Sundre residents and business owners will have the opportunity next week to learn more about the municipality's pursuit of broadband high-speed Internet infrastructure, as well as to start weighing in on whether to invest public dollars or let a private venture take over.
Elected officials heard from administrative staff during the regular April 24 council meeting that following a discussion with Banister Research and Consulting ó the Edmonton-based company hired to survey the community to establish a census ó three presentations were scheduled for Tuesday, May 9 at the Sundre Community Centre.
Vic Pirie, director of finance and administration, said the first session, scheduled for 10 a.m., would be open to the general public but with an emphasis primarily on informing seniors who might not even be familiar with what broadband is. The second presentation at noon will be geared towards the local business and medical communities, while the third and final open house at 5:30 p.m. is a general information session for residents, he said.
"These will all be administered by our consultant, who will be running the meetings, and we will be there making presentations and then answering whatever questions might come up."
The proposed survey being prepared for residents and the business community was on its fourth draft, and at the time of council's April 24 meeting the document was expected to be mailed out within days, he said.
"It'll be basically the first notice going out directly to all of our business community and our residents in regards to this broadband."
In addition to information available on the Town of Sundre's official web page, www.sundre.com, administrative staff also acquired a domain called sundrebroadband.com, and a list of frequently asked questions was in the process of being developed along with brochures for the open houses on May 9, he said.
"That list of frequently asked questions will of course continue to be developed as we get new questions being asked, to be part of the database that is on the website" so that people can go online to see whether their question has already been answered, he said.
The idea behind the informational meetings is to help residents and businesses address the questions that will be in the survey so they can make informed decisions when responding. Every premise within the Town of Sundre will be assigned a PIN number specific to each property so no individual can respond multiple times and skew the overall consensus, he said.
"Even in a household, only one person can basically respond. Once that PIN is used, it's used. Again, that's to ensure the integrity that we're getting accurate responses from each individual household and business of the community."
In addition to that, following a period of time the consultants will determine how many people have not responded through that process, and will then take the next step to attempt to reach people by phone. The last stage will be to go door to door to get through to anyone who by that point still has not responded, he said.
"The intent is still to bring the report back to council by the end of June at your last meeting (before the summer break). It's a very tight time frame, which is why we've kind of had to get these meetings up and running as soon as possible."
As a bonus, having all three open houses in one day will save some money by avoiding bringing the consultants back on several occasions, he added.
Mayor Terry Leslie said the discussion to introduce broadband infrastructure has been underway for about two years, and that he was pleased to see the next step moving forward to consult the community so there can be an informed decision.
"Whether we're going to take this on or whether we're going to contract it out, we need broadband in the community," he said.
Council carried a motion to accept Pirie's report as information.
