 off election season with an interesting conversation with what I call the municipal team, the municipal Marvel team. Town Meeting TV provides coverage of all the items and election seats on the ballot. November 8th, you can go to the polls. Ballots will be mailed to home as well, starting at the end of September. And we will have, we invite all the candidates to appear live to you, and we take your calls and questions as well, and we will also bring you forums on all the ballot items that you will see on your local ballot. Tonight I have with me Rob Fish, who's the deputy director of the Vermont Community Broadband Board, Eric Wells, the town manager for Williston, Regina Mahoney, welcome, brand new city manager for Essex Junction, the new incorporated city of Essex Junction, Andrew Bolduc, the deputy city manager from South Burlington, and Marguerite Ladd, the deputy town manager for the town of Essex. Welcome here tonight or today. We're going to discuss the formation of a communications union district, and this is an item that we're going to see on our ballot. And Eric, maybe you could just kick us off and tell us what this means to see this communication union district on the ballot come November 8th. It's going to be taken up by Williston, Essex, Essex Junction, South Burlington, and children voters. It's going to ask the communities, should enter into a communications union district to improve broadband access in these cities and towns. And this is a special town meeting article for all these communities. And the question is going to be included on the general election ballot, mailed by all active registered voters by the Secretary of State's office in late September. The communications union district would be created if at least two communities support this formation. Great. And so Rob Fish as the deputy director of the Vermont Community Broadband Board, maybe you could just tell us what is a CUD, a CUD, communications union district? What is that? And also, you know, what's broadband mean? What does that mean, broadband? Does broadband mean question first? So during the pandemic, remember when everything went online, when your doctor's appointments went online, your school's education went online, when you were working remotely, everything from that to watching your movies on Netflix or playing games or doing a video conference like we're doing right now that's to talk to you for town meeting TV, that all requires broadband. The level of broadband required varies depending on the activities. If you're in Burlington right now and you're on Burlington Telecom, you have fiber connectivity. This is where the same speed that, where the data is being pulled down, it's the same speed that you're sending data back up. So that type of connection, we call it a symmetrical speed, the upload and the download is incredibly important as we move into the future and as more and more things go online and you have more and more devices in your home that must be connected. So communication union districts were formed because most places around the state outside of Burlington, they do not have access to a connection that is symmetrical, that is fiber. Fiber right now is the only technology that can provide that speeds. Many people have cable and many of your viewers at home have their internet service via cable, which provides a great download speed but not an upload speed. So these communities banded together to form communication union districts. So these are like a solid waste district or a water district. There are communities, it's a municipal organization that has a single purpose. The big difference is these districts do not have taxing powers. There's nothing they can do that's going to impact your tax rates directly. What they do is they can accept grants. They can aggregate the demand between multiple communities and multiple addresses in order to attract providers and negotiate deals to bring better broadband service to everybody. And as of now, 208 of Vermont's, 252 now, looking at U.S. 6 Junction communities are members of communication union districts. Chittenden County's situation is a little bit different. As I said, most people are served by cable. But there are people at the very ends of the roads that are not served. And cable is not enough. So that's, yeah, so let's talk about that a little bit. Because as you said, these communication union districts which are a municipal solution to a place that the market isn't filling. So we do not have competitive market vendors bringing fiber into rural parts of the city. And Chittenden County, I would think of as being a little different. I would look around and I'd go like, oh, we've got some competition here. But maybe folks from Andrew, could you talk a little bit about broadband? Can you talk a little bit about broadband impact in South Burlington as the next kind of largest, well, in my mind, city? Sure, yeah. So in South Burlington, if we look at the numbers of those who are underserved or those who don't have cable connectivity, we actually have a very, very small percentage of our population or residents. It's under 1% in the community. But I even just got a question yesterday from a constituent who says, we only have one access to a cable provider. There's no competition in the system and we're not getting the services that we need. What does South Burlington do to address that? And we've had some neighborhoods form on their own and say, we want fiber. We're going to try and negotiate a contract with Burlington Telecom. The interest in joining this is to, number one, both hit that 1% of households that don't have access. And we see those individuals, you know, they're not able to, you know, civic engagement. So many of our meetings are hybrid now. A lot of them are vulnerable users. We want to make sure that they have the same access to civic engagement as the rest of our community. So this would want to help close that gap. Number two, it would hopefully create that competition in the marketplace and at least give South Burlington a seat at the table for those conversations and for that overbuilding of infrastructure that Rob has talked about to ensure that fiber-optic speeds in South Burlington is remaining competitive with other communities that have formed these speeds. Great. And let's put a fine point on the use of the term cable because creating these communication districts do not, does not bring cable television into your homes. So when we're talking about the use of cable, we're talking about internet, internet over coaxial cable, right? Correct, correct. Great. Marguerite Essex, the town of Essex, what's the situation with folks having service or not? And, you know, again, even cable internet, you know, as provided by some of the larger, has maybe you could have a 25, you know, going one way, but only about two coming in the other way. So when these numbers may not make a lot of sense to folks, but two megabit upload speeds, being able to send data from your home out does not allow somebody to work from home in a high-tech job. Is that correct? Yeah, or even participate in something like this. Andrew was just talking about civic engagement and how, you know, since COVID, really there's so many things we could go on and on of all of these ways to engage now that are via, you know, remote access or hybrid access of some sort. And that two megabit, this does not allow for any sort of activity of that level to be going on, which then of course creates, you know, inequities as well for that kind of participation or how that could happen. In Essex, the town of Essex, it's very similar to Andrew, what he just talked about. You know, we have a very small amount of residents who actually are underserved and it's still very important that we get them service and they just, they've been looking and looking and it's been, you know, just sort of dead end after dead end. So how are we going to ensure that they have access just the same as everyone else in that matter? But then on top of it, it's this other issue of really only having one other choice. So if you're underserved, you then may have a choice of cable, which is not actually fitting the needs for many at this point. And if you look into the future, probably won't either given where the world is going with all of this. And so, you know, how do we give another choice? How do we give another option? Just as Andrew described, something else, some other way to have either, you know, better speeds, but also that voice that, you know, in what kind of service they're going to get or something to that end, be able to have someone hold people accountable to give that service they say they're going to, or those kinds of things as well, or repair it. Like a lot of people end up in this situation where they do have cable, but it's not going to repair fast enough for those types of things. So it's a very similar story in that sense. Yeah. And this is really also talking about moving a service from something that's a privilege, something that, you know, oh, I have this because I want to watch, you know, some TV to a necessary tool for our lives. And that's sort of, can we talk about that? Like, what's the political implications there? Is that why we have created these CUDs is recognizing the value of high speed internet? I think everybody's realizing it's an equity issue. If you don't, if you can't get online with sufficient speeds, you can't participate in society. And that's going to continue to, as more and more things move online, like it's, it's about democracy. It's about energy equity being able to participate in different energy efficiency or renewable programs. It's about keeping people here in Vermont's where they could work remote or connect to people elsewhere. Like it's, it touches every aspect of our lives. And the last thing anybody wants is Chittin County to be left behind while the rest of the state converts to, to fiber. Yeah. So when folks get their ballots and Regina, maybe you can talk to this in as ex-junction, folks are going to get their ballots. And Regina, of course, you have a lot of experience with the CCRPC and working in these models of regional cooperation. So maybe you can talk a little bit about this. Folks are going to get their ballots in September. They're going to see this question of the communication union district. And then what happens? How do these municipalities work together if, if this is accepted? Sure. So if more than two towns vote favorably for the creation of the communications union district, the municipalities will appoint representatives on the communications union district board. And essentially that will be the governing body going forward in terms of making decisions and figuring out exactly what the business model is for this, how much it will cost and how much time it might take. So some of those specifics aren't figured out yet. But once, if it's clear that it makes sense to create the communications union district based on what the voters say, then a lot of that information will get figured out. But essentially much like the Champlain Water District, the municipalities will have representatives on the board and that's who will make the decisions going forward. And as Rob mentioned, there's the state is undergoing a contract with a firm to really sort of take a look at some of those logistics. And so hopefully if the vote goes in favor, there'll be some really good information probably around January that will really lay a lot of the groundwork for how to move this forward. Yeah, and so in some communities, these communication union districts are manned, human, populated by volunteers from the community who are knowledgeable in the world of telecommunications. Is that correct or municipal officials? So it could be either an opportunity for somebody to serve or it could be a municipal official, is that correct? Well, yeah, there's a volunteer board, most of the communication union districts have now, they've hired an executive director. One other thing that voters should know is that by creating this district, you're opening up the door to additional funds to study the issue. I mentioned the business planning that we're going to do to look at different options, but also other capacity funds so that you have the expertise when you're going in to negotiate with a provider when you're issuing an RFP, when you're figuring out what's best for your community and you're developing the systems to ensure accountability with those providers. And so Eric, from your experience and understanding of this, does this come with a cost to taxpayers? Yeah, so the piece with the communication union districts is they don't have municipal taxing authority. So it's really clear in state statute that these are independent units of government. They would need to raise their own funds, whether through bonding, private equity, other means to sustain the operation. It's important for the voters to understand it's not any allocation from the municipalities directly sending money to the CUD, a communication union district, or any means like that. The risk is very low to residents. And really, you may only see a financial cost if they decide to subscribe to a service that's offered if they decide to subscribe to a fiber connection for access here moving forward, which we hope that we can offer the county through this model. So, again, in September, we're going to see the ballots mailed home, or if you choose to go to the polls November 8th. This will be a question that we'll see in Williston, South Burlington, Essex Junction, Essex, and Shelburne. Is that correct? Yeah. Great. You need two municipalities to approve it. And then if, say, a municipality doesn't approve it, they could join, they could still join later with a vote of the select board or the city council, excuse me, the trustees, or the South Burlington city council. Is that correct? Correct. Yeah. Correct, yep. So, what, when you talk about that risk, so the CUD has formed, this is a volunteer body of folks, and they're going to study and decide how to get broadband service delivered to the customer. Correct? Can we talk a little bit about that next step? And what kinds of providers? Is this something where you would contract with Comcast, with a Burlington telecom, is there a potential for a municipal entity like a Burlington Electric? I know that gets a little complicated, but can we talk a little bit about that? Sure. Well, there's a variety of different options and that's going to be up for the community to determine and it'll be informed by the studies that are underway, but it could potentially be where you are doing a public-private partnership with an existing entity, whether it's Burlington telecom or whether it's consolidated, if they're going to bring their, they have a new fiber product, Southern Vermont, the Bennington County just close the deal with them to bring fiber to every address in the county. Like that is a model that could potentially work here. It wouldn't be at this point right now, it wouldn't be partnering with Comcast. Cable companies do not offer symmetrical speed at this point. If they do and they can achieve over 100 by 100, they're welcome to participate, but right now under the legislation it has to be 100 by 100. That could change. Other communities have decided to do a more, or the infrastructure is all publicly owned and finding an operator. It's happening down in Addison County. They're working very closely with the WCBT, Watesfield Champlain Television, where the Communication Union District is building the infrastructure and it's going to be operated by that known entity in their community. So there's a variety of different models out there and that's what we're excited for the study to help flush them out a little bit. This is really a provider we've never even heard of. All around the country right now providers are realizing that that fiber is the future. There's never been more money put into broadband than there is now. And by joining together, this is a way for Chittenden County to stand up and say, pay attention to us. We are interested, we want to make this happen, start talking to us. These providers are a lot less likely to talk to one town than to talk to five towns or eventually, maybe eight or nine or 10 towns with the population and the number of addresses in the county. There is the potential to attract a variety of different potential providers. I think that's a key point Rob made with collaborating here to do this together and Wilson we have 140 addresses that are underserved and we want to bring high speed Internet to all those addresses but as we look at all our communities that are considering this and within the county that could potentially join it really makes that more attractive for a business model to move this forward. I think we also see that the strength of having a governing board of directors to review these proposals. Hopefully we get people who represent have good expertise in this as well to help us. Take a look at what's out there and decide what who's the best partner to work with if this is supported. If you're a provider you don't want to negotiate with each individual town, you much rather have them figure that out figuring that out first. I was going to say and that was a real selling point for the city of South Burlington was you know Rob talking about how these entities providers are now very used to dealing with these communication districts throughout the state and many of them won't deal at all with individual municipalities. So again this is a way for us to sort of have that seated at the table by forming this district. Great. So if I'm if I'm looking at this and what and I'm I'm living in Essex you know at the end of the road my Internet's not that great. When when might I expect to see high speed Internet come to my door if I vote yes. I would say sooner than if you vote no we have to be careful of managing expectations here with that when we don't have the model determined yet. This is the Communication Union Jectric District it's a it's a means to an end and depending on the decisions the district make it it could happen very quickly or it could take some time depending on what they place value on and that's for the local communities to decide. Great. So again maybe Eric you want to just summarize for us what we're going to see on our ballot this coming September and November. Yeah so we're discussing a question on the ballot November that's going to be voted on in November and Wilson Essex Essex Junction South Burlington Shelburne asking voters if the community should enter into a communications union district to improve broadband access. This is going to be a special town meeting article for all the communities I listed and this question is going to be included on the general election ballot is going to be mailed to all active registered voters by the Secretary of State's office in late September. Great and if I want to know more about this where where do I go to learn more about this. I'll give a plug to our great partner who's helped us throughout and Regina well she was at the Student Accounting Regional Planning Commission really led this effort. They've been working to assist to get more information on the CCRPC's website and each town website has additional information that's going to be out there will have more outreach and turn to my colleagues as well I know every town is very open answering questions from residents as they consider their vote here. Great Regina since you since you were mentioned and now you've moved from CCRPC as the new city manager in Essex Junction. Why is this the right solution why forming us communications union district the right solution right now. Just to clarify I don't start in Essex Junction until September 15. So, thank you in common. Thank you. So, I think this is the right solution right now because we really thought long and hard, probably a year and a half at CCRPC collectively with with these folks on the call about how else can we solve this problem in Chittenden County, without creating a new municipality. Because it just seems like because of our dense population there should maybe be a more simple way, but they're really. We turned over lots of stones to try to figure that out and there really isn't as another solution. Outside of some of the providers just working on this directly so. So, the town of Bolton, as we know, covered by Burlington telecom, the town of Bolton has a grant with wait sale Champlain telecom to cover the town in full. So some of these little partnerships have been happening, you know, even before this statewide effort in Burlington case, but for a number of the towns in northern Chittenden County. There is no other real solution at the table other than to try to figure out how to collaborate come together with one voice and figure out the best solution to really create some competition. And to get folks served to our both not served at all right now, but also to try to provide an alternative for folks on cable, because as many folks have said here tonight. We will be sort of left behind and for Chittenden County the economic engine of the state to be in that position is just really not going to be good. So we we feel like this is the right step forward, even though we don't 100% know how it will exactly play out but we do think this step is a critical step. So one question that comes to mind, you know, as we're meeting here in this venue town meeting television which is part of a government community access channel. And we're funded by cable television peg access fees for the use of the public rights of way. This broadband build out is going to be built on public telephone polls or public rights of way. Can we talk a little bit about how that those funds go back to serve the community other than the individual customer. Can we talk a little bit about how this serves the community as a whole when we're using those public rights of way. So question make some sense. I think so, you know, I think it was back to what we were talking about earlier about equity for residents and you know using our public right of ways public infrastructure to reach every resident in town so they have access to something that's critical to modern 21st century life or think back to the 40s and 50s when electricity was still coming around the state, you know, try to draw parallels to that where it's critical to have broadband to for our society today. Well and also with telephones, you know, we have the universal service fund. So can we talk is there a plan to have some sort of fun that would provide. Similar to what we have now we have low income access to high speed internet. I can say that different CUDs are doing different things. Some of the CUDs are having a tiny surcharge on on people's bills in order to fund additional subsidies for low income Vermoners. Yeah, but that's going to be a decision for the CUD to make every CUD is every communication union district is different. And it's dealing with affordability and ensuring that it is universal access is part of the responsibility. Great. And so one, why not regulate this on the I mean wise is not regulated at statewide level. Rob, when I hear that each little CUD has its own. Well, if you want, we can go back to 1996 and talk about how the federal government decided that the telecom industry is not going to be regulated. I'm not going to bore you or any of your viewers with that long story and I don't think we have another half hour. That is actually another show that we should do because it is it is important for folks to know and it's probably, you know, for folks scratching their heads going like, well, why is it BT, you know, BT as a cable company is regulated in a different way than a broadband provider would be regulated. Yeah, it was it was a decision made long time ago to spur competition. As we've seen 25 years in the 26 years in the future. Do you have choices? Do you have competition? And do you have the latest service? No, do you have a way to hold your company that provides broadband accountable? Do you have anybody you can talk to in your community about it? So that's the other reason that these communication union districts have been formed is to not not regulate but to provide some oversight, provide a venue where your complaints can be heard and where that provider can be held to account. And there are grants available to fund and help these communication union districts. So once it's formed and those grants, can you just talk a little bit about what that grant funding would. So there's two there's two different types of grant funding there's a pre construction grant funding that's only open to communication union districts. And this is what funds the studies would fund the staff person would help you get the capacity and the expertise you need to to make the best decisions. The second, the second part of the funding is construction funding grants. These grants would help to contribute to the build out would contribute to help you leverage funds from other private sources to do the actual construction to build the network or to fund somebody else to do the network. So those are the two aspects of funds they're from the from their ARPA funds and then there'll be additional funds coming from the federal infrastructure bill that that recently passed and being a part of a CD is the. It's in many ways it's the key to the door to be able to access those funds efficiently and and effectively and to be able to work with the provider of your choice. So, Eric or. Marguerite maybe why would somebody in your community vote against this. Why would they vote, why would they vote against this. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure I would love to hear why they would vote against this. But I think, you know, it's maybe just not knowing enough about it. And so that's why we really want to get that education out there. It is new we don't have all of the answers so that might be another reason just because there is some vagueness in how this will roll out. And we don't have all of that so there's a little bit of trust that needs to happen there. And one thing I just do want to add there about these grants is that taxpayer money cannot be used for for any of this funding so in that sense it will not go toward, you know, will not end up on your tax bill. They can't, they've made sure of that. So that's that might be a reason that someone would vote against it just not knowing just being afraid that perhaps this would then you know up there, up their tax bill. So it won't be doing that to get that out there. But, but otherwise, you know, I really do think at this point, you know, to serve all it's really a good way. It's just that the stone me that we've come up to that seems like it will help just like Regina said earlier there's been a lot looked into this and right now this looks like now it's the best option. One other thing just to add is that if you create a communication union districts and they make a partnership with the provider, you're not required to subscribe to that provider. This is about new options. There's no, it's not like, oh, we're going to partner with this company and now you need to pay to get service from them. That's not how it works. And one question one of our city counselors asked, I thought it was a good one. All right, great. This is you're saying that that there's no tax levy that's never going to happen in the future. There's going to be no cost. But what happens if the legislature turns around and says, Okay, you know, we're going to allow this. And the answer is it's written right into the act. If a community ever wants to withdraw from a communications union districts, there is that option. They can do the same by vote at a regular meeting or special. So the so the legislative authority for these communication union districts once you enter into it remains with legislative body in each municipality. Is that correct? So just like you join the CSWD, you could remove yourself from it or just like you join. Is that correct? That is that is correct. Eric, do you want to summarize for us again, just briefly what we're talking about here and when what we'll see on our ballot. Yeah, so this is a special town meeting article in for the November general election of the communities of Wilson Essex, Essex Junction, South Burlington and Shelburne asking voters in those communities should enter into communication district can improve broadband access. These ballots are going to be mailed to everyone, every active voter by the secretary of state's office by late September for the general election on November the 8th. And this will be a local article included on those ballots in the communities I shared. Well, and is there any I really appreciate you all sharing this information my brain is swimming around I've learned a lot from listening to all of you. I actually think this is really interesting and exciting to learn about communication union district. Before we wrap up Rob, I just want for the sake of the viewers who in the community what where are their currently active communication union districts around the state. I think you mentioned that at the beginning, and how far along in the process have they gotten that you mentioned Bennington. Sure, there's there's nine districts currently, and it's 208 communities. The districts are at various points that mentioned earlier. We just approved a grant yesterday for southern Vermont which is Bennington County to partner with consolidated consolidated plans to have fiber builds out to all addresses by early 2024. Other CUDs are doing different types of partnerships. They're starting construction in the kingdom addresses are already connected. We expect central Vermont which is mostly Washington County and Addison County to begin construction in the next few weeks. And then there's EC fiber the original communication union district which has over over 5000 customers. There are districts up in Grand Isle and Franklin and the Loyal County. It's it's really the entire state that doesn't have fiber already. And it doesn't have a provider that's going to that's committed to doing it. We know weights field is committed to building out fiber the premises and we're going to be hearing a grant application from them to do it for the rest of their addresses including addresses in Chittin County later this month. Yeah, I think they cover parts of Huntington and Jericho Richmond. Yeah, so there's also it sounds like opportunities to learn from the work that others have done and build on those models. Is that correct? Is that something Regina that you all are looking at? Yeah, Chittin County Regional Planning Commission has, you know, the regional planning conditions throughout the state have been pretty strong partners and setting up these CUDs so CCRPC will continue to be at the table I'm sure to help. I can't speak for them anymore but I'm sure they will continue to help and have great contacts with those other RPCs and we've already got lots of information that we'll be using collectively to move this board. I also want to put out one other plug there since it is a municipal organization donations to the Communication Union District would be tax deductible and there are lots of employers in Chittin County where their employees are working remote and would benefit from a much better internet connection. So I'm going to leave with that plug. Well, thank you all again for joining us again. This will be on your ballot ballots will be mailed home at the end of September to all addresses if you're not registered yet or you're not sure you registered you can go to the secretary states website. The interface is really simple easy you can sign right up and make sure that you are going to receive a ballot at home and that they have your correct address. And this is for the November 8th general election. This will be on the municipalities of Williston, the town of Essex, the city of Essex Junction, the city of South Burlington, Shelburne, and Eric help me out here with the last one. I think you got it. No, I did. Okay, great. And we continue to join us here at Tom meeting TV. We have 36 election forums for candidate seats coming up through October. These are live election forums we invite your calls and questions to candidates. We will also be covering other ballot items. I know that I think this town of Essex has a few items that are on the city of Essex Junction has a few items that are on the ballot. So we'll be discussing those as well. Thank you for tuning in and good night. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I think that and more. Thank you Eric.