The juxtaposition of stories on the front page of today’s FP made me wince.  On the one hand, our Vermont delegation deserves abundant kudos for delivering a $116 M grant that will bring broadband access to every user in the state. On the other, the wake of Challenges for Change delivers a $23M blow to school funding in the state.  It’s tough to know whether to smile or weep.

We have some of the best school outcomes in the country.  Despite Republican indifference to that fact, which ill-serves their Vermont failure message, this is one very good reason why high-quality job providers might choose to locate here.  One cannot but wonder what effect this fiscal “efficiency” may have on the long term performance of Vermont schools, and thus, their position as an asset to the state’s economic development.

There is no question but that the federal grant to bring high-speed Internet access to every nook and cranny of the state will grow our economy.  Every gubernatorial candidate recognizes this and has made achievement of this goal a plank (large or small) of her or his platform.  This latest development demands that each craft a more nuanced message about IT beyond simple supply.   If Brian Dubie’s slow response time for other issues is any indication, we can expect him to get up to speed about the new IT realities sometime in 2011.

The two lead stories blend effortlessly into a single line of questions about the future.  Will distance learning provided through broadband access succeed in offsetting the increasing economic limits on public schools; and what will the long-term impact on community be if public schools begin to disappear as gathering places?  Will a blanket of broadband shape Vermont as one giant bedroom suburb for Boston, New York and Montreal? Do we have the will to support, through our taxes, a socially interactive public education system and the tradition of diverse and local economies throughout Vermont?  

I want to thank Tom Gilbert of Highfields Center for Composting for providing some corrections and clarifications to the original story, which I am adding as quotes in the appropriate passages.

Imagine you are a Vermont vegetable farmer.  You engage in “best agricultural practices,” manage nutrients responsibly and stay abreast of current thought on sustainable farming.  Now you want to move toward fertilizing your entire farm with compost from locally contributed food waste rather than chemicals.  ‘Sounds like you’re the kind of farmer who will get all kinds of support in his endeavors; but, as Franklin County farmer Richard Hudak recently found out, that isn’t necessarily the case.  

Having been approached by a group of Bellows Free Academy students to host a composting project that would utilize food-scraps collected by the group, Richard enlisted the aid of Highfields Center for Composting who enthusiastically signed-on.  I spoke with Highfields tech expert, Tom Gilbert, who explained what happened next.  The project obtained a permit from the Northwest Solid Waste District, and the Agency for Natural Resources (ANR) signed-off on it in February. Looking to dot his “i’s” and cross his “t’s” Richard decided to just run the whole thing by the Vermont Department of Agriculture as a final measure; and that is what unsealed a can of worms.

Apparently no one had approached the Dept. of Ag for a decision on composting before.

This is true of many farm operators composting agricultural materials, however in the past Highfields and other compost technical service providers have sought the Agency of Agriculture’s opinion on the agricultural status of various on-farm food scrap composting operations as part of our due diligence and we have been told that if the finished compost is principally for farm use, it is a legitimate agricultural activity.  With changes in Agency staff and legal council, apparently their internal opinion on this issue has changed.  In fact, we have worked with and helped permit on-farm composters who compost food scraps that have received cost-share funding from the Agency of Agriculture to build the composting sites.  The Agency’s own funds have helped to build facilities they are now determining are not agricultural.

 

People just…do it.  Richard might have had the same impulse, but he has suffered some harassment from neighboring property owners for standing in the way of a Walmart development that is proposed three-tenths of a mile from his farm.  He didn’t want to run into problems further down the road so he did the responsible thing and asked the Dept. of Ag to agree that composting represents an “accepted agricultural practice,” which, under Vermont law, would mean that it wasn’t subject to zoning regulation.

You can probably see where this is heading.  After reviewing the state guidelines, the Department of Ag returned the opinion that composting did not come under the heading of “accepted agricultural practices.”  It simply isn’t even mentioned.  

Incredible as it may seem, there is provision in the law for collecting cow manure from neighboring farms to spread on fields, so that practice is not subject to zoning regulation;

There is nothing in the AAPs to suggest composting food scraps is explicitly subject to zoning or not agricultural.  This is not a question of what the rules should say (though in the future they should certainly include these activities in an explicit manner), since the existing language adequately covers this practice.  This is a matter of interpretation, an interpretation that has changed at the Agency of Agriculture.  Compost is an agricultural product when made for and used on a farm.  The source of the material should not matter, unless it is potentially hazardous or inherently contrary to sustaining healthy soils. This scenario is seen in other farming practices.  For instance, if a vegetable grower would like to fabricate their own potting mix for starting seeds, an farming practice that no one contends with, they must import 50-100% of the materials they use, no of which (like blood meal) are more inherently agricultural in nature than food materials.  They must then take these materials and go through a fabricating process to produce the potting soil they will use.

however, at least in theory, composting of food scraps is!  This discrepancy obviously reflects the strong dairy bias that has traditionally dominated Vermont farming; but it is completely out-of-step with contemporary thought that has elevated sustainability issues and recognizes the greater nutritional efficiency of crop farming over animal farming.

From my conversations with Richard and Tom, I learned that 4% of global emissions are from nitrogen, a principle component of chemical fertilizers.  I also learned that, if all food waste in Vermont was composted, it would yield sufficient nutrients for 20,000 acres of farmland!

I spoke with Jim Leyland of the Department of Agriculture and he could offer no explanation for the omission of composting from Sec. 3.2 of the Vermont law defining “Acceptable Agricultural Practices.”  It appears to have been simply overlooked.

Not many specific practices are detailed explicitly in the AAPs.  In fact, the AAP definitions of acceptable practices only include 118 words – in no way possibly conveying all of the possible activities on a farm.  As a result much interpretation is required to render an opinion on how a wide variety of practices might fall within the definitions.  Composting food scraps can easily be included in interpretations of the existing language – this is a choice on behalf of the Agency, their hands are not tied.

Recognizing the value of sustaining Vermont’s agricultural heritage,  the law specifically states that towns cannot establish rules that will limit accepted agricultural practices.  So a housing development cannot spring-up next door to an existing farm and raise objections to the smell of manure. However, until the legislature moves to specify composting as an “accepted agricultural practice,”  any farmer who chooses to employ this environmentally responsible practice, is potentially liable for censure by local zoning.   You might well be asking what town in its right mind would challenge such a practice, but anyone whose ever scrapped with the power elite in their little town can tell you what potential for abuse lies in the hands of it’s zoning board.

Memo to the Legislature: please fix this, tout suite, before anyone else falls down the rabbit hole!

I’m not much of a political animal myself; but I am coming to a rapid understanding of how exactly the tail wags the dog.

The national example-du-jour of Shirley Sherrod speaks volumes about what a powerful weapon of opportunity the unprincipled right has found in the distribution of misinformation through new media.  Ms. Sherrod maintains that she was told to pull over on the road and resign her post immediately because Glenn Beck was going to target her on the rabid Fox.

Of course the whole thing turned out to be a red-herring, but the partisans at Fox and their Republican back-slappers have managed to get plenty of political capital out of embarrassing the White House while distracting the entire country from all of the truly relevant happenings of several news cycles.  And it ain’t over yet.

Is this the shape of things to come in the era of multi-tasking media consumption? Has the Cynical Right found the ideal way to exploit our ever-shortening attention span?  Gone are  the inhibitions that used to restrain fantasy in traditional news outlets.  Not only can you make any outlandish misrepresentation of the facts that serves your agenda, but now, you may also have every expectation that your broadcast lies will impact policy decisions in the highest offices.  And the beauty of it is that there is absolutely no downside for the lying liars and their corporate sponsors. Like Pavlov’s dog, the public has been conditioned by reality TV and celebrity tweets to gorge themselves on scandal and speculation.  They’ll believe anything for five minutes, so long as it’s slathered in breathless hyperbole.  Just keep it coming and for godssake don’t give ’em time to reflect!

This got me to thinking about that dubious Dubie link Julie talks about down below.  Wisely, Julie challenged the poster to provide more context, which was never forthcoming.  Now, this could be an attempt by some individual who genuinely doesn’t  support Dubie, but I think it’s equally possible that this is another red herring, on the same lines as the Sherrod ruse but much less artful, designed to entrap and embarrass his Democratic opposition.  What makes this seem even more likely to me is the error in identifying Dubie as running for “re-election” that appears in the opening statement.  It is so glaring as to be easily overlooked by the casual viewer who is just waiting for the video clip to begin.  Were anyone to take the bait, weak as it is, Dubie’s promoters could have had a field day attacking the Democrats for perpetuating misinformation.  Most attractive about this scenario, from Dubie’s standpoint, is that it would serve as a marvelous distraction, providing cover for Dubie to dodge truly relevant issues for many days to come.  Bait and switch, bait and switch.

Now, as I said before, I am a political neophyte; and Dubie himself doesn’t strike me as all that crafty…all that ANYTHING.  So I may be completely out-of-order here.  Still, I can’t help but wonder if all those road trips to court campaign funds might have also netted him a mess of DC dirty tricksters.

There are plenty of distortions and inaccuracies finding their way into the public forum these days, so it is doubly important that our sterling roster of Democratic gubernatorial candidates remain scrupulous about their facts.  If not, there may be hell to pay.  This week, when the Shumlin campaign made certain questionable assertions of primacy in the area of single-payor healthcare advocacy,  Matt Dunne’s campaign responded by crying “foul:”

In a mailing sent out to Vermonters this week, Shumlin writes,” “I am the only candidate in this race who has sponsored a single payer health care bill…”

Similarly, in a response to questions from the Burlington Free Press on Vermont’s social safety net, Shumlin writes “I am the only candidate who sponsored a single-payer health care bill.”

However, in the 1993-1994 Legislative Session, House Bill 0763 titled, “Vermont Health Security Plan/Single-Payer Health Plan” was co-sponsored by several House Members including Matt Dunne. In fact, Dunne has had a long history supporting single payer health care legislation and his current health-care plan is based on a single payer system.

The Dunne campaign is asking the Shumlin campaign for a public apology.  It is also demanding that a Dunne-approved correction from Shumlin be sent (at  Shumlin’s expense) to all the voters who received the original mailer that contained the erroneous statement.

Apparently not everyone is as eager to endorse the location of F-35 fighter jets at Burlington International Airport as were members of the legislature in May.  The Stop the F-35 Coalition is raising serious concerns about the environmental impact of F-35 flights, which it hopes will draw more scrutiny to the proposal.  

It has been argued that location of the F-35 jets in Burlington will upgrade our Vermont National Guard, as well as bring economic opportunities to the surrounding communities.  No doubt these enticements were the primary reasons why the Legislature hurried to support the proposal in May before even the Air Force’s own Environmental Impact Study had been released.

Beyond concerns regarding noise pollution from the jets, which are said by some to be substantially noisier than the deployed F-16 fighter, Jared Wood of Burlington suggests that tying Vermonter’s economic future to the F-35 may be just plain bad business:

“It’s a compromise that’s not going to make anybody happy,” he said.

Last month, the soaring price tag of the Lockheed Martin plane triggered a congressional breach for military procurement overruns – which in turn has prompted a corporate “restructuring” of the project.

I quickly leafed through various studies and documents available on the internet and find that there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support Stop the F-35’s noise concerns.  So why not seek some more independent environmental impact analysis?  

An April 4 VPR broadcast on the topic featured Lt. Col. Chris Caputo, who dismissed a study of F-35 noise conducted at Elgin Airforce Base in Florida that provided much of the evidence regarding acoustical impact from the new fighter jets:

“You cannot compare the information in the Eglin EIS, to the current EIS going on right now. It’ll be based on the most, latest and greatest noise data conducted at Edwards Air Force Base – test data, dated April ’09 that has been publicly releasable.”

Caputo says the latest data show that the F-35 is n average 5 to 7 decibels louder than the F-16, but that many variables have to be taken into account in that measurement.

That got me to thinking about the “variables.”  I’m no scientist, but it occurs to me that the topography, geology and other factors, which are specific to the region over which the F-35’s are to be deployed, might have a critical relationship to how the decibel level might play out in that region.  

So I had a look at the general land features of Edwards Air Force Base which yielded the more benign test results favored by Caputo.  That Air Force Base is located on the edge of a great salt desert; hardly similar to the land features surrounding Burlington.  Then, too, neither Airforce base is in the civilian center of the busiest city of the state.

The decision as to where the F-35’s will be deployed is expected in 2011.  I sincerely hope that, should Burlington be selected, short-sighted economics and a vague discomfort at countermanding the desires of Vermont’s National Guard do not preclude some serious independent evaluation of all the environmental and other implications before deployment is accepted.  

After last week’s AP blunder, it was nice to see Doug Hoffer on the front page of the Free Press today.  Apparently the word is getting out that there’s more than one way to skin a Salmon. I don’t know Doug personally, but I have read enough of his piercing analysis right here on Green Mountain Daily to know that he is ideally suited to the position of Auditor, and that there could be no more engaged or passionate watchdog for the public interest.   Let’s see that website up there right away, Doug (Publisher’s note: It seems to be up now at hofferforauditor.com/).  Early voting began today!

The goings-on in Franklin County never fail to entertain, and often recollect the opportunistic politics of much earlier times.  A weekend Messenger profile of the county Sheriff’s race reveals some interesting facts concerning the incumbent, Democrat Bob Norris.   Apparently referred to in some law-enforcement circles as “Benefits Bob,”  Sheriff Norris’ administrative approach has raised a few eyebrows.   Complaints of inter-departmental friction with local and state enforcement are coupled with questions regarding liberties Norris’ department may have taken in billing the state for certain contract-related expenditures.  In Franklin County, what expenses the county may be billed for is left entirely to the discretion of the side judges who appear to have allowed the Sheriff wide-latitude to use public funding sources to cover costs that might more appropriately have been included in contractual expenses.

In a July 7 Messenger feature, Michelle Monroe gave a detailed account of what is known of the financial management of the department, but the picture was still somewhat hazy:  

On March 22, the Messenger requested from the Franklin County Sheriff in writing “a detailed accounting of what expenses were billed to Franklin County during FY 2009 and the current fiscal year. If a formula was used to determine what share of various costs was to be billed to the county, please include a copy of that formula.” Norris said no formula was used to determine what was billed to the county. He pointed to statutory requirements and the county budget to show what expenses were paid by the county.



Asked about the training paid for by the county, Norris said how much training the county pays for is at the discretion of the assistant judges.

Two Republicans are vying for the privilege of challenging Norris in the November election.  One of them, Paul Morits currently serves as a detective on the St. Albans City Police force, but worked in the Sheriff’s office before that.  He characterizes the relationship between the Sheriff and other law enforcement bodies as poor owing to the Sheriff’s inclination to be”territorial.”

This might just be dismissed as the rumblings of a rival candidate but, according to the Messenger:

In December, when Morits resigned from the Sheriff’s office, he said that Norris e-mailed a single word to him in reply, “Accepted.”  Then it gets interesting:

On Dec. 23, Morits’ last day with the Sheriff’s office, Det. Sgt. Michael Sisino, with approval from Norris, and via a Sheriff’s dispatcher, sent e-mail to everyone on staff -forgetting that Morits was still on the active recipients’ list.  “From this point forward,’ the note states, ‘Paul Morits is not allowed inside this building for any reason.  He (Sisino) advised that this is to include while he is in uniform with the St. Albans Police Department.”

According to Morits, Norris’ anger with him was due to the fact that he went to work for the City Police.  

Regardless of whether or not this squabble is fairly represented by the Republican candidate, questions regarding the finances of the Sheriff’s Department under Norris have apparently been a topic of curiosity for a while now.  According to state law, a 5% “administrative fee” may be collected by the Sheriff on all contracts carried out by the Department.  Norris has apparently taken this as a windfall to elevate his own annual salary of $65,000. from the state to a handsome $112,000.  Some, like Morits, argue that that “administrative fee” should go back into the Department:

“Forty-thousand dollars in fees means a lot when you’re talking manpower, especially in an office that claims it doesn’t have the resources to do what it needs to do.”

I haven’t followed the Sheriff’s career, but I don’t like where this seems to be going.   I can only await further developments in the news with that peculiarly Franklin County kind of dread that yet another public figure who styles himself a “Democrat” will force me to support his opposition.

Please note: this diary represents my own personal opinion and should not be construed to represent, in any way, a consensus opinion by GMD.

Someone asked last week when the GMD admins were going to come right out and say who we each  are supporting for Governor.  It’s a fair question.  I’ve had a “Doug Racine” bumper sticker on my car for a couple of months, so I guess this is as good a time as any to offer my opinion (for what it’s worth.)

First of all, I am not a Democrat.   I tack a little too much to the left to be entirely comfortable in the Democratic corral.  That being said, even if a qualified Progressive had entered the race, I would still be supporting Doug because I think he is the right person for the job.  I have to say that my “short list” includes Matt Dunne, and it is my fondest wish that he will run for Lieutenant Governor.  I’m not going to denigrate the other  Democratic candidates, any one of which would make a significantly better Governor than Brian Dubie.

I first met Doug when he was serving on the board of the Vermont Natural Resources Council.  He struck me immediately as a sincere and engaged individual with a genuine commitment to Vermont’s environment.  That he was a business owner/operator, making time to serve on the board of such an organization impressed me further.  

When Doug made a preliminary visit this year to St. Albans, on January 24, I still intended to keep an open mind and assess all of the candidates before committing to the Racine campaign.  Doug spent quite a while visiting with all of the individuals who gathered at Cosmic Bakery to hear him speak that day.  In his general remarks and one-on-one conversations, he was relaxed and informal, putting everyone at ease. He spoke passionately about many issues, but especially about education and healthcare, which I believe remain high on his list of priorities.

I am confident that Matt Dunne shares the high-ground with Doug with regard to all of the issues that are important to me.  I was also very impressed with Matt on my first encounter with him when he visited Hudak Farm in St. Albans.  Matt has made the imperative to finally bring broadband to every corner of the state his signature issue, and promises to reinvigorate Vermont’s economic future through technological dexterity.  He brings very impressive business credentials to the table in support of this claim and I do not doubt his ability to effectively make the case for his priorities.

Doug also recognizes the importance of finally getting Vermont’s IT capabilities up to 21st Century standards; and Matt is committed to education, socially responsible service solutions, and universal healthcare, just as Doug is.  One key difference is in the strategy for moving Vermont toward universal coverage.   Like me, Matt firmly believes that a “single payor” system should be the choice to provide that universal coverage.  Doug has successfully introduced legislation to begin our advance toward universal coverage with a comparative study of three different healthcare systems, including but not limited to a single-payor model.

Why then, you might wonder, have I chosen Doug over Matt?  The answer boils down to personal style, and who I think has the best overall potential for effectively competing in this election and then delivering on an overall Vermont-friendly and socially responsible agenda as Governor.

I can see Matt as very appealing to younger voters, but I think he is a little “glossy” for older ones.  His eyes shine when he speaks about the technological future and his experiences at Google.  I get that he represents the future, and I am confident that I will be campaigning hard for him for Governor sometime in the not-so-distant future; but I think his message may be a bit before its time among Vermont’s traditional voter base.  Doug’s relaxed personal style and more nuanced fluency with all the issues that are important to Vermonters will stand him well in the upcoming campaign against Dubie.  Dubie won’t even be able to bounce a rock off of him when it comes to the question of who is better connected with Vermont’s business community, despite the fact that that has been a traditional Republican stronghold.  As the Free Press pointed out today, Douglas’ personal history is the very essence of small business success in Vermont.

And as far as his efforts in the legislature with regard to universal healthcare are concerned, I see that as a demonstration of effective consensus-building skills by someone who knows that a nudge in the right direction can lead down a more direct path to the desired goal than a demand for full-investment in that goal at the start of the journey.  For a governor to be effective he must have a capacity for pragmatism in his bag of tricks.  

I found the bitter comments by Republican strategist Jim Barnett, in today’s Free Press feature rather telling.  I took away from them the impression that there is a lot of anxiety among the Dubie block  about the possibility of having to face Doug Racine in the General.  As if I needed any more persuasion, this added to my certainty that Doug Racine is our man.

It looks like “Whey To Go,” the concerned citizens’ group in Cabot, could use a little help in persuading the state to investigate its claims of damage to the aquifer by wells operated by dairy processor Agri-Mark.

You can read the whole story here, following back through all the links. Once you have, I hope you will consider taking the time to send a letter as requested by the group.  You will find a sample letter among the comments.

Well, I’ve gotta go to that place that probably no one else wants to.  I think we must squarely face the monumental Supreme Court Decision that was handed down today with regard to gun control in Chicago.  As some may have observed,  we at GMD are by no means united in our opinion on gun control; and I, for one, think that makes it an excellent topic to sort of kick around in an intelligent and respectful way, as I know we can.  It’s what we do, and there’s no avoiding it.

I’ll put my cards right on the table and say that I support me some judicious gun control.  I also grew up in Chicago, so I have more than a passing idea of the particular hell that city might become without it.  Granted, it’s like closing the barn door after the cows have escaped, trying to keep firearms away from the bad guys these days.  The entire continent is so heavily traversed by firearms, with or without permitting, that the argument that everyone ought to arm him or herself has grown exceedingly difficult to contradict; but I refuse to believe that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind for our little experiment in democracy, conceived at the apex of the Age of Reason.

We need to grow-up and face the responsibility of making some decisions ourselves to preserve life, as well as liberty; and to understand the inherent conflicts in “the pursuit of happiness.”

You would think that I would be heartsickened by the Supreme Court Decision, but I am not.  I am far more distressed by the decision impacting campaign finance because that could well be the proverbial nail in the coffin of true citizen-directed democracy.  

On the contrary, the Chicago decision will test the viability of the argument that our Constitution and all of its amendments must ever more remain inviolate, resisting any further change or evolution due to educated enlightenment or altered circumstances.  I think it’s about bloody time we begin that conversation, and today’s decision is the catalyst that is likely to make it happen.

This has the potential to play-out rather quickly in real-time.  Unlike the campaign finance decision, whose ramifications may well be hidden from the casual observer,  there will be big-time attention on the part of every citizen as the arms race with their neighbors begins. How far will it go? Mortarfire and rockets exchanged between warring neighborhood gangs?   My impression is that right now, nobody really knows for sure.

“Be careful what you wish for…”

What about the romantic idea of the Tea Party that citizens should be able to arm themselves against a presumptive tyrant?  Okay; so, who gets to decide for the whole population that revolution is justified?  I think we can all see where that one is going.  “Treason” is just the ugly stepsister of “patriotism.”

We already incarcerate more of our population than any country in the world.  Perhaps that is the next recourse for gun control; but what does that say about us as a culture? What does that say about us as a democracy?  Are we poised on the brink of the great unwinding?

I’m not intractable on this.  Some of my best friends oppose gun control; but, so far, no one has managed to convince me that we’d be better off without it.  I guess we’re about to find out.

Oh, yes; I’m pulling up a comfy chair for this discussion.