Advanced Communications and Information Technology - House

Your term on a motion on the amendment and representative talks you wanna. Have a seat explain the amendment real quick. Thank you Mr thanks committee I'd like to invite my friend Mister Jesse Carter with ample appear to help me discuss bill. If you would Sir please go ahead and identify yourself for the record and then representative talks you are recognized to explain the amendment and then get to the bill. I'm Jason Carter and I represent the Arkansas Municipal our situation. President. All right thank you again I'm gonna turn this over to Mr Carter here pretty quickly but it was asked for the meeting there was a similar bill it passed in this is similar bill to what represented by an passed earlier on it's just winds it just a little bit more and I'm gonna let Mr Carter explained exactly how this bill does that. Okay and is that The Amendment or that the bill no thank thank you about that I apologize we do need to gross amendment and the amendment what it is is simply on page six if the Leafs lines fourteen and fifteen and basically and this is a fairly well agreed upon bill we took this out to appease a couple folks and make everybody happy. Okay any questions on the amendment. Can I get a motion to pass representative Dotson on the amendment any discussion on the motion saying none all in favor please say aye opposed. Okay representative you're free to explain the bill as amended okay thank you sorry about that and again this is similar to what representative find passed earlier it's just going to open it up to a few more public public partnerships and let Mr Carter go ahead described what this does. Thank represent Hawks chairman members of the committee my name's Jason Carter represent Arkansas municipal power situation which is fifteen cities in Arkansas that provide electricity to their community of those fifteen four provide broadband service as well so when we saw HB seventeen eighty eight that allowed improvement districts have public private partnerships we thought that idea was spectacular we thought it was great but then also with our few municipal entities that provide that service as well we'd like for them to be able to partner and provide broadband service just like the other private entities could. I appreciate the adoption of the amendment I think there was a discrepancy between what we intended which was slight and how it might be interpreted which was brought it was the best idea I think to remove that potential conflict so with this all we're doing is is making the available availability of public public private or public public partnerships within a very narrow window and we have some clean up language for consolidated told the District of which there is one in the state and it It cleaned up their base language in a manner that is consistent with other statutes in the State of Arkansas that give them the authority to extend brought. Okay now ready for questions. Okay any questions. Our state you have a question okay representative Dr you're recognized. Thank you Mr chair So. Can you explain a little bit more in depth what part of public public partnership looks like Thank. So give me an example of that was I think a. There's to a smoking public public partnerships one is through the interlocal cooperation act that lets a governmental entities cooperate with each other maybe in this context the best way to explain it is with public private partnerships in contrast the two and the importance of public private partnerships you know if someone is an executive at eighteen T. and they're trying to decide how to deploy ten million dollars a capital and they can get a hefty rate of return where there's dense population and not saturate returned where the population is sparse they're gonna go where their greatest rate of return is because that's what makes good business sense and what a public private partnership allows is the deployment of local capital right to be able to get the infrastructure bill without having to compete with the right of return in a dense area and then leaning into the expertise of the private entity who knows how to provide the services knows how to do it well and and to let them provide the the services for the poor the facility so it's it so that's a great idea with a public public partnership we envision it would be the same thing it just that the expertise that they would lean into would not be a private entity we would be a public entity where these public image her experience and in doing this and I think would typically be someone who's co located very near their facilities okay thank god. Maybe didn't explain my question K. another I get the public private partnership and. I guess morning example of in reality or in actuality what. What is that expertise on the public side and what is the non expertise on the public side that. Is there an example of this. Location wise in the state that you're looking to do this sort of a I think right now with with broadband I can't point to you at an example about where it is I think the division about how that would work would be the ownership of the infrastructure and who's going to operate it so that would be kind of the Division of responsibility service municipality owns electric utility. That would be the partnership for you to come in and partner with them as another public broadband entity so it would be the the the municipal electric entity who is experienced in broadband are there there are limitations on that so they have to be an entity is experienced and broadband but if an improvement district one to build infrastructure there you know outside of the electric service territory they're not a place that is being served by a broad band then they could be receive services right to have the system managed by the experienced municipal electric utility okay thank you. So for example Conway Corp is a one of these public so this would be for example the city of Conway providing resources to Conway Corp for Conway Corp to then provide broadband out to a larger area would that be a correct characterization so I I don't think it two comma Corp is in of itself a municipal electric utility that provides broadband service if there were and improvement district on the outskirts of their territory that said Hey we'd like to have broadband you know. We've got a funding mechanism to pay for the infrastructure will you guys operated for us they could enter into an agreement to do that they wouldn't have to enter into the agreement with Conway corporation they can enter into that agreement with a private provider or someone else so so maybe that would provide them more opportunity date to get a good economic choice. Another question and I guess the only concern that I would have is could you create a situation because this is public public where tax dollars would be going and competing against private business for. Expanding broadband into an area so you know here's area Hey you know I'm a private business and I want to invest in going to their but I can't because entity B. which is getting tax dollars is competing against me could could that. Come from this potentially. I don't envision that with the improvement district being the funding mechanism for that for the capital expenditure so it at that point the infrastructure's been built by the improvement district. They're just looking for the best service provider I think that they can get so it that wouldn't be a you know it it's a it's a pair of the rates it's not a it's not a taxpayer issue okay all right any other questions. Okay saying none there's no one signed up to speak for or against the will go to the audience is or anybody in the audience would like to speak against the bill. Saying nine as anybody in the audience like to speak for the bill. Seeing none all representatives are going closer to. I appreciate everybody here House. I appreciate about here and like close with motion to pass okay we got a motion to pass representative Hawks as amended amended as amended any discussion on the motion. Okay saying none all in favor please sigh aye. Imposed and resolutions your bill is passed thank you Mr thank me all right now there being nothing further on our