Governor-Elect Peter Shumlin today announced several staff appointments, including naming Susan Spaulding as Director of Constituent Services and Appointments to Boards and Commissions.Spaulding co-founded WNCS-FM radio station in Montpelier in 1977 with her husband Jeb, and has spent the past 25 plus years involved in public protection and public advocacy through medical licensure, continuing medical education, accreditation of medical schools in the United States and Canada. She lives in Montpelier. Jeb Spaulding previously was named by Shumlin to be his Secretary of Administration.Lisa Kunin has been named Executive Assistant to the Governor. Kunin served as an aide to former U.S. Sen. James Jeffords for 12 years, ultimately serving as Jefford’s Education Coordinator. She resides in South Burlington.Shumlin has appointed Aly Richards, who grew up in Newbury, as Assistant to the Chief of Staff. For the past two years Richards has been the Mid-Atlantic Deputy Finance Director at the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C. Previously she worked on the Obama Presidential Campaign.Leigh Appleby, who grew up in Norwich, has been named Constituent Correspondent. Appleby most recently worked as an aide to former U.S. Rep. Scott Murphy in Upstate New York.Ryan Emerson, a Newbury native, has also been tapped as Constituent Correspondent. Emerson was the Chittenden County field director for Shumlin for Governor campaign in the gubernatorial primary, as well as a regional field director for the Vermont Democratic Party in the general election.Shumlin also named Ariel Wengroff, who graduated from the University of Vermont earlier this year, as a Constituent Correspondent. She was an intern for Organizing for America here in Vermont until the summer of 2010, where she specialized in the advocacy and protection of Vermont constituents.
Shumlin makes several staff appointments
January 1, 2021
FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailPrint分享Brian Maffly for the Salt Lake Tribune:The Utah Legislature last week approved a $53 million investment in an Oakland, Calif., export terminal, but the state’s coal-shipping aspirations may still be just a dream.So far, Utah is the only entity that may pledge money toward building a $275 million bulk-freight terminal at the deep-water port under construction at the site of the former Oakland Army Base.But Utah wouldn’t pay up until $200 million in private financing is secured — and the identity of those investors and the status of their contributions is unknown.Another hurdle: Utah’s money wouldn’t be released until the four rural Utah counties borrowing it for the investment have a plan to pay it back if the terminal can’t move coal profitably. No plan has been offered.Then there’s opposition to overcome in California — the hoped-for source of more taxpayer money and construction permits.Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, is asking her state’s transportation officials to withhold further public funding from the larger, $1.2 billion project of converting the military base into a port until questions about the coal-exporting terminal are resolved.The coal-producing Utah counties of Carbon, Sevier, Sanpete and Emery initially secured a loan from Utah’s Permanent Community Impact Fund to invest $50 million in the proposed terminal, in exchange for 49 percent of its 9.5-million-metric-ton loading capacity.However, the Utah Attorney General’s Office apparently declined to sign off on the loan, necessitating last week’s passage of SB246 as a legal workaround.Normally, money from the fund — derived from federal mineral royalties — is spent on civic projects in the counties where mining and drilling occur. But in recent years, county commissioners who run the Community Impact Board (CIB) have become interested in funding grander projects that would deliver commodities to market.SB246, which Gov. Gary Herbert is expected to sign, circumvented limits on how counties may spend revenues from the fund. It cycles community impact revenue — critics call it “laundering” — through the state Transportation Fund and back to the CIB in a new pool of money known as the “Throughput Infrastructure Fund,” which also can be tapped to build transmission lines, pipelines and rail.When the CIB first approved the loan in April 2015, it included an additional $3 million to cover administrative costs — such as paying consultants like Jeff Holt, a former Utah Transportation Commission chairman who brokered the deal between the counties and the CIB.The CIB’s approval was premised on Holt’s claim that the $200 million in private financing needed to build the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal would be secured by June 2015.“This benchmark has been missed. That means the only player in this transaction with an open checkbook and a deep pocket is the state of Utah,” said critic Tom Sanzillo, director of finance for the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.Full Article: Utah’s coal-export deal still faces high hurdlesRelated articles:Let Them Eat CoalCoal port fund swap ignored usual premium charged by state Many Barriers to Utah Coal-Export Scheme