While many lessons were learned by members of the Belmont County Commission during the recent two-year pandemic, there likely was not one more important than the lack of adequate broadband for commercial and residential use.
But the initial steps toward correcting that problem, according to Belmont County Commissioner J.P. Dutton, recently have been taken near the campus of Ohio University Eastern. Right now, Ohio Gig is performing installations that are funded by private-sector funds
“Right now, their crews are working in the area of Belmont County and a little south of Interstate 70, but this a $12 million project so it’s going to expand from that general area and beyond. They say what they are doing right now is Phase One,” Dutton explained. “And those crews are laying the fiberoptics into the ground, and that’s definitely not the easiest thing to do and that’s why you see those cables go up on poles in a lot of different areas.
“It’s definitely more expensive to do it the way Belmont Gig is doing it, but it also means that while the service that is up on the poles goes out in bad weather, what is installed in Belmont County will not because of the infrastructure is located,” he said. “To this point, the investment has been all private dollars, but the Commission soon will investigate what amount of Recovery Act funds we can put toward the broadband effort because such work definitely fits under ‘Pandemic Preparedness’ when it comes to allowed spending.”
But to accomplish the same in all corners of Belmont County?
“What we do know is that it’s not going to happen overnight and that it’s not a cheap thing to do, either. To get started, Belmont Gig partnered with Belmont College and the college has given them a small piece of property to use for some of their equipment, and from there they are expanding into the areas of the jail and into some residential areas on that area of the county,” Dutton detailed. “The crews are also headed into the area of the Belmont County Fairgrounds because, remember, the idea here is to get broadband access to areas of this county that do not have what is considered adequate broadband service.
“The model is to get as far across Belmont County as they can, but at the same time they acknowledge this is going to take time and a significant investment,” the commissioner said. “But, in my mind, it has started and that is progress, and the plan has been developed for the entire county, step by step, and that is something we’ve never been able to say before in Belmont County.”
Lost Knowledge
Schoolwork.
Most students of the St. Clairsville-Richland and Union Local school districts, Dutton believes, were able to remotely communicate with their teachers during Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s “stay-at-home” order in 2020, but more than 20 percent throughout the 532 square miles of Belmont County were left without online access.
“It wasn’t a good thing at all,” Dutton recalled. “And I think the numbers of kids that were shut off from their schools was alarming to everyone.”
Now, most public schools did reopen to in-class instruction in 2021, but educators immediately recognized that even those students who were able to access at-home assignments had fallen behind what was considered the normal pace of instruction.
“Since the kids returned to their classrooms, we’ve heard it over and over – the best way for our children to learn is at school with their classmates and their teachers, and I have seen that be true with my own kids,” Dutton said. “No one knew what to expect because, quite frankly, no one had experienced the scenario ever before. We’ve had flu bugs run through classes and things like, but nothing like what the coronavirus turned out to be.
“That’s why we have to be prepared the next week time. I know we all hope there is not a ‘next time’ but now that it’s happened we know what we’ll have to do if there is something in the future,” he said. “What’s happening now is that with each step that is taken by the Belmont Gig crews, we’re bringing new people online. One day it might be an area with 10 homes, but another day it’s a few streets with 100 homes. It’s happening as we speak, but in the very beginning when we were discussing this it’s likely there were people out there who never thought it would happen.”
Federal Funds to the Rescue
The Belmont County Commission has received $13.1 million from the American Rescue Plan and Dutton has joined Commission colleagues Josh Meyer and Jerry Echemann to review potential expenditures in addition to broadband development before the 2025 deadline.
Of course, updating and adding water and sewer lines has been discussed by commissioner members, but so has a tiny, little building that’s been located along Bannock Uniontown Road for several years.
“Our health department needs an upgrade,” Dutton said. “During the pandemic, those poor folks were working on top of each other, and when supplies like test materials and vaccines started to be delivered, there was just no room for everyone and everything. It was a mess.
“Incredibly, those folks did everything that was expected of them and even more, and they all deserve so much credit from everyone in Belmont County. What an incredible effort that was made by all of them,” he said. “And it made us all realize that our health department definitely is in need of a better facility, so we have brought on board an architect so we can make that happen in the near future.”
