Over the past two weeks, votes at several Western Massachusetts town meetings on legislation enabling participation in a regional telecommunications cooperative have passed handily. Nine of WiredWest’s charter towns have now officially passed the legislation, with many more towns voting in the upcoming weeks.
Town participation in the WiredWest municipal telecommunications cooperative requires passing two consecutive town votes at separate meetings to establish Municipal Light Plant (MLP) legislation in the town. The MLP legislation was created in the Commonwealth over 100 years ago to enable towns to generate their own electricity. In 1996, the ability for towns to offer telecommunications services was added to the MLP statute. WiredWest charter towns researched various governance options and determined this was the best choice for enabling towns to offer telecommunications services, work together cooperatively and issue municipal debt to capitalize the network.
As of May 4th, the towns of Colrain, Conway, Egremont, Great Barrington, Leverett, Leyden, New Marlborough and Warwick have successfully passed their second votes. Chester, also part of WiredWest, was an existing MLP town. Sixteen towns are addressing their final votes over the next few weeks. In addition, five towns – Buckland, Hawley, Mount Washington, Northfield and Shelburne – have recently passed their towns’ first votes, with eight more towns conducting primary votes during this town meeting season. According to Bob O’Haver, WiredWest representative for the town of Great Barrington, “Our citizens realize the critical importance of a fiber-optic network to the future of our business development and education – and their preferences are coming across clearly in the votes to establish the WiredWest Coop.” Great Barrington passed the MLP vote 283 to 11.
MLP Vote Progress can be monitored on the WiredWest website.