This could only be a Sunday diary.

So I dreamed last night that I was at home with my family in the evening, and there was a breaking story on all the news networks that an alien spacecraft had been seen with distant telescopes. Everyone was on the edge of their seats.

Except I knew the truth, because I was getting email from Jack McCullough, who was onboard a spaceship with all the other GMD front pagers, right there on the scene amidst the alien armada, which was actually there to attack the Earth. I sadly went to my wife and told her that it was all going to be over soon.

Shortly thereafter, Jack emailed me that it was more likely the aliens would descend on Earth and enslave us all to start stripping the world of it’s natural resources – or perhaps they would just take over one or two nations and establish a foothold. Beats getting wiped out suddenly, but still…

Anyways. More on this story as I get it. Or maybe Jack knows something.

Listening to Shap Smith talking to Kinzel on VPR about the future of the flood-damaged State Office Complex in Waterbury. Local leaders have, of course, been looking for assurances that the state will return all (or at least most) of the Irene-displaced employees back there, but the Shumlin administration is making no promises, and Barre mayor Thom Lauzon is aggressively pushing to bring as many of those employees as possible to Barre.

Speaker Smith is similarly non-committal, although he acknowledges that pulling out those 1500 employees that the entire economy of Waterbury depends on would be a financial death blow.

As this issue drags on, I find myself asking “why?” I’ve spoken with some local businessfolk. I can hardly imagine the commercial and community atom bomb that not returning those jobs to Waterbury would be. Why would anyone want to inflict that on any Vermont community?

Which leads me to what should be an obvious question: why would anybody want to coy about whether or not they’d drop that bomb? Is Shumlin actually thinking of single-handedly wiping out Waterbury economically? If yes, then he’s nuts, if no – why play this evasive game? Why make these folks reeling from Irene sweat?

And why, if you’re Shap Smith, do you follow along with this ill-considered, even callous line of public bet-hedging? Why doesn’t Smith (or Shumlin, for that matter) step up and say clearly and unambiguously “hell no, we’re not going to let Waterbury shrivel up and die on MY watch – if somebody wants to take most of those jobs away, it’ll be over my dead body.”

I tell you, if I was Brian Dubie, I’d be sprinting to announce my candidacy in Waterbury and make that promise. He only lost to Shumlin by 4331 votes. Taking Waterbury by 75% would take a nice bite out of that.

It’s a no-brainer, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where it doesn’t play out with the bulk of those jobs coming back, given the stakes, and it’s pretty weird that nobody’s clear-headed enough to step up and say it.

Obviously, there has been a lot of powerful video emerging from the Occupy Wall Street protests, but this one really shook me. Shamar Thomas is a 24-year-old Marine Veteran currently playing amateur football and attending college.

Quick update via the Freeps:

Vermont State Police Trooper Jared Hatch has been cleared by a citizens review panel for his actions during a vehicle stop on Interstate 89 in Middlesex last month that uncovered two immigrants that authorities say were in the country illegally.

…”Trooper Hatch’s questioning of the passengers was not motivated by the passengers’ actual or perceived race, color or national origin. The questioning by Trooper Hatch was consistent with the approach he has utilized in other stops irrespective of race, color or national origin and was in keeping with training that he has received as a law enforcement officer,” the commission said.

…The commission, which reviews conduct complaints about department personnel, met for about 90 minutes Wednesday afternoon with most of the meeting behind closed doors. Among those attending were Department of Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn and Vermont State Police Director Tom L’Esperance.

UPDATE: Bennington area teachers have authorized a strike to begin October 19 unless something changes in the negotiations.

From the press release:

Teachers stand ready to stay at the bargaining table until a deal is reached. Last week’s negotiating session ended after the boards refused to even discuss – or read – the union’s latest contract proposal.

Just a thought. The organic “Occupy Wall Street” movement has been a perfect messaging/activism storm in many ways. From a messaging standpoint, it’s ideal. Protesters represent “the 99%” against the wealthiest 1% for whom Wall Street is the center of the universe. The notion of an “occupation” is perfect, in that it’s we, the great unwashed knocking on the doors of the rich and powerful and refusing to leave.

But “Occupy Vermont?” That’s a dramatically different message. “Occupying” any place but Wall Street sends a different signal- and in fact waters down the OWS message, potentially.

Because who’s “occupying” here? Aren’t the Main Streets of the states and cities the very homes of “the 99%?” An occupation is the act of an outside force. Protesters represent the outside force on Wall Street, but on Main Street? In that case, any “occupation” rhetorical construction draws up mental images of taking those Main Streets away from the regular folk who live there.

And if, at the more local level, these protests are seen to be done by outsiders and not the collective “us,” then that could blow-back and reflect on the OWS demonstrations, de-powering them dramatically.

I’m just sayin…

No time to get into this now, so I’m going to have to lean on the language of the press release. I’ll just say this is a good issue, and it puts the GOP into a “put up or shut up” type of corner. Of course, in the end, this Republican Party will do whatever it feels like, reason and consistency be damned, but Welch has been doing a terrific job using his position to keep calling out GOP nonsense loudly and relentlessly – and always in the context of presenting proactive alternatives.

Obviously, progressive policy doesn’t even get a hearing in this Tea Party dominated House, but it’s critical that Democratic leaders make enough noise to impact the public debate to whatever extent they can, and Welch has been doing a great job with that.

From the press release:

In a letter to the 12 members of the Super Committee, Welch and his House colleagues are urging that any deficit reduction plan require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate prescription drug prices on behalf of Medicare Part D beneficiaries. Such a move would significantly lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors and save up to $156 billion over ten years.

In June, Welch introduced the Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2011. The legislation would help the Super Committee meet its target of $1.5 trillion in budget savings.

“The Super Committee is facing many difficult decisions,” Welch said. “One easy decision would be to put the federal government’s purchasing power to work to save billions of dollars a year. Paying retail rates for wholesale purchases is a good deal for the pharmaceutical industry but a bad deal for the taxpayer. At a time of fiscal belt tightening, we simply cannot afford to continue this misguided policy.”

Welch’s letter is signed by 77 House members (here’s a link to a pdf).

With the news about the Irene-related labor grievance filed by the Vermont State Employees Association now on the front page, Governor Shumlin could have made a few different choices. The safe, and perhaps obvious thing to do would be to stay mum on the subject, leaving it in the hands of his Administration Secretary and letting the process play out around him. Stay “above the fray” as it were.

Instead, Shumlin has doubled down – personally, rather than through proxies. In doing so, he’s all but declared war with the union leadership in a divide-and-conquer strategy that seems designed to turn Vermonters – and most State employees – against Conor Casey and the VSEA leadership (as well as the 91 employees whose names are on the grievance):

This head-on confrontation and escalation surprises me a bit, but it must be the result of a political calculation by Shumlin that he has little to lose, the VSEA has more to lose – and perhaps he has something to gain.

Consider: as Shumlin’s first term continues, his approach to crafting a political persona as Governor seems to be to go all in on a couple marquee liberal agenda items – health care and energy. On most of the rest, he is tacking to the right (watch out permit reform). It’s a modified “captive constituency” theory on his part; by working to (hopefully) actually deliver on the two most precious progressive priorities, he’s betting his base will tolerate the energy he spends trying to look good for conservative monied interests in the state in order to secure their support as well for his future plans. It’s a sound approach tactically, if not ideologically, even if it does depend on producing the progressive deliverables (and Shumlin is moving with clarity and determination on health care, so I’m sure he will deliver… energy might become surprisingly dicey).

Possibly he’s turning the rhetoric up and putting his own face on this battle in order to build up that conservative cred, and he’s calculated that it’s a win-win battle for him. He either sends VSEA whimpering into the corner, or he loses at the labor relations board and casts himself as fighting the “good” fight.

It certainly puts his administration in a stronger position to win this war if he’s in front of the cameras, rather than Administration Secretary Spaulding who does not come off nearly as cool and collected when the topic of state employees comes up.

And looking at how this entered the media’s eye in the first place, it’s hard not to see the VSEA as hopelessly outgunned here, on the communications front. They already let this story completely get away from them. Not pretty.

Good initial coverage (no doubt there’s more coming) from the Freeps on an Irene side-drama that has likely, collectively caused Vermonters’ eyes to start rolling.

The Vermont State Employees’ Association has filed a grievance against the state. They’re claiming that, according to their contract, 91 state employees are entitled to double-time when their work stations were relocated following Irene’s flooding.

The escalating rhetorical arms race is in play, with the state putting a potential pricetag on union demands of $1 million into the media, while the VSEA is indicating that more workers may yet be added to the grievance.

This is not a good fight for either side – and both sides should have done whatever it would’ve taken to avoid it, if they knew what was good for them. Both will end up looking diminished in the public’s eyes – even after this goes to the State Labor Relations Board, which (if the contract language is a s clear cut as it sounds) will inevitably side with the union.

First, the state (again from the Freeps report):

“When you have a complex that houses well over 1,000 employees that could be closed for a long time, that’s a situation not covered in the contract,” Spaulding said.

…”The idea that two employees would be paid 100 percent differently just because you used to be in Waterbury is nonsensical,” Spaulding said.

1. Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding earned a reputation as a steady hand on the financial wheel during his tenure as Treasurer, but for whatever reason he gets all sketchy when he has to deal with the State Employees union. I imagine he thinks he’s going all tough-guy in this latest episode, but he really isn’t.

I like Jeb, but somebody needs to tell him when somebody says “VSEA” in his presence, his face gets a little redder, his eyes open a little wider, and he starts sounding whiny and entitled. That’s what’s happening. It’s not pretty.

Bottom line: does the contract mandate this extra pay or not? Since nobody – not even Spaulding – seems to have made any attempt to dispute this (he’s just calling it stupid), I assume the answer is yes. Yes? Well, too bad for you, then, Mssrs. Spaulding and Shumlin. It may be “non-sensical,” but its nonsense you own. It’s your contract as much as theirs. Step up and take responsibility.

There’s no tough-guy cred to be won, here, there’s only antagonizing political allies and looking bad for the cameras.

Next comes the VSEA:

The grievance says the union approached the administration on Aug. 30, two days after the storm, about the need for official relocation letters. When a Sept. 7 meeting failed to resolve the issue, “Spaulding and Duffy then left the meeting saying the only thing they or the Governor would accept was a complete waiver of all contractual rights” related to emergency closures.

…Casey acknowledged that some union members had voiced disagreement with the leadership’s decision to file the grievance.

2. The VSEA’s Casey, on the other hand, acknowledged to the Free Press that he did not have unanimity on what was clearly going to be an emotional, high-profile battle. Bad move. You go into something like this with a united front, or you simply choose another battleground.

If you don’t have a united front, the clear alternative would’ve been to take your story to the media on your own terms to put pressure on the administration before resorting to a complaint. Pitch the story of the poor, hard-working employees who are being shutdown by the mean government. Go the “gosh, what can we do?” route. “We don’t want to file a grievance, but golly we may have to.” Then file in a couple weeks after the narrative has played out to your advantage, assuming the administration doesn’t relent.

Oops.

The media will now be scouring the rolls to find the VSEA rank and file who did not approve of going forward, and their voices will be magnified beyond all reason. The result will be a big black eye for a union whose power and influence has been teetering for some time – a black eye which will impact their public reputation.

With the breaking of this story, the VSEA already looks self-interested and (at worst) exploitative – like they’ve got a basement of gnomes on the job looking for contract loopholes to exploit in the post-Irene chaos.

This is not a battle that could end well for the VSEA in an era where unions need to pick and choose their battles very carefully and be sure they have the winning hand.

Seriously, kids (and I mean everybody, here). Whatever the merits of either side, you all need to step back a bit and consider how this is going to play out. Cutting off your noses to spite your faces doesn’t cover it.

As I mentioned yesterday, I've received a lot of feedback on my diary looking at the transfer of women inmates from the Northwest Correctional Facility in St. Albans to the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility – a fundamentally different type of prison that was simply never designed to inter such an inmate population. One person who stepped forward is someone who worked with these women inmates in both facilities.

While this person did not wish to be identified, they did wish to give be a first-hand accounting for the record. The interview, which covers a lot of the same territory, but does shed new light (and from a different perspective).

You had professional experience at both the Northwest facility and the Chittenden Correctional Facility. it's been suggested to me that a lot of folks who work in corrections thought this move was a bad idea.