In March Burlington will issue a report on a review of their livable wage ordinance for the Skinny Pancake’s Burlington Airport restaurant. Well, the review is not specifically for the Skinny Pancake, but a result of questions surrounding a “substantial economic hardship” exemption from the ordinance the city granted the local restaurant chain.  

The Free Press reports that the wage ordinance is under “intense review by city officials.” The overhaul is needed, according to Burlington city officials, to eliminate confusion that might, they fear, stunt sustainable, entrepreneurial growth.

Burlington Business Association Director Kelly Devine explains all about ‘intense reviews’ and her hopes for this one

“Businesses do that all the time,” Devine said Friday. “They examine their income stream; they examine their expense stream to see how they’re performing — there’s an open-ended opportunity to make adjustments.”

Oh, so, no need to worry. It is just “a good hard look” and an intense review that will result in clarification of a puzzling set of rules for the smoother successful operation of business. As they say, it’s an “open-ended opportunity” to make some “adjustments.”  

Well here is a little test: List as many as you can of the “good hard looks and intense reviews”  by state and municipal officials over the past few years that resulted in cuts to wages, benefits and services in Vermont.  And next list all (or any) official “intense reviews and good hard looks” that resulted in salary or benefits cuts, tax increases or any hardship on the state’s high-income earners.

Now take a long hard look, which list is longer?  

 After conceding defeat, the Romney campaign cut off staffers’ credit card access with such lightning speed that some campaign aides found they had to pay their own cab fare home on election night. Well fast forward a mere three months to 2013 and we find the Romney Victory fund is being uncharacteristically generous with its final cash dispersals.  

Politico.com said Friday that a recent Federal Election commission report shows that Romney’s Victory Fund “quietly” made a charitable donation of almost $90,000 ($89,585.18) to the Red Cross for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.  Other transfers mentioned quietly but perhaps no less “charitable” include a chunk of Victory fund cash handed over to Vermont’s chronically underfunded GOP and three other GOP state committees.

In all, Romney for President and Romney Victory cut checks totaling nearly $27 million in December, which is not usual for a presidential campaign winding down. That included transfers totaling $650,000 to the state parties in Idaho, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Vermont.

The two Romney committees finished the year with a little more than $4 million in the bank […]

During the campaign, Vermont’s chronically underfunded GOP and three other Republican state committees acted as the temporary drop box for Romney Victory cash. Vermont received the most Victory cash and at one point had almost $8 million on hand. As part of the deal, the VTGOP was paid a monthly $20,000 fee by the Romney campaign for the months the money was tucked away but inaccessible in its accounts.

The Romney Victory Fund was one of several entities that legally shifted large bundles of campaign funds around hither and yon in a  way shockingly characteristic of money laundering. The Wall Street Journal reported that investment companies were warning clients because donations to the Victory fund could trigger SEC violations.

It all ends well: despite the millions, Romney was defeated, the Red Cross got a little relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and the Vermont GOP gets a little something for its future disasters.  

 At a Campaign for Vermont forum in Bradford last week organizer and moderator Bruce Lisman gave out cookies to those attending and made his pitch. The press release said the “ideas campaign” panel of experts concluded that greater prosperity in Bradford and the rest of Vermont will require better access to health care, food, workforce development, and education. That is all true, but so basic one wonders why they didn’t add that good is better than evil.  

But in addition to baking cookies Lisman has tried his hand at sleuthing out “good ideas” on the workforce development issue. He looked south and found that Louisiana has a state development/jobs program that he almost demands Vermont emulate.

“I think it can happen in Vermont,” Lisman said. Warning of Vermont’s declining national reputation for workforce quality, he said, “It has to. It’s a question of people saying, ‘we’re not going to take it anymore.’”

It is unclear what evidence he bases Vermont’s “declining national reputation” on or the anger he predicts may fuel it.

The programs that Lisman says have transformed Louisiana, once renowned for incompetence in workforce development

from worst to first in the nation in part because of a private sector initiative in which corporate executives contributed funds to an independent, statewide workforce development program, and received training themselves on cutting-edge development techniques.

The problem may be Louisiana has been given a D+ rating for its program.  

Louisiana Governor Jindal calls the programs his state’s most powerful tools for business development and Lisman would certainly agree. But the program gets a  D+ rating from the non-partisan research center  Good Jobs First. They studied five programs in Louisiana that cost taxpayers $1.1 billion annually and found that

the costliest tax credits, exemptions, and cash rebates don’t include the kind of strict performance standards needed to ensure that quality jobs are being created for the money that taxpayers spend. Louisiana Economic Development is the state agency responsible for overseeing and administering economic development subsidies.

• Three of five programs do not prohibit job-shifting. States receive zero economic benefit from subsidizing companies that create jobs by simply moving from one part of the state to another.

• Four of five programs lack wage requirements. Simply creating jobs will not lead to a stronger economy. Those jobs must pay enough to support a decent standard of living, and create economic ripple effects. Without wage requirements, the subsidies can result in jobs that pay workers so little that they must rely on social safety-net programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, or the Earned Income Tax Credit.

• Four of five programs have no health-care requirement. Although most people get health insurance from their employer, that percentage is declining. Subsidized workers unable to afford their own health insurance may fall onto the rolls of Medicaid, thus negating any positive economic benefits.

The report goes on to give part of the Louisiana effort good grades for job creation and says that could be a model to base needed reforms on. However, fewer than half of the programs require job creation at subsidized companies and the programs’ standards are quite low. Subsidized jobs with benefits and wages so low that workers need Medicaid and food stamps should not be classified as economic development they say.

Hope the cookies Lisman gave away at forum were good because his “good idea” from Louisiana is only half-baked.  

Barely two weeks after the surprise departure of telecom czar Karen Marshall, Governor Shumlin is closing his ConnectVt office. The announcement is found on the Vermont.Gov website just below Fish & Wildlife’s new baitfish rules for February.  Shumlin will transition the responsibilities and accountability to the Agency of Commerce & Community Development.

…the temporary office created to expand high-speed broadband internet access statewide by the end of 2013, will be transferred to the Agency of Commerce & Community Development, under Secretary Lawrence Miller

Marshall, ConnectVt’s sole employee, left abruptly on January 8th to take a high-level job with VTel. Until her departure she worked on the fifth floor of the Pavilion building with the governor’s closest advisors. Her duties were to work with private companies (including her new employer) to speed broadband development and facilitate the acquisition and distribution of $410 million in government grants.  

Immediately following Marshall’s  surprise departure, Vermont Telecom Authority board member Rep. Sam Young observed

“It doesn’t look good,” […] “It took a lot of work to get telecom providers to trust state government and share some of their information,” Young says. “I think that trust will be diminished for any future chiefs of Connect VT. I’m not quite sure there will be another one.”

The Glover representative certainly called that one right. With high-speed broadband expansion reportedly nearing 95% completion (according to a puzzlingly complex mapping system) the governor is quietly ending the position of telecom czar, closing ConnectVt, and strategically announcing “incredible progress” but not quite declaring broadband ‘victory.’

Good thing: there are still too many Vermonters whose ‘broadband’ service is provided over phone lines (as dsl) at relatively slow speeds (better than antiquated dial-up, but still …), or who have no broadband at all.

And we’re not even talking about (the lack of) statewide  cell phone coverage!

Great judgment on your personnel pick, there, Gov.  

 The federal Department of Interior is again delaying and revising a draft proposal of rules governing hyro-fracking for gas and oil on public lands. Not only was this news released on a Friday, the traditional day to dump embarrassing, bad or simply bothersome news but this is particular announcement was released on the Friday before the start of Obama’s second Inauguration and Monday’s Martin Luther King holiday. Truly a deep fracking news dump weekend if ever there was one.  

Outgoing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had claimed last May that these rules would be in place by the end of 2012. However that deadline has come and gone, and Friday afternoon an Interior Department spokesman appeared to start all over when he said the Bureau of Land Management

is making improvements to the draft proposal in order to maximize flexibility, facilitate coordination with state practices and ensure that operators on public lands implement best practices.

The Interior Department will “float” the never-issued draft recommendation from last May and begin taking new comments, once again soliciting comments from stakeholders and the public.  

The three main components of the much delayed draft rules include requirements for: a) disclosure of the fracking chemicals used on public land (90% of the wells drilled on federal and Indian lands employ hydro fracking); b) verification that the fracking wells are not leaking fluids; and c) confirmation that drillers had (and would implement) a management plan for handling fracking fluids that often flow and ooze back to the surface.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) and drilling industry groups praised the rule delay. They welcomed extending opportunities for more stakeholder comment. The industry maintains existing oversight at the state level is adequate for safe fracking and claim that these suggested regulations would impose a grievous monetary burden.

In other news as the week ended, there were reports that Exxon Mobil, which in the past election was a heavy duty Romney supporter, had reached into their well and dug-up $250,000 to donate the Obama Inauguration Committee.  

But golly, it looks like a developer has gotten the State’s OK to build us Vermonters an official highway rest area in Randolph.

Under the 30-year agreement, [Jesse “Sam”] Sammis will pay for construction and operation of the visitors center, which will be open 365 days a year from at least 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. […] The building is designed to resemble a barn to blend into the Vermont landscape. One end of the building will host the State sanctioned visitor center, the other end housing the Vermont Products Showcase.

By gawd what a selfless man, and yet some folks think developers are greedy self-interested exploiters. So this nice man named “Sam” Sammis who must be very busy otherwise because he is Chairman of the New England Land Company of Greenwich CT and Randolph VT owns projects in Vermont including The Green Mountain Stock Farm and Green Mountain Office and Industrial Park.

Well, he will build it all by himself, and as luck would have it he just happens to own a 170-acre industrial park right next to the highway! And that exclusive official Vermont state-sanctioned signage is expected to direct upwards of 500,000 cars and trucks to it every year. Thankfully that traffic won’t be any bother at all to Mr. Sammis!

In addition, Sammis plans to add 274 residential units, 280,000 square feet of office space, 236,000 square feet of light manufacturing space, and a 180-bed hotel and conference center on land he owns near the visitors center.

But what really sold and convinced me was that nice man from Montpelier (the one with beard) that works for the Governor – ,Jeb Spaulding. Why he’s normally so taciturn and serious – well he was just so excited he could hardly contain himself!

“When I first heard about this proposal I thought it sounded too good to be true. Imagine, a private developer offering to build a top quality visitor center for the State on private property, staff it and operate for thirty years and at what cost to the State? Zero,” said Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding. “We are confident this project will be a job creator, generate new revenues and save the state many millions in avoided spending while providing quality services to the travelling public.”

Golly, isn’t it just great that Governor Shumlin lets these wealthy people build nice things for us here in Vermont?! Since we are in these difficult days and must keep upper bracket income taxes low so they won’t move away and tough choices must. be. made.

And gosh what a great coincidence too, this announcement coming now during the new budget session when the state just seems to have hardly any money at all. Goodness me.  

 It seems the ranks of the working poor are increasing, and holiday sales at best were lackluster. I won’t try to prove that these two things are closely related but I do suspect they are in the same family.  

The Washington Post has an article about a report from The Working Poor Families Project which covers the increase in size of the working poor population in the US. The report says that despite 27 consecutive months of new job creation

nearly a third of the nation’s working families earn salaries so low that they struggle to pay for their necessities. […] [M]any of the occupations experiencing the fastest job growth during the recovery also pay poorly.

In 2011 over 70 percent of low-income families and half of all poor families were working, yet not earning enough to meet their basic living expenses.Notoriously underpaid jobs such as retail jobs, food preparation, clerical work and customer assistance are also among those that have experienced the most recent growth.The report also notes that in addition to the increase in the number of working poor there’s the growth in income inequity. Working families in the top fifth had incomes 10.1 times larger than the lowest fifth of working families in 2011.

Year-end financial reports say consumers in the US limited their holiday spending, producing a disappointing, lackluster season.

Target [department stores] reported flat December sales while the owner of Victoria’s Secret for once fell short of sales expectations. Macy’s, despite decent results, said it would close six stores this year.

Two exceptions were high-end department store Nordstrom’s, which had sales up 8.6 percent (remember the growth in income inequity?), and deep discounter Costco, with sales up 9 percent. Analysts blamed overall weakness on worries over the fiscal cliff and even the Sandy Hook mass shooting. But no analysts suggested that a growing portion of the population with little or no “extra” money to spend might also be factor.

And with that it is almost impossible not to mention another thing. This would be the well known old story that even automaker Henry Ford understood that it was beneficial for everyone to pay workers enough to buy a little more than just necessities. And in 1914 Henry Ford paid his workers five dollars a day – much more than other manufacturers paid.

According to Wikipedia, using the consumer price index, Henry Ford’s “a little more-than-just-necessities” wage  would be $111.10 per day in 2008 dollars. For an eight hour day that is $13.88 per hour. And even though inflation is pretty low, in the last 5 years there’s some, especially in medical care, peanut butter, tires, just to name a few.

So, when Walmart hires its 100,000 vets, is it going to pay them $13.88 per hour?  

Seven Days Off Message tells us a reception was held at the Statehouse last Wednesday to honor the late Peter Freyne. Political columnist Freyne was with Seven Days for 13 years and wrote the Inside Track column. One remembrance at the time of his death said “He held everyone, regardless of political party, accountable for their words and deeds.”  

…he drew plenty of earthly praise Wednesday afternoon at a Statehouse reception this paper held in his honor. As several speakers noted, Freyne would've been thrilled with the attention – including speeches by former AP Montpelier bureau chief Chris Graff, Sen. Patrick Leahy and Shumlin. We'd tell you what they said – including a choice gubernatorial pot joke – but, alas, it was off the record.

I’d bet it was good gubernatorial pot joke, too bad we’ll never know. I suppose someone in attendance at the event – sponsored by a newspaper and celebrating a reporter’s life – might even have noted the irony that this was all said off the record. At least we get an off-message hint.  

The revolving door from government to private sector has apparently been replaced with ramp or chute, for faster connections. For example:    

As chief of Governor Shumlin’s ConnectVT Karen Marshall worked with private sector companies that were to receive roughly $410 million in federal funds. Other duties to be engaged in were efforts across state government to use broadband to improve the way that public services are delivered. Marshall was ConnectVT’s sole employee and for two years had an office with the governor’s other close advisors on the fifth floor of the Pavilion building. Prior to this appointment Marshall had been Chief Operating Officer of a document shredding company, and before that had been an executive with Comcast and Clear Channel Communications.  

Now shortly after the Shumlin administration announced a $5 million grant to VTel, Marshall has taken a job with that company, according to the Valley News.

Marshall, who made $115,000 a year as chief of ConnectVT, will be the new president of VTel Data Network. […] The company, based in Springfield, Vt., received $116 million in federal stimulus grants in 2011 for broadband expansion in rural, underserved areas of the state.

VTel is owned and run by Michael Guite, a former Wall Street analyst who has been struggling to bring broadband to rural Vermont for several years. Vermont’s Upper Valley residents may remember that he made news in 2008 for trying to relocate the remains of a War of 1812 veteran and family from their plot on Guite’s property.

[New:] While at ConnectVT Marshall helped forge a partnership between (the pre-merger) GMP, CVPS, and VTel. That deal was formalized in July 2011, and according to GMP’s COO amped up VTel’s expansion 20-25 percent. Guite, who would later become Marshall’s employer, then had high praise for her efforts. The CEO of VTel said,

the Vermont project will be using cutting edge technology that is unique in the United States and is of an international caliber. “I wish I could say this was our idea,” Guite said. “The cutting edge of innovation came from the utilities and the governor’s office. I’m proud they brought us into it.”

As a member of the Vermont Telecom Authority (VTA) board Marshall was present at two meetings  – the last one Dec.7 2012, where the million dollar grant to her new employer was approved by voice vote. She (Marshall) told the Valley News on January 10th that

she did not engage in job conversations with VTel until Dec. 12, when she and Guite “had a mutual conversation on the 12th in which I shared some of the challenges I face in balancing some of my family considerations with my current role.”

An executive code of conduct enacted by Governor Shumlin reportedly prohibits any lobbying of colleagues or legislators for one year after leaving government employment.

The Governor’s spokesperson in an email to the Valley News said (frostily?) in part,

When the administration learned that [Marshall] had accepted an offer with VTel, we let her know that she would need to end her state employment immediately.

And,

We wish Karen well in her new position.

Seems she’s doing just fine. These days some connected Vermonters climb the ladder, and others take the chute.