We Are Just Way Too F***in’ Polite Around Here

5 Replies
Painting by Marc Adornato. See note below.

When, in a previous post, I called on Seven Days to fill its vacant “Fair Game” position with a skilled reporter/observer from outside Vermont, I got a response via Twitter that essentially said that #vtpoli is too “insular” for an outsider to penetrate. (Can’t find the tweet now; apologies to the tweeter.) My response to that would be “Exactly!” Vermont’s politics are far too insular. That’s precisely why we need someone from elsewhere who hasn’t internalized all that insularity and/or has too many friends in the bubble. Someone with the perspective that allows them to see that the emperor has no clothes.

We’ve got a really good example of that insularity going on right now. Last week, the state Public Utilities Commission issued a ruling that wasn’t at all surprising, but that defied common sense. The three-member panel rejected a proposed solar farm in Manchester on esthetic grounds.

This, despite the fact that we’ve got to go all-out in our efforts to mitigate climate change, and that Vermont is doing nowhere near its share on the renewable front. Also despite these facts:

  • All the relevant local and regional bodies approved the project.
  • No one, aside from a handful of NIMBY neighbors, objected to it.
  • The developer went above and beyond the call of duty to minimize esthetic impact.
  • The PUC’s own “aesthetics consultant” said the array “would not have an undue adverse effect on aesthetics.”

So it was a stupid decision that strikes a significant blow at renewable development in Vermont. But that’s not what I’m writing about here.

The subject of this sermon is the almost complete silence from those who ought to be outraged by this ruling: the Vermont Democratic Party and The Usual Suspects in the environmental community. Where was the tsunami of protest?

The answer is, we’re way too polite and insular.

Continue reading →

Time to Break Down the Box and Send It to Recycling

3 Replies
Past Occupants of the Freyne Chair (Not Exactly As Illustrated)

What ought to be the most coveted perch in Vermont journalism is once again vacant. After a mere four months on the job, Mark Johnson has relinquished the Peter Freyne Chair in Instigative Journalism, d/b/a the “Fair Game” column in Seven Days.

One could be forgiven for wondering if this position doesn’t have a curse attached to it. Johnson’s predecessor, Dave Gram, lasted only five months. The guy before him was rather spectacularly fired after 2 1/2 years on the job.

That would be me.

My predecessor Paul Heintz held the job for almost five years. Otherwise, what ought to be the most coveted perch in Vermont journalism has been a revolving door with only one consistent thread: We’ve all been white males.

It’s time for a change, and not just in race and gender expression. Not that anyone at Seven Days is likely to heed my advice, but hey, I’ve had first-hand experience with the ups and downs of the job, and I do have some hard-earned insight.

First of all, I’d definitely keep the column. It’s the heart and soul of the paper, and it occupies a unique and valuable position in the Vermont media landscape.

Otherwise, the Powers That Be need to not only think outside the box; they need to stomp the box flat and toss it in recycling.

Continue reading →

Hey, the Most Pointless Job in State Government Is Open!

1 Reply

Let’s pour one out for Larry Novins, who just resigned as executive director of the Vermont State Ethics Commission. He earns full credit for lasting almost three years in a job with no resources, no power, and no real reason for existing besides allowing the Legislature to look like it gives a good goddamn about ethics.

Which, in reality, it doesn’t. Shame on all of ’em.

Novins’ departure was noted in a press release from the commission, which prompted absolutely zero coverage from the political press. It’s too bad, because he did his level best in service of a hopeless, thankless cause. That would be “governmental ethics in Vermont.” Nobody cares, man. Nobody cares.

The Ethics Commission has had a brief and undistinguished history, by design. It has managed to cling to existence despite the fact that it was clearly designed to fail, Norquist style. Its single accomplishment prompted a tsunami of negative reaction, and was ultimately scrubbed from the books.

And one other thing. All of the Commission’s work — all of it — is exempt from public records and open meetings law. If they did ever do anything, we wouldn’t know about it.

In case you think I’m exaggerating, here’s what Novins himself said in September 2019:

Continue reading →

Apparently the Larner College Insists On Doing This Dumb, Politically Damaging Thing

Leave a reply

Well, after quite a bit of back-and-forth and a false alarm along the way, it now seems that UVM’s Larner College of Medicine will stand by its baffling decision to grant continuing education credits to medical professionals who attend a conference organized by the Vermont Right to Life Committee.

No, seriously. Stop laughing. Medical education credits for a political organization with no expertise in medicine, and that peddles junk science to support its agenda. That’s hunky-dory according to Vermont’s one and only medical school.

I wrote about this landmark of stupidiousness last Friday. Shortly after my post went live, Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale tweeted that Larner was reversing the decision. I amended my post to reflect the news. But Friday came and went, as did the weekend and Monday, and there was still no official word from Larner.

It’s now apparent that news of Larner’s reversal was, well, fake news.

Here’s what we know so far.

Continue reading →

Pay No Attention to the Pandemic Behind the Curtain

3 Replies

Wow. Gov. Phil Scott’s weekly press briefing was a nonstop festival of blame-shifting, convenient rationalization and, well, telling us a shit sandwich is prime roast beef.

Scott took the podium amid a blizzard of bad news — high case counts beyond his administration’s projections, unclear forecasts of Covid’s near future, high numbers of hospitalizations, inadequate contact tracing, and outbreaks of cases in public schools. He had explanations for all of it, few of them convincing.

He began by doubling down on his policy of encouraging vaccinations and little else. “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” he said, pointing to numbers that show the vast majority of severe cases are among the unjabbed. True enough, but just because the odds are better for the vaccinated doesn’t mean the risk is acceptable.

Scott’s message: The blame shouldn’t fall to administration policy, it’s with the stubbornly unvaccinated. If you all would just get your shots, everything would be peachy. There’s truth in that, but he’s doing nothing to get more people vaccinated besides the same old earnest advice. IF he’s putting all his chips on vaccination, he might want to enact policies that incentivize vaccination and disincentivize stubborn resistance.

Scott again insisted that any tougher measures would require a state of emergency, which he again refused to consider. This, despite the fact that rates of cases, hospitalizations and deaths are equal to or greater than levels last seen in the winter of 2021 — when Scott was happy to continue a state of emergency.

He also dipped a toe into the murky waters of surrender. “Covid-19, like the flu, is going to be here for a while,” he said, ignoring the fact that Covid-19 is far more dangerous than your average flu. Unless he meant the deadly Spanish Flu of 1918.

After the jump: Please ignore the facts.

Continue reading →

We Seem to be Turning the Wrong Corner

1 Reply

A startling admission came Friday from Finance Commissioner and Lord High CoronaDamus Mike Pieciak. After weeks of confident predictions that the Delta variant would peak and then decline, Pieciak told Seven Days’ Anne Wallace Allen that actually, he has no idea what’s coming next.

It’s too early, he said, to predict whether Vermont’s COVID-19 infection rate will decline, remain stable, or rise.

Pieciak’s agency produced a chart that underlines his statement.

Yeah, that just about covers the available turf. And leaves completely in the dark about the near future.

I hope Pieciak isn’t in too much trouble with his political masters for this belated bit of honesty. And I hope he faces some tough questions at this week’s gubernatorial press briefing. I’d suggest something along the lines of “WTF, Commissioner?”

Really, there’s too much evidence to the contrary for Pieciak to keep on the sunny side. But it’s a dramatic volte face for the administration. It remains to be seen whether Gov. Phil Scott will finally acknowledge that maybe, possibly, he might have failed to take Delta seriously enough.

There’s abundant evidence that the Scott administration has been far too confident in its Delta policy – or should I say, lack of policy. Let’s start with the weekend Covid counts, which are downright depressing. Three straight days over 200? Dramatically higher 7-day rolling count and weekly total? Ugh.

Bu

Vermont’s Only Medical School Makes an Ass of Itself (UPDATED)

Leave a reply

Update: Well, that didn’t take long. The UVM medical school has reportedly withdrawn the offer of credit for the RTL symposium.

Updated Update: It’s now 4:00 pm Monday, and we have yet to hear officially from Larner College. It would seem in the institution’s best interest to put out this fire as quickly as possible. Is there some dithering going on?

You’d think that leaders of a medical school would be smart. Guess not.

The news that the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine is offering continuing education credit for medical professionals who attend a conference of Vermont Right to Life beggars credulity. On just about every level. It’s a PR nightmare, an abdication of professional oversight, and a tacit endorsement of politically-inspired junk science.

Let’s begin by defining “continuing medical education.” According to the American Medical Association, CME is meant to “maintain, develop, or increase the knowledge, skills and professional performance and relationships that a physician uses to provide services for patients, the public or the profession.”

So tell me, how does attending a presentation entitled “The Case Against Proposal 5” (the constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights) improve a medical professional’s performance in providing services for patients?

That’s the issue, even before we get to the politics of giving credit for a Right to Life event in a strongly pro-choice state, and the dubious “science” concocted by RTL and its allies. There’s no way it’s appropriate to give medical education credit for attending a political meeting of a group that has no connection to the medical profession.

It should also be noted that UVM’s doctors are reimbursed for professional expenses, including CME courses. So presumably, some of the University’s dollars will go into the coffers of Right to Life.

I hope there are some emergency meetings around UVMMC this morning, with learned important people trying to devise a face-saving way out of this shande. Because they need to find one, pronto.

Continue reading →

The Camel’s Nose

9 Replies
That tent feels a lot less roomy now, doesn’t it?

Here’s the problem with “school choice.” It siphons money away from the public school system, which is a bedrock of community life. America’s commitment to providing an education to every child is one of the greatest expressions of our ideals.

When you start opening the to school choice, the money can seem insignificant — like that camel’s nose in your tent. But sooner or later, other parts of the camel will join the party. Eventually, you’ll find yourself outside your tent looking in.

Case in point from across the river: New Hampshire’s new “education freedom accounts” program. It’s billed as a way to help lower-class families send their kids to private school. When it was proposed, Education Commissioner (and failed gubernatorial candidate) Frank Edelblut told state lawmakers the cost of the program would be minimal. He estimated that less than three dozen students would take part. The Legislature swallowed it whole, budgeting $129,000 for the first year of the program.

Just a little nose. Nothing to worry about.

Well, that was obvious bullshit. I mean, if the new program would only attract a handful of participants, why even have the program in the first place? The implementation and management costs would be way out of proportion.

Turns out that Edelblut was either lying through his teeth or dead wrong. The number of participating families in the program’s first year will be north of 1,000, perhaps as high as 1,500. That means the “education freedom” program will cost the state, not $129,000, but as much as $7 million.

As the head of the New Hampshire NEA noted, if a public school system committed that kind of fiscal miscalculation, heads would roll. Edelblut’s is still firmly attached.

Continue reading →

That Was Not An Apology

2 Replies

Can we please stop saying someone “apologized” when they didn’t?

In this case, I’m referring to the VTDigger article entitled “Labor commissioner apologizes to legislators following unemployment benefit snafu.”

That would be Michael Harrington, allegedly apologizing for the administration’s failure to inform lawmakers in a timely manner that the federal government might block a supplemental unemployment benefit enacted by the Legislature. But what he actually did was take the coward’s way out.

Speaking at a hearing on the snafu in question, Harrington said this: “If the primary concern is that we didn’t inform the Legislature in what they feel was a timely manner, I apologize.”

That statement failed on two counts. First, when you put in an “if” you’re diverting responsibility from yourself to the injured party. A real apology doesn’t do that. It simply accepts the blame.

Harrington then blame-shifts some more when he adds “what they feel.”

A real apology would accept all responsibility without reservation. Harrington fudged. Twice.

These non-apology “apologies” are offensive, and non-apologizers shouldn’t get credit for something they didn’t really do.

“Oopsie,” Says the Administration’s Oopsie Master (UPDATED)

2 Replies

Note: Updated below with comments from Gov. Scott.

Welp, the Scott administration, deliberately or otherwise, pulled a fast one on the Legislature. Remember that painfully-negotiated unemployment insurance deal? The one that obtained a supplemental $25/week in UI benefits in exchange for a great big tax break for businesses?

Yeah, well, you’re not getting the 25 bucks. I’ll assume that the businesses still get their [checks notes] $300 million over 10 years.

Yep, Vermont’s jobless — and the Legislature — took it in the shorts.

The problem, as VTDigger’s Fred Thys reports, is that the federal government has ruled that the extra benefit can’t be paid out of the state’s unemployment trust fund.

Here’s where the frequently embattled Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington comes in. He received word on June 14 that the feds might have a problem with the benefit as written.

He informed the Legislature on… wait for it… August 24.

He said he didn’t take action until he got definitive word from the feds. But the delay also meant the Legislature had no chance to take corrective action, which would have been pretty simple. “Hindsight is always 20-20,” Harrington said, unhelpfully.

Continue reading →