 How are you doing? Up on things? Good. Do glasses? They're great. You can barely see the lenses themselves. I think there's a little floor here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joe Spidell is like wicked into glasses. It's Spidell. Have you ever checked out his glasses? Yeah, they're amazing. He gets such cool glasses. That has cool ones too though. That's a good one. Are they kind of funky like he is, you know? Yeah, exactly. He's constantly in need of positive reinforcement around his glasses. Why? I'd like to call this regular city council meeting to order at 7.10 p.m. And the first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. So before we get into the agenda, I thought it would be appropriate to have just a brief moment of reflection for the terrible tragedy that happened last week and the Nepali family in our community. So if we could just take a few minutes to reflect on the terrible events that happened and send our best thoughts to that family and their community. Thank you very much. We have our agenda and I think that Councilor Roof is ready. I am ready. Thank you. I will move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows. Add to the consent agenda item 7.24, communication from Phil Hamaslaw regarding a satellite parking with the action to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file. Note additional materials for agenda item 8.03 for COS Lowell. Note additional documents for agenda item 8.05 per city attorney Blackwood and the mayor's office. Thank you. Is there a second? Councilor Shannon seconded that. Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of adopting our agenda as amended, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. So we have our public forum time certain at 7.30. 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. So 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 up tonight. Does any committee chair have a report? Councilor Roof, thank you. Just short announcements for both CDNR and public safety for this week. We'll be meeting starting on Wednesday. CDNR 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 we'll be meeting at Fletcher Free at 5.30 the public safety committee to be starting a homeless initiative that was kicked off by resolution last month. We will be hearing from members of the public. We'll be hearing from partner organizations who work on homelessness and issues related to. And we'll also have time for discussion amongst the committee members on our plans for the rest of the initiative timeline. Thank you. Very good, thank you. Commissioner, yeah, Councillor Deans, excuse me. Just an announcement, general announcement that a licensing committee will be meeting on Tuesday afternoon at 4.45 on the 24th of this month. Thank you. I have Councillor Hartnett and then Tracy. Sure. Make an announcement that PAC is meeting Wednesday. I don't see it on the public meeting list and so hopefully we will get that changed for tomorrow and this will be the first PAC meeting with the new director. So I look forward to it and it's really just some updates on the PAC meeting and we're going to talk about signage for Burlington and the bike path and some other things but it will kind of be a first kind of get to know the new parks director at the first PAC meeting so it will be great and I welcome anyone to come. That's Wednesday at 5.30, library. Thanks. Thank you. Councillor Tracy. Thank you, President O'Dell. The Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee will be meeting tomorrow at 6.30 at 6.45 Pine Street so deep down at DPW and one of our big agenda items will be discussing the resolution that was referred to us regarding the implementation of the planned BTW walk bike project and the public outreach that will go accompany those projects. I have already met once on this particular issue and have received feedback from a number of councillors specifically councillors Nodell and Wright. I want to thank you both for coming to the meeting that we had our last meeting and 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 see continued improvements in the coming year. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no other committee chair, we move on to the City Council on General City Affairs. Any topic? Councillor Ruf. Really quick, I just wanted to note that in Ward 8 we did have a first installation of some protected bike lanes going on South Union Street and to 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 to what the heck they were and once I explained it to them we could have plenty of people. You referred them to councillors Wright and Hartnett. I did, yes. Your phone will be ringing soon. But no, for the most part I'm really happy that that section of the city is getting some of that brand new infrastructure and it was great to see today so many people already utilizing it. So just thanks for everyone who was a part of that. Thank you councillor. Any other councillor on General City Affairs? Seeing none we'll go to the Mayor on General City Affairs. Thank you President O'Dell. 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 Swari, Akkadka's friends and family. No family should have to endure the pain that that family is going through and I am grateful for everyone who worked to improve the horrific scene that took place there. Certainly the neighbors and residents who stepped up and tried to help and kept the terrible situation from getting even worse, the police and also our Burlington firefighters who when something like this happens have a very difficult job to do and did it with great confidence and I think their work helped save the mother and we're thankful for their service. Another item I just want to make sure was the council was aware of that was in your packet is the after action report that Chief Locke has led in response to another recent tragedy, the death of Kristin Kababu this summer and the Chief after consultation with the community with other departments has come forward with five important recommendations that I'm committed to making sure are followed up on promptly and we consider the changes to our water safety and other policies that flow from those recommendations so I appreciate the Chief's service and I want to make sure the council saw that and I think there will be additional review in different committees and we'll have follow-up in the months ahead. The happier note, the BTV flag redesign application period closed on Sunday and it has been exciting to walk into Edmunds Middle School and see their art department, the kids there proposing new flags, same thing down at King Street Center. I think this has the potential to be a community event that brings us together and on the city's website starting October 20th, the public will be able to weigh in regarding which of the designs they think should become finalists. We were fortunate to have another delegation. This is the second time and my time as mayor from our sister city of Allfleur was in Burlington last week and it was wonderful to welcome Mayor Lamar for a second time here as well and I see members of the sister city committee are actually with us tonight and it was a great week for that sister city and the deepening of the ties with Allfleur. I think President Odell, 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 BTV Ignite effort and initiative that the city is a major supporter of is hosting a whole week event of events to strengthen our tech ecosystem and it is off to a great start. Our new leadership at BTV Ignite has done a great job of keeping this event growing and I'm looking forward to one of many events. I think there's dozens of events over the course of the week but one that I will be going to is the keynote event of the week is Burlington Gigabit City Tomorrow which is tomorrow evening from 6 to 9 at the UVM Alumni House and the welcome scene counselors and the public there. Thank you President Odell. Thank you very much Mr. Mayor and just to clarify that I have no updates so we can move right on. I'm going to go ahead and open at the public forum now and I was thinking Mr. Mayor that after the consent agenda we could do City Council with Mayor presiding and make those appointments. Does that work? Okay, great. So this is a little bit early but I'm confident that we'll catch anyone who comes at 7.30. So we invite you to sign up and we ask you to please keep your comments within two minutes and you can now see how much time you have left. And our first speaker is Ibnar and then he will be followed by Sandy Wynne. Is Ibnar here? Okay, so I'll just hold that. Sandy Wynne please. Followed by Eric Mayor. Thank you very much. I think we are opening up the balcony for anyone who would like to have a seat upstairs. Eric Mayor please. Followed by Sandy Baird. Seeing no Mr. Mayor we'll go to Sandy Baird and she's followed by B. Bookchin. Excuse me, Ms. Baird, please speak right into the mic. Maybe use the other mic and I'm not sure what's going on with that mic. Can we restart the clock? No, the other one was working. No? Both mics are off. Okay, so channel 17 you're not getting any audio from those mics? Okay. So we just need someone to start working on that and then we'll do our best. Thank you. The next speaker is B. Bookchin and she'll be followed by Eric Mayor. Folks, folks, can we ask you to show your approval in the quiet fashion? Because that allows to kind of keep moving and hear from more people. I'd really appreciate it. So are we making any progress on the mic? We don't know. Channel 17, do you have any audio? Could you turn that up please? No, okay. So we're going to have to just we're going to keep trouble shooting it and then we'll all just need to speak loudly so that we can hear each other in this room. Mr. Mayor, you're on. Thank you. Thank you. Lily Mason, is Lily Mason here? And after Lily will be Dave Maher. Dave Maher, thank you. We think maybe the mics are back on now. Women and children in the DRC. Obutua strives 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 Obutua means renaissance in lega which is a dialect spoken in the DRC. Knowing that addressing rape culture can be very triggering. I am hoping to strengthen this network of glory in Burlington by collaborating in artistic and engaging ways. So please look up the Vermont Obutua Initiative and email us at ObutuaGmail.com if you're ready to take this fight with me because I can't do it alone. Thank you. Thank you. And that was the Vermont Obutua Initiative. Thank you. Dave Maher and then Ibnar. Hi there. Dave Maher, live in the New North End. Richard Thaler recently won the Nobel Prize in economics. He won it for his research into behavioral economics. And what he found is that people often make bad financial decisions when they base them on emotion versus the facts and the figures. So let's look at the facts and the figures. There are three parties in the running to purchase Burlington Telecom. You've got Ting Toukows, with 24 years experience, offering $27.5 million in cash. You have shirts communications with 144 years of experience, offering $30.8 million in cash. And you have Keep BT Local, a startup, offering $12 million, of which $10 million is borrowed at an interest rate of 14%. That's a pretty high interest rate. Now to put this in perspective, if we take an offer for $30 million, the city, my understanding is, will get $5 million upfront. No strings attached, no guesswork, we just get that money. And the possibility of future returns if we retain a share of Burlington Telecom. If we take the $12 million, the best we get is some possibility of future returns. Now Burlington Telecom put together this matrix on their website. And I took the liberty of scoring the different offers. Ting Toukows, Shers, and Keep Burlington Telecom Local. As you can see, Shers won in almost every category. Toukows came in second, and Keep Burlington Telecom Local scored the lowest. So you will hear a number of emotional pleas in support of Keep Burlington Telecom Local. You'll hear them tonight, you'll continue to hear them. But I 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. Ibnar and then Mary Twitchel. Good evening. So I want to speak about Burlington Telecom. I forgot my glasses. I wrote this last night, and then I... Yeah, thank you. So I just want to say that this Burlington Telecom business is a business that we made, we Burlington citizens, and is already establishing itself as a... with a record of success. So if... And I'm seeing all around town signs about Burlington Telecom. I've gone to several meetings for a couple of years now. Keep Burlington Telecom Local Meetings. If you decide 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 an 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 pay 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 the Keeping Burlington Telecom Local, I will support every measure in our means, people's means to undo and uncover the hastiness of your impatience and look forward to your retirement from the council chairs as quickly as we can make possible. Thank you. Mary Twitchell and then Jennifer Ealy. Hello, I'm Mary Twitchell. I live in Ward 6. I want to encourage you to vote for Keep BT Local. And I think there are other examples in town of utilities owned by the citizens that have been extremely successful. BED is one of them. Certainly City Market, which I just toured the new building a couple of days ago, is an incredible testament to the power of local folks investing in, in this case, food cooperative. And likewise, we should be investing in an internet service and keeping that local. There's no... When cities get in trouble and they are getting into more and more financial trouble, it's because stuff is owned out of town by corporations. We're much better off if we own things locally. So, hence, I want to encourage you to vote for Keep BT Local. Thank you. Jennifer Ealy and then Diane Gair. Hello, thanks for letting us speak. I would urge you... Oh, first I wanted to say the fellow who was mentioning the behavior economist Richard Thayer. 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 tonight really to urge you to vote for Keep BT Local. This is a chance for you to vote for our community rather than for a nonprofit company. I know that's emotional, but I do think another behavior that's gonna result if they become selected at this round and at 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'll just empower them even further. So, thank you. Thank you. Diane Gair and then Phil Hammerslough. 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 I'm supporting Keep BT 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 BED is a model. The co-op's a very different model, but that was also put in place in many ways because of a partnership with CEDO that supported it. So, I think we have those two models of BED and the Onion River Co-op to look to in terms of how we form our ownership for the future of Burlington Helicon. And so, basically, at Foundation, I think the and the mayor referred to our future as a long, as a, 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. Thank you. Phil Hamerslow and then Charles Thorpe. This one? Yeah. Good evening. I'm going to pedal this in a different direction. I'd like to put in a plea for during the construction of the Burlington Center, which I just vouched 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. It would also take some of the pressure off of the traffic, which has increased rapidly over the last few years. And if we did a pilot project and you could run a bus for 10 to 15 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? Yes, Thorpe. Mr. Thorpe and then Don McDonald. I had some remark. Thank you. My name is Charles Thorpe. I'm from Ward 2. I had some remarks prepared, but I've abandoned them because I would like to address the issue of the Nobel Prize for economics. The Nobel Prize in economics was not founded under the will of Alfred Noble. It was founded by Swedish banks that without the permission of the Alfred Nobel family, the Alfred Nobel family opposed the establishment of the Nobel Prize in economics. It was used by the Swedish banks to undo the socialist policies of Sweden. They wanted that policy of neoliberal policies throughout the world, especially the Chicago School of Economics. So whenever you hear the Nobel Prize in economics, treat it with a grain of salt. They're pushing an agenda, the neoliberal agenda. They're not from the Alfred Noble's family. Be aware of that. Thank you. Thank you very much. People, people please. Don McDonald and then Alex Friend. My name is Don McDonald. I live at Furnhill. I'm in favor of Burlington Telecom. In the 1960s, Governor Hoff was offered an opportunity by the Province Quebec to purchase an interest in Hydro-Quebec. This is a Crown corporation owned by the Province Quebec. The matter went before the Vermont legislature and this matter lost by one vote. We could have purchased an interest in Hydro-Quebec which we would have today. That one vote was put in the Vermont state legislature by a guy named Albert Cree who was the president of Green Mountain Power in Rutland at the time. He suggested nuclear power. We got Vermont Yankee. Vermont Yankee is dead. We could have a piece of Hydro-Quebec. Thank you. Alex Friend and then Bob Hooper. Good evening. I think the decision you have before you is a moment not unlike the Alden plan. In 1985, when Burlington was developing a plan to revitalize our post- industrial waterfront, this plan would have had a hotel offices condos. This plan was itself a compromise from an earlier plan and it provided some community benefits. It had a park and a boat house. It had the support of then Mayor Bernie Sanders being Alderman. It failed on a citywide financing vote. The people didn't want it. The result after a lot of work is the public waterfront space that we have today and I think that you now face a similar choice to privatize our 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 want. Thank you. Please people, please do not clap. Please people, Bob Hooper and then Diane Pearson. Please indicate your approbation in this manner. Thank you. The sign of the American Sign Language applies. Collectively, you all put me on the retirement board and I thank you once again. You do so to make this investment. I would like you to treat this discussion as an exercise in investment. When BT came to my neighborhood in the New North End, 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. We're a small enough market that we're never going to get the best unless we do it ourselves. 30 million bucks 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 this utility out of our pockets over the course of years. It's in their business plan, I'm sure. The fiber that comes 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 underprivileged that get a fiber access through BT probably would not. The people that 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 tell people that we get a gig up and down for the price that we get it they basically act like you don't know what you're talking about. This is a resource. This is a utility. It would be short-sighted of us to sell it. Thank you. Thank you. Diane Pearson. Diane Pearson and then Louise Brill. Hi there. My name is Diane Pearson and I'm a physician. I'm a member of a small business group in Burlington since 1980 and I'm also a resident of Ward 3. I felt inspired to come tonight to this meeting after hearing our mayor's very earnest discussion about keep BT local. When he said that the offer of keep BT local was not viable and I felt really sad and I came tonight to ask each of you one question before you vote tonight which is how can our community not be viable and what can be more viable than our community. Thank you. Please please. Thank you very much. Louise Brill and if I could just ask people not to yell please. Be very helpful. Louise Brill and then Solovee Overby. Councillor Shannon is just suggesting that I remind people who are standing that if you would like to sit there is some seating upstairs and the balconies open. So you are on. Thank you. My name is Louise Brill. I live in Ward 3. I'm here to ask you to keep BT local. I have a proven track record of financial excellence here in Burlington for example city market and our Burlington electric department they are owned by the people and operate for the people. In the long run the city will see more financial return as a co-op despite the old familiar tactic of threats to sue which I think are empty. Keep our profits local to benefit the people in Burlington wanted local and have made that really clear. You are our elected representatives please do your job and represent us. Thank you. Thank you. Solovee Overby and then Dean Coren. You all know that I support the key BT local bid for Burlington telecom and I apologize reading but I know I have a short amount of time. I'm going to talk about 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 a private company. We voted in 2000 because of the high cost and the poor service. I want to just tell you that in Burlington Electric Department was started in 1905 and this is an important history after the city was unsuccessful in getting the private power company to reduce their rates. The city was paying $80 per year for each street light and 14 cents for a kilowatt hour of electricity. We voted for that because in 1903, 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 street light dropped from $80 per year to $8 per year and electricity dropped to 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Ironically, the mayor 100 years ago led the charge to create a municipal electric service. To save the city money but today the mayor is leading the charge to privatize Burlington Telecom which will cost the city money in the long run. One more point. The Burlington Electric Department regularly produces an integrated resource plan. This is one of them. Why am I showing you this document? Because it's a document that describes the business decisions being made by BED that provide residents and businesses with reliable, affordable electric power. Access to this information is huge and 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 Coran, please no clapping. Appreciate that. Please no clapping. Dean Coran and then Andrew Simon. Good evening. It's great to be in a city where 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. For decades from now it will seem silly that we even risked not having local control over our telecom and our economy that's being considered now. In fact not only is the co-op I'm happy to say a very viable offer but it is the only one that meets the criteria. We spent many months, maybe a year working on criteria with various committees and the public bought into these criteria and the criterion the key criterion of keeping control local is only met by the co-op and in fact the other's offers are basically 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 of corporate litigation. You just can't run a city that way. And in fact a 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 state's involved in if there is litigation there will be litigation once 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 Burlington Telecom's success now is its workforce. The workforce is going to stay the transition to a co-op is much more seamless and much more guaranteeing a future success of Burlington Telecom with the co-op model. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Andrew Simon and then Charles Simpson Go ahead Mr. Simon. I want to expand a little on the notion of fiduciary responsibility. I'm glad you've not brought it up. Fiduciary responsibility means acting in the best interest of those for whom you are responsible. In this case the resident of Burlington that term fiduciary duty fiduciary responsibility is often invoked and was invoked in a recent meeting I 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 city 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 interest 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 interest today but the long term financial interest the advantages of co-op ownership that other people have talked about and many of the other arguments in favor of the keep BT local group that you've heard over and over again now I would also submit that fiduciary comes from the Latin verb fidere 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 BT local thank you Charles Simpson and then Liz Curry I'd like to thank the council for their deliberation on this issue over a long period of time but I'd like to thank the public too the public that's here in great numbers the public that includes all the folks who have put up signs around the city I've never seen a sign saying give it to two cows I haven't I haven't seen that maybe it's somewhere and I've always thought to myself well why not have a referendum on this issue but then I realized we have had a referendum because 7000 subscribers are in effect a referendum and these folks have put their money into the future of Burlington 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 out 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 the city to the subscribers to the the local co-op that money will stay and circulate within the community so I urge you to support the cooperative alternative thank you very much thank you Liz Curry and then Mark Porter and we're not here to talk about the 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 KBTL 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 data to marketeers and eventually getting swallowed by the likes of Time Warner I'm betting that Shurs may be pretty appealing to some risk adverse observers and participants in this process with a cozy image of a family owned business in the media for 144 years with consistent holdings in newspapers, radio stations and recently telecom which they have a pattern of divesting in every time they switch mediums Shurs 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 Shurs recently created a tiered rate structure with higher data use resulting in higher rates like your phone which is becoming the trend in telecom we also learn 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 evangelical beliefs by accepting responsibility for their predicament by turning their lives over to Jesus with all due respect to practicing observing Christians in this room this is a great reason to support net neutrality if you want to spread the word of God that neutrality is a must finally to promote their evangelical beliefs most of the Shurs family members involved in running the business have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past 10 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 us I would ask us all to reflect on the full profile of Shurs and suggest that it prints a pretty clear picture of where our rate revenue will be directed knowing the values of this community I ask you to honor the sale criteria that you established that was extensively informed by a survey of Burlington who said loudly and clearly our first priority is local control for this reason the agreements with city bank and blue water did not in fact require the higher spitter thank you Mark please no clapping silent clapping please appreciate it thanks buddy Mark Porter and then Brian Pine hi I'm Mark Porter from Ward 1 how are you over the last few years I've gone from Comcast to the dish for direct TV got tired of shoveling the snow off the thing off the deck so that prices rise and switched over to Comcast and took the annual discount and then signing off for second year I had a $300 gift card that I could apply towards it and it drove the price down below what was being offered for Burlington Telecom and why did I do this because I had choice right I had the choice I made the decisions in my household I was also a taxpayer 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 has done tremendous things on the finances side of things the last three or four years credit rating has increased dramatically finance have come in place the district the help of Commissioner Curry who was just up here has done the same that we've 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 to all taxpayers whether you subscribe to Comcast whether you subscribe to direct TV whether you don't subscribe it is owed to all of us just in closing I wanted to make a note that speakers have come up here and talked about equality speakers have come up here and said that 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 came up and talked about a Nobel laureate it's typical it's exactly what's going to happen is to 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 excuse me sir but other people who have been pro-KPT local have gotten a little extra time and so Mr. Porter got a little extra time and I'm asking us all to be respectful of each other and you're on the edge of not doing so let's just reign 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 3 36 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 once in a generation opportunity and I hope the outcome will bring 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 has made ours an award winning city most of our major accomplishments have been the result of bold and audacious leadership that's what's needed tonight the bike path was fought all the way to the US Supreme Court in the 1980s in the end we won but at a significant cost 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 session to pass the legislation that made our Waterfront Park possible the North 40, the Urban Reserves most folks don't know what it is but it's north of Moran was one after a lengthy legal battle with the railroad that went to arbitration after the city order offered 1.2 million and the railroad said ah, 10 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 more than 40 acres of Waterfront land for 1.9 million dollars fast forward to the early 2000s, Shaw's threatened the city over its decision to choose a locally owned food co-op over a multinational corporation in the end we got city market and I think we all agreed that was a positive outcome these were all fights worth fighting because our elected leaders were willing to be bold and audacious BT is no exception this moment in our history calls for a similar type of audacity BT is the critical link connecting our homes and businesses with each other with an information economy and is 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 Lynn Martin and then Thomas Hyde good evening I realize some of you have doubts about keeping Burlington Telecom local and want a choice you believe will offer the best guarantees but both of the alternatives are businesses where in profits are 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 where they not to do so especially in the case of two cows which I remember is a small vendor selling applications on the internet about 10 plus years ago around 2000 the residents of Burlington are also apprehensive but by a very wide majority they want to keep Burlington Telecom is in their own backyards please listen to the residents accumulated wisdom and vote with your constituents I too 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 Trav Friar so on Tom Hyde I'm from Ward 6 and I think it's really important that the reason that we've been told that Citibank would sue the city if the QPT local bid is accepted that should be disclosed because I thought a while about why 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 QPT local is perfectly fine Citibank would lend money to a corporation with such debt coverage and and then they may be worried about the management but now my impression is that Steven Bearclaw 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 feels like one of those unsubstantiated fear mongering insinuations like that's the stock and 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 here, thank you thank you, Trav Friar please and then John Cowlow hi I'm here to support QPT local as I was last time I was rooting around in my basement tonight and I found this mouse pad that reads act locally connect globally, Burlington Telecom it's your network and I thought isn't that nice it is my network I mean how sweet if we can keep it that way I'm not looking forward to next year's dystopic mouse pad Burlington Telecom it's Ting's 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 decision I think this is a really great democratic process so thanks everybody thank you John Cowlow and then Michael Long hi thank you I wanted to speak in favor of the Shours and Ting proposals I wanted to follow up on a couple speakers that have made some points three things I think that the City Council needs to keep front and center one is brought up earlier, fiduciary 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 two proposals that are fairly equally valued they both offer tremendous amount of professional experience and have demonstrated that they can compete in a 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 the experience of team and point to a co-op model which is a terrific model I'm not sure we can just easily transfer what the success of a grocery store to an internet managing an internet system finally my third point is more 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 Plattsburg or the next Rutland than not and I think that while I think that this transaction and whom you select will have I think a bearing on the future vitality of our community so thank you for letting me share that and good luck with your deliberations thank you very much Michael Long and then Karen Long good evening I'm here to endorse former counselor Pines analysis recently published in from Montenegro of the risks associated with corporate ownership of Burlington telecom his expertise and clarity on financial risk analysis are especially compelling KBTL 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 sell out and a betrayal of the vision that Burlington telecom represented at its inception the rocky Burlington telecom years from weak marketing mismanagement the 17 million diversion and perhaps two 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 cooperative ownership corporate ownership even socially responsible corporate ownership serves shareholders first and customers next cooperative ownership such as KBTL proposes serves the customer owners as one please represent your constituents and the broad public interest not the narrow interests promoted by 11th hour scare tactics by some in positions of political leadership thank you thank you Karen Long Karen Long and then Steve Goodkind people are overwhelmingly in favor of selling to a cooperative and yet the mayor and some counselors have been actively undermining the keep Burlington telecom local bid 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 KBTL bid provides the confidence in local control that the people value so highly only the KBTL bid provides the long term social and financial benefits to repay the community for the misappropriated funds only the KBTL 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 with the KBT KBTL in the running thank you thank you Steve Goodkind please and then Carolyn Bates thank you president O'Dell I think we all knew it would come to this and I think you're hearing others talk about it it's become boogeyman time the mayor is going to try and scare the council with the reasons why things can't happen while we have to sell and who we can't sell to the first boogeyman is that they approve any entity that doesn't have sufficient operating experience to run a telecom system well look at their past history they approve the sale of blue water blue 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 if the city wants it the city is going to get it from the PSB second thing is you've heard some people talk about it I've talked about it until I'm blue in the face they're going to get a sale and they have no expectation they know this that they're going to somehow get some profit out of this in fact it's very possible there won't be a sale and they would get nothing so the idea that somehow they're going to object oh they might object but they haven't got anything to stand on I think what's probably going on here though is I think there's probably a since it's nothing written there's probably an unwritten understanding with city and that they've been led to expect which just shows that this wholesale process as I've said is a charade our conditions, our desire for local control is trumped by the desire for city financials profit even though that's not in the agreements I'll say it again I don't think we should be selling Burlington Telecom I think we should be buying out blue water we should be keeping it we can have everything we want everything you hear people talk about tonight and you can have it by keeping it thank you and then Kit Andrews just checking just checking 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 have been working for some time 8 years 10 years with Burlington Telecom I being one of the very first I was a beta advisor before they got going in the 1980s Burlington Telecom was an idea in 2003 the first stage of BT was up and running in 2010 it defaulted on interest payment to city 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 long, long time I'm now saying alright stand up and save BT and keep it local in 2014 this committee said BT would be sold in 4 years and that the lowest bid had to be 11 million keep BT local is 12 50% would go to the city of Burlington and 50% of that money would then go to city bank or about 25% of the total the bank was happy with this agreement which meant what maybe $1.5 million 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 being way over the 11 million they would still have been quiet oh my big money to be earned oh a total of 3 million more than that of the original agreement now they choose to threaten to sue us if we go with KBTL's 12 million has anyone looked into what city bank aka city group is worth go to Wikipedia $7 billion in revenue last year their total assets anyone want to guess do I have any guesses $1.79 trillion I don't think are $3 million it's going to hurt them much thank you Caroline thank you very much Kit Andrews and then Tegan Cook good evening my name is Kit Andrews this evening I'm speaking for my friend and neighbor Deb Flanders Deb 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 tour and travel consultant for Goodspeed and Bach for the past 17 years in Burlington I am a new customer of Burlington telecom since their service just became available on Upper 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 charged 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 year now that BT is up for sale the rates will rise and service will decline if the company is sold to an outside corporation such as Ting, Toucasse or Shure's keeping this telecom business local is a guarantee against arbitrary rate increases and capricious customer service after attending several meetings with keep Burlington telecom local I was pleasantly surprised at their offer on the table they have solid financial plan including support from Jerry Greenfield founder of Ben & Jerry's and other business people such as Pete Jewett of Burlington Bytes 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 city bank nor by the debt which KBTL's business plan and very conservative projections show can comfortably be met the KBTL board co-op board of directors and its volunteers have worked hard to show me 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 next is Tegan Cook I'm Tegan and I'm going to talk really fast because I'm really nervous I live in the old North End 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 22 and I haven't been to the dentist in 11 years what lets me participate in my community 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 correlate 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 be able to say that you prioritize your community and if you're so desperate for money that you prioritize it over your citizens 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 Isabel Shasha and then Greg Hancock thanks so I think you guys need to really look around the room please I'm serious like look at everyone here look at the beautiful range of ages represented in the crowd here tonight there are 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 it is absolutely unacceptable and we need to reject it so I live in the old north end I'm an owner of a local start-up we work over at the Vset space it's very wonderful 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 America in the year of our lord 2017 so what I'd like to ask is I've heard a lot of assurances and promises that our agreement with Ting or whichever corporation we sell 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 so I think that everyone in this room including you know that corporate power does not play by the rules so please support keep Burlington telecom local thank you Greg Hancock and then Alan Turnbull first want to thank city councillors for all they've been doing all the due diligence you've had to do all the extra hours you've had to put on this I really do understand the burden that you face so my background is in telecom I've had about 16 years I worked with AT&T Lucent Technologies and a few others including Avaya Communications and I served on the Burlington telecom advisory commission when that was still around so I have a long history and knowledge of Burlington telecom I have a great amount of passion for it and I can say lately I've been really paying a lot of attention to the ETL people they put together an impressive effort to build a solid business plan they have done it with all the volunteer effort with expertise and passion it was really the only bid and you've heard this from a number of people tonight that satisfy all of the criteria thresholds that were put forth by the input from the citizens of Burlington the second hour we're being told should not be considered because of Burlington telecom keep it local should not be considered a viable candidate because of a threat from a lawsuit by a city bank this is not just unfair it's wrong all the concerns have been addressed and satisfied by a conservative business plan that shows 45 million dollars in equity after 10 years to the city and to the 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 or the existing management continuing on its path and there is a lot of passion in this room as you can see and I think I think we have a lot of time for this please let's not blow it here please listen to your constituents and vote for Burlington keep it local thank you Alan Turnbull and then David Lansky I thank you Alan Turnbull from South Wenuski Avenue has been a seven year teleworker and I think we have a lot of time for this because somehow KBTL's debt service is too high to cover that there is 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 KBTL's board of directors and they don't know as much about our 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 and deliver and send it to their investors then we can't possibly doubt that KBTL would be able to repay its debts and do all right in the long run Thank you David Lansky and then J.F. Carter Newbeiser Thank you for your hard work to find the right buyer for Burlington Telecom I live in Burlington I run a statistical consulting business in Burlington at the board of KBTL BT is and 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 for those of Burlington Telecom the big benefit of a co-op, 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 business serving less than 40% of Burlington making the total telecom value in Burlington near 25 million a year a 10% rate savings even a 10% rate savings and we can expect more like 50% rate savings in the long run a 10% 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 pockets the big prize for Burlington with a co-op, BT is 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 organized 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 namely public or co-op ownership of BT thank you Mr. Newbeiser and then Robert Bacchus thank you for having me I am the president of UVM Progressives so we're the Vermont Progressive Party on campus this year in addition I'm speaking on behalf of the Burlington Steering Committee thankfully last night the Progressive Steering Committee unanimously came out in support of the KBTL bid and I just wanted to give you guys prepared a couple points just to say why we support it and I also just wanted to note if we look around the room almost every sign I should say is in support of the co-op bid there's also just a ton of young people who have reached on this issue so yeah I think that's an important point for you guys to recognize and to take into account when you're deciding on this issue but KBTL offers the greatest long-term value to Burlington residents BT's state of the art fiber network is key to the future economic development of the city and the region and will pay dividends in terms of job creation and economic development for years to come the co-op model has served Burlington well and is a safe choice for the chief success that far exceeds all original expectations City marked the guru from 2,000 members when it started to 12,000 members today BT local would start off with fully after the sale with 7,000 subscribers 3,000 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 in the sales agreement either could turn around and sell BT in 5 to 10 years at the end of the day these companies are accountable to their shareholders and not to the residents of Burlington I just want to thank you all for your time and thank all the UVM progressives for coming out and support in KBTL but thank you thank you Robert Backes and then Paco de Francis good evening thank you particularly thank you for giving all of us the time to speak I know you are and I know there's a lot to do and it's hard to spend so much time listening but 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 30 years and I know one thing when we fear litigation let that fear drive us we've already lost we cannot as a city be 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 one reason only that's because Burlington Telecom exists as a locally owned essentially non-profit business dedicated to providing the best possible service to the citizens of Burlington I lived in Tucson for three years in the mid-2000s 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 that two cows ting and sheers bring to us but the fact is none of them as 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 TV none of them have that experience only Burlington does we need to keep control of that experience and own it rather than turn it over to an outside corporation thank you thank you thank you President Nodell so two things first real quick I hope you guys can get the BTC development agreement secured and on track this evening I think with what's going on that is reducing their balance sheet and then Secretary Holcomb recently noted that the K-12 because of pressure on the K-12 education funding the anticipated non-residential property tax rate is going to increase to $154 per hundred dollars as a assessed value and then that combined with inclusionary zoning makes a type of $150 million investment occurring in the city in the near term very unlikely and also here to support shirts for the BT sale I've switched to BT from Comcast this past June I've been a happy BT customer and I don't want that and I fear that that the customer service I get will decline in a sale to a company that takes out a leverage buyout of 90% that 16% I think I saw like 14% or 16% interest just to give an example of right now junk bond like a a mutual fund movement of junk bonds is yielding 6% to 7% 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 that's a lot of risk of those 7,000 customers that that might go away if we don't take the most financially secure and strong acquirer which would be shirts communications, thanks. Thank you, Amanda Hannaford. I want to thank all of you for your patience with all of these comments I know it's going to be a late meeting I just wanted to say that I did my first sort of outreach event for Burlington to keep Burlington 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 supports it and how many people really know about it but almost everybody who walked by a large percentage of people who walked by more than I would have expected stop and express their support and asked to sign the petition that we had and I just think I don't know how many people have reached out to you but it's probably a lot but I just wanted to express my surprise at the huge amount of support so thank you very much thank you so that does conclude our public forum and I'm just guessing that we'll get to this item on our agenda in about half an hour so just a guess so I'll look for a motion on the consent agenda Councillor I think Councillor Rufus got it yes I'll move to amend and adopt the consent agenda taking the following actions as indicated add to the agenda item 7.24 communication regarding satellite parking with the action to waive the reading accept the communication and place it on file there's a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended is there any discussion on the consent agenda seeing none all in favour of adopting our consent agenda please say aye any opposed okay so hearing none at this time I will recess the regular city council meeting and turn it over to the mayor thank you President Nodell I'd like to call this order the city council of mayor presiding at 8.43 first item on the agenda is the agenda do we have a motion to adopt the agenda I would move to adopt the agenda as presented thank you President Nodell it's our second and second by Councillor Shannon please say aye any opposed the motion carries unanimously item 2.01 is the consent agenda do we have a motion to Mr. Mayor I'd move to adopt our consent agenda and to take the actions as indicated thank you President Nodell seconded by Councillor Busher any discussion all those in favour of the motion please say aye any opposed the motion carries unanimously the next item is 3.01 which is a library commission appointment for term expiring June 30th 2018 is council ready to put any nominations in order I see President Nodell thank you Mr. Mayor I'd like to place the name of Carolyn Elliott in nomination thank you are there any other nominations Councillor Mason thank you Mayor Weinberg I'd like to place the name of Patrick Halliday in nomination thank you are there any other nominations I believe I I'm sorry it sounds like maybe your mic still is not fully on so maybe we can get some help with that but I think you said you wanted to put Anna Schneider in nomination is that correct okay so we have 3 candidates in nominations so far are there any other nominations seeing no more nominations they'll close the nominations and open the floor for discussion also are there any members any individuals who have just been put in nominations that are here to address the council if you could keep your comments to a minute or two that would be great yeah hello my name is Annie Schneider I'm a ward 2 resident and an inspector of elections I'm 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 great thank you and I appreciate you being here is there any of the other nominees like to address the council okay seeing none back to the council for discussion okay we will go to a vote to keep it clear I think we'll do a show of hands for each of the nominees all those I'll go by the order of the nomination all those in favor of sorry 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 their hand all those in favor of Carolyn Elliott please raise their hand see one and all those in favor of Patrick Halliday please raise your hand I believe that Patrick Halliday will be the next commissioner thank you Patrick for your interest and for serving the city let me also say thank you to Anna and Carolyn we appreciate your interest in this position very frequently people who apply for their first time for a board we are unable to place a lot 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 the police commission 3.02 this is for a term expiring June 30th 2019 we will open the floor for nominations thank you Mr. Mayor I would like to place a nomination in the name of Peter Barenberg he is a local businessman owns the bagel a place that Mayor knows very well mornings with Moral Wednesday morning thank you I appreciate the PSA President O'Dell I would like to place a nomination in the name of Tony Periello he is an associate professor of law in the criminal justice program at Champlain College he is on the board of Vermont Cares and I think that his application demonstrates a very balanced approach to the work that he would be taking on on the police commission excellent are there any other nominations seeing none we will close the floor for nominations and open the floor for discussion of the two applicants okay oh sorry let me I also invite the applicants if they are here and would like to address the council now would be your moment okay I did see at least one of the applicants here earlier but does not look like either is interested in speaking so we will go back to the council and see if there is any desire for any discussion we will go to a vote all those in favor of appointing Peter Barenburg please raise your hand okay it appears that Mr. Barenburger has nine votes which is a majority of the city council's mayor presiding so congratulations Peter thank you for your service and thank you as well Mr. Periello who 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 clearly has a lot to offer in this area this is and we hope he will stay interested in serving the city we will move to item 3.03 which is for an appointment to the board of tax appeals for the term expiring June 30th 2018 are there open the floor for nominations President O'Dell I would vote I would move that we cast unanimous ballot for Noah Dexter excellent Councillor Hartnett did you want to add something okay great I believe that was the yep so I think he is the candidate before us all those in favor of President O'Dell's motion please say aye congratulations Noah thank you for stepping up and being willing to serve on this important board for appointments to go 3.04 Board of Registration of Voters for a term expiring June 30th 2022 the floor is open for nominations President O'Dell I would move we cast unanimous ballot for Wei Wei Wang excellent any discussion we will go to a vote on that nominee all those in favor please say aye congratulations Wei Wei Wang we appreciate your interest and long service on the board through 2022 finally we have another application for the Board of Registration of Voters for a term expiring June 30th 2023 the floor is open for nominations President O'Dell I hate to hog the floor but no one else is I would like to nominate Sue Adams excellent are there any other nominations okay we will close the nominations and go to a vote all those who are interested in supporting Sue Adams please say aye 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 adjourn the City Council with Mayor Presiding at 8.52pm thank you Mayor I would like to come back from recess on this regular City Council meeting at 8.53 and we are on item 8.01 which regards the public hearing for Plan BTV Downtown Code and I am looking for a motion on postponing that item please thank you President O'Dell I would like to make a motion to postpone the public hearing on Plan BTV until November 13th 2017 thank you very much is there a second Councilor Roof seconds it thank you any discussion all in favor of that motion to postpone this public hearing until November 13th meeting of the Council please say aye aye any opposed motion to postpone this public hearing and hold the vote that evening just so people know 8.02 is an appointment to the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission are there any nominations Councillor Buscher yes I was we have one applicant but I was not able to reach anybody that because I didn't it was my error and 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 a second Councilor Roof postponed seconded that is there any discussion would you like to re-advertise yes I would like to re-advertise motion to postpone and re-advertise please is that agreeable to roof it is okay all in favor of that motion to postpone and re-advertise and come back to this appointment please say aye aye any opposed no we have one Councillor Tracy votes against but we have a majority in favor so that will be the plan we now want to 8.03 the resolution authorization to execute the development agreement on Burlington town center council right thank you President O'Dell I would move passage of the resolution and after a second can ask for the floor back briefly yes there's a motion to waive the reading to adopt the resolution the second comes from Councillor Paul council right thank you President O'Dell we have one another motion to waive the resolution for the development proposal and we passed this earlier tonight at the finance board by unanimous vote President O'Dell should we call up Noelle McCay and Mr. Farcus are they here I believe they are here they're available I believe Mr. Sinek's is here if there's any questions for the owner he is also available we appreciate just 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 and the public improvements. And Mr. Sinek's has agreed to those, and so the motion to adopt the development agreement incorporates this language so we won't need an amendment, but I just wanted to, and you have that language in front of you. So we very much appreciate that. So were you all set with the floor? Yes. Okay, great. So the floor's open for discussion. Councilor Bush. 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, 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 14 stories. And that stands as is. So I want to be very clear that I was hoping for a different project. I want a redevelopment of them all, 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 pre-development agreement with the hopes that there would be some opportunity to have some modifications, some that 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 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 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. Some of it was already mandated, the inclusionary zoning, but there's some more workforce housing. There's contingencies on access to rooftop where you can observation tower. So there's community space. There's discussion about livable wage, and there's discussion about construction workers getting appropriate wages, which was enlightened to mean really wages that are well above what minimum wage would be, but are in the construction world fair wages. And President Nodell spoke about an amendment to this draft, or talking about having reports, about that whole issue, about what contractors are being paid, and just having that reporting mechanism to more formalize it, not just to have it in words, but to actually track that. In this agreement there's also a strong urge to have the developer at least consider BT. There's also a statement regarding working with BED 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 attend all the DRB 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 annihilate 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 CEDO 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 moved forward. But I hope I've explained 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 I can for you, not me, but I have done the best in reviewing this. The city has done the best for all of you in 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 Don is here tonight and I'm hoping that this development will certainly end up enhancing our community. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Moore. Thank you. There was one question that I submitted when we were submitting, asked to submit questions about this development agreement that I still would like a little bit of clarity on. So in this question is probably for Don. I'm not quite sure where to go. Mr. Sinek, 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, is this on? We hear you. Yes. Just members speak 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 80% to 120%, which, if you looked at the rents in Burlington, are pretty much market rents. So we are going to look at it very carefully and if in fact we can designate some apartments that fit within the realm of those percentages, we will do so. That's what endeavor means. Then will, 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, endeavor to do this, but it would be nice to see, you know, what process you went through to make that decision. If you want to suggest something, we'll certainly consider it. I would love to see that. I'm going to vote for this. I did vote for the pre-development agreement, but that was one piece that I was unclear about. You know, over the past three-plus years, we've worked very closely with the city, including the office or the CEDO office, whose realm or authority falls within this affordable housing issue. This is an issue that we have discussed many times. This is why it ended up in the development agreement in the manner that it did. We have many additional obligations as far as what the affordable housing rents will be and how those are distributed throughout the project. 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 handle it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Moore and Mr. Sinek. Any other, Councillor? Councillor Tracy. Thank you, President Nodell. I very much appreciate it. I know that this will pass in terms of the agreement, but I will not be supporting this issue, so I want to just speak to why I won't be supporting this item tonight. I think that whenever I'm turning into an agreement, it's important to make sure that we are, as Councillor Buscher said, protecting the city's 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 people from across the economic spectrum. I continue to have those concerns and I think that this document continues to codify some of those inadequacies within 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. I think there's a lot of reasonable effort, quotes like, we'll use reasonable efforts, we'll 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 interests and really give a clear idea of expectations that we can really count on when we look at this particular agreement, the language should be much tighter in that particular case. In terms of 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 city and part of that idea is predicated on the fact that we are 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 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 wouldn't really be possible if you don't have those streets in place and so I think the idea of counting that as a gift is not necessarily a genuine one and so I think that we should really be holding to the models, the right, we should be holding this development to the same standards that we hold other developments to and I think that that's been an issue throughout this process where we've seen continued special treatment given to one developer as within this particular city so I think that we need to make sure that we're holding people accountable to the same standard when they pursue development in the city. The last thing is also that, well, there's two other things. The other thing is that I think that in terms of the city itself having a, you know, I was really upset to see in the settlement agreement that Mr. Sinek's reach with the appellants that underground parking was going to be achieved and I wasn't upset because of the underground parking 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 in an earlier time that we would not be, that it was an impossibility so I think that really raised significant trust issues for me in terms of moving forward in an agreement as only as good as the trust you have in the individuals involved in it and so that raised significant trust issues for me 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 with my family, I took the time out to make sure that I shared questions with them. I was perfectly fine being delayed in terms of receiving those answers as staff had vacations over the summer and that is totally fine. I support our 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 provide feedback regarding those before this was really put out to the public so I think that we could have done a lot better both in terms of substance and process of this particular agreement. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Tracy. I think the mayor is up next. Thanks, President O'Dell. I just want to say a couple of things. I appreciated Councillor Busher's support at the Board of Finance and I believe reiterating that support tonight despite disagreeing with some of the support for the agreement despite disagreeing with some of the substance of the project. I 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 in particular our CEDO director, Noel McKay, for really putting in a tremendous effort to get this 45 page document across the finish line. It took an enormous amount of coordination with other city departments in particular with the Public Works Department. I want to thank Chief and Spencer and Norm Baldwin, 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 and the details here both in terms of protecting the city taxpayers and the proper use of the TIF dollars. And there is also a lot at stake in making sure that these public improvements are built in a high quality fashion and that we get the very significant reinvigoration of this section of the downtown that the voters supported and that we will achieve through this agreement. And I also would be remiss not to mention Jeremy Farkas, who is the attorney that we retain for this work as well as Helene Blackwood and other members of her team for their hard work on this. You know, this has been probably at least before tonight's topic, one of the most main topic with the Berlin Telecom I'm saying. This has 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 it 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 of downtown jobs for a long time. This project reverses that. We will see a massive increase in revenues to the state and the city as a result of this redevelopment tripling of the property taxes paid by what is already one of our largest property taxpayers on just the first phase of this development and given the social needs that we all have 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 of our energy goals and we very much hope and continue to work with Mr. Sinek so we appreciate that a detailed element of 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 is a big part of being able to achieve it will represent a 20% reduction in our overall greenhouse gas emissions as a community. And finally, we are doing this and most importantly, frankly, from my perspective, we are doing this because it creates hundreds of new homes. I hear the concerns of some counselors that maybe we could have gotten even more affordable housing out of this. The fact remains, this in and 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 the only way that we ultimately create, the only way that we ultimately reverse the growing in affordability that we have in this community that threatens to turn us into a place that only the wealthy can afford to live in. This is a fight back against that and it's an important step forward for the community. And I appreciate the collaboration with the council over years now to get us to this point. Thank you President Oda. Thank you Mayor. I guess we'll go to a vote now on the motion to adopt this resolution. All in favor of that motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. So we have councilor Tracy and the others in support, so that carries by a vote of 11 to one. And we look forward to construction getting started. Thank you sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. 8.04 is a resolution about the council voting process for narrowing the Burlington Telecom sale. Councilor Shannon. I moved 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. Okay. Thank you. The second is from councilor Wright. Councilor Shannon. 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 three bidders to potentially purchase Burlington Telecom and the city council wishes to choose two of the three bidders with whom to proceed to final negotiations and eliminate the third. And whereas that vote could be taken in several different ways under Robert's rules of order. And whereas 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 will present the question to the council of which two bidders should continue to be considered for the purchase of BT. Two, each city councilor shall vote for one choice among the three bidders. Three, the top two vote getters will proceed and the lowest vote getter will be eliminated. Four, 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 and 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 a brief period and then the vote will be taken a second time to see if any councilor 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 a 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 a process outlined above for conducting its voting on October 16th for the purpose of selecting two bidders to proceed in the process of the sale of BT. And I would like to thank councilors Wright and President Nodell 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 share those sentiments completely and also appreciate the advice of City Attorney Blackwood. The floor is open. Seeing, Councilor Tracy. I just would like to thank the councilors for putting in the work and the effort into this, especially Council President Nodell for all the work that you've done, not only on this resolution, but also on this entire process and really pushing to open this up and get good information in the hands of the public. I think that the public has been much better served by that effort and thank you for that. Appreciate that, Councilor Tracy. Seeing no other councilor, all in favor of that motion to adopt this resolution on voting procedure, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. That carries unanimously. So item 805 is the main event on narrowing 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 the, with the council's consent to designate our Chief Administrative Officer, Beth Anderson, to be our President Pro Tem and to manage this item on our behalf. So is there any, is there any one, any councilor that wishes to express a concern with that? Okay, I very much appreciate that and I appreciate the service of Pro Tem Anderson and I figuratively pass the gavel to you. If we get too unruly, then we'll just bring this over to you. Perfect. So you're on. Okay, so we'll open it for discussion. Does anyone like to speak? Sure, I'll start. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about some things that I've heard over the last couple of weeks and I heard here tonight. I was elected to the city council to represent the north district of Broington and the residents of New North Ann and really for the greater of Broington. 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 with Broington Telecom and ultimately when we vote to select our top choice in a few weeks, I will consider what I feel best for not only the north district and the New North Ann but the entire city of Broington. This has been a difficult process and I think Councillor Paul said it best in the free press when she said it's very complex and it is and I have a lot of respect for my colleagues around the table and we've spent a lot of time on this issue. I have concerns with all three bids and if I was voting tonight to select Broington Telecom when I say that I want to make sure that you realize we don't own it. The city doesn't own Broington Telecom and so I want to make that clear but if that decision was tonight 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 on all the three bids but with that being said I'm a hometown guy and I'm from Broington and I have a lot of respect what the local group has done and I will be voting to move Keep BT 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 prominently 99% Keep BT 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. Councillor Roof. Thank you I'm sure that we'll get into possibly a lot of details and specific opinions on each bid throughout the night so I wanted us to take a moment and similar to the tune of Councillor Hartnett and maybe talk this a little bit broadly about some of the things I heard tonight and over the last few weeks particularly about emotion and how emotion has played a role in this process and I think that 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 wanted just to stay outright for myself to many out there who are here and listening that I am not fearful or scared or intimidated by the city bank potential lawsuit nor am I intimidated or feel full or directed by the mayor in his opinions and what he did during his conference and what he learned in his opinion nor am I fearful 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 I'll speak for myself that I really do take seriously the decisions in the processes that I go through and so through this process what I've found is my ranking of the eight then four then three change time and time again and there wasn't any single group or individual that had that ranking change for me there was no single detail that came to make me know that my decision was finalized and today much like Councillor Hartnett for the final vote the vote that matters my mind is not yet made up I think there's gonna be enough support tonight for the keep BT local bid to move forward can't be sure but I think that there is and so with my vote what I am deciding is what I prefer between the second option between Ting and shares and for details that I think will come out and maybe I'll have more opportunity to speak about the dynamics and details of each bid and company I am preferable to Ting over shares at this point similar to Dave again who had I think a good opening remark for this debate is that 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 KBTL for me has a long way to go to mitigate the concerns that I have especially 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 is can 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. Councilor Wright. Thank you President Pro Tem Anderson. I have a couple questions I would like to ask before I get into comments so if that would be okay 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 at the October 2nd meeting I asked about the criteria that set of 13 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 KBTL with the minimum qualified sales price and the attorneys addressed 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 BTAB we believe you have in front of you bidders that have sufficiently met the criteria. So I just note now that the mayor has indicated that KBTL has is he does not believe is in compliance with I think four of the criteria so I would ask for some elaboration on the apparent difference at odds with the chair of BTAB maybe there isn't a difference maybe I'm just not understanding it but I would like to know more about the opinion that KBTL's and violation or is not meeting four of the criteria. Thank you, Councilor Wright. I'm happy to speak to that. I do remember the exchange you're talking about and I think it's possible that that could have been clear at the time. I think that the BTAB was clear explicitly clear to the Council that it had concerns about whether or not the KBTL offer met the criteria that was written in the report to the full Council. It said explicitly that thought that the proposal that the BTAB had reviewed was the weakest of the eight proposals and clearly raised concerns that said deficiencies that needed to be addressed for the proposal to become viable. Since then we have had numerous different professionals weigh in and I'm not gonna go through each of the different memos although they were attached or referenced in the memo specifically by the different criteria that they raised concerns about and they have in particular raised questions about the fundamental criteria, foundational criteria around financial capacity and financial liability and management capacity and that was really the point of my memo and backing 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 I hope that sheds light on the difference that you're speaking of here Councilor. Okay, thank you. I just found it a little odd that the chair of the BTAB gave the answer that he did 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 exactly can Citibank sue us for or what can you say about that? 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 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 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. All right, I'll leave that there. Let me just make a couple of comments. It was said in public form a few times tonight that the public is overwhelmingly in support of KBTL. Now, there's no question that the audience here tonight is overwhelmingly in favor of KBTL. There was only a few people that spoke in favor of one of the other bids but let me just make a couple of things clear. We also heard during the Burlington town center debate with packed audiences that mostly all we're telling us do not go forward with the development that we were not listening to the people that nobody wanted the development. It went on the ballot and we found out that was not the case. I remember 10 or so years ago we had an issue around the National Guard where people wanted us to potentially shut down the National Guard building if we didn't stop flying planes out of that building that were heading over to Iraq. Everybody in the audience told us they wanted us to put that on the ballot and shut that down if planes weren't gonna 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 believe me, I appreciate everybody coming out. Appreciate people came out to Councilor Hartnett, Jang and my public forum last week and all the other public forums that counselors have had around the city. We appreciate the input, the emails, the calls. I took calls this afternoon about it and the public engagement and activism and appreciate the grassroots effort by KBTL as well. I said at the public forum last week someone said everybody supports KBTL. I said, as someone mentioned earlier you're not gonna see signs popping up around the city saying support Ting or support Shurs. 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 about fear but it is whether there's legitimate concern about whether KBTL 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 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 analysis both of the business plans and the proformas. Councillor Paul I know was instrumental in getting that information forward to us all and I think that was good. Now to be clear the independent analysis did not say that KBTL could not do it. They basically what they said was the numbers can work but they said as long as there are no problems as long as there are no hiccups it could work. That's to believe that there will be no hiccups and no problems. So I think that that's what we're weighing tonight the attractiveness of the local option keeping it local in perpetuity but also not being really sure with a 14% interest rate. I think everybody knows that that is a red flag that jumps out at everybody. When you have an interest rate that's 14% and that's what the independent analysis said is there's something wrong with the bid when your lender is gonna interest rate that is that high. So right now I do believe as Councillor Hartnett said that the votes are there for KBTL to go forward to the final round. I will be casting my vote with Shures tonight. I believe that Shures brings a lot to the table. They're a family owned business. And I will say I think it's disappointing that some are going around trolling on some of the bids that we've taken here. We have 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 involved in Christian activity or whatever. I think that that's you know let's stick to what their companies are about. And I wanna compliment, I'll finish with, I wanna compliment everybody I think pretty much the public did 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 KBTL when we hear a different opinion I think that we all did just like we wanna free and open internet, we wanna 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 then we had some in the audience that did not wanna hear from them who didn't support KBTL. So I'll leave it there. Thank you President Odell. Oh, thank you President Anderson. I have President Odell then Councillor Bursher. Thank you very much Pro Tem Anderson. I wanna thank Councillor Wright for his remarks there about you know the need to really take the high road in the debate and in the public dialogue and you know when we opened up the LOYs the intent was so that the public could read the letters of intent and evaluate the business propositions and not try to go and dig up bad information about these companies or the individuals associated with these companies. Everyone is entitled to have political opinions in this country and people can disagree with us and it doesn't mean we consider them that we're gonna rule them out as potential buyers. I just think that's not the way we should do things here in Burlington. I just had one question. I think it might be a question for Mr. Dorman if he's available or if he's not maybe someone else would know. And the question is just are there any, is there any new information about any of these beds that should be shared with the council tonight because I know there's ongoing discussions with all of them even as we move through this process and so is there anything salient about any of them that should be shared with the council? I would just like to make sure the council saw that communication that came through from Mr. Dorman late today that was a response from there were two communications from Shurs today that were lengthy and that I won't be able to summarize here but they were in part responding to some of the concerns that have been raised in recent days. And then of course there was also a communication from Ting that the council received on Friday. Mr. Dorman was in a deposition on unrelated matter much of the day. He is available by phone if we wanna get him on the line now but I don't, you know the final parting words he had, you know Terry who we have retained to be this negotiator for us and who has been an outstanding negotiator in many ways continues to say that he thinks there is value in having both of the strategic as he says before them in getting to a final agreement. That was his last communication today. Thank you Mayor. So the council has done a good deal of due diligence. I can show you my bag of paper and we all have it. And I think that we had a lot of due diligence that was done at the Burlington 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 analyses and much of that has been shared although some of it has had to be redacted but just I want the public to know that we've all been really pouring over all of this material and really trying to kind of take in all the information as well as the information that we're hearing from the public as we make this decision. I spent some time with the proformas that are 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've put together these projections for us about you know over a 10 year period of time and again I want to acknowledge Councillor Paul for thinking of this and helping us you know obtain this information and I spent a good deal of time with the proformas and I'm sure others have as well and what was quite clear is that all of the bidders in addition to Burlington Telecom itself because some of us are on BTAB and any Councillor can get their own five 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 Anuski and South Burlington all the three bids 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 Skype that the next Skype could come out of Burlington. 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 in my view picking the bid that will present us with the most powerful partnership with BTV Ignite that is the federal initiative to kind of foster good jobs in the tech sector and innovation across the economy. Finally I think really if you think of the long-term interest of just taxpayers and that does matter to me it's not 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 clearly a real trade off between the shores and ting proposals. They are very well capitalized one somewhat more so than the other. They have established businesses, they have access to all the resources that an established business will have. They will be able to get through the first 10 years much more easily than keep BT 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 Bluewater but originated in public ownership that the people of Burlington said that we wanted and that we valued and through this debate of course we're all hearing that that is something we're hoping to retain to the greatest extent possible. Now I started out on, I was on BTab and as we were looking at these proposals I was very concerned about the keep BT 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 BT local and it's growing on me but I don't think it's there yet. I think that it needs to, 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 ask but I'm just putting out that I'm hoping that the board is gonna continue to be working on that and if you do survive tonight now speaking to the keep BT 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 keep BT local and I compare it to the others I think it's 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. So that's what I'm seeing everywhere. Funding expansion out of current profits. The debt and the interest rate in the current financing package for keep BT 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 keep you local but to also to say keep working because it's there will be hurdles and legitimate I think the people that are saying we are very worried about the financing that is legitimate and it's not that people are saying we don't like co-ops or we're not listening to our constituents. It's not that and I respect the position of the mayor and I respect the position of the people I'm gonna hear tonight that don't agree with me. It's a reasonable point of view to be worried. So I guess I've gone on too long. I'll close there. Thank you very much. I have counselor Busher then more than Paul. Okay. Thank you. As always I learned from my fellow counselors 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 not everybody wants a co-op. Not everybody wants ownership even in continued ownership 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 uneven and it's concerned me. I once again agree with counselor Tracy saying that President O'Dell opened this up to the public sooner than potentially it would have been opened up to you and so and that's been really good. Because all of you collectively have so many insights that really are important to each one of us. I 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 BTAB did a good job on narrowing down the number of people, of entities that were interested and presented us with eight and then we spent our time and chose four. All of that seemed really appropriate and really thoughtful and hard and we came to that point. The process deviated at that point for me when the four choices went to three and that was really problematic for me and I'm still really reeling from that because it allowed me to really do a comparisons that no longer 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 more difficult I don't think. I think it would be difficult no matter what. I did value the CTC technology and energy, confidential analysis of 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 takeaway 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 have my top choices but I was there when we decided collectively to get into this business. I was in con toys 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 the citizens. I was here when we ended up having to turn over our asset to blue water. I've been here for all of that and I'm now here at this threshold. 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 long term and I feel that what is best for our community is to look that way. We, and I think that sometimes people make decisions based on the information at hand because they can't play it out and I think that's what CTC technology is saying, play it out and President Nodell 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 in 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 I believe it would and so I am going to cast my vote for key BT local. Thank you. Councilor Moore. Thank you. So first I too wanna say how valuable it's been to have this information made public. The meetings that we had in the old North End were extremely informative and 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 post a lot of really great questions. So I too wanna thank Councilor President, excuse me, Nodell 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 2004 as a Vista knocking on doors for the city asking in low income neighborhoods in the old North End and the new North End really learning what issues are and bringing 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. And that's why I moved here. That's why I think a lot of people moved here. Certainly a lot of people that we hear from through this process. And now, when Burlington 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 in some other community. I've been told that the settlement and the original decision of the KISS administration to use $17 million from the general fund basically sealed the deal and moved us away from that long-term vision. Because I know that these proposals, both of the Shures and the Ting proposals have commitments that they make, but it's just not the same as being able to keep the decision local and of this community in perpetuity. So I'm thinking, as other counselors are, about the decades ahead, not just the next five or 10 years. So I, too, have concerns. I will be voting for Keep Burlington Telecom Local tonight, but I wanna 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 we hear about on a pretty regular basis. Much of that is confidential still. So I wanna be clear about that as well. And I think that's it. Thank you. So I have counselor Paul and I have counselors Tracy Mason and Shannon. 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 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. 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 honestly wish I had more time. But tonight we need to at least make the first of what will be two choices. And in effort to do that homework, I looked at the financials for all three of the offers. I looked at the audited financials for SURS communications. I wanted to see for myself whether what they were saying about what they could do was really true. Or at least my best estimate of that. And what I came to find out with SURS is that I don't think they are at all about getting rich quick. When I reviewed it, I looked at their measures of profitability, their return on equity, and they are very much indicative of a company that has what's called patient capital. They don't buy and sell businesses like The Wind. Some people have alluded to the fact that they do and they sold radio stations that they don't for 90 years. They sold television stations that they've owned for 45 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 KBTL, the nice thing about KBTL is you don't have to get on the phone and ask any questions. For me, if I wanna 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 KBTL, I can walk, it's probably about 10, 12 minutes, a little farther than Alan. I like Councillor 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 JC Pennies 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 KBTL. That being said, I do wanna also echo what Councillor Wright has said, and that is that I've also received as many times as I have received emails from people pleading with me to support KBTL, I have received many, many emails from people pleading with me not to support KBTL. And I don't know if I'm unusual, I'm unusual, but certainly that has been my experience. But again, I don't make decisions based on the number of emails that I get. When it comes to KBTL and Council President Odell said this well, their pro forma does work. Their assumptions are not outrageous. One of 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 that I have about their offer is that real life as we all know isn't a pro forma. And while the other two offers have a cushion behind them, if there is a recession that lasts for years, economic disruptions like we've seen since the year 2000 and we've had several, that could wreak great hardship on a very tight pro forma. Their working capital is very small. They are not a business that has two or 300 days of cash on hand. And the other thing that is a concern to me is that unless 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, all this being said, and these are concerns to me, my mind and 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 Ting. And I still have concerns about Ting. I mean, they're a publicly traded company. They are 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, Ting as a company has never sold its stock. And I find that interesting. I think that shows a lot about 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 recently as today. I spoke with Elliot Noss, the CEO of Ting, that they are committed to bringing technology to Burlington in mobile, in things that I think are going to be part of the future. So without belaboring it, I think that as many people have said, KBTL does have the votes I believe this evening to go on and be one of the final two. And I tonight will be supporting Ting. My, as I've said, my mind and my ears are open over the next two weeks. And I don't think any of these offers are perfect. 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. Councilor Tracy. Thank you. So as I think about 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 found ourselves in this situation was the lack of accountability and transparency in terms of the decisions that were made, moving the $17 million, not being forthright with the council and also decisions to not refinance the debt that 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 codifying a series of public criteria that really set forth the goals that we would like to see from a successful bidder in moving forward with a particular sale agreement. And 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 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 established 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 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 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 give a report to us every year and really let us ask questions of them. We also, if you're a member of city market, I think about this because I was looking through on mail today, you get to vote on the board of city market and you have the opportunity to see who's 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 those experiences and 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 at a series of community forums that we had on the old North End where when we asked the room at one forum at St. Joseph's School, the new O&E community center, what does the public think about this? And does everybody in this room support Keep the Burlington Telecom Local? Everyone in that room raised their hand. Later that week, we held a forum, I held a forum with the council more in the morning and everybody at that forum so that they supported Keep Burlington Telecom Local. Then we established an email account in order to get feedback from the public and we have those emails up on board docs today. I spent the day reading those emails and looking at all the different feedback we would receive from the public and taking account. And in reading those emails, we received well over 200 emails and we received 186 emails in support of Keep Burlington Telecom Local. There were about 20 in support of Ting and 16 in support of Shurs and I counted ones that just said, go with one of the 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 631 signatures on it. We see countless lawn signs throughout the community in support of Keep Burlington Telecom Local. Even tonight, we saw 32 people come out in support of Keep Burlington Telecom Local in contrast to only three individuals supporting Ting and Shurs. So I think that if we're gonna involve the public, which we meaningfully have in this 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 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 establishment of rates and rate increases, where they get to decide on 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 they have the opportunity to really directly work with those individuals that are running that company because they're based here in Burlington and their only responsibility is to the people in Burlington. So I think that that's not shareholders, not other family members, not investors, but the members who are in Burlington and those members also, the money stays in Burlington because the members are the ones that are gonna be receiving those dividends, are gonna be receiving that payback. 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 significant benefit in the community and I think we need to really keep the tremendous valuation of Burlington Telecom in the community by continuing to keep it local. I think that that will also serve as, that democratic control will also serve as well in terms of other public criteria like net neutrality and the maintenance and net neutrality because again, it will be, these decisions will be maintained by, will be controlled and maintained by the members and the board that are transparent and democratically controlled. And they don't have an incentive to not maintain that neutrality for their members because they're really wanting to make sure that the members are the ones that are actually gonna be receiving the benefits, not shareholders who are really hungry for profits necessarily. In addition to that, we're also gonna be really well served by the local folks that they've assembled to help with the running of Burlington Telecom. I think that we've seen over the years in Burlington when we've bet on local people to run city departments, when we've bet on local people to run companies on different entities in this company in the city that we've seen 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 organization and we're willing to do it in a way that will be transparent and that will take into account, that will deliver the best benefit for people and I think that that has not necessarily been 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 thumbs on the scale of keep Burlington Telecom local instead of working with these incredibly talented individuals and dedicated people who really wanna see Burlington 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 could potentially help them to be a more stronger bid and a more successful bid. We see things like coming out like potential for threats of lawsuits that are in my mind incredibly speculative at this point. We see and those lawsuits are not necessarily, these speculative concerns are not grounded in the actual agreement which to my knowledge says we do not have to select the highest bidder and in fact, one of the reasons I supported the Blue Water Agreement was because we were able to select the bidder that best achieved our public criteria and not the highest bidder in a sale context. I think that the other risks that we've heard as part of this sandbagging are that that there has been, that there is this issue of debt. And I think that I would agree that that is definitely a concern and something that we absolutely have to take into account. However, I would point to the proformas that do show that 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, 1.5 debt coverage ratio is considered healthy. This proposal falls between 1.5 and 2.0 on the debt coverage ratio. So we really do I think have proper coverage in terms of that and in terms of the debt itself as once this becomes an operating entity and banks are seeing that the continued success of this we'll 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 or for Keeper 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 with Shurs and think of what they're doing in Antietam with net metering. I think that could be a real detriment to our community. When we think of net metering they 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 where people thinking of a small business owner who really needs fast upload and download speeds to support their activity. That could really hurt their entrepreneurs our start-ups ability to really work collaboratively. We heard from owners of startups who really depend on that incredibly fast internet service and that ability to really work with it now in the context of BT we need to maintain that type of access as it currently stands. And then one of the other things with Shurs is that there's not really, there's again an opaque board structure that we won't have access to. We won't get to see how those decisions are made because it's a private company so we won't have the ability or the say to really ask questions and really push for accountability on the decisions that they're making. With regards to Ting 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 spent $85 million to purchase Enom and we don't necessarily have access to all the debt 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 debt comes with the expectation that they're gonna 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 seeking out Burlington Telecom which has actually been operating on its own much longer than either Ting or Sher is 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 Burlington Telecom local is not necessarily adequate in terms of its ability to operate a fiber to the home network is not necessarily accurate because neither Ting nor Sher's has a tremendous amount of experience running a fiber to the home system. We see Sher's for instance getting out of media, television stations and newspapers and getting more into this because this is the future and they're just trying to take this on because they realize the benefit of it but in terms of operating experience it's not quite there. So in sum I think that we should really bet on Burlington, bet on the individuals in Burlington, bet on the strength of our community to make something that may be difficult work because oftentimes the hard thing is often the hard thing, the more difficult thing, the thing that will be more challenging in the short term can oftentimes long term be the real benefit to the community and the thing that is most true to our values as a community. So I think that we must keep Burlington Telecom local. Thank you. Councilor Mason and Shannon and Dean. Thank you, Acting President Robinson. My vote this evening will be to advance Ting due to the legal regulatory and financials that have been identified by our advisors and by the council. I believe that their offer is the one that best meets the BTAB criteria and will result in the long term success of BT. As everyone knows, the council is, 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 20 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 KBTL offer not viable and I'm gonna walk through why. I think in concept, as you've heard from everyone sitting up here as well as the public, the cooperative model and the local control reflected in KBTL would be preferred. However, given the constraints that the city is under, under the terms of the mediated settlement agreement with the city bank and the telecom management and services agreement with blue water holdings, I believe that accepting the KBTL offer and 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 2014 when we were months away from commencement of a trial in federal district court with city bank, which was seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages alleging breach of the lease agreement, fraud and most distressingly also seeking a return of the equipment that they owned. 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 mediated settlement agreement whereby we agreed to pay 10 and a half million dollars and share 25% of the sale proceeds with them in a third party sale. To fund that settlement, we went to the public and said we need financing. Two bidders were advance, blue water and Rosemar. Blue water was selected, agreed to buy the assets, lease them back to us for $6 million 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 40%. 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 KBTL is. We have three offers before us tonight. Two of them offer cash consideration equal to the fair market value of Burlington telecom which is between $28 and $30 million. The third offer for $12 million is 60% lower than fair market value. By accepting the KBTL offer, the benefit of that $16 to $18 million of value is being given to KBTL and its members for no consideration. I view it from this way. If we look straight up on a liquidation analysis, what would happen the day after closing with KBTL if they turned around and sold the company to Ting or to Shurs for $28 or $30 million? None, respect me please. I'm making an analogy. The value of that $16 to $18 million would flow through to KBTL and no portion of that would be shared with the parties with whom we had contractually agreed to share the sale proceeds. Again, that's 25% that would otherwise go to Citibank and 40% to Blue Water. The benefits touted by KBTL, which I believe are real, of retaining local ownership and keeping rates lower 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 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 and the external counsel received an email threatening litigation. That was followed by a phone conversation where we were then advised that the threat of litigation was not just possible, but almost likely. The damages, if they were to pursue that, are in excess of $4.5 million by my calculation, which is the delta between the lowest and 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 KBTL offer to satisfy that judgment, which I believe creates a major complication for the Public Utilities Commission in considering KBTL's offer. During that 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 bidders, shares, and things would be available or willing to put in an offer if the Public Utilities Commission ultimately denied 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 we have been contacted by two people threatening. I put that in a category of potential. I do not put city capital or city bank in the same category. I was not on the council when city bank, you know, when this first happened, but the stories that I've heard were that, you know, city bank 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. They've made that threat, and I cannot satisfying my fiduciary duty to act in what I believe to be the best interest of the city, move forward with an offer that's gonna put us in litigation and put this sale potentially in jeopardy. Thank you. Councillor Shannon. Thank you. I appreciate all of the communications that I've received on this topic. And I want people to know that I support local ownership and I support the co-op model generally. And as a member of BTab, 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 where we were, that they had notice of when we were, when things were gonna be coming forward. And that was important to all of us. We've been accused actually since 2009 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 particular interest in the privatization of Burlington Telecom. I think it's unfortunate actually. But 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 of KBTL. They are many of them, my friends. I like them, I respect them, and I believe they have worked 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 on that board. And I thank you for that because I think it makes us stronger. And it was a possibility. We never knew what would come forward in terms of offers. We weren't sure that anybody was going to want to buy BT. 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 KBTL, 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 Councillor Mason, Councillor Paul and I have hosted several meetings as well as NPA 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 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 one of the risks is the financial risk. The numbers could work, but they might not. With the numbers working, we have 14, there's a 14% interest rate and I know that there's concerns about profits going out of state with the other offers, but the 14% 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 2007, 2008 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, it won't necessarily work that way, though I appreciate that that effort should be made should KBTL prevail. There's less than one month cash on hand in the KBTL offer. And should this operation fail, it would be foreclosed on and it would be owned by main fiber. We have put in provisions to control the next sale. That would be a requirement of any successful bidder on BT. We have what's been known as the anti-monopoly clause. I believe that that needs to be strengthened substantially with every bidder, but that doesn't apply to the foreclosure should main fiber acquire this asset. We don't have control over who main fiber might sell BT to and 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 residents is to have affordable rates for the kind of service that we need. There's been a lot of accusations that only KBTL will give us affordable rates. And I don't believe 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 the city market model where dividends come because there are both members and non-members 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 model. So it is different. It's also different than BED. BED is a monopoly and 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 it should be. It is a utility. We all need it. Unfortunately, that's not an option that we have. We're not allowed to do that and unlike BED, 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't charge whatever it wants for ice cream. Ice cream is a competitive product. They, their price is based on the quality of their product and 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 BT fiber 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 Concast, at least according to 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. The legal risk, I certainly couldn't begin to go into the detail that Councillor Mason does, but I appreciate that detail. I think that the legal risk is very real and I very much appreciate that many of the folks who have worked on this from KBTL 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 the term used. They would 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 wanted to. The Verizon and Adelphia, Verizon was really building fiber in much larger markets than Burlington. And we were not gonna 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. City 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 2014, 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 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 Scherz or Ting. And I have gone back and forth over which of those offers is a preferable offer. I think that they're, 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 Ting going forward. And some of the reasons for that are some of the things that Councilor President Nodell 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 some key points in their offer that contribute to that. They'll be giving $60,000 annually to BTV Ignite. They will be giving $50,000 annually for free advertising, for local startups and economic development and community events. And there's more funds available from them, including the BTV Ignite initiative as well as the free advertising. There's a total of $250,000 a year available. And some of the other initiatives will be the Smart Cities initiative, bridging the digital divide for people who cannot afford the 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 Ting will support net neutrality isn't just because they said that they would, but they're actually net neutrality advocates. Aside 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 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 Dorman and the work of Dorman and Fawcett and Stephen Baraklaw for getting BT to where it is today, which is a saleable company. That's not where it always was in my tenure on this city council. And today we do have good options and I do believe the future is bright and we should celebrate that in the end regardless of the result. Thank you. Pro Tem Anderson, I've moved to suspend the rules to allow us to continue working after 1030s now, 1040, but to complete this item. Do you have a second? Second? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I have two more Councillors and Councillor Dean and Councillor Chang. Thank you, President Pro Tem Anderson. I'm not sure that I can add very much more to what we've heard already tonight. Thank you, Councillor Shannon for going over, I think, the significant number of detailed 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 BT 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 of the next few weeks where we're going to be doing due diligence and we are going to be potentially refining and improving competing offers. And for me, that is what's important. So for me a successful vote tonight, meetings that we've identified the preferred bidders that meet the fundamental goals established by the criteria of the BTAP 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 $16.9 million of taxpayer funds that were inappropriately allocated by a previous administration are returned and they're returned 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 bidders value BT appropriately, not at a discount. They deal fairly with the other entities that took significant risks during the 2014 settlement and they importantly, and most importantly, they demonstrate general compliance with the BTAP criteria. There are two firms that are financially stable, have ready access to additional capital if needed and can clearly demonstrate management and technical expertise. They do not risk failure in front of the PUC. My vote tonight will be for one of these firms. My anticipation that 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 KBTL and the potential included with their bid for long-term community benefits to a specific group of community members, my current assessment is that the lack of financial resources available to this bidder, especially 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 2015 settlement. In my opinion, we need to do everything we can reasonably do to avoid this eventuality. It is not responsible management of the city to steer toward virtually certain failure. Personally, I am not comfortable helping to steer the ship toward troubled waters. I won't do it. If KBTL, the third bidder 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 a carried interest equity or not at their discretion, at the city's discretion. And I would, if the KBTL can do that, I would welcome the opportunity to reevaluate and reconsider my support for them. Thank you. Councilor Chang. Thank you. First of all, I wanna thank 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 KBTL local know you don't have a chance? But from there to now to today, so many things has changed. And that changed because KBTL, they did an incredible job in making their offer better. It's not perfect, but to me, it's not why we are here. We are here to find ways in making sure we're building a better community. So many people talked about it today and they talked about it over and over again. Outside of Burlington, life is not easy. The world is changing. The world is becoming a mess. It, excuse me, of the world. 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 another, of taking care of our children and making a better, a brighter future. Only Burlington has a change in my own knowledge compared to the rest of the world. We are all connected. How? It's not through cars or airplane. We are connected through the internet. We all now live in a small, planetary village. We are resident. What connect us is the internet. What connect us is the cable, is the telephones. We stay at our home and we are connected to the rest of the world. We, Burlington, want to show the rest of the nation what sustainable community is about. And Keep BT Local gave us an opportunity. Members of our community stood up to keep our own broadband internet local. This is a huge disappointment. When I hear member of this council supporting entities that are hosting white supremacy websites, that are hosting neo-Nazi websites, member of this council are working on it. What I learned here as my three months in this council is I received so many threats just because of this own issue, of this issue. When I was coming here, I am like so excited that I will join people who are excited about this city. How can we partner and work together and make things happen for the resident of Burlington? I'm gonna tell you the truth. I was disappointed by some member of this council, some member of this table. Who gave me some threats about this vote? If you vote this way, it will follow you on the next election in March. Think about that. Or why you are knowing that Keep BTL has the lowest offer? Why you still wanna support them? Those type of things. And I started to realize that, you know what, Ali? You are not going anywhere. The real change we want, right? It starts with this. The community we wanna build, it starts with this. And I wanna tell something. It is about the legacy. It is not about 30 million, it's not about 20 million. It's not about you and I or your children or my children. It's about our grandchildren. It's about 30 years ago. It's about 30 years from now or 50 years from now. Those children will wake up and thank us because we left them with 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 and just changed it totally into something else. And I've been doing some research. Ask about shoes. Some people talk about it. They will buy it and what I think what we will do, the cousin would wanna sell it away. There are so many risks about this deal that we don't know. But what we know for sure is the people in Keep Burlington Local are our friends, they are our neighbors and they are capable in making sure that this will continue in becoming what we wanna see. But I think also people can understand one thing, the history of Burlington Telecom. From what I understood, it happened going down in 2008. And back then it was a recession. There were a couple of things that did not go well, 17 million were put into it. And members of the Burlington Telecom right now, they are only 7,000. The population of Burlington is way more than that. There are maybe 10,000 people out there who are not part of this. But the chance we have are all those people put us all of us here today. The only chance that we have is for the rest of the Burlingtonian who are not subscribers, how do we as a representative work with them to give them access to this asset? Right, my vote would be for Keep Burlington Telecom Local. Thank you. Mayor Weinberg. Thank you, Pro Tem Anderson. I'll try to be brief. I've written to all of you and you know where I stand. I think the public is clear where I stand and where this isn't that I thought was the right one to make tonight. And it's pretty clear that the council's gonna do something slightly, you know, somewhat different. And I respect that. I think there's wisdom in that. And I think that we will have a couple more weeks to explore options fully as a result of that. I don't want to rehash any of that. What I do want to respond, however, to sort of a kind of a new undercurrent that I think we've heard in some of the comments tonight and in some of the council discussion that I think is concerning and that I would like to share my perspective on at least. We heard frequently tonight that it's important to fight the banks and not be afraid of litigation. And I just hope we all remember the history here and are really clear that we did fight. I did fight. And in many ways, one, I think, some very important victories that define and really make possible the conversation we're having tonight. We were faced with a claim for 33 and a half million dollars plus other damages. And we protected the taxpayers and essentially capped any further liability for taxpayers from those claims. I think that's pretty widely understood and even alluded to tonight. I think what people maybe have somewhat forgotten is other elements of that lawsuit that we fought out. There was an attempt by the bank to have the city of Burlington. They tried to, they exercised the only recourse they had under the lease and said the city of Burlington should take the fiber up out of the ground and send it back to New Jersey or some location. And if not that, or in addition to that, the bank said the city of Burlington hasn't paid its bills here, take this entity away and put it in receivership. And neither of those things happened as a result of the settlement. And a final, pre-remarkable element in the settlement is that we earn the right to continue to operate Burlington Telecom and to do what we're doing now, which is to direct the final outcome, to control the destiny of what will happen to the Burlington Telecom. And why do I say that's remarkable? Well, it's a point that is often, I think is widely misunderstood and not recognized at all. It's one of the first things that Councillor Hartnett said earlier is, in a very real way, we do not own Burlington Telecom. In a very real way, we never have. We, this system was built with money invested by others and in 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 something that will necessarily always be available to us if we don't finish the job correctly here in the months ahead. So, 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 proposal, does the proposal that we ultimately select meet the criteria that we deliberately and carefully wrote to protect Burlington Telecom customers, taxpayers and the city? And, you know, there was more to those criteria. Local benefits are certainly a major part of it, but there are a lot of other important criteria as well. 13 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 a brief respite and we really do risk losing control of the destiny of the future of Burlington Telecom. 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 15 years of Burlington Telecom challenges with an outstanding outcome that ensures that high-speed, high-quality internet access for Burlingtonians is available for many, many years to come. Look forward to being back with you in a couple of weeks as we engage that. Councilor Wright, sorry. Thank you, President Anderson. Apologize for speaking a second time, I will be brief. I just want to point out that no one on this city council should attempt to put themselves in a higher position than anybody else on this council. I respect every single person on this council, I respect everyone in this rooms, different points of views. What I don't want to be told is that if I have a different point of view, that my point of view isn't valid. And so I respect Councilor Jang's point of view and his vote tonight and his final vote in two weeks. And I ask that all of our votes are respected as well. Councilor Jang. 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 council. I 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. Right? 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 views. That's what democracy is about. It's not about talking back, but it's about how do we work together to get things done and then move on. If I made anybody uncomfortable for what I said, I am not gonna say I'm sorry because I haven't done anything that made you wanna think that I did not respect your point of view. I admire your point of view. I admire your service. I just wanted to make that very clear. Any other comments or discussion? That, we will move to a vote. Just as a reminder, I will go through the names of the three bidders in alphabetical order and I'll ask the councillors to vote when we raise the name of the bidder that you are interested in. All right, so we'll start with keep BT vocal if all the councillors would say yes and raise your hand. We will do shares. Please say yes. And finally, we will do Ting, okay? So it, okay, yeah. It looks like the vote has resulted in six votes for Keeperlington Telecom Local, five votes for shares and one vote, I mean, sorry, five votes for Ting and one vote for shares. So we will go forward with Keeperlington Telecom Local and Ting, and may I pass it? Make a motion to adjourn. Thank you very much, Pro Tem Anderson. Councilor Mason, do you have a point of order? I have a process question, please. I'm given the flow of information that has continued up until the meeting. I'm just hoping for some expectation for all of us in terms of when we'll be the due date for final offers and what that'll look like and when that will be provided to us. Okay, the mayor and I will work on all of this and to get ready for the next meeting. Councilor Paul. Thank you. If you recall, President O'Dell, I believe you were at the BTab meeting. I can't remember now if you were at the BTab meeting when 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 perspective on the new owner of Burlington Telecom, just like we've heard from the public. And I would hope that we might have that opportunity. I realize that it'll be at the last meeting before we vote, but if we could organize that, I would like to hear from them if they want to be heard from. Okay, thank you. We will try to organize that. Councilor Shannon. I was thinking about that as well and wondered if maybe offering to them, encouraging them to correspond with us by email in advance of the meeting might also be an option. Yes. Any other counselors, just reflecting on what do you need coming into the next meeting or some suggestions for how we move forward here? Councilor Paul, you can keep going. Well, I think there's two things. The first is I would like us to continue working with CTC 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 Councilor 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, who understands co-ops and will look at the things that are not, that are out of the realm of conventional economic analysis such as net societal benefits and patronage dividends. It's definitely another realm and we only have two weeks, but I would be interested in seeing that. Okay, thank you. I think that's a good suggestion and we can, I think the mayor wrote that down. Other suggestions or requests? So the assumption is that Mr. Dorman will be working with both. We'll still be using both 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 Councilor Zhang? For the next round of those two finalists, is it possible for them to come back to do a presentation for the council and also for the public? Do, I'd like to hear from any other councilors 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. I would. You're saying yes? Yes. Councilor Brown is saying yes. Mayor Weinberger, any thoughts? I think we have a couple competing goals here. I think there's a desire to conclude this in a couple weeks. I think we can express to the bidders a desire for them to continue to communicate with the public and encourage them to do so. I think they both have intentions to do so. Okay. Thank you, Councilor Roof. I'm open to it. I just would, in a short timeline and with these groups being busy operating in other ways, I would prefer, I would hope that planning a presentation would not get in the way of them improving their bids. So I think that's the, I'm open to it in a perfect world, I'd love it, but I'm concerned that it might get in the way of the priority which is improving the outcome. So I'm just gonna put that out there. I don't have a preference. Councilor Busher. I wasn't really expecting them to make a presentation. I was expecting them to be present to answer any questions that weren't addressed in the final bid. 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. Okay, thank you. I think ultimately it's up to the council, that's what you have a council president for in a mayor and more together. Councilor Jane, did you care to speak again? And what I'm coming from is more many people, we need to respond to the secrecy that they saying the council and the mayor have been doing because this would be an opportunity to share a transparent process for the last two bidders because the first time there was a lot of meetings in just executive sessions. And now I think at this stage of this process it will be beneficial to at least give our constitution the residents to ask direct question. And I'm not worried about the presentation but just direct question to the people who would be governing our Burlington, our telecom. Thank you, Councilor Jane. So, councillors please continue to share your opinions with me and then the mayor and I will make some plans. Is there a motion to adjourn? Councilor Wright moved it. Councilor Mason seconded it. All in favor of adjourning? Aye. Is there any opposed? Then we stand adjourned 11, 10 p.m.