Burlington's economic prosperity and our citizens' ability to access community media content depends upon our collective ability to keep cable and Internet networks open for public uses. In many ways, the City of Burlington solved these problems when they built BurlingtonTelecom. BT now provides affordable, lightning fast service to a growing base of subscribers. The City has taken major steps to stabilize the business, which is now profitable and increasing its service offerings and bandwidth. But, according to the City's deal with its financiers, it will have to sell BT within in the next 36 months. And while Burlington would like to keep an ownership stake in BT, it currently has no plans to do so. That's why we've invited national municipal ownership expert Christopher Mitchell to speak in Burlington at a lunchtime event on Friday 9/19. Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Mr. Mitchell will discuss what it will take to finance BT's next chapter and enable us to keep its value as an affordable telecom provider and driver of community and economic development in our region.