
This file contains a short article on the impact one Bulletin Board
system (BBS) can have in the local enviroment. Be sure to read if you
are a SYSOP or travel the bulletin boards.
THE IMPACT BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS AND LOCAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE
SYSTEMS CAN HAVE ON THE POLITICAL PROCESS.
The following message was left by Fred McCamic on the RECYCLENET Bulletin
board in New Jersey, Jan 85.
Do you wonder what difference a computer bulletin board could make?  Beg,
borrow or steal the March 1985 issue of "Whole Earth Review", turn to
page 89, and read "The Neighborhood ROM":  Computer Aided Local Politics".
It's an interview of Dave Hughes, a retired U.S. Army Colonel who runs a
bulletin board in Colorado Springs.
Two years ago, it seems, Hughes spotted a small legal notice regarding
an ordinance that would have regulated working at home.  He attended the
planning commission meeting, and was alone in speaking against the ordinance.
The commission agreed to table the ordinance for 30 days, during which time
he posted the text on his BBS, and wrote just two letters to editors
suggesting that people could dial his BBS.  In the next 10 days, over 250
people called the board.
Some 175 aroused citizens attended the next city council meeting.  At least
one person submitted revised ordinance text to the BBS.  The planning board
made four successive revisions of the ordinance; each one was posted on the
BBS.  When the final version came up for a vote, no one had anything to say
-it had already been said on the BBS.
ed on the
BBS.  When the final version came up for a vote, no one had anything to say
-it had already been 