Sharon Comcast contract encounters final wrinkles

SHARON — At the Feb. 14 meeting of the Board of Selectmen, there was a disacussion of continuing efforts to iron out the final wrinkles before signing the $1.6 million contract with Comcast.

At issue is what is known as “Exhibit A”, detailing plans to extend high-speed internet service to local homes, although the Sharon Connect Task Force (SCTF) has noticed that a few homes have been excluded from the list.

SCTF co-chairman Jill Drew noted that at a November town meeting, voters had approved a $1.6 million project that called for all homes to be connected. At first, Drew said, her committee imagined that the excluded homes were simply an oversight, an error in Exhibit A, because in other locations, homes were indicated as needing connection when they were already receiving service.

Wanting to bring clarity to Exhibit A, Drew urged the selectmen to agree to a joint meeting of all of the parties and she further offered to drive around the town with a Comcast official to examine the properties in question.

Comcast had indicated that six properties were challenging to provide service to, leading to their exclusion. The exhibit shows 342 homes that would be receiving service. Finding a solution to the problem of servicing the six homes could add some cost to the contract, roughly estimated at $65,000.

First Selectman Brent Colley expressed concern about the passage of time, that the town is locked in at $1.6 million. The town has learned that rather than owing half of the commitment at the start of the project, the first half ($800,000) would not be due until the project is half-done. He said that he worried that Comcast would walk away from the contract.

“We’ve narrowed the issues,” Drew said.

Join health district?

Having announced months ago plans to step down from their positions in the town’s Health Department, Director Michael Crespan and Sanitarian Jamie Casey both attended the regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen on Feb. 14 to discuss the future of that town office.

Now serving as a board member for the Housatonic Valley Health District (HVHD), Crespan urged the selectmen to consider joining the other communities who are part of the HVHD, citing advantages of available staffing and resources as well as additional capabilities in meeting state requirements.

“There is a lot to public health that the state requires,” he said, “and we are just scraping the surface.” He reported that today, it takes three towns to form a district with a combined population of 50,000 to qualify for state funding. He said that if Sharon joins the district that now has five area towns, the combined population will stand at 59,000.

Sharon is the only area town not in the district, Crespan said.

Town Sanitarian Jamie Casey urged that if the town joins, that the health records be kept in Sharon, taking advantage of a decentralized system option. At present, Casey said, the town offers one-stop service where residents can benefit from getting a number of things done through a single office.

“A health district can be expensive,” Casey noted, indicating that if the town were to join the district, the town would no longer receive the revenue from fees and there would be a membership charge assessed on a per capita basis, based on population.