Boone County was the subject of praise in a recent press conference that the National Association of Counties held in Colorado.
Boone County Judge/Executive Gary Moore, the immediate past president of the National Association of Counties, also known as NACo, spoke on the county’s investment in upgrading its high-speed internet access.
A year ago, Cincinnati Bell, now Altafiber, launched a project across Northern Kentucky to upgrade internet access everywhere by laying miles of fiber optic cable in the ground. Work began locally after an agreement was struck with Boone County in March 2021.
Now, the Boone County internet upgrade is on pace to be completed ahead of schedule. During the press conference, Moore said the project could be finished as early as March 2023.
“In the middle of the pandemic, we know that connectivity, that the lack of broadband, high-speed internet was critical across the county,” Moore said.
A task force was created at NACo, and Moore said he took what he was learning home to Boone County. He said the “direct allocation of funding” from the federal government allowed Northern Kentucky counties to move quickly with this project.
Sperling said direct allocation to counties of all sizes, an improvement over 2020’s CARES Act funding that required a county to meet a 500,000-population threshold, was to empower counties.
Gene Sperling, senior advisor to President Joe Biden, spoke at the press conference. He praised Moore and other county leaders for their use of American Rescue Plan Act funding.
He said giving these funds “directly has led to so much innovation, to so many people not having to go on hands and knees and beg for the funds.”
Moore said the $42 million project “will be finished by March 2023. So, there’s no way that this could have been done as quickly and as efficiently if the funds had not come directly to the county.”
Moore added that the remainder of Boone County’s American Rescue Plan Act funding is allocated to bringing public water to Kelly Elementary School in a project due to be completed in “just a few weeks.”
In previous talks on internet expansion, Moore and other county leaders have expressed the need for high-speed internet to bolster the quality of life in Northern Kentucky and invite economic growth. Boone County development plans dating back to the early 2000s show improving internet infrastructure is a long-term goal as well.