Agenda for CLIC Day

October 23, 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

 

Making Local Internet Choice Happen in a Changing Environment: Opportunities and Challenges in 2019

Great nations are built on great cities and towns. Over the last few years, local communities across America have come to realize that their ability to achieve greatness, or even success, in the years ahead will increasingly depend on their ability to acquire affordable access to fiber-rich communications networks. That is so because fiber networks, like electric power systems a century ago, are platforms and drivers of simultaneous progress in just about everything that is important to communities, including economic development, education, public safety, health care, transportation, environmental protection, energy, government services, democratic discourse, entertainment and much more.

Today, a large and rapidly growing number of communities are aggressively seeking access to advanced communications capabilities by working with willing incumbent carriers, entering into public-private partnerships with new entrants, building their own networks or developing other creative approaches. In these endeavors, the key to successful outcomes is the ability to choose among the options that work best for the community.

Unfortunately, in some 20 states, local internet choice is constrained by legal or other barriers.  Moreover, the “model state codes” developed by the Federal Communications Commission’s industry-dominated Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee may result in new barriers being proposed in many other states in 2019.

The coming year will be critical for local internet choice. CLIC and its allies must redouble efforts to make local internet choice a national priority at all levels of government, to oppose new state barriers and to roll back as many of the existing barriers as possible.

Join us in Ontario, CA, on October 23 for our next half-day CLIC program, where we will bring together some of the key thought leaders in our field, review what we’ve learned in 2017-18 and develop a game plan for all of us in the CLIC community — government officials, private sector leaders, community advocates and many others — to be as effective as possible in 2019.

 

2:00 pm

Welcome and opening remarks

2:10-3:00 pm 

A New Congress in Washington: Challenges and Opportunities for the Local Broadband Future

2019 will be a pivotal year for local governments. It will bring to Washington a new Congress that could either help reduce or exacerbate the growing tensions between federal, state, and local governments. The FCC will complete several major regulatory initiatives, some of which may seek to intrude upon traditional local powers. Increased federal funding for broadband will also be available in 2019, including the USDA’s new $600 million in rural broadband funds and the FCC’s expanded rural health care programs. In this session, we will explore what this new reality in D.C. may mean for local internet choice and how CLIC and its members and allies can make the most of the opportunities that 2019 will present.

Moderator: 
Joanne Hovis - Chief Executive Officer, CLIC

Speakers:
Debra Socia - Executive Director, Next Century Cities 
Angelina Panettieri - Principal Associate for Technology and Communications, Federal Advocacy, National League of Cities (NLC) 
Staci Pies - Senior Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel, Google

3:00-4:00pm

The 2019 State Legislative Session and the BDAC: Challenges and Opportunities for Local Internet Choice

The 2019 state legislative season is almost upon us. What will next year’s legislative session mean for local internet choice and for the future of broadband in our local communities? Will the anti-local choice “model” codes of the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) lead to new state barriers to local broadband and public-private partnerships? How can we prepare for the coming session to protect and promote local broadband authority?

Moderator:
Jim Baller - President, CLIC

Speakers:
Lisa Youngers - President & CEO Fiber Broadband Association 
Chris Mitchell - Director, Community Broadband Networks Initiative, Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR)
Drew Davis - Broadband Program Manager, Senior Business Analyst, Larimer County, CO

4:00-5:00 pm

Good Broadband is Good Politics

In this session, a group of experienced city officials and broadband advocates will discuss the unifying, non-partisan elements of broadband for communities and will recommend strategic, nonpartisan approaches to managing the politics of local broadband initiatives.

Moderator:
Catharine Rice - Project Director, CLIC

Speakers: 
Heather Gold - CEO, HBG Strategies, LLC 
Katie Espeseth - Vice President of New Products, EPB, Chattanooga, TN 
Lev Gonick – Chief Information Officer, Arizona State University 
Joe Knapp – IT Director, General Manager, SandyNet, Sandy, Oregon 

5:00 pm 

Closing Remarks

Moderators: 
Jim Baller- President, CLIC 
Joanne Hovis – Chief Executive Officer, CLIC

Speakers: 
John Windhausen - Executive Director, Schools, Health, Libraries Broadband Coalition
Brian Roberts - Policy Analyst, Department of Technology, City of San Francisco & President-Elect, NATOA