The following piece is published in this month’s Put-in-Bay Gazette. The Gazette has been producing incredible independent Put-in-Bay island news for over 40 years. If you have any interest at all in what is happening on South Bass Island, we urge you strongly to subscribe to the Put-in-Bay Gazette. One-year online subscriptions are only $15, and print subscriptions are available as well. To subscribe please click here.
By Lisa Brohl
We are pleased to announce that the Put-in-Bay Township Park District purchased an .7478 acre addition to the Dodge Woods Preserve recently with funds from the Clean Ohio Conservation Fund and the Lake Erie Islands Conservancy. It will be additional habitat and a buffer to the Put-in-Bay StoryWalk® Trail in place now. Thanks to John Dodge family and Bridget Wise for working with us! And thanks to all of you members who make the donations to keep making this land protection happen!
A special thank you to John for selling us his property at less than appraised value-a partial bargain sale. This qualifies as a tax deduction for him and can aid property owners who may have capital gains issues. It also helps our Park District as we have less money to raise because it qualifies as part of the 25% match required for Clean Ohio Conservation Fund grants. Something to consider if you have family properties that you would like to see the Conservancy or Park District preserve!
Letter from Megabits
Dear Put-in-Bay,
There has always been a need to bring high speed internet to Put-in-Bay and the
surrounding islands and we at Mi2 Megabits Island Internet believed we could make it happen. After nearly two years of planning, we successfully built a state-of-the-art network despite the many obstacles we faced; from weather causing a late start, to nearly six months of delays by the FCC, to technology limitations, and Covid-19. Due to these setbacks, our service is currently unavailable while we attempt to re-group.
Our biggest challenge was to provide service to the heavily wooded areas of the island. We did our due diligence by obtaining engineering surveys and propagation studies, we purchased special radio equipment, and we built a 140-foot licensed tower dedicated to our service here on the island. But regardless of what we tried, we were unable to reach most of our potential customers – those who have been waiting patiently for our service – for any service, from anyone.
Thank you for believing in us. We want to send a special thank you to the many island business owners who provided us space in, on and around their businesses to build our downtown Hotspot Network (which provided up to 90 Mbps service to virtually everywhere downtown). This Hotspot Network still has great potential, and its usage grew this year despite Covid-19 and the havoc it has caused. People want connectivity!
No one knows what the future holds. The foundation of our network has been built and remains, but the network needs to be re-engineered and alternative technology implemented to achieve what has always been our goal; to bring true, high-speed Internet connectivity to all islanders who wish to have it. We continue to seek additional capital and investment money to achieve this goal. There is no doubt the need is still there.
The Best to You,
-Tom LaPlante
-Bruce Sundman
-Tadd Schwarz
This piece of Put-in-Bay journalism has been provided to putinbayreservations.com courtesy of the Put-in-Bay Gazette, Put-in-Bay’s only local newspaper. Visit their website putinbay.news for more information and to subscribe!
