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Allison Spani
From:Shanna Kuhlemier
Sent:Wednesday, March 2, 2022 10:16 AM
To:Allison Spani
Subject:FW: Public Comment
Please save on the p drive and post to the website.
Shanna D. Kuhlemier, CMC
District Clerk/Assistant to the General Manager
11570 Donner Pass Road
Truckee, CA 96161
P: 530-582-3980
www.tdpud.org
At The Truckee Donner PUD, we believe in:
Safety – Safety is our way of life!
Communication – Send and receive
Integrity – Honest and ethical!
Accountability – Own it!
Timeliness – Meet our goals and commitments!
Work Life Balance – Work hard, play hard!
From: devin@oasisbroadband.net [mailto:devin@oasisbroadband.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 2, 2022 8:40 AM
To: Shanna Kuhlemier
Subject: Public Comment
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the Truckee Donner PUD. Do not click links or open attachments unless you
recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
To: Shanna Kuhlemier and the Truckee Donner PUD Board
RE: Broadband committee report
Shanna, Oasis Broadband would like to submit the following Public Comment for presentation to the board
after the presentation of the Broadband Committee’s report.
Oasis Broadband is a local provider of Internet services. We have worked to provide the communities inside
Placer and Nevada County and specifically Truckee with broadband options for 20 years and serve 1000s of
customers who buy our services largely because the current providers are not meeting the needs of the
community in terms of their coverage or their performance. We have been fighting for the most remote as well
as the most underserved residents of Truckee especially during these last two years as Covid reshaped the
make-up of Truckee residents and the way many Truckee residents used their homes. We added capacity
quickly and relentlessly to provide service at locations ignored by the two incumbents in places like Prosser
Dam, Juniper Hill and the developments of Coyote run and Pinyon Creek and applied for and received county
grants to serve the most distant residents of our community in Dog Valley and Klondike Flat not to mention
augmenting our service in Tahoe Donner and expanding service along highway 89S.
We would like to make the following statements to the board:
2
1) We support the Broadband Committee's suggestions presented this evening
2) ISPs are very interested in working with the PUD to make better broadband a reality for Truckee
3) We encourage the PUD to partner with additional ISPs who are ready to invest and deliver for every corner
and every resident of Truckee
4) We would like to offer to share what we know about grant funding, the broadband chokepoints and needs in
Truckee and how wireless can be used to provide an immediate solution to address the failure of Suddenlink
and AT&T to provide usable broadband in Truckee
5) Encourage the PUD to accelerate its expenditures on core fiber assets. This would accelerate and facilitate
cooperation that would begin to address the community’s highly inadequate internet service levels now and also
provide for the long-term needs of the town by increasing the availability of ultra high-capacity to the main
corners of Truckee
6) Inform the board that we have had proposals for cooperation with the PUD on the table for some time, which
haven’t been pursued presumably pending the expiration of the agreement with PST and the outcome of this
study. We have a backlog of projects that will allow the PUD to show immediate results for the community if
staff is allowed to pursue them.
In our opinion, Truckee is in a broadband crisis. The evidence for this are the consistent critical comments on
Truckee-related Facebook and Nextdoor pages - some of which are in the presentation you have just
seen. Truckee needs alternatives immediately which architecturally are within easy reach as shown by the
successes of the cooperation with the PST. We further agree with the committee's findings that Truckee needs a
blueprint for reliable, high capacity, long-term solution to ensure Truckee’s future is not compromised by the
lack of a utility as important as broadband. This long-term plan should be a deliberate activity that incorporates
every tool, asset, organization and dollar available and that may take many smart people and a significant
amount of time to construct. The PUD is uniquely positioned to meet many of those needs and can be a
supporter and contributor without encountering the kind of resistance it experienced in its previous attempt to
lead a broadband revolution if the solution is oriented on facilitation not domination.
Respectfully and optimistically,
Devin Koch
Oasis Broadband Internet
530-587-4312 | devin@oasisbroadband.net
www.oasisbroadband.net