April 10, 2023 Digital Access Task Force Recording

1:25AM Apr 12, 2023

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Cindy Hogan

Ilana Lowery

Lupe Valenzuela

Gretchen Wolfe

Mark Goldstein

Mala Muralidharan

Phillip Seng

Petra Falcon

Rory Conway

Grant Evans

Susan Anable

Drew Garner

John Kelly

Keywords:

people

grant

communities

bill

comments

counties

areas

state

steve

fcc

arizona

broadband

petra

questions

gretchen

important

cindy

funding

hear

projects

I'm going to share my screen okay.

Okay, well, welcome everybody. Glad to come make it again today, I'll have to keep track of who all was online here in just a couple of minutes. But just one quick thing, which you may or may not have noticed for some of you that we are having a problem with our website again, and I have a security company who is supposed to be getting a fix for me, but has not done a good job yet. So I'll have to maybe look for somebody else to deal with that. So in the meantime, the agenda and everything is now on, not a Google Doc. So just wanted to make sure you knew that. Okay, so moving on. Just a reminder, most of you have been here before, but just in case you haven't, that you may know that after our meetings, that we do kibbutzim with colleagues, which is just an informal activity where people want to stay online afterwards, we stopped the recording and people who want to stay on can cheer can talk, ask questions or whatever. And that could be five minutes, it could be an hour, could be five people could be two people, it could be 10 people. So we just kind of kind of play that by ear. So moving on, that again, I want to thank our sponsors CareFirst healthplan. Valley, the sun United Way satellite broadcasting and communications Association, CA G. triad wireless and Karen Ziegler consulting. As I mentioned, last time triad has signed up again for us, and we really appreciate it. appreciate their continuing support. Do we have any new people who are joining us today? On the take a look at the list again? Petra, you were here last time, I believe, Amber, you were grant, I believe your new author, you're going to be kind of be on the panel later. But you want to introduce yourself real quickly.

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Steve. I'm Grant Evans, Capital Projects Manager for Navajo County.

And they are one of the recipients of the grant that you'll be hearing about in the discussion a little bit later. And I think that may be all fill up. You're not new. Brian, you're not new. Susan, you want to introduce yourself real quickly.

Thank you. I have not participated for a while but I'm Susan Anable with Cox Communications and glad to be here today. Thanks, Steve.

Thank you. Okay. I think everybody else has been here before, so we don't need to spend more time with that. So a couple of things on coping, John Kelly, I haven't seen him join us yet. But John Kelly should be joining us a little bit later, thanks to, to Drew pointed out that there were two bills before the legislature as a house bill and a Senate bill regarding city county and state requirements to expedite broadband permitting. And John will be here hopefully sometime a little bit later. So anyway, moving on. Sandy, I don't believe is here. Nicole, I don't believe you're here are you? So Cindy, I don't think Erin or Alyssa either are online.

I didn't see them.

I didn't either. So Cindy, you're on.

As you can tell everybody in in our office is really busy and Aaron's office. I'm Cindy Hogan. I'm the digital equity program manager for the broadband office under the Arizona commerce authority. I just started on March 20. It's just getting my feet under me a lot a lot of planning going on. Just trying to come up with a strategy and get get people hired and into positions. So we have GIS person grants, confirm compliance person, the my my position and then we're soon to announce the bead, the bead consultant. And not a whole lot more than I can say at this time. I'd rather wait until we have things in order and can describe an orderly press

Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Cindy. And again, congratulations on that position. So just a couple of things. Just a reminder. And Cindy, maybe you want to speak to this. Also the NTIA is digital Equity Act request for comment. Sponsoring listening sessions. First one was today. Next one is next week, the next three, Monday's if I'm not mistaken 17th 24th and the 28th. At 12 o'clock, they're an hour in length and encourage you all to participate and learn more about what the planning processes are going to look like. Cindy, do you want to say anything more about that or not?

Yeah, no, I haven't been able to get to one yet. So I'm gonna have to go next. Next Monday.

I think today, today was the first one I believe.

And it's three o'clock today. So I came here instead, Steve? Well, it's really important. It's really important. I'm seeing these announcements all over the country that they're they're really wanting to project that it's important to get comments. And so yeah, anybody can anybody can participate. They're really looking forward to hearing from us.

So just a reminder, that's three o'clock Eastern time. So it's 12 o'clock here in Arizona.

So Petra, today and go ahead.

Steve, Cindy, is the audience. People in similar work that we're doing are are there across the across the country? Is it around Arizona or wherever? How are we recruiting people for these listening sessions?

You can log just log on and Steve's posting the email, but we can also send it I can send you the email. So you can grab the links Petra,

but the the audience is nonprofit government industry. Interest rates, stakeholders. It's an open.

Okay, got it.

And Petra you should have that went in my in the

past? I did. I do. I'm not looking at them now. But I was just curious. In listening sessions, you know, who is the audience and how to recruit the audience.

It's open to anybody that they get the word out to and okay. So you don't have to be a VIP.

All right, good. Good to hear.

Thanks for telling me that I had the time wrong, Steve. Yeah, I didn't realize I saw I didn't think to do the calculation.

Okay. So moving on. Let me see who else is online now. Our people aren't here today. People we needed to hear from

Steve Gretchen had a another call or had something. But she said she was going to try to jump on. She thought there might be the discussion with John first.

Yeah, she she told me that she wouldn't be here till about 330. Okay, good. So, while we're waiting, hopefully for John and others to join us. Excuse me while I hit there online. You want to give us a quick update on what's happening with the State Library?

Yes, Steve. Let me get to the right place. Okay. As far as E Rate goes, we had a good number of applications. I think I talked about it last time. We're really pleased that they've started already issuing funding commitment letters. Now, it isn't even a week since the deadline closed. But they've been honored and your SEC has been issuing funding commitment decisions already. In the meanwhile, our fats for learning, which is an aerated management company, the consulting company, they do an annual ERate applicant survey. So anyone who has participated in it either as a service provider or as an applicant, or, you know, can go in and do the survey, I'll post the survey link in the chat. As soon as I'm done talking. It's really important to take that survey and to give your feedback because this is direct input that they can take to the policymakers. They do have meetings with the FCC and with USAC and they have they can influence the decision making as far as eBay goes. And so definitely for cybersecurity the, they are looking for people to comment on it and take the survey and let them know why it is so important and why we are asking for E Rate funding for that. FCC does take funds, funds for learning pretty seriously just as much as it does, Shelby's comments. So this is the third national survey that they are doing, and they analyze to graphic rep representations and send the comments to FCC and FCC does have a meeting with them to discuss the comments that were posted on the survey. So again, I urge those of you who are from schools and libraries, and those who have X access to listservs, where you can post this link, please do so. Also, as far as cybersecurity is concerned, the Secretary of State area, in fact has actually did an executive order saying how important it is for us to be secure. He is He is creating a position of Chief Information Security Officer CIS. So to keep the county system safe, especially as far as elections go. Of course, it's not going to stop at just elections, but also to keep the government the state government safe and secure. And certainly all the other offices that participate in running of the state.

So do you have any sense of how that relates to to Ryan and the folks at the Homeland Security?

There is one mention of it in in the saying that the US Department of Homeland Security designated the election system, and this is they want to protect that system. Using cybersecurity assistance and protection. There is no mention specially of our local office. But I haven't read into it as much in detail the executive order and maybe there is more connection there. But at least there is he promised to do this within his first 100 days.

And he has.

So I I look up more details, and maybe we can talk about it at our next meeting on Monday.

Okay, so if I understood that it's largely focused on the election system, but it could expand into other areas.

It says administrative functions of the government. So hopefully it covers and it covers the counties as well. So hopefully, it will be much more widely spread out and just pay elections. Okay. The next thing I want to talk about is the Shelby's policy roadmap. I think we mentioned about it last time, I will again put that link also in the chat as soon as I'm done talking.

Can you remind people what SHLB is,

SHLB is school's health and libraries broadband. It's a national body that works on several things, including policies, infrastructure, E Rate, health, rural health, and any issues that are relating to funding grants for any of these for the scope for the anchor institutions, as we are calling them. The Roadmap talks about the broadband infrastructure, and it does talk about the state broadband office. They are in touch with them they continue to promote broadband infrastructure. They continue to work on the capital fund capital projects fund, administered by the US Treasury, again for infrastructure build out, especially broadband built out of course. The The other thing it talks about is the digital equity digital they're supporting a digital equity efforts both at the local level as well as at the national level, especially encouraging the anchor institutions to play a role in digital inclusion including digital navigation and advocating for training In and smart implementation, talking about ERate and ECF. Extension of ECF extension of ASAP advocating for all those Wi Fi on school buses, of course. And opposing the rate competitive bidding Porter, because this proposal was this was proposed more than a year ago. But it again, we spoke about it at length last year, it would undermine the local decision making, and the local procurement processes, especially as many schools and libraries use state master Grand Master contracts for each state as well as for easier. They're also seeking, you know, guidance on the mapping, because the comments that were given on mapping for the bead funding, what has already just the last set of comments has already gone in, but it is going to be incorporated in the next fiber, mat. Next of fabric that FCC is going to issue at the end of June, which will be the one that will be used for allocation of the breed funding. There is encouragement to do they're encouraging states to do their own maps to do their own redistribution, based on their requirements. And and based on the discrepancies they find between the FCC map and the local maps. There are several other things they're working on. But I think that the last one that I think our group will be interested in to see you USF fund the universal Services Fund. The sustainability of the fund the participation of other organizations, in the contribution to that universal service funds are some of the things that shall be concerned about in order to make it sustainable, and in order to deploy funds for to other anchor institutions. For for example, right now we have the tribal libraries, and tribal schools, comments period, FCC has put that period up for comments. And one of the things that they have asked us to comment on is whether in the tribal areas, we should include community colleges, which serve as their local public library, in some cases, they have so far not been funded. But this is an opportunity for us to comment on that. And shall be is looking to advocate for the community colleges in those areas where there are no chapters or public libraries, or school libraries that can serve those areas. So that kind of is a summary of very, very short summary of the more than 50 pages of the policy roadmap. Any comments, any questions? Not that I will be able to answer, but

is that there was a group of people here in the state who were meeting about the mapping, are they still meeting?

Not for now, there's a hiatus on that as soon as all the positions are filled at the Commerce authorities office, then we will restart it. But the Land Department is still working on the map, they had already sent their comments in the first set of comments. So indicating which addresses were not included. They're working together, they worked with us and with the schools, to security addresses of all of our anchor institutions. And that's what they incorporated into the their comments to FCC. We haven't still had an opportunity to meet in the last few weeks.

I didn't think so because I'm on that mailing list and I didn't see notices of meetings. We haven't had anything that's why so Mala Do you or mark or even Susan or any of you have a sense of where where they are in terms of these maps at this point about whether they're feeling they're gonna get value, valuable information to be able to make some good decisions regarding the beat funny.

As far as I know, the process is that once they receive comments, they will send it to the service providers. That Um, that showed the discrepancy. And the service providers will have to either accept or, you know, comment on it, and only then will they make their final decision. So, it is in the process of that happening. Of course, you know, all of that has to, because it takes time, they really don't want us to do, we can make all the comments we'd like, but they're not going to end the challenges, but they're not going to incorporate it into the bead money distribution. They've already got what they need. Okay.

I don't know, Drew or Mark either you guys have any thoughts about that,

or there are 50 states and another five territories all struggling with the map, Steve, it's, it's gonna be a messy story for the next year or two. But they will have, you know, arguably slightly flawed or somewhat flawed data that they will base the beed unserved and underserved. determinations on this is the map that will tell what communities can and can't be funded with the bead money. So it will work it worked better than census block stuff. Did we views for 12 years, but it'll be a rough wrap up. Okay.

Anybody else have any comments about the about the mapping before we move on?

I could not go through from common sense. I would just note that Senators soon and Jackie Rosen have introduced a bill that would somewhat delay a portion of the allocations to leave more time for math challenges. So there may be some tweaks to the allocation timeline. But that'll be decided in the Senate. I'll put a link to a story from today in the chat.

Okay. Thank you. Any other thoughts or comments about the mapping? Okay, so Janet, I don't believe you're here. However, you're not online today. And Aaron, I know how to note that she was not configured today. Oh, where's everybody? Fill up for you online. I think you're here on cefoxitin.

Yeah, I am here.

So what's happening? Department of Ed?

Well, today we had a K 12. Technology townhall in sunny size hosted by Kelly and Shelby Brown, we had 25 attendees on campus with another I want to say 60 online, we were joined by Ryan Murray and his department of homeland team to talk about updates from the cyber readiness program, along with other K 12 leaders talking about their Dr. plans and their organizational charts that they have in their school district. So so that's kind of what we have for now and no other updates beyond that.

Okay. Any questions for Philip? If not, I see John Kelly has joined us. Hey, John, how you doing?

I am Well, Steve, how's it going?

Good. So are you having having fun at the legislature?

Oh, is every day all the time? I come, come, everybody come join us and join the fun.

Yeah, cake and ice cream.

Not today for some reason.

So John, we we just mentioned previously the House and Senate Bill. But Can you fill us in with more details of what you know, and who's who and who's far who's against? Etc, etc. Sure. So

as some of you may know that the legislative process is extraordinarily organized and deliberative, until it's not. And and that happens often as we get to this stage where I think day 91 or something of that sort. And bills that never got hearing or bills that never even existed, can be added on to existing bills, replacing bills who are going through the system. And all of a sudden you have a brand new bill that nobody's ever seen before that hasn't really gone through much of a hearing. And and in this case, House Bill 2144 was struck on to a bill and the Senate government committee, and it was As it's designed to accelerate, permitting, for broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved communities, essentially, in short version, it creates kind of a shot clock for approvals in those areas for things like permitting, for excavation, for locating lines for construction of facilities for making repairs, and other kinds of things. So it did pass through the the Senate government committee, I think Cox Communications was the main proponent of the legislation, the League of Cities and Towns was neutral on the bill had some concerns about the government, or the legislation potentially impacting local authority for zoning regulations. And so there's likely a floor amendment that will be coming, but it would affect some of that. There is the draft amendment I've seen which I'll be able to share with Steve offline, he can maybe distribute, have some language that I think may raise some competitive concerns relative to whether it affects in the ground versus on the poll kinds of infrastructure developments, which may or may have some locally specific impacts, but we're still sort of getting our arms around all of that. The process of this point haven't gone through Senate government is it'll go to the Senate Rules Committee in some order, as soon as they get that amendment figured out. And then they'll go to the floor this week. Next week, it's hard to say we're we're kind of in the doldrums stage of the legislature where while they're still negotiating the budget, a lot of bills was just sort of slowly eke their way through the process. So take a look at the language see if if you can see any concerns out if you've got ISP is on the call. If you've got local governments on the call other entities and see if it's an issue, I think it's designed to be enhancing at least the intent of it is to be enhanced toward the bead implementations here. It's just unclear if the language is yet where it needs to be to me, but we're sort of getting our arms around it. Any questions on that?

So John, if I saw that correctly, that the House and Senate bill were pretty much the same, except in the Senate, that added state government and an account in the house? State government was not included? That I remember that correctly?

Well, this, the Senate government committee took up the amendment It was held in the house government committee, so it didn't move outside.

Okay. Susan, you're on line? Do you want to say anything?

Thanks, Steve. Yeah, and John explained the bill accurately. And yes, Cox is a supporter of it, we feel that there is a lot of activity that's going to be coming, we want to work closely with the municipal partners, as I know, other providers do as well, to make sure we're all ready to deliver on some of these important projects. And, you know, while some cities and jurisdictions are quite well staffed and equipped to deal with the permitting and inspections, there's gonna be a lot more activity in rural parts of the state, and needs to be a more definitive and sure process for getting permits and Inspections Done. Now, that said, it's not, you know, at the expense of cities and counties who have to, you know, implement this and keep up with the requests and, and demand. But it is a recognition that in order to get these projects done, and on time with the federal funding requirements, it is important to have some certainty around the permitting process. So that really was the intent. As John says, it's gonna be an ongoing process and dialogue with stakeholders to try to, you know, make sure we address the concerns. And I think there's general support amongst the provider community that this, this will be helpful. But you know, these right, there's always a process of capital to get through these things. And, you know, politics are what they are. So we'll see how things go.

So, John, I don't know if you want to comment more than what you already said, about the League of Cities and towns and what their objections might be.

Oh, I tried to reach out to them to be a little bit more faithful to that. I think we all know that cities and towns have important jurisdictional responsibilities for the quality of the roads and the quality of their communities. And so they want to assert that everywhere they can This is one of those situations where a compromise may be beneficial to all parties, if you want to bring more broadband infrastructure. So I think I think it sounds like the league is open to working through some of the typical issues that have come up. Those of us have been doing this a long time. I've seen other kinds of situations where the city has been very negative. In fact, I remember going around visiting with cities was 10 years ago and they go broadband is that important? Why do you want to do that? I don't understand. Can you explain what that would do? And what that would be? Fortunately, about a year or two ago that that question sort of disappeared. I don't know what what it was, but there was something that happened.

So, any other questions for John?

So what how can we help? Or what are you asking us to do, John, this is Petra.

Hey, Petra, I would just suggest that people take a look at the legislation, make sure that if they have any questions about it, I'm certainly happy to I'm flagging it. For some clients of ours, we got a fiber developer, that's client, we have Verizon Wireless, which is doing broadband projects. So we want to make sure this is fair and open competition for all all types of fiber developers and that it respects the constituents in the cities, as I know Cox does. So we're all sort of figuring it out as since it was a striker that was dropped kind of late. I think we're all just trying to make sure that the due diligence is done. And that's This is a public process. So we're just trying to make sure the public gets a chance to be heard.

Thank you. I think that's right. Thank you very much.

So I'm sorry,

Steve, you asked me to talk about anything else that I thought might be worth bringing up. And I know in the past, we've talked about some of the budget. discussions that have been going on that budget processes is in the works, it's proceeding. I wouldn't say they're in any huge rush. But as you may recall, there were a couple of different budget items in the governor's budget. One was the $50 million for accelerated broadband matching, that's still going to be an issue and then others in the Erate matching grant recapitalisation. As you recall, that was initiated a number of years ago, Milan Eaton has been carefully administering that and helping to support school districts that want to do special construction projects and helping with matching grants. So if you are all interested in that, it's important for legislators to hear about your support for that, because there's as much money as there is in the budget right now. There are more demands, and they're more needs. And so this is, infrastructure is kind of bipartisan, and it's not necessarily controversial, but I think, in this squeaky wheel world of ours, the broadband community, and the broadband customer community needs to be heard. And this is good time to reach out to your local representatives, and make sure they know that this is an important payment to be taken care of.

Thanks, John. Any questions for John about about any of those?

You know, I think he's right. And I'll I'll follow up because I'd like to get more information. Thank you.

Yeah, John, Mark, is the railroad crossing bills still in play?

I believe that one's been parked for now. Okay, so I think there's some some offline conversations about how to handle that from place to place, but I don't think that the overall mandate is going to go through sitting upright

pole, attachment limitations for this bill. Will those work themselves out? You believe or

I if you're asking me to predict and I've learned a long time ago, Nixon, okay. I don't bet on sports games, and I don't I don't bet on legislation. So no prediction. Other than that, I'm sure there will be intensely expert opinions lodged about the importance of this. Without

that element, it might be possible and beneficial for at AIC to, you know, endorse the bill, but with the foo bar over over the limitations. I'm not sure that's wise. Unless one gives some conditional endorsement. Is there any play there? i

It's always hard to give nuanced advocacy. I mean, I think when we're down here all the time, we get to the opportunity that and Susan knows that better than anybody. We can have those conversations. If there's a stakeholder conversation, I'm I'm looking to the League of Cities to sort of figure out the balance of right interests to make sure again, you want open fair competition you want as many this is an all hands on deck situation for these communities. You want as many different forms and fashion and broadband as you can get. And then make sure that it's affordable and accessible and high quality and so any bill that does that, I think all of us would before we just want to look at the details and make sure that's what this does.

Fair enough, and the cities are, you know, exposed to this through the US A wireless citing the federal legislation already this kind of shot clock requirements, so shouldn't be that. Who knows, but you're right. They like they like their policing powers too.

They like they like what they like they like or they like

you mentioned the League of Cities and Towns, isn't there a supervisors Association, also an area's Association and they're weighed in at all I'm

not Not to my knowledge not to my visibility at the hearing that was held on this it was the league that tested at least testified they testified neutral, and said that the the bills intent seemed reasonable. And they were working through some language to protect zoning authority.

So this has been an issue, that's been an ongoing issue for us. I think those of us who have been talking about this for 20, some odd years has been an ongoing kind of an issue. And all I can say is that I really encourage people, particularly those of you who are with local government, local communities, to really understand these bills, and find out where your elected officials are and what your position is on any of this stuff. So like there's three.

Okay. There's an echo here.

Yeah, we got somebody's feedback in the in the background. Our time, good. Thank you. Okay. Anything else? I'm John, thanks for dropping in. Maybe you can stay online, but we're glad you were keen to present that.

I missed my coffee time with my friend Steve. So we'll see you soon. Thank you.

Thanks, John. Okay, so let's go ahead now and start. Let me see Gretchen is online now. Great. So let's go back to our discussion about the grants that have been received. And we have representatives from each of the waiting organizations that have received grants to talk about I believe that Gretchen you helped to facilitate a meeting of those organizations. Last week, and I don't know if you want to comment on that before we get into more discussion about this.

Sure, happy to do that. Good afternoon. So yes, I thought it would be helpful if the four organizations identified by the FCC as successful candidates for the brands got together to just talk a little bit about our programs to see if there's going to be overlap or not overlap. We want to support each other wherever possible, recognizing that we all have our missions to accomplish. But I am really excited to work with a very talented group of people who all have great passion for their communities. We are excited here at the City of Phoenix, that our city council has approved our request to come

see drop down. Yep. Hopefully, she'll be back in a moment.

To contra able to move some of our ARPA dollars from Digital Divide projects, reach people and get that. Am I still there? Sorry about that.

Gretchen you dropped off for 20 seconds or so. So did you

hear the good news about common sense?

No. That's why I'm bringing it up that you dropped off.

Yeah, so last week, our city council did authorize us to contract with common sense. We are really excited about that. So they're not we're not recreating the wheel. I don't know about my colleagues. But I was still submitting documents to the FCC today. So if you didn't get awarded the full amount you requested, you had to resubmit a new budget. And I think lots of folks were challenged by those deadlines, because the FCC was kind enough to push it out a couple of times. But today was the deadline. I think for us, we're still in that point of putting the pieces together. And we'd love to come back and visit with folks to answer questions, give you information so that you're able to go share and then also put opportunities out to your network. If people are looking for places to volunteer. We intend to have Train the Trainer events, so that if people want to come and be added application lab and how people sign up, they can be empowered to do that.

Right?

So. So basically, Richard, you just you just touched on, and we're going to hear just a little bit from each of the other communities. But I think they're all in that sort of limbo stage right now, where they have some tentative plans, but they're not exactly sure how it's all going to roll out today. And so I know, in some respects, it's a little premature to be here today. But I did at least want people to meet who these different communities are, and the leaders in those communities and at least get some sense. And of course, we'll continue. The thing though, the thing that's important for me is that since we have such a broad network of folks that may want to partner support and relate to these different projects that want to begin to provide some information. So So Gretchen, since you've already started, do you want to say anything more at this point?

I think that's a pretty good wrap up for us. I am trying to get my arms around this project. I literally go whoo, we got the money. And then oh, crap, we got the money. So feeling a little bipolar here.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Gretchen. And thanks for convening that meeting last week. I understand it went really well. And people really thought it was beneficial. So moving on, Lupe, I believe you're online. I don't think Robert is. But Lupe, I believe you're here today, you want to give us a little update on what's happening with Chicanos Graham.

Yeah, of course. Um, thank you again, for having us, Steven, happy Monday to everybody hope ever had a good weekend. This weekend, Robert is actually he's actually took vacation. So I don't think he realized it was like spring break for his kids and did a fishing trip. So he is in the middle of nowhere, right now, catching some wonderful fish or more, maybe his son's catching. And he supported I'm not sure if he's really good Fisher or not. But here at CPLC, we have turned in our final documents for the budget last week, I think earlier last week with the team. And so we I think it's all finalized. Our goal is once we get the full notice of approval that everything's good to go, we're gonna start build Well, we've already started working on our business plan, we'll be going into 20 counties across our four states, California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona. And so what we'll be doing is working with our program directors across all those counties, because what we did is in the 20 County, we made sure that CPLC had an office in that presence. And so that way we can work with those program directors that had built into the community that know that community very well. So they can support us doing that outreach, working with existing clients that we have there, because we know that our clients do meet all the qualifications. And then the word of mouth is the best way to tell that comma, there's a senior US all the community members. And so we have been working with our presidents. And so before we apply to with the keep them in the loop, and they're all big supporter. So for us, we're excited to go out there. And once we get that we'll start implementing right away, we have programs ready to go. And we've been making some partnerships and connections and across the states that they're also going to help us with doing outreach because they love what we're doing. And we're kind of in the same areas in the counties that they're in. And so we're ready to go on that. And we're just going to be waiting for that approval, notice of award and we'll be hiring treat three positions from the grant.

So can you tell us which communities here in Arizona, that you're anticipating working with

here in Arizona, I can actually give you let me give the exact ones. There was a big list in Arizona. County wise. I think last time on the chart, I did put it. Let me go ahead and give the exact counties.

Okay, well, if you want to find it later, that's fine.

I'll send it over. I'll put it in the chat here for Arizona. But I think last last meeting, I didn't put it but I'll go ahead and copy and paste and put it in the in our chat.

Okay. Any questions for okay. Okay, so just going back to Gretchen for just a second. So Elena, since you're going to be working with them. Do you have anything at this point that you want to share? That she that she didn't or is it still premature?

I think it's still a little premature. We're still I mean, it was just awarded so we need to talk with the city and Gretchen and doing the scope of work and all of that stuff. So it's a little premature and I'm sure with a Within a couple of weeks, we should be able to come back and let you know what what we're up to.

Okay. Thank you. So Petra, you want to share a little bit about Promise Arizona. And you know, we're here at the stage

here, I think I think we're all about the same place. But but obviously late March, we actually it was Gretchen to call. So congratulations, you got a grant I did. I hadn't even been notified. And a press release had gone out that three organizations for organizations in Arizona had been awarded a grant. And so I said, Okay, where did Where does it say that we got a grant. And so we scrambled. And we went online. And indeed, we were one of the grantees. And so we've been we've gone back to do some analysis on where we want to invest. And again, promises are statewide, and we've been doing civic engagement work, community engagement work for the last 12 years, in specific areas, especially along the border, and in, in states that have the majority of people of color population. And, and for this particular project we have when we're in a Dinah, identify as six counties that have 25% or more of people of color population makes basically Latino, and people that really, really need this the broadband investment. And those counties are Santa Cruz, Yuma, Cochise, FEMA, pinout, Maricopa, and they have over 770,000 people that can be identified, that would be good target. So that that means, you know, now becomes the time where you start to strategize? How do we get into those counties? And who goes into those counties? And how much time we have to spend there? And how do we spend this money to make sure that we connect with people, we already have a significant database at some of those counties because of the work that we've done in the last year or so. So we'll probably start there in terms of connecting with people. And we have to figure out how we're going to reach out to people whether it's door to door or some other kind of communication, whether it's institution of communication that in high schools and churches, community events, but but that will be part of developing the plan moving forward. And we should have something significant. I mean, I probably have a draft, when it's, like quite extensive, but But we now have to really create the budget from that. And we were able last week we did scramble, like everybody else did. When we got the notification, you need to do more, you need to add more to your to your paperwork. And we did We submitted a budget, we submitted everything that they requested and and I haven't heard back since last Thursday, because Friday. In our communities, it tends to be it was hoped it was good Friday, people just you know, people don't go to work. They go to one a looper, they go somewhere to go celebrate the totally trip idiom so. So that's what we did. We weren't we closed on Thursday afternoon. And so we haven't heard back that. And I was out in LA and I just got back off the plane at 1230 today, because we were fogged over. But yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited because the opportunity from my position and my framework and my investment in Arizona as I've been doing. Most of my adult life has been to work in underserved communities, and this conversation about broadband and accessing people that that don't have any way to communicate. Beyond maybe their cell phones, it's really, really, really, really exciting to be and and I will pursue more funding than I would pursue more assistance from you all that have been doing as much longer than we have. Because it's so so so much needed, I can just think about what I look back, I can think about a lot of communities on the west side that just just need the broadband, they need some assistance in getting that service. We bought five years ago, we received a grant to do adult education and be safe communities. And we also received funding so that we could buy tablets so that people could study English via via a tablet virtually. And we have a curriculum that we use so so it's been very, very, very useful and eye opening in terms of how people learn in a much faster way on these tablets. And I'm talking to dust who are predominantly speak Spanish. So again, the barrier has continued to be language. And I think in this instance, that's going to be a challenge for all of us is how do we make sure we really, really reach people that really need this, this investment and so I'm, I'm excited about this work.

Thank you, Petra. Any questions for Petra? Petra, just one thing. Can you just back up for a second? The people a little more of an overview of what Promise Arizona is?

Well Promise Arizona. And before that my work is always been a community organizer. I mean, I've been trained as a community organizer. But But back in the late 90s, I was working nationally on a national campaign to pass immigration reform out of DC. And but unfortunately, it didn't go very well far. And it hasn't yet. But when SB 1070, get here in Arizona, I was in Nevada chasing Senator Harry Reid to pass immigration reform. And I was held back to Arizona to fight SB 1070. And we did so we did so obviously, legislatively we did. So just just getting to the the bill, dad, and so we killed the debt. We killed the bill. But we also had to take it to court, we went to the Ninth Circuit Court, and that's where it failed. And but we still have the remnants here on the ground. And so we continue to work with with our communities and our leadership. And of course, your Pio is still around, so. So we did, we did a lot of work on the feet in the field, but I would call the field and we'd go door to door and we engage people. And since then, obviously, we've gone beyond that we were involved in, in bringing light rail to South Phoenix because we weren't gonna get light rail, we had to fight to get light around in South Phoenix, we had to pass the money from the city to make that happen. And, and so it's just been one thing after another, I hear that legislature also has a bill to try to circumvent a plan that the community in been developed to make sure that that plan drop went into effect. So it's, it's always been one thing after another to make sure that underserved communities get the resources that they need. So this project blends into the work that we've been continuing to do to make sure that underserved communities get the attention that they need, especially in the area of education.

Okay, great. Any questions for Petrak? Okay, moving on Grant Evans, Navajo County.

Good afternoon off. Thank you, Steve. Our program is probably very similar to a lot of them you've already heard about, we were awarded in the tribal competitive outreach grant pot of money. So we've got a pretty large or fairly large landmass for county, not very densely populated. So we've got a lot of area to cover. So our grant is going to be administered by our our health district, I mean, I'm sorry, our library district. So we've got 15 Partner Library, local libraries, chapters and communities and 10 of those, we're going to be partnering with the library managers and our library director to run this program to try to, you know, make our reach as broad as as possible to try to reach as many people as we can. Three tribes in the in the county, so one of the target populations, and then as well as seniors, seniors and low income. So we ran an ad, like I said, through the library district doing, like the other stuff said, we'll be doing Train the Trainer, digital navigator, training to for volunteers to help with both targeting computer literacy for programs as well as, as well as awareness and enrollment in ACP program itself. So that's kind of a broad overview of our program we like like the others, it sounds like we weren't awarded the full amount that we asked for. So we've got a little bit of restructuring that we had to do last week. scaling back, you might say. That's, that's the general overview of our program is partnering with our local library so we can cover our entire county here.

Thanks, grab any questions for grant? So

I don't have a question. But I granted I have connected if we aren't going to have a conversation about how we can collaborate.

So one of the things for me, is as you guys progress and clarify, you know exactly where you're going, and so forth, is where we can help you. And we've been having some discussions with the Access, and others regarding the signing up people for access, again. And certainly one thing that came to mind and kind of clear for us is that there are of course, a lot of other community organizations and health care clinics and so forth around the state who have quote navigators. They're not digital navigators. But they are navigators. And the question was, how can we tie into that? And be able to use those resources and develop them as navigators? So I guess my, I'm not at this early question, except if you guys want to come Amen on this, how can we, you know, tie in with all these other organizations out there? Because as much as you got some nice, nice money, it's never enough. And so how can we bring in some of the folks we've been working with, so that we can extend the capabilities, or I shouldn't say we how you can extend the capabilities of what you're trying to do with the grant.

I call it an integrated model, Steve. And so I just think we sit down and map it out. Because I agree with you, I think it's very much the same. We we engage people around other things, too. And I think that's what we were going to do, we were going to integrate what we do on the, what I call the field, and just talk to them and see how we can make sure that we're not in the same territory either. So I think I think it's it's a, it's a no brainer, we need to do that. And, you know, we're we've worked in the past with Carmen Edenia. Invited, so on the vaccine outreach, and, and we did the vaccine outreach for buy it. So we did some of the projects. So I think this certainly does fall into that. Okay, let's do it together.

So we'll, we'll have to figure out how's the best way for us whether we do this, try and do this at this meeting? Excuse me, here, we have a separate meeting. And let's look more specifically of partnerships. And again, I know you guys are going to continue to meet and that's a great thing. So we just have to kind of figure out how do we best do that in a way that's going to be useful and beneficial for you. And of course, for the communities.

May I ask a general question? And Petra, I think this is probably your area. So are all of these grants, all for inclusion? None of these grants are for actually delivering service to anybody. Would that be a correct statement?

No, I think that's a correct statement. Okay,

thank you our job, our job is to sign people up. Okay.

And then how do they know what to sign up for though we're where to sign up to? Well, that's what

we're trying to figure out how to document that and how to make sure that we're, we're sending people to the right place. And I think that's what the digital webinar, so we're learning all about that.

Okay, that'll be some of the goal of the of the train the trainers to get the trainers, or at least for us anyway, to get the get the trainers and the volunteer if they're volunteers, and then some full time staff to help helping the enrollment process our our plan is to do one on one enrollment, to have an assistant there in person with you to help you enroll at a public facility.

Where do you get that? Where do you where do you get your data from on the providers that cover your areas?

We only have a few. So we're ours isn't that probably as complex as the more urban area is for us? I'm sure there's other methods. But it's as simple as calling one of the two that offer service and see if they service your address.

So I'm going to jump into so we have to be provider agnostic with the FCC funds. So there there is a list out there of providers that are participating in ACP. And of course, if if someone is suggesting that they represent a provider, and they want to figure out how to partner with us with without organizing our grant funds, I think all four of us would be interested in hearing about that.

But I The other thing is is how do you identify? What is the who is the underserved person? And so that's something that we need to figure out too, is who is that? How do you identify that person? So that we legitimately sign up somebody who is qualified to be what makes them an underserved, underserved person? That's a question we need to ask.

But what I'm actually trying to get out is, are there clustered areas that have issues, whether they're local or remote, because of our capabilities, we do programs where we drop pricing down to $10 for certain areas, for education and, and we have another special programs, retirement areas, we've gone down as much as $24. And that's not including ACP funding, even though we're an ACP vendor. So I'm just curious, is there any way to work with you guys and

you would send me your contact information or drop it in the chat so that we can all get it so there definitely are areas here in Phoenix like you think about Phoenix where the fifth largest city in the country, but we still have dead zones where there is either no Service, or no reliable service. So, you know, those are areas that need a new solution. You know, the the guys that are the big guys that are here just aren't there yet. And we keep growing and making their lives challenging. But I think if you can drop your contact information, we'd love to see if there are ways to, again, leverage each other. Maybe you have volunteers who want to come and help some of us at application labs.

We have, we have near universal coverage of Phoenix at this point. Awesome. So Okay, wonderful. I'm putting my contact in there.

And my dad and I figured out a way to go into those six counties that we're looking at, to see where, where that hub is, and people that are not receiving any service. So, and it's called the van. It's just a database, national database. But it has a lot of consensus information connected to it. But I think we

have databases that are not very complete that we're trying to reach. We try to catch up to them, but they're constantly popping up all over the place. Okay, I've entered my information, like I said, we have, we have the ability to provide low cost applicational, low cost technologies, these areas that meet all the specs, because obviously, we're an ACP provider. But yeah, I'd love to hear from you guys where those locations are, because we don't know how to identify him. Okay,

it's tough. That's not and I have a 430 to run to. So I'm gonna say goodbye. Thank you and I will follow up with with you. I've got trouble. Thank you. Yeah.

Rory, are you just here in Arizona or across other states,

we are just here in Arizona. We but we are in a lot of small towns, we opened up seven small towns, we've got a anyone coming online here shortly. And, you know, we're all the way up to the grant from Nogales up to the Grand Canyon. We do not have universal statewide coverage. But we have pretty close to universal coverage throughout Maricopa County, all the way down to Tucson. So yeah, sure. So

those of you who are left on from the grant programs, how are we addressing? Or is or are we addressing with these grants, the the adoption issue, so we get people and this has been an ongoing issue and discussion about so now we get these people signed up? And then what? So I know we've got navigators at the Library, and at ASU, are we addressing that issue in any other way with these grants?

Yeah, I guess I can speak on for us. So for us, our goal is to we are we are doing in support support, because we know that the community that we reach, they're not very tech savvy, so are doing the pretty much hand holding support, making sure they apply. And then once you do apply, making sure we connect them with the ISP, our goal is to invite in those areas which ISPs are eligible, and that they can reach and cover their areas. So that way, when they leave, they're fully connected. We are right now looking for funding. So we can support devices for this community. So that way, they also have a device when they leave after they're connected with internet. And then the goal is to awesome still digital training. Normally at our events that we have that we've had here, just with fundraise, what we've done is we do the full kind of three tier approach, make sure we get them connected, provide them a device, and then we do some, you know, training for them right on site. So that way, when they leave the device, they leave, they're not just kind of unaware of their device. The goal is as we continue to grow this program to make sure that we can get additional funding so that way, they have a place to come in. Because we are in those centralized those underserved rural areas, or here as well, Phoenix were able to just have a location on site that they feel comfortable. And when they're coming, the great thing is that we all have multiple services. So it's a site that they can come for multiple items if they need help with like, you know, we have people that support with access health care, food stamps, just, you know, maybe your ECD program, Workforce Solutions. So they're coming in there to get multiple services, not just one. That's kind of an approach that we have that maybe just unique because, you know, but that's kind of how we want to approach and still have that tier three tier approach and making sure that when they leave, they're ready to go. And we train them and they can keep coming back.

Thanks. Anybody else have any comments about that? Okay, well, anybody have any other announcements or anything they want to share before we end the meeting today?

not hearing any.

I have one

seat Question just that anybody who's looking at any of these programs, ASU has got a fairly large grant that they're going to be deploying the technology. And they're looking at, they're also looking for air for locations to do that, I would suggest that reaching out to Derek, and getting him involved with some of the areas that you guys are working on. And they might be able to back it up with the funding to deploy the technology to deploy the actual internet and stuff at the same time. Yes, anything else?

So next week, hopefully adjustment, I'll be in touch with you. That I am hoping that we can do a little panel discussion on what's happening in Indian country who's doing what and what are the challenges, what kind of progress are they making, and so forth. So we're gonna be working on that panel for next week.

Okay, great. Yeah, let me know how I can assist you happy to