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We, the Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth continue to press our  Appeals against the St. Albans  Walmart project, despite the best efforts of the developer and Governor Douglas to put the fear of our neighbors into us at the recent Walmart rally.

If you got a glimpse of the Governor on WCAX news a couple of weeks ago, pumplng his fist in the air and telling opponents of the St. Albans Walmart project  to “stop the Appeals”, you may be wondering if the hot-dog hoovering crowd left the rally and followed up on JL Davis’s urging to “persuade” those of us involved to drop our opposition to the store.

The good news is that, so far, this attempt at organized intimidation doesn’t seem to have borne much fruit.  True, there were the ugly moments that Saturday afternoon,  when honking and shouting Walmart supporters noisily buzzed the Hudak Farm, waiving signs and carrying on like football hooligans; there was Paul Beaudry reliably spewing hate over the radio; and there has been a slight uptick in nasty letters-to-the editor.  But the simple fact is that many of our neighbors have gone out of their way to give us words of support and encouragement.

We do not, however, underestimate the potential for mischief yet to come; and we have already begun preparing a complaint to the ACLU, as we believe this sort of organized attempt to incite harassment, and so affect an ongoing judicial process, may constitute a violation of our civil rights.

We continue to call-out the Governor for his role in the spectacle.  It should be very concerning to all Vermonters that he apparently doesn’t understand his obligation as a member of the Executive Branch of State Government to not interfere  in matters that are currently under consideration by the Judiciary Branch.  Demonstrating his obvious bias in favor of significant contributors to his campaigns is inappropriate and downright foolish.  This just lends even more substance to our Conflict of Interest charge against one of the commissioners he has appointed to the District 6 Environmental Commission that issued Walmart its ACT 250 permit.

By now, most of you have heard one version or another of this story:

According to State Police Detective Sgt. Richard Holden of the Brattleboro barracks, on the afternoon of Oct. 2, Department of Child and Family Services license auditors visited Diane’s Family Day Care, a day care facility operated by Diane Wood, 40, of Guilford.

At that time, Holden said the DCFS auditors discovered that Wood, in an alleged effort to conceal that the number of children for which she was providing care was in excess of her actual license, locked four children in a garden shed.

First, a thank you to the other front pagers: when this news broke, I asked that we not just post the news itself in a vacuum but wait until one of us had time to provide some real perspective on it.  I often feel the urge to just post about a sensational story without much comment, and I usually go with that, but this time, it felt as though there was a lot more that needed to be said.  So, thanks to everyone for waiting a couple days until I could get my thoughts together to post something that I think does the story justice without just making it about blame and outrage.

That said, I will be clear: this is bad.  Very bad.  I’m not going to defend this Child Care Provider and I’m not going to pretend that what this woman did was even remotely acceptable.  Instead, I want to talk about what Quality Child Care is, what we’re doing to support it and where, as a state, we’re failing.

A few months back, fellow GMD front pager posted Another Douglas failure on child protection: watching the watchers.

I urge you to go back and read that diary before continuing this one.  It provides a lot of the background for what I’m going to discuss here.

I’m going to start with a couple definitions.  The Child Development Division, which regulates child care providers in Vermont, breaks providers down into two primary categories (there are more than this, but I’m only going to focus on these two): Licensed Child Care and Registered Home Providers.  

Licensed Child Care centers are organizations which have their own child care facilities.  Depending on the size of their facility and the number of staff, they can legally care for very large numbers of children.   These are the professional child care centers that you often see in commercially zoned areas.  The quality of care can vary widely from center to center, but these are the primary focus of Child Care Licensors.  It makes sense to focus on the larger centers: with limited resources being allocated for child care licensors (note the numbers that JD points out in his previous diary), focusing on centers which serve 30-60 children is a better use of licensor time than focusing on Registered Home Providers.

Registered Home Providers are the small, home-based providers.  They are people who work out of their home and are strictly limited in terms of how many children they can have in their care at any one time, even if their home is relatively large.  

These providers are usually women who don’t make much money.  

Many home-based providers provide outstanding care, especially given the poor pay that comes with the job.

Not all do.  Some, like the provider in the article I referenced above, even commit fraud in order to make more money off the care they do provide.  In this case, she took in more children than their license legally allows to make a little extra income.  

They can get support from their local Resource and Referral agencies (there is one in every Agency of Human Services District, located throughout the state of Vermont), but not everyone seeks that support.

In theory, these providers should be visited from time to time by the Child Development Division.  These visits should, ideally, be a surprise.  This has the benefit of having providers expect to be accountable for any regulations they violate.  It also has the benefit of giving the licensors the opportunity to provide the providers with answers to questions, suggestions for possible trainings that may benefit them and give them general support.  No matter how good a provider is, it’s helpful for them to feel that they have support at multiple levels, and those licensing visits are a crucial component to that suport.

But they aren’t happening right now.  Under the Douglas administration, the budget to the Child Development Division has been seriously damaged.  There aren’t nearly enough licensors to provider the necessary services and those who are providing those services are stretched thin.

J.D.’s piece referenced what happened in Tennessee: oversight was lax until an actual death took place.

Is this what we want in Vermont?  Keeping the licensor team so small that they just don’t have the resources to make routine visit inspections to Registered home providers until there’s an active complaint about the provider?

Until we’re ready, as a state, to provide serious investment in child care and early education, we’re putting our children at risk, not because of the vast majority of providers who do their thankless, poor-paying, jobs without complaint, but because of the few in the field who treat children as commodities.

What happened in Guilford is an outrage, but it’s also a tragedy of monumental proportions.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d much rather have the event where children were placed in danger be our rallying cry to put more resources into child care and inspections than wait until that danger turns to injury or, even worse, death.

Colin Powell just endorsed Obama on Meet the Press. Powell’s primary dissatisfactions with McCain: economic proposals, negative campaign, narrowing of campaign to a few negative issues, and choice of Palin as VP. Primary positives for Obama: economic proposals, positive campaign, reaching across generational and racial lines, and ability to convey messages and connect with people.

From the Burlington Free Press’ “VT Buzz” politics blog…

Independent gubernatorial candidate Anthony Pollina is trying to make up for lost time on the fundraising front with an e-mail to supporters today, making an appeal for them to give the full $2,000 they’re now allowed to give, following yesterday’s federal court decision.

The message also says the campaign will record its first TV ad Friday.

One thought per paragraph: First, the e-mail apparently targets the loyal, deep-pocketed donors who have given substantial amounts already, but still haven’t maxed out. So much for building a broad-based, grass-roots effort.

Second, I’m so glad to hear he’s cutting his first TV ad. ‘Bout time. Maybe he’ll buy some airtime next. It’s almost like a real campaign now, isn’t it?  

Whadda you suppose Scissorhands is saying to the Maverick?