Alford — It doesn’t take much to pack a Town Hall meeting room in a tiny village with 350 households. But an information session on Saturday morning (August 8), ahead of this week’s special town meeting vote on whether to borrow money to pay for a high-speed internet project, did the trick.
If the funding vote that requires a two-thirds majority passes, the town will get wired with fiber optic cables, and be up and running with 50 mega bits per second of Internet and phone service connectivity, likely by early 2017.
And the town will own and control its own network.
The special town meeting will be held on Monday, August 10, at 7 p.m. at the Alford Fire House.
According to a survey by the town’s unofficial ad hoc Broadband Committee, 93 percent of the 234 respondents said they would subscribe for high speed Internet and phone service. Ninety percent said that Internet was “important.”
Board of Selectmen member Tim Drumm’s presentation mostly touched on the cost of the project and how it would affect Alford households. While the cost of engineering and building the infrastructure is estimated to run to $1.6 million, an expected $260,000 grant from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI), and another $210,000 from the MBI for program management, brings that number to $1.18 million.
Drumm added that the town still wants to authorize the full $1.6 million in case of overruns. “If we have authorization for $1.6, it doesn’t mean we’re going to spend it all.”
He also said that there were “indications that the MBI will come through after a meeting last Thursday.”
Alford has been working closely with the MBI, and will continue to do so if voters approve the borrowing.
Financed over 20 years at 4 percent, the town is looking at $86,000 per year in borrowing costs, with 60 percent of the cost going to subscribers and 40 percent of the remainder to taxpayers. Taxpayers will see a 3 percent hike, and subscribers will see a $235 yearly increase, but the more subscribers the lower the increase. Drumm said the there would be savings on phone and Internet service for subscribers/taxpayers.
For more details, click here for the town’s website and Drumm’s presentation notes.
“All the numbers and timelines are very conservative,” said broadband committee member Julie Scott. “We’re not sugar coating any of this.”
“These are our best estimates,” said committee member Robert Lichter.
The average tax increase, Drumm said, would be $102 per year. The average current property tax in Alford is $3,385.
Finance committee member John Littlechild said the committee was looking at funding the construction through interest-only state house notes that have “very low rates,” making the initial impact during the installation period “fairly minimal.” The bulk of the increase would be felt around the time service goes live.
Drumm went on to extoll the benefits of the technology that increasingly touches all realms of modern life, from banking to education to healthcare, even in little Alford, and that non-subscribers will see “indirect benefits.”
There is also real estate value to consider as well, Drumm said, since lack of service is hampering home sales.
“My next move is not going to be to sell my house,” said retired veterinarian Barbara Strauss. “My next move will be to the cemetery.” Her comment prompted a wave of laughter. “How am I gaining from this? I don’t have Internet or a computer. I’m on a fixed income; I’m disabled.”
Drumm explained that this was exactly the reason why most of the cost burden will fall on subscribers, but said that this project is for the “good of all.”
Another resident wondered whether some form of subsidy could help “the most vulnerable people in the community.” Drumm said, “it’s possible, but I can’t say. We can certainly work on it.”
A second-home owner said that it was unfair that he and his ilk can’t vote on the issue.
“It’s the law,” Drumm responded.
Alford has quite a few second-home owners who cannot register to vote here because they are registered elsewhere.
Between a yes vote on the project, and service that is up and running, the town’s utility poles will be surveyed to see if they need any adjustments, among other “make-ready” work. A service provider will have to be chosen, and Lichter said that the town would have a better sense of that after another meeting with MBI next week.
“They will bring to bear their considerable clout to help us decide,” he added.
Scott wanted to make it very clear that Alford is “not going it alone,” despite not hooking up with Wired West, a Western Massachusetts-based broadband cooperative that is working to wire up multiple towns within its fold. She said that Alford is “working with MBI towards a regional solution.”
The MBI has already installed broadband infrastructure into the town hall offices and the fire house. Known as “the middle mile,” the Internet hubs that will connect towns to the main network were installed in many Western Massachusetts towns, including Great Barrington.
“What distinguishes us from the towns going with Wired West is that they are a consortium,” Scott said, “and Wired West will take care of all the towns and do exactly what we’re doing….it’s just that we’re doing it for our town alone.”
This way, “we won’t be slowed down by other towns that have to make decisions like this…We’re just taking care of us, but in a regional way.”
“There’s no real difference between Wired West and the town doing it this way,” said Jim Hall, Scott’s husband and fellow committee member.
Lichter said that the MBI is using a “hybrid approach” by working with individual towns and Wired West. “Towns that are ready to execute will get service quickly, and MBI will be able to show success, which is important.”
Indeed, MBI was created to make sure economic growth flourishes throughout the state, and high-speed, high-capacity Internet has been deemed critical to sustenance and progress.
“Fiber is future-proof, not only for fast speed today, but practically unlimited for future growth,” said Arthur Dellea, a former broadband committee member who runs a computer repair and maintenance business.
Resident and former congressional candidate Bill Shein thinks it’s a good idea, too. “The nice thing is that we’re going to own this and be able to call the shots.”
The retired veterinarian, Barbara Strauss, later told The Edge that she has been “dragged, kicking and screaming into the 21st Century,” and that she liked Alford because it still felt like a “pre-revolutionary war town.”
Not John Littlechild. He told The Edge that high-speed Internet is “effectively a utility.”
“How do you live without it today?” he said. “How do I have my kids come visit? How do I have my grandkids come visit?”
Illustrating the problem faced by so many in Berkshire County, Drumm told a story about his sister, a photographer, who had come to visit him in Alford. “She needed to download wedding photos, and said it would take 24 hours. Next to the router it would take 16 hours.”
“She went back to North Adams. We didn’t have to feed her.”
