Davis Communications proposed as addition to comprehensive plan list of Internet providers

You never know what you may get when you show up to a Cheney government meeting.

For Tim Gainer, being in the audience at the monthly meeting of the Cheney Planning Commission on May 9 apparently will get his company, Davis Communications, included in the city’s comprehensive plan.

The commission is in the process of a yearlong review of Cheney’s main planning document, and covered the plan’s “Technology” chapter on Monday. Technology is one of several optional elements the state’s Growth Management Act allows jurisdictions to include in their comprehensive plans alongside seven mandatory elements – land use, housing, capital facilities, utilities, transportation, economics and parks and recreation.

Besides technology, Cheney’s plan includes natural assets, arts and culture and public facilities.

“For a city our size, we have a pretty robust set of elements in our plan,” city planner Brett Lucas said. “I don’t see any reason to add to it.”

Cheney has undergone a number of major technological additions and upgrades in the past decade. When the chapter was last reviewed, the city was in the process of installing a fiber optic system.

That has been completed, with fiber optic serving as the “backbone” of the city’s information system, with the main hub being City Hall and other buildings connected accordingly. But other technological innovations have led the city to back away from the extensive system originally envisioned.

Proposed revisions to the chapter note the city’s Building and Planning Department has gone to a new “cloud-based platform,” while laptops and tablets have become more predominant among city workers than desktop computers. Beginning in 2007, Cheney began charting and entering information about its water, wastewater, stormwater and electrical systems into a Global Information System (GIS) platform that when complimented by software and mobile data devices, allows employees in the field to know everything there is to know about a particular installation or piece of equipment.

The technology chapter notes the unique presence of Eastern Washington University and its impacts, particularly from student needs, on the city’s system. An addition to the chapter’s language noted that Internet provider CenturyLink “offers high speed internet access throughout the community,” an addition that got Gainer’s attention.

Gainer, an engineer at Davis, told the commission the company, which has been serving the area for over 30 years, recently completed an extensive upgrade and expansion of its own system, and has more than enough bandwidth to handle the city and EWU’s needs.

“That’s why I was shocked looking at the slide, thinking, ‘what, we’re not there?” Gainer said. Public Works Director Todd Ableman agreed.

“It makes sense to add Davis to the list,” Ableman told the commission.

Commission chair Vince Barthels said it also makes sense to add public safety to a list of technology-related goals, policies and programs, saying the list favored economics while the reality of the city’s technology changes also dealt with upgrades to police and fire department systems. Barthels questioned why a “Technology Strategic Plan” section was being completely removed.

Ableman said the city has recently upgraded a number of servers, so that need would be projected in the next capital facilities plan. The strategic plan was also written around the fiber optic network’s expansion, which is no longer being pursued.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.