Tag Archives: VTDigger

How Not to Debunk a Myth

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The latest edition of “Brave Little State,” Vermont Public’s question-answerin’ podcast, addresses a widely-held belief that our homelessness problem is largely caused by people moving to Vermont to take advantage of our motel voucher program. And addresses it poorly, incompletely, and at great length.

The episode is entitled “Is Vermont’s motel program a ‘magnet’ for out-of-staters experiencing homelessness?” There is no evidence for the notion. In fact, there is a body of research showing that people in distress don’t cross state lines in any real numbers in hopes of accessing better benefits. Reporter Carly Berlin, whose work is co-published by Vermont Public and VTDigger, gets there eventually, but takes a godawful long time to do so. In the process, she manages to distort the basic issue, omit crucial aspects of the story, and get some key facts wrong.

The fundamental problem isn’t with Berlin or her many co-producers and overseers. (A total of seven Vermont Public staffers are cited in the closing credits.) The problem is that the issue was subordinated to the format. This wasn’t a story about homelessness and benefits; it was A Reporter’s Journey In Search Of Truth, filtered through the highly developed process of long-form public radio storytelling pioneered by Ira Glass’ “This American Life” and refined in this age of public media serial podcasting. The end goal of the production is more esthetic than journalistic.

This question can easily be resolved, but that’s not how you build a podcast. A long-form narrative needs a build, a measure of suspense, unexpected twists and turns, even if the actual path is pretty straightforward. Which is how you wind up with a 38-minute-long piece of audio that kind of bungles the assignment.

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Mother Nature’s Punching Bag

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I can remember a time, not that long ago, when we believed the worst effect of climate change on Vermont would be a potential influx of climate refugees — people from coastal areas looking for safe havens in the hills and mountains of our state.

Yeah, about that.

We’re getting hit, very hard and very often, by the consequences of climate change in ways that outstrip all those places we used to look at with more than a touch of Green Mountain smugness. I’ve certainly wondered why people even live in the lowlands of Florida or Louisiana or Texas or why they hold onto beachfront property that’s being eroded away. Don’t they know better? Can’t they see the signs? And why should they expect the rest of us to underwrite their bad decisions?

Yeah, about that.

Rarely, if ever, have I seen a bunch of bad news on any subject to compare with what we’ve seen lately about how Vermont is in the crosshairs of climate change. It all adds up to one conclusion: Far from being immune, Vermont is in many ways uniquely vulnerable. We are at risk. And we’re repeatedly seeking help from others, who could understandably ask why they should bail us out when we insist on living in disaster-prone places like flood plains, riverside communities, or out in the countryside along dirt roads and unpaved driveways that can easily wash away. (Above image: Horn of the Moon Road in East Montpelier, washed out earlier this month.)

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Our Political Betters Are Strangling Vermont State University

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A tremendous piece of reporting by VTDigger’s Theo Wells-Spackman lays out the dire situation facing Vermont State University and, although it sticks to the cautious, both-sides nature of modern journalism, it pretty much points the finger at the real culprits: Gov. Phil Scott and the Legislature.

It’s not a pretty picture. Falling admissions, leadership turmoil, cutbacks across the board, more cuts coming down the pike, half-empty (or worse) campuses, morale in the toilet. In short, something that looks just like a death spiral. And barring a sudden influx of resources from a state that has always shortchanged higher education, it’s hard to see how VSU pulls out of it. I’m sure it will survive in some form, but there’s no way it can become the robust, lower-cost, in-state alternative to the University of Vermont that we need it to be.

The situation would be bad enough, but the real killer is the state’s insistence that VSU maintain operations at all five of its campuses while implementing a painful series of state-mandated budget cuts.

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The Best Senator Money Can Buy

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I guess Stewart Ledbetter is serious about this midlife crisis “running for office” thing. Because of all the campaign finance filings submitted by yesterday’s deadline, the former WPTZ anchor slash cromulent host of “Vermont This Week” reported a truly eye-popping $49,189 in donations — the vast majority in increments of more than $100.

And if there was any doubt about his centrist leanings, a perusal of his donor list would drown all uncertainty under a tsunami of conservative and business community cash. The Big Boys want to see Ledbetter in the Senate.

Where do I even begin? How about this: Ledbetter got big-dollar gifts from a total of 51 people. The average donation from each? A smidge under $900. And heck, if you roll in the 50 small donors, the average single donation to Ledbetter for Senate was a hefty $477.12.

He’s rollin’ in it. Can he buy a Senate seat? It remains to be seen, but he’s sure as hell trying.

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Phil Phones It In

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For weeks, Gov. Phil Scott has been asking legislative leadership to “come to the table” and reach common ground on the school funding situation. On Wednesday, they came to the table — and the governor was nowhere to be found. He stiffed ’em.

He stiffed ’em physically by not showing up, and he stiffed ’em intellectually by presenting yet another half-baked, fiscally irresponsible “plan” for buying down property tax rates.

To me, his no-show proves that he didn’t want a deal that might be politically difficult. He’d prefer that the Legislature override his veto of the Yield Bill so he can use it as a campaign issue in hopes of eroding the Dem/Prog supermajorities.

Look, if he wanted a deal, he would have been there. If there was going to be a serious effort at compromise, he would have had to be there. His officials couldn’t have conducted meaningful negotiations in his absence.

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Darkness on the Edge of the Capitol Complex

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A good piece of political journalism will accomplish two things: It will explain what’s been happening and give you a peek at what’s ahead. VTDigger’s Sarah Mearhoff accomplished both in her recent look back at the 2024 legislative session, specifically the bitter divide between Gov. Phil Scott and the Dem/Prog supermajorities. It’s obvious that the rarely healthy relationship took a measurable turn for the worse in 2024.

The best bit — the Rosetta Stone that explains it all — goes back to the very end of the 2023 session, when the Legislature overrode six Scott vetoes. That’s a huge number. Overrides have been extremely rare throughout Vermont history. I haven’t done a deep dive, but I’ll bet that six is the all-time record for a single year. Scott comms director Rebecca Kelley called the veto session “eye-opening,” and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth believes that was when the governor changed course:

“I think at that point, they had their own existential moment where they said, ‘We have to get super aggressive and go after these people,’” Baruth said.

Longtime Statehouse lobbyist Rebecca Ramos noted the “breakdown in communication” this year and added there was “just not a lot of interest in repairing it.”

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Final Reading Needs an Attitude Adjustment

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Now that the legislative session (minus override day) is in the rearview, it’s time to address Final Reading, VTDigger’s self-described “inside guide to the Statehouse.” That might be technically accurate, but it was the glossy, gossipy kind of “inside guide,” not the kind that provides insight. More often than not, it failed to dig beneath the surface. Instead, it picked up shiny trinkets and held them aloft as if proffering precious gems.

I could enumerate, and I will. But I need to emphasize, up front, that there’s nothing inherently wrong with snark or cynicism or the occasional eyeroll or even barf emoji. The real problem is Final Reading’s posture of contempt for its subject. The legislative process is boring, don’t you know. It’s a real drag. It’ll bore you to tears or put you to sleep or at least make you all hangry.

Earlier this year, one of Digger’s staff reporters tweeted out a recommendation for Final Reading as — paraphrasing here — a newsletter for people who don’t like politics.

I’m sorry, but no. That’s precisely backwards. Final Reading is for people who are interested in state politics and policymaking and want to know more. The people who don’t like politics are not reading VTDigger at all, much less a daily precís of all things Statehouse. Know your audience, people.

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Congratulations to the VTGOP for Finding a Candidate to Run Against Becca Bal — Oh.

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The Vermont Republican Party’s effort to build a strong statewide ticket are proceeding apace. Mark Coester, who has once before been disavowed by the VTGOP, has announced he’s running for Congress. He is, so far, the only Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Becca Balint.

Coester is seen here in the only video that comes up when you search YouTube for “Mark Coester Vermont.” It’s a 21-second clip of Coester meandering along the U.S.-Mexico border wall, pausing in front of a small section that’s either unfinished or damaged, gesturing at it, and saying “Ran out of concrete?” He’s carrying a big ol’ sidearm, just in case he has to Halt A Incursion or something.

This is kind of normal behavior for Coester, whose campaign website promotes him as a man who would bring “common sense and traditional values to Washington, D.C.” He speaks of government accountability and term limits and 100% Fair and Honest Elections and — my favorite bit — decries “the constant bickering, finger pointing and blame games that go on in politics.”

If you’ve read my coverage of far-right stealth candidates, you’ll recognize the warning signs. This guy is a Trump-lovin’ conspiratorialist.

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Team Scott Tries to Count to 15 and Comes Up Short

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Ruh-roh, Raggy. Something has gone off the rails in Montpelier.

After several days of lobbying the Senate and slamming its critics, the Scott administration has asked the Senate to, um, postpone its confirmation vote on Zoie Saunders, the governor’s choice for education secretary. (The development was first reported by VTDigger’s Ethan Weinstein and later confirmed by Seven Days’ Alison Novak.)

You know what that means: They don’t have the votes. Which would be perhaps the most embarrassing failure in Scott’s seven-plus years in the corner office. He’s had vetoes overridden before, but that happens to every governor. These confirmation votes are usually perfunctory. Lower-level appointees have, on rare occasion, been rejected, but I haven’t seen any reference to the last time a cabinet nominee was sent packing. Certainly the administration didn’t foresee any trouble, considering that Saunders quit her job in Florida, moved her family to Vermont, and began working as education secretary, all before her confirmation was in the books.

Still, they should have seen it coming. What did they expect, when they nominated someone who’s patently unqualified for the job?

So of course the governor owned up to his mistake and BWAHAHAHAHAHA no he did not. He blamed the whole thing on “misinformation, false assumptions, and politicization” of her nomination by critics and opponents.

Which is a bunch of Grade-A Joe Biden malarkey. The criticism is focused on Saunders’ lack of experience in public schools, her long tenure at a for-profit charter school operator, and — at least from me — her nearly complete lack of any actual administrative experience.

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A Big Fat Final Reading FAIL

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The Friday edition of VTDigger’s “Final Reading” was a dereliction of journalistic duty. It was a failure by reporter Sarah Mearhoff and whoever edited and approved this piece.

Why? Well, the subject was the Senate Appropriations Committee’s all-afternoon discussion of the FY2025 budget. At the end of the day, the panel voted out a budget and sent it on to the full Senate.

That much we know. What we don’t get a shred of information about is… what was in the budget? We read about benumbed butts and Senatorial wisecracks and staffers rushing around with revision after revision of the budget and late-afternoon hunger pangs. We hear about Our Fearless Scribe discovering, to her relief, “a protein bar squished at the bottom of her bag.”

It’s not that I mind a bit of fluff. It can add some color and a sense of humanity to the proceedings. But for Pete’s sake, leave some space for the substance.

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