Thursday, February 27, 2014
That's because, like any change to the city's charter, all three measures would require affirmative votes by the legislature and the signature of Gov. Peter Shumlin. And while Vermont lawmakers have studiously avoided any debate of gun-related matters since a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school 14 months ago, Shumlin has made perfectly clear that he opposes new gun regulations of any kind.
So what would happen if Burlingtonians approve the measures, which would ban guns from bars, require them to be locked when stored and allow the police to confiscate them from those suspected of domestic abuse?
Tags: Shumlin , charter , local control , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
The leadership discussion came after a board committee released the findings of an internal review of whether the station's volunteer leaders violated federal open meeting laws. The review was triggered by an anonymous letter sent to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting two months ago alleging that the board held at least 22 meetings in secret.
Board member Tom Pelletier, who helmed the internal review, said that while the board and its committees had occasionally met behind closed doors, it did so for legally permissible reasons — for instance, to discuss "confidential personnel matters."
"In short, none of the meetings were improperly closed to the public," Pelletier said.
Tags: Vermont Public Television , Image , Web Only
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
That's always been a stretch, given his 24-year career at the failed investment bank Bear Stearns and the $1 million-plus he's plowed into CFV. Now, thanks to a new book by former New York Times reporter Kevin Roose, we know that Lisman also belonged to an elite secret society of the powerful and wealthy during his Wall Street days. (WDEV's Mark Johnson and Green Mountain Daily's "farjas" first noted the Vermont connection.)
In an excerpt from the book, called Young Money, published Tuesday on New York magazine's website, Roose describes the society as "a sort of 1-percenter's Friars Club" whose annual dinners are filled with elitist, sexist and homophobic humor.
Founded in 1929, Kappa Beta Phi counts a slew of top bankers, regulators and titans of industry as members. Among them? Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, AIG CEO Bob Benmosche, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones.
Also on a membership list procured by Roose is a pair of Vermonters: Lisman and Sugarbush owner Win Smith, whose father helped found the company that became Merrill Lynch and who himself served as a senior Merrill exec. According to the list, the fathers of two former Vermont politicians — Howard Dean and Gaye Symington — served as "grand swipes," or leaders, of Kappa Beta Phi in the '60s and '70s.
Tags: Bruce Lisman , Campaign for Vermont , Win Smith , Kappa Beta Phi , Image , Web Only
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
Councilor Karen Paul, D-Ward 6, described the Monday evening event as “historic.” But, as Council Dave Hartnett, D-Ward 4 later pointed out, few members of the public stayed to witness it. All but a handful of the residents in the audience had cleared out of the Contois auditorium by the time the vote took place late in the council's meeting.
Crowd or no, Mayor Miro Weinberger said the consensus — all 14 councilors co-sponsored and voted for the resolution — sends an important message to the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB), investors and lenders, whose approval and wherewithal will be key to the settlement plan’s success.
The city is settling the $33.5 million lawsuit brought by Citibank for $10.5 million and a share of the future value of Burlington Telecom (BT). The mayor announced the agreement earlier this month.
The deal, according to Weinberger, will allow BT to continue to operate, while minimizing the impact of its debt burden on taxpayers. He also expects it to restore the city’s credit rating, which dropped precipitously when BT was on the verge of financial collapse in 2009.
Tags: Burlington Telecom , Miro Weinberger , Burlington City Council , Citibank , Image , Web Only
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Each weekday, Seven Days scans the news across the Vermont media landscape to find the smartest, best and most compelling stories. We bundle them up in an email and send them out to our subscribers early each afternoon. It's called the Daily 7.
So which Vermont news stories are you reading? And which should you be reading? Here are the stories you clicked on most from this week's editions of the Daily 7:
Schumacher Begged Police for Help for Two Days Before Husband Killed Son
By Laura Collins, the Daily Mail — Wednesday, February 12
Christina Schumacher says she attempted to get full custody of her son, believing him to be in danger, just before he was killed by his father in December. She says her estranged husband had been abusive for years.
Homicide Victims Identified as West Haven Father and Son; Suspect Arrested
Staff report, Rutland Herald — Thursday, February 13
A man was arrested Thursday morning in connection with the murder of a father and son in Hubbardton Wednesday.
Tags: Christina Schumacher , crime , drugs , health , heroin , law enforcement , Opioid Crisis , Peter Shumlin , Sonny Schumacher , Statehouse , suboxone , Weekly 7 , 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, February 13, 2014
On Thursday morning, a couple hundred University of Vermont employees packed Carpenter Auditorium to express their concerns about potential increases in the amount they pay for benefits.
UVM currently offers health care and retirement benefits to faculty and staff, as well as tuition remissions for their children and other dependents. But to make up for lower revenues and increasing costs, the administration is considering shifting some of the cost of those benefits to the employees. The plan, known as “cost sharing,” would take effect July 1, 2014.
“There’s a pretty significant gap that we had to address,” UVM Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Richard Cate said at the outset of the town-hall-style meeting (which was preceded by a similar forum on Monday). “Some people favor tuition remission more, some favor health insurance more, but in no case is this about having a benefit going away.” The college hasn't made any decisions yet about adjusting benefits, Cate added, and is accepting feedback during the month of February.
Jan Carney, an associate dean in the UVM College of Medicine and chair of the University Benefits Advisory Council, then provided some background on the cost-sharing plan and put a question to the employees: Which benefits could be adjusted that would have the least — and most — negative impact on them?
In response, about 20 employees spoke into microphones that were passed around the room. Some identified individual benefits. Others refused to indicate a preference and expressed frustration about what they perceived as an unfair distribution of the costs.
Tags: cost sharing , education , labor , University of Vermont , vermont state employees association , Image , Web Only