WVTK Local & State News December 31, 2009

A public meeting to present six designs for the new Lake Champlain Bridge and to receive public comment will be held Monday in Vergennes. Feedback on designs will be invited at the meeting and will be accepted until Jan. 11. An announcement on the final design is expected in mid-January. The meeting is set for 6 p.m. Monday at the Addison County Eagle building, 67 New Haven Road in Vergennes.

The Ticonderoga Ferry will remain open for at least a few more days. The ferry's contract with the state expires today, but the ferry will stay open through Sunday. The ferry's owner is checking on insurance and other paperwork to determine whether he can keep running longer than that.

The governors of 11 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States including Vermont and New York, have signed an agreement to work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels. The goal is to lower the carbon content of fuels used by vehicles, which represent about 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the region.

The union representing most Vermont state workers says its members have ratified a new 2-year labor contract that calls for temporary, 3 percent pay cuts. Vermont State Employees Association Director Jes Kraus says the contract temporarily cuts wages by 3 percent and leaves them frozen until 2012, then restores the 3 percent cuts.

Water service has been restored in downtown Montpelier and is expected back elsewhere in the city shortly. State offices were closed and first-shift workers sent home yesterday morning after two water main breaks in the city shut down water service to much of the nation's smallest state capital, which has about 8,000 residents.

A civic action group says it has gathered enough signatures to challenge the instant-runoff voting system used in mayoral elections in Burlington. The group called "One Person, One Vote," wants to place the issue before city voters. Last March, Mayor Bob Kiss was elected in three rounds using the instant runoff system.

State police say a 20-year-old woman is in custody in the hold-up of Lyndonville's Passumpsic Savings Bank yesterday. Paige Ely was arrested at a local inn after police used a dog and surveillance video to track her from the bank to the hotel.