North
Florida Broadband Authority: NFBA failed to make the
grade in Gilchrist County
Posted November 29, 2012 11:50 am | Part XXVIII
COLUMBIA COUNTY, FL – The helter-skelter saga of the North Florida Broadband Authority (NFBA), the woebegotten $30,000,000 Obama stimulus funded broadband project, continued after our last article, which had an exasperated Columbia County, North Central Florida's richest, most powerful rural county, withdrawing from the NFBA. The next day, the NFBA road show appeared in Madison County, with its only last mile provider, SVIC. With exactly 90 days left before the Federal money spigot was to shut off, the NFBA had only a handful of customers. It was on a mission to steal as many customers from established Internet service providers as it could and do whatever it took to make it sustainable by the Federal funds cut-off date of January 31, 2013.
Doing whatever it took began 30 days before on October 1st in Gilchrist County, when the NFBA road show's General Manager, Richelle Sucara and Project Manager Donny Lort appeared in front of the Gilchrist County Commission, with their hands out looking for in-kind (free) assets on which to install private vendor last mile equipment. This equipment was going to be used to steal existing customers from the established Internet service providers in Gilchrist County.
Recently Obtained Audio from Gilchrist County
During that meeting, General Manager Sucara explained that the purpose of the NFBA was to "roll out high speed Internet service in the region at an affordable attractive rate and to provide access to un-served and under-served audiences."
Then, using Lake City as an example, Sucara explained Internet service this way: "An under-served audience would be the NFBA office in downtown Lake City. We have access to the major, major carriers. However our access is sporadic; our Internet is down from time to time. So what we have done is we are buying service from ourselves and powering up our office in downtown Lake City, where you might think that there is adequate broadband and adequate capacity. Not so."
Lake City has a multitude of Internet Service Providers providing every available service at every price point, with Comcast's Business plan delivering a premium business service of 27meg down and 7meg up at $109.95 a month.
Comcast has been a particular target of Project Manager Donny Lort.
What GM Sucara left out was that with the American People's money, the NFBA had already purchased and paid well over $6,000,000 dollars for the bandwidth that she now claimed she was "buying" from herself.
After the Dixie County story appeared, County Manager Mike Cassidy e-mailed the Observer: "I knew that the NFBA was lacking in its basic premise and promise! We could clearly see that we should not have immediate hopes for getting Broadband to our areas in need, even the areas with population density that should have been adequate enough to gain service or at least be considered."
When one of the Gilchrist County Commissioners inquired about the withdrawal of Taylor and Dixie Counties and asked, "Did they tell you why they were opting out?" GM Sucara said," ... It's in their resolution... There were allegations of waste fraud and abuse, none of which were true."
The Federal Investigation into the NFBA project is ongoing and limping along in what many believe is an Obama administration cover-up. The waste, fraud and abuse question has yet to be settled.
Backdating leases – the Modus Operandi for the NFBA
The NFBA and its leases have been an ongoing issue. At times, the NFBA produced 250 year leases to some communities and it appears that some of them may have signed those. Recently, many communities began to balk at leases that extended past the useful life of the project.
Gilchrist County Commissioner Randy Durden asked GM Sucara, "How are you going to vote on an agreement today and post date it back five years?"
In March of 2012, FSU's Director of the Institute of Government and Executive Director of the NFEDP, Jeff Hendry, explained the value of the memorandums of understanding this way: By adopting the MOU it does not BIND the County to allow the NFBA to gain access to or use the assets in any way — access to and the actual use of the facilities would only be authorized under a negotiated lease agreement that would have to take place between the NFBA and the County at a subsequent time. (emphasis added by Mr. Hendry)
The General Manager answered, "Here's the reason that we're backdating those. The reason is we received resolutions and memorandums of understanding from all the counties and all the cities that want to donate in-kind assets. ... We are asking that you backdate the lease to the same time the promise was made. Unfortunately, Gilchrist County didn't give us a promise back in 2009... If the Commission is fine postdating it, I'll take that. If you're not -- ya know."
Gilchrist County Attorney, John K. McPherson, was neither happy, nor comfortable with that explanation.
Gilchrist County Commissioner D. Ray Harrison, Jr. asked GM Sucara, "Did you come from the Internet world?"
The $200,000 a year (benefits included) General Manager, a public sector employee for her business life in Florida, replied, "On no, I hooked up my router for the first time last week. I did it though."
The room went silent.
Ms. Sucara then explained that after January 31, 2013, the NFBA will be gearing up to go after all customers and explained the present NFBA business plan this way: "Our Board made a policy decision at the last board meeting that said we want all the community anchor institutions hooked up, but we want you to go through a last mile provider to get them hooked up... we don't want the NFBA at the retail level, unless they cannot get hooked up by a last mile provider. I have the authority to do that."
After two hours of grilling by the Gilchrist County Commission, it remained unconvinced and ultimately voted not to approve the inkind asset to the NFBA unless they were willing to pay for it.
Epilogue
A month later, after another show stopping unsuccessful appearance at Columbia County, the NFBA honchos decided it is best not to meet with County Commissions one on one.
When held up to the light, the North Florida Broadband Authority has proven over and over that it can take neither scrutiny nor heat. It remains shielded from public view by a complicit Board of North Central Florida's politicians, elected officials, and community leaders, as well as the Obama administration.
