ESCOG keeps wheels turning
The Eastern Sierra Council of Governments or ESCOG, met in Mammoth Lakes last Friday, Sept. 10. The body, made up of officials from the Town of Mammoth Lakes, the City of Bishop, and Inyo and Mono counties meets every few months. At last Friday’s meeting the group reviewed its goals and objectives in order to refocus itself on just what type of body it wants to be going forward.
The ESCOG decided to continue to develop regional policies that deal with the following: Regional Housing Issues; Commercial Air Service to the Eastern Sierra; Fish Hatchery Operation, Stocking and Sustainability; 911 Emergency Communication System; Sierra Nevada Conservancy; Year-Round Tourism; and Emergency Services and Healthcare Collaboration.
ESCOG works on policies relating to these issues in order to assist the jurisdictions that are directly dealing with them.
The group then heard an update on the Digital 395, now officially known as the California Broadband Cooperative, from Michael Ort of Praxis, the company that will be putting the project, which officially became funded on Aug. 17, together.
Through the $80 million grant awarded from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the project is off and running, and according to the grant guidelines must be completed by Aug. 1, 2013, Ort said.
“The awarding of this grant to the project shows just how much the region [Eastern Sierra] means to the rest of the country,” Ort explained.
Mammoth Lakes Town Council member John Eastman, who sits on ESCOG, asked why the region means so much to the rest of the country when there are few people and developments throughout.
“The area makes up more than 15 percent of California,” Ort said. “It is an important part of the internet, or will be.” He added that surrounding areas and agencies are also interested in the possibilities the project will have for their internet connections as well.
Two other factors that helped the California Broadband Cooperative receive funding out of the 2,200 applications that were submitted was because it would help ensure an increasing level of public safety and it would develop local jobs, Ort added.
“We want to use local people,” Ort said. “We don’t want to outsource the work.” Even though Praxis is receiving calls from out of state companies interested in the project.
According to Mono County’s website the California Broadband Cooperative is “a middle-mile fiber-optic network between Barstow, Calif. and Carson City, Nev. The 583-mile infrastructure project will directly connect more than 237 hospitals, schools, libraries, military bases, local governments, last-mile service providers, and other anchor institutions to a high-speed broadband network-as well as create, it is estimated, hundreds of local jobs.”
Ort claimed Praxis would be signing the acceptance papers for the grant that same day (Sept. 10). The specific details of the route were still being finalized for environmental reports. Praxis will be working with local governmental agencies to develop nodes in certain locations along the route. The nodes will act like telephone agency central offices. They will house the infrastructure that keeps the network running and therefore need to be in accessible locations, even in the winter.
Ort believed that logistically the project should have no problem getting finished within the three year deadline. The only problem he could foresee would be if there were any issues gathering any permits but he claimed all of the agencies involved seemed to be very interested in keeping the project moving forward at this time.
See The Sheet’s previous coverage of the Digital 395 project.
