Big broadband projects are breaking ground in California, but not here.

In 2020, a photo captured two girls sitting on the ground outside a Taco Bell in East Salinas, laptops out, connected to the restaurant’s free Wi-Fi. The image went viral, a reflection of the stark digital divide that was laid bare during the pandemic.

California lawmakers could not look away, and Senate Bill 156 was signed into law in 2021, deploying billions of dollars for broadband infrastructure.

A group of 40 rural counties, already connected as Rural County Representatives of California, formed a new joint powers authority, the Golden State Connect Authority, to try to get in on some of that funding to build needed infrastructure. On Thursday, April 30, the group will celebrate its first groundbreaking in Glenn County, north of Sacramento, an $11 million project installing about 40 miles of fiber for high-speed internet service expected to go live by the end of the year.

It’s the first project for the JPA, which secured public funding then private investment, making it a $300 million entity. “Now here we are, and we’re going to be doing actual construction,” says President/CEO Patrick Blacklock. “It’s a demonstrable measure of success.”

Monterey County Supervisor Chris Lopez is chair of the Golden State Connect Authority, and plans to be in Glenn County on April 30 to celebrate. “It’s an incredible feat, something I’ve been honored to lead,” Lopez says. “It’s just crazy that I can’t bring it home.”

He’s still got that photo of the two girls outside the Taco Bell on his mind, along with fresh frustration that the California Public Utilities Commission rejected an application (twice) from the South Salinas Valley Broadband Authority – with support from the Golden State Connect Authority – for funding to kickstart a high-speed fiber project for the entire Salinas Valley. (The project would cost roughly $50 million all told.)

What irks Lopez is not that projects in rural Glenn and Calaveras counties and elsewhere got funding – it’s a statewide initiative – but that a private utility project being built by Surfnet secured $3.3 million from the CPUC to serve 182 unserved households, extending about 10 miles up into the hills near Chualar, and to farms on the periphery of town.

“It’s just crazy that I can’t bring it home.”

Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo, speaking on Jan. 16 during a meeting of the state’s Middle-Mile Advisory Committee, had questions about why the Surfnet project got the nod, but not the bigger public project.

“Our county received a relatively small grant that was focused on expanding broadband to our cannabis nurseries and an affluent community nearby, but the disadvantaged communities in South County were passed up once again,” Alejo said. “It would go against everything that we’ve been talking about, about equity and extending broadband to disadvantaged communities.”

They are still waiting.

Meanwhile, Ken Nye, the COO of Surfnet, is enthusiastic about the Chualar-area project, which he says will be breaking ground soon.

“Golden State Connect Authority and South Salinas Valley Broadband Authority are just crying over sour grapes,” Nye says. “We’re not down there trying to say our [project] is better than theirs. We saw the need, we put in an application and the CPUC seems to agree with us.”

Surfnet’s plans will start at $15/month and go up to $119. Nye sees a market and a need, and believes private last-mile infrastructure like this is the way to go – he’s unconvinced that the Surfnets or AT&Ts or Verizons of the world would willingly tap Golden State Connect Authority’s public fiber to offer plans. “It’s a great idea but in practicality, you are not going to attract any big carriers,” he says.

The company applied for the CPUC grant with support from the California Broadband Alliance, Western Growers Association and Monterey Bay Economic Partnership.

Dennis Donohue weighed in with support on behalf of the Western Growers Association. Now, as mayor of Salinas, he says he’d embrace Lopez’s vision for a public project connecting the entire valley.

“Broadband in California has been the technological equivalent of watching paint dry,” Donohue says. “Chris [Lopez] is trying to think holistically, and I think that’s the right approach.”

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com.