Broadband Planning Regional Meeting

Yesterday, Bob Ingalls and I attended the second planning meeting for an ambitious project, currently called Central Sierra Connect. It is being spearheaded by the Amador-Tuolumne Community Action Agency (A-TCAA), with funding from the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF). Although the project is in its early stages, its objective is to facilitate broadband availability to unserved and under-served areas of five counties: Mariposa, Tuolumne, Calaveras, Amador and Alpine. Significantly, all five county governments have indicated that they will participate and several business communities were also represented. Of the 25-30 people who attended yesterday’s all day session, several expressed the opinion that there is currently a window of opportunity for this issue to be addressed by the counties of the foothills and if we do not start the process now, we may fall so far behind the urban areas of the state that we may never catch up.