A bipartisan group of Vermont lawmakers traveled to Israel amid mounting criticism of the country's offensive in Gaza.

Plus, towns try a new model to tackle the overlapping issues of crime, addiction and homelessness.

And a massive solar farm in Shrewsbury wins approval.

All that and more ahead on the lot 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.

Thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, September 26th and with us on the panel today, we have Lola Duffort from Vermont Public, Kevin McCallum from Seven Days, and Liam Elder-Conners from Vermont Public.

Thank you all so much for being here.

Well, the first topic that we're going to dive into today, not controversy at all.

And of course, I'm making light of something I probably shouldn't.

But look, we talk about tough stuff on the show sometimes, and nothing can be really tougher than the topic of Israel.

And, recently, some, lawmakers, a bipartisan group, went to Israel.

It was paid for by the Israeli government, three Democrats and two GOP members of the House.

Lola de Ford, let me start with you.

What was the purpose of this visit?

Well, depends on who you ask, right?

Because the Israeli government will say that the purpose of this trip was to demonstrate just how strong America's commitment is to Israel.

Right.

It was this big show of support for the Israeli state at this moment when it is increasingly isolated, within the international community because of its conduct in the Gaza war.

If you ask the lawmakers from Vermont who attended this trip, they'll give you different reasons.

Some of them are proud, unapologetic backers of, Israel, would defend very strongly, you know, how it is conducting itself in the war.

Others called its actions genocide, and said that they went there because they wanted to see things for themselves, because they wanted to have the opportunity to leverage their concerns, about what's going on in Gaza.

Directly to Israeli officials.

And, you know, it's hard to know for sure why they went, certainly.

This came at a really, important kind of inflection point, right, in how people talk about, what is going on in Gaza.

Their trip happened to coincide, most notably with, the UN's humans.

Right.

Human rights Council, human, human rights council, declaring that what is going on in Gaza is a genocide right now.

What I find interesting about this is what you said about those who said, look, we wanted to find out ourselves what was going on here, but this is not the kind of trip where they were taken into the rubble of Gaza.

You know, where we're up to.

I think 50, 60,000 people have been killed, by the Israeli military strikes.

They weren't seeing that, were they know they were not.

They did not go to Gaza.

They would say that or at least one of them said, I know fully that this was a curated trip, and that I was no going to get the full picture.

But I thought that, you know, I'm still going to be able to glean more informatio than just if I stayed at home.

And I can come up with my own conclusions.

Okay.

Kevin McCollum, you know, they're back now, these legislators, what's been the reaction from their constituents for for in a general sense, I think the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative, that it was just a really bad look for for them to go to Israel at this moment, and especially, as I said, to not go into any of the areas that are their most hard hit.

It.

I think, you know, some of the concerns certainly was that that at this moment to not actually try to get eyes on the on Gaza was just viewed by many constituents as it's not something they saw they thought their lawmakers ought to be doing.

And again, I mean, the word junket is not a pretty word.

You know, the word junket implies that you're going on a trip and having other people pay for your travel and your meals and your airfare and your hotels for a reason, you know, to influence your opinions, to influence your ideas, to influence the policy that you might, that you might focus on in the future.

And so I think a lot of people, when they realize the trip was sponsored exclusively by Israel and then and they didn't go to any of the controversial areas, they saw that as just, foolish.

Now, Liam, we should point out, too, that, you know, these were not the only legislators in the country that were going on this trip.

This was a they called it, 50 states, one Israel.

Right.

So a legislator from all over the country went on this.

That's right.

So it was, I believe, at least, you know, 1 or 2 or multiple people from every single state in the United States going.

And so the five Vermont legislators that went were just a part of that.

But I think Kevin and Lowell are making, you know, the points that are really strong, which is that this was a trip that was sponsored by the Israeli government and was very curated.

And while lawmakers had access to some members of the Israeli government, is what they were saying, and we're able to ask them questions and perhaps press them on some of these issues around Gaza and the genocide.

That is not necessaril it's still hard to understand.

You know, how you know, what kind of impact those questions made, like what what the point of those things were.

And, you know, it's just coming at a very different time, than a couple of months ago for in terms of public opinion around what's happening in Gaza right now.

And I don't know that how many people were, like, angry at them for not going into an act of war zone.

I think they were angry.

Those that were angry were angry just because they went in the first place.

Right?

Because no matter what they say, their reasons were for going, the Israeli government, which sponsored this trip, that used it for a particular public relations perspective.

Right.

Explicitly, we're like this is the largest delegation of U.S.

lawmakers to ever come.

And we're having you come here at a time when the international community increasingly is, condemning what we are doing.

Right?

So however, folks o the ground want to frame this.

That's very different than how the Israeli government itself explicitly framed this.

And I think the lawmakers are having a little bit of a difficult time explaining themselves super well on this, too, which is making it a little bit worse for them.

I mean, Matt Byron came back from the trip and gave an interview wherein he basically questioned whether this was really a genocide because, you know, the population numbers in Gaza are actually on the way up.

So how how could that possibly be a genocide that made people, I think, wonder whether his view about Gaza and whether what was really happenin there was being influenced by, you know, the fact that he just got back from this trip and then and then even the other day, two of the two of the members from the trip came back and didn't seem to sort of really understand what part of the West Bank they had visited.

Did you go to the West Bank?

Oh, yeah, we did.

Oh no we didn't.

I'm not really sure.

So then you also wonder kind of how educational the trip really was for them.

It's a complicated area.

Of course, you can't learn everything in a three day trip, but you just got the sens that there was just not a deep understanding of the region that they that they, got from it.

I just feel like, you know, as Lola was pointing out, this is a time when the international community is is very angry with the Israeli government.

I mean, doesn't Yahoo just give a speech at the United Nations?

People walked out, during the speech?

They're trying to make the case that this is all about Hamas, what Hamas did on October 7th.

And I think it bears it's important to say it was horrendous.

And it's indefensible.

But the response i the disproportionate response, of what has happened in Gaza is really making people take notice.

And certainly Vermonters have taken notice of that.

So it is a very hard sell, I would think, to come back to your constituents and say, well, we just wanted to learn what was happening when you're not even seeing the worst parts, of what's going on there.

And I, you know, speaking of international condemnation, etc., we're seeing European countries, including long standing allies, recognize Palestinian statehood, which is being seen as this like hugely important symbolic shift.

We're seeing lawmakers that just went on a junket, Israel say, actually, this is a genocide.

So we are seeing some really profound shifts in how people talk about Israel.

My question is whether or not we're actually going to se material policy shifts, right?

Because people can sa one thing and then do another.

And, you know, it's harder to kind of gauge that in Vermont.

It's not like state lawmakers vote on arms sales to Israel the way that Congress does.

But to me, that's the big question, right, is whether or not things like that are going to change.

These lawmakers or four of these five lawmakers had previously sponsored, legislation that was widely perceived as being very pro-Israel.

You know, would have explicitly tied, the state's definition of anti-Semitism to criticism of Zionism.

So Bill did not advance a bill which did not advance.

So I think to me, the question is, you know, what are we going to see in terms of legislating?

Going forward?

Yeah, absolutely.

And we should point out to the Vermont congressional delegation taking a very different tack here.

They have been very explicit about, condemning Israel for a lot of their recent actions.

Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Bernie Sanders has been calling this a genocide for for months now.

And now.

Sorry, sorry.

It was I mean, he called this a genocide last week, which was a really big deal, right?

Like it was a he has been criticizing the Israeli government for a long time and trying to block arms.

The arms sales, arms sales.

Israel.

Gotcha.

He's definitely been one of the most outspoken, members of Congress on Israel.

And yeah, I didn't mean to like, oh, he hasn't been critical of Israel.

But, you know, again, he used genocide for the first time last week, as did the rest of this state's congressional delegation, which I thin indicates, again, the shift in public opinion.

And in rhetoric, at least, you know, within political circles.

All right.

We're going to move on to another topic.

Now, that is, I guess no less controversial in some ways.

And that's immigration and, detaining, immigrants in Vermont.

Now, Vermont has agreed to continue holding federal immigration detainees here.

Liam.

Elder Connors, this is a renewed contract that that came up and it's been renewed.

That's right.

So this is one that the state already had had this contract with, immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold detainees in Vermont prisons.

And the new contract is basically the same as the old one.

The state will get slightly more money per person that is held by, that is brought to them by, ice.

And there's no expiration date for this, though either party can pull out of it.

But what's interestin is that it got renewed at all.

There was a lot of talk a couple of months ago, that Governor Scott should cancel this contract.

They shouldn't renew it from advocates and Democratic lawmakers.

But Scott had been pretty steadfast that he would be renewing it because he thought it was better to keep people that were detained in Vermont, in Vermont.

So the idea that they would stay here in Vermont prisons rather than be, sent to another state and just sort of lose track of them, they would have better access to legal services and closer to their families here.

Pretty interesting and kind of nuanced here, because, Lola, you were telling me before the show started that advocates for immigrants were actually saying, yes we should renew this contract.

What's their reasoning for that?

Well, they wanted detainees to be able to stay in Vermont, right, where they would have better access to them.

What they didn't want is detainees sent to, Louisiana or somewhere else, where they wouldn't have that access to legal representation.

Or their families.

Right, if they're here.

And so, yeah, the view from advocates was pretty nuanced.

I think they wanted maybe stronger protections, for detainees in the contract.

But, you know, when lawmakers, Democratic lawmakers, you know, sent out this call that we should just cancel the contract, it was not totally in tandem with what the advocacy community seemed to want.

And I'll say that even though, you know, they're they're maybe more okay with the fact that Ice detainees can still be held in Vermont.

That's by no means, advocates aren't saying that conditions in Vermont prisons are great.

They still have concerns about people's access to legal services and access to translation services as well, which can obviously affect their the detainees ability to, you know, speak about, health condition or issues that they might be having in the prison.

So there's definitely still some concerns, but definitely advocates would prefer people to be here in Vermont rather than shipped somewhere else.

There was a really sorry, really quickly, a really fantastic story of seven days a little while ago, actually, about like the wrong man being brought to, I think it was a detention hearing, because translation services were so poor.

I think we actually talked about that on this program.

Yeah.

So.

Unbelievable.

Yeah.

Like, as Liam said, there are still some very active concerns in the advocacy community about what detainees are able to access here.

And let me stick with you here because, Vermont towns, as we get a little more hyperlocal here in this story, are trying this new model, to tackle some overlapping issues, dealing, you know, with criminal situations, something called the situation table.

And you've been reporting on this.

What is that?

Exactly?

So essentially, it's a weekly meeting of social service providers, drug prevention treatment organizations and law enforcement where they look at individuals or families that are dealing with multiple overlapping issues, someone who maybe is struggling with mental illness and drug use and doesn't have adequate shelter, and they're looking at specific people and and families and trying to figure out what services they need and how to connect them to those services.

It's not a totally new idea, but the process that this, situation table lays out is unique and different.

And also struck me that many Vermont communities are trying this now.

And the state has paid to train eight municipalities across the state in using this model to try to address, public concerns about, open drug use and homelessness and general feelings that there's more crime and disorder are happening.

So this is one way that law enforcement and social service agencies are trying to work together more to tackle these issues.

It sounds like a big sense to communication.

If you get more of these people that are all involved in this, there can be better communication about what to do in a next step.

Situation.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah, it's communication.

But, the people that are there currently using this model say there's also more accountability because they meet every week and people say, I'm going to connect with this person.

I have to come back the next week and say, I either connected with that individual or I didn't.

And so there's a shared sense of responsibility and accountability that, towns that use this are telling me is is helping them out a lot.

Interesting, too, that they're willing to try something new because, you know, the problem isn't going away, obviously.

And Kevin McCallum, there's a story that is sort of related, I think, to this, where the former Woodside staff and this was the juvenile detention facility went through so many problems.

And Liam, of course, you reported on this too.

So I want to get your take on this a little bit as well.

But, the staff engaged in a restorative process, recently.

But there was something about that that was kind of missing.

And tell us about what this process was.

That's for sure.

So Woodside closed five years ago after, a number of reports of significant abuse of the juvenile who were sent to the facility.

And, what you would kind of expect after something that sort of shocking and that sort of problematic would be for a restorative process to occur so that the victims of that abuse would be included and that some healing could begin and some some feedback could be could be gained and some insight could be gained about what went wrong.

And that's when I first started reporting this story.

That's what I thought they were doing, because they were talking about and sending memos around about, needing to engage in a restorative process for Woodside.

But sure enough, it's it did not involve the victims.

It did not involve the victims families of the abuse at all.

It was merely a series of listening sessions for the staff and former staff of Woodside, so that they could kind of air their grievances and concerns and frustrations about all the bad things that happened at Woodside.

And all the bad publicity about what happened at Woodside occurred.

So they wanted to have and they are having listening sessions in order to sort of let staff vent about thei their feelings about Woodside.

And because some people are very proud about the work they did Woodside over the years, they did not see or engage in any abusive behavior of any of any children.

And they're very upset with the state that the mismanagement of that facility was allowed to, to get as bad as it was.

And so those sessions are underway.

But a lot of the advocates for children say, that's ridiculous.

How could you possibly have a restorative process of any kind without involving the people who were harmed?

And I'm just calling it this, you know, state staffers just having a Kumbaya moment that's really inappropriate.

Do we know if anybody reached out to the victims that to have them be part of this?

No.

They did.

They didn't want them to be part of the process, which is really strange, because what's what you have to understand is DCF, Department of Children and Families is really, an organization that has gotten a lot of bad publicity over this.

And there's a great deal of disagreement in and among the staff, people who work there about whether, in fact, they did anything wrong and exactly what what did go wrong.

And they're in the process of trying to build and design a new facility somewhere in the state of Vermont.

And so Chris Winters, that, now, former commissioner, said that, you know, part of the process here was to try to deal with our own stuff first, deal with our own internal divisions about how the state ought to have a secure juvenile facility before we go out and ask the victims and their families about how they feel about what happened.

Well, Vermont public seem Miller.

Connors.

Actually, I remember when you broke this story about the horrific events that were happening to some of these kids at this facility.

Right.

So I'm just curious, you know, at the time you were reporting on this, were there staff members who were reaching out to you saying, hey, I wasn't involved in this.

You know, I'm I'm getting a bad rap here.

I actually had some some staff people reach out to me to say that they thought that the reporting, was exaggerating issues that they'd never had.

They sort of took issue with the reports that I was writing about, which were regulatory reports that were issued by state employees who were charged with oversight of the facility.

And so one of the big issues here at Woodside was that the state was overseeing itself.

And you had regulators, state regulators, saying that there were really bad, horrific problems happening at Woodside and then DCFs saying, no, things are okay.

We disagre with those regulatory reports.

And so there was this this clash happening there.

In back in, you know, 2018, 2019 when some of these reports were getting issued.

And so I think to Kevin's point, it is there's certainly some things that the state needs to figure out, especially when we're talking about building a new juvenile detention facility here in this state.

But the fact that they're starting, they're starting at this restorative point, but haven't reached out to the families of the victims, I think is probably a it's not a great look for them.

Given the, the intensity and the, the, of the problems that were at Woodside and people that were, that were hurt at the facility.

And it's going to be fascinating to, to to follow this.

Where are they going to put the next facility.

Because right now there' a big Nimby problem with that.

Nobody seems to want another juvenile detention facility anywhere in the state, as opposed to communities now saying, no thanks.

Yeah, yeah, we'll be following the reporting on that one as well.

I want to talk about a win here, if we can call it that.

Kevin McCallum, a massive solar farm in Jasper has won approval.

Well, whether that is a win depends tremendously on how close to it you live.

So, yes.

The, the Public Utility Commission, last week signed off on the largest solar farm in a long time in Vermont.

The last one of this size was in 2017.

I think this one is going to be the size of a 60, some odd 65, some odd football fields in Shaftesbury.

So it's a big one.

It's an industrial scale.

And because it was so big, many of the neighbors in Shaftesbury said, we like renewable energy.

We, we want the state to be green, but we don't want that thing, carpeting, beautiful hillside in our in our town.

And so for a couple of years, regulators have been struggling with, whether to approve something of this size, because not only is it near a bunch of a smattering of homes, let's say it's a rural area, for sure, but it's right along a highways, right along route seven.

And so it's going to be visible from anyone, you know, heading north.

Particularly.

And so they struggled with it.

They're like, should we sign off on something this large that is going to be selling its power out of state.

And the company that wants to develop it is a company from Connecticut.

So there was this real struggle about whether to move forward with something that's big.

And then and then one of the commissioners in particular, had some serious concerns about the project because it was going to be, chopping down 35 acres of mature trees.

Now, most of the project is I think it's 80 acre site was going to is former pasture land.

So that's a little bit less offensive to Vermonters, right.

To put some solar panels on a former hayfield, but then to go 30 acres into when you're building roads and doing to take out 30 acres of trees just riles a lot of people that, you know, rubs in the wrong way.

And it definitely rubbed one of the commissioners the wrong way.

And she said, look, I'll sign off on this, but I'm going to kind of hold my nose on it.

And I really think we ought to put projects of this scale in other areas of the state that do not require the removal of this many trees, which actually perform a carbon benefit to the to the atmosphere by removing carbon.

So it just in time for this to be happening too, because we know federal subsidies for solar are going to be ending fairly soon too.

So the future solar in Vermont is very much up in the air.

Absolutely.

Lola, for I want to ask you quickly about, school construction ai because it's kind of in limbo.

You know, there's a lot of projects that folks would like to see happen, but they've got big price tags.

What's going on there?

Yeah, I, read a little bit ago.

So, the Central Vermont Career Center, which is the tech center that serves this region, is going to be going out for a $149 million bond, for during a special election this November.

I think that's going to be the biggest bond we've seen since the Burlington High School.

And, you know it's going to be a tough sell.

Meanwhile, there are a couple other communities considering, going out for bonds, but very tentatively because, this is a really difficul thing to ask voters right now.

And most school construction bonds fail at the ballot box.

That's despite the fact that, our schools are in atrocious shape.

And that's not like a Vermont problem.

It's not like we did a bad thing here.

What we did, we, all most schools in America, like, need a lot of work.

But we also, you know, suspended school construction aid, around the time of the Great Recession and never restored it.

And so that has, made it really hard for, school districts to go out and bond on the projects that they should have been bonding and doing to keep their schools in better shape.

And so the bill is now very much coming due.

You know, this is happening at the same time as, officials are having this big conversation about school reform in Vermont.

They're trying to redistrict the state.

They're trying to come up with new maps.

And as they kind of discuss this consolidation push, they have tried to continue putting the issue of school construction on hold.

And so there's even like a tax penalty right now, that can be triggered if you go out for a bond.

And so, you know, the state has put these measures in place that, make it even harder for communities to do this work.

At the same time as the work is becoming even more urgent.

And the added kind of irony here is that as the state kind of talks about redistricting, the big open question is how they're going to do any of this in a meaningful way without ponying up money to build new schools.

Right.

Because the conundrum, yes, because there are some places where you could close schools and send those kids other places without having to do a capital project there like that.

Low hanging fruit does exist, right?

However, in a lot of places it is not so, and I'll ea my shit with, that's my money.

But we'll see if they do.

That's going to have to do it for this week.

I want to thank our panel.

Lola Duffort from Vermont Public Kevin McCallum from Seven Days and Liam Elder-Connors from Vermont Public.

I'm Mitch Wortley.

I hope you'll join us next week for Vermont This Week.

Thanks so much for watching and thanks, everybody.

Sorry we got to get out there.

Oh, you just got.