Bob DeKorne has been connected to the rest of the world for about six months.
The Cleveland Township resident was among the Leelanau households for whom broadband communication was provided as part of the county’s broadband initiative.
“I believe they ran (cable) down School Lake Road and Wheeler to Trumbull as well,” DeKorne said. “I’ve gotta say, it works well.
“I’ve got to learn how to run my TV all over again.”
A little over two years ago, Leelanau County contracted with the Alabamabased Point Broadband to provide high speed internet to “unserved” or “underserved” homes in the county by the end of 2023.
Earlier, an initial inventory was conducted on behalf of the Leelanau Internet Futures Task Force (LIFT) by DCS Technology Design, a telecommunications engineering firm based in Michigan focused specifically on rural broadband issues from an infrastructure viewpoint. The county-wide asset survey studied all broadband services, cable and wireless, parcel by parcel.
Survey findings showed Leelanau County had about 22,700 occupied parcels with 5,045, or about 22% of the county, without access to cable or fiber and little to no access to other high speed broadband services. At the direction of the BOC, in November 2023 DCS Technology Design began working with the LIFT to develop a high level broadband plan. The mission, to develop a county-wide plan for expansion and implementation of high-speed broadband services to all residents, farms and businesses currently not served by broadband access.
However, installation has yet to be completed. As of last week, the project was 96% completed.
Northern Leelanau Township, has about 200 customers who are still wait- ing to connect. Delays in securing needed permits from the state department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy permitting.
“There are about 200 in the western townships that will need BEAD money,” said former county commissioner Patricia Soutas-Little, who served on the Leelanau Internet Futures Task Force which championed the effort.
BEAD stands for “Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment,” which refers to a federal funding program designed to expand high-speed internet access across the United States by providing grants to states and territories to build out broadband infrastructure in underserved areas. About $42 billion BEAD funds are available nationwide.
The county consultant for the project, Chris Scharrer, has worked as a go-between for the county and Point Broadband.
Board members were presented last week with a contract extension for his business, DSC Technology Design, for an additional $11,000 per month.
However, some commissioners questioned the move.
“We’re here tonight looking at contracts from DCS and Point Broadband without the time to fully digest them,” commissioner Alan Campbell said. “… The document was not vetted through the executive committee process.”
The new commissioner compiled a “Broadband Fact Sheet” investigating the project through contracts with DCS and Point Broadband; financial reports from the county finance department.
Campbell’s assessment found that the county has paid DCS a total of $388,900.
“Leelanau has rushed the broadband project to the point of costing the county millions of dollars…” Campbell said. “We were slow to conclude that a massive push had begun nationwide to extend broadband. So instead of riding that wave we chose to get in front of it. Approving the contract before the board would be yet another expensive misstep.”
The original concept called for a $17.5 million project with Point Broadband paying $12.5 million and Leelanau County through ARPA paying $5 million.
However, since the original documents were approved, Campbell said that Point Broadband secured a $5 million grant, while Leelanau did not receive any of these funds.
Campbell alleged that the consultant has not reported regularly to the board.
District No. 4 commissioner Ty Wessell refuted the allegation.
“He’s reported at least a dozen times,” he said at the Feb. 18 board meeting. “He’s done an excellent job and we would have failed without him.”
Wessell also questioned information in Campbell’s dossier.
“The figures you have here are a lot whole lot different than what I remember,” he said. “We have to be careful about people who work hard for us and being disrespectful of them.”
Ultimately, the issue was not voted upon.
“There have been some problems here. I want to wait until March to work through them,” Campbell said.
“There are alternatives out there.”
