Fishing for answers: VT Commerce and Community Development survey

local/regional,

This June the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development ran an online survey that reached out to gather residents’ and non-residents’ opinions and for “insights on living, working and doing business in Vermont.” The idea, they say, was to measure the strengths, opportunities, and challenges the respondents faced and how the ACCD can help. 

Of course you can’t source everything in state but I found that two out-of-state companies are prominently involved in the survey. The ACCD contracted with Qualtrics.com — an “experience management company” co-headquartered in Provo, Utah; Seattle, Washington; and with offices in Dublin, Ireland — to run the roughly 20-question (fewer for non-residents) poll. Separately, the agency’s Think Vermont Ambassador website is powered by a second out-of- state company: socialtoaster.com out of Baltimore Maryland. Their list of services offers a variety of plans (named like healthcare plans) called Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum; fees start at $1,500 per month and run to $5,000 monthly for Platinum.

The agency’s survey contained a variety of questions along the lines of: name what you like and don’t like about Vermont lifestyle/business climate, and a series of multiple-choice rating questions about who is the most important audience for economic development marketing. But not too far in it feels as if they’ve baited a hook. Can you spot the prompt and possibly the ACCD’s preferred response here on question number four? 

At the end of the Vermont residents’ version of the survey participants were asked if they would care to join the “Think Vermont Ambassador Program.”

Think Vermont Ambassadors can, they say, “share national rankings and news coverage of Vermont’s thriving industries, game-changing entrepreneurs, socially responsible companies, vibrant communities, world-class outdoor recreation opportunities, education, culture and so much more. For anyone curious about getting an ambassadorship to Think Vermont by all means follow the link.

When launching Think Vermont, Governor Scott said the Agency of Commerce and Community Development’s “Think Vermont will tell unique and positive stories about Vermonters and Vermont businesses.”

And, as we all know, nothing says “Think Vermont” more than hiring plenty of out-of-state businesses for prominent jobs.

Ivanka Trump: Worst Daughter

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Having re-styled herself over the years into Malibu Barbie, Ivanka Trump believes anything is possible if you’re wearing the right pair of designer pumps. 

So it was that, older but no wiser than she was when she toddled into the White House on her adoring Daddy’s arm, Ivanka tagged along to Japan for the G-20 Summit Cotillion and North Korean 4th of July Barbecue. 

Little did she suspect that people could be so unkind to such a darling girl as she!  After all, she had her very own tall tube of tooth paste by her side to make her look almost real. 

So life-like!

But even she has to admit that maybe she went a bit too far trying to fill her souvenir photo album with cute candids and quotable quotes.

Now her dream of being the first Princess President seems to be fading into the peach-scented mist that wafts through her blonde vinyl head.  

How COULD those mean old dignitaries give her the frosted shoulder, when she pouted her prettiest and flung her incredibly graceful fingers into all kinds of artful angles of flirtatious expression.

She was sure she used the perfect code words for getting down with a couple of strong lady types: “Grrr …male- dominated… blah-blah-blah…,”  but they just left her standing there looking like a gooseberry.

Ivanka: “It’s so unfair!  I didn’t even get to talk disarmament with Kim…or give hair and makeup tips to  Mrs. May.”

DJT: “Nevermind, Honey; Daddy doesn’t like them very much anyway.  I’ll let you fly the plane a little on the trip home.  Would you like that…huh, Sweetie? 

“…And tell that husband of yours, there’ll be no hanging upside down in the john. It just scares the heck out of me every time!”

“Let’s go home, kids!”

I Can’t Watch.

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‘Can’t watch, I say.

Seems like Joe Biden has just barely entered the 2020 presidential race and already I can’t bear to watch him in action.   It’s too painful: like waiting for someone to finish a very old joke that they tell very badly.

I will, of course, support him if he is the ultimate nominee, as any sane person would; but the thought of having to watch his fossilized attempts to walk-back three decades of mis-step and mis-speak for the next year-and-a-half makes me instinctively reach for the remote.

The mere fact that he would be running against the most dishonest, most venal and most corrupt president in living memory will only slightly dampen my distaste at the spectacle of the Democrat’s least inspiring candidate feebly hoisting the banner for progressive reform.

If it has taught me nothing else, the continued popularity of Donald Trump has once and for all quashed any delusion I had of the fundamental common sense of the American people.  The fact that Joe Biden is ten points ahead of any other comers in the most recent polls just reinforces that point.

It’s as if we are being held at gunpoint by the pollsters who are telling us to disobey our nobler instincts and elevate the guy who would be least objectionable to the phalanx of assorted bigots, misogynists and toxic greed-o-philes who comprise Donald Trump’s miserable margin.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think Joe Biden belongs in that stew of misanthropes.  It’s just that he is “old school;” and the checkered political past that dogs his primary path is seen as a feature, not a bug, by some of those who might otherwise fall for Donald Trump’s sour “sweet talk” once again.  And, if that is all it takes to defeat Donald Trump, I’m in.

But is it?  If his performance at last night’s debate is anything to judge by, Biden may no longer have the stuffin’ to withstand a pummeling by the Meanest Man on Earth.

In fact, over the past two days, it was the women more than anyone else who impressed.  Of course that is just my husband’s and my opinion, but I have a feeling that there is an unspoken fear that any female candidate will be “HIllaried” in a match-up with Trump.  

There is ample evidence from recent public apathy in the face of attack after attack on women’s civil rights and credible rape and assault allegations against Donald Trump and others within his sphere, that women’s status in America is actually declining after more than a century of upward trajectory. You can thank those hypocrites in the male-dominated “Christian” Right for that stone in our collective shoe.

But Kamala Harris is NOT Hillary Clinton.  Elizabeth Warren is NOT Hillary Clinton.  Kirstin Gillibrand is NOT Hillary Clinton.  Amy Klobuchar is NOT Hillary Clinton.  Tulsi Gabbard is NOT Hillary Clinton.  And  Marianne Williams is NOT…well, I don’t know exactly who she is, but she is certainly NOT Hillary Clinton.

In fact, none of them is anything like Hillary Clinton: not in personal history, nor in political experience.

And Democrats have plenty more compelling women candidates waiting in the wings.  To name just a few: there are Stacey Abrams, Jennifer Granholm and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

So it’s time for Democratic handicappers to grow a pair and stop thinking out-loud: “we tried a woman and we LOST!”  

I am so glad that 94-year-old Jimmy Carter is still around to say unequivocally what no one else seems to want to say: Donald Trump didn’t legitimately win the presidency.  Even if no effort has been made so far to quantify the impact of Russian interference on the election outcome, ample evidence exists suggesting it could have been considerable.  That, on top of the fact that Hillary Clinton received three-million more votes than did Donald Trump, pretty much puts a lie to the “We tried a woman and she lost.” argument.

I’m a big ol’ fan of Bernie Sanders and a number of the other men look like exciting prospects, too; but my money is on the women, whom the Democrats overlook at their…and our…own peril.

Red state/blue state vegetable poll

National, Uncategorized

I have been keeping away from early polling of the two dozen Democratic presidential primary candidates. If the truth be told I really can’t wait for the Democratic primaries to be done and the general election battle with Trump to begin.

But for now take close look (just to stay in practice) at the annual Green Giant poll of American’s favorite vegetables.

More than 5,000 consumers, from age 13 to 73, took the frozen/canned vegetables company’s survey, and broccoli placed first in 39 states. The results were released in connection with National Eat Your Vegetables Day, June 17, according to a news release.

Some interesting findings from the survey, which was open-ended, letting consumers choose any vegetable:

  • What’s up, Idaho?: Potatoes ranked first only in Arkansas, a loss of four states from last year;
  • Et tu, Iowa?: Of the 7 states choosing corn, Iowa wasn’t included. (Yes, sweet corn and field corn are vastly different, but still …);
  • No juicers? Despite the juicing craze that’s boosted celery prices to new heights, the fad didn’t elevate the stalk to the top in any state;
  • No CUKES!: Cucumbers did not carry a single state, unlike in 2018, when New Mexico and Louisiana residents chose them above other vegetables; and
  • The “orange” candidate: Nevada and North Dakota opted for carrots;
  • Welcome to the club: Asparagus led Alaska polling, and cauliflower was the favorite in Montana, the first times for both vegetables.

The survey, conducted through Suzy, a company that offers an online consumer insights platform, took place April 26-May 10, according to the release.

Time will tell but it may prove significant come November that celery couldn’t translate its popular fad into votes. Eh, I mean sales at grocery stores

St. Albans City Manager Objects to TIF Audit

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St. Albans City Manager, Dominic Cloud takes umbrage at the TIF audit report generated by the Office of State Auditor Doug Hoffer.

In a public letter, Mr. Cloud expresses his displeasure at great length, finding even the factual title objectionable.  The City’s website omits the actual audit report, including only Mr. Cloud’s defensive arguments. St. Albans Messenger editor Emerson Lynn piled-on in a blistering editorial that appeared in the paper before the story of the audit report was even covered. Now that’s teamwork!

For its part, the City has made the curious decision to omit Mr. Hoffer’s audit report from their website while including Mr. Cloud’s angry response to the report.

Voters in St. Albans should not be expected to be familiar with the TIF statutes.  The information we received before voting did not address the possible conflicts associated with stretching TIF debt assigned for brownfield clean-up to pay for costs associated with developing a private hotel on the site.  Apparently, those disallowed uses were not even clearly stated in the City’s application for funding.  It should have therefore come as no surprise that a state audit would call them into question.

Mr. Cloud uses interactions by the City with it’s “partner” The Vermont Economic Progress Council, mostly after-the-fact, to deflect his responsibility for mismanagement of the TIF district.  According to statute, VEPEC is not supposed to be a ‘partner’ with the City, but rather an overseer,  charged with evaluating the City’s requests to utilize TIF funding in specific ways,, and with enforcement in the case of non-compliance.

Mr. Cloud insists that it is a “moot point” if the repayment terms were not clearly communicated to voters in a timely manner, because “… the City Council has ratified any irregularities related to the call of the meeting.”  Nice for the City Council, but how does that fix the information gap?

Objections to using $1 million of TIF debt to pay debt service on TIF debt and over $4 million of costs for a private hotel are not based on “arcane, technical questions” as Mr. Cloud says, but on statutes that may be rather easily understood in terms of the overarching purpose of TIF funding.  What is “arcane” is the baroque twist to the statutes that the City has employed to defeat that purpose. 

Wrong is wrong, period.

It is quite true that the audit highlights some shortcomings in the statutes governing TIF administration, which contributed to the problems in St. Albans.  That is one of the values of audits conducted on behalf of the public interest.

But no matter how much civic leaders may wish to lean on these shortcomings as excuses for mismanagement,  the inescapable fact remains that people entrusted by the public with responsibility beyond the scope of the average citizen, knowingly skated on the edge of legitimacy in interpreting the TIF regulations to their best advantage.  

Like more than a few other city taxpayers, I attended those informational meetings at City Hall and regrettably did not have the chops to raise pertinent questions at the right times; nor to recognize when we were not provided with all the information to cast an informed vote.  I had my suspicions and so voted against the TIF expenditures, but I can’t claim that my vote was informed by more than a hunch that it was all a little too good to be true.

We have little choice but to rely on the guidance of our paid City Manager and other professionals who are entrusted with administering the city’s resources. There is a duty of service on the part of those professionals, which no amount of deflection can undo.

Defenses expressed by the City Manager in his rebuttal concentrate only on deficiencies in the codification of TIF rules, but completely ignore the issues of obvious tax diversion, financial irregularities, cost overruns, no-bid contract awards, and sweetheart deals for private profit.  The practice seems to have been “do what you will and get permission later.”

Any one of those issues could possibly be excused as an error, but surely not all of them!  And when the City Manager goes ballistic at the criticism, it sounds a little like guilt speaking.

Dominic Cloud  accuses Auditor Hoffer of bias and suggest he should mind his own business,  But this is his business; it is the whole state’s business.  When Mr. Cloud got all creative with the rules, he essentially gamed the entire state’s Education Fund.

I love my hometown as much as the next guy, but I don’t think its fair for my neighbors in St. Albans TOWN, or Swanton or elsewhere in Vermont where they don’t enjoy the largesse of TIF funding, to be cheated of the taxes that were meant to be generated by the new City Public Parking Garage.  Built with TIF dollars, the parking garage essentially double-dipped on the Education Fund when it claimed  special status as a tax-free entity.  The implicit promise of TIF is that investments made with money withheld from the Education Fund ultimately will be returned two-fold by the taxes generated from new development, such as the City Public Parking Garage.  

Contrary to Mr. Cloud’s assertions, the audit did not apply novel interpretations of long standing rules.  According to the report, the auditor’s office consulted with the AGO when it came to interpretation of the statutes, and applied that guidance.  But even without that guidance, there is evidence in the record from which one might reach the same conclusions as are contained in the St. Albans audit.   In the case of Winooski’s TIF funded parking garage, the legislature rejected two efforts by that City to have the statutes  amended to make the parking garage tax exempt.  Why would the City of St. Albans be any different?

Outrage in the face of discovery doesn’t become our City Manager.  Dominic Cloud is a sophisticated business mind who understands these principles all too well.  

The question remains:  after all the egregious mismanagement of TIF funds, including a huge sum paid to a private agent in order to facilitate the sale of property to a private entity, will there be enough left in the TIF to fund the largest component that it was intended to support, ie. the Multi-Modal Connector, which has not yet even broken ground?

I, for one, would like to thank Auditor Hoffer for bringing this mess to our attention.  For TIF funding to return full value to the state, it must be rigorously patrolled against abuse.  Otherwise it is just welfare for developers at the expense of our children’s education.

Revive the Equal Rights Amendment

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In light of current attacks on a woman’s right to choose, it’s time to revisit the Equal Rights Amendment;  which, contrary to common assumptions, was not ratified and adopted by all of the states more than thirty years ago.  Had we gotten the job done right in the 1970’s and ’80’s, women would not now be facing the sweeping assaults on reproductive health that have scourged Alabama, Missouri, Georgia, and Louisiana…with other states waiting in the wings to do their worst. 

It is now necessary to replace and update it with language to protect people of all gender variations.

As the largest reliable voting block, it is also time for women to band together, applying their own “litmus test” to anyone, male or female, who seeks to represent them in government.

Here is a list of positions, vis-a-vis women’s rights, that I am looking for in a candidate:

. In all reproductive matters, a woman has full ownership of her own body and therefore the inalienable right to choose.   The relegation of what is a highly individual and painful ethical and moral decision to a crass engine of shifting political self-interest is an outrage against humanity. 

. She has the right to equal pay for equal labor, whether mental or physical.

. She has the right to equal opportunity.

. She has the right to say ‘no’ to anyone, even an insistent spouse.  If her refusal is not respected, the state has a duty to believe her unless there is persuasive evidence to the contrary.  

Violations of this right are by nature so intimate and humiliating for the victim, that it may be impossible to prove “beyond a doubt” that the violation has occurred.  For this reason, I believe a different standard of proof should apply for such crimes; but the penalty for deliberately misrepresenting an assault claim should be equally severe for the claimant as it would be for an assailant, since  such a misrepresentation is as injurious to victims as a whole as would be an actual assault.

. No law governing the behavior of women exclusively should be enforceable unless it has been formally ratified by a body comprised of at least 50% female members.

Despite the fact that we represent more than half the population, woman are so severely underrepresented in elected and appointed government positions that we are in effect a defacto minority group.

Nothing has more vividly illustrated this injustice than the passage of Alabama’s draconian anti-choice law without the vote of a single female legislator.

We can no longer hold up the United States as a beacon of democracy and social justice when we surrender women’s reproductive rights to what amounts to a “Christian” Taliban.

Joe Biden is not the answer

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Democrats need to think outside of the box.

Joe Biden is not the answer.

He’s a nice man but he is too old, too encumbered by establishment political history, and slow to admit his own mistakes.  I wish he would take himself out of the running, because we have played this scene before.

We can do better.

If there is any overarching lesson to take away from the perilous state of our union, it is that old assumptions and conventional wisdom can no longer be relied upon.  The same must be said about polls, focus groups, handicapping and other tools of the political trade.

There’s no such thing as a sure thing in topsy turvy Trumpland, where he is still fully capable of criminal election meddling in full sight.

Don’t pick a candidate based on what Pennsylvania might do. If the people of Pennsylvania can’t figure out that ANY candidate is better than Donald Trump, even after two years of his venomous lies and letdowns, the disease has progressed too far and the patient will die.

Democrats are just too polite and rational.  They think that the problem in 2016 was that Hillary wasn’t “relatable.”  The idea is that Biden will dish-out some of his blue collar B.S. and Trump’s base of noble working men will come a-running.

Bullshit. 

Trump’s faithful base is a white supremacist soup of religious haters, woman haters, brown haters  and repressed homophobes.  Democrats should not be offering anything that would  win their votes.  

I grew up in the 1950’s, in a lower middle-class household, in a blue-collar neighborhood.  Both of my parents had to work, because they thought they had to send us to Catholic school and otherwise couldn’t afford to do so.  They scraped and they struggled throughout their lives and never took a nickel in public assistance until the blessed relief of Social Security and Medicare kicked in;  but they NEVER looked down their noses at those who did, and they taught us tolerance and progressive values despite being given every opportunity to be bitter and resentful.

If my parents could be kind of heart and generous of mind, there is no excuse for the poisonous attitude that seems to have possessed the Trump base.

I’m tired of hearing that Democrats have to somehow “win over” those misanthropes, just as I am tired of seeing the outstanding women in the race treated as if they shouldn’t aspire beyond Vice-President, and the one proud Democratic Socialist, relegated to a sidebar, despite the fact that he stubbornly refuses to slip away from the top polling positions and his central ideas spring from the few really good public policies that we all depend upon.

If we don’t strive to be better than this, we deserve what we get.  

Put Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris on the debate platform opposite Donald Trump and be done with it.  Was there ever a more important moment to take a courageous stand?

After the dust clears, if we still have a “United States of America” maybe we’ll finally have the guts to mandate public funding for elections, eliminate special interest funding, put some guardrails on the presidency, and really do something about the environment.

If we can’t do that, what is the bloody point?

Governor Scott: Please protect a woman’s right to choose.

local/regional, , ,

At the same time as Alabama’s draconian anti-abortion bill sits on the desk of Governor Kay Ivey, Vermont legislators have sent their own bill, in support of a woman’s right to choose, to Governor Phil Scott, for his signature. 

Signing H.57 will speak volumes on the respect Governor Scott has for women and send a clear message of independence to the GOP.  Passed overwhelmingly by the legislature, H.57 reflects the majority view in Vermont, that decisions regarding a woman’s body belong in the realm of private conscience, not to the state.

That is not to say that all Vermonters agree that abortion isn’t wrong.  That is where individual conscience and choice come to bear.

You don’t have to agree with abortion to support a woman’s right to choose.

Women’s bodies are their own.  To take any other position is simply un-American.

Women have the inherent responsibility to make decisions about their bodies in accordance with their ethical beliefs, their family relationships, and whatever health considerations may be involved.  That is a responsibility with which no political or legal authority has a right to interfere.  For help in making such a difficult decision, a woman may consult clergy, her doctor, or both.

Allowing the state a say in such a private matter opens the door to other invasions by the state. 

We have a declining birthrate.  Emboldened by legislation like Alabama’s anti-abortion law, might the state one day decide, in the national interest, to mandate that every married woman bear at least one child?

And what becomes of unwanted and/or critically disabled children that the mother is unable to care for properly?  Will the state accept full responsibility for a lifetime of care, with all that that might entail, for every child who is forced into an inhospitable world because abortion was not available to the mother?

I rather doubt that the GOP could be depended upon to show such sympathy and generosity to unwanted children once they emerge from the womb.

Governor Scott: please don’t yield to the callous disregard for women’s rights that has come to distinguish your male-dominated party.  

As a Vermonter first, you are better than that.

Speak Out Against Nuclear Weapons in Vermont

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It’s time to go there again:  the F-35 fighter jet should not be based at Burlington airport.

There are so many reasons why not:  

.There is a statistically high crash potential for new aircraft, like the F-35, that have minimal flight hours logged…anywhere.  Crashes are more likely to occur right after takeoff than at any other point in a flight.  That would make the immediate Burlington area the most likely  location for a crash.

.Burlington’s urban population lives in close proximity to the airport.  All of the other locations considered for this siting were appropriately situated away from civilian populations.  Burlington should never even have been in the running.

.Lake Champlain has a sensitive ecosystem which may be negatively impacted by the daily activity of F-35’s departing and returning to Burlington Airport.  Sophisticated new radar systems may represent additional disruptions for wildlife.

.Despite promises to the contrary, there is every reason to expect that the sound of the F-35’s will be significantly more disturbing than that of F-16’s currently in use.

.Any advanced weapons system represents a potential target to enemies of the U.S.  Burlington will be at the center of that target once the F-35 is located there.

.As was long suspected, we are learning that the F-35 will be nuclear capable.  Despite assurances to the contrary,  if the F-35 is deployed to Burlington airport, sooner or later, nuclear weapons will be onboard.  Nevermind the moral implications of a nuclear Burlington; it’s not difficult to imagine the risk involved for all of Vermont.

We can no longer trust cooler heads to prevail.

HR 7 is a House Resolution to preemptively ban nuclear weapons in Vermont.  So far, the Resolution has not been voted out of the General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee.

It’s time for every concerned Vermonter to call the Sergeant at Arms at (802) 828-2228 and tell him to pass a message on your behalf to Rep. Tom Stevens, the Committee Chair, that you want him to bring HR 7 up for discussion, and to please vote for it.

If you’ve been feeling a little powerless lately, this is your chance to make a difference.  Your voice can still be heard in Montpelier; so sing out loud, before it’s too late.

Will Vermont join California in requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns?

local/regional,

How about it?

California is the first state to adopt this rule, setting the requirement at five years of back taxes; but Illinois and New Jersey already have the matter under consideration.

Shouldn’t the most progressive state in the Union also be the most transparent?

Norms no longer seem to be sufficient.   With Trump’s cautionary tail sitting in the Oval Office, its time to codify some protections for our democracy before it’s too late.  We have to do what we can on a state level because Congress has been effectively neutered.

That is all I’ve got to say.  Thank you.