Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home City Council balked Thursday night, April 4, at the price of extending a fiber optic line to the new City Hall in a proposal by Comcast to provide fiber Internet service to city buildings.
The proposed price tag was $24,380.
Councilor Dave Trask, who is retired as a technician from CenturyLink, told the council that fiber runs all the way to the new City Hall, right in front of Cascade Timber Consulting. Cable would simply need to be run over the highway to the new City Hall, perhaps a couple of hundred feet, he said.
“Twenty-four thousand is a lot of money for that amount of cable,” Trask said. “I would really like Comcast to come to us and explain why it costs so much money.”
Mayor Greg Mahler, who recently expanded Hoy’s Hardware, said he ran a fiber optic cable 300 feet at a cost of $5,000.
The distance from the pole to the new City Hall is no different than running line between his two buildings, he said.
With the council’s unwillingness to accept that price, City Manager Ray Towry reached out to a Comcast representative, who told him that bid was based on extending the fiber line a mile. The Comcast representative said he would look into whether fiber already runs out to the area of the new City Hall, 3225 Main St.
The council had held off accepting the proposal during its regular meeting on March 26 looking for more information about the cost of a shorter contract period than proposed. Comcast had proposed a five-year deal with the city. Councilors were interested in what the terms of a three-year deal would be.
Towry and Finance Director Brandon Neish worked with Comcast in the meantime on additional options and returned in a special meeting Thursday night.
The library, City Hall, the Police Department and Public Works all have physical fiber connections already, Neish said. The fiber was installed as part of the city’s network, but because the city was not paying for fiber Internet service, Comcast throttled the bandwidth.
Under the proposal, Comcast would provide full fiber service to the existing buildings and construct a fiber connection to the new City Hall, 3225 Main St., the former Sweet Home Ranger District office. With Internet service, city officials are hoping to move into the new City Hall in May, largely depending on the city’s Internet connection.
Right now, the city pays $500 for cable broadband service to each of its four buildings, a total of $2,000 per month and $24,000 per year, Neish said. Included in that price is the network, which uses existing fiber connections, allowing city buildings to connect and share information through its own server system.
City officials reviewed the service, considering speed, accessibility, stability and future growth, Neish said. “City staff determined that the city would be better served by Internet access on a fiber line. As technology shifts to cloud-based systems, the city’s current Internet service would begin to hamstring operations.”
The city uses cloud-based services for its accounting and billing functions, Public Works work orders, building permits, email, a variety of basic software and website maintenance, Neish said. That list is not exhaustive.
Because the fiber optic lines do not use electricity, Neish said, even during power outages, the city’s communications and customer service can remain useful.
The lines into town also are underground, Neish said. That means that during a natural disaster, like flooding or an earthquake, the city potentially can maintain access to points outside the city that otherwise would not be available.
Fiber connections are typically restored prior to cable connections because repairing cable lines can require replacement of poles and may require trees and debris to be cleared from the lines, Neish said.
To make the switch to a fiber optic connection, the city sought proposals from Comcast, CenturyLink and Peak. Comcast and CenturyLink responded with proposals. Comcast’s proposal was the less expensive option.
CenturyLink would cost about $3,500 per month, Neish said.
After the March council meeting, Comcast responded with three options.
The first, as proposed with five years for the library, Police Department and City Hall and three years for Public Works, would cost $3,253 per month, $39,036 per year. The cost of constructing the line to the new City Hall would be wrapped into the contract.
Public Works was set at three years because city officials may want to move Public Works from 24th Avenue to the new City Hall at some point.
That move keeps coming up at council meetings, but it hasn’t really discussed the merits of the idea, said Councilor Lisa Gourley. The council really needs to have that conversation.
The second option is a three-year contract with construction of the line paid up front by the city. The monthly cost would be $570 per building, $2,280 per month and $27,360 per year. The cost of the construction would be $24,380.
The third option was to wrap the construction cost into the three-year contract at a combined rate of $3,622 per month, $43,464 annually and $130,392 over three years, just about $20,000 less than a five-year contract.
Councilor Diane Gerson asked what the option is if the council doesn’t accept any of the proposals.
Neish said Comcast is determining whether a cable broadband connection exists at the new City Hall.
Towry said whatever the case is with Internet service, the city’s still going to need a fiber connection to the building to work with the city’s network.
The council voted 4-3 to invite Comcast to a meeting to explain the pricing. Voting yes were Gourley, Mahler, Gerson and Trask. Voting no were Cortney Nash, Susan Coleman and James Goble. The council did not vote on the proposal itself.
Towry said he would reach out to Comcast, and that’s when he learned that Comcast’s proposal was based on extending the line by a mile.