Listening to Shap Smith talking to Kinzel on VPR about the future of the flood-damaged State Office Complex in Waterbury. Local leaders have, of course, been looking for assurances that the state will return all (or at least most) of the Irene-displaced employees back there, but the Shumlin administration is making no promises, and Barre mayor Thom Lauzon is aggressively pushing to bring as many of those employees as possible to Barre.
Speaker Smith is similarly non-committal, although he acknowledges that pulling out those 1500 employees that the entire economy of Waterbury depends on would be a financial death blow.
As this issue drags on, I find myself asking “why?” I’ve spoken with some local businessfolk. I can hardly imagine the commercial and community atom bomb that not returning those jobs to Waterbury would be. Why would anyone want to inflict that on any Vermont community?
Which leads me to what should be an obvious question: why would anybody want to coy about whether or not they’d drop that bomb? Is Shumlin actually thinking of single-handedly wiping out Waterbury economically? If yes, then he’s nuts, if no – why play this evasive game? Why make these folks reeling from Irene sweat?
And why, if you’re Shap Smith, do you follow along with this ill-considered, even callous line of public bet-hedging? Why doesn’t Smith (or Shumlin, for that matter) step up and say clearly and unambiguously “hell no, we’re not going to let Waterbury shrivel up and die on MY watch – if somebody wants to take most of those jobs away, it’ll be over my dead body.”
I tell you, if I was Brian Dubie, I’d be sprinting to announce my candidacy in Waterbury and make that promise. He only lost to Shumlin by 4331 votes. Taking Waterbury by 75% would take a nice bite out of that.
It’s a no-brainer, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where it doesn’t play out with the bulk of those jobs coming back, given the stakes, and it’s pretty weird that nobody’s clear-headed enough to step up and say it.
I wish Shumlin would get over his penchant for drama.
Sometimes it is about policy, not politics.
In this case, it makes sense for policy makers to stop and collect the data. Survey the options. Fully understand the problem and the potential solutions. From this, they can make good, informed decisions.
It’s better than making a lot of promises that they later have to break because they didn’t take the time to understand the whole problem.
This isn’t a small problem. It’s complicated. It’s going to take a lot of money to fix. The state’s leaders are right to study the issue before making any commitments.
“Barre mayor Thom Lauzon is aggressively pushing to bring as many of those employees as possible to Barre.”
If I remember correctly, Barre dodged the watery bullet this time, but it, too, has its own history of destructive flooding.
to make specific statements about what’s going to happen in Waterbury without knowing for certain. It’s a big, complicated building (and was kind of a mess before the flooding) and I’d be surprised if it didn’t take a lot of work to get it properly evaluated.
If anybody really believes that the final solution – however complicated, however nuanced, however hard to explain or problematic to implement – will involved nuking Waterbury economically by taking all those jobs away…. well, lets just say you’re on a different planet than I am.
Acknowledging that fact is in no way the same as trying to say it’s not complicated, or tricky, or hard-to-get-a-brain around.
But economically killing Waterbury is simply not an option. Obviously. That’s the rational and the humane and the realistic place to start. There is no reason why we can’t make that 100% clear up front and put those poor folks at ease.
Wonder what Sue Minter thinks about her boss letting her town of Waterbury slip into the crapper? Maybe the people of Waterbury can turn to Sue to talk some sense to to the governor, since she has his ear. She works at the road dept.
…he’d be smart to say “We will do everything we can to preserve Waterbury’s economic vitality” or some such. I’m sure he could come up with a way that would sound less like obvious boilerplate without forming an actual commitment.
And if he moves the jobs to Barre, well… he’ll build up yet another Republican for a statewide run. Scott, Lunderville, Lauzon: from going nowhere, the GOP would suddenly be able to put up a pretty damn strong ticket for state offices. And they’d have Peter Shumlin to thank for it.:
Yeah, let’s rebuild state offices in a known flood zone! Brilliant idea, one the Republicans are sure to run with if the Democratic Governor insists on NOT putting offices back in a proven disaster area!
It’s like building a nuclear power plant on a known earthquake fault line, no one would ever be so stupid…
These ‘storms of the century’ are only becoming more and more common, Waterbury WILL flood again just as bad in the coming decades. How much money can the state afford to blow on rebuilding in a disaster area time after time.
There’s a huge clamor regarding the State Hospital, this disaster has done what years of wrangling couldn’t accomplish, closing down that building and forcing the state to deal with it now, rather than putting it off for another decade or two.
Why are the state offices exempt from that same common-sense thinking? (I understand that there has been years of discussion about closing that hospital and NOT years of discussion about moving the state offices.)
And why aren’t the state offices in the state capitol, anyway? (Not that I am advocating moving the state offices to the Flood Zone of Montpelier, I really don’t know how it came about that the state offices are in Waterbury and not at the seat of governance.)
It doesn’t make sense to commit to replace those jobs in Waterbury until all options have been examined. It may be that some components remain in Waterbury, or it may be that a single better place exists for the redevelopment. Our state leaders need to consider all options, recognize what’s important for Waterbury, and then make the best decision for the state as a whole.
Let’s also keep in mind that the legislature and this governor have been aggressively working to close Vermont Yankee, and terminate the 600+ jobs in that area. Such a move would devastate the tiny town of Vernon and the southeastern sector of Vermont, yet the folks in Montpelier aren’t discussing how to replace the jobs, taxes, or other substantial financial underpinnings of VY.
I’m not suggesting that the state should keep Vermont Yankee open just for the jobs, but rather that jobs and local economic vitality are important parts of state-wide decision making, but not the single deciding factor.
Let’s keep the plight of Waterbury in mind as we move forward on Vermont Yankee decision making. If Waterbury does lose the state office complex or most of those jobs, then the state needs to do everything possible to rebuild that local economy. The same is true for the potential loss of the 600+ well paying jobs in Vernon, each of which, on average, pays more than twice the regional wage.
The governor and legislature need to make the best decisions they can for the entire state, and then buffer the harmful effects as best they can. That’s true whether the community is Waterbury or Vernon.
i take exception with two comments:
Barre’s Main Street has some empty storefronts, but by no means is mostly vacant.
Waterbury has a vibrant growing company called Green Mountain Coffee Roasters right in town. Taking the state jobs would hurt, but decimate? Hyperbole.
The people of Waterbury can’t commute? The only people who spend money in the community are the state workers?
I’m just confused by the zero-sum game presentation here.
I love Waterbury. It’s a great town. They have suffered badly. What it has done to help itself after the floods was amazing and shows what it is made of. I cannot understand, however, how Waterbury will sink into oblivion if they lose the state office complex. They also have Ben/Jerry’s and Green Mtn. Coffee there, which probably employ more people than the state office complex did. Like the state offices, most of the people that work there do not live there, but they spend money around the local community. They have Cold Hollow, they have some smaller places too. I agree that it is going to change things with the office complex moving out, if it does, but it will not kill off Waterbury.
I also agree that Shumlin should not promise anything yet without knowing the true costs of what it will take to rebuild the state office complex. He’s in a delicate position regarding the complex. I hope it stays in Waterbury. The comment above about the snarl of traffic on Rt. 62 and 302 would be even more intolerable than it is now is right on. I hope that they can figure out a way to keep it there.