they say they're all on be on i don't know that they're the is good evening i'd like to call to order this special city council meeting on wednesday december twenty seventh at six thirty five pm we apologize for the delay please join us in the pledge of allegiance are paul and councillor tracey on the phone and so we are fully in attendance but if it's a unanimous vote we don't need to do the roll call ok so on the the motion on the agenda please i if you are in favor any opposed great thank you very much that's unanimous and we will move into our agenda so that the plan for this night is that we  have up about almost an hour for a presentation and also just questions from the council about the asset purchase agreement from city attorney blackwood and our special coun wark we have a new version of that acid purchase agreement and also some exhibits that have been posted today following some just questions and presentation we'll have the public forum at seven thirty and then and only then will we go into the resolution itself and we'll have the vote in the discussion at that time after the public forum so any questions about started with just a brief summary of what's happened since the eighteenth which was when we had our last discussion we had the council had to executive session  work we worked in through sessions on earlier versions of the asset purchase agreement this version was made public on friday and we have some exhibits that were to have been made public today so just anything that you wanted to highlight about what's happened since the eighteenth so the copy that you got on friday was i think you've got a red line copy showing the changes from the last draft that you're reviewed at the prior city council meeting what those redlined showed were the additional changes that we were able to negotiate in between and there has been no substantive changes to the agreement since the one you got on friday we did find a few type of nets that we've corrected that you know like the wrong section reference internally and things like that couple actual just typos but there's been no additional substantive changes since the draft that we sent you on friday in addition we've negotiated the remaining terms of exhibits a b and c which is a is the limited rights agreement limited rights of use agreement which is the agreement that allows the city to have some special rights with respect to what it's hoping to do and in connection with smart city initiatives we've basically reserve some fiber to use for smart city initiatives and that's more fully explain in exhibit a but i can certainly answer questions about if you have any exhibit b is the terms of the church street lease to be finalized post execution and exhibit c is the terms of the memorial auditorium lease also will enter into a final lease you know at closing after c p g but we negotiate more fully the terms but the principal terms are all contained in the exhibits in addition since then we've been preparing and have i have a full set of  disclosure schedules but there's a lot of information that has been provided by burlington telecom to prepare those schedules and so we've been refining them throughout throughout the day and we have to do a final run through and figure out if there's anything that we need to that shouldn't be made public there's or that maybe isn't appropriate that might have some confidential information in them so we haven't gone through and done that final redaction and so i haven't put those up on board docs yet  very good thank you it's a quick question for channel seventeen do you know if the streaming is on yes ok so we're told councilor paul that the streaming is on so if someone just streaming the meeting from off site ok so someone wants to stream they should go to youtube go to channel seventeen's you tube channel and they can access it there ok great thank you very much ok hopefully that will work all right well the which is just go to questions questions yesterday to digest so that the public is clear just to remind everyone on the structure of this deal what you are looking at is what's known as the asset purchase agreement and the exhibits to that the idea is that we are trying to sign this document by december thirty first and under the agreement with blue water if this agreement is signed by the thirty first then the city has directed the sale and is entitle to fifty percent of the procedure which then get shared with citibank from here there's a whole lot of work yet to do to to close this so the sale isn't isn't completed until sometime down the road and the next big step is the public utility commission approval and then once that happens there will be what a final closing of the sale which involves all of the transfer documents that include like assignments of all of the channel agreements that the cable television has that includes all of the places where fiber is laid through the city transferring all the  physical assets and all of that will happen then so this is the the purchase an agreement in the same way that you would sign a purchase and sale agreement when you purchase how a house and then you would have a final closing after so i just wanted to remind folks that's a stage we're at yes cancer heart net so am i correct in saying that after tonight we have met our deadline and so would there be any possibility of us being in jeopardy of not meeting a deadline meaning if there was hiccups along the way that were not in our control there are there there are built into this agreement and we can talk about where those few things are our goal was trying to build an agreement that there was very little chance of anybody getting out of and that's why we are working right now and have been working all day today and and probably some of tomorrow to get the disclosure statements out there is a little bit of due diligence there are things that could go wrong for example of the public utility commission doesn't give c p g but it approval then then they get out and we haven't met our deadline but we've done everything that we can do up till now to meet our deadline o other any other count of the cancer's so can so after the after this document is signed then the next step is to get the public the certificate of public good and will the city go with shores communications in that process can yes the city and bluewater and sure's are going to work together to create a joint application to present to the public utility commission and then the closing would only be after says the successful c p g is awarded but the timing of that can't be determined because we don't know how long that state process will take that's correct some of that will depend on whether there's intervenors and the nature of those interveners to the public service department has said to us that they would think probably six months is a reasonable estimate but then that the pen recognition ok great cancer bush president no doubt i can i can ask generic questions and i can also asked specific questions any questions are fair game at this time and i just wanted to make sure i understood this correctly so i printed it out so number one is the limited reserved rights of use and number two is splicing and approved this form ok i just wanted to make sure i was correct so my question was if if indeed under number one if indeed we currently and i can't think of a department but if we currently didn't have fiber to a department in the city or that well it wasn't fully served would we be precluded from doing that and when i read number two splicing a ttachment i believe that covers my concern is that true so this is totally different from what you're thinking about oh we're going to have a one of the provisions in the asset purchase agreement is that we will enter into a five year services agreement with burlington telecom we have sent them a draft of that are already and i'm hoping we're going to get that to you relatively soon to approve the terms of that service agreement that's all the services that burlington telecom provides to the city what this document is doing is it's saying that with all this fiber in the ground there's a lot of stuff that the city could do with the fiber that's in the ground that may support the idea of smart cities we don't know what those are going to look like they are moving so fast around the country change that could be technology that that that could be coming down the road someday tying traffic meter's traffic light together through the fiber system could be something that might be something the city would look at things that don't generate money that don't aren't involved in revenue producing but that help us deliver city services better that we could use the fiber itself to do but that bt itself would not be involved in at all but we would just be using its fiber to do some things that's what this agreement does and the city sees this is really valuable because in essence what we're doing is reserving some of the rights of ownership of the fiber without actually owning the fiber that were being they were being able to and bt is willing to do this because they believe that the  way that burlington telecom was built is that there's a lot of fiber in there and there is a lot of room for the city to do some experimenting and trying some different provisions of things that might use the fiber for without interfering with with the business of bt so when you look at number one what it's saying is that the idea is we are getting this for free because they're seeing it as not in any way impeding what they're doing or their commercial prospects it's not something they could charge us for or sell to people and so what we have gone back and forth in trying to negotiate this and come up with this language that you see a number one is to be clear that the idea of this isn't that the city could then you know charge customers for things or give it away or do other kinds of revenue producing stuff that bt itself might be able to do that's not the object of this but it's for city operations so essentially be able to experiment with various options for city government i kind of understood that my point was that if indeed the city had not and so thank you for more explanation because it's always better to get more than to have just what's on the printed page but my my question was that if so i believe that all of our departments have are connected to bt but if we were to create a new department at a new location would this language cover us know ok that would be a b service the fiber running new fiber providing internet connectivity that kind of thing all of that is part of the service that we would deal with through the services agreement i just wanted to know how broad it was for the city ok the next question i have which is the liability insurance and and several obligations a on for a it talks anyways the last sentence says without limiting the foregoing  makes no representation of warranty that access of the telecom ip connectivity will be uninterrupted secure complete accurate or error free that's just boilerplate language  say that that telecom systems go down and can be interrupted or what is what's the intent of that this is related to what the definition of ip conic to videos and it's related to this agreement for these smart city initiatives there are other warranties and guarantees and price changes that happen with the services they're providing for the city and that's totally unrelated to this so for example for the city's internet that that folks may be using sitting here in the room that's in our service is agreement and we have server service level agreements that say if that's down for a particular amount of time they're going to refund their money and if it's down if it keeps going down repeatedly we have a right to end the contract with them that's totally different than this ok so this so thank you so even though this says limited reserved rights of use agreement when you get down to number one with the smart city initiative it led me to believe even though there was a focus on smart cities it was broader than that so that's probably why i was trying to apply it a little more  president i think my limited question wasn't seven o six on the due diligence out i'm reading it correctly now it's limited to real estate matters and there's a materiality qualifier that's correct and that's that's a change so before they had a thirty day post signing due diligence if they discovered anything relating to fiber to the home but as you've modified it which i think is beneficial to the city their ability to walk is far more limited yes this is really well this doesn't give them the right to walk anyway this is just the right to finish doing and it's really going to be for the property descriptions for the memorial we don't have a an accurate yet property description to be attached to the lease and the same with some of the school language we need to tighten up the property just corruptions and they might want to review that for title insurance purposes but it's not really a right to get out what it is is a right for them to identify what those issues might be  x is more request for a presentation although it's a sort of look to article eight i think it might be helpful for you guys to walk through for the public we've certainly in executive session have the privilege of understanding what's in article eight but i know from my constituents and i think all of ours article eight really is what has been the most important other than the purchase price what has been the most important what protections is the city getting on a going forward basis and then that sort of bleeds into i know we've had this conversation as well what happens if there's a breach of that a trial of your data privacy you know what rights does the city have against both the new well see as well as sure's to ensure that there that they're going to be employed offered employment by the new beaty the eight zero two is is a discussion about how the local b company is going to be managed and specifically it provides that there will be as seven person board of directors with the ability of  in we got you did get in there also the other important change if the city alexa take the max and the higher percentage there is the part about thirty three there's the possibility of getting two members on the board yes sorry thank you and then also that we will be privy in that position to looking at the end your budget and they'll be giving an audit and even if we don't have a seat on the board that audit will be delivered publicly great eight point zero three is talking about the capital improvements that's really a promise to continue spending or making sure there's available to be spent in the city for the continued development of the infrastructure for p t and the expansion that's planned and what those sort of commercially reasonable efforts you know meeting and i know there's a commitment in here to sort of do the build out in accordance with the plan and also to try and build the last hundred one hundred twenty that are on a list  just hoping you might speak to what commercially you know it's not a guarantee but what is what does that mean well i think it is a guarantee in terms of spending the money i think i think it just means that if if it's not possible for some reason to do the full build out for reasons that we don't yet know you know we know for a fact that some of the homes present too much of a challenge in that way and maybe as they do the build out there might be others but i think the commitment is there to expand the resources to do that it zero four is the provision regarding the access to the various buildings that are currently located on school some school properties so that's just a provision to allow continued access for new bt and then also the provision to enter into a lease agreement for which the city will receive rent under morial and church street the community commitment pieces in section eight zero five and that is something that you know we had all worked very hard to obtain more rights on and that allows for two hundred fifty thousand dollars per year for ten years to establish funding for b t v ignite type programs and additional fifty thousand per year for ten years to be for high school programming and then that's the part that's going to be managed was e r af and there's also a further commitment to go beyond the ten years but they just want to put in some measurement tools and least put some some language around how that's going to look eight o six is a commitment to maintain and renew the lifeline program eight o seven is the  restriction that we obtained regarding resale so what that says is that if for some reason sure's wanted to sell the assets of the telecom system or controlling interest in  then they would have to get our written consent if they was going to sell to somebody who would have a seventy five percent interest in the market here so just i mean i i thought i thought it good to know it's not seven seventy five percent of the residential commercial video or internet each measured separately and i also found helpful that it's not just our consent the expectation is that will be a condition of the c p g so it's also requiring third party regulatory approval yes that's correct eight point zero eight is an opportunity for the city to purchase the the stock or the assets from shores in the event it wanted sell and then it has certain limitations on when we would get that notice and when we'd have the opportunity to repurchase the those assets it gives a fairly long time frame and frankly for these things that was a concession to the city understanding that we might take some time in order to be able to generate a way of accomplishing that and in addition it allowed us to maybe provide for other local investors to participate in that as a way of our being able to accomplish that so just to clarify does that mean we would have the opportunity to assign  you know it's the city or any of its designees i think we get to make that that call section eight point zero nine is the agreement that we would enter into if we decide to elect a carried interest and so will further negotiate the terms of that but that's what allows us to purchase up to thirty three percent of the voting interest of the buyer does this also afford us an opportunity to put our interest back that does exist i think it's in that section it's at the end of that paragraph yes so this if we were to roll over our interest the operating agreement or whatever doctrine we sign memorializing that will also extend to the city the right to sell our interest back to buyer or to the new entity right and there's sort of a minimum purchase price for which we could have that interest bought back thank you so section eight ten deals with what we're what we have an exhibit a and eight eleven talks about the buyers obligation to continue supporting edge annette and other ways of reducing the digital divide eight twelve is the promise that they're going to maintain a residential and commercial services at least at a minimum that are currently being offered an eight point fourteen is a promise to maintain the broadband rates for a period of five years at the rates that are set forth and in the disclosure schedule but those are the current rates that are being charged and that any price changes will be in in the twenty four month period after the six months will be discussed further net neutrality provision is the promise to adhere to our standards of net neutrality and we were able to obtain some additional language protection on that to  sort of concrete this support for net neutrality and then eight sixteen is that they're going to do business under the name of burlington telecom and that is the and then the other one is just your standard provision that they'll so then the sort of complete you know what happens if they don't you know what happens if they after close they change the name to schur's telecom so what we have there is we obtain the right to seek specific performance for the violation of any of the covenants with in particular with respect  to the provisions set forth in this article and what specific performance means is the ability to go into a court and have a judge order that they do what they say they're going to do and the reason we put that in is that we didn't feel that damages president if this city is there a deadline for which the city can increase its percentage of ownership of we start a seven and a half percent we want to go all the way up to thirty three percent is there a time line which we're longer able to do to do that there is  so the city may elect to enter into a membership interest agreement at any time within the later of one year following the closing of this agreement which means not now but when we actually are able to close this agreement we'll have a year to decide after that or sixty days following the c p g and it's the later of those two time periods so ok and when when when will the seven member board be set up that'll be set when they organize and close the deal so i mean they'll have to they probably won't elect the the city person until we elect our purchase right so so if we if there was a board set up and then we at some point went to thirty three percent and all the members of the board were in place how would we get the second member well we'd have to deal with that in the operating agreement with the buyer but i think they would have it set up that whoever they had elected they would on aleck so that we could elect somebody to have to leave the board obviously for us to yeah but they probably would they'll have a provision in there allowing somebody to be removed for that provision to go into effect  you i'm going to follow up on that so in terms of the membership interests share can it start at one level and change over time or no didn't really talk about it within that i mean i would think that it would be ok within that time period no no i mean if if within this time period we restart it say fifteen percent just to pick a number and then over time we want to increase our share is that an option or is it written in stone whatever we initially elect i mean i think after of this time period so what once the city is elected what its its share is going to be the public utility commission has control over who becomes a buyer so it would require an amendment of any c p g once it was issued if the city were to change its ownership interest in the entity we have not discussed was sure is what would happen if in the future the city wanted to take a larger interest than was in here or having a larger interest in the thirty percent but i mean it interest less than thirty three in the third percent but then increasing to a higher interest over time meaning you want to you want to decide now that right away we would we would take x percent but in two years we would want more percent we might want to have that option for future leaders we have not built that into this agreement ok so under this agreement whatever we decide within this first period is what it is right was what it will be with this right but what we haven't done yet is negotiate any kind of operating agreement with them which would include whatever  right right so we have a negotiated any operating agreement that would say the you know what minority shareholder rights would be or in the future to to change anything so we haven't had that  discussion going to keep going so i think that it right now if the city were to just roll its projected share of the net proceeds back into to reinvest in the company o ownership share would be roughly twenty percent so this agreement allows us to go up to one third but as we have discussed we don't yet know how we could get up third so we if we have to decide whether or not to go up to one third within six to twelve months after tonight then i think it becomes very urgent to get that analysis done for the council so that we can know what would be required in order to do that just in case there's that we we want to take those options i think we have a very limited window in which to exercise that option it sounds and so we i think that that work becomes quite high put priority in my own view i don't know how other councillors feel i think i had bushehr in the back to mason so for some reason i i feel like this conversation did occur in executive session and there was a desire from some to president no doubt said regarding getting that information in place as far as what we would need to do in order to exercise that option of the three percent thirty three and a thirty percent  so but my my other question the question i wanted to ask was you know we've referenced the operating agreement a number of times and so the operating agreement is once again a standalone that will be is being worked on currently and will be approved at what point and the council will approve that also you know i kind of understand what right if the city if the city decides that it and this is why while we have a one year period in which they decide we really need to be talking about whether or not you want an interesting or because one it's got to go in the application of the public utility commission whether or not the city is going to be and wants to be a gun owner or not because the public utility commission has to approve everybody who owns more than ten percent ownership so that's the first point is well it says a year here we're going to have to decide whether we want something anough to be able to go to the public utility commission soon or at that point in time if we're going to be a minority owner is when we would probably start looking at an operating agreement if we elected not to have any carried interest and not to be involved further i don't think we probably would ever approve or have input into the operating agreement so one just just follow up to  template of an operating agreement in case we we x we do this i guess i'm i'm concerned about i feel like these you know you referenced a number of things that would be in the operating agreement when we raise a question you say that will be addressed in the operating a green but these are questions or concerns that we as a city as a council have and so if there is not going to be an operating agree how are some of those particular items going to be addressed i mean if they are never addressed then some of them i think there's a desire to have them in this agreement in some respect so i'm i'm kind of trying to figure out how we find our way if we referencing an agreement that will may never take place the operating agreement is the governing agreement for the buyer and to t we the covenants that we're getting in article eight the reason why we tr get them in article eight and in this agreement is to have those protections that you that we most cared about in this agreement and active in this agreement the operating agreement is the governing document for the buyer entity which we which will have to already had here to what's in this agreement already the operating agreement when we talk about we're talking about if we were to have minority rights as a shareholder as a membership owner that's when we would participate in were in this agreement so it's not missing from anywhere those there are other rights that we may assume if we take on a different role and that is not in here yet so as i've listened i kind of wish i wrote down a few things because i thought councilor mason had a couple of points that i thought were relevant that were worse that the rich response was that will be addressed in the operating agreement and i can't regurgitate those so i just a little some curious when we might be discussing not making a decision i think i'm listening to city attorney blackwood and i think we need to get right into it as soon as possible that would be great thank you this agreement provides that we're going to be doing our filing with this with the public utility commission within sixty days from the day we execute so you have sixty days to figure out what you want to do once we execute better currently in place and relative telecom but there is the possibility that going forward you're sort of the future that rates will actually start coming down competitors rates might be coming down is there anything that limits the new bt from from letting its rates actually go down and fall with so they can maintain their competitive edge haven't any language that would prevent sure as from selling this company like in terms of a time frame can we put a ten year commitment to not sell this i said he's a possible or well section indefinitely it is saying and the same a section eight point zero way it is it is just saying that it will remain refrain from selling the a set of the telecoms you know can we i mean i think does it mean that they will never ever sell it no it means that they won't sell it to somebody with a controlling interest seventy five percent market share ok so now my question is is it possible for us to put a language that will prevent them from selling the company at least for ten years and i think we did so we did ask for that we did not get it so basically you saying that after the different agreement the next year they can sell it to anybody they would like to with their restrictions set forth in a point i was seven eight zero ok so me i mean as part of my work east to actually look for the best interests of the basically what we went through we don't want to go  don't want to go through it again in the next five to ten years and i was just wondering if it's possible and also to also think about the bt employees i mean this been very distracting to them and don't you think that they might be going through the same process if we don't put any language maybe in the next couple of years problem with restraints on alienation is it's not looked on favorably to say that you can't sell your you that you can't sell an interest in something so you have to put very stringent rights on that so what we've done is we've said there you can if you do sell you can't sell to this kind of person and also you give us the right to buy it back first so i think that the right to pursue to paid in buying it from them is actually a very valuable right for the city and that's probably the best way that we can protect against what you're talking about you know what i'm talking about is basically to put a time frame into this agreement i mean just to make sure that we all will be safe when the time comes we will know in the next five ten years this company will not be selling the new beauty and it will also allow us to not be get distracted as well as the community and everybody basically you know i'm not sure what we can add other than we didn't get that in the negotiation and i don't think they have any present intention to have something to business say you're not going to spend all this money to that that's their intent maybe to get out in seven seven years can we please clarify this matter how the proposition has changed was sure in the yes an position or in terms of the actual ownership as this says at the beginning this deal is that there is a subsidiary that is a subsidiary of sure's is that is owning the five is where they are after all is going to be now so they're not involved their role is not in as an owner of the company so it is not going to be driven by desire to sell ok so now let me ask my question differently we know in ten years this city of burlington or the resident of burlington will gain three millions from these companies because they invest in every single year three hundred thousand dollars you multiplied by ten years it's i believe three millions or thirty millions was good enough you know so now let's say in five years they decide to sell it in five years right then the community will lose the three millions or the thirty million they will definitely lose it or can we have any basically if they decide if the us they say that you know they will never ever sell it why don't we even just have a ten year because me what i'm really interested about to make sure that we will receive those the three hundred thousand investment like for ten years well i think any buyer would take subject to that provision and i don't think they could without i mean this contract is still in place that covenant still goes on so what would prevent them from putting a timeframe s that we will they will not be selling this what would cancer i'm afraid that you know this your proposal which is an excellent idea i think many women would would applaud it would like to see it but the we asked for this and with this it it with the attorneys are telling us is that we were they did not agree to it so that's kind of where it stands the state of the floor thank you i would just like i mean on at our meeting on november twenty seventh mr nisar very clearly said there's no second sale so the whole kind of nature of the deal is completely different than what was proposed by the arab partners stand alone riff ok section eight point one five on net neutrality we as a council have the benefit of seeing how this section for the iterated to where it ended i know the answer the question what could you go through for others and how we got to th final set of language and the strength that you will see in so we started with some general language that we had written concerning net neutrality and checked with the burlington telecom folks on the language on it and some questions were raised by the council that you would receive from members of the public and the recommendation was that we talked to some national experts and net neutrality to make sure that we got language that would be protective and two of those  national experts happened to be members of a law firm in d c that we already were doing some business with so we sent them the question and said would you look at our language and what would you add to it they did add some things  including the definition of paid prioritization to our definition and recommended that which is in the definition section and and and then suggested that are they felt our language was strong enough so we did look at what we needed to do and all of this was happening at the same time that the f c c was acting so the issue was very much on people's mind as to what it should look like we also of course did some searches of national language ourselves just to make sure that we weren't missing something they also added definition specific definitions for end users and edge providers broadbent and broadband internet access services and paid prayer it is asian all of the terms that are used in that paragraph are defined terms that then have definitions in the front part of the agreement to help bolster what those terms mean we had we had sort of use them in a and a lowercase sense some of those terms and they suggested that we defined them more specifically and so that was one of the big improvements we felt the other thing we explored was in forstmann as to how one can enforce net neutrality our understanding from that exploration was that it's very difficult to to do the in terms of technicality how to enforce net neutrality and generally we were looking at specific performance as a way meaning that if the city learns of through anybody making a complaint that we would move forward with trying to explore what happened and why and what was going on in addition i think if we become a minority owner in the entity we w thank you and section eight point zero six first i have kind of a substantive question which is language was added to this to include together and with partners does that substantively change anything does it in any way obligate to participate i assume the answer is no because there is the  next freeze on as to be determined basis follows that's right we added some of the language with respect to z or just two because that is the area that they were expecting c r have to have a participatory interest in helping facilitate but the as determined basis is because it wasn't yet clear what that how that was going to be decided and we why don't we like to open up the public form at this time and we at seven thirty time certain so i'd like to set the clock for three minutes the first because david lansky will be followed by dean cor n i'm a member of the board of k b two you know and tonight i'm speaking as an individual resident yes in voter in burlington i'm not speaking for the board  we live in times of phenomenal disparity of wealth and income the last time this disparity was this extreme was shortly before the french revolution these are not sustainable disparities my personal involvement in k b t o was partly out of an effort to address these disparities in that we have something in burlington that's really quite unique and very wonderful in having a publicly owned power company and a publicly owned telecommunications company and the choices this council and administration has made serves bluewater holdings serves dorman foss it serves citibank but i don't think it serves our community well it actually serves to increase disparity of wealth and income rather than reduce it and i'm very disappointed in this outcome and i hope that you will consider postponing this decision so that there's an opportunity to make a better decision thank you thank you a second speaker is dean coren and he'll be  thank you i'm here one last time out of all these many times to once again ask you not to do this what you appear to be poised to do as far as selling a really giving away sixty million local communications utility that has thrived because the public here loves it even under the worst circumstances can you imagine any corporation surviving under what and i have been just stunned that the lack of it herons to the process that the council the destruction of a neighborhood we can have a plaque on lower church street that we used to have community forget public a community telecommunications service and i was trying to imagine i couldn't understand why it matters so much and i found out the reason today i went to a funeral today of a great pearling tony and a great artist and realized that the feelings are somewhat the same here we're talking about a magnificent person but in the case of briley can tell a car we're talking about a community member and that's what you're giving away at our business depends on it our future economics depended on our creativity is so intertwined with it and you're giving it away and there's no reason to so after this council then there will be the p u c and we'll see if the p u c can detect any shred of public interest in what you're about to do thank you very you very much so they overby and then i know you've heard from me many times before but i and i do realize that i feel a little bit like your train is going down the track at eighty miles an hour and i'm standing in the middle of the track also trying to you know remind you of what you're doing and i've you know i think i commend the attorneys that are working on this for trying to improve a situation with documents that are really difficult to to do and and i've asked many times about the documents that you guys are always being rushed to read and try to understand and these deadlines that are set in fact the arbitrary deadline of what's december thirty first is is not really a deadline it happens to be you know that that the city will get less money if we don't have this process concluded this year it would it goes to a lesser amount thirty five percent instead of fifty but so that i have been really concerned about how this council has not stood up and said we need more time to understand these documents you you have received something like an eighty page document that's the agreement it's refers throughout it to disclosure schedules that to this day don't exist and i asked for and asked for them to be published and and counselor bush or asked well what about the operating agreements and it's really it's really unconscionable that you as a as a as a city council are asked to make decisions in these ways i feel for you frankly but but it's not it's and you shouldn't be put in that position but when you are put in that position you should say no this is not right this is not the public process and i was i was very interested to notice that you were presented with the public works commission's public engagement plan it's actually recently they just their public engagement plan and one of the things that i realized is that they have levels of engagement that relate from informing people to empowering people and what seems to happen is we all feel like we're sort of trying to these are important decisions and they make a decision and public works if they're just going to form people like put it on the the web site and ok now you know about it but we don't doesn't really matter you don't really want your interest in your opinion or do we really need you to collaborate and this is such a serious thing and again i really second what what do you korin said i am heartbroken about what your doing i have such a commitment to this this city and this is is disturbing and heartbreaking to me that you have let this go to this point we have no public process and and i appreciate your policy counsel however it's not just that it goes back to before the mayor was the mayor in two thousand and twelve this again this process has been going to privatized and i'm and i really really feel like you should postpone this decision as well so that you can read the documents without saying well there you're going to get him eventually just sign on the dotted line just trust us and i do know that the attorneys are trying to do a good job but that's just not that is just not proper representation and governing thank you go to frances and then charlotte between you know the thing enthusiastic getting a push taking and i do not think that it is sense a good message to for people looking to invest in our city when city councillors themselves are saying or throwing up their arms and not showing good confidence in the city council as well as the decisions made by this council so i think you know saying it's that strong message tonight that sure is the right choice for the taxpayer is the right choice for telecom subscribers and the right choice for businesses in burlington would be you know very beneficial and could mitigate some of the losses that people have you know that that kind of confidence loss that has occurred over the last several months thanks thank you charlotte dennett well once again i'm here as a journalist and a person who every sunday morning watches the show call reliable sources on c n n and levon and if you tune into that you will hear journalists expressing their very deep concern about what is happening in the media under the trumpet ministration the last time i watched it the concern by brian stelter was that we are getting basically state propaganda through trump's favorite television fox t v which is owned by rupert murdoch well known as very conservative i have tried to do everything i can to warn you that this isn't just trump this is going on all over the country buying up local stations and i have reported to you that that  assures communication shares a lobbyist with rupert murdoch and with fox t v and news corps this is who you are bringing to burlington a place where the citizens want  cooperate if they don't want a fox t v now maybe my concerns are not justified i would certainly ask you to start watching this program on c n n and now just to ask you a question will the programming change i understand that with burlington telecom it was very receptive to citizen concern about programming so i am wondering with this new ownership will programs like democracy now get a hearing or will we see those wonderful programs on free speech t v and link t v i wish you would ask the owner i would certainly like  guarantee that those shows are going to continue thank you thank you and their close the public forum at seven forty five and when we come back we're on now item three there is no consent agenda three point one zero one is a resolution authorization to sign acid purchase agreement for sale of burlington telecom council right thing president i would like to process i ran and just to start out saying that i i ran into when i was out christmas shopping the other day a car pulled up and i thought they're about to run over me but they actually were stopping me  and wanted to thank the city council it was a bt employee and i don't want to she felt like she was speaking for all employees but obviously no one speaks for everybody but she said that the employees have really come around to thinking this is a good company that is going to provide leadership and what they need to move the company forward we know that broad to telecom has as ben mentioned has turned into a success story from where it came a few years ago and that's remarkable and we're certainly happy about that and again we as we've all said we applaud the broader telecom employees and their leadership team now in moving us to a point where this has turned into a valuable asset from where was a few years ago i think that the proposal now in front of us for the many residents who contacted me and said they wanted it to stay bt i think this is as close as we going to get to a staying what bt is now i think many of us would love to have gone with a local bed it just was not a bed that worked out financially and it was is just was not a bid that wears was going to work unfortunately but for the people who like the service that they get now i think that they're going to continue to see that really good service the good customer service the programming that they like i think that they're going to continue to see this one of the things i like about this agreement is that sures is big on local autonomy that they will continue to see bt as it is now as b but it will have much more capital behind it i think sure is the probably the most the best capitalized company the company with the most experience in fiber to home build out i think the fact that they are going to be owning a company in minnesota is going to be broadcasting is going to be a tremendous advantage to us as well we're going to be able to learn the best practices of that company a company tha been through all the ups and downs in the bumps etc that we are going to go through we're going to have to learn from them now i think that's a great advantage as well we have seen in this agreement that they are going to invest heavily in the community  and that we are going to have in terms of affordability there's a five year freeze on broadband prices so i think the commitment to affordability the commitment to local autonomy the connection to hi and a number of other things i think is going to is going to provide this with a good company that's going to make burlington telecom continue to operate at the local company that we want to and i think citizens are going to be very happy with this going forward so i'm happy to move this and i hope that we are able to get unanimous support for this to make the right floors open cancer hard thank you tonight we heard a lot of talk about when really where this company was and where started in fortunately that's the reason why we're here tonight right we don't own this you make it sound like like where the city council that we own this company and that we're selling it on you i don't think anybody you want to be here tonight in this position nobody wanted to sell brought in telecom i certainly didn't want to sell it we don't have a choice could we really have and i know that's frustrating but this council has worked hard we've struggled there's been a lot of conflicts there's been arguments but the reason wh happens is because we wanted to do what's best for this is wrong and we worked hard with the board with bt and if it wasn't for fourteen percent interest on on fourteen million dollars maybe we could have got that maybe their finances were a little better we weren't looking for twenty five million dollars from bt keep a local group we're looking maybe for a little bit more money a little better financing i think we gave them every opportunity to come to the table not everybody but most people on the veto of committee looked at each other after they presented and they said ok someone's going to have to beat these guys these guys are really committed to the values him growing to and it's not local ownership but it's local control and i think we've got that mixed up when we talk about the some of the criteria this ensures gives us the best opportunity for local control it is going to be run locally right here and so that was huge and if you look at shores and what they've done over just the last four or five weeks everything they promised as they kept to their word this is a company that wants a partnership and growing to there is no question about that and so i look forward with working with sure i think it's going to be very successful here in the city of growing to do i wish that we had owned it ourselves shore i wish you know years ago when we started this company that it would have been different absolutely i do but make no mistake about it it's no fall of anybody around this table tonight that we're selling this and i think we have short memories when it comes to that and so we're it's easy for  us to take the hit here right this awful thing that we're doing and there in the reality is we have no choice this company was going to be sold either by us or by blue water and i think this council has done just to remember some out of work and putting this together and finding the best partner for the city of rome to thank you thank you cancer is open  thank you so i will be supporting this resolution tonight but i came here with a heavy heart and and  i've said what many other councillors have said before i was at this table when he started i was here was tim melty the visionary i was here when we invested and reinvested in laying fiber i was here hearing that the investment was going to continue but then we were going to turn the corner i was here when good people that are now being blamed for making poor choices but they were good people made choices because they thought that this and this would turn the corner that once we laid the fiber and we got more people involved then we would be become profitable that took far longer than anyone anticipated and we were saddled with some pretty pretty difficult criteria imposed upon us by the public utility commission they played a role in the restrictions that were put on us so that's the history fast forward to where we are today we ended up with not being able to make payments on a very significant and we then had to go about a process of we needed to find somebody to help us out we were going to lose the entity to citibank they were going to they were threatening to come and rip out the fi probably not but they were going to take possession of it and so we found bluewater who helped us in the interim with the understanding that these were the criteria we went into it with our eyes open and hoped that we would find a solution that works for everybody i heard the gasp on november twenty seventh from some of you that were here when i voted for sure as as opposed to keep the two local was like a knife through me because i felt i was i would stand by the action i took but i knew how so many people are in this room and watching felt betrayed or or deflated by the action i took but i like others around the table tried to do w right tried to keep the entity alive and to and try to select the best buyer the process i think was not a bad one i think it certainly was good now we had some rocky times i totally agree that the end was not our finest hour but i think we're here now saying we've committed to selling this entity and to try to figure out you've heard the comments tonight to try to figure out how we can maximize our investment in the entity how we can maximize the number of people potentially we have on the board how we can control as much as we can and reap the benefits from the success the financial success but also the success of how we reinvest in our community and how this entity continues to make us the vibrant and creative entity that we are burlington has so many smart people we want them to keep coming we want them to feel supported by the government and and will the programming change and i think that there are some things in this agreement that talk about a local board that will be making some of those decisions and so i would look to both of i lean and ralphie and potentially who would have be able to put their finger on it better than i could in this agreement where is there anything that suggests that the will still be definitely those programs that are about democracy and free speech and all of the other things that people value so much i know we talked about it when we were talking with the various buyers but i just wanted to know if it was stated anywhere or referenced anywhere will section eight point eleven provides that the buyer will continue to offer and support programs to provide internet access i don't know of that's necessarily talking about programming and section eight point thirteen provides  the same services will be offered and including more advanced products and services and i'm not sure if that's referring to programming the list of program channels is attached to the agreement but i guess i'm not entirely sure what you mean by programming so so the list of programming channels is attached to the agreement is that what you just said i didn't i didn't hear exactly what you just said it is attached as the exit is the existing programs yeah right but they're going to they're going to be able to change that programming i don't this is a first i don't believe it has been raised with us to try to to deal with and or asked for us to put anything in here print prior to the night about programming and my guess is that they would have some difficulty doing it there's just been all this publicity recently about the various channels that are no longer offering this program or that program because of all the sexual harassment claims that have that have taken things offline so i would bet that if we had asked they would not be able to say we will keep the same programming because that's not something that they can really control number one and number two the pricing changes on it in and on programming and we we have multiple agreements that the deal with programming so it i think it would be really hard to have included anything in here about guaranteeing that the same programs would still be available i guess thank you thank you i guess i'm i'm hearing that the same type of programming also i mean so i mean i think that there's a concern that the programming could become more conservative and i'm hearing that so certainly if we get to the operating agreement i'm looking for some very much supporting the community and so to me the community what the community wants as far as programming should be a very big component of how they do business  so i mean it seems to me the communities are going to determine what the community wants and what they're going to support the provider providing they're going to stop subscribing if they can't get the channels they want to get aren't they isn't that what i would set up i mean that's my sense is a very hard thing i think to put in a legal agreement given that programming changes all the time isn't controlled by either bt or by the city thank you  so i hear the answer i'm not sure that many of you are have some concern me too but that means that i will work harder to make sure that if as we move forward that there is a real understanding about that so once again i feel like i've come to this threshold over and over again but once again i'm going to end my conversation with really thinking of the people who have have poured out their honest feelings and and have given us some guidance and tried to help us get the best that we can in the agreement even though you are not satisfied with the choice thank you thank you cancer cancer more i just want to add one one other thought along the lines of what you're talking about is that the public access channels the pig channels are are built into the city's c p g and we have an eleven year agreement that requires them to be in there they're also required by the public utility commission to be carried so some of the programs that were being mentioned would be programs that are carried over those channels there so there is some guarantee in terms of that kind of programming thank you like for example democracy now would come under that category i have way too much going through my head in order to really articulate my thoughts adequately so all i really want to say is that the reason i won't vote to postpone tonight is because i don't see anything that  i don't see another option that the council will support i don't see another option that that the council will support and that i would prefer and considering that  getting the most money back for the city is is important to me if i saw another very realistic viol option that i believe the city would work hard with that i preferred then i and in the public this is not seen as a celebratory moment but i think we have to sort of go back and look at where we were and then look at where we are now i was on the council with a number of my colleagues when we were literally months away from trial in federal district court you know facing a thirty million dollar claim for breach of contract fraud and a legitimate very legitimate claim for taking the assets back from citibank somehow you know we were able to sort of extract ourselves out of that situation which would not have produced a positive result for bt or its customers to buy us enough time to get to where we are today as council harness said you know for someone who didn't only asset ever i think you have to look at all the benefits that flow to the city out of this agreement in assessing you know whether we should be celebrating it's a thirty point eight million dollar deal with a potential ear taking that higher section eight which we've talked about provides a number of protections that the public has been asking for including you know retaining every employee at their existing salary and competitive or at least other benefits maintaining local control us as our local control as counsel harden was alluding to potentially to board seats  potentially two board seats a commitment to between six point two and eight point eight million dollars in capital projects as well as a commitment to complete the build out in the city of burlington a commit community commitment of two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year for ten years either to a night fund or some other community economic development project fifty million for ten years to the local high school and tack development without potentially continuing beyond ten years lifeline commitment and support a limited resale restriction again that was very important to to ensure that we weren't stuck with just comcast we were able as the non owner of this asset to negotiate that they can sell to someone that will on more than a seventy five percent market share or write the purchase the city will have the right if ever sells this to buy it back and that right we went even beyond that  right is assignable to another local investor that was key you know as going through this process we've heard that time and time again you know we don't want it to be sold again the city has the right to roll over you know it s proceeds from this to potentially a twenty million or twenty percent interest that's a conversation that we as a council are going to be undertaking you know within the next month or sixty days this also includes a continuation of more an issue that's come to light recently in light of the action a continuation of the privacy protections as well as a commitment to net neutrality it also includes a price guarantee on broadband for the next five years and then any increase beyond that over the next two years has to go through the board on which we potentially will be sitting and finally a commitment to maintaining the burlington telecom again looking back you sort of would think wow look how far we came that's not a bad result from a body in an institution that was about to lose that asset the city capital i respect that we have gone through a very tortured and difficult process to get here and there are many people who are feeling on satisfied but i do think we sort of have to take the long view and recognize this for the success that it is and not a failure thank you thank you council mason and  in telecom you know the i think i just want to echo what a couple of people have said about the settlement with citibank you know it's easy to look back now and and think that perhaps there are things that we could have done differently but the settlement with citibank more so than probably anything that i've been through in my years on the council on that really  shirts with brian lynch and with dan pecorino those employees that i've spoken with have said that they the meeting went extremely well and again they are excited to move forward on the other thing i did want to mention is that over the last two weeks i've spoken with a majority of the board members of k b t l and you know i'm really happy to say that the conversations that i have had with those gordon numbers have i would describe as respectful so i sold an understanding people who care deeply about burlington telecon and truly want to move forward you know are they disappointed of course or is the point that they put in a tremendous amount of personal time personal energy into cave e t l and of course there's a certain level of disappointment but i truly i do truly believe that their desire to see not only can telecom survive is greater than the disappointment and i think we can all move forward together on this i'm hoping that we can the celebre torne moment but in some ways it really should be because we are moving forward and we are in a better place a much better place than we were even just a couple of years ago so again thank you cancer shannon thank you president no dell having been here since what i would call the beginning to people to find that differently i want to talk a little bit about how how we got to this point and i know a lot of members of the public are not always clear about how we got here but back in two thousand and nine two thousand and ten we found ourselves in a position where we had borrowed thirty three million dollars that we could not repay and we had taken seventeen million dollars of taxpayer money towards bt and the council was faced with a very difficult decision whether or not to move forward with a sixty million dollar offer for financing which would've covered the fifty million dollars the thirty three in the seventeen would have required us to borrow an additional ten million which we would not have been able to use so we would've borrowed sixty sixty million dollars to cover a fifty million dollars debt and had no money to pay for continued capital improvement at that time we were accused of being political when we voted no on that financing and we voted no on on allocating the funds to pay the thirty three million dollars debt because we did not have the money but i think it was one of this council's finest moments where we came together across party lines and we really did what was in the best interests of the city and the public wasn't completely with us the public was quite divided at that time between those who believed that that at any cost we should continue forward but i think that time has proven us right our asset today is worth in the in the range of thirty million dollars and to refinance it for sixty when at that time it was even worth less than it is today would have been had even more devastating effects on city finances down the road and we did the hard work of figuring out a path forward which is miraculous for a body like ours to be able to figure that out with really great leadership to take us there and i was proud to be on the camp council at that time after we defaulted on th loan we struggled for many many years trying to reach settlement with citibank and prior to that default we had been told if it if citibank foreclose on us it would be no problem the keys would be passed to somebody else and they would continue to operate our fiber business and all would be good but that is not what happened citibank was not willing to pass the keys to somebody else they wanted to pull the fire out of the ground and they wanted to cause the city of brawling to in as much pain as possible and being under the thumb of that litigation for years was having devastating effects on city finances the settlement agreement that we got was nothing short of of amazing we defaulted on a loan that's like you know you you know the bank for your mortgage and you default and the agreement that we got with citibank was that we got to control the sale that's that's like you know on your house saying well i can't pay my mortgage but i would like to decide who's going to buy the house and i also don't want to have to choose the highest bidder and getting a bank to agree to that and that's  administration did in the settlement agreement this settlement agreement that we got some some can say you know wasn't good enough because the city didn't end up able to only asset that we never paid anything for but in fact we the privilege of choosing the buyer was you know it really makes a huge difference in this community to have that privilege and i think that we had created a good process for how we were going to select that brought fire we work together and the burlington burlington telecom advisory board how many public hearings got a lot of public input on how we were going to go about that and i think that we worked well together through that point but unfortunately come september october things did seem to become political and i know it has been described as such by those at this table the votes the votes were were being made were political many have pointed out the benefits that sures brings to the table  and it's true there are there are benefits and i wish that those who supported schurz could have brought them to the table back in october when we were supposed to be voting on this in september and we postpone till october and having done that a couple things would have happened we would have had a bidding war in our if we were concerned about getting the most money back that would have been how to do it we would have had the light of day shined on this company not just another company that we move forward but have the light of day to shine on both of them have the opportunity for the public to bring forward you know whatever they want to bring forward for us to then follow up and find out what is really behind all of this but we didn't have that opportunity the way this came forward and i think that that is that is quite a loss many people have said tonight that they wish we had more time more time to develop more documents more time to make a better decision but after the behavior i've seen for the laughs five months i see no opportunity to make a better decision or to come up with a different outcome with more time or to listen better to the public what we decided on at the end of november was  getting the most money back and it was not the most progressive or innovative company but we chose a company that got us out of the that will get us out of the litigation that we're currently in and for me that is critically important from the time that we moved this offer forward to now i want to thank the city attorneys and ralph you know rourke for your work to make this so much better than what was originally offered and i'd also like to to thank schurz because sure's willingly worked with us we had little to no leverage in this situation yet they did work to us work with us to get benefits for this community that i think are going to be meaningful and this is much improved from what we had originally moved forward and specifically some of the things that that were there are going to lead me to vote yes for this one i voted voted no on on moving  forward there is much improvement in the community investment piece of this contract where it will continue for a longer period of time and there's a commitment to try and it will now continue for ten  years and hopefully longer longer than that and that was really strengthened in this contract the right of first refusal which was in the original offer that we move forward has become the right to repurchase and it is much strengthened and has now become something that we could actually use i don't think the original right of first refusal was even to be something that burlington could have taken advantage of but what we have now really is meaningful and should they choose to sell i think that we will again have some options and i'm very grateful for your work on that  there's also we were really you were able to negotiate for an opportunity for increased board membership if we increase the percentage of participation from the city i don't know if will do that but i do think the representation for that investment will be important and what has been this community has been very vocal about the importance of net neutrality and  dissatisfaction with this choice because of our values for net neutrality but what has gone into the contract with input from from experts on neutrality i think is really going to help us protect that here in burlington so as i've debated whether i should vote yes or vote no i always try to consider what is in the best interest of the city of burlington because ultimately that's that's what we're here for and that's what's most important while this is not my not my first choice and i'm quite unhappy with how we got here i do think that our best option tonight that a no vote is is not going to be in the best interest of burlington because the practical matter is that a no vote means that we don't this fire deadline which i would not describe as arbitrary the deadline of the end of the year is the difference between you know a very large sum of money that we would lose and getting nothing in because there's nothing better to come from a no vote and i appreciate the work that's been done to make vast improvements to this it will get us out of the litigation that we have been in since two thousand died and that allows a city to move forward and that is to be celebrated it's a huge relief to get this cloud that's been hanging over us for a long time to get that cleared up too for the city to be able to advance financially because the many progressive and social values that the city has we can only do it if we have a financially stable situation for the city so other opportunities open up once we move forward with this and i would like to thank the attorneys and the administration for your work to get it to this point i think i have councilor trac then i have the mayor and then counselor jang councilor tracy you have the floor thank you for them about can you hear me yes thank you very much so attorneys for all of their work as well as missile roark for her work on this i do not feel the deal is in the long term best interest of the city and i do not feel that the public has been well enough incorporated in this final element of this bill profit after having suffered themselves through as well as through many twists and turns of this process and ultimately leading us to a man that i don't think anyone would have thought of them in the nevertheless i was unable to comment on that money able to join in and review in any thorough way so i really can i can't support this deal in good conscience tonight i think it will be a long term thing in a worse position than had we gone with a local option and i just really heartbroken for the loss of local control but this deal represents thank you thank you coun statement from my perspective tonight's vote tonight action represents the last major city council step on a long path of resolving one of the worst financial crises in our city's history and the positive and forward looking manner i believe that the agreement before us and i will approved and implemented sure the burlington remains the engine remains part of just forty two percent of the country where local residents have broadband choice turn millions of dollars of lost funds to taxpayers and will protect a range of important community values including net neutrality the trial of the and strong privacy policies and much more as others have already helped nate and i won't repeat i appreciate the strong partnership that city council through six years of work together to get to tonight and i again thank the brighton telecom employees for persevered throughout the years under some very difficult conditions including in and i look forward to working with sures on the final steps in the months ahead towards completing this agreement thank you personally thank you very much mayor i have cancer jang next thank you president so i would like to thank the members of this council for a very hard process i mean but we all been true but this is a special thank you  how important it ees for you to really always hope put the best because there is this it's a funny thing in life about life if you don't seem to accept anything but the best you very often get it today i read an article from the mayor of new work new work and basically he's working hard and striving we see his community to have and operated and own telecommunication system in here in burlington we were given a choice so many choices and in those choices their ground and each one of them had their own reason why but i felt like in one point that i was people played with me they played so much of politico with me i mean people did not really stay believe in think that they were boarding for in the past they had an agenda they had something that they want to get to but they can use you use an entity to be able to get there that i would never forget i will not forget that because the way it played out we cannot run the c based on fear yes i wasn't here in two thousand and nine maybe i was learning english back that i was not here in two thousand i was not here but when i came in here it was very clear what i want to do is to represent the people of burlington east to find their best interest and fight for it and i think that's exactly what i did and that i would be keep on doing when we move forward now this deal that we have in front of us i don't exactly know how we will vote you only have a yes or no or you can drink as yourself i don't know yet but i know that we cannot have too many agreements too many agreements we have a push just agreement operation agreement all of those agreements to me should have be just in one simple document and we also have the time to vet it to look at it i mean in four of us and we also have a timeline based on what i see in front of me here i mean it didn't give me anything that to say ali you have done your job make the vote and move on because i want the best i was elected to be here and also make the best decision i don't want to go in the community and look at my people in turn around i will not be true to the people that i represent i will not be true to the people of burlington and i think we all seen it through the process here we heard so many stories people who lived in japan came here told us their st people moved here because of the fiber network that we have people tell us so many stories about their experiences with or the entities so many  not choose to say no the council did say yes or no because of the fear that was behind them i'm not here because i'm fearful i did ask to take the deal with because it was an option we still we still in making sure we would have a strong say but now we are talking about ok a board member we'll have one you may have this company can be sold any time because in this agreement we did not ask for it or even if we asked we didn't ask hard enough right before any or the argument my vote today tonight would just simply be no because i see bullington and i see us being able to build a sustainable community and it starts with taking our own into our own hands thank you see no other council on first round i've got cancer right on second man thank you president just a few additional points as i said i think that we are we're picking the company that is the most capitalized  experienced in addition the most likely to be long term term owners of this and i think that also there's i said we've talked about the company that's most likely to keep bt bt but i want to talk just a little bit about the question of whether there's political motivations by councillors it wasn't one city council or they had the best interests of the city at heart it wasn't two city councillors and  wasn't three city councillors it was every city council or the best interest of the city hard i will never challenge the motivation of any city councillor out here i respect every single one of my colleagues and i would never challenge the motivation i may disagree with city councillors on here but i am absolutely confident that every city councillor i certainly know that i did all throughout this process we all worked in the best way possible to get the best result that we believed and i voted for change at certain times they were my first choice if i had one i would have been here trying to work as hard to make this agreement work the best way possible for the citizen brought in with tang if i had won the same thing no i think they presented some challenges that i was not able to support we can look at this a number of different ways  believe frankly that had sure's been put forth when i was the only counselor that was willing to put them forth i think that we would have actually had a significantly higher valuation if the majority the council had push or so forth initially i don't think we would have ended up with the very same bid that they had initially thing came up with a higher bid because they were they were presented by a majority of the council or at least half the city council expressed a concern to some councillors that that was going to be a problem and in fact that sure has come forth at the very beginning i think we would have avoided much of what we went through here to begin with again i want to make clear that the employees that i've talked to with bt including the ploy that i talked to christmas shopping was a thing supporter who actually came around to thinking and i said that to her when i talked i said you were hurting i remember you in the in the meeting that day she said i was but i think that in the end this was a better proposal so i i have heard that from a number of bt employees and i think that the public actually is coming around to that this is a really good proposal i absolutely respect that there are people who like to thing better i disagree with that but i certainly will not challenge their motivations i will never do that i have more respect for my colleagues and that so to the public i think that i understand the concerns that i've heard expressed and we while the last meeting was a difficult meeting kauser no del myself others on this council worked to open this process up in september and i've said this time and again when we open that process of democracy is messy it is a messy process and the public got to see the messy process warts and all all the way through the end and in the end we had a difficult choice to make which was to move forward late at night as it was but we all knew it was likely to be a late night but that we needed to either move forward or get buried with the notion on the public that we were not able to work competent to do this job and get it done  a timely basis i think we made the right choice that night so i guess my last point is in regard to the fear by some that there that there might be more conservative programming as a republican i gotta tell you i'm not worried about that at all and i'm not and i'm not a trump republican by any means but i have to tell you most republicans would be very astonished to hear that people are concerned that we're going to turn into a lot of every one of them would be very surprised to hear that we're so concerned about that i'm not concerned about it at all i think that we we should not want there to be one point of view coming out of the media we should not be concerned that there's going to be any  conservative point of view we should welcome all points of view and i think that's what we will do and we'll continue to do thank you thank you counselor cancer thanks i'll be brief i do want to just mention the mayor and i want to think and this was not an easy process for him as you know his choice did not get put forward selected but once we made that decision and we moved on he made a commitment to us as a council that he would work hard to get shores across the finish line and work well with todd and the shores communication group and that's not easy to do when you're winning when it wasn't your choice and so i give him a lot of credit i think it shows great leadership i know it was difficult for me personally it was difficult you know not being with the mayor i've supported the mayor you know a lot of  issues here in the city and i worked well with them but this one we didn't see eye to eye on and it takes a a person with strong leadership and vision to understand that you know what that wasn't my night shores was selected and i'm going to do what's best for the taxpayers  bronson and i'm going to move this thing forward and he has worked well with shores and that's why we're here really and we're not facing that penalty of delay because it's certainly given the time that we did this and we could have  been deep trouble with that delay and i think tonight with counselor no dels leadership and working with the mayor getting things here it's nigh on a whole day week which is tough to do just shows us i think that should say to the taxpayers that we are looking  in your best interest and we do care about this and we did take this very seriously and so i would like to thank counts for no doubt and the mayor for their leadership thanks thank you can't so you know others are just making very briefly statement and then we will go to roll call vote i will be supporting this i think we ended up in a in a very good place after a very long and difficult process but instead of looking back i just want to look forward and just say as we after tonight i think that we'll have this an important decision to make about whether the city wants to reinvest and how much and and and i personally think that there are a lot of reasons why we should have a continued an ownership interest in the voice that it will bring to us i really think that this that this sure is with the partnership represents a real opportunity to create an inclusive local tech economy we have lots of cities in america where they have developed their tech sectors and it in a way that have exacerbated inequalities we want to do it differently here and i think that that  if as a minority partner will be an entity that we will be able to work with towards that goal which i think is is as essential to our future as a city so let's go to the roll call attorneys who have been really working so hard and whose work is not on but i hope with feel some element of gratification i think the attorneys will certainly be celebrating tonight