BOSTON — A Shelburne man is among the two new senior staff members chosen by the Gov. Charlie Baker administration to lead the Last Mile Broadband Project for the 44 western Massachusetts towns unserved or under-served by high-speed Internet access.
Peter J. Larkin of Shrewsbury, as special adviser to the Secretary of Housing and Economic Development, will oversee planning and strategy for the Last Mile project. Larkin will become chairman of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the quasi-public entity that is to oversee the Last Mile project and the use of $50 million to help western Massachusetts towns pay for broadband infrastructure.
Bill Ennen of Shelburne has been named as the “Last Mile implementation liaison.” Based in Franklin County, Ennen will help Larkin in local community engagement and planning. Both appointments take effect immediately.
Larkin has had at least 25 years experience in community-based economic development, including with utilities. Larkin was Pittsfield’s state representative from 1990 to 2005, and has more recently been a principal at Public Policy Advisors, was chief operating officer and senior vice president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and senior vice president for government relations at ML Strategies. “We’re lucky to have him,” said Paul McMorrow, a spokesman for the state Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development.
Ennen will move from his current role at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, where he serves as program director for the John Adams Innovation Institute. In this role, Ennen has been deeply involved in community-based and regional economic development efforts, including the Holyoke Innovation District, the Haverhill Partnership Initiative, and the South Coast Entrepreneurship for All program, according to McMorrow.
He said this new team “will be reaching out to town officials in the 44 communities, and will have deep engagement with communities around their individual situations and on what the available paths are.”
When asked how MBI plans to move forward, McMorrow replied, “I think it’s premature to talk about what the models are. These are conversations that are going to happen with Peter, Bill and their communities.”
Neither man is a replacement for Eric Nakajima, who resigned as executive director of MBI in February. For now, that position is being filled by interim Director Elizabeth Copeland.
Nakajima’s criticisms in December of the WiredWest plan for a regional fiber optic network caused a lot of anxiety among communities that support the WiredWest plan and believe they can’t afford to build and run the infrastructure without the cooperative. Also some town officials are voicing concerns that the state may be moving toward wireless Internet as a less costly, but also less reliable means of achieving Broadband. For instance, Heath’s annual town meeting on Saturday has a resolution that calls on the Baker Administration to “Instruct the Massachusetts Broadband Institute to work cooperatively with the towns and their agencies, including WiredWest, and to accept input and policy direction from the towns to jointly produce an actionable plan that is acceptable to our town by June 30th.”
When asked Thursday to comment on the news of a new MBI team leading the Last Mile effort, WiredWest spokeman Tim Newman said: “Yes, we are aware of the new leadership team, officially announced today. We look forward to getting to know them and hope to be setting up a meeting with them soon.”
Newman said Gov. Baker is to meet with eight residents of unserved western Massachusetts towns next week, to discuss the broadband project.
In the news release about the two new appointments, Baker said: “We are committed to facing the challenges presented by the Last Mile project and are confident in the abilities of Peter and Bill to refocus and administer the strategy that is necessary. We understand the importance of high-speed Internet access to our communities and these appointments will bring new capacity, and collaborative, on-the-ground, engagement, to the Last Mile project.”
Housing and Economic Development Secretary Jay Ash added: “In conducting a deep-dive assessment of the status of the Last Mile project, we recognize there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the project’s technical, legal, and financial challenges. We are committed to close community collaboration as Peter and Bill bring their expertise to the table.”