Belated weekly roundup of the best reportage in Vermont, postponed due to the education reform vote and related stuff. Reminder: Although this post is coming out on June 18, it only covers material posted/published/promulgated no later than the 15th.

Glenn Russell strikes again. The best part of VTDigger’s Friday story about Gov. Phil Scott and the Legislature coming together on an education reform bill? Glenn Russell’s photograph. Not reproducing it for copyright reasons, so click on the link and enjoy.

Mmm, that’s the good stuff. In a single image, Russell perfectly captures the House-Senate conference committee dynamics that led us down this prickly path. The three Senate conferees are pictured. Two of them, Sens. Seth Bongartz and Scott Beck, strike identical poses, leaning forward, peering intently over their pushed-down glasses, holding copies of draft legislation, looking more than a bit skeptical of their House counterparts. The third Senator, Ann Cummings, leans away from the table with an expression that says, quite clearly, “I want nothing to do with these jamokes.”

In case you haven’t been reading me lately, Democrat Bongartz and Republican Beck share a common background and purpose. Both have substantial ties to the private schools that hoover up public education dollars, and both repeatedly centered those private institutions in what was supposed to be a discussion of how to improve the public schools. To capture all that in a single image? Chef’s kiss.

Local columnist tears Jake Tapper a new one. Jim Kenyon may be the last surviving columnist in, well, almost in Vermont. The Valley News fixture wrote a piece about CNN anchor Jake Tapper serving on the Board of Trustees at Dartmouth College, the Ivy League institution most likely to crack down on student protest and kiss up to the Trump administration. Dartmouth has repeatedly been in the news, and Tapper has been resolutely silent. Also, his CNN bio notes that he’s a Dartmouth alum but fails to disclose his role on the Board. Tapper, of course, wasn’t “available to chat” with some small-town scribe about legitimate ethical questions.

Small-town service journalism. This isn’t a big thing, but it’s the kind of meat-and-potatoes reportage that you’re only going to get from an active local newspaper. Last week, the Hardwick Gazette published a piece about the Hardwick Electric Department seeking a rate hike of more than 13 percent. Yes, I’m on the board of the Gazette, which is a longtime community fixture now trying to make a go of it as a nonprofit. I’m involved because I believe in the importance of local news, and this article is a prime example of why Vermont needs local newspapers.

Way too many sugar gliders. The Vermont Standard reports on an appalling animal situation down Windsor way. Police arrived at a mobile home — keep that in mind, a mobile home — and found “28 dogs, 14 cats, 11 guinea pigs, 40 sugar gliders, four rabbits, and 68 birds.” Animal shelters in the area are now coping with all those critters and trying to find them new homes. One shelter official who’s apparently a black belt in understatement told the Standard that “it did require some maneuvering on our part.” Ya think?

Wait, she did what? The most senior living reporter in Vermont, Mike Donoghue (cut crosswise and count the rings to confirm), has a wonderful piece of court reporting about a Bennington County woman who faced felony charges in a $1.6 million bank fraud case. Her bold strategy: She hired seven actors to be witnesses on her behalf. Alison Gu was convicted in 2018, and is now trying to get her conviction and prison sentence vacated due to the alleged ineffectiveness of her legal counsel. One of her lawyers has reacted by blowing the whistle on Gu’s bizarre attempt to evade justice. It’s one of those stories that just keeps on getting worse in, for those of us uninvolved in the crime, a wholly entertaining way.

Sing me a song of Amazon. As a child of the Sixties, it’s hard not to appreciate when a protest movement inspires a protest song. Which brings us to Essex resident Ken Signorello, a staunch opponent of Amazon’s proposal to site a massive distribution facility in the town. His song, “Amazon Town,” is a delightful slice of outrage expressed via acoustic guitar and vocals, because what other medium is there for protest? I can’t say I entirely buy his vision of Essex as a “paradise” potentially lost, but good on him for turning his cause into art. He even scored a cameo in a recent WCAX report on local opposition to the Amazon proposal.

New organization to support local news. Not an actual piece of journalism, but I think it belongs here. Last week, the University of Vermont Center for Community News and the Vermont Community Foundation launched the Vermont Journalism Coalition, a new organization whose purpose is to foster local journalism. But wait, the overly informed reader might say, don’t we already have a Vermont Press Association? Well, yes, but the Coalition brands itself as “the first to represent all entities producing journalism in the state – regardless of size, medium or business model.” Wait, does that include political bloggers? (Do I even have a business model?)

Never mind. The press release announcing the new effort says “it plans to advocate for the rights of journalists, provide business and legal support to members, and raise awareness of the industry’s critical mission.” It’s being spearheaded by Paul Heintz, former Seven Days and VTDigger fixture who seems like a great pick for the role. One of the Coalition’s likely functions is Statehouse lobbying over journalism-related issues, including Vermont’s Swiss cheese style public records law and our shockingly meager libel law. I wish them luck. Because they, and the entire field of journalism in our state, could use it.