Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Broadband negotiations remain ongoing
DAVENPORT — For the second time in as many tries, a proposal to sign a telecommunications franchise with Lincoln County for fiber-to-the-home services was continued by city council Wednesday night as the city still seeks changes to the agreement originally presented by the county.
During discussions at the Oct. 11 meeting, councilmember Jonathan Chapman questioned whether the city’s receival of an Exhibit A displaying where work will occur in the city was enough to proceed with signing the agreement.
Mayor Brad Sweet requested that the Exhibit A provided be pared down to simply work within city limits, as opposed to including work in rural county areas.
Sweet and city administrator Steve Goemmel also posed issues they had with potential boring work done and ensure those wouldn’t ensure water or sewer lines.
“If we can get the county to agree to those two items, we’re pretty much ready,” Sweet said.
The county has already agreed to franchises with the other seven municipalities in Lincoln County and has said the agreement should address concerns about construction locations and city right-of-way usage.
Goemmel said of the 132-block project, 118 will be overhead lines while 14 blocks will be affected by digs or boring.
Sweet asked if the county would be willing to construct overhead poles in lieu of boring.
“We don’t want that to be a stipulation of the contract,” Chapman, who has previously voiced his opinion to sign the contract agreement as is both in county and city council meetings, said.
“Right, but we should at least ask them,” Sweet said.
Sweet then asked whether such demands should be made between the city and Economic Development Council or between city attorney David Bingaman and county prosecuting attorney Adam Walser.
“(Bingaman) would be better to argue some of the final points,” Goemmel responded.
Sweet then said a committee meeting, which was previously promised to be forthcoming at the last council meeting, should be set “once we hear from the county.”
“We need to have a meeting soon so this can get wrapped up by winter,” he said.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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