Category Archives: Uncategorized

Kumbaya for We, But Not for Thee

2 Replies

Gov. Phil Scott held a momentous press conference today/Wednesday, in which he and a whole bunch of lawmakers unveiled major legislation aimed at tackling Vermont’s housing crisis. (Nobody used the fabled term “omnibus,” but it would have been appropriate.)

It was inspiring, it really was. Scott shared the stage with Democrats and Progressives as well as Republicans, to launch an initiative that’s the end product of what had to be really hard and earnest tripartisan negotiations. It’s the kind of thing that Scott has managed to pull off on occasion when truly engaged. It’s the kind of thing that has earned him his (overblown) reputation for being less interested in politics than in Getting Stuff Done, a reputation that flies in the face of his all-time record for gubernatorial vetoes. Still, this time he rose above partisanship to put this bill together.

And given the truly “all hands on deck” nature of the unveiling, I expect they’re going to pull it off. Which would be remarkable, and a real accomplishment.

(Before I continue, I must explain the illustration at the top of the page. The event featured a whole lot of people sharing the stage with the governor. After the big reveal, Scott asked reporters to stick to the subject at first and hold other questions for later. After the housing questions were exhausted, Scott allowed the assembled guests to depart. Apparently some technician back at the office mistook the ensuing hubbub for the end of the presser, because the feed was cut off at that point. The rest of the Q&A was unavailable on either ORCA Media or WCAX. Oopsie!)

So here’s the place where I point out the turd in the punchbowl.

The event was in stark contrast to the situation with emergency housing for Vermont’s homeless, where the administration is sticking to an inhumane approach that will leave more than a thousand Vermonters, many of them disabled, elderly, or children, without shelter come April 1.

Continue reading →

Welcome To Another Performance of Retail Theft Kabuki Theater

1 Reply

Last Friday’s meeting of the House Judiciary Committee was, to the casual observer, devoted to beating the drum for a crackdown on retail theft, the crime formerly known as shoplifting. (Does “retail theft” sound less, I don’t know, recreational than shoplifting? Probably.)

Anyway. There’s precious little evidence to support claims that retail theft is on the rise. The main propagator of this assertion is the National Retail Federation, a lobbying group for the industry that’s been making it easier and easier to steal stuff by cutting staff and instituting self-checkout. The NRF spent years flogging a bogus study that allegedly showed a tsunami of “organized retail crime,” only to retract it last month. Actual crime statistics indicate that “organized” theft accounts for a small fraction of shoplifting. And outside of a handful of major cities, there’s no evidence that retail theft is on the rise at all.

So now the tactics have shifted. We hear much less talk about rampant crime in our malls and downtowns, and more about the “perception” of a problem. People “feel” as though shoplifting is a crisis. Therefore, the argument goes, we must treat it like a crisis.

As a result, House Judiciary is considering an array of crime bills, and it began a scheduled series of hearings on Friday. But if you watched closely, you could detect a bit of nudge-nudge, wink-wink going on. The hearing seemed designed to meet the perception of disorder with the counter-perception of a crackdown than with an actual “tough on crime” offensive.

Continue reading →

You Will Please Ask No Questions About the EB-5 Disaster and, By the Way, Here’s the Bill

8 Replies

It was an “oh, by the way” moment for the ages. And an outrage against good government.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Charity Clark told a House committee that we, the taxpayers of Vermont, are on the hook for a $16.5 million settlement of the EB-5 scandal.

You know, the settlement that allowed key players to avoid the embarrassment and potential legal liability of testifying under oath? Yeah, that one.

Once in a while, an issue or development just hits me so hard that I find myself lying in bed wide awake, staring at the ceiling and grinding my teeth until I have no choice but to get up and write something. And here we are. Let’s recap the high points, shall we?

  • Through a combination of incompetence and hubris, state officials allowed themselves to be flim-flammed.
  • Other state officials then covered up the truth about the affair by claiming they had to keep key documents secret pending court cases.
  • On the eve of trial, the state settled a lawsuit by EB-5 investors just days before former state officials (up to and including former governor Peter Shumlin) were set to testify under oath.
  • If all those documents were ever released once the legal peril was removed, it somehow escaped my attention.
  • The state’s insurance company, AIG, took one look at this mess and denied coverage.
  • The state rolled over and accepted a token payment from AIG.
  • The Scott administration and Attorney General Charity Clark then waited as long as possible to reveal the AIG denial — only doing so when they had to go ask the Legislature for the needed funds.

Are you grinding your teeth yet?

Continue reading →

In Which Our Betters Finally Realize We Have a Housing Crisis On Our Hands

1 Reply

Note: This is a sequel to my previous post, reflecting the newly-released September figures for the motel voucher program and the official reaction to it all.

Some people could have predicted this as far back as January if not farther. But the Scott administration and the Legislature insisted throughout the winter and spring that everything would be just fine if we ended the emergency housing motel voucher program on schedule at the end of June.

They were wrong, of course, and they had to cobble together a last-minute extension that minimized the scale of the own-goal disaster. Those who were dumped from the program before June 30 were excluded, and new restrictions were imposed on the remaining clientele that seemed designed to encourage slash bully slash force them to leave the motels as quickly as possible.

Well, during today’s meeting of the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee, it became clear that administration and Legislature alike now know they have a real, sizeable, thorny problem on their hands, and that many a vulnerable Vermonter has paid a stiff price for their earlier choices. Shocker, I know.

Continue reading →

The Effort to End the Emergency Housing Program Only Shows How Badly It’s Needed

1 Reply

The first official Scott administration report on the motel voucher program showed the urgency of our affordable housing shortage. Out of 1,250* households in the program on June 30, 174 had left the program by late July — but only 42 did so because they had managed to find housing. Most of the rest, 113 in all, simply disappeared from the program, destination unknown. Ditto the 31 households evicted for “misconduct” as defined by motel operators.

*In the second report, described below, that June 30 number somehow rose to 1,266 two months after the fact. Given the Scott administration’s track record, I have to assume this is another case of lax record keeping. Anyway, from now on I’ll use 1,266 as the June 30 number.

Well, the report for August* reveals more of the same. Total enrollment was down to 929 households as of 8/28. Of the departed, 110 disappeared, 20 were kicked out for misconduct, and 26 actually found housing.

*The administration “published” this report on September 6, but it went unnoticed at the time. I found it 20 days later when looking for information on the 9/27 meeting of the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee.

To sum up: As of June 30, there were 1,266 households in need of emergency motel rooms. Reminder: until the very last moment, the administration and Legislature had planned to cut off the voucher program and immediately unhouse all those people. Instead, realizing they were about to cause a humanitarian crisis, they cobbled together a compromise that extended the program under new rules and restrictions.

Well, of those 1,266 households, only 68 have found housing so far.

Sixty-eight. That’s a success rate of 5.4%. Which shows you just how inadequate our supply of affordable housing is. And just how vital the voucher program remains.

Continue reading →

I Suspect the Next Dan French is Waiting in the Wings

2 Replies

On March 17, the Agency of Education announced that education secretary Dan French was stepping down to 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.

That’s weird. On both ends.

Continue reading →

Promoting a Worthy Cause? Opportunism? Or a Little of Both?

7 Replies

Let’s start with this: VTDigger has been doing yeoman’s work since the skies parted and the rains descended on July 10. They’ve ramped up their coverage to meet the need for information and insight, and that’s been absolutely critical in this age of ever-diminishing traditional media. And as a nonprofit organization, Digger has to meet its costs somehow or other.

So why does its joint fundraising campaign with the Vermont Community Foundation make me a little bit queasy inside?

Because, I think, it either crosses an ethical line or comes very close to it.

The details: Digger and VCF are raising money by selling a line of “Better Together” merch. The proceeds, minus the cost of the goods, is split 50/50 between the two entities. VCF devotes its half to flood relief, while Digger covers the cost of flood reportage with its share. The graphic design is, to my uneducated eye, kind of lame — of a piece with Digger’s recent website reboot. But that’s beside the point, and I’m sure the simple, direct design has its adherents. I don’t do TikTok either.

As a longtime denizen of public radio, I’ve spent more than my share of time dancing around this particular line between journalism and fundraising. During pledge drives, I’d be delivering the news one minute and begging for donations the next. Still, this Digger/VCF arrangement feels different, I think because it’s happening in the middle of a dire emergency — and looks like it’s capitalizing on the crisis. I’ve been part of public radio pledge drives, which take huge amounts of planning and organization, that were halted or postponed because of breaking news.

So I asked Digger CEO Sky Barsch about it, and she offered a strong rationale for the joint campaign. I wasn’t completely mollified, but I see her argument.

Continue reading →

Why Don’t We Govern As If People Mattered?

3 Replies

Two stories on a common theme appeared Monday morning on VTDigger. The first was about a “spate” (their term) of deaths in Vermont’s prison system, mainly at the Springfield facility. The second was about another rise in opioid-related deaths that puts us on track to break the all-time record set in 2022.

In both, I heard echoes of the lamentable deal struck by the Legislature and Scott administration for a partial extension of the motel voucher program — an extension loaded with poison pills. Not only does the program leave 800 or so households without shelter, it also makes the voucher experience as unpleasant as possible for its clients from now on. Who are, just a reminder, some of Vermont’s most vulnerable. You know, the ones Gov. Phil Scott likes to say he’s committed to protecting. Echoes also of a fundamental approach toward human services programs for the poor: Make the experience difficult and unpleasant so recipients are incentivized to GTFO, one way or another.

It’s like a soup kitchen that dumps vinegar into its food because if it tastes good, people won’t be incentivized to get their own damn dinner. Mind you, not enough vinegar to make anyone sick; just enough to discourage them from partaking unless they’re truly desperate.

This approach is all too common in our social programs. It’s a lousy way to meet the needs of our most vulnerable. It’s morally questionable, and if you’re not into the “morality” stuff, it’s also counterproductive in terms of financials and outcomes. People suffer needlessly and face tougher barriers to achieving self-sufficiency, which I think is what we’re supposedly aiming for.

Continue reading →

The Rule of Privilege in South Burlington

3 Replies

When I picture South Burlington in my mind’s eye, I see the curb-to-curb traffic of Shelburne and Williston Roads, the shopping malls, the big parking lots, the land-gobbling subdivisions. I don’t usually think of the area pictured above — the southeastern part of SoBu, which is on the precipice of transformation from countryside to suburbia.

The area in that image is less than two miles wide, but a majority of South Burlington City Council lives comfortably within that frame. Three of the five councilors live within a mile of each other, and only one lives outside the city’s southeastern census tract.

Which explains why the letters section of VTDigger has recently been flooded by councilors and their allies slagging S.100, the bill that would ease regulatory restrictions on housing construction. The issue is literally at their front doors. The sprawl is oozing like The Blob around them, and they want to keep whatever power they have over the process.

It was little more than a year ago that South Burlington City Council voted to block development in large swaths of — you guessed it — the southeastern quadrant.

Continue reading →

Supermajority Disappoints on Housing Crisis

1 Reply

Yesterday will go down as a case study in how legislative realpolitik works — or how Democratic supermajorities shoot themselves in the foot. Choose your own adventure.

In two separate venues yesterday, majority Democrats negotiated against themselves instead of flexing their political muscle. And the real losers were the thousands of Vermonters experiencing or facing homelessness.

In the early afternoon, the House Human Services Committee approved a memo to House Appropriations spelling out its underwhelming version of a plan to try to avoid an explosion in homelessness. A few hours later, a House-Senate conference committee approved the 2023 Budget Adjustment Act, with House members agreeing with the Senate version that cut $3 million from the emergency motel voucher program. The program would continue through the end of June, but with reduced eligibility after the end of May. More than 750 households would lose their eligibility a month early.

The conference committee move was a master class in keeping away from prying eyes. The House named its three members last week; the Senate followed suit on Monday. The very next day, the committee met with effectively no advance notice and quickly approved a “compromise” that favored the Senate on every area of disagreement. The meeting was over in less than 25 minutes. And only afterward was there any public disclosure of what the committee had approved.

This is all according to procedure, mind you. Conference committees don’t have to give advance warning of meetings. They often fit in their business when the opportunity arises. But usually their meetings include at least some debate. In this case, there was little to none. The deal was done behind closed doors.

This may be within the rules, but the lack of transparency is galling. As was the committee’s acceptance of the Scott administration’s assertion that cutting eligibility is actually the charitable thing to do. The argument goes that there isn’t enough capacity in the program so we should focus the available space on those in the direst straits. Some would say there’s a difference between sticking to the state’s roster of motel units and making a real effort to expand the pool, but I quibble.

House Human Services shared an unfortunate process with the conference committee. As far as I can tell, the proposed memo to Appropriations wasn’t posted online before it was approved by Human Services — and still hasn’t been, as of this writing.

Continue reading →