- Light at the end of the tunnel for BT? Picard sez:
Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss announced late this afternoon that the city received a financing proposal this week for Burlington Telecom (BT) to satisfy its current debt of $33 million, as well as the $17.4 million borrowed but never repaid from the city’s pooled cash account. This “letter of engagement,” from the Minneapolis-based financial firm Piper Jaffray & Co., is currently under discussion by the Board of Finance…The terms of the financing deal still need to be finalized over the coming month. The mayor anticipates that a final deal will be in place by February 1, 2010.
Will this turn the public scandal furor against City Hall down a bit, or is it too late for that? Kiss is clearly putting a lot of eggs into this basket. Hopefully the deal will come through.
- Don’t expect the Kiss administration’s problems to go away if they can’t find some way to muzzle Leopold. This from Haik’s website has to be read to be believed. I think we’ve all seen that its apparently too much to ask that the guy show some humility, but is it really too much to ask that he refrain from being an arrogant butt? Geez.
- Speaking of humility: From the Picard piece: “Kiss told a room full of reporters late Friday. ‘It also confirms that the use of pooled cash has not been, and is not, an increased risk to the taxpayers of Burlington.'” Huh? Somebody needs to explain basic reasoning to the Mayor I think. Going over the Niagara Falls in a barrel and walking away unscathed would not constitute a confirmation that getting downriver by that method does not constitute an increased risk to travelers. Regardless of the merits of the arguments, that’s a ridiculous statement. Once again, this administration is determined to be its own worst enemy to an almost supernatural degree. There’s a social psychology thesis in all this somewhere, I’m sure.
- Me first! An aside, Seven Days takes credit for “first report(ing)” the Burlington Telecom finance issues in late September, but as I recall it was the Freeps’ John Briggs. Anyone remember? Of course the Free Press rolls up its online articles behind them for some weird reason, so its hard to tell.
- But enough of BT… I can’t stand it any more… let’s talk Gubernatorial Primary! You know what the best thing I’ve heard all year is? Deb Markowitz on the Mark Johnson Show last week. It’s clear when the old Campaign Manager Jason Powell went, he took that gawd-awful run-to-the-center and run above the Primary strategy with him. New hotshot Campaign Manager Paul Tencher – a veteran of Emily’s List targeted races, as Markowitz’s will officially become any time now – has her on message as a Primary candidate. That means more specific policy statements, and more explicitly speaking to progressives. Halleluia!
Is it pandering? Who knows? And at this point who cares? I mean, come on. If we can’t expect them to at least pander to us, how can we expect them to respond when we hold their feet to the fire to come through? Woo-hoo!
- Susan Bartlett is polling? That’s what she said on VPR last week. Weird. It’d be weird for anybody to spend thousands of dollars on polling at this point, but especially if you (presumably) aren’t exactly rolling in campaign cash.
And it must have some odd questions, as I hear over email that at least one person called thought they were receiving some sort of anti-Bartlett push poll.
- Calling Doug Racine… On the month with two more high profile entries into the Primary, rumors of another (Pollina), and the first meeting of the 5 declared or all-but-declared candidates, Doug Racine has been on vacation. Missing one party or public event in which the candidates were invited to be showcased would be one thing – they’ve all missed 1 or another of them, after all. But by my count, this weekend’s Democratic Party Autumn Harvest fundraiser in Barre will mark the fourth such event in a row that Racine has missed due to a vacation. C’mon, dude. Everybody knew November was gonna be a big month. Wrong time to be AWOL.