John Kasich’s presidential campaign that is. Former Governor Jim Douglas has officially endorsed John Kasich and joined his Vermont Leadership Team. Douglas joins Vermont State senators Peg Flory (R-Rutland), Kevin Mullin (R-Rutland), and Rich Westman (R-Lamoille) who signed on to the Ohio Governor’s campaign earlier.
In his statement Douglas said: “Among the candidates left standing, only John Kasich demonstrates the leadership ability needed in the Oval Office. From balancing the budget in Washington to turning Ohio’s economy around, he knows how to solve problems and he knows how to bring people together.”
Before becoming governor Kasich was a Newt Gingrich Republican in Congress for nineteen years, with a brief spell prior to becoming governor earning big bucks at Lehman Brothers (before they went belly-up).
Curiously Kasich says if elected president he would try to reunite Pink Floyd for a concert.
(What is it with Republicans and walls?)
And how about that record the Ohio Governor has that Douglas admires? In brief here are four items thinkprogress.com singled out from his time as Governor.
~ Enacted sweeping tax cuts that devastated Ohio’s poor.
~ Signed a budget that included restrictive anti-choice measures.
~ Dealt a blow to labor by supporting pro-business legislation.
~ Pushed through charter school reform while ignoring failing schools.
“John Kasich is nowhere near as likable or as moderate as he makes out, and I think it won’t take long for that to become apparent in this campaign. He’s a flash in the pan,”
Sounds as if Jim Douglas has lot in common with Governor Kasich — except the Pink Floyd thing.
But who’s gonna tell Donald Trump and Ted Cruz they lost Governor Douglas’ and Vermont State Sen. Peg Flory’s coveted endorsement?
Republican gubernatorial candidate Phil Scott will attend, according to his published schedule the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation community meeting for residents of Bennington, North Bennington, and Shaftsbury.
When the PFOA well contamination first came to light, Lt. Gov. Scott initially referred to the contamination as a “spill” and did not mention monitoring private or public wells and only suggested“We should start by helping municipalities upgrade systems to prevent spills of raw sewage and untreated wastewater.”
I’d be surprised if Scott has any legislative recommendations to propose that might help prevent a disaster like this happening to Vermont families. That is because the Lt. Gov. had a chance in 2015 to improve regulation of toxic chemicals and chose not to.
Scott cast a tie breaking vote last session in the legislature that killed a bill designed to expanded existing rules governing chemicals allowed in children’s toys. The lieutenant governor said he sided with the business community, which opposed the changes, so as not to create uncertainty for them.
No small irony then that he is on the road today to campaign …err I mean to visit a community suffering from toxic chemical exposure. I wonder if Scott would go back and change his veto on chemicals in children’s toys -or maybe he just hopes voters won’t look back too far at his record on chemical regulation.
Reports are, as you might expect, that Vermont pols are working hard to put a little sunlight between themselves and alleged EB-5 ponzi artists Bill Stenger and Ariel Quiros. It will prove a little harder for some than others.
Early on in the EB-5 saga, in October 2009 Governor Jim Douglas went on a junket to South Korea with Stenger and Quiros . While there, according to a press release at the time, he facilitated the first EB-5 investor seminar for the now-failed AnC Bio as part of his economic development mission to Asia.
Will former Governor Douglas try to blur it away even though he had a front row center seat?
Vermont.gov press release: “On behalf of the people of Vermont, I want to welcome AnC Bio VT to Vermont,” Douglas said while at the AnC plant in Seoul. “This is an exciting opportunity that can bring hundreds of high-tech, good paying jobs to our state.” — Gov. Douglas 2009 [vermont.gov noted that pictures were available for the press]
It was not until late 2004, because of improved C.I.S. [U.S.C.I.S.] efforts and the renewed commitment by our state officials led by Governor Jim Douglas, that the program became truly functional from our perspective in Vermont.
#1 Left to right: Congressman Peter Welch, Bill Stenger, Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Gov. Peter Shumlin, Ariel Quiros and William Kelly. #2 Left to right: Bill Stenger, Ariel Quiros and William Kelly
Yesterday, Miami lawyer Michael Goldberg was appointed by the SEC as the receiver to oversee and administer the assets of Q-Resorts’ EB-5 projects, now under a cloud of federal and state fraud charges.
The choices and arrangements made by Attorney Goldberg on behalf of the SEC as receiver will have big impacts on Vermont’s NEK. And after a ton of litigation wallows its way through the courts, and depending on the outcome of those legal proceedings, the receiver is tasked to recover and protect funds and other assets the defendants have obtained in connection with the fraud and to distribute those assets to injured investors if a determination of liability is made.
And Michael Goldberg, Q-Resort’s SEC appointed receiver, has managed some of the largest Ponzi scheme liquidation recoveries in U.S. history, according to his bio.
A notable one he manged was as Trustee of the Louis J. Pearlman and Transcontinental Records estates also known as Lou Pearlman’s twenty-year Ponzi scheme.
Pearlman, aka the “Svengali behind the ’90s boy-band craze,” created and managed the Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC. Pearlman was convicted of defrauding investors to the tune of $300 million by creating an airline and airline service company which did not exist. He tried to flee, but was caught on the run in Indonesia and brought to court.
Now, thanks to a simple twist of fate, the SEC (and indirectly to Carlo “Charles” Ponzi), Bill Stenger and Ariel Quiros share more with NSYNC’s Justin Timberlake than ever dreamed possible.
Well, well, well, here we have Bill Stenger and Ariel Quiros’ EB-5 NEK Empire suffering a full SEC body slam.
The SEC and the state of Vermont allege misuse of $200 million of investor funds by Jay Peak Inc. owners Stenger and Quiros.
‘‘The alleged fraud ran the gamut from false statements to deceptive financial transactions to outright theft,’’ said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
In Miami, a federal judge granted the SEC’s request to temporarily freeze Quiros’ assets and prohibit Quiros and Stenger from participating in projects associated the EB-5 program while the litigation is pending. A receiver has been appointed to oversee the Jay Peak and Q Burke resorts.
The allegations specifically suggest what many Vermonters have suspected for quite some time, that the massive NEK EB-5 developments were being run as a “Ponzi” like scheme.
VtDigger.com has the best rundown of yesterday’s seizure and today’s news about SEC: that charges were laid out in a federal court case in Miami, where Quiros lives. Digger has had an eye on this story and one reporter was asked to leave a meeting on Q-Burke property a couple weeks ago before the SEC charges.
It seems that nothing as complex or exotic as credit default swap contracts or complicated derivatives trading took place here in Vermont – just an old fashioned Ponzi scam. Pay the first investors off with money from the next batch of investors – just rinse and repeat as needed. It is kind of a quaint old scam really, except that it played so heavily on the hopes of NEK residents for jobs, decent development and an improving economic outlook for the historically depressed area.
Among one of the interesting charges in terms of convergence is that Ariel Quiros allegedly bought one of Donald Trump’s condos at Trump Place in Manhattan with funds from foreign investors. Trump himself has an approved EB-5 luxury hotel development in Jersey City, just a few miles from Quiros’ condo at Trump Place – maybe he can see it from his balcony.
Oh and Q-Burke won an award this week too!
Business Facilities, an online trade magazine, just named Q-Burke one the three most successful business achievers in cluster developments in the US for 2016. They got it half right, clusterwise: – it is likely to become known as one of the state’s award winning financial cluster-f#*ks.
Does this sound familiar to you? You’re quietly reading news articles and blogposts when suddenly, very loudly, an ad blares from your computer. You look all over the screen to try and find the sneaky link that you have inadvertently triggered, but fail to see one.
So you sit there fuming for the duration…not listening, just fuming. At the close of the seemingly endless interruption, you hear “…Paid for by Bruce Lisman for Governor, blah, blah, blah…”
That’s right: like the ubiquitous “Kilroy” in WWII, Lisman was here.
Bad idea, Mr. Lisman. No one likes those annoying pop-ups, and fewer than no one can tolerate their audio counterpart.
Whoever sold you this bill of goods must be working for the other side.
Whatever it said (and I honestly didn’t hear a word as I furiously looked for the ‘off’ button), the message it unmistakably carried was that Mr. Lisman has more dollars than sense, as my dad used to say.
Why would anyone support a man for governor who can’t respect their online privacy?
Lt. Gov. Phil Scott (R), Senator Dick Mazza (faux D) and Senate president pro tem John Campbell (D) are the powerful Senate Committee on Committees. The C of C’s is the three member Senate group charged with choosing senate committee assignments, chairs of committees and “personnel,” as Campbell says.
But the band is breaking up. John Campbell announced he will not seek re-election but will take a job as executive director with the legislatively created Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. One duty of the executive director is to represent the group’s views to the legislature. Lt. Gov. Phil Scott will be moving out and/or up depending on the results of his run for governor. And who knows what “king maker” Dick Mazza may have in store for the next session.
On occasion in the past their collective wisdom has been questioned. The chairman they put in place as the head of the Senate Natural Resources Committee several years ago was what you might politely call unsure about climate change.
However, due to some end-of-session senate resignations that opened up committee seats last week, the gang of three was able to raise some eyebrows and hackles yet again with their unilateral decision making — maybe for the last time.
After a brief consultation with each other, Campbell, Scott and Mazza elevated Sen. Dustin Degree, (R-Franklin) from Senate Education to the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Then they named Degree’s Committee replacement without consulting or notifying Ed. Committee Chair Sen. Ann Cummings of their choice of “personnel.”
The Committee on Committees is in charge of “personnel,” as Campbell describes it, and does not hold public meetings. Decisions are often made unilaterally by the close-knit group of three men.
And in this instance, there actually was no meeting to vote on the matter — the decision was made in casual conversation before the Friday Senate session.
Campbell happened to be talking to Scott in front of Senate Transportation where Mazza is the chair and the subject came up. Scott then talked with Mazza and the deed was done.
“We made these appointments through individual conversations with each other over the past few days,” Scott said in a written statement. “It’s difficult to find a time when all three of us can meet, so we talk in pairs until we come to an agreement. No formal committee vote is needed, simply an agreement on the appointment between the three of us.”
Just more of that olde time, good ol’ boys’ we-know-what’s-best-for-Vermont style that comes so naturally to these three. So good they don’t even bother with a smoke-filled room!
Phil Scott opened his run for governor by declaring: “I saw a need for a leader who could bring people together.” His history with Mazza and Campbell on the Committee on Committees says otherwise.
Unlike stocks, in Scott’s case, past performance may well predict future behavior: if elected governor, he will likely prefer to make his important decisions behind closed doors, just as he’s done here.
Well, isn’t this nice? The boys on the Committee of Committees, all three of them, had a huddle and decided to put Dustin Degree onto the Finance Committee. That’s gubernatorial candidate Phil Scott, resigning Senate Pro-Tem, John Campbell and reliable blue-dog, Dick Mazza.
Don’t ask to see a record of the deliberations. There isn’t one. Just three good ol’ boys making it work…for them.
Guess whose going out stumping for Phil Scott, other than Dick Mazza whose allegiance is already a matter of public record?
Look for a dutiful DD to hit the election trail with Scott…and maybe even a surprise appearance from good-buddy Campbell.
We, in Franklin County have some serious doubts about Dustin Degree’s judgment, following the Norm McAllister debacle; and they will no doubt be raised in the heat of the election campaign. McAllister and Degree campaigned in tandem in the last two election cycles, often appearing joined at the hip.
If we are to believe he had no idea of McAllister’s penchant for predatory sex, even after his teenaged ‘intern’ repeatedly accompanied McAllister on his overnights in Montpelier, it is difficult to understand how Degree’s powers of observation and simple judgment should not be suspect, too.
So when a vacancy opened on one of the most desirable committees in the statehouse, how is it that Degree sprang so quickly to mind for the gang of three?
Surely there is someone in the senate who has a more impressive record of good judgment than has McAllister’s sidekick.
How’s that ethics committee coming along, Boys? Is it going to be seated in a similar manner?
Vermont’s specialized captive insurance businesses just got a gift in the form of a tax break from the State legislature. Captives are registered to be run out of Vermont, a few US states, Cayman Islands, Malta and Panama. The company we keep.
Now wouldn’t you think if a legislator gave out a break it would make headlines? Well this one will get a few, but likely most of them only in the sheltered world of corporate captives.
Vermont lawmakers Friday gave final approval to legislation to clarify that certain types of captives, such as sponsored and industrial insured captives that are not writing any business be allowed to enter a dormant status, exempting the captives from Vermont’s minimum annual premium tax.
The measure, H. 538, also allows for cells to be converted from a protected cell to an incorporated cell, allows cells to be transferred or sold, and allows cells to be converted to stand-alone captives of any type.
Vermont regulators provide a host of advantages to large corporations and wealthy families that form captives for modest licensing fees a small tax on premiums. But its tough to compete with Panama and Malta for business .So now with this “house cleaning” legislation, the state is exempting their annual premium tax in some situations–discounting revenue the state would otherwise get from the captives.
Corporations not only lower their insurance costs by forming captives but gain tax shelters and special tax benefits for them. A year ago the IRS took notice and placed some captive insurance on their “Dirty dozen” list of abusive tax scams. Commenting on corporate tax shelter benefits, a lawyer specializing in captives said:“[…] those are the icing on the cake – the cake is the numerous other non-tax advantages of captives”
But this cozy type of regulatory accommodation – tax break and rule adjustment on request is exactly what JV at the VPO says Republican candidates Phil Scott and Randy Brock want to promote here in Vermont.
And Phil Scott is fond of saying“Imagine if we had a governor’s office that treated every sector in the same way”
For those who may have forgotten or may not know: A captive insurance business is a specialized company set up by (and captive to) a larger business to handle their own liability risk insurance needs. Essentially, an enterprise forms and manages its own insurance company as a subsidiary, and the enterprise’s other operating subsidiaries purchase insurance from the captive.
Nice business if you can get it or make it — and get the state legislature to “protect” its benefits from the state’s own tax laws. And who is on the hook for every dime these “captives” don’t pay in taxes? Why, of course! It’s the rest of us taxpayers.
Utah millionaire David R. Hall answered questions from Vermonters by phone on Saturday to tell locals about his NewVista project he plans for that area. Nicole Antal who writes for the online events and news publication DailyUV researched and broke this story last week. She has a rundown of Saturday’s Q & A session here and they provide an audio file of it here. [correction note:Hall answered questions from a Tunbridge Library forum by phone. The diary was changed to reflect that, BP]
The NewVista project,as described in a planning document [link paragraph five], will be what they call “a massively scalable and sustainable community econosystem.” And it is well worth a glance at the details :
When individuals come to a NewVista community, they will deposit their intellectual assets and cash with the community capital fund (except for operating cash, which will be deposited into an account at the community’s approved bank), receiving legal instruments acknowledging the deposits.
Hall, a Mormon, has bought hundreds of acres of land near the birth place of Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith in Sharon Vermont. Some spill-over development will occur in Tunbridge, Strafford and Royalton.
At Saturday’s meeting local residents asked thoughtful questions and Hall answered openly. It also seemed from Antal’s report Hall explained what was going to happen, not to ask what the residents might want to happen to their town.
Like some kind of 21st century utopian-engineer-colonialist, Hall is determined to plunk down his 15,000- to 20,000-resident city-state in four upper White River Valley towns. The impact shouldn’t be underestimated. The size and scale to the rest of the state is notable: one local resident made the point that only three cities in Vermont have populations that large or larger than his NewVista city.
Here are a couple quick takeaways .
NewVista may, according to Hall, take upwards of half a century to complete, but it is a process, starting sooner rather than later. So heads-up. His ideal time frame: “Within 15 years, I hope to do multiple districts throughout the US in different places.” Curiously and without explanation he mentioned at the meeting that Vermont wasn’t part of his initial plan.
One thing is clear: Hall’s NewVista dream is well funded. NewVista is “a for-profit trust, and pays taxes.” I am not that familiar with corporate tax structure but it is likely to complicate a small town’s existing tax structure.
And for anyone who doubts his lack of sensitivity to the local towns control I have copied part of one exchange from Antal’s DailyUV article:
Question: “You have mentioned a couple of times that you wouldn’t be interested in going forward with this if the local people weren’t interested, is that right?”
Mr. Hall: “That’s right; it’s not going to happen if people of Vermont don’t want it.”
Question: “I would suggest that instead of buying any more land that you and your family and whoever come here and meet the people and find out what we are like, and what we want, and what we don’t want
Mr. Hall: “I already know that the local people don’t want this. In time, over time, people will probably like it if they understand it. There is not one place in the United States, or even in the world where local people ever would embrace change. That’s just the logical truth.”
Question: “I assume you are local to someplace?”
Mr. Hall: “Yes I am”
Question: “What do you think about changes in your neighborhood?
Mr. Hall: “I am a much broader-thinking person than most people. Others aren’t. You can’t compare what I would think with. My neighbors hate this idea. So I can’t do anything about that.”
Question: “I might suggest that before you buy anymore properties, if you say that you are not going forward if the locals aren’t for it, then why you would continue buying more properties. What about a study?”
Mr. Hall: “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it if the locals aren’t for it. I said I won’t do it if VERMONT is not for it. (…) It’s not rational to expect a local person who is established, a 7th generation or something, to ever support this. That’s unreasonable. “
If I lived in Sharon or any surrounding town that exchange would sound more than a few alarms. Hall admits locals probably don’t want his city/state, but that’s because he is a “broader thinking person.”
David Hall at the wheel of a Vanderhall vehicle, made by a NewVista enterprise.
The locals, he says, probably will like it once they understand it. Do you suppose this would be after they sell or after they are enlightened to his vision?
David Hall says local opposition is not rational. I’d guess he believes resistance is “feudal.”
