Thursday, October 31, 2019
On a largely party-line vote of 232 to 196, the House approved a package of rules governing how the impeachment inquiry would be conducted. The rules direct the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to conduct public hearings and then report to the House Judiciary Committee, which would draft any articles of impeachment.
Thursday's vote formalizes a process that has been ongoing for weeks in the basement offices of the intelligence committee, on which Welch serves. Even as the full House debated the measure, the committee was taking testimony behind closed doors from Timothy Morrison, who resigned his position hours earlier as the top Russia expert at the National Security Council.
Welch, who long resisted endorsing impeachment, changed his tune in July — citing Trump's refusal to cooperate with Congress and his racist attacks on lawmakers of color. He has since criticized the president for calling on the Ukrainian government to investigate former vice president Joe Biden.
"The House of Representatives will soon answer the fundamental question of whether it is appropriate for a president of the United States to solicit assistance for his political campaign from a foreign power while withholding from that country congressionally-approved military assistance," Welch said in a written statement Thursday. "With today’s historic vote, we now have a clear road map on how our committee will present evidence to the House and the American people, and how the House will answer this question."
Disclosure: Paul Heintz worked as Peter Welch's communications director from November 2008 to March 2011.
Tags: Peter Welch , Donald Trump , impeachment , vote , rules , Web Only , Image
As Seven Days reported Wednesday, the department has in recent months been selling hundreds of seized and abandoned firearms to make room in police evidence rooms. Among the remaining weapons are two World War II-era 8mm Mauser K98 bolt-action rifles featuring the Nazi Reichsadler emblem — an eagle clutching a swastika. One of the two guns was up for bid when Seven Days' story went to press.
Though an April 2018 law mandated the sale of all the seized and abandoned firearms, the governor found that he had the discretion to choose when to sell them, according to Scott spokesperson Rebecca Kelley. "With that determination, the governor directed BGS to hold both weapons as we determine next steps," she said. "As any additional sales go forward, those two will not be included."
Tags: Phil Scott , guns , firearms , Nazi , Mauser , Reichsadler , Vermont , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Flanders, a 2015 graduate of Saint Michael’s College, spent four years covering Chittenden County for the Essex Reporter, Colchester Sun and Milton Independent. Last year, he helped uncover an embezzlement scheme at a Milton youth football program, resulting in the arrest of the nonprofit’s president. The series earned him and cowriter Courtney Lamdin — also now a Seven Days staff writer — a first-place award in investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper & Press Association.
According to Seven Days news editor Matthew Roy, Flanders is “a talented, ambitious journalist who has been punching above his weight” at the Chittenden County weeklies.
Tags: Colin Flanders , hires , Seven Days , Montpelier , Statehouse , Web Only , Image
Social Sentinel, which alerts school districts to potentially threatening public social media posts, laid off 19 people, shrinking from 45 employees to 26. The company said 12 people lost jobs based in Burlington, while seven remote workers were let go. The cuts affect 42 percent of its workforce.
The company had been growing fast in the wake of the epidemic of school shootings around the country. But now it says it needs to shift to other markets, and the layoffs are necessary while that transition takes place. It characterized the cutbacks as temporary.
Tags: threat , Social Sentinel , layoff , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Presenting at a Burlington City Council meeting, executives from Brookfield Asset Management pledged to start construction next year.
Gone are the soaring 14-story structures originally proposed. In their place are two towers. One, on the Cherry Street side of the property, would rise 10 stories and hold 280 to 300 apartments — the same as the original proposal. Twenty percent would be "affordable," as required by Burlington's inclusionary zoning ordinance.
A 175-room hotel of similar height would occupy the Bank Street side of the downtown parcel. Retail space would fill the first floor of each building, and levels of parking would fit between — and below — the structures.
Tags: CityPlace Burlington , Brookfield Asset Management , Burlington , Burlington City Council , Web Only , Image
Monday, October 28, 2019
John Klar, 56, outlined at a press event in Montpelier and in an interview with Seven Days a brand of fiscal conservatism that he says is exactly what the state needs to stave off financial ruin.
High taxes are driving businesses and people from the state at the same time pension debt is soaring, meaning that if the economy sputters, the state could find itself in real trouble, he asserted.
“If that happens, we’re looking at bankruptcy,” Klar said. “If we don’t fix this, the state is going to have its credit rating downgraded again.”
But it was his views on social issues, not fiscal ones, that earned the former pastor swift condemnation from the political establishment.
Thursday, October 24, 2019
"Cut consumption, not foreskin!" is painted in big letters across the front of the house. Fat pink polka dots against a purple background float from foundation to roofline.
The colors, and the exhortation, have faded since they went up a dozen years ago and turned the house on the busy corridor into a local conversation piece. Home owner and polka dot maestro Jerri Kohl couldn't bring himself to paint over the unique façade before he put the house up for sale earlier this week.
"I don’t really want to see it go," he said about the façade — but not the house, which is priced at $325,000.
Tags: Burlington , circumcision house , 276 Colchester Avenue , Kampus Kitchen , Jerri Kohl , for sale , foreskin , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
“They were basically in a scream therapy session, denouncing what they regarded as treachery … It was total boilerplate talking points from Russia,” Welch said. He paused to correct what may have been a Freudian slip. “From Trump.”
The Republicans had amassed outside the rooms in which members of three House committees have been taking testimony in recent weeks from witnesses in the impeachment probe. They were demanding to be let in, though only committee members are permitted to enter the so-called Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
“I say 'scream therapy' and I’m actually not kidding,” Welch said of the impromptu press conference outside the committee rooms. “There were not analytical categories you could land on. No factual basis. Just a lot of rage.”
Tags: Peter Welch , Donald Trump , impeachment , Web Only , Image
Owned by Atlanta-based Cox Automotive, the company declined to give a specific number of jobs eliminated, describing the cuts as fewer than 15. About 1,100 employees work at the Pine Street campus, the spokesperson said.
In an emailed statement, Dealer.com vice president and general manager Wayne Pastore said the company is "100 percent committed" to Burlington.
"We are continuing to evolve our businesses at Dealer.com and Cox Automotive as the automotive industry continues to shift and change," Pastore said. "While we are making small reductions in some areas of our business, we are hiring aggressively in many others at Dealer.com and Cox Automotive to deliver on the most relevant products and services for our clients and the industry."
Tags: Burlington , Dealer.com , layoffs , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
She plans to recommend one plan to the city council for consideration at its November 4 meeting. “We're weighing those options now," Baker said. Until then, the plans are not public, she said.
The city issued a request for proposals for the parcel, known as Lot 7D, on July 22, after negotiations with developer Adam Dubroff to build a hotel or multi-family housing unit on the property fell apart. He is instead refocusing his efforts to build a 90-room Tru by Hilton hotel about a block away, near the Champlain Mill.
Winooski has been working to bring a hotel to the downtown for at least five years.
Tags: Winooski , Champlain Mill , Adam Dubroff , Web Only , Image