If you weren’t already aware of this, allow me to inform you: Jim Dandeneau, the executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, is a certified comic book nerd.
As I rifle through the metaphorical filing cabinets of my memories, I can’t quite pinpoint the moment I learned this. Perhaps it was innate knowledge about him that I absorbed via osmosis the first time we met.
It turns out that Dandeneau, himself, doesn’t quite know when he discovered his own love of comics. Sitting down to a Power Lunch with yours truly in his Montpelier office — naturally with a bookshelf stacked with comics — Dandeneau tells me he was 11 or 12 years old when his dad brought home a copy of X-Men 3 from the flea market.
The memory is vivid: “It’s not like 1963 X-Men 3, like the ‘90s X-Men 3. And it’s all of the X-Men fighting with each other in their bright, ‘90 suits. It’s like the ‘90s cartoon versions of everybody.”
But Dandeneau’s own origin story runs deeper than that first solid memory.
“I had apparently been reading them before that. I bought my brother a comic when he was born at the hospital,” Dandeneau says. He would have been 3 years-old at the time. “I actually remember the cover. I remember it was Superman and all green.”
Since then, Dandeneau has amassed both an extensive physical collection and an encyclopedic mental catalog of comics. He doesn’t want to know how much money he has spent over the years on comics. Perhaps enough for a down payment on a house, I tell him. (I’m a Gen Z-millennial cusp so I’m allowed to make that joke.) “This is my avocado toast,” he replied.
“I have a very good working knowledge of the last 30 years of DC and Marvel stories,” Dandeneau tells me. “I have very strong opinions about Superman and the X-Men that I can shout at people.” (Dandeneau? Vocal with his strong opinions? No!) Dandeneau expounds to me on those, but I’m somewhat limited by my word count here.
I ask Dandeneau what he makes of skeptics who say comics are childish or rudimentary. He says they’re “not entirely wrong,” but at the end of the day, comics are just another medium of storytelling. “There are comics for everybody,” he says.
“If you walk into a Batman story, you know what Batman is. You know all the metaphors behind Batman,” he says. “So if you’re trying to tell the story with Batman, you can subvert the metaphors, or you can use it to cut out a whole chunk of storytelling time that you don’t have to waste time with. When it’s good, there’s nothing else like it.”
And storytelling, it turns out, is a translatable skill.
“I can say, with a straight face, that I like comics because I like the medium, and I like comics because it helps me be better at my job,” Dandeneau says. When putting together a mailing plan for a political campaign, he thinks about it like a three-panel newspaper comic strip.
“You want to tell the story over three pieces of mail. You want to put the information in a logical fashion… so that everyone understands the narrative,” he said.
Do you know someone you’d like to invite to Power Lunch to discuss their hyper-fixation? Or maybe you have one yourself? Let me know.
— Sarah Mearhoff
In the know
A programming note: Did you hear? Next week is Town Meeting Break, meaning the Legislature is outta here for the week. And when they’re off, this newsletter is off. Expect us back in your inbox on Tuesday, March 12. Try not to miss us too much!
— Sarah Mearhoff
Warm weather is on the horizon, and with it comes Vermont’s two hottest summer sports: Farmers markets and construction projects.
Those two Vermont cornerstones have come into conflict in Montpelier, where the Department of Buildings and General Services has told the Capital City Farmers Market that its usual parking lot location on 133 State St. would likely be filled with construction vehicles and equipment all summer.
Department Deputy Commissioner David DiBiase told the Senate Committee on Agriculture on Friday that it planned to complete complex work on underground infrastructure related to flood recovery that would likely overflow into the aboveground parking lot.
This would be the fifth time the market has had to relocate in the past 10 years for various reasons, including the flood last summer. Keri Ryan, the manager of the market, said that it’s spent a small fortune on signage every time it has moved.
Hannah Blackmer, a former board president and a local farmer, said that many farmers were still rebuilding and needed a safe and stable marketplace to build their profits.
Sen. Irene Wrenner, D-Chittenden North, said that she was a “huge fan” of farmers markets, but was critical of the reasoning for why the Montpelier one had to remain at 133 State St.
“You have received all these locations all these years, gratis,” she said. In her view, it should “engender a feeling of gratitude and a willingness to jump through some hoops in a year like this.”
— Erin Petenko
The Vermont Legislature has a new sergeant-at-arms.
Members of the House and Senate on Friday narrowly elected Agatha Kessler, deputy director of the state’s Office of Professional Regulation, to the position that includes many ceremonial duties as well as oversight of the Capitol Police Department.
Kessler beat out one other candidate — Mike Ferrant, director of the Statehouse’s Office of Legislative Operations — 84 votes to 82.
— Shaun Robinson
With Vermont’s housing crisis threatening to slow down the state’s refugee resettlement efforts, agencies are asking lawmakers to help fund transitional housing for new arrivals.
Representatives from the two federally contracted agencies that resettle refugees in Vermont told lawmakers this week that transitional housing is “a critical need” for refugees coming to the state, and one that they do not have adequate funding for at a time when availability is low and costs are sky-high.
“With the pace of arrival and the current housing crisis in our state, we are not able to find permanent housing on time. And one of the things that we do not want to do is to traumatize refugees by housing them in hotels and motels with no future facilities,” Joe Wiah, director of the Ethiopian Community Development Council in Brattleboro, told the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development on Tuesday.
— Auditi Guha
On the move
The House on Friday offered their final blessing to this year’s Budget Adjustment Act, a bill which balances the state budget for the remaining four months of the 2024 fiscal year, ending June 30.
H.839 passed its final hurdle in the House by an overwhelming 129-9 vote on Friday despite weeks of hot debate over the bill’s flood recovery initiatives, handling of the state’s emergency motel housing program and language regarding who would be eligible for after-school program funding.
— Sarah Mearhoff
Visit our 2024 Bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following.
March Madness
Do you feel it in the air? The tinge of warmth in the breeze, the distinct smell of mud in the air? Dear Final Readers, March is upon us. It’s a big win for those of us who experience the annual SAD, and also for Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden, who, it seems, lives for the Statehouse’s annual March Madness competition.
Bright and early Thursday morning, Harrison blasted out an email positively dripping with anticipation announcing the impending opening of the brackets, shortly after Town Meeting Day break next week.
“The break may be a perfect opportunity to plan your strategy to put yourself on the leaderboard following Selection Sunday, March 17,” Harrison wrote. “For me, I will be checking in with grandsons Theo and Spencer to see what suggestions they have. Might be the year for favorite mascots?”
“Sarah, what’s your bracket strategy this year?” asked no one. Well, typically, I’m loyal to my home commonwealth and alma mater to a fault, ranking my beloved Penn State Nittany Lions at the top. But the energy coming from Pennsylvania this year is a little, ahem, lacking. So TBD.
— Sarah Mearhoff
What we’re reading
In Vermont pharmacies, a cyberattack stokes uncertainty, VTDigger
At least six towns are considering a declaration of inclusion on Town Meeting Day, Vermont Public
Wild Bill: Long at odds with Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Board, activists would like to strip its powers, Seven Days
Corrections: Statements by Sen. Irene Wrenner and Joe Wiah were misrendered in an earlier version of this newsletter.
