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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In my previous diary, I deconstructed the new independent study of a single-payer health care system in Vermont. The study posited a higher cost estimate ($1.9-2.2 billion) than did the Shumlin Administration’s study ($1.6 billion). But its conclusions rested on some very sandy soil: it was full of qualifiers with very few definite conclusions. And the purpose of the “independent” report was not to objectively assess the single-payer concept; it was to find “potential fallacies” in the Administration’s study.

But even so, its worst-case estimate wasn’t dramatically higher than the Administration’s. At least not when you compare it to the renowned “model projection” by Lenore Broughton’s favorite “expert,” Wendy Wilton.

She ballparked the cost of single-payer at “over $3 billion annually.” Her report, which is a meaty three pages long, was a red flag constantly waved by conservative Republicans in the 2012 campaign. And now a study designed specifically to poke holes in Shumlin’s plan, produced an estimate much, much lower than Wilton’s. Hmmm.  

Now, normally I wouldn’t waste time writing about a failed candidate who managed to lose badly against a novice politician (Beth Pearce) despite the virtually unlimited financial support of Lenore Broughton & Co. But Wilton is still haunting the dark corners of Republican politics; she was on the conservative slate for top party offices at last weekend’s convention, and it wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if she were to run for State Treasurer again next year.

So, let it be known on this day, November 15, 2013: the centerpiece of Wilton’s last campaign has been thoroughly, if indirectly, debunked. I do hope this will be remembered when she tries again to win the state’s top financial office.  

Also, her 2011 report is still posted on Vermonters for Health Care Freedom’s website. In light of this new information, will Darcie “Hack” Johnston’s pet cause/meal ticket do the honest thing and disavow Wilton’s report?

Nah, didn’t think so.  

So the latest news in the saga of Vermont’s health care reform effort was the presentation to lawmakers of an “independent study” on the costs of a single-payer system. It found that the administration’s estimated cost of $1.6 billion may be low: its estimate of the true cost is between $1.9 and $2.2 billion.

This made headlines across the state, and caused a few mild cases of the vapors under the Golden Dome.

But a few caveats are in order. Also, don’t believe what you saw on TV.

First off, I’ll point out that the study was done at the behest of hospital, medical, and business groups. VTDigger:

Vermont Partners for Health Care Reform – a coalition of groups that consists of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, Vermont Medical Society, the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, Fletcher Allen Health Care, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, the Vermont Assembly of Home Health and Hospice Agencies and the Vermont Business Roundtable – paid Avalere, a Washington, D.C-based research and consulting firm, to carry out an analysis.

Now, that doesn’t prove the study was flawed or slanted, but its conclusions should certainly be taken with a grain of salt. (I also have to snicker at the name “Vermont Partners for Health Care Reform,” which would more accurately be “Powerful Institutions Fearful of Health Care Reform.”)  

Then again, maybe I’m just being my cynical old self.

But let’s move on to what the study actually says about single-payer’s cost.

After the jump: a covey of “coulds,” a smoking gun, and WGOP strikes again.

The Freeploid:

• Doctors and other health care providers could see significant reductions in reimbursements, which might affect recruitment and retention.

• Hospitals also could see revenue losses based on the reimbursement scheme the administration used to explore future financing for a single-payer system.

• Health insurers already have reduced administrative expenses to a point where the projected savings of switching to a government-run system could result in negligible savings.

• Doctors still would have costs for processing insurance for out-of-state patients and those whose employers continue to offer insurance.

Please note the abundant qualifiers. “could see significant reductions… which might affect recruitment…” “could see revenue losses…” “could result in negligible savings.”

It’s all those “coulds” that add up to the extra $300-600 million. Doesn’t sound very definite to me. In fact, it might be a sign that there was, indeed, a thumb on the scale. And well, whaddya know, buried in VTDigger’s account is a big greasy thumbprint:

Vermont Partners for Health Care Reform commissioned Avalere to comb through the financing plan for “assumptions”- in other words, potential fallacies…

Oh, so it wasn’t an objective evaluation of single-payer; it was a single-minded search for flaws. Er, things that could be flaws. And, of course, they found a few.

Gov. Shumlin’s director of health care reform, Robin Lunge, was unfazed by the report, and offered a very detailed response. I won’t repeat her points here; go read ’em on Digger if you want more.

The real goal of this little dog-and-pony show is to try to slow momentum toward a single-payer system. One of the report’s authors, Bob Atlas, used the dreaded words “bold experiment” in relation to single-payer — words certain to make lawmakers dive under their desks. And, tellingly, he noted that

“The current plan may not be the only path or the most painless path to the outcomes you are looking for.”

In short, single-payer is a dangerous thing, and if you decide to chicken out, you can still declare victory.

I beg to differ. Single-payer is exactly where I want to go. That’s the point. I’d hate it if this report gives jittery lawmakers a pretext for dumping universal health care.

And now we must, sadly, turn our attention to our friends at WGOP — I mean, WCAX-TV. Its report strips away all those pesky “coulds” and presents the outside study as plain old fact, under the headline “Single-payer to cost Vt. more than first thought.”

WCAX also misrepresents the group that commissioned the report:

Consultants independently hired by the state’s hospitals… told legislators the cost is more likely to fall between $1.9 billion and $2.2 billion.

Hmm, “the state’s hospitals.” So neat, so clean. Conveniently omitting the Chamber of Commerce, the Vermont Business Roundtable, and the state’s largest health insurance company.

WCAX downplayed Lunge’s coherent, detailed critique of the report by saying that she “quibbles with some of the new report’s methodology.” Quibbles, eh? Makes it sound like she objected to the font size or paragraph spacing.

Oh, WCAX, the spirit of Marselis Parsons is strong with you.

Anyway, color me unimpressed by the report. I hope it goes away as quickly as it arrived.  

While perusing the headlines on VTDigger today, I couldn’t help noticing this photo.  

Anything jump out at you?

Something definitely jumped out at me. This:

Wow. Death stare!

Look out, Governor! Sunny Phil is fixin’ to go all Brutus on your ass.  

Late add: New evidence of Sunderland’s conservatism! See below, after the jump.

The newly-elected chair of the Vermont Republican Party, David Sunderland, took office with the backing of moderate (relatively speaking) Republicans, and with a promise to “rebrand the party, making it more palatable to moderates and independents.” There was much talk of a change in tone, an effort to be more civil in political discourse.

And then a couple days later, Sunderland issues his first press release, and damned if it isn’t straight out of the Jack Lindley playbook: wildly exaggerating a comment by Governor Shumlin and giving it the worst possible interpretation.

The comment: Shumlin said he would seek federal waivers to bring “everybody into the [insurance] pool.”

Sunderland’s interpretation: OMG OMG SHUMMY’S GONNA KILL MEDICARE AND VETERANS’ BENEFITS!!!!!!!

Governor, some will interpret that as an expression of your intent to kick Vermont’s senior citizens off of Medicare and to disallow Vermont’s honored veterans from continuing their health care coverage through Tricare.

… The Vermont Republican Party stands ready to defend our seniors and veterans against any takeover of the federal healthcare plans they currently have and enjoy.

Shumlin quickly responded, saying he had no intention of ending senior health programs in Vermont, and making it clear he appreciated the unintended irony of the accusation, since it’s usually the Republicans who bash “federal healthcare plans.”

“I’m glad you see the benefits and popularity of government-run health care programs like Medicare and Tricare, both of which cover millions of Americans regardless of their financial situation.”

Yeah, Governor, swat that fly.  

Okay, so exactly when does David Sunderland start “making [the VTGOP] more palatable to moderates and independents”? So far, it’s the same-old same-old.

Plus, it’s decidedly far removed from Phil Scott’s own position on health care, which is to try to help make reform better instead of indulging in partisan piling-on. Could this be the first crack in the “moderate” alliance?

______________________________________

p.s. My fellow GMD front-pager BP is apparently a more skillful archive-diver than I, because he uncovered some decidedly damning evidence that Sunderland is not, and has never been, a “moderate.” This comes to us from the late lamented Peter Freyne, writing way back in 2004 after then-State Rep. Sunderland had won a spot on the House GOP leadersihp team.

On first blush the new House GOP team looks like more of the same. Hube is tight with Freed’s old “inner circle” that included Reps. Judy Livingston and Patty O’Donnell.

And Sunderland is definitely in tight with the GOP God Squad. Last session, Sunderland’s first, he cosponsored a number of Sister Nancy Sheltra’s bills restricting abortion access and requiring parental notification.

Another was H. 415, which would have required public-school kids to observe a daily moment of silence while seated at their desks so those who wanted to pray could pray.

God bless us and save us!

Since health care is at the top of the Democratic agenda, we wondered what Sunderland’s views were.

We found an article he wrote a couple years ago describing Democrat Doug Racine’s call for single-payer, universal coverage, “a state run, Soviet-style, tax-funded health-care system.”

Great.

A little red-baiting will certainly liven things up.

Congratulations, J. Edgar Sunderland!

Written as only Freyne could. And while the 2013 Sunderland has (so far) abstained from red-baiting the health care issue, you can see the same Karl Rovian “hit ’em below the belt” political style.

We here at GMD look forward to more of Sunderland’s “moderation.”

(And we still wonder why nobody in our political media has produced a story exploring Sunderland’s political history and allegiances. Also, maybe someone could ask him where he stands on reproductive rights and if he still thinks single-payer is “Soviet-style”.)

They call it “the news hole.” It’s the amount of space (or airtime) you’ve got to fill. Sometimes it’s not nearly big enough; sometimes it’s a gaping maw staring you down as deadline approaches. And when that happens, it’s time to break out the Hamburger Helper and mountainize those molehills.

The titans of Vermont journalism bring us two prime examples today: The Freeploid, filling its front-page Big Story news hole with a thoroughly underwhelming story about “possible cases” of time-sheet fraud by state employees, and Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz filling most of his weekly “Fair Game” column far-fetchedly fulminating about a possible case of political nepotism that didn’t, in fact, actually happen.  

Let’s take ’em in order, shall we?

The Freeploid’s transparency bloodhound, Mike Donoghue, has conducted “a more than two-week investigation” into time sheet fraud. Well, when you spend that much time, you’d damn well better produce something. And even though Donoghue found precious little, the ‘Loid decided to put it on the front page today.

How little? Since the Jim Deeghan case broke in July 2012 — when, presumably, state officials started giving the green-eyeshade treatment to every single time sheet — the state has “investigated 21 cases of possible time-sheet fraud by employees. …Four cases have been referred to law enforcement for possible criminal invdestigation.”

Now, we’d hope the number would be zero, but let’s look at what Donoghue actually has here.  

The state has a workforce of about 8,000. There are 21 “possible cases.” By my calculator, that’s one-quarter of one percent of all state workers, or one worker out of every 400 who might have committed fraud.

But out of those 21 “possible cases,” only four — FOUR — have been referred for “possible criminal investigation.” That’s one-twentieth of one percent. The numbers are tiny, and the “possibles” are rampant.

If the state has done a thorough review of time sheets and only found four potential criminal cases, I’d call that a big fat victory for good government. Again, it’d be nice if the number was zero, but hey, this is the real world. If I ran a corporation with 8,000 employees and found only four had padded their time sheets, hell, I’d be relieved.

Beyond that, the Freeploid was severely limited in what it could report because state officials won’t release information about ongoing investigations. As they shouldn’t. Which meant Donoghue had to find something to fill that Big Story news hole. He managed to get details of one time-sheet case — so he reported every single detail of that case, which remains unproven. Donoghue, of course, names the state employee and fills roughly half of the article with every bit of information he could get.  

Which I have to say, isn’t at all fair to the employee, who has yet to be indicted, let alone convicted. If he ends up in court, then Donoghue’s coverage will have been retroactively justified. If the case washes out, then the employee will have been subjected to public disgrace for no reason other than the Freeploid’s need for a Big Story every damn day.

And now, on to the current occupier of the Peter Freyne Chair in Political Punditry and this week’s installment of “Fair Game.” “The Huntsman” fills the bulk of his news hole with a story that deserves far less.

The story in one sentence: former Vermont health care guru Anya Rader Wallack offered a job to Governor Shumlin’s daughter shortly after Wallack’s company got a no-bid consulting contract from the state.

Aha! Featherbedding!

Well, Heintz labors mightily to make it seem so. But there appears to be a lot less to the story than he’d like you to think.

Rader Wallack, as you may recall, stepped down from her state health-care job earlier this year because her family lives in Rhode Island and she couldn’t take the workweek separations and long drives anymore. Nine days after her departure, her consulting firm Arrowhead Health Analytics won a no-bid contract worth $100,000.

I’ll pause here to note a dirty rhetorical trick pulled by Heintz:

Barely a week after her departure, Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding signed a no-bid contract with Rader Wallack’s consulting firm to oversee a $45 million federal grant she had helped Vermont obtain while she worked for the state.

Wow. “Barely a week after her departure.” Smells awfully fishy, doesn’t it? But here’s the real lowdown:

Rader Wallack announced her resignation in March, with a departure date of July 31. The contract was signed on August 8. Heintz’ framing is technically true, but distorts the reality. Rader Wallack’s departure was a known fact for almost five months before the consulting contract was signed.

But aside from that, Rader Wallack was uniquely qualified to oversee the consulting contract because (a) she’s a world-class expert in the field, and (b) she was intimately involved in Vermont’s reform process from day one. If ever a no-bid contract was justified, it was here: the state could take advantage of Rader Wallack’s expertise without requiring her constant presence in Vermont.  

Now we turn to the implication of featherbedding. Heintz reports that a few weeks after Arrowhead got the contract, Rader Wallack offered an assistant’s job to Shumlin’s daughter Olivia, who’s about to graduate from Brown University.

Aha, I can almost hear Rob Roper saying. Rader Wallack gets a fat contract and hires the Governor’s daughter for a plum job! Shady Shummy at work!

Problem is, Heintz doesn’t have the goods. All he has is a timeline, which he lays out in the most pernicious possible way. Some mitigating factors:

— This is a low-level job, the kind Rader Wallack gives to “people right out of college who need experience.” Sounds like a glorified internship to me. (There’s no mention of the job’s pay grade.)

— Rader Wallack has a history of hiring politically-connected grads, including the sons of Gaye Symington and KSE Partners lobbyist Bob Sherman. You could say she’s greasing the wheels, or she may simply be hiring people she’s come to know in the course of her daily business: “Rader Wallack said she had met Olivia Shumlin several times at political events and came away impressed.”

— In the end, Olivia Shumlin didn’t take the job. Even if there was supposed to be a quid pro quo, it didn’t actually happen.

Heintz actually takes credit for that:

…in response to questions from Seven Days, Gov. Shumlin’s spokeswoman, Sue Allen, wrote in an email, “Liv is not going to work for Anya. She did receive an offer, but declined.”

Maybe the Seven Days inquiry did kill the offer. If so, then congratulations, Paul: you labored mightily and brought down a mouse.

But he still has some column inches to fill, so he goes on to muse about the possible conflicts of interest that might have happened.

It’s unclear whether state-contracting regulations would prevent a recent administration official from hiring a family member of the governor to help implement a state contract. But the state’s executive code of ethics, which was signed by Shumlin and governs him and members of his administration, would appear to bar him from using his office to advocate for such employment.

In short, the situation may or may not have run afoul of state rules, and if the Governor had pushed for his daughter to get the job, it “would appear” to be an ethical violation. But Heintz admits he has no proof whatsoever that Shumlin was actively involved at all.

After that, Heintz fills out his word count with intimations of possible backscratching. He raises a series of questions left unanswered because he doesn’t have the answers. All he has is a bunch of questions.

And even if all his hints and intimations were true, this’d be more a molehill than a mountain.

Ah, the news hole. It’s big, it’s dark, and it sucks. Hard.  

I'm not a regular reader of the Washington Post, so I was totally unaware of Richard Cohen until just yesterday. Cohen writes a column on the Post's Op-Ed page and by coincidence I heard about two of his columns within the space of a few hours.

First, the one everybody heard about yesterday. It was about Republican prospects, and particularly Chris Christie's prospects, in the 2016 presidential election. How will someone like Christie, with his personality and allegedly moderate views, in his attempt to get the votes of the Tea Party base of the Republican Party?

You can read the whole column if you want, but here's the money quote:

 People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) 

Yes, that's exactly what he said. Cohen claims that this does not represent his own personal views, and that he doesn't have to repress his gag reflex when contemplating mixed-race marriages, but he describes the holders of that gag reflex as “people with conventional views”; in other words, the norm, the mainstream of American thought.

And that's not all. I also came across, via Matt Yglesias's Twitter feed, Cohen's column about his experience watching the new movie Twelve Years a Slave. I haven't seen it yet but it's on my list. It appears to have had a real impact on Cohen and his thinking on slavery, which I suppose is a good thing.

Here's what he says about how it affected his thinking on slavery:

“… slavery was not a benign institution in which mostly benevolent whites owned innocent and grateful blacks. Slavery was a lifetime’s condemnation to an often violent hell in which people were deprived of life, liberty and, too often, their own children. Happiness could not be pursued after that.

Steve McQueen’s stunning movie “12 Years a Slave” is one of those unlearning experiences. I had to wonder why I could not recall another time when I was so shockingly confronted by the sheer barbarity of American slavery. Instead, beginning with school, I got a gauzy version. I learned that slavery was wrong, yes, that it was evil, no doubt, but really, that many blacks were sort of content. Slave owners were mostly nice people — fellow Americans, after all — and the sadistic Simon Legree was the concoction of that demented propagandist, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was a lie and she never — and this I remember clearly being told — had ventured south to see slavery for herself. I felt some relief at that because it meant that Tom had not been flogged to death.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-12-years-a-slave-and-arts-commentary-on-the-past/2013/11/04/f0e57a92-4588-11e3-b6f8-3782ff6cb769_story.html

And he goes further. For instance, he draws an explicit contrast between Uncle Tom's Cabin and Gone with the Wind. To be fair, he does call Gone with the Wind “irrevocably silly and utterly tasteless”, but what does he call Uncle Tom's Cabin? he says “Uncle Tom's Cabin was a lie.”

The word most of us would choose is a novel–you know, a story that somebody made up–but in Cohen's view it is Harriet Beecher Stowe, not Margaret Mitchell, who is the liar. I would also challenge Cohen's evaluation of Gone with the Wind: it isn't silly, it is pro-slavery, pro-Confederate propaganda, and judging by the tenacity of the Lost Cause mythology, highly effective at that job.

 Cohen eventually comes around to a recognition that slavery was not as nice as it is portrayed in Gone with the Wind, but did he really need to get to age seventy-two to find that out?

And more importantly, does the Washington Post really need somebody with such profound moral blindness writing on its pages? 

In a move reminiscent of the Nobel Committee giving its Peace Prize to a President who, at the time, presided over two wars, the Brattleboro Retreat has given its annual humanitarian award to Governor Shumlin — the man who made the Retreat the southern linchpin of his decentralized mental health inpatient system, and who, ever since, has nervously watched the Retreat’s efforts to live up to its commitment.

The Anna Marsh Lane Award, sez the Retreat, recognizes “individuals for their advocacy on behalf of people with mental illness and addiction.” Shumlin took home the award at a gala fundraiser (for the Retreat) on Saturday night.

I call it backscratching, or logrolling if you prefer, since the Gov and the Retreat have been in bed together since Tropical Storm Irene flooded out the old State Hospital. Shumlin vowed never to reopen the old facility, and laid out a plan for a radically decentralized, community-based mental health system.

(Since then, of course, he’s had to compromise his Grand Vision in two ways: he’s boosted the number of inpatient beds statewide and especially at the new State Hospital in Berlin, and he’s had trouble shaking loose the funding for the robust outpatient support that might help keep people from needing hospitalization.)  

The Retreat happily signed on to the effort, and took home a heapin’ helpin’ of post-Irene reconstruction dollars. Which gave a welcome boost to the old bottom line, but also made the Retreat’s job significantly tougher. It’s had trouble hewing to the high standards required for inpatient care of the severely mentally ill. It’s had a couple of close shaves with losing its federal certification, and there’s still uncertainty over whether it will be able to fulfill its commitments.

Giving the award to Shumlin is, like Obama’s Nobel, premature at best, ironic at worst. It’s still unclear if his revised vision will work: we’ve lived through two-plus years (and counting) of a chronic bed shortage for patients who would have gone to the State Hospital in the past, and it’s unclear whether the new system, once it’s fully up and running, will be able to accommodate the demand. Those who work in the system are basically crossing their fingers and hoping for the best.

If I were giving the Marsh Award, I’d give it collectively to everyone who’s been struggling to maintain quality of care in a horribly under-resourced situation — doctors, nurses, aides, administrators, etc. But hey, that wouldn’t have made for a nice splashy fundraiser. And it wouldn’t have allowed the Retreat to scratch the back of its most powerful supporter.  

By Ray Gonda

The rules were changed from previous meetings to favor allowing the pro-F35 faction to testify first – allegedly legitimate according to Robert’s Rules of Order,  but unethical – a complete setup from start to finish. It turned out to be a charade.

It included the chair person, Joan Shannon, creating a flyer, a counter to a fact sheet of the F-35 opponents. Her flyer was full of inaccuracies and amateurish conclusions – almost all simply false. (Opponents stick to statements documented in or derived from the EIS to be factual and maintain credibility – so her counter assertions were false.) It was widely circulated at the 11th hour, posted on the “Green Ribbons for the F-35” website,  posted on several Burlington Front Porch Forums and provided to other councilors. All this was done the day before the meeting so F-35 opponents did not have a chance to respond.

About a week to two weeks before the council meeting the opponents of the F-35 appeared to have the majority vote. However, in the previous week it became clear that the Democratic Party machine and business community from the top down put pressure on individual council members (as related to me by one councilor and to other opponents by other councilors) to toe the party line.

These wavering councilors’ floor speeches indicated their opposition to the F-35 but they also included waffling statements to balance that. It gave a definite appearance of them voting against their consciences. That was accompanied by a few councilors who voted against the resolution watching the World Series on their laptop during testimony, which helped make a charade of the meeting.

The worst of it was the entire meeting was an exercise in political theatre with the VTANG members and friends marching into the meeting room (literally) in a double column and taking up most of the first floor seats in the lower level. There were about 200 of them and many were in uniform. Some seats were “saved” for the top brass all the way to General Cray himself. Those seats were saved for them while at the same time others not in uniform were turned away by police and had to sit upstairs. The VTANG brass sat closest to the council members facing them squarely and got a standing ovation from F-35 supporters. The supporters were almost all themselves guard members and their families or former guard members. None of the brass testified.

VTANG members testified about their lives and their jobs, the little league, their children and their local volunteer work, with lots of self-back-patting, with, in several cases the wife sitting next to them but not testifying. The PR officer for VTANG, in uniform testified about his family and activities – not about the F-35.

Other F-35 supporters in civilian clothes (they wore green ribbon shirts so it was easy to determine that) testified about VTANG generally and how VTANG would disappear if the F-35 didn’t come here – uniformly disingenuous statements.

In spite of all the above the opponents matched the proponents in testimony. Businessmen, airport officials, and former council presidents were given a privileged place in the speaking order and allowed to testify but the opponents counsel was not – the one person who had the legal insight necessary for basing such important decisions on. Our experts were not allowed to testify because they ended up at the end of waiting list and the council voted to cut off testimony, depriving the process of critical legal testimony – dirty politics at its finest.

In spite of the rigging by the council chair of the meeting the testimony was about 32 against the F-35 to 38 for it – a surprise to us given the obvious rigging done.

Not a single F35 supporter, in uniform or out, said a word about concern for the people whose lives are being harmed by warplanes here. Their testimony was all about them – their own lives – completely self interest. This politicalmilitary theatre was clearly stage-managed to intimidate the opponents and the council members and deprive the opponents’ experts the opportunity to testify.

It raises a very important question of the proper role of the military in civilian life and in the decision-making independence of local elected officials, about the influence of the military in our democratic processes.

Burlington has been known for its independent thinkers and progressive attitudes where the voices of people count and testimony is listened to and weighted. In other words it has been known for its tradition of true democracy. This event made a mockery of that tradition. If this kind of elected official’s behavior continues, that tradition may be a thing of the past.

When his miscarriage of the democratic process is added to the $20,000 plus spent to get F-35 friendly councilors elected in South Burlington, to reverse the earlier City Councils request to delay the bed-down of F35s here until many unanswered questions about it were answered, we can see a picture forming which should make any thoughtful Vermonter begin to worry about this new direction our state appears to be taking.

How long will it take for this way of conducting local business filter out into other Vermont cities and municipalities? Is this what Vermonters want?

So, Vermont-based groSolar has a plan. It wants to build a 2.3-megawatt solar array on a piece of vacant land in Rutland town, with 60-foot setbacks on all sides and plans for suitable landscaping to provide a visual barrier. The land is located less than a half-mile from the very busy (and ugly) Rutland commercial strip on Route 7, and is zoned “industrial.” Steve Remen of groSolar told the Rutland Herald (paywalled):

“We feel solar is one of the least offensive uses for land that was designated industrial,” he said. “There will be no emissions or noise, there will be no increase in traffic, we require no services from the town, and we are a net contributor to the town.”

So we’re all fine here, no?

Nope. (This link is to a shorter, non-paywalled version of the story.)

A group of Rutland residents is opposing plans for a 15-acre 2.3 megawatt solar power installation that would be built in a field in the Vermont town.

The group Vermonters for Responsible Solar was formed by three neighbors of the plan for the project in an empty field off Cold River Road in the town of Rutland.  

Aaargh.

Let’s take that “neighbors” thing first. This ain’t no neighborhood in any real sense of the word; it’s a wide-open stretch of rural land with a dotting of houses on one side of the road. You’d be hard-pressed to walk from one to the next. “Nearby landowners” is closer to the mark. Still, they’re demanding a 200-foot setback on all sides, plus other, unspecified, “new siting standards for solar projects.” (The site is long, its top half is narrow and includes a dogleg. A 200-foot setback would dramatically cut the potential size of the array.)

The brand-new “group” (with a membership of, ahem, three) must have a little money behind it. They’ve got a website, they’ve got professionally printed signs posted in the area, and they’ve hired a professional PR person as spokesflack. And, on top of all that, they’re willing to buy the property if the groSolar deal falls apart. Maybe these people are wealthy enough to do all this on their own, but I suspect there are links to other anti-renewable groups around the state. (Which, I suspect, have links to the broader, fossil fuel industry-funded anti-renewable movement. I can’t prove it because none of these groups will disclose any information about membership or funding.)

I have predicted this in the past: that the anti-wind crusade would, sooner or later, turn its attention to solar.  

And lest you think I’m overreacting to an outbreak of NIMBYism by three landowners, I’ll point to its use of the phrase “solar sprawl” on its website. And then I’ll point to a recent opinion piece by La Doña Quixote herself, Annette Smith, in which she employs the essentially identical phrase “energy sprawl” in making a case for strict new limits, not only on the ridgeline wind turbines she’s fought so tenaciously, but on any kind of renewable expansion in Vermont:

Of all the technologies, big wind turbines create the most issues. Biomass is next, followed by solar. Fortunately these issues are quantifiable and finite. Once identified, conversations can follow. For instance, should photovoltaic installations first be constructed on the already-built landscape? Should prime agricultural soils be avoided? What are the stormwater runoff implications of fields of solar panels, and are those impacts being adequately anticipated and addressed? Looking at what has been installed so far, can we point to “good” and “bad” installations and learn from them? What do we want to see more of and what do we want to see less of? What are the issues for historic districts? Scenic areas? And firefighters?

Firefighters?  You expecting the panels to burst into flames?

What you see here is Smith’s throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-hope-something-sticks approach to advocacy: bring up every conceivable notion you can think of, no matter how farfetched (or already disproven) in an attempt to make your case look bigger than it is. Kind of like a pufferfish. “What are the issues for overflying aircraft? Amateur astronomers? And pizza delivery guys? Vermont needs to KNOW.”

With her deployment of the phrase “energy sprawl” and the questions posed above, Smith lays down a marker: any kind of energy development on currently undeveloped land is unacceptable. That is truly an extreme position. It would cripple our ability to get anywhere near our renewable-energy goals. And it would prevent us from being part of the solution to climate change: all new projects would be fought, tooth and nail. Some projects would be abandoned, and all would face lengthy delays.

Now, I’m all for reasonable standards for new energy development. Many sites are unsuitable for historic, scenic, environmental, practical, and other reasons. And nobody is calling for border-to-border solar panels, any more than they’re calling for turbines on every ridgeline. (Relatively few ridgelines are feasible for turbine deployment.) But we can’t abstain completely from the clean-energy transition in the service of someone’s concept of purity.

Call me crazy, but when I see a solar installation or a turbine array, I see Vermont being a productive part of a clean energy future, with clean-source production distributed across our landscape, urban, suburban, and rural. I want to see Vermont make wise use of its clean-energy resources. Maybe even become a net exporter of energy. It’d do a lot to fight climate change, and drive our economy as well*, with little real impact on our environment.

*Every time we say “no” to an energy project, we’re forgoing short-term jobs and long-term tax revenues. That doesn’t mean we should greenlight every project, but it should definitely be a consideration when we don’t have enough money to support the kind of government we’d like to have. It’s a choice we have to make.

When we reject new energy sources, we tacitly embrace the existing ones.  Instead of exporting clean energy, we are exporting the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels, nuclear power, and the gigantic hydro projects in northern Quebec. That’s nativism: Vermont-centered thinking that ignores the broader issues in play. (The alternative “clean energy plan” devised by Luke Snelling of Energize Vermont relies heavily on nuclear power and Hydro Quebec as its “clean” sources.)

Well, I’ve come a long way from an undeveloped parcel in Rutland Town. But I’m alarmed at the prospect of an anti-solar movement fueled by NIMBYism, nativism, and quackery. And it’s already getting started.