Monthly Archives: September 2023

Meh-ro

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Miro Weinberger announced today that he will not seek a fifth (three-year) term as mayor of Burlington. He has occupied the position for 12 years, the longest continuous tenure of any Queen City mayor, but the better part of his legacy may amount to nothing much more than occupancy. His record is mixed at best, and he wouldn’t have made it this far if not for the endemic divisiveness of Burlington’s left.

In each of his last two campaigns, he got less than 50% of the vote. Last time, in 2021, he polled just under 43% and won the race by a mere 129 votes. In both 2018 and 2021, multiple candidates running to his left split the majority of the vote, allowing Weinberger to win with mere pluralities.

Whatever you think of the achievements of his early years, it’s inarguable that the Progressives made a full comeback on his watch. The Progs held a majority on City Council for several years. It made his job more difficult to be sure, but he failed to build the city Democratic Party or enhance its allure to the voters.

Weinberger walked into his first victory, thanks to the troubled Bob Kiss years leaving a stain on the Progressive brand. At the time he was a fresh young face, widely considered a top Democratic contender for future statewide office. That never happened, and while he’s young enough to have a second political act, he’ll have to work his way back into the arena.

Well, that’s the politics. What about policy? On balance, his record is kind of lukewarm.

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In Which Our Betters Finally Realize We Have a Housing Crisis On Our Hands

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Note: This is a sequel to my previous post, reflecting the newly-released September figures for the motel voucher program and the official reaction to it all.

Some people could have predicted this as far back as January if not farther. But the Scott administration and the Legislature insisted throughout the winter and spring that everything would be just fine if we ended the emergency housing motel voucher program on schedule at the end of June.

They were wrong, of course, and they had to cobble together a last-minute extension that minimized the scale of the own-goal disaster. Those who were dumped from the program before June 30 were excluded, and new restrictions were imposed on the remaining clientele that seemed designed to encourage slash bully slash force them to leave the motels as quickly as possible.

Well, during today’s meeting of the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee, it became clear that administration and Legislature alike now know they have a real, sizeable, thorny problem on their hands, and that many a vulnerable Vermonter has paid a stiff price for their earlier choices. Shocker, I know.

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The Effort to End the Emergency Housing Program Only Shows How Badly It’s Needed

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The first official Scott administration report on the motel voucher program showed the urgency of our affordable housing shortage. Out of 1,250* households in the program on June 30, 174 had left the program by late July — but only 42 did so because they had managed to find housing. Most of the rest, 113 in all, simply disappeared from the program, destination unknown. Ditto the 31 households evicted for “misconduct” as defined by motel operators.

*In the second report, described below, that June 30 number somehow rose to 1,266 two months after the fact. Given the Scott administration’s track record, I have to assume this is another case of lax record keeping. Anyway, from now on I’ll use 1,266 as the June 30 number.

Well, the report for August* reveals more of the same. Total enrollment was down to 929 households as of 8/28. Of the departed, 110 disappeared, 20 were kicked out for misconduct, and 26 actually found housing.

*The administration “published” this report on September 6, but it went unnoticed at the time. I found it 20 days later when looking for information on the 9/27 meeting of the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee.

To sum up: As of June 30, there were 1,266 households in need of emergency motel rooms. Reminder: until the very last moment, the administration and Legislature had planned to cut off the voucher program and immediately unhouse all those people. Instead, realizing they were about to cause a humanitarian crisis, they cobbled together a compromise that extended the program under new rules and restrictions.

Well, of those 1,266 households, only 68 have found housing so far.

Sixty-eight. That’s a success rate of 5.4%. Which shows you just how inadequate our supply of affordable housing is. And just how vital the voucher program remains.

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I Suspect the Next Dan French is Waiting in the Wings

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On March 17, the Agency of Education announced that education secretary Dan French was stepping down to take a position with the Council of Chief State School Officials.

In the months that followed, state officials seemed to take a, shall we say, unhurried approach to filling the vacancy. In fact, it wasn’t until Monday, September 25 that the state Board of Education formally posted the job opening.

And the application deadline is October 5. That’s a filing period of only 11 days.

Eleven days.

Recapping here. They took 192 days, more than half a year, before opening the “search,” and now that they’ve finally gotten around to it, the search process will last a mere 11 days.

That’s weird. On both ends.

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Time for the Governor to Get Serious About Climate Change

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The Vermont Climate Council is meeting on Monday. That’s the entity tasked under the Global Warming Solutions Act to make a plan to meet the Act’s mandatory emissions reduction targets. And from what I hear, Council members who represent environmental interests will be arriving with pointed questions for the Scott administration.

The issue: Is the administration ready to lead the rulemaking process necessary for attaining our target for the year 2025, which [checks calendar] is only about 15 months away? By law, the rules are supposed to be in place by next July 1. That might seem like a lot of time, but rulemaking is by nature a deliberate process, so we’d best be getting on with it.

You’d think our Year of Climate Disruption would inject a dose of urgency to the process. A mild winter, smoky skies from Canadian wildfires, the floods of July 10, and a very wet summer have brought the reality of climate change to our doorstep. One could imagine a Vermont governor seizing the moment to pivot from flood relief to a focus on aggressive climate policies.

But Phil Scott has shown no signs of being that kind of governor.

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Canaan Backs Down From Loitering Ban

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Unsurprisingly, the selectboard in the Northeast Kingdom town of Canaan has backed away from its broadly-written, almost certainly unconstitutional ban on loitering — or doing just about anything else without permission.

At its September 18 meeting, the selectboard adopted a new ordinance aimed specifically at unauthorized camping on public property. (The text can be downloaded from the town’s website.) The change in heart likely follows some pointed communications from those darn busybodies at the Vermont ACLU and Vermont Legal Aid.

The original ordinance, adopted in August, would have barred anyone from sitting, standing, or loitering “in or about any municipally owned or municipally maintained land, park, building, or parking lot between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.” unless authorized by a town official. It would also have banned sitting, standing, or loitering on any “street, sidewalk, municipal land, building, or any other public space in town” if an “owner, tenant, or custodian thereof” asked them to leave.

Yeah, that’s pretty damn unconstitutional.

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You Can Rely On Our Stouthearted Guardians of Justice (Terms and Conditions Apply)

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I guess the good folks of Pawlet know how Kiah Morris felt.

When she was subjected to racist abuse and threats, the former state representative got no backing from law enforcement on any level, from the local police to the state attorney general’s office. And now the people of Pawlet have gotten the same quality service from the Rutland County Sheriff’s Office and Vermont State Police, who failed to enforce an order for the arrest of militia training center chief Daniel Banyai.

And now the arrest warrant has expired, so Pawlet is seeking an extension with the addition of court oversight so the cops can’t stall out the clock once again.

The expiration was first reported last week by the Bennington Banner, and re-reported this week by VTDigger. The details show two police agencies with no heart for the task, making excuses for their lack of action.

I get it. Driving onto the grounds of the heavily-armed Slate Ridge compound with the intent of arresting its founder seems like a perilous endeavor. But still, it’s their job.

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Is There ANY Good News About Vermont State University?

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I don’t want to be overly alarmist about this, so I used a smiley happy dumpster fire illustration instead of the out-of-control inferno kind. But good grief, where exactly is Vermont State University headed?

The latest is the announced departure of system chancellor Sophie Zdatny, who will leave VSU at the end of this year. Don’t forget that interim VSU President Mike Smith, who took the job in April, has promised to stay on for only six months. He’s now in month number five, so time’s running out. Smith replaced Parwinder Grewal, who resigned even before VSU was officially launched because he’d squandered all his political capital on an ill-considered decision to close the system’s libraries.

Zdatny, you may recall, replaced Jeb Spaulding, who resigned as chancellor in 2020 after floating a universally unpopular — but absolutely sensible — plan to consolidate the system by closing the Johnson, Lyndon and Randolph campuses.

It’s been bad times, and we haven’t even gotten to the finances or the precipitous 19% drop in 2023-4 enrollment or the looming demographic crisis staring the system right in the face. And now we’re looking at a leadership vacuum that will see VSU saddled with interim leadership for, what’s that? Two more years?

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“Stay to Stay,” Not So Much

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So the person pictured above, Jacq Posley, recently caused a bit of a stir (but honestly, not enough of a stir) with a blistering farewell-to-Vermont letter entitled “My Last Plea As a Black Vermonter,” in which she laid out, in painful detail, all the racism she’s encountered in her five years living in Vermont. Which she found to be no less racist than, uh, Mississippi.

Five years since I left my life in Mississippi thinking NO PLACE could be more racist (tuh). Five years of serving on multiple civic boards that claim they want equity, but build walls in the face of progression. Five years of being called racial slurs with no one to protect me from it and no one to check their white supremacist friends. Five years of confederate flags, don’t tread on me flags, and strategically placed Donald Dump paraphernalia. Five years of watching MANY of my friends and their very young Black children suffer from the same mental anguish I have experienced while existing as a Black person in Vermont. September 16, 2023 should be a time for celebration. Instead, it is a time for reflection as I leave the state to pursue equity work in a place that actually wants it.

She’s right, of course, and we’ll get to that. But first, a note of bitter irony. Posley was one of those attracted to Vermont by Gov. Phil Scott’s much-touted “Stay to Stay” program in which vacationers were connected with potential employers and other resources. The governor is great at this sort of thing: Catchy ideas that ultimately have little to no real impact, but provide some feel-good headlines. See also: the late unlamented remote worker grant program. (“Stay to Stay” now seems to be a shell of its former self. It still has a website, but the content is simply a list of links to available resources. No sign of the special weekends that used to attract such positive press.)

In fact, Posley is the focus of a brief promotional video for “Stay to Stay,” still viewable on YouTube. “No matter which side of the spectrum you land on, you’re welcome in Vermont,” she said in the video. “You’re allowed to be who you are.”

Yeah, that didn’t age well.

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Penny For the Guy?

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It’s been several months since I pointed out the “Donate” option on this here blog and asked readers to consider a one-time or recurring contribution. I try not to push it too much, but once in a while…

There are many causes far worthier than mine competing for your dollar. I will not try to claim special status, and as usual I urge you to support the nonprofit causes of your choice. Food banks, homeless shelters, flood relief, journalistic outlets, so many needs, even in a place as relatively blessed as Vermont.

But hey. If you appreciate the insight I bring to the table or just enjoy my writing, think about putting a dollar value on your readership. If it’s worth your time, maybe it’s worth a few bucks.

I’m constantly keeping an eye on events. I write blogposts at least three times a week, usually four, sometimes five. I’ve been writing about Vermont politics since 2011, so I bring a lot of experience and knowledge to the table.

There is no paywall here, nor will there ever be. Honor system. Please give it a thought.

And even if you don’t give me a dime, I do thank you for your attention.