Monday, March 23, 2015
In 1980, Byrd was convicted of robbing and murdering Lucille Trim, a 55-year-old, white convenience store clerk. Trim's daughter, Martha Rainville, went on to serve as adjutant general of the Vermont National Guard and ran unsuccessfully for Vermont's lone seat in the U.S. House in 2006.
Rainville was a 21-year-old Air Force trainee when Byrd shot her mother while robbing the small, Port Gibson, Miss., grocery store her family owned. Byrd was paroled just before the 2006 election in which Rainville, a Republican, waged a hard-fought race against Democrat Peter Welch for the open seat.
Tags: Vermont National Guard , Martha Rainville , Peter Welch , lynching , Otis Byrd , Image , Web Only
Friday, March 20, 2015
The legislation passed more than two years after former representative Mike Fisher, a Lincoln Democrat, proposed the idea. He was frustrated at the time that the soda industry had bought newspaper advertisements targeting him and others who supported a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, but wouldn't disclose how much it had spent on the ads.
The tax was defeated that year and Fisher himself was defeated in November 2014.
Under current law, lobbyists and those who hire them must report just three times a year to the secretary of state's office how much they spend trying to influence lawmakers. Because only one of those dates falls during the four-month legislative session, it is impossible to know the true cost of a lobbying campaign until the fight is over.
The Senate bill changes that in two ways. First, lobbyists and their employers would have to file disclosure forms six times a year — including monthly during the legislative session. Second, they would have to report within 48 hours when they spend more than $1,000 on ads meant to influence the legislative debate. Such ads would have to clearly state the names of the top three entities financing them.
Tags: Vermont campaign finance , Michael Sirotkin , Vermont Public Interest Research Group , Image , Web Only
For the past few years, Jennison — unable to pay off several hundred dollars in fines — has made only occasional trips from her Colchester home, for fear of accruing additional tickets.
“It’s completely isolating,” Jennison said. “You feel awful because you can't do much. My kids always complain that they’re bored because we can’t go out. It’s degrading. I made the bad choice, but if I could have done it, I would have taken care of it. It’s not that easy.”
Jennison was one of more than 1,000 people who waited in line for several hours in downtown Burlington Friday morning to take advantage of Driver Restoration Day, during which suspended drivers could pay $20 for each unpaid ticket and get on the road to license reinstatement.
The event, the first of its kind in Vermont, was the brainchild of Chittenden County State's Attorney T.J. Donovan, who said he wanted to stop low-income people from having to choose between regaining their license by paying off tickets and other daily necessities.
Tags: T.J. Donovan , Chittenden County , license , Image , Web Only
But the governor expressed confidence that his administration — and contractor Optum — will get the job done.
"We think that we're going to deliver finally on an exchange that's going to work for Vermont," Shumlin said at an impromptu press conference Friday morning at the Statehouse. "If not, we want Vermonters to know what the contingency plan would be."
That plan would be to adopt what's known as a federally supported, state-based marketplace for those who buy private health insurance. Such hybrid systems — currently in use in Oregon, Nevada and New Mexico — make use of the federal exchange's web platforms and call centers, but allow states to retain control over which plans are offered.
Shumlin said he would only deploy the contingency plan if Vermont Health Connect is unable to automatically process changes in account information by May or if it's unable to smoothly reenroll users by October. Even then, the state would not adopt the new system until October 2016, in time for the 2017 open-enrollment period.
Tags: Vermont Health Connect , Peter Shumlin , federally supported state-based marketplace , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 19, 2015
In a letter to House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown), 23 members of the Working Vermonters Caucus said they were "unable to support a budget that includes drastic cuts, reductions in work force, and new revenue of only $35 million."
The four-sentence letter was light on details: It did not specify what level of cuts its signatories would accept, nor what taxes they hoped to raise. But according to Rep. Susan Hatch Davis (P-Washington), who co-chairs the caucus, she and her colleagues were united in the belief that "austerity measures are not working for us."
Appropriations committee members spent much of Thursday combing through the budget in search of savings and debating which programs might be spared. Under the current framework, House leaders expect to fill the $113 million budget gap with close to $37 million in new revenue, $21 million in one-time funding and nearly $56 million in cuts, though those numbers continue to fluctuate.
Liberals were not the only ones to express dissatisfaction with that mix.
Tags: Vermont state budget , Working Vermonters Caucus , Susan Hatch Davis , Joey Donovan , Shap Smith , Mitzi Johnson , Don Turner , Image , Web Only
Lunderville has led the Burlington Electric Department on an interim basis since last July. After completing a search for a permanent manager, Weinberger announced his choice Thursday. The city council is expected to vote on the appointment March 23.
As a former high-ranking Republican official, Lunderville was an unusual pick for the Democratic mayor, as Seven Days' Paul Heintz reported last year.
Before joining BED, Lunderville was CEO of the natural gas delivery service company NG Advantage. His past jobs include serving in Governor Jim Douglas' administration, working for Green Mountain Power, leading the Vermont Republican Party and acting as Governor Peter Shumlin's Hurricane Irene recovery officer.
Tags: Mayor Miro Weinberger , Burlington Electric Department , Neale Lunderville , Image , Web Only
Roy "Opie" McAllister II, 39, was identified as a leader of a ring of at least 11 people who moved up to 3,000 kilograms of marijuana from Quebec to Vermont from the mid-2000s until his arrest in May 2013. The operation created a "sense of lawlessness," in Franklin County, prosecutors said.
Federal sentencing guidelines suggested a sentence of around eight to 10 years, U.S. District Court Judge Christina Reiss said during the hearing. But attorneys agreed to a plea deal for significantly less time, just as they did for other defendants in the operation. In part, prosecutors explained, the lesser sentences were offered in response to the government's increasing acceptance of marijuana use. After successful marijuana legalization efforts in Colorado and Washington, the Justice Department in 2013 announced it would not challenge state laws that allow for recreational or medical marijuana use.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Ross said she struggled with whether the lighter sentence for McAllister was warranted, but agreed to it in "recognition of the national shift in attitude towards marijuana."
Tags: Cannabeat , Christina Reiss , court , marijuana , Image , Web Only
Trying to close a $113 million budget gap, Rep. Mitzi Johnson (D-Grand Isle), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, has proposed closing Southeast State Correctional Facility, which houses 100 inmates. That would save an estimated $820,000 in both of the next two fiscal years, officials say.
Roughly 100 more inmates would be sent to private prisons, Pallito said. The controversial practice of sending inmates out of Vermont has gone on since the mid-1990s. Critics say it severs ties between inmates and their families and provides for a lower standard of inmate care.
DOC is nearing the end of a two-year, $34 million contract with Corrections Corporation of America to house up to 660 overflow inmates. The agency is expected to announce a new contract with an out-of-state provider in April, and the DOC is currently finalizing the contract, Pallito said. CCA was one of two finalists.
Almost all Vermont inmates in CCA's custody are housed in the Lee Adjustment Center in Kentucky. Some are imprisoned in Arizona.
Bellini likes what he hears — the governor pledging to stand up for state workers — until he wakes up and realizes the dream was too good to be true.
That's the gist of a new Vermont State Employees Association video featuring Bellini, a Department of Corrections worker and union activist. It was posted to YouTube early this week and is featured on the VSEA's website and Facebook page.
The video is the latest step in the union's effort to counteract Shumlin's proposal to cut $10.8 million from state personnel costs by reopening the union's year-old contract. If it doesn't, Shumlin has told the union, he'll lay off up to 325 workers. Seven Days wrote about the governor's disintegrating relationship with the state's public sector labor unions in this week's issue.
Tags: Gov. Peter Shumlin , Vermont State Employees Association , Image , Video , Web Only
Lawmakers never intended to allow use of hand-held phones while stopped in traffic, Sen. Peg Flory (R-Rutland) said Wednesday on the Senate floor. Not true, countered Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington). When they passed the cellphone law last year, senators specifically discussed how they were trying to ban use of hand-held devices only while a car is moving.
Whatever their initial intent, senators decided this year that it’s too dangerous for drivers to check their phone or send a text while a light is changing.
“That is very unsafe,” said Senate Transportation Committee Chair Dick Mazza (D-Grand Isle). “If you want to get serious about banning texting … let’s go all the way. When you’re at a stop sign, you don’t know if you’re there for five seconds or one second.”
Tags: Vermont Senate , cellphone ban , Vermont State Police , Image , Web Only