Harrison County signs on to high-speed Internet project

Harrison County supervisors on Monday morning signed onto the Gulf Coast Broadband Initiative -- an effort to bring affordable and accessible high-speed Internet to all residents and businesses across the Coast.

All five cities in Harrison County have already joined the agreement, and Biloxi officials have said they expect all 12 cities and three counties to eventually be part of the project.

"There is no downside to this," Biloxi Mayor Andrew "FoFo" Gilich told the supervisors Monday.

The project aims to develop a fiber ring across all three counties and allow businesses and residents to benefit from faster download and upload speeds. The system also would have redundancies in place that would especially benefit business and would be attractive for companies considering moving to the area.

Gov. Phil Bryant pledged $5 million from the settlement with TransOcean over the 2010 BP oil spill toward the initiative, and Biloxi officials said up to $15 million from the settlement could eventually go toward financing.

In joining the agreement, the county did not immediately pledge any money toward the project.

Also at Monday's Board of Supervisors meeting:

-- Youth Court Judge Margaret Alfonso asked the Board to consider building a new juvenile detention center adjacent to youth court in Gulfport. The board agreed to study the idea.

-- The Board honored Livingston County CARES, a volunteer group through the State University of New York and Geneseo, the city of Geneseo and Livingston County, New York, for their efforts over 10 years to help the Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina.

This story was originally published January 11, 2016 at 3:28 PM with the headline "Harrison County signs on to high-speed Internet project ."