State leaders from across the political spectrum call on an Orleans County senator to resign after taking part in a racist Young Republicans group chat.

We should reject any of what we saw in that article.

We should reject it out of hand.

No tolerance, zero tolerance for that.

Plus, Governor Scott announces the first steps in a plan to address public safety concerns in Burlington and one of the state's largest LGBTQ plus organizations closes indefinitely.

All that and more ahead on Vermont this week.

From the Vermont public studio in Winooski.

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

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, October 17th and with us on the panel today, we have Liam Elder-Connors from Vermont Public, Calvin Cutler from WCAX and Auditi Guha from VTdigger.

Thank you all so much for being here today.

Well, we've got, quite a story to talk about at the top here.

Something that has made National news and not in a good way.

And does it involve Vermont?

For those of you who may not know the story, the background is that there was a group chat among some young Republicans in, several states throughout the country, and the texts were leaked by Politico.

These were unmistakably racist, anti-Semitic comments that were made.

There were jokes about sexual assault.

It wasn't great.

Now, the reason we're talking about this on today's show is because one of the people involved in this chat was a state senator from Orleans County named Samuel Douglass.

And before we get into the meat of what happened here, let's hear from Senate Majority Leader Keisha from Hinsdale and a resident from Orleans County talking about these texts.

It certainly means a lot that, we are all joining together to say that this is not okay.

This is a very painful day for senators in Vermont.

But certainly not as painful as the many Vermonters that are reading these statements that are incredibly hurtful to Jewish people, gay people, black people, even Indian people.

That's not what we voted for as a representative.

That doesn't represent North Troy, that doesn't represent Orleans County.

Okay.

So you're hearing there from a couple of people, reacting to these texts.

Now, we should say that when this was made public, Governor Phil Scott, as you saw at the beginning, there was pretty outraged.

He called on Samuel Douglass again, this, sitting state senato from Orleans County to resign, Scott back, the head of the, minority, head of the Republican Party, also called on Douglass to resign.

We should say that at the time that we are taping right now, Samuel Douglass has not said that he resign.

He's talked about this.

He said he's going to weigh over that decision by the time you're seeing it.

He may have actually resigned.

By the time you're watching the show.

We don't know.

But at the time that we are taping, he has not.

So, Liam, Elder Connors, let me turn to you.

What do we know about what Samuel Douglass has said about his role in this racist group chat?

He said that he was in that group chat for procedural reasons.

Due to this, with this young Republican group that he was a part of and that he, denied seeing any of these number of racist and sexist and anti-Semitic messages that were in the text messages.

He said he didn't see those.

He only checked it periodically.

There is one message in there that appears to have come from Samuel Douglass, where he is mocking the bathing habits of people from India.

But he has denounced all of the he called them vile comments.

But says he also didn't see them at the time they were coming in.

At least that is that's what has happened over several months time, though, right?

I mean, it's sort of sort of strains credulity to to hear him say that he wasn't aware of a lot of these comments.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, he has only released a written statement.

He has not spoken as far as I know, to members of the press or the media and explained further than this.

I mean, I think that would clearly be a question that we would all ask.

But he hasn't made himself available to to that.

Yeah.

I mean, I can understand and to be clear, I mean, he said that he has cut ties with all of the individuals that are part of this group chat and, they're all so many of them are facing blowback in their own communities and in their own backyards as well, in Kansas, and in New York.

But, you know, when you work in politics, Sam Douglas, he is, you know, part of the young Republican sort of infrastructure nationally.

And so there, when you're involved in politics, it's not uncommo to have group chats on discord like this that, you know, we'll just be firing away.

It's not necessarily a text chain on his phone, but this was a discord group chat.

So it's not uncommo to have these types of things.

But to your point, these racist, you know, references were made, over 100 times over weeks and months.

So, to your point, we haven't heard directly from him in an interview.

We haven't gone to ask questions.

But it is remarkable.

And this is the first time in a really long time that almost everybody in Vermont's political community is really coming out swinging against this.

The progressives put out a statement.

The governor, and Scott, back, as you said, called on him to step down.

Democrats, of course, are calling for him to step down.

So opposition to this has been pretty swift.

But we'll have to see exactly what happens.

There is an interesting sort of subset here, though, about the reaction from the, local Republicans here, because Paul Dahm, who is the chairman of the Republican Party in Vermont, initially came out and did not call on Samuel Douglass to resign.

What he said was these were vile comments.

He he decried them.

But he said that Douglass should explain himself.

Should apologize, to the community.

And then if he did not do that, then Dahm said that he would call on him to resign.

But the Republican Party of Vermont did not, align with that, right?

In fact, they rejected those comments, I believe.

Yeah.

I mean, I think right here, you know, Paul Tame is walking a very fine line, right?

I mean, you know, he's trying to give Sam Douglass an out.

I think it's fair to say and say, hey, you know, apologize if you want, but also, you know, step down if you want to.

But, you know, I mean, it's if you're Paul Dahm two there is the bigger question about the balance of power in the Senate.

I mean, Sam Douglass, you know, he, ran a race against Catherine Sims last year who, in the Orleans district race and, you know, potentially we'll see how next year's elections go.

But we could be looking at a pretty fine balance of power, potentially in the Senate, or Republicans might be able to take the Senate back.

So not to say this is just aimed at politics here, but I think there is there is a political backdrop to this of, you know, whether he stays in his seat or not.

And what does that mean for policy outcomes at the state House?

Well, he was part of the, he's a he's a first term state senator.

He was part of the historic red wave of Republicans, you know, that came in to the state House.

And Phil Scott endorsed him in the run.

And so, you know, he's he's a young he's 27, he's young.

And now facing this pretty intense, scrutiny and blowback and Phil Scott pretty quickly calling on him to resign.

I think that was one of the first, official statements I saw about this.

It wasn't from the Democrats.

It was from Phil Scott's office.

And it was pretty unequivocal.

He didn't waste any tim in calling for the resignation and denouncing the comments.

And just the last point of this I'll make is, you know, the condemnation here i Vermont has been pretty swift.

But if you look at the national level, Vice Presiden JD Vance opined and weighed in on this issue as well, and he didn't necessarily condemn it.

He basically said, you know, this these things will happen.

And, you know, young people need to take responsibility for their actions.

But when he called them kids, yeah, I mean, look, he went further than that.

He get JD Vance gave more of an out than, than Paul Dahm did for sure.

To this kind of behavior.

He said he basically was saying, look, kids will be kids.

Samuel Douglass's 27 years old.

He was the highest profile, political person.

Certainly in this group chat, none of the other people involved were sitting state senators, as I understand it.

But that view from the very top.

Calvin, you make a good point here.

If you're looking at the vice president of the United States representing the Republican Party, saying, oh, well, let's just these are young people.

They're just kids.

They're not kids.

A lot of these people were in their 30s.

And the comments I cannot stress enough, I'm not saying go look at them because they're super disturbing, but if you did stumble upon these comments and you didn't have the context that they were, you know, from a political group, you'd think you were in some some of the seed parts, of a central on the dark web.

I mean, they're really that bad.

We'll have to see what comes of this.

Yeah, it's it's going to be fascinating.

Yeah.

What about let's speculate on this just a little bit before we move all this topic and audio, I want to get your thoughts on this too.

But you do we think that Samuel Douglas was going to resign.

Start with you worry.

Oh well I have a feeling if he hasn't resigned already he probably doesn't.

But that said, we'll have to wait and see.

Maybe he's waiting his options.

Yeah I would, I would say the same.

You know, we have no reason to think if he has didn't step down originally in his first statement, he said something, you know, he'd be speaking out by the end of the week.

We'll have to wait and see.

I don't know if I can opine one way or the other, but I. I would not be surprised if he did not step down.

I hate asking reporters to speculate.

By the way, just so you know, I don't it's not because it's not really in our wheelhouse.

It is.

I have to ask you, though, to Liam, do you think Samuel Douglas is going to resign over this?

I think I would be surprised if he did.

Like we've all said, if he hasn't already.

I think the more interesting question is if he doesn't resign, what kind of blowback he faces in the Senate, if he's going to be stripped of any committee positions and if he's going to be, you know, how his role in, in as a senator could change if he chooses not to resign and perhaps that is something that he is considering.

Again, you know, you don't want to speculate, but that is certainly something, that if he stays in, will you know, we'll see what happens.

I mean, Democrats still control the chamber and are still involved in committee assignments.

And of course, the voters in Orleans County could ultimately have the final say when, reelection comes up.

All right.

I will gladly move off this story for a moment.

However, as we move on to our next story here, there are some tendrils here and how you were writing about the resignation of the Northfield, police chief who's leaving his job, in fact, leaving the state.

Who are we talking about here, and why did he feel he had to leave?

Yes.

Well, Pier Gomes scape was hired by the Select board in Northfield, which isn't a small town in Washington County.

In September 2023.

So it's exactly two years.

And from everything that he has told me, he claims that racial discrimination and harassment has followed since day one of his job, and it seems like he's finally had it.

And he submitted his resignation this week, effective November 1st.

But what's even worse is that he's not just leaving the town and his position.

He's leaving Vermont because he's had it.

He's going back to Philadelphia.

And what kind of things was he talking about that he experienced over that two year time?

It's a litany of issues that's people not taking him seriously.

It's people bringing up really small, frivolous issues.

On Mondays, Selectboard meeting in Northfield.

The former Chief Helfand, who no longer lives in town, asked the Select board about why the chief was allowed to buy three hoodies for his team and with what, money.

And so, you know, it's in the vein of that.

Most of the complaints I've seen or heard about have nothing to d with his actual policing work, but it's all about something he said or what he wore.

One time there was a big outcry because he wore a hoodie in town, and the townspeople actually came out in huge support at at the next meeting, all wearing hoodies.

So he does have a lot of residents support, but it seems like there are people within government and past, past employees of the town who seems to be on a campaign to, discredit him and as far as his credentials in the job he was doing, I mean, wasn't he a pretty highly decorated officer when he worked in Philadelphia?

Yes, he was he was a detective.

He worked in the AG's office there.

And, as far as I've seen, there haven't been any complaints or any issues with his actual work.

And the Select board.

Some one select board member said that they were very impressed with him, which is why they hired him, and they are very upset that he's chosen to leave.

And sad story.

And there's a final line in your piece, in your article where he explains why he's going back to Philadelphia, right?

Yeah.

And what did he say there?

He basically said he hopes to go back to Philadelphia in January.

And within quotes where they celebrate diversity.

Okay.

Yeah.

Again, you know, we're looking at these issues coming up in Vermont.

We're not immune to them here.

And I appreciate your reporting on that.

Thank you for updating that.

On that story.

Kelvin Cutler, I want to turn to you now on a story that's really, foreboding, I guess, is the word I would choose here.

There's food and fuel assistance that's at risk for low income Vermonters.

This is sort of tied up with the federal government shutdowns going on right now.

Explain how it is that, come November 1st, I believe there are folks who use the Snap benefits, the nutritional assistance program here in Vermont that could not be able to use their cards.

Yeah, the government shutdown is in week three now, and of course, federal money goes to a lot of state programs.

There's a lot of programs that are not affected like Wick and Reach Up.

And some of those programs are still funded, but there's a couple of really key programs like lie, heap and especially Snap benefits.

Or three Squareds Vermont that are going to be facin a cliff in the next few weeks.

And what we learned today, the state lawmakers basically had one of these sort of hours long sessions to hear, what's the impact of the shutdown and what money do we have, and where can we draw from, and how long can we withstand this?

There is a growing, concern that, under the government shutdown, when you get a snap card, right, it's, it's got a little chip on it or a little bar, and that's what you scan at the grocery store.

The program is funded, we have the money.

But the vendor that the federal government uses is to dispense those cards.

And digitally transfer the funds from the accounts of the benefit recipients to the, vendor to to the grocery store, that that government vendor is not getting paid, and they might go under, and so there's a real concern that when people go to checkout at the grocery store, you swipe your card and nothing happens, and there's no way to deliver the money.

And there really is not an easy workaround in this.

In the short term, you know, the state can't necessarily cut checks or give people coupons.

I mean, there really lawmakers were just getting this news and we're tryin to understand it in real time.

But if that comes to fruition in about two weeks, that could be, really detrimental to about 65,000 or so Vermonters that rely on these benefits.

Some people do get, you know, food benefits like from an eight, they can they can go to a ATM and take money.

Some people receive benefits that way.

But the most, most, recipients get these three squares, Vermont cards, which in two weeks time may not work.

So you're again, I'm trying to get my brain wrapped around this because I kno that state officials have said we have money.

We've set aside for for just sort of just this kind of, contingency in case something like this happens.

But what you're saying is there's no way to actually, physically get the money to the people who need it.

Yeah, well, the the, the snap money, there's no reason that money, the get that money to program recipients more broadly in terms of how long can the state withstand the shutdown, and if other programs like lie heap or Wick or what have you are in jeopardy?

You know, the state does have about $800 million, in the treasurer's office in cash reserves.

That can be moved really quickly.

But the other question is, you know, what will we be reimbursed for in the past?

You know, during past government shutdowns, we have been reimbursed for paying out benefits and etc.

to, to, to to states, but there's no guarantee this time around this the the politics of this shutdown is unlike anything that we've seen before.

And so there is a real open question of whether we will be paid back, from the federal government, if we essentially have to loan ourselves money, we're going to have to watch what happens in just a couple of weeks.

You're saying to in just a couple of weeks and so now, like state lawmakers I will say the emergency board is going to be meeting in a few weeks to kind of understand what programs can we fund, what should we fund?

How long can we fund these?

There's a lot of unknowns right now.

And this is definitely going to spill into the state legislative session in January.

That's a tough one.

Let's move on to, public safety in Vermont's largest city, Burlington.

And, there are some concerns about backlogs of cases, how to deal with low level offenders, and and centering on crime.

Let's hear a couple of statements about what some of these problems are.

These folks are cycling back through so many times.

It's not good for them.

It's not good for the victims.

A smaller group of people is taking up a huge amount of time and taking up a lot of that docket space and our court system.

If the Community Accountability Court can change the way people think and act, it will be hugely successful if all it does is bring conventional punishment to bear a little bit faster.

I'm not quite as optimistic.

Okay, Liam, Elder Connors, let's talk about what the governor is doing here.

He's trying to address public safety.

And so what is where are these first new steps he's looking at?

Well, essentially what he is doing is, he's appointed a special prosecutor to go to Chittenden County and to focus on cases, or individuals.

I should say, who have multiple open cases.

This has been something that people have been concerned about, not not just in recent years, but actually for a really long time.

Basically, the whole time that I've been a reporter covering this issue, people have been concerned about it.

But it's just been intensified recentl with the rise in homelessness.

There's more public drug use.

There's a lot of public safety concerns and concerns about there are people that hav multiple cases who are causing the majority of these, issues that people are seeing out in public.

So this new they're calling it an accountability court, is just going to focus on those individuals.

Calvin Cutler, you've been covering this as well.

I'm interested in what Robertson was saying there about this, about how this could work and could not work.

I mean what are some of the pitfalls?

Yeah, I mean, I think the core question, and we've been hearing this a lot when the thing the legislature, when they were talking about alleviating the court backlog, is trying to have swift and certain, consequences for your actions closer to the time that that event happened.

So whether the accountable is incarceration, restorative justice, drug or alcohol treatment, you know, whatever that intervention may be, the philosophy is that the sooner that happens to the alleged crime, you know, that will be the deterrence.

I think that's still remains an open question here.

So I think that's that's one piece of this.

And then also the other question too, is the resources, once these people are held accountable, do we have the drug and alcohol treatment, resources?

Do we have the, you know, space in our correctional facilities?

Which a lot of people have said our our jails are under immense stress.

So I think those are kind of the two of the big unknowns here.

But we'll see.

I think there's still there are still a lot of questions about exactly how this is going to operate.

And some of the, people I talked to, there's a, a judge who's been appointed, Martin Maley who's a retired Superior Court judge who will be overseeing it.

Zach Waite, who's a deputy state's attorney in Washington County, is going to be the special prosecutor.

There'll be public defenders assigned to this court as well.

But I still have a question about if the intended outcome is going to be what everybody thinks it's going to be.

And I think they can't they're not going to suspend the rules of criminal procedure.

They still have to follow Vermont law.

I mean, the bail statute is something that people have been frustrated by for years.

And, you know, bail is not something that can be imposed to, for public safety reasons.

It's just if someone's a flight risk.

Now, what could happen is that people are going to be able to move through this, this court more quickly, and they might not be out and have the chance to re-offend.

And the cases are going to be disposed more quickly, because that has been a problem where people have low level cases that linger for a long time.

It's not quite a high enough level case to be incarcerated for, and they pick up more charges while they're out.

So faster disposition might have an effect on that.

But again, I think we have to sort of see how this is actually going to operate and what happens.

I think what people think is going to happen with it.

Could it they're the details of it, I think are going to be really important.

Devil's always in the details, as it turns out.

When is this all supposed to happen?

Is it underway?

Is it so Monday, the governor said he hopes the court will launch on Monday.

I mean, I think I have not confirmed for sure yet if, you know, we're going to start hearing cases, but I think probably next week is what it sounds like.

Okay.

Reall appreciate the update on that.

Liam and Calvin, thank you.

A story that we have been, you know, sort of trying to get to for a while now and because there's been so much other news, it sort of kind of pushed it away.

But we must talk about it because it's a big deal.

The Pride Center of Vermont is closing indefinitely.

Audie, you've been covering this.

I guess the best news you can say is that the the Hel hotline will still be running.

But tell us about what's happening with this well known center.

In Vermont.

Yes.

So, the Pride Center of Vermont has existed since 1999.

And last Friday, the board of directors suddenly announced that they were going to close, if not forever.

Then definitely indefinitely, particularly because they have a huge gap in funding and they get their funding from a various sources, including state and federal funds.

The dues does come as a shock, not just to the pride community, but also to its employees, because seven employees were laid off, immediately.

But since then, the board has come back to say that they have partnered with Steps Vermont, which is domestic violence, organization that has a hotline.

So people calling the Pride Center's safe support hotline will be rerouted there.

The good thing about this is that the Pride Center's hotline was not 24 seven, but this one is.

So people will be able to access hotline and chat support around the clock.

What kind of things are going to be lost, though, with the closing of the center?

As you say, it's been in operation since 1999.

What kind of services do they provide or what kind of, events do they back?

That sort of thing?

They are they I have heard that they have basically been a major center where LGBTQ people in Vermont can go to, and find a safe space, but beyond that, they offer all kinds of, programs, including, HIV testing and, mental health support.

And these are all programs that remain suspended.

The board did say that they are trying to see if they can create more partnerships with other statewide organizations and asking people to step in and donate.

There are not 350,000 shortfall.

And so the hope is that people are going to step up.

And organizations like, this domestic violence organization will step up and hel fill the gap that this closure and this news came as somewhat of a surprise.

Or was it sort of expected it was a complete surprise.

Even the employees were, completely taken away.

And I will sa I mean, you know, the reaction from the political community, I mean, Congresswoman Becca Valent was speaking out about this.

A number of state lawmakers have I think this is just one more organization, one more pot of money that when state lawmakers come back, in, in in January, like will will there be a conversation about funding, you know, the Pride Center.

And you know, for a lot of people that utilize the resources there and find belonging in the community, it's a critical resource.

And so this is just one more piece of of competing interests that state lawmakers will have to, to grapple with when they return in January with, pretty limited resources.

Okay.

I would like to end on a somewhat positive note.

If we can, audience to the story.

I know you've been covering, there's a historic opera house in for gens, which has been around for years and, you know, has served the community.

But one thing they have not been able to do is serve the disability community.

But there's an update on that.

What do you have for us?

Yes.

It's, if anybody walks into the Vergennes town center, you'll see it immediately.

It's a beautiful building.

It was one of the famous national opera houses in its time.

And it it is still home to the town offices.

However, on the second floor there is an auditorium that has long, kept up the public events, community events, and well as music and dance shows and the friends group that operates it has fundraised $2.2 million to make much needed accessibility updates, which will allow everyone in Vermont smallest city to access this building.

Thank you so much for that update.

Good to go out on a high note there.

Thanks to our panel today, Liam Elder-Connors from Vermont Public, Calvin Cutler from WCAX and Auditi Guha from VTdigger.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb, I appreciate you watching so very much, and I hope you'll tune in next week as well for Vermont This Week.

In the meantime, I hope you have a great week and tune in again and we'll see you next week.