By Amber Sandhu, Redding Record Searchlight, Calif.
High-speed Internet could do wonders for a city like Redding, and it's an idea Adam McElvain, a Redding City Council contender, hopes to turn into a possibility with the backing of downtown business owners and community members.
McElvain will hold a community forum Monday afternoon at Redding Library, to further discuss the idea and detail how high-speed Internet could positively impact Redding businesses and help drive jobs to the city while benefiting the technology, educational and health industries.
"It's a huge economic driver," McElvain said about high-speed Internet. "We have opportunities in Redding, and we need to take advantage of those opportunities."
McElvain's interest in high-speed Internet for the city was sparked when Google Fiber, a connection that provides Internet at 1,000 megabits per second, was first introduced in 2010. At the time, McElvain said he knew "chances were slim" to bring such a connection to Redding, but he wondered whether the possibility existed for the city to do something similar on its own.
He said he began working on a proposal around two years ago and decided to go public with it in January.
Having sat on the now-disbanded Electric Utility Commission, McElvain said he's got "keen insight on how utility works" in Redding. And by providing Internet through the electric utility, which the city already owns, much like the way Chattanooga in Tennessee does, local businesses would pay a fraction of the cost for gigabit speeds, McElvain said.
"This would enrich our current businesses, community, and attract new businesses to town," he said.
McElvain intends to pilot the project in the downtown. But first, he intends to determine a demand among downtown businesses and raise funds privately before he takes his plan up to the City Council.
He estimates it could cost $2 million to $5 million to put the infrastructure in place to support high-speed Internet, once the city grants permission to do so.
McElvain clarified that the money would not be coming out of the city's general fund, but would instead be raised through state and federal grants and with the help of sponsorships.
Joining McElvain at the forum will be a panel of four local experts — Development Group Inc. vice president Jason Eatmon; Andy Main, who is the chief executive officer of Shasta.com and Shasta Beam; Claudia Escobar, a Thomson Reuters marketing consultant; and Faye Hall, founder of Build It and Code IT.
©2016 the Redding Record Searchlight (Redding, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
