August 7, 2023 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force Recording

10:56PM Aug 9, 2023

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Cindy Hogan

Nicole Umayam

Mark Goldstein

Erin Lorandos

Mala Muralidharan

Petra Falcon

Rory Conway

Lucy Howell

Henry Goldberg

John Legrand

Karen Ziegler

Nubia Estrada

John Haas

Keon Montgomery

Lilian Le

Keywords:

broadband

section

cindy

arizona

digital

work

funding

equity

support

good

aca

state

team

fund

program

focus

people

acp

cybersecurity

share

Okay, welcome, everybody. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. And soon we'll have some other people who will join us in just a little while. So we'll have several things to chat about today. First of all, of course, thanks to all of our sponsors. And we on, we have a couple of new people I believe, who are joining us today, and would like for you folks to introduce yourself, please. Keon, would you introduce yourself please?

There we go. Yes. Hi. My name is Keon Montgomery. I'm the Assistant Deputy Director with the Arizona department of housing.

Can you take just a minute, I know we chatted a little bit. And you told me a little more a little about, you know what you guys do? Could you share that with people? Just a little bit, please?

Sure.

So the Arizona Department of Housing is primarily viewed as sort of a conduit to provide federal and state funding to nonprofit and for profit organizations throughout the state. And we focus primarily on the development of affordable housing. So we provide a lot of loans if you will loans and grants to organizations to to build affordable housing. We also fund the development of shelters, shelter, housing, transitional housing, and to a certain extent, housing services and services that support being stably housed. And so one of our core focuses right now is to provide funding to house unsheltered individuals, as well as expanding multifamily housing throughout the state.

So you and I had a great conversation the other day, and was learning more about what they do, and talked about where there might be some intersection, as he pointed out to me that he is not a direct provider of services, but provides the funding to enable people to build low income housing. However, he does have connections with a lot of nonprofit organizations around the state. And so we had chatted about possibilities of how we might be able to collaborate with him, and not going to take more time about that today. But we might bring him back and have some more time off that issue. So with that, William do I do we only

Hi there. Yeah. My name is Lillian and I am at the Arizona commerce authority. I work alongside Cindy Hogan and Karen, as a part of our digital equity

initiatives.

Right. Welcome. Thank you. Glad to have you here today.

So moving on, let's just jump into it. With some updates. Cindy, you have, I believe, an announcement and maybe an update, please.

Cindy, are you there? Cindy, where do you go?

I think she's in the car. So she may be unmuting. Okay.

So in the meantime, while we're waiting for Cindy. Karen, do you want to give us kind of an update on what's happening with the broadband office, please?

Yes, certainly. Yes. And

I'll let Cindy you know talk about the digital equity aspect of it. But right now, ACA is working on the bead five year plan. That is the first document that gets submitted as part of a series of planning documents for deployment of the bead funding. So that five year plan is due I think August 22. Sometime the end of August here so we're right in the middle of edits and reviewing that document that ties directly with the digital equity plan that Cindy and the team are working on as well. We are also planning some webinars for outreach efforts across the state. And then Steve, when those when we get those dates set. We'll share that with you so you can get that out to the AZ BSN membership. Some of them will be closed sessions with certain stakeholders and others will be open to you know everyone. So we'll share that information as that becomes available. Let me see One of the things I wanted to announce, and I'm not sure if we've talked about this before, but ACA has hired a tribal liaison that's going to be working directly with the tribes on the bead and digital equity programs. So her name is Candice Hamana. And we'll see if we can get her to attend one of these meetings and give you guys an update on some of the work that she's doing, you know, in ACA. Last, like I said deepest in Denver right now. He's at the mountain region broadband directors conference. And so the next week, we'll see if we can get our Yeah, next week. Regarding snacks.

Sorry about that. No, I wasn't sure that was a question, please. I

do want to meet everybody. I can. Yeah, that was neat. Everybody's Okay. Am I

muted? Are I'm still okay, you're still good. So and I guess

we got Cindy on yet.

So let me just finish off some of the other stuff. And then Cindy, I'll hand it off to you. You know, two big things that we're working on as well is the abd G program, getting those contracts out the door and getting those programs or those projects started up? There the 100 million dollars that ACA awarded last year. And, you know, we're getting ready to kick those projects off, which is really exciting. And then let's see the second and there was another item I was gonna address, but I think I'm gonna pass it on to Cindy and about the digital equity program.

Okay, before we get to Cindy, I just wanted to say that I had a great conversation with both Karen and Sandip last week. And we're working on how we can get all these new people that they've hired to come to the task force meetings on occasion, in particular, a way to introduce them. There's the tribal liaison person, there's the Broadband Program Manager, not sure who will, else that we're missing. So anyway, we're going to work on them being available whenever they can get the taskforce meetings. So Karen, I'll put that

no problem, Steve. Yeah, we're gonna try to, you know, attend as many as we can, but at a minimum, have at least one of us attend the call. So we can give you an update on what's happening. And I did remember the last thing I wanted to just touch on is, once we get this five year, action plan submitted, ACA is going to turn their focus to the volume one of the initial proposal, which focuses on the challenge process, and it is, it's gonna be a massive undertaking, but I just want everybody to, you know, just be aware that there's going to be a challenge process coming similar to what the FCC did, but it's really state focused on, you know, the speeds and the eligibility of the broadband service locations for the funding. So more to come on that a lot of webinars, a lot of outreach will be done over the next couple of months to get everybody up to speed on that process.

Right. Thank you, Karen.

So moving on Sunday, you want to give us an update, please?

Yes, sure. I'm Cindy Hogan. I'm the digital equity program manager for the ACA broadband office. And let me just click one button here. Yeah, so I am in Phoenix on my way to Kingman and Parker, quartzite. And Yuma. We're doing we're wrapping up the listening tours, to get stakeholder input, community member and community leader input for the digital equity plan. So this is the last week. We also have we also want to do a push this week to get the survey this survey request out to community members and community leaders. I will put that in the chat in a minute here. Yeah, we can take the we can take surveys in until August 18. So we asked, we're gonna ask everybody to just get up, get them. Get the request out to everybody you can think of. We just Need numbers and we need people giving us giving us the feedback so that we understand the the landscape in Arizona. Karen talk about the bead side of things. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, good. So yeah, the digital equity plan is is underway. They're they're prepping to write, write that once they get all the data, and they'll be able to use that to, to summarize where they feel Arizona is and start putting putting pen to paper. And trying to think if there's anything else

there any questions? Cindy, how are

our communities getting the surveys other than through this gathering? Or have they gone to schools? Have they gone to churches? Have they got community centers? Or Is anybody doing door to door? Or is

there has been there has been some door to door digital equity Institute has people on the ground, I think and I think across the state, we've just been sending them to our networks and hoping that our networks are getting them out to community members. Yeah, so. So we'll put the I'll put the link in the chat. And we'll go with this group one more time. And, and if you can all push it out to the people that that in the organizations that you work with, that would be a big help.

And that was included in my course my update for this week, meaning that it was also included in there.

Thank Thank you, Steve. It's really good. Yeah, it's good to just get it, get it on everybody. Um, one last time. And then I also have another announcement. Unless there any questions?

Very quick question on the survey. Cindy? Who's the specific target for that? Is it anybody or anybody?

So so what we what we're doing is we're trying to collect data from two sets of people, people that are, you know, lived experience people, just unity members who who are trying to get online and whatever, whatever barriers they're confronting. We want to know about them. And we want to know their, what devices they have, what use they have, and what speeds they have, and all that all that kind of detail information. And then we also want to hear from organizations that are trying to do work in the community with people just to find out what their needs are. community anchor institutions are one of the one of the places we can spend the dollars if we want to. If we find out that there are there are anchor institutions that really, really needs a boost in their in their service.

Got it. And just I think I remember starting to take it, but just is it like a eight to 15 minute commitment? Yeah, about how long? Yes,

about 15 minutes. Okay.

Yeah, I got halfway through. And

then I had to go and I'm like, wow, this is a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, I think it is from the lived experience perspective. I didn't do it from the organizational. So okay. Yeah. But that's good to know that this is the last week. We'll help you get it out.

Yeah. Thank you so much. Excellent. Cindy.

Mala ash in the chat. What is the last date? I assume the last date? You're accepting surveys?

All right, August 18. Thank you, thank you. So not, and that means if you're mailing them in, if you're mailing them, they need to be in well before that so that they get there. Yeah. I know libraries, a lot of libraries got got the hard copies. So and with a stamped self addressed envelope. So we are trying to get to everybody. Okay.

So Cindy, you have I have

I have an announcement. Yes. I as as of Friday, this week, I am leaving my position with the ACA. It's been a real privilege to work with this extraordinary group at this extraordinary time. I wish everyone on that team, all the success with the ongoing digital planning for for Arizona. I just really miss the grassroots outreach. I came up in around Tucson and Pima County. And I'm I'm planning to go back there and seek out seek out opportunities at that level. And I'm very pleased to announce that Lillian Lee will be stepping into the position. Lillian has been a member of the team. She's been the compliance and grants program officer, and she's going to be taking over for me, I think it will be a wonderful boost to this effort. And I wish her all the best as she becomes the new voice of digital equity for the state. And Lillian is on the call today. So I'd like to have her introduce herself.

Yeah, thank you

I'm well, I know some of you here already, because I've been working alongside Cindy throughout this process. So I'm not too new to the scene. But I look forward to meeting the rest of you and continuing our work together. I keep telling Cindy, she's not going anywhere, I'm still going to be reaching out to her, she's still going to be part of this. So

we need to stop with the goodbyes. She's

definitely not going anywhere. But yes, I am very excited to be part of this group. And I look forward to meeting all of you.

Great, well, welcome.

I was just gonna ask Molly and to give a little bit of background on herself, because she's got a pretty impressive background, so to share with people,

ya know, I'm more than happy to do that. So I actually come from the K 12 education world. I did start out as a teacher once upon a time ago. But eventually I, you know, worked in the nonprofit sector, at a refugee resettlement agency in Phoenix, where I support a school district that had high populations of refugees. And then I was at the ad EA for a few years before joining the ACA. And there I just supported school districts with their entitlement funding, and I served as the Digital Learning Specialist for school districts across Arizona. And like Cindy mentioned, starting at the ACA, I was the broadband grants and Compliance Manager while also supporting Cindy

and the rest of the team.

Welcome Lilian and then I want to say a special thanks to Cindy. Thank you, Cindy, for all the great work you did. And obviously we're going to continue to see you.

Any other comments, thoughts?

No, I am going to miss her. I mean, when I first came to AC, a and Andy grant that I really reached out to her and she's, she knows a lot of the people that I work with in Tucson, so we relate it really well. So I am going to miss him. But yeah, she's not gonna go far. I'm going to be bugging her.

Think she wants to be back.

Thank you, Petra.

Okay, anybody else? Before we move on?

Just wanted to see if Lillian can put her contact information in the chat. Thanks.

We'll make sure to get it out to everybody also. Okay, we're ready to move on. So before we move on, Aaron, I don't know if you if I pronounced your name correctly. Huzzah lotto? Is that correct?

Are you there? Aaron? You weren't here? Maybe she's gone.

Okay, well, she comes back, we'll introduce her. So in the meantime, moving on, Nicole, you want to? Do you have any updates that you want to share?

I don't know that I have much to add from the broadband office updates.

Okay. Thanks.

So next on the agenda is change of meeting days and times. And I know you're all tired of hearing me say that. So hopefully, this is going to be the last time I'm going to say it. I have been in touch. And I think a number of you suggested I ought to be talking to folks who have not been attending meetings, many of whom had been long standing participants in this task force. So I made a number of phone calls, in the last couple of weeks, reaching out to people to get a sense of what we might be doing before I just send out a survey. And based on the discussions and the communication I had with people, there were several things that are the stepped up. One was afternoons don't seem to work well for people. Secondly, morning would be of course, would be best, and maybe eight or eight or nine o'clock. And so we're looking at probably moving to eight o'clock in the morning. And part of the reason for that is besides the fact that it's early, and we got our meetings done, and people move on with their day. But also, as you know, Karen Ziegler is is kind of a key point of contact for the broadband office. And since you Karen, I believe you told me you have meetings pretty much at nine o'clock every day. And so we want to make sure that Karen is going to be available as much as possible. And so we're looking at eight o'clock meeting. A lot of folks were saying, well, we don't really like Monday, and we had somebody who had a conflicting meeting every Friday. So now we're looking at Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. For these meetings. So I'm just curious if anybody has any major issues with any of those days.

I have a standing meeting on Mondays at eight o'clock because it's an East Coast meeting and so it makes it eight o'clock here and 11 o'clock later. So, Wednesday, Thursday we work.

Okay. So Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday? Yeah, yes. Okay. So anybody else have any conflicting kinds? Those days? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at eight o'clock.

Fortunately, Steve, I have a conflict Wednesday at 8am

on Wednesday. So I'm sorry.

But Thursday is good for me. Okay.

So does anybody have any problems with Thursday? So we're looking at Thursday, eight o'clock. That good with everybody? Going once, going twice. Okay, looks like we have a new day and time. So I will send out meeting announcements. I may not change next week's meeting because I want to give people some advance notice. But we will definitely work at eight o'clock on Thursday for our meetings. Okay. Great. So next thing on the agenda is the Cybersecurity Initiative for AC BSN. As you know, we discussed this on several different occasions, and like the meeting date and time, gotta get gotta get on it. And so we have two people who have stepped up and I'm going to let them introduce themselves again, real quickly. But JT on the ground, and John Haas have offered to take a lead with this, I have been in touch with about a dozen organizations, everything, of course, from the State Library, state broadband office, you have a Pima College, Arizona Department of Education, Homeland Security, and many others who have said that they are interested in participating, I want to mention that my plan is to have a small group of maybe a dozen at the most, to come together to clarify what the mission is what we want to accomplish, and how we're going to work together. And then we will open it up to anybody else who wishes to participate. In the meantime, if there's anybody who absolutely says, I gotta be in on the ground floor, please let me know you can speak up now are let me know where you're not going to be excluding anybody. And we know there's lots of others out there, who will be great resources, just don't want to get too big, too fast, until we kind of know where we're going and how we're going to function. So with that, JT and John, do you want guys want to introduce yourselves quickly?

I'll go first. My name is John Grant, Jama grant or GT since there's more than one, John, I'm a former telecom technology grew up in executive and pioneer, did a lot of software development, broadband deployments in the Midwest, including some of the Southwest in Arizona. I am by by background, mainly a systems engineer. And so I ask a lot of questions about requirements. And so that's what I hope to be able to help offer here is figure out what the requirements are for all the stakeholders, and then determine what we do next. So if you're going to participate, you will hear lots of questions from me. That's my thing. I'm out.

Gray. So has a significant background in project management, which is a good thing. So it's really awesome, JT, that you have stepped up to now John, off to you.

Yep. John has came to Arizona as a start the cyber intelligence and security degree programs at Embry Riddle. And prior to that did a number of different things in encryption company, a broadband in the form of satellite and cable television, believe it or not, that was the old fashioned broadband and glad to be seeing that we're getting to weigh broadband in more and more of the state. And I think that Steve and I spoke about one of the issues is that many people are not familiar with cybersecurity. They're not even that familiar with devices. And so how do we educate people since once you connect to broadband, you become a target, because now you can be found, especially if you leave your device on and connected which people have a tendency to do. So there's a whole educational component that I think is something for us to consider. Luckily, we have a lot of groups in Arizona that can help us. And that's my story. Thanks.

So, John, you actually reminded me which I didn't come in on. And I've said this before, so it's not new. But we're trying to get a focus on what we want to do in cybersecurity. As you know, there are lots of different ways we can go with cybersecurity. And there are also lots of different organizations who engaged in cybersecurity, where I think our niches at this point is to focus on as John was commenting that now we're giving people all these devices, we're getting people connected. And I've said this before, so I don't want to belabor it. But now that we're connecting all these people, has many of them who don't even know how to turn on a computer. don't know anything about cybersecurity. So as we're going about signing people up, as we're going about doing digital navigators and all that stuff, that we have to figure out, how are we going to deal with the issue of cybersecurity. So I think that that's our niche at this point, that may evolve. And people may differ with me, but I don't want to get us too broad. And I don't want us to duplicate with the many other organizations, we have universities, community colleges, and nonprofit organizations, who are all doing cybersecurity education, to prepare people for cybersecurity in the workforce. And so I really think that we should keep focus ever for a fairly narrow focus. So we know exactly exactly where we're heading. And when I say narrow, it's not exactly narrow, when you start talking about cybersecurity, for seniors and students, and well, we'd go on and on and on. It's a huge, huge task. So anyway, that's my thought. Any questions or comments about that?

Hearing none,

I mean, it's just Steve. I mean, it's just couldn't be more timely, right? I mean, just Friday, on the fourth was that huge, huge attack that hit three agencies, and then also took out a bunch of health care system. So it's got kind of direct tie to both organizational and citizen health, you know, so, yeah, I agree with you that it's multi pronged. And I'm glad to see it as part of now this group, because there's a lot of expertise here. Yeah.

We can, so we can offer up the three guys. I'm not the cybersecurity expert in the company. But I got two more guys that are, you know, that are more focused in that area. So if there's, if we can help out, or, you know, we're available.

That's awesome. Thanks Rory. And I'm sure there's lots of others and others on this call, who work with organizations that have expertise? And again, what's under it's not an intent to exclude anybody. It's just to get started, that we want to have some focus. Malva, did you want to say something?

Yesterday? What I thought was, I mean, we're just because we're discussing the 2000 foot level, whatever. Goals, you know, for what we could think of first, is the pilot program, you know, working towards a proposal for the new pilot program that FCC chairperson Rosenworcel had put up. I mean, it hasn't the pilot program has not yet been approved. And the rulemaking hasn't happened yet. But it's a good time for us to think about what kind of proposal would we like to create? It's not a huge amount of money. It's about $200 million spread over three years for schools and libraries. And the goal is to effectively create an effective cybersecurity implementation in these organizations, so I think, if we can get together to think about it, and how we can train our digital navigators create a cheat sheet for the community for the community plan and outreach program to get this to the community. I think we we could put up hopefully a winning proposal, we put up many winning proposals from Arizona. Hopefully we could do something like that.

Sounds like a plan Ma. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments about cybersecurity before we before we move on? So with that, I want to move on to our presentation or are actually discussion today with Mark Goldstein. course you all know Mark is president of the

excuse me.

President International Research Center, and chairman of the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council, he's on the Arizona Technology Council and god knows what else. And so Mark is charged with working with Sandy, and developing the broadband, digital equity component of the Arizona Technology Council, state, federal public policy guy. And so I'm going to turn it over to Mark, he's going to share the thoughts. They got some deadlines coming up. So with that, with that, Mark, can I turn it over to you? Sure.

Why don't you drop your screen sharing so

well, Ken?

Hello, all, let me bring up

the top level.

So the tech Council, I do sit on the board and executive committee and have since I think the mid 90s. Back when at AIC and the Software Association of a tech Council we're coming up for I think it's 12 or 13 years now we've done an annual state and federal public policy guide that's very extensive 80 pages or so and is actively supported by an engaged lobbying firm, public policy partners, and has had great success with both the Arizona legislative and executive branches every year across various domains. So let me see if I can advance that. Yeah. So the guide is broken up into a couple of dozen areas. And what I need to point out is that the broadband state policy is actually spread across four of the areas on the left. So it's not a coherent standalone document, in the sense that telehealth is integrated under Biosciences and health care.

The primary

broadband infrastructures under transportation and digital infrastructure, sun corridor network and other university efforts are here under University higher ed. And then there's a K through 12 educational section, you'll see them all in a few minutes. But on the federal side, it is more of a standalone broadband section that we have. So Intel uses the words tic toc for major and minor revisions of how their CPUs are made different generations. And I'd have to say that this guide is in most years, and I believe this year, incremental. There are years that are major about six years ago, we lost the primary authorship of the federal policy section from Comp TIA and national group. And I had to develop a much more deep and sophisticated federal policy to replace the bid we were getting from them mostly about spectrum allocation and evolution did much more extensive work. And then the state section two to three years ago with the pandemic was radically transformed, then. So just most years are incremental. And some years are more dramatic. So we'll see what you think. The draft has been out for a couple of weeks, we've shared it. Sandeep and I met last week on Friday, and I got some feedback from him over the weekend that is integrated to this document. And what we're gonna do is, it's 12 pages, it would take three hours to just walk through it. So we're only going to focus really on what changed unless we get to a section and you want to stop and talk a little more about it. So the introduction to the primary broadband section does make sense some transportation infrastructure, just by the nature of the documents. So it's it's not broadband related, but I have to kind of keep it together for the master editors. Here. I've now directly referenced ARPA and cares funding, which was a little odd last year. So I'm just going to talk through sections. There's really some apple pie and motherhood about emerging technologies and leadership, very high level broadband regulatory reform and support. Now I have posted this markup as a document. You're welcome. Yet this week, I'll be accepting people's input and seeing what I can do with it, probably through this week in the weekend. And I'll need to deliver my draft probably the beginning of next week. So you've had a few weeks you have about another week to offer any markups or changes. Again, introduction to the state government process, had to acknowledge the new maps last year they were pending. And the fact that those maps under the Data Fabric will select the targeted communities, subject to challenge that we'll be dealing with the end of this year and early next year. This is where a DOT has been active the last few years, not much is changing. I was hoping they would by now have actually had their RFP out and selected there was selected their public private partner and be maturing in that that's still a pending equation. So the language hasn't changed much there, though, as most of you will know 140 million has been spent completing Flagstaff to no Galus segments that were missing. And still to complete but underway. Flagstaff to the California border. So the next domino to fall with monies will be likely Flagstaff to New Mexico completing that T and then the KPMG broadbands. My middle mile Strategic Plan identifies any number of other middle mile elements and strategizes and prioritizes them. So we're still waiting a little for the shoe to fall on that. Then here is some treatment would be now that the beat is known. So I'm going to read this new stuff, adjust internal strategies and resource allocations. As a state the plans are submitted, iterated and approved to up to optimize their practicality and impact. The sate allocated 23 point 6 million last year for a new rural broadband accelerated match fund. To provide matching funds for upcoming the grants. Arizona has $993 million beat allocation EA team will require at least 25% 248 million in matching and the state should add to the rural accelerated match fund in following sessions throughout the beat program is that recommendation. Then this appears twice once under the broadband infrastructure, and again under the education and erase section. But this past year, the state allocated 5 million for E Rate matching funds that will unlock additional infrastructure and development, benefiting anchor institutions and the surrounding communities and should continue to fund such matching and following legislative sessions. Last year, Steve kind of led and maybe the year before the last two years, this digital equity section. I'm open to it evolving further, but no one has given me further input. But that was one of the things so pandemic brought to the fore was digital equity, you know became the new catch word and phrase and all sorts of efforts came up and are still coming up around it. So that was the part of the big change two to three years ago. In adding digital equity elements, navigators and community partners their hay community role broadband action teams and cooperation commission. revisions of the Arizona Universal Service Fund it's evolution from high cost telephony is still a desire. We haven't there has been an open docket but no action so Arizona has actually done enormously well with the data center industry with certain tax breaks and other policies. Digital Government means eat your own dog food. That, you know, we should practice good government through these digital technologies. And then, in the Education Workforce section, the primary change is the repetition of the recommendation that on an ongoing basis, the 5 million that we got this year that funding be considered in that manner. Now, here, I pushed this to Derek and Laura and Aaron Carr, Jordan, and I will again, this has been fairly stable the recommendations around the tewara University suncourt are around digital equity. And I'm kind of waiting to hear from them again, any of you in today's short time. I'm glad to take some conversation. But obviously, we're going faster than, you know, a deep dive would allow, which is probably merciful to all involved, I would say. And then I believe the final section, Arizona has been a leader in telehealth through the use of a Dr. Weinstein, Janet and my Keeling for many years has been the lead in this section. And I'm out asking for what is new or what should be new. But some important things are the MultiState consortiums for physicians and nurses that if you can practice in one state, being able to do telehealth, with your license in Arizona from other states, for example, apparently this year, tele tele veterinary services were approved. And I'm yet trying to think whether I need to say something about tele vet veterinarian in here. So

that was the state sections. Let me pause for a moment and get any general or specific responses. There's actually a lot more changes in the federal section. And we'll work through them pretty much as fast. But let me pause for any comments questions.

Yeah, Mark, it's Henry. I would just You did say you. You requested from Aaron car. Jordan some comment on the digital equity piece. Yeah. And you've requested from Derek. massif and Laura, editor,

editor on the southern corridor to reaffirm or offer this year's changes. Exactly.

Yeah, cuz I looked at it. I suggested. I mean, I have a few comments, but I think it's better that they make the comments than I do. So Well, I'm

glad to see yours. The best method is to do a markup with track changes, which are on in this document and send it to me, I'd be glad to see them every

day. Yeah. Well, I can send them to you and copy them if they want to.

Sure. Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. We tried to make, there's probably 40 people assigned as authors or co authors of the sections, all subject matter experts. It's really quite a process that Steve sales, and his team run every year to produce this. And it's really is of a very high quality covering a lot of ground. But it's so sporty people that in turn, reach out to probably, I mean, I'm 6080 people directly and and then you know, more team things like this to say what's new, what have we missed? What what would be good going forward? That seems practical. So anything else on the state section?

Mark, of course, I'll do a complete review and send you my comments. But things that popped out. Quickly, I haven't had a chance to really review the document yet. But a couple of things that popped out. One was when Derek did his update for us a couple of weeks ago. One of the questions I asked him was Have we ever submitted a legislative request for funding for Suncor and to my knowledge and his that that has never taken place? So it seems to me as some corridor continues to grow the two things one is to do the strategic plan we've talked about before, and secondly, is to think about some kind of a legislative request that will support all the great work Sup quarter is doing. If I'm not mistaken, most of the funding for Second quarter comes from the universities at this point a bore? Sure. Yeah. That's a grant. And grant. Yeah.

Well, I was just gonna call two things. Two things, I wonder come up to the point about second quarter, it is part of the university since they did not move forward with the 501 C three designation. So any funding, you know, could be done through legislative action, but it really is going to be a budget, ask

of the universities. That

whatever, however, we need to do that, Karen, and that issue, also about becoming a 501, C three, is still kind of hanging out there also. Well, I think

Derek had presented a couple meetings ago that that issue was really not moving forward at this time. So. So like I said, some looking at funding, which I think is a great idea, but I think it's going to have to go through the university's you know, budgeting, you know, process.

Still could be recommended if Laura and Derek feel that is a path that would be fruitful. So Steve, for something like that. I'm not going to write it without them telling me that, you know, it may be a good idea, but I would suggest you float that idea in a brief email to me, Sandeep, you know, and some corridor people, and started a little thread or side thread on that.

Well, I've discussed this a couple of times with Derek. But I will confirm with them that we should include something, something like that, in that section, the second, the second thing, Mark, and talking about broadband action teams, that I think we should either expand or add that we want to see broadband and digital equity teams, because we've done a lot of broadband action teams to do infrastructure. And now it's time to make sure that we develop those teams that also address digital inclusion, whether those are one team, our separate teams, or whatever. But we need to make sure that that's my opinion.

So I wouldn't suggest parallel teams as much expanding their, their their vision and their role. Maybe I like to work with them. But short, and you were a big contributor to some of that area and the digital equity before. So please. That was the week this was the week. Yeah.

Just to add, so I liked lovely, and then I to have some input on this. Sandeep did send it to me. But they said we have a deadline of for this five year plan draft. So to get that off of our plate, but then we'll take a look at that and see what kind of feedback we can offer as well give me one

second.

So I had to

let my godson in the door.

So for Mark to come back that regarding the digital inclusion section, so I kind of did that as a quickie last year, and didn't get a lot of input. My I think you maybe reviewed it quickly. But I think it would really be helpful now to go back and take a look at that. And maybe we can even have a separate meeting, specifically to talk about digital inclusion, and what should be included in this plan. And actually, Cindy

while we still have her. Yep, absolutely.

So anyway, like because I think we can do a lot more with that section than we did last time. So just FYI. So either individually that you want to submit those comments or you want to, or we can do a group think of some kind, but I think we should do that and sooner rather than later.

Yes, one more thing, my mic and I was just thinking, I don't know if you had sent it to Holly to review for the those two sections. The

I don't know, I sent it. I mean, we've been advertising this for about three weeks. Well may have been on my private distribution, but I mean, it's been all over so.

Just wanted to know because then, you know, Aaron and I would look through that. I'm volunteering here and I know she's here. to look through the D section, and see if it needs to be fleshed out, and we'll send, send some comments to us,

you know, take today's markup, and share it in smaller groups, the only caution I would give you is length, there really is a lot of pushback on. It's already an 80 page guide, covering lots of areas. And so we're welcome to make changes, but length can be an issue. Things can't grow lots, they can grow a little, they can revise, but you can suddenly have five times as much stuff on digital equity as we had before. It just won't make it by the next level editors.

And this, the the second thing I wanted to find out from your was did you have? Did you need any data from the IRS open data? Or did you need any pictures, images, anything that, you

know? Not really, I mean, if it was specific data about underserved or you know, unserved, that made sense in context to hatch? Sure, but generally no data is perishable. And images, no, I don't control that at all, that there's two levels of editing, and the and then a graphic design firm. And I actually have zero input when it comes to that part of it.

So my work for you and others who were have been very involved with ACP, do we need to be thinking about including some kind of a contingency plan? Should the Feds decide not to fund it next year? I mean, we're hoping that it will, but anything can happen with our Congress, he says

it's going to be funded in some form or the other, you know, with

ACP, we're gonna get to that in the federal

Yes, yes. We're gonna get to that.

So now we're in the federal section. Some significant revisions in the mapping section, because of the actual transition from the legacies, census track, single household served, you know, to the more modern data fabric and so that's dealt with in the editing. You see in these two paragraphs, though, a little Meteor here is about federal grants. Congress should approve hr 889, slash Senate 341 broadband grants tax treatment act to amend the federal tax code. So the grants received from the IGA will not be considered taxable income. There is bipartisan, bicameral support, but this has stalled out. And so the issue is, if you have a $10 million project, B project, in a 25% matching funds, if they give you seven and a half million dollars, right now, under the tax code, you owe maybe two or 3 million of that in taxes. So your $10 million project is going to cost you 5 million, not two and a half million, right. And so that has a big impact. And that's, that's why that. So support to those specific legislative pieces are in there. Then when it comes to the bead program, I've added recommendations that some of the constrictions or anticipated levels of restrictions or demands within either the legislation but more importantly, the interpretation of it tend to disadvantage. smaller entities, both ISPs may be municipalities or regional and favor the larger ones that can actually deal with the complexity and the specific requirements of the B program. So be it rules should be moderated in regards to letters of credit, which many people think should be also acceptable something called a performance bond. Workforce requirements build America by America, program income restrictions, that's the use of the income from a program and other elements that could limit the program's applicability. Here we get to the eight H Ep, count, the council's strongly supports additional funding for ACP, which is approaching a digital cliff, which is a term I only recently saw but chose to use with a permanent programs to defray the costs of broadband. So to fix it, subscriptions devices, and skilling, so on, and that appears one more place. But while I certainly encourage you in the library community, or the other digital equity people to maybe help buff this out, this could be perhaps a little deeper. Under the E Rate. There's some changes here and again, extend long term funding. I also put under e re, maybe it isn't fully appropriate there. For continuity. Maybe that actually is part of this up here. So help me with that Mala, maybe and your team, if you would.

Some other stuff.

There's something called the chips Act, which is hundreds of billions of dollars. And some of that goes to wireless advances, especially something called Open radio access networks. So in this 5g section, that actually Steve Alex Rodriguez has the assignment to review and help me with on an annual basis from freefall in Tucson, I added language about that. And then the NTIA middle mile grant program, a billion dollar program in which I lead to winning awards was a one off, but there are two opportunities to fund middle mile in a similar way on the horizon. One is this a bill called HR 3565. Show within the FCCs spectrum auction Reauthorization Act, is the ability to allocate a percentage of future Off option funds to recapitalize the NTIA middle mile grant program. That's one of two federal opportunities, you'll see another one come up. And here's the other, there's something called the grid act that would enable and help fund and spur investment by Electric Co Ops and electric utilities in the expansion of their fiber and the allocation of their fiber to middle mile on an open access network platform. So that's our quick walk through.

Mark, can we go back up in that section? Broadband block grants to the states?

Which page of the ones I'm looking at here?

Right at the top of where your cursor is, or sorry? Yeah. Oh, sorry. No, the previous page at the bottom? Sure. So just want to make sure we have our language right for this for this last section, or the last sentence in this section? Do you? What do you mean by delayed for the delay of delay of funds?

What do I mean by that? Only that we waited. So it's such a long time for the new data fabric to mature, there were challenges in the procurement of it. And it all took longer than we hoped moto one might say longer than it should. So I was saying having having experienced some delays, we should take whatever action necessary to try to accelerate its progress. So if you have a better way to say that, I'd love to hear it,

I would be careful with the the language here because if we're pointing to the to aija, the Notice of Funding, you know, was set to be announced on or before June 30. And that did occur. So even though there's certainly a lot of excitement about getting those notices out and getting funds to states as soon as possible in the statute, there's no delay. That was all on time. You know, public opinion differs on you know how quickly that works. But

absolutely a fair, fair point will take and if you if you want to offer something different, glad to if not, I know Now we'll do something about that myself. Absolutely. Great. So Steve, I'm gonna unshare we can still talk a bit about it. 10 things showed up in the chat. I don't know if any of them are for me shall be letter of credit, comments. Good point, a lot. I've been following closely, all sorts of pushback on the letter of credits. And they've been one of those voices. If you think any other color from that. I'm going to save that right now.

Thank you. That's a good one. Got it. Anything else?

I steal again, for this next week, welcome. Further input, I will distribute a draft probably next week, that will be my initial submittal. And after that, I am generally offered the opportunity to make some but not substantial changes goes into enters in the editing process, that I have to then layer in additional changes. So we tried to get it pretty solid. We tried to share it. And then generally pretty minor tweaks after that, that we asked for the forbearance of the editing team to let us do while they're trying to finish no work.

Have I worn you out.

So It wears me out so quickly, is a complicated and expansive and I'm sure I miss things, and so appreciate any and all of you that have observations or thoughts about making it better.

So here's what I would like to do. Mark, and two others is maybe even as early as tomorrow, to take the digital equity section, and rework it, or workout or rework it. To give you some really good feedback. You know, I tried to do that last minute last time, got some input from maava. But there's lots more as the world is so much is now happening in the digital equity space. I want to make sure that we don't have the thankings of people here. So I'm going to try and schedule a meeting as early as tomorrow. Cool. For anybody who wants to join in on that call. Thank you.

Mark, I do apologize if I missed this when I was transferring from car to computer, but I thought I heard you say that this this draft that you were working from was available where where do we get that?

It's the first item in the chat. Maybe I'll post a second time.

I lost the chat when I switched devices. Thank you so much,

Aaron, it's also in the email that I sent out notice,

well, no, your email is the unmarked up version from last year. Okay. This is the markup version. I'm about to

thank you. So we need to update that mark. Well, yeah,

you're welcome to but it's a work in progress. It's already different with notes I just made from Nicole and it every day it changes. So yeah, you can use a snapshot and the meeting recap. And there it is, again, in the do I have to type a message here? Oh, it's Tamala only? Okay, no, I need to everyone. Here is okay. Should have just shown up in the chat.

So good. I mean, it's it really has been an education for me, especially six years ago when I had to do a top to bottom federal policy. And so, you know, even when you think you know, this stuff, I had to go research, what are the, you know, the acts, the grid act in the broadband Tax Act and the spectrum allocation stuff. It's every year, there's, you know, John Kelly, and others also track that stuff and help but you may just find a bit of education by scanning through it, and learning about some of the federal and state policies that we don't always discuss.

Or you don't put on there a moment to CWA. I apologize. The beginning of the call I missed so is this is not the five year action plan, or is it?

No, this is the Arizona Technology Council's annual state and federal policy across all technology. key sectors. I authored the broadband and several other sections for a dozen years now. And they have a lobbyist, they generally drive our issues fairly successfully, along with their own a number of ATC board members, Ron shot my Keeling, John Kelly and myself are involved in the Public Policy Committee. And so it's a platform an annual platform for promoting policy, rather than a plan in and of itself.

Thank you very much for that. Thanks for lunch certainly.

Okay, anything else? All righty.

So let's go back and get some updates. Ma Do you have anything that you want to update us today?

No, not really.

Not really. Okay. Aaron, forward to meeting you with the cybersecurity stuff.

Yeah.

Aaron, you have anything. I know you're busy always. I don't have

a lot are earth shattering either. We're just you know, continuing to support all of the different projects and working on expansion of things. I will probably have more soon, but not yet. Thank you.

Alrighty, Elena, do you have anything you want to share? Let me

know.

Okay, well now. So we do have a couple of folks. Petra, do you have anything other than what you shared last week that you'd want to share with us?

Now we've got Maricopa

that wants some help. So we have the city of Maricopa. Okay.

So you don't have anything else for today? No. Okay. I saw nuvia here somewhere. You're still there? You go. Nope. You may have left. I'm here. Oh. And see.

Hi. Good afternoon. Sorry. I'm still having issues with with the Kemalist. Yes, open. Yeah. So I'll have to reach out. But um, we're happy to say, oh, no, sorry. No, I'm happy to say that we have fully on boarded our ACP team. We have a very high schooler who's also listening to the meeting. She's here with me. And we are having we're actually heading out to Bisbee this Friday to help some seniors and get them enrolled in ACP. So we're excited about that. And it feels like August is pretty. It's a pretty busy month for us.

Oh, anything else? Okay, any other updates today?

Anything anybody wants to share?

Going once, going twice?

Well, if not, I'm going to stop recording. And should any of you decide that you want to hang on and give it for a while? We can do that. And if not, we'll end the meeting for good. Thank you all and probably won't change the meeting time next week. So when give people some wait time but following that. We will move to eight o'clock on Thursday mornings.

Thank you all