Tuesday, August 9, 2016
The polls are open, if not exactly teeming with people. A trickle may be too generous a term to describe the traffic at the Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes in Burlington’s Old North End Tuesday morning. The ratio of election workers to voters stayed at around 8-to-1.
Only a few people stood outside the school, where candidates or proxies often canvass at the last minute for votes. One man handed out fliers questioning the Burlington Town Center redevelopment; another collected signatures to re-reroute the Burlington Bike Path.
“It’s a primary,” said election clerk Charles Giannoni with a shrug.
As of 10 a.m., 153 ballots had been cast in Ward 3; another 200 absentee ballots had been cast previously. Giannoni pointed out a silver lining to the sparse crowd: It makes it easier for the four new election workers to learn the ropes.
Voting was similarly slow across the river in Winooski.
“It’s going to be neck and neck,” Zuckerman told voter Diane Derrick as Derrick headed into the town hall.
“Really?” Derrick said.
Gauging the three-candidate race for lieutenant governor is tough, Zuckerman acknowledged. A farmer and state senator, he is competing with House Speaker Shap Smith of Morristown and state Rep. Kesha Ram of Burlington.
“The reality is, nobody knows,” Zuckerman said.
Voters have until 7 p.m. to cast ballots for statewide officials, senators, and representatives. If you’re looking for your polling place, check out the Secretary of State’s poll finder.
Seven Days reporters will be out in the field compiling results and capturing the flavor of candidates’ post-election parties from Barre to Burlington.
Check out photos from primary day
Tags: Vermont Primary , Burlington , Phil Scott , Bruce Lisman , Matt Dunne , Sue Minter , election 2016 , primary 2016 , Image , Slideshow , Web Only
“A lot of well-informed voters are undecided,” former senator Peter Galbraith observed Monday after canvassing senior centers in Burlington.
Across town, rival Sue Minter said she’d detected a “shift” in the race to replace retiring Gov. Peter Shumlin as the party’s standard-bearer.
“I think people are finally actually paying attention,” the former transportation secretary said after hosting a rally near the Burlington waterfront. “It’s been great to have a field operation where we’ve made tons of touches, so by the time I’m talking to people, they’ve heard of me.”
The third major candidate in the race, former Google manager Matt Dunne, spent Monday hunkered down in his White River Junction office making phone calls, according to spokeswoman Jessica Bassett. She said he was not available for an interview.
As the candidates reached out to voters one by one, their campaigns and supporters bombarded the state with television advertising and mailings.
Tags: Matt Dunne , Sue Minter , Peter Galbraith , Vermont gubernatorial campaign , Democratic primary , election 2016 , primary 2016 , Image , Web Only
Monday, August 8, 2016
“We’re doing everything we can possibly think of to get people to understand how important this is,” Scott said Monday morning as he waved to passersby on Shelburne Road in South Burlington. “What we’re finding is that a lot of people think we have this sewn up, so their natural instinct is to think this doesn’t matter.”
“I think it’s going to be a close race,” said Lisman, flanked by 41 supporters outside his Williston campaign office during a Monday morning press conference.
Scott, 58, went into the campaign as the clear favorite. He’s the co-owner of an excavation company, has been lieutenant governor for six years, was a state senator for 10 years before that, and is a popular race-car driver. But Lisman, a 69-year-old retired Wall Street executive who has never held public office, has spent at least $1.6 million of his own money airing continuous television ads portraying Scott as a go-along insider.
Observers say the ad assault is having an impact and the race could end up being closer than many thought when Lisman entered the campaign with little name recognition.
“I think it’s narrowed,” said former Republican governor Jim Douglas, a Scott supporter.
Tags: Bruce Lisman , Phil Scott , Vermont Republican Party , gubernatorial campaign , election 2016 , primary 2016 , Image , Web Only
The Burlington resident last week plopped down nearly $600,000 on a lakefront camp in North Hero.
Sanders’ new crib has four bedrooms and 500 feet of Lake Champlain beachfront on the east side of the island — facing Vermont, not New York. The Bern will keep his home in Burlington and use the new camp seasonally.
“We’ve traveled up to the islands many times over the years — almost always on day trips,” Sanders’ wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, told Seven Days in a written statement. “We’ve been impressed with the North Hero community, eaten at the North Hero House and Shore Acres and have suggested them to friends who were looking for a beautiful place to stay or have dinner. St. Anne’s Shrine in Isle La Motte is my favorite church and it is nearby.”
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , presidential campaign , North Hero , Burlington , Jane O'Meara Sanders , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
The embattled editor in chief of the Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus assured employees Monday morning that his family's news organization would survive.
"There is a future for these newspapers," Rob Mitchell told staffers at a companywide meeting in the Herald newsroom, according to prepared remarks he provided to Seven Days and other media outlets.
Mitchell addressed his employees three days after his father, company president R. John Mitchell, fired Herald news editor Alan Keays for covering the organization’s ongoing financial troubles. As the Herald itself reported last week, freelancers have gone weeks without pay — and staffers have seen their paychecks bounce.
The younger Mitchell acknowledged the turmoil Monday, calling it "embarrassing, humiliating and difficult.” While he said that all employees had since been paid and their expenses reimbursed, he did not indicate whether freelancers had been made whole.
Tags: Rutland Herald , Times Argus , Rob Mitchell , John Mitchell , Alan Keays , Image , Web Only
City Attorney Eileen Blackwood said the city is still deciding whether to appeal.
Burlington filed suit last January amid a years-long struggle with Kwon. According to the code enforcement office, he has refused to address roughly 100 violations of the city’s housing code at his four apartment buildings, despite multiple fines, violation notices and follow-up visits.
Kwon has contended that the only violations he hasn't addressed have been trivial, and he's suggested that the city’s code enforcement director, Bill Ward, has a personal grudge against him. Ward denies that.
Tags: Soon Kwon , Chittenden County Superior Court , code enforcement , Bill Ward , Image , Web Only
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Sunderland explained the rare, intraparty intervention on Saturday morning. “You simply cannot accuse an opposing campaign of illegal activity without a drop of evidence,” he said. “We’re not picking sides here, but if there’s no evidence of the accusation, we can’t tolerate that.”
At issue are recent phone calls to Lisman supporters, who were allegedly reminded to vote on August 23 — two weeks after next Tuesday’s actual primary election date.
Tags: Phil Scott , Bruce Lisman , Vermont Republican Party , election 2016 , primary 2016 , Image , Web Only
There was one notable omission: As of Saturday morning, Sanders had not weighed in on Vermont's race for governor.
That hasn't kept one Democratic gubernatorial candidate, former state senator Matt Dunne, from tying himself at the hip to Sanders. Dunne has repeatedly invoked the progressive icon's name in television advertisements and, late this week, he sent a mailer throughout the state mimicking Sanders' campaign logo.
"If you still feel the Bern," it says on one side of the piece, "You can still get it Dunne."
On the other side, it reads, "For Bernie Sanders' supporters, Matt Dunne is the clear choice for governor."
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Matt Dunne , Jeff Weaver , election 2016 , primary 2016 , Image , Web Only
"I've never voted for a Democrat in my life," he said Friday.
But the Swanton construction executive donated $5,000 this week to an independent-expenditure political action committee supporting Democrat Sue Minter's campaign for governor. The so-called super PAC, named Vermonters for Strong Leadership, bought $120,000 worth of television ads Thursday calling her "the progressive" in the race.
So why did Belisle give?
"I think Sue Minter is probably a very good fit for Vermont, but I kind of leave it up to my team," he said.
Belisle was referring to the stable of lawyers and consultants he employs to assist in his controversial bid to build a 20-megawatt wind farm near the Swanton-St. Albans town line.
"What they did is they said, 'Hey, for the primary, each candidate needs to raise substantial funds, blah, blah, blah. Is that something you'd support — a candidate to get a governor you'd like to see running the state of Vermont?'" he recalled. "My wife and I sat down and said, 'Yeah.'"
Tags: Sue Minter , Matt Dunne , Peter Galbraith , Travis Belisle , David Blittersdorf , Anthony Iarrapino , wind , Swanton , Lowell , election 2016 , primary 2016 , Image , Web Only
Friday, August 5, 2016
After green-lighting a story in Friday’s paper about financial troubles at the Rutland Herald, news editor Alan Keays was fired later that day by owner R. John Mitchell.
“He just walked out,” Duffort told Seven Days in a call from the Herald newsroom. “People asked if [they] had fired him, and he nodded his head and walked out.”
Seven Days heard from seven people with direct knowledge of the situation late Friday, all of whom corroborated elements of the story. Neither Mitchell nor Nelson immediately responded to a request for comment.
Tags: Rutland Herald , Barre-Montpelier Times Argus , Alan Keays , Image , Web Only