Marble, CO letter to Governor Hickenlooper

On September 20, 2013, the Mayor of the town of Marble, CO sent the following letter to CO Governor John Hickenlooper:

September 20, 2013

Dear Governor Hickenlooper, Members ofthe Colorado Congressional Delegation, and Members ofthe Colorado Legislative Audit Committee,

This letter is sent in regard to the EAGLE-Net Alliance (ENA) and the current efforts to review its expenditures and operations.

Marble is a statutory town in northern Gunnison County. It is completely unserved in terms of broadband internet. In 2011, households and businesses in and around Marble were surveyed to ascertain the level of interest in acquiring high-speed internet services for Marble and the surrounding area of the upper Crystal River Valley. One-hundred-three households and businesses signed up to indicate their intent to subscribe if a high-speed offering were available. Ofthose who signed on to this list, 61% were currently subscribed to a satellite internet service.

The results of this survey were submitted to the incumbent telecom provider in the area, in the hope they would upgrade their equipment to provide DSLservice. However, the company indicated they were not in a position to upgrade their equipment to provide DSL, so the town has had to look for other options.

Marble has a high proportion of professionals and small businesses that depend on adequate internet access for their communications and operations. We will highlighttwo examples: one dealing with the Marble Charter School, and the other with the Marble Quarry (operating as Colorado Stone Quarries). As you probably know, satellite internet providers set a "data cap" on their customers' usage in order not to exceed the aggregate capacity of the satellite. If this cap is exceeded, the customer's internet speed is throttled down to a low speed - usually for 24 hours.

Marble Charter School: The Charter School is a public school and is part of the Gunnison Watershed School District. It has had to install two HughesNet dishes to support their internet needs, and even these two dishes have proven to be insufficient to fulfill these needs. The Colorado Department of Education requires schools to submit daily reports online, and the amount of data required in these reports always exceeds the school's data cap. One of the Co-Directors for the school must make a sixty- mile round trip to Carbondale every week during the school session to file the reports online. Students also need to use the internet connection to access online educational resources, but the speed of the link makes it necessary to allow only one student at a time to use the link.

Marble Quarry: The Marble Quarry is operated by the Italian company RED Graniti, which is the largest stone quarry company in the world. This company has 32 operating quarries across five continents. The Marble office depends on internet access for many of its operations, including accountlng, payroll, email and web access to communicate with customers, suppliers, and the corporate office in Italy. In conversations with the Quarry staff, we have learned that, because of the data cap, their internet connection is slowed significantly, usually after 9:30 in the morning. Once the cap kicks in their internet connection becomes essentially useless, and sending outgoing ernalls becomes impossible. Their office hours are 7am to 3pm, so their internet window is only 2-1/2 hours on the satellite.

In looking into possible approaches to resolving the lack of bandwidth, we learned last year about the $100.6 million federal grant to ENA aimed at improving internet capacity for rural towns and anchor institutions in Colorado. Because of the fact that Marble is unserved, and because the Charter School qualifies as an unserved anchor institution, we felt Marble would be an excellent candidate for assistance from ENA. On making further inquires, however, we were told that Marble was not included on ENA's list of projects. We also found that many of ENA's projects were in the process of building fiber and microwave links to towns and institutions already served with broadband internet. This appeared to violate or ignore the intended purpose ofthe federal funding, leaving many unserved rural towns in the Central and Western mountain areas on the sidelines. Additionally, ENA's projects have apparently damaged the investments of a number of small telecom and internet providers in Eastern Colorado where it built fiber or microwave feeds over existing capacity.

At the August 3rd meeting of the Marble Board of Trustees, the Board voted unanimously to write a
letter expressing the concern of the Board and the citizens of Marble regarding the apparent mis- feasance of ENA in its use of taxpayer funds and in sidestepping its responsibility to follow the intent of the grant. A number of critical articles in the news and trade media have highlighted ENA's questionable expenditures and operations. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), responsible for administering the grant funds, does not appear to have addressed the concerns surrounding ENA's operations and expenditures to the satisfaction of the persons and organizations who have raised these questions.

As one of the many small rural communities on the Western Slope who remain unserved after the bulk of the ENA funds have been spent, we ask that the Governor, the Colorado Congressional Delegation, and NTIA take the following steps. We hope the Legislative Audit Committee is able to encourage steps in these directions as well. We request these actions be taken in order to rebuild public trust in the process of allocating and managing public funds to mitigate lack of internet access in rural areas of Colorado.

1. We ask that ENA management account indetail for its expenditures of the grant funds to date, and for a detailed explanation of how these expenditures are intended to fulfill the expressed purposes of the grant. In its previous accounting of its expenditures, apparently there is an unexplained $25 million discrepancy. ENA should account for how and where these funds were allocated.
2. We ask that NTIA institute an open and transparent public oversight process for the management of any remaining unspent funds. NTIA should also establish clear criteria and procedures to assure that future expenditures specifically address the purposes of the grant, and that any ongoing ENA projects do not build capacity to entities already served.
3. We ask that the Governor and Congressional Delegation make every effort to assure that future state and federal expenditures of public funds for the expansion of internet capacity in rural areas incorporate a formal process for including all stakeholders in the decision-making and oversight processes before any construction is undertaken.
4. We ask that in the future NTIA or any other federal agency administering federal grant funds aimed at improving rural broadband access have a thorough, fair, and clearly defined process for identifying candidate entities or jurisdictions. This process should be comprehensive, in the sense that complete coverage of the program is assured, and that some entities are not inadvertently left out ofthe program. The program should be comprehensive and fair, in the sense that it directs funds to those entities most in need of assistance. The operative criterion should be "maximum bang for the buck," not what is easiest and cheapest.

Sincerely,

Robert Pettijohn

Mayor

Town of Marble