49 School Street: The Blog

Primary Day post

2006-09-12T15:51:00.000-04:00

After voting this morning, I saw Rich Tarrant on Main Street in Stowe on my way into work. He had his signature yellow and red "Tarrant/ Senate" sign hoisted in the air, behind the backdrop of the Akeley Memorial Building.

Yep, it's Primary Day all right. But I must admit — I was a bit dumbfounded to see candidate Tarrant vying for last-minute votes in Stowe.

Afterall, surely candidate Tarrant knows that only 215 — or 5.9 percent — of Stowe’s 3,599 registered voters cast ballots in last year's primary election. Now, you might suppose generously that an even 10 percent will vote by the end today. That leaves you with 360 voters, of which perhaps half will vote in the Republican primary. OK, that leaves you with 180 voters to pursuade. If we guess that about 60,000 people in Vermont will vote in today's election, of which perhaps half voting Republican, that means Stowe's Republican primary voters represent about .006 percent of the people he needs to vote for him. Unless my math is off, Stowe Republican primary voters would appear to represent not quite one-tenth of 1 percent of people Tarrant wants to vote for him.

Plus, Stowe's historically been a stronghold for moderate Republicans — a label Tarrant's been pretty adamant about in his own campaign.

Hey, I guess Stowe's as good a place as any to start Tuesday morning.And every vote does count, as any town-meeting veteran will tell you. Until the numbers come out tomorrow...

More campaign chatter

2006-09-08T15:14:00.000-04:00

A few more candidates have since stopped by our office to say hi, and to pitch their platform. This week, we had incumbent Sen. Susan Bartlett, who staked out education issues as her top concerns. The primary election, by the way, is Tuesday.

Here's an updated rundown of who's been by for visit so far, and what they've said:

• Heidi Scheuermann, Republican for Stowe House: “I’m a traditional sort of Vermont Republican — fiscally very conscious and concerned that we have systems we can afford.”

• Matt Dunne, Democrat for Vermont lieutenant governor: "I believe Vermonters value above all other things someone who is getting up and working hard for you. It is that kind of commitment to working hard … that I think people respond to. And I don’t think Brian (Dubie) has delivered."

• John Tracy, Democrat for Vermont lieutenant governor: “I’m willing to lead in difficult times. I think we’re at a crossroads as a state.”

• Jim Black, Republican for Lamoille Senate: "We can’t afford the money we spend right now (on education). It’s going to bankrupt the state. We have to limit the increase."

• Susan Bartlett, Democrat for Lamoille Senate: "I really believe that the underlining principals of Act 60 — the a statewide property tax, trying to get every student access to a really good education and trying to have some balance on how much property tax and how it’s connected to folks’ incomes — are valid principals and ideas."

• Mark Shepard, Republican for Vermont U.S. House:“If we’re going to be a party that’s really relevant, we have to be aiming for things that produce opportunities for people and get back to those core principles which, in my lifetime, I would best attach to Ronald Reagan."

• Martha Rainville, Republican for Vermont U.S. House: “I believe in a strong defense; I believe in fiscal responsibility; and I really believe in the strength and responsibility of the individual."

• Peter Welch, Democrat for Vermont U.S. House: "The reason I’m running, fundamentally, is we’ve got a president who, in my view, is pushing through a radical and extreme agenda. The administration has also been incompetent and I’ve seen in an immediate and direct way the damage it’s doing to our state and country."

• Rich Tarrant, Republican for Vermont U.S. Senate: “I know how to negotiate, I know how to get along with people and I know how to sell, and that’s very important when you want to get a particular point across or a bill passed that brings advantages back to Vermont."

Stay tuned for more after the primary...

Campaign chatter

2006-08-10T16:43:00.000-04:00

The mid-term elections will be here before you know it. Here at 49 School Street, we've been ready for a good nine months now. That's about when candidates started stopping by our office to say hi, and to pitch their platform.

This week, we have election coverage of the Stowe House race, as well as the statewide showdown for lieutenant governor.

Here's a rundown of who's been by for visit so far, and what they've said:

• Heidi Scheuermann, Republican for Stowe House: “I’m a traditional sort of Vermont Republican — fiscally very conscious and concerned that we have systems we can afford.”

• John Tracy, Democrat for Vermont lieutenant governor: “I’m willing to lead in difficult times. I think we’re at a crossroads as a state.”

• Jim Black, Republican for Lamoille Senate: “I’m concerned about the general trend of a state Legislature that keeps spending more money, adding expensive new programs, and driving the state deeper and deeper into debt."

• Mark Shepard, Republican for Vermont U.S. House:“If we’re going to be a party that’s really relevant, we have to be aiming for things that produce opportunities for people and get back to those core principles which, in my lifetime, I would best attach to Ronald Reagan."

• Martha Rainville, Republican for Vermont U.S. House: “I believe in a strong defense; I believe in fiscal responsibility; and I really believe in the strength and responsibility of the individual."

• Peter Welch, Democrat for Vermont U.S. House: "The reason I’m running, fundamentally, is we’ve got a president who, in my view, is pushing through a radical and extreme agenda. The administration has also been incompetent and I’ve seen in an immediate and direct way the damage it’s doing to our state and country."

• Rich Tarrant, Republican for Vermont U.S. Senate: “I know how to negotiate, I know how to get along with people and I know how to sell, and that’s very important when you want to get a particular point across or a bill passed that brings advantages back to Vermont."

Stay tuned for more candidates as the air get chillier and the leaves start changing colors...

Chinese-French deja vu

2006-07-20T14:00:00.000-04:00

You know that feeling, the one you can only say what it is in French? A lot of folks over here probably are feeling it.

Everyone's debating once again whether the Stowe school system should replace its French program with Mandarin Chinese. That's because the school board is holding a special meeting Monday, July 24, to reconsider its decision. School board members say they're re-convening in response to an outcry from the community — letters to the editor, a student petition, and people posting in the Reader's Forum — some supporters and others critics of the decision. Instead of ignoring all that, the issue is back on the table. Cool.

What's been interesting from my vantage point is the way in which the debate has broadened its focus in the last several months. Many people have questioned larger issues of teaching foreign language in middle and high school, and what exactly the goal of such programs should be. Is it about preparing students to take foreign language in college, or just planting the seeds of curiosity? What's the most important factor in deciding what foreign language to offer: the fact French is a much more practical and widely-used language in the Northeast; or that Chinese is quickly becoming (if it's not already) the language of global commerce in the 21st century?

For that matter, some people have asked, why does the community have to decide between two languages at all? It seems the school board — wary of adding onto a $8 million-plus budget that's already multiplied many times more in tax dollars by the state government — doesn't want to go there. A lot of local taxpayers who've seen their property-tax bills double or triple in the last decade want to see school spending go down, not up. It would be interesting to know, for instance, exactly how much it would cost to keep Stowe's French program as it is now (hire a new full-time teacher) AND start the beginnings of a Chinese program — $25,000, $50,000, $100,000? I don't know, but that may come up Monday. Reinstating seventh-grade French would cost an estimated $14,000.

Unfortunately, I won't be there; I'll be scribbling away on the Stowe Select Board. Be sure to check it out if you're in town. Reporter Jesse Schloff will be there to cover the action. It should be — as people euphemistically like to say — interesting

Poll power

2006-06-28T13:08:00.000-04:00

Polls are a funny thing. We love to decry them as useless and way off the mark, and yet we still love to vote in them. Well, I do, at least.

Most, though not all, newspapers now offer online polls at their Web sites, and the Stowe Reporter isn't any different. As the dude who - most of the time - thinks up the poll question each week after a deluge of deadline writing, I find it interesting to watch for what kinds of questions people yawn at, and which ones they scramble for. Sometimes I'm surprised.

Case in point: We had over a 300-percent increase in poll participation from last week's question to this week's. The difference? The latter asked people how many yard sales they've been to lately, and the former whether they thought the school board should reconsider its controversial decision to replace French with Chinese. OK, maybe we didn't need to poll to tell which is the hot topic. In Stowe, lately, it's been all Chinese, and there aren't any signs the debate will let up. It's as hot as community issues get.

In that spirit, I just posted this week's poll question: If the election were held now, whom would you vote for in the race for Stowe’s seat in the Vermont House of Representatives? Hmmmm... polling a full 4.5 months before the general election? If it gets another 150 people clicking, why not?

Globe-trotting

2006-06-16T13:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I took a trip to the southside of Beantown. I was at The Boston Globe for a morning newspaper critique session, sponsored by the New England Society of Newspaper Editors. I joined the "writing" table with a handful of other copy editors and longtime newspaper people, from the The Keene (N.H.) Sentinel, Foster's Daily Democrat of Dover, N.H., among others.

And, like the bad blogger that I am, I forgot to bring my camera. Oops.

If you haven't been to the Globe (I hadn't) I can assure you the place is huge. That's huge as in mega-mall huge: Escalators, a cafeteria, and cubicles as far the eye can see. Hell, they even had a department labeled "Ideas."

Back at the table we talked about, you guessed it, writing. The Stowe Reporter's critic was Len Levin, a former longtime copy editor at the Providence (R.I.) Journal who's now at the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, Mass.

I didn't get the kind of hard-nosed criticism I had hoped for, but I got a few good suggestions here and there. Much of Levin's advice echoed that of William K. Zinsser, the author the classic "On Writing Well." Zinsser's thesis: "...the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word..."

Amen.

Lede vs. lede

2006-06-09T16:15:00.000-04:00

If it bleeds, it ledes.

At least that's the old rule, especially on TV news stations, that basically gives explosions, shootings, police chases and other related violent happenings the top attention.

But sometimes it ledes if it moos, too.

In this week's Stowe Reporter, I wrote a little nugget, Rustic vs. rude: crossing cows irritate driver. Though I must admit: I struggled to come up with a lede for the story. A lede (also spelled 'lead') is, according to Wikipedia, the "most important structural element of a story." Basically, the first sentence or two.

Anyway, I thought it'd be interesting to toss out two different ledes to the story for your reading pleasure. First, the lede I ended up using:

Vermont’s clash of cultures, rural vs. city, seems to be intensifying. Witness what happened a couple of weeks ago in Stowe.

Here's the first lede that sprung to mind, but I didn't end up using it:

Yup, that’s a cow being led across the road up ahead. And — yes — that’s legal … even in Stowe.

Locals would advise that you stop your car, wait patiently, and let the cow get to the other side. But that’s not always what happens.

Just ask Beverly Lemery.

Pretty different. I don't think either will help me win a Pulitzer any time soon, do you? Anyway, I often come up with two or three or four different ledes to any given story and then try to settle on the one that sets the best tone for the story. Sometimes after I do that Editor Tom Kearney chimes in with his two cents and I settle on something different.

In general, I think ledes should be short, plainly worded, and emotionally MOO-ving (sorry, I couldn't resist). Depending on whether it's a hard news story or a feature, the lede's mission and length will vary. I think this story from the New York Times in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has one of the most amazing examples of an engaging, brooding lede: "In the downtown business district here, on a dry stretch of Union Street, past the Omni Bank automated teller machine, across from a parking garage offering 'early bird' rates: a corpse. Its feet jut from a damp blue tarp. Its knees rise in rigor mortis."

What do you think? What kind of a lede are you looking for in a news story?

Hyped Bird-Flu story of the week

2006-06-01T16:39:00.000-04:00

This week's winner is the Associated Press. Reporter Margie Mason probably didn't come up with this headline today, "Bird Flu Explodes in Indonesia", because reporters don't generally write the headlines — editors do. At any rate, the hype is front and center. Explodes. Sounds scary.

We learn in the story's horse-race-like lead that Indonesia "averaged one human bird flu death every 2 1/2 days in May," which apparently puts the archipelago of 17,000 islands with a population of 220 million people "on pace to soon surpass Vietnam as the world's hardest-hit country." On pace, huh? Better hurry, Indonesia, or you'll miss out on the first place prize.

Buried in the story's 12th paragraph is the meat and potatoes: "Indonesia has logged at least 36 human deaths in the past year - 25 since January - and is expected to soon eclipse Vietnam's 42 fatalities. The two countries make up the bulk of the world's 127 total deaths since the virus began spreading in Asian poultry stocks in late 2003."

OK, let's review: 36 dead in Indonesia in the past year; 42 in Vietnam; 127 worldwide since 2003. About 13 of those deaths have occurred in Indonesia in May (a death every 2.5 days). Sounds pretty dire. Indeed, it's as the Bird Flu as exploded in Indonesia. I don't know about you, but when think of "explodes," I think of like a bomb going off, or something; shrapnel and debris flying every which way, engulfing a large area.

Thing is, this explosion may not be all it's cracked up to be. According to the World Health Organization, there haven't been any new cases of the H5N1 infection there since May 22. "This finding is important," the WHO's Web site says, "as it indicates that the virus has not spread beyond the members of this single extended family." The WHO (what a great acronym, huh?) also notes that the last guy in the recently infected "cluster" started showing signs of symptoms on May 15 and died seven days later because he refused to be treated at the hospital.

So, you be the judge. Is "explodes" right on, or is it hype?

Behind the stinky news

2006-06-01T13:35:00.000-04:00

Stowe had a stinker on its hands Tuesday.

At about 9:30 a.m. — as cars slowly made their way through the village because of roadwork and Main Street began to fill with spectators for the Memorial Day parade — a dump truck accidentally dropped its load in the northbound lane of Maple Street (Route 100). A bunch of sludge (treated sewage goodness) spilled onto the road, and crews scrambled to get the mess cleaned up. I wrote a story about the mishap in this week's Reporter.

What people may not know after reading the story, though, is that I used to live in the apartment adjacent to the site of the stinky mess. Sure am I glad I moved two months ago...

Fortunately for those folks living along Maple Street, officials have since cleaned up the stuff and covered it with lime. Though word is the smell still lingers, especially on a hot afternoon.

China matters

2006-05-18T13:39:00.000-04:00

Will Stowe become the first public school in Vermont to offer Chinese to its students as a foreign language? Reporter Marina Knight takes a look at that question in this week's issue, which cropped up at Monday's school board meeting. While the Vermont Department of Education says two other private schools in the state offer Chinese, no other public schools do. That may change as China becomes an even bigger player in the global village.

Apparently, it's a growing trend in some parts of the country.This CBS station in Chicago, for example, reports that the city's mayor recently met with China's minister of education, in part, to talk about recruiting Chinese-language teachers for Chicago. There are 20 Chicago public schools with Chinese language programs, the news station reports, and interest in the program has "grown rapidly."

Elsewhere, the Associated Press reports that several schools in Kentucky are expanding Chinese language courses to "satisfy student and parent interest in non-Western languages." Though the number of students taking Chinese there remains small, the school district is "expanding Chinese offerings to at least three schools, compared with just one last year" and are "seeking federal funds to create an elementary Chinese curriculum."

The San Francisco Chronicle says that "the number of students taking the SAT Chinese subject test — offered in both simplified and traditional forms — has nearly doubled, from 2,865 in 1996 to 4,917 in 2004."

One of the incentives of offering Chinese at Stowe High, according to Lamoille schools superintendent Alice Angney, is that “If you are at all attuned to the future, Asian language is the language that’s going to be needed.” Here's a pretty good primer on that. Interesting.

I got caught

2006-05-17T12:23:00.000-04:00

red-handed. You see, I haven't posted in nearly three weeks, and 802 Online's Cathy Resmer called me and others on it in one of her latest posts.

But, as Cathy points out, it's an interesting issue because many of these offending blogs are written by people affiliated with newspapers. I'd like to tell you that I've been so utterly swamped with my regular job in the last three weeks that I haven't had a spare moment to blog. But that's not true. I've been busy, yes, but so has Cathy, and she manages to post usually at least once each day. I think my hangup recently has been lack of a compelling topic to blog about. Pretty weak, I know.

In response to Cathy's question — Are readers not responding? — I'd have to forcibly answer: Sort of. Unfortunately, I'd be willing to bet the actual reader comments on the blog are outweighed by these: "Very nice! I found a place where you can make some nice extra cash secret shopping. Just go to the site below and put in your zip to see what's available in your area. I made over $900 last month having fun!" Sigh.

Anyway, Cathy's right: It's time for a conversation about how it's going. Stay tuned...

'The magic people'

2006-04-28T11:43:00.000-04:00

The Washington Press Corps buzz this week that Fox News commentator Tony Snow will replace Scott McClellan as Bush's press secretary is just that: buzz. Pressthink has an insightful look at how McClellan was the cornerstone in operation 'rollback'. And, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer added his take this week in a Washington Post op-ed piece, recalling that ever since the press briefings were televised live in the mid '90s the event has become more theater than anything else. It's a "TV show" in which the press secretary aims to get out a "sound bite for the evening news" while the public gets to watch a "good fight," Fleischer says.

An exchange from Thursday's press "gaggle" tells it all. Here, a reporter questions whether all the nearby televisions have been tuned to Fox News, including the one on Air Force One, because of an official White House policy. The reporter questions whether there's an unwillingness on the part of the White House to tune into, say, CNN instead:

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I'm going to go see if we can change the channel for you. Have you called up?

Q: I was the Fox victim, and I was told — the quote was, "No," when I asked for CNN.

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know who you talked to, so — it didn't come to my attention. You don't know who you talked to either?

Q: Well, the magic people at the other end off the phone.

MR. McCLELLAN: The magic people at the other end of the phone. Well, I'll see if this cabin is —

Q: I was told, "We don't watch CNN here, you can only watch Fox."

MR. McCLELLAN: As I said, it's hard to respond to something when I don't know who it is you talked to.

Q: I used the phone back here.

MR. McCLELLAN: I find this all quite amusing, to tell you the truth. I mean, there are a lot of people on this plane that do watch that channel.

Q: I've never been told, no. They're such nice guys up there.

Later, McClellan informs the press corps that
"they're going to be changing it, at your all's request, to the channel that you requested, which is CNN — from the press corps."

I think Howard Beale from the movie "Network" said it best: "Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park."

Are you green?

2006-04-28T10:51:00.000-04:00

If so, reporter Marina Knight would like to hear from you.

This week, there's the first of two parts at the Stowe Reporter on the area's overall picture, and with Stowe’s environmental consciousness.

Let Marina know if you practice environmentally-friendly habits: marina@stowereporter.com

Immigrant Song

2006-04-07T13:04:00.000-04:00

Surprise, surprise.

Yesterday, we learn that Senate Democrats and Republicans had "rallied" around the proposed immigration plan and brokered a bipartisan compromise. The plan, according to the Dallas Morning News, "would place most of the 11 million-plus illegal immigrants in this country on course to become Americans."

Fast-forward 24 hours and the compromise goes down in flames. Same song, different tune. The 60-to-38 vote on the plan, according to to a New York Times report today, has all but stalled the bill. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, described the effort of some Republicans to amend the legislation as "filibuster by amendment."

The immigration legislation hits close to home, here in Stowe. Included in the immigration bill is the so-called Mikulski Amendment, sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, and co-sponsored by Vermont's congressional delegation. Basically, the amendment extends for three years the “Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act,” which was signed into law last May. That exempts workers who are already enrolled in the H2B Visa program from having to reapply for a work visa. Many businesses in Stowe, including Stowe Mountain Resort and other hotels, hired seasonal workers to do hospitality jobs. The program, however, has a cap of 66,000 such visas, which has been reached early for the last two years — barring many businesses from hiring these workers.

But, with the controversial immigration bill in trouble at the moment, the Mikulski Amendment might not see the light of day. That's not good news for some Stowe businesses that have relied on the program in years past.

Hot enough for ya?

2006-03-31T13:58:00.000-05:00

It's 68 and sunny. Gotta love it.

And, believe it or not, there's still several weeks of skiing left at Stowe. Seems millions of gallons of water from a snowmaking pond can go a long way.

Spring skiing notwithstanding, it definitely feels like a nice summer day out there. The signs of summer in Stowe are hard to miss: New Jersey and New York license plates have suddenly popped up everyone after a three-month hiatus; traffic gets backed up in the village big time (and thank goodness for the Mayo Farm Road); and seems like everybody's either moving or repainting/ renovating their pad.

This is also the time of year when we publish our annual Home and Real Estate section. That will come out sometime in early May and our staff has begun work on some stories. Here's a rundown of some ideas we kicked around the other day here at 49 School Street:

• What’s available for less than $300,000?

• What’s available for more than $1 million? What percentage of Vermont houses listing for $1 million and up are in Stowe?

• Home technology: Stowe firm can install controls to run your video, audio, security, pool, irrigation system, you name it.

• "10 questions" for Home people.

• Could have a series of 10 Questions for people in various parts of the Home industry. Builders, interior decorators, site-work bulldozer guys, electricians, plumbers, flooring crews, architects, what have you.

• Builders: What are they building? Cost trends? What’s the price per square foot these days? The Katrina effect on wood prices? Prefabs? Size of houses going up, or down?

• Real estate overview: How does the market look? Prices going up, holding line, or what? Time on market? Inventory for sale going up, down, or what?

• Renting in Stowe. What's the range in prices and what do you get?

• Who is moving here, and why?

If you have any suggestions for story ideas feel free to give us a buzz. Or, maybe you know the answers to some of these questions. In the meantime, get outside.

Graff is gone, but why?

2006-03-21T12:36:00.000-05:00

The news yesterday that longtime journalist Christopher Graff is no longer head of Vermont's Associated Press bureau came as a shock to many people. There are also a plethora of unanwsered questions — was he fired, or did he resign? In any case, why did this happen, and why so sudden?

It's interesting to see how differently the story was reported in state papers this morning. The news was first reported by Darren Allen, head of the Vermont Press Bureau, writing yesterday in his online blog Hall Monitor. Allen's story today in the Times Argus and Rutland Herald says only that Graff "departed."

Over at the weekly Vermont Guardian, the headline says that Graff was "fired." It's reported that Graff was "dismissed without warning" and that his departure was a "removal."

Not so, according to the Burlington Free Press, which reports in its business section that Graff "resigned from the news service." Graff's boss at the AP, Larry Laughlin, "told the Free Press that Graff resigned, but declined to provide details on his departure."

Vermont blogs are hot on the trail, too. Seven Days' Cathy Resmer has a roundup over at 802 Online. The anonymous blog Will Chamberlain's Vermont, meanwhile, asserts that Graff was fired, but in doing so inaccurately cites Allen's Vermont Press Bureau story. Allen's report, as mentioned above, doesn't say what happened: "Whether Graff was fired or resigned was unclear Monday, although Laughlin's presence in Montpelier was unusual."

Unusual indeed.

— Scott Monroe

UPDATE: Romensko has a link to Allen's story on Graff as well, and carries this spicy headline, "Associated Press dismisses Vermont bureau chief Graff." Dismisses? Meanwhile, the blog PoliticsVT proclaims in its title that "AP's Graff Gets the Boot." That blog says the bureau chief was "fired" and "let go under unknown circumstances."

UPDATE II: Nice work by a keen blogger in catching today's (Wednesday morning's) New York Times story on Graff, which sheds a whole lot more light on the matter. The Times reports that Graff was "forced out of his job" and notes that "The move came after he put a partisan column on the wire, and as the news agency is consolidating some of its bureaus across state lines." Apparently, according to Emerson Lynn, editor and publisher of The St. Albans Messenger, Graff's dismissal might have been related to "the A.P.'s having told him this month that it was inappropriate for him to have posted a column by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, on the wire." Leahy's column ran as part of Sunshine Week, which highlights the need for open government and public records. The column also contained a section that's critical of the Bush Administration. Some of the fog is beginning to disperse.

Posts that go too far

2006-03-20T12:07:00.000-05:00

One of the features at Stowe Reporter Online is the Reader’s Forum, a message board where people can post comments about local news and issues. I’m the gatekeeper for the forum — posts get emailed to me first before going live and then I manually activate the post before it goes into the forum.

I think this filter is important. As of late I’ve received a couple of post submittals that I’ve deleted before allowing them to go live, for various reasons.

One of those reasons is the post contains defamatory statements that could constitute libel, which is the legal term that describes defamation in writing. Here’s an example of a post I received by email on Feb. 10. Names and places have been replaced with "XXXXXXX," though the rest of the post remains as submitted:

"I / we lived in Vermont for about two years ...The term Flat Lander is a real attitude locals have towards anyone who comes to the area ...They forget that they were once ‘newcomers,’ and that the land originally belonged to the Indians. XXXXXXX stalk anyone coming out of a bar and XXXXXXX is a lying SOB. There is work for Electricians if you’re willing to work for $12.00 an hour with no benefits or future. Secretarial is about $8.00 per hour and if you’re new, you’ll get all the crummy hours, especially if you work at XXXXXXX in XXXXXXX. (Wouldn’t let my spouse go to her nieces dance recital for 30 minutes) ... Unless you’re wealthy and can afford top notch digs, real estate is expensive and there are the XXXXXXX, who will lie, cheat, and not return your deposit money nor pay you for work you did for their husband when he was in a bind. (Yes XXXXXXX, you still owe me $500.00). We left Vermont and did not shed a tear!"

Online libel continues to be debated in courts. According to the First Amendment Center, in the 2003 case of Batzel v. Cremers, "a defamatory e-mail message was sent to a Web-site operator, who edited the message and selected it for posting. The operator said he believed the sender intended the message to be made public. The sender, however, later claimed that he never intended the information to be made public; he merely wanted the site operator to be aware of it."

In the above post there are several allegations of fact masked as opinion, relating to several specific people and local organizations. Although the Reporter certainly wants to enable readers to speak their mind about local topics, posts such as these go too far. The newspaper — because we offer this online forum on our Web site — could potentially be held accountable for libel statements, especially because people can post anonymously.

Would the same hold true for a blog? The New York Times reported in October 2005 that "if an elected official claims he has been defamed by an anonymous blogger, he cannot use a lawsuit to unmask the writer unless he has substantial evidence to prove his claim." That decision came from the Delaware Supreme Court.

Interesting.

— Scott Monroe

When news breaks, we fix it...

2006-03-17T14:47:00.000-05:00

So far as I can tell, the Stowe Reporter was the first one today to "break" the news that the Public Service Board has approved VELCO's big power line upgrade for Lamoille County. A teaser is posted on our Web site, because I'm sure the major dailies — The Freeps and TA — will have coverage tomorrow, or Sunday, or most certainly sometime before we next go to press, which is on Thursdays.

That's the tough part about being a weekly newspaper. Even really important stuff, such as the VELCO approval or last week's guilty plea of wife-killer Edgar Whitney Jr, are old news by the time our weekly edition rolls around. The challenge then becomes to distinguish the coverage from that of the dailies. To me, that means devoting more space and more time into telling the complete story, providing context and other helpful extras like timelines.

So, it's Friday afternoon and I'm thinking about what our coverage of the VELCO decision will look like in next week's paper. It's a big deal in this community.

In the meantime, if you're interested in getting a refresher check out some of our past stories: The power line's proposal for decision way back in October and how the electricity shortage has put a freeze on most new development in Stowe.

Before I write the story on the VELCO approval, I have to read through and highlight the 90-page decision. I'm on page 26. Almost half-way there!
— Scott Monroe

So long winter...

2006-03-15T00:55:00.000-05:00

It may not feel like it, but rest assure that winter is nearing an end. My calendar says so.

Seems like as good a time as any to post some pictures I took this winter in Stowe that didn't make it into the newspaper. This one at left is from the finish at the Stowe Derby a few weeks ago. Below are random wanderings in the snow.

As you can see, Stowe did indeed have some snowfall this winter. If you blinked, you might have missed it.

Someone appears to have snowshoed across the Mayo Farm. Surely it wasn't a coniving reporter setting up a feature photo op. Nah.

Brrrr. Is it June yet?

-- Scott Monroe

Stowe's World Cup

2006-03-13T13:18:00.000-05:00

And then there were three. Let's welcome the newest weblog to Stowe Reporter Online: Stowe's World Cup. This one is coverage and commentary of the local ski bum series by Race Stocks Sports guru Todd Carroll. Check it out!

— Scott Monroe

Budget battles: Town Meeting strikes back

2006-03-13T12:58:00.000-05:00

A long time ago on a blog far, far away...

Yeah, it's been about two weeks since my last post — woe unto me.

Part of it had to do with the craziness of Town Meeting Day coverage in Stowe, which involved lots of debate on on the town government's capital budget and several hot items at the ballot box, including the third rejection of the Akeley Memorial Building renovation.

This was the third town meeting I've covered since joining the Stowe Reporter and it was definitely the most lively. So, what comes now? For starters, voters have both a school budget and a municipal budget. Thanks to approval of a 1-percent local option tax, the municipal tax rate is actually down a notch. Not so with the ballooning school budget, which is up some 20 percent largely because of the state education funding formula. Bottomline: Stowe property taxes are increasing double digits, despite attempts at cutting municipal spending and the addition of the option tax.

The Stowe Select Board will be meeting this Wednesday at 5 p.m. to start the new year ahead and tackle these and other lingering issues. See you there.

— Scott Monroe

This ain't no horse race

2006-02-24T09:51:00.000-05:00

Local political races can be so refreshing. No attack ads. No mud-slinging. No campaign fund-raising. Just normal people — your neighbors — talking about community issues.

And if you stopped by the Stowe Reporter's first annual "Meet the Candidates" forum last night, Thursday, you might have gotten some free pretzels and water out of it, too. Held at the Stowe Free Library's Community Room, the forum was a chance for folks to ask the candidates about a range of town issues.

I'd say we had between 40 and 50 people in the community room from 5-6:15ish - a welcome sign that people are interested in the Stowe Select Board race: Five candidates running for two open seats. Running for a three-year term: Francis "Paco" Aumand and Joe Mooney. Running for a two-year term: Larry Lackey, Marie Duquette and Steve Chambers. For more information on the race and town meeting, check out the Reporter's coverage. Elections will be decided by ballot on Town Meeting Day, March 7.

A few interesting nuggets from last night:

Impact fees. These are levies placed on new development in town. The revenue would likely go into a targeted account with the specific purpose of paying for capital projects that are needed as a direct result of growth. What did the candidates have to say?

Marie Duquette: Not familiar with impact fees, but favors "anything that will alleviate the burden" on taxpayers.

Joe Mooney: Supports them also if they are a "way of lifting the burden off property taxes."

Francis "Paco" Aumand: Wants more study first. In general, though, he supports them so long as they're not used to pay for the town's operating budget.

Larry Lackey: "I think they're worth looking at," especially in funding things like highway improvements.

Steve Chambers: It's a "worthy concept," but most cost-savings will be found by having a "true zero-base budget strategy" in town government.

What's the most critical issue facing Stowe and how would you address it?

Paco Aumand: The tax burden, and by extension, allowing the people to vote the town budget by Australian ballot, if that's what they want. But his role as a selectman would be to "make every effort to further trim the operating budget."

Larry Lackey: A new public-safety facility for rescue, fire and police officials: "We can't afford to not give those agencies what they need ... it's time to settle on a building."

Steve Chambers: A town manager is needed to manage local government, instead of an administrator: "All in town would be better served by that structure."

Marie Duquette: She'd approach all issues with an open mind - cautious not to let issues become divisive: "The town is different than it used to be."

Joe Mooney: Town budget needs to be voted on Australian ballot: "It provides greater opportunity for voters to provide some direction to town government."

Other nuggets:

o A 1-percent local option tax is favored by all, though they differ on how the revenue should be spent.

o The $450,000 bond toward a conservation easement on the Adams Camp land. All except Duquette and Chambers were wholly supportive. Duquette said that, in general, conserving land with municipal funds might not be such a good idea, and Chambers said that he's voting "no" on the proposal at town meeting. Chambers said he and his wife disagree on the Adams Camp issue: "Our votes are canceling each other out."

o The Stowe Police Department. Aumand, Mooney and Lackey said they'd like to examine the department, which is the most costly in Stowe town government. Aumand: "I'm concerned with the amount of (police) vehicles." And Mooney: "The overtime (pay) issue needs to be looked at further." And Lackey: Starting this summer, the select board should further examine police services.

All in all, a very informative evening. Hopefully, voters thought so too. See you at the polls.
— Scott Monroe

Blogspeak

2006-02-16T16:15:00.000-05:00

Print + weblog / Stowe Reporter = Blogspeak.

Beginning next week (hopefully) we'll be introducing a new feature to the print edition of the Stowe Reporter called Blogspeak. Basically, it'll be snippets of posts from this place and - as more blogs are eventually unleashed - other Reporter weblogs, too. This past week, we took a step in that direction by reprinting reporter Marina Knight's At the Olympics blog in the "Stowe Scene" section, along with pictures and accounts of the Torino, Italy Winter Games.

I happen to think it's cool to cross-pollinate web and print material, though it's an emerging frontier with some gray areas. A Delaware reporter, for example, was recently fired over postings at his personal weblog. For journalists the weblog is an interesting beast: it's not exactly the same thing as a news report, or is it? Depends. When I think of journalism, I identify with the hallmark of editing and oversight. Most weblogs, I think it's fair to say, don't have that filter.

Which is also the strength of weblogs in general. This software encourages stream-of-consciousness writing and, for me at least, compels a different cadence than I'd normally use in the newspaper.

So, what are the implications of merging blog and print? Is it really worth it? Are blogs being over-hyped? Is the rush to get them into print a little silly? Or, is there perhaps something bloggers and journalists can learn from one another? Maybe some good, maybe some bad. Let's find out...

On a totally unrelated track, I've posted a few more pictures within this entry from my wandering Boston this past weekend. You might have noticed that already. I have no particular reason for doing so. That, I guess, is what you'd call blogthink.

--Scott Monroe

NEPA report: Part II

2006-02-13T20:57:00.000-05:00

Two blocks down the street from each other: Snowmaking machines at the Boston Common park and a homeless man standing in front of afternoon traffic holding a cardboard sign with the message, "Please help! Homeless looking for work. Thanks! God bless!"

It was Friday and the snowmaking guns were laying down fresh powder on six acres for the first Boston Winter Festival. The event -- hosted on Saturday in part by Vermont ski areas, including Stowe Mountain Resort -- was themed as a salute to the U.S. Ski Team and the 2006 Winter Olympic Games commencing the same day in Torino, Italy. Boston, like all of Massachusetts and New Hampshire that day, didn't have any snow at all on the ground. Apart from the frigid temps in the teens, you might have thought it was an autumn day in the park.

So, over at Boston Common, the snow guns blasted away. The man who packed up the snowmaking hoses in his van, the elderly woman who walked past the white gusts walking her chihuahua, and even the cop leaning against the tent -- all must have known, as I did, that a big snowstorm was coming. On Sunday, some two feet of snow dumped onto Boston.

A few blocks down Beacon Street: a homeless man with his sign. I snapped his picture and then walked up to the concrete island he was standing at. I asked him his name.

"Was that you taking my picture?" he said.

I told him yes.

"You should ask people before you take their picture," he said, revealing his two missing front teeth. "Someone might take your camera away and smash it."

I asked him if he minded having his picture taken.

"Whatever," he said, lifting his sign up high as taxis, buses and cars passed by.

"Have any cars stopped for you?" I said.

He smiled wide, as if anticipating the question: "Some of them do."

I thanked him for his time and headed down Charles Street. From noon 'till 2:30 on Friday, I had "free time" in between journalism workshops at the New England Press Association convention. I decided to ditch the park plaza hotel for the streets of Boston, camera and notepad in hand.

When I met Debra, a cold north wind was blowing down Stuart Street. I sat next to her on the curb. She could have been my grandmother, except she was black and a city woman. She held a styrofoam cup in her right hand, filled with quarters and dimes. I gave her a $2 bill I had, courtesy of Union Bank in Stowe.

"Never heard of Stowe before," she said, after asking where I was from.

"You got gloves?" Debra, who had gloves, noticed I didn't. I smiled and told her I had forgotten them at the hotel.

"You should get inside. Cold out," she said, getting up. "I'm staying at a friend's for a while. Nice meeting you."

Before I returned to the park plaza hotel, I walk through the park. Geese graze on the ground; blue towers in the distance. A plastic bag in the half-frozen waters of a pond. On a park bench scribbled in black magic marker: "Bloodgang eck311, All dayz every dayz tel tha day I die. Bloodgang." At the crosswalk, a dozen first-graders hold hands crossing the street. Car horns moan as if calling out to whales.

And, from there, I go to a workshop on municipal finance for dummies. Expenses, revenues and rules. That's the order of things.
-- Scott Monroe

NEPA report: Part I

2006-02-13T12:38:00.000-05:00

Here's my promised "report" on the New England Press Association convention in Boston myself and three others from the Stowe Reporter attended over the weekend: very cool. Part 1 is a quick recap of the convention itself. Part 2 will be ramblings about my wandering Boston. Above, I snapped this pic of a local television reporter interviewing people on Stuart Street in Boston on Friday. He asked folks if they were wearing something called an "ipod" and why. Cool.

A few nuggets from the NEPA convention:

• Of the five workshops I attended, "Effective Writing" was my most memorable. It's encouraging for me to get a fresh perspective on community journalism. The main theme from veteran journalist/ editor Jerry Larson? Humanize the news story, especially the uber-dry municipal meetings, if it's appropriate.

"Keep it personal," Larson told us. "Bring us humanity through ideas. Tell ideas through one person."

Indeed, it's easy for reporters who cover the minutia of town government, courts, education and all other officials areas of interest to get caught in formula. "The Stowe Select Board voted today to ban feeding wild turkeys...," as opposed to "Joe Smith raised his hand, cleared his throat and defended his passion: feeding wild turkeys." OK, maybe that's a lame example, but you get the idea. Whenever you can, it's best to bring as much humanity as possible to a story.

• Other nuggets: Municipal finance was a yawner. Just kidding. It was a yawner but it was educational to get the perspective from the town administrator of Dover, Mass., on what goes into the creation of a municipal budget: "Expenses, revenues and rules," a mantra he repeated at least a dozen times.

Online access to court records: Apparently, Vermont's Web site is second-worst only to Rhode Island when it comes to the disclosure of PUBLIC court information on the Internet. Information about district and superior court cases are available in calendar format, for a one-time $10 activation fee, but actual documents (police affidavits, briefs, motions) aren't. Currently, that's a service that only the federal courts offer and states are debating whether such information could potentially violate privacy rights, among other concerns.

• Also: Not many of those at the "Don't fear blogs workshop" seemed to write blogs as reporters or editors. Some didn't really know what a weblog is, and some objected to the notion of newspapers having one at all. This workshop was presented by Steve Safran of the weblog Lost Remote and featured an honest discussion of pros and cons of blogging, especially for community newspapers. Ultimately, I tend to agree with Safran in his assessment of what role blogs should play in the media landscape: "The best ones act like a fifth estate and hold us accountable in a meaningful way."

Exactly. And newspaper readers, eager and able more than ever to chime in, need to get access.

"Our readers are not going to be passive recipients of the news," Safran said. "They want to become players, at least some of them do."

Unfortunately, I'd say most people currently view the "blogosphere" as being either a shout-session between extreme left and right-leaning political wanks or a journal about what Joe Smith has for breakfast this morning. But a blog, as Safran rightly pointed out, is just software. What someone puts on that blank canvas is open-ended and full of possibility.

Finally: The Stowe Reporter's photographer Glenn Callahan won an award for his pictorial photo "Frosty Ferns." Way to go Glenn!

– Scott Monroe

NEPA in Beantown

2006-02-09T14:55:00.000-05:00

I'm off to the annual convention of the New England Press Association at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Mass. Should be groovy.

I'll have a report on that after I get back on Saturday. My main interest in going, aside from shooting the breeze with other journalists and editors, is the chance to take several workshops and come back to Stowe with some spiffy new ideas on reporting. Among the workshops I'll be checking out:

• Tell me a story: Effective writing techniques

• Municipal finance for dummies

• Court records: Online access and beyond

• Religion, culture and politics

• Reporting in the era of blogs and hyperpartisanship

That last one should be interesting. I'm curious to find out how many reporters and editors write blogs associated with their newspapers. I bet at least a third do. Anyway, stayed tuned for the lowdown. I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat.

— Scott Monroe

'Now this...'

2006-02-02T14:27:00.000-05:00

I don't own a cell phone.

I say that, frankly, with a little bit of pride and a little bit of embarrassment. And, every year that goes by such an admission feels even more alien, more absurd — even though it's been perhaps only a decade or so since it became a mainstream must-have.

But enough about my dinosaur technology know-how. Now this...

There's a great post over at PressThink, the weblog of New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen. The post comes from Andrew Postman, son of the late Neil Postman, who wrote my absolute most favorite book from college, Amusing Ourselves to Death. Like the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Postman's circa-1985 book was way ahead of its time. Interesting aside: Roger Waters, co-founder of Pink Floyd, named his solo album, Amused to Death, after Postman's book. And, Pink Floyd nearly recorded the soundtrack for 2001: A Space Odyssey, but backed out at the last minute. And, Pink Floyd's song "Echoes" plays relatively in sync with the last 20-minute act of 2001. Anyway, now this...

As Andrew Postman points out in his post at PressThink, who then would have imagined a media landscape that included the Internet, cable television, TiVo, DVDs, blogs, ipods, PDAs, HDTV, call-waiting, instant messaging and, yes, cell phones? Certainly Postman didn't imagine all those things, and yet 20 years later his words ring amazingly true. His "Now this" concept — in which the reporting of rape and murder on the 6 o'clock news is segued into a story about a local event featuring silly dog tricks, which is followed by commercials for Viagra, Ford trucks and Capital One no hassle credit cards. The sequence of ideas is so random — some would argue insane — and yet it's something we've all grown accustomed to, especially with television.

But we see it in all media, too. If you're reading these words right now, you probably got here through a link from the Stowe Reporter Web site, and to get there you might have googled "Stowe." Diversity of opinion, or information overload? Fragments instead of whole sentences. Sound bites in place of context. Spliced images over words. He said this. She said that. Breaking news scrolls — the suicide bomb in Israel, Jennifer Aniston's latest date, how not to gain weight by eating raw meat, a squirrel on water skis, the budget deficit, outrage over a Vermont's judge's sentence for a sex offender, bird flue is coming, Seahawks won 26-17 in overtime.

Anyway, Postman's book is a great read, and I'd recommend it to everyone. And now a word from our sponsors...

— Scott Monroe

What's town business, and why?

2006-01-27T10:45:00.000-05:00

Abortion. Education property taxes.

Which of those two topics has enough local relevance to be discussed and voted on at town meeting? Or, perhaps neither of them are relevant enough, or maybe both of them meet the standard, you say.

Tough call. But it's one that town officials here made (sort of) in the last week. Leaders, generally speaking, reach points where they have to draw lines. Town leaders are no exception. In Stowe, we have a five-member select board, the governing body for town government policy, rules and decisions small and large. The board frequently finds itself in the position of making decisions based on what it's done in the past and whether the same standard would be applied to similar issues and questions.

The select board this week tackled the issue of parental notification for abortions, and whether an "advisory" vote at town meeting had enough local relevance (read: only town business at town meeting). The answer? Nope, the board decided unanimously. What about placing the question on the ballot, so people could vote in secret and not have to openly debate the issue? Nope, that's no good either, because ballot items need to somehow deal with money, the board said. This decision had nothing to do with the "merits" of parental notification, board members reasoned.

But then, in the same breath later this week, board members considered another similar question for the town meeting agenda. This one was an "advisory" resolution, requesting state officials stop shifting money from the state education fund, which in turn raises the burden on towns like Stowe to pay even higher property taxes for Vermont education spending.

A split 2-2 vote by the board meant this resolution wouldn't get on the agenda, either (Stay tuned for full coverage in next week’s Stowe Reporter).

Here’s where the debate seems to get fuzzy. Half of the board argued this resolution DID have local relevance, because this town is getting whacked with huge property tax increases year-after-year due in large part to the state’s education funding law, Act 68. The issue affects everybody’s wallets and pocket books, they argued.

The other half of the board didn’t disagreed about local relevance, however, seemed to think it wouldn’t do any good to pass such an advisory vote. Further, they argued, if you’re going to say "no" to the parental notification petition, you’d probably want to apply the same standard and say "no" to this one, too.

This isn’t unique to Stowe — towns and cities across Vermont are grappling with the same questions, and coming to different conclusions.

How can you make either argument, though, without considering the "merits" of the issue? If something isn’t "town business," then it seems you’ve decided — in your opinion — that the issue isn’t worthy of local debate and doesn’t affect people in a direct and tangible way.

The war in Iraq. Genetically-modified food. Abortion. Taxes. Impact fees. Nuclear waste. Where do YOU draw the line? When does an issue become "local" and by what standard do you judge something to be "affecting people" in your town or city? Is money the magic threshold, or perhaps broader notions of community well-being?

Tough calls. But here’s the kicker: Any citizen has the right to bring these issues up at town meeting, and — if there’s enough support — take a vote on the issue anyway. Cool.

— Scott Monroe

'The beards of town meeting' and other cool ideas

2006-01-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

I-89 is in so much better condition in New Hampshire. That was pretty clear during my 2.5-hour drive yesterday from Stowe to Concord, NH.

I was the Stowe Reporter's lone emissary at a town meeting and budget workshop at the Concord Monitor, a daily newspaper located in the capital city. In fact, I was Vermont's only representative at this three-hour teach-in hosted by the New England Society of Newspaper Editors.

Definitely a cool thing to go to in the lead-up to town meeting. Budget-chopping season is winding down here in Stowe, and people are getting ready to set the spending plan, tax rate, and priorities for the coming year. With about a month-and-a-half to go before town meeting, our editorial staff is coming up with plans for coverage, both before and after the annual gathering.

The workshop's first speaker, Susan Slack of the New Hampshire Local Government Center, gave a great talk on town meeting in New England and how it's viewed by town government officials. Interesting that New Hampshire — like Vermont and other New England states — is seeing more towns experimenting with secret-ballot voting in which people vote at the polls on most issues, and do not have a regular town meeting discussion. Our upside-down neighbor has the so-called SB2 system, or Senate Bill 2, which town governments can adopt in place of town meetings (they also call their town-meeting warnings, "warrants." How weird?).

Vermonters more commonly know SB2 voting as something akin to the Australian ballot — clearly because Australia and Vermont are kindred spirits. Actually, there's a pretty good explanation of that here.

Anyway, reporters and editors shared their views on budget and town-meeting coverage as well, and I came away with some ideas for the Stowe Reporter. Many of the coverage ideas dealt with human-interest angles. That is, coverage that personalizes "the meeting" and "the budget" in amusing and telling ways. Whether any of these see light of day here at the Reporter remains to be seen, but here are some of my favorites:

• "The beards of town meeting." Speaks for itself. This kind of photo collage might be interesting in other permutations as well, such as "the plaid shirts of town meeting," and "the knitters of town meeting," etc.

• Glance boxes, glance boxes, glance boxes. These are the shaded boxes you'll see floating next to stories that usually showcase quick, important facts or phrases that are meant to give you a snapshot of the story.

• Candidate profile capsules. Another variation on the glance box, which would accompany profile stories on select board and school board candidates. The idea is to give readers a fast look at the 5 W’s: who, what, where, why and when.

• Newcomers' perspectives. Town meeting as seen my someone who's new to town, and a primer on what this unique New England tradition is really all about.

• Town thumbnail sketches. This might be better suited for a bigger daily newspaper, but why not in Lamoille County? The idea is to show a map and corresponding "thumbnails" next to each town that show its population, budget comparisons, tax rate and town-meeting issues.

Beneath all the numbers, budgets, and meetings, there's something that's far more interesting and worthwhile about the town meeting season for a community. Bottom-line: We're jazzed up at the Reporter for town meeting, and hope you are, too. After all, this could be the last "regular" town meeting in Stowe if voters choose to adopt the municipal budget by Australian ballot. Stay tuned, maties.

— Scott Monroe

Cashman coverage is bankrupt

2006-01-16T15:46:00.000-05:00

This is depressing.

An Associated Press report this weekend shows that a court transcript "undercuts" the "assertions by some" that Judge Edward Cashman doesn't "believe" in prison sentences as adequate punishment. State lawmakers and the governor have suggested Cashman made such a statement in the sentencing of a convicted sex offender.

What's depressing, at least to me, is that politicians (including national talk-show ideologue Bill O'Reilly) were allowed to spin the story, create myth, and the press let them run with it. "The press," by the way, I think can fairly be described as the state's top daily newspapers: the Burlington Free Press, and jointly the Times Argus and Rutland Herald, via the Vermont Press Bureau.

This controversial topic was allowed to boil down to a "he said/she said" issue, when information was readily available that would have "undercut" the "assertions by some" much earlier in the ball game.

Granted, this particular court transcript apparently wasn't a public document until Friday. Still, this myth that somehow Judge Cashman didn't value prison punishment was repeated in the press echo chamber so many times that it went unchallenged. The court transcript clearly states that Cashman didn't think prison terms were enough — i.e., sex offender treatment is needed, too.

Lest you think I'm standing atop a pedestal here — I've certainly fallen prey to such coverage before. I understand that amid the pressures of deadline, reporting and writing it's difficult sometimes to do the extra legwork; it's easier sometimes to get that quote instead of that fact. As a journalist, what I take away from all this is a reminder to avoid reliance on "he said/she said" formula whenever possible. If your mother says she loves you, as the axiom goes, check it out.

Otherwise, that's how mountains can certainly be made out of molehills, and that's partly the case here. The larger issue of sentencing for criminals is an important debate, but coverage is been heavy on Cashman, Cashman, Cashman, and whether he should be crucified for his light sentencing or disrespect for the judicial system. And, now faced with proposed legislation to end his tenure as a judge, Cashman is in a big pickle when the press lets myth become common knowledge.

Cashman, the Times Argus reports today, is among the top issues now at the Statehouse. Interesting it's Cashman, not the state's criminal sentencing law, that's in the hot seat.

— Scott Monroe

Interested in conflict

2006-01-12T15:26:00.000-05:00

Who ever said small-town government is a yawner? A quick google search doesn't lead me to any immediate results, so onto the next question.

Who ever said government is a "ugly necessity"? Ah, that would be novelist and journalist Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936), who makes a pretty good observation.

So, government's ugly and necessary. And small-town government — i.e. what runs the show here in Stowe and most Vermont communities — is no exception. Further, it can at times be exciting, contentious and almost always a vehicle for a better society.

Which is why it's cool Stowe's having this debate about conflict of interest. The chairman of the development review board, Allan Coppock, sounded the horns last week after attending a meeting of the planning commission. He was stunned that a planning commissioner, Chuck Baraw, decided to participate in a discussion that would benefit him. Baraw owns one of the biggest hotels in town, the Stoweflake, and at the meeting he argued for changing zoning rules so more hotel rooms would be allowed in the Mountain Road area which happens to also contain his massive resort and spa.

Why, Coppock wondered aloud in a letter to the editor this week, didn't Baraw recuse himself from the discussion when he had a personal stake in the issue?

Whether or not a conflict of interest was allowed to slip by is open to debate. Baraw will tell you (he told me) that Coppock was making a mountain out of a molehill, because his resort can't get much bigger than it already is. Baraw just saw his involvement in the discussion as another viewpoint — in fact, the only such view from an active resort owner.

Coppock will tell you (he also told me) that he perceived a conflict of interest, and even if there's the PERCEPTION that town government isn't operating fairly and for the community, than something has to be done. It's worth noting that aside from the seven-member planning commission, there were only two other perceivers at the meeting — Coppock and our commission reporter Lisa McCormack.

So, when the dust settles on this issue (it already has in the minds of some, who think the whole thing was blown out of proportion) at least we will have had an important discussion in public. Town officials and citizens form government collectively, and without the participation of one or the other it ain't gonna work. Here's hoping the ensuing debate remains civil, and we walk away with a better understanding of each other and the roles we play in this community.

But that doesn't mean this whole back-and-forth needs to be a yawner. Conflict can be a good thing — when it's interesting.

— Scott Monroe

Getting schooled

2005-12-29T14:58:00.000-05:00

Costs are going up. Way up.

Whether it's health insurance, electricity, fuel heating — across the board, things are not getting any cheaper. To say the same about the Stowe school budget would be the understatement of the New Year.

In an article this week, reporter Marina Knight takes a look at the upcoming year's spending proposal, and finds a budget slated to be over $8 million. That's compared with a $7.66 million budget last year that — for the first time ever — got rejected at town meeting by voters.

Most startingly, perhaps, is that the budget basically includes the same programs, services and staff as last year. Most of the increase — over $500K of it — comes in hikes for pay and benefits, special education, heat and electric and fuel. The school board is faced with the dire prospect of slashing programs and services in order to get a passable budget.

All of this points to brewing unrest in Stowe over Act 68, the state's education funding formula. Some folks in town think next year will see more advocacy for local control over property taxes and further Act 68 reform. Many in Stowe see the state policy as pitting "town against town over the school funding issue," creating a kind of class warfare between "rich and poor" communities. Whether or not that's the case, that's certainly the perception. In Stowe, residents are seeing a school population decrease even as per-pupil spending goes up, budgets go up, and services are cut back.

There's little hope that the Act 68 reform proposed for the upcoming legislative session — an education income tax — will go anywhere at all. Democrats, who are generally the defenders of Act 68 policy, have already said they're not much of a chance of the education income tax getting a fair shake this year. Certainly with health care and affordable housing topping the list, education funding reform has taken the backseat.

That's too bad for Stowe, and other communities that feel left behind by the state government. So, the stage is set for another contentious school budget, and another round of touch choices. Perhaps Montpelier will feel the heat as a result ... we'll see.

— Scott Monroe

Spam, with spam and eggs, and spam

2005-12-23T09:05:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of the Monty Python skit on spam: "egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam."

But the stuff we all get in our e-mail inboxes is a whole different matter. It's enough to make you wonder why you bothered with e-mail in the first place. From lucrative get-rich-quick offers to the latest holiday alert from Target — there's no escape from it all. "Cool. Cut. Funny. Audition holiday cards" is the latest offer from Target, a spam e-mail I've attempted to unsubscribe and block several times to no avail.

In Stowe, Powershift Online has experienced the full power of the darkside, I mean, of spam. The local Internet service provider recently got overloaded with so much spam its server went down in flames and thousands were left without e-mail for, gasp, a matter of days.

Sad, but true that the loss of e-mail for a short period of time is now considered something of a disaster. With so many people dependant on e-mail daily (not myself, of course) the meltdown of service cuts the invisible strings of attachment we've woven together in the last decade or so. For regular folks, it's a pain in the butt. But for businesses, the loss of e-mail can be a big blow. The Stowe Reporter, for example, felt the shockwaves of the Powershift crash: Our primary e-mail address couldn't take in news submissions, pictures, and letters to the editor, etc. For us, on the day (Wednesday) when we put together the paper and ship it to the printers, that loss of e-mail was indeed a crisis.

For the rest of us, though, I think the e-mail blackouts can be positive reminders from time to time. Maybe we could call someone the phone and hear their voice instead out shooting out an electronic message. Heck, we could write "letters" on "paper" too.

Mark that one on your list of New Year's resolutions. I will if you do, too.

- Scott Monroe

Year in Review

2005-12-16T10:44:00.000-05:00

That's the lofty task we have here at 49 School Street. In keeping with tradition, our editorial staff next week will publish about 12 pages' worth of stories reviewing this year's news in the Stowe area. Hence, "Year in Review."

A lot can happen in a year – much more than can be summarized and analyzed in several 500-word story nuggets. And there's more "news" out there than ever be covered by our staff. What makes the news and how much attention it's given is certainly a subjective choice. As newsmakers, we try to think about our role in the community, who we serve, and frame the "news" to meet the needs of our readership. News is what people want and, indeed, demand – the birth announcement, the actions of public officials, the coverage of local sports. It's also what people need to know, even if they don't necessarily want to – the crime, the corruption, tragedies and secrets.

The news of the day is not a concrete, natural law. Our obligation is determine what stories matter to this community and then seek the truth and report it. So as we look back on this year and reflect on what made the cut as the news of this year, it's also worth mentioning the principles behind such reporting.

Journalists, unlike doctors, are not licensed. Some think we should be, others do not. Regardless, we're still working professionals, and we do need to adhere to a code of ethics. Every newsroom will vary in its policies – there's no Ten Commandments of reporting. But I think it's worth repeating a code of ethics that seem to generally capture the duties of a journalist. To that end, there are some general principles, from the Society of Professional Journalists:

• Seek the truth and report it — Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.

• Minimize harm — Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.

• Act independently — Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.

• Be accountable — Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.

Reflecting on the news is for me an appropriate time to also reflect why I'm a newsmaker. The Society of Professional Journalists preamble sums it up best: "Public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility."

- Scott Monroe

Spaced out for Christmas

2005-12-15T13:12:00.000-05:00

The give and take between public officials and their citizens is, I think, at its apex right now — at least over one local issue.

Stowe's town government, headquartered in the circa-1903 Akeley Memorial Building, is facing a wicked serious space crunch. More specifically, the town's vault is. There just ain't enough room in this relic of the past to house all the documents and assorted records of modern-day Stowe. What's worse, a fissure in the vault itself continues to steadily grow larger (it's expanded by four times in the last couple months, according to the town clerk) and the whole thing is essentially falling off the building.

Were anything disastrous to happen in the building, and the vault's contents wiped out in the process, there'd be trouble. A LOT of trouble. Property sales, for example, would come to a standstill. The town clerk, and others who work in the building, are freaked out at the possibility. Can you blame them?

But in order to fix this problem, the Stowe Select Board is proposing a renovation/reorganization of the building. Voters have rejected it twice. Now, the project is more expensive and the problem is getting worse.

Project opponents don't want to see this historic building – a memorial to war veterans – changed as is proposed. One such opponent stopped by our offices at 49 Schol Street a few weeks ago to deliver to my mailbox a photocopy, which quotes the notes taken from the 1903 dedication ceremony of the Akeley Building. The notes say the building "was intended for patriotic purposes, and will be used as such..." and the building is "dedicated to the soldiers that lost their lives on account of serving in the army of the United States." Why doesn't the town government just move its butt somewhere else and leave the Memorial Building as it is? project opponents ask.

Well, that idea sprung up at the select board meeting on Monday, but the road ahead is unknown. This situation is playing almost tragically. Public officials and citizens are clashing over legitimate and important interests. But the problem is no one side – if there are in fact "sides" – wants to budge.

Basically, everyone involved in the debate, as it swells into and beyond Christmas, is spaced out. Or frustrated. Or maybe not. But, what's clear is the main issue here – the vault – ain't going away. It's like a sliver dug in too deep, and if nothing is done soon you'll have to amputate the finger. If only someone would find a way to make it all work, to provide leadership when the town is seemingly divided, and find a compromise. Maybe Santa could step up to the plate, er, sleigh. Or maybe the select board could.

There's a Christmas wish for ya.

- Scott Monroe

A quizzical quiz

2005-12-09T09:39:00.000-05:00

Pay attention class: A Mount Anthony Union High School English teacher who gave students a quiz that criticized President Bush should be (fired/ tarred and feathered/ forced to appear on "The O'Reilly Factor"/ or forgiven)?

It's actually a trick question, because the guy's still got his job but I don't think saying "I'm sorry" has cut it. The Times Argus has the latest lowdown.

This little nugget, unfortunately, further fans the flames between conservative and liberal warriors who each want a foothold in public schools. Had this sort of quiz been given at a college or university – I think the reaction, if any, would be predictable. But at the public school level it's hard for anyone to be an apologist for this sort of thing.

In a letter, the teacher says he regrets "the attention and discomfort this may have caused for my students, colleagues, and the community ... This was never my intention." What WAS his intention, do you think?

What this story really raises, though, is a more important issue: language quizzes that contain two possible answers are pretty weak. How about making sure students in our public schools understand how to write a coherent essay? My experience has been that many, many folks graduate from high school without the slightest understanding of this basic structure: "Thesis, three supporting paragraphs, conclusion."

No, instead we're preparing our kids for guessing games, which, sadly, do have value in our society. Top lawmakers and White House officials seem to be very good at it: "Substantial evidence suggests that Iraq (absolutely does/ might) possess weapons of mass destruction."

- Scott Monroe

Emerging theme: Bush as punching bag

2005-12-08T13:52:00.000-05:00

Take from it what you will, but there's a very clear theme emerging right now in upcoming Vermont political races: President Bush is a punching bag that should we whacked as hard and as often as possible.

It's not just Democrats. Many Republicans are indicating the GOP chief is more a liability than an asset, and are distancing themselves from policies of the White House. Last month, Republican millionaire Richard Tarrant was in our offices at 49 School Street to discuss his bid for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Independent Jim Jeffords. Tarrant, while identifying with core GOP values, made a point to criticize the administration's handling of the war in Iraq. Contrary to the stance of administration officials, Tarrant believes the U.S. should withdraw troops from the embattled country as soon as possible.

Last week, Democrat Peter Welch stopped by for a chat about his bid for the U.S. House, which Bernie Sanders is opting out of for the Senate. Welch, in a story I wrote this week, is making a point to paint Bush's policies as "radical and extreme." Democrats need to retake Congress to put the brakes on Bush, who is incompetent and dangerous, Welch believes.

Tough talk. But will it work? Burlington Democrat Peter Clavelle saw his bid for governor go down in flames last year after putting Bush - not Gov. Jim Douglas - in his punching bag. Now, governor hopeful Scudder Parker, a Dem, is following the same path.

It'll be interesting to see if this rhetoric continues next year, when the elections start to really heat up.

- Scott Monroe

Poll: 78% fewer vote in poll

2005-12-07T17:21:00.000-05:00

Seems we had some ebb and flow recently. Last week's online poll at Stowe Reporter Online drew a record setting 232 votes, whereas this week saw a 78 percent decline, to 50 votes.

Last week: Would you like to see mobile home parks in Stowe?

This week: Does Stowe need a town manager with more authority over local government affairs?

Fluke or telling of the kinds of questions people like to be polled on? You decide. I say, hot button topics will always draw the most interest and the biggest crowds; the more nuanced issues will not. That's probably why we're more likely in town to draw a bigger crowd for Brittney Spears than municipal budget review. Makes sense, right?

That is to say, the notion of having a mobile home park in town elicits a quick reaction from most people. Town government baseball, on the other hand, is a yawn for many.

Maybe this week we'll see something of a middle ground, as the poll deals with paying taxes. If you haven't, check it out and vote. Polls, at any rate, are more for entertainment than anything else. And, they're hardly reliable measures of public opinion (newsflash!).

I predict there's a 44 percent chance that 4 percent of you will vote twice in our poll. There's a 3 percent margin of error, keep in mind.

- Scott Monroe

Budget redux

2005-12-01T12:26:00.000-05:00

It didn't come as too much of a surprise - at least not to me - that the Stowe Select Board decided in the end to follow their attorney's advice and nullify the decision at last month's special town meeting. Check it out.

So, looks like it's back to the traditional town meeting format this March, perhaps just one last time. Will we see the same turnout, or better, for the revote on deciding the town budget in the ballot booth? Probably. March Town Meetings have typically drawn close to 400 people, while the special meeting Nov. 7 fell about 100 short of that.

What will be most interesting to see is whether the same majority of voters who wanted to split the budget into four different categories will also go for a whole budget, by ballot. Perhaps even more interesting will be if someone - anyone - attempts to introduce ANOTHER amendment to the warned article. Nov. 7 voters will recall that at least one person tried to get the budget voted on department-by-department. I'd hate to see what the ballot would look like then...

- Scott Monroe

Stuck in the middle

2005-12-01T10:07:00.000-05:00

It struck me suddenly like stepping into a really cold shower.

I’m listening to the radio – Marketplace on National Public Radio, actually – and there’s analysis on one of the more startling bits of the day’s news: the U.S. military, according to the Los Angeles Times, has been funneling Iraqi newspapers bought-and-paid-for journalism.

Propaganda? You bet. These glowing news reports "supportive of the war effort" were sold for as much as $1,200 without attribution or disclosure of where they came from. Such reports were been printed, apparently, under the veneer of legitimate journalism.

Whoa.

A Marketplace correspondent, Tess, gets L.A. Times reporter Borzou Daragahi on the air for the lowdown. After a few minutes of boiler-plate exchange, Marketplace gets right to that classic radio question, in all its rhetorical glory.

"And the concern," Tess intones, "is that the Iraqi people, knowing that this happening, could say, essentially, ‘Is this what Democracy is all about’?"

Yup, that’s a pretty legit concern, Tess. Now, drum roll for the hyperbole.

"What could be perceived as really bad," Daragahi says, "is that this is kind of thing Saddam Hussein used to do, paying journalists for writing articles that were favorable to him, that praised him and so on. So, to an Iraqi, hearing about this story, it might conjure up some images of some bad old times."

That exact moment is when, as I’ve said, it struck me like stepping into a really cold shower. A life-changing epiphany? Nope. Imaginary talking points nestled all snug instead, while visions of CNN’s now-defunct show Crossfire danced in my head:

Tucker Carlson: Outrageous! Look, there the liberal media goes again, saying in no uncertain terms that the U.S. military – and by extension, President Bush – is using the very same despicable tactics as a brutal dictator. What’s more, the media is suggesting we’re undermining Democracy in Iraq, not fostering it. Have they no shame!

Paul Begala: Loosen your bow-tie, Tucks. Pedaling blatant propaganda as news is nothing less than what we’ve come to expect from the extremist, radical right wing fascists who have seized the reigns of power in this administration. Another lie from Bush and his cronies, another day.

Tucker: Oh, you’re one to be talking, you hate-filled hypocrite!

Paul: Neo-conniver!

And on, and on, and on.

The imaginary talking points went back and forth until the Marketplace report wrapped up without hinting at what these bought-and-paid-for news stories were actually about, except that they were "supportive of the war effort." Guess I’d have to eventually read the Times piece to figure that out.

Anyway, there’s good reason I felt so polarized. It’s probably not a coincidence that in the last week I’d read both Al Franken’s "Lies: And the lying liars who tell them" and Bernard Goldberg’s "100 people who are screwing up America (and Al Franken is #37)".

These fine reads espouse, let’s say, slightly different political ideologies. And both of the books, weirdly, captivated me with some accurate observations: Ann Coulter likes to make stuff up to prove there’s a liberal conspiracy in U.S. media and Dan Rather likes to stubbornly stand behind stupid mistakes to prove there’s a liberal conspiracy in U.S. media.

From time to time, both Franken and Goldberg actually make substantive points. Trying to prove President Clinton "gutted" the military, for example, is kind of like trying to prove Abraham Lincoln didn’t do enough for black civil rights — it’s the context, stupid! And actually, Goldberg didn’t really say anything substantive. But, he’s got a sense of humor.

In the end, I found myself feeling neither liberal nor conservative, Democrat nor Republican, sweet nor sour, after flipping each book’s last page. I did kind of feel like you do after standing for three hours next to the speakers at rock concert. My ears rang, too.

No, what I felt was a deep want to think of myself as a centrist, a moderate, a middle-of-the-aisle fella straddling both sides of raging currents. Problem with that is you get labeled a "flip-flopper" or "waffler" or, in some Southern states, a "pancake with a side of grits."

That’s the downside of smacking a label on your forehead and thinking too narrowly, which brings me back to that Marketplace report. Yeah, this is definitely a sad case of propaganda-written-as-news. But just what were these fabricated stories about? Did they contain a shred of reliable fact, and if so, is there perhaps a larger story to be told here? Doesn’t this also highlight a simmering tension between journalists and administration officials when it comes to fairness in news reporting, especially in Iraq? Wasn’t that a great rhetorical question?

I checked out the Times report.

"Though the articles are basically factual," the L.A. Times says, "they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said."

I can hear the talking points in the distance, again. Time for me to pick up a good comic book.

- Scott Monroe