No mention was made of a number of email lists that serve the Upper Valley region. They perform the same function without government funding, are moderated by volunteers, and do not have paid advertising.
I suggest you report on how the longstanding Norwich and Thetford Listserves work and their amazing reach into those communities. A Listserve in Woodstock, begun without any funding less than two years ago, now has more than 500 members.
The point being that these are easily replicated services that have been set up and operated as a 100-percent public service by members of those communities. Unlike the Front Porch Forum, they have done so without any need for state funding.
It appears to me that the state of Vermont has chosen to use the wrong forum as a model to be replicated.