According to the Pope County Tribune…

Faster and better internet access in Pope County will be the topic of discussion from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. this Tuesday at a public meeting in the community room in the courthouse in Glenwood. …

The meeting Tuesday will shed some light on those needs and what the county is doing to meet those needs.

Thanks to the county committee, headed by commissioners Paul Gerde and Larry Lindor, and Donna Martin, Pope County’s Information Technology director, for working on this important economic development issue.

I suspect they will talk about opportunities to apply for a Minnesota state broadband grant but it sound like they might also talk about the need to remind legislators of the importance of continued funding for the program…

The Republican Party campaigned in the last election how outstate Minnesota was left behind and the Twin Cities was somehow the recipient of the state’s largesse.  Despite that, the Republican-controlled Legislature ignored its own rhetoric and came up short on broadband funding.

Greater Minnesota needs more, as the demand for dollars for broadband already shows.

We need support from both sides of the aisle at the Legislature, and that support should mean more funds committed to outstate Minnesota to expand broadband across the state.