Tim Walker
AMR Reporter
At a short February 13 meeting of the Pocahontas County Broadband Council, it was brought to the attention of the members that the council’s website, pocahontascountybroadband.com, is not working, nor has it been for a while. Sarah Riley mentioned what she sees on the site is what appears to be a display of Chinese letters. However, when they tried to go onto the site right after the meeting, they got this error message: “There has been a critical error on this website.” It was pointed out that the importance of getting this fixed is that once construction begins on the various broadband projects in the county, this website will be a primary way for the public to follow the progress of the construction.
Cory Nipper, of Thompson and Litton (T&L), reported that as far as the ARC Power Grant Project goes, they are still waiting for the final approval from the State Broadband Council before they can advertise for bids for a contractor to do the construction. He said everything has been submitted for a while to the state. Nipper said that once that approval comes through, the next steps involve holding a pre-bid meeting; placing a 30-day advertisement for bids from construction contractors; then doing a bid tabulation which usually means selecting the lowest bidder, after that there will be a pre-construction meeting with the selected contractor, followed by the start of the construction.
Mike Holstine mentioned that he was told at the State Broadband Council Meeting the previous day, that the state has several questions about the project and would be contacting the council about those shortly.
Melissa O’Brien told the members that the two projects of Spruce Knob/Seneca Rocks (SKSRs) in the northern part of Pocahontas County are moving forward, with construction to begin in the spring on their West Virginia Line Extension and Development or LEAD Project, while the other one is still in a design and planning phase.
Regarding the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (or BEAD) broadband projects, O’Brien said they are still working with the state regarding the BEAD applications in Pocahontas County. Holstine added that the deadline date for these is mid-April so he expects to see the BEAD projects moving forward after that. Anne Stroud said the NTIA is reducing the public comment period on these BEAD projects from 30 days down to 14 days, which might speed things up, and both Stroud and O’Brien said they expect the official BEAD project awards to be announced as early as mid-March.
