Sometimes when you’re a political appointee, you have to say stuff in public that you’ve been told to say. I’d like to think that’s what Tax Commissioner Craig Bolio was doing on Friday when he had the stones to approach the House Ways & Means Committee with a scheme that should never have seen the light of day.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Bolio was sent by his superiors to propose a painfully belated, half-baked plan (to call it a “plan” is being generous) that amounted to what Ways & Means chair Rep. Emilie Kornheiser later called a “payday loan.” Without the benefit of the doubt, I’d have to conclude that Bolio is unfit to hold a fiscally responsible position.
The idea, in short, was to reduce this year’s high property tax increases by deferring expenses over the next several years. Hey, let’s put our public schools on the layaway plan! What could possibly go wrong?
I wonder how Gov. Phil Scott would react if a Democratic or Progressive legislator made such a suggestion. Somewhere between “conniption” and “aneurysm,” I’m guessing.
It has been suggested to me that I’m dead wrong about Zoie Saunders’ prospects in the Senate. I would like nothing better, and I can see the argument although I’m not entirely convinced because, well, I have so little faith in Our Solons to do the right thing.
My take was that the Senate was likely to rubber-stamp Saunders’ nomination as education secretary after a brief, polite interrogatory. The latest piece of evidence: a press release from the Agency of Education touting Saunders’ first day on the job and blithely ignoring the Senate’s duty to ratify her selection.
I interpreted the press release as an expression of confidence. But it could also be seen as whistling past the graveyard. Like, maybe the administration is worried about the Senate process and trying to pretend it isn’t a real thing.
This would be of a piece with the Saunders rollout from the very beginning. She was introduced at a hastily-convened press conference on a Newsdump Day. Her nomination was announced a bit more than three weeks before her first day on the job, which is a very short time frame for an executive who has to exit an important position elsewhere and make a 1,500-mile relocation. The administration snapped back, perhaps too aggressively, at initial skepticism of the pick with overblown accusations of misogyny and anti-Florida prejudice. And then the administration asked the Senate Education Committee to hold off on a Saunders hearing until next week, giving her a faint aura of incumbency in advance of the Senate vote. Every step seems to line up.
Plus, I have a new piece of evidence that the administration isn’t feeling too secure right about now.
Welp, the Scott administration has put out a press release trumpeting Zoie Saunders’ first day on the job as Vermont’s education secretary. Nowhere does it mention that her appointment is pending approval by the state Senate, which won’t even begin considering the matter until sometime next week.
Quite the opposite, in fact. The press release says that “Saunders will travel around the state in the coming weeks” and “In the months ahead, Secretary Saunders will kick off a formal listen and learn tour.”
Yeah, the fix is in. The Senate will put on a show of performing due diligence, but honestly, there’s no way in Hell they’re going to send her back to Florida.
It appears that the Senate Appropriations Committee is ready to kill a House-passed proposal to extend the motel voucher program that shelters thousands of homeless Vermonters. So says the chatter in the hallways, which I would not take as gospel — except that the committee made its intentions more than clear in a recent hearing.
On April 2, the committee heard from Commissioner Chris Winters of the Department of Children and Families and some of his top deputies. The panel had asked him to prepare a presentation on the challenges of implementing H.883, the House-passed FY2025 budget bill that includes a broader version of the voucher program than the administration has proposed.
Mind you, the panel made no effort to hear from anyone in the House to tell their side of the story. The committee took no testimony from housing advocates or clients of the program. They sought counsel only from the very administration officials who have been responsible for repeatedly fumbling the program and trying to kill it. Committee members rarely pushed Winters or challenged his testimony. They pretty much took his word on every issue. You might think the committee was on a fishing expedition looking for reasons to kill the House plan.
Because that’s exactly what they were doing.
At one point, committee chair Sen. Jane Kitchel was seeking assurance that nothing bad would happen under the administration’s plan. She lobbed Winters a softball: “Will you be putting somebody in a wheelchair out on the street?”
The headline might seem outrageous, and I’m sure it won’t make anyone on the Fifth Floor happy, but it’s the plain truth.
Vermont’s judiciary system is grossly underfunded and understaffed. The result is a huge backlog of pending cases measured, not in weeks or months, but in years. Gov. Phil Scott’s solution? Cut a few more positions from the courts.
This is the same governor who said, in his State of the State address, that public safety was one of his top priorities. The House decided to boost the Judiciary instead of strangling it, and approved a bill that would pay for more positions in the court system by increasing corporate taxes and fees by a skosh or two. This appears to be a no-go for Scott, who would rather kill any kind of tax or fee increase than, I don’t know, fully fund the judicial system at a time when he claims that we face a public safety crisis.
Rather devastating piece has been posted in an unlikely spot, Forbes Magazine, about Zoie Saunders, Gov. Phil Scott’s pick for education secretary. It’s written by Peter Greene, a longtime schoolteacher turned education commentator. We’ll go through some specifics, including a lengthy quote from an unidentified writer at something called The Vermont Political Observer*, but this must be addressed right off the top.
*Hey Peter, next time check the “About” page.
Governor Scott’s office, which did not yet respond to a request for comment for this article, has said that Saunders will not be doing any more interviews until she’s in office.
Hoo boy. Batten down the ramparts, boys. Pull up the drawbridge. Sound red alert. Someone go below decks and look for a hull breach, because I think we’re taking on water.
The administration’s refusal to make Saunders available for interviews can only be taken one of two ways: They don’t trust her to speak contemporaneously, or they’re very, very nervous about her prospects for Senate approval. Neither is what you’d call a good look.
We began the new week with all eyes turned toward the sky, waiting for the sun to briefly disappear. But at the same time, an earthly, political-type sun also vanished — and this one isn’t coming back.
Sen. Dick Mazza, who served nearly 40 years in the state Senate and 30 seconds as a TV spokesman for a riding lawn mower, has announced his immediate retirement for health reasons.
On a personal level, Mazza was a tremendous guy. He was a joy to talk with. If he ever had a bad word for anyone, I didn’t hear it — and if anyone would have merited a bad word or two from Mazza, it was me, the guy who has posted images of mummies and skeletons atop essays about Our Sclerotic Senate. He was unfailingly polite to me, and seemed to earnestly mean it.
Mazza also had a deep knowledge of state government and a love for the Senate. As much as anyone, he was the human embodiment of a load-bearing beam in the Statehouse. I wish him all the best as he wages a long-odds battle against pancreatic cancer. Best wishes for a full recovery and many more years behind the counter at Mazza’s Store.
But I have to say his departure from the Statehouse is one more step towards a Senate that might be less hidebound, more open to new ideas and more reflective of the entirety of Vermont. Can I regret the loss of Dick Mazza while also feeling a bit optimistic about a future Senate that doesn’t include him? Whether you think I can or not, that’s where I find myself.
Vermont’s longest-running Cold War ended this week, with Seven Days waving the white flag and surrendering to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
It had been nine long years since Bernie had deigned to speak with Vermont’s leading weekly newspaper. The streak ended this week, with Seven Days accepting what was presumably a limited sit-down dedicated to one of the senator’s favorite issues, the plight of America’s senior citizens.
Ultimately it means little to nothing, but it made me a little sad. Way back in December 2017 when I helmed the gone-but-not-forgotten Fair Game column, I covered one of the great events of the Burlington social/political calendar: the late Tony Pomerleau’s annual Christmas shindig. It was a blatant exercise in noblesse oblige, with Pomerleau footing the bill for a big dinner and holiday gifts for selected members of the Queen City’s neediest. And every top-rank political type felt obliged to kiss Pomerleau’s ring, including America’s most notorious Democratic Socialist.
Bernie and Tony had a longstanding relationship, going back to the former’s first days as mayor of Burlington. Sanders had just won a shock victory in 1981, but he didn’t let it go to his head (at least not immediately). He realized he needed to find common ground with The Great and Good of Burlington, including its leading real estate mogul. The unlikely pair did indeed figure out how to work together, which helped get Sanders’ mayoralty off the ground and set the stage for his very successful political career.
Okay, I’m making a short story long. Point being, I wanted to get a quote or two from Sanders about this Odd Couple partnership. That was all. I approached him before the event, when he was glad-handing his way around the room. He seemed amenable at first, but that changed when I mentioned the magic words “Seven Days.” He said “Not right now” and turned away. He could have added “And not ever, either,” but it went without saying. At the time, Bernie held a grudge against Seven Days because it dared to cover some of his rare missteps. I was just caught in the crossfire.
As I walked up to him I started recording on my phone, and captured the entire 10-second exchange. I’ve saved it ever since for sentimental reasons, which is why I can quote it back to you now.
Maybe it’s just me, but I see a veto as a failure of leadership. It’s a last resort, to be used only after all other options are exhausted. But Gov. Phil Scott seems to take pleasure in the exercise, to judge by the frequency of his vetoes. He long ago surpassed Howard Dean’s total (in far fewer years as governor), and Dean had been, by a country mile, the most enthusiastic vetoer in Vermont history.
To be fair, Scott faces the difficult task of trying to manage the state in concert with a Legislature dominated by the other party. But it’s the hand he has been dealt. It’s his responsibility to try to find ways to cooperate with the House and Senate. Hell, he talks constantly about the importance of cooperation and working across the aisle.
Except when he’s slamming the Dems or racking up another veto.
This time it’s S.18, which would have banned the sale of flavored tobacco products and e-cigarettes. And as is often the case, it kinda looks like Scott went fishing for an excuse to veto instead of doing his utmost to avoid using the bluntest instrument in the gubernatorial toolbox.
No foolin’ this time: April 1 brought yet another mass unsheltering for no good reason whatsoever, and the blame appears to fall on the Scott administration’s failure to communicate with clients of the motel voucher program.
It seems that somebody realized sometime last week that roughly 800 households — which, by the standard calculation of 1.6 persons per household, would be about 1,280 individuals — were eligible to stay in their state-paid motel rooms, but in order to do so they had to apply for reauthorization by April 1. And they hadn’t done so.
According to designated unsheltering pool reporter Carly Berlin, a mad scramble ensued. Well, she used “scramble.” The “mad” part is mine. Berlin:
The [Department of Children and Families]’ pleas were captured in an email sent to service providers on Friday afternoon, in which a DCF official said more than half of the 1,600 households “have an authorization that ends on 4/1/24 that has yet to be renewed.” In the message, Lily Sojourner, interim director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, asked for providers’ help in securing residents’ renewals.
To clarify: Sojourner “asked for providers’ help in doing the job DCF should have done.” Ugh.
The scramble brought the number of evictions down to about 360 households (570 individuals) as of early Monday afternoon. Great!
On top of this comes the cheery news from Seven Days that in Chittenden County, “more than 150 households” (at least 240 individuals) will lose their rooms on Saturday and Sunday nights so motel operators can rent ’em out to eclipse tourists at extortionate rates. It’s unknown how many will lose their shelter outside of Chittenden County. There are eight other counties in the totality zone, so the total unsheltered could be much higher.
The Vermont Political Observer. 