By Chris Engish
SCHOHARIE COUNTY — Construction on Schoharie County's $33.6 million broadband project should start soon after the Board of Supervisors awarded more than $24 million in bids at a special meeting on Monday morning, Aug. 4.
The project, being mainly funded with a $30 million state grant, is aimed at providing every county resident with the ability to connect with the Internet. After some back and forth discussion at the Aug. 4 meeting, the BOS voted to award a $23,929,215 bid to MasTec of North America for "outdoor" construction and $141,000 to B & B Contracting for "indoor" construction.
Outdoor construction is the vast majority of the project and will consist of laying the fiberoptic cable either overhead on poles or underground and all the accessory logistics and details involved with that. Indoor construction will involve the building of some small hut structures to house electronics necessary for the broadband network.
County Economic Development Coordinator John Crescimanno, who is handling a good part of the project for the county on a day-to-day basis, said construction should start soon now that the bids have been awarded. The targeted completion date for the project is still the end of 2026, he added.
Since the grant is one that does not pay up front but reimburses the county at various stages during the project, the BOS also floated a bond that will provide money for bills and expenses before reimbursements from the grant come in.
Crescimanno explained that the bid for MasTec is not necessarily a hard and fast number but could change depending on what the contractor encounters as the project goes along. One unknown variable is exactly how much of the fiber optic cable will be strung overhead on poles and how much is laid underground.
That information was unsettling for Supervisor Donald Airey.
"We don't know what we're really going to pay," he said. "It will be negotiated as we go."
Crescimanno added MasTec won't know for certain about certain costs until it starts ordering materials.
"That's an uncontrolled cost factor," Airey said.
Crescimanno then added that MasTec will decide as it progresses to certain areas of the county whether it's better to string cable overhead or lay it underground.
"They are leveraging what is cost effective as things move forward," said Supervisor Werner Hampel, Chair of the BOS Economic Development Committee.
Supervisor Earlin Rosa voiced puzzlement over why another bid for the outdoor work — a bid of $29,880,878 from White Mountain Cable — was so much more than the MasTec bid.
"It's concerning there is such a gap between the lowest and highest bidder," he said. Rosa was the only one among 11 Supervisors who attended the meeting to vote No on the MasTec bid.
MIDTEL (Middleburgh Telephone) has been a partner on the project and provided a lot of technical expertise. It will maintain the network for the county once it's finished and be the main Internet service provider. Farr Technologies is the project manager and engineer, and Crescimanno said during the meeting that Farr's estimate on the total cost is still $33.6 million.
Expenses over and above the $30 million grant will come out of county funds on hand, he added. The total cost estimate of $33.6 million includes the bids awarded Monday, plus expenses for the three huts in Esperance, Sharon Springs and Richmondville above the bid awarded to B & B.
"Other fees include engineering, as well as make ready costs that include fees to attach to poles," Crescimanno wrote in an email after the meeting. "There is multiple processes involved with the construction of the huts that require separate bids. Examples include the physical hut, the power generation, the electronics that are installed inside the hut, the concrete lay for the hut and the transportation of the hut."
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