Next month, Gov. Phil Scott is hosting the annual meeting of New England governors and Eastern Canadian premiers… and YOU can get in on the action.

If, that is, you can pony up at least $2,500 for the privilege.

A reader (who shall remain nameless) forwarded me a two-page offer of “partnership opportunities” for the shindig, clearly aimed at well-heeled business types who can claim their big spends as deductible business expenses. The “opportunities” are offered at three levels: $2,500, $5,000, and $10,000. Not disclosed anywhere: Who gets the money? Does it help defray the costs of the meeting? I guess so. I hope none of it goes to, say, Scott’s re-election campaign, because as Dick Nixon reportedly said of paying off the Watergate burglars, “That would be wrong.”

Details: the meeting is on August 9-10 in three locations: Hotel Vermont, BETA Technologies, and Shelburne Farms. For those who like to think of Vermont in terms of cows, sugar shacks and covered bridges, the focus of the confab is “aerospace, semiconductors, energy, and defense.” Keynote speaker is General CQ Brown, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until Donald Trump abruptly fired him in February 2025. Me, I’d be most interested in the “Flight Demos,” presumably featuring the latest and greatest from BETA, Vermont’s current Great White Economic Development Hope. BETA is definitely front and center for this event.

Ironically, I received the invite on the day that Trump announced another round of punitive tariffs on Canadian goods, which might put a bit of a damper on this “longstanding tradition to strengthen friendships between our nations.”

Sure, okay. Maybe in 2029.

The invite bears the official state of Vermont logo. The two points of contact for the event are (1) the governor’s office, and (2) Frank Cioffi, longtime development maven and president of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation. Which raises the old “cui bono?” question. Who’s running this thing? Where does the money go? We look forward to a full and transparent accounting of this gathering of the region’s Great and Powerful.

Yeah, ha ha, snort.

I’d like to take a bit of time to parse a photograph that appears at the top of the invite. It’s an aerial view of Burlington, but it’s from an unusual viewpoint and it isn’t your usual “Town Beautiful” picture you see in tourist brochures and city guides.

This image de-emphasizes the usual Burlington attractions like Church Street or Battery Park or the UVM campus. It manages to avoid including a single mountain, not even as distant backdrop. It presents the city as a workaday place with room for new industry. Pavement aplenty, old waterfront buildings, mostly empty parking lot, squatty office structures, railroad tracks front and center. This burg could easily be somewhere in the Rust Belt. It’s a vision of Burlington that only a developer or industrialist could love.

The people who see the Queen City this way will be paying through the nose (and, thanks to business expense deductions, your nose as well) to hobnob with the region’s political leaders and promote their view of things. Your view? Well, you’ll have to fork over a few G’s to get a foot in the door.

The invite in full: