Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Leadership

Last night we watched our daughter Noelle's work as a whiz bang financial analyst during a Fort Collins, Colorado city council meeting.  It was really fun watching it and her work helped start the process of building a new training facility for Northern Colorado Law Enforcement.  What was also impressive was how well prepared that city council was in asking smart and probing questions with no rancor or back and forth bickering.

During the internet broadcast,  election results for that city were being scrolled on the screen.  One issue I been following in that progressive town was a citizens vote to bypass a state law on allowing municipalities to construct their own internet cable systems.  It was driven there by the Mayor and Council.  It passed with 83% of the vote.  And it should have,  given the abysmal corporate monopolies that are running roughshod over users.

Oh, that we could have that kind of leadership in New Mexico and Albuquerque.  Wouldn't it be a thrill to see Comcast have to compete?  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That high speed publicly owned socialist internet besides making Fort Collins residents' lives more enjoyable will probably boost the city's economic growth, as it has in Chattanooga, TN, which built its own internet system and is now a "center for innovation" with a growing high tech local industry base.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/20/technology/innovation/chattanooga-internet/index.html

The federal government helped Chattanooga pay for their blazing fast fiber optic system with a grant through the Department of Energy, although I don't hear the president promoting competition for the cable companies too much, perhaps because he's good golfing buddies with the CEO of Comcast.

We the people really have to take things into our own hands. Another report is out today

tinyurl.com/ogpnbe8

about Albuquerque's unemployment rate increasing, to compliment really poor statewide figures you reported on earlier. To the relief of the mayor, the governor and Journal editors, there are flag draped coffins of "superhero" cops and plenty else to put on the front page to divert our attention from things like our deteriorating economic well being.

Anonymous said...

Hessito Yntema was proposing municipal internet as one of his economic reforms (along with a push for public banking)..... It didn't seem to get him much traction in District 6.