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The Legislature, without dissent, accepted a nearly $10,000 grant from the Park Foundation to support a two-pronged effort by the Tompkins County Broadband Committee to engage the community and enable informed decisions about improving broadband accessibility throughout Tompkins County.  (Legislator Kathy Luz Herrera was excused.)

The $9,878 grant will underwrite the Committee’s ongoing series of six Community Engagement Forums, being held in various rural parts of the county, to gather information and public input concerning the need for broadband Internet access, and will fund a formal study of end-user broadband demand, surveying county residents, businesses, and institutions regarding broadband access and affordability.

“We’re very pleased that the Park Foundation is willing to support the effort to bring broadband Internet access to every home and business in Tompkins County,” notes Legislator Pat Pryor, Chair of the Broadband Committee.  “The phone survey will be done by the Survey Research Institute, a widely recognized and well- respected professional survey company affiliated with Cornell University. The data collected will provide another opportunity for the community to be engaged in the broadband expansion effort and will also provide hard data that can be used as we seek funding sources for the implementation step of the project. With highly committed volunteer members on the committee and a strong outreach effort, this project is truly community driven. We hope that anyone who receives a call requesting participation in the survey will take a few minutes to do so. The input is needed and valued.”

The Broadband Committee’s initial recommendations to the Legislature, handed up in January, may be reviewed online at the Legislature’s website.

Future Broadband Community Engagement Forums are scheduled for April 19 at the Ulysses Town Hall and May 9 at the Newfield Town Hall.

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