Monday, March 30, 2015
The North Avenue project met with resistance from neighbors but won approval from the Burlington Development Review Board last December. COTS has now secured 90 percent of the funding for a project expected to cost approximately $6 million, according to Kathy Beyer of the nonprofit Housing Vermont, which is partnering with COTS to develop the site. The future apartments — 10 studios and two one-bedrooms — will likely provide homes for individuals rather than families.
The town of Williston had applied for the federal funding on behalf of COTS.
At the same news conference, Shumlin unveiled a plan to move all homeless families off the streets by 2020.
Tags: Peter Shumlin , homelessness , Committee on Temporary Shelter , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 26, 2015
House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) quelled a revolt Thursday fomented by legislative liberals unhappy with a budget they said cuts too deep and raises too little revenue.
Joining with most rank-and-file Republicans, a group of Progressives and Democrats sought to kill a tax bill that would raise more than $33 million in new revenue. Their goal: to force top Democrats to collect even more in taxes and use the money to stave off budget cuts.
But in an unlikely alliance, House Minority Leader Don Turner (R-Milton) helped Smith and his leadership team drum up enough votes for passage. “They felt they needed some support,” Turner said. “I said, ‘We can talk to some people.’”
Tags: Vermont budget , tax bill , Shap Smith , Image , Web Only
When Liz Miller joined Gov. Peter Shumlin’s administration in January 2011, she promised to serve two years as his commissioner of public service.
Two years later, she promised another two as his chief of staff.
On Thursday, Shumlin announced that Miller will leave his administration when the legislature adjourns this May. She will be replaced by Darren Springer, who has served as deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Service since March 2013.
Miller said Thursday she has not yet lined up a new job and will wait for her departure to find one. The Burlington attorney previously worked in private practice.
“I enjoyed lawyering,” she said. “I may do that in the future, but I really, truly have not figured out the next step yet.”
Tags: Liz Miller , Darren Springer , Peter Shumlin , state administration , Image , Web Only
Attorney General Bill Sorrell accused Corren Wednesday of violating Vermont's campaign finance law last October when his campaign asked the Vermont Democratic Party to send a mass email on his behalf.
Because Corren had qualified for more than $180,000 in public financing earlier that year, the Progressive/Democrat was barred from soliciting further contributions. Sorrell alleged that the email, asking Democrats to support Corren and attend a campaign rally, amounted to an in-kind contribution.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon at his Montpelier office, Sorrell said he'd filed suit earlier that day in Vermont Superior Court seeking to force Corren to return the roughly $52,000 in public funds his campaign had yet to spend on October 24, the day the email was sent. The attorney general said he would seek an additional $20,000 in fines for the alleged violation and for Corren's failure to report the expenditure in disclosure filings.
"Our legislature, in putting together this statute... said, 'Listen, if you're going to take the benefit, there are downsides: You have to play by the rules,'" Sorrell said. "And if you're not going to play by the rules, the penalties are significant."
Through a lawyer, John Franco, Corren disputed the allegations.
"This is really just a witch hunt by the attorney general," Franco said Wednesday. "Billy Sorrell wants to send Dean Corren to the gallows."
Tags: Dean Corren , Bill Sorrell , campaign finance , public financing , Image , Web Only
Monday, March 23, 2015
In 1980, Byrd was convicted of robbing and murdering Lucille Trim, a 55-year-old, white convenience store clerk. Trim's daughter, Martha Rainville, went on to serve as adjutant general of the Vermont National Guard and ran unsuccessfully for Vermont's lone seat in the U.S. House in 2006.
Rainville was a 21-year-old Air Force trainee when Byrd shot her mother while robbing the small, Port Gibson, Miss., grocery store her family owned. Byrd was paroled just before the 2006 election in which Rainville, a Republican, waged a hard-fought race against Democrat Peter Welch for the open seat.
Tags: Vermont National Guard , Martha Rainville , Peter Welch , lynching , Otis Byrd , Image , Web Only
Friday, March 20, 2015
The legislation passed more than two years after former representative Mike Fisher, a Lincoln Democrat, proposed the idea. He was frustrated at the time that the soda industry had bought newspaper advertisements targeting him and others who supported a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, but wouldn't disclose how much it had spent on the ads.
The tax was defeated that year and Fisher himself was defeated in November 2014.
Under current law, lobbyists and those who hire them must report just three times a year to the secretary of state's office how much they spend trying to influence lawmakers. Because only one of those dates falls during the four-month legislative session, it is impossible to know the true cost of a lobbying campaign until the fight is over.
The Senate bill changes that in two ways. First, lobbyists and their employers would have to file disclosure forms six times a year — including monthly during the legislative session. Second, they would have to report within 48 hours when they spend more than $1,000 on ads meant to influence the legislative debate. Such ads would have to clearly state the names of the top three entities financing them.
Tags: Vermont campaign finance , Michael Sirotkin , Vermont Public Interest Research Group , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 19, 2015
In a letter to House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown), 23 members of the Working Vermonters Caucus said they were "unable to support a budget that includes drastic cuts, reductions in work force, and new revenue of only $35 million."
The four-sentence letter was light on details: It did not specify what level of cuts its signatories would accept, nor what taxes they hoped to raise. But according to Rep. Susan Hatch Davis (P-Washington), who co-chairs the caucus, she and her colleagues were united in the belief that "austerity measures are not working for us."
Appropriations committee members spent much of Thursday combing through the budget in search of savings and debating which programs might be spared. Under the current framework, House leaders expect to fill the $113 million budget gap with close to $37 million in new revenue, $21 million in one-time funding and nearly $56 million in cuts, though those numbers continue to fluctuate.
Liberals were not the only ones to express dissatisfaction with that mix.
Tags: Vermont state budget , Working Vermonters Caucus , Susan Hatch Davis , Joey Donovan , Shap Smith , Mitzi Johnson , Don Turner , Image , Web Only
Bellini likes what he hears — the governor pledging to stand up for state workers — until he wakes up and realizes the dream was too good to be true.
That's the gist of a new Vermont State Employees Association video featuring Bellini, a Department of Corrections worker and union activist. It was posted to YouTube early this week and is featured on the VSEA's website and Facebook page.
The video is the latest step in the union's effort to counteract Shumlin's proposal to cut $10.8 million from state personnel costs by reopening the union's year-old contract. If it doesn't, Shumlin has told the union, he'll lay off up to 325 workers. Seven Days wrote about the governor's disintegrating relationship with the state's public sector labor unions in this week's issue.
Tags: Gov. Peter Shumlin , Vermont State Employees Association , Image , Video , Web Only
Lawmakers never intended to allow use of hand-held phones while stopped in traffic, Sen. Peg Flory (R-Rutland) said Wednesday on the Senate floor. Not true, countered Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington). When they passed the cellphone law last year, senators specifically discussed how they were trying to ban use of hand-held devices only while a car is moving.
Whatever their initial intent, senators decided this year that it’s too dangerous for drivers to check their phone or send a text while a light is changing.
“That is very unsafe,” said Senate Transportation Committee Chair Dick Mazza (D-Grand Isle). “If you want to get serious about banning texting … let’s go all the way. When you’re at a stop sign, you don’t know if you’re there for five seconds or one second.”
Tags: Vermont Senate , cellphone ban , Vermont State Police , Image , Web Only
Monday, March 16, 2015
The senator learned of her 71-year-old spouse's death late Friday afternoon on her way home from the Statehouse, according to Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham), a close friend.
Dr. Ayer worked at Addison Associates in Obstetrics and Gynecology and on the medical staff at Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, most recently in a part-time, semi-retired capacity. The couple had three grown children.
Tags: Dr. Alan Ayer , Sen. Claire Ayer , Vermont legislature , Image , Web Only