Monday, June 22, 2015
Speaking Friday at a Las Vegas conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Sanders argued that, as a son of an immigrant himself, he was as conversant on the subject as Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. From the Los Angeles Times:
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Sunday, June 21, 2015
By Sunday night, however, Donovan had made his decision: “I’ll be running for attorney general,” he told Seven Days.
Donovan's decision was the first of many expected of Vermont office-seekers in the coming months as they react to Gov. Peter Shumlin's June 8 announcement that he won't seek reelection. The third-term county prosecutor had flirted with the idea of running for governor or Congress. But after spending Father's Day weekend at home with his family, the 41-year-old father of two young children said it had become clear that attorney general was a better fit for him.
This won't be Donovan's first run for the post. In 2012, he lost to incumbent Attorney General Bill Sorrell by just 714 votes after a hard-fought primary. Donovan said that many at Friday night's dinner had urged him to make another run for AG.
The South Burlington resident makes his decision without knowing whether Sorrell intends to run for reelection in 2016. The 68-year-old Sorrell, who’s served as attorney general since 1997, said Saturday he won’t make a decision until the conclusion of an independent investigation into allegations of campaign finance violations.
“I look forward to the truth coming out,” Sorrell said.
Tags: T.J. Donovan , Curtis Awards , Bill Sorrell , Peter Shumlin , Peter Welch , Sue Minter , Shap Smith , Image , Web Only
Working Vermont, a coalition of labor unions, is calling on the city to require that Uber treat its drivers as employees — instead of as independent contractors — in the temporary operating agreement it’s hashing out with the company. That would mean Uber would pay unemployment insurance and workers' compensation for its drivers.
Late last week, Necrason Group lobbyists David Mickenberg and Rebecca Ramos sent a letter on behalf of Working Vermont to Mayor Miro Weinberger, asking him to hold Uber to this requirement before signing off on an agreement. (Two city council committees are reviewing the agreement, which has not yet been finalized.)
Their demand came just ahead of a ruling by the California labor commissioner that holds that an Uber driver was an employee, not a contractor. Uber, which contends that its drivers are the latter, is appealing the ruling. It's facing a number of legal challenges, but it has prevailed in several similar cases in other states.
Tags: Uber , Vermont Department of Labor , Burlington , Image , Web Only
Thursday, June 18, 2015
In the early 1990s, he opposed the Brady Bill, which mandated criminal background checks for gun buyers, but he supported a federal ban on assault weapons.
After a gunman opened fire on a Colorado movie theater in July 2012, killing 12 and injuring 70, Sanders told the Addison County Independent that "decisions about gun control should be made as close to home as possible — at the state level." But after another gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School five months later, he voted for sweeping federal legislation to mandate background checks and ban the sale of assault weapons.
In some respects, Sanders' evolving position on gun laws mirrors that of his Vermont constituents, who used to vociferously oppose gun control but now appear more open to it.
But among the Democratic voters he's courting in his run for president, many of Sanders' past positions seem to be out of the mainstream. In a national poll conducted by Quinnipiac University last July, 80 percent of Democratic voters surveyed said they supported "stricter gun control laws," while only 17 percent opposed them. Ninety-eight percent of Democrats favored the background checks he once opposed.
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Johanna Anderson spent more than four hours Thursday morning chained to a pipe at the Essex construction site where Vermont Gas is working on a natural gas pipeline that is planned to run from Colchester to Middlebury.
Anderson, 28, of Plainfield, gave up her protest as Vermont Gas crews started to cut into the pipe about 11 a.m. She unhooked her hands from it, stood up and traded the pipe for police handcuffs.
Will her arrest boost opponents' case for stopping the pipeline? That's what they hope.
The protest included about a dozen other activists of the climate-change group Rising Tide Vermont who gathered in support of Anderson. It came four days before the state Public Service Board convenes hearings on the project.
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While the next election is more than 16 months away, early jockeying began in earnest last week when Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin announced he won't seek a fourth term. That's prompted many to speculate that Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott is even more likely to leave his post to seek the state's top office.
Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell (D-Windsor), a close ally of Scott's, says such a vacancy may well lure him into his first statewide race.
"Depending on what [Scott] does, the lieutenant governor's office is one I certainly would be interested in," says the Quechee lawyer and Windsor County deputy state's attorney.
Tags: Vermont lieutenant governor , Phil Scott , John Campbell , Phil Baruth , Dick McCormack , Joe Benning , Sue Minter , Brandon Riker , Image , Web Only
Two brothers were found dead of suspected drug overdoses inside a Ward Street house in Burlington's Old North End this morning, and city police said reports of drug overdoses are sharply up this year.
Police and firefighters arrived at 54 Ward Street at approximately 8:55 a.m. in response to a call from family members. Dennis Thibault, 34, of Westford and Sean Thibault, 32, of Burlington were declared dead at the scene. Autopsies will be done, but preliminary indications suggest they overdosed.
In a press release, police noted "an alarming increase in the number of reported overdoses year to date." As of June 12, 30 overdoses have been reported to Burlington police. In all of 2014, 37 overdose were reported, and in 2013, 34 overdoses were reported.
Chief Mike Schirling, who pointed out that some overdoses go unreported, suggested the increased prevalence of fentanyl in heroin packages has contributed to the increase. He said toxicology reports will determine whether fentanyl was a factor in the Thibaults' deaths.
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Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Two polls out of New Hampshire this week have prompted the pundit class to acknowledge the excitement surrounding Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) quest for the Democratic nomination.
On Sunday, Morning Consult released the results of a phone and web survey showing Sanders trailing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by just 12 percentage points — 44 percent to 32 percent. On Tuesday, a more reliable landline and cellphone poll of Granite State voters conducted by Suffolk University showed a marginally tighter spread of 41 percent for Clinton to 31 percent for Sanders.
That's a dramatic shift from the last round of New Hampshire polls conducted a month ago, which mostly showed Sanders in the low- to mid-double digits.
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According to TVNewser, Jones will serve as "deputy communications manager" for the campaign. She'll presumably work under Sanders' longtime flack, Michael Briggs, who has been splitting his time between the candidate's Senate and campaign offices.
Jones has worked for MSNBC since 2011, most recently as a producer for "The Ed Show," which is hosted by one of Sanders' biggest media cheerleaders: Ed Schultz. Based on her social media posts, it appears Jones accompanied Schultz to Burlington for Sanders' campaign kickoff last month.
The Sanders campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
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More than 100 people packed a presentation at Arts Riot about the draft PlanBTV South End, and many panned it. The zoning changes envisioned in the plan could lead to gentrification and displace artists and makers who have turned the neighborhood into Burlington's own version of SoHo, many speakers proclaimed.
The city should instead beef up its affordable housing regulations so new units built in other parts of Burlington are not overpriced. "We don't need any more luxury condos," Radcliffe said.
Maggie Standley agreed. The current zoning is fine, the artist said. "We're a maker community. Allowing housing into the
Burlington planning and zoning director David White responded patiently to the many criticisms. He said infill housing could be carefully done in the neighborhood to meet a range of needs, including "the missing middle" — people who earn too much to qualify for subsidized housing but can't afford market rate apartments or homes. He emphasized that the plan is still a draft, with more public input to be gathered before it goes to the city council for final approval or rejection.
White also stressed that gentrification is happening without any zoning changes in the area, and disagreed that allowing housing would be the death of the arts district. "I don't think we agree that it spells doom,'' White said.
One speaker asked people to raise their hands if they supported zoning for new housing. A few hands went up, while arms filled the air when people were asked if they wanted to maintain current rules that prohibit new housing in the Enterprise Zone.
But some said the turnout was not reflective of Burlington's full population, and that the show of hands was not a good measure of the proposal's merit.
"I don't think this room is representative," said Dawn Moscowitz, a community organizer. The need for housing is acute and families are increasingly priced out of the South End, she said. It's important that the process give voice to people who "are living on the margins and don't have the opportunity to come to forums like this" Moscowitz said.
The draft planBTV South End assumes the road, which has the support of Mayor Miro Weinberger, will be built. Several speakers said the proposal is outdated and will only increase congestion in the neighborhood. Don't build it, said Amy Rubin. "This is '60s thinking. This is 20th century thinking. We have to stop accommodating cars."
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