"When you stop to think about it, who is striking against the public—the politicians who cut services to the poor or elderly while refusing to appropriately tax the wealthy, or the unions who mobilize against the cuts? Who is extorting taxpayers—the corporations who threaten to pick up and leave if they don’t get millions in tax breaks or the workers who are committed to the communities they live in?"
"[Sue] Gage was focused enough to notice a plume of “smoke or steam” rising from the river below her, and then she noticed faint tire tracks in front of her, leading straight through a gap in the guardrail."
"In a letter to Jeb Spaulding, the secretary of Agency of Administration for Gov. Peter Shumlin, VSEA alleges that the emails were “willfully and permanently deleted…"
Free Press Story
Read VSEA Associate General Counsel’s Letters To AG & Sec’y of the Admin
At Friday’s all-employee VSH meeting with State officials, Sec’y of the Administration Spaulding seemed surprised by employee accusations that members of the Shumlin Administration were on-record earlier in 2011 talking about wanting to build a new 40-plus-bed hospital in central VT. He shouldn’t be. VSEA found these press quotes and shares them with you:
April 6, 2011 (Times Argus): “We’re targeting between 40 and 45 (beds),” [Mental Health Commissioner Chrstine Oliver] said, noting that plan was contingent on the ability to develop additional beds elsewhere in the state.
June 28, 2011 (Free Press) — "That is what we are working on right now," Oliver said. The Department of Mental Health is now considering replacing the 54-bed Vermont State Hospital with a new psychiatric hospital adjacent to Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin.
Just three days after the Governor announced his plan for the future of Vermont mental health, there was sadness, anger, frustration and fear in the VFW Hall yesterday, as a large group of Vermont State Hospital caregivers met with State officials, including Secretary of the Administration Spaulding, to learn more about what will happen to the patients in their care and what will happen to their job. Unfortunately, the employees left the Hall with little more knowledge then they entered with.
Following official meeting, VSEA President and Director meet directly with VSH employees to talk strategy and campaign development! Coming soon!