The Board of Supervisors has appointed six citizen members to the Broadband Advisory Committee that will begin meeting in January.
Citizens appointed were:
Kirk Baumbach of the Beaverdam District;
Casey Bohn of the South Anna District;
Scott Brown of the Ashland District;
George Condyles of the Henry District;
Kristie Proctor of the Cold Harbor District;
Andy Schaeffer of the Beaverdam District
Board members on the committee will be Sean Davis of the Henry District and Sue Dibble of the South Anna District.
The committee will be expected to:
Analyze the existing Federal Communications Commission Fixed Broadband Deployment Mapping and the Center for Innovative Technology Virginia Broadband Availability Map and work with service providers and attempt to identify inaccuracies and/or recommend a method to obtain the necessary information to correct the inaccuracies
Determine what infrastructure currently exists and how it can be leveraged to expand and improve service.
Develop practical solutions for serving the unserved and underserved areas of the County and prioritize these solutions.
Prepare a final report and make a presentation to the Board of Supervisors
“This is an issue we have been working on for a number of years and we need to move forward on it,” said Beaverdam District Supervisor Aubrey M. Stanley, who made the motion in October to create the committee. “I’m hoping appointing these people with expertise will make a big difference for us.”
“This is an understood need for the Board based on the tremendous amount of citizen involvement we have,” said Sean Davis, Henry District Supervisor. “There’s broad agreement that something needs to be done and we’ve got a diverse group of folks who are very familiar with the subject matter.”
Citizen members were selected based on their applicable expertise in appropriate fields, such as information technology, wired and wireless internet service provision, GIS mapping and broadband infrastructure and tools.
The Committee is expected to begin meeting in January and report back to the Board by its final meeting in December 2020.