Beshear Issues Executive Order Overhauling KentuckyWired Board
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear issued an executive order on Wednesday, October 14, in Frankfort overhauling the board of the Kentucky Communications Network Authority (KCNA), which oversees the state's KentuckyWired broadband network, state media reported. Beshear cited a Kentucky Supreme Court decision in June as authority to invalidate House Bill 314, a law passed this year by the Republican-controlled legislature that replaced a majority of the governor's appointees on the board with appointees of Republican state constitutional officers. His order reverts the board to its makeup before the law passed.
Republicans had argued the law was needed to provide better oversight of the network, which has been entangled for years in litigation with its private partner Accelecom, or Open Fiber Kentucky Company LLC, over contract disputes, including the company's request to connect certain customers to the middle-mile network.
Beshear issued the order ahead of a Thursday morning hearing in Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd's courtroom in the lawsuit between the state and Accelecom, the last scheduled hearing before a planned trial in November. KCNA administers hundreds of miles of fiber-optic cable built to provide high-speed internet to every county seat in Kentucky.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 肯塔基州议会大厦，法兰克福。Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY / Public Domain
