'We're the only ones in the country that dropped the ball,' Commissioner Foster Campbell says
At the behest of Commissioner Foster Campbell, the state Public Service Commission has summoned top officials of the Division of Administration and the Board of Regents to its Wednesday meeting to explain how Louisiana became the first and only state to have its federal broadband grant rescinded. "We want to know what the heck happened; we're the only ones in the country that dropped the ball," Campbell said Friday, referring to last week's cancellation by the Commerce Department of an $80 million grant to the state of Louisiana to spread broadband in poor and rural central and northeastern parts of the state.
View full sizeLouisiana Public Service Commission member Foster Campbell was photographed in Shreveport in 2007. The grant was one of some 230 for a total of $4 billion awarded under the stimulus act. Of those, four far smaller ones were terminated by the recipient, but the Louisiana grant, awarded to the state Board of Regents, was the first canceled by the federal government.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who worked to help secure the funding, was furious last week with the state for what she contended was its bungling in failing to meet federal deadlines and answer pertinent questions about the project. On Friday, Campbell, a Democrat who represents north Louisiana and the area that stood the most to gain, sounded even more furious.
"I meet with people in every parish (in his district), and the number one priority by far is high-speed Internet, and how do you lose $80 million coming from the federal government to do that?" he asked. "How do you drop the ball, and if they did drop the ball was it because someone whispered in their ears, `it's going interfere with big companies?' I want to know about that. "
The PSC wrote to Paul Rainwater, Commissioner of Administration for Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal asking that he attend along with Ed Driesse, the state's chief information officer, and to Higher Education Commissioner Jim Purcell asking that Loni Ledge and Donny Vandal, who were involved in the grant process for the Regents, attend.
"They will be under oath when they testify," said Campbell.
A spokesman for Rainwater said that he planned to be there along with Purcell.
Some members of the Legislature last week pressed Rainwater to appeal the rescission, but that would be up to the applicant, the Board of Regents. On Thursday the board sent the Commerce Department a letter inquiring if an appeal is even possible.
The Louisiana project fell well behind schedule because of what state officials said were failures by the original engineering/design firm hired by the Regents.
The Division of Administration then stepped in and scrapped the original plan to build a public broadband network, and replaced it with one centered on purchasing long-term leases from private providers.
Rainwater said the state didn't like "top-down, government heavy approach," and did not want to create a public network that would compete with, rather than partner with the private sector.