Last night, the City Council voted 11-2 to approve the agreement between the City of Burlington and Schurz Communications for the sale of Burlington Telecom.
“Tonight’s tri-partisan City Council vote represents a major step toward final resolution of one of the worst financial crises in our City’s history in a positive and forward-looking manner. The agreement approved tonight will, when fully implemented, return millions of lost dollars to taxpayers, give the City the opportunity for continued meaningful BT ownership and protections against future resale, protect important community values like net neutrality and privacy, commit substantial future BT revenues toward youth technical education, the local tech economy, and efforts to bridge the digital divide, and much more” said Mayor Miro Weinberger in a statement.
The Schurz bid was initially selected during a late night vote in late November. Councilors had until the end of the year to give their final approval to the deal to maximize the City’s share of the proceeds.
The BBA has been tracking this process from the beginning. It has been our opinion throughout, that Burlington Telecom must be acquired by a group that can ensure its future financial stability and maximize its future benefit to this community. The deal finalizes the Schurz’s LOI which was valued at $30.8M, including $250,000/year for 10 years as community investment, a rate freeze for the next 5 years and a written committment to net neutrality. The City of Burlington will also have the opportunity to carry an equity stake up to 33% in BT.
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