The Sip: Mayor Joe Garritano held the monthly ‘Coffee with the Mayor’ informational session this past Thursday, February 6th at City Hall. A significant portion of the discussion centered on the Spectrum Internet project in Wildwood that has stalled.
The Cup: Wildwood entered into an agreement with Spectrum several years ago to upgrade the infrastructure necessary to provide high speed Internet to homes without it. The initial agreement, dubbed Phase I, was funded by a $6.7 Million dollar infrastructure grant from the federal government. These monies were given to Spectrum, the only bidder on the project, to build out to 2000 homes in Wildwood. The initial agreement left about 400 homes unserved by the project which were to be completed at a later date under ‘Phase II’.
Spectrum has completed their cost survey for Phase II and the estimate is $3.5 Million dollars – approaching $9,000 per home. The Mayor expressed that city officials were surprised about the high costs and were exploring options to lower the costs and seek out funding options. The Mayor explained that using tax dollars to fund the project would, under the city charter, require a ballot measure which he did not feel would be likely to succeed. The city administrator is pursuing options for funding from the state for underserved areas which may be an option. It was briefly noted that one option was forming a tax district for the Phase II homes under which the project would be funded over a number of years – the costs borne by these homes only. The mayor noted that none of the homes in Phase I were required to fund their portion of the project and it would not be entirely fair to Phase II.
The project will continue to be explored by the city council in upcoming meetings.
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