The Mathews County Broadband Advisory Board will recommend to the board of supervisors that the county should focus on four proposals for increasing broadband access when it requests funding from a $30 million pot of CARES Act money that Gov. Ralph Northam has earmarked for broadband. The advisory group decided this during its regular meeting on Tuesday.

The board ranked those areas, taking into consideration how quickly projects in each of the areas could be completed. Board Chair Judy Rowe explained that any funds granted to the county would have to be spent by Dec. 25, so there’s a tight timeframe for making decisions and completing the projects.

A proposal from Mathews Memorial Library took the top spot. Board member Greg Lewis explained that the library would like the county to use some of the funding to purchase Mi-Fi hotspots that could be kept at the library and checked out to residents in the same manner that books are checked out. Depending on the number of hotspots pu...