On March 17, the Agency of Education announced that education secretary Dan French was stepping downto take a position with the Council of Chief State School Officials.
In the months that followed, state officials seemed to take a, shall we say, unhurried approach to filling the vacancy. In fact, it wasn’t until Monday, September 25 that the state Board of Education formally posted the job opening.
And the application deadline is October 5. That’s a filing period of only 11 days.
Eleven days.
Recapping here. They took 192 days, more than half a year, before opening the “search,” and now that they’ve finally gotten around to it, the search process will last a mere 11 days.
The Vermont Climate Council is meeting on Monday. That’s the entity tasked under the Global Warming Solutions Act to make a plan to meet the Act’s mandatory emissions reduction targets. And from what I hear, Council members who represent environmental interests will be arriving with pointed questions for the Scott administration.
The issue: Is the administration ready to lead the rulemaking process necessary for attaining our target for the year 2025, which [checks calendar] is only about 15 months away? By law, the rules are supposed to be in place by next July 1. That might seem like a lot of time, but rulemaking is by nature a deliberate process, so we’d best be getting on with it.
You’d think our Year of Climate Disruption would inject a dose of urgency to the process. A mild winter, smoky skies from Canadian wildfires, the floods of July 10, and a very wet summer have brought the reality of climate change to our doorstep. One could imagine a Vermont governor seizing the moment to pivot from flood relief to a focus on aggressive climate policies.
But Phil Scott has shown no signs of being that kind of governor.
Unsurprisingly, the selectboard in the Northeast Kingdom town of Canaan has backed away from its broadly-written, almost certainly unconstitutional ban on loitering — or doing just about anything else without permission.
At its September 18 meeting, the selectboard adopted a new ordinance aimed specifically at unauthorized camping on public property. (The text can be downloaded from the town’s website.) The change in heart likely follows some pointed communications from those darn busybodies at the Vermont ACLU and Vermont Legal Aid.
The original ordinance, adopted in August, would have barred anyone from sitting, standing, or loitering “in or about any municipally owned or municipally maintained land, park, building, or parking lot between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.” unless authorized by a town official. It would also have banned sitting, standing, or loitering on any “street, sidewalk, municipal land, building, or any other public space in town” if an “owner, tenant, or custodian thereof” asked them to leave.
I guess the good folks of Pawlet know how Kiah Morris felt.
When she was subjected to racist abuse and threats, the former state representative got no backing from law enforcement on any level, from the local police to the state attorney general’s office. And now the people of Pawlet have gotten the same quality service from the Rutland County Sheriff’s Office and Vermont State Police, who failed to enforce an order for the arrest of militia training center chief Daniel Banyai.
And now the arrest warrant has expired, so Pawlet is seeking an extension with the addition of court oversight so the cops can’t stall out the clock once again.
The expiration was first reported last week by the Bennington Banner, and re-reported this week by VTDigger. The details show two police agencies with no heart for the task, making excuses for their lack of action.
I get it. Driving onto the grounds of the heavily-armed Slate Ridge compound with the intent of arresting its founder seems like a perilous endeavor. But still, it’s their job.
I don’t want to be overly alarmist about this, so I used a smiley happy dumpster fire illustration instead of the out-of-control inferno kind. But good grief, where exactly is Vermont State University headed?
The latest is the announced departure of system chancellor Sophie Zdatny, who will leave VSU at the end of this year. Don’t forget that interim VSU President Mike Smith, who took the job in April, has promised to stay on for only six months. He’s now in month number five, so time’s running out. Smith replaced Parwinder Grewal, who resignedeven before VSU was officially launched because he’d squandered all his political capital on an ill-considered decision to close the system’s libraries.
Zdatny, you may recall, replaced Jeb Spaulding, who resigned as chancellor in 2020 after floating a universally unpopular — but absolutely sensible — plan to consolidate the system by closing the Johnson, Lyndon and Randolph campuses.
It’s been bad times, and we haven’t even gotten to the finances or the precipitous 19% drop in 2023-4 enrollment or the looming demographic crisis staring the system right in the face. And now we’re looking at a leadership vacuum that will see VSU saddled with interim leadership for, what’s that? Two more years?
So the person pictured above, Jacq Posley, recently caused a bit of a stir (but honestly, not enough of a stir) with a blistering farewell-to-Vermont letter entitled “My Last Plea As a Black Vermonter,” in which she laid out, in painful detail, all the racism she’s encountered in her five years living in Vermont. Which she found to be no less racist than, uh, Mississippi.
Five years since I left my life in Mississippi thinking NO PLACE could be more racist (tuh). Five years of serving on multiple civic boards that claim they want equity, but build walls in the face of progression. Five years of being called racial slurs with no one to protect me from it and no one to check their white supremacist friends. Five years of confederate flags, don’t tread on me flags, and strategically placed Donald Dump paraphernalia. Five years of watching MANY of my friends and their very young Black children suffer from the same mental anguish I have experienced while existing as a Black person in Vermont. September 16, 2023 should be a time for celebration. Instead, it is a time for reflection as I leave the state to pursue equity work in a place that actually wants it.
She’s right, of course, and we’ll get to that. But first, a note of bitter irony. Posley was one of those attracted to Vermont by Gov. Phil Scott’s much-touted “Stay to Stay” program in which vacationers were connected with potential employers and other resources. The governor is great at this sort of thing: Catchy ideas that ultimately have little to no real impact, but provide some feel-good headlines. See also: the late unlamented remote worker grant program. (“Stay to Stay” now seems to be a shell of its former self. It still has a website, but the content is simply a list of links to available resources. No sign of the special weekends that used to attract such positive press.)
In fact, Posley is the focus of a brief promotional video for “Stay to Stay,” still viewable on YouTube. “No matter which side of the spectrum you land on, you’re welcome in Vermont,” she said in the video. “You’re allowed to be who you are.”
It’s been several months since I pointed out the “Donate” option on this here blog and asked readers to consider a one-time or recurring contribution. I try not to push it too much, but once in a while…
There are many causes far worthier than mine competing for your dollar. I will not try to claim special status, and as usual I urge you to support the nonprofit causes of your choice. Food banks, homeless shelters, flood relief, journalistic outlets, so many needs, even in a place as relatively blessed as Vermont.
But hey. If you appreciate the insight I bring to the table or just enjoy my writing, think about putting a dollar value on your readership. If it’s worth your time, maybe it’s worth a few bucks.
I’m constantly keeping an eye on events. I write blogposts at least three times a week, usually four, sometimes five. I’ve been writing about Vermont politics since 2011, so I bring a lot of experience and knowledge to the table.
There is no paywall here, nor will there ever be. Honor system. Please give it a thought.
And even if you don’t give me a dime, I do thank you for your attention.
Sometime in late August, very quietly, the Kurn Hattin Homes for Children released an astonishingly vague statement about allegations of child abuse within its walls. Repeatedly referring to itself in the third person, Kurn Hattin announced that some number of allegations about Kurn Hattin turned out to be true, while some other accusations about Kurn Hattin were not. Yep, that’s about it.
VTDigger reported the statement on September 8, but it was posted on Kurn Hattin’s website at least two weeks earlier without notice. I’m sure that Kurn Hattin would very much like us to accept this statement at face value and turn our attention elsewhere. Any elsewhere will do. HEY, LOOK! SQUIRREL!
But I’ll tell you, this had better not be the last word on the subject. Kurn Hattin needs to be held accountable. Department of Education? Agency of Human Services? Attorney General’s office? Legislature? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Legislative leadership has a somewhat (but only somewhat) overblown reputation for shooting themselves in the foot. They have often made Gov. Phil Scott’s job easier by giving him pain-free victories or allowing his minions to run rings around them.
The latest installment of this depressing melodrama features the complaint from House Speaker Jill Krowinski and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth about the “Vermont Strong II: Electric Boogaloo” license plates first suggested [checks notes] almost two months ago by Gov. Phil Scott.
Now, I’m no fan of the plate. It’s an obvious play on Vermonters’ partially earned self-regard, and there’s something ironic about flogging vehicle license plates to help recover from a climate change-related disaster.
Also, Baruth and Krowinski have a strong argument that the governor overstepped his constitutional authority by advancing the program without Legislative approval. Team Scott argues that he is simply extending a program authorized by the Legislature in 2012, after Tropical Storm Irene.
That seems pretty thin to me, but politically speaking it doesn’t matter. There is no way that this doesn’t end up being a strong net positive for Scott. Assuming he runs for re-election, this thing would be potent fodder for the TV ads he probably won’t have to bother airing: “Legislative leaders are so petty and obstructionist, they didn’t even want me to raise disaster recovery money with a positive, feel-good message.”
Team Scott fully realizes this. And when you look at the sequence of events, it’s pretty clear that his people leaked this story and that Baruth and Krowinski didn’t intend for this to become public.
The Northeast Kingdom town, best known in these parts as (1) the home of the only public school district that never adopted a mask mandate during the Covid epidemic, (2) the home turf of former education secretary Dan French, and (3) the place where a parent threatened to “kill somebody” if his child encountered a transgender person at school, has just enacted a broad, sweeping ban on loitering — or doing just about anything else not specifically authorized by the town — on public property.
It’s obviously aimed at unhoused people, and it’s almost certainly unconstitutional. The Selectboard itself gave that game away when it inserted a “separability” clause, which anticipates a losing battle in court.
The Vermont ACLU, which has previously reminded other Vermont communities that anti-panhandling ordinances are unconstitutional, seems likely to fulfill the Selectboard’s anticipation. “[The ordinance] does appear to raise a number of constitutional concerns,” wrote ACLU Communications Director Stephanie Gomory in an email.
But wait, there’s more! The Canaan Selectboard has also embarked on a drive to clean up “junky yards,” a concept that’s clearly in the eye of the beholder.
The Vermont Political Observer. 