First, let’s briefly wrap up the confusion of Monday, when those who checked in early saw last Friday’s post, the system having disobeyed orders to put up the new one. Its (the system’s) insubordination was countermanded shortly before 9AM. Those who missed that post need only scroll down past this one.

Then let’s start today’s exercise calmly. The two (apparent) violations of state law about to be detailed do not portend the approach of a police state in Vermont. Jack-booted thugs are not combing the Green Mountains, nor are undercover agents listening to our innermost thoughts through transmitters placed in our tooth fillings.

Furthermore, the two incidents are in many ways not comparable. In one, nobody got hurt. In the other, somebody did.

Yet neither are they entirely unrelated. The thread that runs through them jeopardizes a free society.

Let’s first deal with the lesser offense. Earlier this year, the Legislature ordered the Education Department to prepare detailed budget-cutting recommendations to each of the state’s 283 school districts, and to have them finished by August 1.

That was Sunday. On Monday, a reporter for the Vermont Press Bureau (Rutland Herald and Barre/Montpelier Times-Argus) asked to see the report detailing the recommendations. Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca refused.

In refusing, he almost surely violated 1 V.S.A. § 318, which states, “upon request the custodian of a public record shall promptly produce the record for inspection.”

Unless one of the 39 exceptions in 1 V.S.A. § 317 applies, and then “the custodian” (Vilaseca in this case) must stipulate which exception he is citing in his refusal.

He did not.

Vilaseca did not dispute that the report was a “public record.” In an interview Tuesday, after the Rutland and Montpelier papers had run the story, he argued that the report “hadn’t been finalized” and was “still in working form.” Furthermore, he said,  the law only “requires me to release (the report) promptly,” a standard he said he would meet by releasing it Wednesday at a press conference.

But according to the Legislative mandate, the report was finished, and the dictionary defines “prompt” as “without delay.” A two-day wait is a rather good example of a delay.

From an administrative and policy perspective, what Vilaseca did made good sense. He wanted to send the report out to the schools to make sure there were no errors in it, as there were, he acknowledged, in a report on standardized test scores his department sent out last year which mistakenly described two schools as among the lowest-scoring in the state.

In other words, he didn’t want to embarrass himself or his Department.

Under those circumstances, what’s wrong with keeping the information secret for another two days?

Only that it was against the law, which in this case has two disadvantages. One is that a law-breaking Education Commissioner does not set a good example for the kids. The other is…well, hold that thought while we describe – briefly, because it’s been in the newspapers – the other incident.

Over Memorial Day weekend, police in Hartford were alerted about a possible burglary at a home. They entered the house (the door was apparently unlocked), and found in a third-floor bathroom one Wayne Burwell, a 34-year-old Dartmouth graduate, athletic trainer, and, perhaps not incidentally, an African-American.

Burwell was naked. He was sitting on the toilet. He was apparently unresponsive, perhaps due to a blood sugar problem that has caused him to lose consciousness on occasion.

Not exactly the picture of a dangerous desperado. But the police unleashed enough pepper spray to make both Burwell and some of the officers require treatment later. Then they handcuffed him, covered him with a blanket, and either dragged or led him outside “to wash his eyes,” in the words of Town Manager Hunter Rieseberg, who acknowledged that “some pepper spray had been discharged.”

While Burwell was still inside, one of his neighbors, Bob McKaig, a 71-year-old retired police officer from New Jersey, had come over to the house to warn the police that Burwell was ill. When Burwell was brought out, apparently under arrest, McKaig tried to tell them that Burwell had not been robbing the house. He owned it.

At which point, McKaig said, a “female officer” threatened to have him arrested for interfering. Burwell was taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital where, among other treatment, he needed stitches in his hands where the handcuffs had cut him.

At this point, a touch of uncertainty must be acknowledged. Only the police and Burwell (to the extent he was conscious) really know what happened in Burwell’s house. Rieseberg said when all the facts come out, “there will be some red faces, and they won’t be ours.” Perhaps something happened inside the house that gave the police reasons to be wary of Burwell.

But rarely does a burglar sneak into a house, make his way to an upstairs bathroom, take off his clothes and sit on the toilet in a semi-conscious state. Concluding that the police were  incompetent, or, as the Vermont ACLU director Allen Gilbert suspects, guilty of “racial profiling,” may be premature. Strongly suspecting it is not.

So what’s the connection between the Burwell case and the Ed Department report?

Under the same public records law, Anne Galloway, who runs the VT Digger web site, asked Hartford police for the arrest report. Police Chief Glenn W. Cutting and then Town Manager Rieseberg refused, as they had refused a similar request from the Valley News newspaper. The town argued that it has asked the State Police to investigate the incident,  triggering an exception to the public records law.

Yesterday, with the help of the ACLU, Galloway sued. The ACLU notes that the law specifies that “’records reflecting the initial arrest of a person’ are public and not exempt.”

(Full disclosure: As regular readers may know, the News Guy occasionally writes for VT Digger [see the link to it above] and knows, likes and admires Galloway as a first-class journalist).

The town’s response is that Burwell, handcuffed and pepper-sprayed though he may have been, was never arrested.

“No one was taken into custody. No one was transported to jail,” Rieseberg said. Nancy Sheahan, the Burlington lawyer who will represent the town, noted that “it is possible to detain someone without arresting him. In this particular case, there was not an arrest.”

Obviously, the courts will decide whether it was an arrest. At least some Vermont case law indicates that the Town may find it hard to prevail. Research undertaken out of the goodness of his heart by a prominent Vermont defense attorney found a 1990 Caledonia County case in which the court ruled that “the public interest clearly favors the right of access to public documents and public records (and) the exceptions listed in { 317(b) should be construed strictly against the custodians of the records and any doubts should be resolved in favor of disclosure.”

The lawyer also found a 1992 Supreme Court decision reversing a Chittenden County court decision denying a plaintiff “a list of names and addresses of taxpayers subject to a business gross receipts tax adopted by an ordinance of the City of Burlington.”

Needless to say, every case differs, and this one might have a different outcome. But the legal details really aren’t that important, because, while as acknowledged above, we can not know with 100 percent certainty what happened in Burwell’s house that day, we can know with about 98 percent certainty.

The cops messed up. And they want to keep the details secret because they fear that the details will provide powerful evidence that they messed up. That’s the main – if not quite the only – reason that officials want to keep records secret: to hide their misdeeds, or at least their foolishness. If the arrest report would make the Hartford police look good, reporters would have been invited to read it in comfort with coffee and muffins provided by the town.

And here’s why this is important: If police anywhere in Vermont  can handcuff and pepper-spray Wayne Burwell in his own house with impunity, then police somewhere in Vermont can do the same to you and to me. And the more they can hide the records of what they did, the more are they likely to do the same to you or to me.

Just as – though Armando Vilaseca’s offense was benign by comparison – if a high-ranking state official can ignore the public records law for 48 hours to make sure a few minor errors don’t embarrass him, another such official on another occasion may be emboldened to ignore it for 48 days or 48 weeks in an effort to cover up real malfeasance.

That’s why there’s a public records law to begin with, and why it ought to be enforced.

On the assumption that attention spans and (especially) appetites for solemn matters will be low this semi-holiday morning, the discussion of a rather solemn subject will be delayed until Wednesday, leaving today open for: a couple of updates; a political note or two; the posing of a question.

Update One: The one reporter who was planning to go to the Democratic Party fund-raiser a week ago Sunday ended up not going after all. Neither, as earlier acknowledged, did the News Guy, despite having made a stink about the Dems (subsequently reversed) decision to close the event.

But the point holds. When a public figure speaks at an event open to everyone (willing to pay) at a public accommodation, reporters ought to be given reasonable access because the public figure might say something the public should know.

Update Two: Newport Mayor Paul Monette, apparently aware that his city might become the laughing stock of the whole country (think what Jon Stewart might have done with this) used his veto power to squelch a city council decision banning the use of any French words on signs welcoming visitors to town. (See A Vermont House of Commons, June 28).

Bienvenue, nos amis.

Political Note One: The June 25 post, What the Polls Mean (and What They Don’t) noted that a clear picture of how the Democratic primary for governor shaped up wouldn’t be available until later this month, when WCAX-TV (Channel 3) was scheduled to make public results from a survey by the Research 2000 firm, which has been polling for the station for years.

Don’t hold your breath.

For reasons far too complicated (and legally treacherous) to explore here in detail, Research 2000 may not be polling in Vermont soon, or perhaps ever. After questions were raised about how the firm conducted its surveys, one of its major customers, the liberal web site Daily Kos, sued Research 2000, accusing it of “fraudulently manufacturing phony results.”

In response, Research 2000 president Del Ali (who has been cooperative and candid with the News Guy in the past) called the allegations in the suit “pure lies.” However the legal case gets untangled, the scheduled Vermont polling seems to be on hold. Channel 3 News Director Anson Tebbetts said Friday he was “still looking into it,” and had not been able to reach Ali by phone.

“We’ve used this guy for a very long time,” said Tebbetts. “It’s hard to read what’s really going on.”

Political Note Two—Despite the disinclination to pick on a campaign which is going nowhere anyway, some of the material emanating from Dan Freilich is too tempting to ignore.

As most voters probably do not know, Freilich is challenging the renomination U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy in the Democratic primary. On Freilich’s web site the other day, he proclaimed that one of his “three basic but rarely adhered to political principles” would be “country ahead of party (no ‘automatic caucasing’.)”

“Caucusing?” OK, The News Guy will plead guilty to pedantry here, but this was not an oral slip of the tongue. It was written, and, as one of merely three “basic principles,” should have been checked over.

But that’s not all. Freilich advocates a single-payer, government-run universal health insurance system, a perfectly reasonable position which many Vermonters (maybe even most) share. Interviewed on Vermont Public Radio’s Vermont Edition the other day, he said that President Obama and Democrats in Congress, including Leahy, should have held out for such a system rather than passing the health care law which just (partly) took effect.

Even if they did not immediately have the votes for a single payer system, Freilich said (not in these exact words; the News Guy does not take notes while driving, and no transcript is available)  Obama and the Democrats could have held off and arranged a “discussion” with the American people which might have led to adoption of a single-payer system.

They could have? With a well-disciplined opposition party determined to block passage of anything? With a media culture shaped to no small extent by a faction which has slipped the bonds of rationality, if not sanity?

Not hardly. Folks who put themselves forward, however futilely, for major office, ought to behave like grown ups.

Now the question: Can the government of Vermont find its behind with both hands?

The question is inspired, if not required, by recent revelations that high-ranking officials have, quite simply, fouled up. For years, however some Vermonters may have disagreed with Gov. Jim Douglas’s policies, few argued that he didn’t run a tight ship. Of late, that ship has sprung a few leaks.

First, the news that the sex offender registry does not include the names of some people who should be on it, and apparently does include the names of some who should not be on it.

Second, state officials failed to meet a federal deadline for arranging health insurance for low-income people with medical problems.

Third is the continuing failure of the State Hospital for the mentally ill to meet federal standards, a failure that has cost the state millions in federal aid and will cost another $9.7 million this year, according to former State Sen. Jim Leddy.

Ok, there are extenuating circumstances. The Federal Government is not always the world’s most flexible outfit. The sex offender registry is a relatively new operation. Finding an acceptable alternative to the State Hospital situation ain’t easy.

Still, these are the problems state governments are supposed to solve, especially when not solving them costs money.

At the dependably anti-Douglas web site Green Mountain Daily, Julie Waters writes that these mistakes are the result of a government led by “people who don’t believe in government.”

A plausible contention, neither confirmable nor refutable. But Jim Douglas is no Tea-partier, nor did he appoint any to high office. Just as likely is that, as the Douglas Administration heads into its last months, its department heads are tired, perhaps bored, and no doubt looking for their next jobs. It can be distracting.

That’s a possible explanation, not an excuse.

Then of course there’s the simple politics of the matter. The constituencies being ill-served, the poor who are either physically or mentally ill, don’t have much clout.

Especially the mentally ill, who, as Leddy said in the Burlington Free Press column he wrote about the State Hospital the other day, remain stigmatized.

Sometimes — stigmatized, powerless and frustrated — mentally ill people take their own lives. As it happens, in Vermont, perhaps the healthiest state in the union, the suicide rate is higher than the national average.

The somber subject to be dealt with for the rest of the week.

First, an announcement, and a plea: Four of the five Democratic candidates for governor (Deb Markowitz being the absentee) will meet for a so-called debate, more accurately a campaign forum, at 7PM Thursday at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common.

All are invited.

The host will be Sterling President Will Wootten.

The moderator will be…well, ahem, uh, as long as you asked, the moderator will be the News Guy his very own self.

Please do not throw tomatoes as the moderator. He will be doing the best he can. But he could use some help. What would you ask the candidates for governor if you had the opportunity?

Some of the issues that should be brought up may seem obvious – taxes, schools, jobs, Vermont Yankee. Except that they all seem to agree on taxes, schools, and Vermont Yankee. And it isn’t clear that governor can do much about jobs.

Remember eight years ago when candidate Jim Douglas’s slogan was “Jim =Jobs.” Sounded good, but even before the Recession, private sector job growth under Douglas was pretty close to zero.

Not necessarily his fault. Campaign rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, state government policy may be irrelevant to job growth.

Or maybe not. Anyway, if anyone has probing, specific, substantive questions he or she thinks someone should ask one of these folks, here’s your chance to suggest them to someone who is going to do the asking. And who will appreciate the submission whether or not he uses it.

(star break)

MEDIA NOTE—Not censure, this time, but praise. In the continuing discussion about the role of hydro power in the state, Vermont Public Radio did what news organizations are supposed to do – spent some money, sent reporters to cover the news.

VPR reporter John Dillon went 600 miles north of the border who where Hydro-Quebec, from which Vermont utilities just agreed to buy a whole mess of power, has built a huge dam which will divert 70 percent of the waters of the Rupert River to help generate that power.

As Dillon pointed out, the Rupert is just one of three rivers which will be part of a system of four dams, 74 dikes and a new tunnel carved through a mountain, all powering four new generating stations still farther north.

At the same time, VPR’s noon Vermont Edition went to Montreal where host Jane Lindholm presided over a spirited and informed debate between Claude Demers, Hydro-Quebec’s science communicator, and  Daniel Breton, founder of  a Quebec environmental organization.

One angle VPR didn’t deal with, and neither has anybody else. Hydro-Quebec gets criticized from folks on the left side of the political spectrum for those immense dams which have flooded thousands of acres of land, with damaging consequences for both the natural world and the Cree Indians who live in northern Quebec.

Another big corporation abusing the land and indigenous folks in the thirst for profit for the stockholders, no?

No. Hydro-Quebec doesn’t have stockholders. It’s owned by the Province and the people thereof. It is, in short, a socialist institution.

(star break)

More (mostly) good news: Some additional ammunition for the argument made in the post titled Not So Bad (June 4) that life in Vermont is…not so bad.

Maybe even pretty good.

The latest issue of  Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine named Burlington one of the “ten best cities for the next decade.” Praised  for its “creativity and entrepreneurship” Burlington was tagged the eighth best city for both living and working over the next several years. Austin, Texas, was first.

In addition, recently released  (or, perhaps more accurately, hitherto ignored) Census figures confirm that Vermont is one of the most affluent states, with a relatively low poverty rate, and one of the lowest rates of child poverty in the country. The statistics are from 2008, the most recent available.

Only eight other states have child (under age 18) poverty rates in the same low category as Vermont: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Utah, and Wyoming.

For the total poverty rate, Vermont was in the second best category, ranked with 13 other states with rates between 10.2 and 13.1 percent (Vermont’s was 10.4). Seven states, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Maryland, had lower rates.

As is true almost everywhere, Vermont’s under-18 poverty rate (12.8 percent) is slightly higher than its overall rate.  But not everywhere. Chittenden County’s total poverty rate was 9.6 percent, but the child poverty rate was 9.2 percent.

But that was unusual. In the other 13 counties, the under-18 rate was either slightly or not so slightly higher. Even Addison County, which had the lowest total poverty rate (9.5 percent had a slightly higher rate (10.6 percent, for those under 18.

Both the highest rates and the biggest differences between total and child poverty were in the Northeast Kingdom. Caledonia County had an 11.8 percent total poverty rate, with 17.1 percent of its under-18s in poverty. In Orleans County, the overall rate was 14.3 percent, with a 19.3 percent poverty ate for those under 18.

And in Essex County, the poorest in the state, 14.8 percent of all persons lived below the poverty line, but the under-18 rate was 23.8 percent.

That puts Essex at a level comparable with some of the rural counties of the Southeast and Southwest, the poorest areas of the country.

None of this is a big surprise. But it deserves more attention than it has been getting from either officials or observers. That latter, that’s us. More attention will be paid, starting with maybe a few questions to these candidates at Thursday’s debate.