Inside CADE's Mission to Closing California's Digital Divide - Episode 611 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Lindsey Skolnik (00:07):
We were formed back in May, 2022 when a number of our founding partners came together and realized that we needed to organize and advocate alongside one another more concretely at the state level. It's been hard work, but it's been rewarding work.

Christopher Mitchell (00:22):
Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the [00:00:30] Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota where we are having a wonderful if water log summer. As we're talking about this, there are fires picking up in California and our heart goes up to those folks and the folks in Oregon and elsewhere as we deal with all of this. But I'm here today talking with Lindsay Skolnik, who is the project manager for the California Alliance for Digital Equity. Welcome to the show.

Lindsey Skolnik (00:55):
Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me on.

Christopher Mitchell (00:57):
I am excited to talk to you. We've been [00:01:00] working together for three years on and off on this stuff. It's about time that we dove in deep with you and there's so much happening in California. You are in the middle of a lot of it, and so why don't we start by just you telling us briefly about CADE, CADE, the California Alliance for Digital Equity?

Lindsey Skolnik (01:18):
Sure thing. So the California Alliance for Digital Equity, also known as CADE, is a dedicated group of local and statewide advocates focused on all forms of digital equity from device acquisition [00:01:30] to broadband access to digital literacy. However, I would say for the most part, our legislative and regulatory priorities at the state level have been focused on system change solutions to closing the digital divide. We were formed back in May, 2022 when a number of our founding partners came together and realized that we needed to organize and advocate alongside one another more concretely at the state level. There was so much happening at the CPUC, the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Department [00:02:00] of Technology and other agencies after Senate Bill 1 5 6 was passed, which allocated $6 billion of kind of broadband infrastructure monies to various programs. That was a huge impetus to our work, and since then we've continued to advocate on various things like the Middle Mile Last Mile projects and various legislation that is related to advancing digital equity.

Christopher Mitchell (02:28):
I have a question for you [00:02:30] about systems level change, but first I want to note for folks that are wondering what we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about digital discrimination legislation that's making its way through the California legislature. We're going to do a quick update on where that Middle Mile network is and then we're going to zero in. There's been four rounds that have been announced for California's what they call the federal funds account FFA, which is an amazing state program to support new investment in areas that need it. But [00:03:00] first of all, there's lots of groups that advocate for digital equity, and you were very specific about systems change, and I don't want to take for granted that everyone knows what that is because this is what I want to do too. So what is systems change? Why is it important to note that

Lindsey Skolnik (03:16):
Systems change? In my mind, and I'm sure it's not the perfect definition, is really working to expand broadband infrastructure so that folks have access to the resources and technical on the ground [00:03:30] infrastructure in their communities to connect to the Internet. There are so many communities up and down the state that don't have the infrastructure they need to be able to connect to fast, affordable, and reliable Internet. So to even begin to start changing or advancing digital equity, you really have to begin with creating that infrastructure where it's missing and enabling connectivity for residents.

Christopher Mitchell (03:55):
The way I think about it also is the ACP was the opposite of this, the affordable [00:04:00] connectivity program, which was needed and helpful, but when it went away, there was no change for people's lives. The people that had been benefiting from it, it had not allowed them to suddenly afford service, whereas the changes that you are pursuing are ones where in a future, which California Alliance for Digital Equity is not around anymore. Hopefully there will have been permanent change in which people's lives are still better even if the organization has moved on to fix housing or something else.

Lindsey Skolnik (04:28):
Absolutely. Hopefully it's [00:04:30] focusing on future proof solutions. Really that is the goal,

Christopher Mitchell (04:34):
Right? Digital discrimination, the federal government, the Federal Communications Commission came up with a definition. It came up with some kind of weak rules in a process in which in theory, an Internet service provider that is discriminating in some sort of obvious manner could be punished. It seems kind of unlikely, but the thing that we always want to point out is that as important, is that that definition [00:05:00] included what the impact is rather than the intent, and so if at and t has refused to invest in a number of lower income communities and we can't find an email in which they say that they intended to do this for racist or socioeconomic reasons, then they could still be in theory punished. So you in California, you, Lindsay Shayna, [00:05:30] some of the other folks, obviously the CADE are, I should say EFF, so many great organizations, Paul Goodman, a lot of great folks and people have been working to make sure that California can use that definition. Why? What is the strategy there?

Lindsey Skolnik (05:47):
The ultimate goal is really, as you mentioned, making digital discrimination against the law in California's civil rights code using what's called a disparate [00:06:00] impact standard. So focusing more on outcomes rather than intent, which are provable, right? I mean, there's many studies that have been conducted up and down the state in LA and San Francisco and other locations that show price discrimination in various neighborhoods based on where folks live, and predominantly those neighborhoods tend to be communities of color and low income communities, both in urban and rural and local locations. [00:06:30] Within disparate impact standard, you can really establish a powerful pathway for historically marginalized communities to find remedies to digital discrimination should they be experiencing something like price discrimination, right? That's just one of the many examples, but it really opens it up beyond, as you mentioned, intent where we have to see an Internet service provider say, I intended to discriminate, which is extraordinarily hard to identify and prove outcomes are more provable.

Christopher Mitchell (07:00):
[00:07:00] We all have so many different priorities. Can you just give me a sense of why this approach has been a focus for you and CADE?

Lindsey Skolnik (07:09):
Absolutely. So of course we wanted to kind of piggyback off of what happened at the FCC last year with the order on digital discrimination, but on top of that, our partners down in LA who manage the Digital Equity LA coalition, which is part of the California Community Foundation Digital Equity Initiative, [00:07:30] they led an awesome campaign to ban digital discrimination at the city level in LA where it adopted very similar definition of digital discrimination as what was presented at the FCC level and building on that momentum. We thought this is the time for California to lead the charge on this issue and be the first state to have ever said that digital discrimination is not allowed here [00:08:00] and hopefully generate a wave of change in other states as well.

Christopher Mitchell (08:04):
10 years ago, it was well known that at and t, more or less called the shots on anything related to telecom in Sacramento. It seems like your efforts have in recent years really found fertile ground. Not to say that it wasn't hard and you didn't have to fight for every inch, but this is a bill that has been approved in half of the government, right? I forget exactly the names of California's [00:08:30] bodies, but you can update us on how that bill is moving

Lindsey Skolnik (08:33):
It's assembly bill led by assembly member Mia Bonta, who is an unbelievable champion and has really been kind of a partners partner of ours as the bill has made its way through the legislative cycle. First in the assembly, which went through communications and conveyance committee, then judiciary committee, then appropriations hit the floor, which was a huge fight for us getting it out of assembly into the Senate, [00:09:00] and now it is currently in the second house in the Senate has gone through two policy committees and is headed to appropriations where it should be heard in early August. So it's made its way through the vast majority of the legislative cycle this year, and we're really eager to see it pass through the floor and get signed by the governor before the end of the year.

Christopher Mitchell (09:21):
My understanding was that the number of lobbyists that were fighting against this on behalf of the big monopolies was [00:09:30] not unlike the scene of Tokyo Rush Hour with people trying to get into the trains.

Lindsey Skolnik (09:36):
Yes, yes. The opposition we have faced is fierce to say the least. We're relatively small, but mighty group of state and local advocates who have banded together on this issue. Our co-sponsors include folks like Oakland, undivided, the California Community Foundation, next Gen California, and the Children's Partnership. Us along with our many other [00:10:00] coalition members and folks in our network have tried to mobilize against industry and the lobbyists who, I mean, it feels like there are just so, so many resources at their disposal when it comes to the type of legislative affairs presence they have in Sacramento. It's been an absolute fight, certainly an uphill battle, but we've made it so far and I, I'm optimistic that we'll continue to be successful. What

Christopher Mitchell (10:29):
Is remarkable [00:10:30] to me in some ways is I guess I am always naive. I am so naive and some of the stories that I've heard of the claims that have been made from lobbyists opposing this, and I don't want to spend a lot of time going over those, but doesn't it just blow your mind how these people come in, they'll say something that is not only untrue, but is easily proved to be not true, and then that same lobbyist will say something else and people will listen to that person.

Lindsey Skolnik (11:00):
[00:11:00] Yes. Yeah, no, I mean a huge portion of our campaign has really been about dispelling myths and misinformation, which the claims just continue to come, and we have to counter a lot of those. I mean, one main one has been that opponents say discriminatory outcomes should be disregarded. If discriminatory intent can't be proven, which we know California decision makers can and should address both intent and outcomes [00:11:30] with a disparate impact standard, it's 100% possible. Another thing that we've continued to hear from folks or opponents rather, is that the bill will delay broadband for all deployment, which is just completely false. I would even call this a scaremongering tactic, trying to kind of dissuade legislators from supporting this bill after they put so much money down for broadband for all programs the state has. I mean, if anything in my mind, this bill will ensure that broadband infrastructure is going to [00:12:00] the places that need it most, the disconnected residents in these communities, the low-income communities, communities of color, both again in urban and rural locations.

Christopher Mitchell (12:08):
We'll come back to this in a second to talk about the way that CADE has been involved in trying to make sure that communities are prioritized who need the investment, because in every state, and we've seen this in California, especially with the California Public Utilities Commission, it is difficult because of the lack of accurate [00:12:30] data to know which neighborhoods to prioritize and things like that. But before we get there, is there anything else on digital discrimination you wanted to note?

Lindsey Skolnik (12:39):
I think the main thing is just that we've made our way through the cycle. We're so close to making this the first digital discrimination bill in the country at the state level, and the historic progress is something to be celebrated. We're super excited about it here at CADE, and [00:13:00] there's lots of ways to get involved and support our work. We have a letter of support up on our website, and for those that are eager to get involved, I encourage them to go visit that and sign in support of the bill.

Christopher Mitchell (13:11):
Yeah, I think I'll say that I've had different feelings about this. I'm always concerned about small providers who find it difficult to invest everywhere all at once. One of the things I think people don't realize is that historically, the way that we dealt with this when we had an [00:13:30] essential investment was that we would have one entity that would be subject to rigorous public oversight, and sometimes that would be a public entity itself that was doing it, building the electric lines, the water lines, the metro transportation lines, and that's not an option here. We're not moving away from a competitive environment, more or less at the national level, and so we have to figure out how to make sure neighborhoods aren't left out, and I think these digital discrimination [00:14:00] arguments are an important thing to be trying out and seeing how it works. So it's good to see California once again being a path breaker and moving forward with this.

(14:11):
Now the other thing, California has done really well. It put a lot of money into the middle mile. We've all hoped that there would be more. California has done more than most other states, and still most of us would like to see more, but in the current environment with the way the funding situation [00:14:30] is, I think we're pretty happy, at least I'll speak for myself. I'm pretty happy that it hasn't been cut back From the original vision, there was billions of dollars set aside. It was originally believed that they could cover 10,000 middle mile miles, which is to say that this is something that will enable local service providers to build, and then they would have a lower cost to connect back to data centers and connect to the rest of the Internet those 10,000 miles. [00:15:00] It turned out that money would only go so far as perhaps 8,000, and we'd been kind of nervous about it. But you said there was a recent development that you wanted to fill people in regarding the Middle Mile.

Lindsey Skolnik (15:10):
So as you mentioned, and I think most folks know California's experiencing a budget shortfall, and it's been a difficult budget year, which has certainly impacted the progress with the Middle Mile. At the beginning of the year, the governor's January proposal included one and a half billion dollars [00:15:30] investment to complete the middle mile as originally intended with that 10,000 mile map, as you mentioned. Unfortunately, as part of his may revise, that investment was cut out, which still leaves the MMBI or the Middle Mile with 3.87 billion to complete a 8,000 mile network, which as of Monday, we have now a complete map of available [00:16:00] on the California Department of Technologies website. So folks go to see that they have an interactive map where you can see where all of the segments of the MMBI will be with the funding that we have allocated to date, which is that 3.87 billion.

Christopher Mitchell (16:16):
And I'll just say that it's wonderful. It's going to take time. Although I think I should say that I'm hugely supportive of this. I would like to see other states do similar things, and I think California is moving [00:16:30] ahead as rapidly as it can, but there will probably still be some time if next year has a better budget situation to hopefully add on because there are tribes and other low income communities that have been stranded too far from this network. We'd like to see it extended closer to them, but at the same time, almost no other state has been this intelligent about how to use public dollars to expand the Internet highways [00:17:00] so that local ISPs can build off those local roads and connect people. Anything else on the middle mile?

Lindsey Skolnik (17:06):
I would also note that as kind of they originally outlined, the project is meant to be completed by December, 2026. I think a lot of these miles that are listed as part of the, I think to be exact 8,017 mile map are in the pre-construction phase and have yet to kind of be ready to connect. So a lot more progress there [00:17:30] in terms of construction and activity, and CADE and many other advocates will be keeping an eye on that movement.

Christopher Mitchell (17:36):
And this is a network that goes through both urban and rural areas, and both urban and rural areas have been sacrificed as part of the 2000 mile shrinkage. So that's something that as we turn now to the FFA, the federal funding account, Kate has been involved in trying to make sure that this money is spent on the people [00:18:00] that have historically been left behind. I think we did shows with Shayna and perhaps even others as well, talking about concerns in citing that look like Oprah's House would be eligible while much of Oakland and other areas might not be, but it seems like we are in a much better place now.

Lindsey Skolnik (18:23):
Yeah, we've had some exciting awards roll through initially just the CPUC is now beginning to [00:18:30] get those out in a rolling process. Every two or three weeks they've been announcing new projects that we'll be receiving, federal funding account last mile dollars, some good news there that we can dig into.

Christopher Mitchell (18:43):
And these are awards that as I was going through them, I was reminded some of these awards. Well, in all these awards, I think the state pays a majority of the costs. Some of them it's on the order of 95 to a hundred percent In others, it looks like those who proposed it may have asked for a slightly smaller match perhaps [00:19:00] to be more competitive, I guess. Is that the dynamic?

Lindsey Skolnik (19:03):
That's what I believe as well.

Christopher Mitchell (19:04):
Okay. So I just wrote down some of the numbers off of the press release. There was a 484 grand applications asked for 4.6 billion and 2 billion is available. Some of those are overlapping, but still gives you a sense. What I thought was interesting is they line here, investments are being made where they matter most, and that's something that I have to think that CADE has a significant role in for all [00:19:30] of the fighting at the CPUC. They are still more sophisticated than most other states. They get it, and I think this language of they matter most is important because many other states are still stuck on this where there's nothing available, which is just a different way of saying where we have some data that we think is mostly correct and lots of people who are being left behind, we can ignore them not showing up on the map. But CADE really fought to make sure that these communities, so [00:20:00] I don't know if you want to reflect on that at all, but I was really excited when I saw that line.

Lindsey Skolnik (20:05):
Yeah, I mean that's exactly what we believe in. We want this money to be going to the most disconnected residents and communities across the state, the folks that will benefit the most from last mile connectivity. And this has been a huge priority in terms of our advocacy where we've kind of overseen the application process, how it's going, as you mentioned, over nearly 500 applications have been received, and [00:20:30] we looked into that data just to see who's applying and for where. And perhaps unsurprisingly, while there've been a lot of really exciting community projects and work that feels like the right fit for these dollars, there have also been tons of from Internet service providers that are incumbents, folks like at and t led in the lead with the largest request of, I believe 1.4 billion of the $2 billion, which [00:21:00] equates to about 72% of the funds in the entire program. So a thing to keep in mind where when we see these awards rolling out, we want to ideally see them going to community led projects in my mind, things that are really going to be benefiting, like you said, those disconnected residents in areas where perhaps incumbent providers aren't necessarily already giving them access to fast, affordable, and reliable Internet.

Christopher Mitchell (21:26):
And not of that, but the boy, the at t awards, I seem [00:21:30] to recall work that you and your colleagues that work on this in California did to show that it was really granular, like this neighborhood, not even this is part of a neighborhood and that part of a neighborhood, and it was really fine grained not serving entire communities. So the awards have been approved for the first two rounds. So we know of four rounds that have come out. And so basically the way California [00:22:00] works, the CPUC, they publicize what they plan to do. They give a chance for the public to comment, and then they decide if they're going to approve the awards in a public meeting. So the first two announcements have been approved. Those the first one went to plumes, Sierra Telecom, which is a cooperative, one of two electric cooperative type service providers in the state. We've interviewed them in the past, actually, I think not only have they been [00:22:30] approved for multiple wards, there's several more that are going to be approved in upcoming meetings. So they did pretty well. And then we saw the first announcements included Imperial County as part of the Golden State Connect Authority. And so do you want to let people know what that is?

Lindsey Skolnik (22:47):
The Golden State Connect Authority is essentially the rural county representatives of California board members formed a Joint Powers authority, which is now called the Golden State Connect [00:23:00] Authority. Their model for broadband is open access last mile municipal fiber network to all of its project areas across a 40 member county region. And they have been applying for things within the, OR projects within the federal funding account and also the loan loss reserve fund. I believe,

Christopher Mitchell (23:21):
Just to give people a sense, and I'm making this up so I could be off, but I don't think I'm off that much. These rural counties cover an area roughly the size of Europe, I think.

Lindsey Skolnik (23:30):
[00:23:30] Right? Massive. They have a massive jurisdiction altogether. Yeah,

Christopher Mitchell (23:35):
I mean it's like 38, 39 counties or something like that. And I mean, these are mountains. It's all kinds of challenging terrain. It's a lot of different climate areas. So we've seen a few of these come along. And before we go into the second round, I thought it might be useful to note that the Golden State Connect Authority is one that is also planning on using one of the other innovations we saw in California [00:24:00] proposed and moved by the governor, which is something called the Loan Loss reserve fund. And this is where things get a little bit more complicated in terms of finance, but do you want to explain what that is and where it's at?

Lindsey Skolnik (24:11):
Yeah, so at a high

Christopher Mitchell (24:12):
Level, is that Yeah, yeah. Or is that, yeah, no, I'll do it, but I don't want to.

Lindsey Skolnik (24:17):
Lemme do it on a high level and we can kind of fill in the gaps where needed. So the loan Loss reserve fund, originally it was a 750 million credit enhancement fund available to [00:24:30] local governments, tribes, and nonprofits for local broadband infrastructure deployment. I think I hesitated in my, yeah, mainly because it suffered a lot of setbacks as of late. It's experienced severe cuts this year and it's basically been kind of rolled back from its original form. I think in its current state. I believe it now has just 50 million appropriated to it. So again, just really big setback in terms of the [00:25:00] cuts available for the various projects would've been a part of that work. And I know that in its first kind of phase of applications, it had requests for over 38 or 35 plus projects, I believe from mainly Golden State Connect Authority and then the city of Fort Brag. But again, how many of those can happen? Very unclear. Maybe if one or two max, I mean, I'm not really sure [00:25:30] how that will look now that the project or the program has been cut so severely. So that was probably my hesitancy at the get go.

Christopher Mitchell (25:38):
And this is for people who aren't municipal finance, and I'm mostly self-taught, so I've taught myself a lot of errors. But when you are borrowing money from the public, if you have a fund basically to reassure investors where if you are not able to generate the revenue that's expected to repay the investors [00:26:00] money can come out of that fund. When you say credit enhancement, it generally means that they'll be able to borrow at a lower interest rate, I think, which then makes these difficult projects much more feasible. Again, I would hope that in a future year with a better budget, they're able to, I don't know, maybe Elon Musk starts paying his taxes rather than moving to Texas, then there's enough money to fill that back up. But, and I [00:26:30] did talk to a couple people behind the scenes and one of them had said that they felt that they could still do a lot with that $50 million.

Lindsey Skolnik (26:38):
Okay, that's really good news.

Christopher Mitchell (26:41):
And that's one of the things that I think the Golden State Connect Authority, and this is me out on a limb a little bit, but I would expect that they might be getting a lower match from the state or else they might be building in a lot of areas where the state's not even going to support them in order to build out the network that they envision. And [00:27:00] then also Utopia Fiber has been involved with them as an advisor. The Utopia Fiber is not building it, but they're kind of helping to advise, which is important to note because what I remember it something like, I don't know, 1.8 million people are in these counties, I think. And so Utopia is currently the biggest municipal open access fiber network, and it is in front of 200,000 doors, I believe, something like that. This network will be 10 times that, potentially, [00:27:30] eventually. So I'm glad to see that they are getting some advice from entities that have been there and done that. This is truly the Goldman State Connect Authority is a truly ambitious project. Moving on to the second round is where we got really excited because in there we saw that within Alameda County, both Oakland and Fremont got awards for municipal investments and San Francisco, the city and county, got an award for Fair Shake Internet. So [00:28:00] why does that put a smile on your face?

Lindsey Skolnik (28:02):
Well, so our partners at Oakland Undivided were part of that City of Oakland project. They were really leading the charge with that one, so I couldn't be happier for them. That's an unbelievable project that is going to bring $15 million to expand access to high speed Internet in both East and West Oakland, where they're going to be able to lay nearly 13 miles of new Middle mile fiber, nearly 12 miles of existing municipal fiber for Middle mile [00:28:30] and 9.3 miles for new last mile fiber connections, specifically in disadvantaged and unserved locations. So really, really thrilled for them over there and a well-deserved project.

Christopher Mitchell (28:44):
Yeah, it's exciting to see how that's going to go. And then San Francisco, I think, is using its money to focus on public housing. Is that right? Do you remember?

Lindsey Skolnik (28:52):
Yeah, I believe so. I dunno the specifics for that one just as well, but I believe that's correct,

Christopher Mitchell (28:59):
And [00:29:00] I think Sean and I talked about this in an episode that went up last week, but this is huge. These are big cities that are getting involved with this in ways that we have not seen big premier cities get involved with. So it's really a big deal.

Lindsey Skolnik (29:13):
I'm really excited to see the awards continue to be rolled out in the coming weeks.

Christopher Mitchell (29:17):
So the ones that we just talked about, those have already been approved and the money is going to roll out and they'll be able to build in the third round, which is one that we know about, [00:29:30] but will be discussed and approved at the next meeting. That involved Alpine County as part of the Golden State Connect Authority. And then the first one we're talking about with the tribes was two tribes that were included in there for Bidwell Indian community was building fiber to the home as well as a line off reservation to connect them to the Middle mile, I assume. And then Santa Yez Band of Chumash Indians received a significant award as well, so that's exciting. [00:30:00] Then we have the City of Indio got some funds. I haven't actually have the press story yet, but I haven't read it yet. Then this is where we actually in the third round, we saw Comcast and at t and Frontier All also got some awards as well to do some expansion.

(30:17):
So kind of spreading the funds around to different entities. The fourth round just came out, and that's our third tribe, the Colorado River Indian Tribe or Indian Tribes perhaps. [00:30:30] They got a significant award. They've also been awarded on the border with Arizona, I believe, and they've had some support there according to Matt. So that's excellent. Goldman State Connect Authority got another award, pluma Sierra Telecom got another award there as well. And then Nevada County Fiber, which appears to be a guy, I don't know, I looked into it quick. I'm curious if he listens to the show, but I just saw that he's someone who's building this out and it looks like it's a passion project and he says [00:31:00] he would like for it to be community owned at some point. So we're going to be looking into that and trying to learn more about what's happening there. But that's pretty cool.

Lindsey Skolnik (31:08):
Very cool.

Christopher Mitchell (31:10):
And we have another counter Placer, Placer County, and it looks like they have a history of giving some money to Astound and some others perhaps, but then we saw at and t got money for San Bernardino and San Mateo and Frontier got some money. So those are the awards that we know about thus far. And I don't know if I told you six months ago that [00:31:30] this is how we would start off, how would you have reacted

Lindsey Skolnik (31:32):
Surprised and kind of optimistic about where things are headed? I think there's been a lot of exciting projects to be awarded to date. I have my eye on a few more specifically in LA that I have my fingers crossed for. I'm feeling okay, I'm feeling good, and I think we'll really get to a sense of where we are and where we're headed in the weeks to come.

Christopher Mitchell (31:56):
Yeah, I mean, I have to say that there were times when [00:32:00] I was pretty frustrated and I'm feeling really good about this too. In my heart of hearts, I feel like at and t and Comcast owners have their shot in Frontier Public Money should go to networks that will be managed by the public, but I'm not the king of California, so I'll take what I can get. It seems like pretty good so far, although like you said, we're really holding out hope for the destination, Crenshaw, [00:32:30] and then there's a rural project. Is that the Antelope Valley one?

Lindsey Skolnik (32:34):
Yes, there's one in the Antelope Valley and then one led by the county of la. So a few down there that I have my eye on, and I'm hoping to see, get some awards.

Christopher Mitchell (32:44):
And then I mean the city and the county of LA have been out in front with using their rescue plan dollars, perhaps some other assets. And so it'd be good to see the state kicking in some as well to help go further. And for people who might be new [00:33:00] to the show, I'll just say that LA has 10 million people and there are more people who are not connected to the Internet in LA than there are people in the rest of California who don't have Internet access, I think. So there's a definite need for more investment there.

Lindsey Skolnik (33:19):
Absolutely. That's exactly right.

Christopher Mitchell (33:22):
So anything else? I mean, I feel like CADE has had a string of victories. You're making a difference, [00:33:30] and so it is been hard work, but anything else you would reflect on now in the summer of 2024?

Lindsey Skolnik (33:37):
It's been hard work, but it's been rewarding work. I'm really, really eager to kind of continue to focus on our digital discrimination Bill AB 2 3 9, and really see that make kind of a historic mark on California to pass that bill would be such a massive accomplishment for the state of California. And that would be just a fundamental shift in [00:34:00] how we can achieve digital equity for the communities up and down the state. So really, really excited to maintain our momentum on that one in the coming weeks once legislative or the legislature is back from recess and get that to the Governor's desk for his signature.

Christopher Mitchell (34:17):
Excellent. Well, it's sitting here in Minnesota. I'll say that you are leading on this in California and I hope that more states are paying attention.

Lindsey Skolnik (34:26):
Well thanks Chris. It's so nice to be here with you and I appreciate you having me on the show.

Ry Marcattilio (34:30):
[00:34:30] We have transcripts for this and other podcasts available@communitynets.org slash broadbandbits. Email us@podcastmuninetworks.org with your ideas for the show. Follow Chris on Twitter. His handle is at Community nets. Follow community nets.org stories on Twitter, the handles at muni networks. Subscribe to this and other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcast. You [00:35:00] can access them anywhere you get your podcasts. You can catch the latest important research from all of our initiatives if you subscribe to our monthly newsletter@ilsr.org. While you're there, please take a moment to donate your support in any amount. Keeps us going. Thank you to Arnie Sby for the song Warm Duck Shuffle, licensed through creative comments.