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Content tagged with "referendum"
Astroturf Org in Longmont Accuses City of Distributing Propaganda
Bryan Baum has appeared at several forums in support of 2A, including a Longmont Area Chamber of Commerce forum in which he urged out-of-town opponents of the ballot question to "get out of town" and let Longmont settle its own issues.The group said "This is obviously a mistake," Merritt said. "We'll get that fixed." Yeah sure. Whoops. We accidentally claimed a prominent figure as a supporter. Their response? They took his name off that list but left his wife's name on their site! This is a group with absolutely zero credibility. But they have tons of funding -- likely from Comcast and incumbent trade groups that fight these initiatives everywhere to preserve what is essentially a monopoly for the cable and telephone companies. We just republished an op-ed outlining some these tactics from 2009. Now the "Look Before We Leap" group is accusing the City of distributing propaganda.
Longmont: Beware the Robo-Calls From Mega-Corporations
Longmont Fiber Ring Referendum
Residents in Longmont, Colorado are preparing for a municipal referendum to utilize an existing fiber optic network.
The referendum is set for Tuesday, November 1, 2011.
At issue is how the city can use a ring of fiber-optic cables it built around the city in the late 90's as part of its electrical infrastructure. Much of the capacity on the ring remains unused but the city requires approval of the voters in a referendum before it can offer services to local businesses -- which will encourage economic development by creating more telecommunications choices in the community for businesses and residents (some background here).
This is referendum question 2A:
Ballot Question 2A: Without increasing taxes, shall the citizens of the City of Longmont, Colorado, re-establish their City's right to provide all services restricted since 2005 by Title 29, article 27 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, described as "advanced services," "telecommunications services" and "cable television services," including any new and improved high bandwidth services based on future technologies, utilizing community owned infrastructure including but not limited to the existing fiber optic network, either directly or indirectly with public or private sector partners, to potential subscribers that may include telecommunications service providers, residential or commercial users within the City and the service area of the City's electric utility enterprise?
Big cable and telco operators have wasted no time in spreading fear and false information to scare voters into voting against using a valuable asset owned by the community. When the community organized a debate for the end of September, the only people willing to defend Comcast's position came from far outside the community to do it.
Trying to get in the mind of the big incumbents of Longmont, we developed this cartoon (the style is an homage to the "Get Your War On" comic).
Longmont Referendum Take Two: It Starts With a Debate
Without that vote, the city can't let homes or businesses use that fiber without a vote, thanks to a 2005 state law. It's a fight the city's lost once before in 2009, when opponents -- including the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association -- spent $245,513 to urge the measure's defeat. This time out, there's a different tack. The city has been underlining in discussions that the measure would "restore its rights" to provide telecommunications service.
Longmont Considers Second Vote on Community Fiber Network
The first attempt at getting that approval didn't go so well in 2009. According to city records, opponents -- including the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association -- spent $245,513 to defeat that ballot measure, the largest amount ever spent on a Longmont city election. By contrast, the city legally couldn't campaign on its own behalf, and the explanations that were out there didn't explain well, according to Longmont Power & Communications director Tom Roiniotis.The cable and phone companies created an astroturf group called "No Blank Check" that then used standard fear, uncertainty, and doubt tactics to spread misinformation around the community.
Sibley County Discusses Joint Powers Agreement for Rural Fiber-to-the-Farm
More than 50 elected officials -- county commissioners, city council members, township board supervisors -- gathered in the Arlington Community Center last night to inch ahead a plan to lay fiber optic lines to every home and business in the county plus those in and around neighboring Fairfax in Renville County. It's an ambitious plan that would require the community to borrow $63 million and then pay off those bonds with revenue from the service. The county-owned operation would offer the usual cable-phone-Internet triple plays, and backers are promising that right out of the gate it would be at a speed of 20 megabits per second, upload and download. That's quite a bit faster than what area residents get now via DSL or cable or wireless.If the project will move forward, the communities will have to form a Joint Powers Board and seed it with some start-up funds. The next steps will be to do a pre-subscription campaign to get a real sense of how many residents would take service from a new network. Responses are non-binding but will give a better measure of support as well as create an additional sense of responsibility for the project. From Dave Peters:
By the end of February, the 10 governments -- Sibley and Renville counties and the cities of Gaylord, Arlington, Winthrop, Fairfax, Henderson, Gibbon, Green Isle and New Auburn -- will each decide whether they want to create a joint powers board.The best scenario is that all communities would join. But if one or a few do not, the project may be able to continue as long as some of the remaining communities are willing to take additional risk (which would be rewarded with a higher percentage of net income down the line). As long as the JPA is able to continue, all communities will still be passed by the network and residents able to subscribe. The exception is Sibley County itself; if the County does not join, the project would be hard-pressed to run the fiber out to the farmers and residents outside town limits.
Opelika Votes Yes, Will Build Smart-Grid Fiber Network
It’s a great day for Opelika. It’s a great day for our future. It’s a terrible day for Charter,”One gets the sense that the Mayor took some umbrage at Charter's tactics to prevent the community from building its own network. The day before the election, Stop the Cap! ran a fantastic article about Charter's manufactured opposition to the community network. Phillip Dampier investigated the background and claims of prominent opponents, including Jack Mazzola, who might as well have written some of the articles in the local paper about the Smart-Grid project for how often he was quoted by the reporter (who often failed to offer a countering view from anyone in support of the network).
Jack Mazzola claims to be a member of Concerned Citizens of Opelika and has become a de facto spokesman in the local press. He claims he is “30 years old and have been a resident of Opelika for almost two years.” During that time, he evidently forgot to update his active Facebook page, which lists his current city of residence as Atlanta, Georgia. Suspicious readers of the local newspaper did some research of their own and claim Mr. Mazzola has no history of real estate or motor vehicle taxes paid to Lee County, which includes Opelika.Any community considering a referendum on this issue should read this Stop the Cap! post and learn from it because massive cable companies like Charter all use the same tactics in community after community.
Opelika Considers Smart Grid Network, Charter and Others Misinform Public
“Shall the City of Opelika, Alabama, be authorized to acquire, establish, purchase, construct, maintain, lease and operate a cable television system for the purpose of furnishing cable service to subscribers?” That’s what the ballot will read in Opelika on Aug. 10. And the answer: absolutely yes.Unless, of course, you are a massive company like Charter that already offers services. If you are Charter, you might make absurd claims that cable is somehow more reliable than fiber. The Charter Government Relations Director apparently suffers from what we might call the make-ity-up disease.
Star Tribune Editorializes About Importance of Broadband, Community Ownership Option
An antiquated state law also stands in the way of communities that want to pursue their own version of FiberNet Monticello. With research increasingly demonstrating that high-speed service boosts rural economic development, communities underserved by current providers should not be held back by the unfair 65 percent threshold for popular support the law requires to go forward. A simple majority would suffice.Finally, they corrected noted that broadband has been a total sleeper issue. If the next governor pays as little attention to broadband as current Governor Pawlenty, the state will be in dire straits.
The Fundamentally Unlevel Playing Field in Referendums
A 2005 Colorado law bans municipalities from providing any type of advanced telecommunications services unless more than 50 percent of the voters favor the plan. Longmont's ballot question asked voters to allow the city to provide services either directly or in partnership with a private company, but 57 percent of voters said no. "Comcast decided it didn't want Longmont to go there," says Tom Roiniotis, director of Longmont Power & Communications, the city's community-owned electric utility. Comcast spent about $200,000, the largest contribution to any campaign in Longmont's history, to defeat the measure, Roiniotis says. Meanwhile, once the issue became a ballot initiative, Longmont was not allowed to spend any money to campaign for the ballot initiative because that would violate campaign financing laws. "We were walking with one arm and one leg tied behind our back when it came to this campaign," Roiniotis says.