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Shutesbury-Leverett Broadband Committee

Minutes for meeting held on February 3, 2004 in Leverett

Committee members present: Aron Goldman, Dan Mishkind, David Powicki, Fred Bashour, Glen Ayers, Bill Irvine, Steve Bannasch , Robert Brooks, Michael DeChiara

Visitors present: Ken Russell of Community Harbor (www.communityharbor.com)
Some other guy who came with Ken
Tom Moylan of Ashby Telecom

7:20 pm Presentation by Ken Russell. Community Harbor is a strategic partner of Ceristar (www.ceristar.com). Their business model includes the building and operation of certain parts of the network -- specifically providing level one (first tier) customer support. Their staff attempts to add value to the network by creating community involvement through internships for students and creation of online communities.

8:10 pm Rural Utility Service (RUS) subcommittee report
Issues discussed included

Type of corporation (legal structure) we’ll form
The other 20% of funding (since RUS provides 80% and the remaining 20% must be in place to receive the grant)
How to get money for engineering study (about $40,000, estimated)
What is the type of loan from RUS?
Mark Bucciarelli has a copy of Grant County’s RUS application
Tom mentioned the Economic Development Administration (EDA, part of COG) as another funding source
Aron has the guide to writing the RUS grant application

8:35 pm Discussion on the type of entity we’d form and writing of the grant application

Options include
Non-profit organization
Non-profit coop
For-profit coop
Municiple organization

Assignments for researching parts of the grant application
Mike, Glen – the type of organization we’d form
Dan, Dave – Engineering study
Dan, along with some help from the Leverett Financial advisory committee – business forecasting

8:50 pm Discussion on the Community Foundation of Western Mass Grant Proposal
(http://communityfoundation.org/content/grants/discretionary.html)

Application for grant of up to $18,390
Money would be used for RUS grant writing assistance, helping us “professionalize”, etc . . .

The vote to approve the submission of the grant application passed unopposed

8:58 pm Sen. Rosenberg Report: economic stimulus bill/MTC, RFP

Nothing new to report

8:58 pm Pioneer Valley Connect (FRCOG) Report

Mike is going to next meeting.

8:58 pm Media Report

Good publicity all around!
Boston Globe (Peter Howe) is interested in us

9:03 pm Other business

We need to consider the demographic implications of what the introduction of high-speed internet will have on our community.

Next meeting is Tuesday, March 2, 2004 at 7:00pm in the Shutesbury Town Hall

9:10 pm Adjourned