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Second hearing on fiber optic on April 3

FALLS VILLAGE — The Board of Finance will hold a second public hearing on Frontier Communications proposal to extend fiber optic service to the entire town on Monday, April 3,  at 7 p.m. at the Emergency Services Center.

At the finance board’s special meeting March 20, the board discussed the latest proposal, for $350,000, to extend fiber optic to 68 homes, roughly 11% of the town, that are not scheduled to be covered in Frontier’s ongoing buildout of fiber optic lines.

A motion to send the proposal to town meeting did not pass, but a motion to hold a second public hearing did pass.

The first hearing was on Jan. 27. First Selectman Henry Todd said then that the town has 618 homes, and Frontier is in the process of running the fiber optic lines to 502 of them, leaving 116 homes (or 20% of the town) without access.

Todd said on Jan. 27 that Frontier was willing to extend access to those areas if the town kicked in $350,000, down from an initial proposal of $750,000.

Todd suggested that the town use $150,000 from the general fund and borrow $200,000 from a local bank for five or 10 years. He said it would have a “minimal effect on property taxes.”

The Board of Finance subsequently concluded on Monday, Feb. 6 that it did not have enough information to recommend the offer.

Patrick L. Sullivan
Senior Reporter
Patrick Sullivan has been a reporter for The Lakeville Journal since 2004, covering everything from town meetings to local characters and the outdoors. He grew up in Northern Virginia but spent summers on Mount Riga in Salisbury, giving him a lifelong connection to the Northwest Corner. A graduate of Denison University, Patrick is also the author of Tangled Lines, the newspapers’ popular fly-fishing column—making The Lakeville Journal, as far as anyone knows, the only newspaper in Connecticut with a regular fly-fishing columnist. He once received a fan letter from England, which he considers sufficient evidence that his work has achieved international acclaim.

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