Friday, September 14, 2018
The Burlington School District announced Friday that it will place guidance director Mario Macias on administrative leave pending the completion of a state investigation.
Following a yearlong inquiry, the Agency of Education cited Macias on September 7 with six counts of alleged professional misconduct. The Register, the high school's student newspaper, broke the news of the allegations on Monday. Principal Noel Green ordered the newspaper to remove the story Tuesday, but not before other local media outlets verified and reported on the allegations. Green later agreed to allow the students to repost their story.
At a school board meeting Thursday night, residents berated Superintendent Yaw Obeng and the board for the handling of allegations levied against Macias. The board went into executive session for more than an hour to discuss a "personnel issue."
The district released a statement about Macias' leave at 5:13 p.m. Friday.
Tags: Burlington , Burlington High School , Mario Macias , Yaw Obeng , the Register , Image , Web Only
Thursday, September 13, 2018
The move came a day after Seven Days reported on Burlington Republican Party chair Paco DeFrancis' online criticism of Sen. Debbie Ingram's (D-Chittenden) 2017 drunk driving arrest. Farrell condemned the attack on Wednesday and said his campaign had had nothing to do with a video DeFrancis posted featuring footage of Ingram's arrest.
But later Wednesday, DeFrancis sent Seven Days screenshots of a text-message exchange he'd had with Bartley in July suggesting that the campaign manager had approved the video. (DeFrancis posted the screenshots to Twitter on Thursday morning but quickly deleted them.)
DeFrancis said in an interview Thursday that he'd understood Bartley's texts as a "go-ahead" to circulate the video. "I would've never posted it if I hadn't talked to him," DeFrancis said.
Tags: Alex Farrell , Jeff Bartley , Jeffrey Bartley , Debbie Ingram , Paco DeFrancis , Twitter , Election 2018 , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Monday night the Register broke the news that the state has been investigating school guidance director Mario Macias, who is accused of unprofessional conduct and could lose his educator's license for nearly a year.
By Tuesday morning, Green ordered the Register’s teacher adviser, Beth Fialko Casey, to pull the article. Fialko Casey conferred with the article’s four authors — editors Julia Shannon-Grillo, Halle Newman, Nataleigh Noble and Jenna Peterson — who reluctantly agreed to comply.
“It did cross our minds that they’d want to talk to us and we were ready to defend our actions but we were not expecting it to be censored,” said Shannon-Grillo, a 16-year-old junior. “We understand [Green’s] decision, but as editors, we don’t agree with it.”
Tags: Burlington High School , Noel Green , principal , Register , newspaper , student journalism , Act 49 , Phil Baruth , senator , Beth Fialko Casey , Image , Web Only
The chair of the Burlington Republican Party bashed Sen. Debbie Ingram (D-Chittenden) on Twitter this week over a drunk driving arrest. The attack drew swift rebukes from other top GOP officials, including Gov. Phil Scott, who called it “unacceptable.”
Ingram crashed her car into a ditch in Williston less than a mile from her home in October 2017. The Burlington Free Press reported that Ingram’s blood alcohol content at the time of the crash was 0.186 percent, more than double the 0.08 percent legal limit for driving.
Ingram released a statement shortly after her arrest in which she accepted responsibility for driving drunk.
“I am grateful that no one was injured as a result of my irresponsible behavior,” she wrote. “I suffer from a disease for which I have been getting treatment through a 12-step program.”
That, apparently, was not good enough for Burlington Republican Party chair Paco DeFrancis.
“If [Ingram] cared about her ‘disease’ and cared about others who may be using that public infrastructure then she should recognize that she is NOT capable of driving and should give up her car and license,” he tweeted Monday night.
Tags: Debbie Ingram , Becca Balint , Paco DeFrancis , Brady Toensing , Jack Moulton , DUI , drunk driving , Alex Farrell , addiction , substance use disorder , Election 2018 , Legislative Races 2018 , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
On September 7, the Agency cited Macias with six counts of alleged unprofessional conduct. He remains on the job and will have the right to respond to the allegations at a hearing to be scheduled within 60 days. Vermont Education Secretary Daniel French recommended that Macias' license be suspended for 364 days if the allegations are proven.
Macias did not respond to messages seeking comment Tuesday.
Tags: Burlington High School , Mario Macias , Agency of Education , Vermont , Image , Web Only
Monday, September 10, 2018
He spoke Monday during a Statehouse meeting of the Governor’s Marijuana Advisory Commission, which Gov. Phil Scott created by executive order in 2017 shortly after he vetoed a cannabis legalization measure. In January, Scott signed into law a bill that allows Vermonters to grow up to six plants at home and possess up to an ounce of marijuana. It did not legalize the sale or distribution of cannabis.
The commission has continued its work, which one of its cochairs, Tom Little, said was to determine what a taxed-and-regulated system in the state should look like if the legislature chooses to create one. Its final report, due in December, will not include a recommendation as to whether Vermont should — or should not — create such a market, according to Little.
The eight other states that have legalized cannabis allow, or will allow, licensed stores to sell the drug. And Levine, as chair of the commission’s education and prevention subcommittee, said he’d heard from officials in Colorado and Washington state who thought Vermont’s half-measure was a mistake.
“They’re kind of saying, the home-grow route did not allow the degree of surveillance, the degree of monitoring, the degree of regulating that a different environment would have provided,” Levine said. “So their hopes were that we would learn from them and actually graduate from that to another structure.”
He added: "Their recommendation was: Go to tax and regulate."
Tags: Cannabeat , Vermont , cannabis , weed , pot , marijuana , legalization , Governor's Marijuana Advisory Commission , Mark Levine , Tom Anderson , Kaj Samsom , Tom Little , Image , Web Only
Attorney General T.J. Donovan suggested that the probe, prompted by a recent Buzzfeed story detailing decades of abuse suffered by children, could focus more on fact-finding than legal action. The story includes claims that children died at the hands of nuns.
Many of the victims and alleged perpetrators are dead or elderly, and the statutes of limitation have expired for many acts at the North Avenue orphanage, which closed in 1974.
"While there may be challenges given the current state of our laws ... there should be no challenge to bringing truth and reconciliation and closure and justice for victims," Donovan said. He added, "Justice doesn't always occur in a courtroom."
Tags: St. Joseph's Catholic Orphanage , Brandon del Pozo , T.J. Donovan , Miro Weinberger , abuse , Image , Web Only
Friday, September 7, 2018
Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said his department will launch an inquiry into allegations made in a recent Buzzfeed story about decades of abuse at the St. Joseph's Catholic Orphanage.
Del Pozo provided few details, but said he was meeting with the Vermont Attorney General's Office Friday and has been in discussions with Mayor Miro Weinberger about investigating the allegations of physical, mental and sexual abuse at St. Joseph's. The Buzzfeed article includes allegations that children were killed.
The orphanage closed in 1974. The imposing North Avenue building became part of Burlington College before it was turned into housing.
"It's safe to say that the mayor and I feel it's in the interests of justice to offer a full accounting of the crimes," del Pozo said. "We feel it's the duty of the state to do so."
Tags: St. Joseph's orphanage , Miro Weinberger , Brandon del Pozo , crime , police , Buzzfeed , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
"Purdue Pharma lied, they misrepresented, they fabricated," Donovan said during a press conference outside Chittenden Superior Court, where the lawsuit was filed. "And they spread falsehoods, and they made billions off it — and they created a path of destruction that the State of Vermont is still reeling from."
Donovan said he decided to sue after settlement talks between Purdue, Vermont and other states broke down. The attorney general said he is still open to a settlement, possibly involving other states. But he repeatedly stressed that Vermont has a "compelling story to tell" should it continue to go it alone against the manufacturer of the powerful pain-relief drug.
Tags: Brandon del Pozo , lawsuit , Miro Weinberger , opiates , Opioid Crisis , overdose , OxyContin , Purdue Pharma , T.J. Donovan , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
"This is the most incomplete, most partisan and least transparent vetting for any Supreme Court nominee I have ever seen," said Leahy, a former chair of the committee who has taken part in 19 confirmation hearings. "And I’ve seen more than anyone else in the Senate."
Even before the current chair, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), could introduce Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, Democratic members interrupted the proceedings to demand their postponement. One by one, they talked over Grassley — criticizing him for failing to request some of Kavanaugh's records and for allowing others to be kept confidential.
As protesters shouted from the gallery, Leahy interjected to ask, "What are we trying to hide? What are we hiding? What's being hidden?"
Tags: Brett Kavanaugh , Patrick Leahy , Chuck Grassley , John Cornyn , U.S. Senate , U.S. Supreme Court , Vermont , Senator , Image , Web Only