Gasoline distributor and retailer Skip Vallee, a prominent Republican fundraiser, has produced a 60-second television advertisement accusing Sanders of hypocrisy for railing against “golden parachutes” while benefiting from one himself. The ad notes that the senator’s wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, received a $200,000 severance package when she stepped down as president of the now-financially struggling Burlington College in October 2011.
Vallee distributed the ad to Vermont reporters Wednesday morning and plans to air it on local television stations starting Thursday morning. He says he’s already invested $10,000 in a weeklong run on WCAX-TV, adding, “That’s just the initial buy.”
“I think the ad makes a point that I think the mainstream media should be making: Bernie is going to run on a theme of railing against golden parachutes and excesses, which is going to be a tough thing to do when he took his own golden parachute,” Vallee says.
Sanders’ spokesman, Michael Briggs, responded to the ad by calling Vallee “pathetic” and a “junior varsity version of the Koch brothers.” Briggs said the senator “will not be intimidated by a millionaire who has crawled into the gutter and bought TV ads attacking Bernie’s wife for a sabbatical she earned from a college where she was president for seven years.”
The ad features footage of Sanders speaking at New Hampshire’s St. Anselm College in April, criticizing corporate leaders for outsourcing American jobs and then benefiting from tax breaks and “getting golden parachutes.”
“What Bernie won’t tell you is that he and his wife, former Burlington College president Jane Sanders, got a golden parachute of their own,” the ad’s narrator says. “That’s right. When she left the faltering and cash-strapped Burlington College in 2012, she took a $200,000 golden parachute with her.”
The narrator later calls on viewers to call the senator “and tell him to give back the golden parachute.”
During her seven years at the helm of Burlington College, O’Meara Sanders negotiated the $10 million purchase of a 32-acre property on North Avenue that formerly served as headquarters to the Catholic diocese. As Seven Days‘ Shay Totten reported at the time, O’Meara Sanders’ departure was prompted by concerns from the college’s board of trustees that her fundraising was not keeping pace with the college’s newfound debt load.
Burlington College has since defaulted on a loan it took out to finance the deal, as Seven Days‘ Alicia Freese reported last month.
O’Meara Sanders did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.
Vallee says his interest in the matter stems from a desire to see the Sanders family come to the assistance of the struggling institution.
“The focus of the ad is to encourage Bernie to give the money back to Burlington College because they really need it,” Vallee says. “The number is 800-339-9834. Vermonters can call Bernie’s office and encourage him to do the right thing. Do you want the number again? It’s in the ad, in case you missed it. It’s 800-339-9834.”
But the two have a long and acrimonious relationship that has more to do with gasoline prices than higher education.
Sanders has repeatedly criticized Vallee for prices his customers pay at Chittenden County Mobil stations. He has also accused Vallee, who owns the Maplefields chain, of using the environmental courts to block Costco from selling gas next door to a Colchester Maplefields.
Vallee responded in December 2012 by producing and then airing ads accusing Sanders of siding with powerful corporations over the environment. In April 2013, Vallee sponsored another ad criticizing Sanders’ support for industrial wind development.
In his response to Vallee’s latest ad, Sanders’ spokesman reiterated the senator’s complaints about the gas dealer’s business practices.
“What this is all about is not complicated. Skip Vallee has ripped off customers for years at his Burlington-area gas stations that sell the highest-priced gas anywhere in Vermont,” Briggs said. “As of Monday, his gas stations in the Burlington area were charging 25 cents more a gallon than his station in Middlebury. His padded profit margins consistently have put northwestern Vermont among the most expensive places in all of America to buy gas.”
According to Briggs, “Vallee clearly doesn’t like it that Bernie has exposed his ripoffs. He clearly doesn’t like it that other Vermont leaders are joining Bernie’s calls for real competition. So instead of treating his Vermont customers fairly, this junior varsity version of the Koch brothers is dipping into his fortune to bankroll a smear-ad campaign. How pathetic.”
Given Sanders’ recent travels, does Vallee intend to air his ad in early presidential primary and caucus states?
“I think it would be fun to run in Iowa and New Hampshire, but the purpose of the ads is to encourage Vermonters to ask Bernie to give the money back,” Vallee says.
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As I said on FB. this ad is hilarious! Looks like PRO-Bernie ad almost! First Bernie calmly tells the truth about about the rich and then they show how he actually reported family income….which a lot of politicians don’t bother to do! Also if the point of this ad is only to encourage Bernie to give the money back to BC….it sure isn’t clear on that point.
I Challenge Skip Vallee to put up $50,000 For Burlington College to Jane Sanders $200,000. If every one wants to hold hands together and sing Kumbaya and SAVE BURLINGTON COLLEGE!!!
Let’s Call on a Varsity player like Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane Sanders and show the people just how generous they are. Bernie can in turn have the Junior varsity Skip Vallee Help him save the college and all of Jane Sanders colleagues Jobs. I know Bernie is all about the worker and doesn’t give a rats pa-toot about the employer.But sometimes in REALITY it is important for a worker to have an employer. Bernie you cant just denigrate employers in the community and expect workers to live on air and the spittle of a ranting politician.
It will be a win win Bernie stands up for the workers. His wife’s actions wont throw them all on the street. Bernie is a hero Vallee is a hero and Jane’s detractors wouldn’t be able to say in the words of Dan Akroyd that she is “an ignorant greedy slut”
Sing it Kumbaya!!
Some snips from the seven days articles to bring folks up to speed…
“The college had agreed to pay Sanders roughly $200,000 over two years, Plunkett explained in a letter to the auditors, which depleted resources ” remembers it as the start of when “the school began to crumble.” “I am very upset at the lack of notice and transparency regarding Burlington College’s financial problems,” Giroux wrote. “Under our loan agreement, the Agency must be informed of any event of default.” Burlington College has failed to maintain the cash reserves of almost $1.5 million that it’s supposed to keep as part of its loan agreement with the diocese. Neither has it kept up an account required for the bank loan. The 2013 audit showed $8 in an account that should have roughly $400,000.
“Yves Bradley, the board chair and a vice president at Pomerleau Real Estate, did not return multiple calls requesting an interview, but in July, he told Seven Days that Burlington College had put its fundraising plans on hold. The school needs to convince potential benefactors it can survive before asking them to open their checkbooks, he explained.” After the regional accreditation group put Burlington College on probation in late June, the college administration said it was putting fundraising on hold because, as board chairman Yves Bradley put it then, “The time to come to them is not when you are down and need a Band-Aid.”
(Im editorializing but does Bradley want the college to survive or is it worth more to him bankrupt and int he hands of Farrel he does make his living selling real estate on commissions ? In fact Bradley cashed a commission check on the 10 million dollar dioceses sale the entire sale…Almost all of it paid with our public money. Also the guy who approved the Sanders payout after she failed to bring Cash or students to teh college . If you are bleeding to death do you just lie down or get to a doctor?)
“I can’t look a student in the eye and say, ‘Yeah, you should come here,'” said one student.
Burlington College would sell some land to developer Eric Farrell, who would construct several hundred units of housing
Farrell has declined to go into any detail about the status of their agreement. “I don’t think it’s particularly useful or helpful to comment further on the plan. The only thing I would say is we are on track,”
Burlington College purchased much of the land with tax-exempt bonds Cathy Hilgendorf wrote to Giroux: “I am concerned as a VEHBFA board member: will there be bad press for the Financing Agency, could we have seen this coming, and would we have denied the bond application?”
payments to flim flam man Jonathan Leopold.
nice tax scam…Jpold
Burlington College’s attorney, Joshua Simonds, who provided details that were not available by last week’s deadline: The Caribbean expenditure was an all-inclusive, six-night stay at the Andros Beach Club and Nathan’s Lodge, both of which are owned by the Leopolds. Turns out it was a three-credit spring break course — for 14 students and two faculty members — focusing on nature photography and marine and coastal ecosystems.The expenditure was listed on the college’s 990 tax form on file with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. By law, the college must list any expenditures considered “related parties transactions” between the college and a business linked to a college official or officer.
Payment was made to the Leopold Consulting Group as “reimbursement for six nights all-inclusive at Andros Beach Club and Nathan’s Lodge,” at $1090 per person. That included accommodations, meals, ground transportation, housekeeping, guided tours, sporting equipment and taxes for the whole group.
“The cost to the college is at a substantial discount and represents a generous gift in kind from the family, which also pursuant to IRS guidelines was acknowledged to the donor,” Simonds wrote.
A $200,000 severance package for someone who was a university president for seven years is trivial. When Carly Fiorina mismanaged the company where she was CEO, and cut its stock value in half, she walked away with a golden parachute in the tens of millions. Two hundred grand is more of a Kleenex than a golden parachute.
I wish to God that the golden parachutes Sanders is talking about on the campaign trail were only 200K. I realize that’s a small college, but really, the kinds of packages that administrators get at the university where I work, not to mention the ones in the financial “industry,” regularly dwarf that amount. If we could limit all such parachutes to 200K, the problem would essentially be gone.
200 000 S you speak about kleenex ….. real golden parachute are in million not in kleenex
Bernie for president is what we need ,Bernie , bernie , Bernie!
What’s 200 K ? About a week or so of Skip’s excessive profiteering from Vermonters .