The Avalon City Council on Tuesday, Nov. 19., voted 4-0 to approve an agreement for technical help for the Last Mile broadband project. Councilmember Mary Schickling was absent.
Broadband reliability has been an ongoing issue on the Island.
The result of the agreement is that Avalon receive more than $330,000 worth of technical assistance, according to the staff report.
Technically, the council authorized the city manager to execute a memorandum of understanding with the Southern California Association of Governments.
This was a Consent Calendar item. Consent items are voted on collectively unless a council member pulls one for further discussion.
Nothing was pulled from this week’s Consent Calendar. In fact, the meeting ended a few minutes shy of an hour.
Background
“On June 29, 2023, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved SCAG’s application for the Local Agency Technical Assistance (LATA) grand funding to conduct a Last Mile Project Assessment for the SCAG Region,” according to the staff report prepared by Assistant City Manager Joycelyn Francis.
“The LATA grant will help SCAG assist local jurisdictions (one of them being the City of Avalon) to identify and analyze opportunity areas to develop conceptual engineering designs for the last mile services for broadband improvement,” Francis wrote.
“The help fill this gap, SCAG hired a consultant to determine and design three (3) shovel ready projects located within the SCAG region,” Francis wrote.
“This project will result in conceptual designs and high-level engineer to lay the foundation for projects that meet or exceed 100/100 or 100/20 Mbps for unserved and/or underserved communities,” Francis wrote.
“Under the MOU, the City of Avalon will received technical assistance work efforts that will include specifics regarding assessment and route determination reports, financing and implementation strategies, short-term and long-term actions needed to prepare the area for broadband implementation, and include conceptual design and specifications to create a project ready for the next stages of project development,” Francis wrote.
“SCAG has contracted a consultant and will manage the program,” Francis wrote.
“No City budgeting action is needed at this time,” Francis wrote.
Before the council voted on the Consent Calendar, Councilmember Lisa Lavelle, referring to the broadband item, thanked SCAG, Erik Rodriguez (of SCAG’s Government & Public Affairs – Regional Services), and Long Beach Council Member Suely Saro for recommending Avalon for this. She offered “a huge amount of thanks”.
