Barack Pays For Golf Access in Montana

Access to The Golf Channel that is.

So you thought Obama's stimulus was done?  Nah, it keeps on cranking away.

West of Bozeman, crews are busily laying cable for Opticom between Belgrade and Big Sky (playground and ski resort for the rich and famous), along Ted Turner's ranch and other intermediate points.  In July 2011 the project received Illinois Senator Mark Kirk's "Silver Fleece" award.

The Silver Fleece Award for the month of July goes to a $64 million Stimulus award to provide broadband service to Gallatin County, Montana. According to an analysis conducted by Navigant Consulting, 93% of the households in the project's proposed service area were already served by five or more broadband providers. The fact that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were spent to subsidize broadband service in an area with already strong private sector representation is reprehensible. Perhaps even more staggering, though, is the taxpayer cost of these services per unserved household. 

Ted Turner on his Flying D Ranch, Bozeman, Montana

According to the program's own definition of "unserved household", this project cost taxpayers more than $340,000 per unserved household. However, many of these so-called unserved households have access to 3G wirless broadband. Not only are 3G speeds approaching or even meeting Administration broadband standards, but 3G will soon be replaced with 4G broadband, which will far exceed current standards. Subtracting the number of homes that had existing access to 3G wireless leaves only 7 households in the Gallatin County service area unserved by broadband. It cost the U.S. taxpayer an astounding $7,112,422 per household to provide broadband service to the truly unserved population.  

Yellowstone Club, Big Sky, Montana
exclusive ownership, cable access by Obama

I wish I could say this project is the exception, but I cannot. This funding was provided through the Stimulus' $3.5 billion Rural Utility Service Broadband Initiative Program. On average, this program cost the taxpayer over $1,000 per household. In the projects analyzed by the Navigant study, 85% of the households served already had access to broadband. 

Unfortunately, rural broadband subsidization has been long mismanaged by the Rural Utility Service. A 2009 Inspector General (IG) report found that just 2% of Federal broadband buildout funds provided between 2005 and 2008 went toward unserved communities. The same IG report found that funds were also going to areas that weren't rural at all. In fact 148 of the communities provided with subsidized broadband between 2005 and 2008 were within 30 miles of cities with at least 200,000 inhabitants. We continued to see this occur in the Stimulus funding, where in my home state, Cook County, home of Chicago with a population of 2.79 million, and suburban Will County received funds.

We watched for three weeks as the drilling crew worked to lay cable under the driving range at our favorite golf course in Four Corners. The high water table and several feet of river rock just below the range's grassy surface repeatedly confounded the six person crew. Now that drilling is done and cable is accessible, here's hoping the course manager is willing to buy an Opticom telecast package that includes the Golf Channel. For some reason, he has been unwilling to buy a Golf Channel included package with his Dish TV subscription.  

$37.7 million of the $64.1 million grant has been spent but I doubt the driving range bill has been submitted. According to the Obama administration this 40 smile stretch of coaxial cable funded 136 jobs last quarter, or about 5 times as many jobs as what Obama acknowledges for 2,000 plus miles of oil pipeline.

As is so often the norm, the big beneficiaries of Obama's largess are corporate interests, and rich folks, not poor rural farmers, isolated women and children on the other side of the digital divide as the title and justification for the program suggests.

The head of the firm that won a $64 million federal stimulus grant to install a new fiber-optic network in Gallatin County is part of a Pittsburgh family that owns property at the exclusive, gated Yellowstone Club at Big Sky and is involved in a similar development nearby.

Exclusive private golf, Obama cable access,
The Club at Spanish Peaks, Big Sky, Montana

James Dolan Jr., the manager of Montana Opticom, also owns property at Big Sky, including a lot at the private Spanish Peaks housing and golf course community - which, so far, is home to the only customers served by Opticom, a small broadband firm based in Gallatin Gateway.

Opticom, which won the $64 million award Aug. 4, serves about 300 customers at the Spanish Peaks development.

Dolan's father is a former investment fund manager and founder of Ascent Data, the Pittsburgh-based parent of Montana Opticom, as well as a principal in the Spanish Peaks development. Dolan Sr. owns a home at the Yellowstone Club that is appraised at $11.5 million, according to state records.

You get the government you vote for. I hope you are happy with it.