Thursday, May 11, 2017
Four of five South Burlington School Board members said they would not support a vote on the controversial moniker despite a successful petition drive calling for one.
They said a public vote would represent an abdication of their responsibility as an elected board and that they stood by their decision to dump the name because it has racist connotations that divide the community.
Supporters of the petition drive decried the board's decision and said they might take legal action to pursue a vote.
"I think it was an extremely cowardly move," said Stacey Savage, a leader in the Rebel Alliance, which ran the petition drive, as she walked out of the meeting after the board's decision. "I think there is a tremendous division in the community that they have created."
Tags: Rebels , South Burlington School Board , Rebel Alliance , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
"I’ve seen no movement whatsoever," said Jeff Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association. Francis and the Vermont School Boards Association support Scott's call for a statewide contract for teachers' health insurance, which the governor claims could save up to $26 million.
House and Senate leaders have questioned that projection and, along with the Vermont-National Education Association, a statewide teachers' union, they oppose the state intervening in collective bargaining. But all sides say they want to save money through the negotiation of new health insurance plans, and Scott has indicated he won't sign a budget that doesn't include those savings.
Lawmakers had hoped to adjourn last Saturday, a week earlier than scheduled. But the impasse prompted them to abandon that plan last Friday and return to Montpelier on Wednesday.
Tags: Phil Scott , Vermont Legislature , Vermont-NEA , budget , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
"The president has removed the sitting FBI director in the midst of one of the most critical national security investigations in the history of our country — one that implicates senior officials in the Trump campaign and administration," Leahy, a longtime member and former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a written statement. "This is nothing less than Nixonian."
Sanders called Comey's firing "deeply troubling" and said it "raises serious questions about what his administration is hiding."
"President Trump has repeatedly taken steps to kill inquiries into Russia's involvement in the U.S. election," Vermont's junior senator said in his own written statement. "It is clear that whomever President Trump handpicks to lead the FBI will not be able to objectively carry out this investigation."
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Patrick Leahy , Donald Trump , James Comey , Image , Web Only
Thursday, May 4, 2017
Along with eight other Democratic representatives, they broke ranks with their party leaders to support Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s proposal to negotiate a statewide teachers’ health insurance contract.
“The reason we were in the position we were in was because of the freshman Democrats,” said Rep. Heidi Scheuermann (R-Stowe).
“Most wayward freshmen class of all time,” said Rep. Sam Young (D-Glover), sounding somewhat exasperated.
The GOP coup was short-lived. As Republicans were about to triumph by a 74-73 margin, House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) cast a rare vote, resulting in a tie that killed the proposal. Still, all anyone could talk about Thursday was the Democratic defections.
Tags: Phil Scott , Mitzi Johnson , Vermont legislature , teacher health insurance , Image , Web Only
Calling it a “dark day in the history of the United States Congress,” U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) on Thursday voted against a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. But by a narrow vote of 217 to 213, Republicans prevailed in their months-long quest to pass the American Health Care Act, a top priority for President Donald Trump.
Speaking on the floor of the House earlier Thursday, Welch said, “President Trump was elected by rural America. This bill betrays rural America.” He said the legislation would cause more than 23 million Americans to lose their health insurance coverage, discriminate against those with preexisting conditions and serve as a tax cut for the wealthy.
On social media, Welch said he planned to vote “hell no” on the repeal. Following the vote, he said in a statement, “I am hopeful the Senate will scrap this trash and start from scratch.”
Tags: Senator , Peter Welch , Obamacare , Trump Care , Patrick Leahy , Bernie Sanders , Image , Video , Web Only
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Can the two sides find common ground on how to ensure that anticipated savings in teachers’ new health coverage finds its way to Vermont property owners? Or will philosophical differences over the issue prompt a gubernatorial budget veto?
Those questions hung in the air Tuesday at the Statehouse as legislators worked toward a targeted Saturday adjournment for the year.
Gov. Phil Scott has claimed that his proposal for a statewide teacher health care contract would save the state education fund $13 million next year and $26 million annually after that.
The latter amounts to about $75 a year in property taxes on a $250,000 house. Just a month ago, Scott praised a House-passed budget that didn’t include that savings, but he now says he won’t support a final state budget without it.
Tags: health care , VEHI , Phil Scott , Vermont legislature , Nicole Mace , Martha Allen , collective bargaining , education , Image , Web Only
John Campbell, who stepped down as Senate president pro tempore last year to lead the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs, has brought on two veterans of former governor Peter Shumlin's administration: former labor commissioner Annie Noonan and former director of intergovernmental affairs James Pepper.
"When I got here, it was clear that this place was totally understaffed," said Campbell, who has served as the department's executive director since last May. In that role, for which he earns $108,000 a year, Campbell provides budgetary and lobbying assistance to the independently elected state's attorneys and sheriffs from Vermont's 14 counties.
Noonan, who spent six years running the Vermont Department of Labor, started at the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs two weeks ago in the newly created position of labor relations manager. Though the $43-an-hour job is billed as temporary, Campbell is seeking to make it permanent in next year's state budget. Pepper, meanwhile, started four weeks ago in a recently created deputy state's attorney position focused on appellate work.
Tags: John Campbell , Annie Noonan , James Pepper , David Cahill , Dick Sears , Jane Kitchel , Image , Web Only
Friday, April 28, 2017
A federal investigation into a Burlington College land deal orchestrated by Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) wife, Jane O'Meara Sanders, appears to be ongoing, according to two former college officials.
Sara Adsit-McCuin, who served on the defunct college's board for roughly three years, said Friday that she was contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation "a couple of weeks ago." During an in-person interview, two FBI agents focused their questions on Burlington College's 2010 purchase of a 32-acre campus overlooking Lake Champlain. At the time of the deal, O'Meara Sanders was serving as the college's president.
"I didn't give them any information that they didn't already have," Adsit-McCuin told Seven Days.
Carol Moore, a former president of the college, told Seven Days that she, too, had been contacted "three or four weeks ago" by an FBI agent. He confirmed to her that "this is an ongoing investigation," Moore said.
The existence of the investigation was first reported Thursday by VTDigger.org, citing email correspondence between the Vermont Agency of Education, Burlington College and federal officials. Those emails confirm that the investigation was active at least through February. The FBI's recent contact with Adsit-McCuin and Moore suggests that it continues.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Jane O'Meara Sanders , Burlington College , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
That’s a jump from 11.8 percent of respondents who agreed with a similar proposal in a 2007 poll.*
The increase in secessionist sentiment — measured in surveys conducted by the University of Vermont’s Center for Rural Studies — could reflect a Trump bump.
“Given the aggressive and destructive behavior of the United States of Empire this past decade, it is not surprising that more and more forward-thinking Vermonters support independence and a Second Vermont Republic,” Rob Williams, the leader of a Verexit campaign, said in a prepared statement.
Tags: Vermont secession , Thomas Naylor , Rob Williams , Image , Web Only
Saturday, April 22, 2017
He also allegedly put his own name on the "murder list" that was issued with the threats via email and in a video.
Josiah Leach, 18, was arrested Friday night on a federal charge, ending a week of school lockdowns and a district-wide school closure Friday.
He was in jail awaiting arraignment Monday in federal court on a felony charge of knowingly transmitting a threat via interstate commerce. Leach is a senior at South Burlington High School.
Tags: South Burlington school threats , Josiah Leach , Trevor Whipple , Rebels , Image , Web Only