Video + story: Shumlin deflects questions about vacation to Dominica

Nearly two-thirds of Gov. Shumlin's presser was spent answering the question that kept the media busy during previous days: Where's the Governor? Photo by Josh Larkin.

Editor’s note: Video is at the end of this story.

What do Dominica and a Middlesex highway garage have in common? Not much, unless you happen to be tracking the whereabouts of Gov. Peter Shumlin.

Dominica (a remote island in the Caribbean) was the site of Gov. Peter Shumlin’s exotic vacation destination; Middlesex is the location of the Agency of Transportation district garage where he held a press conference in which he praised the men and women who kept the roads clear during Monday’s epic snowstorm.

Shumlin, who was on vacation during the state’s biggest blizzard in four years, told the press he monitored the situation closely via cell phone from the West Indies.

The governor spent the first third of his weekly press conference detailing the heroic efforts of state employees who worked tirelessly through a long day and into the night to make sure the state’s highways were passable on Tuesday morning.

The governor spent the rest of the presser defending his five-day jaunt to Dominica. Reporters learned that the governor instructed his staff not to disclose his plans; that his security detail was left behind in Vermont; and that he drove himself to the airport (“I still remember how to drive”). Two people knew where he was going, Alex MacLean, his secretary of civil and military affairs, and Bill Lofy, his chief of
staff.

Over the weekend, the press corps played a game of “Where’s Waldo?” with the governor’s staff. First, his press secretary and the secretary of the Agency of Administration didn’t know where he was. Then they told the press that they knew where he was but they wanted to keep the location a secret in order to protect Shumlin’s privacy.

Today, the governor cited another reason for keeping his jaunt to Dominica under wraps: He was worried about security.

Key staff members and Agency of Transportation employees listen to Gov. Shumlin during a Wednesday press conference held in Middlesex. Photo by Josh Larkin.

He traveled, however, without his security detail.

Shumlin was unfazed (and unrepentant) when confronted by reporters who questioned the wisdom of his traveling without the officers. “On this particular trip I believe I made the right judgment,” he said. “The people of Dominica had no idea who I was, and there’s no better security than that.”

Had the media in Vermont broadcast information about his vacation plans, Shumlin said news organizations in Dominica could have picked up the news, and that would have exposed him to a security risk.

He said “other governors” take private vacations without telling the public where they’re headed. In Vermont, however, secret gubernatorial travels without security officers isn’t exactly standard operating procedure. Both his predecessors, Dean and Douglas, were accompanied by officers, sources say, and they let staff know where they were traveling.

“I would never go without security if I was traveling on state business,” Shumlin said.

Was the brouhaha worth it? Would he plan secret travels in future? “I won’t speculate about what might happen in the future,” Shumlin said.

“I think this is wonderful this is the debate we’re having in Vermont,” Shumlin said. “In other states, they’ve got protests in the streets, they’re shutting down hardworking state employees who plow roads, taking away the right to bargain collectively, they’re slashing budgets. It’s wonderful that Vermont is in such good shape that this is such an exciting topic today.”

In fact, there was a protest in Montpelier on Wednesday — that Shumlin wasn’t present for. Hundreds of Vermonters with a variety of developmental disabilities and mental health needs were bused in to a rally at the Statehouse to protest the governor’s recommended budget cuts. Shumlin’s presser, held eight miles away in Middlesex, started on the heels of the protest. It’s the second time in the last few weeks that the governor has sidestepped protests regarding highly-charged public policy issues. (A few weeks ago, opponents of the Kingdom Community Wind project came to Montpelier to exercise their right to assemble – Shumlin left Montpelier to visit with the pro-KCW contingent in Lowell while the activists were away.)

In comments about the rally, Shumlin renewed his commitment to keeping a lid on new taxes; he insisted the cuts to human services had to be made.