Monthly Archives: December 2014

Mahatma makes a boo-boo

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I’m in the process of doing a full write-up of Scott Milne’s news conference this morning. But while I was putting it together, I came across something I couldn’t resist sharing right away.

In his prepared remarks, he called on state lawmakers to vote for Governor in accordance with their “constitutional oath,” which he quoted in the following way:

… in giving my “vote or suffrage touching any matter that concerns the State of Vermont, [I] will do it so as in [my] conscience [I] shall judge will most conduce to the best… as established by the Constitution, without fear or favor of any person.”

Small problem, bucko.

That is the Voter’s Oath, which can be found on Vermont’s voter registration form.

There are two Oaths in the state constitution (Section 56) that officeholders must swear: the Oath of Allegiance and the Oath of Office. They read like this:

The Oath or Affirmation of Allegiance

You do solemnly swear (or affirm) that you will be true and faithful to the State of Vermont and that you will not, directly or indirectly, do any act or thing injurious to the Constitution or Government thereof. (If an affirmation) Under the pains and penalties of perjury.

The Oath or Affirmation of Office

You do solemnly swear (or affirm) that you will faithfully execute the office of ____ for the ____ of ____ and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons, to the best of your judgment and ability, according to law. (If an oath) So help you God. (If an affirmation) Under the pains and penalties of perjury.

If he’d found the right Oaths, Milne could perhaps have made a case that lawmakers should vote against Gov. Shumlin to avoid doing “any act or thing injurious to the Constitution or Government,” but that’s not the argument he made.

It was obvious from his news conference that he’d spent a lot of time researching Vermont history and government. But apparently he didn’t quite spend enough time.

As ever, if anyone has contrary information I will happily correct this post.

 

Addendum. Members of the House and Senate actually take a longer oath than that cited in the constitution. However, (1) it does not contain the language cited by Milne, and (2) it’s part of the Legislative Rules, not the Constitution. So Milne remains wrong. 

The Milne campaign: Rhetorically aggressive, tactically passive

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(This is a brief update post. I’ll have a longer take later today.)

Well, at least he didn’t postpone again.

Scott Milne emerged from his secret undisclosed location and saw his shadow, so we’ll have six more weeks of campaigning.

Not really. He did announce, as expected, that he would carry the gubernatorial race forward into the Legislature. But the announcement was curiously bifurcated: he laid out a strongly-worded case against Governor Shumlin seemingly borrowed from Roget’s entry for “disaster.”

An incomplete sampling: “real trouble,” “poor leadership,” “wreaking havoc,” “arrogant,” “deaf,” “botched,” and, of course, “disaster.”

At the same time, seeking to tamp down talk of a looming Constitutional crisis, he also allowed as to how “If Peter Shumlin gets elected, life will go on.”

Beyond that, Milne called on the Legislature to elect him Governor, but he said he’s had little contact with any lawmakers and has no plans to actively solicit their votes: “I don’t think it should be a PR campaign.”

Curiously, he appears to have abandoned his earlier rationale that lawmakers should vote with their constituents. Now, he’s citing the state Constitution and arguing that each lawmaker should vote as he or she sees fit, regardless of personal or political interests.

In addition, he said he’s made little or no moves to prepare for his potential election as governor. When asked if he’d done any work on a budget, which the governor will have to present two weeks after his inauguration, he displayed a blank sheet of paper.

All in all, it was a typically Milne performance.  A bit strange, a lot inconsistent, and reliant on his own brand of logic.

That’s it for now. More later.

No smoking guns in the Gruber file

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Now I know how Neal Goswami’s been spending his spare time lately:

The Vermont Press Bureau obtained nearly 2,400 pages of emails between Jonathan Gruber and state officials that detail the work Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist, has been doing for the administration.

Woof. That’s a lot of emails to wade through. The result of all that work was published in the Sunday edition of the Mitchell Family Organ. (The article is paywalled; if you don’t subscribe, Get Thee To A Library.)

So what did he find? More impolitic comments about stupid voters and conservative pundits? Arrogant pronouncements over how he’s gonna pull the wool over our eyes?

Er, no.

Emails… highlight the administration’s work since the summer preparing a long-awaited financing plan for Gov. Peter Shumlin’s proposed universal, publicly financed health care plan.

… In a July 7 email to Michael Costa, Shumlin’s deputy director of health reform and the tax expert spearheading the administration’s financing plan, Gruber expressed unbridled enthusiasm at the opportunity to help the state craft a single-payer health care plan.

In short, the emails depict a top-shelf policy expert avidly engaged in a very difficult project, and using his economic model to test countless iterations of single-payer.

And seeing Vermont as a ground-breaking opportunity: “I think we have a chance to make history here,” he said in a July email.

Goswami describes a lengthy, painstaking process that seems to validate Gov. Shumlin’s claims that he couldn’t release his plan because it wasn’t ready yet. This was, the emails show, a long, tough slog. Which still continues; reform chief Robin Lunge expressed confidence that the plan would be ready by late December, but only after an all-out effort.

It’s a fascinating read if you’re a policy wonk. But it doesn’t provide provide any new evidence for legitimate attacks on Gruber or single-payer.

Which is not to say there’s no room for illegitimate, partisan attacks:

Many emails that included details of the administration’s plan were redacted, with the administration citing executive privilege.

“Aha!”, I can almost hear Darcie Johnston crying. “Redacted! Cover-up!”

Partisans will certainly look at it that way. Especially since, according to Goswami, the Shumlin administration had an interesting rationale for adding a provision to Gruber’s contract stating that he “may advise the Governor on policy matters.”

That provision was added, not because Gruber would actually provide any policy advice, but simply to lay the foundation for a claim of executive privilege.

Lunge… said the clause in the contract was included to protect her policy advice to the governor. Gruber has not contributed policy advice to the governor, according to Lunge.

Got that? Lunge generated policy ideas… Gruber ran them through his model… and Lunge used his information to shape her policy ideas. But since she had to give her policy ideas to Gruber, his work must be privileged.

It makes sense, but it also provides fertile ground for conspiracy theories.

And it creates some concerns about government transparency: Lunge told Goswami that “the same provision is also included with other contractors.”

If that’s true, then we ought to be less worried about Jonathan Gruber and single-payer, and more worried about broadening claims of executive privilege.

Yep, Ruth Dwyer’s still a colossal jerk

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Remember Ruth Dwyer? The arch-conservative Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1998 and 2000? (Lost both times to Howard Dean.) The staunch opponent of civil unions and sourpuss leader of “Take Back Vermont”?

She’s still around, living in Thetford, and she’s at least as much of a jerk now as she was then.

Neighbors' house in foreground. "Curtain" and Dwyer's house are way in the background.

Neighbors’ house in foreground. “Curtain” and Dwyer’s house are way in the background. Photo from the Valley News.

As the Valley News reports*, Dwyer took exception when a neighboring hayfield was bought by someone who then built a house. Her calm, measured response: she built a huge fence blocking the new house from her view because the new house “offends her sensibilities.”

*The Valley News is paywalled, but if you register (for free), you can read up to five stories per month.

By “huge fence” I mean 60 feet wide and 24 feet high. Basically, a billboard in a rural residential neighborhood. She never sought a building permit.

Thetford zoning officials, meanwhile, have determined the structure — forest-green shade cloth strung across five large wooden utility poles along Sawnee Bean Road — is a “wall” and therefore out of compliance until it goes through a permitting process, which is now underway.

She claims that the structure is merely a temporary “curtain” that will come down as soon as the 68 young cedar trees she’s planted are tall enough to provide a privacy screen. (Sixty-eight trees? She’s planting a damn forest on her front lawn.) Cedars apparently grow a foot to a foot and a half per year. So with any luck that “temporary curtain” will only be there for a couple decades, more or less.  Why the fuss?

Dwyer makes a variety of arguments, ranging from the illogical to the insane. What it boils down to is, “she doesn’t want a neighbor.”

Also, she claims an absolute right to do what she likes on her property, but she doesn’t want her neighbors to exercise the same rights.

Her complaints include the aesthetics of the house. Which, as you can see from the Valley News photo, is functional and plain but not especially ugly.

She also “lamented her neighbors’ habit of mowing the lawn during the warmer months.”

“Mowing the lawn!” Well, I never! What’s next — hanging laundry or putting up a swingset?

She also professes to be bothered “by the glow of [the neighbors’] flatscreen TV.” Now, look at that photo again, and try to gauge the distance between the two houses. (Bearing in mind the “curtain” is 60 feet wide.) She’d practically need a telescope to see the glow of a TV set.

Finally, she complains of increased traffic on her rural road. As if one stinkin’ house is generating noticeable traffic.

The ironic thing, like rain on your wedding day, is that Dwyer is screeching her head off about her property rights being infringed upon by Thetford authorities, while she seems to want absolute control over what happens on neighboring property.

Now that I have their attention

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Funny thing happened Thursday, unprecedented in my three-plus years of political blogging.

My sources. Not exactly as illustrated.

My sources. Not exactly as illustrated.

I got calls from not one, not two, but three different top Democrats seeking to gently upbraid me for stuff I’d written this week, and offer some guidance toward alternative views. Their own views, of course.

Which is nice for the ego. They read, and they care.

Also, their messages were valuable. They did offer some good information. But I’m not completely convinced.

The callers offered some pushback on the subject of newsdumps. They insisted that what appear to be newsdumps — the offloading of bad news when people are least likely to see it — were not newsdumps at all, but simply cases of the calendar conspiring against them.

There was a second message: the upcoming round of budget rescissions do not single out Human Services. They don’t deny that AHS is going to feel the pain, but the problem, as they explain it, is that vast areas of the budget are off-limits for rescissions, which makes AHS the only real target of substantial size.

They made some good points. The problem is this: the Shumlin administration has a well-earned reputation for (1) deviousness, (2) political gamesmanship, (3) newsdumps, and (4) targeting Human Services. Their own track record colors my views of recent events. In other words, if I was overly cynical, I put much of the blame on their doorstep.

I’m sure those inside the administration don’t see it that way. For the most part, they honestly believe they’re trying their best to move the state forward through tough times. But the 2014 election should have been a wake-up call: their view of things is often at odds with others’ views. Say, the voters’ views.

Let’s take their points, shall we?

First, on Human Services having to make almost two-thirds of the cuts in the upcoming rescissions. It’s true, but the reason is that AHS takes the lion’s share of general fund money. And only general-fund programs are open to rescission. Schools and transportation don’t get much money from the general fund, for instance.

According to outgoing Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding, appearing on VPR’s Vermont Edition Friday, AHS accounts for 40% of the total budget — but 75% of General Fund spending.

Which sounds reasonable to me. But…

1. This wouldn’t be the first time the administration targeted AHS. The most notorious case is Shumlin’s ill-fated effort to slash the Earned Income Tax Credit, one of our best bulwarks against the rising tide of income inequality.

2. The rescissions list was released on the Thursday before Thanksgiving. This may or may not have been a newsdump (see below), but it gave little or no opportunity for journalists and bloggers to seek clarification of the raw numbers. When I saw the raw numbers, they looked really, really bad for AHS.

And now, on to newsdumps. I had identified three: the rescissions release, the deadline for submitting rescissions, and the Governor’s release of his single-payer financing plan at the end of this month.

The rescissions release on Thanksgiving Eve wasn’t a newsdump, my callers insist. They had put together the list and informed agency officials earlier that week. Many agencies wanted to tackle the budget-cutting immediately — over the holiday weekend. That meant releasing the list on Wednesday, so the process could begin.

The deadline, Friday Dec. 5, they say, wasn’t a newsdump because they hadn’t planned to release anything on Friday. It was an internal deadline only.

I can accept that. But once again, history informed my cynicism. When I see something bad happening on a Friday or a holiday eve, my Weaselometer begins to howl.

Finally, the long-awaited and catastrophically overdue reveal of the single-payer funding plan (which VTDigger’s Morgan True appears to have uncovered the substance of already) on either Monday December 29 or Tuesday December 30. Many voters will be out of town or otherwise occupied during that time; media outlets will have bare-bones staffing. So of course it looked like a newsdump. 

Not so, insist my callers. They blame the calendar, mostly. You see, the 29th and 30th are on Monday and Tuesday. They couldn’t release it on Friday the 26th, and New Year’s Eve would be universally viewed as a newsdump.

The week before is problematic as well. The 24th, 25th, and 26th are out. Monday the 22nd or Tuesday the 23rd would hardly be any better than the 29th or 30th. And the week before that is too early; the plan may not be completely done by then.

Okay, spin it ahead. New Year’s Day is a Thursday; Jan. 2 is not only the day after a holiday, it’s a Friday, so that’s no good.

Which brings us to Monday the 5th — only two days before the Legislature convenes. That week is likely to be a circus, what with Scott Milne’s Dance of the Seven Veils, various ceremonial activities, and other hard news. (Such as the RAND Corp. report on marijuana legalization.)

The fear, so I’m told, is that a single-payer unveil on Jan. 5 could get lost in a blizzard of news. It would also give lawmakers less time to look it over. And, I’m told, lawmakers wanted to get their hands on it as quickly as possible. Hence, a pre-New Year’s release.

Again, it all makes sense. And again, given the administration’s iffy history, you can understand why an outsider would look at a late-December release and scream “Newsdump!”

This all illustrates how much the administration will have to do, to repair its tattered and battered public image. Much of those batterings were self-inflicted, as the administration acted out of unwarranted hubris and, sometimes, arrogance.

They may not believe they acted badly in the past. But a lot of Vermonters, including a whole lot of liberals, are convinced that they did. That’s why Shumlin’s pre-election approval numbers were so dismal, and why his very expensive campaign hardly moved the numbers at all.

And that’s why I’ve said the Governor should avoid newsdumps or anything that looks like a newsdump, or anything that looks like a political maneuver or a transparently bogus explanation. He’d be better served by standing up in broad daylight and owning the bad news, instead of reinforcing his reputation.

Of course, he’d be far better off by having an administration that didn’t produce so much bad news. But that’s another matter.

Callers, thanks for reading theVPO and taking it seriously. And thanks for calling.

With all due respect to Hal Cohen…

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So yesterday Governor Shumlin filled two vacancies in his cabinet. Justin Johnston was announced, in a brief flurry of bad Aussie jokes, as Jeb Spaulding’s replacement in the role of Shumlin’s Rasputin Secretary of Administration.

And Hal Cohen will become Human Services Secretary.

Justin Johnson, Gov. Shumlin, and -- barely visible in back - -Hal Cohen.

Justin Johnson, Gov. Shumlin, and — barely visible in back — Hal Cohen.

Now, I’m sure Hal Cohen is a nice guy and he’s clearly dedicated to the field of social services, having served as head of Capstone Community Action for 18 years. You don’t keep that job for that long unless you’re committed to the mission.

But is he really the best guy for the biggest agency in state government? And even worse, an agency facing an immediate mandate to cut its current-year budget by ten million bucks?

I know virtually nothing about Hal Cohen. But here are a few numbers that portray his challenge in very stark terms.

AHS: 3,500 staff. Annual budget, from general fund: nearly $600,000,000.

Capstone: 180 staff. Annual budget, $16,000,000.

In short, Hal Cohen is making a quantum leap as a manager. At a time when he will face a massive management challenge from Day One.

Cohen does bring some positive qualities to the job. He is deeply involved in delivering services to those in need, which is a very good thing. He has managed a nonprofit social services agency for a long time, and that’s a very good thing.

But he has never managed an organization anywhere near the size and complexity of AHS. When you manage a staff of 180, you do a lot of hands-on, day-to-day management. You have a personal relationship with a sizeable chunk of your employees, and you probably know them all by name.

When you manage a staff of 3,500, you’re delegating almost all of the work. You’re managing the managers — or, more likely, managing the managers’ managers. And if you spend time building personal relationships with your staff, you’re probably not doing your job.

That’s the basic challenge in making this quantum leap.

And then you add the fact that, between this year’s budget and the next, he may well be asked to make spending cuts equivalent to the entire annual budget of Capstone.  

I’m sure that if Shumlin had pulled someone out of the business world, or out of some other state agency, we’d all be howling about hiring a bean-counter who cares more about the bottom line than helping people. (For example: Johnston saying that the primary goal of the budget is “affordability.” Meaning no new taxes.) But I have to wonder if Cohen is the right person for this job at this time. And I also have to wonder, with all due respect to Hal Cohen, how many other people might have said “no” to the idea of becoming the head of an overstretched agency facing major budget cuts. It’s hard to imagine that Cohen was the first name on the list.

I hope, for the sake of Vermont’s poor, that my misgivings are proven to be groundless.

Just wake me when it’s over

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Scott Milne, eyes wide shutAs predictable, and as tiresome, as the early-autumn snowfall that sends everybody running to get their snow tires on:

Milne to Delay Gubernatorial Decision — Again

That utterly unsurprising word comes from Mr. Politics Editor, Paul Heintz, who helpfully recounts Scott Milne’s oft-delayed decision on whether he will actively promote his gubernatorial candidacy before the Legislature. When last we heard from Mahatma’s secret redoubt, he was promising a decision this week. But now?

On Thursday, he told Seven Days by text message that the announcement was “sliding into next week.”

And I’ll believe that when I see it.

 

 

 

David Mears seems like a nice guy

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DEC Commissioner David Mears was on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show this morning, mostly talking Lake Champlain cleanup. I’ve been, shall we say, somewhat critical of the Shumlin administration’s response to Champlain’s deteriorating water quality (recent post was entitled “At this rate, Lake Champlain will be cleaned up about the time the sun goes nova and the Earth becomes a cold, dead husk,” which I guess could be taken as critical). So I wanted to hear what he had to say.

The face of earnest concern.

The face of earnest concern.

And a lot of it sounded reasonable. He does, however, have a problem: the cynicism of people like me is based on decades of neglect and delay by multiple administrations — and the bare fact that the current Powers That Be are being forced to act by the feds. So pardon us if we don’t accept bland assurances at face value.

First, he made an important correction. Many news outlets reported (and I echoed the reports) that the Shumlin administration had proposed new levies on “impervious development” and agricultural fertilizers that would raise about $1 million per year for Champlain mitigation. Which is a drop in the bucket.

Well, according to Mears, the $1 million figure was a “for example” number, and the administration actually intendes to set the levies at rates that would produce $4 million to $6 million per year. Mears describes this as “seed money.” And while it still seems rather small, it’s a lot bigger than I thought. (See note at end of this post.)

Overall, Mears made a good case for the administration’s dedication to the issue. And at one point he said, “We’re used to fighting on this issue” in a way that seemed to lay the adversarial blame on both sides.

To which I’d point out that the last two administrations, at least, have been dragged kicking and screaming into taking any action whatsoever. The Conservation Law Foundation’s lawsuit against the state, for violating the Clean Water Act regarding Lake Champlain, was first filed in 2008. And that came after years of diligent efforts to convince state government to live up to its responsibilities without an expensive court battle. So if “we’re used to fighting,” it’s not because the environmental community is feeling a bit stroppy — it’s because they’ve been consistently stonewalled by state  government. There’s been little or no cooperation, at least as far as we can tell in public.

When such obstructionism is practiced by a Republican government, we’re disappointed but not terribly surprised. When it’s done by a Democratic administration that professes to hold a strong environmental ethic, it seems like a betrayal of shared ideals. And it’s the plain truth that the current administration has slow-played the issue to a crawl, even as Champlain’s quality continues to degrade.

Mears’ presentation fell short in some key areas. When Johnson (who did an excellent job holding Mears’ feet to the fire, by the way) asked about items like Ag Secretary Chuck Ross’ decision not to mandate “best practices” for farms near Mississquoi Bay and the potential laying of a natural gas pipeline under the lake, Mears ducked the questions, saying it wasn’t his responsibility.

Well, yes. But as Johnson pointed out, Lake Champlain is his responsibility. We should expect him to be fully informed on issues that affect water quality even if they’re not primarily in his bailiwick.

I came away from the interview with a greater appreciation for the nuances of the issue, and for the administration’s interest in addressing it. But there’s a whole lot of history to overcome regarding Lake Champlain — and regarding the administration’s often-slippery relationship with the truth.

In short, telling me about your plans and dedication isn’t enough. You’ve got to show me.

 

Postscript. In the interview, Mears noted that he’d been in contact with reporters to correct initial reporting that proposed levies on fertilizers and “impervious development” would raise $1 million per year, rather than the administration’s target of $4 million to $6 million per year. 

Well, Mr. Commissioner, nobody ever contacted me. I realize that I don’t know everything about state government, and my ignorance sometimes results in errors. I am always open to correcting any errors in the most transparent way possible. But rarely, if ever, do I get feedback from the administration. (Generally speaking, I get more feedback from Republicans than Democrats.) Now, I’m not as high on the pecking order as your established media, but I would rather be corrected than allow a mistake to remain in place. I may be a partisan blogger, but I do have a sense of responsibility. 

Shumlin’s Newsdump-a-palooza rolls on

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If you regularly read this page, you don’t need to be reminded what a newsdump is. But just in case: it’s the popular maneuver of unloading bad news when the media and the public are least likely to notice. Friday afternoons are the most common times. The final working day before a holiday weekend is ideal.

The Shumlin administration has been making a habit of this lately, and now there are two more newsdumps on the horizon. The first, regarding budget cuts, and the second, Shumlin’s long-awaited big reveal on single-payer health care.

The administration hit a two-fer on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, ensuring minimal and shallow coverage of its planned $17 million in budget rescissions, and little to no coverage of its plan to make two-thirds of the cuts in Human Services, an agency already said to be underfunded and understaffed.

Shumlin.NewsdumpWell, there’s a sequel to the rescission newsdump. All affected agencies are supposed to submit their proposed cuts by December 5. Hey, what do you know — it’s a Friday!

This should ensure that news about specific cuts will leak out slowly. Or, will perhaps be dumped all at once in a news release issued around 5 p.m. Friday.

It’s also worth noting that the administration gave its agencies less than one business week to make these tough decisions. Its call was issued on Thanksgiving Eve, which meant that the work couldn’t commence in earnest until Monday, December 1.

But wait, you might be thinking. Didn’t the Administration decide not to pursue immediate cuts?

That’s right. Rather than risk a confrontation with the Legislature, it opted to hold off on rescissions until January.

However, the December 5 deadline remains in effect. So state agencies are being rushed into critical budget decisions, even though no action will be taken until more than a month later.

Curious. Methinks the administration might get an early start on those cuts, despite its abnegation of unilateral action.

As for the second newsdump… the Governor announced Wednesday that he would unveil the proposed benefits offered by a single-payer health care system by mid-December, and that his financing plan — the real bone of contention — will come out on December 29 or 30.

What, does he have plans for New Year’s Eve? Or would that be just too damn obvious?

Well, I guess it was too damn obvious anyway. Paul Heintz:

…he swears he’s not trying to bury the news in the lull of the holiday season.

“That’s exactly why I wanted to give you the date now,” Shumlin said during a wide-ranging discussion with reporters at Burlington’s Hotel Vermont. “Because I didn’t want to wake up on December 31 and [read], ‘It was a late-night news dump.'”

So I guess I’m helping out by labeling it a newsdump well before New Year’s Eve Morning. Wouldn’t want to spoil the last cappucino of 2014. (Or maybe I shouldn’t assume he drinks Gucci coffee. Folger’s?)

He claims that he wants to get the plan out early to “get it to the legislators before they’re sworn in.” But the specificity, to use a grand old Watergate word, is a little strange. His team, he says, “is working really hard to get this together.” A task involving that much intensive work with a bunch of people would seem, by its nature, to be somewhat open-ended. And the Governor has particularly avoided deadlines in the health care reform process because so many have been flouted in the past.

And yet he can predict, with certainty, that it will all come together on the 29th or 30th.

Somehow I doubt an extra week or so, including a long holiday weekend, will make a whole lot of difference for lawmakers. If the early release isn’t a newsdump, it will certainly have the effect of one: limiting coverage and blunting immediate reaction to the plan, allowing the Administration to prepare counter-arguments and perhaps even refine the plan before it’s formally submitted.

To me, it looks like a newsdump, walks like a newsdump, and quacks like a newsdump.

Some backstory on the militarization of our police

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Last week, while I was out of town for a family Thanksgiving, Mark Davis wrote a nice little story in Seven Days about Vermont police agencies picking up a whole lot of military-grade weaponry, thanks to a federal program designed to shore up military contractors’ bottom lines provide local police with “military equipment left over from America’s foreign wars and stockpiles.”

Which brought to mind some of my own past coverage of specific events tied to this story: a small New Hampshire community talked into buying an assault vehicle by a Rush Limbaugh-listenin’, Tea Party-believin’ salesman, and the small-scale invasion of a small Vermont town.

Instrument of peace?

Instrument of peace?

First stop in the Wayback Machine is February 2012, when Keene, NH had received a $300,000 Homeland Security grant to buy an eight-ton armored vehicle called the Lenco Bearcat. This, for a city with a population of 23,000 and virtually no history of violent crime.

But there was all that federal money dangling in front of the city fathers…

During a City Council meeting, the Mayor was heard whispering to a City Councilor “We’re going to have our own tank.”

Better than Viagra. Of course, the grant won’t pay for operating costs like maintenance, training and insurance.

The most fascinating part of the story, to me, was Jim Massery, salesman for vehicle manufacturer Lenco. His pitch was laden with fearmongering about the need for high security everywhere. In fact, one of his quotes was the following:

I don’t think there’s any place in the country where you can say, “That isn’t a likely terrorist target.” How would you know?

There was a whole lot of that, and you can read more in my 2012 post on Green Mountain Daily. Massery, as I discovered, was a true-blue conservative who believed that President Obama was trying to steal our freedoms, and that the government was spending us into oblivion. And yet he had no problem helping the government militarize local police and wastefully spend $300,000 on a Lenco Bearcat that nobody needed. (The notorious Free Staters of Keene probably thought he was an enemy agent tasked with bringing the power of the police state to their own little community.)

One of Massery’s other pitches went like this:

When a Lenco Bearcat shows up at a crime scene where a suicidal killer is holding hostages, it doesn’t show up with a cannon. It shows up with a negotiator.

And, he might have added, that negotiator shows up in grand style, hunkered down in eight tons of steel. Which brings me to story #2. In June of 2012, a man named Alfred Perreault unknowingly touched off a minor invasion of his town of Washington, VT…

A summer scene befitting a Norman Rockwell portrait was spoiled Monday morning when more than a dozen police cruisers, an armored vehicle and the big box truck that houses Vermont’s equivalent of a S.W.A.T. team set up shop in Washington to take what proved to be one unarmed man into custody.

That armored vehicle was, as it happens, a Lenco Bearcat. Purchased by the Vermont State Police with, you guessed it, a Homeland Security grant.

Perreault was known to possess a goodly quantity of firearms, hence the heavy-handed police response. Which must have triggered (sorry) a sizeable panic reaction among townspeople who suddenly saw this caravan o’death roll into town and set up roadblocks.

It all ended peacefully. But as I wrote at the time, there’s an old saying: To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Our police agencies have been outfitted with military-grade, up-armored hammers. So naturally, Alfred Perreault looked like a nail.

It’s a lot easier for the authorities to escalate a response when they have the tools of escalation close at hand — indeed, when they may well feel a need to justify the purchase and upkeep of all those hammers. Alfred Perreault clearly needed to be dealt with. But did he warrant such a robust response?

You can bet we’ll be asking these kinds of questions again in the future.