OLDS — Roughly 55 people packed town council chambers on Tuesday, Nov. 5 to attend a meeting on council’s decision to sell Olds Fibre Ltd., operating as O-NET, a 20-year-old community-created phone, TV and internet service.
The sale of the municpally-controlled corporation became effective Nov. 6, just the day after the meeting was held to solicit public input. The sale and the meeting were announced by the municipality about 40 days ago. The crowd was told that provincial legislation required that such a meeting be held.
Telus officials planned to meet with O-NET employees Nov. 6 to welcome them to the company.
Several people in the crowd were not happy with the timing of the meeting, especially after The Town of Olds' chief administrative officer (CAO) Brent Williams revealed that council had been working on the sale for many months.
They wondered why, if that’s the case, they couldn’t have been given the opportunity to provide their input earlier.
About five people were given a chance to speak and 16 emailed letters of reaction were read into the record.
Williams responded to each, speaking on behalf of the Town of Olds which is the sole O-NET shareholder, .
Virtually no member of the public spoke or wrote in favour of the decision.
In essence, Williams said council reluctantly decided to sell the company because it couldn’t afford to keep it going.
He pegged O-NET’S total debt at $19 million, including a $4 million line of credit.
He said effectively, O-NET was just too small to compete with the big telecoms like Telus and Rogers/Shaw who have much more money to work with.
As he did during a previous interview with the Albertan, Williams declined to reveal how much Telus is paying for the purchase, saying that will be revealed next spring.
However, he estimated the Town of Olds' debt will end up being reduced to about $3.5 million.
Williams said council fielded offers from 13 telecoms and chose Telus because it offered to pay the most.
Williams and Telus vice-president of fibre network Shazia Zeb Sobani said current O-NET employees will remain in place and the services provided will not change, at least for now.
A few speakers bemoaned the fact that when it started up 20 years ago, O-NET made history and national news as a small town setting up and operating its own high speed internet service.
Williams said that legacy is not lost and will endure.
