Cover story
The town that voted to own its own machines
In Halvorsen Flats, population 4,112, a three-hour meeting in the high school gym ended with a show of hands and a new line in the municipal budget.
By Dela Whitcombe · Halvorsen Flats · 9 min read
Nobody in the gym expected the vote to be close, and it was not. By the time the folding chairs were stacked, the town had agreed to buy a shed of servers the way it once bought a snowplow: together, with a maintenance schedule taped to the wall.
"We already own the water tower," said Ines Corrigan, who runs the feed store and chaired the meeting. "Nobody thinks that's strange. This is a water tower for arithmetic."
The plan is modest. A converted grain office, a service contract, and a rota of volunteers trained by the community college forty minutes away. The first job on the list is the school bus schedule.
Skeptics remain. One resident asked who would fix it at two in the morning. The answer, after some discussion, was the same person who fixes the plow.