This story just keeps heating up again. In tonight’s Messenger (3/28) Michelle Monroe reveals that the court order drafted by Mr. Luneau’s attorney, Paul Gillies, at Judge Linda Leavitt’s instructions differs markedly from factual representations made in court. The order is supposed to represent the judge’s factual basis for ordering a new election. Because the judge has now signed Mr. Gillies erroneous Order, it has to be asked whether the judge read the Order before signing it; or did she have a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts?
_____________________________________________________________
Vermont is as much a tapestry of small town democracies as it is a cohesive whole. From time to time something plays out on the smaller scale that speaks volumes about the greater process.
In that light, the disputed Ward 5 aldermanic race in St. Albans represents a teachable moment.
The long and the short of it is that Joe Luneau, who came up the loser in every one of a series of close recounts against winner Ryan Doyle, challenged the outcome in a court of law and has been rewarded with a do-over.
Not interested in embroiling the City in further expense and distraction for the sake of a single ward seat; and, in any case, unable to afford legal representation; Doyle will not be challenging the court decision. Nevertheless, many here in the City (perhaps the majority?) feel it represents both a glaring miscarriage of justice and a distortion of local democracy.
The match-up between blue collar wage-earner Ryan Doyle and businessman/incumbent Joe Luneau was, from the start, a David vs. Goliath situation.
Luneau, the son of a powerful local family headed by Karen Luneau, seemed a sure-thing to win a second term on the City Council and further advance his hereditary claim to the throne. He had already begun to cement a bloc of allies on the Council and seemed likely to lead them, in a new term, as an unstoppable coalition.
There had been speculation that Luneau would skip the second term entirely and run immediately for mayor, but an early announcement by Democrat Liz Gamache, an extremely popular ex interim City Manager made it extremely unlikely that he would be able to win the seat before Liz had at least one term under her belt on which to be criticized.
Doyle is a bright young independent who has never had anything handed to him on a silver spoon. He has been volunteering in the community for planning and downtown improvement initiatives since he was in high shool. After completing a degree in civil engineering, Doyle was finding it impossible to find dependable work in his trade, so he took shift work at a factory while satisfying his passion for civic engagement by volunteering to serve on the planning commission.
He is bright and eager and humble and above all else, one of the most idealistically ethical young men you could ever wish to meet. We didn’t give him the chance of a snowball in hell against the Karen Luneau machine.
Luneau’s signs soon bristled all over the City, not just in Ward 5 where his family’s Toyota dealership is currently located. He paired his campaign with that of the scion of another powerful St. Albans Family, Will Howrigan who was challenging Chad Spooner of Ward 6, to join the Luneau voting bloc on the council.
Both Spooner and Doyle agreed that accepting donations for the race would be against their ethical principles so they, too, pooled what little resources they had, depending mostly on shoe-leather and word-of-mouth to win the support of their constituents.
According to records, the team of Luneau and Howrigan spent roughly $2,000. which included hosting a pancake breakfast. Doyle and Spooner, together, spent under $500.
“I have student debt and I have a blue collar job,” said Doyle.
Despite conventional wisdom that, against Luneau’s money and influence, he hadn’t a chance; when the ballots were in, Doyle had defeated Luneau by just a couple of votes.
Following the first tally, a couple more ballots turned-up among the BFA (school) ballots, having been mistakenly deposited in the wrong box. They only served to widen Doyle’s margin of victory.
Over the weekend, the ballots were recounted and several innocent mishaps involving City Clerk Sue Krupp occurred; but the tallies all came down on Doyle’s side. Nevertheless, Luneau refused to accept defeat and announced he would be challenging the election, due to the “mishandling of ballots.”
An amusing side-note is that one of the poll volunteers, whose job it was to guide voters as to which box (City or BFA) should receive which ballot, was Mr. Luneau’s own brother.
On Monday, March 12, Ryan Doyle was sworn-in and took his seat at the Council table.
Now it seems he will have to go through the whole campaign cycle again; this time unaccompanied by Spooner, who easily defeated Howrigan.
“Everyone is coming to me, angry basically, with what happened and wanting to volunteer,” said Doyle.”I will not be accepting any financial support…This is a small town election and not even a whole town election, just a small part of it.”
What does he think his prospects are in the upcoming re-vote?
Doyle is concerned about turnout in a special election. Low turnout, in Doyle’s view, would benefit his opponent. “There are people that they call. There are people that they give rides to,” said Doyle of his opponent’s campaign. When turnout is low that group becomes a higher percentage of voters.
Stay tuned.
the number one reason I subscribe to the Messenger is Michelle Monroe’s professionalism. She brings to the stories she covers (like this one) the kind of depth and instinct for what’s important that you would expect from a reporter for a paper with a much larger audience.
Give her piece a read at the link I’ve provided in the text. It untangles the whole confusing charade in careful and unbiased detail.
Now, Sue, ideologically, I would be supporting Ryan Doyle if I lived in his ward in the city. But I don’t.
But, frankly, Sue Krupp is not any kind of election novice, and she should have known that it was not kosher to open ballot boxes without at least one member of the board of civil authority in attendance as a witness. If Doyle had lost by that handful of votes in the same circumstances, his supporters would cry foul and likely want to challenge the result.
Are the scales of resources and opportunity for the two candidates unbalanced? Absolutely. But the process for handling ballots has got to be the same, regardless of who won or lost. The task now is to get all his volunteers organized to go door to door in his district, make phone calls, and offer rides to the polls.
NanuqFC
I believe that it is absolutely imperative that the Democratic Party come back to power … [and] when you have chosen your leaders, then to back them, then to go in and work. … It is work, and some of it is dull work, but you must be ready to go in and work because that is the way that parties win victories at election time. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt (at the 1956 Democratic Party national convention)