letter to the editor

An opportunity for Southport

Thu, 03/25/2021 - 8:15am

Dear Editor:

I’m a proud resident of Southport. Over the years we have shown to be forward thinking people. Examples of this are: bringing year-round water to the island; installing a solar array to power our town buildings; securing our beach for posterity; and installing LED street lights, to name a few. We now see a new opportunity, establishing a Fiber Optic Broadband system around our island.

For several years, a committee has been studying broadband/internet solutions for our island. It is comprised of Nancy Prisk, Maureen Kinsey, Adam Shepard, Geoff Chatterton and myself. When I was asked to join, I didn’t know a gig from a fig but I have learned a lot. We asked Island Institute to acquire funding for an in-depth assessment of our options. This was accomplished by Mark Ouellette of Axiom.

What we discovered is that Fiber Optic Broadband is the wave of the future. It will open doors to tele-medicine, business opportunities, educational advancements and much more. Fiber optic is vastly superior to DSL or copper cable platforms. Quite simply, if you are not using fiber optic, you are living in the past and will soon be lagging behind. We don’t want that for Southport and neither should you.

We are proposing the installation of a public-owned fiber optic network to cover all of Southport. With Southport owning the system, we will insulate our community from price gouging, sub-standard equipment and poor service from commercial internet vendors. This will afford everyone on the island with access to state of the art broadband. It will not be cheap.

We are asking for the voters' support, allowing the Selectmen to bond $2,480,000 to establish the system. It is our intention to secure funding through every available resource, including federal, state, county and private options, to help reduce or eliminate that number. We are confident many solutions are available.

Following our annual town vote, we will hold a public hearing and multiple informational meetings. This will give every resident of Southport the opportunity to come and learn about all the possibilities provided through our Fiber Optic Broadband system.

There will be many questions and concerns; we look forward answering and addressing them all.

 

Smith S. Climo

Selectman

Southport