From a post and accompanying email from StimulatingBroadband.com:
The Administration of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) informed StimulatingBroadband.com this morning that the communication issued by a state agency to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) relative to the Administration's funding priorities for federal broadband stimulus projects in Minnesota is not considered a "public document."
In an e-mail of 10/19, Ms. Diane Wells, the Manager of the Telecommunications Division of the Minnesota Department of Commerce stated:
"Minnesota has undertaken its BTOP evaluation process following guidelines the state has for reviewing RFPs. Under that process, the results of our evaluation would not be made publicly available until the completion of the full process, which for purposes of the BTOP broadband grants, we have defined as when the NTIA issues the awards. Thus the recommendation from Minnesota to the NTIA is not a public document at this time."
According to one of StimulatingBroadband.com's authors,
It is the only instance we have seen of a state governor holding a state document about federal broadband stimulus funds as "not a public document".
I'm inclined to agree with the implication here: why is Tim Pawlenty's lame duck administration keeping an official communication between government organs in St. Paul and Washington out of the public eye? The expansion of broadband access into rural Minnesota is a huge piece of the economic puzzle, and Minnesotans from across the state deserve to know how our state government is working with its federal counterparts to achieve common goals on the issue.
BTOP stands for Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program. It's a $4.7 billion dollar chunk of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and "provides grants to support the deployment of broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas, to enhance broadband capacity at public computer centers, and to encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service." Curiously, that document I linked above is Ramsey County's RFP. Obviously the state is within its rights to have different guidelines than cities or counties, but you'd think they'd want to be at least as transparent as one of the largest counties in the state is with its requests.
Coincidentally, some private applicants to the program, such as the Gardonville Co-op, don't think the states should have the final say over who gets the grants -- they trust the Feds to make the call.
There have been several comments, both during and after the Open Forum meetings, regarding what level of involvement that the States should possess. Unfortunately, there are many differences in opinion. Coordination between NTIA and the States will be important in determining areas where there is a need for broadband service. However, NTIA will need to maintain final control and independent decision making on awarding funding throughout the grant award process. If States were given the authority to determine which projects would qualify by means of "screening" the applications before NTIA's review, there could be a potential conflict of interest, primarily due to the fact that some States will be submitting projects of their own. This conflict may prejudice projects submitted by private entities like us.
I'm not entirely sure what all of this means, when seen as a sum of its parts. But one thing seems clear: the Pawlenty administration isn't being as forthcoming about this issue as they probably should be.
