Wednesday, February 1, 2017
The Democrat pitched the Senate Education Committee on her plan for free tuition for Vermonters to attend the state’s community colleges or Vermont Technical College.
“I am not going to give up on this idea,” Minter said.
The timing proved a bit awkward. Her testimony came just one day after the education committee voted 6-0 against moving forward on Gov. Phil Scott’s controversial school funding plan. Scott proposed increasing funding for the Vermont State Colleges, the University of Vermont and the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation by freezing local school budgets.
Tags: Sue Minter , Phil Scott , Phil Baruth , Vermont legislature , college tuition , Anthony Pollina , education funding , Image , Web Only
Thursday, January 26, 2017
When a committee considers a bill, it hears testimony, discusses the bill, amends it, gets more testimony, discusses and amends yet again — lather, rinse, repeat.
After all that, when the committee is almost ready to vote on the bill, it has a markup session. This is a process of going through the bill line-by-line, raising potential issues, discussing, debating, dithering, and finalizing the language in the bill. Which they've gotta do because, after all, this thing might become law, and they can't afford to overlook mistakes or unintended consequences. Still, it tries the patience of one and all.
On Wednesday, the Senate Government Operations Committee was scheduled to do markup on S.8, the ethics reform bill. Thirty-two pages of legalese.
Committee chair Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham) is no dummy. She knew it was going to be a long, tedious afternoon. So she brought cake.
Tags: Jeanette White , Alison Clarkson , Brian Collamore , Claire Ayer , Chris Pearson , Mark Johnson , Image , Web Only
Friday, January 20, 2017
George, 33, of Monkton, has been working since she was in graduate school as a waitress at the tony Simon Pearce restaurant in Quechee, near where her parents live.
In 2013, George testified before a legislative committee that she needed the waitressing job to make ends meet. She told lawmakers that she earned more working part-time at Simon Pearce than the $42,490 she made as a deputy state’s attorney. She was speaking on behalf of an effort to unionize deputy state's attorneys.
Gov. Phil Scott swore George in as Chittenden County state’s attorney at noon Friday before a large gathering of family, colleagues and legislators who were ignoring the simultaneous presidential inauguration.
Scott appointed George after T.J. Donovan left the job to become Vermont’s attorney general in January. George had worked in Donovan’s office since 2011, her salary climbing to $59,509 last year.
The new title comes with a higher salary — Donovan’s was listed at $105,914 last year. So George might not need the Simon Pearce gig to pay the bills. But she said she plans to keep working tables, though perhaps not at the 20-hour-a-weekend pace she has been.
“I certainly won’t have to work there every weekend,” she said, but she noted there’s a payoff beyond the financial.
“I think being a waitress makes me a better lawyer,” she said. “Social skills, people skills and talking to people from all walks of life. I go down there and I meet hundreds of people on weekends who are coming from all over the country.”
George said she plans to run for the office when her term is up in 2018. She acknowledged that living in Monkton she’s not a resident of Chittenden County, which is not required for the job, but she said she’s shopping for land there.
Either way, it’s about an hour and half drive to Quechee.
Tags: Sarah George , T.J. Donovan , Phil Scott , Simon Pearce , Image , Web Only
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Turns out, despite all the words available in the English language, these very ones are already employed in Vermont state government.
The Office of Economic Opportunity is part of the Department for Children and Families.
Tags: Phil Scott , Jason Gibbs , David Yacovone , Office of Economic Opportunity , Agency of Economic Opportunity , Montpeculiar , Image , Web Only
Saturday, January 7, 2017
The first item on the agenda: an invocation from a person of the cloth.
Up bounded a gray-haired man in a bright red fleece jacket, Pastor Tom Harty of the United Church of Bethel. He apologized for his attire, and explained that he’s also an assistant medical examiner and that he’d just come from a call.
If that’s not an “Only in Vermont” moment, I don’t know what is.
But it gets better.
Tags: Tom Harty , United Church of Bethel , Phil Scott , Joe Choquette , Image , Web Only
Friday, January 6, 2017
The New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier will likely change hands in three to four weeks, said Francis Voigt, the cofounder and former president of the school, on Friday morning.
He would not disclose the buyer or further details.
“We’re in process but it’s not finished yet,” Voigt said about the sale. “It’s a complicated arrangement and I’m just not free to disclose all of that right now,” he added by phone from his home in Cabot.
The school, founded in 1980, helped foster a taste for haute cuisine and the farm-to-table movement in Vermont.
Tags: New England Culinary Institute , NECI , food , Vermont , Montpelier , Francis Voigt , Milan Milasinovic , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 17, 2016
As the three-term Democrat nears the end of his rocky tenure, he appears to have abandoned any semblance of the filter he once had. Invited to address the Vermont Press Association's annual meeting Thursday, he took the opportunity to criticize the news media — and offer up a number of off-color jokes.
Those began the moment he took the podium at Montpelier's Capitol Plaza Hotel & Conference Center.
"Listen, I'm delighted to be here. Is this off the record?" he said, prompting laughter. "Is this off the record?"
"Are you buying drinks?" a member of the media called out.
"Buying drinks? Sure, we'll buy drinks," the governor responded. "I'll get you a big fatty, too, if you get that bill passed."
Shumlin was referring, presumably, to legislation that would legalize marijuana in Vermont.
Tags: cannabis related , Montpeculiar , Peter Shumlin , Vermont Press Association , Image , Web Only
Friday, March 11, 2016
"Watch this space," the former ambassador and state senator said, smiling like the Cheshire Cat.
Wearing a slightly more pained expression was another former state senator, Matt Dunne, who stood beside Galbraith at a podium in the Vermont Statehouse. Dunne, himself a Democratic candidate for governor, had invited the campaign finance crusader to Montpelier for an announcement that Dunne would return more than $16,000 worth of corporate campaign contributions and refuse such money in the future.
It was a savvy move. If Galbraith were to join the race, as most political observers think he will, he would surely hammer Dunne and his other opponents for accepting corporate cash. By getting out ahead of Galbraith, Dunne could claim the moral high ground — and train his fire on the other declared Democratic candidate, Sue Minter, who has made clear she will continue accepting corporate donations.
Inviting Galbraith to the announcement was sure to draw reporters and earn headlines, but it carried an element of risk: The Townshend Democrat could upstage Dunne — or go totally rogue.
Tags: Matt Dunne , Peter Galbraith , Vermont gubernatorial campaign , Montpeculiar , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
The exchange came at the end of an otherwise collegial meeting of the Senate Rules Committee, during which its members debated a trio of proposed changes to the upper chamber's rules. The Senate is considering establishing an internal ethics panel, requiring senators to identify their employers, and asking interns and aides to register with the Statehouse sergeant-at-arms.
Though the committee appeared inclined to move forward with the proposals, an argument broke out over how much personal information senators should be required to disclose to the public. As drafted, one of the proposals would ask members to fill out a form every two years identifying whom they work for and on what boards they serve. The House enacted a similar rule nearly two years ago.
Baruth wanted to go further. He suggested that senators also disclose the names of companies in which they held a "controlling interest."
"If I have a majority stake in three companies in Vermont and people know about one of them and they don't know about the other two and I'm writing legislation to advantage those companies, then I've got a concealed relationship and a clear conflict," Baruth said.
Campbell argued that determining where to draw the line would be difficult.
Tags: John Campbell , Phil Baruth , Vermont Senate , Image , Web Only
Monday, January 18, 2016
So Ralston posted his musing on Facebook.
One person recommended: “Governor!”
“Lt. Gov.,” another answered. They were just the sort of responses you get when you publicly ask your friends what you should do. Ralston also launched a website through which he is seeking input.
And now he’s taking it to the radio airwaves, launching a weekly show titled “The Reluctant Politician” on Waterbury-based WDEV. It’ll air 1-2 p.m. on Thursdays starting this week.
It’s an odd approach — crowdsourcing advice on his potential candidacy — and one that runs the risk of making Ralston appear indecisive. If that’s how it strikes people, Ralston said, they don’t have to vote for him if he decides to run.
“I’m serious about this,” said Ralston, a Middlebury Democrat who served four years in the state House from 2011-2014 and owns the Vermont Coffee Company. “I want to talk to a lot of people.”
Tags: Paul Ralston , Vermont legislature , elections , Image , Web Only