Monday, December 18, 2017
Updated at 2:26 p.m.
Twenty-nine terminally ill Vermonters have ended their own lives with help from a doctor in the more than four years since the state legalized the practice, according to a new report from the state Department of Health.
The report covers all cases between May 31, 2013 and June 30, 2017, and includes information about the terminal diagnoses patients had in order to qualify for a life-ending prescription.
According to the department, there were 52 cases in which patients met the requirements for physician-assisted suicide during that period. In 43 of those cases, cancer was the terminal diagnosis. Another seven were related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, and two cases involved another diagnosis.
Tags: Peter Shumlin , end of life , Maggie Lake , Annette Vachon , Department of Health , Image , Web Only
Friday, December 15, 2017
Franklin County Republicans sent three nominees to Gov. Phil Scott Friday night to fill the vacant state Senate seat left by Dustin Degree when he took a job as special assistant to the governor and executive director of workforce expansion.
The Franklin Senatorial District Committee, which is made up of local Republican Party officials, chose Randy Brock of Swanton, Daniel Pipes of Fairfield and Steve Trahan of St. Albans Town in a meeting Friday evening, according to Rep. Brian Savage (R-Swanton).
If Scott taps him to serve out Degree's term, Brock would replace his replacement: He served two terms in the Senate, from 2009 to 2013, and unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Democrat Peter Shumlin for governor in 2012. After sitting out the 2014 election, Brock lost the race for lieutenant governor to Progressive/Democrat David Zuckerman in 2016. Prior to joining the Senate, Brock served as state auditor from 2005 to 2007.
Trahan, the former chair of the Franklin County Republican Party, ran for state representative in 2012.
Governors typically fill vacant Senate seats with those nominated by senatorial district committees, but they are free to select from outside that pool. Scott's pick will serve alongside Sen. Carolyn Branagan (R-Franklin) in the two-member district through the 2018 election.
Tags: Dustin Degree , Phil Scott , Randy Brock , Steve Trahan , Daniel Pipes , Image , Web Only
Councilors were scheduled to approve a $30.8 million purchase and sale agreement with Schurz Communications and ZRF Partners this Monday. Instead, councilors will meet in executive session at the December 18 meeting so they can clarify details of the deal, according to council president Jane Knodell (P-Central District).
Afterwards, the council will release the purchase and sale agreement, which it now expects to vote on at a December 27 meeting. Knodell would not say what questions remain about the bid, though she did say they'd be made public once the proposal is released.
Tags: Miro Weinberger , Todd Schurz , Jane Knodell , Burlington Telecom , Image , Web Only
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Speaking at a press conference in the Statehouse's Cedar Creek Room, House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) acknowledged a changed atmosphere around sexual misconduct in recent months. Allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein have opened the floodgates to revelations of inappropriate behavior by men in almost every walk of life.
"In light of all the allegations across the country, we’re really diving in and looking at how we can take our current policies and make them the gold standard," Johnson said.
Those policies appear to fall well short of the "gold standard." Think something more like tin, or possibly pig iron.
Tags: Mitzi Johnson , Tim Ashe , Becca Balint , Mollie Burke , Neal Goswami , Peter Hirschfeld , Norm McAllister , Harvey Weinstein , sexual harassment , Image , Web Only
As Seven Days reported Tuesday, the Vermont Democratic Party has repeatedly tweeted insults and unsubstantiated accusations using the “VT House Dems” Twitter handle. One message described former Vermont Republican Party chair David Sunderland as "racist" and a "serial liar," without evidence or explanation.
Johnson did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. But after an unrelated press conference Thursday, she told reporters, “I don’t approve of the language that was used. I don’t approve of that kind of tone. It’s not how I choose to operate, and I called the party and let them know.”
She said she spoke with the party’s executive director, Conor Casey, informing him, “I don’t want to be in any way connected with that kind of name-calling.”
Tags: Mitzi Johnson , Vermont Democratic Party , Twitter , Image , Web Only
Vermont Superior Court Judge Robert Mello cleared the way for a lawsuit on the question to go to trial, and he denied the school district's motion to dismiss the case. Members of a group called the Rebel Alliance raised funds for the lawsuit.
The 19-page ruling, issued Tuesday, generally supported the residents' argument that the school board violated the Vermont constitution by refusing to put the name question on the ballot after at least 5 percent of city voters signed a petition calling for a public vote.
The ruling suggested that the school board could be ordered to put the question on the ballot.
Tags: South Burlington , Rebels , Image , Web Only
The inscription read, "Suzanne Arlene Bombardier: Born on March 14, 1966. Died on June 22, 1980."
Something about it struck Gibbons. She searched for Bombardier on the internet and learned the teen had been sexually assaulted and murdered; her case was unsolved. Gibbons wrote about it in her journal and then dedicated a blog to the case. Her story set off an improbable chain of events that culminated on Monday when police in Antioch, Calif., arrested registered sex offender Mitchell Lynn Bacom, 63, and charged him with killing Bombardier.
Tags: Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons , Vermont College of Fine Arts , cold case , Montpelier , Suzanne Arlene Bombardier , Image , Web Only
The three-semester program, which will cater to both law students looking for dual degrees and standalone students, is expected to have about 15 pupils when it launches in the fall of 2018, and could grow to around 30, said the center's director, Robert Sand.
"People will learn about a new way to think about harm and conflict," said Sand, a former Windsor County state's attorney. "Instead of thinking about crime as a violation against the state or larger entity, our students will come to understand the relationship nature of crime and ask, who has been affected? How can they have a meaningful voice in shaping the outcome? What obligations does the individual owe who has created the harm, and how can we build a response that ... leads to healing instead of punishment?"
The master's program will include classes at the VLS campus and significant online learning opportunities, Sand said. Course offerings will cover mass incarceration and examining race in the criminal justice system.
VLS, which is best known for its environmental law program, is the first law school in the country to offer such a program, Sand said.
The center will include an expungement clinic where students will work with practicing attorneys to help people exercise their legal right to have their records wiped clean. Sand said he hopes to launch that initiative in coordination with the Chittenden County State's Attorney's Office.
Eventually, Sand said, the center could grow into a think tank, churning out position papers and hosting guest lecturers devoted to upending traditional criminal justice approaches.
As a prosecutor, Sand was an early advocate of marijuana decriminalization. He often testifies in the Statehouse on behalf of reform initiatives.
The move comes at a time when VLS, like many law schools, is struggling with budgetary problems tied to declining enrollment.
Tags: Vermont Law School , Center for Justice Reform , Robert Sand , crime , courts , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Judge Samuel Hoar Jr. sided with three anonymous sex offenders who sued the city after they were forced to move, or pay massive fines, for living within areas protected by the 2008 ordinance.
The judge ruled that the city did not have legal authority to create the ordinance, and called the policy needlessly punitive.
"What the city has done here is effectively to declare an entire class of persons to be a public nuisance, by simple virtue of their physical existence," Hoar wrote in a 13-page decision issued December 8. "Plaintiffs have been convicted and punished; the city cannot now say to them, anymore than they could to any other citizen, 'We don’t want your type in our town.' The boldness and breadth of this assertion is virtually without precedent."
Tags: Rutland , Barre , sex offenders , Samuel Hoar , Matt Valerio , Dave Allaire , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
The policy is meant to prevent cops from discriminating while interacting with the public, but civil liberties and immigration advocates say the new rules actually remove protections from a 2016 version.
Tags: immigration , Christopher Brickell , Jay Diaz , Will Lambek , Miguel Alcudia , Jennifer Morrison , Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council , Fair and Impartial Policing policy , Image , Web Only