Vermont’s State Auditor Doug Hoffer has been taking a close look at how we spend some Corrections (DOC) dollars on transitioning prisoners back to civilian life.

Will it surprise anyone to learn that we aren’t managing that very well?

What we learn from the Auditor’s report is that in 2014 the state paid roughly $6 million dollars to 25 organizations charged with providing transitional services to about 1,000 departing inmates; roughly $6,000 per inmate.

The Auditor’s Office was interested in how well the providers were satisfying the terms of their grants, in three specific areas:

.Were the organizations developing individual plans of services for each client?

.How was the DOC determining the effectiveness of these service interventions?

As it turns out, returns on that $6-mil investment are impossible to assess because the organizations charged with inmate transition often have failed to develop individual plans for their clients, and they often failed to provide accurate or supported reporting on the services they had provided.

The audit was provided as a follow-up to a 2013 investigation that centered around a non-compliant provider.

The 2014 audit found that often, individual service plans were not even being developed by some contractors.

“DOC’s program management was ineffective in this area,” Auditor Hoffer said, “and there were no consequences for grantees that failed to develop these plans.”

“Without accurate reporting, the State cannot adequately monitor this program to determine its effectiveness and compliance with the grant agreements,” Auditor Hoffer said.

Without detailed plans, recording of services and accurate reporting to the DOC so that it can assess how effective these services are in addressing public safety issues and recidivism, the Department’s investment may be substantially wasted.

The audit makes 11 recommendations to improve this program.

It was predictable, I’m afraid, based on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s record of industry-driven decisions, but allowing Entergy to dip into its Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Fund to cover the costs of onsite spent fuel management was extremely irresponsible.

The total amount of the diversion will be $225. million, or roughly one-third of the existing nest egg.

Neil Sheehan, a spokesperson for the NRC, said the regulators approved the exemption because Entergy is investing the $665 million fund well enough that the company will have enough money to decommission the Vernon plant over a 60-year period. The total cost of decommissioning will likely exceed $1 billion.

The decision appears to have been based almost entirely on Entergy’s  own calculations that  it will have accumulated ‘plenty’ of money to accomplish decommissioning within the required sixty year timeframe, even with substantial diversion to fuel management costs.  They are calling for nothing but sunshine and roses in Entergy’s long range financial forecast of how they intend to grow the fraction of that cost that is represented by the amount that is now in the fund.

Of course, Entergy’s history of reliability is famously deficient but that doesn’t seem to have given the NRC any pause for reflection; neither has the fact that Entergy’s calculations are based on a final decommissioning cost (roughly $1.2 billion) that is now understood by many to be significantly underestimated.  The cost is likely to grow higher and higher, the further in the future decommissioning actually occurs.

To appreciate the NRC’s bias in this matter, one has to understand that when the decommissioning fund was established, spent fuel management was expected by both the NRC and Energy to be a short-term affair, with a federal spent fuel repository anticipated in the near future.

It is a matter of extreme inconvenience for the NRC, which is unofficially captive to industry interests while still being nominally a federal agency, that getting any state with acceptable geology to accept a role as the ‘final resting place’ for some of the most dangerous material on earth has been stubbornly elusive.

Despite the fact that the NRC insists on its absolute prerogative on any matter of nuclear safety, it has proven to be a rather poor steward of that responsibility, issuing exemptions to the industry, left-right-and-center, while rarely heeding requests from the public (who actually must bear all risks when it comes to safety) to enforce the rules.

Entergy has even mislead the NRC on occasion; still they are given the benefit of the doubt in a fiduciary matter (growth of the decommissioning fund) that allows full credence to energy’s own captive analysts who insist that raiding the decommissioning fund represents no possibility of shortfalls at the end of the line.

Apparently the NRC has a short memory and simply does not recall the rather broad hint given by Entergy that if decommissioning takes more than sixty years, they expect a court battle with the State of Vermont over who pays the outstanding costs.

Apparently, the NRC places its whole faith in the stock market’s ability to hit the jackpot more often than it goes broke.  At this point, any pensioner might be wiser than that.

Anyway you look at it, Vermont’s future with Vermont Yankee is shaping up to be a gamble with some rather unsettling odds.

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As always, I must disclose that I am pleased to be associated with Fairewinds Energy Education in a nontechnical capacity; but the opinions shared on Green Mountain Daily are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Fairewinds.

I turned on the news yesterday morning in delicious anticipation of the furor that was bound to run through the pack of Republican presidential contenders in the aftermath of Pope Francis’ much anticipated encyclical on climate change.

Instead, I discovered that, once again, America’s attention had been hijacked by a bloodbath.

Only in gun-happy, “post-racial”  America could a domestic act of mass-murder be so egregious and yet so entirely without contextual meaning as to completely overshadow what could be considered the most historic demonstration of ethical leadership by a sitting pope in history.

As the environmental community was poised to watch the fireworks from Francis’s ground-breaking pronouncement, a callous kid who appears to have never done a useful thing in his entire life, chose that particular moment to exercise his “constitutionally protected” right to bear arms in deadly conjunction with his “constitutionally protected” right to free speech, no matter how hateful; thereby mowing down nine of the most socially valuable people he could possibly have found in a single room.

Of course, that is all that we can now talk about in this country.

We’re not ready to have a grown-up conversation about anything, it would seem, having relinquished all power of attention to the violent offender of the moment.

And that is precisely why we keep getting more and more selfish, evil demon spoor like Dylan- whatever-his-name is.  I refuse to look it up on Google.

Attention: Franklin County readers:

There has been a vacuum of effective leadership demonstrated since we learned of Norm McAllister’s alleged offenses and very real remarks.

I know that a petition has been created, by a private citizen, to remove Norm McAllister from his seat in the legislature; but, as far as I know, it is only available on Facebook.

I have deliberately never joined Facebook and I am certain that others are in the same position as I, of being unable to use the Facebook petition but still wishing to register their objection to Mr. McAllister’s continued claim to the title of ‘Senator from Franklin County.”

For their benefit (and my own), I have drafted the following language which may be copied into a letter or an e-mail and sent to both Senate Pro Tem John Campbell and Lieutenant-Governor Phil Scott.  

“I, the undersigned, being a registered voter in Franklin County, Vermont, do hereby petition the Senate to immediately revoke from Norm McAllister the title, responsibilities and privileges of a state senator.

This petition is not based on any pre-judgement of Mr. McAllister’s guilt under the criminal code for crimes of which he is accused; rather, it is a response to Mr. McAllister’s known violation of his oath of office, based on the official record of Mr. McAllister’s remarks as captured by the State’s Attorney of Franklin County.

Every day that Mr. McAllister is allowed to retain his senate seat is a violation of the rights of his constituents to have effective and unassailable representation of their interests before the senate.”

Women voters might wish to add the following:

“Considering the nature of his recorded remarks alone, and the repellant attitudes that they reflect, his continued privilege in the senate is particularly insensitive and offensive to female constitutents.”

You may find it simpler to contact Mr. Campbell through the interface on his contact page, but, according to the legislative website, Mr. Campbell’s home email address is the following:  vt13@aol.com

I don’t see any way to contact the Lieutenant Governor by e-mail other than to fill in a form provided on his official website, which is what I did.

I hope this will help some other folks to make their voices heard in this extremely important effort to reclaim the dignity of Franklin County.

It’s going to be more difficult to make a campaign issue of Hillary Clinton’s decision to keep her emails private while she served in the State Department, now that we know that someone, (presumably the Chinese government) has been mining official email accounts for revealing personal information, compromising untold numbers of those official accounts.  

As things are now shaping up, it’s looking like a pretty shrewd decision.

Who knows why she did it, but there have been plenty of invasive document searches in the Clintons’ public history, so one would be surprised if she hadn’t at least considered putting a lock and key on things while serving in such a sensitive position.

I recently had a conversation with a visiting New Yorker that opened my eyes to the perception problems Hillary still has even among sympathetic voters.  

I told her that I was supporting Bernie, but would of course support Hillary if she won the primary.

She replied with concern that Hillary…that’s Hillary Clinton, we’re talking about…might not be tough enough for the fight ahead!!!

Why would she say that??  I can think of no tougher candidate, myself!   She could go toe-to-toe with Chris Christie in a knife fight!

Hillary is like a battle-scarred general at this point.  No one on Capitol Hill has withstood so many attacks as have the Clintons. In this judgmental country where marital fidelity is a tenet of public office, she came back from her husband’s sensational betrayal to effectively re-center the conversation around her own intellect and capabilities.

Why would a liberal woman (not a blazing progressive, but at least a moderate/ liberal) think she might not be “tough enough” for a second presidential campaign?

My guess is that the assumption that men and women are true equals in twenty-first century America is just as false as is the meme of “post-racial America.”

In the entire stockade of Republican presidential hopefuls, there is just one female contender, Carly Fiorina. Given her relatively low polling numbers, she probably won’t even be on stage for the debates.

How is that even possible in a country where more than half the voters are female?

It is just another example of how the power structure in America has become stagnant and dysfunctional as corporate ‘news’ investors have been allowed to hijack our principle information streams and groom our misogynistic consumer habits.

The myth of female inferiority is still alive and well and lurking in the corners of the American psyche.

Which is not to say that if Hillary is the nominee she is less likely to win than if she were a man.

In fact, just as  the similarly historic candidacy of Barack Obama was a catalyst for record voter turnout, the possibility of a female president could have a similar effect; but just as the election of America’s first black president (actually bi-racial president) was by no means a signal that America was now ‘post-racial,’  even Hillary’s election would not end the deep seated biases about women that are embedded in the American psyche.

I find it fascinating how disinterested to downright hostile many lawmakers appear to be with regard to Sec. of State Jim Condos‘ call for formation of an independent Ethics Commission.

Over and over the arguments seem to be that there “ain’t no problem here,” and we’ve got better places to spend the money.

To the former I simply drop my jaw in disbelief. I can’t speak for the entire state, but we certainly do have a problem here in Franklin County.

I am one of those Vermonters who has repeatedly rung-up the Secretary’s office over the years, pleading for help with an open meeting violation one month and conflicts of interest the next.

I’ve been giving him a break lately as I have finally learned the lesson that there is absolutely nothing that his office can do to enforce the purely symbolic rules of ethical behavior governing  public officials in Vermont.

It must be extremely frustrating to hear, day after day, from Vermonters distressed over bad behaviors in government, knowing that all you have to offer is a sympathetic ear.

I find the funding arguments against formation of an Ethics Commission particularly ironic since it isn’t difficult to imagine that conflicts of interest within government are routinely resulting in questionable payouts to contractors, avoidable lawsuits and general disregard for inefficiencies.  

I applaud Jim Condos for making this his mission.  He wants to be an effective Secretary of State, not merely a functional one.

Serving as a Democratic Secretary of State in an overwhelmingly Democratic administration, with an overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature, the simplest thing would be to just go with the flow; but that isn’t good enough for Condos.  

What he proposes is really in the best interests of everyone, but especially the Democratic party, whose collective teeth have been set to grinding by his latest search in the lamplight for a government we can all trust.

The problem with overwhelming majorities, even when they are comprised of our own allies, is that, in the ease of opportunity they provide for one party, it isn’t always the best people who rise to the top.

Any career politician can too easily succumb to temptation in that opportunistic land of plenty, sometimes without even realizing that that is what they are doing.  Lacking any real competition, it’s too easy to rationalize the choice that favors one’s own interests as the best option for the greater good.

Right now, it’s easy to look at Republicans as the more ethically (and factually) challenged party, but a lack of vigilance and sufficient checks and balances could well bring the entire Democratic party in Vermont into ill repute, vis-a-vis the public trust.

So, suck-it-up statehouse denizens!  Those of us who labor in the trenches of grassroots advocacy, the natural allies of the Democratic party, are getting tired of hearing that there is nothing that can be done when close relatives in high places make a mockery of the permit process, or when open meetings are suddenly closed.  

We even take umbrage when, despite conspicuous wrong-doing, an office holder enjoys more privilege of choice than do the voters he was elected to represent.

Self-policing by the legislature does not appear to be working; and anyone who doesn’t see that we have a problem wouldn’t make much of a policeman in any case.  The fact that we are the only state without an Ethics Commission does not mean we don’t have a problem.

It only suggests that Vermonters  favor “See No Evil” as our operating model for problem solving in this area, and that’s nothing of which we should be proud.

I know the Ethics Commission can’t eliminate all the monkey business that goes on behind closed doors, but at least it would be a healthy place to start.

Please note: THIS EVENT IS HAPPENING ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3. When I posted this last night, I had misunderstood the date and thought it was happening right then. I hope my mix-up didn’t cause any problems.

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Concerned Vermonters will gather Wednesday night, June 3, from 6:00- 8:00 PM, at the Bethany United Church of Christ in Montpelier for a screening of the documentary film, “Decommissioning Our Nuclear Power Stations: Mission Impossible?” and a presentation by Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, Inc. on findings and recommendations from his special report on VY decommissioning.

Produced in 2012 by Bernard Nicolas for France’s Arte TV network, the subtitled documentary takes a hard look at the status of decommissioning nuclear power plants in France and Germany. Nicolas also looks at the implications of decommissioning reactors in the United States.

Even though operators of reactors like Vermont Yankee are required by the NRC to create and maintain a decommissioning fund; it is becoming clear that the one created for Vermont Yankee still has to grow for many more years before it is projected even to meet the extremely conservative parameters upon which estimates of the cost were based; and Entergy is actively pursuing reasons to dip into the fund prematurely.

Those earlier estimates have since been shown to be severely deficient, and similar scenarios can be expected to play out all over the country as one-by-one, nuclear power reactors reach the end of their functional or economically viable lives and are taken out of service; all having based their decommissioning fund planning on  similarly inadequate models accepted by the NRC.

Bearing in mind that both the advanced age of most U.S. nuclear power reactors and a failing economic argument for their continued use predict that we are entering an unprecedented era of nuclear power reactor closures.

It is now estimated that the shortfall in funding for decommissioning all U.S. reactors currently in operation is $43 billion!  As things now stand, that ‘shortfall’ will be passed on to the taxpayers.



Further compounding the issue of decommissioning costs are the problems and expenses associated with long term storage of spent fuel and nuclear waste.  

Then there is the fact that even the best option currently available for spent fuel involve leaving it on site for perhaps a century or longer in concrete casks that have been not been demonstrated to be resistant to cracking or leaks in the long term.

Hosted by Beyond Nuclear, the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance and Vermont Citizen Action Network, the evening will provide a free opportunity for Vermonters to gain a better understanding of the challenges that lay ahead in the Age of Decommissioning.

I am very pleased to be associated with Fairewinds Energy Education in a non-technical capacity, but the opinions I express on GMD are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Fairewinds.

Apparently one of Mr. McAllister’s alleged victims has passed away. That might potentially affect the criminal case against Mr. McAllister, but does not alter the urgency of separating him from the senate.

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This is the letter that I have, today, sent to the St. Albans Messenger.

As it should have been, Wednesday evening’s Taylor Park rally against sexual exploitation and abuse was very moving and respectful of the victims.

It was not, however, as well attended as one might have hoped.  

I choose to give our Republican legislators the benefit of the doubt by assuming that none attended because of the acute embarrassment they have been caused by Norm McAllister’s behaviors.  

This was a mistake, however, because the absence of Republican representation was uncomfortably conspicuous to all.

It is impossible to divorce Mr. McAllister’s political affiliation from the conversation without some help from his party colleagues. Otherwise, they appear to be closing ranks against the will of their constituents, the vast majority of whom undoubtedly want Mr. McAllister out of his senate seat…yesterday.

In light of the fact that the event organizers took great pains to ensure that there would not be even a hint of politics in the program, and that it would focus on the needs of victims of domestic violence and exploitation, this failure to even put in an appearance came across as somewhat insensitive.

Absent any discussion of Mr. McAllister or his alleged offenses, he remained, nevertheless, the elephant in the room.

…But that was yesterday.

Today it is time for the citizens of Franklin County to take back their senate seat.

Mr. McAllister is understandably focused on his own defense, wherever that may take him.  It is clear that his constituents and even his party are no longer a priority for him.

Are we to pass an entire summer in a limbo of public dysfunction while Mr. McAllister continues to cling to the illusion that he represents Franklin County?

If there is such paralysis in the legislative halls and in the VGOP that no one can compel Mr. McAllister to resign his seat, we the people will have to do the job for them by demanding that the House issue an order of impeachment and the Senate carry it forward by trial without delay.  

The charge can be as simple as violation of his oath of office, in which he pledged to do no damage to the state or to its people.

There is already ample evidence of that violation in the factual record, before even venturing further into his personal liability under the criminal code.

I herewith make this formal demand of our Franklin County legislative delegates, Republican and Democrat, that a petition be prepared by one or all of them to be posted in every City and town hall in the County, so that every citizen of the County has an opportunity to add his or her name to that petition demanding immediate removal of Mr. McAllister from his senate seat.

If for some reason, no one in our delegation will do this, I request that the Messenger, as our principal organ of community conversation,  host a petition on behalf of the population.



I ask that the Messenger share that petition in its pages; and for the benefit of those who may not see the paper or visit their town hall in a timely way, that public access television, the library and other public institutions also provide an opportunity for community members to read and sign the petition.

If there is any single lesson about the health of our legislature that we have learned from this nasty experience it is that we are long overdue for adopting an ethics policy that would bring swift justice for the people of Vermont when it is members of the legislature themselves who have violated the public trust.

There will be a “Rally for Justice” in St. Albans’ Taylor Park on Wednesday, May 27 at 5:30 PM.

Organized by community members in conjunction with Voices Against Violence to demonstrate  solidarity with the victims of domestic and sexual violence, exploitation and injustice and to demand change to the culture that tacitly permits such things to occur.

Among the speakers will be former Democratic governor Madeline Kunin  and Auburn Watersong from the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.

In the wake of mounting allegations of abuse against Norm McAllister, it has been frustrating for most Franklin County residents that Mr. McAllister refuses to voluntarily vacate his senate seat.

This is an opportunity for citizens of Franklin County to bring the angry emotions that this incident has awakened to a constructive gathering that will add volume to the demand for McAllister’s resignation.

At the same time, it is hoped that, at this time, with the public consciousness so traumatically elevated, we will see some meaningful improvement in the support structure that will allow more victims to securely come forward for help, knowing that hey will get it and not suffer repercussions.

The more voices, the greater the impact; so, come to St. Albans tomorrow to make yourself heard.

It’s rather fun to speculate on Governor Shumlin’s reason for blurting out his endorsement of Hilary Clinton on the same day as Bernie’s announcement of his own candidacy.

Since GMD is a blog, and an irreverent one at that, we can indulge in such things while the conventional news must remain somewhat more cautious.

The governor is, of course, free to endorse whomever he wants, whenever he wants, but Vermonters can be excused for fountaining rootbeer out of their noses when he does it at such a conspicuously inappropriate moment.

No one can accuse the governor of being politically naive, so we have to conclude that there was method to this madness; especially so since he more or less implied, in the same week, that he himself intends to run again in 2016.

Soooo…what can this all mean?

We might assume that it was just Shumlin’s way of sucking up to the divine Ms. C. so that he might later bask in reflected glory, quid-pro-quo, when his own 2016 campaign is likely, for the first time, to meet considerable push-back from the left.

But why the rush to endorse; particularly, on that day when progressive minded Vermonters were poised to feel good about an historic moment?

Did the Clinton camp specifically request this early token of loyalty?

Was the strategy to create a structural weakness in Sander’s home state support base?

Possibly; but that would suggest that someone has not done much market research in Vermont, where Bernie’s popularity ratings remain high while Shumlin’s have been circling the bowl practically ever since the last election.

Shumlin’s endorsement of Clinton is so much in character with his whitebread expectations that it was hardly worth mentioning, let alone provoking more alienation from the left.

Among governors, only that of Clinton’s adopted home state, New York’s Andrew Cuomo, has made the early leap to endorse her.

Perhaps Shumlin is only running again in 2016 because he is counting on the inevitable groundswell of Democratic support for whomever heads the national ticket to inoculate his tandem run on the homefront against genuinely progressive “spoilers.”  

The conservative money is on Clinton, so that is where Shumlin invests his hopes.

He probably realizes that this immunizing fairy dust of association will only be available to him one more time before even Democratic Vermonters are really unwilling to take him back on any terms.  By then, he probably hopes that getting an early leg-up on the Clinton train will carry him to new fields of opportunity in DC.

Tacky but true?