Voters in Fort Collins, Colorado, yesterday approved a ballot question that authorizes the city to build a broadband network, rejecting a cable and telecom industry campaign against the initiative.
Fort Collins voters said “yes” to a ballot question that gives the city council permission “to establish a telecommunications utility to provide broadband services,” The Coloradoan wrote. “Unofficial, partial returns as of 12:42 a.m. showed the measure passing with 57.15 percent of the vote.”
The vote doesn’t require the city to build a broadband network, but it gives the city council the permission it needs to move forward on the plan if it chooses to do so.
“Misinformation” campaign
Industry groups tried to convince voters to reject the municipal broadband network; the city’s mayor called it a “misinformation” campaign by the broadband incumbents. “I was very encouraged with the passage today, and particularly with the headwinds of incumbents trying to misinform the electorate,” Mayor Wade Troxell said, according to The Coloradoan.
The anti-municipal broadband group, called “Priorities First Fort Collins,” spent $451,000 campaigning against the broadband network ballot question. Priorities First Fort Collins received nearly all of its funding from the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association and a group run by the city’s chamber of commerce. Comcast is a member of both groups that funded the anti-municipal broadband campaign, while CenturyLink is a member of the chamber.
The pro-municipal broadband group in Fort Collins, the Fort Collins Citizens Broadband Committee, spent less than $10,000 in the campaign.
“This is another David vs. Goliath battle,” Glen Akins, who helped lead the Citizens Broadband Committee, told Ars last week.
Today, Akins told Ars:
We overcame the opponents’ massive, record-setting negative advertising campaign because we had a group of dedicated and passionate volunteers who believed in our cause. Our volunteers’ passion inspired our community and our community once again affirmed their desire for better broadband and denounced the influence of outsized spending campaigns in our local politics. Big money can buy ad spots and air time but it can’t buy votes in Fort Collins. Affordable, symmetric gigabit broadband will make Fort Collins an even more incredible place to live.
The anti-municipal broadband campaign had funded ads warning that a publicly funded network in Fort Collins would take money away from other infrastructure initiatives. The network would be funded by bonds, and supporters say it will be self-sustainable because of subscriber fees.