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Holland, Michigan, Trounces Filter MandateVoters in Holland, Michigan, soundly defeated by 55% to 45% a ballot measure February 22 that would have required the city to withhold funding from the Herrick District Library unless it installed filters on all its public Internet workstations. The initiative appeared on the Republican presidential primary ballot, which drew 41% of registered voters—12% more than the 1996 primary. “This goes to prove that money isn’t everything and commitment to your community is,” Michael Noordijk said in the February 23 Holland Sentinel. Cofounder of the anti-filter-mandate group Families for Internet Access, Noordijk was alluding to widespread reports that the Tupelo, Mississippi-based American Family Association gave its local chapter some $35,000 in campaign funds to ensure the initiative’s passage. “This is not the end,” LoriJo Schepers, cochair of the Citizens Voting YES! To Protect Our Children committee, told the paper. “God has called us to this.” Library spokesperson Gary Pullano said that the board has been open all along to “further community dialogue regarding this issue.” The day after the election, the city commission of nearby Hudsonville rescinded a two-month-old library filtering ordinance and restored Internet service at the Gary Byker Memorial Library. Officials had reluctantly passed the ordinance to avoid placing on their primary ballot the same AFA-sponsored measure that Holland was forced to present to voters. Local organizer Jackie Gerlofs told the paper she intended to circulate a new ballot petition. Posted February 28, 2000. |
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