Author Archives: John S. Walters

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About John S. Walters

Writer, editor, sometime radio personality, author of "Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New England Lives."

We Ought to Be Beyond Ashamed About Our Women’s Prison

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This, friends and neighbors, proud Vermonters, is the former gymnasium at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, a.k.a. the state’s only prison for women.

It was the gym until the prison got so overcrowded (130% capacity) that they had to convert it to a temporary shelter where (at last count) 24 inmates are sleeping on the floor in this appalling setting. Although I will admit the jigsaw puzzle is a nice touch, providing the thinnest veneer of hominess to this shitshow.

All of this is according to testimony delivered Monday to the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee by Isaac Dayno, executive director of policy at the state Department of Corrections. (Dayno’s slide deck can be downloaded here.) And this is only the newest outrage at CRCF, which has kept inmates in unsafe, unsanitary conditions for the better part of a decade. (For a dose of unfresh outrage, see Paul Heintz’ CRCF exposé, published by Seven Days in 2019. Or check out Heintz’ 2020 report on the facility’s showers providng a home to maggots and leeches and reeking of human waste.)

Dayno began his appearance by reporting his imminent departure from DOC, about which more below. In this light, his testimony can be interpreted as a not-so-subtle single-finger salute to the Phil Scott administration, which has failed to produce a solid proposal for upgrading or replacing the prison for, yes, the better part of a decade.

“We can do better,” Dayno told lawmakers. “The costs of inaction and apathy are quite high.” Hmm, remind me who’s been in charge of the situation since 2017? Phil Scott, that’s who.

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I’m Sure Front Porch Forum Is Quaking in Its Boots

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Here’s a shocker, and a subject I will likely never mention again: A handful of ultraconservative Vermonters has created an alternative to Front Porch Forum. Well, they want to position it as an alternative to FPF. In reality, it’s something much simpler, stupider, and more useless.

The organizers, with all the cleverness they can muster, are calling their new thing “Vermont Back Porch.” Yeah, baby, I wanna be your back porch man.

It appears to be nothing more than a statewide message board, open to anyone who signs up. Reddit for Dummies, if such a thing is possible. What it doesn’t offer is the community-by-community connectivity that has made FPF so useful and popular.

Conservatives have long been upset over FPF’s fairly modest content moderation standards, which are designed to prevent outbreaks of toxic partisanship. Political comment is fine, especially on local issues, but there are limits — which the nutbags try to label “censorship” because, as usual, they don’t understand that actual censorship involves the imposition of political authority on speech. The First Amendment has nothing to do with social media content moderation; like any other non-public entity, FPF is free to adopt whatever rules it wishes and you can’t call it censorship.

But hey, what are facts anyway? Especially when the organizers of this new endeavor hail from the ranks of — you guessed it — Covid denialists! Yay whoopee!

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Trump’s Canada Policy Has Had the Predictable Impact on Vermont Tourism

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Back at the beginning of this year, when Donald Trump was spouting his “51st State” nonsense and threatening a tariff war with Canada, there were concerns about the effect on Vermont’s tourism economy. Well, we’re almost a year into the second reign of King Manbaby, and the numbers show that Vermont has, in fact, suffered greatly from Trump’s cold war with our neighbors.

Canadian tourism is down. Way down.

Canadian credit card spending in Vermont is down even more.

This is only one of the many negative effects of Trump on Vermont. Tariffs have bedeviled many Vermont industries and businesses, and have hit housing construction especially There are real and potential losses in federal funding, including the rampant politicization of disaster recovery aid. There’s the chilling effect on migrant workers, which is putting a real hurt on our construction and agricultural sectors.

I can’t quantify those effects. But I’ve got a bunch of numbers regarding Canadian tourism. And man, do they ever make for some grim reading.

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I’m Not Predicting a Legislative Exodus, But It Wouldn’t Surprise Me

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State Rep. Jim Harrison, one of the most respected members of the House Republican caucus, will leave the Legislature shortly after the new year. Harrison has represented his district in rural Rutland County since 2017; before that, he’d been a Statehouse fixture for decades as head of the Vermont Retail and Grocers Association. He told The Rutland Herald that a move to Wilmot, New Hampshire is in the works simply because he and his wife have decided “it’s time to move on.”

Well, this is sudden, definitive, and puzzling. A Statehouse lifer and loyal Republican is bugging out for no particularly compelling reason. And I have a feeling that Harrison is an early canary in the coal mine. The conditions are right for a wave of resignations and retirements among Democrats and Republicans alike.

For starters, the Statehouse is a grind. The hours are long and often tedious, the demands are great and the financial rewards laughable. Honestly, it’s a wonder that anyone sticks around for very long. And then you get to the fact that this year’s session was tougher than usual, and next year’s is likely to be worse.

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Is the School Centralization Model Coming for Vermont’s Small Utilities?

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Fascinating story in this week’s edition of The Hardwick Gazette, which merits follow-up coverage of the implications by our larger media outlets. (And I’m not saying so because of my role with the paper. This is all about the merits of the story.) As The Gazette’s Paul Fixx reports, the Hardwick Electric Department just replaced its general manager in a completely opaque fashion: no public notice, no agenda item at a board meeting, no explanation whatsoever. Nothing.

So what’s going on here?

We don’t know, but I have my suspicions. I see the current drive to de-localize management in our public education system, and I wonder if the same forces are at work in Vermont’s electric power system. In short, is there an effort underway to consolidate Vermont’s community utilities — up to and including the Burlington Electric Department?

For the good folks of Hardwick and environs, the most immediately important thing is the total mystery around the replacement of Sarah Braese as general manager less than a year after she was hired. What does it say about the organizational health of HED?

For the rest of us, the big piece is the identity of HED’s new interim (apparently) general manager. Scott Johnstone was the utility’s interim chief last year, plus he’s been chief of Morrisville Water & Light since 2022, plus he was recently installed as head of the financially troubled Hyde Park Electric. (The best source for coverage of Hyde Park’s perilous situation comes from, shocker I know, The News & Citizen. Local journalism FTW.)

That’s a hell of a portfolio: Johnstone now runs three small utilities in northern Vermont. Things that make you go hmm…..

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I Wouldn’t Trust ANY of These People to Reform the Public Education System

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On Monday, Tax Commissioner Bill Shouldice issued his annual December 1 letter estimating property tax rates for the coming fiscal year. It was completely predictable bad news: Shouldice projects a roughly 12% increase in property tax bills, a figure largely attributable to Our Political Betters’ decision to kick the tax can down the road this year by using one-time money to cut a double-digit increase down to one measly percentage point. They knew, at the time, that (in the words of T Bone Burnett among many others) There Would Be Hell To Pay.

Almost as predictable as the 12% increase is the practically unanimous response from Our Betters: They plan to double down on Act 73, which (a) would have no effect whatsoever on next year’s taxes and (b) promises future cost savings that are unproven at best and chimerical at worst.

Gov. Phil Scott: ““The choice before lawmakers in 2026 is clear: show courage by working together to keep moving forward with [Act 73,] our bipartisan transformation plan.”

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth: “Last session, the Governor and the Legislature worked together to pass a framework for transforming our education financing system. It was not easy; too many opposed any approach but the status quo… The truth is that Act 73’s success depends on even harder work being accomplished this session. I am committed to continuing this mission – in collaboration with the Governor, the House and my colleagues in the Senate…”

Oh, WHAT a brave man, heaping scorn on those who didn’t fall in line as “oppos[ing] any approach but the status quo,” when, in fact, NOBODY wanted to continue the status quo. They just happened to not like Act 73.

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Just Another Sad Example of Scott Administration Fecklessness

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This isn’t a big deal. It’s not nearly as consequential as the Scott administration’s fumbling (and/or deliberately sabotagey) response to widespread homelessness or its stubborn stay-the-course policy on substance use or its failure to produce a coherent policy on public education or its coddling of subpar administrators. But it’s yet another entry in the big fat ledger of incompetence that the administration is assembling.

I’m talking about Auditor Doug Hoffer’s latest audit (downloadable here), which reviews how the Department of Health’s Food and Lodging Program has been addressing complaints about unsafe or unclean conditions at our state’s hospitality businesses. “Examples include,” his cover letter helpfully enumerates, “complaints alleging bedbug infestations… serving expired food, and handling ready-to-eat food with bare hands.” Hoffer found that the Program often failed to respond promptly to complaints or make sure that offending businesses obeyed improvement orders.

Reminder that the tourism industry is a cornerstone of our economy and public image. It ain’t great if a tourist family comes down with food poisoning or checks into a charming B&B only to find that the beds are full of crawly, bitey things. The Food and Lodging Program is there to safeguard public health and to undergird the state’s tourism industry. Complaints and inspections might be a buzzkill, but they are necessary to ensure that visitors have a positive experience while they’re here.

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Nothing to See Here, Just Your Garden Variety Ruling Class Mutual Back-Scratching

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So, the Scott administration finally did the long-rumored thing. It signed a five-year, $2.3 million lease for commercial office space in Waterbury. Office space that’s only necessary because of Scott’s back-to-commute order that would overload the state-owned buildings in town.

Now, that $2.3 million is only part of the price tag for this deal. It costs real money to prepare office space for full-time occupancy. Will we ever get a full accounting of the cost? I wouldn’t bet on it.

The immediate beneficiaries of this deal are some good friends and political supporters of, ahem, Gov. Phil Scott. VTDigger’s Shaun Robinson got a lot of this story, but not all of it.

As Robinson reported, the lease involves 22,000 square feet of office space in the Pilgrim Park complex, the former headquarters of Green Mountain Coffee. It’s now owned by Malone Superior, LLC, a real estate firm co-owned by Wayne Lamberton, Patrick Malone, and Randy Lague. As Robinson reported, Malone Superior is located at the same address as Malone Properties, also owned by Patrick Malone. And as Robinson reported, Malone Properties donated “about $12,000” to Phil Scott’s gubernatorial campaigns in 2016, 2018 and 2020.

But there’s more, quite a bit more, that Robinson missed.

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‘Tis the Season for Strained Racing Analogies

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Looks like a real contest is developing in the Chittenden Central state Senate district, where three seats will be up for grabs in 2026. The three sitting solons, who seem likely to run for re-election, may find as many as four other names on the Democratic primary ballot next August.

In other words, Donkey Race!

Chittenden-Central is, geographically speaking, the smallest Senate district by a longshot. On a map it resembles Nepal after encontering an old-fashioned laundry mangle. It includes much of northern and central Burlington, the city of Winooski, a bit of Colchester, the city of Essex Junction, and part of the town of Essex. Politically speaking, it may be the most liberal Senate district in the state. The incumbents are Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth, listed on the ballot as a D/P, Democratic Sen. Martine Laroque Gulick, and P/D Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky.

So who’s running? Glad you asked.

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They Didn’t Fail, Governor. You Did.

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After the School District Redistricting Task Force* recommended a voluntary plan instead of new district maps, Gov. Phil Scott responded with guns a-blazin’. And as is often the case when you go guns a-blazin’, there was a bit of an accuracy problem.

*Seriously, who named this thing?

Then again, one couldn’t really expect him to identify the real culprit: the governor himself.

For those just joining us, Scott said that the Task Force “didn’t fulfill its obligation” under Act 73. “They were supposed to put forward three maps for consideration, and they failed,” he said on Thursday. (Not true, actually; more later.) And he blasted Task Force members for being “OK with the ever-increasing property taxes, cost of education, and they don’t want to see change.”

I understand his dismay but he’s being a bit harsh on a group of Vermonters who know more about public education than he ever will, and who gave of their time, sweat and tears to try to meet an unreasonable deadline. He could have at least thanked them for their service. Even if he didn’t mean it.

Especially since the real author of this failure isn’t anyone on the Task Force. It’s the governor himself.

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