Vermont nuclear expert, Arnie Gundersen, of Fairewinds Associates, has been a frequent guest on the national media throughout the past week.  Now he shares with us his analysis of what satellite views of the damaged reactors might be indicating about the potential for recovery of the situation. Mr. Gundersen is a valued friend of GMD so I am sure he will not mind me referring to him in the familiar.

Among the visual clues that Arnie notes is the fact that no workers are visible anywhere on the site.  This is obvious reason for concern, since Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government have not been consistently candid about the facts on the ground and the visuals cast some doubt on their insistence that emergency workers are still laboring at the plant .

The roof structure over Unit #1 has been destroyed and there appears to be nothing but rubble below.  Arnie says that if there was water in the containment chamber it would be visible in the photo as a glimpse of blue.

Unit #2 appears at first glance to be intact.  But, on closer inspection, there appears to be a plume of steam rising from an aperture on one side.  If steam is indeed escaping, he says,

“that isn’t a good sign.”

Then there is Unit #3, which is  

“totally obliterated and in danger of melting down.”

Unit #4 has a crack in the side of it, where the nuclear fuel pool is believed to be dry.

Additionally, Arnie points to an area where the floodwater meets the perimeter of the  facility.  There would have been service water pumps installed on that perimeter, that were intended to provide emergency cooling water. Those pumps are gone.  As Arnie explains, this is called “a single point of vulnerability.” Even if the diesels hadn’t been flooded, absent those service pumps, emergency water couldn’t have been supplied throughout the plant in any case.

Looking at the general condition of the site at this point, Arnie thinks it is expecting a lot to assume that there is an intact interior system to take up and deliver the water.  It is likely that

“the pipes and  pumps and valves inside are not working, or at least not working well.”  

Should the most optimistic assumptions about the interior plumbing be true and water can successfully be delivered to the interior of the reactors, one must remember that this will not be normal cooling water, but brine.  

“They’ll have to gerry-rig a system to pump seawater inside.”  

Assuming that they succceed in doing that.

“Pumping saltwater will build-up contaminants on the nuclear fuel that ‘s likely to clog the nuclear fuel and make cooling it that much harder to do.”

We are extremely grateful for the insight Arnie is providing on this critical situation and promise to keep our readers updated as we learn more.

No matter how much devastation takes place overseas, it just isn’t smart to take your eye off the ball here at home.  Inevitably, someone will be up to no good while the rest of us are distracted.  

Case in point:  the revelation in Seven Days that an effort is being made by former ANR officials  to quash a bill ensuring due process for aggrieved citizens.  The intention of this bill (H.258) is to provide opportunity for private individuals and citizen groups  to weigh-in on the enforcement of permit requirements.

Former Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, Tom Torti,  and former ANR chief counsel, Warren Coleman are in the lobbying business these days; Torti, as president of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce; and Coleman as an operative of the lobbying firm of Mclean, Meehan & Rice .  Even as the ANR undergoes a brisk housecleaning in the wake of the new administration, these ex- public servants wasted no time before demonstrating that their loyalty lies with the developers and corporations rather than the people of Vermont.

 Shay Totten sums up their position in a nutshell:

Why do they object to the proposed bill? It’ll send the wrong message to Vermont’s polluters, er, businesses: that Vermont is not friendly to development

.

Among Messr. Torti’s and Coleman’s handlers are some of the usual suspects.   As all Chambers of Commerce tend to get their marching orders from the U.S. C of C, we all know where their interests lie.  Other than a vague reference to complaints by “real estate developers” (I’ll just bet!), Mr. Coleman declined to share with Seven Days who exactly he is serving with his lobbying efforts in this case; but the general client list of Mclean Meehan & Rice includes both Vermont Yankee and Cabot (a.k.a. Agrimark.) Vermont Yankee’s interest in thwarting public participation in the review and enforcement process needs no explanation, as they make almost weekly appearances in GMD’s rogues gallery of environmental offenders.  

Agrimark/Cabot, as you may recall, has been dodging complaints by local residents concerning the true nature of material characterized as “dairy waste” that is routinely dispersed through spraying over farmlands. Under the Douglas administration, the ANR demonstrated great reluctance to consider those local complaints.

Besides Cabot and VY, the International Bottled Water Association is another client of MM&R that might have particular interest in frustrating participation by local citizens.

H.258 recognizes and enables the value that accessibility brings to the enforcement process.  State agencies do not always have the resources to vigilantly monitor permit requirements once they have been established.  As became  apparent at the ANR under Jim Douglas, sometimes the political culture gets in the way.  Passage of H.258 will ensure that, going forward, no matter who holds the reins of regulation in Vermont, the voices of concerned citizens will always have a place in the enforcement process.

That Torti and Coleman have so easily transitioned into industry shills from positions of power in the environmental permit system says a lot about the broken culture inside the Agency of Natural Resources throughout the Douglas years.  

I am just trying to imagine current ANR secretary, Deb Markowitz, and current chief counsel, Jon Groveman, as lobbyists for polluting industries.  Nope; it’s simply beyond the imagination.

I’m sure many Vermonters have been turning the same question over in their minds that I have.  What relationship does that ominously percolating reactor at the Fukushima Dailichi plant in disaster-struck Japan have to our own little hot pot at Vermont Yankee?  As it turns out, the answer is,”quite a bit.”

Like VY, Fukushima’s troubled reactor is a BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) with a G.E. Mark 1 containment design. Also like VY, it appears to be approaching 40-years in operation.

I did a little digging and learned that there is reason for concern about the ability of the Mark 1 containment design to successfully hold up to pressure.

in 1986, Harold Denton, then the NRC’s top safety official, told an industry trade group that the”Mark I containment, especially being smaller with lower design pressure, in spite of thesuppression pool, if you look at the WASH 1400 safety study, you’ll find something like a 90%probability of that containment failing.”Some modifications have been made to U.S. Mark I reactors since 1986, although thefundamental design deficiencies remain.

The NRC, who has never met a reactor they couldn’t relicense, just yesterday signed-off on another twenty years of wear, tear and capricious management for VY.  Gives you pause, doesn’t it?

‘Feeling helplessly outraged over Governor Walkers’ union-busting actions?   Not content to sit by silently while labor rights are systematically dismantled by the power elite, a friend of mine has launched his own e-mail campaign to simultaneously punish the Walker administration and promote Vermont dairy products:

Dear Friend,

Do NOT buy dairy or agricultural products from the state of Wisconsin! Buy Vermont!

If you agree with me, send this to lots of people.

This idea is popping-up all over the web.  Some folks object that it would hurt Wisconsin workers, and that might be valid if it went on indefinitely. Some might argue that it appears opportunistic; but is it “opportunistic” if the boycott springs from private, working class roots?

A limited boycott launched not officially, but in one or many “word-of-mouth” campaigns, such as Perry’s, might send a powerful economic message to Walker’s handlers.  His plain-spoken local message is intended only for Vermont; but at the same time, what might its impact be on another Vermont brand that is appreciated at home and perhaps even in distant markets that already value Vermont’s fine products….the “progressive” brand?

Another mutual friend, who formerly lived in Wisconsin, has responded to the boycott suggestion by complaining that it unfairly targets farmers, who are not the problem.  This argument has merit, but it is the same one that can be made against imposing international sanctions on rogue nations. The argument for those actions is always that it takes economic pressures to force political change when democratic means have been thwarted.  

We impose sanctions to curb third-world dictators; why can’t workers do the same to the home-grown variety?  

Dairy is a huge signature industry in Wisconsin, the success of which the sitting Governor can wear to the polling place as a badge of his effectiveness.   What other economic driver in  Wisconsin could so effectively and symbolically be targeted by a working man’s boycott?

These are tough questions.  I think I’ll have me a bit of Boucher Bleu with common crackers while I turn this one over in my mind.

I’ve fixed the link.  It seems to have been my error in coding.  It should work now.

According to this morning’s Free Press, the NRC is poised to relicense Vermont Yankee as early as next week. It’s time to flood the NRC with calls and e-mails expressing alarm and opposition to continued operation of the plant.  

Telephone numbers are given on their website:

Public Affairs 301-415-8200

Safety or Security Concerns  1-800-695-7403

I decided an e-mail was in order, but there is no e-mail address given.  You have to go to this page. You’ll find  an embedded submission form which you fill-out and send.

There’s no more time to waste.  Do it today.

Sure as Town Meeting comes to pass every year, Marilyn Hackett gets another virtual slap in the face from her righteous neighbors in Franklin.  After ten years, this time will likely be the last, since Ms. Hackett has finally resolved to sue the municipality to have them remove a Christian invocation from the agenda of the next Town Meeting…and she will most likely win.

As anyone who read my post on the issue this time last year may recall, she hasn’t come to this decision easily or quickly.

According to the March 3 Messenger,

Alleging a violation of Vermont’s Constitution and the state’s Public Accommodations Act, the Vermont branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed suit against the Town of Franklin and moderator Tim Magnant for repeatedly opening Franklin’s town meeting with a Christian prayer.

Maintaining that the Town’s persistent disregard for Ms. Hackett’s beliefs is in violation of the Public Accommodations Act, attorneys are seeking an end to the annual prayers, recovery of damages and associated legal fees.

Each year Ms. Hackett requests that the invocation be dropped from the agenda in deference to her personal beliefs.  She doesn’t proselytize and asks only that her right to fully participate in Town Meeting without the imposition of publicly led prayer be respected.  Each year, the Town Moderator defies both Ms. Hackett and the letter of the law by opening the meeting with a Christian prayer  led by Rev. Jason McConnell.  The current Town Moderator is Tim Magnant.

A previous Moderator, Hugh Gates, addressed her complaint by  “inviting” anyone objecting to the prayer to leave the room.  This was an invitation that Ms. Hackett found considerably less than accommodating.  Once, the assembly even took a vote, by a show of hands, on whether or not to allow the prayer; but, as Ms. Hackett rightly observed, you can’t vote away another person’s rights under the law.

Ms. Hackett offered a compromise to the Town Selectboard last year before the Meeting. The assembly could open with a moment of silence or a non-sectarian invocation suggested by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.  When asked, selectman Scott Choiniere told the Messenger that a moment of silence would indeed be observed; however, when the meeting was actually held, Rev. McConnell once again opened it with a Christian prayer. Choiniere said McConnell had refused to use the non-sectarian invocation provided by the VLCT.  What issue he might have had with the alternative “moment of silence” was never addressed.

In the wake of the lawsuit announcement, Ms. Hackett says the repercussive abuse has already begun with a hate call on Wednesday.  Last year after her explanatory letter appeared in the Messenger, Ms. Hackett was the target of several nasty letters, including one from Richford selectman Dan Newton.

Newton called her “a twisted radical bimbo,” an “unpatriotic extremist” and said she should be “given a one-way ticket to a Third World country,” Hackett recalled.

Nice.  These remarks were apparently repeated by students at Richford High School where she was employed at the time.  

Over the years, Ms. Hackett must have observed some good in her neighbors, because she is nothing if not persistent.  One could certainly understand if she simply chose to pack her bags and leave the small-minds of Franklin far behind.  

It was a surprisingly healthy turnout for a frigid Wednesday night.  About fifty people gathered in the Museum auditorium where Patient Choices Vermont introduced  the featured speaker, George Eighmey an Oregon attorney who was instrumental in passing the nations first “Death With Dignity” law.  Most of the audience was legitimately interested in what Mr. Eighmey could share about Oregon’s experience with physician-assisted end of life choice.  The remainder, wearing badges stating their opposition to physician assisted “suicide” were there primarily to challenge the speaker.

A Vermont physician, Dr. David Babbott opened the discussion with a run-down on H.274, Vermont’s own “Death With Dignity” bill, which is under consideration in the current legislative session.  Some key provisions of the Vermont bill in its current wording, are as follows:

. The patient must be an adult resident of Vermont; must be terminally ill; must be able to communicate consent; and must be deemed mentally competent.

. The patient must ask and answer in the affirmative twice, that he or she wishes to go ahead with the medication.



Mr. Eighmey began by saying the Vermont bill, as proposed, is an improvement over the Oregon bill, offering more safeguards which include requiring  two “non-related” signatures, additional record keeping and palliative consultation.  

After offering a little personal background and a history of the Oregon law, Mr. Eighmey addressed the myths that currently cloud the debate, using data from the Oregon experience:

Myth 1:  Women would be “coerced” into using the law more than men.  

Fact: In Oregon, 46% of the patients who choose the option are women; 54% are men.

Myth 2: The medication is unreliable and people will live- on after taking it.

Fact:  Of the 528 instances when this procedure was chosen in Oregon, only 3 patients did not die.  They awoke alert and aware of their surroundings.  One requested that the medicine be administered again.  All three died of their underlying condition within a very short time.

Myth 3 People will be coerced into taking the lethal dose.  

Fact: Mr. Eighmey says that he has worked with over 80% of patients who chose this option.  Invariably, it was the patients relatives who tried to persuade the patient not to take the medicine.  In fact, 9 out of 10 patients who start the process never complete it, but they take great comfort in knowing that it is available to them.

Myth 4:The patients who take the lethal dose will be the poor, enfeebled, uneducated and minorities.

Facts:  In Oregon, over 90% of the patients who chose this option had insurance.  Almost 89% are enrolled in hospice care.  Over 90% are caucasian. Most are highly educated, fiercely independent and belong to a loving family.

Myth 5: If given this option, patients will “rush into” dying when they might have more than six months to live.

Fact:  The prescribed process makes this impossible to do.  Almost 30% of the one-in ten patients who complete the process after beginning it, never take the medication.

Mr. Eighmey made a point of saying that this choice should not be called “suicide.”  It is simply the dying patient being given control of the circumstances under which his death takes place. It is also not to be confused with “euthanasia” since the patient is making the choice him or herself.

There were some good questions from the audience and a couple of deliberately disruptive grand-standing attempts.  

Among the good questions was one posed by someone who was concerned that this law might legitimize suicide in the minds of children and young adults.  Mr. Eighmey pointed out that there are tragic suicides going on all over the United States all of the time so “legitimization” is a non starter.  Mr. Eighmey, who himself lost a son to suicide, says that  what we need is a better mental healthcare system and preventive interventions.  What a Death With Dignity Law communicates to our children is that we have compassion for the frail and the dying.

One of the organized opposition challenged Mr. Eighmey with the fact that Oregon has a suicide rate that is 35% higher than the national average, to which he replied that Oregon with it’s dreary months of wet weather, and high homeless and indigent population, has had this rate of suicides for decades, despite the fact that the Death With Dignity law has only been on the books since 1997.

Someone else asked how the cause of death is represented on the death certificate of a patient who dies in this manner.  Mr. Eighmey says that the law regards this as a privacy issue, so the death certificate cites the underlying disease as the cause of death.

We can look forward to many heated debates on this topic over the coming months, and perhaps years; sbut Vermonters could not have a more sympathetic or experienced voice for Death With Dignity  than Mr. Eighmey.  Fortunately, he will be speaking several more times throughout the course of this tour:

Thursday, March 3rd

12:30 pm – 2 pm

Middlebury Town Hall Theatre

68 South Pleasant (Merchant’s Row – on the Green)

6:30 pm – 8 pm

Mark Skinner Library in Manchester Center

48 West Rd, just off 7A

Friday, March 4th

6:30 pm – 8 pm

Hardwick Memorial Building, 3rd Fl., 20 Church St.

elevator available at Police Dept entrance. Others enter through main door and go up the stairs.

On the Radio:

MARK JOHNSON SHOW

WDEV

Thursday, March 3rd

9:00 am – 11 am (not sure what time George will be on)

___________________________________________________________

A quick reminder to Franklin County residents that tonight at 6:30, at the Historical Society on Church St. in St. Albans City, Patient Choices Vermont will be holding a forum on the Death With Dignity Act. (See details below fold.)

This is an important issue, that will be presented tonight in one of Vermont’s most conservative districts.  If we want our legislators to support this bill, we have to turn out in good numbers to demonstrate that it matters to us. I will try to live-blog from the forum, but if I can’t I’ll update after the event.

Death with Dignity: From Oregon to Vermont

Patient Choices Vermont sponsors Speaker Tour with George Eighmey

Patient Choices Vermont is sponsoring a series of discussions with Patient Choices Vermont board member David Babbott, MD, and George Eighmey, who was instrumental in passing and implementing Oregon’s first-in-the-nation Death with Dignity Act. We’ll talk about the bill that was recently introduced in the Vermont House of Representatives (H.274).

WHO: Patient Choices Vermont board member Dr. David Babbott and George Eighmey (bio below)

George Eighmey (pronounced Amy) graduated from the University of Illinois Schools of Administration and Law with honors. He practiced law in Illinois and Oregon until 2000, concentrating in the area of estates and family law. George was licensed to practice before the Ninth and Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Oregon and Illinois Supreme Courts, the U.S. Tax Court, and the U.S. Federal Appeals Court. He served on the Urbana, Illinois city council as an elected member and he was an Oregon State Representative from the Portland, Oregon area from 1993-1999. During his term as an Oregon representative he served as vice-chair of the House Judiciary Committee, minority whip, and senior Democrat leader where he championed the passage of the Death with Dignity Act, Medicinal Marijuana and Alternative Medicine laws. George served as Executive Director of Compassion & Choices of Oregon; an organization dedicated to providing nonjudgmental information on end-of-life options for 12 years until retiring in September 2010. He continues to lecture on the subject of Oregon’s aid-in-dying law. He is an advisory board member of Odyssey Hospice, Signature Hospice, Equity Foundation, the Bosco-Milligan Historic Preservation Foundation and co-author of a chapter in the book – Compassion in Dying – Stories of Dignity and Choice. He has received honors from several human rights and attorney organizations.  

David Babbott, MD, is a retired professor of Medicine at the University of Vermont, where he taught medical students and residents for over a quarter of a century. Before that, he had a full-time clinical practice. A long-time advocate for patient choice at the end of life, Dr. Babbott has served on the Board of Directors of Patient Choices Vermont since 2003. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine. He has served as a Master of the American College of Physicians, and as governor for the Vermont Chapter.

Free and open to the public.

Wednesday, March 2nd

6:30 pm

St. Albans Historical Museum, 9 Church St. 3rd fl

enter thru rear of bldg. – elevator available. Will have snacks from Cosmic Bakery.

http://www.stamuseum.com/index…

More information is available at www.patientchoices.org, including a link to the bill and factsheets.

##30##

Patient Choices Vermont is an advocacy organization that seeks to educate Vermonters about end-of-life options and to influence policy, regulations and practice that affect the terminally ill. PCV works to promote the best possible pain control, palliative and hospice care, adn to enable terminally ill patients to direct their own end of life. More information can be found at www.patientchoices.org.

If, over your morning coffee, you turned to page 6 of the Free Press today and spluttered “What the f…??” you’re in good company.  

A full page ad from Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) and the Vermont Society of Certified Public Accountants (VSCPA was the first I heard of an Alice-in-Wonderland twist to U.S. patent laws that has apparently allowed hundreds of patents to be filed, not on tax-prep software, but on actual tax filing strategies covering retirement plans, workplace compensation, financial investments, charitable giving, estate planning, etc.  That’s right, should you be so bold as to prepare your own taxes using tax law and your own native intelligence to arrive at some of the same strategies in filing your own taxes, you could be sued by the patent holders.

Relatively few of our readers are likely to be significantly impacted by patents in those areas, but the future implications for the rest of us are clear.  According to the ad:

Many of these tax strategy patents cover a wide range of important but common forms of compliance that you may be already using without permission from the patent holder…Based on current patent applications filed at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, we are extremely concerned that, if nothing is done, these sorts of outrageous patents will entend to other tax-related issues affecting Vermonters’ lives, such as planning for a college education, health care savings programs, and life insurance.

It goes on to commend Sen. Patrick Leahy for his efforts to correct patent law so that such strategies would be eliminated as patentable applications.

Having had a small amount of experience with patent law, I can only speak as a matter of opinion. While necessary in theory, patent laws actually represent a huge boondoggle for that segment of the legal trade who shrewdly seek them out. The process of obtaining a patent is extremely arcane and complicated, guaranteeing hundreds of billable hours for the technical and legal team that one must almost invariably hire to steer even the simplest patent through the entire process.  

If, as a small inventor, you finally make it through all the hoops and jumps and are awarded your patent, it’s arguable whether you will ever see any financial reward to offset the cost and aggravation.  For one thing, you have only a very limited number of years in which to profit from your patent before it expires, necessitating another costly process for renewal.  

Meanwhile if you’ve actually succeeded in patenting a marketable idea, anyone can introduce even a tiny tweak to your original idea and bypass your patent entirely.

To make matters worse, the patent office is so clogged-up and backlogged with frivolous and even vanity patent applications that by the time a patent is actually issued, your product or process may already be irrelevant. Nevermind the fact that much of the manufacturing world is beyond U.S. control and will ignore U.S. patents altogether. A friend in the software sector tells me they don’t even bother with patents anymore, preferring the more efficient copyright system to offer some security in their fast-moving industry.

One of the funnier moments in my husband’s experience with the patent office came when he finally received notification that his application was successful.  In the envelope accompanying the patent was a promotional flyer, sort of like something you’d get with your bank checks.  My husband’s success as a “patented inventor” was heralded importantly, and he was offered the opportunity to purchase a couple of extremely tacky commemorative items to display to his friends and family!

I’m glad to read that at last some effort is being made to curb the runaway bureaucracy at the patent office.  It would be nice to think that protection for the fruits of American ingenuity is possible without exposing the beleaguered taxpayers to more predatory litigation.

With an emboldened plutocracy flexing its muscles all over the country, it’s good to have another reminder  that our DC delegation continues to look out for the poor “step-children” who have been generally cut-adrift in the current round of economic blackmail. In this case, those “step-children” are the twin causes of environmental and human safety, both of which Entergy apologists would willingly  sacrifice on the altar of “cheap” energy, just to keep VY burbling away well past its sell-by date.

Our own “DC 3” have all signed onto a letter drafted by Bernie Sanders, who sits on the panel charged with oversight of the NRC, urging that regulatory body to ensure that clean-up of Vermont Yankee is undertaken immediately following closure of the plant.  

The lawmakers called it “unacceptable” that Entergy, which owns the Vermont plant, could engage in “decades of delay” before cleaning up the site along the Connecticut River at Vernon, Vt. “Immediate decommissioning will assure Vermonters that the plant is being disassembled safely,” the delegation wrote. An immediate cleanup and shutdown of the site also would allow the plant operator to take advantage of the skills of many long-term Yankee employees who otherwise would lose their jobs.

In the letter to Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko, the delegation requests a meeting with the full commission; and that the meeting should include Governor Shumlin,

because of the “enormous consequences” for Vermont and the state’s “vital interest” in the plant’s safe shutdown.

Tying swift decommissioning to job retention is a brilliant and entirely legitimate strategy, which should steal some thunder from one of VY’s dwindling arguments against closure.

As we know all too well,

Entergy has indicated it favors a so-called “SAFSTOR” decommissioning method, a process that the delegation letter said “would let Entergy off the hook” for cleanup and waste disposal for years or even decades. “While Entergy may prefer leaving the plant to sit like an abandoned factory because it has not saved the necessary funds to fully decommission the plant, this is not the safest option for Vermonters,” Leahy, Sanders and Welch wrote.

Senator Sanders points out that a delayed decommissioning process could have grave consequences, as might have been the case when an idle Illinois reactor  experienced frozen pipes (a likely scenario in Vermont) which burst and released 55,000 gallons of radioactive water into a containment building.  An opportune discovery of the problem by the night watchman may have been all that prevented a much more extensive release.  

I spoke with, reactor expert Arnie Gundersen who told me

Had the watchman at Dresden 1 not discovered the leak that created a 55,000 gal. spill inside the containment, an unimaginably worse situation would have developed within 24-hours.  An even larger pipe had almost frozen solid.  Had that pipe broken, the entire fuel pool would have drained, leading to gamma radiation so intense that the entire site would have had to be evacuated, including the two other operating reactors.  

While Arnie doesn’t hold out a lot of hope that the NRC will heed the pleas of the Vermont delegation, he agrees that they are taking a brave and rational position with regard to decommissioning which deserves special recognition.

What the Vermont delegation is requesting of the NRC is hardly unprecedented.  In fact, the idea of delaying Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning is something quite out of the ordinary for a site having only a single reactor. The Maine and Connecticut Yankee plants, which were similar to VY, were both immediately decommissioned after shut-down.  

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to pick up the phone or send an e-mail off to Bernie and the others to say “we support you on this.”   Washington’s got to be a chilly place for these three about now, since even Obama would probably rather have VY up and running past 2012, if only for the statistical cover it would provide on energy.  We need to send a little home-grown warmth their way every now and then.  God knows, we holler loudly enough when they get it wrong!

Bernie Sanders (802) 862-0697  

Peter Welch (802) 652-2450

Well, the good people of The Town of St. Albans reelected Bill Nihan to another term as Chairman of the Selectboard.  Nihan will, no doubt, regard this as a mandate to do as he pleases about the policing contract and the Town Plan.  Look for girdlock in relations between the Town and the City to continue at least for the next two years; a return to “spot” zoning and pedestrian-free planning; and continued refusal to cooperate with any research on the watershed.

_____________________________________________________________

Why should we care about petty-politics in neighboring towns when the country has so many larger problems? Because corruption and abuse of power begin at the local level.  From there they take a foothold, become systemic and deliver us all to the unhappy state of affairs we now have playing out in Wisconsin and elsewhere.  It’s a political habit that is near impossible to break.

As Town Meeting Day approaches, a new chapter in the ongoing drama between St. Albans Town and St. Albans City has been unfolding, largely unobserved outside the area since very little Messenger content is carried on-line these days.  But this time we have a link to an excellent piece of reporting by Michelle Monroe.

In the current chapter of the ongoing saga, the action is centered on a power struggle within the Town Selectboard over the question of which entity will be awarded the contract for policing services: Franklin County Sheriff Robert Norris or the City of St. Albans.  The Selectboard originally asked for “opinions” from the City and from Sheriff Norris as to what would comprise adequate policing for the Town, and requested each to give a quote on providing those services.  Sheriff Norris currently is the provider and the request for bids was for the upcoming contract period.  The details of those opinions and quotes are available in Ms. Monroe’s article; but in the end, the Selectboard voted 3-2 to give the contract to the City, which had a lower bid.  Sheriff Norris’ bid represented an increase over his current rate, which was already higher than the City’s bid. There was considerable rancor in the Town around this decision.  The Sheriff has a lot of friends in Town; and the City and Town have a history of rocky relations, both real and imaginary.

Now it comes out that after the bidding closed and the Selectboard had reached its decision, Town Manager Christine Murphy approached Sheriff Norris and asked only him to provide a quote on continuing his contract for another year at the same rate as is currently being paid.  Supposedly, the idea was to use  the difference between what the Sheriff was already being paid and what he wanted to be paid for the upcoming contract to fund an independent  “study” of the policing needs of the community. The City was not included in the request for a new bid.  Sheriff Norris was, of course,  amenable to  the offer since it was better than not having his contract renewed at all.  

The full Selectboard was not aware of Ms. Murphy’s actions until she provided a 4-page memo regarding the discussions to the Selectboard on February 18.  The Messenger got the memo from one  of the dissenting Selectboard members on February 23 and posted it to their website.  Let me tell you, there are some pretty angry words coming from the voting majority on the Selectboard, particularly Paul Larner who said there was no need of further “study” since the Selectboard had already received the opinion of two competing experts (the Sheriff and the City) who essentially were in agreement as to the need.   John Gray, who also voted to award the contract to the City, expressed his frustration with the City Manager’s actions.

“From day one, the process has been biased toward a certain entity.”

One cannot help but suspect politics were in play, since one of the two dissenting voters, Selectboard Chair Bill Nihan is running for re-election.  Chairman Nihan is one tough cookie who doesn’t readily take “no” for an answer.

His opponent, Dave Schofield, is currently serving on the Planning Commission that was charged with drafting a new Town Plan.  The Town Plan is of special interest to me, as a member of Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth, because it will shape the future of highway-centric development in the two zones at Exit 19 and Exit 20 that the Town has identified as their twin “growth centers.”  (Don’t get me started on that!)

Anyway, Mr. Schofield and his colleagues on the Planning Commission held a number of public forums and spent many months carefully crafting a workable plan that attempted to be as smart and sustainably framed as possible under the circumstances.  When they presented their ideas to the Selectboard, they had a great deal of difficulty finding common ground because the Selectboard, under Nihan’s influence, wanted to do overlapping or “spot” zoning, so that there would be no commitment that might later prevent a major player from locating wherever they wished to.  After the Planning Commission completed their task and submitted the new plan to the Selectboard, they were surprised to see that it was substantially altered…by Mr. Nihan and the Selectboard!

While Ms. Murphy’s actions will no doubt be under review to determine if she has done anything unethical, there has been a distinct pattern of abuse of power under the leadership of Mr. Nihan who comes from a corporate background in Asia-based manufacturing.  In his retirement from that life, Mr. Nihan has become a major policy controller in the Town for many years, also serving strategically to shape the Big Box ambitions and conveniently framed growth centers that enable them.  One can only hope that Town voters are growing tired of the drama and will finally give Mr. Nihan the retirement he so richly deserves.