Meeting confusion

“Can you understand the deep amount of hurt and pain that this might have caused, but do you have any empathy at all?”

Elizabeth Deutsch of Hinesburg got cut off during the May 6 Zoom selectboard meeting, while commenting on Lake Iroquois’ milfoil problem.

In a Zoom conversation on Monday, May 18, she shared her point of view.

She was reported as having said “F--- you” to Chris Conant, head of the Lake Iroquois Association.

Deutsch maintained she said, “I didn’t interrupt you” to Conant.

During the current pandemic with technology ruling most conversations and almost all meetings around the globe, it’s “he said she said.”

This is no different.

So – what happened?

Selectboard Chair Phil Pouech said he thought Deutsch had used profanity. He said a number of board members and Town Administrator Renae Marshall told him they thought she had, too.

Pouech said he was standing in his driveway the next day when board member Merrily Lovell drove by. She stopped and said, “I just want to tell you did a very good job last night. I thought it was done well and you appropriately cut her off when she started swearing.”

All of these conversations took place days before last week’s article was published.

Deutsch said because of the alleged misquote she has suffered greatly.

“I’m not above dropping an F bomb, but there’s a time and place for that,” she said.

The day after the selectboard meeting Deutsch criticized Pouech for shutting off her mic and he sent her an email in which he apologized for turning it off.

“I was perhaps too worried about maintaining a peaceful ‘atmosphere’ rather than the most important aspect of the meeting, that being ‘open,’” he wrote in the email.

In a phone conversation, Pouech said he’d turned off Deutsch’s mic twice during the meeting. The first time (which can be found around 3:02:00 on the VCAM video of the meeting at

vermontcam.org/series/hinesburg-selectboard) she was objecting to Conant speaking after she’d asked if there was objective data supporting his observation that he’d “seen a lot of different concerns on the lake during the last 10 years.”

When Deutsch’s mic was turned back on, it sounded to some as if she had cursed.

Conant responded, “Pardon me. I’ve always shown respect to you. I do appreciate your comments so much. And I’m sorry that we get into this. It’s personal observation.”

“Could you ask him not to speak over to me?” Deutsch said. “I was brutally interrupted.”

Pouech said, “I muted you because your voice was being raised so if you have something you would like to say go ahead.”

Misogyny or miscommunication?

At this point, Deutsch’s audio wavers in and out as she is saying, “... speaking over the woman.”

When Conant apologizes again, it sounds like his voice interrupts Deutsch’s audio.

When her audio resumed, Deutsch is saying, “... the older white man talking down to somebody.”

Pouech said he muted Deutsch’s audio for the second time in the online meeting here.

In a Zoom conversation on Monday, May 18, Deutsch said she thinks misogyny is something women experience every day.

“I think it is impossible to live in the United States, without some sort of systemic misogyny, racism, of some sort. It permeates our culture,” Deutsch said. “Implicit bias is exactly that.”

Pouech said if Conant’s behavior had been derogatory, he wouldn’t have allowed it.

“There’s no evidence of that,” he said.

“I know what an old white male can do, how they can act,” Pouech said. “By the way I’m an older white male.”

“I try to be aware of it,” he said, but Deutsch had accused him of being a misogynist.

In the interest of full disclosure, this reporter is also an older, white male.

Contention has been brewing

The Lake Iroquois Association was on the agenda to share information about the progress of its application to use the herbicide ProcellaCOR to control milfoil. This invasive weed has taken over 70% of the lake, Conant says. Advocates for using the herbicide say the weed spreads so voraciously a chemical solution is needed.

Opponents say an herbicide could cause worse problems. They worry it hasn’t been tested enough to ensure it’s not carcinogenic, mutagenic or that it won’t harm other plants or animals.

At the May 6 meeting, Hinesburg resident and retired chemist James Bruce said he would be reluctant to conclude there was no cancer or genetic damage from an herbicide that’s only been around for two or three years.

When asked during the Monday Zoom meeting what her vision for the lake’s future is, Deutsch said, “A clean and natural Lake Iroquois in whatever form that takes with the least amount of habitat disruption, and the least amount of harm to the people who also live around Lake Iroquois is what we should be striving for.”

She said the best way to clean up Lake Iroquois is through “natural harvesting.”

Conant has said at selectboard meetings the Lake Iroquois Association had organized a crew of workers who pulled up milfoil for a week and were only able to clean up around an acre.

Duetsch said she didn’t think one week was sufficient.

“Can I refer you to Lake Dunbar? I think if you look at what they’ve done. They have 4,000 hours a year – 4,000 hours of non-chemical milfoil mitigation versus one week,” Deutsch said.

We were unable to find a Lake Dunbar in Vermont, although there is a Lake Dunmore.

The Lake Dunmore Fern Lake Association’s website says volunteer-pulling of milfoil started in 1989. By 2010, the six-member crew pulling milfoil couldn’t keep up with it, so they began suction harvesting.

“By 2015, the team had grown to four vacuum harvesting machines, a small service boat and a crew of 17 working 240 hours a week,” the website said.

In 2016, the Lake Dunmore Fern Lake Association applied to the state for permission to use an herbicide. This year they’ve applied for a milfoil-specific herbicide to use in difficult spots.

Lake Dunmore first received permission to use an herbicide called Renovate in 2016. It received permission to use ProcellaCOR on Tuesday, May 19, said Misah Cetner, who oversees Aquatic Nuisance Control permitting for the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.

Cetner said since 2019, Lake Morey, Lake Hortonia, Lake St. Catherine, Burr Pond, Beebe Pond and Lake Dunmore have received permission to use ProcellaCOR.

Indian Brook Reservoir, Sunrise Lake, Lake Pinneo and Lake Iroquois have applied for permits to use it.