Gov. Peter Shumlin is calling in reinforcements on Vermont Health Connect, the troubled website that has been the crucible of his most recent months in office.  

That was the news out of the Statehouse Tuesday morning, where Shumlin made the unusual move of testifying before a joint meeting of the Senate Health and Welfare and House Health Care committees.

He pledged more hands on deck for the day-to-day management of the troubled health care exchange, in response to a request from Commissioner Mark Larson. The governor announced that Commerce Secretary Lawrence Miller — who Shumlin singled out for his private-sector business savvy — will assist with improvements to the exchange over the next three months.  

Police and administrators at the Brattleboro Retreat are investigating the apparent suicide Friday night of a 13-year-old girl who was under the care of the psychiatric hospital's adolescent residential program. A brief statement released by the Retreat over the weekend reads:

“It is with great sadness that we report the tragic death of a 13-year-old female who took her life Friday evening, January 3. The individual was receiving care in one of the Brattleboro Retreat's residential homes adjacent to the Retreat's main campus. The family was notified immediately and the Retreat is now working with the appropriate authorities and agencies to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of this incident.  As we proceed with the investigation, our prayers and thoughts go out to this young person's family and loved ones.”

Hospital administrators were not available Monday morning to comment further, as all were in a meeting to discuss the incident and Brattleboro Police said only that the investigation is ongoing. The Brattleboro Reformer reported Monday morning that the girl had been living at the Retreat since November but was not a patient in the state's acute psychiatric unit. Her name and hometown have not been made public.

Two Burlington police officers have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the fatal shooting of a New North End resident with a history of mental illness who threatened them with a shovel last month.

At a press conference this afternoon, Chittenden County State's Attorney T.J. Donovan and Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell announced that Cpl. Ethan Thibault was justified in his use of deadly force against 49-year-old Wayne Brunette. Based on a separate investigation by his department, Burlington Police Chief Mike Schirling said that  neither Thibault nor Cpl. Brent Navari had violated departmental protocol.

After laying out those findings, the law enforcement officials expressed their condolences to Brunette's family and acknowledged the need to improve police responses to incidents where mental illness may play a role.

The Attorney General's Office has paid $30,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the companion of an unarmed Thetford man who died after a state trooper shot him with a Taser stun gun in 2012.

The settlement, finalized in Orange Superior Court in Chelsea, eliminates the possibility of a trial over claims filed by Theresa Davidonis, who watched her mentally ill boyfriend, Macadam Mason, die after he was shot by a trooper who had been summoned to their house to help.

“The money reflects responsibility on the part of the state police for what they did,” Davidonis' attorney, Tom Costello of Brattleboro, said. “It was not for the death of Macadam, but for the emotional distress that Theresa endured; $30,000 is an amount that’s substantial and reflects a fair resolution in the case, particularly in light of the risk of taking it to a verdict.” 

click to enlarge

When he walked into his ceremonial office in the Statehouse Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Peter Shumlin was armed and ready to take on a bunch of pledge drive perpetrators.

Shumlin was there to host a press conference focused on his efforts to fight climate change. But reporters in the room were just waiting to ask him about a Vermont Public Radio story indicating that a state consultant had warned his administration repeatedly since last April that its new health insurance exchange was at risk of failing.

According to documents obtained by VPR's Taylor Dobbs, the problems at Vermont Health Connect were so severe that the contractor, Gartner Consulting, advised state officials on May 22 to "escalate missed deliverable dates or milestones to highest levels within the state and [website developer] CGI."

Here's what reporters wanted to know: Was Shumlin aware that the state's own consultants had issued such dire warnings so long ago? If so, why didn't he disclose the problems to Vermonters? And if he was sufficiently briefed, why did he tell VPR's Bob Kinzel on Nov. 1 that, by Labor Day, "We did not know the magnitude of the challenges we were going to face interacting with the feds, all the other problems we’ve been having."

Evidently anticipating the confrontation, Shumlin brought to Wednesday's press conference a print-out of a July 8 story in the Burlington Free Press. Asked about Dobbs' story, here's what the gov said:

We're in the home stretch of 2013, people. As we at Seven Days plot our year-end coverage, enjoy this week's news and politics stories:

• Figuring out how much was spent in support of and opposition to basing the F-35 in Vermont is a tough task.
• Meanwhile, the Air Force says the F-35 is definitely a go, but airport neighbors remain split on the jet.
• It's been a long time coming for Vermont's shoreline protection proposal. As the last northeastern state without statewide regulations, is 2014 the year?

• A recent workshop gave Vermont farmers the Myers-Briggs personality type test.
• In this week's cover story, learn how one artist/developer is doing his part to revitalize White River Junction, building by building.
• Meet the man whose job it is to test strains of medical marijuana for a Montpelier dispensary.
• And in Fair Game: After coming close last year, tax reform is looking unlikely to get much traction in the 2014 Statehouse session. Plus, find out why Rep. Peter Welch's anti-ethanol push is making for strange bedfellows.

Pick this week's Seven Days up in print, online or on the iOS app.

Cover photo by Sarah Priestap

’Tis the season for raising holiday spirits, but evidently, a few University of Vermont students raised them a bit too often this weekend — even before the party officially started.

The Vermont State Police reported that at about 7:30 Saturday night, three female UVM students headed to a sorority function at the Old Lantern in Charlotte had to be taken by ambulance to the emergency room at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington due to overintoxication. According to police, the women, who were all headed to the winter formal sponsored by UVM's Delta Delta Delta sorority chapter, arrived by bus and hadn't even entered the party before they got sick. 

"Milestone."

"Very pleased."

"Another significant step forward for us."

That's how Department of Vermont Health Access Commissioner Mark Larson characterized the latest news about the state's new insurance exchange, Vermont Health Connect, in a phone call with reporters Monday morning. 

The headline? After a two-month delay, the exchange will finally be able to bill Vermonters for the plans they bought through Vermont Health Connect. Starting Tuesday, the state will begin mailing invoices to individuals who enroll through the exchange. Consumers will have until January 7 to mail back a check.

"I think this is clearly a milestone and a significant step forward," Larson said.

Downplayed in Larson's announcement were two potentially bigger pieces of news, which weren't so good:

click to enlarge

In an uncharacteristic rebuke of one his own, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Monday he was "tremendously disappointed" with his chief health care reform administrator for misleading a legislative committee about a security lapse in the state's new health insurance exchange.

The official, Department of Vermont Health Access Commissioner Mark Larson, sent a letter of apology Monday morning to members of the House Health Care Committee. Larson said that after listening to a recording of his testimony at a November 5 committee hearing, he had come to the conclusion that he had been insufficiently candid with committee members.

The Associated Press' Dave Gram reported Friday that Larson's department had reported what it believed to be an isolated security breach to federal authorities prior to the commissioner's appearance before the committee. But Larson told committee members that DVHA had investigated only one complaint and believed it to be unfounded, according to Gram.

In his letter to legislators, Larson wrote that he "failed to disclose" the security breach to legislators, a lapse he said violated his responsibility to be fully transparent with his fellow public servants.

Vermont's high rate of suicide with firearms was the dominant theme of a well-attended and well-mannered forum held Monday night in Burlington City Hall.

Organized by advocates of gun-safety measures in a state with few firearms regulations, the event took place 50 yards from the site of a fatal shooting almost exactly two years ago. Josh Pfenning, 35, died on November 10, 2011, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound while camped in City Hall Park during the Occupy Burlington protests.

The way in which Pfenning died is not unusual in Vermont. With the exception of Pennsylvania, Vermont has the Northeast's highest per-capita rate of gun-related deaths, most of which take the form of suicide, said Eliot Nelson, a pediatrician at Fletcher Allen Health Care.

Vermonters are far more likely to kill themselves than one another, noted Sean Ackerman, a Fletcher Allen resident in child psychiatry. The state suicide rate stands at 16 deaths per 100,000 residents and the homicide rate is 1.6 per 100,000, he said, adding that more than half of suicides are carried out with firearms.