Allegiance out of the picture

   Greensburg City Administrator Steve Hewitt told The Signal Friday morning he’d just been informed via phone that Allegiance Communications has dropped out of the running to supply the community with an upgraded communications system.

   Hewitt said he was phoned by Allegiance representative Greg Harrison early Friday with the news.

   “He (Harrison) told me that because of federal requirements (involving federal grant money) his (Allegiance’s) Board of Directors decided to turn down the grant,” Hewitt said. 

   Contacted by The Signal later Friday morning, Harrison himself explained Allegiance’s withdrawal in terms of such federal money usually being given to nonprofits to extend such a project to underserved areas.

   “But we’re (Allegiance) a privately owned, for profit company,” Harrison said.  “We have debt and so (we have to be) very strict about liens on our assets.  So when we try to merge what we can build with federal money and (taking into consideration) our assets and with a private investment at stake, our financial advisors basically told our board that this is an obligation that we can’t make work.”

   Harrison said he’s had to make similar phone calls to point men of nine similar projects—three in Kansas, four in Oklahoma and one each in Texas and Arkansas.  “We won’t be doing any of them, for the same basic reason,” he said.  “I had to be the messenger.”

   “Disappointment” was the common reaction Harrison recalled receiving upon his ten phone calls.  “We’re (Allegiance” disappointed as well,” he said.  “That’s $29 million of grant money we had to turn down (for all 10 projects total).” Harrison also said he wasn’t aware of the possibility of the details of working with federal grant money being a hurdle when he appeared before the council last month.  “I learned of the difficulties with this since then,” he said.

   Harrison had appeared before Greensburg’s City Council July 20 to explain the company’s plans to match a federal grant of $3.6 million with $1.2 million of its own money to install a fiber optic system to supply digital phone, high-speed Internet and cable television services to not only Greensburg, but also Mullinville, Bucklin, Ford and Wilroads Gardens within an approximate four-year time period.  He’d said the community had qualified for the federal funds as “an area not served by broadband service.”  The plan had called for the fiber optic cable to be buried beneath ground and be offered to homes and businesses in the various towns.

   Saying he wasn’t “terribly surprised” by the call, Hewitt went on to say, “This (Allegiance pulling out) leaves it open for us to pursue other companies to come in and give us an upgraded system.”  Currently, Greensburg receives phone and DSL Internet service from ATT and Gmaxx wireless Internet service from Haviland Telephone Company.  Most Greensburg residents receive television programming from either Direct TV or Dish Network satellite services.

    Saying a “couple of (communications) companies” had been in touch with the City over the past year about installing a system in Greensburg, Hewitt said that “as long as Allegiance was in the picture that put a damper on things because it was hard to compete with a company getting federal grant money.”  With Allegiance out of the picture, however, Hewitt said he plans to “go out and find that company that can best serve us with upgraded communications.”

   Hewitt, in fact, told The Signal he plans on “getting in touch with a couple of companies today to let them know we’re interested in them taking a look at us.”  He also said he’d like to have “an agreement in place by the end of the year with someone.”

   Asked if he considered Allegiance’s withdrawal a setback for the community, Hewitt was upbeat overall.

   “A setback is not what I consider this to be,” he said.  “Not at all, and that’s mostly because of the timeframe Allegiance was talking about.  They’ve been moving awfully slow since the storm, and have been lackadaisical about putting something in here to meet our needs.

   “I think their withdrawing clarifies the situation for us.  We now know we need to recruit a company, hopefully a regional company based in Kansas.  Being based in (Shawnee) Oklahoma, I don’t think Allegiance considered us all that much of a priority.”

   As for whether Harrison’s appearance at the July 20 council meeting had done enough to convince residents or officials of Allegiance’s commitment to building the fiber optic system, Hewitt said, “There were skeptics after the public hearing.  I think the attitude toward Allegiance was ‘Okay, prove it—prove you’re really going to do this.’  I think a lot of folks there (at the July 20 public hearing) were still doubting they were going to actually do this after his (Harrison’s) appearance.”

    Stay tuned.