Here’s a time-out break from GMD’s extensive comprehensive coverage of one percenter Bruce Lisman and his ongoing secretly funded Campaign for Vermont.  

So then how are Vermonters that aren’t retired millionaire bankers with their own megaphones doing? How are the 99% doing on their roads to prosperity?

In the Upper Valley and White River Junction for the next three months, postal workers have job uncertainty to spare. Two hundred and forty-five good-paying USPS jobs are at stake. William Creamer Jr., president of Local 301 of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union told the Valley News:

the White River Junction [USPS] plant, which employs 245 people, was one of eight plants around New England that received such [closure] notices yesterday, Creamer said. Mail currently sorted in the Upper Valley would instead be routed through Manchester and Burlington. […]The plant closings are part of a national plan to close as many as 252 processing plants affecting more than 100,000 jobs.

This is part of U.S.Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe’s proposal for cutbacks – which may prove to be a death spiral of quality and service cuts for the Postal Service.

The workers at the White River facility (and eight others in New England) are on notice, yet still in limbo, as no decision is final until May. That is when a Congressional moratorium on closing or consolidating postal facilities ends. By that time some resolution of the USPS’ dire financial situation may be achieved. The Vermont Congressional delegation, and Bernie Sanders (ever the supporter of rank-and-file workers) in particular, has expended great effort to try to save these folks’ jobs. Senators Leahy and Sanders and Congressman Welch released a joint statement of support reiterating their plans to work to maintain service. In part they said:

We are extremely disturbed that the Postal Service intends to continue with its original plan to close the processing plant at White River Junction. We are pleased that the processing plant in Essex Junction was spared, but what we are saying loudly and clearly is that we will do all that we can to keep the White River Junction processing plant open as well.

The USPS mailing centers handle standard bulk business mail, which includes advertising fliers, periodicals and non-profit solicitations. And, of course, there are the political mailings – when printed and handled locally. Many printers and supporting mail-fulfillment businesses rely on the postal center for efficient handling of  bulk shipping orders. We can expect that large ripples – even waves – from much more than just 245 lost jobs and their lost incomes and spending  will flow throughout the area.

Vermont’s business leaders do moan and wail publicly about uncertainty over possible changes to health care costs. Imagine the yelping we’d hear from them if they had to go through employment uncertainty like our postal workers are being put through!  

 In the most recent entry in their blizzard of “issue” ads Bruce Lisman’s Campaign for Vermont may have crossed a legal line past issue advocacy. The Vermont Press Bureau reports that the Vermont Democratic Party thinks so and filed a complaint with the Attorney General claiming the following about the newest ad’s content:  

“such critical and inaccurate hyperbole about the Governor can only be viewed as furthering the purpose of opposing his candidacy and/or influencing the outcome of the governor’s election.”

The ad reportedly targets Governor Shumlin by name over the state budget that Lisman claims may increase property taxes.

If the VDP complaint is supported it would mean millionaire Lisman’s Campaign for Vermont has violated their 501(C) (4) status. A registered 501(C) (4) can accept unlimited donations and does not have to disclose donor’s names but is constrained to issue advocacy.

If organizations want to advocate expressly for the victory or defeat of a specific candidate, they have to register as political action committees, abide by $2,000 donation limits and disclose the names of their donors.

 

Transparency is one key to a functioning democracy was title of the Campaign for Vermont’s initial public offering distributed throughout the state. Says Lisman:

Maybe donor transparency is one key to a functioning advocacy. So, come on Bruce, be a transparent Campaign for Vermont.This change might put you in bind but it would get your preaching and practicing into functional alignment.

I stumbled onto an article through a vtdigger.com link about the captive insurance industry. Before your eyes glaze over, it’s ok – the report goes only a little into the deep weeds of captive insurance. It seems the state of Connecticut, erstwhile insurance capital of the world, is growling and about to take a bite out of Vermont’s profitable captive insurance industry.

Captive insurance is a form of self-insurance subsidiary set up by a large company (such as IBM) to insure the company's own risk. By keeping insurance costs “in house” the savings to corporations are substantial. Vermont is the world’s third-largest domicile of captives with over 900 licensed through the state. Connecticut’s plan, in part:

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is looking for something new in one of the state's oldest industries. His budget proposes to establish a division in the Insurance Department to regulate companies that specialize in captive insurance, a form of self-insurance.  Among proposed incentives for luring captives to Connecticut is establishing a $7,500 tax credit for a captive insurer's first year in business and modify[ing] certain requirements.  

Okay, competition for the captive insurance dollar. So here’s David Provost, Vermont’s deputy commissioner of captive insurance, on how Vermont keeps its captives captive.

The state has not offered tax breaks or other inducements, but provides a "stable, predictable" business environment,

Surely the Deputy Commissioner must have misspoken or been misquoted in his comments in the article about the secret behind Vermont’s captive insurance success.

Checking out the Vermont BISHCA website, we find there are dozens of “improvements” to regulations and “housekeeping” changes made by the legislature (some at the captives’ request) to accommodate and streamline regulation for the captive insurance industry. The BISHCA website notes one result of “housekeeping” changes in captive insurance laws

Recodified changes […] for the second time since captive law was adopted, allowed for a significant reduction in captive premium taxes

One of the recent legislative changes celebrated last year was making a three-year-old (temporary) tax break permanent. An industry official wrote when the Vermont bill was signed:

The bill also makes permanent the elimination of the first year minimum tax of $7,500 for newly licensed captives. “It was a way for the Legislature and Governor to say thank you to an industry that has been so beneficial to Vermont,” said Richard Smith, President of the Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA).

Coincidently the same $7,500 tax inducement is something the Connecticut Governor is proposing. A seven-thousand-dollar sweetener is a drop in the bucket for this industry. The rule changes may just be the sign of good and flexible captive regulators, but for a deputy commissioner to say that this industry doesn’t get inducements or breaks from Vermont makes the facts rather more “flexible” and elastic than their substance can stand. It isn’t as if Connecticut hasn’t noticed.  

Vermont’s Hartford Police Department has had a fair share of troubles recently. Three times in a little more than one year cases alleging excessive force were deemed serious enough to be investigated by the state attorney general’s office. The department was cleared in all three cases but the AG did suggest changing officer training procedures. At least two news organizations and the Vermont ACLU have sued the Hartford Department for release of records in these cases.

Now in another case it appears the Hartford Police are being proactive in leveraging social media to defend their desire not to make records public after repeated requests from the press. The Valley News reports:

Hartford Police Chief Glenn Cutting denied the request, citing an exemption for records related to criminal investigations. The Valley News and other open government advocates in Vermont have argued that most records should be released once an investigation is closed, and [Valley News reporter] Davis then appealed to Hartford Town Manager Hunter Rieseberg.  

The case in question is a family murder and suicide. The sad incident was a murder-suicide committed by a 50-year-old man who killed his elderly mother and step-father, then committed suicide. Although family members have not seen the police records, they are citing worry about tabloid style sensationalism and would prefer the records stayed closed. They praise the department and are supporting the Police Facebook effort to stop the newspaper from pursuing release of the records in court. Over 50 family and friends have left comments on Facebook expressing similar support.

The Valley News editor Jeff Good expresses sympathy for the family, however, he says, “…but we also choose to pursue the information from the police investigation that the law says is public”.

Saint Michael’s College media studies department chairman David Mindich explains:

The Upper Valley readers who were siding with the police department on Facebook weren't distinguishing between the newspaper’s request for information and what it might ultimately publish.

“The public has to be very careful not to side with police and government officials to censor the press or to thwart the press' right and, in fact, responsibility, to gather information,” he said.

“We care about families' feelings, but we also have to care about the health of our society, and how do you balance those two things? It's very difficult,”

Allen Gilbert, the head of Vermont ACLU, is alarmed by the police-sponsored Facebook page in light of the department’s past record.

“This is the first time I've seen a public agency using social media not just to get around the press, but to intimidate the press. That's really how I see this. They are essentially trying to make you folks respond to public pressure in a way I don't see as justified,”

 Vermont’s once controversial bottle deposit bill is now an accepted part of life that has kept piles of bottles off roadsides for 30 years. Since the original bottle bill, tons more plastic containers are manufactured every year for a variety of new uses and enter the plastics food-chain. Many of these new use containers are not covered by the current bottle bill .Now to deal with these developments several versions of new and expanded bottle bills are dancing their way through the legislature. However the future of any expanded bottle bill is in doubt.  

But Gov. Peter Shumlin said he opposed expanding the bottle law, which he called one of Vermont’s “old dinosaurs.”  

“I would like to see us as a state move to a policy where everything gets recycled and where we have one-stop recycling where we don’t have to take some items to a grocery store and other items to your green bins,”  

Supporting the legislative bottle bill changes is a report by VPIRG that says unredeemed deposits could generate $1.27 million a year and gain 100 new jobs for the state.

According to VPIRG, this program has an 85 percent recycling rate and its expansion is supported by 86 percent of the state.

Seems as if even an “old dinosaur” bottle bill with an 86 percent support number could almost run for office and win.    

Or how I wasted most of the morning online while some paint dried. But the internets are great for research and one of the best time wasting tools I know of.  

Vermont’s Peter Shumlin says VtBuzz is among six other governors named in an article: Rookie Governors: Who's Doing Very Well?

Well good enough, that’s something I agree with more often than not. Nice little blurb for the Governor, but who is handing out this honor? Following the link from VtBuzz takes you to Governing Magazine which is found on a serious looking think-tanky website. Digging around I found a couple of the editors have early backgrounds with Forbes and Ladies Home Journal. The new director of The Governing Institute (Governing Magazine’s parent) is the former long-term auditor and one term mayor of Kansas City. He was the first mayor not to win re-election since 1920 and was almost recalled ahead of the vote. Among many of his troubles while in office was the appointment he made of a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (an anti-immigrant group) as the Kansas City parks and recreation commissioner.

So who or what is behind this online magazine and this think-tankery?  

Governing Magazine is a longtime publication that changed hands three years ago and is now associated with E.Republic an online publisher of Government Technology, Emergency Management and Public CIO. E.Republic is owned by the Church of Scientology which amidst some controversy purchased Governing from The St.Petersburg Times in 2009. Surprisingly the Times had been running a lengthy expose on Scientology prior to the sale.Does any of this matter much in this case? Probably not. But why not know who the owner/funder of a think tank and associated publication may be? And it helped pass the time this morning while some paint dried.  

 The Environmental Evangelical Network (EEN) a green evangelical “pro-life” group that supports EPA rules limiting harmful mercury is catching the wrath of fellow “pro-lifers”. The EEN favors specific restrictions on emissions from power plants because they will protect the health of the unborn. The EEN critics maintain that to portray safeguards against environmental hazards as “pro-life” is to obscure the meaning of the term.

While the EEN’ers still deny that human activity is driving global warming the group has urged support for regulatory restrictions by sponsoring TV, radio ads and billboards. A spokesman spells out their view this way:

We believe protecting the unborn from mercury poisoning is a consistent pro-life position,

  Mercury exposure can cause mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness and blindness in infants. Low doses may result in developmental delays affecting walking, talking, attention span and learning disabilities.

However the EEN’s broader views and actions spell trouble for them from 30 other religious “pro-lifers” and conservative anti-EPA legislators including, The Family Research Council and Sen. James Inhofe. It appears these critics see a threat to the “pro-life” brand name. Says Inhofe about the EEN’s position:

To claim that EPA’s devastating, job-killing regime is somehow ‘pro-life’ is absurd.

 This is a troublesome junction for control of the issue when a brand boundary gets blurred and is no longer focused as they wish it to be. And worse still for Sen. Inhofe is the intersecting issue with his longtime pet villain, the “job-killing” EPA. So while watching the “pro-lifers” fight over their brand can you imagine the EPA protecting life?

The person who wrote the following Vermont State webpage’s wintertime recreation press release “Fishing is Hot on Lake Champlain… and some memorable fish have been caught in recent weeks” probably didn’t have strontium or cesium in mind. But it certainly blends well with the Vermont chief radiologist’s news that a fish from Northwestern Vermont’s Lake Carmi tested positive for low levels of strontium-90 and cesium-137. The preliminary results are in the same range as found last August in a Connecticut River fish near Vermont Yankee. Bill Irwin, chief of radiological health for the Vermont Department of Health says this provides proof of what he had already decided … err hypothesized:

"We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we’ve hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture."

Good news! Call the tourist board to announce all the Vermont fish contain radioactive strontium 90 and cesium! However, if this shows the Lake Carmi fish was contaminated by nuclear weapons fallout and the Chernobyl disaster I shouldn’t think it takes our leaking Vermont Yankee out of contention as an additional source for contamination of Connecticut River fish.

The Lake Carmi fish had cesium in edible and inedible parts, and strontium only in the sample’s bones, head, fins and scales. By comparison, the Vermont Yankee fish had high levels of strontium 90 in the bones and small but measurable levels in the meat.

A fish taken from the Connecticut River in 2010 had the highest levels of strontium-90 in bone that his department has seen in any samples.  

"In that same sample we did find very low but measurable amounts of strontium-90 in the meat of the fish," said Irwin, which could have been a sampling or contamination error. "But we don’t know that."

The Lake Carmi fish as “proof” (not all “evidence” is “proof”) reminds me of the line from the Nick Danger comedy skit where a supposed time traveler says “I have proof I’ve been to Ancient Greece! See, look at this grape!”The Vermont chief radiologist found a grape.

Just remember, Bill Irwin is a culturally-sensitve guy looking out for you and your radiological health:

"There’s no danger in eating the fish," said Irwin. "Should we ever find that there are reasons to restrict diet from any sampling for any kind of radioactive or toxicological events, we would keep in mind different cultures have different diets."  

Ever wonder how much local fish Bill Irwin eats?

Well, Entergy of Louisiana can’t keep the valves at the plant oiled but they do keep their legal team lubricated with money. Entergy’s legal team was successful in the challenge to Vermont’s law covering Vermont Yankee operating past 2012. The Times-Argus reports Entergy has sent a message from New Orleans demanding Vermont pay $4.6 million in legal fees they claim they incurred in the suit against the State.  

Reacting to this news Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell said he had thought the claim from Entergy would be “in seven figures” more in line with Vermont standards. The Attorney General says:

“I guess it [$4.6 million] shows the ‘David-versus-Goliath’ aspect of the case,”

 The mismatch is suitable but it’s kind of an ill fit otherwise for this situation as Goliath has won and is now making demands from David after this part of battle.

It also seems Sorrel had a surprising hope. Against all past dealings with Goliath he thought Entergy might make a gesture of being a good corporate citizen to atone for sins of the past.  

Sorrell said he had even thought Entergy might not seek legal fees in a gesture of being “a good corporate citizen making up for the sins of the past and the misleading statements about the underground pipes.”  

Sorrell had investigated Entergy officials for more than a year for possible criminal charges for the misstatements about underground pipes, which were later found to be the source of radioactive tritium leaking at the plant in 2010. Entergy executives had said such pipes did not exist.

Under pressure they grudgingly admitted to miscommunicating about underground pipes. No criminal charges were filed; no case was brought so why would Entergy feel it had sinned? Hardly sinning in Goliath’s book of rules, maybe in the eyes of Entergy Corp the only sin is losing.