In the middle of a growing legal dispute, Ecfiber is preparing to separate from the Internet service provider based in Maine, who monitors his business.
At a meeting on Tuesday, the board of directors of the oldest communication trade union district in the state – a kind of municipal body that was created to support the expansion of the faster internet to sub -supplied parts of the state, voted for the termination of the negotiations to renew its company contract with Biddeford Internet Corp., also known as the Great Work Internet, or GWI.
In the meantime, the Ecfiber board also approved a memorandum of Understanding on Tuesday with the OSP operating company from Vermont ISP or Visspo, a new non -profit organization that was created by members of the Ecfiber board last month. The MOUSEES -VISSPO will take over the operations of GWI next year.
Ecfiber, which offers telecommunications in 31 members of the municipalities in Vermont, began in 2022 with the contract with GWI for a number of scandals that shook its previous service provider, The Nonprofit Valleynet.
Ecfiber has about 1,750 miles fiber cabbell lines and, according to his annual report in 2024, serves around 9,600 customers. The construction of the Ecfiber network was largely financed by the exhibition of municipal bonding, while the eight other communication union districts of the state are planning to largely subsidize its construction by federal grants.
The decision comes when Ecfiber and GWI tacitly acted against junction, which was submitted in a lawsuit against FX Flinn, the chairman of the Ecfiber Board of Directors submitted by a federal court. In the lawsuit it is claimed that the creation of Visspo was a program hatched by flinish, “to” literally the GWI's business and to poach his chances with Ecfiber for himself “.
The 15-page complaint, which was submitted to the US district court in Burlington on March 26, accuses Flinn of working with a nameless GWI employee, and spied on the company and tried to poach the GWI employees for Vispo, while she was supposed to undermine the negotiations between Ecfibibibibber and Maine-based internet service provider.
In a written declaration, Flinn said that the lawsuit “had no basis” and described it as a “Slapp law” or as a strategic lawsuit against the participation of the public in order to shy away the communication union district from the separation of GWI.
“The real story is that Ecfiber's government committee has come to the conclusion that her mission, financing and his interest in creating good jobs for Veronter are incompatible with having a non-profit operator,” wrote Flinn in an email to Vtdigger.
Central to GWI's lawsuit is Flinn's participation in Visspo, which was founded on March 17th. The non -profit association is now being sentenced to the “draft, construction and operating partner of the district” when GWI's contract is sentenced to the management committee of the district at the end of the year, how a memo recommends to the board of the district, which was recommended with Vtdigger -Executive Committee, which with the mobile with the application Vtdiggerge was relocated to the committee that corresponds to the memo with the Vtdigger.
In an interview, Flinn said that he was previously served as one of the three founding directors of Visspo “only for the purpose of submitting paper stuff”, but the organization voted for the transition to a seven-person board, which he no longer belonged to.
By Friday, however, Flinn was still listed as one of three directors of the non -profit organization in records that were submitted to the Vermont State Secretary.
“I just filled out a functional purpose to start it,” said Flinn, adding that he expected to serve as a “ex-amio not voting member”.
At the center of the legal dispute is a video recording of a meeting between the GWI employees on February 11, which was secretly made by a participant who gave a flinish, according to the lawsuit and interviews with both parties.
At the recorded meeting, the management of GWI allegedly presented a new organizational card, in which it seemed to show plans to “reorganize the company” in order to “eliminate vermont-specific services and specialist knowledge” and “to replace the existing local customer service”. (Flinn refused to share the recording of the GWI meeting with Vtdigger or to share the identity of the person it did.)
In the letter, Ecfiber claimed that these plans had violated the agreement between the two companies. In a subsequent letter, the district of GWI announced that the district would end the ongoing negotiations to renew the contract.
However, GWI insisted that the interpretation of the company's plans is wrong by Ecfiber and that the allegations in an answer to the ceasefire referred to “completely wrong”.
In an interview with Vtdigger, GWI President Keremdurdag confirmed that GWI created a new call center, but he called it “an overflow” for customer service, which would not usurpate the existing operations in the state.
“All of our Vermont employees will still be busy, we only brought additional capacities with us,” said Durdag.
With regard to Ecfiber's claim that the company would be restructured to eliminate Vermont-specific services, Durdag said: “It is just simple, obviously wrong.”
GWI has company contracts with two other communication union districts in Vermont – DVFiber and Northwest Fiberworx. Durdag said that GWI employees who are currently working with Ecfiber could work on projects in connection with the other districts, but would still be dedicated to business activities in the state.
“So it's actually the opposite,” said Durdag. “We want to grow and expanded our Vermont employees.”
The GWI lawsuit submitted against flinish accuses him of orchestrated an “insidious plan” in order to acquire recordings of the meeting and use it as a pretext for tank negotiations between Ecfiber and GWI, “all with the final, the opportunity of a new operating agreement to be used for itself.”
Flinn “has worked together a GWI employee to provide him with a secretly recorded video of the meeting, said the lawsuit, which claims that the employee was” in concert “with a flinish to record the meeting.
The lawsuit also accuses flinish of stealing confidential information and business secrets that were revealed during the meeting.
In a written declaration on Vtdigger, Flinn categorically denied that he had “participated in a kind of conspiracy with one of the employees of (GWI).
Instead, he described the employee “a whistleblower”, who “had made evidence of their incredible claim that they were instructed to work for other GWI customers, which this person was not permitted within the framework of the company contract.
As Flinn acquired the tape, GWI accuses him of additional violations in connection with the use of the material, including the embezzlement of business secrets and actions of unfair competition.
Flinn has also made “GWI employees for this purpose and with the intention of poaching them so that a new company company is monitored by its new administrative society,” said the lawsuit, has an indictment that has contested flinish.
In the complaint of seven points, the Vermont federal district court is excited to the Internet service company in order to increase the money and resources money into the network operation of Ecfibiber.
“GWI has not taken over this work and a team of trained employees has put together so that FX exposes these employees, the confidential information from GWI and the business activity and the business of commanders GWI for his personal financial profit,” says the lawsuit.