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2 NEWS THE COMMONS • Wednesday, April 20, 2011 139 Main St. #604, P.O. Box 1212 Brattleboro, VT 05302 (802) 246-6397 fax (802) 246-1319 www.commonsnews.org Offi ce hours by appointment 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday–Friday Jeff Potter, Editor Betsy Jaffe, Manager Randolph T. Holhut, News Editor Olga Peters, Staff Reporter Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg, Copy Editor David Shaw, Photographer Nancy Gauthier, Advertising Mgr. Leslie Powers, Advertising Cal Glover-Wessel, Distribution Bill Proctor, Distribution Richard Henke and Mia Gannon Vermont Associates Trainees www.vermontassociates.org Deadline for the April 27 issue Friday, April 22 ABOUT THE NEWSPAPER The Commons is a nonprofi t community newspaper published since 2006 by Vermont Independent Media, Inc., a nonprofi t corporation under section 501(c)3 of the federal tax code. We now publish weekly. The newspaper is free, but it is supported by readers like you through tax-deductible donations, through advertising support, and through support of charitable foundations. SUBMITTING NEWS ITEMS/TIPS We welcome story ideas and news tips. Please contact the newsroom at news@commonsnews.org or at (802) 246-6397. Most press releases and announce- announce- ments of upcoming events appear on www.commonsnews.org, where they can be made available sooner. VOICES The Commons presents a broad range of essays, memoirs, and other subjective material in Voices, our editorial and commentary section. We want the paper to provide an unpredictable variety of food for thought from all points on the political spectrum. We especially invite responses to material that we’ve printed in the paper. We do not publish unsigned or anonymous letters, and we only very rarely withhold names for other pieces. pieces. When space is is an issue, our priority is to run contributions that have not yet appeared in other publications. Please check with the editor before writing essays or other original submis- sions of substance. Editorials represent the collective voice of The Commons and are written by the editors or by members of the Vermont Independent Media Board of Directors. The views expressed in our Voices section are those of individindividual contributors. Bylined commen- taries by members of the Vermont Independent Media board of directors represent their individual opinions; as an organization, we are committed to providing a forum for the entire community. As a 501(c)3 nonprofi t organization, Vermont Independent Media is legally prohibited from enen- dorsing political political candidates. ADVERTISING Your advertising directly supports a better newspaper. The display advertising rate is $10.50 per column inch, and The Commons offers discounts for three or more advertising insertions. To place your ad, contact the advertising coor- dinator at ads@commonsnews.org ads@commonsnews.org. Advertising fi les can be saved as PDF (press-ready setting), EPS (with fonts converted to outlines), or as TIFF (600 pixels per inch), inch) or printed as black-and-white hard copy. We can provide limited creative services for your ad design and help you fi nd a pro- fessional designer if you have unusual needs. SPONSOR A PAGE Your donation of $50 pays to print a single page of The Commons Commons. . This contribution helps us publish a larger newspaper with more news, and we acknowledge these donations on the bottom of a page. Please specify how how you would like to be credited, or whether you wish to donate in honor of or in memory of another person. Mail your donation, or contribute online at http://donate. commonsnews.org commonsnews.org. DISTRIBUTION The Commons distributes 5,500 cop- ies per issue to almost every Windham County town weekly. Get in touch if you would like us to consider adding your business. SINCE SOME HAVE ASKED LATELY... Despite our similar name, The Com- Com- mons is not affiliated with Ver mont Commons Commons, , a statewide journal that is strongly linked with a movement ad- vocating Vermont’s secession from the United States. VIM’S MISSION To create a forum for community particpartic- ipation through publication of The Commons and Commonsnews.org; to pro mote local, independent journalism in Windham County; and and to promote civic engagement by building media skills among Windham County residents through the Media Mentoring Project. BOARD OF DIRECTORS Barbara S. Evans, Barry Aleshnick, Alan O. Dann, Dan DeWalt, Peter Seares, Bob Rottenberg, Rottenberg, Curtiss Reed Jr., John Nirenberg, Jane Noyes. ————— Without our volunteers, this newspaper would exist only in our imaginations. Special thanks to: Editorial support: Joyce Marcel, David Shaw, Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg Cohen-Rottenberg Operations support: Simi Berman, Chris Wesolowski, Diana Bingham, Jim Maxwell, Bill Pearson, Andi Waisman, Barbara Walsh, Menda Waters BRATTLEBORO Longtime lawyer scales back his work Colleagues celebrate the life and times of Tim O’Connor, the former speaker of the Vermont House, who is retiring — well, sort of By Randolph T. Holhut The Commons BRATTLEBORO—It wasn’t quite an Irish wake, since the guest of honor was still very much among the living. But the Guinness and the stories flowed at the law office of Thomas Costello last Thursday as the friends and colleagues of Timothy O’Connor gathered to pay homage and to salute his 50 years of service as an attorney and public official in Brattleboro. The 74-year-old O’Connor, who has worked as a lawyer in town since 1961, retired on April 1. Aside from taking care of any pending cases, O’Connor turned over the practice to attorney Jim Maxwell, who will be leaving his office in the Hooker-Dunham building on Main Street and moving into O’Connor’s former office on 136 Western Ave. O’Connor won’t totally leave the legal business. He said he will help Maxwell part-time. Maxwell said he knows he has big shoes to fill in taking over O’Connor’s practice. “You don’t over for a legend,” he said. “You try to work hard and do the same good job that he did. Every lawyer is different, but the one thing that is paramount is the relationships with clients, and Tim was exemplary in that regard.” A lifetime in a few blocks The site for Tim O’Connor’s retirement party was a serendipitous junction of the big moments of his life. Costello’s office is just up the hill from St. Michael’s School, from where O’Connor was graduated from high school, and from St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church, where he married a girl from Putney named Martha Hannum nearly 50 years ago. Before Costello hung his shingle on Putney Road, his office belonged to Edward John, the attorney who hired O’Connor out of Georgetown University’s Law School five decades ago. “Eddie was in the front office, and Tim got the small office [in the back], and he became known to many around town as ‘the mole in the hole,’” said Costello. The lawyers and judges who gathered at Costello’s were across the street from Windham District Court, and just a stone’s throw away from the Municipal Center, former site of the Brattleboro Municipal Court, over which O’Connor once presided. And they stood just a few blocks away from Oak Street, the longtime home of Tim and Martha O’Connor. “A whole lifetime in just a few blocks,” said former Vermont Superior Court Judge Arthur O’Dea, a classmate of O’Connor’s at Holy Cross and Georgetown Law School. “How many people can say that?” “Before the age of computers, everything was done alphabetically, so that’s how we ended up as roommates,” he said. “Mass was at 7 a.m., and it was mandatory in those days [at Holy Cross], and the Jesuits checked you in.” So, he said, “we established a custom where every other day, we checked each other in for Mass. We liked to sleep, so for three years, I would attend Mass one day, and Tim would attend on the other day.” With that subterfuge, a lifelong friendship was born. “When I moved up to Vermont from New Jersey in 1969, I could get into any door, because all I had to do was say I was friend of Timmy’s,” said O’Dea. O’Connor was admitted to the Vermont Bar in 1961, and like many small-town lawyers, he started out as a generalist, doing everything from criminal cases to divorces to probate law. His colleagues praised O’Connor for his affable nature and his ability to reach agreements without being disagreeable. The legal community in Brattleboro was a tight-knit one when O’Connor started out, said attorney Lawrin Crispe. “It was a very congenial bar,” said Crispe. “We’d always got together. We’d used to have the docket calls, and judges would call us up to Newfane, and Timmy was always at the center of that. He tried to keep up the camaraderie in the interest of trying to maintain civility. “My dad [Luke Crispe, a longtime attorney in Brattleboro] used to tell me that ‘Timmy is one guy you can rely on anytime you’ve got a problem. You always count on Tim O’Connor.’ Over 40 years, Tim has provided me with a lot of good pointers, a lot of good education.” Crispe called O’Connor “the consummate country lawyer” and said he has set a great example for young lawyers in Brattleboro to follow in terms of “not only earning a decent living, but also doing a lot for his community at the same time, and doing a lot for his clients, which is evident by the loyalty that they show Tim.” O’Connor eventually gave RANDOLPH T. HOLHUT/THE COMMONS Martha O’Connor pins a boutonniere on the lapel of her husband of nearly 50 years, Timothy O’Connor. up criminal law to focus mainly on real estate, contracts, and wills. He also spent time on the other side of the bench, as the presiding judge in the former Brattleboro Municipal Court from 1964 to 1967. He said he gave up that job when the court went from meeting two mornings a week operating full time. Vermont Superior Court John Wesley read a proclamation from his court honoring O’Connor. Wesley remembered his days as a Legal Services lawyer in the 1970s, “when you weren’t necessarily immediately looked at as part of the group.” He said he knew he shed his outsider status when O’Connor offered him tickets to see his beloved Georgetown Hoyas play basketball when they came up to Boston. “There are fraternities, and then there are fraternities,” said Wesley. “Getting into that fraternity, I knew that was a big step.” Wesley said he learned a lot about practicing “not only real estate law, but community law, through Tim’s generosity.” Under the golden dome Besides his long legal career, O’Connor has served as town moderator and was elected six times to the Vermont House of Representatives, serving as House Speaker from 1975 to 1980. Not only was O’Connor the first Democrat elected Speaker of the House, he was elected even though his party was in the minority throughout his tenure. Costello, who served in the Legislature as a Democratic representative from Rutland during O’Connor’s tenure, remembers taking a trip to Boston and meeting the two most powerful figures in Massachusetts politics, House Speaker Thomas McGee and Senate President William Bulger. “These are real tough guys, yet RANDOLPH T. HOLHUT/THE COMMONS Former Gov. Thomas Salmon, right, offers his praise of Timothy O’Connor, who was Speaker of the House during Salmon’s second term as governor. Behind them is longtime Brattleboro attorney Charles “Chuck” Cummings. they genuflected before Tim and called him ‘The Miracle Man,’” said Costello. Costello said Bulger and McGee couldn’t believe that a Democrat could get elected to lead a legislative body as a member of the minority party. “That was something that was beyond their expectations,” he said. O’Connor’s successor as House Speaker, Republican Stephan Morse of Newfane, said he learned very quickly as a young lawmaker how O’Connor pulled off a seemingly impossible political feat. Watching him preside over the House, Morse said that “there was no bias.” “It was all fair,” he said. “He was there to make sure the people’s work got done. To his credit, he made sure that people were getting along.” Thomas P. Salmon’s tenure as governor of Vermont between 1973 and 1977 coincided with O’Connor’s rise to the speakership. “On paper, there was no way that a Democrat would get elected Speaker,” Salmon said. “But it happened, my friends, for one reason, and one reason only — the Legislature of the state of Vermont had never met any person as fair, as decent, as thoughtful, as caring, as the member from Brattleboro.” In 1980, O’Connor ran for the Democratic nomination for governor and Salmon said he received “90 percent of the vote in Windham County. Nine-O. That is off the wall. That is bonkers. That is beyond belief. Sadly, he didn’t have that kind of pull in Chittenden County. Or Franklin County. Or a few other places. He came up just a bit short.” O’Connor narrowly lost to then-Attorney General Jerry In Beautiful NEWFANE Available May 1st 1 bedroom non-smoking apartment wood heat, stone porch, wooded area Rent $575, includes electric Pet negotiable Call 802-365-9582 Diamond, 50-48. Diamond was then clobbered that fall by Republican Richard Snelling. O’Connor never ran for statewide office again. Retirement time At 74, O’Connor said he thought the time was right to retire. He said he’s still healthy and wants to spend more time with his three grandsons, Daniel, 8, and Jacob and David, who are 4-year-old twins. That was illustrated by his wife’s Martha’s absence from last Thursday’s party to attend Daniel’s music recital at Vernon Elementary School in his grandpa’s stead. He saluted his wife for all the help she provided over the years, both in raising their three children and in running a small-town law office. “Over the past 50 years, she has worked very closely with me at the office. You look back and see who has been constantly there, and I’ve many secretaries and many associates, but I had one wife who was shoulder-toshoulder with me — answering the phone, taking messages at night, and constantly being on call.” When he graduated from Georgetown Law in 1961, Washington was swept up in the excitement of John F. Kennedy’s presidency. It would have been easy to stay in Washington, but O’Connor chose to come back home to Brattleboro. It is a decision he has never regretted. “I say now, without any question, except for asking my wife to marry me in July of 1961, the best thing I did was to come back here and to begin the practice of law,” he said. “From hearing stories from my classmates practicing in New York and Washington, I think the interaction is so difficult that they burn out faster than we do here,” he added. That lack of burnout means that while O’Connor is giving up full-time work, it will be tough to make that happen in practice. “He’s not retired,” said Crispe. “He’s going to have people chasing him for years to come.”
THE COMMONS • Wednesday, April 20, 2011 NEWS 3 ■ Voting turnout FROM PAGE 1 ■ Entergy FROM PAGE 1 statewide election numbers, and she said that Brattleboro’s turnout numbers are on par with other Vermont towns. According to the elections division, the ratio of voter turnout statewide to the number of eligible voters in Vermont was 66.7 percent in the 2008 general election. The elections division, which publishes general election statistics and results beginning with 1974, records the election with the lowest turnout as 1978, with 44.4 percent. The highest turnout, 1992, was 69.8 percent. When they want to vote, Vermonters can choose between going to the polls, early voting via absentee ballots, or voting by phone for people with disabilities. In an attempt to increase turnout, former Secretary of State Deb Markowitz advanced changes to the voting law that resulted in increased convenience of early voting, said Scheele. The easier early voting laws went into effect in time for the 2002 general election. And early voting has increased. Absentee ballot use has escalated from 35,417 in 2002 to 94,664 in the 2008 general election. The 2010 statewide general election saw 50,474 early ballots. But despite the increase in early voting, overall turnout remains stagnant. Scheele attributes this to Vermont’s “non-diverse” population and a lack of citizen-led initiatives. In general, she said, other states with more diverse populations and the ability to put initiatives on their ballots, such as California, have more special interest groups pushing those initiatives. Scheele responded to the suggestion that the committee offer a “big prize” for people showing up to vote. “Yeah. No. Bad idea,” she said. ”There’s a [Vermont] constitutional prohibition [against] that.” Barriers? At the April 12 meeting, participants identified 22 barriers thwarting people’s ability to vote. Some of the barrier were logistical, such as lack of transportation. The audience suggested solutions such as finding volunteer drivers to bring people to the polls or allowing people to register to vote at the same time as they apply for a driver’s Finnell Fi Fin innell ell ll Roofing Ro Roofi fin ing ng LLC LC Shingles Slate Slat ate te Rubber Metal Met eta tal Residential/Commercial Insured www.finnellroofing.com 802.257.0841 �� The Far East Just Got a Little Closer! 7 High Street Brattleboro, VT (802) 251-1010 ThaiBambooVT.com license. Cappy answered most of the suggestions by pointing out existing programs like a shuttle program to drive people from their homes to the Brattleboro Union High School, where the town holds elections. Byron Stookey suggested that voting would increase if the polls opened two hours earlier, at 7 a.m., because more workers employed at 9-to-5 jobs could get to the high school. He said that while standing outside BUHS during elections, he identified those voting as mostly who are retired, self-employed, or otherwise not working traditional office hours. Cappy said that BUHS does not allow the poll workers in early enough to allow for a 7 a.m. start, noting that school officials have told her that doing so would disrupt school. Further conversation revealed that the request to not disrupt school came from the athletics department. Many area towns do not open the polls until 10 a.m., although some towns open their polling stations at 8 or 9 a.m. Contacted after the meeting, Scheele said she didn’t favor a 7 a.m. polling start because Vermont provides an absentee voting window of 45 days. Because of the ease of early voting, she would prefer polls open statewide at 10 a.m. This later start time would mean better count numbers, because the poll workers would feel less fatigued, she said. Combating apathy More of the stumbling blocks the group identified, however, focused on a culture of “apathy” towards voting. District 3 Town Meeting representative Spoon Agave said he believed a large number of voters feel their ballots don’t count. No matter who they elect, nothing ever changes, he said. Agave also serves on the Charter Review Commission, and has served on the Brattleboro Selectboard. “People think one candidate is just like the other candidate,” said Cappy. Tessa Anders, a social studies teacher at BUHS, said many of her students did follow politics but felt a “lack of connection.” Her students couldn’t see how what they cared about in their daily lives connected to the big picture of democracy or local, state, and federal decision-making processes. Charter Review Commission Chair Larry Bloch said he felt that part of the apathy stemmed from a lack of civics education in schools. He also made a push for a charter change he wants to propose at a later date to lower the age required to vote in local elections to 16. Bloch added that most 18-year-olds are in a state of transition “and ready to leave the area,” making it harder for them to vote. Kurt Daims said that people understand that they need to honor the rights that veterans have fought for. People don’t understand the responsibilities of citizenship, such as jury duty and voting, he said. Bloch said in some countries, voting is compulsory and allows for a “protest vote” like a “none of the above” option. “It redefines apathy,” said Daims. Schneck said the lack of voting wasn’t just down to high school students. District 1 Town Meeting representative Peter Cooper said some people “vote out of a tradition or habit.” But what if someone hasn’t built the ballot habit? Schneck said it’s important to “dispel misinformation” about the voter registration process, like the falsehood that registering to vote also means a person is automatically drafted in the army or put in the pool for jury duty. The audience also discussed shifting the topic of voting into community discussions yearround, so voting could remain in people’s minds beyond election season. “I’m in no way swayed by these barriers,” said Schneck referring to the list compiled by the audience. Schneck said he felt encouraged by the group of people committed to increasing voting who took the time to show up “on a random Tuesday night.” Going forward, Schneck is developing a survey to gather information about why people do or don’t vote in Brattleboro to help the group gather more information and statistics. The next meeting will take place May 10 at 6 p.m. in the Selectboard Meeting Room on the second floor of the Municipal Center. The committee plans to meet once a month. Contact Schneck at kschneck@marlboro.edu for more information. Support BBBS...learn more at rivercu.com BE A BIG �� T'AI CHI CH'UAN in Brattleboro Look into Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Windham County �� Entergy, he said, offered a 20year power purchase agreement with state utilities and offered to negotiate with the Vermont Department of Public Service to establish a date for decommissioning the plant. Last month, Entergy announced that its attempts to sell Vermont Yankee to prospective buyers fell through because of the anti-nuclear political environment in the state. “The governor and many in the General Assembly have concluded the plant should be shut down,” Smith said. “This has left us with no other choice but to seek relief in the court system.” The announcement came just two weeks after Entergy officials told Gov. Peter Shumlin that they planned to continue operating the plant — without permission from the state — after the mandated shutdown date of March 21, 2012. “At that meeting they indicated they wouldn’t be suing the state, they would just instead continue to operate the plant,” Shumlin said at a press conference on Monday. “Obviously, they changed their minds.” Long legal engagement Attorney General Bill Sorrell told reporters that the lawsuit was not unexpected. In fact, Sorrell said he and a team of three staff lawyers had been preparing for just such a potentiality for months. Sorrell said that now that the battle is “joined,” he foresees a long legal engagement with Entergy ahead. “I can’t imagine this case is going to be resolved at the district court level here in Vermont and that’s going to be the end of it,” Sorrell said. “Perhaps, but I think it’s entirely likely that this is a case that will be appealed by one party or other to the federal appeals court in New York City and conceivably beyond that,” he added. “Although we could get an initial read on the case in the relatively near future, it’s entirely possible that this case will be litigated for quite some time into the future,” Sorrell said. Memorandum of understanding Entergy purchased Vermont Yankee in 2002. Four years later, Gov. James Douglas signed into law Act 160, requiring that Entergy obtain a Certificate of Public Good from the Vermont Public Service Board to continue operating the plant beyond its original certificate’s expiration on March 21, 2012. At that point, the plant will be 40 years old. Shumlin said that in 2006, when the law was signed by Douglas, “Entergy Louisiana enthusiastically supported the bill.” “I should also remind you when Entergy Louisiana bought the plant, it signed a memorandum of understanding that they would comply with all Vermont laws,” Shumlin said. “We fully expect Entergy Louisiana to be held to the same standard as any Vermonter — that they follow Vermont laws. As governor, I will see to it that Entergy Louisiana does follow the law.” Smith said the state of Vermont “changed the rules on us.” The 2006 law, he said, “took BRAIN STORMIN’ Let your voice be heard and tune into Brain Stormin’ . Each week we’ll pick a different issue to problem solve, from local topics to issues of our state, our country and our world. Lively conversation with guests, callers, and stimulating music to rouse the mind. Sign Up Now For Our Oil Burner Protection Plan BARROWS & FISHER OIL, INC. 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MAINTENANCE PROGRAM CHECK AND ADJUST DRAFT REGULATOR CHECK AND FLUSH LOW WATER CUTOFF CHECK AND LUBRICATE CIRCULATOR OR BLOWER MOTOR AND FAN BEARING CHECK CHIMNEY AND DRAFT CONDITIONS CLEAN AND RESET ELECTRODES CLEAN DRAFT TUBES, FAN HOUSING CLEAN HEATING SURFACES OF BOILER OR FURNACE COMPLETE EFFICIENCY TEST INSPECT AND ADJUST ALL SAFETY CONTROLS LUBRICATE MOTORS, MOVING PARTS REPLACE ATOMIZING NOZZLE, PUMP STRAINER, AND OIL FILTER CARTRIDGE REPLACEMENT OF AIR FILTERS @ $2.00 PER FILTER PARTS REPLACEMENT SCHEDULE �� Call the Comfort Consultant 802-254-4574 or Kearley Fuel 802-874-4921 35 Main St., Brattleboro, Vt. control of plant’s future away from the Public Service Board and instead it placed Vermont Yankee’s fate in the hands of political decisionmakers, namely the state General Assembly and the governor who could deprive [Entergy] from operating the plant for unsupported, arbitrary reasons. This is not what we signed up for in 2002.” Shumlin has long opposed relicensing of Vermont Yankee because the aging plant has been plagued by problems (a water cooling tower collapse, transformer fire, tritium leaks, radioactive steam releases inside the plant, and maintenance glitches). Entergy officials, however, maintain that Vermont Yankee is one of the most reliable and best performing nuclear plants in its fleet. More news this week appears at commonsnews.org THURSDAYS 9 - 11AM ON WOOL LP 100.1 FM BELLOWS FALLS VT WARNING: SMART TALK AHEAD Frank Barrows
Page 1: Entergy sues Vermont over state per
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Fire rages in Brooks House, leaving 60 needing ... - The Commons

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