High-speed green scooters are not going away anytime soon.
At Guthrie’s City Council meeting on Aug. 3, the Council approved the Memorandum of Understanding between the city and Neutron Holdings, Inc. DBA Lime. (the lime scooters company).
The approval extends Lime’s scooters for another year. Guthrie City Manager, Leroy Alsup, said the company expressed interest in extending before the approval at the meeting.
The city, or the company, can choose to terminate the extension early, but there is a caveat.
“It’s subject to 90-day termination if we choose to terminate,” Alsup said.
The extension gained unanimous approval from the Council.
Also, in the meeting, the City Council discussed a letter of support for Centranet Fiber to gain a Broadband Infrastructure Program Grant to enhance the Fiber Optic, Broadband service to the City of Guthrie.
The letter of support didn’t commit any money toward the idea, and it wasn’t a legal agreement. This decision is an indicator for if the City of Guthrie considers broadband a good idea. Guthrie Tourism Director, Justin Fortney, mentioned a benefit from a broadband company in town.
“The benefits are that it would add another internet high-speed provider to our community,” Fortney said. “The more options the better. One of the first questions city staff is asked when talking with prospective industries interested in possibly locating in Guthrie is, ‘Do you have broadband fiber optic internet available at this location?’ It limits the growth of the community to have to say ‘no’.”
If the City of Guthrie decides to pursue the partnership, there would be a considerable amount of construction throughout the community.
“It’s challenging to be too specific at this point, but if funding is awarded, Centranet (the subsidiary of Central Rural Electric Coop that would be the broadband partner for the grant) estimates that the entire regional project could take five to seven years to complete the entire thing,” Fortney said.
Since the project includes multiple communities with different needs and permitting systems, it is difficult to know when services could be completed for neighborhoods, individual customers and specific municipalities.
“This would be a pretty massive undertaking,” Fortney said.