Leahy Staffer Guest Speaker At Legislative Breakfast

By Mary Anderson

Senator Leahy's staffer, Ted Brady, shares a laugh with Amy Bergamo, after speaking about the Bethel Town Hall appropriation at the legislative breakfast Monday morning. (Herald / Mary Anderson)

Senator Leahy’s staffer, Ted Brady, was a guest speaker at the legislative breakfast held in Bethel Monday morning.

Brady spoke about what moved Leahy to vote to appropriate $305,000 for renovations on the Bethel Town Hall, including community commitment and the potential the building has in the life of the town. He concluded with a reference to the current move "I Am Legend," joking that "we all know it (the town hall) will be the safe place to hang out in case of a worldwide virus."

As if to emphasize the town’s commitment to the town hall project, Phil Mollitor of the Knights of Columbus announced that his council was selling tickets for a 50/50 raffle to be drawn April 26. The council will donate their portion of the proceeds to the town hall restoration fund.

Sandy Haas of Rochester was the lone representative from Montpelier at the breakfast and spoke about what was happening with legislation regarding lead paint. She also spoke about the state’s prison system and informed those present that the average cost per inmate per year is about $45,000. She said the women’s prison was on the high end, costing $68,000 per inmate/year while sending inmates to Kentucky is proving to cost the least, coming in at $21,000.

Haas expressed her concerns about recidivism issues that arise when inmates are sent away from their communities. She also said that one problem we had in-state was a problem of scale, citing figures that showed that all of our prisons combined housed less inmates than one prison in a larger state.

Mary Donnelly from Bethel Lympus questioned why inmates were given "ample food, heat, medical care, TV’s and air conditioners," while many poor people in the state could not afford these basics. She also posed the question "Why can’t we put the prisoners to work to fix our roads?"

Haas replied that the state had tried to locate a work camp in Randolph, but had been turned down by the town. She said if Bethel residents were interested in one, they should let the folks in Montpelier know.

Scott Putnam indicated that talking about the prisons was nowhere near as important as speaking about what was happening with health care and insurance costs. When he forcefully told Haas he believed nothing was being done, she asked him, "What do you want to see done?" Putnam replied, "Anything." Haas said she agreed with many of Putnam’s concerns and encouraged him to voice them directly to the governor.

Henry Holmes echoed Putnam’s concerns adding that, "We need tax relief." He wanted to know why legislators were balking about the idea of leasing the lottery.

Stating that the lawmakers have "lost sight of whose money they are spending," David Eddy suggested that the state budget be held to the same two tier voting system that the school budget is now subject to.

Joe Defreitas wanted to know what was happening with the idea to shorten the legislative session, citing it as a way to save money.

Haas replied by saying that they had only recently received the budget, and if the governor wanted to shorten the session he would have to get the budget to the legislators sooner. Haas did add that money was "extremely tight" and not only would there be no expansion, but there would likely be "fights over what got cut."

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