Agenda for the CLIC Half-Day Program

April 8,  2:00 pm – 5:30 pm

An Action Plan for Local Internet Choice in 2019 and Beyond

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 code” 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.

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 Austin, on April 8th 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 from 2017-18 and further 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 – 2:05 pm

Welcome

Presenter: Gail Roper, Director of National Initiatives, The Knight Foundation, CLIC Board of Advisors

2:05 pm – 3:00 pm

Washington 2019: Challenges and Opportunities for the Local Broadband Future 

2019 is proving to be a pivotal year for local governments and broadband planning. Both the new Congress and the Trump administration have been discussing infrastructure funding and there is speculation about the potential for bipartisan collaboration on rural broadband funding. The FCC will complete several major regulatory initiatives, some of which may seek to intrude upon traditional local powers. The USDA’s new $600 million in rural broadband funds are rolling out, as are the FCC’s expanded rural health care programs. In this session, we will explore what this new reality in D.C. means for local internet choice and how CLIC and its members and allies will continue to make the most of the opportunities that 2019 presents.

Moderator:
Jim Baller – President, CLIC

Speakers:
Deb Socia – Executive Director, Next Century Cities
Angelina Panettieri – Principal Associate, Technology and Communications, Federal Advocacy, National League of Cities
Nancy Werner – General Counsel, NATOA

3:00 pm - 4:00pm

The States and BDAC: What it Means for Local Internet Choice

What has the 2019 legislative session meant for local internet choice and for the future of broadband in our local communities? In some states, legislatures have granted new local broadband authority and funding – do these represent a trend that will spread to other states? Has the anti-local choice state "model" code of the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) led to new state barriers to local broadband and public-private partnerships? This session will address these questions and how we can continue to protect and promote local broadband authority at the state level.

Moderator:
Joanne Hovis – CEO, CLIC

Speakers:
John Burchett – Director, Public Policy and Government Relations, Google Access and Google Fiber
Nelson Holmberg – Vice President, Innovation, Port of Ridgefield, Washington
Christopher Mitchell – Director, Community Broadband Networks, Institute for Local Self Reliance

4:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Why Disruptive and Innovative Companies Support Local Internet Choice  

Presenter:
Peter Cohen – Partner Engagement Manager, Netflix

4:30 pm - 5:30 pm

In a Partisan Era Local Broadband Transcends Partisanship  

Broadband is a community issue, not a partisan one. 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. Learn from the experts about what made their approach to broadband a success in their communities.

Moderators:
Catharine Rice – Project Director, CLIC
McKenzie Schnell – Legal Advisor, CLIC

Speakers:
Will Aycock – General Manager, Greenlight Community Broadband, Wilson, North Carolina
Bill Vallee – State Broadband Policy Coordinator, Connecticut Broadband Office
Nathan Watkins – City Manager, Mont Belvieu, Texas
Dwight Thomas – Director of IT and Broadband, Mont Belvieu, Texas