NECALG to Increase Budget

The Northeast Colorado Association of Local Governments is increasing its budget for next year. Executive Director Larry Worth says the budget will go up about a million dollars in 2010:






The money may be a one-time shot in the arm, Worth says, depending on whether Congress chooses to extend the federal stimulus plan past its scheduled expiration next September.

Peetz Phone Coop Gets Broadband Grant

The first handful of awards from the federal government’s $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program includes funding for a northeast Colorado project. A $1.5 million project proposed by the Peetz Cooperative Telephone Co. is part of $182 million in grants announced by Vice President Joe Biden yesterday. The grants are meant to improve high-speed Internet access in areas of United States that lack it. The local telecom for the Peetz area, along the Colorado-Nebraska state line north of Sterling, Colo., said in its application it would use the money to connect about 550 locations to high speed Internet, which would spur economic activity and access to distance learning and telemedicine services.