• Light at the end of the tunnel for BT? Picard sez:
  

  Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss announced late this afternoon that the city received a financing proposal this week for Burlington Telecom (BT) to satisfy its current debt of $33 million, as well as the $17.4 million borrowed but never repaid from the city’s pooled cash account. This “letter of engagement,” from the Minneapolis-based financial firm Piper Jaffray & Co., is currently under discussion by the Board of Finance…The terms of the financing deal still need to be finalized over the coming month. The mayor anticipates that a final deal will be in place by February 1, 2010.

  Will this turn the public scandal furor against City Hall down a bit, or is it too late for that? Kiss is clearly putting a lot of eggs into this basket. Hopefully the deal will come through.

• Don’t expect the Kiss administration’s problems to go away if they can’t find some way to muzzle Leopold. This from Haik’s website has to be read to be believed. I think we’ve all seen that its apparently too much to ask that the guy show some humility, but is it really too much to ask that he refrain from being an arrogant butt? Geez.
• Speaking of humility: From the Picard piece: “Kiss told a room full of reporters late Friday. ‘It also confirms that the use of pooled cash has not been, and is not, an increased risk to the taxpayers of Burlington.'” Huh? Somebody needs to explain basic reasoning to the Mayor I think. Going over the Niagara Falls in a barrel and walking away unscathed would not constitute a confirmation that getting downriver by that method does not constitute an increased risk to travelers. Regardless of the merits of the arguments, that’s a ridiculous statement. Once again, this administration is determined to be its own worst enemy to an almost supernatural degree. There’s a social psychology thesis in all this somewhere, I’m sure.
• Me first! An aside, Seven Days takes credit for “first report(ing)” the Burlington Telecom finance issues in late September, but as I recall it was the Freeps’ John Briggs. Anyone remember? Of course the Free Press rolls up its online articles behind them for some weird reason, so its hard to tell.
• But enough of BT… I can’t stand it any more… let’s talk Gubernatorial Primary! You know what the best thing I’ve heard all year is? Deb Markowitz on the Mark Johnson Show last week. It’s clear when the old Campaign Manager Jason Powell went, he took that gawd-awful run-to-the-center and run above the Primary strategy with him. New hotshot Campaign Manager Paul Tencher – a veteran of Emily’s List targeted races, as Markowitz’s will officially become any time now – has her on message as a Primary candidate. That means more specific policy statements, and more explicitly speaking to progressives. Halleluia!

  Is it pandering? Who knows? And at this point who cares? I mean, come on. If we can’t expect them to at least pander to us, how can we expect them to respond when we hold their feet to the fire to come through? Woo-hoo!

• Susan Bartlett is polling? That’s what she said on VPR last week. Weird. It’d be weird for anybody to spend thousands of dollars on polling at this point, but especially if you (presumably) aren’t exactly rolling in campaign cash.

  And it must have some odd questions, as I hear over email that at least one person called thought they were receiving some sort of anti-Bartlett push poll.

• Calling Doug Racine… On the month with two more high profile entries into the Primary, rumors of another (Pollina), and the first meeting of the 5 declared or all-but-declared candidates, Doug Racine has been on vacation. Missing one party or public event in which the candidates were invited to be showcased would be one thing – they’ve all missed 1 or another of them, after all. But by my count, this weekend’s Democratic Party Autumn Harvest fundraiser in Barre will mark the fourth such event in a row that Racine has missed due to a vacation. C’mon, dude. Everybody knew November was gonna be a big month. Wrong time to be AWOL.

By way of Shumlin for Governor campaign contact Kate O’Connor (formerly of the Dean administration, the Dean for President campaign, and the Tarrant for Senate campaign) comes this announcement:

Senator Peter Shumlin will hold a press conference on Monday, November 16 to discuss his campaign for Governor.

When:      Monday, November 16 – 11:00am

Where:     Earth Turbines

               94 Harvest Lane, Williston

Shumlinforgovernor.com is not active yet, but redirects to a WordPress login page. It’s unclear at this point whether O’Connor, who inspires strong feelings among the national netroots (to say the least), is working for the Shumlin campaign in a paid capacity or not.

Totten reports that a citywide litdrop is in the works in Burlington this weekend, all to continue to try and change the subject from a financial scandal that related to Burlington Telecom, to a conversation about Burlington Telecom. This is presumably the same flyer that was distributed in some parts of the old north end entitled, “Burlington Telecom, the Facts Not the Politics.” All of this, again, will simply serve to marry public impressions of the landmark public utility with their impressions of the scandal itself, which – if successful – places BT in dire jeopardy so long as Kiss & company continue to feed the flames of anger by denying responsibility for any screwup. All of this is precisely why die-hard opponents of BT are so willing to oblige the Progressive leaders, as its like handing them a loaded gun and pointing it at BT’s temple. (I say Prog leaders, as the Prog or Prog oriented folks I’ve spoken to tend to be concerned about the same things everyone else is)

And so down the hole we keep going. What follows are some of the apparent distinctions (or just odd fits) that arise in a side-by-side comparison between this week’s piece from Jonathon Leopold, and the next day’s reporting from the Free Press of the leak of emails between the city and its attorneys on the matter (emails which the City Council correctly voted to release publicly, even though the final decision on their status was in the hands of Mayor Kiss prior to the leak). While the Council’s vote was a great step towards healing, the denial-lit drop is liable to rip open the wound wider than ever. I’m afraid this may continue until BT becomes Burlington Telecompost. I hope I’m wrong. Gawd, why is it just so hard to say “mistakes were made” and move on?

Comparison after the flip…

From response piece written by Jonathan Leopold at the Free Press:

From Free Press piece the following day examining leaked emails unless otherwise noted:

Burlington pools the cash reserves of city departments. It is a customary and accepted municipal financial practice to draw from this cash pool for short-term financing of city departments.

(From document scans at The Free Press site) (11/17 email from Attorney Bill Ellis:) Jonathan, Upon reflection, I’m not sure a loan to the city for “capital projects” will necessarily cure the problem. Won’t his (sic) end up still looking like the City getting a loan, and then loaning BT $10 million? Let me know your thoughts. (11/17 email response from Leopold:) depends on how we structure it, remember, BT is the city (11/18 email reply from Ellis:) I will leave the financing nuances to you.

…This litigation strategy was the product of advice from a legal team of City Attorney Kenneth Schatz and Joseph McNeil and William Ellis of McNeil, Leddy & Sheehan to address the Condition 60 issue as soon as possible, and the recognition that its solution was inextricably linked to also solving the build out requirement of condition No. 17.

“Notwithstanding my earlier ‘Agenda’ for tomorrow’s planned meeting with DPS, my present assessment is that the present use of the city’s ‘pooled resources’ to fund BT to the toon (sic) of $10 (million) with no repayment obligation within 2 months is a violation,” Ellis wrote. […]”It is our preliminary view that the city should address this issue head on sooner rather than later, and not wait to have it brought up by DPS or worse, Comcast,” the attorneys wrote.

Did I ignore legal advice in November 2008 regarding Condition 60? No. Had I done so, the city’s attorneys would have been obligated to so advise the council and mayor.

On April 14, Ellis and fellow attorney Joseph McNeil wrote Kiss directly in a memo marked “for your eyes only.” They explained the Condition 60 violation: “(It) provides that BT may participate in the city’s pooled cash management system provided BT reimburses amounts advanced on its behalf within two months.” BT had not been repaying the money, the attorneys told Kiss

Are taxpayer funds at risk? No, with the recovery of the financial markets, BT can be refinanced.

(From Blurt): To date, Leopold has stressed that city taxpayers would not see their money put at risk due to the loans given to BT. Instead, Leopold said refinancing the debt or a sale of the assets could cover the owed money. But, when asked by Adrian how the loss would be accounted for if Burlington Telecom were sold for less than what it owes, Leopold said it would be a “negative balance” on the city’s general fund.

Was the use of pooled cash for BT secret or hidden? No. Pooled cash has funded BT’s cash flow from inception and has been documented in our annual audits. Its use is specifically authorized by the Vermont Public Service Board. The city budget for FY 2009 showed an $11 million gap between revenues and authorized expenses to be financed either through outside financing or the pooled cash. This issue was specifically discussed with the Board of Finance in May 2008.

On May 6, Ellis told Leopold by e-mail that “one or more councilors” had been asking the Public Service Department questions about Burlington Telecom. “Should I be copying in any city councilors on our filings?” Ellis asked. “Do not copy anyone,” Leopold responded. “Tell DPS not to discuss anything confidential or provide any of our confidential info & see if you can find out who it was.” The councilor was Council President Bill Keogh, seeking DPS input.

You hear some numbers floating around out there that are pretty dramatic in regards to the 5 person (or 6?) Democratic primary for Governor. Shay Totten says the winner might only need 12,000 votes. Philip Baruth has thrown the number 17,000 out there.

Now consider that this week, GMD will get roughly 5400 visitors. I know anecdotally that most folks who view the site only come by once every few days, but there’s a not-insubstantial minority that comes by daily. On the other hand, this is a slow time of year for us, and traffic goes markedly up during the session, so lets say 5000 is a safe weekly bet overall – certainly when things get going. And I daresay that our readership is overwhelmingly inclined to vote in the Democratic primary. In fact, I’m willing to bet its upwards of 90% of readers. And 90% of 5000 is 4500.

Compared to 12,000? That’s 38% of the needed votes to win the right to face Brian Dubie. 17,000? That’s 26%.

Pretty sobering thought, eh? This puts the GMD community into a mighty, mighty position indeed insofar as picking the Democratic candidate goes.

While I think the readers of this site will be major players in the Dem primary, I do think those numbers are off. There is no good comparison to come up with projected turnout numbers for our gubernatorial free-for-all. Most likely, folks are looking back at 2006’s high-profile primary for Lieutenant Governor between current candidate Matt Dunne and Former House Democratic Leader John Tracy of Burlington.

In that race, 34,690 Vermonters picked up Democratic Party ballots statewide. If that’s the metric, then Totten is assuming that whoever reaches 35% in the 5-6 way race likely takes the prize, and Baruth is assuming a just shy of 50% threshold. Not unreasonable assumptions.

But in truth, I think we’re in uncharted territory, and that 2006 turnout number is way, way off. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say we may well see that number very nearly double.

There are a lot of differences between this go around and 2006 – and every one of those differences equals more votes. In no particular order:

• It’s the Governor’s race, not the Lite gov. Big difference. Duh.
• 5 candidates instead of 2. Double duh. In and of itself, that would increase numbers, but the geographic spread is significant. Instead of two counties’ local candidates in play driving up turnout in those counties (Chittenden and Windsor), you’re going to have candidates from Chittenden and Windsor, as well as the Democratic vote mines of Washington and Windham (and Lamoille too).
• It’s starting much earlier. More time = more press = more interest = more recognition of the race and the candidates among the greater electorate.
• It’s starting earlier part 2: More field. Symington’s late start last cycle meant she depended to an unhealthy degree on paid media. Starting farther out, you’re looking at the long haul, and that means field. With 5 or 6 campaigns actively in the field for the better part of a year, building infrastructure and contacting voters…. well, the effect on turnout will be dramatic.
• The entire 2010 legislative session will take place in the full-on throes of the longer election season. Expect bigger, bolder moves and attempts by the candidates to distinguish themselves, which equals more media, as well as more engagement by – and influence of – constituency and issue groups… who will be speaking to (and engaging) their members.
• Nearly every candidate has already appeared on at least one statewide ballot. The name recognition stage of primary campaign development will be comparatively trivial.
• Early paid media. I remember one, very effective ad from Matt Dunne in his race with John Tracy. There’s already a lot of money in this race with a long way to go. Expect unprecedented primary campaign ads for Vermont, raising the profile and the interest even further.
• Progressive engagement. These candidates will continue to differentiate themselves from each other, and without a Progressive candidate (or with the usual Progressive candidate – Anthony Pollina – fully in the mix with his fellow lefties), many (I daresay most) Progs will be inclined to pick a horse and engage in the primary.
• Legislative engagement. The Democratic House and Senate caucuses tend to be relative non-entities in the gubernatorial campaign (to the perennial chagrin and frustration of the Democratic candidates). There are already strong feelings about this race among Dems in the legislature, and it’s likely these folks will more strongly engage as ambassadors for their favored candidates at the district level, likely turning out more of their constituents.

Yup. We’re in a whole new world here. A world that I truly believe could lead to two votes for every one in the Tracy/Dunne affair.

But we’ll go ahead and dial it down a little bit from that. Let’s say, ohhh… a turnout of 60,000.

Now its likely over the next year that 2 or 3 front runners will coalesce from the crowd. Sure, you can say 50%+1 wins it, and set a goal of 30,000 votes – but that doesn’t really reflect reality. If its down to 2 real leaders 45% or 27,000 is a safe goal. If – as I suspect is more likely – the race sugars out to a 3-way, Totten’s 35%, or 21,000, probably wins it (assuming that’s where he did indeed derive that number from – either way, its a good thumbnail).

However you slice it – even with such a dramatic increase in turnout – these are still teensy number goals for a high profile, relatively big money race. It means that, if the field operations get up and running, candidates may well be able to ID virtually every voter they need for get out the vote efforts. Pretty wild, that.

Of course, in such a small state with a number of choices who are all so well known to primary voters, those IDs will be soft indeed – and highly fluid in response to every move each candidate makes – or chooses not to make.

In any event, it’s a new ballgame for Vermont politics, and if anybody tells you they know exactly how it’s all going to go, tell ’em they’re full of crap.

And yeah, that includes me, especially.

Lots more on this to come – including some musings on what each candidate may need to do to come out the other end victorious…

The danger in starting a more local-level campaign early is that you might end up making a lot of noise to no effect. If one says “I’m running,” one wants voters to care, and it can look pretty bad if no one does. This is the risk Philip Baruth was taking in getting started with his State Senate campaign so early in the cycle.

Whether its because he had a good sense of the changing electoral calendar (at least in Chittenden County) or whether he simply made the calendar follow him, Philip has clearly pulled it off, and has probably changed that elections calendar forever in the county, if not (yet) the state. He’s already raised well into five figures and has reliably turned out volunteers to campaign events – all of which is to say he clearly called it right and, as a result, has a serious leg up on his competition already. Here’s the promo video from his campaign’s official kick-off recently:

 

Update: Yay for the Valley News! They don’t post their articles online, but they did cover the event and the issues discussed in their Sunday edition. Also yay for Shay Totten, who just took some time to process the event. Journalism lives after all.

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Looking at the newspapers today, I see a semi-comprehensible piece on property taxes by Louis Porter in the Argus/Herald. Over at the Free Press, more on the story about cruelty at the Grand Isle slaughterhouse (hmm… sounds a little oxymoronic when I put it that way). From the look of the papers, I guess there was no political news from yesterday.

Well, unless you count the very first meeting of the Democratic candidates for Governor in a public forum in Randolph. You know, no biggie.

God, mother & country, this is freaking ridiculous. It’s not like they didn’t know it was happening. The Argus/Herald had a piece about the keynote speaker from the very conference that the candidate forum was headlining, apparently deciding that the Middlebury Professor’s comments were the only newsworthy parts of a conference that featured Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, former Senator Matt Dunne, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Bartlett, and a proxy for Senator and former Lt. Governor Doug Racine essentially kicking off the full Democratic Party Primary for Governor.

But I’m sure they were all just there for the keynote too.

Yup, guardians of our right to know jack squat in action. There are already plenty of factors driving down sales that are out of newspapers’ control without them needing to shoot themselves in the foot with vapid coverage decisions like this.

So where to turn if you want coverage of the biggest political news of the weekend? Where else – the internet – and no, I’m not talking about amateurs on blogs, I’m talking about the fledging online journalism site vtdigger.org. From professional journalist Anne Galloway:

Five Democratic candidates for governor answered questions about conservation, the Current Use program and renewable energy as part of a gubernatorial candidates’ forum at the Environmental Action conference at Vermont Technical College in Randolph on Nov. 7, 2009.

Good for Galloway. She doesn’t do any full on reporting here, but she notes the event and provides videos of each candidate addressing the potential primary voters.

As for the newspapers, it’s editorial decisions like this that make their complaints and concerns about the decline of newspapers against the rise of online news sound like whining.

Now watch, because it may get worse, as I suspect this is the prelude to one of those electoral seasons where Dems could cure freaking cancer and not get press coverage while Republican Candidate Dubie will get front page adulation every time he blows his nose…

Cool widgets and info from the House Democrats on the Affordable Health Care for America Act – H.R. 3962 – otherwise known as the House’s version of Health Care Reform. According to the House’s projections, the impact of this bill on Vermont would be to:

• Improve employer-based coverage for 381,000 residents.

• Provide credits to help pay for coverage for up to 156,000 households.

• Improve Medicare for 106,000 beneficiaries, including closing the prescription drug donut hole

for 7,600 seniors.

• Allow 21,900 small businesses to obtain affordable health care coverage and provide tax credits

to help reduce health insurance costs for up to 20,800 small businesses.

• Provide coverage for 24,000 uninsured residents.

• Protect up to 600 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.

• Reduce the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers by $84 million.

Doubtless these projections are optimistic, but its equally doubtless that this bill – imperfect as it is – could have a strong positive impact. Here’s the “how will reform effect me” widget (remember – this is all in the context of the House bill, which is yet to be voted on – and which will have to be reconciled with an ultimate Senate bill. This is still a moving target, but we’re a lot closer to something positive, if far from ideal, than we were):

80’s House Republican leader and former unsuccessful statewide candidate Michael Bernhardt has told VPR he is considering entering the race for Vermont Governor as an Independent.

There, I reported it. You all can discuss if you want.

There is one thing that does make me go hmm a bit about this – at least when you combine this news with the question the previous diary raises, which is why Auditor Tom Salmon is still running around in decidedly un-Auditor-ial arenas still trying to make himself into a teabagger hero, when he (and his pals) have decided that Brian Dubie is the gubernatorial candidate and de facto Party leader?

One wonders if the two stories suggest a common, underlying theme, as articulated by Bernhardt:

“While the lieutenant governor (Dubie) has a record, there are a lot of folks who haven’t heard him talk on how he’s going to handle (the economy). So it’s raised some concern.”

It’s still a long time to the full-on electoral season. Lots of things can still happen, especially if GOP insiders are feeling sketchy about their anointed (for now) candidate.

Tweets from the IBEW Local 300 feed, recounting the end of the Unemployment Task Force public meeting Wednesday:

ibewlocal300: State Auditor Tom Salmon just hijacked end of unemployment hearing with cheap shots at working Vermonters. “Find new line of work.”

Wed, Nov 4, 2009 6:31 PM

ibewlocal300: Auditor Salmon told by chairwoman to sit down but he refused to relinquish floor. Several folks walked out in disgust.

Wed, Nov 4, 2009 6:36 PM

Salmon, riding high on his party switch (thank god) and his suggestion that the maximum unemployment benefit be dropped to $300 (a drop too draconian even for the Governor) apparently made a point of singling out blue collar construction workers for taunting in his soliloquy that was just too good to be bound by the rules of the meeting, I guess.

What a classy guy. A man o’ the people. And this is the born again teabagger guy who said the Democratic Party left him. Maybe he’s talking about one of these.

But hey, whatever he wants to tell himself is fine with me, as long as it keeps him away from my Party. So the question now, is – who’s gonna run against him? Volunteers? Suggestions?

Update: From the comments below, some readers were there:

ml: As the meeting neared its conclusion, Chairwoman Cummings asked if anyone else wanted to testify.  Salmon jumped out of his seat, dashed to the head of the room and declared he had something to say.  Sen. Cummings told him this was not a forum for public officials, but rather for citizens.  Salmon rudely cut her off and continued to speak.  He wasn’t exactly yelling, but his voice was definitely elevated.  He paced the room – almost as if giving a lecture or political speech – instead of sitting at the stand in front of the Task Force.  In total, his diatribe probably lasted 1-2 minutes.  Task Force members, as well as the audience, were visibly disturbed.  

Salmon glared directly at a group of labor representatives and workers from the granite and construction industries, and essentially told them if they can’t find steady employment, they should get a new line of work.  Some of these folks left the room in disgust, while those who remained watched in awe as this all unfolded.

watercloset: I talked with a few legislators afterwards, including Ann Cummings.  She was shaken. She and her comrades up there kind of lost control of the situation.  But they were pissed off at what he did.  He just had to get his say in, knowing the rules, knowing that he violated the protocol, and that this would earn him numerous enemies.  I chatted with one legislator for a while afterward who said, “what happened to him, he used to be such a nice guy.”