Tag: Vermont

Rutland, VT citizens hear from James Simpson in advance of heated public meeting

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is not an exhaustive report on what happened in Rutland over the last two days.  I am sure we will have more later, but just wanted to let readers know that James Simpson was invited to speak in Rutland, VT this week (go here to see our previous posts). See also ‘Remaking Rutland’ at American Thinker, here.
Here is a news account from MyChamplainValley about Simpson’s presentation on Tuesday.

Vermont meeting
On the hotseat: Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program Director Amila Merdzanovic (left) and Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, speak at a meeting in Rutland. Photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger

Then here are two accounts of the meeting held last night (Wed) by the Board of Alderman to further educate the public about the plan to bring 100 Syrians to Rutland this coming fiscal year. (See here and here).
The second of those links, here, at VTdigger is worth reading in its entirety because the whole idea of the secrecy with which this plan was hatched is discussed in some detail.
Note that they are holding a public meeting AFTER the plan has been sent to Washington. I bet the mayor hasn’t even seen that plan (the R & P Abstract)!

RUTLAND — In a heated public meeting Wednesday, the members of the Rutland Board of Aldermen and community members scrutinized a plan to resettle refugees in this central Vermont city.

While some came in support of the proposal, the majority raised objections to the way the plan had been formulated.

The proposal, announced by Mayor Chris Louras last month, would bring 100 Syrian refugees to Rutland for resettlement over the course of a year beginning in October.

Last week, the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program submitted the proposal to resettle Syrians in Rutland to the federal government. They anticipate they will hear a response in July.

Many residents bristled at Louras’ approval of the project because he didn’t consult with city aldermen and they raised concerns about the impact the resettlement will have on the community.

In a meeting that stretched longer than three hours, the aldermen and residents expressed frustration with Louras’ decision, which they said was carried out behind closed doors and without an appropriate level of community input.

Amila Merdzanovic, the director of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, and Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, answered questions from board and community members for hours Wednesday evening.

Continue reading here!
Be sure to see that USCRI rep Blake says refugees are not placed in unwelcoming communities…hmmmmm!
Also, just keep in mind that, at this very moment, plans for all of the old and new resettlement sites are being prepared and sent to Washington.  It is our contention that those plans (see the Reno plan here) should be released to the public in advance of going to Washington for approval for your money to be spent!
More later…..

Vermont: Rutland citizens say, let's take care of our own first!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 16th: For those concerned citizens of Vermont, please go to this post today about Reno.  The same federal contractor is involved in both cities. There will be a document just like the one I have posted on Reno for your city too! Ask your mayor if he has seen it!
That is the common refrain I hear from just about everywhere in America where refugees are being seeded into unsuspecting communities.  What about our own people, our own poor and disabled, they ask.

Vermont refugee office
The Vermont refugee program is run by the federal government through its contractor the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. As a Wilson-Fish state, elected state officials have no say over the program. USCRI and the feds call all the shots. USCRI is headed by Lavinia Limon who was Bill Clinton’s director of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. To learn more about Limon, go here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/?s=Lavinia+Limon

For new readers we have been reporting on the controversy on-going in Rutland ever since the mayor told a surprised public that he had agreed that Rutland could take 100 Syrian (mostly Muslim) refugees.  See here and here.
Here, at MyChamplainValley.com, we learned that a group of citizens protested the mayor last night.
My suggestion to those of you with concerns in Rutland is to contact the mayor of Manchester, NH, Ted Gatsos, and ask that he come and speak to your group or maybe send a delegation to New Hampshire and ask him how it’s going there.  I am sure the Manchester mayor would advise Rutland to not open Pandora’s box because once the refugees begin coming there will be NO END TO IT.  There will be many more than 100 in the end!

Thursday night, the Rutland community got the opportunity to learn more behind the plan to bring 100 Syrian refugees to the city this fall.

It’s a meeting Mayor Chris Louras held amidst controversy for not initially including the public in the decision.

“We do not have a TD Garden anywhere in the County of Rutland, and if I were to engage in a public and answer dialogue and a broad forum with everyone in the county invited, I would have to plan for a 65,000 capacity.” Louras said.

Before the meeting, about 20 people gathered outside Rutland Free Library with signs, showing their concern for a plan they say was a surprise. Matt Howland and David O’Brien expressed their opinions.

“The city is not just gonna roll over and take this without asking the hard questions, without holding people accountable and making them put forth the answers and making a plan and let the community know what’s going on,” Howland said.

Be sure to visit the site to watch the video!
By the way, the Boston Globe tells us there are no mosques in Rutland (yet!).

Rutland, VT refugee controversy confirms what we have been saying for years!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Federal refugee contractors, like the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program operate in secrecy making every effort to get resettlement programs up and running in unsuspecting communities before the general public gets wind of it!
See our earlier post on Rutland, here.  There is also another story on the uproar, here, which I never got time to post.

Amila Merdzanovic
Former refugee Amila Merdzanovic came to Vermont as a refugee in 1995 and now runs the resettlement program there for USCRI (one of the nine big refugee contractors). She says, no public meeting because all the “anti-immigrants” will come out of the woodwork. Photo and information on a propaganda event coming up June 1: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/syria-and-refugee-resettlement-in-vermont-registration-20679143876

Now this!  Good for MyChamplainValley.com . They actually filed a public information request and got this incredible admission! (emphasis is mine)

New information on how the City of Rutland came to be the future home of 100 Syrian refugees. Mayor Chris Louras made the announcement a few weeks ago, and many were shocked at the speed of the process.

While the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program (VRRP) held meetings as far back as January 14th, the general public was never informed. The initial meeting included members of the VRRP, Mayor Louras, President of the Rutland City Alderman William Notte, State Refugee Coordinators, and a member of the Rutland Area Farm and Food Link group.

Through a public records request filed with the City of Rutland, we learned a public meeting was considered, but didn’t happen.

“This is just the beginning, it’s a historic moment for us as the Refugee Program and I think it’s a historic moment in Vermont,” stated Amila Merdzanovic, Director of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. She hopes Rutland is the first of many communities to consider welcoming refugees.

While the City’s Mayor and many others are excited about the process, other elected officials and members of the public say they felt blindsided. “My initial reaction was I wanted more information,” said City Alderman Ed Larson in an April 28th interview. He didn’t learn of the plan until a day before the Mayor’s announcement.

Of course they want no public meeting!

They know they must get the program in place before anyone knows what is happening! Readers, look for this happening where you live.  They are desperate for more cities and towns.  Obama has made promises and there aren’t enough locations to accommodate all of the refugees he wants.

According to records we obtained from the City of Rutland, a public discussion was considered, but never took place. In an April 14th email to Mayor Louras, Merdzanovic wrote “if we open it up to anybody and everybody, all sorts of people will come out of the woodwork, anti-immigrant… anti-anything.”

[….]

The email went on to suggest that if a meeting were to be held, it should be controlled, and include groups like the United Way and Area Churches. But both United way and Rutland area church leaders told us they welcome the refugees, but were not contacted to be part of a discussion during the planning process.

Too bad local citizens! the UN/US State Department is going to seed your towns whether you like it or not!

Merdzanovic points out that resettlement has been happening in Chittenden County for 30 years, and people are used to it. She understand it will take time in Rutland, and adds no matter what, things are moving forward, “Our government invites refugees to come into the United States and to come to Vermont. we don’t control it, we don’t vote on it luckily.”

Continue reading here and be sure to watch the news clip—watch and listen to Merdzanovic.  
BTW, Merdzanovic’s boss is Lavinia Limon who ran the Office of Refugee Resettlement for Bill Clinton.
Vermont is a Wilson-Fish state which means the contractor and the federal government run the program there with no input from elected state representatives.  There is zero chance that the present governor would ever stand up for States’ Rights.
Click here for all of our previous posts on, as one of our readers once called it, the Green Card State!  And, be sure to visit or revisit, Ten things your town needs to know! by clicking here.  See especially #10—demand a public meeting!
 

Too funny! Mayor of Rutland, VT says we got our heroin epidemic under control, so now let's take some Syrian refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 27th:  Be sure to see yesterday’s post about the heated public meetings in Rutland this past week, here.

Yippee! Vermont’s “first relocation community for Syrians!”

I wasn’t planning to write anything else today (although I know I have to do the April round-up), but this story from Vermont Public Radio made me laugh and I wanted to share it.

rutland_mayor_christopher_louras-vpr-keck-file
Rutland’s fifth term mayor Christopher Louras: Whoever he talked to at Homeland Security apparently forgot to tell him about FBI Director Comey’s testimony about not being able to vet Syrians.

Frankly this mayor sounds a bit naive (I was going to say goofy, but maybe that is too unkind).  I know, it is Vermont.
But, apparently even in Vermont there are some citizens with some sense who want to know how and why this invitation to 100 Syrian (Sunni Muslim) refugees wasn’t publicly discussed before the mayor offered up their town.
The mayor assures the critics that he has talked to two ‘high level’ Washington government people and they assured him there wouldn’t be any terrorists in the bunch and that it wouldn’t cost the city a dime because each refugee gets a whole $925 (from Washington’s money trees) and then they would be self-sufficient in 4-8 months. (Stop laughing all of you!—ed)
Vermont Public Radio (first sentence here needs a bit of work!):

Earlier this week that the city of Rutland will take in 100 Syrian refugees starting in October. Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras says he’s been working closely with state and federal refugee agencies to create Vermont’s first relocation community for Syrians.

Local people are always last to learn about their town being targeted because the only way to get this plan in place is to keep it secret from the general public.  And, by the way, once the flow starts it won’t be held to 100 refugees.

But local lawmakers and residents in Rutland are saying they didn’t even know about the plan before it was announced this week. [Surprise!—ed]

[….]

“Frankly it started with the conversation at the national level around the Syrian refugee resettlement. The fact that a number of governors said they weren’t going to open their doors , and Gov. Shumlin said he wanted to open our doors to Syrian refugees,” said Louras. “It got me thinking that the city of Rutland is right for refugee resettlement. Our population has been declining; we have a lot of capacity for jobs and housing, and this is an opportunity to grow our community culturally and provide a level of diversity in the community that we really, really need.”

[….]

I was fortunate enough to have a very long conference call with two individuals at the highest level department of state and department of homeland security to discuss the security measures that are in place,” explained Louras. “And then I followed up those conversations with individuals I know at high levels of law enforcement. I can assure the residents of Rutland that there is no [safety] risk from Syrian refugees.”

[….]

Some of the criticism the idea has received on social media centers around the idea that Rutland already has enough challenges it needs to focus on, including the heroin epidemic. Louras says the city has a handle on the crisis…

[….]

“There’s no cost at the local level, there’s not going to be any impact to our tax base,” said Louras. “When refugees initially come to any community, they are given $925 for each person in the household, and then there’s no further funds from the Department of State after that. So Vermont Resettlement Program does one thing very very well: they ensure that their clients become self-sufficient within four to eight months.”

Swallowed it hook, line and sinker!
99% of the Syrians coming to the US right now are Sunni Muslims.  I wonder how Rutland’s mosque supply looks, does anyone know?
We’ve written about Vermont before, click here, for more.

Winooski, VT: Is another immigrant colony forming as Somali refugees move in?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The school system in this refugee ‘seed’ community must educate students speaking 30 different languages.  (Imagine what that costs the local tax payer!).

Welcoming Winooski: Remember this story from last summer? The ‘bacon’ ad had to be removed from this coffee shop when a Muslim woman claimed she was offended by the sign. http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/08/vermont-restaurant-ad-for-bacon-removed-after-muslim-claimed-it-offended-her

This story is about the first Somali School Board member in Winooski’s history.

From My Champlain Valley  (hat tip: Joanne):

“There’s over 30 languages spoken among the families in our schools,” said Winooski School Superintendent Sean McMannon.

[….]

“The only challenge we have here was the weather, and we compared that between cold weather and the other violence in other cities, then we chose to be here,” Abdi said.  [He is talking about violent American cities, not those in Africa!—ed]

Mr. Abdi hopes his voice will speak for those who can’t, in a Winooski community that sees more and more refugees move here every year.

“In the Winooski school district about 38 percent of our students qualify for English language learning services,” Superintendent McMannon said.

Only 30 languages in the school system? Looks like Manchester has you beat there!

See our previous posts on Winooski here. Our Vermont archive is pretty interesting, see it here.

One more of Obama’s immigrant colonies in the making?