Tuesday, December 15, 2015
The Vermont legislature will return to Montpelier next month, but its most famous facial hair will not. Seven Days can confirm: House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) has shaved his goatee.
"I just decided, I'm turning 50 on Wednesday and I said, 'You know what? I've had the goatee basically for 17 years,'" Smith said. "I just decided I was going to go with a little something new."
According to Wikipedia, the goatee dates back to Ancient Greece, and according to pogonologist Allan Peterkin, it's been out of style since the mid-1990s.
Without it, Smith claimed, "I look 10 years younger." He quickly backpedaled: "Maybe four."
(Factcheck: The speaker now looks about 14 years old.)
Tags: Shap Smith , goatee , Image , Web Only
Shumlin said he met with legislators Monday, and they agreed to pass legislation promptly that would either put a one-year moratorium on the caps or repeal them. “We should do one of the two and have a bill on my desk before the hard-working school boards send their budgets to the printer,” Shumlin said.
That’s a tight time frame, as the legislature convenes January 5, and school boards typically set budgets by late January for Town Meeting Day votes in March.
The cap, or spending threshold, was a late-in-the-session compromise last spring. It was an attempt to provide immediate property tax relief in a bill that also calls for longer-term school district consolidation.
Tags: Gov. Peter Shumlin , education spending , Act 46 , Shap Smith , Don Turner , Image , Web Only
"It’s no shock to me that big networks, which are controlled by a handful of large corporations, have barely discussed our campaign and the important issues we are bringing up," Sanders said Saturday in an email to supporters. "They’re just too busy covering [Republican presidential candidate] Donald Trump."
But even as Sanders rails against what his campaign refers to as a "Bernie blackout" in the national press, several reporters in his home state of Vermont complain they've had little to no access to the candidate since he launched his campaign last April.
"It's a little disappointing for a person who has been so accessible in the past to be frozen out like this," says Vermont Public Radio news director John Dillon. "You understand it from a pragmatic point of view. He's more concerned with Iowa than he is with Irasburg. But he's still our senator."
According to Dillon, Sanders agreed to two interviews with VPR last summer in Washington, D.C., as the station prepared an hourlong documentary on the candidate. But the senator has declined to appear on VPR's daily public affairs show, Vermont Edition, since March — even though its producers have promised to "clear the schedule" if he made himself available, Dillon says. The station also routinely asks to speak with Sanders about his votes in the U.S. Senate.
"He never calls back," Dillon says. "Whereas, before he was a candidate, he would always want to get in those stories. Sometimes he would call us before we would even call him — and that's not the case now."
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Vermont media , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
Monday, December 14, 2015
"No, I'm not resigning," he said Monday evening.
McAllister, who was charged with sexual assault last May, said he plans to show up at the Statehouse when the legislature reconvenes January 5 and take his seat on the Senate floor.
"I'm just going to do the job that I've done for the last 13 years. That's my intention," McAllister said. "I just go and do, you know, try to do the job I have been doing."
Whether McAllister will be permitted to do that job remains to be seen. As Seven Days reported Saturday, the Senate Rules Committee plans to meet Wednesday to take up a resolution penned by Senate Majority Leader Phil Baruth (D-Chittenden) to suspend McAllister with pay pending the resolution of a criminal trial scheduled for February. Such a resolution would require a majority vote of the full Senate.
McAllister said he doesn't plan to attend Wednesday's meeting because he has not been invited and isn't a member of the Rules Committee. He acknowledged that his return to the Senate in January would be "uncomfortable" and that he faces a "tough year." But he argued that he has an obligation to continue representing his constituents in the legislature's upper chamber.
"I don't know how many times I've had people come up to me in the last few months and tell me ... 'Hang in there. This isn't right what they're doin' to ya,'" McAllister said. "You know, they've looked at the charges and the things and they're sittin' there: 'No, no, we've known who you are and your history and this doesn't match up and hang in there. Don't let 'em beatcha down.' The majority of the people that I know have said that."
Tags: Norm McAllister , Image , Web Only
Gov. Peter Shumlin and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt) were among the officials who marked the re-opening Monday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The first employees—from the Department of Corrections—will report to work at the new structure next Monday.
“This is a symbol of Vermont’s incredible perseverance and our promise to rebuild our state stronger and better than Irene found it,” said Gov. Shumlin. "To complete a project of this size and scope on time and on budget is a great achievement. To be the Governor to welcome back to Waterbury our hardworking state employees is truly an honor.”
Problem is, according to state Auditor Doug Hoffer, such a ruling may never have been issued. DCF has no documentation of it and the feds say their policy is quite the opposite.
The so-called "phantom ruling" is but one example of sole-source contracting gone wild in state government, according to a new report issued Monday by Hoffer's office (PDF). Though state guidelines restrict such no-bid contracts to "extraordinary circumstances," the auditor found that 41 percent of the contracts signed by five agencies and departments last fiscal year were awarded without competition.
"The high frequency of sole-source contracts ... in this analysis raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the state’s contract management," Hoffer's office wrote in the report.
Tags: Doug Hoffer , sole-source contracts , no-bid contracts , Justin Johnson , Image , Web Only
White, chair of the Senate Government Operations Committee, unveiled her bill Saturday at a meeting of Senate Democrats. Senate committees are expected to work on the legislation next month, though political leaders have made clear there’s no guarantee legalization will pass in 2016.
White’s committee has been meeting throughout the summer and fall to discuss how to go about legalizing marijuana in Vermont. What White came up with is a 41-page bill she is sponsoring herself, as committee members lacked consensus on the issue.
Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell (D-Windsor), who opposes legalization, said he won’t stop work on the bill, but he’s prepared to limit the amount of time the Senate spends on the issue.
Tags: Cannabeat , Gov. Peter Shumlin , Jeanette White , John Campbell , marijuana legalization , Vermont Senate , Image , Web Only
Saturday, December 12, 2015
At a meeting Saturday, Senate Democrats debated the issue without coming to a consensus, though it appeared Baruth’s plan might be the most likely compromise.
Baruth said he plans to ask the five-member Senate Rules Committee to send to the Senate floor on January 5 a resolution suspending Sen. Norm McAllister (R-Franklin) while criminal charges are pending against McAllister. If the committee agrees, the resolution will be the chamber’s first order of business and would require a majority vote by the Senate to pass.
“I know we’re never going to be unanimous on this,” Baruth said as he started the discussion. But Baruth said he hopes that by the first day of the 2016 legislative session in January, the Senate can come together and speak with one voice.
Tags: Norm McAllister , Vermont Senate , Phil Baruth , Image , Web Only
Friday, December 11, 2015
A gun used in the Paris terrorist attacks that killed 130 people has been reported linked to a company that operates in Vermont.
The Associated Press reported Friday that an M92 semiautomatic pistol fired in the attacks had been exported from Serbia to Century International Arms, based in Delray Beach, Fla. That company has long maintained a large facility in Georgia, Vt. The AP did not report that the weapon specifically came from Vermont, and said how it got back to Europe was not known.
Vermont Public Radio reported that Brady Toensing, a lawyer in Vermont speaking for Century International Arms, said in an emailed statement Friday that the company is cooperating with authorities.
“We have received an unconfirmed report that a pistol that was legally imported into the United States and legally sold to a licensed, domestic firearms dealer more than two years ago may have been recovered from the scene of the Paris shootings,” Toensing said, according to VPR. “We are unable to confirm that report, but are assisting authorities with their investigation into this matter.”
As Seven Days has previously reported, Century International Arms has maintained a low-profile presence in Vermont for decades. The company sells a number of assault rifles that news investigations over the years have linked to Mexican drug lords, the Nicaraguan Contras and other controversial organizations.
In 2013, Seven Days reported:
But Century’s global reach extends well beyond Vermont. Its online catalogue features a dizzying array of pistols, rifles and shooting accessories, offered for sale to law enforcement and the public. They include the M16, M60, RPK and numerous variants of the iconic Russian Kalashnikov. Century’s C93 semiautomatic rifle — featured on Ted Nugent’s July 2011 “Spirit of the Wild” TV show on the Outdoor Channel — comes equipped with two 40-round magazines and a bayonet “while supplies last,” the catalog reads.
Tags: Paris , assault weapons , Century International Arms , Web Only
Thursday, December 10, 2015
"David was not one of those fearful politicians," the Vermont Freedom to Marry board chair told an audience of 150 packed into the Burlington venue. "From the get-go, David was outspoken in his support of full marriage equality — not just a half-measure."
So against her organization's advice, he and fewer than two dozen others stood up on the floor of the House — where he then represented Burlington's Old North End — and voted to fully legalize gay marriage, not just civil unions.
"David was going to stand there and vote for marriage equality, whether we told him not to or not," Corbin said.
Fifteen years later, as Zuckerman formally kicked off his campaign for lieutenant governor, he and his supporters appeared intent on reminding voters that he is no Johnny-come-lately to progressive causes. As the Hinesburg farmer prepares to face off against two twenty-somethings and possibly a thirty-something in the Democratic primary, they argued that he's the one with the experience to get the job done.
Tags: cannabis related , David Zuckerman , lieutenant governor , Phil Baruth , Image , Web Only