WVTK Local & State News March 13, 2012

Existing assessment data on the Middlebury River and information about plans and funding for managing the river in East Middlebury will be presented by the River Management Task Force on Thursday, March 22nd at 7PM at the East Middlebury United Methodist Church on Church Street in East Middlebury. A detailed agenda for the meeting will be published later this week. Stay up to date by visiting the Town Of Middlebury’s Website.

Here’s a reminder that the final installment of the Town of Middlebury property taxes is due this Thursday, March 15th. Offices will remain open until 5:30PM on Thursday to accept payments.

The Addison County Chamber Of Commerce wants to let you know that two of Vermont's U.S. legislators are in the area this week and are holding public meetings. You can join congressman Peter Welch for a lively question and answer session on Friday at Noon at The Lodge at Otter Creek in Middlebury. Light refreshments will be provided. Then Senator Bernie Sanders will be hosting a town meeting this coming weekend. The meeting takes place on Sunday at 11AM. Refreshments will be available starting at 10:30. The meeting with Senator Sanders will take place at Holley Hall on South Street on Bristol. RSVP is requested, but not required: 800-339-9834 or www.sanders.senate.gov.

The Better Middlebury Partnership did it again this year by organizing another wildly successful annual Vermont Chili Festival in downtown Middlebury. The Vermont Chamber of Commerce, now in its fourth year, has named the chili contest event, one of the Top 10 Winter Events for the past three years. This year the event included jugglers, live music, singing, a beverage tent where Gov. Peter Shumlin greeted visitors, plenty of tail wags from Hobbes and of course chili! Over 50 restaurants, businesses, community organizations, and caterers from around the state participated. Proceeds from this year’s event will go towards the Vermont Disaster Relief Fund/Vermont 211.

There are only five members on the Green Mountain Care Board that is working to design a single-payer health care system in Vermont. But the chairwoman of that board told a roomful of doctors at Rutland Regional Medical Center on Monday that her group needs the help of medical professionals who understand patient needs and procedural expenses if the universal system envisioned by the Legislature is to succeed. The meeting at the hospital came two months after a similar gathering of Rutland doctors voiced concerns about how health care would be paid for and what level of care would be provided. Many of the concerns heard in January resurfaced yesterday during the hour-and-a-half long question and answer session.

A petition to strip the three-man Select Board of its power to hire a new town manager has yet to be filed with the town office, but the idea itself is stirring controversy. A special Select Board meeting was held last week to discuss hiring a permanent town manager. The petition appeared the following day, posted in the hallway of the Killington Elementary School on Town Meeting Day, outside the polling place. It asks for signatures for support of stripping the Select Board’s authority to hire the manager. The board is considering the most-likely candidate, existing interim town manager Seth Webb. The Board will likely consider a contract for Webb’s hiring in the coming weeks.

A Vermont man has pleaded guilty to child cruelty after his year-old baby had swallowed a pill used to treat an addiction to narcotics. WCAX-TV reports 25-year-old Walter Susee of Rutland will spend 40 days in prison. Police said he did not have a prescription for the drug, called Suboxone, and had bought it for $20 illegally on the street last year.

One supervisor's strong protests didn't stop Essex County lawmakers from going behind closed doors yesterday to discuss the fate of Horace Nye Nursing Home. The Horace Nye Task Force of the County Board of Supervisors went into a 55-minute executive session almost immediately after convening Monday afternoon. The outcome of that meeting was that higher bids should be solicited from the three firms that made offers on the Nursing Home last week. The county received three bids of $4 million each for the Nursing Home.

In the early 1990s, rabies broke out in Clinton County, putting health officials on high alert. In neighboring Essex County, a stray cat recently tested positive for rabies, proving that the North Country is not immune. Seven people who had been around the animal received cautionary post-exposure treatment for the disease. Officials say if you do get rabies, it is 100 percent fatal. About 50,000 people worldwide die from the illness each year. Anyone who may have been exposed to the disease should immediately seek medical treatment.

The University of Vermont is investigating the death of one of its students. An autopsy is ordered to determine how sophomore Abraham Kurganoff died. School authorities say the death happened unexpectedly Monday morning, but there is no indication of foul play. The autopsy is hoped to reveal more information.

It's been more than six months since Tropical Storm Irene ripped through the town of Waterbury, leaving flooding, destruction and despair in its wake. But now there's hope, with a big boost of funding to help homeowners trying to rebuild. The Stiller Family Foundation is donating 250-thousand dollars to help with that process. Roughly 200 homes were damaged, with a third of them still in disrepair. The donation Monday puts the ReBuild Waterbury fund about halfway towards its fundraising goal of 918-thousand dollars.

A five-year-old boy is okay after quite an adventure that had a lot of people concerned and scared. The child who lives in Underhill was reported missing from his Butler Road home Monday night, and a massive land search was launched. State Police say he was found a few hours later and four miles away from home on County Farm Road. He had apparently followed, along with his two dogs, a stream to a home where residents called police. He was okay, and quickly returned to his family.

A committee of the Vermont Senate is set this week to take up legislation that would allow terminally ill patients end their lives with the help of a doctor. Called "death with dignity" by supporters" and "physician-assisted suicide" by opponents, the legislation has come up before, failing in the Vermont House in 2008. Supporters of the measure say they're encouraged to try again in part due to the fact that Gov. Peter Shumlin supports the legislation. Former Gov. Jim Douglas opposed it. But it's still far from certain to pass. Both Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell and Sen. Richard Sears, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, oppose it.

A dean at the Vermont Law School will become the school's new president. Marc Mihaly will succeed Jeff Shields who retires on July 31st. Mihaly serves as associate dean for the school's environmental programs, director of the Environmental Law Center and professor of law.

Fletcher Allen Health Care in Vermont has received a $400,000 gift for cancer research. The money is from the estate of Barbara Stevens of Morrisville, who died in April 2011 at age 85. Her wishes were to support medical research at the Burlington hospital.

The state has approved a $7.7 million expansion project at a Vermont hospital. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital has received the upgrade to expand and renovate the emergency room and build a new MRI unit. The Brattleboro Reformer reports the hospital hopes to use $6.7 million in capital reserve funds, while raising another $1 million in donations.

The push to rebuild parts of Vermont is getting a major boost in the form of sweat equity. More than 30 students with ReTrain YouthBuild are working with homeowners in Waterbury and Barre to help them rebound. The program is designed help homeowners repair their homes while providing students with hands-on construction experience. The effort is slated to last a year and will allow participants to pick up a trade. The students are all between the ages of 16 and 24. When they're not on the job site they're working toward their high school diplomas or GEDs.

Police departments throughout Vermont have begun to adopt a new technology known as LPR or License Plate Reader. The technology allows police to photograph a license plate and cross-reference it with a Motor Vehicles Department database to check ownership records.
Police in Burlington, Colchester, South Burlington and Shelburne already use LPR. Newport, Milton, Hardwick and Essex are acquiring it. At least one Essex select board member worried the technology could infringe on personal privacy. Others were concerned about whether Vermont's prisons could handle a spike in arrests. The cost of a LPR device is currently $25,000 and can be funded by a grant through Homeland Security and the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program.

The search continued Monday night for a missing teenager in New York's north country. Colin Gillis, a pre-med student at SUNY Brockport returned home to Tupper Lake Friday night. On Saturday night he attended a drinking party with friends at an undisclosed home. Police say he left the party alone on foot, but they don't know why. Police say they really have no clear idea what actually happened to Colin early Sunday morning. They plan to continuing searching as of the crack of dawn this morning.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is putting his popularity and his early record on the line as never before as the Legislature digs in for the first time over issues that will affect New Yorkers for the next 10 years. The Democratic governor is insisting the Legislature adopt a less expensive pension system for future public workers. He says the reform supported in the polls is one of the seminal clashes of this budget and of his administration because taxpayers can no longer afford the traditional pension for the next generations of state and local public workers.

The Schroon Lake Central School drama club will present “The Wizard of Oz” Friday and Saturday, March 23rd and 24th at 7PM. Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and students. Children younger than age 5 will be free. The play will be performed in the school’s new auditorium.

Monday's weather had a lot of folks thinking spring has sprung. From Skateboarding to sitting in the park, people in Rutland Monday were soaking up the sun. In Giorgetti Park, snow banks are a reminder of winter, but just across the parking lot, the presence of hikers is a sure sign of spring. The Temperature in Rutland rose to 63 degrees. That's 25 degrees warmer than average for this time of year which is 38. This time last year it was snow plows and shovels and last year the city spent 40-percent over budget on winter maintenance.

Beginning next fall, Green Mountain College in Poultney will offer undergraduate students a complete Renewable Energy and Ecological Design major. The new 42-credit program will offer depth of study in renewable energy and ecological design, while allowing students to specialize in an area of interest including art, business and sustainable agriculture. It will integrate renewable energy and sustainable design within the college’s liberal arts education.