Monday, November 1, 2010

WVTK Local & State News November 1, 2010

Weather permitting; paving will now take place Today and or Tomorrow on Elm Street from Route 7 to the Railroad Underpass and on Seymour Street to Fire & Ice Restaurant. The intersection of Elm, Exchange and Seymour will be closed temporarily when the paving machinery is crossing the intersection. For those who typically enter Exchange Street from the south please use the north access from Route 7 during that time.

Nearly two thousand people that gathered in downtown Middlebury on Saturday to celebrate the new Cross Street Bridge. Construction on the bridge began two years ago but planning began back in the 1950s when a fire destroyed a covered bridge, which connected the east side of town to the west. For several decades, town leaders debated where and when to build. Pictures from Saturday’s event are posted at our website and we invite you to share pictures with us as well. Click here!

An anonymous threat was directed at the Rutland Halloween parade and police beefed up security but encountered no problems at the annual event. Roughly an hour and a half before the parade kicked off at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, city police received word of a rumor concerning potential violence at the event in retaliation for the state police shooting of an Albany, N.Y., man in the city last week.

Students in Bridport are learning about war by making tokens of appreciation for the American soldiers injured and hospitalized at a U.S. facility in Germany. Kids in kindergarten through sixth grade at Bridport Central School recently began making “Blankets of Hope” — fleece warmers that will be shipped overseas by the Williston-based division of a national nonprofit group called Vermont Soldiers’ Angels.

Vice President Joe Biden will stump for gubernatorial hopeful Peter Shumlin and other democrats at the University of Vermont's Patrick Gym on Monday at 12:30 p.m. You can't just show up and expect to get in; you had to pick up a ticket in advance at one of the Democrat Headquarters throughout the state by 6:00 PM yesterday.

Vermont State Police have charged an 18-year-old man and two juveniles for allegedly damaging multiple trailers at a Waltham trailer park with golf balls fired from a potato gun. Police say trailers at Gevry Park sustained thousands of dollars in damages on Sept. 19. Following an investigation over the past month, police said Sunday that Hayden Senesac, of Waltham, and two juveniles have been charged with unlawful mischief.

A dozen more rural Vermont towns can get free help and training in how to best use the Internet. The communities will be the second group of participants picked in the e-Vermont Community Broadband Project. The goal is to help towns take full advantage of high-speed Internet for job creation, school innovation, providing social services and increasing civic involvement. Towns interested in applying are advised to visit http://www.e4vt.org.

Police in Winooski, Vt., say they've issued an alert about a sex offender living there. In a bulletin, they said 60-year-old Lindley Prophet Murphy presents a risk to the public, having been convicted of sex crimes in Colorado in the 1980s and 1990s.

Authorities say a West Pawlet man who opened his door to hand out Halloween candy was stabbed more than 20 times with a needlelike object by someone in a gorilla suit. The victim has been taken a hospital. No one has been arrested, and Vermont state police are investigating. West Pawlet is about 30 miles southwest of Rutland, on the New York state line.

The Vermont Attorney General did not go through with a plan to seize documents from Brian Dubie's Campaign headquarters Friday. The AG is investigating complaints by the Vermont Democratic Party that the Dubie campaign shared polling information with the Republican Governor's Association. Attorney General Bill Sorrell now plans to file a lawsuit in state court to get permission to take the papers. The case will not be resolved until weeks after the election.

Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz is going to kick off a mock election at the Lamoille Union Middle School in Hyde Park. Markowitz will speak to students Monday before they cast ballots, the day before Vermonters go to the polls for real. Markowitz says she will speak to the students about the importance of voting. Mock elections are being held Monday at schools across the state.

The state of Vermont and a hunting club are holding an essay contest for young hunters. The fourth annual Youth Hunting Memories Contest, sponsored by the state Fish and Wildlife Department and the Vermont Big Game Trophy Clubs, challenges children 16 or younger to submit a short essay describing why hunting's important to them and describing an experience they had while doing it. The criteria: ethics, landowner relations, wildlife appreciation, hunting skills and family values. Photos are welcome, too.

Think it's too negative to depict your opponent as Pinocchio, or call him corrupt? Vermont political history is rife with examples of more negative political campaigning than what voters have seen this year. In the 1870s, one congressional candidate was called an atheist and a Catholic - in one sentence. A visit to the campaign collection at the Vermont History Center in Barre provides ample examples of negative campaigning from the days before attack ads on TV and robocalls.

A Vermont woman has been chosen to participate in a human rights conference in Switzerland. Mary Gerisch, of Bennington, will take part this week in the Universal Period Review and speak to delegates from other nations about the fight for health care rights in America. The event, in Geneva, opens Friday.

A Tri-State Megabucks Plus jackpot-winning ticket has been sold in Londonderry, N.H. The jackpot is estimated at $1.55 million. The winning ticket was sold at a 7-11 convenience store. The New Hampshire Lottery Commission says the lucky winner matched all five numbers plus the Mega Ball in Saturday evening's drawing.

You can say winter is around the corner when Route 108 is closed for the season through Smugglers Notch. The Agency of Transportation announced Saturday the Vermont highway is now shut down until spring, a seasonal occurrence for the narrow, high-altitude pass, which is shut down every fall and re-opened in the spring.

Fish and Wildlife officials are predicting a good deer-hunting season. They estimate the deer population at 125,000 to 150,000 this year, and they say there are more older bigger bucks. Youth hunting season is this weekend November 6th and 7th. Rifle season starts Saturday November 13th and ends Sunday, November 28th.