County resident has concerns over construction of proposed broadband project

By Editor | February 15, 2023 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Greene County resident Jimmy Naville addressed the Greene County Board at their Feb. 8 county board meeting about his concerns about who will be constructing the proposed county-wide broadband project should Frontier be awarded the State grant for the project.
“Overall, I support the idea of better internet in this county and I think it is a great idea,” he said. “However, I have been following some of this Connect Illinois money all year long and some of the contractors that some of these companies have gotten to work for them have caused some problems for the communities that they have worked in. I have seen that across the board.”
Naville said that the companies that have been awarded the Connect Illinois money have been hiring out of state contractors to perform the work.
“With this being tax dollar money, I figured this was appropriate for the county board to hear and I think they would like to entertain this idea a little bit,” he said. “With the tax payer money going into this, including money from the county, the municipality and even the state, I think it is fair to ask if Frontier has any intentions to give preference towards local workers and local contractors who perform this work over out of state contractors since they are using our tax dollars.”
Liz Killion, owner of Killion Communications in Roodhouse, and a member of the Broadband Committee, addressed Naville’s concerns.
“I understand about what you are saying about contractors, but I’m in the business, albeit peripherally, and I can tell you that it is hard to find people who want to work and who you can depend on,” she said. “So contractors tend to keep their crews and travel from place to place with them, although it is more affordable to have your people that work from you be local.”
Killion said there was another issue, which she needs to check into as things might have changed, which would affect who contractors hired.
“Illinois is a closed shop state and any time we ever worked on a project in Illinois on the labor side, our construction crew had to be in the union,” Killion said. “So I don’t know how you drag people in elsewhere into our state unless they are going through the union and the union allows it. I just don’t quite understand it.”
Naville said he doesn’t see why contractors would even need to go outside of the state to find workers.
“We have many people in this county alone that do this kind of work, so saying that there aren’t people that do this work I think is kind of unfair,” he said.
Killion said that wasn’t what she was saying.
“I’m not saying there are not people who do this kind of work,” she said. “The ones who want to work are working.”
In other words, there just aren’t enough who “want” to work to do the work.
“Earlier this week, I talked to a contractor out of Quincy about this specific work and he said he is having a hard time competing against these out of state contractors for these jobs,” Naville said. “He said he has half of his crew laid off right now. Across the state you know this work is still very much in demand.”
Naville said he has been in contact with several mayors of municipalities where these contractors have been.
“I have heard from mayors from different municipalities that have had issues with the roads being torn up and nothing done about them,” Naville said. “Some of the contractors have been fly-by-night where once the project is done they are gone and the only people in the municipality they have to ask about the damage is Frontier because the contractor is gone.”
In addressing Killion’s remark about Illinois being a closed shop state, Naville said that there is a project underway in Calhoun County using non-union workers as well as several in Madison County and one in Effingham County.
Killion said the best way to have these concerns addressed is to attend the special Broadband Meeting being sponsored by the Farm Bureau. The meeting is on Feb. 23 at the Knights of Columbus Hall at 6 p.m. and there will be three representatives from Frontier there to answer all sorts of questions.