Critical vote ahead for local broadband funding

Published April 13, 2022

On April 21, the California Public Utilities Commission is set to approve a plan to allocate $2 billion for broadband infrastructure in California. Each county will receive a portion of this funding. Under the current proposal, Placer County would receive about $30 million — less than half what the county would receive were it grouped with other rural counties with comparable infrastructure challenges.

It is the position of Placer County that the CPUC’s funding methodology is flawed because it groups Placer County with “urban” counties like San Francisco and Los Angeles, rather than “rural” counties like Nevada and El Dorado. In addition, the CPUC relied on inaccurate data related to existing internet access. Placer County staff filed comments with the CPUC requesting additional funding for these reasons, and the Board of Supervisors approved those comments April 5. 

We urge Placer residents to share their voice with the CPUC to let them know about the broadband challenges we face in rural areas of our county and how important it is for Placer to receive a fair share of this funding allocation. Please feel free to use the information in this message in your comments to the CPUC. 

There are two ways to share your input.

 1.     Submit comments online

Go to the CPUC Docket Card: https://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/apex/f?p=401:1:0  
Search for Proceeding Number 2009001
Click the blue hyperlinked Proceeding Number
Click the “Public Comments” Tab at the top
Click the “Add Public Comment” button

2.     Speak at the CPUC Meeting

California Public Utilities Commission
Thursday, April 21 at 11:00 a.m.
Participate by phone: 1-800-857-1917, passcode: 9899501#
More info here: https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/events-and-meetings/cpuc-voting-meeting-04-21-2022