Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Two days before she was named publisher of the Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, the newspapers’ vice president and CEO was cited for driving under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident.
According to the Rutland City Police Department, 64-year-old Catherine Nelson crashed her Nissan sport utility vehicle several times Saturday night in downtown Rutland and was found to be "over twice the legal limit to operate a vehicle."
Nelson's car hit a porch on Park Street, struck a guardrail on Porter Place and finally crashed into the Westminster Cracker Company building, "causing extensive front end damage to the vehicle," according to an incident report issued Tuesday evening by Patrol Sergeant Joseph Bartlett. The Rutland Police arrived on the scene shortly after 8 p.m., took Nelson into custody and issued a criminal citation for her to appear in court at a later date. Her car was towed away.
Nelson did not respond to Seven Days’ requests for comment Tuesday evening, but her lawyer, John J. Welch, later told the Herald, “Things will become clear as this evolves.” He cautioned observers “not [to] jump to any conclusions.”
It appears that Nelson’s boss, outgoing publisher R. John Mitchell, was aware of the incident when he announced to the papers’ employees Monday afternoon that she would succeed him, effective February 1. But according to two Herald staffers, neither Mitchell nor Nelson informed the newsroom that their new boss had been charged.
“I'm not aware of John telling the newsroom about the incident,” Herald news editor Alan Keays told Seven Days Wednesday afternoon. “I certainly believe it would have been more appropriate for the newsroom to have learned about the incident sooner.”
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Monday, December 28, 2015
Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus publisher R. John Mitchell plans to step back from the family-owned news organization early next year, several sources within the company told Seven Days Monday.
The 70-year-old publisher, who joined the Herald as an ad salesman in 1965, disclosed his plans during a staff meeting Monday afternoon. Replacing him as publisher of the two dailies, effective February 1, will be vice president and CEO Catherine Nelson. His son, Rob Mitchell, will become editor-in-chief of both papers.
The elder Mitchell will remain president of the newspapers’ parent company, Herald Association, Inc., and chairman of its board of directors.
“I think he’s been struggling with this probably for a year or two,” Rob Mitchell told Seven Days Tuesday. “I think he feels that we’re at a point where he can step back, and he’s not as worried about where we are as a newspaper or newspapers.”
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Sunday, December 20, 2015
But the chill wasn't just emanating from below the floorboards. It was in the air around Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) top aides and surrogates, still frosted over the Democratic National Committee's decision to suspend access to its voter files late last week. The sanction came after the DNC caught several Sanders staffers taking advantage of a temporary software glitch to snoop around rival Hillary Clinton's voter data. (The Sanders campaign fired one of the perpetrators Thursday and suspended two others Saturday.)
Speaking to reporters in the arena before the debate, campaign manager Jeff Weaver referred to the suspension, which was lifted late Friday, as a "death sentence" and a "very heavy-handed, unfair overreaction by the chairwoman." He was referring to DNC chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
"I think what it demonstrates is there are establishment forces out there that are very, very concerned about the success of this campaign," Weaver said.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Jeff Weaver , Tad Devine , Nina Turner , Debbie Wasserman Schultz , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) apologized Saturday night for the behavior of campaign staffers who accessed voter data belonging to rival Hillary Clinton — but his apology took a little prodding.
Asked about the controversy at the third Democratic presidential debate, in Goffstown, N.H., Sanders at first delivered an extended explanation of the drama that had subsumed his campaign in recent days. He criticized the Democratic National Committee, its data vendor and even the Clinton campaign, which he suggested may have accessed his own proprietary information.
Only after moderator David Muir of ABC News asked whether Clinton deserved an apology did Sanders actually express remorse.
"Yes, I apologize," the senator said, not looking happy about it.
As Muir turned to Clinton for a response, Sanders jumped back in to offer a fuller mea culpa.
"Not only do I apologize to Secretary Clinton — and I hope we can work together on an independent investigation, from day one — I want to apologize to my supporters," he said. "This is not the type of campaign that we run. And if I find anybody else involved in this, they will also be fired."
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Saturday, December 19, 2015
The détente came hours after the Sanders campaign sued the DNC in federal court, alleging breach of contract for suspending access to its voter file. In its complaint, the Sanders campaign argued that the DNC's "unwarranted, unilateral suspension" was causing the candidate "irreparable injury" and threatened to "cripple" his campaign.
The Sanders campaign had been barred from accessing information it has collected on voters, supporters and donors since Thursday afternoon, when the DNC discovered that Sanders staffers had accessed proprietary data belonging to Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
The DNC initially said it would not restore access until the Sanders campaign provided a full explanation of its activities. The Sanders campaign, meanwhile, accused the DNC of taking its data "hostage" and attempting to "sabotage" it.
Without access to its lists, which the Sanders team called “the lifeblood of any campaign,” its canvassing and fundraising efforts were hobbled just six weeks before the Iowa caucuses. In its lawsuit, the Sanders campaign valued the losses it was suffering at more than $600,000 per day.
In a statement released early Saturday, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said it had reversed course because the Sanders campaign had provided the information it had requested.
"Based on this information, we are restoring the Sanders campaign’s access to the voter file, but will continue to investigate to ensure that the data that was inappropriately accessed has been deleted and is no longer in possession of the Sanders campaign," Wasserman Schultz said. "The Sanders campaign has agreed to fully cooperate with the continuing DNC investigation of this breach."
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Friday, December 18, 2015
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) campaign launched a withering assault on the Democratic National Committee Friday afternoon, accusing the party organization of “sabotage,” taking valuable voter data “hostage” and “actively attempting to undermine” its efforts.
Speaking at a press conference outside Sanders’ Washington, D.C., office, campaign manager Jeff Weaver threatened to take the DNC to court later Friday if it did not restore access to the voter data, which he called “the lifeblood of any campaign.”
“Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want,” Weaver said. “But they are not going to sabotage our campaign — one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history.”
Weaver’s blistering words followed the DNC’s decision Thursday to suspend the Sanders campaign from using the party’s voter database, which is maintained by vendor NGP VAN. The system allows individual Democratic campaigns to layer proprietary information — such as the identities of supporters, donors and volunteers — on top of communal data without allowing other campaigns to see it.
But as the Washington Post first reported late Thursday, the Sanders campaign managed to access information belonging to the Clinton campaign Wednesday. The data became available for a brief period that day as NGP VAN performed a software upgrade.
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Later in the day, the Burlington-based progressive group Democracy for America did the same.
Both organizations made their decisions at the behest of members. While most labor unions leave it to their executive boards to dole out presidential endorsements, CWA president Chris Shelton said at a Washington, D.C., press conference Thursday morning that his union pledged from the start to abide by the results of a survey of its members.
"They voted decisively for Bernie Sanders," Shelton said. "This is absolutely a democratically come-to decision."
Similarly, DFA conducted a weeklong online poll that generated more than 271,000 votes. To win the organization's endorsement, a candidate had to win at least a two-thirds majority. In the end, Sanders took 87.9 percent, compared with 10.3 percent for former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and 1.1 percent for former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley.
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"We are enormously proud that we have received more individual contributions at this point in the campaign than any candidate who is not an incumbent president," Sanders said in a written statement. "As the campaign continues to succeed, we expect those numbers to grow exponentially."
Sanders' campaign said it had raised more than $3 million since Monday, when it launched a public push to cross the 2-million-contribution threshold. The campaign did not say how much money it's collected since the end of September, when it announced it had raised more than $41 million since the Vermont senator joined the race. Candidates will next report totals to the Federal Election Commission at the end of the year.
According to the Sanders campaign, only incumbent President Barack Obama had collected as many contributions at an equivalent period, during his 2012 reelection campaign. Many of Sanders' more than 800,000 individual donors have given several times, according to spokesman Michael Briggs. Only 261 of them have donated the maximum allowable contribution of $2,700, Briggs said, meaning many can continue giving. Rival Hillary Clinton reported in October that 17,575 donors had maxed-out to her campaign.
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
A powerful panel voted 3-2 Wednesday to recommend suspending Sen. Norm McAllister (R-Franklin) from the Vermont Senate. The resolution, if approved by the full Senate in January, would bar him from serving until the conclusion of criminal sexual assault proceedings against him.
The Senate Rules Committee made its decision at a dramatic Statehouse hearing during which McAllister himself made a surprise appearance. He told his colleagues he was “not guilty of any of the charges” and warned against stripping him of his powers.
“I’ve had constituents tell me that they will bring a lawsuit if I’m not allowed to represent them,” the 64-year-old Highgate farmer said.
McAllister, who sat alone through much of the two-hour meeting, addressed the panel for five minutes before its members voted on his fate. He told them he had been “bullied, threatened” by some of his colleagues and “financially ruined” by the legal proceedings.
“I understand you feel you have to do something,” he concluded. “But it’s kinda like — I see it as, you’ve got somebody down on their knees, so kick ’em in the head.”
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Tuesday, December 15, 2015
"It’s no shock to me that big networks, which are controlled by a handful of large corporations, have barely discussed our campaign and the important issues we are bringing up," Sanders said Saturday in an email to supporters. "They’re just too busy covering [Republican presidential candidate] Donald Trump."
But even as Sanders rails against what his campaign refers to as a "Bernie blackout" in the national press, several reporters in his home state of Vermont complain they've had little to no access to the candidate since he launched his campaign last April.
"It's a little disappointing for a person who has been so accessible in the past to be frozen out like this," says Vermont Public Radio news director John Dillon. "You understand it from a pragmatic point of view. He's more concerned with Iowa than he is with Irasburg. But he's still our senator."
According to Dillon, Sanders agreed to two interviews with VPR last summer in Washington, D.C., as the station prepared an hourlong documentary on the candidate. But the senator has declined to appear on VPR's daily public affairs show, Vermont Edition, since March — even though its producers have promised to "clear the schedule" if he made himself available, Dillon says. The station also routinely asks to speak with Sanders about his votes in the U.S. Senate.
"He never calls back," Dillon says. "Whereas, before he was a candidate, he would always want to get in those stories. Sometimes he would call us before we would even call him — and that's not the case now."
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