The question of Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning schedule seems to have been resolved to Bill Sorrell’s and Governor Shumlin’s satisfaction; but one phrase in the press release from Entergy should certainly give the savvy Vermonter pause:

…We will begin that decommissioning process within 120 days of the fund having adequate money in it to decommission.

Or, as Johnny Mathis might put it, the dregs of Vermont Yankee may be with us…

“until the Twelfth of Never…

And that’s a long, long time.”

While our attention has been occupied closer to home, the situation at Fukushima continues to be anything but stable.

Despite official efforts to suppress the flow of information concerning the crippled plants and surrounding environment, bits of worrisome news do creep into the light of day.

Radiation from groundwater leaking into the ocean became an issue early on; but recently, it has been reported that the contamination goes much deeper into the earth than was previously believed to be the case.

Discovery of this deeper migration of radioactive water raises concerns that much more contamination has been reaching the ocean than had been predicted based on superficial flow alone.

The painfully slow and risk laden job of removing fuel rods from Fukushima’s twisted rubble has begun, concentrating first on the spent fuel pool left exposed to the elements by explosions in the first days of the catastrophe.  

There were 1,533 fuel assemblies in the pool at Reactor #4 alone, and each of those assemblies holds 80 individual fuel rods.  While they are characterized as “spent” rods, the radioactive potential concentrated in them is far from exhausted and requires the utmost caution to handle.  

Once all of the fuel rods in Reactor #4 have been safely removed and stored in casks, a task that will take until the end of the coming year (longer if problems occur),  the entire procedure must be repeated at each of the three remaining reactors where an equal number of spent fuel rods await removal.

Dangerous and delicate as that lengthy task is, once completed, the worst will be yet to come.  

As reported by the Guardian:

More challenging by far will be digging out the molten cores in the reactors themselves. Some of the fuel burned through its primary containment and is now mixed with cladding, steel and concrete. The mixture will have to be broken up, sealed in steel containers and moved to a nuclear waste storage site. That work will not start until some time after 2020.

Meanwhile, no effective solutions to the continuing groundwater problem have presented themselves.

Despite the obvious message carried by the Fukushima story, even in Japan, the push is on once again for nuclear energy.  

In the U.S., the industry has succeeded in recruiting some environmental voices by representing nuclear as the best “short term” option to decrease carbon emissions.  Except that it never will be “short term;” and neither will be the environmental impacts, as has been amply demonstrated at Fukushima.

So, instead of turning-up the volume on a call for energy efficiency as a principle strategy for ending our fossil fuel dependence and hastening the switch to truly clean renewables, those environmentalists have been persuaded that nuclear energy is somehow better than carbon based energy…this, despite the necessity to ignore sourcing issues as well as disposal and decommissioning issues (nevermind the implications of any functional failure or accident in between) in order to buy into that meme.

What was the Cesarean rule?  Divide and conquer? Looks like that’s the only lesson the nuclear industry has learned since Fukushima.

Perennial champion of the little guy, our own Bernie Sanders will ring in the the New Year by introducing legislation to raise the Federal minimum wage for the first time in seven years.  He’s only asking for $10.10 an hour; and even though a livable wage is something like $15. an hour, you can imagine the “righteous” indignation that will surely be spun by Republicans over this meager proposal.

Sanders very reasonably argues that raising the minimum wage will represent exactly the stimulus that our top-heavy economy needs to bring it back to life.

“Trickle-down” advocates have had more than ample opportunity to demonstrate how reduced taxes on the rich and corporations could work that magic.  The experiment was a spectacular failure, plunging millions more Americans into poverty while lifting the rich into the lofty strata of the super-rich.  So profound is the growth in income inequity that resulted from “trickle-down” economic policy, that we now have a convenient shorthand to identify those super-rich: “the One Percent.”

I was pleased to read the full text of Senator Sander’s press release on the minimum wage initiative, reprinted in the Weekend Messenger as an editorial.  

St. Albans should be one place that pays particular attention to the message as it experiences its first holiday with Wal-Mart working the crowd at Exit 20.  

. The Walton family fortune of $144 billion is greater than the combined worth of the bottom 40 percent of Americans.  Yet the average Wal-Mart associate makes less than $9 an hour.  This means that in order to feed their children, see doctors and put a roof over their heads, many Wal-Mart workers must rely on federal assistance.  Nearly half of the children of Wal-Mart associates are either on Medicaid or uninsured. In many states, Wal-Mart has the highest percentage of employees receiving food stamps.

“American taxpayers should not have to subsidize the low wages at Wal-Mart to make the richest family in America even wealthier.  That is not only morally grotesque, it is bad economic policy,” Sanders said.

Peace on earth and “Amen” to that.

As much to move the front page along as to re-focus the conversation on pan-handling,  I thought it would be useful to share a couple of links to recent stories that deal with other cities’ attempts to address the question.

First, is Boise, Idaho, where the ACLU has initiated legal action against the City over the imposition of an anti-panhandling ordinance.

Then, there is the town of Hudson, NH which is grappling with its own attempts at imposing an anti-panhandling ordinance.

That’s as far as I looked on Google; but the fact the stories are gleaned from virtually opposite ends of the country suggests that this is an issue whose day has come.  Certainly, the amount of controversy and traffic engendered by the diary below rivals that of our hottest gun discussions.  That some of the animus was personality-driven nevertheless leaves considerable actual debate on the table with regard to the substantial issues.

India was mentioned in one of the threads, reminding me once again, that when I visited that country in 1983, begging and homelessness was still uncommon in most of the U.S.   So uncommon, in fact, that  I was quite unprepared for the shock of seeing so many people living such marginal lives in close proximity with the homes of bankers, stock-brokers and wealthy business owners.  I think at that time, India had one of the highest levels of income inequity in the developed world.  Today, the U.S. occupies a similar position, with India having improved to be closer to the European norm.

So, unless something can be done to stem the tide of income inequity (which seems unlikely given today’s political realities) we can only hope to have as peaceful a coexistence of parallel but contrasting lives as India had in 1983!

It is however, a faint hope at best.  Despite its diversity of traditional cultures, India’s population was pretty homogenous in its practical belief systems.  If you were poor, centuries of tradition had taught your people that this was never going to change for them; and a convenient religious conceit provided that you must accept that lot in life if you were ever to hope for a better hereafter.

As visitors, we were struck by the fact that despite the horrifying crimes of violence that seemed to be routinely taking place among the rural poor; and despite what we in the U.S. would have seen as conditions strongly favoring revolution in the cities; the wealthiest citizens walked amongst the throngs of wraithlike poor, more or less unmolested…except for what can only be described as the most aggressive pan-handling.

How will the U.S. fair in its own decent into two-tiered living, when our popular mythology has relentlessly insisted that anyone can be rich, anyone can be famous, anyone can be president?  I wonder.

It’s been almost a century since America’s financial elite recognized the smell of revolution in the aftermath of WWI.  Tent cities constructed by homeless Veterans served to put the robber barons on notice that, if somebody didn’t come up with a way to remedy some of the inequities, the wolves that would be at their own doors would be their own fellow citizens, and they would come trained as merciless killers, just as had happened in Russia not long before.

It was not some noble inclination that finally prompted the power elite to create what the Republican’s like to think of as the “Welfare State;” it was this fear that violent revolution might be just around the corner.

But Republicans, particularly “Tea Party” Republicans, have just as short a memory as they have an attention span for the troubles of the 99%.

I realize this was sort of a long story with a short purpose of redirecting the conversation back to what place we will find for the destitute in our unequal society, when they begin to quote the language of the Bill of Rights?

VPT had a very interesting Bill Moyers segment on today, in which he spoke with Richard Slotkin, author of “Violence,” “The Fatal Environment” and “Gunfighter Nation” about the mythology and history of violence in this country.

I end with a link to that program because, although it focusses on school shootings,  it certainly is worth considering in this conversation, too.  

Today, Seven Days’ Off Message has a story about dueling finance claims by the two sides of the F-35 debate.

On the one hand, you’ve got Nicole Citro of the Green Ribbons (pro) campaign making this claim:

Together, she reckons, business sources accounted for “around half” of the Green Ribbons campaign’s total take of “a little more than $20,000.” Citro says the rest of the money came from “hundreds” of work a day Vermonters who either made small donations or bought marked-up merchandise such as hats and T-shirts emblazoned with pro-F-35 slogans.

Okay.  I’ll  take her word for that, but clearly $20,000. is not the end of the funding story, so more money was coming from somewhere.  If not the Green Ribbon Campaign, then who else paid for a fleet of costly advertising?

Why demure and deflect?

We know that Ernie Pommerleau, got very busy with his checkbook, out of the goodness of his heart.  He paid for that junket for Frank Cioffi, the Governor and the rest of the in-crowd to bop down to Florida for a look-see.

I’m sure that he has nothing personal to gain from siting the F-35 at Burlington Airport.  He’s just a patriot as opposed to anyone who thinks the siting of the planes in Burlington is a terrible idea; and that includes a couple of former Guardsmen/women.

Proponents such as he and Citro were actually motivated by a desire to “stand up for the Guard,” Pomerleau says. F-35 opponents, he charges, were “demonizing” the 1100 Vermonters who serve with the Green Mountain Boys.

Okay.  Perhaps that was just a little over the top.  Don’t oversell it, Mr. Pomerleau.

Of course, in this age of “balanced” reporting (aka, false equivalency) Seven Days is careful to say that the opponents spent money, too; and themselves, have yet to give a full accounting.  

Operating under the “umbrella” of Burlington Peace & Justice, a local non-profit, details of their separate financing are not broken out in BP&J’s tax records, which cover all of the affiliate organizations that operate under that same umbrella.  

Roger Bourassa, treasurer of Stop the F-35, volunteers to sit down with journalists and give a full accounting; which seems like a pretty fair offer.

‘Wonder if bloggers can sit in.

Who has more claim to the “grassroots” designation? You tell me.

Stop the F-35 appears to have just two big backers.

The perennial deep-pockets of Ben Cohen  yielded $12,000. to $15,000.

Nothing mysterious there.  Cohen is an unabashed “do-gooder,” a class of windmill tilters for whom I must confess great personal affection and affinity.  

The other big contributor wishes to remain anonymous, giving $12,000. in cash and paying $8,000. for website services.  It sounds like that pretty much all disappeared into legal fees.  

When you go up against the kind of power block that supported this project, that kind of money doesn’t go very far.  

And speaking of the power block, it is also reported that one sustaining donor to the Democratic Party is redirecting his/her monthly contribution of $100. to Stop the F-35; so the push to site the plane has not been without some collateral damage to the power block’s base.

Stop the F-35 isn’t giving up yet.  The group is appealing the site approval; and appeals are money and energy sponges.  

Believe me, I know.   It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.

And the Stop the F-35 Coalition isn’t giving up – at least not in terms of getting its message out, which Andreoli says has consistently been, “Love the Guard, hate the plane.” It’s aiming to raise another $75,000 in 2014.

Hear that, Mr. Pomerleau?  

See you in court with Old Glory waving!

The first grassroots divestiture initiative of my adult life was directed toward ending Apartheid.  Anyone who was alive and aware in the seventies and eighties remembers how the South African economy was impacted by that initiative.

It took a long time to get the U.S. government on board, but the movement grew steadily from the sixties forward, as more and more negative attention was turned on the practice of Apartheid, until overwhelming popular support for divestiture forced Congress to officially embrace the policy in 1986.   In this way, Americans were able to join others across the world in voting with their collective pocketbook to end an abhorrent and unjust system.

In revisiting the fight to end Apartheid as Nelson Mandela is remembered, it is useful to also note how effective an instrument of change divestiture proved to be.

350.org is asking us to use that same strategy to undermine the enormous power of dirty fuel companies to prolong their dying (and deadly) industry.  They ask us to please sign the petition urging our legislature to divest Vermont’s pension fund from fossil fuel investments.

The argument is not just about what is the right thing to do for the planet; it is about what is the economically well advised thing to do for the value of those pension funds.

Vermont State Treasurer Beth Pearce has recognized the risk inherent to investment in fossil fuels, and joined a group of other large fund managers to pose questions to the industry about the  

distinct possibility that they are not going to be able to develop all of their remaining oil, gas and coal reserves.

Despite all the big noise about how the U.S. is ramping-up fuel production in order to become “energy independent,” the fossil fuel industry knows full-well that the practical end is near.

Yes, there’s plenty of fossil filth still sequestered in the earth; but it is becoming apparent to all but the most determinedly blind, that the planet is changing even more rapidly than climate scientists predicted it would; and the negative consequences are already unacceptable.

Those impacts translate not only into human misery, but also into dollars and cents; and the balance sheet is looking none too good for long-term exploitation of coal, oil and gas.

Is that really a smart place to invest state workers’ retirement nest egg?

You can bet the smart money knows what’s coming, but they’ll play it large for as long as they can, so as to ring out as much profit as possible before the curtain falls.  

The public has not responded with particular urgency to the alarming message we hear every day, that climate change is advancing more and more rapidly; that we are already past the tipping point, and that our future seems certain to be racked with appalling climate events and disappearing shorelines.  

Maybe a shift in message like this will help the metaphorical penny drop.

Congress won’t act to establish meaningful legislation aimed at replacing fossil fuel in the nations energy arsenal; Obama hasn’t acted in any meaningful way.

But we can sign the petition. We can insist that state pension funds be invested in ways that do not leave those assets vulnerable to the kind of fiscal calamity that is lurking just beyond the horizon, linked arm-in-arm with the global climate calamity that nearly all scientists agree is heading our way.

Fossil fuel use can be defeated before it’s too late, just as Apartheid was.  As much as was riding on that victory, the stakes here are exponentially greater and more urgent.

I am genuinely dismayed by the news that the Air Force has decided to base the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Force at Burlington Airport!

I can’t imagine why they would make this decision, given the nearness of dense population and the expressed hostility of much of the surrounding community.  It isn’t as if there was no place more suitable vying for the honor of hosting the planes!

Having succeeded in a political end-game to disempower opponents of the plan, the “mighty” apparently closed rank on this one, and would not hear “no” for an answer.

Stunning.

Well…I sincerely hope they are 100% correct in their assurances that the aircraft poses no threat to health and safety in the Burlington area; but only time will tell.

Given the tremendous cost-overruns in developing the planes, and belt-tightening at the Pentagon that has gone so far as to suggest eliminating all commissaries, perhaps the good people of South Burlington and Winooski will get a last minute reprieve, since the planes aren’t set to deploy for another couple of years.  

One can only hope.  

It’s something I never thought I’d be saying, but…

You just gotta love this Pope!

The sudden climate change at the Vatican is tying certain people up in knots, but for most of the civilized world it’s as if someone has finally opened a window to let the sunlight in.

The last time that happened was when I was still a little girl and John XXIII gave conservatives apoplexy by convening Vatican II, returning Mass to the vernacular and saying all good people go to heaven, regardless of whether or not they are baptized Catholic.  His papacy was rather short but impactful, leading some to speculate that there were Machiavellian forces afoot hell-bent on snuffing out further reformation.

What followed were decades of mostly conformist popes who made the occasional pacifist gesture or love-thy-neighbor invocation, but concentrated most of their efforts on promoting a socially conservative agenda that pretty much revolved around sex and seemed especially mean-spirited toward women.  

John Paul II was something of a rock star, in part due to the novelty of NOT being Italian, but largely because his political past in Poland gave him Cold War cachet. He had the luck of an exceedingly long and uneventful reign and should have done a lot to make the church more relevant to a suffering modern world; but he didn’t.

The best thing about Benedict’s 7 year reign, distinguished by red Gucci loafers in the Pope Mobile and a pedophilia parade of shame, was when he unexpectedly threw in the towel.  “Pontif Emeritus,” indeed!

Just when you thought the Roman Catholic Church might have to put all its Leonardos and gold-plated bric-a-brac up on the auction block in a giant going-out-of-business sale, they seem to have pulled off the impossible by finding one decent man and handing him the keys.

Having lapsed so many years ago, and having some serious issues with organized religion in general, I’m not a candidate for reenlistment; however, it does my heart good to see such an influential institution finally taking a turn in the right direction.

They’ve a long way to go, but we must celebrate even small victories of common sense and decency.

Earlier this month, I wrote about the flawed DRB process in St. Albans which threatens both the integrity of our claim to an historic downtown and the character of my very own neighborhood.

Last week there was a preliminary decision in the appeal process, that only addressed our request for a stay of demolition.  Reporting on the decision solely from Sandy Fead’s (the developer’s attorney) perspective, the Messenger  led with the headline, “Judge O.K.’s Demolition of Owl Club,” which significantly mischaracterizes the Judge’s ruling.  In order to correct that misunderstanding, I have replied with the following:

I have to correct a mis-framing of the Judge’s decision with regard to our

request for a Stay of Demolition on the Smith House (Owl Club).

Contrary to the headline, the Judge has not “okayed” demolition.  In fact,

he cautioned Connor Construction more than once about the risk to which they

would be exposed, should they decide to go ahead with demolition and new

construction before the case is actually heard in its entirety next summer.

This was by no means a final decision on any of the issues in the appeal.

It simply denied our request for a Stay based on the evidence we were able

to provide, so far, with regard to the economic feasibility of rehabilitation.

We have the opportunity still to present new evidence to counter what we

believe is the highly exaggerated cost quoted by the Connor’s witnesses.

We understand why the Connors’ attorney, Sandy Fead, was eager to shape the

decision in the public imagination as he has; but we remain unconvinced that

the building should not be restored; and, judging by the strength of a local

petition drive, which asks the City to intervene on behalf of the house, I

believe that a growing number of Franklin County residents agree that the

building should be saved.  

At no time did the Connors’ experts disagree with us that restoration is

possible.  The only question is the cost; and the merits of saving the

building, whatever the cost, have not been discussed.

It is our belief that the intangible values the City has recognized in

historic properties, which prompted the adoption of special rules governing

the redevelopment of those properties, demand that more than a simple

economic metric be applied to the question of rehabilitation.  Next summer,

we intend to make that case to the Environmental Court.

In his courtroom remarks, Judge Durkin has already clearly indicated that he

understands that the DRB failed to enforce its own rules.  His decision with

regard to the stay requires that Connor Construction satisfy the

documentation requirements under the law, so we are confident that he will

give equal deference to the rules governing redevelopment of the property.

We would have liked to see the Judge remand the entire decision to the DRB

in order to allow them the opportunity to prove that, if given a second

chance, they could do the job properly; but it is not surprising that he

might lack confidence in their ability to do so.  He has therefore indicated

that he will himself act in the capacity of the DRB, going forward.

We have every confidence that Connor Construction will respect the Judge’s

admonishments against premature demolition.

In the interim between now and the trial, we urge that every effort be made

by the City, the Museum  (as guardian of local history), and perhaps the

library, BFA or other public actors, to arrive at an alternative that will

at once respect the building’s significance to local history and the

downtown viewshed; and will rededicate the site to a public purpose

befitting its heritage.

I just want to share, with my friends in the GMD community, a letter that I have sent to the St. Albans Messenger.

As Thanksgiving draws near, and Black Friday creeps up ever closer to the pumpkin pie course; I want to take this opportunity to wish local Wal-Mart shoppers a Merry Christmas.

You will now have the opportunity to prove what you and Jeff Davis have been insisting over the years: that downtown retailers can continue to thrive in the wake of Walmart.  I say that “you” will have that opportunity, because it is upon your continued patronage of downtown retail that this promise depends.

It’s great that there are no empty storefronts on Main St., but lest the illusion of full occupancy lulls us into a false sense of well-being,  I’d like to point out that the vast majority of new occupants are businesses that have moved from other nearby locations to fill the vacancies; and they almost all fall into the categories of giftshops, galleries, antique shops and resale stores.  Those are all great sectors which we are glad to have here; but, by themselves, they do not a healthy traditional downtown make.

In order to fulfill the Walmart promise of benignity, stores that have been serving the City’s practical needs throughout the years must survive, too.  For that reason, I have compiled a list of retail businesses of relatively long-standing on and near Main St. in the City that will serve as my own personal bellwethers as to how well that promise is fulfilled.

These retailers continued to uphold the practical meaning of “downtown,” supplying us with everyday needs like milk, bandaids, potholders and tube socks; and special occasion things like flowers, candles, chocolates and the occasional engagement ring.

In the foreshadowing of Walmart, we’ve lost a drugstore, a toy and book shop, and a couple of clothing stores; but these loyal retailers continue to demonstrate their faith in Main St.  For that they deserve a shout-out, a little of our own loyalty, and the benefit of our continued patronage:

East side:

Kevin Smith’s Sport Connection

Rail City Market

Maple City Candies

Eaton’s Fine Jewellery

As the Crow Flies



West side:

Howard’s Florist Shop

Moonshadows

Rite-Aid

J.C. Penney



All around downtown:

Food City

Betty’s Flower Basket

Ace Hardware

St. Albans Co-op



And let’s not forget Bob’s Meat Market up there on Barlow St.

If we can hang on to all of these faithful retailers, and add back a couple of replacements for the sectors that have disappeared, you might actually convince me that Wal-Mart won’t hurt downtown St. Albans; but that is up to local consumers.

If you saw Wal-Mart’s sign trunk drive back and forth in front of Rite-Aid offering incentives to move your prescriptions, and you did, you have already participated in phase-one of the gradual erosion of retail services to our central neighborhoods; because that’s the way it works.

You have the power of the purse; and with that power you can decide whether or not to prove us right in saying that Wal-Mart will destroy our local economy and the retail choices we still enjoy in our very own traditional downtown.

Go ahead and prove us wrong.

Fighting the “good fight” sometimes means knowing when to negotiate the resolution of a single unwinnable battle in order to strengthen your position for the overall war.

The Vermont Natural Resource Council (VNRC) has agreed to not oppose the Derby Wal-Mart.  In return, they have obtained significant concessions and set important new precedent that recognizes the impact Walmart has, not just on the immediate local economy, but also on other communities throughout the market area.

VNRC recently agreed to not oppose the construction of a Wal-Mart store in Derby in exchange for a moratorium on construction of any Wal-Mart stores in Vermont until at least 2020. The deal also assures that the Shumlin administration will support an additional $500,000 in tax credits – that will leverage even more investment from the private sector – annually for the Vermont Downtown program. This will strengthen city and town centers.

In addition to the moratorium, the developer will provide $200,000 to support downtowns and village centers in Orleans County, in addition to the $600,000 pledged to Newport City. The developer also agreed to design the new store in order to reduce the amount of stormwater discharge to below the levels existing at the undeveloped site today.

With the Governor having, once again, thrown his influence behind Walmart, and with some other inauspicious developments, location of the store became inevitable.  

The VNRC saw an opportunity to gain some economic reinforcement for the traditional downtowns of Orleans County;  and at the same time, extract reassurances that Vermont will not be targeted for new stores by the retail giant for a period of seven years.  This wise decision will allow the VNRC to spare its resources for other important work.

“Litigation against large interests like Wal-Mart is time consuming and very costly,” said Brian Shupe, VNRC’s executive director. “We saw this agreement as a good way to avoid future litigation while at the same time bolstering downtowns.”

Time is, after all, one of the best levelers of retail behemoths.  The Wal-Mart model is already looking a little shopworn.  It’s hold on top dog status has eroded steadily over recent years; and it has been forced to look for major growth opportunities somewhere other than in the U.S.

The rise of internet shopping is upsetting the brick-and mortar model that big box retailers used to think was the secret to mega profits.  There have been  persistent rumors that many of Wal-Mart’s stores will ultimately become little more than warehouse depots from which to fulfill internet orders.  

There has already been a move away from Wal-Mart’s “supercenter” template to much smaller, more efficiently stocked and managed operations located in city centers.  Even Wal-Mart recognizes that its cash-strapped shoppers are getting tired of having to put gas in their cars just to go shopping.

We had hoped in St. Albans that the inevitable collapse of the big box retail model would happen soon enough to stop JL Davis from decimating prime agricultural land in order to build his temple of consumerism.  No doubt, concerned folks over in  Derby had similar hopes;  but sadly, time ran out for us both.  

Thanks to the VNRC though, the downtown of Newport, like that of St. Albans City, will have real economic help to strengthen its prospects in the face of Walmart; and the remainder of Walmart-free Vermont can look forward to seven years of peace and quiet during which it can marshall the necessary resources to keep Walmart’s predation of our local economies in check.

Maybe the clock will run out on Wa-Mart’s market powers before the seven years elapses.

My advice to the despondent in Derby is that they do as we are doing here in St. Albans.  We’re keeping a bead on Wal-Mart’s behavior in the community and will take every opportunity to share that as broadly as possible.  

When that Walmart sign truck starts rolling up and down the street past the local pharmacies, offering incentives to move your prescriptions to Wal-Mart (as it did in St. Albans as soon as the doors opened on the new store) take a few pictures and share them with your local papers.

Make a list of all the stores that have been serving the practical needs of the local community for years.  I’m talking about the local pharmacies, groceries, clothing stores, toy and book stores, hardware and appliance stores and any general merchandise options that have hung on over the years despite the hot breath of Walmart creeping up behind them.  

If St. Albans is anything to go by, they will soon be replaced by a fleet of gift shops, galleries, bars, antique and second hand stores…all very nice, of and by themselves, but far from the practical substance of a “traditional” downtown.

We’ve already got our list of those stores still in existence when Wal-Mart opened its doors in St. Albans; and we will be treating their survival as a bellwether of Mr. Davis’s claim of no negative impacts from the largest Walmart to be located in Vermont.  

We will be making a point of sharing updates on their status with Governor Shumlin, as well as the wider Wal-Mart Watch-ing world.