COLUMBIA COUNTY, Columbia County has won about $16 million in federal broadband money to build fiber to more than 3,000 homes and businesses, has pledged roughly $13.6 million of its own as match, and signed its state contract last month. None of that has been announced by the county, and on Oct. 9 a nonprofit called Columbia Community Broadband Corporation was registered with the state listing the county courthouse as its address.
The award figures come from the Oregon Broadband Advisory Council’s 2026 report to the Legislature, dated Aug. 26, and the Oregon Broadband Office’s monthly bulletins. The nonprofit filing comes from the Secretary of State’s business registry. The Tribune found no county news release, agenda item or board vote in September or October that mentions either.
The Award
Under Oregon’s BEAD plan, which the federal government approved Feb. 3, Columbia County was approved for three projects covering 2,019 broadband-serviceable locations, with $9,517,400 in grant funds and $11,424,812 in county match, per the council report. That works out to $4,714 of grant money per location, among the lowest costs in the state’s awards.
In July the state reassigned a fourth project to the county after other awardees walked away from 15 projects statewide. That project covers 1,058 locations with $6,534,346 in grant and $2,178,115 in match, pending final federal approval, per the report and the broadband office’s July bulletin. Together: four projects, 3,077 locations, about $16.05 million in federal grant and $13.6 million in county match.
The state’s August bulletin listed the county’s contract as pending; the broadband office said Sept. 10 that contracts were executed with 13 awardees including Columbia County, ahead of a Sept. 18 federal deadline. The county was one of only three local governments to win BEAD money directly, with the city of Sherwood and Gilliam County; the rest went to private providers, co-ops and satellite companies.
The Nonprofit
Columbia Community Broadband Corporation was registered Oct. 9 as a domestic nonprofit, “public benefit with members,” with its principal place of business at 230 Strand St., the county courthouse. Its registered agent and mailing address are BH Service Co. Inc., 805 SW Broadway, Suite 2600, Portland, a registered-agent service used by law firms. The articles of incorporation, which name the incorporators, were filed but had not been scanned into the state’s public image system as of Oct. 22. The first renewal is due Oct. 9, 2027.
The timing fits the county’s own planning. In July 2025 the board adopted Resolution 47-2025, “Declaring the Intention to Seek Reimbursement from Future Financing by a Potential Broadband Utility,” the standard step that lets a government spend now and repay itself from bonds later, per the board’s resolutions archive. A separate nonprofit is one of two ways Oregon local governments have held broadband assets, the other being a county-owned utility financed with revenue bonds.
The Match
The $13.6 million county share is the number residents should ask about. The county’s consultant, Strategic Networks Group, says the county set aside $1 million in federal pandemic relief as match and planned to count right-of-way, property access, facilities and staff time as in-kind contributions. The county’s general fund, by its own account in the lodging tax ballot measure, has needed furloughs, 14 cut positions and asset sales to balance in the past two years. How the rest of the match is covered, and whether the new corporation will borrow it, is not in any public document the Tribune found.
How It Got Here
The county commissioned a feasibility study, sought a build-and-operate partner in an October 2024 request for proposals for an open-access fiber network at 100 megabits per second both ways, authorized its BEAD application in July 2025, and got a status update from IT Director Holly Miller at an April 8 work session. The county’s broadband page still describes the project in terms of the original study and does not mention the award.
The Tribune sent written questions to the county on Oct. 23, including whether the county formed the corporation, who its directors are, how the $13.6 million match will be paid for, which areas the four projects cover, and when the board will take the project up in public. The county had not responded by the time this story was published.