Burlington Telecom is drawing ire and fire from the Douglas administration and others for making use of a $17 million dollar loan from the city of Burlington. It appears Department of Public Services Commissioner is concerned about the fiscal risk to taxpayers among other things. (Burlington’s telecom foray runs into $17 million snag, Times Argus, 10/23/09)
At least folks are talking about re-payment.
Meanwhile Fairpoint, which according to the Times Argus “paid $2.4 billion for the [Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine] network, is mired in debt and edging closer to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which would allow the North Carolina corporation to restructure”, is taking an entirely different and more market based approach … they’ve applied for almost $38 million dollars in grant money from the federal government to help bail their financial asses out! (FairPoint calls on unions to help avoid bankruptcy, Times Argus, 10/23/09)
Tom Evslin, the state official who is transitioning from being Vermont’s Recovery Officer to its Chief Technology Officer, said this build-out is in addition to what FairPoint has already promised the state that it would do.
“We did sign a letter of recommendation for this funding,” Evslin said.
Nope – nobody talks about repayment there.
And certainly Montpelier’s cautionary tale on making deals with financially shaky firms isn’t having any play in this.
Here’s the unpleasant truth, and it has been recognized across the existing power structure’s political spectrum: bringing modern day communications to Vermont requires government intervention and public cash.
Stop beating up on BT for needing the helping hand, put ECFiberNet high on the priorities list, encourage more locally controlled municipal communications ventures, and then maybe … if they can prove they deserve it … pass that money on to Fairpoint.
Gyarrrggg!!!! Stop it already! It’s painful in that watching-somebody-embarass-themselves way!!!
The attempt to deflect from the issue of improper conduct and inappropriate government secrecy by making it all about BT is NOT working. In fact, if you step back from whatever personalization or projection on the issue you’re doing long enough to see clearly, you’ll see that this insistence by some to MAKE this about BT could well have the effect of dragging BT down into oblivion. Making it all about BT may feel like it takes some of the heat off your favorite pols (it doesn’t really), but its gonna put the public anger towards THEM squarely onto BT if you’re successful. Is that what you want?
Nobody’s buying it, and it looks weak.
Do I expect you to hear what I’m saying? Of course not. But hopefully some of the more pragmatic heads – like Hoffer – will.