Little contretemps before the Waterbury village trustees Tuesday night, as reported by the Burlington Free Press:
Police Chief Joby Feccia testified before Waterbury village trustees Tuesday night that he recommended the firing of officer Adam Hubacz because the Washington County state's attorney refused to prosecute Hubacz's cases.
State's Attorney Tom Kelly "wasn't accepting his cases," Feccia said. Hubacz is "kind of like a watchdog without teeth. There's no way to enforce the law."
Every way I look at this, my rational, left-brain response can be stated colloquially as WTF??? A police officer who has so alienated the State's Attorney that he might as well not try to catch criminals? It gets worse when you read through the details...
Kelly informed the WPD of this in late September, a good four months ago. Hubacz was put on unpaid administrative on October 1. On January 9, he was shifted to paid leave. Why did he start drawing paychecks again? "The reason was not immediately clear," sez the Freep.
Also not immediately clear -- well, absolutely opaque, really -- is why Kelly refuses to have anything to do with Hubacz' police work. Kelly failed to return "multiple messages" from the Freep, seeking comment.
This isn't some big-city PD with hundreds of blueshirts on hand. Since Hubacz went on leave, Waterbury Village has had two full-time police officers including Chief Feccia. That's two. T-W-O. A 50% reduction in staffing. I have to think that either law enforcement in Waterbury Village has taken a serious hit, or there was some substantial featherbedding going on before September.
(To clarify, Waterbury Village is a subset of Waterbury Town, including about 40% of the Town's population and less than two square miles of land. The Village comprises most of downtown Waterbury. Some governance is shared, and some is split between town and village.)
So now Waterbury's (town and village) manager recommends Hubacz be fired. Solely because of Kelly's decision. Which has gone unexplained in public.
After the jump: legal gymnastics and unanswered questions.
Here is Governor Shumlin's complete reaction to the President's State of the Union address, as sent out in a press release:
"I am proud to stand by a President who fights for the middle class. In tonight's State of the Union address, President Obama made it clear that jobs are his top priority and he is committed to strengthening an economy where everyone plays by the same rules and everyone gets a fair shot. President Obama has worked hard to put Americans back to work and we are already seeing signs of growth, with 3.2 million private sector jobs added over the past 22 months. We have work left to do, but I am confident that President Obama understands what we know here in Vermont, that if we focus on education, lead through innovation and work together, we can accomplish great things."
That's all well and good, but it completely ignores the part of the State of the Union that is receiving all the attention. You know, the part where the President said this (by way of TPM):
"When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich, It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference - like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet."
[...] "If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes."
Given that many of the super-wealthy paying far less that 30% (such as Mitt Romney), Obama is now calling for them to pay more.
Yeah, that Obama. The economic moderate-to-right one. And he's using a clear-spoken, straightforward statement of Democratic values to make his case.
Contrast this with Shumlin's State of the State:
we require our wealthiest citizens to pay their fair share of income tax. But, we cannot correct the tax failures of Washington from the State House in Montpelier, and we must be always mindful that every day, we compete with our neighboring states for jobs. Therefore, I remain determined not to increase broad-based taxes on Vermonters as we begin to see signs of modest economic growth.
Yeah, it's no mystery as to why the Governor is trying to change the subject. His determination not to even discuss raising taxes on wealthy Vermonters before cutting many social services is rapidly becoming a peculiar Democratic anachronism.
Suddenly, he's left standing with no one but the likes of Ben Nelson at his side, as even his moderate President has abandoned such nonsense.
State Auditor Tom Salmon Jr. makes me wince. Not the kind of wince you do when you hear the sound of nails dragged on a chalkboard, the kind of wince from being really, really embarrassed.
Salmon continues to demonstrate very little understanding of the nature of the Auditor's office. Nor does he seem to understand his own responsibilities, or even his own audits. Couple with that a... challenging... relationship with the english language, and... well, like I said. It's cringe-inducing.
But over at vtdigger, Salmon's opponent from last year - Doug Hoffer - is not simply (once again) challenging Salmon's statements, he's raising an issue of professional and ethical conduct.
Hoffer notes that Auditor Salmon was approached by Entergy executives - not simply when policies surrounding Vermont Yankee were being discussed in the legislature, but while Salmon's office was auditing the VY decommissioning fund. Since that time, Salmon has wasted no opportunity to step way outside his official duties and throw himself into the debate, using language every bit as strong in Entergy's favor as any official corporate spokesperson.
Hoffer comments in his response below the press release:
We will never know what transpired in those conversations between Tom Salmon and Entergy officials, but it's not unreasonable to ask if Mr. Salmon was biased or personally impaired in the matter. Government Auditing Standards make it clear that "auditors...must be free from personal impairments" to carry out their duties objectively.
Some of Salmon's outspoken advocacy, of course, tends into the ridiculous, as in the above-linked vtdigger piece which includes the supremely goofy "Vermont is not some kind of renewable energy utopia."(wha...?) followed after a few rambling sentences by "Address Yankee swiftly without a lot of nonsense." (presumably, there was no irony intended).
(NOTE: Stating that Hoffer has a better understanding of economics in general, and the state's numbers in particular is kind of like saying that The Muppet Movie is maybe a little more appropriate for children than Deep Throat.)
Fortunately for all of us, word is circulating that Hoffer will likely challenge Salmon to an electoral rematch, so stay tuned for that and cross your fingers.
I'm going to be a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show" and an MSNBC contributor. Don't worry, I'll still be blogging; I'll just be writing at a new online home.
[...] I always said I wouldn't leave this job unless something truly special came along, and fortunately for me, something did. The chance to work for Rachel and MSNBC is a dream gig that I couldn't be more excited about.
Congratulations Steve! You'll have a blast.
Steve and Eve are not planning on moving (according to Eve's Facebook page). That's gonna be a hell of a commute.
If you're a regular reader around here you know that I'm fond of Dan Savage's definition of Santorum, but the news reports today demonstrate that Bob Kerrey was right.
Sound familiar? It should, because four years ago a John McCain supporter made a similar charge with regard to then-Senator Obama. Watch the video and then come back. It's short.
Okay, back?
See what McCain did? Even though he was fighting for every vote, he corrected this misguided woman, even saying that Obama was a decent man who just disagreed on policy.
He set quite a standard for your boy, Santorum, eh? So what did Santorum do?
Inattentional blindness, a term for when a person fails to notice and react to stimulus that is in plain sight came to my mind while reading a rundown of last week’s SOPA/PIPA drama.
The demise of the dual Senate and House internet piracy bills is the latest in an ongoing almost traditional battle by two sides competing to influence policy. Thrown into this struggle of money power and influence is the capacity of the internet to quickly inform and gather opposition.
Supporters of the bills and notably some powerful congressional players appear to have been thoroughly blindsided by this capacity. A Reuters reports says:
Some Hollywood executives acknowledge their own flat-footedness in trying to marshal public opinion as opposition mounted. While technology companies brandished the power of the Internet, Hollywood relied on old-media weapons such as television commercials and a billboard in New York's Times Square. It proved to be too little, too late.
One entertainment-company lawyer complained that opposing arguments were often inaccurate but spread like wildfire anyway on the Internet, leaving supporters scrambling to correct the information without the benefit of a strong online network.
"We do some of that (online) stuff, but it has to go through a committee of 14 people," he said. "The other side doesn't have conference calls. They just put stuff out there."
Where have the Hollywood entertainment industrial complex lobbyists been hiding?
An amazing remark when you consider the Arab spring events and more recently the ongoing Occupy movements (or simply the last ten plus years of media upheaval) amply demonstrated the applied power of internet. Even the regular TeeVee news and radio broadcasters reported this for all to see -not sure if it was posted on any billboards.
“Imagine if you will” says the voice over “a world where television commercials and the Times Square billboards can’t turn the tide!”
If anybody's curious, below the fold are my first two statehouse columns. Focus was on the "Super Senators," and the what's at stake in the health care wrangling.
This week's will focus on a couple different groups working in the Statehouse to get lawmakers to look at the state's economy in different ways (and in different ways than each other).
When I entered the workforce as a callow teen, in the summer of 1966, I received my first minimum wage paycheck of roughly fifty dollars as if it was gold-plated. Babysitting had only netted me .75 per hour, so $1.25 represented a huge raise for me.
A gallon of milk was .99. A gallon of gas was .32. First-class postage cost a nickel, and the average cost of a new house was around $15,000. A brand new car was in the $2,600. range.
1966 was also the year in which, under a federal mandate from the Johnson administration, the University of Wisconsin created its "Institute on Poverty Research." Just three years later a social conscience was not yet unfashionable, and childhood poverty rates reached their lowest level ever, when only 14% of children lived in poverty. That figure is now at roughly 22%.
In 1966, most qualified students could attend a public university for next to nothing, and even "Ivy League" privates charged only about $3,000. per year.
Just as today, we had an unpopular war in a strange foreign land; but we also were still a manufacturing powerhouse then, and upward mobility was an achievable goal. Our cup was at least half-full.
So what exactly does the new minimum wage for Vermont, at $8.46 per hour (the third highest in the land) puchase in 2012's economy?
It would buy you a lot more milk than it did in 1966, at an average price of $3.76 per gallon in 2011; but only a little more than two gallons of high-test as opposed to three in '66. Of course bizarre price-fixing schemes that profit everyone but the small, responsible farmer and the independent gas station account for the relatively low cost of food and fuel in today's economy.
The more substantial costs of living, like housing, education and transportation tell quite a different story.
You're supposed to lead with your thesis statement, yes? Well, then: I have decided to run for the open City Clerk position here in Montpelier. As such, assuming I am successful in my race (and I intend to be) I will, in the coming weeks, be handing over the "keys" to Green Mountain Daily to others, and will step back from my role as a local political blogger. I will also be stepping down as the News Editor for The Bridge in Montpelier.
I will continue my syndicated Statehouse column, which has been picked up by at least three papers that I'm aware of. I will also continue blogging at the national level, on politics as well as pop/geek culture at the soon-to-be-launched leftygeek.com. Stay tuned for more on that.
I may well return someday. Never say never, after all, but even if I lose my race, I'll likely stay away from GMD for a while. It just seems like the right thing to do for a number of reasons.
So over the coming weeks leading up to Town Meeting Day, I'll be on a GMD farewell tour of sorts, and am liable to post just about anything.
On a personal note, this is no small decision for me.
The co-founder of the Carlyle Group equity fund will donate $7.5 million for repairs needed to the Washington Monument after last August’s earthquake. National Parks Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis reportedly planted the idea in the head of the co-founder of the Carlyle Group David Rubenstein
"I told him I thought it important that the monument be opened as quickly as possible, and if I could help in any way, I'd be pleased to do so," Rubenstein said. Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes described Rubenstein as having a "generous and patriotic spirit."
received $275,000 salary, a $3.55 million bonus, and $134 million in distributions. That's a total of $137.825 million each.
The ultimate “one percent-er” investment group, often called the ex-presidents club, the Carlyle Group is a huge private equity group that operates in the “iron triangle” of industry, government and military. Carlyle’s stellar investors have included George HW Bush , former British PM John Major, parts of the Bin Laden family, and a US CIA Directors and U S Secretaries of State. Carlyle will be going public later this year and there is some squawking that planned shareholder agreements will not allow class action suits by shareholders.
Some things just feel quite wrong. They may not actually be wrong in the legal or moral sense, but just represent or illustrate something more out of balance than normal. What does it say about this country at the moment that we can go, hat in hand, to solicit money from a group like this yet our congress can’t marshal the political will to raise taxes on the hyper wealthy ?
Maybe it is just bad optics? After all the Washington Monument was partly financed with private funds to start with before Congress got around supplying funding in the late 1800’s for completion.
Also location, location, location.It must be imperative for Carlyle to have an appearance of prosperity in view when looking down from their Pennsylvania Aue. office building.Can't have shabby monument in the neighborhood.
250-1
55-1
Uber-blogger and Essex Junction resident Steve Benen has a new gig. From 
Inattentional blindness, a term for when a person fails to notice and react to stimulus that is in plain sight came to my mind while reading a rundown of last week’s SOPA/PIPA drama.
The co-founder of the 
