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Local governments in New Hampshire are quite limited in how they can use public financing to invest in fiber optic networks, but Hanover is exploring an approach to create voluntary special assessment districts that would finance open access fiber optic networks. Town Manager Julia Griffin joins us for Community Broadband Bits Episode 179 to explain their plans. Though New Hampshire does not have any explicit barriers against municipal networks, the state has not authorized local governments to bond for them, which has certainly limited local authority to ensure high quality Internet access. But Hanover is one of several communities around the country that is exploring special assessment districts (sometimes called local improvement districts) that would allow residents and local businesses to opt into an assessment that would finance construction and allow them to pay it off over many years. This approach is well suited to Hanover, which has access to the Fast Roads open access network. Read the transcript from this episode here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show – please e-mail us or leave a comment below. This show is 18 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is “Warm Duck Shuffle.”