A method includes generating an initial assignment, for a plurality of counties, of a logical channel obtained by a priority access license user to a physical channel, considering a plurality of preferred channel assignments of the users within each county; generating a county prioritization list that prioritizes counties having challenges resulting from the initial assignment; executing a series of algorithms, for each county within the county prioritization list, to continue to assign the physical channels to comply with a set of requirements of the priority access license users; and updating, for each priority access license user, a similarity metric that measures a similarity between a desired physical channel assignment and an actual physical channel assignment, wherein the metric is used during the continuation of the assignment of the physical channels.