A Look Back At Recent News
by
Mike Smith
Some great reporting by Sue Allen of the Times Argus and John Briggs of the Burlington Free Press deserves special recognition.
Sue Allen, an experienced reporter now with the Times Argus, exposed a longstanding financial error that occurred in 2004 when the City of Montpelier mistakenly overpaid a contractor who cashed the check and spent it instead of returning the money. Now that contractor is going bankrupt leaving the city out some $400K. What has Montpelier residents up in arms--besides the overpayment and financial loss--is that the city was not forthright in letting the public know about this financial problem. City officials discovered the overpayment in October of 2006, but stayed quiet about it. It was only after Allen recently discovered the mistake and subsequent financial problem that the city came clean.
John Briggs of the Burlington Free Press, another seasoned reporter,
was instrumental in revealing the freewheeling financial exploits of
the City of Burlington in its attempts to bail out Burlington Telecom.
Accepting taxpayer money through a loan by the city longer than 60-days
is in violation of Burlington Telecom’s state approved operating
license. The city needed to be paid back in this 60-day time frame
because Burlington Telecom was granted a license based on its
assertions that it had the ability to be financially self-sufficient
from self-generated revenue and not be a burden on city coffers or
taxpayers. Although the $17 million bailout of BT by the city took
place over nearly two years and still has not been paid back, Burlington
officials apparently kept the Public Service Board in the dark until
just recently. Many on the City Council are still bewildered with the
fuzzy explanations they are getting from city officials about the
borrowing. It was Briggs who shed light on the underlying financial
transaction and now city officials seem to be scrambling to explain
themselves. In addition, Terri Hallenbeck of the Burlington Free Press
has done an excellent job following up on the BT story. Shay Totten of
the weekly newspaper Seven Days also deserves recognition for his
reporting of the messy financial facts at Burlington Telecom.
Too often we are critical about the stories that reporters write, or don’t write. Sometimes the criticism is justified and sometimes it isn’t. But these two stories which root out government behavior that is less than transparent remind us why it is important that good journalism must survive in this internet age.
Too often we are critical about the stories that reporters write, or don’t write. Sometimes the criticism is justified and sometimes it isn’t. But these two stories which root out government behavior that is less than transparent remind us why it is important that good journalism must survive in this internet age.
Not bad. A good job would be figuring out any personal relationships between city hacks and the formerly successful but mistakenly city funded businesses.
Posted by: GreggB | October 22, 2009 at 09:05 AM
Hmmm Wasn't that long ago that a high-profile hospital CEO went to jail for lying to regulators about a major project.....
Posted by: Doug Wacek | October 22, 2009 at 04:44 PM