Contact
Ali Peterson
Ali_Peterson@leahy.senate.gov

Leahy And Shumlin: Vermont’s DR Power Equipment Is State’s First Manufacturer To Attract Investor Visa Capital

WINOOSKI, Vt. (WEDNESDAY, Jan. 18) – During a tour of a new assembly line at DR Power Equipment in Winooski Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Gov. Peter Shumlin (D-Vt.) and Country Home Products CEO Joseph Perrotto announced that the company has attracted more than 20 foreign investors who will contribute more than $10 million in capital through Vermont’s EB-5 Regional Center Program. The capital will help the firm retain about 200 jobs at the company’s Vergennes headquarters and Winooski assembly facility.

During their visit to DR Power Equipment, Leahy and Shumlin had a chance to try out one of the company’s newest products, a mechanized log splitter that the company says splits wood six times faster than ordinary log splitters — the DR RapidFire Log Splitter. While Leahy and Shumlin split wood, Perrotto explained that the new EB-5 investment would help the firm bring other new products to market. Perrotto said that the company had benefited from the Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center’s Innovation Engineering program, which helped bring the product from idea to market in less than six months.

“The new influx of capital as a result of the EB-5 program could help Country Home Products create an even faster log splitter, or a better trimmer or brush hog,” said Leahy, who has been the leading champion of the EB-5 investor visa program in Congress for more than a decade. “Most importantly to Vermont, it means jobs, supporting the retention of the 200 Vermonters who work at Country Home Products. One day this investment could even add more jobs. All at a cost of zero to the taxpayer.”

“The EB-5 Regional Center Program will speed Country Home Products innovation engineering initiative,” said Perrotto. “It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Senator Leahy, Governor Shumlin and their extremely professional and helpful staffs.”

During the visit to DR Power Equipment, Shumlin stressed the unique nature of Vermont’s Regional Center Program, which, unlike most regional center programs across the country, benefits from the State of Vermont reviewing a project instead of a private entity.

Vermont’s EB-5 Regional Center Program, administered by the State of Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, gives Vermont businesses the ability to attract capital from foreign investors. Leahy said Vermont’s EB-5 Regional Center Program has incentivized hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in Vermont and created and retained thousands of jobs at Jay Peak Resort and Sugarbush. Leahy said Country Home Products is the first manufacturer to complete an EB-5 effort in Vermont. Leahy estimated the company would begin using EB-5 secured funds sometime in mid to late 2012.

The EB-5 Regional Center Program is a federal program that attracts foreign investors seeking legal permanent residency and a chance to invest in the American economy. Investors must pledge a minimum of $500,000 to a project within an approved regional center and independently apply for an EB-5 visa. If approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), foreign investors are granted a conditional two-year green card. After two years, the investor must provide proof that they have created at least ten jobs as a result of the investment and have met additional investment requirements set by USCIS. As a result of the program’s popularity, additional applications are pending with USCIS to establish new Regional Centers in several states.

The EB-5 Regional Center Program is set to expire in September of 2012. Leahy has successfully won congressional extension of the program several times and in March introduced legislation to permanently extend the program.

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The Winooski Block. Photo by Doug Kerr.

Handverger v. City of Winooski, 2011 VT 134.

Round two in the dispute between the City of Winooski and its former City Manager came out two weeks after the first.

Where the first case focused on the process due to plaintiff for his termination, the second focuses on the relationship between plaintiff and the City’s Attorney.

It is no spoiler to say that the relationship between the two was not good. To put it in generic terms, anytime your corporation’s legal counsel sends a public letter to the Board of Directors demanding your termination you should be dusting off the resume and preparing exit strategies. Furthermore, that attorney is not your friend and is unlikely to be advocating or offering advice on your behalf.

The gist of plaintiff’s claim in this case is that the City’s Attorney was, in fact, his attorney and that his subsequent letters and demands that he be fired breached the duty that every attorney owes a client and effectively embarrassed plaintiff in public.

The trial court and the SCOV on appeal reject this argument under the two variations offered by plaintiff.

The first variation is that the City Attorney owed plaintiff a duty by virtue of plaintiff’s role as City Manager. The SCOV notes that a municipal attorney, like any attorney for a corporation, only owes a duty to the municipality itself. He was never plaintiff’s attorney and to the extent that he interacted with plaintiff, it was in plaintiff’s capacity as an officer of the city. Because there was no evidence that the City Attorney represented this relationship to be otherwise and because this dispute fell outside of plaintiff’s official duty as an agent of the City, there is no fiduciary duty.

In other words, there was never an attorney–client relationship between the City Attorney and plaintiff. With no relationship, there is no basis for a claim of duty to plaintiff and no breach of such a duty.

Plaintiff’s second variation is to urge the SCOV to see a fiduciary duty based on plaintiff’s extensive work with the City Attorney and the advice sought and obtained from the City Manager. Again, the SCOV does not bit. Certainly, if the City Attorney had advocated for or advised plaintiff on a personal level, there would be a fiduciary duty. But the facts here show no such personal relationship.

Plaintiff cites to several cases where the SCOV or another jurisdiction was willing to read a fiduciary relationship into the relationship between an attorney and a staff member or officer, but the SCOV distinguishes these cases by showing that in each and every one there was some type of ownership stake or interest that made the individual more than just an “officer” of the entity but an owner or partial owner of it. Without that stake in the City, plaintiff cannot claim a fiduciary relationship, and City Attorney is found to have no elevated duty of care toward plaintiff.

Without a relationship, plaintiff’s claims necessarily fail. The City Attorney acted against plaintiff’s personal interests, but he acted in the City’s interest, which means no cause of action lies against the City Attorney. Case is dismissed.

Plaintiff has another strike out. Perhaps his federal court claim is faring better.

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MEDIA ADVISORY

WHAT: On Tuesday, February 23, there will be an informative forum for community members to talk about the imminent vote on the re-licensing of Vermont Yankee and the resolution that is on the ballot for town meeting day in Winooski.  As the leaks of radioactive tritium and Cobalt-60 continue, and with the ongoing investigation into Entergy employees lying under oath, it is clear that Vermont Yankee cannot be safely run past its scheduled retirement date of 2012.

WHO: Peter Shumlin, Senate President Pro Tem

Arnie Gundersen, member of the Vermont State Public Oversight Panel

Maggie Gundersen, Fairewinds Associates

Tim Ashe, Senator, Chittenden County

Philip Baruth, candidate for Chittenden County Senate

Other Chittenden County Senators, Senate Candidates and Representatives have been invited to speak.

Mark Floege, Greenpeace Senior Investigator

James Marc Leas, former staff physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Attorney

Robert Millar, Moderato, Winooski Resident

WHEN: Tuesday, February 23, 7:00pm

WHERE: O’Brien Center, 32 Mallets Bay Avenue, Winooski

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