Vermont Secessionist Senate Candidate and Vermont's Biggest Crybaby, Robert Wagner, Isn't Just Going After Vermont's Legislature...

... No, no. He's had the Ripton, VT selectboard in his sights for awhile now.

Last summer he thought he had them in how they'd managed funds from a Federal/State grant. I know, I know, Wagner, who likes to call himself "Senator," has claimed to oppose all federal grants as a burden on his grandchildren but in this case he wanted the selectboard to illegally set aside the funds for Riptonites first and apparently believed that Ripton residents had somehow been shortchanged. It wasn't good enough to him that the grant work had been awarded under criteria required by law to benefit the entire community and had gone to a local river engineer from just a few miles down that same river in East Middlebury. I don't believe that he really cared one way or the other. You see, Wagner's had a wicked hard on for the board since they passed him over for a board seat. It was all about intimating that the board had handled the grant improperly even though Wagner had no evidence whatsoever in support of that assertion.

Here's the likely reason why Wagner went after the selectboard: in August of 2009 Wagner volunteered to takeover a vacant Ripton, VT selectboard seat. According to the selectboard's minutes for August 17, 2009, the board spent the least amount of time of that spent with the four candidates interviewing Wagner. Apparently that didn't go down so well. Figures.

Wagner is a slavish follower the dictum of the baas of the Second Vermont Republic founder, the Dixie singin' Magnolia Vermonter Thomas Naylor who asserts that,

"In a left-wing state like Vermont, politics are basically grounded in anger and fear..."
Source

Wagner's doing his best this electoral go around in 2012 to exceed the secesher excesses of 2010.

Wagner was invited to discuss his concerns with the board, as he had requested, but when the time set aside came the weasel didn't even bother to show up. Needless to say, he's dropped this particular matter. Probably being totally wrong had something to do with that.

As I mentioned earlier in the post below this one, the Vermont secessionist or independence or liberty or whatever the hell he's calling himself today candidate for one of the Vermont Senate seats for Addison County in west central Vermont, Robert Wagner, has yet again announced that he's running. "Senator" (as he likes to call himself despite never having held the office) Wagner, in his usual doomsayer fashion, starts out by telling his Addison County neighbors that "a storm is coming."

Right.

Let's take a look at the storm known as "Senator" Robert Wagner.

In December of 2010, after suffering a crushing defeat for the Addison County senate seat due in part to his hypocritical campaign rhetoric pertaining to community sponsored and funded bridgework in Middlebury, VT versus the special treatment he pleaded for in a bridge replacement project in his hometown of Ripton, VT, Wagner delared Hancock, VT to be his new provisional capitol for his new state, er, republic or whatever it is that he was thinking might boost secesher spirits in the aftermath of their 2010 across the board defeats.

You see, a potential detour would have impacted his personal neighborhood, so Wagner demanded temporary bridges be erected despite the fact that Vermont's Agency of Transportation deems such an alternative to be the least cost effect method of completing such a project. I guess that unlike when Wagner worries about accumulating debt for his grandchicldren, as he said in his announcement, he has no such worries when shifting costs to his statewide neighbors.

Around the same time that Wagner was trying to stir up a stink with the Ripton selectboard, a meeting was held by the Addison County Regional Planning Commission Transportation Advisory Committee where Mike Hedges, head of VTRANS Bridges section advised (as I'd written a year earlier) that:

"(W)herever possible, (VTRANS is) eliminating temporary structures that allow for free flow traffic detours during construction. Though this creates some very short term inconvenience, it can dramatically simplify design, construction, and overall cost. It also can significantly reduce project timeline because it reduces impact and simplifies permitting. VTrans is also trying to scale projects in such a way to avoid Act 250 permitting. Together, these have a significant impact on reducing the amount of time, and resource necessary to complete a project."

Wagner had argued in 2010 that there is some temporary bridge piggy bank maintained by the state would easily rectify his issues. What a fraud.

As for his confusion about the flood mitigation project Wagner might have consulted a local Ripton blog nearly a year earlier here, here, here, here and here or in 2011 here.

In closing, there's been no word yet about whether Wagner will be returning the $288.30 subsidy he received while flying out of the airport in Rutland, VT, which is exactly the kind of subsidy that he "is strongly opposed to" and has argued harms Vermonters, that I revealed he'd hypocritically availed himself of (as in sticking his snout in the federal money trough) here.

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