The Town of Sundre’s administration was directed by council last week to contact private companies about providing the municipality with a fibre optic broadband network for high-speed Internet.
Elected officials had previously carried a motion directing administration to cease all efforts towards pursuing a publicly owned or public-private partnership option and to instead develop a request for proposal for private companies to construct a fibre optic broadband network.
Following proper procedures to amend that motion, Deputy Mayor Cheri Funke, who chaired the April 9 meeting in the absence of Mayor Terry Leslie and initially made the original motion, temporarily relinquished her seat to Coun. Charlene Preston so that she could table the proposed amendment.
“Any discussion on the motion?” asked Preston after Funke presented her amendment.
Coun. Richard Warnock questioned why the change was even needed since council had never asked for pricing to begin with but rather had requested proposals, and he sought clarification from administration.
“Generally, a request for proposal is something that we are sending out to request a service for a municipal service,” said Linda Nelson, the town's chief administrative officer.
“In this case, it is more like a utility. So we could have used something like an expression of interest. But generally, a request for proposal still would include pricing.”
Coun. Paul Isaac said he struggled to understand why a few weeks had passed since the initial motion was carried without any further updates, and felt that the process to proceed as soon as possible with a private broadband provider was getting hung up on logistical details such as the motion’s wording.
“Why is this not happening sooner?” he asked.
“All work has not stopped on this project,” said Nelson.
“We were just waiting to have the motion clarified.”
In the meantime, the municipality’s economic development officer has been in contact with a few companies, but nothing concrete has yet materialized, she said.
“We haven’t just been sitting back and not following council’s direction.”
Preston called a vote on the motion, with Funke rereading the amended wording one last time for clarity. It was carried unanimously in the absence of the mayor and Coun. Rob Wolfe.
Offering some additional perspective, Vic Pirie, director of finance and administration, reminded council that the economic development officer had indicated at the time of the original motion that he would be unable to begin putting together the package for a request for proposal for at least a couple of weeks due to prior commitments.
“Our understanding was that we were going forward with the request for proposal for private companies to come forward,” said Pirie, adding that the economic development officer would then do the research to establish the parameters for a request for proposal that could in turn be brought back to council for approval.
“That’s a lot different than picking up a phone and calling private companies and saying, ‘Would you like to come in to Sundre to put broadband in’,” he said, adding the wording in the motion changes administration’s course of action.
“Simply identifying that we are now going to go out and ask companies to come in doesn’t mean you’re going to get a company to come in,” he added.
Axia will continue to be considered, but extending that company an invite will not guarantee anything, he said.
“They’ve made commitments to other communities. They’re not all of a sudden going to put Sundre at the top of the list. So we’re going to have to work with the different companies to try to determine which company is going to best meet the needs for Sundre. It’s not a simple process going forward, and it will take some time.”
Isaac directed administration to provide council with an update during its next meeting.
