Area voters are being asked to exempt their local governments from a 2005 state law that limits how much infrastructure those entities can provide for Internet, cable and telecommunications services. There are similar measures on the ballot for voters in Durango, Bayfield, Ignacio and unincorporated La Plata County.
These are good measures and in every case should be approved. They should be seen, however, not as solutions to anything but as what they are, baby steps toward the full embrace of a 21st-century economy. And with that, they should be understood in the context of what is needed – true, high-speed, broadband Internet access available countywide.
The ballot measures are in response to Senate Bill 152, which was no doubt passed amid high-sounding rhetoric about keeping government from trampling on private enterprise. In fact, its effect is more akin to what would happen were we to limit drivers to private driveways.
Internet access is the infrastructure question of today. It is the No. 1 issue of economic development and the key to La Plata County’s future. And, just as with the infrastructure developments that drove 19th- and 20th-century economic expansion – from railroads and the telegraph to airports, interstate highways and rural electrification – there is a role for the public sector.
Exactly what that may look like in the end is unclear. But, as with airports or highways, governments could essentially provide the seed money for economic growth by incorporating Internet infrastructure into conventional county or municipal projects. An example might be including fiber-optic cable when rebuilding or expanding a road or trail. Local governments already have such rights of way.
How we would all benefit is easy to see. Economic-development efforts as practiced in the last century have rarely gained much traction around here. Without an interstate highway, a port or a conventional railroad, transportation is limited. We are a long way from major markets. The supply of labor is constrained by high housing costs and low wages.
The Internet, however, can change everything. For the increasing number of people whose workspace is online, the physical limitations of small-town or rural life are not limitations at all but attractions. So long as they have good Internet access they can work from where they choose. So, why not choose to be somewhere nice?
That is exactly what is happening. The number of people whose workplace is virtual has increased greatly in recent years and is expanding still. U.S. Census data included in the 2011-2013 American Community Survey lists La Plata County as having the 19th largest percentage of home-based workers in the nation. And if this area is to see economic growth in the years to come, that sector will be one of the principal drivers.
Providing or enabling the development of infrastructure is a natural function of government. Sometimes that means actually creating it. Sometimes it is more a matter of leasing rights-of-way. With Internet access, it could be some of both. The exact dimensions of that will be sorted out over time.
What matters now is to recognize the importance of access to broadband Internet and how critical it is not to fall behind in ensuring it. Approving all four of the related ballot measures is only the first step, but it is a needed one.
