BurlingtonPol.com

BT Denied Access to Cash Pool

2010-02-17T07:54:00.003-05:00

From Shay Totten at Blurt 02.17.10
"...In an eight-page ruling, the Vermont Public Service Board late Tuesday denied Burlington Telecom's request to dip into the city's so-called "cash pool" to make a key $386,000 interest payment tomorrow on its lease with CitiLeasing..."

Burlington Telecom is crashing and burning before our eyes! This is like watching the Hindenburg disaster!

A spectacular multi-colored, star-studded, fiber-optic, fifty million dollar, money burning, dazzling, spectacular, imploding, exploding fireball for every man, woman and child to witness with their very eyes!

Yes indeed ladies and gentleman! Step right up, but don't get too close- and watch the blazing, amazing financial and political meltdown of this once promising, small-d-city department of the city of Burlington! A once in a lifetime chance to see a red hot fiery explosion of this magnitude!

There will be plenty of recrimination, denunciation, insinuation, rumble and slur to go round when this is over, but for now let your jaw drop and your mind relax as you watch this train wreck in slow motion. As this plane smashes into the mountainside. As Burlington Telecom burns like Rome and fizzles into a puff of smoke.

Amazing.

BT Blue Ribbon Report

2010-02-11T09:19:00.002-05:00

BT Blue Ribbon Report 02.11.10

Sunny Saturday II

2010-02-06T11:30:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to waste my time blogging.

100,000 Visits

2010-02-04T18:55:00.007-05:00

It's been three years and 23 days since I started this blog and today it got its one hundred thousandth visit. That averages to 89 visits per day. I guess that's pretty good.

The Future of Telecom

2010-02-01T18:26:00.002-05:00

An iphone is a phone, TV and internet connected computer is it not? You can hook that up to a projector and speakers can't you? And a keyboard?

I think all computing and telecom will be unified in whatever physical manifestation that suits us. And that's it.

Christmas at Henry's

2010-01-31T13:09:00.007-05:00

For whatever reason, I was wandering around downtown, broke, hungry and looking unkempt on Christmas morning this year. I noticed that Henry's happened to be open. One of the staff was outside smoking and he told me they were open on Christmas morning offering free breakfast to anybody. He told me to go inside and I resisted, saying I really do have a home and a family to go to- that I was really just out there walking around- you know- for whatever reason. The guy was so nice. "It's ok," he said "We're open for everyone no matter what." He seemed very sincere and convinced me it would be ok even if I just wanted a cup of coffee. So I went in and took a seat at the bar. The waitress gave me coffee and asked if I wanted breakfast. What the hell, I figured. Sure.

The place was populated mostly by men of limited means, by all appearances. The guy I sat next to at the bar told me a little about himself. Basically he was a career dishwasher. 62 years old. He said he works at a restaurant on Williston Road. He has no car so he has to bus or walk to work. He talked about how hard he worked. How many hours he had to work at a low wage just to survive, and about some of the horrible conditions he had experienced at different resturants in and around Burlington over many years. He made constant reference to what life is like "when you're alone." He said that he had been given a free Christmas turkey by a charity, but that it was too big for him to eat, being alone and all, so he turned it over to the food shelf. He talked about the very high turnover rate in his profession, and of all the young people he's seen hired that quit almost immediately, or who would call in sick on a busy weekend when it was obvious they were just calling in so they could go out to the bars and get drunk. He talked of why parents work double shifts to support their kids, and of how one could never just quit, being alone and having nothing or nobody to fall back on. He had a real work ethic and took pride in his work. "Dishwasher is the backbone of the restaurant," he said "if we don't work- nobody works, and the wait staff, chefs and managers all know it." he said with some satisfaction. Oddly, he said his one hobby was watching women's basketball. "They work together as a team better than the men." he said. And he talked about that for a while.

The man left an impression on me. Here was a fundamentally decent, honest, hardworking- true native Vermonter, I might add, whose life, as far as I could tell, just totally sucked. He said he wanted to work until he died, because at this point in his life the labor was the only thing keeping him alive. He said he had seen others at his age and in similar situations die quickly after they stopped working.

Yep. There was a lady working there I could just sense was the owner. I introduced my self to her, and she said her name was Naiomi. She was one of the 'new' owners who had taken over Henry's since Roberta Goldstein passed on. She said they do this free breakfast every year. I thanked her and told her I would write about it. I left a five dollar donation for Camp Takumta and went home.

*BurlingtonPol Trivia- I myself have washed dishes in a number of resturants around town, including at Henry's itself in the summer of 1991. Yep.

Post 917

2010-01-28T17:50:00.005-05:00

* I did this for the title before on post 821.

* Check out http://repealirv.blogspot.com/ by Owen Mulligan.

Here's a .pdf file of Tomorrow Night's Special City Council Meeting Agenda. Item number 3 on the deliberative agenda is a public forum on the proposed charter change regarding the elimination of Instant Runoff Voting.

*Awesome Blog by Lea Terhune about the goings on of the Wards 4&7 NPA at North End Neighborhood Planning Assembly. It's pretty cutting edge to drop the superfluous "New" and go with just "North End."

*H.A.N.D.S. (Helping and Nurturing Diverse Seniors) Is a community group whose mission is " to provide social and nutritional opportunities for older adults and their families."

*Can anybody explain how the relativity of simultaneity might somehow cancel out the observer effect? Because I can't.

*Are Kevin Curley and Kurt Wright both going to be on the ballot in Ward Four?

*My wife likes Cracked.com. Also, she will sometimes give a length of her hair to help make a wig for a cancer patient.

If you haven't donated a dime to help Haiti, then I'm disappointed in you. Turn your life around by donating to PIH.org.

*The State of The Union. Obama's first State of the Union was excellent. I think he is a very decent man.

Sunny Saturday

2010-01-23T13:53:00.004-05:00

1:58pm-The stars have alligned. My wife is at work. My mother-in-law has the kids, and I don't have to work today. I have the house to myself for the next three hours. It's incredible.

Obviously I have to spend most of that time cleaning. This place is a mess. But look- I'm doing a blog post too. Yay.

I'll update a few times while I'm cleaning.

2:00pm- Yeah, so...

*IRV. Huh. Word on the street is the Dems may, in general, vote to keep IRV. I'm not. I guess we'll see.

*BT. Yeah. I don't care about BT anymore. It can die. It's obviously an imprudent risk. The council should sell it to the highest bidder ASAP and minimize the loss we're going to eat. On a personal note, I cut my own BT service down to just basic internet and basic TV. That should allow me to catch up on my debt to them.

The telecom business is not easy. I still find it hard to believe that Southern Bell ended up eating AT&T. I mean really.

*I eat Tritium for breakfast- I saw Arnie Gunderson on TV and then I realized I had a picture of him on my phone...

2:14pm: Now I'm just procrastinating. Cleaning starts...Now!

2:36pm: Cleaning is daunting. Let's talk about Avatar. My wife forced me to see it for my birthday. First of all the 3D was just like any 3D I've ever seen. Not that special. Secondly- the story was stupid. Why couldn't they get that done in 90 minutes? The thing gave me a headache. Utterly forgettable.

Back to cleaning...

3:40pm: Despair sets in. No more blogging. Just have to do what I can with the time I have left and go get the kids. Sunny Saturday almost over.

Sahara

2010-01-12T08:40:00.001-05:00

I feel like I'm slipping away from the planet. Time keeps spinning faster and faster, and all I can think about lately is walking across the Sahara desert with a Bedouin caravan. Ahh. So warm. So sunny. So magical.

Another Year of BurlingtonPol

2010-01-07T08:28:00.002-05:00

I just renewed my web host for another year. Each year my payment is due by Jan 13, which also happens to be the date my mother died two years ago. This is the start of BurlingtonPol.com's 5th year.

Sorry to all for my lack of blogging lately- Wards 4/7 NPA, Owen- anyone else who has written to me lately looking for me to post this or that- I'll be back at it soon.

Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading BurlingtonPol.com. Visit often!

January 1, 2010

2010-01-01T20:33:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year. It's two thousand, ten. Or Twenty Ten. Nineteen Ninety was twenty years ago. Today's date is a binary code. 01.01.10. There will be several more dates in binary code in the next two years. Let's see...01.10.10, 01.11.10, 10.01.10, 10.11.10, 01.01.11, and so on.

I wish I had more time to blog.

Senate Passes Health Care Bill

2009-12-24T08:40:00.002-05:00

I was lucky enough to watch the final vote on TV this morning. Bernie got there late to some applause from the Democratic senators. He voted "Yes" instead of "Aye."

Moments earlier Harry Reid had accidentally voted no, and threw up his hands to uproarious laughter in the chamber while the clerk gave him a moment to change his vote.

Final vote: 60-39 with all Democrats, Sanders and Lieberman voting yes, all Republicans voting no except one. I'm having trouble finding out who it was that didn't vote.

Despite having given Sanders the OK to kill the bill if he wished, and despite its flaws I'm happy the bill passed, and I would be disappointed the conference bill does not pass in both chambers too.

Sure it's a huge giveaway to the health insurance companies, but it's better than a huge giveaway to the war industry, which always happens. If we're going to borrow obscene amounts from China, we might as well let the money pay for band aids instead of bullets for a change.

Markowitz Fails You Can Quote Me

2009-12-20T18:49:00.002-05:00

I didn't hear it all. I just caught the part where she was bragging about killing nine jobs in archive micro-filming in favor of electronic only record keeping. This reminded me her response to my concerns about the evils of paperless voting in which she cited its "efficiencies." That was a red flag.

She seems a lot like Hinda and Hillary. A lot. She bragged about her Emily's list endorsement and her long list of donors. Her statewide victories as SOS. It seems like an 'inevitability' strategy. And "inevitability" is by definition presumptuous.

I liked Shumlin's appearance on You Can Quote Me better. He said Vermont could "get a piece" of the new economy of environmental manufacturing. That sounded good.

Dean and Sanders Uging Reconciliation

2009-12-16T23:08:00.004-05:00

Senate Health Care Bill a Monstrosity- Must Be Killed
Time to get what we can in Reconciliation

Burlington Pols Dean from Ward 5, Sanders from Ward 4 in News Today

Background...

Expanded Health Care Coverage? Rumors Are Greatly Exaggerated, Unless Paying Fines Is Now 'Health Care' from Huffington Post today

Sanders would support reconciliation to break Republican filibuster on health bill from The Hill November 10.

Today's Events...

Dean urges defeat of emerging health care bill -AP

Tom Coburn Demands 12-Hour Reading Of Single-Payer Amendment On Senate Floor -Huffington Post

*****Kill the Bill*******

You have to be kidding me. What we might be getting for a health care bill is a mandate to buy crappy private insurance and fines if we don't?

The subsidies offered for those who can't afford insurance would presumably have to be accepted and will come with all kinds of stings attached and hoops to jump through when someone does accept them.

This sucks. This will bankrupt and enslave everybody by turning us all into criminals and it will not produce better health outcomes. It's offensive to both my libertarian and my liberal sensibilities.

Bernie alone can kill this bill. Go for it Bernie. Kill the bill. I say it's ok.

*****

12.17.09 Updated. Here's Howard Dean's Op-ed in Today's Washington Post

Health-care bill wouldn't bring real reform

Danger on the Beltline

2009-12-16T16:18:00.002-05:00

Shay's Tweet on BT Lawsuit

2009-12-15T09:39:00.002-05:00

I had a post a while back called "Leopold to Personally Repay 17M BT Debt." I was kidding of course, but Shay's tweet today lends credence to the idea that there's a little truth in every joke.

# Whoa: #BTV Telecom lawsuit claims CAO J. Leopold's "conduct constitutes deceit" & holds him "personally liable for the unpaid funds." about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck

Council Delays Financing V

2009-12-14T19:01:00.002-05:00

Breaking News: Council Scuttles Piper Jaffray Deal

I think now it's safe to say "scuttles." They just voted 8-6 to put out a request for proposal to try to get other funding offers from other money companies. That move essentially rendered moot the resolution that would have authorized the letter of intent for a 61 million dollar funding deal with Piper Jaffray. So moot, it was withdrawn.

(Now as I'm writing they are considering Paul Decelles's resolution to kick the CAO off the board of finance. I'll let Briggs report on what happens with that.)

So will the scuttling of the financing proposal scuttle BT itself? BT's chances of survival are clearly diminished after tonight. It's out of money and another big draw from pooled cash to keep it afloat seems unlikely.

We'll see what happens...

Imperial Heresies

2009-12-11T20:34:00.001-05:00

An Imperial Presidency, Like It Or Not

Entergy Poll

2009-12-10T18:15:00.003-05:00

A nice man who couldn't pronounce "legislature" or "nuclear" called just now. He said he was was from Communications Center, Inc. in Spokane Washington and he administered a market research study. It was a straight forward poll that really did take only about five minutes. It wasn't a push poll.

He asked me to rate a bunch of terms on a rather granular 1-100 scale of favorability, with 100 being most favorable.

Entergy 10
VT Legislature 33
Greenpeace 51
VPIRG ("V-Purge") 52
VT Yankee 10

Then he asked me to rate a bunch of phrases related to the potential re-licensing of VT Yankee "Nucular" Power Plant according to my level of agreement. This time my ratings were to be on a much less granular scale of four possible answers- Very much, somewhat not too much, not at all.

VT Yankee should be re-licensed- Not at all
VT Yankee is clean energy- Not at all
VT Yankee helps Vermont's economy- Somewhat
VT Yankee helps makes Vermont more energy independent- Not too much

Then he asked some standard questions to try to put me in a box. I'm an independent who leans more toward the "Democrat" party than the Republican party. I told him it's the Democratic party and asked how his script was written. He assured me that it was written "Democratic" and that he had just made a mistake.

So basically expect Entergy's big sell to be on the economy and on energy independence.

I am opposed to nuclear energy on principle because I don't think we have a right to tell the next 40,000 years of humanity they have to deal with radioactive waste because we the living of today say so. That's just rude.

On Top of Magram's

2009-12-10T10:38:00.003-05:00

One time when I was in high school, me and a bunch of friends lead by the gym coach's daughter climbed up the fire escape behind Henry's to the rooftop above Magram's department store. As I recall the last part of the climb was pretty hairy. The view of Church Street from up there is good. I'm pretty sure there's actually a surveillance camera up there now. Good times.

The Oxygen in the Room

2009-12-08T11:22:00.004-05:00

I watched some of the city council meeting on channel 317 last night. Channel 17 people take note- the audio was terrible. The horrible humming sound made the meeting extremely hard to pay attention to.

One of the things that occurred to me as I watched councilors discuss the non-disclosure agreement they want singed members of the Telecom Advisory Committee (what should actually be the telecom commission if BT were a proper Department) was just how much time and energy councilors are spending on Burlington Telecom. What other issues are getting less attention as a result?

(By the way- Having folks sign an NDA is a little silly in my opinion. Do councilors sign an NDA? If a document is confidential, mark it as such. An NDA would be superfluous to that, and it's unenforceable anyway.)

There is always a hidden story. Whatever it is people are paying attention to, it necessarily means their attention is diverted from something else.

It isn't just loads and loads of money that is at risk because of Burlington Telecom. Its cost also includes attention diverted from other priorities, and other potential opportunities we may never even know about. Opportunity costs, they're called.

Pooled Cash=Taxpayer Funds

2009-12-05T14:09:00.004-05:00

You know for Jonathan Leopold to state flatly the other night that "Pooled Cash is not taxpayer funds" is so upsetting. That is clearly false.

The only possible way to rationalize that "pooled cash is not taxpayer funds" is to parenthetically insert the word "(only)" between "not" and "taxpayer funds."

It isn't only taxpayer funds, true. There are proceeds from parking fines, impact fees, charges from overdue library books, grants, and whatever the folks at the Boathouse feel like contributing- sure. Of course. But it's the property tax, more than any other source that funds the pool.

If Leopold wants to act like a Stephen Wright joke ("Sometimes you can't hear me because I'm speaking in parentheses.") he can.

But most people would just call that lying.

Council Delays Financing IV

2009-12-04T01:07:00.005-05:00

Breaking News: BT Business Plan Totals 7 Pages

Well I missed the dramatic conclusion of the big city council meeting. Marrisa Caldwell walked past channel 17's camera and it suddenly went black. It seemed like she might have kicked a cord out of place or something.

Just before that the administration distributed its confidential written documentation to the council. That disbursement was to have happened in executive session, but the council was tired so they opted to take it and go.

As a consequence the public now knows that what was distributed were two separate pro formas which taken together fit on about seven sheets of paper.

The administration just isn't going to give councilors all the information they asked for. If councilors don't like it, they can vote to kill BT. See my previous post for thoughts on how likely that is.

Note to councilor Adrian- You may share those pro formas with your caucus's staff attorney. I say it's ok.

Council Delays Financing III

2009-12-03T17:13:00.007-05:00

So the council's big BT meeting is going to start in about 15 minutes. We'll see what kind of information they're given. I'm sure they will hear all kinds of dire warnings about what will happen if they don't take the financing. Leopold will craft projections to assure the council of BT's eventual profitability. People can make numbers say whatever they want them to say.

The good thing about tonight is that the city council is trying to pry open the hood on this baby so as to finally have a look-see at the engine. It's ridiculous that everything has been so friggin' secret. I'm proud of the things Paul Decelles said in the paper today. It's not monopoly money, and I hope he does fight like hell to avoid executive session tonight.

If it's "our network" then enough with all the damned secrecy. It's OUR network!

***

10:29pm-
They did the hard scary stuff with Leo and numbers first and got that that of the way- now the BT folks are doing the feel good stuff. The new customer service person Lisa seemed good, however her presentation included the use of "ie" where she actually meant "eg." Oh God, does she make Donnelly's old salary? Jesus Christ. I want to die.

Is it me or did Leopold change his tune a bit from "you don't just walk away from a 33 million dollar debt"a few weeks ago to "no legal recourse" tonight, saying now that if the council decided not to appropriate a lease purchase payment, then Piper Jaffray could only seize BT and no more, and the investors who purchased the certificates of public good will have simply realized the downside of their own risks- taken freely by them. Sure, heh heh- nobody else would want to enter into a lease purchase finance with the city ever again, but otherwise- Scott Free! It was unclear to me what their answer was as to how that scenario might affect the city's bond rating.

It's like I'm watching a game show. You know the contestant is gonna say "no deal!" They're gonna press their luck and they're gonna shoot the works.

There are only two options: kill BT now or keep rolling the dice, and it's simply a political impossibility that they kill BT now. It simply is. It's like fighting gravity. Killing BT would certainly incur painful unknowable fallout and cause many bills to come due immediately. Whereas refinancing... ahhh... the can gets kicked down the road... things settle down... the issue goes away...

Remember kids- no good deed goes unpunished. Suppose a majority votes to pull the plug now. What will they be remembered for? Killing BT. Even if it's the right thing to do, it won't win you any votes, because voters and tax payers would feel the pain immediately. Kicking the can down the road is politically irresistible, because A) if it fails down the road, you don't get the blame B) If BT actually succeeds you can take credit as a visionary, and C) it isn't your money at risk, except for part you might personally have to pay to the city for your own property tax and whatnot.

There are immutable laws of the universe that far surpass what we suppose is our own free will. This issue is done. It is as I have foreseen.

And hey- maybe BT can add the customers it needs and become a success. Who knows? It was me who had the problem with emailing BT and getting called back, by the way. I am all about treating the customer right, especially when I'm the customer.

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Give 'em Hell Bernie!

2009-12-02T19:14:00.005-05:00

This is why we vote for this guy.

Bernie is going to move to block Ben Bernanke's reappointmed as Fed Chair. From The New York Times...

"...Senator Bernard Sanders is expected to hold up the nomination of Ben S. Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
The move is unlikely to derail Mr. Bernanke’s reappointment, but it could slow the confirmation process and give the Fed’s critics additional opportunity to press their case. As a practical matter, it means Senate Democratic leaders will have to line up 60 votes in favor of Mr. Bernanke rather than a simple majority at a time when the Federal Reserve is under increasing populist attacks from lawmakers on both the right and the left...

“...In this country, there is profound disgust at what happened on Wall Street,” Mr. Sanders said in a telephone interview. “People want a new direction and people are asking, where was the Fed? How did the Fed allow this to happen, when one of their mandates is to oversee the safety and soundness of the banking system?” [Emphasis added]"

Seriously. Where the hell was the Fed? Push back on 'em Bernie. The little guy is gettin' killed out here in America. People's teeth are falling out because they haven't been to the friggin' dentist in 15 years. It's practically third world.