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Redevelopment Commission approves Choice Lite agreement to extend fiber to southwest county
Summary
The commission authorized a professional services agreement with Choice Lite to pull fiber and extend the county's network along State Road 4 into North Liberty and to a highway garage, advancing a multi-phase plan funded in part from Project Honeysuckle set-asides.
The St. Joseph County Redevelopment Commission on April 15 approved a professional services agreement with Choice Lite to build phase 2 of a Southwest broadband/fiber corridor, advancing a multiyear plan to bring fiber from the State Road 4 corridor into North Liberty and toward Walkerton.
Staff said the work will pull fiber into conduit previously installed from North Liberty toward Potato Creek State Park and extend a new leg to the highway garage; that segment is part of a multi-phase project that staff plans to expand later this year to connect from the casino to North Liberty and onward to Walkerton. Regina Emerton of Choice Lite attended the meeting and said the project creates redundancy for the county network and can support both commercial tower connections and residential broadband if local Internet service providers use the dark fiber.
Why it matters: the county is using funds set aside from Project Honeysuckle — a $3,000,000 community enhancement allocation discussed in the staff packet — to finance local match obligations for federal grants and to build county-owned fiber legs. Staff said $108,000 was previously spent installing conduit along a town water line project and that the county has roughly $3,000,000 allocated to community enhancement projects; further construction to complete the corridor could require about $2,000,000 more from those funds if the county proceeds this year.
BEAD and other federal funding: staff described the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program (referred to as the "bead" grant in the meeting) as a possible source of matching dollars. The transcript records that BEAD awards are in flux; a county letter of support has been provided for Surf Broadband’s application and staff said the county funds allocated here would count as local match if a BEAD project moves forward.
Vote: The professional services agreement with Choice Lite was approved by roll call (Triola Aye; Mulford Aye; Jordan Aye).
What happens next: staff will finalize the professional services agreement and proceed with the phase 2 work; staff indicated they will return to the commission for later phases and to secure additional capital as needed.
