Friday, October 26, 2018
DR Power Equipment is part of Country Home Products, which was founded in Vergennes in 1985 and locally owned until it sold to Wisconsin-based Generac in 2015. DR makes and sells equipment for yard work.
Generac is moving most of DR Power Equipment's jobs out of Vergennes. Art Aiello, the public relations manager for Generac, said in an email that the company's shipping and repair operations are moving to Wisconsin. Twenty-six employees will be affected, though they're being offered other jobs in the company.
Tags: DR Power Equipment , Neuton Power Equipment , Country Home Products , Vergennes , South Burlington , Generac , economy , jobs , Image , Web Only
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Khashoggi entered the consulate October 2 and hasn't been seen since. The Saudi government — after initially denying any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance — has acknowledged that the critic of the Saudi government was killed inside the consulate in a premeditated plot.
In an op-ed in Thursday’s New York Times, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the United States should end its military aid for Saudi Arabia’s ongoing war against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“The United States is deeply engaged in this war,” Sanders wrote. “We are providing bombs the Saudi-led coalition is using, we are refueling their planes before they drop those bombs, and we are assisting with intelligence.”
Tags: Senator , Jamal Khashoggi , Bernie Sanders , Patrick Leahy , Peter Welch , Donald Trump , Saudi Arabia , human rights , Image , Web Only
Monday, October 22, 2018
The first public poll of Vermont's 2018 general election found that statewide incumbents have little to fear.
The poll, commissioned by Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS, showed Republican Gov. Phil Scott holding a 42 to 28 percent lead over Democratic nominee Christine Hallquist. Another 22 percent said they were not sure who they would support.
In the five other races surveyed — from attorney general to U.S. Senate — incumbent Democrats, Progressives and independents held double-digit leads over their Republican opponents.
The survey of 495 likely voters was conducted by Braun Research under the direction of Castleton University professor Rich Clark between October 5 and October 15. Its overall margin of error was 4.4 percent, though subsets of the data had a higher margin of error.
The public media stations found that Scott’s approval rating hasn’t budged since July, when their last poll showed 43 percent of those surveyed approved of his job performance and 28 percent disapproved. The October poll found that 45 percent approved and 26 percent disapproved.
Tags: Senator , Phil Scott , Christine Hallquist , David Zuckerman , Don Turner , Bernie Sanders , Lawrence Zupan , Peter Welch , Anya Tynio , Election 2018 , Governor's Race 2018 , Statewide 2018 , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
That left Sanders with more than $8.8 million cash on hand, a new record in Vermont politics.
Prior to this election cycle, the record-holder was businessman Rich Tarrant, whose 2006 Senate campaign raised just more than $7 million — nearly all of it from the candidate himself. Sanders, who defeated Tarrant that year to claim an open Senate seat, raised close to $6.2 million at the time.
While it's unlikely that Sanders could spend down his war chest in the three weeks remaining until Election Day, he could legally transfer the balance to a future presidential campaign.
Sanders faces eight challengers in his reelection race, but only one of them, Republican Lawrence Zupan, filed a report with the FEC by Tuesday morning. He raised $85,979 over the past two months and spent $40,382 of it. By the end of September, Zupan had $52,007 in his campaign coffers.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Lawrence Zupan , Peter Welch , Anya Tynio , Patrick Leahy , Election 2018 , Statewide 2018 , Image , Web Only
Gov. Phil Scott’s reelection campaign spent $155,261 over the past two weeks, according to a new filing with the Vermont Secretary of State's Office. Of that, $100,000 went to the incumbent Republican's first television advertisement of the campaign, which focuses on his message of civility in politics.
“I believe each of us has a responsibility to be better role models, act appropriately and treat each other with dignity and respect,” Scott says in the direct-to-camera ad.
Phil Scott for Vermont - "Respect" from Phil Scott on Vimeo.
In the same two-week period, Democratic nominee Christine Hallquist spent $56,873, which included $20,000 worth of online ads. She has yet to run TV advertising.The latest round of campaign finance filings show both gubernatorial candidates raising similar sums of money in the first half of October. Scott picked up $70,272 in donations from 155 individuals and companies, while Hallquist collected $64,755 from 663 donors. Since the campaign began, Scott has raised $545,454, while Hallquist has raised $439,012.
In recent weeks, Scott has accepted donations from several corporations and special-interest groups, including DEW Construction Corp. ($4,080), Maximus ($2,500), Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America ($2,000), the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association ($2,000) and the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association ($1,000). Hallquist does not accept corporate contributions.
Tags: Phil Scott , Christine Hallquist , Don Turner , David Zuckerman , Election 2018 , Governor's Race 2018 , Image , Web Only , Video
Thursday, October 4, 2018
The guidance director was already facing six charges, filed on September 7, related to allegations that he faked a student transcript, behaved unprofessionally with a substitute teacher and showed general incompetence at his job.
In a September 26 charging document, Secretary of Education Dan French wrote that Macias “inappropriately engaged a student witness in a discussion of the licensing charges against him, in a manner that he should have known would cause the student severe emotional distress.”
French recommended that Macias’ educator license be permanently revoked.
Tags: Agency of Education , Mario Macias , Dan French , Ted Fisher , Russ Elek , Burlington , Burlington High School , education , guidance , guidance counselor , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Gov. Phil Scott appears to be in violation of the state's ethics code because of the way he structured the sale of his stake in DuBois Construction, the Vermont State Ethics Commission said in an advisory opinion released this week.
During his 2016 campaign for governor, Scott acknowledged that it could create ethical problems for a sitting governor to own a stake in a company that regularly wins state contracts. When Scott won the election, he sold his stake for $2.5 million. But Scott himself financed the sale, which means that he retains a large financial stake in DuBois. He receives monthly loan payments from the firm that totaled $75,000 in 2017.
Paul Burns, the executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said Scott’s attempt to solve one ethical problem created another.
"The governor acted in this situation as the bank himself, which means that he will have an ongoing financial interest in this business for at least 15 years” as DuBois pays off its debt, Burns said.
Tags: Paul Burns , Phil Scott , DuBois Construction , ethics , Election 2018 , Image , Web Only
Monday, October 1, 2018
Minnesota Public Radio fired Keillor last year. A subsequent investigation by the station’s news department found multiple cases over decades in which Keillor made suggestive statements about women who worked for him and, in one case involving "dozens" of incidents, inappropriately touched a coworker.
Burlington Book Festival executive director Rick Kisonak defended the decision to host Keillor in a Facebook post Sunday. But by Monday evening, he'd changed his mind.
“There’s a lot of very positive feeling for [Keillor] out there," Kisonak said. "But there’s a lot of anger and a lot of hurt, and I certainly didn’t want that, and certainly didn’t expect that. And now that that really has sort of reached the kind of critical mass that it has ... we’re certainly not people that are insensitive to these issues.”
Tags: Burlington Book Festival , Garrison Keillor , Minnesota Public Radio , Rick Kisonak , Andrew Liptak , literature , books , sexual harassment , Image , Web Only
“I hope for the sake of the country he’s not the next justice on the Supreme Court,” Leahy said in his Burlington office Monday morning. “I think it would diminish the court.”
Leahy said he’s “never seen anything like this” in Washington, D.C., referring to the past week of testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when she was 15 and he was 17. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, she described the incident in detail.
Leahy said his past experience as a prosecutor in Chittenden County gave him confidence in Ford’s story.
“I would have considered her a very believable witness,” Leahy said.
Tags: Sen. Patrick Leahy , Brett Kavanaugh , Donald Trump , Christine Blasey Ford , sexual assault , Supreme Court , Judiciary Committee , Image , Web Only
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Two clips of Tanner’s routine resurfaced Thursday morning when Republican operative Shayne Spence posted clips on Twitter.
Tanner, a Democrat, is hoping to beat Sen. Randy Brock (R-Franklin) or Rep. Corey Parent (R-St. Albans) for one of Franklin County’s two Senate seats. Brock’s seatmate, Sen. Carolyn Branagan (R-Franklin), is retiring at the end of her term.
Tanner said he was the one who originally posted the videos online, shortly after he performed the set as part of a stand-up comedy class. He took them down soon after announcing his run for Vermont Senate after someone contacted him anonymously and took offense.
Tags: Dustin Tanner , Corey Parent , Randy Brock , Shayne Spence , marijuana , cannabis , Vermont , senate , legislature , Election 2018 , Image , Web Only