Panelists at Las Vegas Broadband Forum Seek Local 'Skin in the Game'

Mark Seifert, senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Commerce, pled with panelists in Las Vegas as he urged them to provide constructive selection criteria for the agency's evaluation of broadband grant applicants. "You tell us how we should judge all these applications," he said, nothing that was "one of the most important panels we'll have [and] the most difficult because we have so many different things that we have to try and figure and achieve." For example, he asked: "How would you in a competitive way rank proposals one over the other to decide how we should spend the money?" Two of the speakers were very concerned that large business interests might simply come to town, install some equipment, collect their pay, and move-on. Those observations caused the panel to reiterate what had been said about "local presence" in markets benefiting from grants. Seifert followed up by commenting that the 20% matching contribution is intended to ensure that awardees have some "skin in the game."