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May17
Free Press: 2013 Legislature: Bill list
Burlington Free Press

Read about the bills at the Burlington Free Press

This list provides highlights of many bills passed during the 2013 legislative session, which ended last week

Read it here

May9
VTDigger Op-ed: Schneider: Vermont House opts to respond to Vermonters’ decisions
Vermont Digger

Full Op-ed at Vermont Digger

Editor’s note: This op-ed by Rama Schneider was originally posted in ConnectedVermont, a blog for discussion of education, with an emphasis on school board-related issues hosted by the author. Schneider is a member of the Williamstown School Board.

Back in March I reported on one important piece of legislation, H.521, wending its way through the process. This bill “proposes to make miscellaneous amendments to education law, including provisions related to union school district formation; career technical education; Child Protection Registry checks; attendance registers; training for school board chairs and superintendents; a salary adjustment for the Secretary of Education; independent school creation; and teacher advisory groups. It also updates or deletes miscellaneous archaic sections of Title 16.”

My problem with H.521 revolved around the parts that dealt with independent school creation, and I commend the House for withdrawing those provisions that limited the ability of local districts to self-determine how they were going to handle their local school district’s infrastructure. (Special thanks to Reps. Branagan of Georgia and Donovan of Burlington — see the House journal for April 11th, 2013 for more.)

The offending passages (sections 16 through 18 of H.521 – scroll down to page 14) have been replaced with a willingness to stop, listen, look — and then maybe decide. The truth is we need a better understanding of our education system, and the Legislature’s willingness to seriously study these issues such as the above and student/teacher ratios and small school efficacy is important to better informed decisions.

It is important we all stay on top of these studies, and it is equally important that actual decisions resulting in actual action result from these studies. Most important, however, is that good decisions are made based upon good input — we don’t need garbage in/garbage out.

[...]

Apr18
Times Argus: Taking Hits
Barre-Montpelier Times Argus

Read the full article

A bill making its way through the House ought to help save high school athletes from long-lasting injury and save the sport of football from self-destruction.

The bill lays out procedures and standards for the treatment of concussions suffered by athletes in what are called collision sports — football, boys’ and girls’ lacrosse, boys’ and girls’ hockey and wrestling. The bill makes explicit the need for attention by a health care provider who has received recent training in the diagnosis and treatment of concussions and requires that a qualified provider must be present at sporting events.

Football has received the most attention because of the high-profile cases of former NFL players who have suffered serious physical deterioration because of brain injury, sometimes leading to suicide. Also, football is a game that celebrates violence and encourages aggressive, hard-hitting, potentially dangerous contact.

[...]

Apr15
Free Press: vt.Buzz: What bills are going to make it? Pot, yes. GMOs, no.
Burlington Free Press
Read the full article at the Burlington Free Press
Written by Terri Hallenbeck, Free Press Staff Writer

MONTPELIER— On the blackboard in the Senate Appropriations Committee room are the words:

“April 19th

budget out”

Just above the words sits a drawing of happy/sad faces, which could be construed to show that maybe the 2014 budget bill will be out by this Friday and maybe it won’t. That’s the goal, but committee Chairwoman Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, on Monday termed it “ambitious” and “questionable.”

The committee’s deadline is all part of an overall goal of finishing the 2013 legislative session by May 11. There are those who doubt lawmakers will meet it, but if not then, it will be soon thereafter. “I cannot imagine with all the budget problems and taxes that we would get out by the 18th,” said Sen. Bob Hartwell, D-Bennington.

House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, was sticking to the party line. “I think that it’s doable,” he said of a May 11 finish.

Predicting the end of the session is always a bit of a crapshoot, but with four weeks to go before the goal, it’s becoming slightly clearer what might become of some legislation.

[...]

Apr12
Free Press: Vermont House backs marijuana decriminalization
Burlington Free Press

Full article at the Burlington Free Press

[...] The House voted 98-44 for the bill, which faces another vote — and likely attempts to amend the bill — in the House on Tuesday before going to the Senate.

“If you had told me a month ago that I would be voting for this bill,” Koch said on the House floor, “… I would have looked you in the eye and told you, ‘You’re out of your mind.’”

He said he came around because of changes made to the bill during the committee process, which cut down the amount of marijuana being decriminalized and increased the fine from the original proposal.

The bill would make it a civil offense, like a traffic ticket, for someone caught possessing an ounce or less of marijuana. Some offenders ticketed would be subject to a fine of up to $300. Under current law, that amount could yield a criminal charge with a possible $500 fine and six months in jail.

The bill also specifies that smoking marijuana while driving is prohibited and subject to a $500 fine and creates a task force to study how to better detect drugged driving.

Supporters of the bill say those caught with less than an ounce should not face a criminal record that can bar them from federal student loans, housing and some jobs. Fourteen other states similarly treat possession of small amounts of marijuana as a civil offense. [...]

 

Apr10
VTDigger: House committees take up “death with dignity” legislation
Vermont Digger

Full article at Vermont Digger

by Andrew Stein | April 10, 2013

[...] South Burlington Rep. Ann Pugh, who chairs Human Services, and Hinesburg Rep. Bill Lippert, who chairs Judiciary, have both voted for similar bills in the past.

Pugh’s committee will take testimony this week and next, and the committee is slated to take a position on the bill next week. If the bill passes out of Pugh’s committee, which House leaders expect it to, it will come to the floor and then move to Lippert’s crew for legal tweaking.

“I’d like to see a bill that provides more patient safeguards, but I respect the committee process and we will take up the bill that passes out of the Human Services Committee,” Lippert said.

Pugh takes a similar stance.

“I have supported giving Vermonters this additional choice at end of life in a way that provides safeguards and that is open and transparent,” Pugh said.

In other words, she supports a bill that is more in line with the Oregon law. [...]

Apr5
Times Argus: House approves $173M capital bill
Barre-Montpelier Times Argus

Full article here

By JOHN DILLON VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO

[...] Springfield Democrat Al-ice Emmons is chairwoman of the House Institutions Committee. She said the legislation will improve the state’s infrastructure and provide needed employment for the construction trades. She said her committee scoured the capital budget to find money that had not yet been spent or was left over from earlier projects.

“We have found $5.6 million, almost $5.7 million to put back into our state economy. Those dollars were lying fallow,” she said. “They were not being used. And now they will be used in our economy to employ our contractors, our builders, our electricians and our plumbers.”

The $70 million in Irene projects includes replacing the flooded state hospital, rebuilding the Waterbury complex and new offices for state workers at the National Life building in Montpelier.

The total cost for the Waterbury offices is expected to be around $125 million. The 2014-2015 spending plan sets aside $56 million for Waterbury, and lawmakers expect all but $6 million or so of the difference will come from insurance payments and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Rep. Willem Jewett, DRipton, said the Water-bury piece represents the state’s commitment to the town and the region.

“The Waterbury complex is not just about bricks and mortar. That’s about keeping faith with the people of Waterbury, about returning workers to the town of Waterbury — and that’s important,” he said. [...]

Apr4
Inside Your Statehouse: House Speaker Shap Smith, Rep. Johanna Donovan, and Rep. Peter Peltz
ORCA Media

From ORCA Media (follow link and go to Playlists>Inside Your Statehouse for previous episodes)

 

Apr3
VTDigger: Doyle poll shows support for wind power, Shumlin’s likability slipping
Vermont Digger

Full article and survey results at Vermont Digger

The senior-most senator’s survey has polled Vermonters from across the state since 1969.

This year’s questionnaire asked 13,998 Vermonters from 163 towns and cities about 14 hot-button issues.

Questions ranged in topic from ridgeline wind development to the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to Gov. Peter Shumlin.

Five of the queries addressed economic issues.

Apr3
Seven Days: Lawmakers Look to Crack Down on "Current-Use" Abuse
Seven Days

Full article at Seven Days

[...]

Supporters such as Rep. Alison Clarkson (D-Woodstock) call current use the most important conservation program in Vermont. More than a third of the state’s land is enrolled in the program — more than 1.7 million acres of forestland and 550,000 acres of farmland.

“If it had been taxed on its market value and not its use value, we would not have the same landscape that we have today, because the economic pressures would have driven them all into subdivisions and development,” says Clarkson, the lead sponsor of H.329.

But as it stands now, the penalties are so low that would-be developers can enroll in current use, enjoy the resulting tax breaks and still come out ahead when they turn around and subdivide or develop their land. In some cases the break-even point on that equation is less than a year. Critics call the practice “parking” land in current use.

Clarkson’s bill proposes a tiered system of penalties. The penalties would be higher than they are now in most cases, but the system would also reward landowners with lower penalties the longer they keep their land undeveloped.

“Even people who don’t like current use should be pleased about this,” Clarkson says, “because it’s more money coming back to taxpayers.” H.329 marks the third attempt to reform the current use program in recent years. Then-governor Jim Douglas vetoed a bill in 2010 that would have increased penalties, and a second attempt subsequently stalled out for a year and a half in the Senate Finance Committee.

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