VTDigger Makes a Good Hire, I Think

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This truly is the Golden Age of cheeseball graphics, isn’t it? Although this one is perilously close to the line between “crafted by a top-shelf management consultant” and “xkcd cartoon.”

Anyway, to the matter at hand: the Vermont Journalism Trust hiring Brendan Kinney as its new CEO. Let’s stipulate off the top that I don’t know Kinney, have never met him, and have spoken to no one about him. This is me standing outside the forest, unencumbered and/or disempowered by inside information.

It seems like a great move in many important ways. But I do have some caveats, and some thoughs on how the announcement was covered.

Judging solely by resumé, Kinney has a lot going for him. He’s been a top executive at Vermont Public for a long time — before and after the merger of Vermont Public TV and Vermont Public Radio. (Not everyone survived that transition.) He was in charge of development, a.k.a. fundraising, for one of the most successful nonprofit organizations in Vermont. He knows the landscape and the audience as well as anyone, he knows what works and what doesn’t in terms of audience engagement in these parts.

And public media is the model for the nascent world of nonprofit journalism. For decades, public media have been raising enough money to build strong, vibrant enterprises. The new wave of nonprofit outlets is playing catchup, and could do far worse than emulate the development successes of public media

So, Kinney’s a home run, right?

Possibly. But I do have questions.

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The Legislature’s Definition of “Conflict of Interest” Is Remarkably Indulgent

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Another day, another cheeseball graphic from the Internet. But in the case of the Vermont Legislature, there’s something a little bit off with this picture. It’d be more accurate if the red “X” was removed, because its conflict of interest rules are more designed to enable conflict than prevent it. And the standard, as flaccid as it is, seems to be applied with stunning inconsistency.

Exhibit A: The very good story co-authored by Carly Berlin and Liam Elder-Connors and published by VTDigger and Vermont Public, about the clear and obvious conflict of interest involving Republican Rep. Debbie Dolgin.

Dolgin’s husband Steve is a hard-nosed landlord from St. Johnsbury who has actively lobbied the Legislature to make it easier for landlords to evict tenants. Dolgin herself now sits on the House Committee on General and Housing, whose remit includes landlord/tenant law. In committee deliberations, she has openly advocated for her husband’s interests.

This isn’t a problem, I guess, because the House’s conflict standards are as loose as a pair of panties in the mind of Fifties illustrator Art Frahm.

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“This Is, Frankly, Embarrassing”

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This cheeseball graphic uncomfortably represents Vermont’s commitment to ethics in our political process. It’s sad, it’s perfunctory, it’s just plain awful.

The title quotation neatly, depressingly, encapsulates our recent history with ethics enforcement. If Our Political Betters were capable of embarrassment, and if they are they hide it very well, the Statehouse would be full of beet-red faces.

The quotation came from Deputy Secretary of State Lauren Hibbert, speaking last month to a House committee that had just acknowledged, in a bill on the cusp of becoming law, that Vermont can’t afford ethical standards in our politics.

But hey, at least the Legislature is consistent. They’ve never had the stomach for any real ethics regime. They just want to make it seem like they care. The result: an ethics commission that’s woefully under-resourced, has no investigative or enforcement powers, and does all its business in secret.

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And Now, a Few Words on Behalf of Castor Canadensis

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Loyal Spouse and I headed up U.S.2 to the Jaquith Public Library in Marshfield last night to hear a talk by Vermont wildlife rescuer John Aberth, author of “Bringing Up Beaver: Two Orphaned Beaver Kits, Two Humans, and Our Journey Back to the Wild.” It was fascinating, and it raised some Vermont Political Points worth sharing.

The book tells the story of rescuing and raising two beaver kits, which is an incredibly demanding process and a two-year commitment because that’s how long it takes a beaver to reach maturity. (The image above is taken from the front cover of the book.)

Aberth shared his experiences, and spent a few minutes at the end talking about wildlife policy. He had a lot to say, much of which I had never heard before. He was sharply critical of trapping wild animals in general and beavers in particular. In the case of beavers, trapping is mostly employed to get rid of perceived nuisances — by property owners, town officials, and the Agency of Transportation. Long gone are the days when beaver pelts fueled the exploration of a continent; today, a pelt sells for only about $20.

The problem is not only the cruelty. It’s also the fact that beavers are actually beneficial to the environment. And in the vast majority of cases, trapping doesn’t work. All it does is open up prime beaver habitat for others to occupy; lather, rinse, repeat. Plus, there are proven ways to accommodate beavers and minimize conflict at a fraction of the cost of trapping, and trapping, and trapping again.

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It’s Gettin’ Late Early Out There

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While I was preparing (an overly grandiose term for my process, TBH) for the latest edition of the “Montpelier Happy Hour” podcast with Your Host Olga Peters*, something struck me that shouldn’t have been a surprise at all. Well, two things:

*Audio version available here.

  1. In a normal year, the Legislature would be steaming full-speed toward adjournment or would have already adjourned, but we seem to be nowhere near a conclusion.
  2. The filing deadline for major-party candidates in the August primary and November election is less than a month away.

If there was ever a year that could put a stake in the heart of Vermont’s beloved but fictional separation between legislating season and political season, well, 2026 is it. Last year, thanks mainly to Gov. Phil Scott’s bullheaded insistence on Act 73, the Legislature didn’t adjourn until mid-June. We seem to be headed toward a repeat performance this year, given the facts that (1) the House just passed H.931, its version of the Act 73 sequel, (2) the Senate has barely begun its process, (3) the Senate is likely to tear up the House bill and rewrite it from scratch, (4) the governor has already promised to veto the House version if it did somehow get through the Senate, and (5) ain’t nobody seems to have the slightest idea what kind of bill could survive the process while maybe not entirely triggering a revolt among the voting public.

Oh, and the governor is also threatening to lock the doors from the outside if he doesn’t get an amended version of Act 181 that’s to his liking. Also the budget, a not uncommon bone of contention between the branches. And he’s likely to veto another bill or six, just for shits and giggles.

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Phil Scott Gets Pantsed on a National Stage

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Has Danziger been our cartoonist laureate yet? If not, why not?

Anyway, to business. Recently, Gov. Phil Scott took a flying elbow off the top rope in the opinion section of The Hill, that bastion of conventional wisdom inside the Beltway. It was a complete and utter smackdown from beginning to end. And I’ll stop with the wrestling metaphors now, I think.

The subject was Scott’s return-to-office order for state employees. That’s the one in serious jeopardy thanks to a unanimous ruling by the state Labor Relations Board. That’s the Board whose five members were all nominated and/or vetted by the Scott administration.

Which begs the question, was the return-to-office order a good idea or not?

Enter Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a widely-published expert on workplace issues in the digital age, dubbed “The Office Whisperer” by The New York Times. He penned (Only in Journalism) an essay published by The Hill on April 14 that ripped the RTO order to shreds. He called the order a “fiasco,” a “blunder,” and “an expensive gamble,” not to mention “a case study in how political theater can collide with labor law, management reality and basic fiscal discipline.”

Ouch!

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A Bunch of Bad News for the Bennington Battle Monument — And the State’s Troubled VTBuys System

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A story published a few days ago by VTDigger sparked my curiosity about the status of the extremely phallic Bennington Battle Monument, which I have dubbed Vermont’s “Gilded Age tribute to toxic masculinity.” When last I wrote about this “ponderous pecker,” news had come out that the thing was made of highly absorbent limestone that had, of course, become waterlogged. Repairs were estimated at about $40 million, to which I responded that we ought to just blow the damn thing up.

The latest Digger piece reported that the state is about to hold two public meetings to discuss what to do with the Monument. What it didn’t report is that the $40 million figure is nothing more than a semi-educated guess. Nobody knows how much it would really cost, or the price tag for ongoing maintenance if we do fix it up. That’s partly because the state lacks critical data, thanks to the deeply troubled VTBuys contracting and payment portal — yet another demerit in Gov. Phil Scott’s ineffectual efforts to reinvent state government.

We take you back to February 10, and a hearing of the House Corrections & Institutions Committee that went completely uncovered by the sleepy watchdogs of our news media. I came across it as I poked around for more information about Digger’s latest story. But anyone with an interest in the Monument, or in the orderly function of state government, needs to know what went on that day.

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A Futile Defense of Act 181

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Democratic lawmakers are in the process of dismantling Act 181, the landmark Act 250 reform measure designed to encourage housing where it makes the most sense while protecting undeveloped land. It’s clear that the Act will be significantly pared back due to (a) political pressure from rural areas and/or (b) garden variety Democratic cowardice in the face of the slightest headwinds.

As they do so, Democrats will be throwing another of their core constituencies under the bus. If they’re willing to ignore the teachers’ union (not to mention principals and school administrators and, well, parents) by pursuing the Act 73 education reform bill, their rewriting of Act 181 is an abandonment of environmental groups. Yep, the Dems to seem to have a tendency to take their strongest supporters for granted. (See also: Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ folk.)

Act 181 was one of the most carefully crafted, inclusive pieces of legislation to come down the pike. It was the product of extensive negotiation and collaboration across the full gamut of interested parties, from environmental groups to developers and business interests. It was meant to strike a delicate balance between development and conservation — a balance that’s now being undone in the Democrats’ retreat.

Act 181 had the added benefit of encouraging development where we need it the most: in settled areas with public services. I don’t know about you, but my definition of “workforce housing” doesn’t involve isolated homes deep in the woods. It means affordable housing where the workers and the jobs are located.

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The Greatest Act of Defiance in Music History

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We will return to The Usual Stuff tomorrow. But first, I want to write about an unforgettable experience I had a few days ago. We spent a long weekend in Montreal, with a concert of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra as the main event. It was a marathon affair; the opening piece wasn’t a suite or an overture, but Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony, a work of considerable heft. Then, after intermission, came the most intense experience I think I’ve ever had in a concert hall: Dmitri Shostakovich’s massive Seventh Symphony.

It was amazing, exhausting, and uplifting. If you want it in one word, Wow.

The work itself is a masterpiece. The story behind it is equally compelling. It was, and I’m not overstating things, a blow against fascism that reverberated around the world.

Shostakovich was a native of Leningrad, formerly and currently St. Petersburg. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, it encircled the city and enforced a siege that lasted nearly three years and killed almost half the city’s population, mainly by starvation. It was one of the most monstrous acts of a truly monstrous regime.

The composer was living in Leningrad, starving alongside his fellows, working on relief efforts, and doing what he did best: expressing himself in music. He had a lot to express, and he needed a mega-platform to encompass it all. The Seventh requires a massive, oversized orchestra and takes well over an hour to perform. It’s a feat of endurance for musicians, conductor, and audience alike. But man, was it worth the time and effort.

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We’ve Got Multiple Prosecutors Driving Drunk, and Somehow the Problem is Sarah Fair George

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It’s another sad chapter in our ongoing saga of misdeeds by county-level officials in Vermont. This time it’s Grand Isle State’s Attorney Doug DiSabito, busted for drunk driving inside the Franklin County courthouse.

DiSabito, for those unfamiliar, is one of Vermont’s loudest voices for law-n-order. Except maybe when it applies to himself.

News of his arrest came just a few days after Addison County State’s Attorney Eva Vekos had her law license suspended by the state Supreme Court following her own drunk driving conviction.

Addison to the south… Grand Isle to the north… and right there in between is Chittenden County, where the unacceptably progressive Sarah Fair George is once again under attack from within her own party. I guess it’s okay to rack up the DUIs as long as you do your best to keep poor folks behind bars. Priorities.

In the case of Vekos, it’s almost certainly a matter of months before she’s turfed out. She hasn’t ruled out a run for re-election, but at least one challenger has already entered the fray. If she doesn’t get her license back, it’ll be quite a stretch for her to seek another four years on a job she is currently unable to perform*, although stranger things have certainly happened with county-level elected officials.

*I know, she can continue to do paperwork and stuff, but she can’t do a damn thing in court.

DiSabito, on the other hand, has been in office since 2014 and has not faced significant opposition since his first primary. In 2022 he ran on the Democratic and Republican tickets, and he has announced his plan to do the same this year.

Will anyone pull a Bram Kranichfeld and give this guy a run for his money? Somehow, I doubt it. And even if they did, no one has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of voters in county elections.

I must stipulate that DiSabito has merely been arrested. (Inside a courthouse!) He deserves the presumption of innocence until his case is heard. But it’s hard to take him seriously as a force for law-n-order if he’s engaging in behavior that not only breaks the law, but actively endangers everyone who shares the public roadways with him.

Allegedly.