At its Monday morning meeting on July 12th, the Board of County Commissioners for Creek County approved a request by CimTel and FiberLink to sponsor their joint application for a National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) grant to expand broadband infrastructure in the County’s rural areas.
Jake Baldwin, of CimTel, spoke to the Board, saying that his company and FiberLink have worked together over the last two weeks on this project. “We are still finalizing our map and will provide you with the complete application in the next few weeks.” Baldwin said that their preliminary numbers show that they should impact over 6,000 residents. He said CimTel has 3,000 in the area north of Highway 33 and that FiberLink is hoping to come close to that number in the area south of Highway 33. They are still working on some areas that will not be eligible through the grant process.
The Board thanked the companies’ representatives for working together and said that they have wanted to see something that will “impact the most residents in our area,” and that they feel like they are seeing that now.
The Board unanimously agreed to continue accepting job descriptions and to move forward with the application process for the previously-discussed new Emergency Management position. Around 40 applications have already been received, and they will continue to be accepted until July 30th, 2021.
The Board gave Emergency Management Director Covey Murray the authority to review applications and to prepare a short list of potential candidates for the Board to interview.
In other news, the BOCC approved authorizing District #2 Commissioner Leon Warner to pull the Utility Permit for multiple crossings throughout his district from Cushing Connect Pipeline Holdings, LLC if the bond was not received by the end of the business day on Tuesday, July 13th.
Warner explained that this project involves a major pipeline going through his district, and that, in the past, “our roads have been damaged beyond our means of repair” from this process. With the prior approval of Cushing Connect, a bond was required for the project by the County. However, as of Monday, it had not been received. Warner said that the permit had been renewed and that he would like the ability to pull it until the agreed-upon bond has been given to the County. He said he would notify the company of the Board’s decision that day.
