Columbia County board approves dark-fiber installation agreement, authorizes chair to sign

The Columbia County board voted to approve a dark-fiber installation agreement and authorized the chair to sign the contract, following a motion during the meeting.

Speaker 6 (board member) described outreach to Charter Communications about the county’s dark-fiber franchise: "I reached out to their corporate counsel...the government affairs person said they might be interested and did I give him Tim's contact information?" Speaker 6 said they waited about a week and a half and did not receive a timely offer, then explained the procurement approach: "Under the exception to bidding for IT services, there is a simplified way of going about it, which is called competitive negotiation."

Speaker 2 (board member) moved that the board "sign the dark fiber install agreement that is before us," and the chair (Speaker 4) called for a vote. The transcript records members responding "aye" and the chair declaring, "Motion carries." The board also authorized the chair to sign the agreement on behalf of the board.

The transcript does not record a roll-call vote or a numeric tally for this motion; the public record in the transcript says only that members said "aye" and the chair declared the motion carried.

Why this matters: the contract will proceed with the vendor named in the meeting packet (referred to in the transcript as "the court" with a subcontractor doing the installation), and the board relied on a procurement exception that allows competitive negotiation rather than a full bidding process. Speaker 6 said Charter was contacted but did not provide a timely bid during the outreach window described.

Next steps: the chair is authorized to sign the dark-fiber installation agreement; the transcript records no further public discussion of implementation details in the open meeting portion.