i like to call this regular city council meeting to order at seven ten pm and the first order of business is the pledge of allegiance so b before we get into the agenda i thought it would be appropriate to have just a brief brief moment of reflection for the terrible tragedy that happened last week to the nepali family in our community and  if we could just take a few minutes to reflect fact on on the the terrible events that happened and send our best thoughts to that family and their community thank you thank you very much we have our agenda and i think that his right i am ready frank you i will move to amend an adopt the agenda as follows add to the consent agenda item seven point two for communication from phil him a slow regarding a satellite parking with the action to waive the reading accept the communication and place it on file note additional materials for agenda item eight point zero three for  low excuse me no to dismantle documents for agenda item eight point zero five per city attorney blackwood in the mayor's office thank you as their second cancellation and second to that thank you any discussion seen on all in favor of adopting our i and you post thank you so for that we have our public forum time certain at seven thirty we invite you to sign up it will be a two minute clock tonight between now and then we have some general city affairs and then if that moves along quickly we can maybe get started on the city council with mayor presiding meeting and do some appointments a let's see how that goes so for the past few meetings we haven't been able to get to just our general city affairs and committee reports so i moved it for this week will be meeting starting on wednesday cd in our will be meeting the major subject of discussion in that meeting will be a conversation with the university of vermont on an update regarding their information collecting efforts for students and where they live off campus which has been a discussion for some time on thursday will be meeting at fletcher free at five thirty the public safety committee  be starting a homeless initiative that was kicked off by resolution last month we will be for hearing from members of the public will be hearing from partner organizations who work on homelessness and issues related to it will also have time excellent pack is meeting wednesday although i don't see it on the public meeting list and so hopefully we will get that change for tomorrow and this will be the first pack meeting with a new director so i look forward to it and it's really just some updated updates on the packed meeting and we're going to talk about signage for braun to the bike path and some other things but i'll kind of be a first kind of get to know the new parks director at the first pack meeting so it will be great and i welcome anyone to come and one of our big agenda items will be discussing the resolution that was referred to us regarding the implementation of the plan b t v walk bike project and public outreach that will go accompany those project we have already met once on this particular issue and have received feedback from a number of councillors please no no and write one thank you both for coming to the meeting that we had our last meeting anderson would certainly welcome further feedback from both members of the public as well as other councillors as we move towards adopting a plan hopefully getting ready to continue to improvements in the coming year thank you thank you seen only the committee chairman live on to that general city council on general city affairs any topic really quick i just wanted to know that in ward eight we did have a first installation of some protected bike lanes going on south union street and all those who have been involved with that i think it's a good moment of celebration and believe it or not i did get a handful of phone calls from people who were curious as to what the heck they were in one side i explained it to them i think of plenty different than to castres right and i did ye thank you for the moment of silence that began the proceedings tonight i would like to just add my thoughts and condolences as well to yoga sorry because friends and family know no family should have to endure the pain that that family's going through and i am grateful for everyone who work to improve the horrific scene that took place there certainly the and the neighbors and residents who stepped up and try to try to help and kept the terrible situation and getting even worse chief after consultation with the community with other apartments has come forward with five i think important recommendations that i'm committed to making sure are followed up on promptly and we consider this the changes to our  water safety and other policies that flow from those reformation so appreciate the chief service and want to make sure the council saw that and i think there will be additional review and different committees and the has been exciting to walk into a and men's middle school and see their art department the kids there for proposing new flags same thing down in king street center i think this has the potential to be a comedian event that brings brings us together and the city's website starting october twentieth the public will be able to weigh in regarding which which of the designs they think should become finalists president the last thing i would like to just make sure everyone is aware of is that this is the beginning of innovation week for the second year in a row our b t v ignite effort and initiative that the city is a major supporter of on i'm going to go ahead and open to the public form now and i was thinking mr mayor that after the consented gender we could do city council with mayor presiding and make those appointments that work so this is a little bit am confident that we'll catch anyone who comes at seven thirty so we invite you to sign up and we ask you to please keep your comments within keep your comments within two minutes and you can now see how much time we have left and our first speaker is and he will be followed by sandy w thank you very much i think we are opening of the balcony for anyone who would like to have a seat of stairs eric mayor please followed by sandy bar  maybe we use the other mike and i'm not sure what's going on with that mike can we restart the clock i know the other one was working though are off ok so channel seventeen you're not getting any audio from those mikes ok so we just need someone to start working on that and then we'll do our best i think we ask you to show your approval in the quiet fashion because that allows to kind of keep moving and hear from more people would really appreciate it so i will make any progress on the mike we don't know channel seventeen do you have any audio we think maybe the mikes are back on now been and children in the d r see with a boot drive to help these victims recover from rape and its consequences to empower them to become self reliant i resonate with this nonprofit because the word of butoh means renaissance in lego which is a dialect spoken in the d r c knowing that addressing rape culture can be very triggering i am hoping to strengthen this network of blur glory in burlington by collaborating in artistic and engaging ways so please look up the vermont either dave maher live in the new north and richard thaler recently won the nobel prize in economics he wanted for his research into behavioral economics and we found is that people often make bad financial decisions when they base them on emotion versus the facts and figures so let's look at the facts and figures there are three parties in the running to purchase plan to telecom you've got two cars with twenty four years experience offering twenty seven and a half million in cash we have shirts communications with hundred forty four years of experience offering thirty point eight million in cash and you have keep beattie local start up offering twelve million of which ten million million is borrowed an interest rate of fourteen percent that's a pretty high interest rate now to put this in perspective if we take an offer for thirty million the city my understanding is we'll get five million upfront no strings attached no guesswork we just get that money and possibly future returns if we retain a share telecom if we take the twelve million the best we get is some local as you can see sure swan in almost every category two cars came in second and keep rolling ten telecom local scored the lowest so you will hear a number of emotional pleas in support of keep going to telecom local you'll hear them tonight you'll continue to hear them but it urge you to take the advice of a nobel prize winning economist richard thaler and base your decision on the facts and figures versus your emotions thank you very much thank you very much you have no hour and then married citizens and is already establishing itself as a with a record of success  against the people's wishes i believe you are shirking your fiduciary duty this is something that was brought up quite a while ago by the advisory panel fiduciary duty it's quite different than financial duty which is simply a part and aspect of fiduciary responsibility this is a community resource and we have an opportunity to keep it this way and it may take a little longer to pay but  we will and are able to do and willing to do and the rewards are ours to reap and to keep if you vote against the people and i believe a vote would be against the people if you do not select keeping burlington telecom local i will support every measure and our means the people's means to u ndo and uncover the hastiness of your impatience and look forward to your retirement from the council chairs as quickly as we can make possible of utilities owned by the citizens that have been extremely successful bt is one of them certainly city market which i just toured the new building a couple of days ago i incredible testament to the power of local folks investing in in this case of food cooperative and likewise we should be investing in internet service keeping the local there's no when cities get in trouble and they are getting into more and more financial trouble it's because stuff is own out of town by corporations hello thanks for letting us speak i would urge you first i wanted to say the fellow who was mentioning the behavior economist richard there i think he would agree with this behavior by a company a for profit company that if they're paying the highest bid to buy bt they're probably the most likely to raise our rates to recoup their payment and i'm here this is a chance for you to vote for our community rather than for a nonprofit company i know that's a motion but but i do think another behavior that's going to result if they become selected at this round and the final round is that you'll see many more residents signing up for bt services they've been holding back because it's had this shaky  history and so that will just empower them even further so thank you thank you diane gayer and then phil hammer  hello thank you thank you all for your long hard work on this and your concerns obviously many of us are concerned as well in terms of how this goes forward one of the reasons why supporting local and having it held as a locally owned utility is because of city taxes and our reliance on property tax it seems to me that this is an opportunity to diversify how we support our city financially and as mary suggested a be a model the co ops a very different model but that was also put in place in many ways because of a partnership with sudo that supported it so i think we have to those two models of b d and the onion river co op to look to in terms of how we form our ownership our future as along our tech future this also supports that by having it under our our guidance our control in some way with the city and i think that's very critically important for the future thank you phil hammer slow and then charles stuart botched that i'd like to propose that we do a pilot project of rapid transit with satellite parking this would take some of the pressure off of the parking downtown but also take some of the pressure off of the traffic which is increased rapidly over the last few years and if we did a pilot project and you could run a bus every ten to fifteen minutes that's about the same amount of time it takes people to try and find a parking space so that's my pitch thank you thank you very much charles is it thorpe mr thorpe and then don mcdonald i had some remark thank you for my name is charles barber and from the word two i had some remarks prepared but i've abandoned them because i would like to address the issue of the nobel prize the nobel prize for economics the nobel prize in economics was not founded noble it was founded by swiss swedish banks that without the permission of the after nobel family the offered nobel family opposed the establishment of the nobel price of economics it was used by the swedish banks to undo the little socialist policies of sweden they wanted that policy to push neoliberal policies throughout the world especially the chicago school of economics that whenever you hear the nobel prize in economics treat it with a grain of salt they're pushing an agenda the neo liberal agenda they're not from the alfred nobel's family be aware of that thank you very much people people  thank you alex friend and then bob hoope this plan would have had our hotel offices condos this plan was itself a compromise from an earlier plan and it provided some community benefits it had a park in a boat house that had the support of the mayor pretty sanders and twelve or thirteen aldermen it failed on a city financing but the people didn't want it the result after a lot of work is the thing that the public waterfront space that we have today and i think that you now face a similar choice to privatizing internet utility or to turn it into a cooperative that will return benefits to the community for decades i think you know the trend of what the people thank you thank you please people please do not clap please people collectively you all put me on retirement board and i thank you once again you do so to hopefully use my expertise in investment i would like you to treat this discussion as an exercise in investment when bt came to my neighborhood in the north and i was ecstatic because comcast came to my house once a week and the guy that came in week two would reverse what the guy in week one did were small enough market that we're never going to get the best unless we do it ourselves thirty thought thirty million bucks is a lot of money in cash rules but i would ask that we not be short sighted treat this as a utility and look towards the investment potential of it either of the cash contributors would be able to tell us exactly how long it will take for them to take the amount of money that they're going to give us for their c e o to woody out of our pockets over the course of years it's in their business plan i'm sure the fiber of the times into our house at this point is our window to the world and i would urge us to be very future looking and say we need to have as much control over that as possible the kids that are under privileged to get a fiber access through bt probably would not the people the game or do whatever computer wise that is way beyond my educational level appreciate the fact that when you go anywhere else in the country and you told people that we can get up and down for the price that we get it basically act like you don't know what you're talking about this is a priest source this is hi there my name is diane pearson and i'm a i'm a physician and a member of a small business group in burlington since one nine hundred eighty and i'm also a resident of ward three i felt inspired to come tonight to this meeting after hearing our mayors very earnest discussion about keep beattie local when he said that the community not be viable and what can be more viable than our community thank you we thank you thank you very much louise brill three i'm here to ask you to keep beattie local and the go co op co ops have a proven track record of financial excellence here in burlington for example city market our burlington electric department they're owned by the people and operated for the people in the long run the city will see more financial return as a co op to fight despite the old familiar tactic of threats to sue which i think are empty keep our profits local to benefit our beautiful city of burlington the people of burlington wanted local and have made that really clear you are elected representatives please do your job and represent us thank you thank you sylvie overby and then dean kor all you all know that i support the key p t local bid for burlington telecom and i apologize reading but i know i was for them on a time i'm concerned about the consequences of the possible loss of the net neutrality requirement i'm also concerned that private owners will filter and manipulate service based on paid prioritization deals and that they will collect data about our use of internet resources in order to profile burlington citizens and sell that data for profit it's not something you can contract  a promise from from a private company we voted in two thousand two to one to have a municipal internet service fiberoptic but right now we're facing the risk of privatization again and we want it for that because of the high costs and the poor service i want to just tell you that in burlington electric department was started in one thousand and five this is an important history after the city was unsuccessful in getting the private power company to reduce their rates the city was paying eighty dollars per year for each street light and fourteen cents for a kilowatt hour of electricity so similarly to the process with the burlington telecom in two thousand in nineteen zero three burlington voters approved a bond issue for building a power generating plant and the state authorized the city to provide power the cost for each streetlight dropped from eighty dollars per year to eight dollars per year and electricity dropped to ten cents per kilowatt hour ironically the mayor one hundred years ago led the charge to create a municipal electric service that to save the city money but today the mayor is leading the charge to privatized burlington telecom which will cost the city money in the long run one more point the electric department regularly produces and internet integrated resource plan this is one of them why am i showing you this document because it document that describes the business decisions being made by b each day that provide residents and businesses with reliable affordable electric power access this information is huge it's an advantage private corporate owners do not need to provide this information and we need this the cooperative model will allow us to do that thank you dean coren please no clapping appreciate that please no clapping dean coren and then andrew simon good evening it's great to be in a city where we love seeing our neighbors come out and talk about these critical issues and this is probably the biggest issue you've ever voted on any of you in your career because it's probably after burlington electric it's probably the largest certainly economic issue which interweaves its way throughout every aspect of everyone's life in this city and will for decades to come and so the stakes are very very large they are far larger than the small amounts of money we're talking about tonight decades from now it will seem silly that we even wrist not having local control over our telecom and our economy that's being considered now in fact not only is a co op i'm happy to say very a viable offer but it is the only one that meets the criteria we spent many months maybe a year working on criteria tyria with various committees and the public bought into criteria and criterion the key criterion of keeping control local is only met by the co op and in fact the others offers are basically comcast by any other name there is no legal agreement you can have with them that will stop that from happening that will happen and in fact you cannot run a city on the basis of threats by court of corporate litigation you just can't run a city that way and in fact thank sale to a private entity is a recipe for litigation look at the litigation with cox cable adelphia before they went to jail comcast fairpoint all the litigation the states involved  if there is litigation there will be litigation and wants and then the people who run the utility for our benefit for our future for our economy they will not be litigating against us because they are us and one final point i'd like to make is that the key to growing telecom success now is its workforce the workforce is going to stay the transition to a co op it's much more seamless and much more guaranteeing a future success of had with our city councillors as an explanation of why for instance we have to take the highest bid on burlington telecom or why we have to do everything we can to avoid a lawsuit from citi corp or i remember it being an explanation of why we had to why we could not divest from fossil fuels and i would say i would submit that the best interests of the city of burlington the residents of burlington in this case demand a wider view demand a larger look at what the best interests are not just the narrow financial interests today but the long term financial interests the advantages of co op ownership that other people have talked about and many of the other arguments in favor of the keep beattie local group that you've heard over and over again now i would also submit that fiduciary comes from the latin verb to trust and that we are trusting you as our representatives to make good decisions to look at all the aspects of this to take a wider view i also think that you have to trust us it's a reciprocal relationship and all the people that have talked to you have displayed signs have contacted you have spoken tonight are not emotional about this necessarily they are people who have studied the complexity of this issue and want you to keep beattie local thank you charles simpson and then liz kerr i like to thank the council for their for their deliberation on this issue over a long period of time but i'd like to thank the public to the public that's here in great numbers the public that includes all the folks who put up signs around the city i've never seen a sign saying give it to come give it to i haven't i haven't seen you know maybe it's somewhere and i've always thought to myself well why not have a referendum on this issue but then i realize we have had a referendum because seven thousand subscribers are in effect a referendum and these folks have put their money into the future of rowing to telecom is a locally owned ideally municipally owned but certainly the co op ownership is a viable model as well when we go to the airport we see a big sign that says burlington is a technology city but we need to control the direction of that technology if that technology is a conduit for taking money three four five million dollars zero zero of our local economy because it's going to go to outside investors over the long run then how is that not a loss and yet if that money goes back to that to the city to the subscribers to the to the local co op that money will stay and circulated within the not here to talk about school board never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world indeed it's the only thing that ever has you can't fight city hall one of these will be your legacy on the one hand we all agree which camp cave e t l falls into and we might agree that a publicly traded multinational corporation would pose disproportionate risk to burlington in areas like rate hikes net neutrality selling dated to marketeers and eventually getting swallowed by the likes of time warner i'm betting that sures may be pretty appealing to some risk averse observers and participants in this process with the cozy image of a family owned business and the media for one hundred forty four years with consistent holdings in newspapers radio stations and recently telecom in every time they switch mediums shares could appear on the surface to be a relatively benign acceptable fit for burlington but when we dig deeper it's not hard to learn that schur's recently created tiered rate structure with higher data use resulting in higher rates like your phone which is becoming the trend in telecom we also learned that their family foundation generously supports community based organizations that meet the dire needs of south bend residents living in poverty in part through agencies we would all feel good about like united way but funneling more to organizations that require clients to agree with their and evangelical beliefs by accepting responsibility for their predicament by turning their lives over  yes with all due respect to practicing observing christians in this room this is a great reason to preserve support neutrality if you want to spread the word of god that he is a must finally to promote their band jellicoe beliefs most of the shares family members involved in running the business have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past ten years to the republican national committee mitch mcconnell richard lugar and the likes of those representatives in congress again with all due respect to practicing republicans so it asks i would ask us all to reflect on the full profile of service and suggest that it prints a pretty clear picture of where our revenue will be directed knowing the values of this community ask you to honor the sale criteria that you establish that was extensively informed by a survey of burlington tony and who said loudly and clearly our first priority is local control for this reason the agreements with citibank and bluewater did not in fact require the higher spitter thank you mark when to burlington telecom so their prices rise and switched over to comcast and took the annual disco and signing up for second year i got a three hundred dollars gift card that i could apply towards and they drove the price down below what was being offered for burlington telecom and why did i do this because i had choice i have the choice i made the decisions in my household i was also a tax payer here when the money went to burlington telecom that's owed to everybody so in this world you shouldn't have to be a subscriber to get your money back  the city is done tremendous things on the finances side of things less three or four years credit rating is increased dramatically finance of the commonplace the district the hope of commission a curry who is just up here has done the same there we put the we've put the city back on good financial grounds the money that is still wrapped up in burlington telecom that is owed all taxpayers whether you subscribe to comcast whether you subscribe to directv whether you don't subscribe it is owed to all of us speakers have come up here and talked about equality speakers have come up here and said that now you know he gets to finish speakers have come up here and threatened you with having to be removed they've tried to silence the voice of an individual that tried and that came up and talked about a nobel laureate it's typical it's exactly what's going to happen is the true attempt to silence the opposition don't let that happen there's more people in the city of burlington than what's in front of you right now thank you excuse me sir but other people who have been pro the local have gotten a little extra time and so mr poor got a little extra time and i'm asking us all to be respectful of each other and and and here on the edge is not being so let's just rein it in appreciate it so the next speaker is brian pine and then is lynn martin thank you very much i'm a resident of ward three thirty six years in burlington i really appreciate how much work you've all been doing leading up to this decision tonight i know it's not been easy i've been on that side of the table and i don't envy you right now but it's really not an exaggeration to say that this is a decision a once in a generation opportunity and i hope the outcome is one that we can all look back on fondly and with pride and gratitude of what this council did burlington is a city that is guided more by our hopes and our values than by our fears and this is made ours an award winning city most of our major accomplishments have been the result of bold an audacious leadership that's what's needed tonight the bike path was fought all the way to the u s supreme court in hundred eighty s in the end we won but at a significant cost and a risk to the taxpayers waterfront public trust was a legal battle that went all the way to the vermont supreme court again we litigated for years and the vermont legislature spent an entire after the city order offered one point two million and then railroad said ten million so the city said you know what we're going to go to court over that arbitrator ultimately reached a value closer to the city's price and we got forty more than forty acres of waterfront land for one point nine million dollars fast forward to the early two thousand the shaws threaten the city over its decision to choose a locally owned food co op over a multinational corporation in the end we got city mark and i think we all agree that was a positive outcome these are all fights worth fighting because our elected leaders are willing to be bold and audacious bt is no exception this moment our history calls for a similar type of what gas city bt is the critical link connecting our homes and businesses with each other with an information economy and it's truly the public infrastructure that needs nurturing i'll just close by saying please we have faced similar forks like this in the past and when the going has gotten rough we've actually taken the road less traveled and that has made all the difference thank you thank you lynn martin and then thomas hi of you have doubts about keeping burlington telkom local and want a choice you believe will offer the best guarantees but both of the alternatives are businesses were in profit so the bottom line after the first few years they will be free to sell if they get an enticing offer from one of the nefarious big players they would be remiss were they not to do so especially in the case of two cows which i remember as a small vendor selling applications on the internet about ten plus years ago two thousand the residents of burlington are also apprehensive but by a very wide majority they want to keep burlington telecom in their own backyards please listen to the residents accumulated wisdom and vote with your constituents i to ask you to consider rational behaviorism and how voters will be influenced by your decision tonight when they cast their ballots thank you thomas hyde and then  bit is accepted that should be disclosed because i've thought a bunch of a while about why you know what would be the basis of such a lawsuit my impression is there's nothing in the agreement with citibank that forced us to sell burlington telecom says anything about citibank having an influence over the bid the debt coverage for keep bt local is perfectly fine citibank would lend money to a corporation with such that coverage and and then they may be worried about the management but now my impression is that stephen barrack law has agreed that he could stay on at burlington telecom no matter who acquires it so we would have management continuity therefore if we don't know what the basis of this lawsuit would be it's it feels like one of those unsubstantiated fear mongering insinuations like that's the stock in trade of fox news and that's not what we want that's not burlington i think it's really important to tell people the truth thank you thank you trav fireplace and then it's your network and i thought isn't that nice it is my network and the house we if we can keep it that way i'm not looking forward to next year's this topic mousepad burlington telecom it's tangs network  so i don't really have anything else to add but i really appreciate that the community even gets to weigh in on this issue i think this is a really great democratic process thanks everybody thank you john and then michael long center one is that it has been brought up earlier but you share a responsibility i think the prior mismanagement of an earlier version of bt cannot be discounted i think that there needs to be direct amends and i think you really have to look at the two most competitive proposals second is just experience and capitalization i think we've got we've got two proposals that are fairly equally valued they they both offer a tremendous amount of professional experience and and and have demonstrated that they can compete in the marketplace around the country contrast that with the local option which is somewhat undervalued and from what i've read does not really kind of have this the experienced team and point to a code a co op model which is a terrific model but i'm not sure we can just easily transfer what the success of the grocery store to an internet managing an internet system finally the third point is more of about the future and what we see in ourselves when we look in the mirror i know it's not a popular thing to consider but i think in many ways we're closer to being the next plattsburgh or the next rutland then not and i think that that while i think that this transaction and whom you select will have i think a bearing on on the future vitality of our community so thank you for let me share that and good luck with your deliberations very much michael long and then good evening i'm here too in dorset a former counselor behind analysis recently published in from and bigger of the risks associated with corporate ownership of burlington telecom his expertise and clarity on financial risk analysis are especially compelling k b t l is the obvious and the only responsible choice if we look beyond the simplistic and misleading comparison of the offers made standard corporate ownership would be a sellout and a betrayal of the vision that burlington telecom represented at its inception the rocky burlington telecom years resulted from weak marketing mismanagement the seventeen million diversion and perhaps too from overpaying to lay the fiber burlington telecom was a good and forward looking idea that was poorly executed at first it's still a good idea but now successful and poised to reap benefits for the community into the future under new co operative ownership corporate ownership even socially responsible corporate ownership serves shareholders first and customers next cooperative ownership such  l proposes serves the customer owners as one please represent your constituents in the broad public interest not the narrow interests promoted by eleventh hour scare tactics by some in positions of political leadership thank you thank you karen long karen long and then steve high people are overwhelmingly in favor of selling to a cooperative and yet the mayor and some councillors have been actively undermining they keep burlington telecom local  these scare tactics are out of place in an honest and genuine democracy the job of the mayor and the council is to represent the will of the people only bid provides the confidence in local control that the people value so highly only the k b t l bid provides a long term social and financial benefits to repay the community for the misappropriated funds only the bid provides this one time opportunity to have a local telecom provider that is not just like any other corporate telecom company we know the cooperative structure works ke k b t l in the running thank you thank you steve good kind please and carolyn bates the first boogey man is that the p s p is not going to approve any energy that doesn't have sufficient operating experience to run a telecom system well look at their past history they approved the sale the blue water the water doesn't have a nickel in this thing  hasn't put any capital into it and has no operating experience it was approved because the city wanted it approved it the city wants it the city's going to get it from the p s p second thing is we've heard some people talk about it i've talked about it till i'm blue in the face but city financial does not require the sale and they had no expectation they know this that they're going to somehow get some profit out of this in fact it's very possible there will be a sale and they would get nothing so the idea that somehow they're going to object though they might object but they haven't got anything to stand on i think what's probably going on here though is i think this probably since is nothing written there's probably an unwritten understanding with city and that they've been led to expect that we're going to sell to the highest bidder which just shows that this whole sale process as i said is a charade our conditions our desire for local control was trumped by the desire for city financials profit even though that's not in the agreements i've said again i don't think we should be selling barrel to telecom  should be buying out blue water we should be keeping it we have everything we want everything you hear people talk about tonight you could have it by keeping it thank you thank you  second just second i want to thank all of you i want to thank all of the citizens that are sitting behind me and all of the people that i have been working for some time eight years ten years with burlington telecom being one of the very first i was a beta advisor before they got going in the one nine hundred eighty s burlington telecom was born as an idea in two thousand and three the first stage of bt was up and running in two thousand and ten it defaulted on interest payment to citi bank joan shannon and others stood up and formed a committee to save bt and i want to thank all of the members on that committee it's been a and that the lowest bid had to be eleven million keep beattie local his twelve fifty percent would go to the city of burlington and fifty percent of that money would then go to citibank or about twenty five percent of the total the bank was happy with this agreement which meant what may be a one point five million dollars and they made no comment even this year when the bids came in in fact if they had not seen the amount in some bids been way over the eleven million they would still been quiet all my big money to be earned oh a total of three million more than that of the original agreement now they choose to threaten to sue us if we go with twelve million has anyone looked thank you thank you very much kit andrews and then teagan cook good evening my name is kit in truth this evening i'm speaking for my friend and neighbor deb flanders dep is a small business owner here on church street who was unable to make it here tonight so from deb flanders i have run my own business as a group to lure and travel consultant for good speed and for the past seventeen years in burlington i am a new customer of burlington telecom since their service just became available on a perch church street earlier this year i am very pleased with their rates and customer service it is such a wonderful contrast from my experiences dealing with business comcast who charge me much more and offered me much less it's a relief not to be put on hold for hours when i have a technical problem making the switch was the best business decision i've made this is up for sale i fear rates will rise and service will decline if the company is sold to an outside corporation such as ting to couse or sure's keeping this telecom business local is a guarantee against arbitrary rate increases and capricious customer service after attending several meetings with keeper linked in telecom local i was pleasantly surprised at their offer on the table they have solid financial plan plan including support from jerry greenfield founder of ben and jerry's and other business people such as pete jewett of burlington bites there is a huge opportunity here for the city council to listen to its community and to not be frightened off by a threat from citibank nor by the debt which is business plan and very conservative projections show can comfortably be met the k b t l board co op board of directors and its well interiors have worked hard to show that they have a viable offer on the table the vermont brand is local and small but of high quality and very strong i would like to keep bt telecom powered by its citizens and not by an outside corporation thank you nexus teagan cook and then isabelle and i'm going to talk really fast because i'm really nervous i live in the old north and i've been educated here i live here and i work here and yeah sure i don't have nobel prize winners backing me up but i do have some cold facts of my own that might sway you on burlington telecom i'm disabled i'm largely disabled because i grew up poor i grew up without having healthy food i'm twenty two and i haven't been to the dentist in eleven years what lets me participate in my community in my education and in my life when i'm in so much pain that i can't leave my bed it's the internet the internet allows me to communicate with my friends to earn money to pay my bills poverty and disability coralie the internet allows disabled folks like me to participate in our own lives and if you choose to prioritize more cash over your disabled citizens you will never to be a be able to say that you prioritize your community and if you're so desperate for money that you prioritize it over your citizens over your most vulnerable citizens over the parts of your community that are at the most risk for sexual violence for death for violence in general how are you going to say that you have the resources to legally fight it when comcast or time warner cable or whatever buys whatever company that you're selling to and refuses to abide by the contract that you're making now thank you is that and then greg hancock thanks so i think you guys need to really look around the room i'm serious like look at everyone here look at the beautiful range of ages represented in the crowd here tonight they're only going to be more and more of us there's a lot of people watching right now there's a lot of people in burlington the citizens here know that what we're looking at is an unacceptable austerity measure and as a business owner i know that i need to partner with companies and people that are going to have my back in the future especially in a landscape as volatile and dangerous as to could prevent them from raising rates and would be able to obligate them to keep a certain standard of customer service well what happens if one of those companies is bought out by a larger company and they simply decide to betray the agreement with the city does the city have the resources to keep a giant corporation accountable how can you possibly expect the citizens to believe that the city will be safe in that circumstance my small business relies on affordable internet and telephone and i know that that's true of very many people  o i think that everyone in this room including you know that corporate power does not play by the rules so please support keep growing since telecom local thank you greg hancock and  thank city councillors for all they've been doing all the due diligence you had to do all the extra hours you've had to put on this they really do understand the burden that you face so my background is in telecom i've had about sixteen years i worked  lucent technologies and a few others including a via communications and i served on the burlington telecom advisory commission when that was still around i think that's what it was called it can visor commission so i have a long history and knowledge going to telecom and i have a great amount of passion for it and i can say that lately i've been really paying a lot of attention working with the people they put together an impressive effort to build a solid business plan they have done it with all volunteer effort with expertise and passion it was really the only been you heard this from a number of people tonight that satisfy all of the credit all the criteria threshold that were put forth by the input from the citizens of burlington yet now in the eleventh hour being told that should not be considered because of early telecom keep it local should not be considered a viable candidate because of a threat from a lawsuit by citibank this is not just unfair it's wrong all the concerns have been addressed and satisfied by a conservative business plan that shows forty five million dollars in equity value after ten years to the city and to this subscribers and to the member owners we have a deep bench of qualified business people and technical expertise that are ready to step in for an interim board to set the new management on its path of the existing management continuing on its path and there is a lot of passion in this room as you can see and the citizens please let's not blow it here please listen to your constituents and vote for burlington  david lansky i thank you alan turnbull from south when it's gavin who have been a seven year tele worker as is my wife b t has been our lifeline for making a living and we're very grateful to it the idea that somehow debt service needs to be is too high to cover that there's too much debt to my way of thinking is in error the two higher bidders they don't know nearly as much about our local market area as does the collective brain that serves as board of directors and they don't know about they don't know as much about our community as the people who will in the future be serving the co op in numerous committee roles such as member recruitment that's customer recruitment and financial oversight and though those other bidders may be getting familiar with our state and local officials they don't have long standing relationships based on shared civic experience and democratic accountability so if we're to take them seriously when they offer to pay as much as they've offered and believe that they will still make a profit that is that they will take money away from burlington year after year and send it to their investors then we can't possibly doubt that k b t l would be able to repay its debts and do all right in the long run thank you david lansky and then j f carter knew  even at its worst was a huge success on a very important front namely providing serious competition on telecom rates all residents and businesses in burlington benefit from rates that are appreciably lower than those in other parts of vermont and in the country for example for a popular internet service rate sure's rates are twice those of burlington telecom the big benefit of a c bt would be lower rates we can expect those from the co op for a long term because a co op is not positioning itself for resale co ops get favorable tax treatment and members subscribers don't demand large dividends but do expect lower rates bt today is almost a ten million dollar a year business serving less than forty percent of burlington making the total telecom value in burlington near twenty five million a year a ten percent rate savings even a ten percent rate savings and we can expect more like fifty percent rates in the long run a ten percent rate savings represents a million dollars a year for bt subscribers but likely two and a half million dollars a year for burlington that doesn't go through taxes that stays in our pocket the big prize for burlington with a  lower long term rates for all of us not just bt subscribers please as you deliberate ask which bid can become the best option for the city keep bt local is ready to improve our bid via organize negotiations about priorities rather than by responding to public commentary or press conference please consider how to preserve what's clearly the best option for the city in the long run and i just want to give you guys a prepared a couple points just to say why we support it but i also just want to know like we look around the room i mean almost every sign i should say is in support of the co op is there's also just a  network to the future economic development of the city and the region it will pay dividends dividends in terms of job creation economic development the co op model has served burlington well and is a safe and is a safe choice city market has achieved success that far exceeds all original the city market grew from two thousand members when it started to twelve thousand members today bt local would start off with fully after the sale with seven thousand subscribers three thousand more  than it had in the last five years selling it to either of the other two bidders actually holds the greatest risk for burlington future buyers would not be bound by an anti monopoly clause and sale either could turn around and sell bt in five to ten years robert bacchus and then good evening thank you particularly thank you for giving all of us the time to speak i've been where you are and i know there's a lot to do and it's hard to spend so much time listening to thank you i want to speak on a couple of issues the first one is fear i am a litigator it's what i do for a living it's what i have done for over thirty years and i know one thing when we feared the geisha and let that fear drive us we've already lost we cannot as a city let fear of litigation be what drives us in this decision making process because we will have already surrendered our autonomy to make the right decision for our city i also want to talk about the issue of competition you know mr peters i believe was his name talked about how he had a choice and that exercising that choice he chose comcast and it saved him money but he had that choice for one reason and run reason only that's because burlington telecom exists as a locally owned essential a nonprofit business dedicated to providing the best possible service to the citizens of burlington i lived in tucson for three years in the mid two thousand i was so glad to get back here where there was real competition and to pay less money for my telecom the other issue i want to address is experience there's been a lot of talk about the experience the two cows taking and shearers bring to us but the fact is none of them is near as i can tell has near the experience in this field that burlington telecom has and none of them have the experience with broadband and telephone and internet and cable t v none of them have that experience only burlington does we value and then that virus inclusionary zoning makes type of hundred fifty million dollar investment current in the city in the near term very unlikely and now i'm also here to support shirts for the  give a example of right now junk bonds like a mutual fund of maybe junk bonds is yielding six to seven percent those are that's the lowest level of corporate debt this debt is three times that that just shows you the amount of risk that wall street is looking at in this sale and that's a tough a lot of risk of those seven thousand customers that that might go away if we don't take the most financially secure and strong  just wanted to say that i did my first outreach event for brilliant and telecom to keep burlington telecom local this weekend at city market and i was really overwhelmed by the support and i figured people supported it but you sort of never know if it's just you that's supports it and how many people really know about it but almost everybody who walks by we're a large percentage of people who walk by more than i would say have expected stop and expressed their support and asked to sign the petition that we had and i i just think you know i don't know how many people have reached out to you but but it's probably a lot but but i just wanted to express my surprise at the at the huge amount of support so thank you very much thank you so that does conclude our public forum and i i'm just guessing that will get to this item on our agenda and in about half an hour or so parking with the action we have the reading except the communication in place and on file there's a motion to adopt the concern agenda as amended and kelso or bush or second is there any discussion on the content agenda the next item is three point zero one which is a library commission appointment for a term expiring june thirtieth two thousand and eighteen as counsel put any nominations in the order i see i believe i am sorry something maybe your make still is not fully on to me and get some help with that but i think you said you want to put in a schneider nomination is that correct ok so we have three candidates a nomination so far that any other nomination seeing no more nominations will close the nominations and open the floor for discussion also are there any members any individuals who have just been put in nomination there here would like to address the council if you could keep your comments to a minute or two they would be great hello my name is any schneider word to resident and an inspector of elections i am also a teacher of english to speakers of other languages i'm interested in being on the library commission to help expand resources and opportunities for new americans in burlington thank you thank all those in favor of this i'm going to go off the order that they are on our agenda here so all those in favor of anna schneider please raise your hand carolyn we appreciate your interest this position very frequently people who apply for the first time for a board we are unable placed on board but we encourage you to apply again and find another way to contribute thank you for your interest we will now go to very balanced approach to the work that he would be taking on and the police commission excellent are there any other nominations seeing close the floor for nominations and open the floor is clearly a very qualified applicant and i think he has heard the speech before about applying more than once and we appreciate that he took us up on that i think and as he clearly has a lot to offer in this area this is and we hope he will stay interested in congratulations way way way we appreciate your interest and long service on the board through to two thousand and twenty two finally we have a nother  application for the border registration of voters for a term expiring june thirtieth two thousand and twenty three floors up for nominations personnel i had to have the floor but no one else  congratulations sue and thank you for your service thank you to the other applicants as well and i think that does it without objection we will  council with mayor presiding at eight fifty two pm thank you mayor i'd like to come back from recess on this regular city council meeting at eight fifty three and we're on item eight point zero one which is a which it regards the public hearing for for plan b t v downtown code and i'm looking for a motion on postponing that item councillor mason please thank you present i'd like to make a motion to postpone the public hearing on formally schooled until november thirteenth two thousand and seventeen thank you very much as there are second counts the roof seconds it thank you a discussion all in favor of that motion to postpone this public hearing until november thirtieth nov thirteenth meeting of the council police ai and you post and we will be able to both hold the public hearing and hold the vote that evening just so eight point zero two is an appointment to the chin in county regional planning commission are there any nomination i was we have one applicant but i was not able to reach anybody that because i didn't it was my error in planning i wanted to know if indeed it's regional planning alternate and i wasn't quite sure if this individual was someone that had the expertise so i would move to postpone there's a motion to postpone is there votes against but we have a majority in favor so we that will be the plan we now want to eight point zero three a resolution authorizing authorization to execute the development agreement on on burlington town center available we appreciate him being here i'd just like to note just for the for your information that the action here is to approve the development agreement in substantial conformance with the attached draft and over the last day we have added some additional language which just relates to reporting on the labor standards in the section of the agreement dealing with the construction of the private improvements in the public improvements and mr cynic's has agreed to those and so the motion to adopt the development agreement incorporates this language and we so we won't need an so as a member of the board of finance i had an opportunity to ask some specific questions regarding this development agreement it is no surprise to the rest of the council and maybe to some of the people that are in attendance tonight that i did not support the project as it moved forward and voted against it the ordinance that allowed the development of this project to fourteen stories so and that stands as it is so i want to be very clear that i was hoping for a different project i i want a redevelopment of the mall and i want all the components in it i just wanted it to be a different form and potentially smaller in scale having said that i did support the predevelopment agreement with the hopes that there would be some opportunity to have some modifications some i spoke of just moments ago but that didn't happen but my job for all of you is to look at this development agreement from the citizens of point of view from the city's point of view and to work with the owner of the project to get the best deal we can for the citizens and i think you know this development agreement went through numbers of drafts trying to provide protections for the city trying to give direction to the owner and put into words what we wanted from the development the some of it was already mandated be inclusionar zoning but there is some more you know workforce housing there's contingencies on access to top where you can observation tower so there's community space there's a discussion about livable wage and there's discussion about construction workers getting appropriate wages which was in lightened to mean really when ages that are well above what minimum wage would be but are in the construction world fair wages and president no del spoke about an amendment to this draft or talking about  having reports regular reports about that whole issue about what is being what contractors are being paid into having that reporting mechanism to more formalize it not just to have it in words but to actually track that in this agreement there is also a strong urge to have the developer at least consider bt there's also  a statement regarding working with b e d and others to get district energy all of these things are really important to our community and so i think that this is really what we need to have in place as we move forward the other piece that for me was particularly important and i did go i did attend all the d r v meetings was that to me in this community and development is always new development always needs to be integrated into existing development that's how we improve ourselves that's how we grow that's how we change we don't and nial eight or wipe out but we enhance and add difference to our community and make it better and so one key component of this is that c t o is going to be paid some money to actually work with the small businesses on the street and around the development to really work with them to make sure that their needs are addressed and to try to mitigate the disruption that actually has to occur in order to make change so that was really important also so i really wrestled with whether i should actually support this agreement or not because i clearly didn't support the development in the form that it moves forward but i hope i've plain to those people that i represent and those that i don't but still care about this project why i feel it's important that i have done the best can for you not me but i have done the best in reviewing this the city has done the best for all of you and working with the developer to get this agreement in place and i will be supporting this as we move forward and i'm glad to see that is here tonight and i'm hoping that this development will certainly end up in hansing our community thank you thank you counselor councilor moore thank you there was one question that in is would you be willing to come up and answer a question thank you so it's in terms of the workforce housing aspect of the development agreement and it says the owner shall endeavor to develop some workforce housing as part of the residential component of this project i'm sure that's legal language that i just don't quite fully understand so what will you do to endeavor well  members right into it well endeavor simply means to me that i will look at what workforce housing is and it's a percentage of the area's adjusted household income it ranges from  that fit within the realm of those percentages we will do so that's what endeavor means and well in this agreement i'm curious if the city will get to see any kind of breakdown of the process that you went through or the thinking that you have because i'm sure that you would with good faith and devore to do this but it would be nice to to see you know what process you went through to make a decision well if you want to suggest something will certainly consider i would love to see that i'm going to vote for this i did vote for the predevelopment agreement but that was one piece that i was unclear you know over the over the this is why it ended up in the development agreement we have many additional obligations as far as what the affordable housing rents will be and how those are distributed throughout the project and as we go through those conversations the conversation about work for housing will arise and we will discuss it and figure out a way to him thank you very much counselor more i'm cynics any other cancer won't be supporting this this item tonight i think that whenever entering into an agreement it's important to make sure that we are as counsel busher said protecting the cities interests and making sure that we have the best deal possible for the city i did not support them all development because i did not think it provided enough in the way of affordable housing in the way of strong livable wage jobs for the city of burlington and that the development itself would be accessible and used by a people from a range of across from across the economic spectrum i continue to have those concerns and i think that this document continues to codified some of those inadequacies within this this particular agreement i think that we could go a lot further in terms of affordable housing and i don't think that it's enough to endeavor to create workforce housing think there's a lot of reasonable effort you know quotes like reasonable that will use reasonable efforts will endeavor to do something there's not a lot of shall in this document and i think that if we're trying to really protect the public's interest and really give a clear idea of expectations that we can really count on when we when we look at this at this particular agreement the language should be much tighter in that particular in terms of the the the other issue that i have with this particular agreement is the fact that it goes outside of the established methodology for calculating fees within the sign and part of that idea is predicated on the fact that we're being gifted the streets but in reality  we're being gifted the land on which the street gifted the streets on which it's located and i say see that in quotes because i think it's important to recognize that this development requires by its very nature of quote unquote turning them all inside out those streets to be in place so the development one really be possible if you don't have those streets in place and so i think the idea of counting that as a benefit you know as a gift is not necessarily a genuine one or a genuine one and so i think that  we should really be holding to the models to the right we should be holding this development to the same standards that we hold other developments too and i think that that's been an issue throughout this process where we've seen continued special treatment given to one  developer as you know within this particular city so i think that we need to make sure that we're holding people of you know accountable to the same standard when they pursue development and this is the last thing is also that well there's two other things that the the other thing is that i think in terms of itself but because i had proposed that very amendment during that process and they said that by no means could they ever have provided that because it would have ruined the economics of their project and that the project wouldn't happen if they put the parking underground that was in fact baseless because upon further soil testing they found that they actually had to do that in order to provide a solid footing for the building so i really was upset to see that that was given in that agreement because when it was told to us an earlier time that we would not be that it was an impossibility so i think that that really raised significant trust issues for me in terms of moving forward in an agreement is only as good as as the trust you have in the individuals involved in it and so that raised significant trust issues and in this particular case finally i would say that the process by which this agreement was negotiated could have been much better in terms of involving the council we were asked in july to share questions with the administration regarding this agreement i did so even when i was visiting my family i took the time out to make sure that i had i shared questions with them i was perfectly fine being delayed in terms of receiving those answers as staff advocation is over the summer and that is totally fine a supporter of city staff having vacations but i didn't get my answers until early october and that was right only a couple days before this agreement was released and so i didn't really have a meaningful opportunity to disagreeing with some of the their support for the agreement despite disagreeing with some of the substance of the project take that to be a tribute to the hard work that has gone into this agreement by a team that is here tonight i want to thank  particular our seato director an oil mckay for really putting in a tremendous effort to get this forty five page document across the finish line it took an enormous amount of coronation with other city departments in particular with the public works department i think shape and spencer or involvement in our city engineer who is not here but was a huge part of reviewing this document and making sure that we did everything we could to try to get it right there's a lot at stake for the city in the future  the details here both in terms of protecting the city taxpayers and proper use of the tiff dollars and there is also a lot at stake in making sure that these public improvements are built and a high quality fashion and that we get the very significant reinvigoration of the section the downtown that we the voters supported and that we will achieve through this agreement and also we're a bit be remiss not to mention jeremy farkas who is attorney that we retain for this work as well as black women other members of her team for their hard work on this you know this is been probably at least before tonight's topic of one of the most main topic with brian talk i'm saying this is been probably the most debated issue in the city for the last five years i don't think we need to restate that debate tonight i do just as we are on this moment of taking what is the final major action i would say before construction by the city council just restate why quickly why i believe is important we will have many benefits as a community by moving forward tonight there will be the creation of hundreds of new downtown jobs we have not seen that kind of growth john town jobs for a long time this project reverses that we will see a massive increase in revenues t state and the city as a result of this redevelopment tripling of property taxes paid by what is already one of our largest property tax payers on just the first phase of this development and given the social needs that we all have that is it that is a huge bonus we will have a win for the environment as a result of this moving forward both in terms of our protection of the lake and in terms of meeting some our energy goals and we very much hope and continue to work with mr cynics only appreciate that a a detailed element in this project is laying out the conditions by which we can move forward together on this district energy system that if we are able to achieve it and this project a big part of being able to achieve it will represent a twenty percent reduction in our overall greenhouse gas emissions as a community and finally we're doing this and most importantly frankly from my perspective we're doing this because it creates hundreds of new homes i hear the concerns of some councillors that maybe we could have gotten even more affordable housing out of this the fact remains that this in of itself when built will represent the largest single project whereby the inclusionary zoning ordinance creates new affordable housing and moreover this speaks to the larger goal of housing affordability that has too often been lost and has too often been neglected in past development debates where we fail to move forward with the creation of homes at all levels which is easy only way that we alternately create your own way well tim lee reversed the growing in affordability that we have in this community that threatens to turn us into a place that only  only the wealthy can afford to live and this is a fight back against that and it's an important step forward for the community and we appreciate the collaboration with the council over eight years now to get us to this point thank you person of the  mayor we'll go to a vote now on the motion to adopt this resolution all in favor that of that motion to say i i i and he opposed so we have councilor tracy and the others in support so that carries by a vote of eleven to one and we look forward to construction getting started thank you very much eight point zero four is a resolution about the council voting process for narrowing the bill in burlington telecom sales counsellor shannon i move to adopt the resolution and look to the council president  should i read the resolution prior to the second or when i get the floor back let's get the second and then read it the second is from counsel right thank you i think it's important to read this resolution because it does very explicitly lay out the process for tonight's vote to narrow the burlington telecom finalists to two whereas the city of burlington is currently considering to potentially purchase burlington telecom in the city council wishes to choose two of the three bidders with whom to proceed to final negotiations and eliminate the third and whereas the that vote could be taken in several different ways under robert's rules of order and where as to avoid a lengthy debate at the council meeting about the procedure of how this vote should be held the sponsors of this resolution have proposed the following process for taking this vote one the president of the city council were present the question to the council of which two bidders should continue to be considered for the purchase of bt to each city council or shall vote for one choice among betters three the top two vote getters will proceed and the lowest vote getter will be eliminated for if there is a tie for all three the council will recess for a brief period and another vote will be taken five if there continues to be a tie after the second vote the council will continue the process of recessing in voting until there is at least one top vote getter six if there is a tie for the top two both of those bidders will proceed and the third choice will be eliminated seven if there is one top vote getter and a tie for second place the council will recess for brief period and then the vote will be taken a second time to see if any councillor wishes to change their vote eight if there is still a tie for second place after the second vote the top vote getter will move on and the third vote will be held in which each city councilor shall cast one vote for one choice among the remaining two bidders if that third vote results in a tie the council will recess for a brief period and then a fourth vote will be held and that process will continue until one of the two remaining bidders receives more votes than the other now therefore be it resolved that the city council adopts the process outlined above for conducting its voting on october sixteenth for the purpose of selecting two bidders to proceed in the process of the sale of bt and i would like to think councillors right and president know del for their collaboration and i think that we were all just trying to figure out a way to have a fair process here on the floor and thank you for the opportunity to participate in that thank you very much councilor shannon i was i share those sentiments completely and also plea been much better served by that effort and thank you for about that councillor tracey see no other counsel are all in favor of that motion to adopt this resolution on voting procedure please say i any opposed thank you very unanimously so i don't eight o five is the main event on narrowing the burlington telecom sale candidates and in light of the fact that the council president wishes to be able to participate fully and she anticipates that every other member of the council would also like to participate fully i would like to at this time if they can with the council's consent to designate our chief administrative officer beth andersen to be our president pro tem and to manage this item for four on our behalf so is there any are in there any one any counselor that that wishes to express a concern with that ok i very much appreciate that and  good so you're on time so we'll open it for discussion anyone really for the greater brawling to i wasn't represented to the council to represent citibank or blue water and i want everyone to know that so i will take that same approach were b kong and ultimately when we vote to select our top choice in a few weeks i will consider what i feel best for normally the north or serkin the new north and put the going to this is been a difficult process and i think culture paul said it best in the free press and he said it's very complex and it is and i have a lot of respect for my colleagues around the table and we spend a lot of time on this issue i have concerns with all three bids and if i was voting tonight to celebrate a telecom when i say that i want to make sure that you realized we don't own it citi doesn't own broken telecom and so i want to make that clear but if that decision was ten i don't know if i could put any of the three forward really so there's a lot of improvement that i need to see and all the three bits but with that being said i'm a hometown guy and i'm from burlington and i have a lot of respect with the local group is done and i will be voting to move keep beattie local forward tonight to the final process but i want to make sure that everyone knows in this room by no means is that an indication of my final vote and so i don't want to give anybody any false hopes here tonight i know the crowd is predominantly ninety nine percent local and i understand that but you've worked hard you've earned my respect and i will say this and i'll share this with you that i was probably the first counselor that spoke up and said that they weren't viable that financially this group wasn't viable i just want to be clear about that i'm not trying to pull any punches here i'm not trying to really try to skirt around this issue and i think there are major hurdles for this local group there is no question about it but i'm willing to give them one last chance and i look forward to seeing what that final proposal looks like thank you thank you i'm sure that we'll get into possibly a lot of details and it's this of opinions on each bed throughout the night so i wanted to take a moment and some of the tune of of council hartnett and maybe talk a little bit  about some of things i heard tonight over the last few weeks particularly about emotion and how emotion has played a role in this process and i think this is an emotional process but i also think that a certain hint of fear has been creeping into this conversation in a bunch of different ways and a few things that i want to do is to stay out right for myself to many there who are here and listening that i am not fearful or scared or intimidated by the citibank potential lawsuit nor my intimidated or or by directed by the mayor and his opinions and what he did during the conference and when he wanted his opinion nor my fear for or driven by any individual on the city council i don't think any of us are i think truly with big decisions like this all of us dig deep down into the details and come to the decisions on our own volition and so whatever your opinion is in the public i hope that you remember that each one of us up here really do speak for myself that i really do take seriously decisions in the processes that i go through and so through this process what i've found is my ranking of the the eight then four than three changed time and time again and there wasn't any fingal group or individual that that had that ranking change for me there was no single detail that came to meet me know that my decision was finalized and today much like council hartnett for the final vote the vote that matters my to my mind is not yet made up i think there's going to be enough support tonight for the keep the local bid to move forward can't be sure but i think that there is and if so with my vote what i am deciding is what i prefer between this second option between taking insurers and for details that i think will come out maybe i'll have more opportunity to speak about the dynamics and details of each bid and company i am prefer rable to taking over sure's at this point similar dave again who had it i think a good opening remark for this debate is that is no indication of what the final vote will be nor should i think anyone commit to a final decision based on the hope that bids will improve and change i do think that l for me has a long way to go to mitigate the concerns that i have expression around the financial dynamics you cannot argue that the long term benefits of a co op are anything but self evident but i've come to believe that the you can't have the long term benefits unless you can survive the short term and that is what i think is the core central issue for me with that bid i i be more confident than not that they will be able to survive the short term so that we can have the long term benefits thank you thank you president pro tem anderson i have a couple questions i like to ask before going to comment so if that would be ok i'm not sure if this question would be to the mayor or the attorneys but let me just pose the question and we can see who wants to so i walked over second meeting i asked about the criteria that set of thirteen criteria and david provost came up and he talked about  he said that there was a question in regard to one of the criteria with with the minimum qualified sales price and the attorneys address that and said as of now that they did not that they considered that all three had met that threshold and so david provost actual words in regard to the criteria were be tab we believe you have in front of you bidders that have sufficiently met the criteria so i just note that the mayor has indicated theo has is he does not believe is in compliance with i think for the criteria so i would ask for so elaboration on the apparent difference at odds with the chair of b tab maybe there isn't a difference maybe i'm just not understanding it but i would like to know more about the opinion that tails in violation order is not meeting four of the criteria  to the council that it had concerns about whether or not the offer met the criteria that was written in the report to the full council and said explicitly that that the proposal that the beat out had reviewed was the weakest of the proposals and clearly raised concerns that said deficiencies that needed to be addressed for the the proposal to become viable since then we have had  numerous different professionals and and the you know i'm not going to go through each of the different memos although they were attached referenced in the memo specifically by the different criteria that they're that they raise concerns about and they have in particular raise questions about the fundamental criteria foundational criteria around financial capacity and financial ability and management capacity and that was really the point of my  memo and back it up with those citations is that our professionals have advised us that there are real questions particularly on those two critical ones that will be a key focus in the regulatory process going forward and answer that he did and later i would like to ask the attorneys a question in regard to the potential lawsuit i know there's only so much that we can say but could you elaborate i find some of the potential reasons confusing and i know we can only go so far with that but what exit what exactly can city bag sue us for or what came can you say i mean if they met the minimum price it would seem like that would not be one of them  the reason that we're hesitating is just if if we start a pining about possible causes of action then we're giving citibank ideas and that's probably not in the city's best interest for us to do in public be saying oh you could sue us for this and you could sue us for that that's why i said i wasn't sure how much you could say but there's just some confusion about that that's so all right let's leave that there just make a couple of comments it was said in public form a few times tonight that the public is overwhelmingly in support of k b now there's no question that the audience here tonight is overwhelmingly in favor of there was only a few people that spoke in favor  of one of the other bids but let me just make a couple things clear we also heard during the burlington town center debate with packed audiences that mostly all were telling us do not go for the development that we were not listening to the people that everybody nobody wanted the development and one on the ballot and we found out that was not the case i remember ten or so years ago issue around the national guard where people wanted us to potentially shut down a national guard building if we didn't stop flying planes out of that building they were heading over to iraq everybody in the audience told us they wanted us to it on the ballot and shut that down if planes were going to stop flying it did go on the ballot and the public voted differently than what we heard from at the actual public forum i say that just to mention that we cannot assume and i and believe me i appreciate everybody coming out appreciate people came out cancer hartnett jangan my public forum last week and all the other public forums of councilors of had around the city we appreciate the input the e mails the calls i took calls this afternoon about it and the public engagement and activism and appreciate the grassroots effort by as well i said of the public forum last week someone said everybody supports i said as someone mentioned earlier and i going to see signs popping up around the city saying supporting or support sure there's no grassroots effort for that and again i appreciate grassroots effort but i think that what we have to focus on is not it's not about fear but it is whether there's legitimate concern about whether cave can pull this off and i do not take those considerations into those considerations lightly i'm not an expert on these things and so i listen to people that are experts and we don't just we didn't just listen on the city council here to our own inside attorneys or people that were just on the inside we actually asked for outside independent that could not do it they they basically what they said was the numbers can work but they said as long as there are no problems long as there are no hick ups it could work as to believe that there will be no hiccups and no problems so i think that that's what are weighing tonight the attractiveness of the local option keeping it local  but also not being really sure with a fourteen percent interest rate i think everybody knows that that is a red flag that jumps out at everybody when you have interest rate this fourteen percent and that's what the end of head analysis that is there something wrong with a big one when your lender is is that of interest rate that is that high so right now i do believe as council has said that the votes are there for kate to go forward to the final round i will be casting my vote was sure is tonight i believe that sure is brings a lot to the table or a family owned business and i will say i think it's disappointing that some are going around trolling and some of the bids that we've taken here we have some serious bids here that have come to the city and we should not be trying to take somebody down by trolling looking for nasty information about them and god first you know they're they're volved in christian activity or whatever i think that that's you know let's stick to what their companies are  about and i want to call put out a finish with i want to compromise compliment everybody i think pretty much the public get a good job today with the exception of two or three people i think that when we hear a different opinion here and we all listen to all your opinions supporting when we hear different opinion i think that we ought to just like we want a free and open internet we want a free and open exchange of ideas and dialogues here tonight and for the most part we had that but we did have a couple people that anderson and i want to thank kelso right for his remarks there about you know that the need to really stake the high road in the debate and in the public dialogue and you know when we opened up the l a wise the intent was so that the public could read the letters of intent valuate the business propositions and not try to go and dig up bad information about these companies or the individual think that's the slot that's not the way we should do things here in burlington i just have one question i think it's it might be a question for mr dorman if he's available is not maybe someone else would know in the question is just are there any is there any new information about any of these beds that anyone that should be shared with the counsel tonight because i know there's ongoing discussions with all of them even as we move through this process and  some of the concerns have been raised in recent days and then of course there was a also a communication from tang that the cal she received on friday you know mr d negotiator for us and who has been an outstanding or share many ways you know continues to say that he thinks there is value and having both of the strategic says he says before them in getting to a final agreement that was his last communication to thank you here so the council has done a good deal of due diligence we've i can show you my bag of paper and we all we all have it and i i think that we've we had a lot to do diligence that was done if it brings in telecom advisory board level and when they handed off to us in the early part of august then we added to that with some independent analysis and much of that has been shared although some of it has had to be redacted but just want the public to know that we've all been really poring over all of this material and really trying to kind of take in all the information as well as the information that we're in the public as we make this decision i spent some time with the pro forma is that our projections that the companies have put together for us and these have had to be held confidential because they are you know proprietary information but they put together these projections for us about you know over a ten year period of time and again i wanted knowledge counsellor paul for thinking of this and help in helping us you know obtain this information and i spent a good deal of time with the pro forms and i'm sure others year projections they are showing the demonstrating the tremendous growth potential of this company that as it builds out in burlington as it expands into a new skin south burlington all the three beds and the current business if it were just to continue going as it's going now see significant growth in subscribers and growth in the earnings of the company and valuation of the company is a multiple of the earnings and so as the earnings grow the valuation grows in a very powerful way i do not actually believe that any of the proposals in front of us right now will fully realize the potential of this growth for the company and perhaps more importantly for the creation of new tech jobs for the fostering of innovation for funding startups that could become the next guy that the next guy could come out of brilliance and i think we need to be thinking quite big in terms of the implications of this sale for the  development of the tech economy and we should be my view picking the bid that will provide presented us with the most powerful partnership with b b t v ignite that is that does matter to me that's the only thing that matters but it does matter to me i think having the city having an ongoing equity position in a company that is very ambitious about growth is our best path given the three choices before us today there's you know clearly a very you know a real trade off between the shores and proposals there are very well they're well capitalized one somewhat more so  than the other they have established businesses they have access to all the resources that in the stablished business will have they will be able to get through the first ten years much more easily than keep it to local that's quite clear but they do involve giving up the local control and local ownership of this asset and even though they present less financial risk against that you really have to weigh the cost of losing a telecom company that is strongly burlington based and that right now is owned by blue water but originated in public ownership that the people burlington said that we won it and that we valued and through this debate we're of course we're all hearing that that is something we are hoping to retain to the greatest extent possible now i started out on i was on b tab and as we were looking at these proposals i was very concerned about the p p t local proposal and i don't think it's there yet but just like with the town center i started out a skeptic and then it grew on me i started out a skeptic with keep it to local and i'm it's growing on me but i don't think it's there yet i think that it needs to continue i will vote for it tonight but i am hoping like councillor hartnett that it will continue to improve over the next two weeks in terms of the financial package that it presents and that's a hard task but i'm i'm just putting out that i'm i'm hoping that the board is going to continue to be working on that and if you do survive tonight now speaking to the key beauty local board please don't rest on your laurels please keep working hard and i think that you will when i look at the pro forma for keeping two local and i compare it to the others i think is it is important to note although everyone talks a lot about how it's important to have a lot of capital behind you  bt has been funding its expansion out of its current profits ok so vast what i'm seeing everywhere funding expansion out of current profits  and the interest rate in the credit profile nansen packets riki be to local does mean that it's gonna be tight it's gonna be tight and it can be done but it has to be flawless it has to be really really good but that's not to say that it can't be done and so i'm here tonight to support local but also to say keep working because it's there will be and and and legitimate i think the good people that are saying we're very worried about the financing that is legitimate and it's not that people are saying we don't like co ops are we listening to our to our constituents not  and i respect the position of the people i'm going to hear tonight that don't agree with me it's a reasonable point of view to be worried so i guess i guess i've gone on too long because there thank you very bursar than more than paul thank you as always i learn from my fellow councillors it's always very informative what people have to share  so i didn't really look forward to tonight i must admit i just dreaded it actually because this has been a very stressful and challenging process for the entire community i know some people just want it done and i respect that and so as i've heard from around the table  everybody wants a co op not everybody wants ownership even in a continued ownership been in the asset some people just want to turn the page and have that done and i've listened to all of you and i value all of your opinions and each one of us comes from a different place as other counselors have said we've been we've had access to an awful lot of information but the process for me has been somewhat splintered and even and it's concerned me  i i once again agree with with councillor tracey saying that president odell open this up to the public sooner than potentially it would have been opened up to you and so and that's been really good that's been really good because all of you collectively have so many insights that really are important to each one of us  spent a lot of time looking at what we wanted for criteria and i felt that we did a really good job on that i also feel like we did a really good job on well the b tab did a good job on narrowing down the number of of of people of entities that were interested and presented us with eight and then we spent our time and chose for all of that seemed really appropriate and really thoughtful and and hard and we came to that point the process deviated at that point for me when before choices  to three and that was really problematic for me and has still i'm still really reeling from that because it because there were because it allowed me to really do a comparisons that mel longer or are available so even tonight i find that we've had communications late in the day from one of  the proposals and i really haven't had a chance to look at that information so that is troubling to me but that's not going to delay or make my vote analysis so pro forma materials related to the sale of bt i know you've seen some of that information i felt like that was someone outside of us looking at this and for me the take away was that if they had their druthers they really wanted to ask all three more questions they felt like our work wasn't done that we needed more information and i feel that way too in a lot of ways i do i do have my top choices but i i really i was there one we decided collectively to get into this business i was in com toys when we when we had public hearings on that like many of you i was here when the city made some choices that were not in the best interest of of the citizens i was here when we ended up having to turn over our assets to bluewater i've been here for all of that  and i'm now here at this threshold so i looked at everything that was available to me and although i'm older i really hope that i still have vision i think vision is really what's important and i think that i'm looking for the will the long term and i feel that what is best for our community is to to look that way we and i think that sometimes people make decisions based on the information at hand because they can play it out and i think that's what c s c t c technology is saying play it out and and president nobel spoke somewhat to playing that out playing that forward how is this going to grow how would potentially what would this value be would that value as an entity if we had some partial ownership and that allow us to better compensate the taxpayers that need to be paid back would that be a stronger more viable asset for our community and so  thank you so first i too want to say how valuable it's been to have this information made public the meetings that we have in the old north and were extremely informative and it really it really changed the conversation from one where the public where you all didn't know what we were looking at at all and we couldn't really talk about anything to one that really  brought a lot of value to i think my thinking and and posed a lot of really great questions so i too want to thank councillor council president excuse me no doubt for really pushing to have that information made public and as i think about this decision i think about the many details that we've been looking at for months and i think also about what brought me here to burlington in two thousand and four is a vista knocking on doors for the city asking in low income neighborhoods in the north and in the new north and really learning what issues are and bring them back to the city and i thought to myself at that time what city does this and burlington does we do we have that vision here  that's that's why i moved here that's why i think a lot of people moved here certainly a lot of people that that we hear from through this process and and now really telecom was started it was started with that vision of affordable quality internet access for people that might not have access to knowledge  to work as we heard tonight and some other community have been told that the settlement and the original decision of the kiss seventeen million dollars from the general fund basically seal the deal and move us away from that long term vision because i know that you know these proposals both of the shores and the team proposals have commitments that they make but it's it's just not the same as as being able to keep the decision local and of this community in perpetuity so i'm thinking as other councillors are about the decades ahead not just the next five or ten years  so i too have concerns i will be voting for a key burlington but keep burlington telecom local tonight but i want to make sure that before the four options became three this wasn't my first option either and i can't fully commit to the final vote because there are a lot of moving parts that thank you so i think a lot of us at this table have spent many many hours more hours than we probably could count weighing this decision and it is it is a big decision i've gone back and forth a number of people at this table know that i've gone back and forth a number of times in the past week past weeks and this decision has weighed heavily on my mind and over the past couple of weeks people have asked me who i'm supporting and i've been honest and said that i really didn't know and probably there were people who didn't believe me but the truth is i really didn't know i needed time to gather information and to do my homework i at the financials for all three of the offers i looked at the audited financials for sure is communications and i wanted to see for myself whether what they were saying about what they could do was really true on or at least my best my best estimate of that and what i came to find out was sure is that i don't think they are at all about getting rich quick when i reviewed it i looked at their measures their profitability their return on equity and they are very much indicative of a company that is has what's called patient capital they they don't buy and sell businesses like the wind they some people of alluded to the fact that they do and they sold radio stations that they don't for ninety years they sold television stations that they've own for forty five years  hardly a company that's in the business of selling businesses and they're not an aggressive growth company i think if they were in burlington they would be here for the long haul and i think they'd be a good community partner for the city of burlington when it comes to cave e t l the nice thing about cave e t l is you don't have to get on the phone and ask any questions for me if i want to ask alan mattson a question i can walk three minutes from my house and ask him and as well most of the board members of cave e t l i can walk it's probably about ten twelve minutes a little farther than al and you know i hartnett like councillor mason and councillor dean i grew up in burlington and i do remember a time when you could walk down church street and just about every business with the exception of j c penney's was locally owned and i believe in local i think everybody believes in local and it's no surprise to me that so many people have rallied behind k v t l that being said i do wan also echo what counselor wright has said and that is that i've also received as many as many times as i've received e mails from people pleading with me to support i have received many many e mails from people pleading with me not to support cave e t l and i don't know if i'm an unusual i'm unusual but certainly that has been my experience but again i don't i don't make decisions based on the reasons why we had an independent consultant look at these numbers who's in the telecom business is because none of us at this table are telecom experts and we needed to know whether or not these assumptions are reasonable or unreasonable their assumptions are not outrageous the concerns i have about their offer is that you know real life as we all know isn't a pro forma and all the other two offers  cushion behind them if there is a recession that lasts for years economic disruptions like we've seen since the year two thousand and we've had several that could require a hardship on a very tight pro forma on their working capital is is very small they are not you know a business that has two or three hundred days of cash on hand and the other thing that is a concern to me is that in less they raise more money through i believe through debt the city would not have the ability if it wanted to to take capital to take the equity that it would have in the entity and use that most importantly to pay the unfunded liability that we have on our pension and that's something that we're required to do now that all this being said and these are concerns to me  my mind's in my ears are open and will be open over the next two weeks if a plan that ameliorates these financial concerns happens i will absolutely be giving my second vote a great deal of thought in that direction it's funny that my actually my third choice when i first started was actually taking and i still have concerns about saying i mean they're publicly traded company they are you know in toronto we don't know them that well there's a lot of reasons to be concerned i did go and look one of the things that i looked at was their stocks history and i found it interesting that unlike most companies ting actually has never sold thing as a company has never sold its stock and i find that it that interesting i think that shows a lot about their on their commitment to their own future and i think their ability to grow our tech economy and create jobs because we would be a  large presence for them i think that they and they have expressed this to me as as recently as today i spoke with elliot nost the c e o of ting that they are committed to bringing technology to burlington in mobile in you know in the things that i think are going to be part of the future and so without without belaboring it i think that  as many people have said cave e t l does have the votes i believe that this evening to go on and be one of the final two and i to much tonight will be supporting tng my as i've said my mind in my ears are open over the next two two weeks and i don't think any of these offers are perfect and i am hopeful and optimistic that these offers will become more perfect over the next two weeks and i will be listening and watching thank you thank you so as i think about the this incredibly important decision tonight i think about sort of how we found ourselves in this particular situation and i think that a big part of the reason that we we found ourselves in this situation was the lack of accountability and transparency  in terms of the decisions that were made moving the seventeen million dollars not being forthright with the council and also decision you not refinance the debt on that now was supporting burlington telecom however and so when i think about those things i think that one of the ways that we really need to get out of this situation is to involve the public and take into account the significant amount of feedback that that public has given us and i think that we've done that in the context of this process by firing a series of public criteria that really set forth the goals that we would like to see from a from a successful better in moving forward with the in moving forward with with a particular sale agreement and one of the in through that public criteria process one of the things that came up time and time again the most important criteria was the element of local control and maintaining  local you know local operation of that having local say and local accountability and that continues to be the feedback that i've gotten throughout this process from the public we establish that criteria and we heard from the public that they see tremendous value in keeping it local and i think that that comes from our real strong history strong track record in burlington of having cooperatively run businesses be incredibly successful in our community and add tremendous value while also being accountable to our city as a whole so if i think about you know city market not only being a success financially but also being a success in terms of being an operation that really is accountable to our community they come to the city council and  and share and give a report to us every every year and really let us ask questions of them we also if you're a member of city of city market you know i think about this because i was looking through my mail today you get to vote on the board of city market and you have the opportunity to see who is controlling that particular board and really have your opportunity to access all the information about the decisions that they're making and i think that that's really what drive that expose experiences and that that the excitement and the involvement that comes from that control is really what i think has been driving that public comment i saw it a series of community forums that we had in the on north end where when we asked the room at that one form at st joseph school the new any community center what what does the public think about this why does everybody in this room support support keep your bronc in telecom local everyone in that room raise their hand later that week we held a forum in the form with the council more in the morning and everybody at that forms that they supported keep rolling in telecom lo then we established an e mail account in order to get feedback from the public and we have those e mails up on board ducks today i spent the day reading those e mails and looking at all the different feedback we had received from the public and taking account and we in reading those two higher bidders as being in support of them so you can see that there's an overwhelming majority in those emails we also as part of those emails received a petition with six hundred thirty one signatures on it we see countless lawn signs throughout the community in support of  even tonight we saw thirty two people come out in support of people in telecom local in a room in in contrast to you only three individuals supporting insurers so i think that if we're going to involve the public which we meaningfully have in th s process that we really need to take into account what that public is saying pretty consistently across that process and i think that they're really saying that because they really like the value of the control that they're that they receive through the cooperative model and the benefits of having a transparent and democratically run institution where members get to vote on key decisions facing that co op including stablish min of rates and rate increases where they get to decide on that the context of their board where those board meetings are open and they're held in burlington not in a boardroom in indiana or toronto canada and where you know they have the opportunity to to really directly just to directly work with those individuals that are you know that are running that company because they're based here in burlington and they're only responsibility is to the people in burlington so i think that that's a not shareholders not other family members not investors but people their members and who are in burlington and those members also the money stays in burlington because the they the members of the ones that are going to be receiving those dividends are going to be receiving that pay back so there's a tremendous amount of benefit that stays in the community and i think that in the long run if we're thinking long run we are able to really maintain of other public criteria like net neutrality in the main in the maintenance of net neutrality because again it will be these decisions will be maintained by that movie mean will be controlled and maintained by you know the members and that the board that are transparent democratically controlled so and they don't have an incentive to not do that to to not maintain net neutrality for their members because they're really wanting to make sure that they're that members are the ones that are actually going to be receiving the benefits not shareholders who are really hungry for  profits s s necessarily in addition to that we also have you know some you know going to be really well served by the local the you know the local folks that they have that they've assembled to help help the running of burlington telecom  i think that we've seen you know over the years in burlington when we've bet on local people to run city departments and we bet on local people to run companies on different entities in this company in the in the city that we've seen a real success from that and i think that we have some incredibly talented individuals in our city who have said we're willing to step up and we're willing to run this this and this this organization and we're willing to do it in a way that will be transparent and that will will take into account you know will that will deliver the best benefit for people and i think that that has not necessarily been you know stressed enough throughout this process and while there have been these tremendous benefits i think what we've seen is a lot of sandbagging or a lot of firms on the scale of to keep burlington telecom local instead of working with these incredibly talented individuals and dedicated people who really want to see rolling rolling in telecom succeed we've seen them be shut out of that process and we've seen them not be engaged in ways to mitigate risks that that could potentially help them to be a more struck stronger bid in a more successful bid you know we see things like coming out like you know potential look for threats of lawsuits that are in my mind incredibly speculative at this point we see you know and you know those lawsuits are based off of are not necessarily these these speculative concerns are not grounded in the actual agreement which to my knowledge says we do not have to select the the highest bidder and in fact one of the reasons i supported the bluewater remit was because we're able to select the better that best achieve our public are our public criteria not the highest bidder in a sale context i think that the other the other risks that we've heard is as part of this the sandbagging are that and that there has been you know that there is this issue of the of of debt and i think that that i would agree that that is you know definitely a concern and something that we absolutely have to take into account however i would i would point to the pro forma as the do that to show that this can this can actually operate and i would also make sure that we not only concern ourselves with debt but debt coverage ratio and if we look at debt coverage ratio a one point five debt coverage ratio is consider entity and you know banks are are seeing that continued success of this we will be able to refinance that debt and make it even more sustainable moving forward so i think that these concerns are not necessarily well grounded and i think that the emphasis on concerns for burlington telecom for bt local have really hurt our analysis and recognition of real risks that are associated with the other bidders in this particular case you know i think of what sure is and think of what they're doing in anti them with net metering i think that could be a real detriment to our community when you think net metering their charge they charge different rates for different speeds of internet and charge and this could ultimately be a hidden tax and one that could really hurt entrepreneurs in our city burrowing in our in our city  sure is that there's not really nest there's an you know again an opaque port operating an opaque board structure that we don't have access to we won't get to see that how those decisions are made because you know it's a private company so we won't have the ability or the say to really x ask questions and really push for accountability on the decisions that they're making with regards to tang we see one of the issues with them is that they're an incredibly leveraged company they've been on a buying spree in fact they just bent eighty five million dollars to  e and we don't necessarily have access to you know all the debt and to know about all the debt that they had to do to not only take on this deal but that deal as well and so that that comes with the expectation that they're going to need to pay that debt back and while we may have considerations or guarantees on rates for a couple of years i think again we need to think long term and we need to make sure that we have really strong emphasis on keeping those rates low in the long term and the way you do that is by keeping control of those with either of these two bids it's also important to emphasize that they don't have a tremendous amount of experience in fiber to the home because both of them are are seeking out front in telecom which has actually been an operating on its own much longer than either ten or sure's in this in this realm because they want to expand and they see us as a tremendous asset to their portfolio so this idea that only keep rolling in telecom local is not necessarily adequate in terms of its ability to operate a fiber the home network is not necessarily accurate because neither  has a tremendous amount of experience doing running a fiber the home system you know we see sure's for instance getting out of you know media you know television stations and newspapers and getting more into this because this is the future and that they're they're just trying to take this on because they realize the benefit of it but in terms of operating theory it's not quite there so in some i think that we should really bet on burlington on the individuals in burlington but on the strength of our community to make something that maybe difficult work because oftentimes the hard thing is often the hard thing the more difficult thing the thing that you know will be more challenging in the short term and oftentimes long term be the real benefit to the community and the thing that that offer is the one that best meets the beat have criteria and will result in the long term success of bt as everyone knows the council as we all have regular jobs this is a volunteer and part of what's i think unique about us is we all bring our sort of skill set whether it's financial community organizer non profit experience to the table i am an attorney by trade with twenty plus years of experience so i really want to take on or i've been viewing this through the lens and want to address the sandbagging notion or the speculative nature of the claim to me that in essence renders the k b t o offer not viable and i'm going to walk through why i think in concept as you've heard from everyone sitting up here as well as the public the cooperative model in the local control reflected in k b would be preferred however given the constraints that the city is under under the terms of the mediated settlement agreement with citibank and the telecom management services agreement with blue water holdings i believe that accepting the offer in its current form will result in the city being embroiled in litigation and denial by the public utilities commission not everyone at this table was on the council in two thousand and fourteen when we were months away from commencement of a trial in federal district court with citibank which was seeking tens of millions of dollars  damages alleging breach of the lease agreement fraud and most distressingly also seeking a return of the equipment that they own and that case was not trending in the right direction and to the city's credit we were able to extract ourselves out of that by entering into the media to soem agreement whereby we agreed to pay ten and a half million dollars and share twenty five percent of the sale proceeds with them in a third party sale the fund that settlement we went to the public and said we need financing two bidders word vance blue water and rose more blue water was selected agreed to by the assets lease them back to  us for six million dollars in lease payments and we agreed to pay them a significant percentage of the sale proceeds when we sold burlington telecom in that document we also agreed to put burlington telecom up for sale and there's a declining percentage that we keep depending on when it's sold right now if it's done by the end of this year we're at forty percent it's important to note that blue water under the terms of that agreement also retains the right to approve the buyer if it's a first time operator which  is we have three our first before us tonight two of them offer a cash consideration equal to the fair market value of burlington telecom which is between twenty eight and thirty million dollars the third offer for twelve million dollars is sixty percent lower than fair market value by accepting the case for the benefit of that sixteen to eighteen million dollars of value is being given members for no consideration i view it from this way if we looked at straight up on a liquidation analysis what would happen the day after closing with if they turned around and sold the company taking twenty eight or thirty million dollars none respect me please i'm making an analogy the value of that sixteen to eighteen million dollars would flow through to  and no portion of that would be shared with the parties with whom we had contractually agreed to share the proceeds again that's twenty five percent that would otherwise go to citibank and forty percent to bluewater the benefits touted by k b which i believe are real of retaining local ownership in keeping rates low or will not be shared or monetized by citibank or blue water in terms of the speculative nature of the claim as it's been addressed or or the what's been called sandbagging there's no sandbagging there was a real communication from citibank once these offers were made public the city attorney's office in the external council received an e mail you know threatening litigation that was followed by a phone conversation where you know we were then advised that the threat of litigation was not just possible but almost likely the damages if they w that pursue that are in excess of four and a half million dollars by my calculation which is the delta between the lowest in the highest offer if they were successful in winning that those funds would come out of the general fund there's no money in the  satisfy that judgment which i believe creates a major complication for the public utilities commission in considering offer during the pending litigation the city would also be forced to cover legal expenses associated with defending it and the sale potentially could be put on hold indefinitely it's also not realistic to assume that the existing bettors and things would be available or willing to put in an offer if if the public utilities commission ultimately deny that i respect you know people are saying please don't bow to the threat of litigation but from my analysis i put the potential taxpayer lawsuits of which there we have been contacted by two people threatening i put that in a category of potential i don't not put city capital city bank in the same category i was not on the council when citibank you know when this first happened but the stories that i have heard were that you know citibank did not act in accordance with the way the city expected when we terminated the lease they were to use blunt words i think they were quite upset with the city and fully intending to get every dollar that they possibly could i see no reason to believe that's changed support local ownership and i support the co op model generally and as a member of the tab i and others were strong advocates to make sure that the co op had really every advantage in this process to make sure that they were kept abreast of all where we were that they had had notice of when we were when things were going to be coming forward and that was important to all of us we've been accused actually since two thousand and nine this council and the council before it have been accused of having some mission of privatization and i don't think that could be further from the truth i don't think there's anybody at this table that has any particularly interest in the private to zation of burlington telecom i think it's it's unfortunate actually but we have we don't always get the hand we want but we have to play the hand that we have we don't have all of the options that we would like i greatly appreciate the efforts l they are you many of them my friends i like them i respect them and i believe they have worked tires tirelessly for years to bring forward the best offer that they possibly could and it was very very difficult it was i know there were efforts to raise funds that was difficult and it was difficult to find financing and what has come forward at this point is only through very intense efforts on the part of  many people who are not bored and i thank you for that because i think it makes us stronger and it was a possibility we never knew you know what would come forward in terms of offers we weren't sure that anybody was going to want to buy and we're very fortunate to have the offers that we have now on the table there are as you've heard around the table there are certainly some particular concerns with the offer that has been brought forward by both by those of us voting in favor of that offer and those of us voting opposed to that offer or for another offer i should say i am grateful for the community meetings that council macer in councilor paul and i have have hosted several meetings as well as n p a meetings and have had the opportunity to share our concerns with the public because i think that if i were sitting on the other side of the table i'd probably be sitting here advocating for co op ownership but there's a different weight that is on those of us sitting here who who are the decision makers and i think that it's probably safe to say that a lot of people have lost some sleep over this decision it's a really hard decision and we feel the passions in the community and we all want to do what's best for the city in the long term and we've been accused of looking going for short term gains instead of looking at the long term interest of the city but i want to assure you that i don't think that that's true i don't think that that's true of any of my colleagues i think we're all looking at the long term but the truth is there's no long term unless we can get through the short term and we have to look realistically at the risks that are presented so the one one of the risks is the financial risk the numbers could work but they might not and with the numbers working we have fourteen there's a fourteen percent interest rate and i know that there's concerns about profits going out of state with the other offers but the fourteen percent interest rate is also going out of state i know that there's a plan to refinance that in three years but we also had a plan to refinance bt back in two thousand and seven two thousand and eight and that plan failed because of what happened with the markets in addition to some other issues that were going on with bt so it's not a guarantee necessarily work that way though i  and should the should this operation fail it would be foreclosed on and it would be owned by a main fiber we have put in provisions to control the next sale that would be a requirement of any successful bit or on bt we have what's been known as the anti monopoly clause i believe that that needs to be strengthened substantially with every better but that doesn't apply to the foreclosure should mean fiber acquire this asset we don't have control over who main fiber might sell bt to and that's a that's a serious concern and it's among the risks that i weigh in this decision there's also stability of rates i think that that's of primary importance to many if not all of our residences to have affordable rates for the kind of service that we need there's been a lot of accusations that only cave will give us affordable rates and i don't believe that that that's accurate their rates will be driven by what they need to charge to make ends meet that's the way the co op model works and if they need to charge less the rates can be lower but if things aren't going well the rates could be higher there are no dividends for co op members unless they overcharge and they have more money than they needed in the pot that's where the dividends come from so dividends aren't  a foregone conclusion and unlike this city market model where dividends come because there are both members and nonmembers who are or who are making purchases and the dividends only go to the members really from the benefit of the non members shopping at city market there are only members in this in this model so it is it is different it's also different than b e d b e d is a monopoly and it's a you know it's a city owned utility and i wish we could have that in burlington that would be ideal i think that the city could own our telecom that's the way that's the way it should be it is it is a utility we all need it u nfortunately that's not an option that we have we we're not allowed to do that and unlike b e d our telecom business regardless of who owns it will be operating in a competitive environment and for that reason i don't think it's fair to say that the for profit corporations that are bidding on this are going to raise our rates because all they care about is profits ben and jerry's was bought by a huge multinational corporation it can charge whatever it wants for ice cream ice cream is a competitive product they they there their price is based on the quality of their product and what they can what they can charge in the marketplace for that quality product rates will be kept low by a business that is expanding its market share expanding the market and improving service so by that by expanding the market share i mean getting more people who are on the pass to subscribe by expanding the market itself i mean expanding that market expanding that fiber pass and improving the service we're all concerned about the customer service that we get we feel we get good customer service from burlington telecom most feel they get bad customer service from comcast at least according to our our company research but all of those things will contribute to a successful and profitable business businesses don't just charge more to make more money because it won't make them more money they need to serve us well in order to make more money detail i think that the legal the legal risk is very real and i very much appreciate that many of the folks who have worked on this from k b t l have recognized that and they  i know that they're working on coming up with a solution that would eliminate that legal risk for us and i look forward to seeing it but i have not seen it yet and the legal risk is probably the biggest factor for me in this decision when i first got on the city council i was told that what happened to us with citibank could not happen i was told that we didn't need to worry about what citibank would do should we be unable to pay the bill because they would just pass the keys that was a term use they w just pass the keys to another owner who would then operate our fiber to the home network and burlington would still be better off because the main reason we built burlington telecom was because nobody else not going to get fiber for many many years down the road and we felt that that was a detriment to the economy and so what was most important was that we kept we kept comcast accountable by having a competitive environment and that we actually had fiber to the home here even if the keys got passed but that's not what happened citi capital wasn't interested in just passing the keys they were in fact interested in causing us the most pain possible as far as i could tell and they have they have caused us a lot of pain and in two thousand and fourteen that pain finally subsided when we reached the settlement agreement  and we got past the days when we could not hook up people who were on the fiber pass because we didn't have enough money to to incur that cost so i believe that the future is bright if we can avoid further litigation with citibank and i believe that we can avoid that litigation with citibank by choosing either sure's or ting and i have gone back and forth over which of those offers is is the preferable offer i think that there they both present their own strengths and weaknesses but really some great opportunities for the city in the end  i've decided that i will support taking going forward and some of the reasons for that are some of the things that counselor node president no del actually referred to and that is the community benefits that come with that offer i think it's extremely important that we grow our tech economy and there is there is some key points in there offer they contribute to that they'll be giving sixty thousand dollars annually to be t v ignite they will be giving fifty thousand dollars annually for free advertising for local startups and economic development and community events and there's more more funds available from them including including the b t v ignited initiative as well as a free advertising there's a total of two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year available and some of the other initiatives will be the smart cities initiative bridging the digital divide for people who cannot afford internet rates of any of the companies really free co working space and not only there's been a lot of accusations about net neutrality that these companies will not support net neutrality the reason that i believe tng will support net neutrality isn't just because they said that they would but they're actually net neutrality advocates with aside from from the negotiations they have with us they are advocating for net neutrality and they've been recognized for that advocacy they're an innovative and forward looking company they're public and they're transparent they tied for first in consumer reports on customer service i think that there's a lot of things that i could i could say in response to issues that have been raised here but i will wrap up my comments and i want to express sincere gratitude for terry doormen in the work of doormen in faucet and steve in barrack off for getting bt to where it is today which is a saleable company that's not where it always was in my tenure on the city council  and today we do have good options and i do believe the future is bright and we should we should celebrate that in the end regardless of the result thank you so much i manderson i loue to suspend the think a significant number of detail points that are really important i'd like to step back a little bit and talk more about what this vote means tonight and to point out in particular that you know we're not currently debating who will be the final selected candidate to purchase p t here what we're trying to do is narrow the field to two and that's important because we're headed into a critical period in the next few weeks where we're going to be doing to do the due diligence and we're going to be potentially refining and improving competing offers and for me that is what's important so for me a successful vote tonight meeting that we've identified the preferred bettors that meet the fundamental goals established by the criteria that be tapped process but who can be motivated by stiff competition to work even harder in the weeks ahead to be that successful firm that can deliver fast affordable and accessible internet service provide active support to community values and initiatives and most importantly deliver stellar customer service to all of burlington residents at competitive rates into the future so to be the truly responsible in our choices tonight i think we need to be certain of four critical points first that those two candidates that we choose are financially stable they're not overstretched by this purchase and that they have readily available financial resources when the times get tough because they will get tough it's not going to always be smooth water ahead that's guaranteed second that the chosen firm must have proven managerial and technical expertise proven third they have to have the best chance to be favorably evaluated by the public utility commission and to receive a certificate of public good finally they must offer the best assurance that as much as possible of the sixteen point nine million dollars  taxpayer funds that were inappropriate the allocated by a previous administration are returned and the return to everyone not just a particular subset of burlington's voters to me there are two bidders whose current letters of interest reflect commercially reasonable offers those those bidders value bt appropriately not at the discount they deal fairly with the other entities that took significant risks during the two thousand and fourteen settlement and they importantly and most importantly they demonstrate general compliance for the b type criteria there are two firms that are financially stable have ready access to additional capital of needed and can cleary clearly demonstrate management and technical expertise they don't do not risk failure in front of the p you see my vote tonight will be for one of these firms my anticipation if both were to move forward tonight which i don't think they will that we could see significant improvement in the features and the values of the current offers in their letters of interest that would be a clear win for the city while i do appreciate the incredible amount of effort invested by k b and the potential included with their bid for a long term community benefits to a specific group of community members my current assessment is that the lack of financial resources available to this bitter especially when when compared to the other two bidders makes their offer not commercially reasonable and exposes the city to near certain litigation from the other participants in the two thousand and fourteen settlement in my opinion we need to do everything we can reasonably do to avoid this and bad eventuality it is not responsible management of the city to steer towards virtual certain virtually certain failure personally i'm not comfortable helping to steer the ship toward troubled waters i won't do it if kay b t l the third bit or does advance in the voting tonight which i assume it will i expect that in the weeks  ahead that they will assemble a commercially reasonable offer that also addresses the flexibility for the city in deciding whether to go forward with the carried interest equity or not at their discretion at the city's discretion and i would if if the can do that i would welcome the opportunity to re evaluate and reconsider my support for them thank you thank you first of all i want to take the people who are here for your engagement i am the newest city councilor i've been here only three months and when i joined the council i'll be very honest with you that the discussion that i found here was how do we let the local know you don't have a chance but from now to today so many things has changed and that changed because keep b t l they did an incredible job in making that offer better it's not perfect but i to me it's not why we're out here we are here to find ways in making sure we building a better community so many people talk about it today and they talk about it over and over again outside of burlington life is not easy the world is changing the world is becoming a mess excuse me of the wood we are the only community that have the chance in bringing back the power of a human being of what life is about of caring for one and other of taking care of our children and making a better a bri gave us an opportunity members of our community stood up to keep our own broadband internet morkel this is a huge disappointment white supremacy websites that are hosting no one knows the websites working on what i learned here as my three months in this console is i receive so many threats just because of this only issue of this issue when i was coming here am live so excited that i will join people who are excited about this city how can we partner win work together and make things happen for the resident of burlington to tell you the truth i was disappointed by some member of this table who gave me some tricks about this vote if you bought this way it will follow you on the next election in march think about that you are not going anywhere the real change we want but it starts with this the community we want to build you start with that and i want to tell something it is about the legacy about thirty millions isn't about twenty million it's not about you or your children or my children it's about our grandchildren it's about thirty years ago it's about thirty years from now or fifty years from now those children will wake up and take us because we left them we something that they can be really proud about not long ago i think a gentleman from japan was here and i think it was one of these he's here today and he talked about his experience around in japan how a family business brought something in just change it totally into  are capable in making sure that this will continue in becoming what we want to see but i think also people can understand one thing the history of burlington telecom from what i understood it happened going down in two thousand and eight and back then it was a restoration there were a couple of things that did not go well seventeen million were put into it and members of the brilliant on telecom right now there are only seven thousand but we are the population of burlington is way more than that there are maybe ten thousand people out there who are not part of this but but chance we have all those people put us all of us here today the only chance that we have is for the rest burlington telecom local thank you share my perspective on at least that we we've heard frequently tonight that it's important to fight the banks and and not be afraid of litigation and i just hope we all remember the history here and i really clear that we did fight i did fight and in many ways won i think some very important victor that define and really make possible the conversation we're having tonight we were faced with a claim for thirty three and a half million dollars plus other damages and we protect the taxpayers and essentially kept any further liability for taxpayers from those claims i think more and that's pretty widely understood and even alluded t should take the fiber up out of the ground and send it back to new jersey or some location and if if not that or in addition to that the bank said b city burlington hasn't paid its bills here take this any away and put it in receipt receivership and neither of those things happened as a result of the settlement and a final pretty remarkable in the settlement is that we right to continue to operate from telecom and to do what it we're doing now which is to direct the final outcome to control the destiny of the what will happen to the burlington a very real way we never have we would this system was built with money invested by others and large part and that limits our choices that defines our options forward that we have the ability to control the future of an asset that we do not own is unusual  and it is one that we i think we need to take advantage of this opportunity and that it is not is not something that will necessarily always be available to us if we don't finish the job correctly here in the months ahead so you know i really don't think the fair question is are we willing to fight the banks are we willing to litigate i think the right questions now are are is the city going to make good on the commitments it made to settle that litigation are we going to learn from the mistakes of the past do the do the proposal does the proposal that we ultimately select to meet the criteria that we deliberately and carefully to protect burlington telecom customers taxpayers in the city and you know there is more to those criteria well local benefits are certainly a major part of it but there are a lot of other important criteria  well thirteen criteria so the answers i think when we make a decision i hope two weeks from now the answers to those questions all those questions needs to be yes  or i think we have big troubles ahead and we will come to see the last three and a half years as brief respite and we really do risk losing control of the destiny of the future if we can truly say yes as we make the decision to those questions if we can truly say yes answer yes to those questions as we make this decision i think we will have resolved fifteen years of brilliance and telecom challenges with an outstanding outcome counsel right thank you president or some poser spring a second time i will be brief want to point out that no one on the city council should attempt to put themselves in a higher position than anybody else on this coun i respect every single person on this council i respect everyone in this room's different points of views when i don't want to be told is that if i have a different point of view that my point of view is invalid so jancsi point of view and his vote tonight and his final vote in two weeks i ask that all of our votes are respected as well but i just wanted to make myself also very clear that i respect every single person here i respect also your the amount of time that you've been at the co respect your service not only for the city but also for the state i think what i talked about here is very clear and i did not point the finger at anybody i  just want to make that very very clear and together we need to come together to solve this each one of us you can have your own point of view that's what democrats use about it's not about talking about but it's about how do we work together to get things done and then move on if anybody and an uncomfortable for what i said i am not going to say i'm sorry because i haven't done anything that made you want to think that i did not respect your point of view i admire your point of view i had my this i just wanted to make that very clear we will do service please yeah it looks like the vote has resulted in six votes for keeper langton telecom local five votes for service and one vote i mean sorry sorry five votes for taking and one vote for sure so we will go far with keep rolling to telecom local and flow of information that's continued up until the meeting i'm just hoping for some expectation for all of us in terms of when the fight when will be the due date for final offers and what that will look like and when will that be provided to us ok the mayor and i will work on all of this and to get ready for the next meeting cancer paul thank you if you recall the president or del i believe you were at the beach have meeting i can't remember now if you were at the beach at meeting and we had a conversation about the employees of burlington telecom and the fact that there were a number of employees i thought that they might be here this evening but that they really would like to speak before the council about their their perspective on the new owner of burlington telecom just like we've heard from the public and i i i would hope that we might have that opportunity i realize it will be at the last meeting before we vote but i if we could organize that i would like to hear from them if they want to be heard from ok thank you we will try to organize that counselor shannon i was thinking about that as well in and wondered if maybe operating them encouraging them to correspond with us by email  advance of the meeting might also be yes an option in the other counsellors just reflecting on what do you need coming into the next meeting or some suggestions for  we move forward here as it can keep going well i think there's two things the first is i would like us to continue working with c t c if there is any financial information that comes forward the other thing also is that there have been at the community meetings at least that counselor shannon mason and i had there were a number of people who asked whether or not we could have some financial analysis by someone who really does understand co op models really really well and i think that we should have that i think that we should have someone who takes a look at the pro forma take so who know understands co ops and will look at the things that are not that are out of the realm of conventional economic analysis in such as necessary at all benefits  and you know patronage dividends right you know there it's definitely another realm and i realize only we only have two weeks but i would be interested in seeing that ok thank you i think that's a good suggestion and we can i think the mayor of that down other suggestions or requests so the assumption is that where that mr dorman will be working with both will still be using both the bids against each other in this maybe slightly different way than anticipated but still playing them off against each other to continue to improve the bids moving forward yes can the next i'm sore for the next round of those two finalists is it possible for them to come back to do a presentation for the consulate and also for the public do like to hear from any other councillors on that or from the mayor or from anyone would people find it useful to invite the two remaining bidders back to make presentations i would you're saying yes yes  if i'm open to it i just would put in a short timeline and with these groups being busy operating in other ways i would prefer i would hope that of planning a presentation not get in the way of them improving their and if there were some outstanding things regarding pro formers or whatever whatever might come up from the council so i wouldn't want to have them really spend a lot of time on a formal presentation at that time i think that's too late i think to be available though to answer questions is really key i think ultimately it's up to the you know council that's what you have against a present foreign mayor warr together speak again and where i'm coming from is more many people i mean we need to respond to the secrecy that they saying the consul and the mayor been doing because this would be an opportunity to share a transparent