Members of the Blue Ribbon Committee on Burlington Telecom have been named, and the seven-member panel will meet for the first time Monday night to begin its work evaluating the utility’s financing options as well as its viability.

The committee — appointed by City Council President Bill Keogh — will meet at 7 p.m. in conference room 12 in Burlington’s City Hall. Hopefully, the committee meetings won’t drag on quite as long as recent council meetings related to Burlington Telecom. Those council meetings have gone well past midnight in some instances.

The council created the committee at its December 14 meeting, the same meeting where it scuttled a deal with Piper Jaffray in lieu of seeking bids from other potential financiers. Those requests for proposals were sent to more than a dozen potential bidders this week.

At its December 7 meeting, the council also expanded the powers of the Burlington Telecom Advisory Council – giving that citizens’ panel greater authority to oversee BT’s finances and operations.

The special blue ribbon panel is comprised of three city councilors and four citizen members. Keogh consulted with Mayor Bob Kiss in making the citizen appointments.

This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2009.

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Shay Totten wrote "Fair Game," a weekly political column, from April 2008-December 2011.

5 replies on “Blue Ribbon Committee to Convene on Burlington Telecom”

  1. Personally I feel blue ribbon panels should be left to judge zucchini at the fair. Hopefully this blue ribbon panel gets to the bottom of what kiss and Leopold have done to the credibility of city hall.

  2. Isn’t this the panel that should have been created BEFORE Clavelle committed the City to the BT adventure in the first place? At a very minimum, shouldn’t Kiss and Rasputin have done this before they secretly and illegally loaned BT $17 million? Or, at the latest, before they dared to ask the City Council to approve $60 million in new debt financing?C’mon! Leaving aside the illegal loan scandal, it’s a scandal that this is the first time a panel like this is being established! THAT’S a scandal. And, of course, it wasn’t the Administration’s idea, but was forced on them by the Council.Oh, but I forgot. Progs always know what’s best and they don’t need to consult their constituents on things like, say, giving away valuable city property on the waterfornt to the YMCA or creating and financing a city-owned telecommunications company. In fact, they actually RESIST getting voter input on things like this.

  3. State authority chief resigns unexpectedlyAuthor: DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press BureauDate: October 6, 2009 Publication: Times Argus, The (Montpelier-Barre, VT) MONTPELIER – The executive director of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority, the state agency charged with bringing 100 percent Internet access to the state, unexpectedly resigned last week.It was not clear Monday if William Shuttleworth, the Authority’s first executive director since it was formed two years ago, was fired or left on his own.- I heard he was fired, check your sources. Despite the “credentials” he appears to bring, this may have been an poor decision.

  4. I hope leopold. is not apart of this. I have a lack of trust like many others for leopold. the only way i see BT moving on is
    frist finish burlington so everyone who wants BT will have it.
    keeping Leopolds hands out of BT.
    And not expanding until this is done and BT is making a profit.

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