Longmont's Future

Ballot Measure 2A will give Longmont back the telecommunications rights that were taken away by the State in 2005.

Put simply, it will allow the City to partner with alternative cable and internet companies to:

• Increase competition and drive down prices
• Give greater choice to the Longmont consumer
• Drive job growth in technology-related fields
• Help those with poor access to the web get online
• Give local business a competitive edge

At 9:09pm I finally feel comfortable acknowledging that Longmont has taken a step toward becoming the town we all know it can be.

Today the citizens of our town declared that their votes could not be bought off with a negative advertising campaign, no matter how many hundreds of thousands were spent on it.

Instead, they educated themselves and decided to take their future into their own hands. With this victory, they made sure that next time Google comes knocking, or a business decides to set up in a tech-savvy town, or a multinational considers relocating, Longmont will have a fighting chance.

Congratulations to everyone who voted for Longmont's Future.

If ever you wondered how important 2A was to local business, I highly recommend this article by Wendy Norris. It's absolutely right on point. Her opening line - "Fourteen years has got to be the Guinness World Record for eating your own dogfood" just about sums up how poorly we chose in 2009...

Remember, we need your vote! Please turn out as it could be INCREDIBLY close!

The bad guys are flooding the streets as Halloween approaches - their stated ghoul (sorry) is to influence witch way  (sorry) you will vote.

Ballot Question 2A is important for Longmont. It is a fight between the citizens of this town and a giant corporate interest that has tried to buy their votes. And it's not just our town that is at stake here - we're being watched by the nation at large, which is grappling with the question of whether local citizens should be allowed to control their own media utility, or whether that control should be ceded to media leviathans such as Comcast.

The latter option is dangerous. It concentrates power in the hands of the few, who then control the access of the many. Think about your experiences with Comcast or another provider - are they unanimously good? No. Unanimously bad? Probably not. They're just a company, another company that is beholden only to their shareholders. They're not truly evil... but nor do they give a damn about Longmont. Making money is all they care about.

In town we have an option - a fiber-optic ring that just needs the right private investment (not concentrated power) to light it up. Comcast could be a part of that, but it will mean slicing into their profits a bit and losing some market share. They would need to unbundle services, offer much faster internet and better choice for consumers.

And the project will bring jobs in the short-term without a doubt - people building the 'last mile' to the door, skilled and semi-skilled labor that the town sorely needs.

It will also attract the attention of magnet employers such as Google, who wanted to build in Longmont but were put off by the fact that we had to vote on whether we could even use the fiber-optic ring that belonged to us.

Please vote between now and Tuesday, because your vote counts. Even if you vote with the opposition, vote - it's your right, your responsibility and your privilege as a citizen of this great country.

Here's hoping.

Jon

Where to drop off your ballot: Boulder County Clerk's office at 529 Coffman Street, which is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Election Day. You can also drop your ballot off curbside on Terry Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Every single challenger and incumbent, in every race in Longmont, agrees on one thing: YES on 2A.

These are the people we vote for, the people we trust to run our city with careful guidance and fair play. And every one of them, without exception, wants us to be able to partner with private enterprise if we so choose, so that we can make money and bring in jobs. That is why they support 2A.

At an event at Silver Creek High School last night, according to the Times-Call,

"Carroll and Levison were joined onstage by Mayor Bryan Baum and his challenger Dennis Coombs, at-large candidate Ron Gallegos, Ward 1 candidate Suzzanne Painter and Ward 3 Councilman Sean McCoy.

One question, on Ballot Question 2A, drew immediate solidarity from the panel.

"Everyone, on three, say yes or no on 2A," Baum told the other candidates with a grin. "One, two, three ..."

"YES!" they all echoed.

"That is the one thing we all agree on," Baum said."

Politicians of every flavor, from every ward, all agreeing on one thing. It's bipartisanship in action.

Take A Flying Leap today published a full-page ad in the Times-Call in which they accuse Alcatel-Lucent and the Mayor of our town of... well, I don't know, exactly. That's not made clear. But SOMETHING, definitely!

Anyway, it just goes to show how hypocritical Comcast can be when they suggest that a business has something to gain from 2A.

Remember, if 2A is defeated then Comcast gets to protect its monopoly in Longmont, and the $4M or so in revenue that they make from our town every MONTH. Without that monopoly, Comcast could stand to lose tens of millions - not to mention the fact that other cities would follow our lead, potentially losing them hundreds of millions in the long term.

Now that is what I call 'standing to gain something'.

Comcast and its politically-connected front group, Look Before We Leap, are becoming ever-more desperate in their attempts to thwart Longmont's right to operate our own fiber-optic network.

In a Times-Call article today, George Merritt (the spokesbuffoon who had to apologize for the lie that Mayor Baum supported his cause) came right out and accused the city of making deals with an equipment manufacturer. The city retorts that Merritt is basically lying. Again.

Merritt goes on to question what Vince Jordan, a supporter of 2A and a telecommunications expert, stands to gain from passage of the bill. Jordan says that no plans whatsoever have been made. (What does Comcast stand to gain???)

Merritt (who, as we're beginning to see, generally asks questions without merit) then asks why Longmont's Future - that is, me - hasn't reported expenditures to the City. That is a simple answer - because I am not obliged to, by law. Another pie in the face moment for Merritt. I choose to do so on my website, but only to draw a comparison with the lie that LBWL is funded by a 'grassroots campaign'.

Finally, Merritt is the guy who accused the city of pushing 'propaganda' when it created a pamphlet outlining what critics and supporters of 2A felt it would mean to the community. And - do you need me to finish this story? - no legal action was filed.

Deceit and misinformation. You can tell this guy has run political campaigns in the past. Comcast and Look Before We Leap have made a business of scaremongering, outrageous spending, robo-calls, junk mail and irritating door-knockers. Is that enough to buy them the votes they need, or will the citizens of Longmont Look Beyond The Lies and see them for what they really are - clumsy operators with an eye to profit, not progress.

Comcast and Look Before We Leap have already spent over $274,000 trying to defeat Proposition 2A in Longmont.

The accounts, published by the city, also show that the biggest - indeed, ONLY - contributor over $50 is the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association. The members of which are... Comcast Cable Communications, Optimum, US Cable and Rocky Mountain Communications. They have already contributed $75,000. So much for the 'Group of concerned citizens' that they use in their ominous phone calls.

Not a single red cent of that money has been spent in Longmont, according to their own figures. Our economy has not benefited at all.

The full accounting schedule is right here.

As of October 12th, 2011, the owner of this website has spent $45 of his own money helping to educate people on this issue. I guess I'm going to need to take a look for some spare change behind the sofa if I want to compete with the half million - HALF MILLION - bucks that Comcast and their friends have spent in this election cycle and the last.

Please ask yourself the question: is Comcast doing this because it feels a sense of altruism towards the people of Longmont?

Or because it wants to protect its profits, even if doing so is at our expense?

UPDATE: In the spirit of transparency - not because I am required to - I would like to declare that as of October 25th 2011 I have spent $308 on two Times-Call ads, $45 on web hosting, and $124 on Google ads for a total of $478.00 of my own money on this issue. Why? Because I am proud to have become a US Citizen in the last three weeks, and I want to do something good for my community.

Look Before We Leap's George Merritt claims that his group is desperately trying to protect Longmont citizens from higher taxes... but since he's not one of us, and nor are any of his pals in this endeavor, why does he care so much? Are we to expect that every time Mr. Merritt worries about taxes, Comcast will immediately spring forth with $274,000 to protect us from ourselves?

The outlandish spending of Comcast and its pals in the cable biz should come as no surprise. In 2009, their pressure group "No Blank Check" - funded, ironically, by a huge check for $246,513 - spent a total of $13.34 for every vote cast on the same issue that we are considering today. (There were 18,479 in total.)

To put that into perspective, Mayor Bryan Baum spent $13,382 on the race, which totaled 16,592 votes. That's 81 cents per vote cast.

With their current policy of putting a scary piece of junk mail in every mailbox as often as possible (I've had five separate ones already) it's clear they will outspend last election cycle.

The question is whether they can buy enough votes this time to fox the citizens of Longmont again.

Since every candidate who has spoken on this issue is FOR 2A, since everyone I've spoken to personally hates Comcast's service and prices, and since even such conservative institutions as the Tea Party and the Times Call support 2A, I think that we'll be celebrating on November 2nd.

Our vote is not for sale, Comcast.

A reminder of the exact wording of Ballot Measure 2A in Longmont, Colorado:

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?

Hear Tom Roiniotis, Ken Fellman and Vince Jordan disussing 2A on Community Radio.

KGNU Feature on 2A