WVTK Local & State News December 24, 2010

A multiple car accident shut down part of Route 7 in Charlotte near Ferry Road yesterday evening. Police say a woman from Stowe, was driving south on Route 7, when she lost control of her car in the slush. She crossed the centerline and was T-boned by an oncoming car. Both drivers and a passenger were taken to the hospital.

Starting Monday, January 3, the Charlotte/Essex Ferry Crossing will not have Dockmasters on duty. All tickets will be purchased on the boat once boarded. At this time commuter cards will not be accepted since there is no computer onboard the boat. Commuter books may be purchased from the Burlington Office at any time or at the Charlotte/Essex Crossing BEFORE January 3rd.

If you waited until the last minute to get your Christmas Tree this year you may have found it difficult to one. Most Addison County vendors reached the end of their Christmas tree supply last weekend, and by Sunday many had closed their doors for the season. Part of that rising demand is that there are fewer and fewer cut-your-own tree farms in Addison County. Overall, Christmas trees are a roughly $15 million industry at the wholesale level in Vermont.

Representatives of the six Addison Northeast Supervisory Union school boards and of the teachers met last week negotiating a contract for the current school year. By the end of the session the two sides had come to an impasse. The school boards will meet next month to decide whether to restart negotiations or impose a contract. If they opt to impose a contract the teachers will have to agree to take what the boards offer or strike.

The John Graham Shelter and the city of Vergennes received a $327,000 Community Development Block Grant that will fund more than half of a renovation project at the Monkton Road homeless shelter. It’s the first major project in its 30-year history. The organization already had a $197,000 grant from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. Other private donations will fund the balance of a project that they hope will begin in June.

You may recall that downtown Middlebury was featured for a second or two in a pair of “30 Rock” episodes on TV. Now downtown Bristol has made its own debut on the pop culture scene. In October, the alternative rock band Guster released a music video featuring downtown Bristol as its backdrop.

The Stafford SADD Chapter recently donated a large number of items to the new Clarendon Food Shelf. Clarendon Town Health Officer, Roxanne Phelps, who is also the mother of Stafford Technical Center’s SADD Chapter President, Cierra Phelps, manages the Clarendon Food Shelf. The SADD members' food drive ended in time for the Clarendon Food Shelf to use the food as part of holiday food baskets that they were making for disadvantaged members of the Clarendon community.

The developers of a wind farm in Vermont's northeast kingdom say they've obtained $76 million in financing and are forging ahead with construction. Boston-based First Wind, which is building a 40-megawatt wind project in Sheffield, started construction on the project in September.

A veteran Vermont health care administrator will become the state's next commissioner of Mental Health. Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin announced Thursday that he would appoint Christine M. Oliver to the mental health job. Oliver is currently the deputy commissioner of the Division of Health Care Administration.

Veterans groups are now on the list of those in line for millions of dollars' worth of federal government surplus items - from computers to snowmobiles - given away every year. A bill signed by President Barack Obama on Wednesday adds the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion and Disabled American Veterans to the list of potential recipients. The bill was co-sponsored in part by U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy.

Colonel Will Roy with the Vermont National Guard is about to get a big promotion and assignment. Roy oversaw the just-completed deployment of nearly fifteen-hundred National Guard soldiers from Vermont to Afghanistan. Now, he's going to be working on mobilization and deployment-related issued from a national level. He's being promoted to brigadier general, and will become special assistant to the director of the Army National Guard in Washington.

Vermont utility regulators who last summer rejected FairPoint Communications Inc.'s plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy are giving the OK to a new version. The state Public Service Board signed off on FairPoint's reorganization plan Thursday.

Satellite television provider DIRECTV will pay refunds to customers as part of a consumer fraud settlement. The Vermont Attorney General's Office has received more than 300 complaints about DIRECTV in the past three years. The AG says the company made attractive offers for service without making clear that subscribers would have to extend their contracts to get the deals.