SHUTESBURY — Six years ago, town residents created a municipal light plant board to ensure that a fiber-optic broadband network could come to Shutesbury as part of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute’s “last mile” initiative.
At a special Town Meeting Tuesday, beginning at 7 p.m. at the Shutesbury Elementary School, residents will be asked to reconfigure this board so that its work can continue and that its five members will be elected. The move would bring the board into compliance with state regulations which requires towns that own and operate their own broadband network to have an independent board.
Broadband Committee Co-chairwoman Gayle Huntress said the Town Meeting action, the only item on the warrant, is mostly procedural, but would separate the municipal light plant board from the Select Board. Elections for members to the revised board would take place in June.
Having a separate board has advantages, including expediting project procurement, as Huntress explained.
The special Town Meeting comes as surveys of utility poles continue, a project that will ensure they can carry fiber-optic broadband cables.
Huntress said her committee will also provide voters up-to-date information about the broadband build-out, which could happen next year and be operating by late 2018 or early 2019.
The “last-mile” program seeks to bring broadband access to unserved or underserved communities in western and central Massachusetts. Shutesbury is among 44 towns that are part of WiredWest, a collaborative of towns in western Massachusetts seeking to bring high-speed Internet access to their communities.
Huntress said the decision by state officials to not release state money to match money already put forward by the town has held up Shutesbury’s work, but there is continued optimism, including a new grant program administered by MBI.
In addition, earlier this month, MBI qualified Charter Communications to receive a grant to design, build, operate, manage and maintain a broadband network service for up to 96 percent of the town, at no cost to taxpayers. But while this would enable Shutesbury and other participating towns to avoid long-term debt or resulting property tax increases for Internet service, the offer would leave about 40 homes in town unserved.
On Monday, MBI qualified Comcast as well, but like Charter, it also would only reach 96 percent of homes in Shutesbury.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
