I just moved to a small town. A regional city has rolled out municipal fiber and the towns around it have the opportunity to hook into that city’s municipal fiber network if we rollout the infrastructure.
Comcast is spending money through fake grassroots groups to try to get people to vote NO.
I’m trying to convince my fellow citizens to vote YES. The town would take out a loan to rollout the infrastructure, monthly fees would go to pay off that loan and presumably pay the city for the fiber connection as well.
Honestly, the details don’t interest me as much as just having a better service and having an option other than Comcast. I figured that “locally owned and operated” would be a slam dunk with xenophobic Republicans, but they seem to be convinced by Comcast’s lobbying on the issue and are going to vote NO because taxes might go up (if people don’t switch to the service). Has anyone had success with convincing people of the value of municipal fiber?
I don’t have any experience doing this, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but my first step would be to collect information on how similar projects have turned out in the past, in terms of cost and adoption, as well as how much money Comcast is spending to counter this effort and what kinds of services they offer in the area at different price points. Then see if there are any people in the community that agree with you on the deployment of municipal internet who could be convinced to make the effort to assist you with convincing the rest of the community. With that information and those people, organize a canvasing effort, as in go door to door and actually talk to people about their stance on the matter. I would focus on that “locally owned and operated” argument, as well as the fact that if Comcast is spending money trying to prevent this they surely must be expecting to earn even more money from not having any competition in the area, so they can get away with higher prices and worse service.
I do have a little experience and you are correct! Canvassing or fliers or whatever is very much a YMMV per location but collaborating with fellow supporters and grabbing data to back up your position are both solid starting points.
Hooray, I’m glad my thought process for initial steps was correct. If you don’t mind me asking, my thought process for the recommendation of canvasing as opposed to something like flyers is that doing so would make you and your efforts come across as more human and genuine, especially if part of the pitch was that Comcast was astroturfing, do you know if that’s something that actually works?
Like I said your mileage may vary. I know in my town, fliers are fairly effective because there are a lot of high-foot-traffic spots where they can be posted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone go door to door about something, but we have had folks attend local events with requests for signatures and they seem to do decently. You gotta know your community to know how best to reach out to them.
