The Vermont Senate underwent a test of character this week. Most of that body proved equal to the task.

It’s not a perfect resolution as far as this Franklin County constituent is concerned, since it leaves us with only half of our allotted representation while taxpayers remain on the hook for Norm McAllister’s salary; but given the deficiency of guiding precedent, this was the best outcome that one could expect.

Even now, if McAllister is as concerned about his county’s representation as he claims to be, he could simply resign, allowing another Franklin County resident to fill the vacancy.

True to his selfish pattern, he refuses to do so, BECAUSE, he insists, he has done nothing wrong.

As Mr. McAllister draws down his salary and awaits his day in court, two glaring deficits present themselves.

First is the complete absence of legislative guidelines for dealing with an ethical crisis such as that which McAllister’s legal situation thrust upon his constituency.

I hope we can trust that this experience has convinced even the most reluctant senators that there is a real need to develop an ethics policy with specific guidelines, swift remedies and meaningful consequences to deal with those who grossly compromise the public trust.

It must be made very clear that legislative ethics are a matter quite apart from the course of criminal law; and that behaviors that may not rise to the level of criminal liability may still be determined to be in violation of the legislators’ oath of office, and therefore automatically disqualifying.

The second deficit is in public awareness that there may be a rural culture of sexual abuse out there in little old Vermont that isn’t paid nearly enough attention.

We’ve heard a lot about “rape culture” on college campuses and football teams, but the fact that Mr. McAllister regards himself as a social conservative but doesn’t even seem to understand that forced sex is assault, says a lot about the culture that enabled him, then elevated him to high office.

As I have said over and over again, a man doesn’t just wake up one day, at the age of sixty, and begin a life of sexual assault.

I’ve heard the whispers about one farming patriarch or another whose attitudes toward women are eye-raising, or even hair-raising.

This is the first time, in my memory at least, that the consequences have made headline news. One can only hope that the McAllister story will prompt Vermont journalists to investigate what shaped his attitudes toward women and sexual relations, and how widespread those attitudes may be.

Norm McAllister may claim that Franklin County residents want him to stay, but I believe  reality is quite to the contrary. GMD reader and occasional contributor, Paula Schramm, a Franklin County resident, sent me a reply she wrote to a letter  that recently appeared in the St. Albans Messenger, and I wanted to share it with our broader Vermont public:

“Esther Fitzgerald asked if Sen.McAllister could receive a fair trial if the Vermont Senate Rules Committee suspends him from the Senate. ( Thurs.,12/17 ) The answer is yes, of course. This happens commonly enough when a teacher, police officer, or other official is suspended while an alleged crime or abuse of power is resolved. Often the person is suspended with pay, as would be the case here….which implies no prejudgement whatsoever.

I’ve already written about my feeling that Norm McAllister should absolutely be presumed innocent of the serious charges against him until he has been able to have his day in court. No question about that.

The Senate has to wrestle with the whole picture : has the behavior he already admits to made him less than able to adequately represent his constituents ? Will the time and energy consumed by being at trial do the same ? Will the effort of expelling him (so that adequate representation be given to Franklin County constituents through appointing them a new Senator for this one session ), actually be so disruptive that the legislative session itself is ruined for all Vermont citizens ? Would the questioning involved in an expulsion hearing jeopardize the fairness of the trial ? Probably, given all the alternatives, the idea of suspension with pay would be the least bad choice that anyone has with current legal options. And, yes, lawmakers : we need more options ! Change the VT Constitution and give citizens the power of recall !

It’s become clear that Sen. McAllister is determined NOT to do the right thing and step down, to give his full attention to the very serious charges that he faces, and to allow someone to be appointed who can provide good representation.

So my gloves are coming off. The victim here is not Sen.McAllister, as he wants us to feel, with his complaint of feeling “kicked in the head” by his fellow Senators over a possible suspension. We , the people of Franklin County are victims, most of us so far patiently uncomplaining, of not being able to have real representation this legislative session. If the suspension goes through, we have only one Senator instead of the two we should have.

AND, if Sen.McAllister manages to stay on, we are stuck with someone representing us who will be spending much of his attention through February and March dealing with a trial. Someone who puts his own needs ahead of his responsibility towards those who elected him and pay him.   Someone who has made some shockingly poor decisions in recent years:

1) as a much older person, with considerable power and influence, in a public position with much responsibility, choosing to have sex with a sixteen-year-old employee of his, behavior which would have gotten him immediately fired had he been a teacher, and for very good reason.

2), choosing to have sex not only with an employee, but also a tenant, who were in positions of vulnerability, in which he had financial power over them.

3), choosing to bring this employee, with whom he’d had sex since she was sixteen, to the State House with him to serve as his intern, to have her room with him, and to continue to have sex with her, but as a secret, not as an open relationship.

There are so many things wrong with this picture ethically that I simply want to point out that it makes me feel nauseous enough not to want to speak with Norm McAllister about my legislative concerns or how, as his constituent, I would like him to vote on things. How can he “represent” me, if I am loathe to approach him because of behavior that he admits to, and makes no apologies for ?

I am certain that many of his constituents feel that same difficulty, including many women, and many parents of young and teenage daughters, along with grandparents of daughters. In other words, a lot of his constituents…..

And for sure I would NOT have voted for him, no matter what his political beliefs, if I had known about his behavior before the election. I’m sure that’s true for many. Norm McAllister says he has constituents that support him, and are considering bringing suit against the Senate if they vote to suspend him.

But he has not acknowledged hearing also from those who have asked him to resign. He has complained about the unfairness of being prejudged because supposedly people always side with ‘the women’. But he hasn’t taken any responsibility for the downright wrongness of actions he already has admitted to.

We, the citizens of Franklin County , shouldn’t have to depend on the Senate trying to figure out how to save their dignity while at the same time protecting our right to adequate representation. Clearly they could use an ethics committee that gives them some guidelines, and they should figure out how to do ” suspension ” and “expulsion”, so that they have a clue if there’s a next time. Meanwhile we need the power to recall a legislator we don’t feel can represent us anymore, and to have a new election…. and that needs a constitutional change.”

The state Auditor’s Office has come up with a pretty good way to address some of the state’s budgetary woes without pinching the poor: restore competitive bidding practices on state contracts so that taxpayers get more value for their money and more Vermont businesses may benefit from state patronage.

Auditor Doug Hoffer has a habit of shining the bright light of performance scrutiny into cobwebbed corners of state bureaucracy where he routinely identifies  inefficiency, waste and cronyism. With his latest report, he may have struck the motherlode: no-bid state contracts.

His report to the Agency of Administration is aptly titled” Sole Source Contracts: Extraordinary Use in Ordinary Times.”

“The high frequency of sole source contracts reviewed for this analysis raises questions about the effectiveness of the State’s contract management,” Auditor Hoffer said. “The State’s longstanding policy to competitively bid for contracts is meant to ensure taxpayers receive the highest values for their contracted dollars and Vermont businesses are afforded an equal opportunity to obtain contracts.”

There are many things about our intimate little state with its small town culture that are very much to the benefit of us all. But when informality in public agencies segues into undisciplined sourcing habits, the cost to taxpayers can be enormous.

After looking at the procurement practices of just five agencies and departments (Agency of Education, Agency of Human Services Central Office, Department of Buildings and General Services, Dept. for Children and Families, and the Department of Vermont Health Access) it was the conclusion of the Auditor’s office that “sole sourcing,” or contracting goods and services on a no-bid basis is, overall, not the exception but rather the rule.

According to contracting guidelines, contracts to supply the state are, as a rule, to be awarded through a competitive bidding process in order to ensure that taxpayers get the best value for their investment.

“Sole sourcing” is to be resorted to only in emergencies or in exceptional circumstances when only one source is qualified to supply the goods or services required by an agency.

To assess how frequently the five agencies and departments employed sole source practices, we took a snapshot by accounting for all contracts that commenced in fiscal year 2015 (FY15). We reviewed a total of 764 contracts for the five agencies, carrying a total value of $343.3 million…Of those contracts, 41% were sole-sourced. That translates to $158 million, or 46% of the total contract value, that was sole-sourced.16

The worst offender of the five agencies studied was the Agency of Education, which “sole sourced” the majority of its contracts, and showed the highest dollar value for its sole-sourced contracts, but all five relied on sole sourced contracts much more than one would expect under the contracting guidelines.
The Auditor’s Office made allowance for extenuating circumstances that, in some cases explained the high volume of sole sourced contracts; but overall, there seems to have been a distinct lack of justification.

Reasons provided by the agencies when required to explain their default to sole sourcing were often highly deficient; even, in the case of DCF practices, described in the report as “Phantom:”

“A ruling issued by the Health Care Finance Administration in 1996 prevents the department from securing Medicaid services by competitive bid,” DCF’s Deputy Commissioner wrote in memos from 2009-2015. “Therefore it is my intention to enter into sole source contracts with the existing providers for a period up to four years.”   A search of past rulings of the federal administration yielded no results that would prevent the State from competitively bidding for these services. We asked DCF for documentation associated with said 1996 ruling, and the department was unable to provide it.   Upon checking with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Auditor’s Office was told:  “Typically, to assure economy and efficiency of provider rates, we allow states to use competitive bidding to subject rates to market forces.”

Claims that contracts were sole sourced due to time constraints appear to have been more often a matter of agencies neglecting to address projects in a timely manner than any legitimate emergency which could justify the practice.
The Auditor’s report stops well-short of implying systemic corruption, but it isn’t difficult to see a parallel between these statewide practices and the similar preferential treatments at the most local level with which many of us are all too familiar: the selectboard member who sells fill to the town at a higher than market price; the cushy administrative job that is suddenly created and filled by a member of a prominent family with no trace of a formal search process. No doubt most GMD readers have their own local tales to tell.

Corruption is the easiest offense to commit and the hardest to discover.

Much of the questionable sourcing practices discussed in the Auditor’s report are probably more a result of poor habits, sloppy management, and the ‘good ol’ boys’ effect than any considered effort to defraud.

The end result is, however, potentially very costly to taxpayers and, once exposed,  embarrassing for the agencies involved.

If the report is received by the agencies as it should be, it will be embraced as their opportunity to deliver better value for all of us…thanks to Hoffer and his team.

It’s December 10, and even though Norm McAllister was arrested for sexual predation at the Statehouse way back in April, he is still free to represent himself as the senior senator for Franklin County, effectively victimizing all of us, his constituents.

Shame on you, Norm McAllister; and shame on those senators who won’t lift a finger to revoke your Senate privileges.

According to Seven Days a significant number of Vermont senators now appear either to be unwilling to expel Norm McAllister based on the public record of his conduct, or say they need “more information.”

Many in that number still seem to be unaware of the difference between Mr. McAllister’s right to a fair trial and his privilege to represent the people of Franklin County within the guidelines of his oath of office. He as much as admitted to being in violation of that oath, which promises to protect his constituents, when he was recorded saying to one of his sexual assault victims,

“I knew I was forcing you to do something you didn’t want to do … I knew that you didn’t really want to do that.”

What additional information could one possibly need in order to conclude that he is in clear violation of his oath?

Now, even some senators who initially said they would vote for his expulsion, including Franklin County’s only other senator, Dustin Degree, are backpedalling:

Sen. Dustin Degree (R-Franklin) was among those who told Gram last summer that he’d vote to expel McAllister, with whom he shares a two-member district. But now that he’s learned how “murky” such a process might be, the St. Albans Republican says his position has “evolved” to undecided.

‘Sounds like weasel words to me. There is nothing ‘evolved’ about failing to protect the vulnerable.

The idea of a “suspension,” pending the outcome of the trial, has been suggested; but even that gets surprisingly little Senate support, according to Seven Days.

Suspension might have more appropriately been applied some eight months ago, immediately following the shocking revelation in the Messenger that States Attorney Jim Hughes had recorded the above statement and worse in telephone conversations between McAllister and two of his victims.

We are no longer talking about grey areas of “he said/she said.” That ship has sailed, and one can only wonder why there is still so much hesitancy  in the Senate about doing anything to defend the interests of the people of Franklin County in general. As things now stand, his constituents are only being dis-served by McAllister; especially the vulnerable female constituents whom McAllister victimized.

Now, a new layer of intrigue has been added to the controversy. Discussions are apparently already underway concerning what to do about McAllister, but the press and public have not been privy to those proceedings.

Seven Days made a standing request last spring to be notified directly of all Rules Committee meetings after the panel met secretly to discuss the creation of an ethics committee.

Once again, no allowance was made for  Mr. McAllisters’ long-suffering constituents who might have appreciated the opportunity to listen in.  Even the press has been rebuffed.

The Senate Rules Committee, which is vetting the various proposals, met last month in the Senate cloakroom to try to find consensus. Leadership notified all 30 senators about the meeting, but not the public nor the press, and did not list it on the legislature’s website.

Secretary of State Jim Condos (D) disagrees with Senate Pro-Tem John Campbell’s (D)defense: that the Senate and House are exempt from Vermont’s open meeting laws.

I’ve heard a lot of concern expressed by senate members about the precedent an expulsion would set, but precious little about how waffling on such an outrageous abuse of elected power, (and of women in particular) betrays the progressive values for which Vermont is known.

No one…absolutely no one, has asked the people of Franklin County whether they are comfortable with a confessed sexual predator claiming to represent them. We have a right to be asked, we have a right to be heard; and we have a right to hear deliberations on this matter of local representation, that currently are being conducted behind closed doors, 64 miles away.  Senate members may have weakened in their resolve to see him gone, but I, and I would guess, the majority of my Franklin County neighbors have not.

All of the secrecy just adds to a suspicion I’ve heard rumored around here, that others at the Statehouse were aware at least of the inappropriate “relationship” between McAllister and his teenaged “intern” and themselves fear exposure in the course of an expulsion process.

Surely Mr. Degree, having teamed closely with McAllister for several years now, should have all the information he could possibly need to say the man has to go.

Scandal feeds on secrecy. There is a sense that Mr. McAllister’s dirty little secrets may belong to a larger culture of questionable ethics at play in Montpelier, and the senators’ reluctance to discipline McAllister or see meaningful consequences attached to electoral misbehavior may come from a place of squalid self-interest.

It’s time to open the windows and let the sun shine in.