Saturday, November 8, 2014
Those results constitute a final count of all 275 polling places, but will not be certified by the state canvassing committee until Wednesday at 10 a.m. Statewide candidates within 2 percent of the top vote-getter can request a recount, but must do so by the end of the day Wednesday.
According to the final tally, Shumlin received 89,509 votes, or 46.4 percent of the 193,087 votes cast. Milne collected 87,075 votes, or 45.1 percent. Libertarian Dan Feliciano won 8,428 votes, or 4.4 percent.
Tags: elections , peter shumlin , scott milne , governor's race , vermont , votes , Image , Web Only
Monday, November 3, 2014
After 16 years at the Burlington Free Press, reporter Tim Johnson was summoned to the paper’s vacant publisher’s office Thursday morning by executive editor Mike Townsend.
“He said, ‘I’ve got some bad news for you,’” Johnson recalls. “Essentially, he said I was being let go and that Thursday was going to be my last day of work.”
Johnson, 67, has spent most of his life in journalism. He got his start at a paper in Beverly, Mass., and served tours of duty at the Kansas City Star and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Johnson came to the Freeps in 1998, editing the “Towns” section and then features before he was named higher education reporter in 2006.
Despite that experience, Johnson — like most of his colleagues — learned nearly a month ago that he would have to reapply for a new job at the paper. As the Free Press reduced its editorial staff from 28 to 24, reporters and editors would be graded based upon their compliance with and understanding of Picasso — owner Gannett Company, Inc.’s new digital news guidelines.
“Townsend said it was all numerical. I gave them clips, but I don’t know if they even looked at them,” Johnson says. “I asked, ‘Is this happening because of my performance or productivity?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s Picasso.’ So I inferred that my grasp of Picasso was not sufficient for their taste.”
Tags: Burlington Free Press , Gannett , layoffs , labor , newspaper , Image , Web Only
Friday, October 3, 2014
During the academic year, Naomi Winterfalcon works as an adjunct professor at Champlain College — a post she's held for the last eight years.
During the summer, she said, she relies on food stamps to get by.
"When I graduated with a master's, I really thought it would be life-changing and that I would have a decent income and a marketable skill," said Winterfalcon, who got her advanced degree in her early fifties. Now 59, she went on, "I certainly have a marketable skill, but I don’t have a decent income and I certainly don't have benefits." She gets paid roughly $3,500 for each of three humanities courses she teaches per semester. She used to get health care through her spouse, but her spouse recently lost her job; now both are on Medicaid.
Tapping into that type of frustration, the Service Employees International Union is attempting to organizing adjuncts at Champlain, Burlington and St. Michael's colleges. This Friday, it filed a petition with the U.S. Labor Relations Board to request union elections at Champlain and Burlington colleges, where officials got the required 30 percent of employee signatures. SEIU plans to do the same at St. Michael's.
Tags: SEIU , Burlington College , Champlain College , St. Michael's College , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Yesterday, Vermont cops requested that Goddard rescind its invitation.
The commencement speaker, Mumia Abu-Jamal, is a convicted murderer who is sending his speech, prerecorded, from the Mahanoy State Correctional Institution in Frackville, Penn. That's causing a stir — in Vermont and beyond.
Jamal was originally sentenced to death for killing a police officer in Philadelphia in 1981. The sentence was later amended to life in prison without parole. While behind bars, Abu-Jamal, 60, who claims to be innocent, has been speaking and writing extensively about his experience on death row and the criminal justice system in general. While in prison, he earned his bachelor of arts from Goddard in 1996.
Tags: Mumia Abu Jamal , Goddard College , Vermont Troopers' Association , Image , Web Only
Monday, September 22, 2014
Were they discussing whether non-citizens should be able to vote or whether people with marijuana-related offenses should be granted amnesty? No. Discussions about proposals to put those questions on the ballot — the former would require state approval; the latter would be non-binding — had been shelved earlier in the evening due to lack of support.
It was permitting, not pot, that prompted the unexpected recess.
Most people agree that the city's permitting process needs fixing, and city officials have long been looking for ways to streamline it. So a resolution on the city council’s agenda that made this point and asked Mayor Miro Weinberger to come up with a plan for reforming the system seemed like a bit of a sleeper item — even to the councilors who proposed it.
"It seems so noncontroversial," said Jane Knodell (P-Ward 2) before the meeting. Knodell, along with Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) and Dave Hartnett (D-Ward 4) sponsored the resolution, which asks Weinberger to present the council with a "soup to nuts" plan to reform the permit system — with the goal of creating a "one-stop shop" — by January 2015. It also calls for a public forum on the topic in December.
Tags: Burlington City Council , cannabis related , Miro Weinberger , Image , Web Only
Friday, September 19, 2014
While Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) emphasized the need to act in concert with other nations and warned against the deployment of ground troops in the region, both said in written statements last Wednesday that they backed Obama's two-pronged strategy.
"He has authorized air strikes against ISIS and further support for Syrian rebels opposing ISIS, many of whom have been targeted by the cruel regime of [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad," Leahy said in his statement. "I support the President because I believe that ISIS must be stopped, that U.S. leadership is urgently required, and that he has no intention of allowing the United States to become entangled in another large-scale war in the Middle East."
Calling ISIS a "brutal and dangerous organization that must be defeated," Sanders said in his own statement that the U.S. must be joined in its efforts by "the international community" and "the people of Iraq and Syria."
"U.S. ground troops should not be sent back into combat," Sanders continued. "I support the president's airstrike campaign and help for the Syrian opposition."
But when the Senate voted Thursday night on whether to authorize the U.S. to train Syrian rebels, Leahy and Sanders joined eight liberal Democrats and 12 conservative Republicans in opposing the measure, which was attached to a larger spending bill. The vote was 78 to 22 in favor.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Patrick Leahy , Peter Welch , Vermont congressional delegation , Syria , Presidential Campaign , foreign policy , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Sitting in his new corner office at the college's North Avenue campus on Wednesday afternoon, Michael Smith summarized his challenge: "What I need to do is figure out a way to give this organization some breathing room because when you're going crisis to crisis, you’re only planning for that crisis ... How do I do that?"
Smith, who took over the position less than two weeks ago after Christine Plunkett resigned unexpectedly amidst a student protest, proceeded to answer his own question. "I ask for money. It’s as simple as that."
It does sound pretty obvious, but it's also a reversal of the college's stance up until this point. After the regional accreditation group put Burlington College on probation in late June, the college administration said it was putting fundraising on hold because, as board chairman Yves Bradley put it then, "The time to come to them is not when you are down and need a Band-Aid."
Asked to explain the turnaround, Smith responded, "I think we’re past that."
Tags: Burlington College , Michael Smith , Jane Knodell , David Coates , NEASC , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
On Monday, the city answered Munger's plea — at least it started to. After months of study, the city attorney's office has come up with a list of recommendations for fixing the city taxi system. Now, Mayor Miro Weinberger is reviewing its report, with the goal of presenting a plan for action to the city council before its October 20 meeting. The city council can also weigh in with suggestions before September 24.
For the last decade, airport staff have been in charge of giving out taxi licenses, making sure taxis are playing by the rules and fielding complaints from drivers and passengers. The arrangement — in addition to creating more work for those employees — has made downtown Burlington a "Wild West" when it comes to enforcement.
To ease the burden on the airport, the city attorney's report suggests hiring an employee in the clerk and treasurer's office to take over those duties. Revenue from license applications would fund the position. (Taxis need a special permit to pick up passengers at the airport, and airport staff would continue to oversee those vehicles.)
Figuring out how to actually enforce taxi rules has been high on the priority list. As Munger put it in his letter: "Anyone can put a magnetic sign on a vehicle as a taxi, operate in the city and never get caught." To address this, the city attorney recommends analyzing taxi-related complaints, and based on that review, possibly hiring a part-time enforcement officer to supervise downtown taxis.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Upstairs, the chair of the college's board of trustees was assuring a room full of reporters, students and faculty members that the school's new leadership team would do everything possible to keep the school afloat, despite dire fiscal challenges and the sudden departure of its president.
The question for the community, Yves Bradley said, is whether Burlington is better off with or without Burlington college. "We feel extraordinarily strongly that Burlington is better off with Burlington College."
Bradley was not being melodramatic. The school is under extreme financial pressure, which led NEASC, the regional accreditation group, to put it on probation earlier this summer. Four days earlier, a group of students precipitated the resignation of the school's president, Christine Plunkett, by protesting outside her car as she attempted to leave a board meeting.
On Monday, the board confirmed that Plunkett had left the college. It also announced that former FairPoint Communications state president Michael Smith would serve as interim president alongside Jane Knodell, who will temporarily serve as an academic adviser to Smith, and David Coates, who will act as an interim financial adviser. Smith will be paid $8,000 a month and will work full time through December. Knodell, who will work up to 12 hours a week, and Coates, whose hours haven't been determined, are volunteering their time.
Tags: Burlington College , David Coates , Michael Smith , Jane Knodell , Image , Web Only
Friday, August 29, 2014
The students cheered, hugged one another and dispersed, allowing Plunkett to drive out of the parking lot.
"I do not believe Christine is resigning," said the board chair, Yves Bradley, reached by phone after the meeting. Emphasizing that the board remains "in full support" of her, Bradley said he had not spoken to Plunkett since the students confronted her but had been apprised of the situation. "I think she was ambushed," he said.
The college's spokesperson, Coralee Holm, told reporters "I'm not confirming anything," and she did not return phone calls later.
Approximately two dozen students had marched roughly one mile from the college to the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, where Plunkett and the Burlington College Board of Trustees were meeting. Before starting off, they’d walked the hallways of the school, trying to recruit professors to come with them. At least two did. “When 20 of them show up at your office door, it’s kind of hard to say no,” explained Piers Kaniuka, who chairs the college’s integral psychology program.
Stationing themselves at each of the chamber building's four exits and chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, Christine Plunkett's got to go," they waited for an hour until Plunkett and Holm came out the front doors a little after 11 a.m.