Monthly Archives: July 2015

Deep-pocketed Lieutenant Governor hopeful stakes his claim

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Well, here’s an interesting tidbit from Campaign Finance Reporting Day. (July 15 is a deadline for campaign finance reports.)

Brandon Riker, Brattleboro resident and (as far as I know) the only declared candidate for Lieutenant Governor, has raised over $100,000 for his campaign.

That number almost made me shoot Vermont Coffee Company coffee out my nose.

And then I looked down the list of major donors, and one name dominated the list.

“Riker.”

Young Brandon has given his own campaign $58,500. Other people named Riker (Brent, Craig, Julia, Leslie, Barbara, Dale, and Stephanie) have kicked in $28,000.

Nice to be a member of a family that can spare 86 grand on a newcomer’s first political campaign.

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And now, the next phase of the “Get Rid of Norm” campaign begins

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Yesterday, prosecutors and defense in the Senator Norm McAllister Incredibly Gross and Offensive Sexual Exploitation case got together and released the “discovery stipulation,” or in English, the projected timeline for a trial.

And as VTDigger’s Morgan True reports, it’s scheduled to take place “smack in the middle of the 2016 legislative session.”

Bwahahahahaha.

Wouldn’t that be fun? If McAllister remains determined to hold on to his seat, he’d have cameras following him everywhere he goes in the Statehouse, and following him back and forth to the courthouse, and reporters asking all sorts of embarrassing questions of fellow lawmakers (“Hey, Senator Mullin, got a minute? I want to ask about your old roomie.”), especially Republicans, and especially Franklin County Republicans.

Of course, legal experts say that delays are virtually inevitable, so the likely outcome is that the trial will happen sometime later next year. Buzzkill. Even so, the cameras and reporters will be swarming.

But with the legal schedule set, Republicans will redouble their efforts to convince McAllister to deliver the face-saving resignation they all desperately want. As Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning told me last month, once the discovery stipulation is revealed, “the process will be clear and Norm will have to face it.”

That is the hope, anyway.

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What’s your favorite boondoggle?

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Hey look, the state’s talking about boosting passenger trains! Cue the Republican Outrage Machine.

The [Vermont] Agency of Transportation has issued its first statewide rail plan in nearly a decade. The proposal envisions new passenger routes to Burlington, Montreal, Manchester and Bennington…

… The combined price tag for the 20-year plan totals $665 million, well more than the $380 million in state and federal funding anticipated over the same time frame.

I can hear it now: a waste of taxpayer dollars! Unconscionable subsidies for a bygone system! Passenger rail serves only a small affluent clientele of train buffs!

Republicans, after all, have been trying to kill Amtrak for years because they believe passenger rail should pay its own way.

Which sounds nice in theory, makes a good sound bite. Problem is, there isn’t a transportation system of any kind that can stand on its own two feet. They all require massive subsidization.

Roads and highways, well, that’s easy. Construction and upkeep is entirely a taxpayer-funded enterprise, with the very occasional exception of toll roads. If we actually apportioned the costs on the basis of usership, the cost of long-distance trucking would go through the roof. Cargo trains would suddenly seem like a bargain by comparison. And if inter-city commutes reflected their true costs, well, let’s just say CCTA would have to greatly expand its LINK service.

But air travel is the big enchilada. An airport manager once told me, “Airports inherently lose money.” The infrastructure and security costs are borne by taxpayers, most of whom rarely or never use the facilities. (Talk about taking from the poor and giving to the rich.)

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A cup of weak tea… with Kristin Carlson

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Last week, I reacted to the news of Vermont PBS’ new program, “Connect… with Kristin Carlson” with a measure of skepticism over the host’s dual role — as host of the show, and as lead spokesperson for Green Mountain Power, the state’s largest utility.

Since then, the show has had its premiere. And sorry, I didn’t watch. I did, however, listen to Carlson’s July 9 interview with WDEV’s Mark Johnson about the new show. During the interview, Johnson quizzed her about the conflict of interest questions. And her answers were surprisingly weak and one-dimensional. Uncharacteristically so, for a person with double digits’ experience in TV news who’s now one of the most prominent corporate spokesflacks in Vermont. I presume she does a better job when she’s representing GMP.

Anyhoo, kind of an underwhelming performance. Her fallback position, expressed several times, was that this is not an “issue” show, but a show about “sharing the stories of Vermonters.” She’ll avoid talking with people who would create an obvious conflict — which could include quite a swath of Vermonters, depending on how you interpret “conflict.” She wouldn’t interview GMP President Mary Powell — or anti-renewable activist Annette Smith, for that matter. But how far does she take it?

Is anyone involved in energy issues, or environmental issues, or business, on the no-show list? To be on the safe side, they probably should be; but the bigger that list becomes, the more incomplete the show becomes.

Johnson asked about potential guests who don’t have an obvious conflict, but “you never know where a conversation is going to go.” Her response?

… I do a lot of the pre-interviews with people, talk to them about what we’re going to talk about, and if I get into an area where I might think ‘Okay, this might be a little, mmmm,’ then we just won’t do it.

My prediction? If she plans to err on the side of caution, this will by necessity be a pretty toothless show. Or at best a deficient reflection of Vermont’s character.

But that’s not the real problem.

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The Deep Derp of John Ellis Bush

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Pardon the diversion from my usual focus on Vermont politics, but I just couldn’t resist.

When I first heard about Jeb Bush’s “Americans need to work harder” statement, two thoughts came mind:

1. Isn’t he supposed to be the “smart” Bush brother?

2. Is this really what it means to be a moderate, “responsible” Republican in 2015? And if so, how is the VTGOP going to try to package and sell this manure pile to Vermont voters?

I was paraphrasing his actual quote; here’s the original, as stated in his interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader:

“My aspiration for the country — and I believe we can achieve it — is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of this rut that we’re in.”

There’s a lot of bad to unpack in that single paragraph, but let’s move on to Bush’s attempt to re-contextualize that little turd he laid on the heads of American workers:

“If we’re going to grow the economy people need to stop being part-time workers, they need to be having access to greater opportunities to work,” he told reporters.

… “You can take it out of context all you want, but high-sustained growth means that people work 40 hours rather than 30 hours and that by our success, they have money, disposable income for their families to decide how they want to spend it rather than getting in line and being dependent on government,” Bush said.

In actual fact, his clarification isn’t much of an improvement on the silver-spoon original.

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A heartbreaking tale of innocence defiled

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Pity poor Paul Dame, freshman Republican lawmaker, whose blissful ignorance was suddenly and violently stripped away as he was forced to the disheartening realization that politicians sometimes do political things.

Well, that’s the charitable interpretation of his opinion piece, entitled “Stop the Blame Game,” posted on VTDigger this week. The uncharitable view is to see it as a cynical attempt to seize the high road and ignore reality in the process.

Dane is reacting to an opinion piece written by Rep. Tim Jerman, vice chair of the Vermont Democratic Party, which accused the Republicans of putting their “negativity machine… in full gear,” and “trashing the… achievements of the 2015 Vermont Legislature.”

Dame is indignant over Jerman’s “partisan and inflammatory” essay that lowers itself to “partisan name-calling” instead of working together to meet the challenges facing Vermont.

Shocking, I know, that a top Democrat would try to attack Republicans. Mr. Dame is either the freshest babe in the legislative woods, or he’s being deliberately mendacious. Because if you take a gander at recent statements from the Vermont Republican Party, you see a consistent pattern of partisan attack.

Dame effectively accuses Jerman of poisoning the well of bipartisan cooperation. Truth is, the Republicans have been pissing in that well for months and months. And somehow Dame is surprised — nay, shocked — that Jerman might actually decide to respond in kind.

To illustrate my point, let’s take a stroll down the Memory Lane of VTGOP press releases.

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Bunched Knicker Syndrome Strikes Top Solon

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BKS: “a sense of heightened distress keenly felt by the self-important following a minor annoyance.”

Kudos to WCAX-TV’s Kyle Midura for coming up with a frothy little confection of a political story that’s sweet to the taste, vanishes in the mouth like a good meringue, and leaves you wanting just one more bite. Or maybe the whole damn pie.

The story’s about the Tuesday “news event” featuring Congressman Peter Welch and Transportation Secretary Sue Minter at a photogenically decrepit bridge in East Montpelier. They were backdropped by lime green and orange-vested construction workers as they bemoaned the lack of Congressional action on long-term transportation funding.

And it seems that there are some hurt fee-fees from a pair of politicos who think they ought to have been invited. Republican Pat Brennan, chair of the House Transportation Committee, and might-as-well-be-a-Republican Dick Mazza, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, were left jonesin’ for a little camera time.

“We are heavily involved, so you would think we would’ve been asked to be there,” said Rep. Pat Brennan, R-Colchester.

As for Mazza, he cemented his well-earned reputation as the least Democratic of all Democrats by complaining that the presser included a partisan attack on Republicans in Congress. That’s right: a Democrat accusing Democrats of playing politics. The horror!

“I was told that it was a non-partisan news conference, but I didn’t see anyone other than the Democrats,” said Mazza.

Wait wait. He “was told”? That seems to imply he knew about the presser in advance. If so, he’s got no complaint. But let’s move on.

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A couple of questions about Vermont PBS’ new program

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Our public television service, Vermont PBS, is kind of a skin-of-its-teeth operation. (Especially compared to VPR, the Alpha Male of Vermont media.) It can’t really afford much in the way of local programming. (Compared to VPR, which could be doing a lot more than it does.)

So the teevee folks are to be congratulated for launching a new weekly show, “Connect… WIth Kristin Carlson.” It debuts this Friday evening at 8:30, and is described thusly:

Our region is loaded with some of the most interesting, inspiring and creative people found anywhere, both locally based and folks visiting from afar. We’ll catch up with them, whether in the studio or on the road, and get a glimpse at what drives them. Writers, musicians, community and business leaders, filmmakers, social visionaries… if they’ve got a story, Kristin will be talking to them.

This is nice. This is great. More locally-produced programming, I’m all for it.

But I do have a couple of questions.

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Police Chief Superspy: Is this what Burlington needed?

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Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger has announced his choice for new police chief: Brandon del Pozo, a veteran of 18 years with the New York City Police Department. He has, as they say, risen rapidly through the NYPD ranks; his current post is Commanding Officer in the Strategic Initiatives Office.

Hmm. The most famous NYPD “strategic initiative” I know of is its free-range intelligence unit, which routinely ignores jurisdictional boundaries in its search for potential terrorists. According to a 2011 report on NPR, NYPD Intelligence has “teams of undercover officers… who basically just troll ethnic neighborhoods. …They also have informants known as mosque crawlers” who serve as “the eyes and ears of the police department inside the mosques.”

The latter, notes NPR, would “seem to violate the federal privacy act.” It further notes that the unit is “creative in ways that come right up against the line of what the federal government or other police departments either can do, or feel comfortable doing.”

The expansionist NYPD even has an intell office in the Middle East, which seems like quite a stretch for a city police force.

Wait a minute, Mr. del Pozo himself claims credit for that.

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A wake-up call to Vermont Public Radio

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What follows is a tough assessment of our state’s public radio outlet. First, let me make clear that VPR is a strong organization that does a lot of good things. It’s my #1 spot on the radio dial. But in the words of Uncle Ben:

With great power comes great responsibility

VPR occupies an outsized space in our media landscape. It is the only media outlet that is not seriously strapped for money. It is deeply resourced and amply staffed.

VPR occupies a King Kong-sized space in the nonprofit landscape. It is a fundraising machine. It barely has to even ask for money*, so loyal and responsive is its listenership. When it does have to ask, it has a monster-sized megaphone at its disposal. I have no idea how VPR’s success impacts other nonprofits — especially those with parallel missions, like VTDigger or the Vermont Symphony Orchestra or the Vermont Humanities Council — but I do know that VPR rakes it in.

*Its spring fund drive was cancelled after listeners responded overwhelmingly to brief pre-drive pitches; its summer drive was whittled to practically nothing. Most public radio stations would kill for a response like that.

Numbers? Well,in FY 2013 (the most recent figures available), VPR’s total revenues were $8.27 million. Its neighbor to the east, New Hampshire Public Radio, which serves a population twice as large, took in $6 million that year. Of course, NHPR has to compete with other public radio services in all of its markets; with the exception of the Connecticut River Valley, VPR has a public radio monopoly. Plus, it’s the only NPR affiliate that reaches the Montreal market.

Anyway, that gives you a taste of VPR’s financial might. Now, remember the words of Uncle Ben:

With great power comes great responsibility

By that standard, VPR falls short.

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