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."

Just Because You Drove Off a Cliff and Landed Softly in a Grove of Trees Doesn’t Mean It Was a Good Idea to Drive Off the Cliff

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We barely managed to evade another mass unhousing tonight, no thanks whatsoever to the Scott administration and only partial thanks to state lawmakers. They collectively thought it was a good idea to put a tight cap on motel vouchers and put it into effect immediately.

Technically it became effective before “immediately,” because Gov. Phil Scott has yet to sign the bill that imposes the cap. Yep, Our Glorious Leaders, going where no one has gone before, fracturing the time-space continuum. Again, as I wrote previously, I never want to hear anyone in the Statehouse cite a lack of time as an excuse for inaction. Hell, on this bill they had less than zero time and they still made it happen. Administration officials went ahead and implemented a policy that isn’t actually in law. At least not quite yet. Which might, now that I think of it, be technically illegal. But I’m not a lawyer, so.

By this (Friday) morning, the vast majority of motel operators had agreed to accept the $80 per night cap, so the vast majority of voucher clients still have roofs over their heads tonight.

Sure, an unknown but probably small number of households are without shelter. But it could have been thousands, and thankfully it wasn’t.

Who ought to get the credit? Why, Brenda Siegel, of course.

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In Milton, Bigotry Wins a Round

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Checking out candidates’ statements on community access TV is usually a formality. You expect to see people reading bland generalities from a script. You don’t expect to see something you’ve never seen before. But that’s just what happened the other day when I watched Lake Champlain Community Access TV’s offering of statements from candidates for the Milton Town School District Board.

And there, second in the rundown, was Ember Nova Quinn, who identifies as queer and uses “they/them” pronouns, pouring their heart out in despair over being made to feel unwelcome — unsafe, even — in their own community, and announcing their withdrawal from public life.

Wow. Just wow.

This is one person’s point of view and shouldn’t be taken as gospel. But it does reflect a very real and very deep divide in Milton politics. Each side accuses the other of bullying, threats, even vandalism. It’s gotten intense in the runup to Town Meeting Day elections, which effectively feature competing “slates” of conservative and liberal candidates.

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Day Drinkin’ Time

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Got a bad case of climate dysphoria today. It’s about 40 degrees colder than yesterday; Burlington saw new record high temperatures each of the past two days; in less than 24 hours we went from flood watch to gale force winds to freezing cold; and the newly-formed ruts on my dirt road have frozen into fascinatingly unpredictable configurations. It’s like art that can screw up your suspension.

Otherwise, well, there’s very real concern that we’ll have a mass unhousing tomorrow, Governor Nice Guy is turning heel, and Our Leaders don’t seem to have the vision to meet the various crises besetting us on all sides. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in my home office wearing a jacket. Indoors. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the involuntary “campers” our state’s policies have scattered across Vermont.

Oh, and I’m working on a really depressing story about the impact of bigotry in a Vermont town.

So yeah, third cup of coffee so far today. And by “cup,” I mean “22-ounce travel mug.”

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So I Guess March 1 Is Just Fine, Tra La La

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In my previous post, I slammed Deputy Human Services Secretary Todd Daloz for insisting on a cap of $80 — to take effect the day after tomorrow — on motel vouchers under the GA housing program. Well, now I get to slam Democratic lawmakers because they, too, see no problem with this administrative and human rights absurdity. Yesterday, the House-Senate conference committee approved H.839, the Budget Adjustment Act, with more generous eligibility standards for the voucher program but also with that damned March 1 deadline.

And today the full Senate rammed it through on a voice vote. On to the House tomorrow, I suppose, and then to Gov. Phil Scott’s desk. He’d better sign it lickety-split so the ink will be dry before the cap takes effect.

ON FRIDAY.

Most, but not all, of the participating motels have agreed to accept $80 per household per night. On Tuesday, Daloz said that about 400 rooms might drop out of the program. And there’s already a shortage of rooms. So if this thing goes through — and the skids appear thoroughly greased — then hundreds of Vermonters face complete unsheltering THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and hundreds more are likely to be shunted around the state with precious little notice.

Good God in Heaven, what are we doing?

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I Saved the Worst for Last: The Meanest, Absurdest, Most Ridiculous Thing Anyone Said at That Joint Fiscal Hearing

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The gent pictured above, bowtie rakishly askew, is Todd Daloz, Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Human Services. In a Tuesday hearing of the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee, he staunchly defended Scott administration policy on emergency housing. I covered some of his remarks in my previous post, but there was one passage so incredible, so morally bankrupt, so blithely dismissive of basic calendrical logic, that it deserved a piece all to itself.

As you may recall, the single worst idea in the Legislature’s latest iteration of an emergency housing extension was the imposition of a motel voucher rate cap — to take effect on March 1 — of either $75 (House version) or $80 (Senate). That’s a drop of more than $50 from the current average rate. May I remind you that March 1 is a mere two days away.

It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd. It’s heartless. And extra bonus points, it’s just plain impossible in terms of governmental process. This is a provision in the FY2024 Budget Adjustment Act that still has to pass the House and Senate and gain Gov. Phil Scott’s signature, which is far from a sure thing.

I don’t see how all that can happen by March 1, much less all the necessary steps to implement the idea.

And yet, on Tuesday Mr. Daloz made a point of insisting that the March 1 rate cap must stand.

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Pointed Questions and Jazz Hands

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The Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee tried something different today. It didn’t really go that well.

The committee called a hearing that was kinda meant to embarrass the Scott administration over its utterly inadequate response to our crises of homelessness and affordable. Well, it was cast as part of the JFC’s responsibility to track the progress being made (or not) under Act 81, the Legislature’s last-minute extension of the General Assistance housing program approved in June 2023. But the intent was to put administration officials under a bright light and watch them squirm.

Problem was, said officials (including Miranda Gray of the Department of Children and Families and Agency of Human Services Deputy Secretary Todd Daloz, pictured above) came prepared with reams and reams of jargon. They filibustered the hearing. It wasn’t 100% successful, but it limited the committee’s capacity to ask questions. It also had the truly unfortunate effect of almost completely sidelining input from providers of shelter and services to the unhoused. On the agenda, the administration was allotted 45 minutes of the 90-minute hearing and three provider witnesses got a combined 30 minutes. In actual fact, the administration occupied an hour and fifteen minutes, while provider testimony was crammed into the final 10 minutes of the affair.

There were still some embarrassing moments for the administration and some good information from the providers. The hearing wasn’t a bust, but it was far less effective than it could have been.

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The Free Press Did Not Censor Doonesbury. The Truth is Much Sadder.

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A couple Sundays ago, the Doonesbury comic strip took us to an imaginary Florida high school classroom where a teacher was sharing some uncomfortable truths about the Civil War as some of her students pondered reporting her apostasy to the authorities.

The strip did not appear in Gannett newspapers across the country, including the Burlington Free Press. Which raised a kerfuffle about censorship: Did our biggest national newspaper chain remove the strip out of concern for the tender sensibilities of southern readers? Were Free Press editors on board with the decision or were they forced to go along with a corporate kill order?

Well, no. The truth is a lot less scandalous, and a lot more depressing about the fallen state of print journalism in general and the comics in particular.

Truth is, Gannett canceled a whole bunch of comics including Doonesbury six months ago, almost certainly for budgetary reasons. The Free Press hadn’t run Doonesbury since last September. Nobody noticed. And that’s just sad.

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Nikki Haley Organizes Vermont Team

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A few days ago, the Nikki Haley campaign announced the formation of a Vermont State Leadership Team. I didn’t take much notice at the time because it’s not going to make the least bit of difference. Donald Trump is going to steamroll his way to probably all of Vermont’s 17 delegates as he grinds along to his inevitable nomination.

The only things that can stop him are (a) a quick and decisive criminal conviction or (b) a clear and obvious slide into dementia. Haley’s not going to do it, and her newly formed Vermont committee doesn’t have a prayer of carrying her to a primary win.

I wasn’t going to bother covering it at all until a Haley supporter took to The Formerly Robust Platform Formerly Known as Twitter to complain that there had been no coverage of the Vermont announcement. “Shameful that press has not covered this news in Vermont — it’s a big deal,” wrote Court Mattison. “Haley would help win down ballot and bring balance to #montp.”

Well, okay, your wish is my command. But be careful what you wish for.

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Shouldn’t We Be Thinking Big on Housing?

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As the Legislature pursues an actual housing policy in the absence of Gov. Phil Scott, who is focused solely on regulatory reform, there’s my question.

Shouldn’t we be thinking big?

Like “a record-breaking bond issue to jumpstart our supply of affordable housing” big.

Back in 2017 the Legislature and governor approved a $37 million affordable housing bond. In the ensuing two years, then-senator Michael Sirotkin, then chair of the Senate Economic Development Committee, proposed a second bond of $35 million (2019) or $50 million (2020). His efforts fell short, in part because then-treasurer Beth Pearce expressed concern about Vermont’s total indebtedness,

Well, it’s more than time to reopen that question and, honestly, push it as far as we possibly can. I’d aim high, maybe $250 million, and see what I could get. Why not? If we have a housing crisis, shouldn’t the response be proportionate?

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The Administration Does Have a Housing Plan But It’s Incomplete and, So Far, Mainly Hypothetical

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Earlier this week I gave Gov. Phil Scott’s plan to address the housing crisis a failing grade. Today, two of his top officials briefed the House Appropriations Committee on a report (downloadable here) prepared by the administration’s Council on Housing & Homelessness.

It was useful and informative. A lot of good work has been done, and a lot of good ideas are included in the report. Which is not to say I was wrong in my earlier assessment; the report is lacking in two crucial ways.

First, it does little to address our current explosion of homelessness. Its focus is on “prevention,” which seems to mean preventing future unhousings while doing not much for those already without a dependable roof over their heads.

Second, virtually none of it is in Scott’s FY2025 budget, which means that all its recommendations are just that. Recommendations. There’s been no commitment to implementation, not even an actual proposal. That doesn’t mean the report will be memory-holed, but there’s no proof that it won’t be.

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