Category Archives: local/regional

Thursday insta-diary

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Here’s something quick with a chart and a Vermont connection.wolrd_military_spending_barchart_large

In an editorial Monday titled: A Better not Fatter Defense Budget the NYTimes.com suggested the time has come to take a look at throttling back US military spending. And one of the most expensive aircraft ever, the F-35 (scheduled to be based in Burlington VT 2019)caught their eye.

The Pentagon can do with far fewer than the 1,700 F-35s it plans on buying.

[…]For nearly a decade after 9/11, the Pentagon had a virtual blank check; the base defense budget rose, in adjusted dollars, from $378 billion in 1998 to $600 billion in 2010. As the military fought Al Qaeda and the Taliban, billions of dollars were squandered on unnecessary items, including new weapons that ran late and over budget like the troubled F-35 jet fighter.

Did Scott Milne just launch a run for U.S. Senate?

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Scott Milne recently sold his stake in his family travel agency and began floating serious trial balloons about running against longtime Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. In March he discussed his qualifications with vtdigger.com:

[…] you know, I’m a travel agent and I think I got a shot at taking out the longest-serving senator in Vermont history and currently the longest-serving senator in the United States,” Milne said.

He now, it seems, is exploring whether the investigations into the (alleged ) “Ponzi” scheme at Jay Peak and Q-Burke is an issue that Senator Leahy, a champion of the Federal EB-5 program, may be vulnerable on. Could it have legs for Milne?

mobbingIt seems unlikely, so we will see, but Scott Milne didn’t wait and  jumped head first into it:

“Peter Shumlin and Patrick Leahy have both displayed a lack of competence and a lack of leadership in the way the EB-5 program has been structured and managed,” Milne said, lumping Leahy in with the Democratic governor he nearly defeated in 2014. “On the federal level, I think it just wasn’t structured with auditability and transparency built into it.”

Milne may not have thought this one through. You see he and his business partner Attorney David Boise (his former college roommate and largest contributor to his failed campaign for governor) explored using EB-5 program to help finance their mixed use Vermont development.

B&M Realty and Development has been attempting to build a mixed used development, Quechee Highlands in Hartford near the intersection of Interstates 89 and 91. B&M’s project has been wrangling in the courts over regional land use regulations (one of Milne’s signature issues).

In 2009 at their own expense, B &M partners Milne and Boise joined an EB-5 road trip to Asia with then-Governor Jim Douglas.douglaseb-5Saigon  Milne must have enjoyed the trip.He returned impressed with EB-5 and sang praises to its entrepreneurial qualities without qualification.

“To me, it [EB-5] is the perfect storm of government policy capturing the best of entrepreneurial spirit,” Milne told the Valley News a week after returning from Asia. “I was pleased beyond my expectations.”

Although still hemming and hawing a bit about challenging Sen. Leahy, Milne says former Vermont Republican Party chair Jim Barnett has been advising him.

I’d think Barnett might have told Scott Milne not to tie his shoe laces together if he wants to run … or walk in the election. Penny loafers might be a safer bet for this Republican.milnescottdouglas

Phil Scott and Donald the “misguided missile”

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You might think every savvy GOP politician would have been paying attention six months ago when Republican strategist Ward Baker spelled out strategies to deal with Trump the “misguided missile.” The widely leaked National Republican Senatorial Committee memo warned Republicans to prepare and guard against collateral damage should Trump prevail and win the GOP presidential nomination.

Scott supporter Kurt Wright (R-Burlington) isn’t worried about Trump at the top of their party’s ticket harming the VTGOP. Wright is counting on what he believes is the provincial nature of Vermont voters.

Wright said. “They [voters] don’t care about the national politics. Vermonters are great at separating out what Vermonters do … as opposed to what’s going on in Washington.”

But Wright’s response kind of ignores that much of Trump’s appeal is that he claims not to be a Washington creature.

I guess putting distance between yourself and your own party’s presumptive “misguided missile” candidate is a tough task.scottwhome

At a press event Thursday Scott tried hard to keep the topic orbiting around the state budget. However only a couple days after Trump crushed all opponents in the Indiana primary, he was pressed to respond to the obvious question: Do you now or will you ever support Donald Trump for President?

Scott deserves credit for declaring he will not vote for Trump. Unlike Bruce Lisman who unbelievably says he intends to “[…] carefully evaluate Donald Trump’s candidacy and listen to what he has to say.” That leaves me more than a little curious over what on earth Trump might say to win over Lisman.

But with six months’ lead time to prepare a winning strategy for coping with Trump’s run at the White House, couldn’t Scott have done better than this?

Scott, who declared he would not vote for Trump, revealed later Thursday he has decided to write in former Republican Gov. Jim Douglas as his presidential choice in the November election.

“He’d make a great president,” Scott said about the four-term governor.

Aww, isn’t that just precious VTGOP fandom! I’m sure Jim thinks you could be a dandy Governor too, Phil! You could be the Governor Dubie Jim Douglas never had.

But it is still pretty early in the game for Scott to put down his Jim Douglas trump card — we’re not even through the primary yet! I’ll bet he’ll need to play that one a few more times before November.

RRR: Republican Robo Redundancy

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Tonight around 7:00 PM, when most households  could be expected to be attempting  a quiet dinner, I completed a phone survey, paid for by Phil Scott For Governor, four times!

The calls originated from North Troy, and I took the first ungrudgingly.  I am always happy to waste Republican dollars; and fortunately, I was planning a late dinner.

It was a “three question” survey:

Question 1:  Do you support strongly Phil Scott for Governor? Do you support him moderately? Do you support a Democrat? Are you undecided?
Question 2:  Do you strongly support Bruce Lisman for Lt. Governor? Do you support a Democrat or other candidate (or something like that)? Are you undecided?
Question 3: What is the most important issue to you? There were seven choices, some of which were dog whistles, but I chose the environment just to be perverse.

As soon as I hung-up, the phone rang again and I took the poll again; and again twice after that.   I would like to think that I wasn’t the only lucky respondent to get multiple opportunities to ding the same poll; and I would also like to believe that others like me, took full advantage of the situation to maximize obfuscation.

I hate robo calls, but it is my great pleasure to take them at the expense of the caller. I just do something else, like checking my e-mail, while they prattle-on.  Try it, you’ll like it.

In this, the year of the Trump Dumpf, we need all the devilish distraction we can get.

Candidate Phil Scott’s roundabout bid

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By now every voter in Vermont must know that Lt. Gov. Phil Scott is the longtime co-owner of Dubois Construction – a company that competes for and receives millions in state highway contracts. Considering his position as an elected official, it is surprising that this issue has only been raised a few times during his 15 years as a state senator (on the Transportation Committee) and his time as Lt. Governor.

roundaboutconflict 1Early on when Scott was about to enter the race for governor, he attempted to preclude any discussion of conflict of interest and told Vtdigger.com he would temporarily distance himself from his highway construction business, should he become governor.   “When a project he has supported as an elected official goes out to bid, Scott said he makes sure his company does not seek the contract.”

Well, one of his “quiet accomplishments over the years” (listed under ‘transportation’ on his campaign website) may conflict just a bit with that statement.

In 2005 (five years before he became Lite Governor) while serving on the Senate Transportation committee, Scott successfully lobbied U.S.Senator James Jeffords to place  a specific type of funded project  in a Federal transportation bill.

Vermont (USA) Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT) credited Vermont State Senator Phil Scott (R-Washington County) with the provision in the new federal transportation legislation adding modern roundabout projects to the list of safety improvements eligible nationwide for 100 percent federal transportation funding.

Modern traffic roundabouts are recognized safety improvements for traffic and pedestrians, and usually significantly improve intersections. They’re also pricey, so in 2005, getting the Feds to cough up 100% of the cost of building them was significant.

It also turns out Scott’s Dubois Construction Company made several attempts to get a piece of that federal roundabout funding he had arranged.

Over several years, Dubois Construction bid on at least three roundabout projects including two since he became Lt. Governor.

One bid [CONTRACT ID : 04B198] in 2008 was worth $1,388,412.00, one in 2011 worth $1,754,788.83 [CONTRACT ID : 08B126], and in 2013 (what would have been a biggie) worth $11,953,592.58 [CONTRACT ID : 78D082]

. All his bids were in the middle of the pack, but not being the lowest bid, none were awarded to Scott’s company. Taken together, the three bids would have been worth over 15 million dollars to Scott and Dubois Construction.

Up until recently, it was accepted as gospel that Vermont’s government was uniquely honest. But with the EB-5 Regional Program now under fire over Jay Peak’s alleged “ponzi scheme,” an overly active government-to-business revolving door, and finally the state Senate’s embarrassing efforts at (not) passing any ethics regulations, this bit of bogus gospel is due for a revision. One longtime Vermont commentator recently declared that “Vermont state government is still pretty squeaky clean.”  Kind of an ethical gray area — you know, like, being “sort of” honest?

At least in a ’roundabout’ way, Phil Scott may have provided a road map of how, if elected governor, his ethics will intersect with his private business interests.

Right in character: F-35 fails latest test

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Look up in the sky! It is a bird or even superman —  but not an F-35. The troubled new jet fighter scheduled to be deployed to Burlington International Airport in 2019 continued right in character — performing poorly.f35csmp1

“The Air Force attempted two alert launch procedures during the Mountain Home deployment, where multiple F-35A aircraft were preflighted and prepared for a rapid launch, but only one of the six aircraft was able to complete the alert launch sequence and successfully takeoff,” the Pentagon’s top weapons tester disclosed in written testimony to Congress on 26 April.

Under development for 15 years the F-35 program has set records burning through $400 billion of our tax dollars. Currently the cost per aircraft is estimated to be of $412 million. And after all that time and money, the results of the recent deployment test are probably the last thing supporters of deployment to Vermont –notably Senators Leahy and Sanders, Rep. Peter Welch, Gov. Shumlin, and Mayor Miro Weinberger — want to hear.

Glitches that required system and/or aircraft shutdown and restarts that prevented launches were blamed on “immature software.”

For now at least, the F-35 is a fully mature employment program for some defense contractors. Currently these aircraft at one base require 60-90 industry tech reps per squadron. And in Senate testimony just last week Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said the program needs about 2,600 people to oversee it at a cost of $70 million per year. One Senator said he had numbers indicating it was nearly 3,000 people and $300 million a year.

Now, seven years since its first flight hour, the F-35 has reached the 50,000 flight hours mark.  Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, F-35 Joint Program Executive Officer: “The next 50,000 hours will be achieved much quicker as we double the size of the F-35 fleet worldwide in the next three years alone.”

The 50,000 flight hours are comprised of two categories: System Development and Demonstration flights (SDD)  test hours (12,050) and Operational flying hours (37,950).  Therefore, the total for Operational flight hours is only 37,950 hours-about a quarter less than the total flight hours of 50,000.

When he was defending the safety of deployment to Vermont in 2013, Lt. Col. Chris Caputo said the new fighter would have 750,000 flight hours before it comes to Burlington in 2019. A lot more F-35’s will have to be flying  and an awful lot of Operational flight time (700,000) will have to be logged in three years if the Vermont Air Guard is  to receive a plane that meets that goal.

Another question for the brass hats — and the F-35 cheerleaders –how realistic (or affordable) is reaching that goal in three years considering all the “glitches” and “bugs” haunting the aircraft?

A GMD bonus fun-fact:

Lockheed Martin was the biggest federal contract in 2014, Lockheed’s Pentagon contracts alone are worth more than the federal government provides in grants to the state governments of North Dakota, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, Wyoming, Montana, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Idaho, and Alaska combined.

A new ‘Zion” for Vermont?

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Thanks to GMD reader, Jennifer Shaw for suggesting the topic and providing a timely link.

With the Q-Burke development scandal still playing out, attention should be directed toward another uber-ambitious development plan, by one David Hall of Utah, that has so far seen limited public discussion.

Here’s the latest skinny, as carried on AP:

“SHARON, Vt. — A Mormon Utah businessman who wants to build a massive, futuristic, utopia-like community in central Vermont says he’s about to buy 500 more acres of land for the project, bringing his total to about 1,400 acres.”

The plan is to build a massive community reflecting the founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints, Joseph Smith’s 1833 concept for a city called ‘Zion.’

To build this city, Hall aims to acquire a total of 5,000 acres of land in south-central Vermont. Clearly, once this current purchase is complete, he will be well on his way to the full acquisition and will have increased credibility with potential investors.

The proposed utopian development Hall envisions will include housing for 20,000 people, plus offices, gardens, forty-eight basketball courts and 48 Olympic size swimming pools! That works out to one pool and one basketball court for roughly every four-hundred residents.

With all that planned recreational real estate, I’ll bet Hall dreams of the rebellious youth of his ideal community sweating out their trouble-making on the court or in the pool.

The idea is that the community should be self-sustaining (nothing wrong with that), producing sufficient food, jobs etc. to support all the occupants. How exactly that can be accomplished is yet to be fleshed-out, but with a timeline of “several decades” to work out the details, and a whole lot of money, Mr. Hall seems to think his dream could become a reality.

I wonder what kind of local permitting conversations are going on about that now? Act 250 alone should be a formidable challenge but we’ve all seen projects that should not have, by any reasonable understanding of Act 250, been permitted under the existing laws, but somehow managed to squeak through.

We have become so accustomed to the truism that ‘growth’ is the solution to all of our problemsthat some small communities have ceased to question whether it is indeed true in their case. It’s difficult to believe that a place as lovely as Sharon could be ripe for exploitation, but that’s apparently what Mr. Hall is relying upon. After all, someone is selling him the land.

At the right price, he observed, “Everything’s for sale.”

This proposal should ring alarm bells for anyone who recognizes the importance of preserving the open spaces and village character of rural Vermont, desirable qualities that are in extremely short supply everywhere else in America.

A city incorporated under Hall’s vision would be technologically very advanced but somewhat lacking in opportunities for individuality.

“In Hall’s “city,” people would live in energy-efficient modular homes within walking distances of heavy industry, farms and a central square consisting of 24 four-story buildings. Residents would deposit their assets in a communal fund upon arrival, though they’d be free to leave whenever.”

Vermont is now the most non-religious state in the Union. We pride ourselves on tolerance, but the majority of us prefer a personal spiritual journey to one that has been organized by others.

Even though Mr. Hall insists that the community would not be religiously exclusive, it is doubtful that the arrangement would attract many people outside the Mormon faith; and such a massive new enclave of homogenity is hardly going to enrich Vermont’s already feeble diversity.

I suspect that many Vermonters will hesitate to criticize the plan, lest they appear insensitive to a religious minority, but there is much to criticize about such a huge shift in land use away from rural, low-density uses, toward intense human habitation with all the environmental impacts that accompany such a change. Lawns, gardens, swimming pools, toilets and dishwashers all take their toll on the watershed. So do acres of concrete and new roads to service 20,000 new residents.

I say ‘new residents’ because there are currently only about forty-five hundred Mormons living in Vermont, and it is unlikely that all of them wish to up-stakes and move into a planned community.

20,000 people is greater than the population of South Burlington, Vermont’s second largest city.    All of Windsor County is only 56,000 people.

I’d like to hear from our readers who live in Windsor County what their thoughts are on Mr. Hall’s plans. Is this a change you can envision for your region?

Automatic voter registration comes to Vermont

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For those (like Jon Margolis of VTDigger) who do not believe in the possibility of positive changes in the electoral process, Vermont now has a powerful rejoinder:

Automatic Voter Registration.

While other states are busy finding ways to circumvent the inconvenience of democracy by disenfranchising more and more people, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin signed into law H.458, which automatically registers to vote any driver in the state who obtains a valid driver’s license.

A measure so simple even a child might suggest it, automatic voter registration tied to driver’s licenses has only so far been adopted in Oregon, California and West Virginia (!)…and now Vermont.

At the signing, Governor Shumlin had this to say about the significance of the bill and the key role that Secretary of State Jim Condos has played in advocating for its adoption:

“While states across the country are making it harder for voters to get to the polls, Vermont is making it easier by moving forward with commonsense polices that remove unnecessary barriers and increase participation in our democracy,” said Gov. Shumlin. “I would like to thank Secretary Condos who has long championed important electoral reforms to help more Vermonters exercise this fundamental right to vote.”

To which Secretary Condos responded:

“As Vermont’s Secretary of State, I believe voting is a sacred right – one we must protect and encourage by removing unnecessary barriers. Automatic Voter Registration saves time and money, increases the accuracy of our statewide voter checklist, curbs the potential for fraud, and protects the integrity of our elections,” said Secretary Condos. “AVR saves time and money, increases the accuracy of our statewide voter checklist, curbs the potential for fraud, and protects the integrity of our elections.”

The most progressive state in the Union, Vermont already enjoys the distinction of being among the states with the highest rate of voter registration, per capita; and has permitted same-day voter registration since 2015.

Even though Automatic Voter Registration will not come into effect until 2017; when it does, it is expected to increase the volume of new voter registrations by 30,000-50,000 within the first four years of its adoption.

Now that really IS change we can believe in.

 

Get to the bottom

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It has been a busy week since the SEC locked up Q-Burke and cracked down on Stenger and Quiros’ “Ponzi like” EB-5 scheme.

One thing that has grabbed a lot of attention is a “batch” of emails from the Shumlin administration that had been slated to be deleted.  Speculation is rampant about the timing – why in early April, prior to the SEC action, this batch of correspondence was slated to be wiped.EB-5 chart 1

They reportedly may contain correspondence between Shumlin’s former staff member Alex MacLean, who was then working for Jay Peak’s Bill Stenger, and the governor’s office. Administration officials say the request to delete was routine. And they want them made public however Attorney General Sorrell is said to be reviewing the issue.

Now The Vermont House has scheduled a debate for Friday to consider a proposed resolution calling for the release of the emails, joining several candidates for governor and others requesting the contents be made available to the public.

Rep. Chris Pearson (P-Burlington), who heads the House Progressive caucus, says there’s an easy way to put to rest any lingering questions.

“I agree with a whole lot of Vermonters that something seems very fishy here,” he said. “But I’m not asserting anything. I’m saying: Show us the emails and prove it to us.”

To that end, he and four fellow Progressives have introduced a resolution asking Shumlin to deliver the emails to a House committee by May 1.

Maybe it is worth asking this: Is it more likely the email batch is simply an embarrassment (a big one perhaps) for the Shumlin administration, or could it be a smoking gun?  I’d bet on embarrassment over smoking gun. So good: “show us the emails” because the longer it hangs fire the more suspicion gathers.

But if the point is to get to the bottom of how the state allowed this Ponzi scheme to happen, why not start at the bottom rather than the top?

Not exactly the bottom, but how about at the state Agency of Commerce and Community Development(ACCD). This would be the state agency that had the schizophrenic task of promotion and oversight of approved EB-5 programs until February 2015 when oversight began to be shared actively with the Department of Financial Regulation (DFR).

The ACCD’s directors of the Regional EB-5 Center for both the Douglas and Shumlin administrations had day-to-day dealings and traveled extensively overseas in support of Jay Peak and Q-Resorts’ team.

In their designated role former Regional Center Directors James Candido (Douglas’ man) and  Brent Raymond (Shumlin’s former Director) were the faces Vermont presented to foreign investors. Their attendance at worldwide EB-5 conventions signaled Vermont‘s stamp of approval for Jay Peak /Q-Burke, helping  Stenger and Quiros gather funds.

Considering the scale of fraud alleged could state officials so familiar with the operation not have expressed some worries or had suspicions? And just what was the calculus that weighed in favor of ignoring the tell-tale signs, of favoring the developers-cum (alleged) robber barons over their responsibilities to the people of Vermont and the (alleged) foreign-investor-victims?

At some point Vermont’s  combination “watchdog” and enabling agency – going back to the Douglas daze – deserves as much or more attention than Shumlin’s batch of emails is now getting. The Regional EB-5 Center was there helping sell the snake oil from the start. What did the directors know and when might they have known it ?

Zuckerman Claims Key Endorsement

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With the New York primary, we’ve just had an object lesson in the fallibility of the national “two party system.”

What better time to celebrate the candidacy for lieutenant governor of perennial Progressive (that’s, with a large ‘P’) Senator David Zuckerman of Chittenden County, who is running as a Democrat in the primary?

And celebrate we should, since Mr. Zuckerman has just received the notable endorsement of former Lieutenant Governor Doug Racine. While a respected Democrat throughout his years in office, Racine was enthusiastically endorsed by Vermont’s Progressive Party in his own primary run against Peter Shumlin (and three others) for Governor in 2010.

Senator Zuckerman gained the endorsement of Brandon Riker, who was himself a candidate, when Mr. Riker announced his departure from the race in March.  A successful sustainable farmer, Zuckerman has also been endorsed by environmental advocate Bill McKibben.

Now, only Senator Zuckerman and Rep. Keisha Ram, also of Burlington, remain to compete for the Democratic nomination.

Boots Wardinski (P) is also running for Lt. Governor, but under the Progressive banner.

The ironic lesson in civics from the national primary race has a faint echo here in Vermont.

Senator Zudkerman has a good chance of winning the general election against Republican Randy Brock, who has already tried and failed to defend his seat as Auditor of Accounts in 2006 and lost the governor’s race in 2012. However, Zukerman shrewdly grasped that, in order to not suffer attacks for being a ‘spoiler,’ he must necessarily compete as a Democrat.

I well understand that decision because I am a big ‘P’ Progressive who counts herself lucky to be given any choice at all in the primary. I’m supporting Dave Zuckerman, not because of his party affiliation, but simply because I believe he is the best choice to defeat Randy Brock and bring some substance to the office of Lieutenant Governor that has too long been little more than a convenient staging area for Republicans contemplating a run for the roses.

Unlike current Lt. Governor Phil Scott (R), who used his opportunity as a Senate tie-breaker to kill a bill that would have protected Vermont children from toxins, we can trust David Zuckerman to put community health and the environment before corporate interests.