Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Hollar, first elected in 2012, retained his seat by a 1,525-782 vote.
The race for the part-time, $3,000-a-year position became unusually heated in the capital city, thanks to a long-running dispute between the incumbent and the challenger. Hallsmith was ousted from City Hall last November and claimed that Hollar pressured City Manager Bill Fraser to fire her in order to squelch her advocacy for public banking. Hollar works as a Statehouse lobbyist for Downs Rachlin Martin and represents Bank of America and Wells Fargo, among other clients.
Tags: Montpelier , John Hollar , Gwendolyn Hallsmith , Image , Web Only
On Town Meeting Day, the two wards in Burlington's New North End — 4 and 7 — played host to the most action-packed races for city council seats.
Both Republican candidates — Kurt Wright in Ward 4 and Tom Treat in Ward 7 — made the case that if they weren’t elected, the party would lose its presence on the council. In Wright’s case, that argument — or possibly his long experience in public life — proved compelling. Wright edged out Carol Ode, a Democrat who served on the school board in the past but was making her first run for city council.
Wright received 1,089 votes to Ode's 709. A third candidate, Loyal Ploof, received 26 votes.
For Treat, the message appears to have had less traction — Ward 7 voters opted for Democrat Bianka Legrand, who gained 768 votes to Treat's 682. Legrand, who came to Burlington at age 17 as a refugee from Bosnia Herzegovina, said she was running to promote a strong community in Ward 7. Neither Legrand nor Treat had run for a council seat before. Legrand said of the outcome, "I think it indicates resident of Ward 7 are more than ready for some change." Her first step, she said, will be to sit down with other councilors and get up to speed on the issues.
Democrats depicted the two New North End races as a possible bellwether event, suggesting that if Ode and Legrand triumphed, it would signal the neighborhood is drifting leftward.
Treat said he was grateful to his volunteers, and attributed the vote's outcome to insufficient turnout. "While many people did come out for me, enough of them seemed to stay home."
Tags: Kurt Wright , Carol Ode , Max Tracy , Bianka Legrand , Tom Treat , Rachel Siegel , New North End , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
A week out from Town Meeting Day, opponents of a hotly debated proposed building project in Middlebury are accusing the town of peddling false information to town voters. Pointing to a flyer sent out at the cost of nearly $3,000, the opponents believe the town is trying to convince voters to OK a $6.5 million bond to build a new town office and recreation center — but say the town isn’t being upfront with its residents.
“I am disappointed that my taxpayer dollars have been spent on what comes off as a flagrant attempt to mislead the voter,” said selectboard member Craig Bingham, addressing his fellow members of the seven-member board on Tuesday evening. “How can the voters trust the information that has been given to them when the town produces and mails a document to each voter that contains deceptive information and glaring falsehoods?”
But what opponents of the project call “glaring falsehoods,” other town officials describe as a good-faith effort to educate voters about the upcoming ballot item.
“Nowhere on [the flyer] does it say how to vote,” said Nancy Malcolm, who chairs the steering committee for the town office project. “It just is straight information.”
Tags: Middlebury , town government , Addison County , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Updated March 2 to correct an earlier error in the final paragraph.
When residents in Ward 7 head to the voting booths next Tuesday, they will choose between two political fledglings — Democrat Bianka Legrand and Republican Tom Treat — to fill their open city council seat.
Treat, 47, has lived in Ward 7 for 17 years, along with his wife and three children. An engineer at Koffee Cup Bakery, Treat said he’s followed national politics more closely than local politics, but he’s “kept on ear to the ground” on issues like school spending and the city’s pension system. Treat adds that his candidacy offers a chance for voters to keep at least some GOP representation on a council dominated by Democrats and Progressives.
The Democrats’ hopes rest with Legrand, who has lived off and on in Ward 7 since moving to Burlington in 1997. She and her family came to the city as refugees, fleeing the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Legrand didn’t speak English when she arrived in Vermont as a 17-year-old. Now 33, she’s fluent, and she holds a B.A. in psychology from the University of Vermont and a master's in organizational leadership from Norwich University.
Tags: New North End , Tom Treat , Bianka Legrand , Phil Baruth , Burlington City Council , Image , Web Only
Thursday, February 20, 2014
But in the past week, three GOP challengers have announced their intention to run for the Senate. And according to Vermont Republican Party political director Brent Burns, two more are soon to jump in. He says he hopes the early announcements will help the party reverse its dwindling political influence in the state.
"We're trying to make gains," he says. "Even a one-seat gain would be a different direction than we've been headed."
At a Montpelier fundraiser for the Senate Republicans' political action committee Wednesday night, two candidates announced their bids. Former party chairwoman, House member and longtime administration official Pat McDonald said she would seek one of three Washington County seats. And Williston attorney Joy Karnes Limoge said she would run for one of six Chittenden County seats.
Last Friday, former House member Dustin Degree said he would seek one of two Franklin County seats. And according to Burns, Bob Frenier of Chelsea plans to challenge Democratic Sen. Mark MacDonald for Orange County's sole Senate seat. Burns says the party has recruited a fifth, as-yet-unnamed candidate to run for one of three Rutland County seats.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Greco, who is not seeking re-election, accused three councilors of orchestrating “a mockery of democracy.” Chairwoman Pam Mackenzie and council members Pat Nowak and Chris Shaw constituted a “bloc of three” that ignored the views of many South Burlington residents and appointed political supporters to city positions, Greco charged.
“I am very concerned that this city will go back to the old way of doing business in which residents' wants were overshadowed by what big developers wanted to do in our city,” the former council chairwoman added in a prepared statement.
Greco's barbed farewell remarks demonstrated the passion and polarization that have come to characterize politics in South Burlington. The bitter battle over the F-35 was representative of a wider fissure in a changing community where aggressive liberals have challenged the suburban-style conservatism that has long prevailed.
Tags: Roseann Greco , South Burlington , F-35 , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
On two separate occasions in 2005 and 2006, a Chittenden County judge issued relief-from-abuse orders against Emerson, after Sarah Hart, the mother of his child, complained of allegedly violent behavior.
During an interview on Monday morning, Emerson acknowledged the orders but said he'd closed that chapter of his life. “I went through a very dark period in my life with alcoholism and depression. Now seven years later, looking back, I’m a lot different person. Sarah and I have a great relationship now, and I’m just moving on.”
Emerson, 27, emailed this statement to Seven Days on Tuesday: "This campaign has been about the issues facing Ward 2. Out of respect of the voters, and not wanting to distract from those important issues, I am formally dropping out of this race. I wish Max Tracy well in his second term of faithfully serving our ward."
The deadline for candidates to enter the race has passed, so Emerson’s decision clears the way for incumbent Max Tracy to secure a second term. He was the only Progressive candidate facing serious opposition. Emerson's announcement positions the party to up its representation on the 14-member council, from four seats to five.
Emerson announced his bid for the Ward 2 seat in early December, and public safety was a cornerstone of his campaign.
Tags: Ryan Emerson , Max Tracy , city council , Ward 2 , Image , Web Only
Friday, February 14, 2014
The Republican Governors Association took Gov. Peter Shumlin to task Friday for presiding over what it called a health insurance exchange "in shambles." But despite the provocative and hyperbolic rhetoric, a spokesman for the organization conceded that it's not currently planning to target Shumlin as he seeks reelection this November.
In a rare hit piece against the Green Mountain gov, RGA communications director Gail Gitcho emailed reporters excerpts from a controversial Newsweek story published last week accusing a state contractor of deception and state officials of incompetence.
Since December 2012, Shumlin has served as chairman of the RGA's counterpart, the Democratic Governors Association.
"[DGA] chair and Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin may want to stop spending so much time helping other Democrats get elected and start paying attention to the problems in his own state," Gitcho wrote. "As we continue to see in states across the country, Vermont is the latest to face an ObamaCare state exchange disaster. Despite being home to some of Obama's biggest supporters, as Newsweek's Lynnley Browning puts it, if ObamaCare 'can't' make it there, some argue, it can't make it anywhere.'"
Tags: Peter Shumlin , Chris Christie , Democratic Governors Association , Republican Governors Association , Image , Web Only
Thursday, January 24, 2013
After steering Democrats to victory last fall, two top campaign aides have found new jobs in state government.
Gov. Peter Shumlin's chief fundraiser, Erika Wolffing, was promoted last week to deputy commissioner of the Department of Labor.
Wolffing previously served as principal assistant to Labor Commissioner Annie Noonan until June 2012, when she left for Shumlin's reelection campaign. In her political role, she helped the governor raise $1.24 million to win a second term.
Wolffing earned $63,000 a year when she returned to the DOL two days after Election Day, according to Shumlin spokeswoman Sue Allen. Though Wolffing was promoted last week, her new salary is still being negotiated.
The deputy commissioner position has been vacant since Valeri Rickert left the Department of Labor in November 2011, Allen said. Rickert earned a salary of $83,000.
Vermont Democratic Party field director Ryan McLaren also recently returned to state government. McLaren worked as a temporary administrative assistant and then "private secretary" in the governor's office in 2011 before leaving to join the party in August 2011, Allen said. At the VDP, McLaren was tasked with identifying and turning out voters for Shumlin and the entire Democratic field.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Norwich University Regimental Band
This just in: the Norwich University Regimental Band will perform in the 57th presidential inauguration parade in Washingon, D.C., on Monday, January 21.
The band was chosen from a field of 2800 applicants, with one group from each state in the Union selected to appear in the parade. This is the seventh time the private military academy's band — the oldest collegiate band in the country, BTW — has been invited to appear in the inauguration parade, having previously garnered invites for the inaugurations of JFK, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and both Bushes.
Seven Days has discovered a copy of what we believe to be the band's audition tape. Well done, cadets.