BY HANNAH GOLDFINGER
HGOLDFINGER@
OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM
LEE COUNTY — The Lee County Commission discussed some issues with the county broadband plan during Tuesday night’s county commission meeting.
The Lee County broadband plan is utilizing American Rescue Plan Act funding to bring broadband to unserved an underserved areas of Lee County.
However, this past spring, the Loachapoka part of the project has had some issues.
The commission awarded a bid for the project to Point Broadband in February of this year with no progress forward, said County Administrator Holly Leverette.
“We provided Loachapoka with a draft agreement for the broadband project that you all previously awarded to Point [Broadband] on April 4,” Leverette said. This received no response from Point, nor did her follow-up emails.
However, Leverette told the commission that she has learned that Point Broadband has allegedly said it does not believe it can finish the project in time.
While Point has not provided this information in writing yet, the commission is looking at options.
“That leaves us in a situation where we need to move forward with trying to get that area of Loachapoka that project completed and if Point’s not going to do it, then we need to make adjustments for how we want to move forward with that,” Leverette said.
Tuesday night, the commission agreed to give Point Broadband a deadline of June 10, the date of the next commission meeting, to either move forward or provide documentation that it will not.
This will then allow the commission to rebid the project.
“We’re on a timeframe so we need to move forward,” said District 1 Commissioner Doug Cannon.
One of the remaining problems, however, is that Point Broadband was the only company to bid on the project the first time around.
The project will likely be able to be put back out for bid within two weeks of June 10, Leverette said. Should it not get a bidder, there will be other options to consider, however, Leverette said.
OTHER BUSINESS:
- Lee County Emergency Management Agency Director Rita Smith gave an update on different grants that EMA has applied for and will apply for.
- The commission approved the final report of Litigations & Insolvencies.
- The commission approved the FY 2024 Local Striping Bid LCP 41-SRPM-24.
- The commission approved the commission billing guidelines.
- The commission approved the solid waste certificates of exceptions.
- The commission approved an amendment to the Bulk Waste Collection Rules and Regulations.
