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Follow the stimulus money .The White House called it the accountability summit Thursday. State leaders charged with spending the stimulus were told they are on the “front lines”. Officials from all fifty states but Idaho (?) attended to be coached on how to make the stimulus work .Cabinet secretaries and administration officials were available for questioning. Accountability and transparency were buzz words at the meeting a major part of transparency is easy availability of information.”Recovery” web pages and easy access to state information regarding stimulus money spending and contracting is key.

Stimulus spending has started here in Vermont at the Richmond Bridge. The choice of the very low bidding out of state company makes clear the need for openness. Vt. Secretary of Transportation defended the Maine contractor choice in the paper  the other day  as questions were raised about the company being from out of state and  about the huge difference in bid costs .Nothing apparently is amiss but information access online could be better because accountability is the goal.

A tracker tracker of sorts,here is a link http://www.obamaperspective.co…

to a site by a fellow who is tracking all   fifty state’s “recovery” websites. He is tracking how states are handling transparency issues. Posted are links to and   brief notes on all states “recovery” homepages.

The quality of Vermont’s site (as it now appears) compared to others according to this site gets what  would translate as a “meh”.

…..Vermont’s stimulus site includes only the most general information about the recovery plan, such as links to the text of the bill, and to the federal stimulus site, http://recovery.vermont.gov/

More information will follow, a press release says.

The tracking website says “we’re considering adding a scoring system. The Missouri site is noted as best …and for accountability and décor Missouri nails a 9.8!  . The Missouri Accountability portal provides comprehensive documentation of grants, contracts, budgets and state employee salaries. All line item expenditures are accounted for, even for minimal expenses. Missouri’s  recovery site lists stimulus funds received by the state, with fields for the date of deposit, the funds’ intended purpose, the amount and how the dollars have been spent. http://mapyourtaxes.mo.gov/MAP…

Missouri is the “Show me State” after all

http://www.propublica.org/spec…

It’s been an interesting week, with a fairly major power play on the part of the Douglas administration.

Here’s what we know: the administration worked very hard to convince a lot of state employees that their jobs were in jeopardy unless they were willing to take a pay cut.  There were announcements about position cuts, about layoffs, etc.  And there are state employees who are under the impression that their jobs are actually slated for cuts in a few months.

Here’s the thing: the Douglas administration doesn’t have the ability to make all the cuts it’s proposing without assistance from the legislature.  And where is the legislature right now?

It’s out of session.

In the meantime, what does Douglas present as an alternative to the cuts?

Having the union volunteer for pay cuts.

It’s fairly obvious that this is an active attempt to disrupt the connection between the union and the state employees.  It’s not even a subtle one.

In the meantime, he has the actual gall to blame the legislature for putting some time into civil rights, calling it a “distraction.”

And what is the Douglas administration addressing right now?

The quarter.  Specifically what the quarter looks like.

But clearly, that’s not a “distraction.”  

I’m beginning to get the idea of how this works:

“Focusing on the economy” = “doing whatever Douglas wants”

“A distraction” = “doing anything else.”

A thief breaks into your house, steels everything, and leaves you nearly broke. Law enforcement responds by visiting with the thief and the resellers of the thief’s stolen goods in a very friendly setting, perhaps lunch at the Four Seasons. Law enforcement then takes the information to government officials who respond by writing the thief and the resellers a check from what is left of your checking account. They decide this too over lunch, perhaps also at the Four Seasons and on your dime.

Then the same government officials declare that a new and better alarm system should be installed in your home and in the home of all Americans, at a high cost to you of course (The reality is that the alarm system worked perfectly, but that does not matter).

(I called it a corporate coup, they call it looting… either way, we got robbed…, at-Largely blog, 03/13/09)

Yeah … she’s talking about the Wall Street bailout.

UPDATE–Here's the link to the video: 

http://www.cctv.org/watch-tv/programs/burlington-city-council-0

Well, it's been an interesting week for free speech in Vermont, even if we don't include the abortive IRV recount in Burlington.

Still, since I mentioned Burlington, why not start out there? At Thursday's City Council meeting, the Democratic majority was up to what some would say are their old tricks, and some would say are their duty to their constituents that ordinances be passed only after due and careful consideration. You may have read the great reporting by Shay Totten, and if you haven't I'll invite you to hop over there rather than to recap the whole story.

The basics, though, are that in consideration of a zoning amendment on the height limit for new buildings, the Democrats, particulary Ed Adrian and David Berezniak, were interposing parliamentary objections to the extent that the people who wanted the ordinance to go through were getting mighty peeved. Accounts of what happened differ, but some say that Adrian and Brezniak were being disruptive, others say that they were forced to act as they were because Council President Kurt Wright wouldn't recognize them when they wanted to speak, so they had to speak up even when someone else was speaking.

Finally, Almost Mayor Kwik-Stop decided he'd had enough, so he called in the police.

That's right: at a public meeting of a legislative body, the presiding officer called in armed police officers to silence elected officials whose positions he disagreed with.

I get that many observers seem to feel that Adrian and Berezniak (they mostly seem to be blaming Adrian) were engaging in bad meeting behavior; that they should have just accepted the fact that they were in the minority and taken their lumps. On the other hand, calling in the cops to silence your political opponents? I think Almost Mayor Wright has hit a new low.

I'm also struck and horrified by the fact that so many commenters at Blurt and the Burlington Free Press are supporting Wright's actions. Maybe Ed Adrian is the most unpopular Democrat in the whole city of Burlington, I don't really care. Somehow I doubt it, since he was able to get elected. Maybe he should know better than to try to stand up to the Progs and Republicans when they decide what's going to happen. Still, if they're as bad as all that, convince the voters in their districts to vote them out. 

 Meanwhile, the Vermont Supreme Court handed down a victory for free speech Friday morning. It relates to the charges of disorderly conduct against Boots Wardinski and Michael Colby for demonstrating against John Negroponte when he spoke at the St. Johnsbury Academy graduation back in 2006.

Here are the facts, as the parties agreed to them:

On June 5, 2006, defendants Boots Wardinski and Michael Colby attended the St. Johnsbury Academy commencement ceremony.  Both defendants had tickets to the invitation-only ceremony at which John Negroponte, then the United States Director of National Intelligence, delivered a speech. Approximately two minutes into Negroponte’s address, defendant Wardinski stood from his seat and shouted that Negroponte “had blood on his hands” and invited the audience to join him in walking out on the commencement address.  At some point prior to defendant Wardinski’s remarks, defendant Colby also stood and shouted at Negroponte.  Academy staff and police officers promptly asked both defendants to leave and escorted them from the premises without resistance or further incident.  Despite these interruptions, which lasted no more than thirty seconds, Negroponte delivered his speech in its entirety.

The two were arrested, charged with disorderly conduct, and convicted.

On appeal, the Supreme Court looks at two important issues: how disruptive must conduct be before it counts as disorderly conduct, and how must we balance the public interest in order against the right to free expression.

I have to say, the Supremes handled this a lot better than Kurt Wright.  On the first point, the Court held that the thirty-second disturbance did not substantially interfere with the conduct of the three-hour graduation ceremony, or even with Negroponte's eight-minute speech. Similarly, balancing the defendants' First Amendment rights, the Court holds:

Both defendants left the site of the graduation ceremony upon being asked and without further incident, whereupon they were arrested.  Such de minimis disturbances, even if rude and out of place in the context of a commencement ceremony, cannot serve as the basis for criminal liability without running afoul of the First Amendment. 

 The Court quoted with approval a 1949 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court:

“[F]reedom of speech, though not absolute, is nevertheless protected against . . . punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest.”

Maybe somebody should read that to the Un-Mayor before the next City Council meeting.