Vermont Governor Phil Scott began his weekly briefing today acknowledging the shooting of three students of Palestinian descent over the weekend in Burlington. He then outlined a new program intended to help municipalities that need financial support for flood recovery and reconstruction.
Scott extended his sympathies to the victims and their families affected by what he characterized as a “despicable” shooting and praised those who responded.
"While there is more work to do to seek justice for these young men, we must also work to curtail these violent acts in the future," Scott said. "I urge Vermonters to unite to help the community heal and not let this incident incite more hate or divisiveness. It's important we come together in these difficult times and put a stop to the violence we're seeing.
The Republican was later asked if he believes the shooting qualifies as a hate crime.
“I'll leave that to the courts and the prosecutor, defense and so forth," said Scott. "But I think the state's attorney Sarah George said it right: whether it's a hate crime or not, it was a hateful act. And I think that that was the right thought. There's a high bar for a hate crime. And I know the President, the White House, Homeland Security, the U.S. Attorney's as well have all said that they will be there to help if need be. But that's for them to determine.”
The focus of the briefing is a new effort to help communities still recovering from July flooding. Infrastructure repairs began immediately after the flooding but such work often takes years to complete. Scott says the new program will allow towns access to capital at a lower rate than banks, move projects forward and save money.
State Treasurer Michael Pieciak explained that it’s an expansion of the Ten Percent in Vermont program announced by his office earlier this year.
“We announced the program prior to the flooding of July 2023," noted Pieciak. "And now today we're announcing $15 million of low interest loans through the Municipal Bond Bank for communities that were impacted by the flooding in July. So after the flooding, a lot of the communities had to go to their lenders and they have bank loans on their books for eight or 9%. We're able to offer 1% loans for those loans that are less than five years and 1.5% loans for those that are less than seven years. We believe within that five to seven year period, most of these communities will have their reimbursements or they'll have longer term funding in place to solve their infrastructure needs.”
Governor Scott said it often takes time to complete disaster-related work, noting it was just last year that projects following 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene were completed, often with no consistent flow of money.
“This gives us some consistency, something that the towns can have some security to know they can complete the project and they can move forward, they can get the design working and the engineering and permitting and so forth," Scott said.
