Updated at 2:50 p.m.
A citizens group is taking the city’s Burlington Telecom deal to the Vermont Supreme Court.
The group, collectively known as “citizen intervenors,” on Tuesday appealed the Vermont Public Utility Commission’s February 19 decision to green-light the $30.8 million sale to Indiana-based Schurz Communications.
Sandra Baird, Jared Carter, Dean Corren, Steven Goodkind, Solveig Overby and Shay Totten say the city’s net profit of about $7 million does not fully recoup the $16.9 million owed to city taxpayers. That figure dates back about a decade, when then-mayor Bob Kiss diverted city funds to keep the sinking telecom operation afloat.
The Burlington City Council approved the sale in November 2017, and the PUC issued a certificate of public good to Schurz, operating locally as Champlain Broadband, in February.
The citizens immediately promised an appeal but first filed a motion with the PUC in March. It asked the commission to reconsider its ruling based on the premise that both state law and the Burlington city charter prohibit saddling taxpayers with debt for telecom sales.
“It’s illegal for taxpayers to foot the bill for any of the costs,” said James Dumont, the Bristol attorney representing the group. “It’s not that it’s to be avoided; it’s illegal.”
The group also argued that there was no evidence the BT sale would produce the greatest return to taxpayers as per the city charter. The PUC denied the motion on April 12, saying the charter did not apply in this instance. Rather, it wrote, the sale must only “promote the general good of the state.”
Dumont said his clients appealed because these issues are still unresolved.
In an emailed statement Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Miro Weinberger said the intervenors’ appeals are costly and based on unfounded claims.
“If the intervenors cared about the lost $17 million they would join the councilors, regulators and community leaders who know that the current agreement represents a far better outcome for Burlingtonians and BT customers than anything thought possible seven years ago,” he wrote.
Weinberger predicted the court will uphold the BT deal, which he framed as “a lasting success worth tens of millions of dollars for taxpayers.”
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Miro is a liar and a cheat. He also is ignorant of the law. Does this surprise anyone? He’s all about business interests and cares nothing for the actual people who live in this city. He will do everything in his power to block democratic participation by the people. He doesn’t listen to us when we testify before City Council and he won’t let us vote, even when we follow the rules. He’s a tinpot smear merchant, and he’s happiest when business is happy.
Luckily, our Supreme Court has a little more power, and legal and common sense than he does.
The results of March 2018’s election shows why Miro isn’t the problem for those who profess to oppose his governing.
The problem is the voters – who invariably either sit home during elections or cast what-the-heck-have-we-got-to-lose votes for the most familiar name on the ballot.
If you don’t want Miro running this city, the challenge is canvassing enough smart, interested people to persuade an “odd-party” spoiler with no chance of victory not to selfishly put his or her name on the ballot.
As you can see below, Miro lost the mayor’s race, receiving only 48%.
The problem is that the majority of votes – 51% – went to two people instead of one.
MIRO WEINBERGER 5749 48.38%
CARINA DRISCOLL 4155 34.96%
INFINITE CULCLEASURE 1910 16.07%
The moral to the story is Burlington residents love paying huge taxes – and crave pols who enjoy spending other people’s money.
So the Miro detractors need to start some serious politicking to get their candidate into the corner office.
Government by lawsuit, BTY, is a fool’s errand – expensive fool’s errand.
Sue Bob Kiss and people who advised him for the debt & $ they diverted? They are who is responsible.
Not a fan of Weinberger’s support for F35 fighter jet but on issue of Burlington Telecom, he is doing best he can with cards he was dealt. Including using money from the sale to hold down property tax increases; and reinvest by getting better sidewalk plows (that hopefully will not gouge out peoples yards or tear up fencing, etc. anymore). Also, BT sale has helped Burlington’s credit rating, which lowers costs of borrowing for infrastructure projects and future taxes.
Blaming Weinberger for this is like blaming Phil Scott for the terrible school-funding situation state-wide that was caused by Democratic Party Supreme Court appointees who wrote Brigham decision & Democrats who created Act 60; or blaming Phil Scott for Vermont budgetary problems thanks to Peter Shumlin flushing $100 million plus down the toilet in ill-fated exploration of universal health care. Scott inherited these from Democratic Party & is doing his best with it. Weinberger inherited BT disaster and has done decent job there.
I do appreciate Steve Goodkind’s long-term perspective on issues in his wheel-house, as former DPW Director. For example, as he has pointed out, multiple studies show Burlington needs more parking; not less. Goodkind could be mentor for younger Prog City Council members like Hanson and Freeman, who seem intent on removing yet more parking spots, in contrast to all of Goodkind’s good work before?
The deal that the mayor made to sell BT to Trey Pocor in exchange for his cosigning on a $6 million loan that the city got from the Merchant’s bank, is the worst financial arrangement in Burlington’s history. The results are the proof. The taxpayers did not get back a nickel of the $20 million they put into BT, (The mayor says that the city’s share of the procedes when Schurz purchased BT from Pecor is not taxpayer money.) In addition to the proceeds from the sale, $6.6 million in cash, that BT had accumulated from ratepayers, was divided up, with Pecor getting the largest share. Taxpayers got zero. This outrageous funding scheme screwed the taxpayers and the ratepayers. This legal looting was made possible by the mayor in the same spirit that he let Sinex screw the city when he allowed the mall to be demolished without the required financing in place. Both cases involve lack of proper financing. Even a visually impaired person can see that the optics look terrible.
The Schurz deal is a giant ripoff, most of Burlington recognizes this.
BT employees don’t want this, city residents don’t want this, only Miro and a very small handful of others want to sell BT to Schurz. Because the mayor chose not to pursue conventional municipal financing, solely for political reasons, city residents are left with a giant loss from a bad deal and right-wing out-of-state ownership of our local fiber optic telecom cash cow.
Despite the disingenuous PR campaign coming from the mayors office, the Schurz deal is not done, nor will it be.
The last election was a referendum on Miro, the city demonstrated it’s ready to move beyond his ideas, it’s time for change in leadership, Burlington can retain BT and do much better than Miro.
Keep up the good fight, citizen intervenors!
Holy dead horse beating! I want the people who are trying to block the BT settlement to repeat this next phrase three times. Legal and financial realities matter. Legal and financial realities matter. Legal and financial realities matter. There feels better but really guys, this is a done deal. This self-appointed tilting at windmills you guys are engaging in is pointless and exhibit A as to why Progressives in Burlington are not electable to the Mayor’s office any time soon. Instead of coming up with effective financial and legal stewardship ideas for the city to engage in going forward, you’d rather spend your time re-litigating the past. Miro’s going to be hard to beat because he’s a highly competent financial manager who’s gotten the city back in the black after cleaning up multiple Progressive messes. So wasting time on lost causes like this only proves to moderate Burlington voters that you’re not ready for the big-boy Mayor’s seat any time soon. Why should they trust Progressives who can’t accept generally favorable financial resolutions? This is the number one reason why the 30 year Progressive streak was broken.
Where was the outrage when Bob Kiss screwed BT over. I might be wrong but I can’t remember Steven Goodkind saying anything at the time about the situation we got stuck in.
Now that there is a mayor and voters who decided to take the city in a different direction he is outraged. Where was the outrage from before?
All of this should have been brought up when Kiss and Leopold were fleecing the money from the city. The took out a loan from a large entity which forced the city to sell to the highest bidder. How about you look at why it was sold, it was not because Miro was on a power trip, it was to prevent the company holding the loans did not liquidate Burlington Telecom. Just goes to show who cares about the legalities.
It is not true that the settlement with CITI required the sale of BT. I have been saying this for the last five years. The mayor used to say that CITI required the sale, but now acknowledges that it is not true. It is the horrendous financing deal with Trey Decor that has pushed the sale of BT. ( If there was any benefit to city finances arising from resolving BT’s problems it was from the CITI settlement), not the Pecor deal) Other more traditional financing options were available and encouraged by the PUC, but the mayor won’t listen. Had he done so, the taxpayers would have gotten most of their money back and/or still owned BT. As it is, $20 million of taxpayer money and $6.6 million of ratepayer funds went down the drain. Pecor and BT’s managers walked away with over $13 million. The mayor likes the optics that he saved BT. The reality is that he basically liquidated it and the taxpayers and ratepayers got screwed. There is no question that the mayor inherited a sick patient, but his cure was much worse than the disease..
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Go Miro. Improve our credit rating so we’ll be able to subsidize your gentrification class’s whims. As the comments show, there’s plenty of capitalist dupes working the mantra that what’s good for business will eventually trickle down