Tag Archives: B&M Realty

Did Scott Milne just launch a run for U.S. Senate?

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Scott Milne recently sold his stake in his family travel agency and began floating serious trial balloons about running against longtime Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. In March he discussed his qualifications with vtdigger.com:

[…] you know, I’m a travel agent and I think I got a shot at taking out the longest-serving senator in Vermont history and currently the longest-serving senator in the United States,” Milne said.

He now, it seems, is exploring whether the investigations into the (alleged ) “Ponzi” scheme at Jay Peak and Q-Burke is an issue that Senator Leahy, a champion of the Federal EB-5 program, may be vulnerable on. Could it have legs for Milne?

mobbingIt seems unlikely, so we will see, but Scott Milne didn’t wait and  jumped head first into it:

“Peter Shumlin and Patrick Leahy have both displayed a lack of competence and a lack of leadership in the way the EB-5 program has been structured and managed,” Milne said, lumping Leahy in with the Democratic governor he nearly defeated in 2014. “On the federal level, I think it just wasn’t structured with auditability and transparency built into it.”

Milne may not have thought this one through. You see he and his business partner Attorney David Boise (his former college roommate and largest contributor to his failed campaign for governor) explored using EB-5 program to help finance their mixed use Vermont development.

B&M Realty and Development has been attempting to build a mixed used development, Quechee Highlands in Hartford near the intersection of Interstates 89 and 91. B&M’s project has been wrangling in the courts over regional land use regulations (one of Milne’s signature issues).

In 2009 at their own expense, B &M partners Milne and Boise joined an EB-5 road trip to Asia with then-Governor Jim Douglas.douglaseb-5Saigon  Milne must have enjoyed the trip.He returned impressed with EB-5 and sang praises to its entrepreneurial qualities without qualification.

“To me, it [EB-5] is the perfect storm of government policy capturing the best of entrepreneurial spirit,” Milne told the Valley News a week after returning from Asia. “I was pleased beyond my expectations.”

Although still hemming and hawing a bit about challenging Sen. Leahy, Milne says former Vermont Republican Party chair Jim Barnett has been advising him.

I’d think Barnett might have told Scott Milne not to tie his shoe laces together if he wants to run … or walk in the election. Penny loafers might be a safer bet for this Republican.milnescottdouglas

B&M: the other Milne business

Business, ,

Scott Milne, the Republican Party-endorsed candidate running for governor (the un-endorsed one being Emily Peyton), is a businessman who is most often linked in the media with the family travel business Milne Travel. We’ve all heard the family business name here in Vermont. However he also is partners in B&M Realty and Development. The “M” is of course for Milne, and the “B” is for David Boies III, Milne’s business partner and former college roommate. [Five members of the Boies family each donated $2,000 to Scott Milne for Governor. Dad David Boies II is a renowned trial lawyer who argued on the Gore side of the Bush v. Gore case, won a pro-marriage equality case against Prop 8 in California, and is now, with Republican lawyer Ted Olson, fighting the Virginia ban on same sex marriage.]

At least in the Town of Hartford I would guess B&M has had more interaction with the state and local government than the Milne family travel agency has. In the Upper Valley B&M Realty and Development has been struggling to get approval for a project called Quechee Highlands. A major blow occurred last year to Milne’s plan for the Quechee Highlands development:

…when the District 3 Environmental Commission denied it an Act 250 permit for its first phase, citing concerns about traffic along Route 4 and the fact that it didn’t comply with the Two Rivers regional plan.

The proposed 168-acre mixed-use development  next to I-89 on the outskirts of downtown White River Junction (WRJct. and Quechee are parts of the Town of Hartford) has had a problem with Hartford. Hartford has worked and planned hard to preserve and take advantage of the unique old railroad-centered downtown. White River Junction, in recent years has experienced a modest revival.

At a meeting in March the Hartford planning commission approved a measure that will make it more difficult to include retail space at the proposed Quechee Highlands area. The Valley News reported that Milne warned the board that if they passed those changes, it would make Quechee Highlands project “dead.”

After the planning board approved the measure, an angry-sounding Scott Milne really let it rip:

“Their zoning is going to kill that village, which is designed to have retail as a minor but important aspect of it,” said Milne, who said B&M Realty has already invested about $4 million in the project, including land acquisition, engineering and design, as well as other fees.

“I’m going to try to figure out if I’m going to do anything, and if I do, it’s probably going to involve more lawyers, and it’s just going to continue to brand Vermont as a bad place to do business,” said Milne, a moderate Republican who has also recently considered a run for governor. [added emphasis]

Whew Scott, really? Get me “more lawyers” and “brand Vermont as a bad place to do business”. You mean bad for the un-built businesses, the ones along the highway?

For now Scott Milne looks like a last-resort Vermont Republican candidate for governor. It appears that no big VT Republican money was donated to kick-start this campaign. His campaign is (so far) half funded by the out-of-state family of his real estate development partner. And that family is renowned for a couple high profile liberal/Democratic legal cases. A couple months ago Milne was just the “M” in B&M Realty, an angry, frustrated developer, not a politician. Maybe he’ll become one on the campaign trail. We’ll wait and see what develops for Scott Milne.