Forest County commissioners said Wednesday broadband access will be available very soon to some areas in the county.
“We met with our consultant and people on German Hill will be getting internet tomorrow,” commissioner Bob Snyder said during the panel’s meeting Wednesday.
The towers in Tionesta and Marienville are broadcasting, and the equipment at Abraxas and Pigeon is up and running, the commissioners said.
Commissioners chairman Mark Kingston said pamphlets will soon be distributed to areas reached by the broadband so residents in the affected areas can get hooked up to the broadband.
The next phase of the project will be expanding broadband coverage into Yellowhammer and areas near Pigeon that don’t have access, Kingston said. He added they are also in the process of hooking up broadband in Loleta.
In other business Wednesday, Snyder said the state Department of Health may conduct mass COVID-19 vaccinations Feb. 8-12 at the MACA building in Marienville.
Snyder said the Department of Health told commissioners they may be giving out 100 doses of the vaccine a day for five days, but the plans are still up in the air.
“We are not getting enough vaccines but we are getting some,” Kingston said.
Forest County Sheriff Bob Wolfgang said he and his deputies have received the vaccine.
The Department of Health is also tentatively looking to hold a walk-in COVID testing site at the MACA building from March 1-5, Snyder said.
“Over half of the (virus) cases on record in the county are from the (SCI Forest) prison, Abraxas and Snyder Memorial. Without counting those cases we would probably have less than 100 cases in the county,” Snyder said.
CARES spending
Lynette Greathouse, the county’s chief clerk, presented a breakdown of how the county spent the $1 million it received in CARES funds.
Almost $175,000 was used to purchase broadband equipment and three poles to be used for the broadband expansion project. And close to $800,000 was devoted to county response.
Another portion of the money was used to buy several portable computers and printers to enable county employees to work remotely, Greathouse said.
In addition, the county used CARES funds to pay county employees who worked through the shutdown earlier in the year, an allowable expense under the parameters of the grant, Greathouse said.
The county also used funding to purchase two thermographic cameras for taking temperatures at a cost of $6,648. One of the cameras was placed in the courthouse and the other was placed at the Justice Building beside the courthouse, Greathouse said.
Two percent of the funding was spent on administrating the grant, she said.
Greathouse said the county was able to save money in the 2021 budget due to the COVID related costs covered by the CARES money.
The money the county saved has been set aside to fund broadband expansion, Greathouse said.