After dancing around opposing forces for the past two months, Pennsylvania’s York County Board of Commissioners finally scored a touchdown, passing a motion to install WiFi emitters in two different towns. As the York Dispatch reports, a $48,032 contract will facilitate placing the equipment in both York City and Hanover.
I.B. Abel Inc, headquartered in York, was the electrical contractor chosen to complete the WiFi project. The commissioners are currently in negotiations with Network Building & Consulting LLC to engage their services for York County’s broadband middle-mile initiative.
The large-scale aim of the Commissioner is to close the digital divide and make high speed internet access available to all residents, explained Silas Chamberlain, YoCo Fiber Broadband Task Force Chairman and VP of the York County Economic Alliance. He noted that the new WiFi emitters will benefit 27,000 people.
Some of those people objected to the actions of the Commissioners, keeping the matter under discussion since last autumn. In addition to concerns about phantom health hazards, there were residents who said that they were given little voice in the WiFi decision.
“You came to this decision through a public-private partnership by consulting industry and non-elected, non-government agencies with very little input from the people who elected you,” said opponent Laura Basso. “I’m here to say it’s not too late.”
The York County Dispatch noted that a typical vote by the Board of Commissioners will check down a list of all motions under consideration and address them one by one. In this case, the Commissioners changed tactics and issued a blanket acceptance, passing 15 separate motions at once. The single vote was unanimous in its support of the motions.
Countering those who cried foul, President Commissioner Julie Wheeler stated, “We have the authority to do that.”
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