Locals in Longmeadow, Massachusetts say they’re being bombarded with misleading mailers, texts, and phone calls from a telecom-industry linked group trying to mislead the public ahead of a key vote on the city’s plan to begin construction of a municipal broadband fiber network.
U.S. telecom monopolies have a long and sordid history of paying proxy organizations to try and undermine popular municipal broadband deployment projects. The goal is always to mislead, confuse, and disorient the public ahead of key municipal votes in order to shield regional telecom monopolies from reform and meaningful competition.
Such groups almost always pretend to be objective third parties trying to protect taxpayers from harm. But in reality they’re an extension of the lobbying efforts of unpopular regional monopolies, who know that publicly opposing these popular networks isn’t a great look.
These tactics are popping up yet again this month in Longmeadow, where “dark money” group “Mass Priorities” is working overtime to derail the city’s effort to build its own fiber network.
Longmeadow residents are voting today (May 12) on whether to approve an $8.6 million loan to construct the first phase of what will ultimately be a town-wide fiber broadband network.
This initial funding round is expected to cover the construction of a central fiber hub, an initial pilot area, and half of a Phase 2 plan, which together would offer affordable fiber access to 1,600 homes and about 50 business/multi-dwelling units in the city of 15,696.
Longmeadow is one of many Western Massachusetts towns and cities that have explored building their own broadband networks after decades of frustration at systemic neglect by regional telecom giants like Verizon and Comcast, resulting in a lack of affordable, reliable, evenly-available broadband access.
Longmeadow’s proposal would involve a tax increase of roughly $97 per year for the average home over the life of the 20-year bond, and the public vote on May 12 requires a two-third majority to pass. The entire network is expected to cost somewhere around $27 million, with additional expansions expected to be funded by subscriber revenue.
Fake Grass Roots “Astroturf” Opposition
But local news outlets say that the “dark money” group Mass Priorities has been recently flooding the streets of Longmeadow busy knocking on local doors, sending postcards and leaving flyers around Longmeadow urging residents to vote against the city’s looming municipal broadband project.
The mailers and warnings mirror the most common industry falsehoods, including false claims that existing broadband service is already acceptable, and that municipal broadband networks pose a unique and uniformly dangerous risk to taxpayers.
In contrast, outside of comments to the press, the city’s public utility is prohibited from engaging in any sort of public outreach, lobbying, or education campaigns. It often leaves municipalities on an unlevel playing field when it comes to battling well-funded industry-backed misinformation.
Mass Priorities sells itself as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of concerned Massachusetts residents” on its website, claiming it exists to “educate and engage communities on the local policy decisions that affect their lives and to advocate for smart, responsible use of taxpayer dollars by local elected officials.”
But the organization is actually an extension of the Minnesota-based Domestic Policy Caucus, a 501(c)(4) “dark money” nonprofit that obscures its funding sources.
“Local leaders in Longmeadow, like many across western Massachusetts, are trying to solve a problem residents experience every day: unreliable service and limited competition,” says Gigi Sohn, Executive Director of the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB).
“Instead of engaging transparently on the facts, outside groups like the Domestic Policy Caucus attack communities with old myths and propaganda while providing little to no information about their staff or who funds them.”
Mass Priorities first appeared in Longmeadow back in late November 2024, during the town’s second vote to create a public utility that would own its public fiber network. According to local news outlets, the group spent $10,000 on misleading Facebook ads maligning the city’s effort.
“People were skeptical,” Longmeadow Municipal Fiber Task Force member Vineeth Hemavathi tells The Shoestring.
In Maine, companies like Charter (Spectrum) have been caught creating fake consumer groups with an eye on spreading falsehoods about the popularity and benefits of municipal broadband networks. Elsewhere, AT&T has funded groups like the Taxpayer’s Protection Alliance with similar objectives.
While such groups claim to be focused on saving taxpayers from government waste, they’ll never have a single word to say about the untold millions of taxpayer dollars private sector monopolies receive to construct fiber networks routinely only half completed. Subsidy fraud, if it originates in the private sector, is somehow never an issue of concern.
“In a feeble attempt to appear Massachusetts-based, the Domestic Policy Caucus calls itself ‘Mass Priorities,’ but the Caucus is based in Minnesota,” Sohn notes. “The organization, which for years has targeted multiple communities across the country that have built, or have considered building, their own broadband networks, has consistently refused to disclose its donors.”
“That lack of transparency matters,” Sohn continues. “Communities like Longmeadow deserve an honest debate about costs, governance, and accountability, not recycled myths designed to spread misinformation, protect the status quo, and discourage local choice.”
Header image of “Vote” sign courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0,Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic
Inline image of Bay Path College in Longmeadow MA courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
Inline image of streetview in Longmeadow MA courtesy of Town of Longmeadow Facebook page
