With the filing deadline for candidates quickly approaching, former governor Howard Dean ends weeks of speculation and suspense.

I am not a candidate for the office of governor.

I think the future of the Democratic Party is 40 years, not 75 years.

Plus, the list of senators not seeking reelection grows as the Vermont GOP hopes to make gains in the state House.

And the University of Vermont halts plans of a proposed $100 million housing project.

That and more coming up on Vermont this Week.

From the Vermont Public Studio in Winooski, this is Vermont this week made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Milne Travel.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It is Friday, May 24th.

And with us on the panel today, we have the editor of Vermont Business Magazine, Tim Mcquiston, statehouse reporter from NBC5, Stephen Biddix and VTDigger Statehouse Bureau Chief Sarah Mearhoff.

Thank you all so much for being with us today.

And, you know, we're going to start with something that's news.

And it's kind of odd because it's something that didn't happen that's making a lot of news.

Sarah Mearhoff Howard Dean, the longest serving governor in the state of Vermont.

He was the one who was kind of fueling some rumors that he might challenge incumbent Republican Governor Phil Scott.

Obviously did not happen.

What did he say was his reason for not running?

Yeah, this was an incredible news conference of no news, really.

Basically what the former governor said was that he had been really seriously considering a run for governor.

He said he's been concerned over some of the tone and tenor within the state house between the fifth floor and the legislative branches.

He's had some very kind of things to say about the legislature.

I think he called them like the most productive or the best legislature in history.

At the same time, he also said that he wants to bring some of his historic fiscal hawkishness back into the building.

And it ended up all kind of being for nothing, weeks and weeks of speculation and emails sent to reporters.

And he sent me a text at one point that was like, I'm not going to interview until I declare.

And he ultimately did not.

He he said but he conducted some polling and found, according to him, although I haven't seen the polling myself, at ten point gap between himself and Governor Scott.

Governor Scott is, of course, the most popular governor in the country.

Polls show time and time again.

And he said in order to close that gap, he would need to launch a, quote unquote, scorched earth campaign, a negative attack ad campaign.

And he said, you know, that may work in Texas and Florida and other states around the country.

But he said not Vermont.

We do things differently here.

And he didn't want to bring that energy into the campaign cycle.

Well, you were at that press conference and, you know, there was all that speculation as you say, you were getting texts from the former governor, etc.. What was sort of the reaction of the press corps from that?

Was there surprise or.

I think there was a little bit of like, really?

Yes.

I think what you did was the at least my initial reaction.

I mean, I think that the second that the former governor said he was going to have a press conference, you know, there was a lot of like, oh, my God, is this it?

Like, is this the moment?

But also it had been teased out for so long for like three weeks at that point that there were some questions over whether it was actually going to happen and then it kind of fell flat.

And not the only Democrat who was under speculation for running, the former mayor of Burlington Merrill Weinberger as well, was thought to maybe be putting his hat in the ring.

Not going to happen either.

Yeah, no.

He also had same day as former Governor Dean's press conference, former Mayor Weinberger also confirmed I didn't get to talk to him.

He declined an interview, but he confirmed that he is not going to be running for election at all this fall.

Well, there was reaction in the political world, of course, as well.

Here's what Jim down to know.

The executive director of Vermont's Democratic Party had to say about how difficult it can be to go up against Phil Scott.

You have to convince people that the incumbent should not be reelected.

Right.

That takes a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy.

And then you have to convince people that your vision is the correct one.

Stephen Beard, let's turn to you now.

You know, this is sort of following now this news about not running.

WEINBERGER Not running.

There's also a lot of turnover at the state house.

There are a lot of big names in Vermont politics who are not going to be returning.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah.

So we have five Democratic senators so far that have already announced they're not seeking reelection.

Four of them are committee chairs and pretty powerful one of them last Friday Senator Jane Kissel she has the nickname governor catch all in the state house because she crossed the budget every single year.

But I spoke with Paul Dean, chair of the Vermont GOP, this past week and they're somewhat optimistic that there's so many seats in the Senate that are all the seats are obviously open because it's an election year, but they already know five incumbents will not be running and he's optimistic towards kids.

We'll see it in Caledonia County, a very rural area.

He has some hopes about the Green Island Colchester District, where Senator Dick Morse will no longer be running.

But he said whether it's the property taxes, the affordability, that they feel like they have a gap this year that maybe they haven't had in years prior because he feels like their message may be able to stick more with Vermonters now than it has in years past.

As people and Governor Scott mentioned it all the time at his news conference that people are struggling to stay here and they want people to stay in Vermont.

But he also brings up the point, well, that there are these senator positions open.

They're trying to do more this year to fill House seats.

Democrats run in a lot of uncontested races throughout primaries and the general election every single year we see in the House.

And while he is happy that we have some say, Representative Patrick Brennan's running for Senator Morse's former seat.

Representative Scott Beck, who's been very vocal on Ways and means about the property tax increases, is running for Senate or kitchen seat in the Caledonia County that while it is key to maybe move them into the Senate, they're also going to be losing out on some of their more powerful people in the house as well.

And going back to Senator Campion, who announced he's not running either anymore, I think it's worth noting that the only reason the interim education secretary, Zoe Saunders, got to the Senate floor was because he was that final vote that got her out of the Senate Education Committee.

And if Scott decides to reappoint her whenever that may be, again, it may be more of an uphill battle this time around than it was this past year.

Yeah, he was really vocal about that.

Now, of course, we should mention that while Howard Dean, Admiral Weinberger, are not running for governor, there are some new faces, let's say, folks who are trying to put their hat in the ring for the gubernatorial election.

What do we know about those candidates?

Yeah, so we have Esther Charleston out of Middlebury.

She is seeking what seems to be the Democratic nomination.

I'm actually spoke with her this past week.

And coming from an education background, she's very big on public education and wanting to make sure Vermont can be a leader in that.

But somewhere that she's also very high on is Sarah and Tim.

You guys may know from the state house this past year we had the share the wealth tax that was being floated around for a while, 3% on people that had $500,000 more income.

And she's a very big fan of raising taxes on the wealthier to help kind of the lower working class, but also the middle class as well.

Now, there was one name that has been appointed to that.

You mentioned Dick Massa, retiring for health reasons from that Grand Isle Senate seat.

And the governor has appointed Andy Zullo to take the place of Dick Massa.

But he's got to file soon if he wants to keep that job.

Right.

I mean, May 30th is the deadline.

Yeah.

One thing that I asked the governor this was weeks ago, before now Senator Jula was appointed to the seat was whether the governor was going to be explicitly looking for a candidate who would commit to not running this fall.

Kind of like we saw with U.S.

Senator Lafont, a butler in California when she was appointed by the governor out there after the late Senator Feinstein's death.

And he said, no, that that was not a requirement that he was looking for in a given candidate so he can run.

He hasn't promised not to run.

And, you know, May 30th, we might see him at the secretary of state's office.

He could be there for the veto override session, though, right?

Yeah, that could be a pretty big deal right there.

That was definitely a big key for Governor Scott because when he appointed representative now Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney, cynic's replacement, the Progressive Party wasn't too thrilled with it.

But he said at the end of the day they're going to vote against him most likely.

And so same thing kind of in Senator Morse's seat, because while he was more moderate as a Democrat that he had to replace him with.

So it will be interesting because as we're going to get into some bills later, but there are one or two flips away from an override veto or sustaining a veto.

And I always find it interesting is now we're in election season checking the secretary of state's website every day and that May 30th deadlines coming and we maybe have 50 or 60 names in there.

We know there's going to be over 200 people within by the time 30th gets here.

Yeah, this is an interesting election cycle, to be sure.

We're going to get to some of those bills you talked about, Steven, in a minute, possible overrides, etc..

But we have some business news to talk about.

To my question, and this has to do with Vermont Teddy Bear Company, there are some layoffs, but let's be clear here.

We're not talking about the Vermont teddy bear facility.

Most people may be familiar with the visitor center, which is which is very striking as you come down Route seven in Shelburne.

So what?

So what happened is that they did this during the pandemic.

There's two parts of the business.

There's the teddy bear part, and there's a pajama graham part.

And the pajama Graham part is much bigger.

None of the manufacturing for these these products takes place in Vermont.

It's all over.

And but there's a big distribution center, big warehouse right next to the visitor center.

And that was padlocked because the Mustang group, who previously owned teddy bear and Pajama Graham wasn't paying their bills.

They've been overextend it.

And they were trying to actively trying to sell it.

Well, they sold the teddy bear to Vermont flannel.

The Vermont flannel owner is USA Brands out of Indiana, I believe.

And they they're a company that wants to bring these sort of local companies, local manufacturing companies in those sort of one group and make it more financially stable.

So Vermont Teddy Bear will still be in that building we're all familiar with.

You can still go there.

You can still make a teddy bear if you want.

On the pajama Graham side, though, they're going to they don't have access to that warehouse anymore.

And apparently there's a there's a lot of suitors because it's a very big building.

There aren't too many facilities that large in Vermont that you can do that kind of big distribution from.

So they get the pajamas and the other products in and then they fulfill it from there and then send them out.

Well, they're going to move that that whole part out of state.

I heard Kentucky is is one possible option for that.

But the sale of the pajama gram was more problematic.

So it took it took much longer for it to go through.

29 people had to be laid off locally.

We understand that a lot of those, if not all of them, have found new jobs.

If you listen to commercial radio, it's always like help wanted ads from local companies.

So there should be plenty of opportunity for those people to find new jobs.

There still will be a local pajama graham office here in Vermont.

That's sort of the back office.

That design, that sort of thing will still be here.

But the warehousing and the distribution, the fulfillment will all be will all be gone.

Also want to ask you about another story that something that's not happening and this has to do with the UVM proposed $100 million student housing project.

It looks like that is not going to happen.

This is the second disappointment for UVM member.

They were going to redo their whole sports complex and that was going to be a big deal that they didn't quite get enough funding and then COVID hit.

And that was the end of that.

With this big complex, this would have been really, really handy because it would have been behind the Doubletree Hotel on Route two, which used to be called the Sheraton.

And there's a lot of land back there.

They would have housed 540 students.

Now, just to put that in perspective, they only just graduated 3400.

So this is a very large percentage of the entire student population is very close, basically across the street.

But, you know, it's the same thing that's happened in a lot of other things, you know, $100 million project.

The costs are skyrocketing supply interest rates, which are affecting a lot of building and housing starts across the country, are facing the same thing.

And then there's the workforce issue which which Governor Scott me mentioned every once in a while.

Right.

That, you know, there's a big construction project going in Cityplace in downtown Burlington, out in Williston.

There's a big housing project going on.

So everything was sort of lining up against this big problem.

And they said, you know, we couldn't charge enough room and board to house these students.

It would just be, you know, you know, student is going to pay $2,000 a month.

You know, that would be impossible.

So it just wasn't working out financially.

They do have another project a little further east on Dawson Street, off Dawson Street in South Burlington for staff and UVM Medical Center is doing the same thing for their workers, building housing.

But that's going to be more market rate.

You know, the building to have dorms is a different ballgame.

UVM is going to put remember they tore down the old Holiday Inn, which is just down the street also, which was very important ever during COVID for finding rooms, for spaces for people who are unhoused.

That was very important, but they demolished the place that was needed to be demolished, frankly.

And so they'll have some students there.

And it's not going to be very much close to the campus, though, at least right down the road.

Pretty, pretty close.

Yeah.

Let's get back to some statehouse action, Stephen, there.

There was some action.

The governor signing the appropriations bill, I would say somewhat rather reluctantly.

Would you agree with that?

I think it's a bit of a middle ground.

He always talks about compromise.

And while he doesn't love some of the upper fees that are being increased along with some of the other what will be new based spending for budgets in the future, he said it was somewhere you could just meet in the middle with the legislature and he's okay with it because I believe he's using words in his press conference that it does more good than bad that he feels.

And I think they're pretty happy with the fact that, like I said, well, they don't love the fee increase.

They like that a lot better than the tax package that the House put through that Sarah is very well aware of that would have created all kinds of new taxes to help self sustain their own bills and not a fan of that.

So I think he can stomach this budget a lot more and he vetoed it last year and he's not been scared to veto budgets in the past, but sign this one.

Sarah, one thing that the governor did sign, which I guess some common ground you could say with Democrats, would be the prior authorization bill, which is going to allow doctors to apparently prescribe tests, medications for their patients in a more timely manner.

What can you tell us about that?

Yeah, I think the argument for this bill was that it ends up being a bureaucratic nightmare for patients and doctors alike when they need to get prior authorizations from their insurance company to off.

God knows where people are making these decisions.

Right.

And I think especially in Vermont, where we have this just incredible clog with trying to get primary care for anyone, that this was one way to a kind of release valve that that legislators saw.

Now, the insurance companies were very strongly opposed to this, and they said that, you know, they would end up having to pay out claims that people didn't really need and it would drive up health care costs.

And there were a lot of there's a lot of like puffing of the chest of like, well, we're going to have to hike premiums that, you know, sure, if we have to, you know, suddenly pay for these things that we typically would be a little more stringent on.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, I know that the governor's office is facing a lot of pressure from both the health care industry, as in like doctors and providers who said we really need this in order to make our jobs easier in patients lives, easier.

And then the insurance companies who said, please, for the love of God, don't sign this.

And he ultimately decided to sign it.

Yeah.

And the governor saying that he will create a commission, I believe, to study this, to look at the possible premium rate hikes.

Here's what the governor had to say about signing that appropriate the bill, prior authorization, the intent of this bill is to improve the health care outcomes of Vermonters, which could lower overall health care costs.

You're seeing that right on the screen there.

So I think the governor was taking a big picture look at this overall saying, yeah, you know, the insurance companies are always frankly talking about raising their rates.

But he's seeing this as the larger issue of health care being so important, especially with the aging demographic we have here in Vermont.

So he went ahead and signed that.

Now, Steve, and this is interesting, too, there was a bill that would have banned neonicotinoid pesticides and yes, I did practicing neonicotinoid that that was really controversial.

Certainly, there were a lot of farm industry folks who were glad the governor signed that.

But folks who are saying we've got to look out for pollinators, not so excited about this.

Yeah, amidst the a lot of times out of practice, that word first kind of got brought up before going that.

I'm not the only one.

Yeah, you're not the only one.

But yeah.

So vetoed it.

It does have the votes to override as it passed through the House and Senate.

Originally it wasn't very close either.

Only two senators voted no, if I remember correctly, in the Senate.

But what it does is it eliminates certain uses of neonics in 2025.

But the one that's really getting people are the crop seeds that are infused with neonics in 2029, because dairy farmers say we use these seeds to feed our cattle.

We're already in Vermont, one of the least populous states in the nation.

And so are we going to be able to get our manufacturers to change our seeds?

Just here for Vermont?

There's also a stipulation built in as well that ties this bill in with New York, because New York's trying to do something similar.

And if New York decides to backtrack or theirs falls apart, Vermont will do the same.

But it's also interesting as we were getting all the different releases, because in his veto letter, Governor Scott said that there's national data that shows from 2018 to 2022 that the pollinator population is actually up 30%.

But then you have other lobbyist and environmental groups that have said that's actually not true and it's on the way down.

And there's a little statistics battle, if you will, going on through that.

But Phil Scott kind of just wrapped it all up in saying he feels that it's more anti-farmer than pro pollinator.

And the it's the whatever chemical they're putting on it is actually on the seed.

So it's not like they're spraying it on.

So it's just coming in the bags or in however it's coming in.

They can't do anything about it.

Is there already how closely is Vermont keeping in touch with officials in New York on this?

I find that interesting that New York farmers, Vermont farmers, both dealing with this issue, both having opinions on that.

I mean, from my understanding, lawmakers are keeping in touch.

They modeled a lot of the bill that we have here in Vermont off of the one that was in New York.

We're looking also at a veto of the renewable energy standard that they are their votes to override that, do you think, Stephen?

So that one's going to be close.

They would need to flip two in the Senate and one in the House to override Governor Scott's veto.

There were also some absent members from when those votes happen that some may not have to flip in the House.

I believe they're somewhere between eight and ten members absent there.

But it all comes back to the affordability aspect here.

Governor Scott preach over and over and over again.

What this update to it does is it makes most providers have to be green by 2030 and Globalfoundries and other municipalities power supply by 2035.

And Governor Scott and his administration's frustrated because they went on an 18 month engagement session working with the public, trying to figure out the best way to help ratepayers.

And they feel that the one that the lawmakers have come up with more just helps the electric providers and it doesn't necessarily benefit the public and the ratepayers.

And the numbers have changed.

We heard everything at one point.

It could cost up to $1,000,000,000, but it seems like that number now is anywhere up to $450 million.

It's the last fiscal analysis we've gone from the Jeffords office.

But yeah, so that one clearly veto, that will be one they take up in the veto session and we'll see what happens.

Sara, I would think that the veto session is going to be kind of fascinating here.

There's going to be so many bills that folks are wondering, do they have the votes to override any in particular?

You're looking out for the renewable energy standards.

Certainly one neonicotinoids, I also think is going to be a really interesting one if if that comes to pass.

There's also the question of how much time are they going to the legislators?

I mean, how much time are they going to give themselves to override?

Because it takes time to override a veto.

And last year it was six in one day was that they did Stephen which was a historic number of veto overrides and of very tightly packed day.

The other one that I'm really interested in that I don't even think it's on his desk yet.

But the data privacy bill, it's really big data privacy overhaul that we saw from legislators this year.

I'm fascinated to see what the governor is going to do with that one.

And if it does indeed require a veto override from the legislature, I think that's going to be a vote to watch as well.

It's funny, it almost feels like in looking at the possible the potential to override some of these vetoes, this might be not a last chance for for Democrats and progressives.

But, you know, Governor Scott, Tim Mcquiston is actively trying to recruit more moderate members out there.

He's seeing he's seeing a chance now, he says, to get his way of thinking.

And folks who are maybe a little more conservative into the legislature, how do you think he's.

Well, they don't need that to be that conservative.

You know, Stephen was talking about talking to Paul Dahm and I talked to a Republican senator who has had his fingers crossed in picking up five seats.

And I was like, man, but if they get three and, you know, we were talking about I mean, that would be significant, right, if they were to pick up three.

But they're from, you know, some of the a lot of the seats are from traditional Republican areas.

Burlington County used to be very Republican.

The Northeast Keenum there are two senators up there.

The Colchester Grand Isle used to be a Republican stronghold as well.

And so there's some low hanging fruit for them.

And remember, when Governor Dean signed civil unions into law, there was a huge Republican backlash.

They'd not only get rid of, they controlled the the House for two consecutive sessions.

They got rid of the moderates in their own party as well.

And so that the blowback from that was now what we're seeing is that the Republicans are in a really difficult situation.

So maybe this will be you know, you have the property tax situation and the tax situation and the inflation situation.

Some of this has nothing to do with Vermont, but we're just you know, we're in this situation.

Is there going to be a similar kind of there won't be that significant a blowback, but could it be enough to change?

Maybe?

You know, Stephen was talking about some of the prominent Republicans going to the Senate.

All they need to do is really get a get a hold of one chamber to some extent, you know, to defeat the supermajority.

What you mentioned that Dean citing the civil unions bill 24 years ago, is that amazing to anybody else?

That that was 24 years ago already?

It's incredible to me that that much time has passed that quickly.

So I wanted to ask quickly about the Summer Food Assistance Program.

Vermont has secured a waiver to participate in that.

Originally, they were not able to, but this seems like a fairly big deal for folks who have food insecurity.

Oh, absolutely.

Very much so.

As so, of course, Vermont has universal school meals for our children and schools.

And the whole purpose of that is to provide meals to and nutrition to kids who can't help their home situations.

Right.

So all Vermont kids are eligible for that within school halls, which is, you know, very different, of course, than summertime.

What is an eight year old to do?

Right.

And so the whole purpose of this is to provide some additional stability to families with children so that kids can continue, you know, having well-rounded meals, three, three days is the goal, right?

Yeah.

And a better summer, I'm sure, for those kids and for their parents, too.

One less thing to worry about.

You know, another big thing with Summer, sort of the unofficial kick off is Memorial Day weekend.

I could ask about all your plans, but that's personal.

I won't.

But one thing I will mention is that, you know, Vermont state parks are opening all around the state, you know, and if we have one thing that is really wonderful I think we all agree on here in Vermont is the state parks system.

And I was wondering if you have any favorite state parks that you like to visit?

Tim We spent a lot of time at Sandbar because we have three little boys and the water is very shallow there, if you remember, so you can just let them go on the water.

So it was very accessible and it was a lot of fun and had a little you know, there's some beach there.

So it was really, you know, family friendly place to go to.

Stephen, how about you?

I love Mount Thilo.

I'm a big runner personally.

And so it's not too, too long, but it's long enough.

Get to get uphill, get downhill, get up top.

Great, easy places to say, beautiful views of the lake, the mountain ranges and everything.

So you can find me about five it now and it's back open again.

Yeah.

You know, it's like I think it's maybe 900 feet up there, but the view is spectacular.

Absolutely great.

Just looking for volunteerism, sir.

How about you and your favorite state park?

I'm almost wary of giving away my spot like the super fishing spot.

I'm not a gatekeeper.

Elmore is my Elmore.

Elmore is definitely my favorite.

You can go into the fire tower, hike back down.

It's like a nice, easy, but very beautiful hike.

Okay.

And then just jump right into the lake.

It's the perfect summer day.

Take some watermelon, take a couple of seltzers.

Yeah, yeah.

Make a whole day out of it.

Yeah.

Kings Bay State Park.

Yeah.

I love it.

I should mention too that this is a great time to celebrate State Park System.

The 100th anniversary of the state park system happening this year.

There's also a safe to swim.

The thing that's happening now with Lake Champlain is what can you tell us about that real quick?

Yeah, exactly.

So before it was kind of beaches would be open or they would be closed as we seen blue green algae kind of become a bigger and bigger issue.

But now there's going to be a Category one.

Beaches open category two is swim at your own risk, essentially with warnings.

And the category three is closed.

They have a new Web page that's constantly updating.

And there'll also be yellow signs now as well for warning compared to just the red ones are being closed.

Too bad we need it, but it's good to know that it's there.

Steven Biddix, Sarah Mearhoffand Tim Mcquiston, thank you all so much for being here and I hope you'll join us again next week on Vermont this Week.