City of Cumberland , Maryland
Special Session
Council Minutes
Friday, April 8, 2005
The Mayor and City Council of
INVOCATION – Councilman Hendershot
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES
CALL OF ROLL:
Present: Mayor Fiedler, Councilmen Hedrick, Hendershot, and Rephann. Department Heads and/or Officials present were Jeffrey E. Repp, City Administrator; Jeffrey Rhodes, Director/Administrative Services; Kevin Hagerich, Director/Public Works; and Sharon S. Clark, City Clerk.
Absent: Councilman Elliott
ORDERS:
Mayor Fiedler advised of one (1) item on the meeting agenda that pertained to the AllCoNet2 project. Councilman Rephann made a motion to adopt the agenda item and the motion was seconded by Councilman Hendershot. Mr. Repp explained that this order would authorize the Mayor and himself to sign an agreement that will assign the property rights and what would essentially be AllCoNet II over to the firm of CONNX, Inc. out of
Representatives of CONNX gave a brief overview of their goals in maintaining as well as promoting the AllCoNet II technology, which in their view has the capability of providing a broad range of services. They indicated that approximately 90% of the work had been completed to enable AllCoNet to connect to the national backbone of the fiber-optic network and enable this community to cross the digital divide and become competitive with any community in the country.
The goal of CONNX is to market the technology that has been developed here and provide other rural communities with the same type of connection and technology. CONNX plans to base their operations here and expects their presence to also expand here.
Mr. Repp said the Board of Education had recently voted to sign the intellectual rights to the hardware and software over to AllCoNet II and that there had been no changes in the agreement since last time it had been before the Mayor and Council as far as the $50,000 down payment for them to promote AllCoNet technology around the nation or the $50,000 for AllCoNet I individuals to continue to receive free internet access forever.
It was also stated that CONNX would not assume ownership of any hardware and that the physical network would continue to be owned by AllCoNet II, although work would continue towards reaching an operations agreement whereby CONNX would ultimately assume management responsibilities for the network. Ownership of the network would continue to be held by the City and County.
The Mayor opened the meeting to questions and comments.
Councilman Hendershot commented that the agreements had been reviewed and had been determined to be in the best interest of the community.
Terri Socha asked if there had been preliminary public discussions on the AllCoNet agreements. Mr. Repp advised that the Mayor and Council had previously met in two executive sessions to discuss the matter; both of which were advertised as contract negotiations, covered by the open meeting laws. He advised the special morning meeting had been called due to the fact that the County had reached a point where they were able to sign the agreement; and as the CONNX partners were currently in town, it was beneficial to all to promptly provide them with a signed document so that they could move forward with their obligations.
Ms. Socha further questioned the method by which a value of $4 million dollars had been established for AllCoNet II. She was informed that negotiations between the City and County had established the value. Mr. Repp said that the network was not actually being sold; the value had been established regarding the ability of CONNX to market the network. CONNX representatives said that they would continue to upgrade the network rather than just maintain, and that it would also be their responsibility to file for any possible patent, though it had not been established whether or not the technology was patentable.
Ms. Socha protested the policy of holding Friday morning meetings as many citizens were unable to attend.
With no further comments, the meeting adjourned at 8:35 A.M.
Approved May 17, 2005
Lee N. Fiedler, Mayor
Attest:
Sharon S. Clark, City Clerk