I was in Brattleboro last night, mostly to do a live blog of a candidate forum, but on the way home I stopped by the Rotary to do some night photography. While I was there, crews were doing night road work by the rotary, which made for cool blinking lights and other patterns that were interesting and make for good night photography.
Then I noticed something: one of the construction vehicles had two signs attached to it. If I hadn’t been set up for an entirely different type of photo, I might have been able to get a picture of this, but motion blur in the dark would not have done me much good (motion blur was kind of the point of taking these photos).
What I saw was two signs on a large yellow work truck: one was a Dubie for gov poster, and the other was a Scott for Lt. Gov poster.
I’m working under the (possibly incorrect) assumption that these are municipal vehicles doing municipal road work. In other words, they are functioning as an arm of government. Even if they are private contractors, they are doing work on behalf of government.
So why are they engaging in high visibility advertising on behalf of a political candidate?
This is EXACTLY what happened in 2004, and was the FIRST time I managed to annoy everyone else in the Clavelle campaign when I stomped around shocked that we were just going to let it happen. The excuse was that any counter action would serve to advertise that the construction company supported Douglas, but in the meantime, we looked like some kind of pathetic, wimpy, electoral punching bag to every single Vermonter who drove by and asked themselves the same question!!!!
This is CRAP and it should NOT stand.
Bad memories.
It should be easy to find out who was doing the work last night, whether the trucks were city or state trucks or those of a contractor, and to pursue this.
Shumlin and his family must go by that rotary regularly — they could provide a first hand account — although I am not sure that it is actually illegal if they are private contractors (as opposed to wildly inappropriate)– does anyone know for sure?
I drive by a “VY4VT” sign that is cleary planted in a public right of way in Ferrisburgh every day. It’s in the middle of an island at the intersection of 22A and Route 7. Can I pull that damn sign out on my way home tonight?
There is a highway construction project happening outside my window and the contractors trucks sometimes have signs. (Don’t forget the business Phill Scott is in btw)
He is a part owner of Dubois Construction. Most Dubois company vehicles I’ve seen on the road display Scott for Lieutenant Governor signs. You might have seen a Dubois vehicle displaying the Dubie/Scott signs. If so, maybe the question is whether the construction company’s sign displays can be considered some type of in kind contribution. if they are, maybe they need to be reported by the respective campaigns?
The following conflict-of-interest tidbit could have fit under a number of GMD posts this week: How about the VT4VY lawn sign placed prominently above the door of the Republican Party HQ in downtown Brattleboro? Gosh, when I volunteer at the Dem HQ I leave my Nuclear Free Vermont lawn signs at home.
I never got through their voice mail system and I didn’t leave a message.
Maybe one of our Brattleboro readers could swing by the job site and let us know if the construction vehicles are government vehicles or privately owned.
But it’s not very likely that it was a municipal truck. All of the roads around the traffic circle are state roads, and it’s a VTrans project, so you’d either see an orange VTrans truck with the emblem on the door, or contractors’ trucks. In the last 20 years, I’ve never heard of a state road construction/reconstruction project that wasn’t contracted out.
It may or may not be legal for a contractor to advertise for a political candidate on a publicly funded job, but it doesn’t seem ethical. I would feel the same way if they were wearing Shumlin shirts on the job.
There are issues of free speech, of course, but when you’re on the public dime…