Daily Archives: February 12, 2008

Happy Start of Session

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I got an email today from Representative Aaron Peterson. (Not a personal email – I’m sure I’m on a list of some sort.) Anyways, he said that the primary focus of this shorter session will be to create badly needed jobs for Minnesotans.

Here are two other quotes from the email:

In the early weeks of the session, the Legislature will pass a bonding bill, funding work projects across the state that will create as many as 10 thousand jobs. The top three priorities for this bill are local roads and bridges, higher education and clean water – which includes wastewater treatment, according to Rep. Peterson. Special emphasis will be given to jobs that are ready to go immediately.

Another priority for this session will be to pass another transportation bill; last year’s was vetoed by the Governor.

“The roads and bridges in our state are in deplorable condition,” said Peterson. “We need to make them safer for people to travel on, and also make sure goods and services can get around the state easily. In addition, a transportation bill will create more jobs.”

I’m not picking on Rep Peterson; I think the session priorities were a joint decision, but… Hello?! What about broadband? Wouldn’t building a statewide fiber network create a lot of jobs? Wouldn’t providing funding to help people learn to use broadband create a whole lot of different types of jobs? And once we had broadband – wouldn’t that help people create home-based jobs, encourage relocating business to come to Minnesota, and generally help lots of people work more easily from home – which might mean getting a job based in a different state or country but letting them remain in Minnesota?

And on the road issue – well clearly our bridges are in embarrassingly (and tragically) sad shape – but wouldn’t creating a superhighway (to use a 1994 analogy) reduce the number of daily commuters? If folks could work more effectively from home I think businesses would entertain the idea more readily – after all it saves them a lot of overhead and opens up the market from which to hire when location is no longer an issue.

OK I know I’m preaching to the choir and I know I’ve brought up these topics before – but to celebrate the start of the legislature I thought I’d bring ‘em up again.

Engineering Contract Awarded for FiberNet Monticello

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 Thanks to Lynne Dahl-Fleming for passing on the latest press release from Monticello…

 PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE USE – FEBRUARY 11, 2008

At the February 11 City Council meeting the City Council approved an engineering contract for the design of the city-owned fiber optics system. The contract was awarded to Spectrum Engineering Corporation of Auburn, Indiana. The firm was chosen using a Request for Proposal (RFP) and the City received bids from eight different firms.

Spectrum Engineering is in its 28th year of providing professional engineering services for municipal electric companies, universities, large industrials and Telcos. They are an engineering firm that has historically worked primarily with municipalities and has been very successful. The Spectrum staff includes a number of professional engineers with specific experience in municipal network design of optical fiber infrastructure.

The contract specifically covers the design of the city-owned fiber-to-the-premise project which will run up every street and past every home and business in the City limits of Monticello. The contract also provides for Spectrum to assist the City in choosing a construction company and then for Spectrum to inspect the fiber network as it is built.

This is an important step forward for the city-wide fiber project. This network will be operated as a separate business entity under the name of FiberNet Monticello and will be bringing high speed Internet access along with cable TV including HDTV and telephone services to the City.

This city-owned fiber project was approved by referendum last fall and continues to move forward. In mid-November, the City Council authorized a contract with Michels Communications for the installation of a fiber connection between Monticello City Hall and the outside world. Next steps include securing revenue bonds and awarding construction contracts for the project. It is estimated the fiber network will take approximately 18 months to complete. First customers could take service in spring or early summer 2009.

For more information visit the website: www.MonticelloFiber.com