Updated at 9:13 p.m.
The two finalists seeking to buy Burlington Telecom were unable to reach a deal by their 5 p.m. Friday deadline, meaning two eliminated bidders will be re-admitted to the process.
The Toronto-based Tucows — which runs a mobile and internet division called Ting — and the co-op Keep BT Local have been negotiating since Tuesday, trying to reach a compromise agreement that would allow them to jointly run BT. But at about 4 p.m. Friday, KBTL board member David Lansky sent an email to Mayor Miro Weinberger and the city council announcing that it was not to be.
“We had a series of good meetings with Elliot Noss and Monica Webb about how Ting and KBTL might be able to work together to purchase and operate BT,” Lansky wrote, referring to Tucows’ CEO Noss and Webb, its head of market development and government affairs. “Throughout these meetings we experienced the Ting representatives as generous with their time, thoughtful, sincere, respectful, and open to discussion and consideration of a broad collection of options. We were unable to reach agreement on a way to work together that is acceptable to both parties.”
Negotiations between the two bidders have fallen through for good, City Council President Jane Knodell (P-Central District) confirmed on Friday afternoon. The council will now invite back two bidders: Schurz Communications, which the council eliminated in an October 16 vote, and ZRF Partners, which left the process in September after concerns about a potential conflict of interest.
Last Monday, the council twice evenly split with a 6-6 vote in trying to chose either the co-op or Tucows. A compromise measure instructed the two bidders to put forward a joint proposal by Friday afternoon. If no deal was reached, the measure promised to open the process back up to the four finalists.
On Friday evening, Weinberger sent out a statement that lauded the efforts of both sides and thanked former Burlington mayor Peter Clavelle for helping with negotiations.
“While I am disappointed that a Ting proposal to allow the co-op to own up to 20 percent of the new Burlington Telecom — in addition to the previously negotiated City ownership interest — narrowly failed to secure KBTL board approval, the effort speaks well of both organizations,” Weinberger said.
In an interview with Seven Days, Lansky would not specify the sticking points in the negotiations. “We tried to do something incredibly ambitious — form a collaboration between two organizations that have very different structures, histories, cultures — in five days,” he said. “There’s no one to blame. There are no bad people here.”
Lansky would not completely rule out returning to the negotiating table with Tucows at some point. “I don’t want to close the door on anything,” he said. “Until there’s a closed deal, everything is possible.”
The council will review updated bids and is scheduled to make a final decision on Monday, November 27.
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I am sad to hear this news. It would have been a marvelous opportunity to allow such divergent models to co-exisst and would have given a lot of people hope that the financial future of the world is not so bleak after all. It is not to be, apparently, and so the mayhem will continue.
The financial future of the world is great in many parts of the US and the world where business-phobic ideologies are not allowed to hinder processes that should be handled by experienced professionals. Divergent models co-existing? Within one company? No. That is not how successful enterprises work. There is a reason BT employees want Ting. We just want reliable, fast internet service from a financially healthy company that can can act as a catalyst to stimulate growth in a sector that is anemic in Vermont. Technology! Why does everything have to be a dogma-driven exercise pushing half-baked ideas, no matter the cost? How much money must be pissed away? I am starting to believe that the true goal of groups like KBTL is to kill any potential job creating opportunity or tech-sector style development in order to thwart change and stagnate Burlington as an ex-hippee retirement community.
But for the mayor’s sophomoric decision two months ago to secretly force a bidder to withdraw, city taxpayers wouldn’t be in this 11th-hour mess.
If the mayor had opened the bidding from the start, rather than keep it all from the public, no one would have even seriously questioned the so-called fourth bidder’s alleged conflict.
The mayor seems to operate very secretly in general and what makes his behavior even more strange is his blocking critics from his Twitter account, for one.
He has a lot of splaining to do.
But unfortunately the council will simply go prostrate because its members have no real political individuality, whether they claim they are independent or not. They will roll over and play dead – and this includes the likes of the lone Republican councilor who fakes independence pretty well.
Tweet the mayor: @MiroBTV. Tell him to stop being so secretive. Tell him he’s wasted enough precious time and money already.
Wait Ted. You just chucked a rock through the window and you’re turning around and pointing your finger at the Mayor? That’s rich.
Hope the KBTL Board likes Schurz.