JOHN DAY — Oregon Telephone Corp. is gearing up to bring high-speed fiber optic internet lines to the communities of Monument, Seneca and Long Creek after a nearly three-year planning process involving the city of John Day and Grant County Digital.

The project is being funded by an $8 million US Department of Agriculture grant that requires a 25% match. The match funds come in the form of a $1 million investment from Oregon Telephone in conjunction with another $500,000 grant from the city of John Day and a separate $500,000 loan from the city. The loan carries a 5% interest rate that will be forgiven if the project is completed in 24 months. Oregon Telephone projects the work will be done by the end of the construction season this year.

Oregon Telephone Corp.’s Marcus Bott says the project was initially smaller in scale but eventually went on to encompass other small communities within the county. “We had plans to go just to Long Creek,” he said. “We were going to build that ourselves. The city had some goals they were looking at, so the USDA opened up a grant application that would allow us to meet our goals.”

Later meetings with Grant County Digital — a government consortium that involves the county and the cities of John Day and Seneca — revealed some overlapping goals that led to bringing all those ideas together into one project with a larger scale.

Meanwhile, $1.8 million in federal COVID relief funding will help patch holes within John Day’s fiber optic network by extending fiber optic out to the airport, industrial park, the new Innovation Gateway business park, and Ironwood Estates. It will also connect critical community facilities in John Day to a common, shared network, capable of providing internet service between educational institutions and first responders in the event of a disaster, according to John Day City Manager Nick Green. Some of the money will pay for interior renovation of the future John Day CyberMill.

Oregon Telephone already provides high-speed internet service in John Day, Prairie City, Unity, Mt. Vernon and Dayville, according to Bott.

Monument City Recorder Dorthy Jordan says the community wasn’t interested in the project at first, but as more residents became aware of the plan, excitement for the deal began to grow. “We can’t wait.”

Jordan says the fiber optic network will be a significant improvement over the satellite internet service the community largely relies on now. “Internet is at best very slow. It’s been a hindrance to this community because there are a lot of people that work from home and rely on the faster internet to work from home.”

Jordan also says people would pass Monument by as a place to live if they have to work from home due to the slow or nonexistent internet service currently available in the community. The fiber optic network will also be boon to students in the local school, allowing them to conduct research at a much faster pace than they do now, according to Jordan.

“I personally think it will be an asset to the community,” Jordan said. “I haven’t heard a negative thing yet.”

The addition of the fiber optic network could lead to growth for Monument as well, as people decide to move to the small and scenic community to work from home after the addition of high speed internet.

Green says the Grant County Digital Board of Directors needs to ratify the agreement with the city in order for the deal to go through. “We ratified the deal on Tuesday (April 12). Grant County Digital will ratify the deal next Tuesday (April 19), and then we can wire the funds to Oregon Telephone.”

Green says the forgivable interest on the loan was a necessity to ensure the work gets done in a timely fashion. “It’s an incentive to get the project done on time. We’re prepaying a million dollars for something that we don’t have.”

Bott acknowledges the $8 million price point sounds high, but he says it is really a bargain considering the number of communities served by the project.

“An $8 million project to serve the number of locations and the mileage — I won’t say it’s unheard of, but it is an extremely good deal to deliver fiber to the home to as many places that are there,” he said. “We’ve been in business for over 100 years and we have a pretty good reputation for providing high-quality services at a reasonable price.”