I want to thank Dave Minke for sending me fantastic notes and the presentation from the recent (June 29) Anoka County Local Government Officials Meeting. He was also kind enough to answer a few questions I asked, including providing advice for anyone looking at community broadband for their area…

The meeting was the quarterly Local Government Officials Meeting. The meeting is geared towards city council members and county commissioners in Anoka County. There are also typically a few state legislators in attendance.

The three items on the agenda for last night were:

1. Census Statistics. Tom Gillaspy, Minnesota State Demographer gave an update on the 2010 census results with a focus on Anoka County. On statistic that jumps off the page is that from 2000 to 2010 Anoka County added 32,760 people—an 11 percent increase. Of that number, 84 percent was growth by racial/ethnic minority populations.
2. Connect Anoka County update by Zayo
3. Legislative update

John Real, Zayo Enterprise General Manager for the Midwest was the presenter. He is out of Louisville, Colorado. Also present from Zayo was Elizabeth Provinzino, Zayo Enterprise Business Partner/Carrier Sales, Essam El-Beik, Director Zayo Group, and Freddie Knight, Zayo Project Manager for the Connect Anoka County Project.

He did an effective job of explaining some of the basic technology. He had a few lengths of fiber and some equipment to pass around as well.

I think slide #9 showing the long haul, middle mile, and last mile breakout was helpful for setting a context for our project.

The timeline on slide #14 is also good information. The Anchor Institutions will be connected between July – September 2012, with project completion September 2012—so barely over a year.

Responses to your initial questions below:

1. How is the project going?The project is going well. The engineering design is the big thing right now—both engineering of the route and working with the 145 Anchor Institutions to determine how to get fiber into the building and where to place the equipment.
2. Any words of wisdom for other communities post Governance Group meeting?The governance group is in the early stages of developing, but I think off to a good start. My thoughts. . .
   A. The participants need to define and agree (or at least understand) the role of the governance group.

   B. Structure needs to fit the organization. We are working with less structure than I typically would recommend, but it fits the dynamics of our group and the project, so it seems to be fine. For example we are not doing a project charter, but we are going to identify the groups goals.

   C. Need to identify and get support of some key stakeholders prior to kick off to ensure they will participate.

3. How are the local governments getting involved? (Have you got all of the agreements you wanted/needed?)
   The local government/entity involvement at this stage is three-fold. (1) the governance group (2) the technical group. That group meets as needed, which has worked out to about every 8-10 weeks. It focuses on the technical aspects of the project such as what kind of a handoff do you require, what vlans will you need, etc. Our next meeting is scheduled for July 13. (3) Completing, reviewing, and approving the site packet for each of the 145 sizes. The process is. . . Zayo does a site visit with the owner and identifies the fiber route into the building, to the equipment room, and the placement of the equipment. The site visit also evaluates the site condition/readiness. i.e. is there UPS power, environmental controls, etc. After the site visit a packet is completed with drawings and photos which is then distributed to each entity for their review and approval. As you can imagine, with 145 sites, this is a time-consumptive task.

   We have all of the agreements except with the state of Minnesota. Don’t think it is a problem, the state just has some particular requirements that we need to identify and work through.

4. Any economic outcomes you could report? (From new jobs to interest from local businesses?)

   Zayo has reported 3.2 jobs created through the end of the first quarter 2011. I know Zayo is doing business development, but they have said it is difficult to pre-sell their connectivity.