Governor Bumblin and the Northeast Kingdom - Jon Farber

Governor Bumblin and the Northeast Kingdom

To the Editor:

The emerging EB-5 scandal and Gov. Bumblin’s role in it is but another shameful chapter in the treatment of NEK citizens by at least 25 years of successive state governments in Montpelier. High school and college graduates from the NEK must leave the state in droves after graduation because there are no jobs available in the area. Successive governments in Montpelier have colluded with business interests in both St. J. and Newport to keep a wide variety of discount stores such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Staples, Best Buy, Sams Club and the like out so that the local businesses can charge NEK residents higher prices for lesser choices. NEK residents are forced to travel 50-100 miles to neighboring New Hampshire to avail themselves of the products that are readily available to the government fat cats and other residents in the Montpelier-Burlington area.

NEK residents who want landline phone service have no choice but to deal with the incompetent Fairpoint Communications whose CEO Paul Sunu has been indicted in 2 states, ME and HI for criminal business practices that he still routinely conducts here in VT without fear of recrimination as AG Sorrell and the absolutely worthless Public Service Board do nothing but pass the buck back and forth. For the past year I have been engaged in a one man effort to curb some of Fairpoint’s biggest excesses and have gotten no help from anyone in the state save two ladies in the Public Service Dept., Susan Paruth and Melissa Metevier. The PSB under the ‘guidance’ of Margaret Cheney who just happens to be the wife of our ‘esteemed’ representative at large, Peter Welch, together with Sorrell and Gov. Bumblin have done nothing while Fairpoint rips off NEK citizens month after month and continues to provide inferior service.

Gov. Bumblin treats the residents of the NEK as a group of citizens that he can continue to ignore except for taxing them to pay for the excessive budgets that his legislature foists off on the state each year.

Now we have EB-5 where 2 government agencies, Commercial Development under the ‘intrepid’ Pat Moulton and the Dept. of Financial regulation stood either idly by or led cheers while the Quiros/Stenger Ponzi scheme was allowed to develop. Stenger was even named Vermont Businessman of the year in 2011. The federal investigation by the SEC of Quiros and Stenger was ongoing for more than 2 years before Bumblin and his cohorts began their own belated investigation in mid 2015 only to cover their collective rumps. This is a clear case of shutting the barn door after the horse, cow, chickens and hay have all been stolen.

In his more than 5 years as governor, has Bumblin even once ventured into the NEK to assess how the citizens were doing under his watch?

Now Bumblin and Worthless Willie Sorrell are both not running for re-election this November and good riddance to bad rubbish. Hopefully Vermonters both in the NEK and elsewhere in the state will remember which other members of the Bumblin government have served the state so poorly when it is time to vote on Nov. 8 this year.

http://www.caledonianrecord.com/opinion/letters/governor-bumblin-and-the-northeast-kingdom---jon-farber/article_d16b7de8-cc5f-5117-bc7c-1c1133b952bb.html

Mentions

• Vermont EB5 Regional Center
• UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
• Ariel Quiros
• Bill Stenger

Litigation Cases

• State of Vermont vs Bill Stenger & Ariel Quiros
• UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION vs Ariel Quiros & Bill Stenger

States

• Vermont