TAR SANDS OIL IN THE KINGDOM also inside: CHANGING FACE OF HOMELESSNESS VOTER TURNOUT: TALE OF TWO TOWNS WHEN BUDGET REQUESTS FALL SHORT
Volume 4, Issue 1
Electronic Journalism Arts
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A Top U.S. Journalism Program NEWSPRO MAGAZINE DEC 2013
LY N D O N S TAT E C O L L E G E Writers:
Adviser:
Katrina Floranza Joe Gluck Joe Rivet Corey Wells Dan Williams
With assistance from Brad Hickox, Samantha Knight, Kevin Kelleher, Camille Delongis, John Kazar, Andrew Baughn, Julianne Walshaw, Alex Farnworth, Kendra Carter.
NewsINK is a publication of the Vermont Center for Community Journalism at Lyndon State College. Find us online at Issuu.com/newsink. Address queries to NewsINK, Department of Electronic Journalism Arts, Lyndon State College, PO Box 919, Lyndonville, Vt. 05851
NEK grapples with tar sands oil
Story by Joe Rivet On paper, it seems like a great idea. Heat a special type of sand to sufficient temperatures, and oil melts out. A lot of oil. As much as two trillion barrels worldwide by some estimates. It is called tar sands oil. Petroleum companies like Exxon have been extracting it from the boreal forests of western Canada. And they want to pipe some of it through Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Greg Macdonald of the Sierra Club wants to stop it. “There’s nothing more destructive in the world than what’s going on up in Canada to get at that tar sand right now,” says the St. Johnsbury resident. “If this is allowed to continue, eventually the area being environmentally devastated for tar sands will be as large as all of Florida.” At Town Meeting, voters in Burke, Stannard, Glover, Charleston, Westmore and Albany will be asked to voice their opposition to the plan to send tar sands oil from Canada to Maine through a pipeline that crosses northeastern Vermont. On town meeting day in 2013, 29 towns around the state declared their opposition to allowing tar sands into the Northeast Kingdom. Macdonald says tar sands are not like regular crude oil. “This stuff releases three to five times more carbon into the atmosphere than regular oil, which I’m sure you know increases global warming,” he says. “On top of that, for every one barrel of oil that’s produced, three barrels of water have to be used. After that, the polluted water is just put away into ponds.” The oil companies want to move the tar sands oil from Canada to Casco Bay in Maine where it could be transported anywhere in the world. The project would use a 750-mile-long pipeline. Opponents in the Northeast Kingdom say they’re worried about oil spills. “We’re talking about a sixty year old pipe here,” Mac-
Donald says. “And tar sand is a highly abrasively and corrosive oil and it will be pumped at high temperatures under great pressure.” If the tar sand oil does spill from the pipeline, Macdonald and other activists worry that the oil could get into bays, lakes and rivers. He cites a 2010 spill in Michigan that polluted 30 miles of the Kalamazoo River. “They are still a long way from being done cleaning that up because tar sands don’t float on top of water like regular oil does, which makes it much harder to get it all out,” he says. Despite repeated attempts to contact them, oil companies have so far declined to comment on their actions or defend their position on the tar sands. Macdonald isn’t alone. Jade Walker is another anti-tar sands activist who runs a website called tarsandsfreevermont.org. On it, she lays out information about tar sands and how dangerous they can be. “In the fight against tar sands,” she says, “information is the most powerful tool.” Walker encourages Vermonters to use “one of the oldest forms of direct democracy in existence.” She encourages them to make petitions, gather as many signatures as possible, and submit the petitions to their local governments. “The more people collecting signatures in each town, the more likely we are to get resolutions discussed and passed at Town Meeting all over the state,” Walker says. “But we have to work together.”
Photos courtesy News7
Above: A Portland Pipeline facility in Sutton. ThePortland-Montreal Pipeline is to carry tar sands oil from Canada to Maine through Vermont. Left: A sign at the facility warns trespassers.
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Poverty evolving in Northeast Kingdom Story by Katrina Floranza
Sam Klepper has been working at Helping Other People Everyday in Lyndonville for four years. Not only have the items on the shelves at the Depot Street location changed, so have the faces she’s seen. And more and more belong to the homeless. “I would say, at this point, it’s pretty much daily,” says Klepper, who is HOPE’s assistant manager. “They’re not all new people, they’re not all regulars either. When I first started four years ago, it was more seeing individuals. We (saw) one or two a week. And I have never seen an entire family be homeless, but I am seeing that more and more now.” HOPE is a thrift store that also provides food and clothing to people in need. Though the non-profit organization does not shelter the homeless, it can refer them to places such as motels where they can stay for a couple of nights. Klepper says the homeless population in the Lyndon area is large. “It’s a mother and a father and a child, or it’s a number of children and a mother, or it’s a number of children and a father. And I see (the same) number of single mothers as I do single dads.” HOPE doesn’t simply wait for people to come through the door. Last Christmas, HOPE director Jodi Wheeler contacted motels around Lyndon in search of homeless people she could help. Volunteers and HOPE employees gathered
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food and clothing and more than 200 Christmas gifts. It was enough to give a box of goods to every member of each family. Wheeler also rounded up tabletop Christmas trees for the families. Klepper says she admires the giving spirit in Lyndon. “We live in a great community that actually really cares about each other, and I do see a couple of people, individuals, that will take in people. They’ll bring them home, clean them up, feed them, and let them stay for the night.” HOPE is one of several organizations in the region that help people who are down on their luck. Others include Northeast Kingdom Human Services and Northeast Kingdom Youth Services, both headquartered in St. Johnsbury. “For one person to have a happy outcome, it takes a while to get them where they need to be,” Klepper says. “There’s a lot of people who are working with different programs and it does take a while to get from homelessness into a place.”
Photos courtesy News7
Top left: HOPE’s thrift store on Depot Street in Lyndonville. Top right: Shelves lined with food items for people in need. Above: Assistant manager Sam Klepper.
Town Meeting requests Caledonia Home Health
Budget season 2014
Some Lyndon groups fall short
Story by Katrina Floranza
Fairbanks Museum
Six familiar names will be missing from the agenda when Lyndon voters gather for Town Meeting. The six organizations failed to submit proper petitions to place funding requests on the warning for the March 4 assembly. Now, if they want money, they will have to make their pitch from the floor as “Other Business” at the end of the session. The six are the Lyndon Chamber of Commerce, Caledonia Home Health Care, Retired Senior Volunteer Program, Northeast Kingdom Youth Services, Helping Other People Every Day (HOPE), and Special Olympics of Caledonia County. Most of the organizations failed to get enough signatures on their petitions for special appropriations. To get on the warning, groups need signatures from 5 percent of all registered voters – 157 this year. One group – HOPE – evidently did not submit a petition with its request, and Special Olympics turned in its petition late. “It’s not unusual,” says Lyndon Town Clerk Dawn Dwyer,
Please see Page 7
NEK Human Services
NEK Youth Services
Rural Community Trans.
Umbrella
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Turning up the turnout Story by Corey Wells
Photos courtesy of News7
Town Meeting turnout in St. Johnsbury and Lyndon, as a percentage of registered voters casting Australian ballots. St. Johnsbury doubled its turnout when it went to an all-Australian ballot format in 2010. The spike in the middle is the turnout during the 2008 presidential election year.
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For years, Saint Johnsbury and Lyndon struggled to get voters to participate in Town Meeting. Turnout on the first Tuesday in March rarely exceeded 25 percent of registered voters. In 2009, 222 people voted in Lyndon, a dismal 6.7 percent. The rare exception for both towns was the 2008 presidential election year, when almost 40 percent of Lyndon’s voters cast ballots at Town Meeting. In St. Johnsbury, the number was even higher – 47 percent. Nowadays, Lyndon still struggles to fill seats on Town Meeting Day while its neighbor to the south consistently draws more than 30 percent. What happened? In 2009, St. Johnsbury voters voted to change the way Town Meeting is conducted. Voters now meet on Monday night to debate the articles to be voted on the next day. Then, on Town Meeting Day, they cast their decisions via Australian ballot from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Town Clerk Stacy Jewell encourages people to vote early. “We push for people to vote early here at the town offices or get an absentee ballot,” Jewell says. Since 2010, the year the change took effect, turnout for the Australian balloting has never fallen below 33 percent. It hit 38 percent in 2011 when 1,794 people voted, 296 by absentee ballot. Lyndon uses Australian balloting to elect town and school district officers, and to approve budgets for the school district and the NEK Waste Management District. The town budget and all other agenda items are decided by floor votes. “Depending on what topics there are dictates how many people come,” says Lyndon Town Clerk Dawn Dwyer, who offers two possible reasons for the lower turnout in Lyndon. “Typically, I think people don’t feel that their voice counts or matters because everything gets passed. I think if you were to see something get voted down then you might see a little different turnout for next year.” Dwyer goes on to say that the low numbers could mean that the majority of voters are content with how the people in office are running the town. Most people who do attend Town Meeting Day have a certain issue that they want to see addressed, says Dwyer; otherwise there isn’t much the town can do to bring in more voters. “It’s personal preference. We can’t drag them there,” Dwyer says. “So, I think it’s just whether they have concerns and typically, I think the feeling is the ones that are there have a certain agenda. A lot of school teachers go to Town Meeting Day. They have it off, so it’s convenient for them, and they want to see their school budget passed.”
Hey, wanna own a bank? On Town Meeting day, voters in Barnet have a chance to add their voices to the growing clamor for a public bank in Vermont. The new institution would be owned by the people and keep interest and revenues in the state. Barnet is one of 20 towns in Vermont that will take up a resolution at Town Meeting urging the creation of the bank. One supporter, James Hogue, calls the idea a “win-win situation. You gain when you keep the interest money in Vermont, as they do in North Dakota,” referring to the only U.S. state with a public bank. North Dakota’s bank has been around since 1919. It deals mostly with internal state financial affairs, not generally offering services to the public. Vermont’s proposed bank would work much the same way, primarily removing the state’s money from out-of-state banks such as TD Bank. State Senator Anthony Pollina, an advocate of the project, is concerned about TD Bank’s handling of Vermont’s money, especially in light of a recent $52.5 million civil penalty related to a Ponzi scheme. Pollina also advocates “Ten for Vermont,” a project that seeks to take 10 percent of the state’s deposits and invest them in VEDA, the Vermont Economic Development Authority. Grace Gershuny is the person responsible for the petition drive that put the resolution on the warning in Barnet. She says support for the idea cuts across political boundaries. “I found that in my town, in Barnet, people were quite receptive to the idea, no matter their political positions or alliances,” Gershuny says. However, the banking industry in Vermont is wary. Lobbyist Chris D’Elia opposes the pubic bank. ““We do not see the need to actually create the bank itself,” says D’Elia. “We have no problem in supporting the state taking some of its finds that it has and utilizing that to invest in economic development.” Vermont already has several state lending agencies, VEDA, VHFA (Vermont Housing Finance Agency), VSAC (Vermont Student Assistance Corporation) and The Vermont Municipal Bond Bank. One suggestion has been to create the public bank by merging all of those agencies into one organization. Opponents worry that this may undermine community financial institutions.
Budget season Continued from Page 5 “but typically they pass them in early enough. That way if they are short, we have the opportunity to call them and let them know. So I’m not sure why there were so many who passed them in late.” In previous years, these six organizations have submitted their appropriations to Lyndon on time and up to standard. In fact, last year, the organizations were approved for their requests. Lyndon Chamber of Com-
merce received $2,000 from the town. Caledonia Home Health Care received $9,500. The town also approved the requests for Retired Senior Volunteer Program ($1,700), Northeast Kingdom Youth Services ($2,750), HOPE ($1,000), as well as approving a request for $500 for Special Olympics of Caledonia County. In Lyndon, budget requests from independent groups exceed $49,000 this year. Select Board member David Dill says it wasn’t always the procedure to submit a petition with a request. At one time, organizations could forego the petition unless they were asking for more money than they had
Story by Joe Gluck
Photos courtesy News7
Top: Public bank advocate James Hogue. Bottom: Grace Gershuny led the effort to put a public bank item on the Barnet Town Meeting agenda.
requested in previous years or if the organization was new. Supporters of the newer procedure say petitions are a good way for organizations to reach out to the community. For whatever reason, six groups failed to make the cut this year. That could mean that the conclusion of Town Meeting will be a lot busier than usual because the organizations will have to request funding during the “Other Business” portion of the agenda. One potential disadvantage: Many voters might be gone.
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