This is a highway safety program aimed at strengthening speed enforcement in work zones faces complications, plus changes to judicial transport systems.

Have lawmakers considering their options.

And two, the Royal County School Board's vote to re merge their districts.

All that and more ahead on Vermont this week.

From the Vermont public studio in Winooski.

This is Vermont this week, made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Milne Travel.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Hi.

Thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, September 12th and with us on the panel today we have Shaun Robinson from Vtdigger.

Aaron Calvin from The Stowe Reporter news and Citizen, and Ethan Weinstein from Vtdigger.

Thank you all so much for being here.

I want to start with a story that sort of, you know, we're moving away from summer now, but you know, this is something that we see a lot in the summertime.

Sean Robinson and all of us have have encountered this.

We pass through zones where there is work construction going on, and we're told to slow down.

Sometimes you have to come to a complete stop.

A lot of these construction workers have been saying they feel unsafe.

People are speeding through the zones sometimes.

So a bill was created.

My understanding of this is that, you know, they were going to set up some some of those automated cameras that could catch people that are speeding through these zones and say, hey, you know, you're going to do this, you're going to get fined.

It's not safe.

Governor signed the bill.

So it's been implemented, right?

Not right, not right.

That's true.

So yes, this bill was signed into law last year, and the plan was to have it up and running right now.

I just drove through a work zone on the way here on 89, and there might have been a camera set up there if this program was in place.

And to be clear, this was supposed to be a pilot program, so it's not going to be wouldn't be permanent yet, but kind of testing out the technology.

And like you said, these are automated cameras.

So, you know, there's a sensor attached and you are driving and if it catches you going a certain amount over the posted speed limit, it's going to take a picture of your license plate mainly.

And then law enforcement can use that license plate number to figure out who you are and send you a warning.

And then if you keep doing it, send you a citation or a warning first.

You're not even get fined right away.

Yeah, you get a warning first.

And I think, you know, there's a lot of data showing that that first warning actually, you know, prevents people from doing it again, at least for a while.

Yeah.

So why is this not being implemented?

Why is it not working?

Yeah.

It's interesting.

The reason almost seems a little bit counterintuitive.

I think it's an automated technology program, but the reason that the state has given is human staffing.

So as I mentioned, the way that the law is written, for the program in Vermont, after these automated cameras, we take a picture of your license plate.

It would then be sent to a law enforcement agency, and then a police officer certified police officer would be the one to review, not the tape, but review the image, I guess, and, you know, validate it and then send out the actual citation that you'd get in the mail.

The problem, though, is that the way the law was written, it doesn't specify which law enforcement agency would be the one to take on that work.

So there's a few different options.

But as it stands right now, no law enforcement agency has raised its hand to volunteer to work with the state Agency of Transportation on that.

And is this mostly because of staffing or is there money?

Are there money issues involved here as well?

Yeah, I think at least in terms of what the state has said and what they told me when I wrote about this this week was that it was a staffing challenge.

So the state police, say that they, at least earlier this year, in some legislative testimony, had about a 17% vacancy rate.

You know, so a lot fewer it was 50 or so fewer troopers than they wanted.

Another option besides the state police would be the Department of Motor Vehicles own kind of internal police force.

Those are those black pickups you see on the interstate sometimes maybe doing like a truck safety inspection at a rest stop.

That's a police force that is under the control of the state transportation agency.

It seems like maybe it could be a good option.

Right to transportation program.

But the transportation secretary, Joe Flynn, told me they don't want to use their staffing resources to write these citations, either.

And you know, what's interesting about that argument is that they're actually maybe one of, if not the only law enforcement agencies in the state that would consider itself fully staffed.

And even they're saying we don't want to have the resources diverted to, to do this work.

That's a weird situation because it seems like everybody wants this bill.

The governor signed it.

The construction workers clearly want it.

But again, so what happens now?

You know, it's supposed to be happening.

The pilot program.

Is there a next step here?

Yeah.

So that's a good question.

I think there's been a lot of discussion about it with legislators, with construction workers, with the group supporting them, with the governor's administration.

To me, what seems like the most likely next step is that the, administration, the agency for transportation specifically, is maybe working on some changes to the law that was passed a year ago that might allow someone who's not a certified police officer.

So, like a civilian employee at a police department, maybe to be the one to review the images that the cameras send out right now because of the technicalities about who's certified to be a law enforcement officer, that isn't quite allowed.

So that's one option.

The other option.

And again, not sure how this will end up.

To be clear, is the state Agency of Transportation is talking with the Statewide Association of County Sheriffs.

You know, we often see sheriff's departments cruisers as the ones kind of posted up with the blue lights on at these highway work zones.

And they're now saying, well, I guess the statewide law enforcement agencies don't want to do it or they don't have the resources to do it.

I should say, you know, maybe the sheriffs will do it.

And I talked to the Royal County sheriff.

Your sheriff, Aaron, Roger Marcoux, who, you know, said he needs to hear more about this before he's willing to commit either way.

And he said, you know, export to me was, you know, the state police don't have a monopoly on staffing challenges, right?

We're also down officers, too, though certainly not.

And they're doing a lot of construction in the Smuggler's Notch right now, which is, you know, hairy in the best of times.

So I think they could probably really use those technology, all those sharp turns, the windy roads.

Absolutely.

I appreciate the update on that, Sean.

And meanwhile, folks, if you are going through those construction zones, please don't speed through them.

It really is dangerous and those folks need to do their work safely.

Ethan Winston, I want to turn to you now, this is another kind of transportation related story.

A lot of, folks who were released from Vermont's prisons.

It used to be that they would get transport, to somewhere, after they've been released.

That's not happening now.

Why?

What is the major problem that's going on here?

Yeah.

So who we're talking about when we talk about this, it's people who maybe they were booked on a crime.

They show up in jail while they await their first hearing.

Maybe they take their first hearing from jail.

A judge lets them out on bail.

Or we could be talking about someone who served their sentence, and they're now free to go.

During Covid, sheriff's departments were providing these rides.

Sheriff's deputies, so you might get out of prison in Springfield, but perhaps you're from Brattleboro.

They'll drive you back to somewhere where you might have family or other connections.

As of last month, the Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs said, basically, we're at a point with our staffing and our budget that this can't be a priority anymore.

We need to prioritize bringing people from prisons to their hearings and back to prison.

I think it's important to point out that, sheriff's deputies only took on this work during Covid.

Before that, the Department of Corrections had done some of it.

But we're also talking about a world where there weren't remote court hearings.

So people were in their county of residence, and if they were released on bail, hopefully they'd be a lot closer to home than they might be now.

Also want to point out that relative to the number of rides sheriff's deputies are providing, this is relatively small.

They say they did a little more than 200 last year.

They did more than that beforehand out of 4000 rides that they provided last year.

But, yeah, I mean, the, the, the defense community is saying what happens to our clients when they're on the street.

Well, that was my next question.

I mean, given the relative small numbers here.

Yes.

But what are some of the problems that occur, when folks don't have a ride?

You know, Matt Valerio, the defender general, he's been very clear.

He's concerned about what happens in winter.

Right?

Someone gets released from prison.

They don't have a phone.

They don't have money.

They're not necessarily in a place with a with a bus route.

They might need to start a fire to stay warm.

They might need to, panhandle to try to get change to to call a cab.

They might try to some a ride to get somewhere.

And this is a this is a public safety concern.

You know, I think in an ideal world, prisons and our judicial system are meant to make us safer, reduce recidivism.

And if we're just putting people on the street, there's an argument to be made that this is all a bit counterintuitive.

What is law enforcement's view of this?

I mean, is this something they necessarily want to be doing, or are they arguing, you know, yay or nay for continuing this?

I think that all the parties involved are in a bit of a standoff at this point.

You know, Tim, looters.

Dumont, who leads the, state Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs, he says it was great that we were doing this, but we can't prioritize it.

The prisons say, you know, we're short staffed ourselves.

We can't be, letting guards out to give people rides.

And the judiciary, they say, well, our job is to hold court.

Our job isn't to drive people to court.

And so right now, we don't know what the answer is.

And we're going to wait until the legislative session.

Maybe there'll be, a monetary fix.

But in a tight budget year, that seems unlikely.

Unlikely.

But, you know, again, in a rural state like Vermont, where you can have great distances, as you mentioned, you know, you can be in the northern part of the state, but you're from the southern part.

How are you going to get there physically?

Yeah.

It's not like you're in a city.

You can just, you know, maybe get on the subway or something.

It's not like that.

No.

Yeah.

So these are difficult issues to deal with.

Thanks for the update on that, Ethan.

Aaron.

Kevin, I want to turn to you because there are some interesting things happening, with the school boards now.

As I understand it, there was sort of a forced merger that happened way back when with, Stow and Morristown Elmore schools.

Now they're talking about reemerging their districts.

Give us some background here and then bring us up to date.

Sure.

So in 2018, you know, Stow and Morristown and Elmore were among the many school districts across the state that sort of went through this forced merger process.

And from the very beginning of that, there was a lot of consternation in the stow about it.

And, you know, there's some class subtext here.

Stow is a more affluent community than Morristown and Elmore and, the main thrust of the argument then was, you know, we want to be able to pay for our own, you know, upgrades and, you know, be in charge of our own facilities, essentially.

So in 2021, there was a pretty, you know, convincing vote.

And then, the other towns in the district, also in the supervisory union, also voted to approve this.

And so sort of divorce themselves from these other, these other schools.

Then, you know, the stuff that they wanted out of this never really came to fruition in 2023.

There was a $39 million bond that got voted down because, so, because it had more of affluent families and its community, was set to see huge, property tax increases under the new education policy coming out of Montpelier.

So that's, again, careful what you wish for kind of situation, right?

Exactly, exactly.

So it's just indicative, I think, of how quickly, the, you know, feeling around, education in Vermont has changed, and now we have in Waterbury, we have this, redistricting task force with the legislature sitting down and plotting out these potential new mega districts in the state.

And this is just a sign, as my colleague Patrick Bilo reported earlier this week, that, you know, these districts, the school districts are trying you know, they've talked about wanting to avoid taking on debt, other districts debt by being forcibly merged with them.

But I think the issue here is that it might be a little too little, a little too late.

They're looking at, you know, making county wide school districts, making districts that are focused around tech centers.

You know, the Green Mountain Tech Center in the Royal County serves, the Royal North, the Royal South supervisor reunions and, also parts parts of southern Orleans County.

So, you know, I think we're looking far beyond, you know, just, you know, an all, you know, of previously forced merger coming back together.

So is this going to happen or is it not going to happen?

Well, they've sent this letter of intent or these letters of, of of, you know, desire, I guess, to the redistricting task force.

Loyal North School District also sent a similar one where they expressed interest in merging, the three school districts that are technically within their supervisory union, which include their elementary schools, their upper class levels, and Cambridge, an elementary school that still has retained its own school board after the forced mergers in the late 20 teens.

So I think we're going to see a lot of this in the school districts around, the state where they're going to try to, you know, get ahead of the eight ball and try to offer proposals that would be amenable to them.

But I don't think it's going to work out for everyone the way they want it to.

You can work with the legislature's involvement here.

They're hard at work.

You know, Secretary Zoe Saunders says that, the the work they need to do this summer is on schedule.

But, you know, to Erin's point, just pick up your local paper.

Whether you're reading the Caledonian record or the Brattleboro Reformer, you're seeing these school districts writing letters about what they want to see in the future.

And the reality is, I'm not sure that, lawmakers in Montpelier are going to be listening.

Really?

Is that your institution in looking at this as far as the legislature goes, is there an appetite for any of this?

I mean, I think it's a fair assessment.

Ethan.

There's so much uncertainty across the state, and I think particularly when affordability is such a potent political topic right now, I mean, that was the dominant factor in last year's elections.

We saw these huge changes politically in the state House.

And to Erin's point about the kind of class undertones in some of these discussions about what should we pay for, what should we not pay for?

Like I yeah, I think it's fair.

Yeah.

One more thing I want to ask you about, Aaron.

Excuse me, on your beat here.

And this is a really interesting story.

The tiny little town of Belvidere.

The Selectboard has approved a school acquisition here.

It's going to cost some money.

Why do they want to acquire the school?

Give us some numbers here.

What are we talking about?

Well, so, again, you know, harkening back to the difficult choices that were made in 2023, the Royal North Supervisory Union, like many school districts and supervisory units across the state, had trouble passing their school budget because of the, you know, big increase in property taxes that many of the towns within their district were going to see, which was mostly out of their control, but they tried to cut some money out of that budget, and it ended up consolidating a pre-kindergarten, cohort, which was the last remaining cohort at this Belvidere Central School, a town of 358 people, that was built in the 19, in the 1990s.

And, they consolidated with, neighboring Waterville, which is also a tiny town.

And now, the the community of Belvidere was left with an empty building.

And, you know, it had already been used for community purposes.

They have a Belvidere Community Club that meets throughout the year and particularly in the winter.

They have nowhere else to go.

And they have their town meeting at the school.

And, there is no other public building in Belvidere.

So, you know, they had a discussion at their town meeting day last March.

They had two different, informational hearings about the matter.

This summer.

And, you know, by the town's calculations, it's going to be, minimum, like 15% increase in the municipal, tax budget, possibly up to 23%.

But, you know, that's significant, is significant is, you know, we have a small tax base.

These are the kind of, you know, these kinds of acquisitions.

You know, they're they're getting the school basically for a dollar.

But, you know, these are the this is this is the cost of annual upkeep.

But when you have nowhere else to go and you want to continue to foster a sense of community, and, you know, a state where the population is aging and you want to be able to hold on to the people you have and maybe attract some more people.

This is a vital, piece of infrastructure, and there really wasn't any other choice.

And when the three person select board, you know, voted unanimously to acquire this building last week, it was met with applause.

It was, oh, go ahead, Ethan.

Yeah.

Well, I just I think about a town like Belvidere.

It was like a decade ago.

It lost its only store.

Right.

So a community like this, I, I have to think a lot of other communities are going to be in a similar position as as the legislature grapples with what to do with school consolidation and district consolidation, what happens when a town of 350 people loses its store, loses its school?

What are the community do at this point?

Well, you know, I think we're going to see more of this as well.

But Belvidere is also looking at this as an opportunity.

They're applying for a Village Trust Initiative grant, which should help them, make renovations to the building and establish a community trust like the one they have in Elmore that governs their general store, to, you know, manage the building and possibly turn it into a revenue generating place.

So it's sort of off offset that new tax burden.

I think it really says something about the community, though, at Belvidere that they're willing to, to take on this extra cost because, as you said, they need this place to gather.

And in this business community involvement is really interesting.

Aaron, thank you for that update.

Let's talk about a much bigger town, a city, in fact, Vermont's largest city.

That would be Burlington.

And we have talked on this program.

And those who follow the news know that there are safety concerns in Vermont's largest city.

And this is, what governor Phil Scott had to say recently about, a plan that now he has said that that the state is going to get involved in helping out with some of these safety concerns.

I look at this as, like a crisis that they're facing, much like the flood.

And, the first, first thing that we need to do is respond to the flooding and help people.

And then, the recovery part after.

So it'll be a two step process.

We have to get something out of it.

I don't want this to be a just a gap, you know, to fill the gap.

Short term solution.

We want this to work over time.

Sean Robinson, let me ask you about this.

It seems there's a bit of a disconnect here.

I remember a couple of weeks ago, at least, Governor Phil Scott was saying, in essence.

And I want to I don't want to put words in his mouth, but basically saying there are problems in Burlington.

If Burlington wants to solve these problems, they need to come to us.

We they have to work this out.

Is this a shift in tone here?

Yeah, I, I think that the governor got asked that question.

I think it was around in the clip when you showed and his answer was no, it's not a shift in tone, but I do think it is fair to characterize this as a change, at least in the way that the administration is approaching the situation in Burlington.

It seems like they're taking a bit more of an active stance in, you know, addressing some of these issues head on.

The governor wasn't at that press conference to announce that he's planning to give these, you know, like you said, this set of recommendations, this plan to Burlington.

I should be clear, he didn't say specifically what he's going to recommend.

He sort of, you know, talked about it in general terms but did not say, you know, I'm going to propose an ordinance change or I'm going to say this or deploy X number of police officers or something.

So we don't know specifically what it is.

But interesting that, that he was the one who said, okay, now now we're stepping in.

I mean, where is this coming from?

Was he getting pressure from certain quarters to say, you know, we've got to get some answers here?

Yeah.

I mean, I do think that's correct, that there has been a lot of pressure.

There's been a lot of attention on it in the media, frankly.

I mean, not to be navel gazing about it, but there's been a lot of coverage in the press about this.

There's been a lot of public outcry about this from the business community in Burlington.

That's obviously going to give you a really specific perspective on things.

Right.

But even at the local government level, the city council, sort of a couple of weeks ago after this came up at a previous press conference that the governor had that we talked about on this show, the city council passed a resolution that's aimed at, you know, making people feel safer in City Hall Park, which is right off Church Street in downtown.

And a piece of that is, they're kind of cracking down on overnight camping in the park, which is a concern that a lot of people have, have raised.

They're trying to station police more consistently throughout the day, and I think throughout the night in the park, too.

And yeah, I think that's a response to this type of frustration from businesses.

And yeah, from folks in the public, too.

There were a lot of opinions on both sides sort of saying, we need more enforcement, we don't need more enforcement.

At the city council meeting a couple of weeks ago.

And I will just say to one point, I thought it was interesting.

In the press conference, the governor invoked, like the flooding rhetorically with this, I mean, like talk about like using the biggest crisis that the state has faced in the last five years, right, that everybody has these terrible images of like, I just it was interesting to me that that was the comparison that he picked.

Yeah, yeah.

Tough summer for Burlington, you know, because there are these safety concerns.

Of course, all the construction that was going on downtown businesses have been, you know, complaining about that as well.

And, you know, there's there has been some progress on that.

There's been some progress on the pit, etc..

But I do think that this overall problem or the perception at least, that people when they come into Burlington and they see things like, like needles and stuff, you know, people are saying that that something needs to be done.

I'm sure we'll be looking at, though, what those specifics might be coming up soon.

Right.

I mean, that's going to be on the governor.

Yeah, absolutely.

And yes, to your point, like there's a lot of other factors at play here too, right?

There's obviously this sharp decline in tourism from Canada that we know has been written about extensively, right, that we know data shows is impacting business, not just in Burlington but in the rest of the state to, and I think that's an important point to remember also, is that, yes, a lot of the focus politically is on Burlington because it is the state's largest city.

Right?

It's the economic driver.

But also, you know, there's other municipalities across the state, even you know, not quite as big, slightly smaller ones that are grappling with these same challenges too.

There was a really interesting story in seven days about this, a week or two ago that I think talked to the city manager in Barrie, who was saying similar things to what the mayor of Burlington was saying, which was, you know, we need more help from the state.

And now the governor said, well, I have a plan.

And yeah, like you said, we'll see what it is in a week or two.

Yeah, yeah.

Ethan Weinstein, I want to turn to you now, something else that Governor Scott is getting a little pressure on is with the state's employees union.

He wants more workers now in his post-Covid world to come back to the office physically, to be there.

But the state employees union saying, you know what?

A lot of our workers like remote work.

And so what is the push and pull here?

Where do we stand with that?

Yeah.

So a few weeks ago, Scott's administration announced that they would require all employees to be back to work at least three days per week in office.

We know that for many employees, they've been working in person all along.

And for some employees, they've had total flexibility.

You know, what the union points to is there there's been some surveys in recent years.

In 2024, for example, that shows that for employees, you can work remotely.

You know, something like 90% say this benefits them.

Something more than 80%, I believe, say that they think this increases their productivity.

So, Scott, he's been facing a lot of pressure from inside, state government.

You know, more than 8000 employees work for the state.

And, he released a statement to state employees talking to them directly, saying, this is why this is important.

Let's join together.

And the union president sort of mirroring the way that, Scott had released a statement giving it from her kitchen where she says she works five days a week, says, you know, let's come together and listen to employees who say this is really important to them.

Yeah.

It's interesting, very briefly, but it's an interesting hill that that Scott is fighting on here.

I'm not sure exactly why.

You know, you said people work better collaboratively when they're actually physically together.

But, you know, I'm curious as to why he's pressing so hard on this.

I mean, a lot of states have have dealt with this, and a lot of them sooner than Vermont, they say, you know, Scott and his team have said the floods delayed them doing this.

This is something they may have done earlier.

But, you know, we see private businesses, you know, they're grappling with it, too.

It's it's almost universal.

And I think that's why it's an interesting issue to keep following, you know, briefly, Aaron Calvin Johnson has a community oven that's bringing folks together.

What's going on there?

Well, they started doing it in 2017.

And, it's something that has taken on more and more attention over the years.

They kind of began as a community centering project.

But, you know, unfortunately, as food access has become more and more of an issue, you know, these, these weekly in the summer, community oven events have, you know, grown.

And, the issue of making sure that everybody's fed has become more and more this central, issue.

And, you know, just like in Burlington, where they're trying to feed people, they're doing the same thing in Johnson, right?

In a rural community.

You know, it's easier.

Thanks for that update, Aaron.

Appreciate it.

And thank you to our panel this week, Shaun Robinson from Vtdigger.

Aaron Calvin from Stowe Reporter, news and Citizen, and Ethan Weinstein from Vtdigger.

Thanks so much for watching.

And we'll join you next week for Vermont.

This week.