Bureaucracy getting in the way in W.Va.

When most West Virginians think about being on top of things and getting the job done, they aren’t thinking about paperwork. But in Washington, D.C., we appear to be developing a reputation for just that.
“All of the folks at the Department of Commerce who talk to me about our state say ‘wow, you guys are really ahead of the curve. You guys are really getting it done’ in terms of applications and paperwork,” U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said at the start of the 2024 West Virginia Broadband Summit in Charleston.
That’s great. But getting a jump on all that paperwork has yielded us … nothing, yet.
We are in line for more money per capita for broadband expansion than any other state. Someday.
“It takes way too long,” Capito said. “This thing has been in motion for three years, and not one dollar has flowed on this federal (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) project…We all know the bureaucracies. We all know the frustrations; it doesn’t do really good to concentrate on that because we are where we are. We have to live in the realities.”
Perhaps, but certainly we can dream of a day when King Bureaucracy does not rule the land.
“It is great to have West Virginia at the forefront…but fact of the matter is we haven’t connected one person yet,” Capito continued. “Thursday you close out the applications. I think the world is going to open up for us here in West Virginia so we can see where the areas of interest are and where the gaps are that can be filled quickly so we can get the money flowing into West Virginia and get that final OK to start really digging the dirt and making the big difference that we know broadband can do.”
Weren’t we supposed to be working on the connectivity maps, finding the areas of interest and identifying the gaps three years ago? Remember the excitement for these projects, back then?
Capito is right. We’ve got to be realistic, and we’ve got to seize on the opportunities that are yet to present themselves.
“We are on the precipice of closing the first round for your sub-grantee selection,” Ben Fineman, incoming National Telecommunications and Information Administration interim federal program officer, said last week.
One wonders whether it has occurred to the bureaucrats that we need these expansion now.