there's a revised version of the voting process the first order of business is the agenda counts the roof yes thank you i'd like to make a motion to amend and adopt the agenda as follows add to the consent agenda item four point one two communication from soledad over b regarding the sale of broughton telecom neutrality data privacy monica horton book the closing of the net with the motion to waive the reading and set the communication and place it on file out of the consent agenda item four point one three communication solveig or be we're getting off the ship of the city of burlington vermont councillor shannon and paul per flow this agenda item will be considered before the public forum know the revised version of the agenda item five point zero nine resolution city council voting process motion the right thank you and the discussion seen on favor of adopting our agenda as amended please say i any opposed very good sewer into our second item which is a work session to answer councillors questions on the the new bt bids and we will have a public forum time certain at seven thirty as is our normal practice but will have about an hour and twenty minutes or so to take up councillors questions on the bids that are before us at this time i understand that that mr dorman is available by phone as needed and mr here today to answer questions so my idea was we might spend some time on each bid and then if there is left over time we can just take any question on any bid does that sound like an acceptable way to proceed so why don't we  who would like to kick off any questions counsel right seventeen so could you whoever can get whoever is most appropriate to answer this talk a little bit about the merge proposal explain it to us what todd your role for the question i'll start and then i will turn it over to the others i was that good and thank you for having us here we are we we appreciate that as some of you know when our companies were invited back into this process we really thought about what would be the right way to do that and since you would encourage others to possibly to a joint venture for the first time gary evans called me and gary's the former c e o of hiawatha called me and said i think you and fossil would like each other and would be worth meeting so we met for the first time a week ago tuesday after the last city council meeting and said  there might be an interesting way where we take the best of our two offers address some of the issues that this group is raising and others have raised and see if we can bring the best of  both specifically and i'm going to let him address the rest of that but specifically about highwater our company since we began this process with burlington and have announced that we are in the process of acquiring hiawatha i expect that will close it year and so we do not own hiawatha today so i don't want to i don't want to leave an impression we have an agreement and we're proceeding and i fully expect that to happen and at the end of the year our intent would be that there would be active sharing and collaboration between those two entities because we think there's a lot that each can learn from and benefit from each other so that's certainly our that's our clear inten of all thanks a lot everyone for giving us the opportunity and inviting us back to the process so we we we appreciate that i think todd coded well that that when we were both out of the process we were both getting comments about our respective proposals they were things which were we understand people liked about our proposal people us which we received directly and indirectly and i would say the same is true about shores so our idea was how can be combined the two where we can bring the best of both what i say a more optionality for the city with on one end that you have the option to be able to create more options today and in the future we thought that it would open more doors and that's why we combined our solutions and as far as h b c is concerned the first time when we met the discussion shores became part of our vision and that is how the tech development community development and how what i say the two plans work very well together so we're going to work with h b c with shores and we have an agreement that we're going to but we will not dictate it we will let the management teams of both companies sit in a room and say how can we work together how can we learn from each other and that's our intention because at the investor level we do not want to be dictating terms to the two to the management off either way we see our bt but the intent is that they're going to be collaboration in terms of technology in terms of economies of scale in terms of product and services be a lot of things which bt wants to do which each p c has done so we were very excited in the past as good because it it not only we have access to gary who is the father we have access to todd to each p c to all the resources so i would simply and thank you for allowing me to come back i find burlington kind of a second home for me in it's it's quite a nice second home i might add it has long been a dream of mine that there time also with fassel it just seemed to me that the two gentlemen would work well together and be it would give us an opportunity then to allow the synergies that i thought would be beneficial to i have cancer tracy and then cancer roof was at hand a cancer again and then mason thank you and thank you for joining us tonight one of the issues that grown in importance only you know over the course of the time that we've been discussing this has been the neutrality with the f c c set to basically roll back that provision and it's of deep concern to us that has been throughout this process even before that f c c decision came forward and it's something that i put to the team to cowes folks i believe last time they were here or i get all these media confused but anyways one of the things i think that i would just really appreciate hearing is your views on neutrality do you commit to maintaining that neutrality and if so how what this particular means will you will we have to really did very quickly in four days because we just formed our partnership so there was an mission and it was not mentioned so first of all the ethics that so we issued an ally supplement in which we have addressed that we are committed to neutrality but in addition i think our answer is we are committed are it's very clear position internet should be open privacy should be respected and all there were ways that you can think of that we could really that you're thinking of to sort of contractually bind that you know there are there there would be ways to verify that i just really what we will put that in the contract ok yes so we will as part of the equity first question will be really simple with regard to valuation some folks in the public have been curious and looking at the range of prices frankly so could you explain the offer to their offer price of twenty million dollars right i think i think the offer price of twenty five million should be look in the context of who the bias  financial investor and is vending the company on a stand alone basis if one compares that price to a strategic buy whether that is a or b a strategic by all this be what i would be say a quote unquote strategic premium what it basically the way we think about is that they have other businesses they have other resources they have other place where they can justify paying that premium as far as any financial investor is concerned we only have one sale to a financial buyer is always going to be different than a sale to a strategic buyer and the way i would explain is that if you have a if you have a piece of land somebody is going to build a home on that is going to be a very different price than somebody who's going to use it for some of the commercial purpose so in our case we don't have that are the leading criteria or is that something the most important aspect then we're not the price leaders we just never would be but our understanding was that there are elements here in your decision which are more then cash and what we try to do in our plan is and this goes back to our original discussion that what the way we see the true value of burlington telecom how burlington telecom can play a rule in the ecosystem development off burning to and we are saying we will play our little role in that bigger goal and to that it is it is the the tech innovation fund and job training program you see all the you know if we and let's just say z f insurers are putting one point seven five million dollars into that entity if we wanted to work together why can't we raise more money around that for he  includes the two hundred fifty thousand dollars annually for seven years for the p t v ignite the project plus fifty thousand dollars for the tech education ting's offer includes two hundred fifty thousand dollars annually for indefinitely longer than seven years and for similar things with some flexibility i assume you're flexible as well to develop businesses in burlington but their offer is also seven point three million dollars more than your offer so those two things seem to be kind of the same if we're not able to have a carried interest how do you make up for for that difference because the thing you mentioned is really pretty comparable i mean you pay fifty thousand more annually but they pay it for you know forever offer we will leave in i would say in better hands to decide which is better of these better so our job tonight is not to google and say why we are better than tank or our job is why we think we have a proposal which we think has has has medics to do that so if you've to go back to a key assumption here driving value out of the business we are sister nicer i don't i don't mean to interrupt you but i do know that president no dell is going to cut me off soon ok so i want to just make sure that i understand your answer is that what what's in it for burlington i understand you don't want to compare but what's in it for burlington is this two hundred fifty without the carried interest the benefit to burlington comes in the form of the two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year and you only plus the fifty thousand dollars a year for the for the tax at three hundred thousand dollars a year do you have any other elements that make your offer  you know compelling or differentiated from the others to benefit the city for us it's not about the money we can put in for us it is about let's just say we put one point seven five in over seven years why can't we raise more money around it and why can't that not be why can google businesses not jump in why can't we not see that you know there's a lot of start ups and this part has integrated off our plan so you have the best universities ok i think i think i understand you're trying to you know build on what that two hundred fifty thousand every where you can see just so let me ask also follow up on another question that was asked how long is the right of first refusal we started this conversation when we were able to meet previously you referenced tonight that commercially reasonable would be a requirement in conversations with terry dorman he indicated that a commercially reasonable right of first refusal might be thirty to sixty days is that your assessment of a commercially reasonable rate of first three fusil under normal circumstances in business partners it's thirty days given where the city is we have accommodated city and cities processes to make it longer and we will be open minded to make it longer but can we you know make it to a point where it is hurting the business in vitro you will actually be you know extending a right of first refusal i've not thought about it completely so maybe i just need to talk to you todd but i think we would need to understand how long you need would need to understand how what is the fastest you can act on if you need to if you plan to but i think we need to know how long you can give us because as you've seen through this process will take all the time we can get we can more right so we really need to hear from you what are the upper limits even if it's a range of what is what would be a reasonable commercially reasonable right of first refusal could see ourself going up to ninety days anything on top of that we would have to have a longer discussion ok thank you very much i still have  house i'll tell you in a year if i want to sell it to you or not if that's what it is all visit get the people who are not serious bidders so i think do you know given again we're trying to respond to your needs so we will go more than two times three times what commercially reasonable is what i completely agree a right of first refusal can kill any deal thank you i have and then bush or and then if there's any questions for other bidders people should bring them for cancer thank you president and i have two questions the first one we it sounds like you've been following  you know joint proposal that did not work and i was just wondering if you reach out to gay b t l or to reach out to you to find  i think it's appropriate to they will come later they will be here we just want to respect and not comment i think it's an appropriate question for them let's have them and we'll have the manager in mind it five million into the community for seven years and that's it no there is no that's it now there is not that's a yes yes is a struct i understand this is a start of a partnership the goal is to not see because the two fifty and that's what i was trying don't look at this two fifty as a two fifty toward startup and we're going to forget about it now i mean it was the seven years  no this is not that there will be you have our commitment the only thing is when you do put things on piece of paper you want to you know be careful in terms of what you drive business performance the more the business does better the more the business will you know put more money into the community that's set so the fundamental assumption of this proposal is we just think it's good business because ultimately the seven thousand people who are our customers they give us you know their vote every date if we do the right thing by them and if they see it the great things about us and if they say well i like you know i like burlington telecom you know they gave internship to my kid well i like them because they give it was a high school  and they gave him a print and ship you know i like them because they invest that's the way to drive business it's we may get a huge star now part of here we don't know there's only one way to know trite that so there is no cap this is not that it's written in stone if we have more funds and the art strategy works why can't we put do more than two fifty but why we know it don't do it for ten years we can and anybody who will buy into this this entity in five to ten years will have to be a buyer off burlington values and that said anybody you whether it is shorts a b c whoever that is no investor or financial a strategic would ever want to be if you don't if if you don't share the values so to answer your question build there is no cap it's not a number written in stone and it's not something that we are saying this is it there is no this is it this is the only thing we could show at this  so my last question i'll try to combine them and it's because earlier you did talk about and i think you made it very clear that the value of a company can go up the value of a company can go down but it sounds like they're what one point seven five million over seven years is locked that's definitely you will do it whether the company go up or down but afterwards if the company go down would you still go that's what i'm really asking would you commit in one point seven million or would it go down and now my last question would be if you are it's a successful bid oh my of this company would we still have the name to still be brilliant on telecom or we did w we're making one investment burlington telecom and people of barnett we do a good job here burlington telecom will just take care of itself so it would not be short it would not be anything else it would be burlington telecom and the thing which i like about this partnership is that let's just say five seven ten years later shorten wants to be the buy i process which will be competitive on the price which will be market determined as we all saw what it can be mind to standing and talk and correct and they have nord right to acquire the company other then we would have done five to seven year tenure diligence on them to see if we have to share the values or they don't mind standing is it will be even in that i speak for our company the way we look at it is the value this is a competitive communications market the local brand name as group goodwill or bush or thank you so i'm going to have a couple of questions and one of them is going to go back to councillor shannon was starting about about what else your offer  has in it besides if indeed we don't have an equity share in the entity so getting to that point but that's not my main question but it's one of my questions if indeed we were not allowed to take that equity share and had to take the cash would we as a community if the community if the residents still had a desire to have some portion of an equity share in the entity would we be able to exercise that and is there a limit on when we could exercise that so let's say you get you get the nod and the partnership is here and we go through the process in earnest and we get told that we cannot take the equity share we have to take the money and pay off our debt and there's no portion of that my question to you is if the city then realized that and we had some money and we did what we needed to do with that money but there was a strong desire from the community outpouring of or a cry from the residents saying we still want to have a say in this and to tea would we be able to exercise that and for how long would you be able to offer that to us i think if for industry to question write that in an event you're not allowed to take equity for a not from the sale not in that not in this process then do we have the right to buy equity into this country right the first of all let me get the we've been thinking a lot about why you would not be allowed equity and i'm not saying that that i don't know the case best so the first thing we're we've been thinking about why you would not be allowed equity and they could be t answers well equity is risky you may lose money and this business has gone through its ups and downs what if it loses again in that case would we are off would we will be willing to offer is remaining eighty percent are willing to guarantee that so i think the probability off you city retaining equity in our opinion goes up will there be other things in the thing which we don't know is short they could be things which we don't understand now the question is would we have to give the opportunity to other local investors to participate in in the company i think the answer is yes but we'll have to be careful which is that it is it will have to be there are certain laws the record which we have to we have to respect that it has to be a little bit different answer than what i was really asking but i was asking not to not to do something illegal by any means but to find another source of of of revenue potentially that if indeed there was a desire and what i really was looking for answers looking for is that would that opportunity exist for a period of time post the signage of of this partnership and if so i would like to see something there so that i'd understand what our opportunity was to as a city i'm talking as a city i'm not talking as an individual all i'm talking as the city as an entity and i'm talking about the residents as a collective if there was a collective desire from the majority of the residents for the city to exercise some way of getting equity share even though we couldn't roll over we wouldn't be able to initially get that would we have that opportunity and would that sunset at some point in time that's really my question but then i have another you may not be alone i understand that i'm there is a two part process first if indeed there is there are some suggestions that as councillor shannon said that in the process as we move forward we may not be able to actually take and and have an equity share we may have to take all the cash out and just take the cash and that's it we won't be able to reinvest any of that in an equity share that's number one scenario and if that happens so be it but then if you're there was if the community as a whole if there was another avenue that the city could go down having dealt with the cash and dealt with that money but had another avenue would we be able to exercise that and would there be a sunset when we could actually buy into the entity we are open minded towards obviously but it can't  that would but on unreasonable terms like for example it can't be that within a reasonable period of city wants to let's just invest and buy equity and the same thing as with your offering today if you invest besides the money if indeed we couldn't get the equity share i wanted to answer for you because i'm looking at what you have to offer and i guess for me there is something that wasn't articulated that i'd like you to speak to which is the experience of laying fiber to the home and running a business such as bt and so could you speak a little bit to what you have to offer in that regards i think the people on my right and left are very excited to have gary as a partner and you know very you know knowledge you have you know short as well i think gary is the best person to answer this question and gary will be on the board of directors of p t as a partner thank you i think that arguably hiawatha broadband is recognized in the country as it's certainly the first but also one of the best over builders if you will and that legacy was based on do the right thing customer service is a way of life it's a mindset and you have to have a team that is fully committed every member to providing the very best service that can be offered i'm not sure that see sold as many customers as customers so customers for us the the fact of the matter ribs that h had one it was probably hard wired and it probably didn't do a lot of things that today's computers do internet was a military device back then by nineteen ninety two those of us who were using the internet were making cold calls to a o l and chicago to get online  h b c became the first small town internet service provider in the country i think it's honor as an accolade speak for themselves and so i guess another way councilor busher of vance ring your question is to say what ever ha so the fact of the matter realize that there is an awful lot of experience sitting at this table and i think that experience has proved that it eighty knows how to run brings to this endeavor is as important if not more so than the dollars in terms of the experience the networks the people he knows he's gone through this with a number of people a number of firms and startups and that is a very valuable so skills so he won't set about himself but i will well and hitchhiking on that let me just point out that one of the things that makes burlington telecom a valuable instrument is its location usage here with lots was talking to some people all of whom wish they had burlington telecom the problem is that building willesden and building south burlington require resources and i don't know anybody better at finding them than facile so tad's right running companies laying fiber is only part of the equation finding the resources to make that happen is the major part of the poncho and that's where fashion weeks well thank you were looking at community investors who would have to be qualified equity investor and that requires a a minimum net worth doesn't it there's a list of requirements including a minimum now worth is that the kind of investor you're looking for was it something else we're not looking for investors we would well if there are people who are local investors or businessmen they just have to whatever the financial requirements are i don't it's been changing i don't exactly recall that but my sense is that the in order to make private investments there's a certain criteria you need to meet meet and so would be open minded towards it but it's a you have to obey the law as you said and there's a minimum net worth to do that correct my understanding is there is one yes ok and we also had this discussion but i want to we had this discussion when we met previously but i want other people to have the benefit of the conversation what protects us from  you want to sell your concept is to build up the value of bt and then flip it in a sale for profit presumably profit to the city of burlington as well as profit to yourselves and your investors and what protects us from a sale to charter or time warner we know we are protected from a sale to comcast but that's kind of the limit of our protections as i understand it i think first of all which is sitting right here the judgment has to be do we have alignment off interest today second is what protects you yes you will have the board seat as part of the last part if you decide to roll over what would it really protects you is what i think i covered earlier anybody who is a buy it off burlington telecom at any point will have to be the buy off your values the via off how we conduct business the buy it off how this city chooses to work with its telecom provider if it was solely on price then we would not be sitting here today you all know that so and the reality is that if it is charter for example just to answer the question directly cable guys do not compete with each other comcast is here there is no reason for them to be here and compete with  with comcast but from our perspective we would agree to that all the anti monopoly laws which have been mentioned and we agreed to so you will have will have to be a reasonable nest test on both sides of the table if you want to do it if you want to partner with us i suspect that in the month next month you both sides will be reasonable and feel find the common ground so i hope that answers your question i know it's not a hundred percent control but there are a lot of things built in here including right to force for free so our protections are with that we have one board seat and you've now narrowed that down to that there's going to be five board seats and we'll have no board seat if there's not a carried interest but we will we will have one board seat if there is a carried interest and our ri first refusal for ninety days is our protection against a sale from some i mean you may well be right that charter would not be the company interested in bt but there are certainly concern in the community about a variety of potential buyers that i'm not well versed enough to list them all now but our protection comes in the board the board seat and the right of first refusal for ninety days and your other investors do not get a vote in the sale is that correct it's just the board vote in the sale general partner gets is the sole party making to see which is  not get a have a role in that i don't have or know anybody who is investor they do not have a vote and that's a distinction i'm drawing to i want us to understand because we are a private entity shore's will not have a vote to say z f you should take this space and neither does the city of burlington even if we if we have a board seat we don't have a vote on the sale you have i think for the city i think the most important thing to understand or at least the way we think of business is that whoever is going to yes theoretically speaking is that possible it is practically speaking what it really is that the community is engaged the community is involved and whoever will be buying burlington telecom if the community does not want it they're not going to  the reality of living but the good thing is that it's not that nobody is going to be here when they're not so so i think you are the only you get to make the final decision but our protection is that a company that we would not that we would not want to buy us would not want to buy us it's not that we are not  the final does this will have to be it's not going to be a decision where we wake up one day i think the reality is that this decision will always be made on who to buy it is and divided will really be the buyer off of your business your community i'm sorry but i feel like you've said two different things and first she said the city gets a vote because we're on the board then you said it's not a board decision this decision lies with the general partner which is you and then you said the city gets to vote on the board level but my question is about the sale who gets the vote on the sale who makes that decision decision decisions are always made at two levels does not have that fact ok at the shareholder level this city gets a vote at the board level the city gets a vote at the shareholder level we have a twenty percent share so how are the votes weighted in the sale and exactly you said there are other shareholders that get a vote who are the other shareholders who get a vote shares is not one of the shareholders who gets a vote so who are the other shareholders who get a vote general ok we have that but who does get a vote the director general partner will vote on behalf of its investment to wants to convert for their shares or you have the controlling vote because you've made that very clear that you have the you're the controlling decision maker here and you have the controlling  thank you so facile one of the things that you had and for todd as well or gary as well one of the things that you alluded to in your l o y was the issue of dividend recapitalization and i'm wondering first of all for the benefit of those of us who weren't there if you could you know fairly simply explain what dividend recapitalization is and then if you could also  whether or not you are willing to commit to that because that is an attractive part of your offer is that the city could recap some of its investment without taking its princip wonder if you are willing to commit to that with a with a you know sort of a range of when you would be willing to do that so let me start it was plain that he let me do the layman's burlington telecom and the answer was yes and the way that would be done is the this offer from zero f insurers as an all equity offer there is no debt on burlington telecom with  if burlington telecom continues its growth we believe that in a wind and i've not that windows three years four years five years but it's a really it's not it's not ten  years that the business will be generating sufficient cash world be attractive to lenders and what it dividend recapitalization and is that that point is burlington telecom could go into that debt markets put some debt on to the energy and then do a distribution to all of the shareholders so that would be kind of that is what a dividend recapitalization is in the most basic four i would argue that right now would not be the right time to do it and it i'd say be hard to put a timeframe on it from my perspective because there are some great growth opportunities in front of burlington telecom so i think the best use of funds would be to reinvest in the business rather than take the money out also there's not sufficient cash flow where you could have a lot of lenders where it would be a very competitive process but that's kind of conceptually what second that that's an that's a one off the benefits off taking on equity deal and maintaining your ownership that we have the ability to take time period is would not be prudent is that would we don't want to do is put too much debt on the company and burden it because that's where we were in the past so we have to just gain more strength as we gain strength is that one of the option absolutely we would we will be aligned ought to to say ok everybody takes twenty cents thirty cents off the table and we still have enough cash to do good the business would be must not do is starve the business give up the growth opportunities to take money off the tables and now is not the time is it possible in the future yes it is ok so i understand that's ok i'm not sure i'm back and yes please please proceed ok so i understand that that obviously now is not the time to do it that makes perfect sense the company is still you know i mean the eva does not that high on tide you've said three four five years past you're the one that's going to be the general partner if you're successful what's your answer to that  i think the time frame todd is mentioning appear reasonable the reason why the reason why you know why i'm hesitant is the last thing we ought to be telling you is hey we'll do this in three years if things change if there's a great opportunity growth opportunity comes along and together we make a decision that we want to be that way but i just don't want to say i don't want to be growth opportunities which we may want to realize but i want to tell you from investors perspective that's great that's great because they love to you know you know buy the company put debt on a dick all of your money and then to do that that's not who we are we're going to run this company conservatively we're going to go it at some stage will take debt so the time frame if nothing else change sounds reasonable but the reason off caution is because we want to do the right thing by the business forced now but this is more what i'm saying is that we had interest in light we if there is access cash or if there is cash which we can do in a prudent manner early so absolutely open minded the very much aligned on that point when you know if we are partners together you would want us to do the right thing and we will do the right so i guess the last question i have is you just said that you will be running the business conservatively yet if part of your model as an equity investor would be to sell your share of the company within five to seven years chances are that sort of seems to be at odds with each other you're you're running the business conservatively but your time frame is very short so are you running it conservatively or are you running it aggressively what i meant to say that is we're not going to take financial risks we're not going to say we'll let's put thirty minute debt on it and things w that i say conservatively i mean spend the money you have live within your budget grow what you can afford don't do the standard mistakes which is build and they will come will bill asked for a plan of sideburn into just be fiscally responsible and there's a lot you know gary will bring to the table which is if we go to a neighborhood how about a community dinner and see how many people want us on that street if there is a demand we build the street and we do that's what i mean conservative which is don't we have to just learn from the past i  think that one of the things that h b c had always had sixty percent penetration in a community before it even put a shovel in the ground and i think that's what we're talking about here we want to make sure that we go where where one could all right and then we're going to end the way so burlington yes but i'm talking about the greater area the way you do that is because you preach oh ok and you ensure the success of the company before you spend dollar one thank said ok great i think we need to close down the work session but thank you very much for answering all those questions and i think if there are questions for other bidders or more questions we can get to those when we get to the voting process if there are more questions so thank you very much we're going to come back together and we're going to go to five point eleven which is a resolution about adoption of the official flag of the city of burlington and we're after this after the resolution is moved and we're going to look at the flag proposed new flag then i will ask if anyone in the public would like to advise the council on how you think we should vote on this resolution and then we'll go to the vote we just like to always make sure that we hear from the public before we make decisions so with that said i think i'm recognizing cancer paul thank you burlington telecom today is a day that we celebrate a historic moment in our city's journey in time tonight we're celebrating the inauguration of a new flag for the city of burlington and  this after a lengthy and very lively process a flag has been selected for our approval this evening this flag is going to be waving over city hall and in city buildings for many years to come and isn't it only fitting that the designers of this flag are dear i am going to take i'm going to take a chance and say that i believe they are probably the youngest people in this room and some of the youngest citizens in our city and not only are they young and bright and seventh graders at edmond's elementary school but they're also twin brothers they're here this evening and we'd all like to recognize them and their mother who is a lifelong resident of burlington lucas and oh and marcia so and their mother molly a bear sitting right in the front row and we'd also also would like to recognize that not only is their mother a lifelong resident and they all live in words six but so do their grandparents lucy and alan a bear who are also worth six residents and are also here this evening as the as proud grandparents so with the council's permission i would just read the resolution in the year two thousand and seventeen resolved by the city council in the city borough of burlington as follows that whereas a flag represents a unique place and its people and can be a symbol of community pride and whereas a flag should be simple wordless and easy to read from a distance and burlington's existing flag to serve the city well since nine hundred ninety but does not meet these basic criteria and whereas a budget of six thousand dollars was approved in the f y eighteen budget supporting the process of procuring a new flag and the project production of flags to be used by departments of the city of burlington and within city council chambers and whereas the city the burlington city council unanimously approved moving forward with the creation of a new flag in january two thousand and seventeen and burlington city arts was appointed to develop the process and whereas p c a presented a process to the city council in march two thousand and seventeen that like many similar five process a process is nationwide was geared to invoke broad citizen engagement and enabled formal council adoption of the winning flag following a citywide vote authority on flag design and the author of quote good flag bad flag edward ted k a to develop criteria and guidelines for flag design submissions and whereas p c a announced the redesign of the city flag in september of two thousand and seventeen and immediately began a media and outreach campaign to encourage submissions from individuals of all ages who live or work in the city of burlington and whereas submissions were except on in an impersonal between september one and october fifteenth two thousand and seventeen and one hundred thirty eight submissions were received including those submitted by burlington children students parents teachers designers artists and residents from all walks of life and where is the submissions were evaluated based on the quote five basic principles of flag design which include keep it simple use meaningful symbolism use two or three basic colors no lettering or seals and be distinctive or be related and where as a committee of community volunteers including educators graphic artist students in high school and college government officials  business owners facilitated by edward ted k selected seven flag designs as finalists and dca conducted a media and outreach campaign to encourage participation in rating the seven five designs from individuals who live or work in the city of burlington and whereas fourteen hundred twenty seven individuals raided the seven flags five designs on line between october seventeenth and november seventeenth and where is the flag design that rees received the highest score from purchase of hating individuals design a created by twins owen and lucas marcia so who attend seventh grade at edmonds middle school in collaboration with their mother lifelong burlington resident molly a bear and where is the team designed each layer of their flag to symbolize the sky which represents looking back on our rich history to ahead to unknown future with perpetual hope snow covered mountains and delve a backdrop of our city the green mountain state burlington's commitment to the environment and the university of vermont the breakwater protecting our spectacular champlain sustaining in enriching our community and lives whereas owen and lucas marcia so will receive an honorarium of two hundred fifty dollars in recognition of their effort and participation in this community process and where as the new flag is scheduled for its first official raising during a first night burlington two thousand and seventeen ceremony that will take place on the steps of city hall at four pm now therefore be it resolved that the flag attached to created by and selected through a public process by individuals who live and work in the city of burlington is hereby adopted as the official flag for the city of burlington vermont and be it further resolved that the official official flag design of the city of burlington shall be freely available for public work use and reproduction thank you yes floors up  to hear from the public but i'll go to you next thank you i actually can't see from this side if what we're looking at is double sided ok that's what i thought i thought would be nice after we vote if perhaps the designers could come up and reveal the flag to the public that we're looking at now yes if you get it i was thinking maybe we'll do that now would you be willing to come and show the flag to the public and then i'm going to ask if any member of the public would like to advise us on how we should proceed a little public for many public forum only on the pla the many public form on the flag is open it is raise your hand if you'd like to address us with the designers of the flag like to address the city council you don't to take the clapping as a whole hearted endorsement say congratulations and thank you to our own and lucas for this great design and for putting all this hard work into it was one of the exciting things about this process was you were not the only youth in our community that were working on this kids at edmonds  middle school submitting designs for kids out of the king street center smiting there were dozens and dozens of entries that came in they even i think it is exciting that it is one of our a couple of our kids that have  brought this home especially knowing that there was an architectural firm represented at this council that put in a finalist bid they didn't quite make it there so great work thank you and thank you to be ca which read led a really well organized and well promoted process involved hundreds over four hundred people alternately helping with the decision as well as the dozens and dozens of entries and crabs in particular i think it's should be acknowledged for leading i i just want to acknowledge deb kahlo who was the organizer for burlington city arts who brought this whole process together working very closely and spent many many hours in outreach to the school community and to community groups to bring public engagement and i also think it's really important to see and i know you two tomorrow when you go to school it's going to be a whole new day for you because this is the people of burlington's flag and you have helped design this and make this a part of all of our lives so thank you so much great thanks that was great so we have one more small amendment to our agenda to accommodate some members of the public house or bush or yes president no del i would like to move to amend the agenda to take up next item five point zero seven which is a public hearing regarding roadway acceptance request staniford farm roads and then five point zero eight the resolution which is the stanford farms conveyance to the city of burlington so i moved to add to take those two items up next is that a second thank you so this is the discussion this requires two thirds vote in favor of amending our agenda in this way please say i am the opposed so it carries and so this time i will open the public hearing regarding a roadway acceptance request for status farms road is any member of the public see to address the council on this matter reading and adopt the resolution after a second i would look either to the license committee who actually dealt with this prior to the time it came to the council or any other member of the council that wanted to speak to it certainly was a significant development for an improvement to the city in addition to our tax base so we saw no issue with the submitted materials if ald all protocols we had a  conveyance to the city of burlington please say i i are there any opposed that kerry is unanimously and it shall be done at this time i i will open the public forum a little bit late sorry about that seven forty five pm and i've had some requests from the council some inquiries about about the proposed length of the public form and i would just like to say that i would like to  propose that we try to wrap up the public forum by no later than nine o'clock this does that sound agreeable to the council and to the public we i think we can accommodate everyone here but we we want to get into our debate  before earlier as early as possible while still hearing from the public so that's how we'll proceed thank you so we'll soon yes if we're if we're only in the public form potentially early could we try to hear from people we second speaker is john callow and again if we if we have we been listening we've been listening carefully and so new information is always especially valuable at the public forum so israel scully here ok then we'll go on to john to be followed by kelly kelly divine good evening speaking about the bt transaction first i'd like to commend the council and the community on the process that's brought us here tonight i know that's it's a little bit like watching sausage getting made and it hasn't always been pretty but but we're here i think we've had robust debate among a passionate aletter of which that's a good thing we've we've got a community community that really cares and in that that speaks really well for us we've we're fortunate that we've had three proposals that span a variety of levels of expertise capitalization and just economic approaches in my opinion when you the city burlington here is settled in seven hundred seventy three over two hundred years of history it's going to have another two hundred years of history for a transaction like this i think it really needs to be looking for a partner that shares that that long term view and does so in a way that brings a variety of tools to the table for my read of the three proposals the ten to cowes proposals the one the rises to the top they have they're well capitalized they're well experienced they've operated in markets throughout canada and the united states of varying sizes smaller and larger than then burlington vermont they have a long term consistent with their prior experience they have a long term strategy for burlington which again i think we need to be thinking as a community about what is our prospects for the future they want to grow the asset i t the things is is focused on promoting burlington as a future hub for economic activity and ajibola kaname to me that's key that's very key when i look at at at the dish the demi or when we look at the demographics this is an important feature it enjoys the support of the current bt staff and oh yeah it's the highest cash offer that's been been that's been received for those reasons i urge you to to move forward with tangs thank you thank you very much kelly divine then je will also enjoy an excellent telecom service that said i like co ops and i wish we could keep the two i've been a member of city market for about twenty years before it was even called to the market when it's out on north newsgathering subscribe to b since essentially its inception my heart is with k b t l but my head nosed thing is what is best for the city this is a head is not a hard decision and it shouldn't be a political decision either proposal has many positive aspects but the biggest brings much uncertainty everyone knows the potential pitfalls including less money for the city a lawsuit by citibank the possibility of regulatory obstacles an  council meetings and i find that very impressive an admirable but however it shouldn't be construed as representative representative of the views of the of all bill and tony and everyone i talk to supports ta i asked the city council to do the right thing and bring on telling thank you and barton and then add the tie cocky hama resident and want for and pass i had my little sign comparing the two and i really wanted to make it really short and sweet and asked the city council support thing i think that it brings the best and the best offer to the city of burlington and also to to do what will protect city from further legal action as we've all heard may  happen with other decisions that are made so i didn't really want to get into any specifics but i just wanted to let you know that that i supported thing and that i would like you to do as i'm not  gentleman's name that spoke earlier but as he said to make a decision with your head and not your heart we all do like to keep things local and we do support the co op and we support burlington telecom and the support and i think that they've done a remarkable job but it's not the best deal for the city of burlington and i think that's what you need to focus on what is the best best option for the residents in burlington thank you  tonight i'm delivering a comment on behalf of burlington telecom employees shawn caio i'm the digital marketing and analytics staff member for bt each day part of my role is to review bt marketing efforts and the return on investment of our weekly spend a difficult element of this process is valuing the intangibles the impressions the public perception on line reviews and public comments the b tab criteria does state it is important for the city's public officials to try to recover as much of the taxpayers sixteen point nine million as possible it goes on to say part of that should come from the indirect benefits of maintaining a strong telecom system and so when i joined to bt in july of two thousand and sixteen my charge was to continue to push the narrative of bt away from the negative and focus on the amazing work that bt does every day for this community over time this new narrative has taken hold often just walking down church street in a bt t shirt or tabling at a community event around town i received from current customers who couldn't be happier with bt is quality of service and commitment to the community so how do we value this what's it worth after the final vote is made where does all this excitement and passion for bt go for the twenty six current employees it simply carries over to tomorrow morning that employees spend every day working to pay back the city and its residents by doing whatever it takes to generate that next five star google review or happy email or ecstatic phone call just last week our team made a business owner cry tears of gratitude i am not exaggerating over the expediency with which we installed her service and at half the price that she was quoted by our competitors we take great pride in delivering the best internet service the city has ever seen and providing exceptional customer experience we feel that value that recovery every day what is that value the council puts on a consumer that is legitimately excited about internet cable and phone provider please do not make a vote tonight based solely on the numerical recovery of funds that recovery started years ago it continues to be delivered right now while zach is down the street taking service support calls until ten pm tonight and it will continue tomorrow at eight am sharp thank you thank you when rock and then carolyn bates i speak as a member of burlington telecom and what i heard tonight and all the things that i've heard mention my heart  because this is reasoning from all that i have gathered and from all that i've gathered i feel so much more secure in keeping it here in burlington  where we will support and really participate and be really out front for the community to say that i wish you could see things the way i do and i also have been petitioning in the community and there may have been two or three people that didn't agree of hundreds i have worked hours on this that said oh well i don't think so so i feel that the community is solidly behind actor carolyn will be an associate of mine thank you very much i'm talking with reference to this chart i gave it to the t v and i passed some of them out i'm carolyn bates ward five i was one of the beta people working on bt so i helped them figure out problems that they didn't know they had and address some of the things for i wanted to say that merriman row and some of our city councilors say k b t l is not viable that it will fail to keep bt afloat but i want you to look at all the k b t l supporters right behind me and you know many many more are there five hundred plus members alone of k b you all know alan madsen personally you even know what kind of shoes he wears k b t l as you know will be transparent just give us a call and we'll prepare any problem you will not have to look under rugs to find us or go to canada or have the numbers redacted like shores did all of us want bt to be a huge success we will not let it fail that conservative projected long term monetary return of pearlington telecom b in ten years is a leaven point one million dollars profit in fifty years it will be a hundred and eighty million dollars the present pearlington telecom forecast says twenty six point one million dollars in ten years and two hundred eighty three point nine million dollars in fifty years our schools need millions of dollars memorial to tory m should not sit and attended this profit from burlington telecom should stay local and put money back into city hall i want to charge you all to hear us and stay local thank you thank you thank you kelly divine and then and then drew baker i'll make it quick because i know there's a long night ahead i want to thank the cultures again for all their incredibly hard work on this i just wanted to mention on behalf of the business community members that i represent our business customers have a lot of choice we've looked at the bids that are before us and our business customers can pretty easily switch between carriers based on service or price and doing some research on taking and sure one of the concerns that came up for us was the low ratings and customer service for shores as well as the fact that their pricing wasn't as competitive we'd like to see a solution selected tonight that really helps that burlington up for the future for being a leading edge technology city and we've reevaluated based on the new combined it and still are coming in support thank you thank you drew baker and then richard brag and dr baker i'm a student i live in ward three right across from burlington telecom so i've been able to keep very close eye on the building and we appreciate that i want to personally thank the city council for their continued deliberation on this issue as i know it has chewed up a great chunk of your time the sale has been very divisive for councillors and residents alike and i represent most students when i say that we need to keep  local burlington residents including many students have been paying very close attention as this new can of worms has been recently opened this is of course the f c c is proposal to roll back net neutrality which currently gives consumers equal access to all internet content most people especially students rely on internet daily rolling back net neutrality will create a pay to play technology infrastructure which i'm fairly affects consumers media companies and small telecom providers alike it gives more power to companies like comcast to charge their consumers more for the service and the ability to block or slow down certain content also infringes on our basic human rights zero f s new net neutrality and in claims that their advocates  but like most corporate telecoms providers they are always have been and always will be attached to profit motive and their investors are functionally local is not the same thing as financially local say for the co op no option will keep the revenue here in burlington nor will they value fairness over profit we should be proud that ting is interested in the hub of burlington but we will not let them sweep in burlington for the promise of rich reward burlington is not for sale bt local is the only bid who will protect our residents until the end of our days local control keep net neutrality secure right here in burlington now tomorrow and many years in the future this is no longer about profits of the city it's about is a vote for consumer fairness and everyone in this room is watching thank you thank you richard bragg and then alan is over i don't know if you've ever if you've a really thought about that but it really is going to be over and states will not have a right to set up their own rules under this what you've got to do if you're going to be doing that you're going to be out of business this is the reality that we are now facing have you thought about that really any commercial i the only option to even begin this is a complete uncertainty that we're heading into here the only stability that will have any voice that will have this too is to use to have it in a  members of council excuse me i wish to be as respectful as possible when i say this i've heard that councils i've heard the suggestion from many of you that councils primary responsibility seems to be to avoid legal action instead i believe that your responsibility is to steward the public's business with transparency and in the best interest of the citizens of burlington now and in the future i am sad that the city first failed to exercise adequate oversight of bts financial behavior years ago but i find it more regrettable that the council reacted by putting in motion this process to privatized a public asset that was built with public funds while i regret that the city will bt i think that selling to k b t l is the best of your very limited and unfortunate options at this time and i hope that you will do so keeping it local and husbanding the resources that the city has invested office public for i think rick bragg and the student before him said it more eloquently than i will but if there was ever a compelling reason to maintain local control of our access to the internet events this week at the federal communications commission have provided that reason the f c c has proposed the total reasoning of net neutrality rules and w republican majority on the f c c this will pass it means that internet providers can institute fast and slow lanes can manage content including blocking content and willy lemonade burrowing times present fast and lower priced internet access the f c c will emphasize market efficiency as the only value it will not take into consideration the public interest public access subscriber interests or support for new internet dependent startups please vote to maintain the burlington difference thank you thank you and as i am afforded another opportunity to speak on this issue i thank all of you for the time and consideration that you put into this i know you are all trying to make what you think is the best decision to me the decision is clear it's a vote for k p t l as mr simpson just referred to we are looking at a changing landscape in terms of net neutrality and this is actually a huge issue because with the recommend with the new regulations that i'm sure we're going to get given the political environment net neutrality will be a thing of the past and that means content management and that means corporate censorship of the information that we achieve and that means that the loss of one of the promises of the internet and that is that we the people can get access to all kinds of information and get to it readily and skirt the limitations that were previously imposed on us by a monopol press and one that is now almost completely monopolistic and will not provide a counterbalance of any sort to this and so if we keep local we can protect ourselves maybe not the world around us but ourselves and our ability to get information of course i know that there will be in the contracts that the city will at least attempt to negotiate requiring net neutrality but unfortunately contracts are only worth anything if you're willing to enforce them and being willing to enforce them means billing willing to go to court and to litigate and this council has already made clear and citizens in this city that already make clear that fear of confrontation fear of litigation is a big driver in this decision making process if i'm looking at this contract as the person is bound by it and i'm damned if that side between litigation and not going to get the gate because i know what the city's attitude is and that's one of fear and we cannot let that be our attitude thank you thank you and then martin and then first i want to thank all of you for your time and considerable diligence and to especially give a shout out to those of you have voted to keep burlington telkom local thus far some of those here tonight have spoken of the future but we need to consider the current political climate and understand that net neutrality may fall nationally probably will your vote tonight needs to consider the political climate if net neutrality is lost burlington telecom will become even more valuable to those who might want to sell it off vermont has done a good job of keeping the clipped off they are keeping the  bay keep our dollars local stem the corporate rot please please vote to keep this with us thank you thank you and then eric may this certainly has gone on a long time and for some reason i don't understand there's a great division between keeping it local not just the bt but keeping the control of bt local which you've heard is so essential especially today and and those who want anything but local i don't understand that especially in light of just a few days ago we had a celebration opening the new south and  city market outlet and you know we can't keep the city running on previous innovations forever we can't just keep coasting along we have to innovate and plan for the future and not sell off our assets when the city officials were there celebrating the opening of city market some of those same officials if the vote for city market today were to take place would be opposing that and where would we be we'd be out in the countryside with shaw's or hannaford it's really a remarkable situation i would ask you to support the vast majority of burrowing tony and vast majority the people who are business people in burlington entirely dependent on telecom through burlington telecom a vast improvement over what came before support the members who have invested in the co op support those who have made really large investments through money in the co op and even support v day that now supports the co op these are votes of confidence in the co op that will carry us forward and make a gigantic asset that that makes small potatoes out of all the financing details and top line amounts of money a fraction of which the city would get from all the differences that have been discussed so i ask you please to support all of those factors in favor of the co op keep rolling to local thank you eric mayor and then alexander friend  eric meyer live in word five down in lakeside well broken telecom quite a slog that we're on here maybe we'll see resolution tonight maybe not either way i want to comment on something that's bothered me throughout this process when councillor jang spoke a few weeks back on the moral vision of our city as related to this choice and he won in the room could feel the collective eye roll from the democratic side of the table ali stick to the that our municipal credit is back on the rise my business minded grandfather would have loved that report and as a small business owner myself i do have respect for the way democrats have studied the ship in past years unfortunately though i'm disturbed by this council's reticence to govern with moral principle and vision we don't have time for that i wonder what sort of ideological wall exists in your minds between what happens in the world and what happens in this room as you're entertaining profit seeking offers from multinational corporations tonight our planet is literally dying this summer new york new york magazine published the uninhabitable earth a bleak unflinching essay about the coming consequences of what humans have done to our environment the overwhelming consensus among scientists is that our century will see unthink catastrophe and thus we drop everything and act now and yet here we are teasing apart dividend recapitalization scenarios and wondering how each of these proposals would doll up our city finances such that we could in the future borrow more money at a cheaper rate so then we could dolling up our city finances so that we could in the future bore borrow even more money and even cheaper rate with all due respect i wonder why you all are here if you're not trying to fix the world you're working hard and it's not like you're getting rich doing this we need bold action rooted in moral vision not techn tic tinkering we hear over and over again about fiduciary responsibility and obviously a bankrupt city hurts everyone but we're not bankrupt yeah i have a lot more words but i ran out of t i would support you guys to keep us local but in general to continue to engage with the outside world and not just this room and make these decisions thank you thank you for correcting your remarks alexander friend silent silent please alexander friend and then successful it opened the second story last week i know people say it's just a grocery store it's not at all comparable to something high tech like growth in telecom but i don't think you can overstate the size of that achievement that's what happens when you have vision i don't think it requires a lot it's simply the nature of the business and they're both been quite upfront about that just a little while ago fires on this are said and you buddy who would buy into this must buy into burlington values you already have a buyer that completely  good evening and thank you the choice tonight is not about the head and the heart it's a rational values decision and the cavy tayla offer is really the only big that i consistent with the values of this community the investment that has already been made in burlington telecom seventeen million misappropriated the thirty million plus from citibank i mean that's fifty million dollars at least that's been invested and i think considerably more than that so this this entity should be worth fifty million or or mor up the corporate offers and these might be great companies privately held or publicly held companies but the choice is between a co operative in which everyone has an opportunity to be a member which can really keep this and tittie local or comcast at all a corporate ownership here is just kind of a generic corporate ownership and there's no telling where that goes it's the same kind of telecom opportunity that most people in america have to choose from choosing and sorry steve good kind hi my heart is still really beating hard from the gentleman that read his piece and to me that is what this is all about and it is has bothered me as i've come to many meetings ever since the mall divide as i call it but we do have this part that is like always siding against the other part and that is not good i mean we need to bring the city together and this is not helping at all but i listened i went to the work session i listened i mean it seems like new stuff not just search coming back like it was  deal but what i heard loud and clear and they so good business plan i guess they are going to build up the company and sell it right i mean that's very clear they're going to build it up and sell it john said you know we want to look for a vision a long term plan but how long term is that if in five to ten years they're going to sell so it really seems like and i don't understand it and i know these people don't even look at me anymore because i've come so often and i'm i don't understand i appreciate president nobels wonderful economic evaluation of this this whole thing it was like a class a little lecture we got she was amazing and people didn't even like blink an eye they got up and they told their saga of why they supporting or whatever but you know really what in the long run is going to help us think about that and i there is far more support to keep this local this is burlington and if this is local this this business will fly so many people now don't know what to do because if it's going to so then you know they're not going to sign up so i mean really you guys have you can make it fly just support our community because this is a bad thank you steve good kind and then brian  thank you president no del i don't know how you're going to vote tonight but it wasn't hard to predict where we'd find ourselves tonight time and time again we see what happens when the optics that are desired for clear political ambition collide with what's really good for our city now we're finding ourselves one more time in a divisive situation which was totally avoidable the optics had led to the bluewater deal  straight to this point you've heard me talk about this before some might say that looks like our city government might be on the on the take to get us into a spot like this i don't think so when on the take when they give what we're doing is we're giving away and liquidating a valuable city asset and we're writing off millions probably about fifteen to twenty million dollars of taxpayer money brought to telecom should not be sold we need to try to make some kind of a deal with blue water given a buy it out or to get a long term lease it's not about optic it's about vision bt should not be sold like brian pyne and then chris you i took a look at the burlington telecom advisory board findings i think it's just worth mentioning them because not everybody is fully aware of those findings that are page five of  the selection criteria i just think it's really critical reviews that what those were not number one item local local ownership number two can continue to for ability of services number three commitment to net neutrality and the  you go down it you think wow they're describing it seems pretty it seems pretty clear that's what's happening so then you look at the number of citizens who've expressed their preference over a thousand burlington citizens of signed a petition in support of local ownership this is this is these are significant numbers these are you know these when you start to do petitions to get items on the ballot you start to get to that number where you need a certain mass of citizens to do that you have three distinct options in front of you tonight one is a local cooperative one is a publicly traded company and one is a growth equity firm and i believe all of them are comprised of excellent people doing excellent work carrying out their individual missions i think option two and three are just fundamentally and diametrically opposed to local ownership and local control i don't think there's really any other way you can get around it there are currently hundreds of communities hundreds of part of the municipal network organization trying to create locally controlled municipal networks we have one here if we didn't have it what we'd be debating tonight is the task force needed to create one but you've got one you've got it right here please don't let it slip away once it's at once it slips away we're not going to get it back it's rarely a chance that the council gets to take what are called legacy votes i think you just going to get a couple share and maybe more but because she's been doing this for a while but she and i took one and it was the waterfront vote i think we probably felt the most significant vote we got to take in the ninety's was that this is your legacy vote please carry our legacy thank you chris chamblee and then lauren glenda vi good evening everyone i'm not sure anything i say is going to change anyone's opinion but i feel it's important to bring this up i was on a call this morning with about seventy five advocates from across the country on the question of net neutrality and what to do about it and the issue that faces us is not just that the f c c is going to withdraw the net neutrality rules because that will then be fought in court but there is an endless cycle of the f c c making rolls and then being challenged in court and then congress changing the laws and it's the lack of stability around these rules that really challenge us and these rules that are being proposed essentially as it's been mentioned also are proposing to undermine states authority to set protections so it's at this precise moment when we would be looking at not owning our own internet infrastructure seems very shortsighted especially when when we look at the three proposals one of them ting is going to create a regional hub which we all know from since the one nine hundred fourteen the history of telecommunications and communications means that creating a regional hub means positioning it to be resold the other company has already said that it plans to flip the one thing in or perhaps it's not the one thing but the primary thing that we as a city council are concerned about as the weakness of the k b t o proposal is that citibank is going to sue us because they don't believe it's an arm's length transaction i would suggest we get some new legal counsel that's what i would do if i was faced with that decision i would find a lawyer who was ready to defend our proposal as an arm's length transaction and i would also just remind all of us as brian did of the immense amount of work that we did to establish criteria for this purchase and the top three things are those things that can't be t l represents so i wonder why we did all that work in order to get to this moment and throw those criteria out thank you for all of the work that you have done to bring us to this moment thank you thank you don a pal and then rest scully if he's here in the shot ward seven i also own a small business down here on main street and and burlington's been very good to me and to my family i want to we've all heard the facts we've all seen the proposals we've seen the people presenting the proposals i just want to kind of bring to you the idea of what i do for a business and how that relates to burlington i work with natural plant substances i work with what's a brown locally because the local plants do the best job of healing us the local plants are what we need what we find around that actually provide the medicines for the different complaints that we have i have a lot of customers patients and that means that burlington and vermont in general because they come from all over vermont understand this concept i'm hoping that you can understand this concept that we go from individual we don't think about money we think about health and health has to come from community webs working together all parts as a whole not as individuals so we might be as individuals were by money or by concept or by fame or fortune or by words and graphs and things like that but we also have to come from the heart somebody said we don't have to come from the heart we have to make rational decisions always i think you've got passion i think you have passion and that's what also builds a company that's what people come to me for they say because i'm passionate about helping them with their health and so i'm going to ask you to look around and see the passion i'm from the you know ward s north end and i can tell you i go to different things around my neighborhood and i talk to the people and you know they're interested they're interested in being part of burlington telecom and they have burlington telecom as a local company and i think they will participate i know that any time i make a service call i get good quality service so i want you to think from your hearts think about your citizens think about working as a community think about all of us in this together thank you is rest scully here ok then we'll go on to july sanders and then francis thank you all for all the time that you put into this i have been to many many meetings and i haven't gotten up here to speak and what drove me to speak this time was hearing somebody say that there was something that had been bothering them and there is something that has been bothering me and what's been bothering me is that throughout this process it seems that ninety percent of the time this half of the table has their head in their laptop or their phone and especially when anybody speaking not fourteen it's even more so and it's very hard to feel like we are coming together as a community and as burlington and you're representing to representing all of burlington i know in particular your ward but you as a council represent all of burlington and it can't be the time that you're you know figuring out what's going on i mean i don't i'm not going to assume what you're reading and what you're not reading but it's really really important for especially during this public period that you are listening to the public because we are telling you what we want what we what is important to us and if you're not listening and you're just focusing on what the mayor has telling you to focus on because i've spoken to many and you and i've heard you say saying things like that that doesn't feel like you're representing the people so i really encourage you to listen during this time and to hear what those who you are supposed to represent have say so thank you very much and i do support you keep the bt local thank you thank you challenged other supreme court ruling for the costco gas station in colchester that gas station in vermont environmental court that the costco gas chased gas station is expected to charge retail gas prices at twelve to twenty five percent less than current price and joining county on top of that that's likely to cause all non costco gas prices to be ten to eighteen cents less than what's currently have tremendously you know work to current gas stations benefit by rooting out competition and being made from able to increase their profit margins and donors are using environmental court to their advantage to undermine competition when we do not work to include other private sector and include better you know i have more healthy competition in the you know for goods and services for consumers it's consumers who don't benefit if consumers are left with pain a higher price for a lower quality service and i deeply fear that  will have the same effect on consumers in burlington and beyond by not you by not allowing for healthy competition and ultimately only increasing comcast market share and increasing comcast profits while not not allowing consumers to have that good services for lower cost thanks thank you stephanie sickly no and then  andrews thanks for the opportunity to talk and wanted to just acknowledge that i know that all of you have a lot of details about these bits that perhaps the rest of the community doesn't have as full a knowledge of i'd like to share with you some of my own knowledge in terms of the work that i do which is largely been focused on what is it that makes communities grow and what promotes economic growth and i want to relate that to the decision you have to make with regard to who wore this bill to this bid to one of the one of the most  clear factors that promotes economic growth is those countries and communities that have nurtured local entrepreneurial talent because that talent tends to spill over and promote productivity growth and it tends to promote innovation  community in a way that a foreign firm does not necessarily do and i think think of countries like china south korea and many other countries that have rapidly grown that have adopted that model and we have an opportunity with keeping keeping local exactly  to benefit from that development of entrepreneurial talent that we would not have with the other bit the other thing that unequivocally stimulates economic growth is public investment in public infrastructure and again  publicly known asset like bt local is is precisely the kind of entity that is going to have spillover effects to the rest of the community that foreign owned firms or privately owned firms do not have and i just want to remind you that you may or may not be aware of the period of privatization of many state owned enterprises whether in south america or in the soviet union and other countries that have led to higher prices and many layoffs and a lot of lost productivity growth so privatization in fact has failed in many countries around the world finally i just want to mention and respond to the concern that i've heard raised by city councilors with regard to the threat of citibank to sue i think i've shared with you my understanding that the city  not any way state that it would sell to the highest bidder and if i just might make this last point but what i do want to do is remind you of some exemplary examples throughout the world of people that have stood up to big banks in the financial crisis of two thousand and eight ice economy was was was in chaos and it was the only country of european countries that stood up and said it would not bail out the big banks and it is growing more rapidly than any other european country since the financial crisis malaysia in the asian financial crisis similarly turned its nose up at the i m f to request that it not impose capital controls because of and it did in fact to keep its currency from devaluing it to emerged more strong from the crisis than any other country that heeded the behest of the i m f i encourage you to be courageous in the face of this and to think about what we've learned from many other countries of the things that really do promote community growth and economic growth thank you thank you  hello thanks for the opportunity i keep coming back to the public good i keep coming back to your legacy i mean it's our legacy all of us berlin tony and so what are we going to leave for future generations but on this issue at this time you the council hold our collective legacy in your hands in august i spoke with several councillors of different parties and they said that they and indeed they thought a strong majority of councillors would really want to go with local ownership and therefore would want to go with the k b t l co op bid except for concerns about the financials for the past twelve weeks and this was prior to our latest bid your concerns about the financials have been answered by the k b t l board with professionalism and a spirit of cooperation the final bid of the k b t co op presents even better financials with viable financials and we are proud of this chart there is no comparison between the k b co op bid and the other two bids what will be your legacy will you sell off our local telecom company into private hands so that we citizens and taxpayers lose our beloved and valuable assets forever or will you keep pearlington telecom locally owned and community controlled regarding the choice you have regarding you legacy and our legacy i'm going to end with the fronts piece to this gem of a book for our times it's called on tyranny twenty lessons from the twentieth century by tim snyder quote is by a polish social philosopher named cola koski he said in politics being deceived is no excuse now be clear i'm not saying that any individual is trying to deceive you i'm not saying that i'm saying that if that any of you who vote against the k b t l co op bid are will have been said about the financials of the whole situation and about the merits of local market of ownership but i don't think a lot has really been said about the nature of burlington telecom itself which is an internet service provider seems like that's changed a bit tonight i've heard a few people talk about net neutrality but i want to talk about privacy so i work in computer security for a living and i know how intimate the data is neutrality but in the spring ca congress actually voted to roll back rules that regulated what i a species can do with data that they have about us so if broken telecom is turned into a locally owned co op the people of burlington can make the decision about whether or not selling this very personal browsing data to advertisers is worth the money for example if if we celebrate in the telecom two to a private outside party we want to make that choice  that said come to realize over the past few weeks that there's a pretty good chance that t v till might not win and so i'm here i sort of worry that i'm here too late but i think we should be having a conversation about how the city can hold whoever buys berlin telecom accountable for what they do with the data that they have about us so you know i don't know where we are in this whole bidding process or what could be done but i haven't heard a lot i think people are watching from home when they're coming to s hello i wasn't planning to talk tonight but i move to all of my most of my predecessors i'm going to speak from the heart and i'm going to speak once again as a journalist the last time i spoke i talked about the danger of trump t v of the fact that there are the large right wing conglomerate that's buying up local radio stations and imposing right wing content on local communities now i hear about f c c i thought those who have raised that spoke very eloquently this is a game changer the people here are fighting for democracy i'm fighting for democracy as a writer i can tell you i am a censored writer i am a street suppressed writer as is my husband we wrote about some two of the most powerful families in this country dupont and rockefeller and it is because of the internet that our books have been resurrected again just now you have no idea what it's like to be censored but it's even worse for the community who does not get access to information i am literally begging you to make the right decision tonight save democracy and help the people in this community have accurate information so that we can make informed choices in our lives thank you thank you molly fleming  in school and if any of you have had any experience in the cut and the burlington schools there are a lot of children that would not afford internet if it was not for that particular thing that they give to students that  are getting free lunches and stuff so i think there is a discount thing i don't think any of the other people that are doing bids are doing that and i think those people aren't here representing themselves but it's very important to them thank you rest scully is our last speaker record tonight again in supporting i think this is a really clear black and white issue for us in terms of the future of running to telecom and i encourage city to really kind of put this decision to rest move on to other pressing matters i at this time i'd like to thank everyone for coming and speaking to us and being so nice and we will close the poll form at eight fifty eight forty eight pm and we've got the consent agenda we've got some public hearings and zoning ordinances to act on and then we'll be getting back into the the voting for bt so their motion on and they might might be a little break before we get into taking the actions indicated please say i am opposed we have our consent agenda moving into our deliberative agenda we like to open a set of consolidated hearings regard regarding the following proposed amendments to the city's comprehensive development ordinance or zoning ordinance and those are the following ze'evi seven hundred ten green roof l coverage z a seventeen eleven emergency shelters z a seventeen fourteen preschool technical amendments z a seventeen fifteen article for development bonuses and z a seventeen sixteen replacement mobile homes opening the public hearings on any of those proposed changes to our comprehensive development ordinance at this time if you're interested in speaking to us please just just come forward so right now we're not yet we're on green roofs so i can take a stab at the first one while you're waiting you know the green amendment and has in essence even specifies how law coverage is calculated for various types of green roofs this came about as a result of the u v as my understanding is correct me if i as a result of the u v m project it was identified that there needed to be some amendments so in essence this gives credit if you will for a green roof there are some distinction between an extensive and an intensive and if there are specific questions on that  to how do we do it like coverage for this it's it's one of one or two examples depending on how you view them of actual instances of partially agri green roofs in the city but it generated a head scratching that they requested that we directly address it in the end the zoning code and the planning commission supported the idea and so there we have it a greener up in the air isn't any credit line at grade such as the roof of the garage is open space and then one of the radiation oncology roof is calculated as and intensive green roof gets partial coverage credit and so there we have it we've addressed yes back to the council any floors open seeing none at all unfair i'm going to vote all in favor of eleven and they can make a motion away the second reading adopt the floor back briefly after second thank you second again from cancer bush or thank you president no del this came before the committee got a few times  we did send it back got additional it is part of i would say the overall quality of life issues that the council is grappling with what we heard so in essence shelters were being sort of shoehorned into a you know community house standard which they did not necessarily fit or technically fed i won't speak for you so in essence this this creates a new definition for shelters and also establishes it as a permitted use in the downtown core in conditional use and others scott and i were briefly discussing before something we grappled with if you look at the use table form district five and form district six which are now part you know are not on here so you don't see it which i sort of rushed to scott's we messed up it's not on here but that's because it's under article fourteen right it's incorporated into our fourteen which is all things form code and that's something that we did talk  so the orders committee did did pass this out after hearing over the course of two meetings about the urgent need for this is not a present problem but trying to avoid a problem on a go forward basis ok any question from the council  the planning commission looked at this and wanted to be as accommodating as possible the ordinance committee as councillor stated we had some questions and so so i came back and understanding the time of year and the difficulty in finding places that could serve as an emergency shelter this got supported but i do want to say and i'm going to speak to one other ordinance that i had one concern and that had to do with the fact that there needs to be a staff person present and that there is no accommodation for parking and so based on the feedback i said ok but i am still raising that concern because i think that you know we as a community don't address parking adequately and i was only looking for one parking space so i'm going to support this but i do think that when a need is so urgent i hope we do our due diligence so that we  straightforward amendment that fills in a couple of holes that were missed when we put pre schools as the new use in the use table it's simply establishes a parking requirement which mirrors that four day cares and it also forward but we did ask a question to have the planning commission really look at the table eight point one point eight dash one which is the minimum off street parking requirements if anyone i know tonight is not the night that people really delved into these but if you look at the definition of a large and small preschool if you're a large preschool you have over twenty children and you're required to have one parking space plus one for every five children if you're a small preschool and you can have up to twenty children you only need one parking space so if you have twenty one children you need five parking spaces if you have twenty children you need one and so we asked them to go back and really really look at this to make sure that this was correct so that's it thank you very much counselor she was that addressed it it was not addressed yet it was our recommendation that we would move this forward but that we asked the planning commission to look at this ok i don't know the council nations always yet just to that point we've so we've asked the city attorney with also coming up with an internal checklist because there are a number of times we sort of have questions and expect to hear back but we didn't have a tracking system so we did talk about last meeting setting up a tracking system with an expectation of a report like ok great and the other counsellor this is on the preschool technical corrections another fairly discreet fairly short corrective amendment this simply lines up the existing bill in its provisions between article four which pertains to zoning districts an article mine which pertains to inclusion  and briefly ask for the floor back up for second thank you bush or seconds it cassar mason this came about as a result of north and as you know correct that you know in essence we're removing the sorry go ahead scott and then at the co op yes at the co op jobs and in essence we're removing conditional use from any alteration which my understanding well maybe i should shut up and let scott explain initially passed a year or so ago threw everything into the control used box so in effect you require the new deck outback to go through conditional use and that's clearly not the intent right so what this amendment does is it clarifies that only new mobile home parks or expansions of existing home parks is conditional use be done five zero seven five zero eight which was the stafford farmers conveyance five point zero nine is a city council voting process we're missing counsellor right are there any amendments coming on on this resolution and unfortunately john passed away saturday but four o'clock in the afternoon and i went down sunday morning and sat with his wife jane and one of his daughters and she kind of share with me some that some of thoughts is going to be private so you're not going to really hear a lot about it there is going to be a small bit i think it is public knowledge you are likely to be talking always that he wrote his own a bit and it's probably about this big and if you knew john that's exactly who he was a very humbled individual for me personally it's a big loss he was a dear friend of mine chatted with him every day and i certainly could have used him today and his advice and it wasn't there so it was kind of a but you know we met a lot to the city of burlington just met a lot he did a lot for the city did a lot for the state council writes and say a few words and i think the mayor is as well but it's a big loss and you know so my advice maybe is if you knew them well and it is going to be private maybe a phone call to jane or a letter to jane i think that's probably would be appropriate but again it is going to be family only and jane wanted me to pass along  appreciation for our thoughts and prayers and there's certainly appreciation on what the city did for john this past summer she had the plaque showing me what the mayor had sent ohman framed and was very appreciative of what the mayor had done but when i looked and i saw all the other plaques and letters and all the other things he received they were they were down the basement and jane said that's where they stay because that's where john wants them to stay  so he was a great man and we're going to miss them and i just wanted to say one last time to jane that you know we're thinking of you and your tire family and we're here and if you need anything please let us know th ways he had so much to do with the foundation raising money through that for the foundation for the bike path and other things through a chair of the parks commission had his hands on everything and the miller center i don't think we'd have the miller center in the new north and if not for john's involvement started an environmental organization as we know he was in the capitol many many times advocating for issues in the environment that were important to him and all those big things he also did all the little things too i would run into john and jane on the bike path i saw a couple picking just picking up trash on the bike path but as counsel heard it said really a lot of the character of the man is that he was so humble that when we did the the day for him in the summer time we said some words about him we talked to him afterwards privately he said he was embarrassed and said i really don't deserve this so many people did so many more much more on these things than i that and so i'm willing i accept this nice but i really don't think that i deserve all these things you're saying about me and that was even more so about the character of the man was just his humble attitude and feeling that he he didn't deserve all the recognition that we all gave him but i couldn't agree more with the words of cal's harness that it's a tremendous loss and just send my sympathies to john's family jane colleen and the rest of the family and just losing a tremendous and make sure these words get said tonight before we go on i think helpful to remind us of some some of the other important things in this community that john was so involved in know so that you know not that long a time that i've been in this office five and a half years john has been john with so centrally involved in so many of the major things that happened over that time period he led the campaign for the fiscal stability bond and i think his banking background made him very persuasive in that he was so involved in the whole redevelopment of the waterfront and it's i don't know that there are any individuals who should have been more involved from my perspective as mayor in moving the community forward in the past few years and then when you think about that i was multiplied i'm sure many other mayors and governors and other elected officials from around the sta feel exactly the same way because of the major contributions that he made in these so many other areas i think it should be noted he did so with the great partner in jane who is an a for let us all know the best way to express our sense of loss and appreciation to jane the rest of the family in the coming days of cancer shannon i'm sorry but i'm going to have to make a brief remarks thank you i wasn't expecting to be making these remarks now i found out as we sat at this council table about john's passing john used to live in the south and and john and jane and when i first ran for city council fourteen years ago they were the first people who stepped up to support me and they were my first brochure and i was quite flattered by their support  as a first time candidate i was able to talk to john and jane about a week and a half ago when jane shared that this this was the end and i consider that a great gift that jane was so forthright to tell me  community and that you have made a difference and you've made a difference in the community and you've made a huge difference to me personally and i told him i loved him which i do and we are lucky jane is still here with us and jane is is as passionate as john they were a great team and we are lucky to have we are lucky to have had john we're lucky to still have jane and i look forward to their continued jane's continued participation in our civic life here i actually did have the chance to talk to john about this issue because he you shannon it is really briefly thirty years ago i was part of a group and there are some people in the room that were part of the group as well that bank of boston was trying to buy the bank of the mind and we had an citizens group that opposed that acquisition because we were concerned about the loss of local control over our banking system and john of the time was general counsel for bank of mine and so we were we were antagonists we were going at it but after that john was always so supportive of me he just told me it was totally respectful you know didn't matter to him you know that was part of the process and everyone was doing what they felt were was right so i just have a ton of respect for him and jane as well so thank you thank you counselor hartnett for allowing us a little moment to kind of get you know remind ourselves of you know what was important so are we are we now ready for the resolution on the city council voting process rufe i think is going to move that for us to move to with the reading and adopt the resolution there's a motion to waive the reading and adopt the resolution is there a second is there second cancer jank thank you very much the floor is open for any discussion the process was developed since and i'm not hearing anyone speak to it the process was developed by a committee consisting of counselor counselors roof mason no del and right and it under this process we start with three where three beds we thought maybe would have four but we have the three and each councillor on a first round vote is for two different bidders and the two highest vote getters and vance to the second round if there is a tie for the the lower slot then we have a runoff between those two and till we have a decision on the top two vote getters in the first round once we have the two then we every counts or votes for one and that  is the basically the process laid out cancer shannon thank you president no del i had decided at some point tonight that i would bring forward an amendment to  go back to our original voting method which was that we cast one vote in the elimination round to then move to to the final round i think that that was a fair way to vote i think we all agreed the first time around was fair a fair way to vote this time around we appointed a committee the committee decided that we would place two votes in the first elimination round and i told the committee members that i spoke with at the time that i didn't think that was a good idea i didn't think that councillors should be compelled to vote for two when many councillors only really had one that they really wanted to move forward i think the second vote becomes a strategy you know what i propose changing things tonight the complaints were made that that would then change the strategy but i think that  this is this is not about strategy it's about being true to yourself and casting votes that are true i have not decided if  will cast two votes in the first round but i will i am willing to support adopting this resolution because i think we need to get to the voting how we vote is  it will i will live with it but i have to be true to myself when i  this is we came into this vote with a different understanding and so  sometimes we take recesses we think we have a understanding we come back and find out we don't have an understanding i would ask if we took a five minute recess and there's also some new information that we that we need to possibly vet so i am very take their seats cancer's will please take their seats the first thing we need is a is a motion to suspend the rules to continue our work so moved councillor paul moved it kills the roof second it all in favor of suspending our rules to continue on five jang yes so the floor is open for discussion on the resolution on how to on our voting process any other council or on that resolution counsellor shannon well i'll just say i'm sorry that my announcement that i wasn't sure how i was going to vote put everything in such disarray and cause the long delay for the public thank you cancer any other cancer counselor tracey i just want to say that i will be voting against this resolution  understand that we are not necessarily obligated to do so so i may very well not do that understood counsel tracy thank you i think under this process a cancer could vote for one we have been advised by city attorney a resolution that this council approved to have a commission for people to go and come back with the way that we will we need to vote to move forward and i don't know if this is accurate i just need guns some type of explanation i think the issue is if somebody that you all are doing a resolution in which you're saying you  want everyone to vote twice but if someone feels very strongly that they cannot in their conscience and in their duty as a counselor vote for a second choice this question doesn't really give them a chance to say no the way a regular motion would be so their choice is not to vote and so they will abstain and the fact that the resolution says they won't abstain i just don't see how you can make somebody  yeah so i think you and i we had this conversation through email and i ask you a very simple question because it sounded like i knew this was going to happen i knew this was going to happen one day soon or late in two days a twenty seven there is no way we getting out of you without making a decision and move forward and in email it made it very clear what would be the consequences if wilkinson to decide to not vote this is something that we decided and we no i just think there is not there isn't anything you don't have any ability to force someone to vote who is going to say i am not going to vote what i have suggested to people is that if you think you are not going to vote for to that you say that you do essentially what counselor tracey did which is to say i believe that it's not consistent with my duty as a counselor that i could vote for two of these folks and right now you haven't first or you haven't adopted the process yet and one option would be to change the process and then i suggested that a that somebody could amend the resolution that be also in here so i just want all of us to please make sure that we do this right and we get out of here all of us thank you thank you you know i think that council has a good point and is if people can comply can find a way to comply they will and that's i think they're all we can ask tonight the floor is open on the motion to adopt counselor shannon i just want to say that  this should not be such a huge surprise to the council because in the past we have had commission appointments where we have two people put up and i have in fact voted no because we are not allowed to abstain and not vote but  my vote has been no in some miller situations because you can't compel somebody to vote for something that they are against and that's my intention tonight thank you thank you cancer shannon any other c and all in favor of the motion to adopt a resolution on our count on our voting process as presented please say i any opposed can you raise your hand please so we have cancer tracy  the opposition and all the rest support so passes on a vote of eleven to one thank you council ok so we are now into the next item which is the selection folks i am going well i'm on i'm going to pass the gavel to our president pro tem anderson and i let her know so she's going to be managing the voting and this item and so i guess i should pass it off now so i figured lee passing the gavel to approach him and i think that city of the city attorney will advise you on where we're going now i think the next step is the presentation it might make sense to first indicate that there's going to be a presentation that is going to change make a change in the the bid we have offered that same opportunity to the other two bidders both of whom to to make an adjustment of their bid both of whom decided not to make an adjustment this evening ok be right so the question for vote tonight is whether the council's authorized the mayor to sign a letter of intent for the purchase of burlington telecom with each bring to the table but i let me just start by saying that our partnership is switched but it's still a true partnership but i want i want to give all the credit for kind of stepping aside so what we're proposing is basically taking elements out of shirts as a last l l why and and melding them with the l o y that you received from us monday of last week and the updated one today so would be the old sure's price of thirty point eight million it would have the it would still have the community investment the entrepreneur the job retraining all the will be in just just for the say yes for the city price will go up to the price right you know didn't have all the details sort out because it took us four days five days this one was more fifteen minutes so we don't have anything solved but i think you understand you know if there are elements that overlap in the two we would clearly honor those shore's deal with z f as a minority partner structure is not there there is no second sale but from our perspective as a said we will do the right thing and if the right thing was for zero f to step aside and let people get to a consensus and maintain the benefits of c a rough which is the community related start ups will do all of that so i think we have as we said we would not stand in the middle off you reaching consensus and if that's what the group wants we are supportive of yes thank you pro tem andersen and just we can't hear you unless you speak right into the mic thank you and there is the room so i just have a mission for the attorneys which is what is the expectation that we'll have there be something on paper but in your judgment the council can act on the in the revised l y as it has been presented to us here tonight yes i talked to the lawyers and i think they're going to live or tomorrow morning as suggested tonight  i believe the latest ones were due last monday at nine am and today we are monday the twenty seven one week after it sounds like this is a total new all white plains and into us i mean it's a question it is a different hello i guess there but it's based on the same terms that you've seen it's basically a combination of the z r f and sure's proposal the taking the shares price and s that should decide that we need to have a new a y from an from an from from a new bid i mean this is totally like something totally new and i don't know who should make the decision if we will accept this o not well i think that what you're being asked to consider tonight is whether you accept it on the terms that are verbal ie presented but obviously it's going to have to be followed through with a right a written one and if you don't get that in writing on the terms that we're talking about it and knowing that the l o s would do one week ago and one week after we are getting a presentation of a new a why that's not even in  i mean i just need to look at our processes the way we do things there have been a number of changes in process and this is another one for sure motion it is to authorize the mayor to sign a letter of intent and i can certainly assure you that i will not actually sign a letter in ten until there is an excellent document if if if and i think it remains and if this transpire tonight in fact i had made some calls to hoping to ensure there were no last minute surprises and i'm sure this is anyone watching at home and i understand there are quite a lot of people you know i've been seeing some of the tweets i know there's a lot of frustration was going on i have to say that i am glad that this change happened here i'm not saying i'm going to support this but what i'm saying is what the council now has i believe before it is a much stronger bid and what what we had been discussing earlier in the night that at least from my perspective was not something that i could consider accepting the think had we accepted the other one there had been substantial legal risk still open that the city would have faced that it wanted to go with that that in more i think has been addressed by this change this is not a small change and i think it's done the council and the city a favor to have this different choice before us i think you now have two very different types of operating companies that both have long track records that you can look at and making a decision and i hope you know the hours is late quitely that we well i think people abroad can deserve some discussion of the very different choices now that they have that are now on there before we adjourn tonight so i hope that's once again another turn and in the process here that wasn't anticipated but one that i'm intrigued by so but i need to know a little more and i know you've tried to give us a quick overview so i have a couple of well three questions first of all gary evans does his role change in this right i have to ponder that decision making for the city can you just refresh my memory i didn't bring your original shame on me l o l i but i didn't either you're not the only one and if i remember correctly you know we believe well i know we believe in stronger management so that would be the key role here we also opposed a local board that very similar to what  had so that was there would be a local there be local management local government and a separate local audit because as you have shared ownership ok yeah the city would have a structure the biggest different we captured the seconds right so the last question i mean you spoke to this and so for me the concept of partnering and being having a being a partner was pretty relevant for me pretty important and i appreciate the change and this relationship but i'm still trying to adjust to it the equity share as i do recall when i was doing my this is way back when we have the first proposals before us i remember that the shores had the most opportunity for the city to have a a larger equity share up to potentially one third does that remain yeah i think we definitely want the city to roll over its equity and have the right to do so i think that's one of those what i was told is whether the city can do so or not is is the city doesn't know i think that's something we we'd revisit very quickly so our and our intent would be the same if ok so my question once again is does that when does that sunset that's a really important piece for me and so i asked that before in the other relationship but it's really important for me now to know in this new relationship if the city wasn't able to act on so if indeed the city found itself in a situation where the state or the regular regulatory body said you can't do that would the city have an opportunity to talk among ourselves and the residents and figure out if there was another way that we could exercise an opportunity to have some type of equity share out in principle you'll have to so i'm talking hypothetically but i'm also wanting in this letter of intent and ultimately if indeed you were to be the selected entity i would like to see that written obviously so that we would know what the criteria was and what what the what the opportunity was  think that's very that's important to the community and mean because there is so you're looking at somebody who really doesn't want to sell the entity at all there was one person that came maybe two that came tonight and spoke about you shouldn't sell  and really i'm in that camp i have to be honest with you that's really where i'd like to be i wish i was taught shores and i wish i could give it back to the city actually you know if i had money but i don't so i'm in the situation where i'm i'm trying to do what is best and trying to also let the people that i represent and the citizens of burlington know that although they're going to no longer and they don't own it now i get it but they are no longer going to have that entity that they'll still have some say in it so that's why this is so important you know so i understand what you're saying and absolutely whatever we do would be in wri that that's i just don't have a four year right now so yes i do understand what you're saying ok thank you councillor if i can have two quick questions first i think contractual they are i mean might be this might not be legal but are they essentially verbal commitments so that's very legal if they are non binding all of the allies that have been presented are non binding and this is non binding and also verbal which is different but it's going to be followed up in writing and the idea is to get principal terms agreed to that then would turn into definitive documents or in the second  for mr sure one item that was typically commonly discussed was the guarantees around cost for service for a certain time length i'm trying to recall and i can't i wonder if have counsel hartnett tracy rate and thank you there's a couple things so i know you got that look on your face out there how we get here but you know i honestly believe if we didn't get here that we would be six six again and we were going to have an outcome and i think this gives us an out a chance to to get to it to get here and i look at this more as an amendment to shores as letter of intent  it's really the original letter of intent that shore's submitted that's been seen by this council's been seen by the public it's been vetted i'm not saying that we don't get to see it again and we will but this isn't something that like you know is brand brand new like you know that they're trying to some of the councils are trying to say that this is a brand new letter of intent that is not really true this is a this is kind of a win win right answers all the questions if we talked about the tea in in their criteria that we heard tonight about local ownership and and and about you know future sale right this answers all that and to be honest with you coming out of the b to have committee and we got a letter from david differently from the start and then including myself we sure we made mistakes but at the end the day if this takes us a little extra longer if it takes us till twelve o'clock at night or to the more morning to get this right and to come up with the best partner for the city brewington i think we have a responsibility to do that and not everybody in this council is going to be able to embrace this but i would say that would be seven eight nine counts or is that at the end of the day you could say ok maybe we ended up with the best partner wasn't my choice but maybe we ended up with the best partner and i appreciate shores in z r if we're going to do that and to be honest with you i approached them myself and asked them tonight if you want to know how we got here because i knew that we were headed six six and we can't be six six we can't for the sake of bronte telecom for the sake of the city for the sake of the council we can no longer be six six it's bigger than all of us right now we need to get out ahead of this and if they're willing to do it i think we should i think as a council we should embrace this thanks counselor tracey so we came into this meeting thinking that we were going to be debating one l o i and midstream out of the view of the public we got a completely different alibi that was negotiated out there in the hall out of public view out of anybody's knowledge or anything anybody's ability to review it i haven't even had a chance to look at it and anyway i feel incredibly uncomfortable with this and i think it's incredibly unfair to the citizens of burlington who have not had a chance to do have not had a chance to look at this hour why i understand that the other alone that the other bidders were given a chance to look at this but they were to throw this on their their their plate at the last second and say you want to make a counteroffer feels incredibly unfair to them as well and it's just a slap in the face of the public process that that's happened here i think this is completely unjust so i would ask both of you in your own words how is this at all fair to burlington citizens i don't think we're trying to be unfair to anyone i think we were invited but if you remember we were invited back into the process and we tried to give you an alternative and unfortunately the first alternative we gave you didn't seem to help resolve the issue that the council is happening so i honestly i don't know if this will help either but we're actually trying to be helpful and certainly not insult anyone ok i certainly appreciate that and i just feel like i don't feel i can feel completely uncomfortable with this i walked in thinking that i was going to support you and get my second bid you but i don't think i can do that because you know i just don't have i just don't think that this was the proper process to follow for this i think this is completely wrong and i just really don't like it i think you should always follow your conscience let me add that we did not come in today for this outcome i zero f proposal was all this different it was all this and equity proposal it was all this about the second aspect of this deal which was on the table we did not but it would not have been the right thing to do for us to say that's the deal so the rich all i can say fine we're not the winner our structure is not  lynton can get a better deal which i still have my views on for sale second sale but it doesn't matter i had the same views back in july about which one is a better decision so i think what we it this is not a deal we created this is the situation which was presented in front of us we had a the piece which we said we want to do which is the community piece will be did minority partner but i can tell you this to out this process i have gained a huge respect for this partnership maybe half an hour or an hour ago we were the lead and they were in a different role i hope to god i can play the same  they played to us so we responded to what was asked off us in the in the best way we know how to and to give up the sensually our our structure and our deal but not take away counsel right thank you i understand counter tracey's frustration in a sense but i want to thank both of you and gary i very much appreciate that you're doing this in the spirit of what you think helps move the city forward i think you set up there and you watched and listened and you saw the result that many of us were seeing that we were going to be in the potentially in the in the same spot as we've been in for weeks here so i don't think it was my guess is it was not easy for you to come to this decision i think that facile i think thought that he had a better way forward and i think there was a lot of exciting elements to the proposal that was in front of us before but some of the questions that i did have when when i first heard about this was what happened to the five year broadband i asked the freeze on broadband was different this proposal there was other good things in the first proposal but now the five year broadband backend the freeze on broadband prices one of the questions i had asked in the mayor's office and i've asked it a number of times is the question about valuation and i get that we were more about equity in your proposal and the carried interest but now the now there is no question about a lawsuit anymore the valuation is up into an area where there will be no question about that there will be no question about the regulatory process to me i'm excited as hell about this change i think it gives us the both of the but best of both worlds in this i think we have a and it is no no not on the first proposal please believe me no knock on the first proposal i appreciate how hard you worked on the first proposal and and i i absolutely love the spirit that you both including gary have come forward with this proposal and the good intentions for the city of religion so i am eager and i hope that we have found the sweet spot with a proposal that a majority of the council can once and for all get behind and move us forward so i want to thank you for that thank you i really want to i don't know what outcome we will have if whether this revised proposal work or not but one thing which i long a couple weeks ago really my point there was we have with the k b t l n with the the two cows to bed we had two very extreme kind of opposite in many ways opposite proposals and we didn't get neither we were getting deadlock between those two opposites and i was saying we need to find something in the middle and eventually that led to inviting back sure's and  a lot of the comments i was prepared to make on behalf of zero espied which i also really liked really do also apply here which i feel for the people who you know one of the co op i don't see a way of getting getting there but what i do see that carries forward some of those values is that under this proposal bt continues as kind of an independent burlington based burlington centric burlington identified burning burlington embedded company and i think that's really really important and has lots of positive implications for us moving forward the potential ownership position is thirty three and a half percent from the the september and so like counsel right i'm hoping that we we can get to a a strong majority vote for this for this revised ela why i've spent most of my time when i'm not scrambling to get ready for a lecture reading these ela lies over so i personally don't feel that i can understand that when it's in front of me i feel that i have a good grasp of the verbal presentation of what we're looking at here and i know that the will give it a fine tooth comb and we'll review it carefully and i think we can have confidence and that work that the mayor on our behalf if we do decide to go with this people's revised proposal tonight thank you council mason thank you i think president thank you for your efforts to try and get across the goal line i what i'm struggling with i appreciate that those of us on the council who have lived eat and breathe bt for a significant period of time may be able to grasp this very material change the difficulty is the public you know we've we've all done significant outreach and in particular over the last week via from ports forum meetings et this is a complete change from what we've presented to the public i've not received you know a single constituent they said vote for sure because you didn't have a bid and that's the piece that i'm struggling with i don't know what i mean i appreciate all of us on this council want this to be over tonight i think if any of us made a motion to postpone or you know for a week or some period of time to allow public input i'd probably be you know pummeled but the reality is we really have not had the public input and there are differences you know between the three offers there were started to be public input you know on sure's some of which i appreciate was not received well but there are differences between taking insurers customer service pricing et cetera and we really haven't a dug into that as a council or as much as we might and also not allow the public to weigh in on that and i'm struggling with what do i do with that it's twelve o'clock i appreciate there's a desire to move forward and i'm not asking you to do this i'm just telling you what i'm thinking through here we are in a process we're going to have to cast two votes i know how i may feel about those two votes but i don't know that i've forgot my constituents in the public an opportunity to inform me in making that bit and that's troubling to me us thank you to all the folks at thank you to the folks at k b t l this is obviously been an agonizing process for all of us and there's a lot of frustration and i don't want it to appear like it's with you because honestly it's not with you i think you've been straight shooters with us and i appreciate that you came to the table and you told us this is about building it up and flipping it and some people don't like the terminology if you were straight and i respect that i'm not sure use the word flip you did you did you did i type like verbatim but it's ok because you can use a different term it's still the same thing and you just told the truth that's good i will tell you  the record it's worked out so my understanding is that's not whatever we call it that's not the plan anymore so that's i think that that's a good thing for burlington generally i completely respect that you have come forth with with your best offers but you know in figuring out how did we get here today i'm wondering if over the last two weeks have you bet or had conversations with any councilors about changing your bed or about coming forward with something else you would not have  i mean we're really talking about the bit we're not really talking about the process are we i mean there has no discussion to change the deal has been no discussion right to tonight because i would not have put so much effort into the deal if i knew what the outcome just how but you have had meetings and discussions about not to change to alter the bit in some way there was no to sort of order and they've had discussions about to sa discussions were only about your old deal we have had input from ever a lot of people in terms of what we should do with our deal pressure on this increase evaluation  no there were no board meetings any different than what you attended councillor shannon we had a process that we we went through terry dorman we could set up a meeting and he just couldn't be an individual council by themself by themselves i had questions that i wanted to continue to ask about the proposal no different than you going to the fletcher fully free library meeting with them as you did yes you certainly did and that was a sanction fassel was flying out of town otherwise we would have met with him in a downtown location and we said it was it was the easiest thing to do there we followed the process that was exactly as it was laid out we ran into counselor paul there we asked her if she wanted to join the meeting and she did she actually brought up the question and said i'm not sure we're supposed to be doing this and i said well we are because terri said to meeting up for us and because there's more than one of us here it's fine and that was the process that we followed it there is no question about that it is no different than the meeting that we had at the fletcher free library or the meetings that we had here in the city hall it was a meeting where we continued to have questions about the process and nothing was as it was exactly as fassel has ok i want to be clear because i'm being accused of doing something outside of what we agreed to that the council was invited to meet with with the bidders in meetings that were arranged and shared with the full council i had no knowledge of the meeting at the library was actually with terri horman was available to all of the councillors and we all sat in on the meetings there were no secrets and it was known to everybody that those meetings were available to all of us that was not the case with meetings at the airport and other meetings that i've heard about for the like to move on to the substance of this issue  and everybody who has had separate meetings i know i have not had any meetings with you or any other better or any conversations those who had can you know defend themselves  haven't had that discussion with kerry so we would have a strong local leader and so that's to be determined so that's where we are right now as i said i'd like to i'd like for gary to have a i was expecting to answer that question i was expecting answer the question says lp so i don't mean if you can't answer the question is perfectly fair to say you know i'll get back to you or i can answer the question i don't know  answer you're my understanding was you would need board approval to go forward with this deal and i'm sure you had some inkling as to that your board was going to approve your original elo i perhaps that was run by them and perhaps the partnership with z r f had been run by them and i wondered where are we with your board approval process so the previous l y was reviewed approved by our company's acquisition committee and our board so that structure was already in the zeer of partnership my acquisitions committee met tuesday of last week and approved that so i'm having to schedule a new board meeting in the next couple weeks so that would be i would update everything at that point ok so still requires that that process  will be the investors in my understanding is this is sixty percent sure it's forty now it would be oh i'm sorry to interrupt you oh go minority stake in as well we're figuring that out but that would be what percentage ownership would you could well it would be anywhere i mean part of it depends on as a minority party what percent will decide we have decided but it is not the it is it is shores is deal with benefits  off all the community related initiatives and investments but we do not have the g p l piece structure going to buy be a minority partner is it just going to be you investing or will there be other investors in that partnership that will be the minority partner we haven't figured this out but the reality is the right way to think this about is this is sure steele ok this is shareholders you're going to have the majority shores you'll have a minority interest if you have other investors will we know that you have other investors and will we know who the investors are this is right this is zero this is sure deal and just think of this i'm sure you have to go and fight to figure out you know if you're going to have other investors and and it might not be the same people interested in this deal that we're interested in the previous deal but my question is just if you bring in other partners you had previously agreed to share the names of the other partners with  not with the city b and i just want to know is that the same arrangement will we know that you have partners will we know who the partners are who will that information be shared with i think because we are we are public it's different than a private body and it's important to the public to know who owns the telecom i think in this case shores owns it she shares as a minority partner  but i'll take that to mean that you do not want to share the details of who's in your partnership is no i think sure it would be the majority partner we would have anywhere from and again it depends on what the other parties do we could have anywhere from in what you're offering us tonight no there are still some things that zero offers that we are very much interested in namely the things in the community with the entrepreneurship with the job retraining that's those are the things that we're still figuring out but if you own sixty to one hundred percent at sixty percent as your partner and one hundred percent of the most most of them to happen is how much does the city of burlington i think our partnership is would we do all those things including the tech innovation fund including the green yes so you're talking about the two hundred well you put it as one point seven five million dollars over seven one point seven five million dollars over seven years went to florida council yes we were supposed to make a vote on the twenty seven we on the twenty eight and we won't be here until the twenty nine can we ask can we make need then you can move on to what i mean by i do think that it's important that we get all of our questions answered so we can go another round i'm happy to do that so i have more questions i don't think we can vote until all questions are answered but i will yield to the other counselors counsel thanks you know i had actually prepared you know some comments that i was going to speak to given the fact that it was proposal and one of the things that i was going to say was that quite honestly i would have preferred a sure is offer with a value add i think this is a better proposal for the city of  burlington and as others have mentioned as councillors hartnett wright and president no del have mentioned some of the benefits of that one of the others is that and one of the concerns that i always had was that i was much more attracted to a decentralized model and i think this is a decentralized model of the burlington telecom that we have today under assures the r f proposal will i believe feel like the burlington telecom that we all care about and i think probably the opportunities are much greater with this kind of arrangement for us to be able to benefit from the synergies with hiawatha broadband so i'm very happy with this proposal the other thing i just wanted to mention is that you know i i wouldn't have had really an opportunity with a proposal to really speak to the financials because you know you really you it was hard to it as a family office it's a completely different set up but i just wanted to for the benefit of the public to just reiterate what i had said back in  horman and asked him if he would set up an opportunity for me to speak with todd about his audited financials and we had a great conversation on a sunday afternoon and he also did give me the opportunity to access his final his audited financials for which i was very appreciative and i think i think what we're looking at was surest communication is a very strong and sound company  one that is not interested in any sort of get rich quick kind of scenario it's a very patient patient return on equity and i think it's the kind of offer that we're looking for a long term owner their record is not one of you know buy something and sell it in five years buy something and sell it in ten they are a long term holder and and i think the i  personally think that you will be if you're selected a very good partner for burlington that being said and i i do want to make sure that we do have an opportunity to give the the two people that are here from tng the opportunity to come up and you know and and for us to ask any questions that we want to ask of them i do want to say in the two to ting that one of the things that maybe a lot of people don't know is that over the last couple of weeks there's a lot of things that we have asked of tng we've asked them to go and talk directly with k b t l to possibly work out something with them we've talked we've talked to them about different things that we wanted in the o y they have agreed to everything that we have asked of them and i think that we that that does bear our acknowledgement and our thanks you know they if they are selected they will be a very good partner for burlington as well so i agree with the mayor we have an opportunity to move forward with several good offers and hope that we can wrap this up on the twenty eighth of november thank you can make a request in having the summary of this new proposal before we make any vote i would like to ask maybe the consul we go in a recess they can work on the summary of the proposal and bring it forward before we make any vote because we cannot just make votes on woods we have to have at least something in writing before you move on that's just  a point of order could we continue it's another recess honestly is pretty dangerous here can we just continue asking questions and and we can just get copies of what you have shared with the council so that we can continue this process i mean i don't have anywhere that i know and i don't know how people can ask questions just for asking questions i mean we need something to look at in order to ask a question and that's what i'm nicely asking the cons least our president oh yes i think it's helpful to have something in writing if we get something you know fairly quickly i think that's an excellent idea and in the meantime if there are more questions we can you know kind of keep going through the questions i think we should need to make progress we need to look elsewhere shannon has more questions let's get through the questions and listen i do think that we should get to the voting at some point and i think blight we owe it to ourselves and to the city and the bitters to at some point get to voting because questions could go on for ever and we can't allow we need to get the i know i wanted other councillors of an opportunity you still be buying up other municipal telecoms is that still part of the plan right now i think that we will be digesting this one first that would be the right answer i think we want to learn i think we will learn before we make that next decision we see a lot of opportunities clearly we committed to you know complete the bill that in burlington except for those one hundred twenty households that are very difficult that will figure out how we can get to some point there's lots of room to expand in in neighboring communities i think there's opportunities throughout the state of vermont so we're we're going to walk before we run would be ok answers and  you recently sold the telecom i think in two thousand and sixteen i don't remember the name of it over though because i may have been made aware of this many weeks ago but dan's cable in florida and can you share with us was that  other about thirty to forty years we were in a very difficult competitive position in a large media market and there were i think half a dozen video providers and probably five or six broadband providers and we found we just couldn't affect of really we could effectively serve our customers or compete in that market and so we said it was better for us to leave phoenix and tucson arizona those are competitive markets so it's not the competitive nature of the competitive market was that it was the fact that we just effectively couldn't communicate our message ok and now i'm go to the city in that deal was that we were you know pretend if you were successful in doing that we would have had this large deal at yield at the end and so the argument was that you know there was a seven million seven point three million dollars differential between you and tang and but we could make that up at the sale in five to ten years we could potentially make more than the seven million dollars so but in this comparison you don't have that upside your price is thirty point eight million things price is thirty thirty two point three million you don't you're telling me you don't know who's going to operate this business so how are you going to be i mean are you going to make the argument that you're going to operate the business better than taking or what's the thing that kind of puts you over in your mind what's the strength of your of your bid here now i mean you were at one point the high better i remember  no and you know i i can't judge had taken would operate the business you know we would operate the business do i know who the local manager would be at this point you know that's that's all the things we need to figure out we have a structure in our communities you know we've got tens of thousands of fiber customers so we we have a tracker and kind of know what how we won operate that i think the big difference would be  you know there were not be i would not vision the sale of burlington telecom as a one hundred percent entity in the future so you know we would need to sort out how you do that valuation i would expect and my our intent have to figure out that valuation mechanism because it probably wouldn't be a sale of the energy on the open market right so and i don't remember from your previous offer what the buyback arrangement was if the city has i assume you're offering the city a twenty percent share and and we would have the opportunity to buy back the share and what was the previous offer in are you sticking with that yeah our previous offer was we would be happy to have the city roll over its equity we also said at the city wanted to put in additional equity  resources and we would welcome the city increasing its share up to one third of burlington teleco but then if the city is in for one third and then wants to liquidate that investment mechanism but we haven't done that i know the answer the question because i have the documents thank you and the president the answer was basically we would work it out work with you to work it out and i also have really isn't there the sure is  confidential eleven year plan which lays out very clearly the business plan so if any counselor is interested in having this document much of many of the questions that we are hearing now are actually have been answered by documents we have received up to now do we have a final copy of the written ok because there are probably still be questions i think cancer day i don't want to pay for cancer day but that's what he was waiting for right yes to we move on to the others though and come back to th i appreciate that thank you for that so my question for ting is you know you've been hearing all of this and it sounds like nothing is done yet and we still have a possibility to little bit instead of two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year is that possible possible for you also too make it happen a little bit make it go up a little bit and if you're interested in doing so please do it  i one thing i do want to confirm is it's two hundred fifty thousand dollars per year in perpetuity and in addition to the two hundred fifty thousand dollars we would do the same things we do in other markets which involve significant community support such as sponsoring local events such as giving free services to select non profits such as initiatives that would help bridge the digital divide the lifeline program so i think we will be giving additional community support that we haven't necessarily quantified but which is which burlington has told us is important and that will be outside of the two hundred fifty thousand dollars and would be on a yearly basis so there is no way to have it in writing what do you just talk about and say this is the amount that we can comment in bringing forward every single year for building twenty and i think our letter and ten stands i think  seen and so i don't know that this is i don't know this is about a bidding war anymore i think this is about values and preferences and and who we trust operate this business thank you in terms of percentage yeah i'll start with something i think folks have heard me say which is we're not going to come up in front of the city and we don't want to put ourselves in a position where we're going to fail and we've had a lot of pressure to just increase our bid we've had a lot of pressure to do different things and what we did in this final proposal it is something that's going to require you know requires us to really you know sharpen everything is finally as we can but still be in that position to say this is going to succeed within the community because the last thing we want to do is take us back you know to the position where things were either you know it wasn't necessarily that they took on too much debt but it was it was a spent too much on you know the build out and we don't want to put it back into that position so we've focused very closely on making sure that we're not going to be for the cooperative putting this in a position to fail so if you ask me the probability i mean it's going to basically be a probability event that would be based on you know some dramatic business shift that would cause issue for any party and it's not going to be in as an operating issue that would come up or a financial ability to pay our debts that come up so you know whatever the probability of a you know basically a business disruption that would be and i don't mean a business i don't mean a business disruption like an equipment failure i mean a total change in the way the world works type of business disruption the buggy whip kind of story that would be our reason for failure and lastly the main concern for many of my constituents and also many of the  were the amount of debt now it was twelve million and now eighteen millions well how how did you come up with that how why did you want to add more debt into your bed instead the network the five network in this city and into the communities beyond but then a few pages later use you mention in your investment commitment the fifty seven million dollar investment of yours and so i'm just trying to understand the seven million dollar difference between those investments  just continuing that i had a similar question on the team proposal and then i also have a question for kate cave e t l the discussion about completion of burlington very unequivocal that we're we will finish the new north then we will build out burlington and then you say that you review plans for neighboring areas including when you ski essex willesden south burlington build there if warranted so that's we're going to explore it and if it makes sense w do it i just want to clarify that so on on the keep it gave details there was a revision to the bid so my understanding is that the upper price in effect is now sixteen point five and not eighteen million dollars is that correct dave i think you need the eighteen million dollars assumes in detail but i knew the twelve million dollar numbers pretty well so when you change to the eighteen million the system the city with all the assumptions to get eighteen million how does it affect your you know cash flow and the number still work with the well you have to keep in mind there were several important changes at the twelve million dollars there's a member buy in at five hundred dollars per account with half of that waived for burlington tubes with a minimum payment of five dollars a month and that brings in close to four hundred thousand dollars a year for the first four the short answer is that the  debt coverage ratio has a has a bit of a hole larger hole in the eighteen million dollars bid at five years when the payment to main fiber steps up  proposal together and i was you know just wondering and they said they could not and so that was right and it was ok it's all good we did talk to them and the reason i know the reason they didn't  answer the question is they didn't know if we were in the room and they were uncomfortable to answer without us being in the room so yes we did and i think it was again it was just you know something that wasn't going to you know necessarily connect with the approaches that we take in particular toward ownership of the asset so you know we were introduced and we were able to speak with them a bit but it didn't really you know have didn't go very far  there was actually a question posted on twitter that i wanted to ask sure but i don't know if they're still in the room or if they just want to negotiate on the what ok when they come back i have a question sorry i'm sorry i don't have a question i seen so much of you guys i don't really have any more questions for you so by the way if the there are no other questions on should i propose a five minute alan things i asked about shoes rather than shirts because it was so late my years are  e i just don't want to drive this on any any longer than we need to so so so somebody just tweeted and asked me to ask this question and sent me a  link and you know honestly we haven't had a lot of time to do any kind of due diligence on your offer so i apologize for just kind of spring this on you on the floor but what was what was sent to me was from mother jones the title of it is media meet the media companies lobbying against transparency and there is a list of companies included in this and you and  other organizations on there including the net cox media group hearst television and you're on the list so i just want to you to have the opportunity to address that and all hire lobbyists and and do you hire have you hired obvious on the net neutrality issue or what was your position in two thousand and twelve has it changed know we've had a lobbyist once it was not from that neutrality it was for something completely different it was for a transaction related kind of thing and i don't know what that one you that we made and that the two of us made in the letterman time we did together as well as the one that we made our company made in september we would absolutely honor that that's that's the way we do business so i don't know i don't know that one that's specific article i'm sorry if if you make a deal with the t v that you are supportive of net neutrality i don't really understand the structure of your company to know if you might have you have a subsidiary i think they could lobby for against net neutrality even though even though in burlington we support net neutrality they might still side that they do not support net neutrality is that correct yeah well let me we ate newspapers i don't think we've ever had a year where they've all endorsed the same candidate we're fine with ok thank you anyone else the attorneys have gone downstairs to update to sorrow knows what's going on but updating a document the will take a few minutes on and come back with so if there are no other questions which we go back for with out of hand i'm sorry no really wrong i don't feel like the city operator of the network and it's the documents have been handed out he will ask if you know work will maybe walk through it briefly and then i'll just any questions ok so the document that you have in front of you is the summary of proposals column which was the z r f column and converted it over to add in the new proposal so it sort of a blended approach of showing the changes from the z r f proposal to the new shores proposal so the first provision is on management ownership sure is going to be the majority owner and zero f will be a minority owner or partner however that ends up getting characterized but the concept there is the majority minority position no change with respect to the retention of staff on the offer source of funding it's cash at thirty point eight million it assumes that the two point five million that's been planned in capital expenditures will continue to be made and additionally there is possibly an additional price increase based on the even performance for fiscal year two thousand and eighteen those those that was in the shore offer before and but it doesn't have firm numbers around it yet it's a cash deal that hasn't changed from before the commitment to move memorial there they will move memorial facilities with eighteen months of notice and the payment of that is still to be negotiated with with the lease terms is what we're talking about  the potential city equity is i think on the purchase price proceeds it's twenty percent there's been this talk about additional amounts but that's going to be subject to whether the city can do that i think  that's the same on fire build out the there are actually much more expansive provisions on the capital commitment but the plan is to reinvest the profit into growth and then to make additional the pricing commitment was to make no price increases on broadband for sixteen months which is an increase from the thirty six and content cost increases only on video passed on it cost  the customer service was you know an expansion of the the of current customer service they have included the anti monopoly provision in concept the specific language around that still needs to be determined the there's a commitment to net neutrality and on the put right if the city decides to take it's an equity interest they want to sell their interest back they've included that but still some of the terms around what that put right it's going to look like or need to be determined that was consistent with the old sure zelo i as well as the commitment to smart city initiatives is the same with respect to the church street location they would like a long term lease with either a right of first refusal or an option to buy and we have and we still have to negotiate the terms on rant  and they offer to write or first refusal to the city on the future resale but that also needs to still be negotiated which is again consistent with the prior l o l i and the board you know are some flexibility on this as well but the idea would be that probably nisar and todd and maybe even gary would be on the local board and the city would have a board seat as well if it rolls its equity  assumes zero working capital and i think that's pretty much the the run through to retain sorry city may elect to retain ownership interest up to whatever but approximately twenty percent and why am i confusing the thirty three and a third with this twenty percent looks twenty percent reflects the if if we were to roll over all of the sale proceeds i think the thirty percent that you're thinking about was a provision that was in the other it was in the previous but it was saying if the city had additional funds to roll and write but is that going to be retained in this because that was in the original elo i from shores that's important to me i referenced i don't think shores has any problem with that i didn't put it in there because i don't i don't know how we could structure that under our charter ok ok the answer is yes ok and so the other question is i don't know if i have the or i have the right to ask it but i'm not sure if it's legally ok we're probably went home exhausted but anyways two hundred church street which you know a long term lease or right of refusal or option to buy could we just get more equity in the company just saying that mr mayor so i'm just trying to figure out ways to increase our portion of this and i just wanted to know i didn't know whether that was something that really could be discussed it's a real estate transaction and that has to come before the council and well aware of that but  anyways that's another thing food for thought as as we move forward thank you council misson thank you thank you for this chart ruffin that's hopeful but i think it also highlights some of the difficulties we're going to have to face in making a decision they see at least the three material items that are not finalized the you know the move i know it's been projected that's a million dollars plus who's going to pay for that was something to be determined the right of repurchase again something to be negotiated in good faith contrasted with the ting offer where we've got a specific purchase price and specific timing and finally you know on the right of first refusal we have specific language from at least one better but we have a to be negotiated from a leverage perspective if they are moved forward as the winner what leverage do we have to extract terms that would be more favorable to the city but i think your leverage has been extraordinary through this transaction so i am saying now though i mean  we go from three to two to one tonight you know with these three material terms open where we have to get those terms finalized quickly i think there was some there's some exposure on this on in all of the  frankly we have really nailed this down in any of them so i think there was exposure in all of them so i you're saying there might be a few more points here that would be but frankly this was true and  that no actually i think that you're going to have to sign a letter soon very soon we're going to have to sign final purchase documents by december thirty first ok but we have some time to get these questions answered now so you don't have to be answered tonight first seen been involved in the last five and half years i know that tony is are going to wake up tomorrow and have no matter what happens of these three votes and you know it's not entirely clear to me what's going to happen three bett sitting here at this table has worked extremely hard on this issue and has had the interest of burlington in my and trying to bring this to as good a resolution as possible and as  help us get to the end i do want to say again two things to the b t l board and volunteers if if the key b t l is not chosen and the votes  i hope you see the stamp on these final both of these final other bids and how much you have improve them i also you know have a few regrets of how this think how this is transpired the last couple months one of my regrets that we were not able to quite get over the finish line and find a way for the co op to have a twenty percent ownership with the team bit and i think that would have been  combined with the city that was almost within our grasp there that we would have had forty percent local ownership and maybe as you know four miracle suggested more weight than the forty percent suggested in the future of the company and i want to know that i wish they had had had come that had come to pass i think it would it would be maybe better than what we're going to end up with the final thing i would like to in the mayor's office that i didn't really notice for years but it is remarkable how long king has been following what is happening here and been interested and and wanted to be a partner to burlington throughout i believe they are the choice of a large segment of the public i think many berlin tony windsor can be very disappointed if they wake up tomorrow and find that thing is not the choice and i think that's because king has an extraordinary record of affordability extraordinary record of customer service and i think they have shown for twenty four years that they believe in burlington values like net  an open internet like good privacy policies like  lifeline programs and make ensuring that the digital divide is closed i've been unable to convince you that as everyone knows for weeks now so i will close not with my words but i do want to just make sure that the council where the letter that came in right here at the end came in last wednesday just before thanksgiving was written by christopher mitchell the highly respected director of community broadband networks from the institute for local self reliance his letter stated in part i will read the whole letter but there are some porton words we are an organization that shares localism as a strong value has more than a decade of experience working on broadband policy to best benefit communities we have a long history with tang though no financial relationship not only have we extensively documented things partnership with westminster maryland to build a citywide fiber network but many of us have been customers of king's parent to cowes in various ways king's has long been a force for good in protecting and expanding an open internet both in sponsoring important events and be its c e o who has served in organizations that can be thankless and irritating but nonetheless make the internet what it is today and it partnership with westminster put more on the line to make that partnership work than we have seen in any other partnership i believe with what is still before you for at least a few more moments here you have  why that could be a new model municipal partnership municipal private partnership the combination of a partnership with a company with a long progressive track record and agreement that codified a long list of local values and hope people understand there were comments in public former night we've been caring about the privacy policy we've been caring about other policies that we're still here in the public and it's in that agreement this is an agreement that codified is a long list of local values and goals and a city minority interest that gives us a seat at the table with an ability to demand enforcement of our agreement will be something that other communities greatly and i still think i would be a great choice l and so are we in a sense all right that because of actions not by this administration or by this council that we were put in this position that i believe everybody around this table in this room would love to have this concept of right where we don't mistakes that we made in the past and where we had to get to because with this city was on a financial meltdown a crisis that we couldn't even buy fire trucks for christ sakes or police cruisers that we had to we had to be in this position tonight not to be able to keep this our own and that's the sad thing not that we're not going to sell it to ten but that we could eventually be and still be the owner of this company and that is that no fault to anybody in this room so hopefully tonight i think we have partner with somebody that is going to be a true partner in if you look at the criteria the burlington b tab and you look at the work they did and their recommendation coming out of growing to be tab that shores was the right partner all along and they got screwed because of politics so to say that to me would be the only one to make people in burlington happy is not true throughout this process i've been interim a huge heavy tail supporter and i continue to be a k b tail support i'll be casting one vote for k b t l i think that the values that they brought to the table the tenacity that they brought to the table the organizing in the continuous public support that they demonstrated time and time again whether it was coming out to city council meetings coming to forums that we organized in the all north end whether it was rallies where there was questions or counselors answered or asked it was really truly unbelievable to see the community coming together and organizing and showing true vision and i think that that's what i'm going to be really heartbroken about tonight if we don't end up going with with kay b t l is that it's a real loss for the city of burlington it's a real loss for the city of for the people of burlington and something that i think that we will  very much regret in the future should we not go with kay b t l i also think it's incredibly unfortunate that we've decided to abandon all process seemingly at the at the at the eleventh hour well maybe it was the twelfth hour i don't i don't know i lost track of time long ago but  the fact of the matter is that we've lost any semblance of a real process and it strikes me as completely unfair that we put ting and gave e t l through their paces in over six months of voting and then we have another l o l i emerged before us in the hall out negotiated away from public eyes coming before us at the and in the middle of the night and we just it's one am and we just get the deal in writing and now we're expected to know we're going to be voting on the on this deal and this could be very well the telecom that we have to live with for generations to come when we don't really have any of the vetting that we did with any of the other other bidders in place which is just incredibly unfortunate and i think it's a real mistake to do so i think it's incredibly unfair and i think that burlington residents are going to wake up tomorrow morning and be furious absolutely furious that they were not given a chance to weigh in on this particular option it's going to be messy it's going to be really ugly because people were this is a participatory town this is an issue that has drawn on that participation and we really have left the public out of any meaningful ability to comment on this this offer that they're going to be asked to live with for generations to come so i think it's incredibly unfortunate i think it's an absolute absolutely a mistake and i think will regret it as a city if if we move forward this way i just want to be clear for those that are considering considering a vote for sure and i'll say it's hard to talk at this late hour but there's a few things that i want to point out if we're not going to vote for local ownership with k b t l which i know for myself i am not and i have said that to all of the board members i think over a long course of time i wish i could support the offer but but i can't and so for now choosing between the two non local offers and let's be clear these are both non local offers let's look at what the comparison between those non local offers are we do not know who will be operating under sure's management that's what we were told tonight that decision has later we were told that they would stephen would not be part of it so i'm not sure we knew there either but we do know who the operators are undertaking the board approval is still required and this deal would fall through the board i don't believe knows about the deal that was crafted here on the floor tonight and should that approval not come this deal will fall through we do not  know who the investors from z r f are they will be a minority partner and they have shared with us tonight that they do not intend to disclose who those investors are does it matter who owns or telecom i think it does matter to the citizens of burlington i think that if you know we could find out anybody owns a significant share telecom it could be donald trump owns a share in burlington telecom we don't know who those people are and i think that that is a problem for the citizens of burlington we are supposed to be transparent as government  and i understand you know private companies don't work that way public companies do is a public company so we know a lot about them there's nothing redacted it's it's transparent  we don't know president know dell had made a huge issue of our buyback rate and said that burlington was not getting a good enough deal from taking the deal that we have with thing is that thing is going to buy burlington at a certain multiplier of eva and the agreement was that if we wanted to liquidate our share they would bias back at the same multiplier of but that was not good enough in this case we have no idea what the buyback rate is going to be and that was critically important in considering the tng offer but now i think we lose our leverage out of a vote tonight and while the date is december thirty first that we're supposed to approve the final documents it's just summer eighteenth that's our last meeting of this year and getting into the christmas holiday is hardly a transparent time to be approving documents currently fifty percent of bt employees get retirement benefits i don't know what sure's plans to offer to the employees i know that had said that one hundred percent of the bt employees will get retirement benefits so that remains an unknown unless somebody wants to correct that point because i certainly i might have missed something at this at this time there's no right of first refusal in this offer in the communications that i have received certainly on the council floor the predominance of input from the public has been support for k v t l in my own inbox i have had very mixed support for al and ting there has been a lot of support that has been expressed to me in the community and you know it's not televised but there is a lot of support in the community for ta on twitter i think the predominant support has really been for change from the kind of tech community there were i think on facebook i had two people respond that their second choice and it was a long second was when i asked why the only thing i heard was the right of first refusal that is not part of assures offered there is no right of first refusal and in assures offer so we have lost  so for the community the community has not asked for anything in this offer there's nothing in this offer that isn't providing thing is providing two hundred fifty thousand dollars annually who are community community investments like the t v ignite like smart cities like bridging the digital divide we have a seven year commitment in the scherzo offer i think there's a lot of value when that when that gets cut cut off we're going to feel that when you take that two hundred fifty thousand dollars annually out of the community we are going to feel that as a community there's a number of questions that are being raised on twitter about schurz is position on net neutrality they are not convinced of the answer they're not  well i don't want to say they're not committed to the answer because i think todd was very fair in saying that he's agreed to net neutrality for burlington telecom but the other organizations of sure's are not committed to net neutrality the parent company is not committed to net neutrality so to the extent that burlington telecom i'm sorry that i can't support you because i don't think you met the bar of a viable offer but tng is a great to burlington which the mayor reference so i i don't understand how the council how any councillor can cast a vote for a company that heartnut has had lots of people telling him that they want to how about that that's for them to say for myself i have no input from the public in support of the offer that is now on the table it's unknown to the public because they have been sleeping for all of the time that it's been negotiated here and i will not be casting a vote that is i mean i hate to use the word transparency and i never but i never have seen a less transparent process than bringing in a completely new offer at the eleventh hour when everybody is asleep and i will not i think could be a good operator and i think that they could be good for burlington but i cannot tonight in good and they're good people and i like them and boring but i just wanted to clarify the point on the right of first refusal i think they have offered a right of first refusal if we just don't have complete clarity on the terms i realize it's not a full answer but it there is not that there's a lack of willingness that thank you for the correction ok i just i appreciate it the question is whether the council should authorize a mare to sign a letter of intent for the purchase of burlington telecom with councillor dean one vote for thing and i respectfully decline to vote for another  sure and so we will ok we will move forward to the second round and we will again call roll and ask each counselor to vote for one of the  now shores city council president no doubt sure's house or dean i won't cast a vote