community Colleges to build up the area workforce without defining a "workforce ready date" • Comm Greene—who paid for community college training? (Ask Comm Greene what training program we were talking about for Durham tech?) • Comm McKee—talk to Durham Tech about cost of training and how long it might take to get started; ACTION: Comm Greene/McKee—need to talk to BOCC about this • Jim—no conduit/fiber would be county owned???Confirm w/Jim that this is what he said;just the parts attached to buildings; need permits for towns that have jurisdiction of the right-of- ways; most of permitting slowdown will need to leverage relationships with DOT and towns/town Boards; where permitting comes into play is if they need to use any county facilities (like telecommunication huts for fiber comms); DOT and towns own every road but private roads; Piedmont Electric has easements on private property;they'll want fees for pole attachments; ISP's may ask County to help get favorable rate for pole attachments on Piedmont Electric poles; engineering will identify stream crossings, etc; work with jurisdictions and DOT to streamline permitting process • Catharine—NCDOT has rep as being slow; other permitting issues to consider—requirement that company can only block traffic on certain roads for a specific amount of time • Terri—get a jump by submitting engineering docs early; be proactive • Jim—incumbent on providers to tell us what their permitting process is, have exact knowledge of what it costs and how long it takes; ask vendors what specific training they're going to want to make available; • McKee—ACTION -ask our Planning staff to provide a memo of potential permitting delays and ways to expedite the permitting process (for H'boro, Chapel Hill, Mebane, etc); believes that Planning will have good handle on what other companies have done before-what they needed to do and how long did it take- ? • Comm Greene—have laid fiber recently in H'boro; how did that go? Jim—vendor says H'boro slowing down the permitting process; wasn't county slowing process, it was DOT; Netplanner lays fiber and connects buildings • Jim—towns (Chapel Hill and Carrboro)got google fiber; can go to Planning Dept as well as go to the towns;Todd—going to Town and County planning folks and ask about road construction that's coming in the future (master plan)—providing that info to vendor will help speed up the engineering process • Todd—asks Terri to elaborate on problems with Google; problems were on town's side;towns were overwhelmed with permitting requests; need a compromise between way permit requests come in and dept being able to do their regular jobs; define SLAB • Terri—invite Planning Depts and NCDOT to meeting to discern what will be needed for this project and anticipated bottlenecks; ACTION—Jim ask Craig B and/or staff(Michael Harvey?)to present about OC Permitting; is it possible to reduce SLA from 90 days to 60 days for example? • Catharine-question on training—are we saying there would be another line in the RFP regarding training? ACTION—see what OC did with Warnock???And what Durham Tech might be able to do?—on the job training program at Durham Tech • Victoria—ACTION—will check with Dean about training (currently has line training); asks Travis to provide what sort of training—Victoria and Travis to talk 7/29 • Terri—talk to OC and Alamance high schools for training • Comm Greene—how do we go forward without knowing where extra money is going to come from? Catharine—12 companies showed up with just knowing$5 million; suggests asking vendor for a match (skin in the game) • Todd—OC won't own fiber for$5 million; possibly some strands; will lose some of the smaller vendors if require a matching contribution • Catharine—need to figure out what model we're looking for re: County ownership; likely not OC owning fiber • Travis—RFP needs "claw back" clause for clawing back grant money; right of first refusal if they sell/close; Comm McKee—claw back gives us some leverage; doesn't see owning fiber • Pat Hull—to what extent can we put burden on vendors to come back with a plan (x numbers of households by x date)—they come up with schedule=> permitting will take x length of time; # of households will be; will cost x$$? If it's all just about the$$, may rule out smaller vendors; Jim describes it as a reverse auction strategy—don't put all weight on cost • Jim—ACTION hopes to have scoring/weighting matrix fleshed out in 2 weeks; probably want monetary requirement (match, etc) and ownership to be negotiable via scoring and weighting; RFP will be soliciting feedback, have to have criteria for interviews (must have 3 vendors versus 2, for example); can ask if vendor has allowed ownership before? • Catharine—vendors asked for 90 days for engineering study • Terri—County ownership in order to stimulate competition; "over build" • Catharine—many examples of building/owning, building/access, etc; right of first refusal used in Cleveland and worked well; ask what ownership looks like to the vendors; ACTION—Jim to ask County Attorney about ownership???? (ask Jim) • Comm McKee—does anyone have a definitive idea of what ownership model would be? Todd— overall ownership is County owns fiber/conduit that goes from one point of county to other then lease strands of fiber to vendors; let Rverstreet build fiber then give 25 strands of fiber to OC then we can lease out our strands to other vendors; claw back(failure to perform) is good idea then we can take the fiber back and own it; problem with ownership is that someone has to maintain the fiber(not always easy or cheap) and owner of fiber has to pay for problems; thinks we need about$12 million to have a fiber ownership conversation but for$5 million the claw back would work; would be a maintenance charge for leased fiber;Terri—town of Carrboro (worked with NCDOT to put in their own fiber); when Carrboro finally came to table with UNC, MCNC—if county owned fiber, can we connect to MCNC fiber?Todd—yes. MCNC could backhaul to other cheaper providers;would be a cost savings; make it cheaper than other carriers if don't have to perform fiber builds; in addition to $5 million, can reduce county costs, etc to sweeten the pot; MCNC is an option for internet providers to connect to; MCNC is for economic development • Catharine—Treasury has decided that as long as you use funds to unnerved,that system can be used to provide service to the served—could not only serve unnerved but could over build to serve populations that aren't unnerved; State is trying to limit funding to just un-underserved so not supporting overbuild (look up meaning overbuild) • Catharine—Jim aiming for draft to review in 2 weeks (before 8/11)then address concerns/changes(by 8/25) and then if ready, release by NLT 9/8 (drop dead date) • Terri—would be helpful to have completely clean copy of RFP so requests clean copy without tracked changes and no history; ACTION —Jim to sanitize version that he gives to task force— clean copy without changes (by 8/11); have a version for review by 8/6 for discussion on 8/11 • Catharine—vendors like simple; have all be consistent and simple with all questions; Catharine, Kathy and Jim will be working on it • Terri—start with a full list of questions (can do this over email)then can start on RFP • Comm Greene—ACTION: need to know if we can ask vendors questions prior to release of RFP? ACTION -Jim to ask John Roberts • Terri—have 2 people from community who've attended several meetings—do they have a way to communicate w/Task Force their questions/concerns/etcl; yes, currently sending email to Jim and/or to BOCC Next Steps—(all info above) Motion to adjourn—Terri moves; no objections Adjourn—7:11