Eight Colorado Communities Vote for Exemption From State Municipal Broadband Law
Voters in five municipalities and three counties in Colorado voted to exempt their communities from the state law restricting municipal broadband deployments. Colorado law lets communities opt out of the law via local ballot initiatives, which three other municipalities --…
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Centennial, Longmont and Montrose -- did in previous elections. Rio Blanco, San Miguel and Yuma counties and Boulder, Cherry Hills Village, Red Cliff, Wray and Yuma approved the ballot measures Tuesday with between 72 and 83.8 percent of the vote. The results were a “vindication” for advocates who’ve said local control over broadband deployment had bipartisan support, said Next Century Cities Policy Director Christopher Mitchell in an interview. Heavily Democratic Boulder and heavily Republican Yuma County voted overwhelmingly in favor of exemption, said Mitchell, who is also director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. It’s unclear whether a potential Republican takeover of the Colorado House and Senate would jeopardize any push to have the legislature repeal its municipal broadband law, Mitchell said. Partisan control of both chambers remained in doubt Thursday pending recounts for seats in Adams and Jefferson counties. The elections yielded few other results of interest to municipal broadband advocates, though Mitchell said he was pleased that Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, a Democrat, won re-election. Malloy’s administration was “very supportive” of an effort by New Haven, Stamford and West Hartford to develop gigabit broadband networks (see 1409160049), Mitchell said. Malloy’s re-election “bodes well” for that project and a possible expansion into other cities, Mitchell said.