The Chesapeake City Council held a work session at 5:30 p.m. and a regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. on September 26, 2023, at City Hall. The work session focused on a broadband update, while the regular meeting included public hearings, consent and regular agenda items, citizen comments on ward voting, streetlights, and red-light cameras, appointments to boards and commissions, and a resolution confirming a state of emergency from Tropical Storm Ophelia. All votes were unanimous except for the acceptance of a planning commission resignation (8-1). A closed meeting was held from 7:27 p.m. to 8:24 p.m. to discuss economic development and the performance of the acting city auditor.
Public Hearing Items:
Citizens’ Comments on Agenda Items:
Citizens’ Comments on Non-Agenda Items:
Mayor’s Responses:
I want to welcome everyone to our city council September 26, 2023 work session. And we have some interesting topics and exciting topics to talk about today. And I want to turn the floor over to our city manager, Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilmember Ritter, if you'll recall, requested that we give more frequent briefings on the status of the broadband project. Very quick overview. There's two uh big initiatives going on in the region. One is uh with South Side Network Authority, and we have representatives from the authority here today. Um Councilmember Ritter sits on the authority. Um they're gonna give us an update on the regional picture of the Southampton Roads localities and and the existing uh nature of that project, progress and the future of that project. Uh but we're gonna start with uh Chesapeake's ring. That that's our own piece of the puzzle to make sure we're providing service, uh deploying it throughout the the community. And so I'll turn it over to our our new Chief Information Officer Dan Constantino. Uh thank you very much. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of City Council. Uh as Mr. Brooks said, I'm Dan Constino, the Chief Information Officer, and I'm pleased to be here to provide this update about Chesapeake Connects. Uh here with me this evening is Jay Crail, and Jay is Chesapeake Connects project manager and has been serving in that capacity since 2019. I thought it'd be beneficial to quickly review some of the reasons for this project. Uh Chesapeake Connect's project was created to provide city-owned high-speed network connectivity for city facilities and schools while reserving excess capacity to provide for uh future ISP lease agreements. These agreements should produce income that will help offset the ongoing maintenance and operating costs of the network. Uh they should also help to encourage newer internet service providers to enter the market and through competition uh competition decrease overall prices for uh their customers. Uh with the city-owned asset, we should be able to provide us with maximum flexibility as future technologies and use uh cases materialize, and we'd be ready to take uh advantage of those. So, readily accessible broadband connectivity will certainly help make uh Chesapeake more competitive when working to attract new companies uh to the city. So Chesapeake Connects has both uh wired and wireless elements to it. Uh if you've ever wondered what the internet looks like, you can see those uh conduits coming out of the ground. That's sort of a very base level. Uh underground conduit is currently being deployed throughout the city and it will be used to house our fiber optic cables. And of course, those fiber optic cables will be the digital transport, provide the sort of uh speed and capacity that we need to handle even the most uh bandwidth intensive applications. Uh there is also a wireless side to uh Chesapeake Connects, um, and it will have actually two wireless systems that'll be part of it, and they will help to enable uh smart city initiatives. Uh the first wireless network is known as LORAWAN, which is short for low power wide area, and this technology allows for low-powered battery operated devices to be able to run for years really, consistently exchanging information through the wireless network. Uh advanced metering infrastructure, AMI water meters are an example of this. Uh, and they can use this means of communication, and they are part of our testing. Uh the second wireless system to be implemented is private LTE. Uh as you're likely aware, LTE has been used for years by the cell phone providers to give speeder um customers speedy uh data connections. So LTE is really a great match for a lot of our higher bandwidth applications uh like traffic cameras, traffic control systems, uh, and SCADA systems. If we look at this map here, uh you can see that we've divided the project into three phases. Uh phase one, which we're in right now, uh, will help us to connect 136 facilities. Uh the green phase or phase two, another 65 uh facilities. And then finally, phase three down on the uh southwestern portion of the uh city. Uh the late blue will be nine facilities. If you look toward the top, you'll see a large uh dark blue ring. Um that is the regional connectivity ring. And we do have Bob Crumb from HRPDC and Stephen DeBerry uh from the South Side Network Authority here to talk about the uh the work that's occurring there. So taking a look at some of the project plans, the total build out will be 172 miles of conduit and fiber throughout the city. About 18 and a half of those miles will be a co-build with the South Side Network Authority to help with the build of the regional connectivity ring across Chesapeake as well. And it will reduce costs to both Ches Peak and the South Side Network Authority by doing that work at the same time.