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7:00 PM Adjourn <br /> Action Items: <br /> ACTION: Meetings are every other Wednesday <br /> ACTION: Next meeting April 215Y at 5:30—All <br /> Proposed agenda items: <br /> - Devise short and long term strategies (Todd has suggestions) <br /> - Invite Open Broadband, Piedmont Electric and River Street to present to group <br /> Action Items carried over from last meeting: <br /> ACTION: Provide list of all county owned land—Northrup <br /> ACTION: Public MCNC fiber maps—Broucksou <br /> ACTION: Commissioner Greene requests that OC put together a synopsis of grants that we are eligible for <br /> (federal funding, block grants, etc); Northrup/Myren (Northrup=>will provide weekly progress reports) <br /> ACTION: Disruptive technologies to consider—All (Northrup will put together a starter list) <br /> Discussion notes: <br /> Sally/Earl—welcomes and introductions <br /> Legislative updates: <br /> Graig Meyer/Dean Arp—been working on BB in OC/NC for quite a while; know where GREAT Grants are going to be and <br /> where federal RDOF grants are going to be; need to figure out what states are doing, what counties are doing and where <br /> to close the broadband gaps; need to speed up the timeline (providers) <br /> Valerie Foushee—little movement in senate chamber so far; now interested in movement, more interest now b/c of <br /> NCACC <br /> Rep Arp—working on rural BB for 3-4 years;trying to address insurmountable odds; more encouraged than ever before; <br /> not only raised awareness of issue/lack of BB in NC(same struggles across entire US) <br /> Proposed legislation? Anything have a chance of passing in this session? <br /> o Arp—have seen a lot more bills filed in Senate; going through bills filed on Senate side <br /> o House bill filing is longer but expect significant bills to be filed here <br /> o Key to talking about BB is you have to identify the problem you're trying to solve first— <br /> adequate service, high bills, etc? Identify problem; discuss money—state has never been in a <br /> better position to put money forward for this, >$10million/year; coming is a tremendous <br /> influx from federal program and trying to align state funding with federal $$; synergistic— <br /> expand areas with state dollars and leverage state/federal funding; need to be careful to not <br /> step on other programs; map is to keep focusing funding where it needs to go; regulations— <br /> what is artificially limiting BB deployment through regulations and what is state's role in <br /> that? Couple of years ago co-locating/leasing on state properties; electric co-ops—allow <br />