Village and Township Boards disagree about broadband
Tensions were high at the joint Manchester Village board and Manchester Township board meeting last Wednesday.
On Wednesday June 13th, the boards of the Village of Manchester and the Township of Manchester held a joint meeting from 7 to 9 pm in the media center of the Manchester High School. The Village Board requested the joint meeting so that they and the township board could discuss the township’s plans to study a township wide broadband plan.
The Village Council expressed frustration about both the process and the substance of the broadband plan being pursued by the township board.
Village Council’s concern about process is that the township board had, in the village board’s view, sidestepped the joint planning process and had thus cut the village out of the early planning for this initiative.
The village board also expressed a negative view toward the substance of the township wide broadband plan. Under current state law, if the township board were to establish a township wide broadband plan that was financed with a millage, brought it to a public vote, and it passed, then every resident of the township (including village residents) would have to pay into the millage at the same rate. But village residents already have access to broadband internet from both Comcast and AT&T, while township residents basically have no access to reliable high speed broadband. So, IF a broadband plan were put in place that was financed by a millage, then village residents would be paying for internet infrastructure that they may not want or need.
The township board did not seem to address the process concerns raised by the village. And on substance concerns, the board refused to engage on any possible details. According to Township Trustee Ron Milkey, “The township board does not have any plan right now to extend broadband into the township or into the village. And as such, we don’t have any plan about how to finance this plan that doesn’t even exist. It’s been tossed out there that we want a millage, and that we want the village to pay. And that is absolutely not true. At this time.”
From the perspective of the township board, they had been asked to survey the residents of the township about whether to seek a study. Of the township residents that replied, both villagers and non-villagers overwhelmingly affirmed that they wanted a study to be conducted. From there, the township board sought bids from ten different engineering firms and finally settled on a bid from CCG, the firm that did the feasibility study for Sharon Township. The township is now waiting for the report from CCG, which Township Trustee Lisa Moutinho expects back by “early fall.” Until they get the report back, the township board asserts that there is no broadband plan to discuss.
Trustee Milkey said, “We don’t have any idea what our costs would be, or what our timeline would be, or even if it is a feasible project.”
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