As regulars on GMD already know, I am the spokesperson for Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth, a Franklin County grassroots group that opposed permitting for the state’s largest Walmart on a tract of prime ag soils in St. Albans.  For ten years we did all that could be legally done to resist the siting; twenty, if you count the first, successful, effort to oppose location of the store there.

Developer JL Davis finally broke ground shortly before the election.  The topsoil has been removed and massive earthworks are underway to permanently take the land out of productive use.  The die has been cast and there is no turning back.

It seems like an opportune moment to remind Walmart that the world will be watching how it comports itself at the location of the longest organized resistance to a store siting.  Here follows the open letter that will be circulated to the press later today:

Now that JLD Properties has held its Walmart ground-breaking, we would like to use this opportunity to say that we are confident that Walmart will take every measure necessary to ensure that the St. Albans store will be the most ethically operated Walmart in history; that its workers will have nothing but positive employment experiences, and will be free to organize; that the store will not engage in predatory marketing schemes; that the historic St. Albans downtown will remain a vital community marketplace;  that the emerging importance of our working landscape will not be damaged; and that none of the negative impacts that have occurred in other communities when Walmart came to town will happen here.  

We are certain of this because Walmart will know that we are watching; and that we will continue watching and sharing our experiences, nationwide, through an extensive grassroots network of concerned citizen groups, with other communities who are being targeted by the retail giant.

St. Albans has become a national stage on which Walmart should want to perform conspicuously above reproach.  We have the opportunity to share these experiences more broadly than has ever been done before.

Furthermore, the developer, JL Davis, will know that we are watching to see that every assertion he made in the permit process holds up.  These include promises regarding quality job creation, traffic, viability of local retail and other important measures of community well-being; as well as the absence of “secondary growth” pressures beyond what existed at the time that Walmart received its permit.   In our opinion, Mr. Davis’ assertions in the permit process become Walmart’s obligations to Franklin County as a whole, once the giant retailer occupies his store.  

We recognize that enforcement mechanisms within the permit system are woefully inadequate; so we will not rely on official action to address broken promises.  Should we be disappointed in our expectations, and should any of the assertions made by Mr. Davis and Walmart over the course of the permit process prove, in reality, to have been untrue, we are prepared to hold Walmart accountable through organized market action.

As Republicans hold their heads in bleary-eyed befuddlement all over America, perhaps no where in Vermont are they more at a loss than on the home turf of Vermonter’s First poster boy, Tayt Brooks.

GOP campaign signs litter the yard of Dustin Degree’s St. Albans pied a terre; some standing, some leaning and some fallen down like drunken soldiers.  A couple of errant “Romney”signs have even drifted into the parking lane.

Perhaps in symbolic defiance, signs for Degree, Casey Toof and Norm McAllister, all over town, seem to be the only ones that have not yet been removed .

Degree seems certain to request a recount of his close Senate race with Democrat Don Collins, where he lost by a mere 25 votes.  There seems to be no word from Casey Toof who was defeated in a bid for Degree’s House seat by Democrat Mike McCarthy.  The vote spread was only 20 votes, but being a House race, the overall tally was significantly smaller than for the Senate.

But it is not the losers who are kicking up the angry dust around here.  It is curiously sore winner Norm McAllister who, when asked about the impact of Vermonters First on the election, was quoted in the Weekend Messenger:

“I don’t think it hurt us.  What hurt was you guys’ negative ads, writings that you did.  That’s what hurt us.  Vermonters First didn’t hurt us.  It was you peoples’ reporting that hurt us, because you made it sound like it was something unusual.” he said.

McAllister went on to double-down on some of the claims made by Vermonters First in their attack ads; claims that have since been dismissed by fact-checkers.

He had particularly harsh words for the Messenger when it came to the subject of Tayt Brooks, whom McAllister said was “barbecued” by the paper.

Mr. McAllister seems to be gunning for anyone and everyone, including Mike McCarthy with whom he is destined to serve in the Legislature.  He objects to the fact that McCarthy, who made a last minute decision to enter the House race, did not resign his chairmanship of the Franklin County Democratic Party.  Why that would be an issue for him is beyond me, but there you are.

The Franklin County delegation has traditionally been characterized by cross-party camaraderie.  I am told that Dustin Degree has routinely chauffeured Democrat Kathy Keenan to the statehouse over the two years that they’ve served side-by-side.  Republican Carolyn Branagan of Georgia was quick to denounce claims made by Vermonters First that the Democrats were planning to introduce sales tax on child care, healthcare, and other every day services.  Most seem to recognize that they are neighbors and local representatives first, and political rivals only second.

It will be interesting to see how Mr. McAllister navigates those waters now that the Republican census from Franklin County is down a couple of men. Progressive Cindy Weed of Enosburg is in the mix too, having defeated incumbent Republican Peter Perley.

‘Should be an interesting session!

“Keeps on going…?”

We had no sooner emerged, dazed and happy, from the election, than Franklin County got hit with a blast of really bad news.  

A  60-year+ economic fixture in St. Albans Town, Energizer announced Thursday that it will soon be closing its doors in the Town and laying off all 165 employees.  

Tim Smith, executive director of the Franklin County Industrial Development Corporation believes the county will not be seriously impacted by the closing, given that projected economic growth includes a planned expansion of Mylan with 150 new jobs; but the announcement seems to challenge a popular conservative talking point, that tax breaks are the best way to retain quality investment in Vermont.  

According to Fred Kenney, executive director of the Vermont Economic Progress Council:

In 2005, the Vermont Economic Progress Council provided $2.5 million in tax credits over five years to Energizer, making the credits contingent on adding jobs and making capital improvements to the plant in St. Albans…Kenney said the level of employment at the plant has been dropping steadily in recent years.

Mr. Kenney further states that, despite Energizer’s possible non-compliance with the terms of those tax breaks, the state might not even be successful if it sought to reclaim the lost revenue.

Due to decreased demand for the type of specialty battery produced at the St. Albans facility, the company is downsizing; and even though those batteries will continue to be produced in Malaysia, by workers earning Malaysian salaries, they have no further use for their St. Albans workers.

Many were the times that Governor Douglas harped on how we would lose IBM if we didn’t do this or that for them (insert “keep Vermont Yankee going”; “build the Circ Highway,” etc.) regardless of the environmental consequences; and many were the times he scolded that Vermont is “bad for business.”

It appears, in this case that, having enjoyed a sweet tax deal for several years, Energizer would still prefer to build their batteries in Malaysia, where minimum wages have just been raised for workers to $297. per month.

I am sure that, if St. Albans workers could live on Malaysian wages, the tax break might have succeeded in buying Energizer’s loyalty as it was supposed to do.  But as things now stand, Vermont is just out a whole bunch of money it could have used to retrain the 165 displaced workers.

When IBM finally raises its skirts and exits Vermont, it will not be because we haven’t bought enough of its loyalty through corporate blackmail.  It will be to take its Vermont operations to a distant land where workers earn pennies on the U.S. dollar.

What will it take to get policy makers to realize that we cannot compete on the “bottom line” unless we are all prepared to live like third world laborers?  

We need instead to compete on “quality of life” measures, like universal healthcare, exceptional schools, a clean and beautiful natural environment, superb local foods, and a creative and exciting cultural milieu.  

That takes public investment, which we cannot make if we become the bargain basement for corporate location shopping.

I had to chuckle at Terri Hallenbeck’s piece in today’s Free Press:

Hoffer’s win surprising to many.  ‘Forgotten’ man to become Vt. auditor

As our regular readers will attest, he was not forgotten on the pages of GMD.

In fact, while newspaper after newspaper lined up to endorse Vince Illuzzi, always framing it as sort of a left-handed compliment,  we noted the endorsements and remarked on the common weakness of their rationale.  

Why was it, they should be asking themselves, that the papers seemed to line up unilaterally behind Senator Illuzzi, but always while holding their nose?

Free Press:

He is a political machine, and he remains a publicity hound.

St. Albans Messenger:.

..Mr. Illuzzi, a lawyer, has had his license suspended for ethical violations (in) 1993 and he did not have his license restored until 1998.  He’s also not shy to find the political spotlight and rush to its center.

Addison Independent:

Republican Vince Illuzzi has garnered much support from a lot of politicos throughout the state, which may tell you something. Throughout his 32 years in the Legislature he has made a lot of friends and has played the game of politics well. But while Vermont is largely free from the political partisanship that plagues other states, Illuzzi does understand political power and has wielded that power, at times, for partisan purposes over the years. That’s an attribute that doesn’t work well in the state auditor’s office.

While GMD repeatedly reminded everyone, including the mainstream media that, not only was Hoffer the most qualified and ethically reliable candidate for the job, he was also the only candidate for the office who had demonstrated a focussed interest in doing that job, and that job only, over the course of two full election cycles.

Take a look at the outcome of the 2012 election in Vermont and try to tell me that GMD is not the best media barometer of where Vermonters’ live right now in the real world.  

Yes, we have a liberal bias; but conventional newspapers frequently have a strong bias as well.  Look at the Caledonian Record, for example.  At least we’re upfront in not representing ourselves as a “balanced” news source, even though we could argue that the views of our Democratic, Progressive and Independent contributors are representative of those held most widely across the state.

So, Conventional Media Folks, you look askance at the opinions expressed here on GMD and dismiss them as “fringe” at the peril of your own relevancy.  Lesson learned.

Today’s Free Press apparently didn’t have enough real news about local elections, so they thought they’d manufacture some drama for good measure.

Seizing on a cryptic and decidedly marginal effort by an unspecified number of Bernie Sanders “supporters,” outside the polling place at Edmunds Middle School, as an indication of discontent in Bernie Town, the paper chose for its caption:

Write-in campaign signals half-hearted support for Sanders.

What exactly was this “campaign” you well might ask?  It consisted of one or more “Bernie For Senate” signs sporting a hand-lettered paste-on and a printed sheet urging voters to write-in the Senator’s name rather than checking it off in the correct box.  

This, the placard explained, would “send a message” that, while the voter supported Bernie for reelection, there were some unspecified “points of disagreement.”

Apparently it never occurred to the Free Press that this might be a ham-handed effort to tempt voters into accidentally spoiling their ballots.  Suggesting that voters who support Bernie might nevertheless have some unnamed “points of disagreement” with the Senator after the many terms he has served on Capitol Hill is hardly a shot in the dark.

Rather than consider the obvious, however, Free Press writer Joel Banner Baird chose to consult Attorney General Bill Sorrell who was just trying to press some last minute flesh of his own in the vicinity of a sign bearer. Probably too self-absorbed at the moment to really care, Sorrell ventured a guess that it might have something to do with the F-35 location in Burlington, which the entire DC delegation has supported despite local controversy.

But even though Mr. Baird thought it was a big enough story to earn that headline, he apparently didn’t bother to go over and ask a sign-bearer about what it was, exactly, that he disagreed with Bernie.

Well, the votes are in and how do you think this write-in “campaign” did?  According to the Burlington City website, Bernie garnered 84% of the total vote, and only three of those votes were write-ins.  

My guess is that the total number of altered signs, which Mr. Baird failed to report, was no greater than three.

“Half-hearted support?”…um… doesn’t sound much like it to me.

Although Jvwalt has already mentioned it below, this bears repeating…by a woman: with last night’s results, New Hampshire becomes the first state in the nation to have an all-female Congressional delegation and a female Governor.

Wow!  It’s been a long-time coming; and it happened in New Hampshire, not in the most progressive state in the nation, our own Vermont.  

We only have one woman serving in statewide office and none in Congress!

We couldn’t even manage to elect a highly qualified Democratic woman to the Lt. Governor’s seat, in the most Democratic state in the nation, when her opponent’s strongest argument was that he is a “nice guy.”

If Republicans can be faulted for underestimating the importance of the Hispanic population,  Americans as a whole should be ashamed that fully 225 years+ since the nation’s founding, fully half of that founding population, women, are barely represented in elected office.  

The deficit is so great that we found ourselves listening to a bunch of white middle-aged men discussing women’s reproductive functions in Congress, to the deliberate exclusion of any female input!  Many of these same white middle-aged men have moved biological control of women’s bodies onto their “to-do list,” and we have just witnessed an election that re-litigated women’s rights in an attempt to roll back the clock to the 1960’s.

That one party could so thoroughly hang women out to dry and still retain half the popular vote is simply appalling!

While we must celebrate the victories of Elizabeth Warren and other female leaders, the fact that we must still make special note of gender in those celebrations, just as we note Mr. Obama’s racial diversity, speaks, once again, to the remarkably tattered state of our celebrated American ethos.

Good morning.

That deserves repeating, “Good morning!”

We woke up to a world where everything (more or less) makes sense again. We (more or less) trust our fellow Americans not to jump into the mouth of the volcano for at least two more years.

A message has been sent to the GOP that  demographics are changing more quickly than they can gerrymander and suppress.

It is a message that will once more be ignored as the party struggles to make it up to their “investors” who, sadly, are people like the Koch Bros. and their crackpot constituents. The Koch brothers think the country was never more “American” than it was in the era of robber barons; and the crackpots live in a world of their own, that is equal parts Calvinistic revenge fantasy and anti-intellectual reverse snobbery.

So, after billions of dollars have been wasted all around, we are pretty much back where we started from. Not much progress, I’ll grant you; but think what could have been on the menu had things gone just a little bit differently:

. Potentially four Supreme Court justice turn-overs in the next four years, which would undoubtedly lead to…

. De-coupling of military spending from the budget ; then ballooning it to benefit the “military-industrial complex.”

Problems?  Sure, we still got ’em; but look what we narrowly missed.  

So come out of the bomb shelters and dance in the sunshine.  Our cup is half-full this morning.

No doubt you’ve heard about GOP Senate candidate, Linda McMahon of Connecticut trying to grab an illicit hitch on President Obama’s coattails.  It seems  to be an act of pure desperation by McMahon who has little hope of defeating Democrat Chris Murphy, who actually received the President’s endorsement.

In a season of extreme head-slappers this example of crust barely merits mention; that is, until you take a look at the candidate’s bizarre personal history.

Mrs. McMahon, who, together with her husband of 50+ years, Vince McMahon, presides over the professional wrestling empire that is the WWE, has been implicated in the rampant steroid drug abuse within the organization that came to light at the time of the sensational murder-suicide of Canadian wrestler, Chris Benoit in 2007.

Documents from the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that investigated the WWE following the Benoit incident, were damning:

The documents stated that 75 wrestlers-roughly 40 percent-had tested positive for drug use since 2006, most commonly for steroids.

Curiously, no action was ever taken by the Committee.

Linda was asked why there had been no follow-up during a televised interview with CBS Face the State on January 20, 2010 and responded, “There’s not been any follow-up from any of the inquiries that were made because I believe we had furnished thousands of documents and testimony for them, and I think if they looked at our policy and really delved into it, they would be very satisfied.”

‘No reason to suspect influence peddling there!

Always ready to give the paying fans whatever they wanted, Mrs. McMahon even wrestled her husband in a celebrated “grudge match,” before finally setting her sights on the Senate.  She tried to clean up the act by adopting the TV Parental Guidelines for the traditionally violent and sexually suggestive WWE in order to rehabilitate her image, but failed to win a Senate seat in 2010.

Apparently voters were none too impressed with her conservative credentials:

Under Linda’s tenure, WWE became one of the largest recipients of special tax credits for film and TV production granted by the State of Connecticut. During her 2010 campaign, Blumenthal’s campaign criticized her and WWE for accepting the tax credits while laying off workers in 2009.

So, now she apparently is prepared to go to any length to give the suckers what they want, even if it means misrepresenting herself as an “Obama Girl.”

I predict a smackdown, once again, for Linda McMahon’s senatorial ambitions.

Well, at least some of the important numbers are already in for this election cycle.

The Sunlight Foundation has found that $213 million in “dark money” has been spent in the General Election alone. Of that figure, 81% was spent on behalf of Republican candidates.

Put another way, Republican contributions of “dark money” totalled $173 million, while Democratic contributions of the same kind came in at a measley $40. million.  

By “dark money” we mean groups that do not disclose their donors and only are required to disclose their congressional race spending within 60 days of House and Senate elections and their presidential race spending following the national party conventions.

So Lenore Broughton has plenty of company in the GOP shadows.

Okay; so now bring on the attempts at false equivalency with regard to campaign finance.

As Election Day looms, I seized a chance to sit down with D/P candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Cassandra Gekas to ask what final message she would like voters to take with them to the polls.

Cass has been an extremely “hands-on” candidate throughout the campaign, preferring to spend the extra minutes with individual voters to reach them with her policy concerns rather than hitting large numbers in broad strokes.  An advocate by nature, Cass never wastes a chance to make her case for healthcare reform and the kind of initiatives that will make Vermont a more affordable environment for families.

Coupled with modest fundraising returns and a working woman’s limited resources, this intensely personal approach to the campaign trail has made her journey to the Lieutenant Governor’s seat more challenging; but Cass believes the reward is more than worth that effort, as she sees an opportunity in the traditionally light-weight position to transform it into a dynamic platform from which to advocate for the working family.

As Cass very reasonably argues, one of the key differences between the current, very part-time, Lt. Governor, Phil Scott, and herself is her willingness to treat the office as a full-time position, commanding all of her attention and energy for the tenure of her service.  She points out that, while Mr. Scott is well known and appreciated for his other pursuits, including business and racing; he is, in fact, juggling three “jobs” at once and must divide his attentions proportionately. His initiative in office has therefore been negligible.

There is a fundamental difference in where each candidate sees economic opportunity for the state.  Phil Scott adopts the GOP position with regard to financial benefit “trickling down” from above, with emphasis on tax-breaks for the wealthy and large corporations.  While this may have been a plausible argument thirty years ago, it has since been well-tested and proved a spectacular failure.

Unlike the Republican meme that frames Vermont as a liability to unload on some reluctant corporate suitor, who can only be enticed through bribery,  Cass takes the position that people settle in the state willingly, because they are attracted to the  values and the quality of life here.  

That people who have a choice of where to live are choosing Vermont in significant numbers is evidenced by the fact that the mean income in Vermont is relatively higher than in other states.  Undeterred even by the weather, they are, on the whole, willing to contribute a little more to maintain the quality of life that has attracted them to the state.

According to Gekas, where we have the greatest opportunity to improve the economics of the state is by supporting working families, who are the backbone of a consumer economy and the engine that drives productivity.  If affordable healthcare, quality childcare and early education become the priorities with which the state is branded, the effect will be felt as an invitation to prosper here, attracting both big business investment and skilled labor.

If our families are strong, Vermont will be strong.

Using an example from her own experience working with Hunger Free Vermont to extend Food Stamp assistance, she illustrates how helping families helps the economy.

Every dollar that comes into the state in Food Stamps generates $1.84 in economic activity.

That is where she says the state should be focussing its energy.  A dollar in the pocket of someone who is earning minimum wage will do far more to stimulate the economy than one saved by a wealthy person in tax breaks.

Phil Scott and his GOP cohorts worry only about whether or not the numbers work to cultivate the loyalty of out-of-state CEO’s, making deals on tax breaks for the wealthy.  But, first of all, says Gekas, the numbers, have to work for the families who live here.

She says we should be more worried about cultivating the loyalty of the employees, who will want to stay here and build a prosperous future for the state.

She characterizes Phil Scott’s position as “reactive,” whereas she promises to be a “proactive” Lieutenant Governor.

This inclination to be proactive seems to have played a compelling roll in her personal story.

Driven from an early age by the desire to be a “vehicle for change” in the lives of working families, Cass Gekas matured into the tireless workhorse she is today.  

From her experience in the Statehouse as a policy advocate, she took away the lesson that, even when equipped with the most compelling arguments, you can’t win support on an issue without the numbers.  So she returned to school to add mastery of economics to her toolbox.  Echoing D/P candidate for auditor Doug Hoffer, Gekas says that she has become “a numbers person.”

When all is said and done, Cass Gekas says she is committed to a lifetime of public service in Vermont.  Expect to see a lot of initiative from this dynamic agent for change in the coming years.