Dear Neighbors,
This coming Monday, the City Council will hold its first of two meetings in the month of November. We will begin our meeting at 6pm with an executive session on the restoration of passenger rail service to downtown Burlington. This will be followed by a public presentation on the same topic. The public session will begin at 7pm.
Following a commission appointment, we have two items on our deliberative agenda:
• We will have a presentation from Todd Schurz, President and CEO of Schurz Communications, parent company of Champlain Broadband LLC, the owner of Burlington Telecom. Todd and the General Manager of BT, Mike Lucey will update the Council and community on Burlington Telecom's subscriber progress, broad financials and other public information that they will be sharing with us. The Council has requested this update, in part, so we have as much information as possible in which to evaluate a decision we must make regarding possible uses for the proceeds the City received from the sale of Burlington Telecom.
• Following the public presentation, the Council is expected to go into executive session to discuss the possible uses of the sale proceeds. One of possible uses is to reinvest some or all of the sale proceeds into Burlington Telecom. In the Asset Purchase Agreement, which was signed with Schurz in December 2017, the City and Schurz may, "at the City's election, enter into an...(agreement) to which the City may use some of its designated closing proceeds... to purchase up to 33% of the voting membership interests of the Buyer". If the City were to elect to purchase at least 7.5% of the new entity, the City will have the right to appoint one board member to the Board of Managers of the new entity. As per the agreement, the City can redeem its interest based on an annual valuation by an independent third party. After closing costs, legal fees and other related costs, the City's net proceeds from the sale are approximately $6.4 million. The approximate cost to the City for one seat on the board of the new entity is approximately $2.3 million.
You are always welcome to come to a Council meeting and speak on any topic you wish during public forum. Public forum begins at 7:30pm at every Council meeting. You may access the Council agenda at http://www.boarddocs.com/vt/burlingtonvt/Board.nsf/Public. Council meetings are televised live on BT Channel 317 and streamed live to your computer or phone. Please go to youtube and type in "Burlington City Council meetings" and the live stream will come up.
As always, I welcome your questions and concerns. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the one extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning.
My best,
Karen
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