The Minneapolis Star Tribune paints a happy picture for the ARRA-funded Lake County Fiber Network…
Since the northern Minnesota county won the state’s largest package of federal broadband grants and loans, $66.4 million, in 2010, it’s been fighting a running battle with its competitors — cable TV company Mediacom and telephone company Frontier Communications — over whether a publicly funded network should compete with private business. But the opponents were unsuccessful at stopping the project, and about half of the 1,500-mile fiber network will be built this year.
“Our funds are committed,” said Lake County Commissioner Paul Bergman in an interview Friday. “We’ve already applied for $40 million of our loan and grant money. It would take an act of Congress to kill the project now.”
They report that both Mediacom and Frontier are backing off the project. There is one potential hiccup, but even if that doesn’t go well, the network will press on…
The county’s only remaining challenge related to the broadband project is a $4.9 million, 2011 lawsuit over the way the county originally planned to obtain bonds for its roughly $3.5 million share of the nearly $70 million broadband network. The plaintiff, Orix Public Finance, alleged that it was initially asked to participate, then dropped from the project. It has asked U.S. District Court in Duluth for a summary judgment in its favor.
