Tiny Township and Wyebridge community centres will receive a boost in technology after council voted to support broadband expansion for the two locations.
Staff, in its report to committee of the whole last week, requested council consider moving this project to next year as it wasn't budgeted for 2020. However, after extensive discussion, council thought it would be better to find the money within capital reserve and to go ahead with the project this year rather than wait until 2021.
"The CCG (Community Control Group), at the beginning of the declaration was considering a community hub so those in the municipality that don't have internet could access a few WiFi hotspots," said Deputy Mayor Steffen Walma.
"This could offer a potential solution. It would be minimal if you think of the grand scale of things. But if we have two community centres where hotspots could be available in the parking lot, it's a minimal cost and something we can do this year. There are examples of other municipalities that have done hotspot sharing."
Staff had presented a quote of $20,000 for a one-time installation and $3,600 annual fee for subsequent years by a provider already being used by the municipality.
Public works director Tim Leitch said the quote would not support WiFi hotspot capabilities as it only addresses the introduction of broadband at the two centres.
"There would be more cost involved," he said. "The motion was to get our facilities up and running and that's how we quoted it. If that's something we want to look at, we would have to take this back and modify it accordingly to support that objective."
Mayor George Cornell agreed with Walma's proposition of using the community centres' broadband as WiFi hotspots.
"I would support us investigating that," he said. "My initial thinking was that we'd identified (broadband expansion) for all the right reasons and why wouldn't we go ahead and do it for 2020. I understand town halls are closed, but my understanding is we're using the TTCC (located on the eighth concession) for training so is there a way we can do this for 2020?"
Added Leitch: "We're using TTCC for some training, so there's a definite benefit for us to have it from that standpoint," said Leitch. "Is it imperative? We've been surviving like this for a long time, so we could look at that as a tool for coming years."
Coun. Tony Mintoff also joined in the discussion to echo his colleagues' comments, adding that the WiFi hotspot option could be explored at other locations around the township.
"I fully support the notion of trying to make broadbands available for residents," he said. "The lack of broadband is getting quite a bit of attention right now. And I'm just wondering if we were to wail 'til next year, there may be some federal or provincial grant that would allow us to do this."
Walma said he thought the federal/provincial dollars would best benefit Tiny if the money is spent on expanding the existing brandband capacity, not for setting it up from scratch.
"We are going to hopefully be reintroducing staff back into the workplace and one of the provisions we need to look at is office space. If we're able to get this ready by June/July, the TTCC or Wyebridge centre could be a satellite office for staff."
