Tony London
A master development agreement that calls for bringing fiber optics to more than 80% of the county for high-speed internet has been approved.
The agreement unanimously endorsed Monday by the Bartholomew County Commissioners is with the same company that recently received a 20% personal property tax abatement from the Columbus City Council — Hoosier Networks, LLC, owned by Meridiam Infrastructure North America Corp.
County attorney Grant Tucker said in order to construct the fiber optics infrastructure, the company plans to seek property tax relief for new equipment from county government, as well as the city. The approved contract requires the commissioners to assist Hoosier Networks in securing that relief, Tucker said.
A decision has already been made by the commissioners to seek a traditional tax abatement through the Bartholomew County Council, county Commissioner Larry Kleinhenz said.
“But it’s going to slow it down,” Kleinhenz said. “It’s going to slow it by 90 to 100 days by having to go through that additional layer of oversight.”
State law provides the commissioners authority to bypass the council and exempt Hoosier Networks from paying the tax by declaring the entire county an infrastructure development zone.
“But we’ve never been about bypassing the county council,” said Kleinhenz. Both he and Commissioner Tony London stressed they want council members to “buy into” the project.
London, who chairs the county’s Broadband Initiative Committee, expressed hope that the county council will approve the abatement more quickly than Kleinhenz anticipates.
“When the council realizes what this one-single project is going to do for the entire county, it really becomes a no-brainer,” London said. “It simply becomes money we are never going to get because nobody is going to do this project without the tax benefit.”
However, a number of council members have shown they are either extremely selective or completely against providing tax abatements, so Kleinhenz said seeking the abatement could “throw a curve ball into this entire process.”
Another stipulation in the contract calls for Hoosier Networks to work with school corporations to identify families who qualify for free or reduced lunch, London said. Those families should be able to obtain greatly-reduced or free internet, he said.
Once the green light is given, it will take about two-and-a-half years to complete the installation of fiber-optic lines to 11,845 homes in remote locations, London said last spring.
Besides bringing countywide fiber optics to well over 80% of the county, the contract calls for establishing service levels and the granting of right-of-way access, county attorney Grant Tucker said.
In December, the commissioners choose Meridiam over AT&T Internet Services after examining bids submitted by both companies. All bidders were asked to provide a service level of 1,000 megabits per second, also known as gig speed.
Meridiam, an infrastructure investment company, will put about $33 million into the project while the county will add $4 million from its federal American Rescue Plan allotment. The federal funds are meant to expand fiber lines to remote homes where it’s not financially viable for a private firm to do it themselves, London said.
The choice of Meridiam was made by a team of experts who evaluated both bids on a criteria of affordability, readiness and overall community impact, project consultant Scott Rudd said.
Eventually, a website will be established where Bartholomew County residents can sign up to bring fiber optics to their homes, the commissioners said.
