Humboldt broadband push: $1M USDA planning grant and tribal $40M last‑mile award advance rural builds

County leaders heard a progress report Tuesday on broadband projects across Humboldt County that county officials said will expand middle-mile connectivity, fund last‑mile builds in tribal areas and prepare dozens of small communities for future construction grants.

“Most of the middle miles that we had envisioned in that plan so long ago are now either built or funded and on the way to being built,” Connie Stewart, Cal Poly Humboldt’s executive director of initiatives, told the Board of Supervisors.

Stewart highlighted a recent award: “Hoopa... was awarded... almost $40,000,000 to provide Last Mile along 299 and in Willow Creek,” a tribal-backed project she said will extend fiber into currently remote pockets. She also said participating last‑mile providers have agreed to low-cost consumer plans for qualifying households and to market price options around $75 for other customers.

BrightScape Networks and Cal Poly Humboldt are using a $1,000,000 United States Department of Agriculture Broadband Technical Assistance grant to create near-shovel-ready plans, technical designs and grant application packages for 23 eligible communities (Alderpoint, Benbow, Miranda, Myers Flat, Orick, Petrolia, Phillipsville, Redcrest, Shelter Cove, Wiyot, Willow Creek and others). Brian Court of BrightScape said the TA grant is aimed at doing the upfront planning many rural communities lack so they can move quickly when construction funding becomes available.

The board discussed coastal routing and redundancy; staff and presenters said the coastal middle-mile (Eureka–Trinidad) is nearly complete through another provider’s grant, and that the county’s work focuses on last‑mile outreach and building local operations and maintenance business cases.

What the board did: after the presentation the board voted 5-0 to receive and file the broadband update. Supervisors repeatedly commended long-term county and regional efforts, tribal partnerships and recent community-level service activations in Garberville, Redway and other towns.

Next steps: presentation team will begin community needs assessments, surveys and provider outreach; community members and supervisors were asked to invite the project coordinator for local meetings to support right-of-way coordination and provider discussions.