Vilas County Board Briefed on High Speed Broadband Success

Tuesday , Oct 01, 2024

Credit:  Reprinted from The Lakeland Times
October 1, 2024
by Brian Jopek, Editor

Tuckwell: ‘We stand out as a broadband destination

The Vilas County board at its Sept. 24 meeting was presented with a report of the activities of the non-profit Vilas County Economic Development Corporation (VCEDC).

The organization’s funding is through grants, fundraisers and a contribution from Vilas County annually; initially, the VCEDC received $98,000 each year from Vilas County.

“It’s just been a tremendous accomplishment and we all
need to be aware of that.”
Carolyn Ritter
Vilas County supervisor

County finance director Darcy Smith told The Lakeland Times in 2024, that amount was reduced to $60,000 but during a meeting of the county board’s finance committee on Sept. 26, the recommended amount for 2025 is $80,000. 

There has been an annual report from the VCEDC for the county board each year as the county’s budget process hits high gear. 

VCEDC president Jim Tuckwell made this year’s presentation to the county board which covered, for new members of the county board, an introduction to the organization and what it does for Vilas County. 

“We’ve designed a strategy that really takes into account Vilas County’s opportunities and our  strengths,” he said. “Our focus in our strategy right now is ... broadband technology throughout the county and supporting our business community.”

Tuckwell made the point there was “very little traditional industry” in the county. 

“Our economy is heavily dependent on tourism and very heavily dependent on entrepreneurs and small businesses,” he said. “So, we designed a strategy to really support those entrepreneurs and small businesses.”

Referring to a handout that was provided to each member of the county board, Tuckwell highlighted why it was “so critically important that we support our businesses in Vilas County.”

“Statistically, they’ve got about a 50/50 chance of surviving for five years, if you see a business opening today,” he said. “Over 10 years, a one-in-three chance of survival so we’re doing everything we can to beat those odds and help our small businesses succeed.”

Among items Tuckwell mentioned that were signs of progress since the last time the county board heard a report from the VCEDC with regard to its success in the area of high speed broadband; he said according to information from the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, 86 percent of Vilas County addresses have high speed broadband available to them.

Because the majority of the county either has broadband coverage or there are projects ongoing to provide it, he said the “vast majority of Vilas County doesn’t need and doesn’t qualify for upcoming federal (grant) funding.”

“We don’t need it because we’re already there,” Tuckwell said. “This puts us in a really unique position in northern Wisconsin. We stand out as a broadband destination.” 

He summarized how it’s been paid for to this point, 46 percent of the projects funded “by a combination of Wisconsin Public Service (Commission) grants, local funding and funding provided by the internet service provider (ISP).”

“We’ve been very active with those and in one case, wrote about 80 percent of the grant and gave it to the ISP,” Tuckwell said. “This has been an ongoing thing that we started four-and-a-half years ago.”

At the end of his presentation, county supervisor Carolyn Ritter said the VCEDC was one of “those groups that works in the background.”

“You don’t often hear about what they’re doing,” she said. “It’s not big, splashy stuff that is all over the media but it is just a group that has been working diligently and quietly in the background and the results of what they do are evident in the report that Jim just gave.”

Ritter said just with the VCEDC’s efforts to bring high speed broadband coverage from five percent to 86 percent in four-and-a-half years “is quite an achievement.”

She mentioned how much further ahead Vilas County is than Oneida County in making high speed broadband available to residents. 

“It’s just been a tremendous accomplishment and we all need to be aware of that,” Ritter said. 

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