On June 10, 2025, the City of Portsmouth convened multiple meetings, including a Broadband Authority meeting, a City Council work session, and a regular City Council meeting. Discussions covered fiber network expansion, public safety initiatives, crime statistics, use permit applications, and various community concerns. Key outcomes included a denied use permit for a shipping container storage yard, a deferred use permit for an event space, and unanimous adoption of several ordinances.
Yes, sir. Ms. Glover. Here. Mr. Green. Here. Mr. Hugo is running late. Ms. Hughes. Here. Ms. Thomas. Mr. Tillett. Here. And Mr. Walker. Thank you. Um, the minutes have gone out. Any uh anyone have any discussions or any edits to the minutes presented? If not, can I get a motion to accept the minutes? Okay. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. The minutes are passed. And now to updates and discussions. Mr. Hayes, are you handling uh this sir? Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the commission, and we do have presentation for you on this afternoon that encompasses the update and discussion items that you have on your agenda. They're all encompassed in uh one full presentation. So we'll start with that presentation. Um our agenda this afternoon will cover uh four topics, one being the regional connectivity ring that we have for the regional fiber ring in the city, and I'll give you an update as to uh some of the materials, some of the information that we provided during the last chief information officer uh group uh meeting that we have uh once a month. Uh the next item will be to cover our local uh fiber ring that we have. I do realize we have some new members as with our um with the organization now, this commission, and so we'll make sure that we point out what some of this means. So the NGN or the next generation network, whenever you see that, we're referring to the Portsmouth actual ring here in the city of Portsmouth. Um what we do is and what the strategy that was laid out in this partnership with the cities on the south side is that we would take the local ring and eventually connect it also to the regional ring. So there's a regional ring that encompasses the partnership amongst the cities on the south side. So when you hear me refer to the RCR, the regional connection ring, that's the regional one. If you hear me say N uh GN, that's the next generation network. I'm referring to our local ring here in the city of Portsmouth. And then of course, we'll provide a bead update uh in the presentation, which is the broadband equity access and deployment grant, which was a federal grant uh that was provided to the state and in turn any localities that are interested in getting access to those funds, they have to apply for those funds through the state. And then the final item will be on economic development or broadband related objectives and our strategy through the use of our economic development office, and Mr. Brian Donahue is here with us today, and he'll touch on some of those items. Next slide.