original, finnicky link here. this is a bit of a followup to the story that was reported on by CJR in mid-may, where the city of longmont was debating whether or not to go forward with creating a...
this is a bit of a followup to the story that was reported on by CJR in mid-may, where the city of longmont was debating whether or not to go forward with creating a "library district" to which funding/engaging with local news would have potentially been a component:
Voters in Longmont—who previously approved a publicly owned fiber-optic broadband network, and now have some of the fastest internet speeds in the nation—could be asked to consider new taxes to fund a “library district,” a special governmental subdivision that would operate a community library. Roughly a dozen residents are pushing to explore the library district to include some form of community news component.
what that would have looked like in practice wasn't clear, as the CJR article noted, but it's a moot point now because the whole idea has, as seen here, fallen through for at least this year. part of this seems to be because of the community news aspect which was being pushed by some people; otherwise, the proposal might have worked out since longmont's library system has really not kept up with its growth as a city and is underfunded significantly:
Councilman Aren Rodriguez in an email said he was unable to attend Friday’s meeting but that he believed that since creation and funding of a special library district is “a taxation issue,” he would “fully support” putting such a proposal on the ballot for voters to decide.
“I don’t feel that library districts are controversial on the face.” Rodriguez said.
He said “the sticking point” about the one that’s been proposed for Longmont has been the idea, forwarded by some district proposal supporters, that a library district should be able to fund its own newspaper or other news media outlet or to fund someone else’s media.
Rodriguez said that because of concerns over whether that would be an appropriate role for a library district, “I’ve been explicit about being cautious in any move forward.”
regardless, the library-based local news proposal that was perhaps the most interesting part of this all seems to be down for the count, at least in the short term. it's probably not going to go away as an idea, but i'm skeptical that how this has played out will really endear it to the people it needs to win over.
original, finnicky link here.
this is a bit of a followup to the story that was reported on by CJR in mid-may, where the city of longmont was debating whether or not to go forward with creating a "library district" to which funding/engaging with local news would have potentially been a component:
what that would have looked like in practice wasn't clear, as the CJR article noted, but it's a moot point now because the whole idea has, as seen here, fallen through for at least this year. part of this seems to be because of the community news aspect which was being pushed by some people; otherwise, the proposal might have worked out since longmont's library system has really not kept up with its growth as a city and is underfunded significantly:
regardless, the library-based local news proposal that was perhaps the most interesting part of this all seems to be down for the count, at least in the short term. it's probably not going to go away as an idea, but i'm skeptical that how this has played out will really endear it to the people it needs to win over.