At a press conference and in interviews with WDEV and WCAX, Gov. Peter Shumlin told reporters on Wednesday that he is ambivalent about rebuilding the Waterbury State Office Complex — and he is downright riled that Waterbury officials would pay lobbyists to attempt to persuade his administration, lawmakers and the public that the “nerve center” of state government should remain in the central Vermont town.
Listen to the WDEV interview
[audio:http://vtdigger.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20111006_wdevGov.mp3|titles=WDEV]Shumlin told WDEV that while Vermonters in communities in central and southern Vermont had lost everything and need financial resources to rebuild, Waterbury was spending $25,000 worth of federal money for low-income housing on lobbyists “in Montpelier to try and twist lawmakers’ arms.”
It just seems to me a judgment that isn’t the most prudent and the best for Vermonters.Let’s be smart. If we’ve got $25,000 kicking around that people could use, let’s use it for people in communities. Let’s not spend it on lobbyists, you know, buying cocktails to influence lawmakers down in Montpelier.
Waterbury officials say the governor’s statement was inaccurate.
Officials have agreed to spend $5,500 on public relations (handled by KSE Partners, $3,000 for 14 days of media outreach) and lobbying (directed by MacLean, Meehan and Rice, $2,500 for one month). The money is from a revolving loan fund for economic development that the town controls — not low-income housing money. Officials have authorized as much as $25,000 for lobbying, but Bill Shepeluk, town manager, said he doesn’t expect it will spend “anywhere near” that amount.
Rep. Rebecca Ellis, D-Waterbury, who is a member of the town selectboard, said the governor must have been having a “really bad day.” She suggested Shumlin was “aiming his anger at life in that statement.”
As for the cocktails? Don’t get the lobbyists started. Kevin Ellis, of KSE Partners, said: “That remark is inaccurate. We don’t do that.”
Chris Rice, a partner in the firm MacLean, Meehan and Rice, offered to provide lobbying services pro bono, but the town insisted on paying.
“The issue in my mind is not about who the town hires, it’s about the devastation brought on the town and their real concerns about a future that might not benefit from the state office complex,” Rice said. His job, as he sees it, is to do the “spade work to help the town reach out to the legislative and business community.” Ultimately, it will be up to the town, he said, to work in concert with policy makers.
Rebecca Ellis (no relation to Kevin) said town officials who have been involved in the massive volunteer effort in Waterbury are already spread very thin (several are also coping with their own flood-damaged homes), and they didn’t have the time to communicate to the media and the public-at-large how the shutdown of the Waterbury State Office Complex has (and will) affect the town’s economy.
It’s been more than a month since Tropical Storm Irene tore through Vermont, ruining hundreds of roads and buildings in central and southern towns. Waterbury was particularly hard hit. Of the 635 parcels in town, 211 were impacted by the floodwaters, Ellis said, and two-thirds of those were moderately to severely damaged. The town assessor has estimated the total losses at $9.7 million.
While many homes are still in a state of full-blown repair, businesses scrambled as quickly as possible to reopen.
“We’re open for business, but we’re not back to normal,” Ellis said.
Part of the new normal is this: Fewer customers are in town. Since Aug. 28, when the gushing Winooski River overflowed its banks and swept six feet of water into portions of the 500,000 square foot facility, forcing the state to announce the emergency closure of the complex, Waterbury has become a ghost town. About 1,500 workers have been temporarily reassigned to locations in Chittenden County and other towns in central Vermont.
Waterbury businesses that catered to state workers — local fitness clubs, restaurants and retailers — have seen a 30 percent to 50 percent drop in business.
Meanwhile, the Shumlin administration has been ambivalent about rebuilding the complex, which sustained millions of dollars worth of damage. Stabilization of the massive slate-roofed, brick facility — clearing out the muck and installing new windows and electrical and heating systems — will cost between $20 million and $25 million. The expense of completely renovating the buildings is not known at this point, nor has the state made information available about how much the state’s insurer and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay for some of the costs.
Shumlin says he is “sympathetic” to the plight of flood victims in Waterbury, but he does not seem to have leant a sympathetic ear to the concerns of town officials who warn of dire economic impacts if state government doesn’t re-establish its main beachhead in Waterbury.
Shumlin said all options, including sale of the facility, demolition of the existing structure and rebuilding on the site and relocating the critical mass of employees to other central Vermont municipalities such as Barre and Montpelier, are on the table. He said he quipped that his team was even considering “a moat around the complex.”
The town has hosted the biggest agencies of state government — the Agency of Human Services, the Agency of Natural Resources and the Department of Public Safety — for decades.
Rebecca Ellis said if the state doesn’t come back to Waterbury, it will have a ripple effect on the community. She has “nightmares,” she said, about businesses who depend on customers from the complex closing up shop and families who moved to town to live near work leaving the community. That kind of diaspora, she said, could lead to lower property values and fewer students in the local school.
“It has pretty broad ramifications,” Ellis said. “It’s like the unraveling of a sweater, and you don’t know where it ends.”
DISCLOSURE: KSE Partners is a VTDigger.org sponsor.
