[Ww-snww-regional-list] FW: Unofficial Notes from Saturday's EC meeting

Tom Wyatt tom at tomwyattphoto.com
Tue Mar 24 09:11:47 EDT 2015


Compiled by David Greenberg and Tom Wyatt with input from Bob Handsaker, who was also at the meeting. Hope you find them useful. See you all Wed. evening at 6:30 in Northampton.

David

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1. Minutes approved from March 6.

2. People who attended Stan Rosenberg’s event in Northampton in the morning were upset about a page of numbers distributed by MBI that appeared to show that broadband services in Leverett were less expensive than WW services will be. This is, of course, ridiculous; even Leverett folks have said that WW towns will benefit from the economies of scale that were not available to Leverett. Apparently, the document portrays everyone in Leverett getting a 1GB connection, when in fact, the Leverett plan is that the entire town is sharing a 1GB connection. The user cost comparison becomes even more of an “apples to oranges” situation because it is uses the highest WW tier ($109 for 1GB) contrasted with Leverett’s cost for 1GB shared amongst 800 town users. WW service is dedicated, so people who sign up for 25 MB get the full bandwidth that they are paying for. 

3. Steve spoke with Rick Manley, bond counsel, about the wording of the original warrant article that was scrapped by MBI. Rick says that the original MLP language is fine. This was taken out by MBI and replaced with a more generic version that would work for non-WW towns. However, we prefer the WW version which explicitly mentions joining an MLP cooperative. Rick said that there is no problem with the MLP’s pooling the money to build the network. The original version will be sent to Delegates and BoS on Mon., Mar. 23, along with the resolution passed at the March 7 BoD meeting. The dollar figures for each town have already been sent to Selectboards; admin costs need to added before the figures are put on the warrant article.

4. Much discussion regarding our relationship with MBI. Some felt that MBI wants to go around WW, refuses to recognize that WW is supported by the towns and wants to control the entire process. Others think that the MBI has to play fairly with ALL 45 grant-eligible towns, including those that do not belong to WW including those who want to build a network on their own (Alford, Princeton perhaps). Jim said we should put the oversight parameters agreed on in the MoU negotiations into the grant application process. We will probably have little choice but to work with MBI, and there was agreement that we need to be as constructive as possible while still standing up for the interests of our member towns.

5. Apparently, there was legislation that required MBI to seek input from community groups during the grant development process. They did not do this. There is some evidence that Eric (Exec.Directorof MBI) was not happy about this lapse. Perhaps it will come up on Wed. evening. The grant will require a business plan and an operational plan.

6. A discussion of economies of scale yielded this interesting information about buying bandwidth in quantity: $7 / Mbps for under a GB,  $1 / Mbps for 3 GB, $0.70 / Mbps for 10 GB, $0.30 / Mbps when we purchase 20 GB or more. We will be purchasing more than 20 GB when the entire network is up and running. These comparison numbers of 3 levels can be shared with townspeople.

7. WW has had meetings with a few different potential ISP providers, and TV program suppliers. These meetings will continue.

8. Steve is arranging for our Bond Counsel to visit at two locations (one east & one west) in early April. For us, the location will be Northampton and we want to try to get town treasurers to attend.

9. Marketing campaign: Delegates should bring the mailing returns to the March 25th BoD meeting. There were glitches in the list coordination, from which we have learned lessons. The entering of mailed sign-up sheets and checks will begin on Monday, following a standardized procedure. The lawn signs are complete are will be available for pickup at the March 25th BoD meeting. Logos and graphics for posters, table tents will be on the website shortly. A WW facebook page has been active.

10. Driveway committee. David G. has had discussions with MBI (Elizabeth Copeland) and Cartesian (Jennifer Lin). He found out that, Michael, the person responsible for doing the Western Mass geo-spatial analysis using satellite imagery of a sample in each town, is no longer with Cartesian. He wrote to Todd Bricker, who has taken over this work, asking him more about the sampling size and where in each town they sampled, but has not heard back yet. Jim said he will get the town driveway averages he was given to David. We will start by comparing that with the driveway measuring that the Shutesbury Broadband Committee did of all their driveways. 

11. New Executive Board Members. Tom suggested that given the amount of work that has to be done that this might be a good time for the Directors to consider adding additional members to the EC. Monica said the EC needs to be conscious of filling skill needs on the Board when new members are considered. Some needs that are thin that were mentioned: marketing, pr, outreach, Human Resources, and Development.

12. Eric Nakajima, Exec.Director of MBI, will be attending our Wed. night meeting. This is an opportunity for the WW Directors to express their support for WW and ask questions of Eric. However, the EC would appreciate it if people would do this in a calm and professional manner and not attack Eric. That will not help our cause.

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