Tuesday, January 16, 2018
During a presentation at the Statehouse, members of the Marijuana Advisory Commission also recommended education and prevention programs for young people, along with data collection to measure and track the effects of cannabis legalization on traffic deaths, youth drug use, substance use disorders and criminal activity.
Gov. Phil Scott created the commission by executive order last August. It's tasked with investigating three primary areas: taxation and regulation, education and prevention, and highway safety.
Tags: Cannabeat , marijuana , legalization , legislature , Phil Scott , Jake Perkinson , Mark Levine , Image , Web Only
Monday, January 15, 2018
Calling it a "10-year vision," Secretary of Human Services Al Gobeille emphasized that the complex would be constructed gradually over the course of a decade.
Legislators asked the Agency of Human Services to come up with a plan to address the state’s aging correctional facilities as well as shortcomings with its mental health care system. The recommendation is in a report from administration officials to legislators.
The facility would house male and female offenders, including those with mental health diagnoses.
Its construction would cost roughly $140 million, according to the agency’s estimates. A private company would build the facility and then lease it to the state.
Scott’s communications director, Rebecca Kelley, said the governor supports the “vision” laid out in the report and “recognizes there’s a lot of work to do to make it a reality.”
Tags: Phil Scott , Agency of Human Services , Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility , Northwest State Correction Facility , Image , Web Only
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Scott indicated previously that he'd sign, but this was the first time the governor said so publicly since the Vermont Senate passed the legislation on Wednesday.
"We'll take a look at it to make sure it's technically correct, and then I'll sign the bill," Scott said during an unrelated Statehouse press conference about the first report of the governor's Opioid Coordination Council.
Scott did not commit to a public signing. "There's a lot of diverse opinions on this," he said. "I have my opinion. We'll see."
Tags: Cannabeat , Phil Scott , cannabis , cannabis policy , governor , Vermont Statehouse , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
The Vermont Senate voted Wednesday to legalize marijuana in the state, starting in July.
The legislation, which passed the Vermont House last week and won approval in the Senate by a voice vote, now goes to Gov. Phil Scott’s desk. The first-term Republican has said he would sign it into law. That would make Vermont the first state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana through legislative action, rather than a referendum.
The Senate made quick work of the bill Wednesday afternoon, approving it with virtually no discussion, just minutes after convening for the day. The institution has debated the subject at length in recent years — voting in 2016 and 2017 to legalize the drug.
In brief remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) thanked colleagues who opposed the legislation but nevertheless worked to improve the bill.
Later Wednesday, he characterized the vote as “a step in a process to a more rational system.”
Tags: Cannabeat , cannabis reform , marijuana , Vermont Senate , legislature , Image , Web Only
Friday, January 5, 2018
"There's a lot going on here," legislative lawyer Peter Griffin said of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, most of which took effect January 1. "We're scrambling to understand the implications."
Added Rep. Janet Ancel (D-Calais), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, "It is, at best, a Rubik's Cube." She later amended her comment, noting that the federal bill puts a Rubik's Cube to shame.
Ancel's committee spent nearly three hours Friday listening to a lengthy presentation from Griffin and fiscal analyst Graham Campbell of the legislature's Joint Fiscal Office. Just to illustrate the extent of the unknowns, every page of Griffin's and Campbell's lengthy briefing paper was stamped "DRAFT," to let everyone know it was a work in progress and nothing should be considered final.
The overall takeaway: Making Vermont's tax system align better with the new federal law may be a huge and politically fraught issue that will occupy much of the legislature's time this year. And while Gov. Phil Scott didn't even address the issue in his State of the State address Thursday, it may have a major impact on his own agenda.
Tags: Janet Ancel , Peter Griffin , Graham Campbell , Donald Trump , Fred Baser , Bette Davis , Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 , Image , Web Only
Rep. Kiah Morris (D-Bennington) belted out the tune for the House's devotional, a daily formality that usually consists of the state song or the national anthem. Friday's change-up to the classic Wizard of Oz song — sung by a legislator, no less — was part of the remembrance for Paij Wadley-Bailey, who died in 2016.
The House honored Wadley-Bailey with a resolution. Morris' performance held members' rapt attention from beginning to end.
“Paij contributed a lot to our community on so many levels and in so many ways,” Rep. Brian Cina (P-Burlington) said Friday. “She was an educator and an activist and a community organizer.”
Tags: Kiah Morris , Brian Cina , Paij Wadley-Bailey , Vermont House , Image , Web Only , Video
Thursday, January 4, 2018
Maybe that's unfair. After all, these speeches are usually heavy on the bromides. But Scott is entering his second year in the corner office, and he still seems to be figuring out exactly what to do. Even his assessment of the state of the state was self-contradictory.
Early on, he said that "the state of our state is very strong." (The "very" was an ad lib, not included in the text of the speech.) That statement came a few paragraphs after Scott had proclaimed this "a difficult moment for our state and our country." And the rest of the speech was full of calls to take (ill-defined) action on a series of dire challenges that threaten the future of the state.
Scott outlined an agenda that was basically unchanged from his first year in office: making Vermont affordable, getting a handle on public school costs, growing Vermont's workforce and economy, addressing water quality and climate change, and tackling the opioid crisis. But his No. 1 priority — which severely restricts his ability to take positive action on all of those issues — is holding the line on taxes and fees.
Tags: Phil Scott , State of the State , Rebecca Holcombe , Vermont Statehouse , Vermont legislature , Image , Web Only
The early evening vote capped a daylong debate, during which a flurry of last-minute amendments and procedural tactics had legalization proponents rooting against establishment of a retail pot market and opponents advocating for one.
The bill now returns to the Vermont Senate, which, like the House, passed a version of the legislation last year. If the Senate approves it without changes, the bill could land on Gov. Phil Scott’s desk within weeks. The Republican, who vetoed a similar version last year, has said he would sign it this time.
If the bill becomes law, possession of up to an ounce of weed would be legal in Vermont for those 21 and older, starting in July. The legislation also allows possession of four immature and two mature pot plants.
Tags: Cannabeat , cannabis reform , marijuana , Vermont House , politics , legalization , cannabis , Don Turner , Chip Conquest , Kurt Wright , Phil Scott , Image , Web Only
Gov. Phil Scott opened his first State of the State address Thursday by touting what he doesn’t plan to do: raise taxes or fees.
Providing a bleak assessment of Vermont’s economy, Scott proposed one major remedy: Bring more workers to the state. The first-term Republican pledged to undertake a "bold, sophisticated campaign to identify and persuade working-age individuals, families and entrepreneurs to relocate [to] Vermont."
The specific recruitment ideas he offered were modest and mostly targeted at military service-members and veterans. They included paying full college tuition for members of the Vermont National Guard and eliminating state income taxes on military pensions.
He also pledged to entice working-age residents to stay in Vermont, in part by expanding the state’s adult technical education program.
Scott argued that, in his first year in office, he had helped the state "stop digging" itself into a deeper financial hole, but he suggested that there was more work to be done.
"Having fiscal discipline means facing facts," the governor told the packed House chamber.
Tags: Phil Scott , State of the State , Vermont , Statehouse , Image , Web Only
That's the skating rink on the Vermont Statehouse lawn, which had originally been barred because it wasn't in keeping with the architectural character of the capitol grounds. In the words of an unnamed official quoted in the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, the rink looked like "a horse stable."
But overwhelming public support, plus the hearty endorsement of Gov. Phil Scott, ensured that the rink would return after its first season in 2017. City and state workers are now erecting the rink with an eye toward opening next week.
"We're hoping to catch the late end of the deep freeze," said Peter Hooper, electrical engineer and project manager for the Department of Buildings and General Services' energy office. "They're putting the plastic up that will maintain the water, and as soon as they get that done we'll turn the water on."
Tags: Statehouse ice rink , Rink at State Street , Peter Hooper , Nate Hausman , Phil Scott , Image , Web Only