Monday, June 1, 2020
"It has been suspended and as soon as we have an opportunity to open up our facilities again it will be reestablished," Secretary of Human Services Mike Smith said Monday. "It hasn't been forgotten."
Smith ordered the probe last December after Seven Days reported allegations of sexual misconduct, drug use and retaliation within the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. He hired former U.S. attorney Tristram Coffin of the Burlington law firm Downs Rachlin Martin to conduct the review, which was to be completed by late April or early May.
According to Smith, that timeline became unrealistic when, in March, the Department of Corrections barred outsiders from visiting the state's prisons in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. "One of the primary tasks was to be able to interview various people, to see the facilities, to observe, to interview, and obviously we couldn't do that with the crisis that hit," the secretary said.
Tags: Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility , Department of Corrections , Mike Smith , Jim Baker , Tristram Coffin , Alice Emmons , Dick Sears , Web Only , Image
Thursday, May 28, 2020
For a couple of hours Thursday morning, committees of the Vermont legislature conducted remote meetings that members of the public could not view.
According to an email to legislators from director of information technology Kevin Moore, "a communication issue between Zoom and YouTube" prevented the legislature's livestreams from functioning properly. Committees use Zoom's online platform to conduct meetings, which are simultaneously broadcast to the public via YouTube.
When contacted about the problem later Thursday morning, representatives of House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) and Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) told Seven Days that committee meetings would continue and be uploaded for public viewing later on Thursday.
Subsequently, at around 10:30 a.m., the House decided to cancel all meetings until the problem was resolved, according to Johnson's chief of staff, Katherine Levasseur. The Senate, however, continued to meet, according to Ashe's chief of staff, Peter Sterling.
Around midday, according to Levasseur and Sterling, the legislature’s IT staff devised a workaround that allowed committees to broadcast live using a different method. Several House committees resumed their work. By the end of the day Thursday, videos of the earlier House and Senate committee meetings were still not available online.
The situation could raise questions about the legislature's adherence to rules around transparency. While the legislature has argued that it is not subject to the state's open meetings law, the Vermont Constitution requires that the doors of the Statehouse "shall be open for the admission of all persons who behave decently."
Thursday’s incident was not the first time the legislature has struggled to do its work remotely. A day earlier, the livestream of a Senate floor proceeding was interrupted due to unrelated technical difficulties. The meeting continued for a short period of time before the feed could be fixed, according to Senate Secretary John Bloomer, but no video was recorded.
Last month, a quorum of the Senate briefly discussed public policy issues during a private portion of an online caucus meeting. Ashe subsequently apologized for failing to make the meeting accessible to the public sooner.
Kevin McCallum contributed reporting.
Disclosure: Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. Find our conflict-of-interest policy here: sevendaysvt.com/disclosure.
Tags: Katherine Levasseur , Mitzi Johnson , Peter Sterling , Tim Ashe , Kevin Moore , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
The Senate Government Operations Committee approved a bill that would remove Scott's power to decide how to conduct elections in 2020, leaving that authority solely with Secretary of State Jim Condos, a Democrat.
Condos and state elections officials have said they want to mail general election ballots to all registered voters to keep crowds small at the polls due to COVID-19 concerns. Health experts have raised the prospect of outbreaks in the fall.
“We just want to make certain that every Vermonter has the ability to vote safely in what will quite likely be a high-turnout election,” Chris Winters, deputy secretary of state, told the committee.
Scott has said he thinks the decision could wait until after the August 11 primary. Elections officials say there isn’t time to switch to mail-in voting by that date, but postcards will remind voters that they can request an absentee ballot. The governor would prefer to move toward restoring a sense of normalcy by holding a regular November election, if possible.
Elections officials have countered that the decision needs to be made now because mailing and printing contracts, voter education, and clerk training all need to commence to ensure the election goes smoothly.
Tags: COVID-19 , Election 2020 , Jim Condos , mail-in ballots , Phil Scott , Web Only , Image
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Rep. Kitty Toll (D-Danville), the chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, announced Saturday that she will not seek reelection.
Her departure after 12 years in office will leave the House without one of its most experienced number-crunchers as it enters an era likely marked by economic scars caused by the pandemic.
In a statement, Toll said the decision was a difficult one and called representing the residents of Cabot, Danville and Peacham in the Northeast Kingdom "one of the biggest honors of my life."
Tags: Kitty Toll , Jane Kitchel , House Appropriations Committee , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
In a budget proposal submitted to the House Appropriations Committee, the administration said that most agencies and departments should spend 8 percent less in the first quarter of the next fiscal year than they did this year.
"We're thinking that it's not going to be a major issue for any one department, but it will be, call it slight pain spread broadly," Scott's finance commissioner, Adam Greshin, told committee members Tuesday afternoon.
With the submission of its proposal to the legislature, the administration began the second of three budgeting processes taking place in a short period of time in response to the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tags: Adam Greshin , Phil Scott , Mary Hooper , Bob Helm , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
The leaders of the state Senate and House on Tuesday called for Gov. Phil Scott to require Vermonters to wear face masks while shopping and engaging in other public activities.
An executive order reopening retail stores on Monday mandated that employees wear face coverings, but the governor has resisted forcing customers to do the same. Speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) said the edict had the "very strange consequence" of protecting the customer from the coronavirus, but not the employee.
"I feel like we would be doing everyone a favor by having one uniform policy," he said.
Ashe suggested that if Scott refused to change course, he would ask fellow senators whether they have "the appetite to push for a mandatory policy." The pro tem added, "It's not ideal for the legislature to be making public health orders, effectively, but if the governor isn't going to go there, then I think we've gotta at least debate the question."
Tags: Tim Ashe , Mitzi Johnson , Phil Scott , Mark Levine , Web Only , Image
Friday, May 15, 2020
The legislation aims to fill a $195 million hole in the current state budget, which expires at the end of next month. Much of the revenue shortfall is due to the federal government's decision to delay the income tax due date by three months and the state's decision to waive penalties on late payments of rooms, meals, sales and use taxes. Vermont still expects to collect $143 million of the money next fiscal year, but $52 million is gone for good.
The House plan largely mirrors a proposal put forward last week by Gov. Phil Scott to borrow from the state's cash reserves to cover the deferred revenue and then refill those reserves when the money comes in this summer.
It also counts on nearly $62 million worth of newfound money and unexpected savings. Those include $38 million in additional Medicaid funding from the federal government and $8.7 million in Medicaid savings due to a reduction in standard medical services during the outbreak. It also includes an unexpected $4.6 million uptick in state liquor revenue, partially driven by an increased demand for alcohol in recent months.
Tags: Vermont state budget , Web Only , Image
Mulvaney-Stanak will run in the Chittenden 6-2 House district, where Rep. Jean O’Sullivan (D-Burlington) currently holds the sole seat. It includes parts of Burlington’s Old North End and New North End neighborhoods. Mulvaney-Stanak said she plans to seek the Democratic nomination, as well as the Progressive endorsement.
"Now more than ever, we really need voices in the Statehouse that are clearly and laser-focused on economic justice issues," she told Seven Days, including decent wages and workers' rights. The mother of two said she'd also focus on equity and education, and added that Vermont should do more for young families.
"I have a front-row seat to the struggles of finding affordable, high-quality childcare," she said. "That is a real-life struggle for thousands of Vermonters. It matters when you have people in the Statehouse who are actually living that."
Mulvaney-Stanak worked for more than 10 years for the Vermont-National Education Association teachers' union, where she led organizing and leadership development efforts. In 2018, she launched a consulting business, EMStrategies, through which, she said, she supports social change and equity issues for clients such as unions and school districts. She also coaches political candidates.
O'Sullivan, a businesswoman who established a financial services company, was appointed to the seat in 2012 and has been reelected four times since. She, too, formerly served as a Burlington city councilor.
O'Sullivan did not respond to requests for comment.
Tags: Emma Mulvaney-Stanak , Vermont House , Jean O'Sullivan , elections , Web Only , Image
Thursday, May 14, 2020
The Senate for the first time since the outbreak took up less pressing and potentially more partisan legislation, such as expanding energy efficiency programs and tweaking teacher health care benefits.
“I believe now, just as the economy is slowly opening, it’s time to start resurrecting the typical legislative process in terms of what bills get taken up,” Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) told his colleagues on Wednesday.
Tags: coronavirus , Senate , Tim Ashe , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Senators, who backed the bill last month in their first-ever remote vote, approved several proposed amendments from the lower chamber on Tuesday before unanimously agreeing to send the bill to Gov. Phil Scott, who has not said whether he will sign it.
"It [is] an unusual bill in the sense that both sides — landlords and tenants, [who] usually have differences when it comes to legislation — all came together, and, in the COVID-19 spirit of legislation, agreed," Sen. Michael Sirotkin (D-Chittenden) said prior to Tuesday's vote.
Tags: Eviction and foreclosure moratorium , Vermont Senate , S.333 , Coronavirus , Web Only , Image