Sen. Mark MacDonald
In State Spotlight
By M. D. Drysdale

Orange County’s state senator, Mark MacDonald of Williamstown, has found himself in the center of a political and media uproar the last two weeks because of remarks he made at a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee.

On Feb. 21 he remonstrated with Sarah Hoffman, an attorney for the Vt. Department of Public Service, who was testifying before the committee. MacDonald complained that the Department had not kept the legislature informed about a key issue regarding Vermont Yankee.

MacDonald declared that in some governments, people could get shot for such shoddy performance. What employees in the Public Service Department ought to be "machine-gunned," he asked.

Hoffman didn’t seem fazed by the comment, and MacDonald made her a personal apology, but her boss, Public Service Commissioner David O’Brien, was furious. He wrote Senate leaders demanding that MacDonald be kicked off the Finance Committee. If that didn’t happen, he said, he would not allow his staffers to testify before the committee and "be subject to this kind of verbal abuse."

"For Sen. MacDonald to state that ‘people get shot’ is well beyond the pale," he said.

Vermont newspapers and television stations covered the spat with great glee. Conservative blogger Rob Skinner of South Hero dubbed the Orange County senator Machine Gun MacDonald.

The senator later also apologized publicly, saying he was sorry he had made himself the focus rather than "the issues before the state."

"This has been a long 12 days," MacDonald admitted in comments to The Herald Tuesday.

Past History

There is considerable history behind MacDonald’s frustration in the committee room and Commissioner O’Brien’s angry reaction. MacDonald has consistently criticized O’Brien’s approach with regard to safety at Vermont Yankee, both on the Finance Committee and as a member of the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel, which draws its staff from O’Brien’s agency.

MacDonald has also been previously accused of being verbally rough on witnesses before those committees.

At the Feb. 21 meeting, his ire was raised by a recent report that after it closes, the nuclear plant will likely be placed in a "safe-store" condition for years, even decades, to allow radioactivity to decrease gradually.

Acknowledging "serious disagreements" with the commissioner, the senator said he suspects that O’Brien considers him a thorn in his side and would love to see him kicked off the committee.

As of this week, however, that doesn’t seem likely to happen, any more than it seems likely that Commissioner O’Brien or Gov. Douglas will take Sarah Hofmann out behind the barn and machine-gun her.