Burlington Broadband Cooperative launches pledge drive for BT

Burlington Broadband Cooperative has officially launched a pledge drive to support a bid to transform Burlington Telecom into a locally owned, member supported cooperative.
Potential cooperative members can show their love for the Co-op plan by making a pledge before Valentines Day online at www.KeepBTLocal.com. Beginning next week, supporters will be going door to door in Burlington neighborhoods to provide information about the cooperative and to solicit additional pledges. The pledge drive is part of a larger plan developed at a December meeting of community members interested in maintaining local ownership of Burlington Telecoms fiber optic network.
After reaching the initial goal of 1,000 individual and 50 business pledges, the grassroots group will formally establish the Broadband Cooperative and begin negotiations with the City of Burlington. The group is planning to use the successful business models currently employed by more than 250 locally owned telecom cooperatives in the U.S. A recent community survey showed strong support for maintaining local ownership of Burlington Telecom.
Burlington Broadband Cooperatives mission is to ensure the long-term viability of Burlingtons world-class fiber to the home network, and to extend its state-of-the-art technology to meet the needs of the community and businesses through the creation of a local, member-owned, telecom cooperative.
The Co-op group also announced that its public organizational meeting held on December 13th is available for viewing on the CCTV Channel 17 website and on Burlington Telecom and Comcast channel 17 at the following times: Monday, January 7 at 1:00 pm and 10:40 pm; and Tuesday, January 8 at 3:40 am and 9:40 am.
The direct link to the public meeting is www.cctv.org/watch-tv/programs/public-meeting-burlington-telecom-member-...