An informational meeting about the South Street
& Green Mountain Place Project will be held this afternoon at 5:30 in the
MVAA Conference Room. In response
to input from the public meeting held in April, the Town will present traffic
calming concepts for the project. The meeting will be taped by MCTV.
Rutland Regional Medical Center's board of
directors has voted to close a popular physical rehabilitation unit at the
hospital. By an 8 to 7 vote with
one member abstaining, the board voted behind closed doors to cut the clinic
from the coming year's budget. The clinic will close on October 1st. Hospital CEO and president Thomas
Huebner broke the news to a group of nurses from the ward that waited outside
the meeting room for more than an hour while the board deliberated yesterday
morning. Beginning in October
patients who utilized the services at RRMC will have to travel to Burlington or
Windsor where the other two acute care rehab units are located.
The Goodrich Corporation in Vergennes has landed a
new multi-million dollar contract with the U.S. Army. The 9.9 million dollar deal is for the company's helicopter
maintenance diagnostic systems. The
Army is purchasing Goodrich's Health and Usage Management Systems known as
HUMS. The units give mechanics feedback on a helicopter's engine performance.
Vermont State Police are currently investigating
the theft of a John Deere Hydraulic Push manure spreader from a farm on Middle
Road in the town of Bridport. If anyone has information regarding the theft
please contact Trooper Doxsee at the Vermont State Police New Haven Barracks. (802-388-4919)
Vermont State Police are investigating the theft of
a Snap On mechanics tool box, mechanics tools, and an electric powered toy bike
from a residence in Monkton. The owner had been a tenant at the property and
was storing the property in a garage at the location. The estimated value of the
stolen property is approximately $12,000 for the toolbox and $400 for the toy
bike. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Vermont State Police New
Haven Barracks. (802-388-4919)
Woodchuck Hard Cider of Middlebury unveiled Private
Reserve Ginger this week. The
adult beverage features organic yellow ginger sourced from Hawaii. Woodchuck worked with a local
Middlebury food co-op as well as Vermont distributor Black River Produce, to
bring the ginger to the Green Mountains.
Hawaii’s Big Island is one of the few places that grows organic ginger,
which is in season during the spring and summer months.
Various Essex County Road Construction Projects
continue this week. Countywide road construction: Crews will be performing
general projects. On Route 74 in Ticonderoga crews will be patching potholes. Traffic
will be controlled by “flaggers” in construction areas.
It looks like Rutland will finally get an IHOP. The Midway Diner on South Main St. will
be sold to the Handy family, which owns the state’s only IHOP on Dorset Street
in South Burlington. A purchase
and sale agreement is in place but is contingent on several factors, including
approvals from the city’s Development Review Board. The DRB will hold a hearing on June 6th to take up a
subdivision of the Midway property. The board will also hear from the Handy’s
on their plans to make exterior changes to the building, as an IHOP.
The 20th Annual Ticonderoga Area Car Show will be
held Sunday, August 5, 2012 in Ticonderoga’s Bicentennial Park. There will be
27 classes with awards in each class. The show is a judged show and a
“SuperWheels Showdown” Qualifier. The first 150 People registered will receive
a goody bag & dash Plaque! During the Car Show there will be food, vendors,
a 50/50 Raffle, Car Show Raffle and music by Jerry’s Juke Box as well as the
Kiwanis Duck Race, a Piston Toss and a Muffler Wrap. The Chamber is currently
seeking additional food and non-food vendors for the show. Area businesses and
vendors are encouraged to participate. Vendor forms and information along with
rules and regulations are available at www.ticonderogany.com.
The deadline to register as a vendor for the show is Friday, June 29th. (You can also call the Chamber
Office at 518-585-6619 or email: chamberinfo@ticonderogany.com)
Incumbent Bill Sorrell formally launched his
re-election campaign Wednesday in front of roughly 100 supporters at the
Statehouse. Sorrell told the group that he's fought for stronger environmental
laws, he's battled the national tobacco companies and he's worked to implement
critical consumer protection laws.
If he's re-elected, he says his top priority will be to educate
Vermonters about the dangers that exist on the Internet and other forms of
social media.
The Vermont Agency of Transportation is embarking
on a series of highway construction and repair projects that are part of the
biggest transportation-spending plan in state history. Governor Peter Shumlin
signed the $658 million transportation bill Wednesday in Richmond in front of
the historic Checkered House Bridge on Route 2. The bridge over the Winooski
River is being widened to preserve its historic character.
Power plants, not power lines, may be in Vermont's
future as a way to ease bottlenecks on the state's transmission grid. The Vermont Electric Power Company, which
operates the statewide grid, is exploring alternatives to building costly new
transmission upgrades. Chris
Dutton, VELCO's CEO talked about the potential options at an energy conference
in Montpelier for the staff of the New England governors and eastern Canadian
premiers. In the Rutland area, Dutton said a proposed biomass plant could help
stabilize the grid. And to meet the needs near Burlington, electricity could be
imported from Hydro-Quebec and fed into the grid, not at the border but through
a converter in Chittenden County.
Vermont's Burlington College has a new president.
The trustees of the college named Vice President Christine Plunkett to the top
job. She will take office on Friday. The Burlington Free Press reports Plunkett
emerged from among five finalists in a national search that drew 60
applications. She replaces Jane Sanders, who resigned in September after seven
years as president.
Entergy Vermont Yankee wants state regulators to
change legal rulings that limited its operation to March of this year. Entergy has approval from the federal
government to operate until 2032. But it still needs permission from the
Vermont Public Service Board for a new 20-year state license, called a
certificate of public good. The
PSB has allowed Entergy to operate its nuclear plant while it reviews the case.
But now Entergy wants the board to go back and alter earlier orders that
restricted storage of spent fuel, and limited operation to this past March.
New York is dusting off its 40-year-old "I
Love NY" icon in a $2 million tourism push aimed at vacationers in the
state, in neighboring states and in Canada. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the TV campaign Wednesday,
marking the return of the "I Love NY" logo with a heart in place of
the word "love." The
summer tourism commercials will run in upstate markets as well as in Cleveland,
Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal and Connecticut. TV ads will run on network and cable stations. They include
NBC's "Today" show, ABC's "Good Morning America" and the
Food Network, where Cuomo's girlfriend, Sandra Lee, is a host. Print ads will adorn New York City
taxis. New Yorkers are invited to
redraw the "I Love NY" symbol for an online gallery at http://iloveny.com.
The First Annual Starksboro Coffeehouse Benefit
will feature Pete Sutherland, local, and student performers at the Common
Ground Center in Starksboro this Saturday. Doors open at 6PM and the runs from event 6:30-8:30PM. The
suggested donation is $5 per person or $10 per family. However, no one will be
turned away from the event for lack of funds. Light fare will be served including
desserts and beverages. All
proceeds will benefit Robinson Elementary musical instrument scholarships. For more details contact San Gordon via
e-mail at sgordon@anesu.org or by telephone at 453-2949.
Brandon Music on Country Club Road in Brandon will
present Judi Silvano’s Indigo Moods Quartet, featuring Fred Jacobs on trumpet,
Tom Cleary on piano, John Rivers on bass and special guest Dan Silverman on
trombone this Sunday at 7pm in the Music Café. She was voted Top Ten Jazz
Vocalist in Down Beat Magazine Reader's Poll four times. The concert is a part of the year-round
weekly Sunday Jazz at Brandon Music series. Tickets are $15 in advance, and $18
at the door. Brandon Music offers an Early Bird dinner special, which includes
a ticket for the jazz performance, for $25 per person. Enjoy the chef’s
award-winning chili and cornbread as well as dessert before listening to
world-class jazz. Reservations are required for dinner. For more information just visit www.brandon-music.net.
Infidelity, mistaken identity, people drunk at work
and two hours of laughter are just some of the characteristics of the
Tony-nominated play “Moon Over Buffalo.” Starting Friday, the Brandon Town
Players will perform the gut-wrenching comedic play during a two-weekend run at
Brandon’s Town Hall Theater. Performances begin at 7:30PM Friday and Saturday
at Town Hall Theater. A matinee at 2:00PM will follow on Sunday.
The Burlington Discover Jazz Festival gets underway
tomorrow! For more than a quarter of a century, the Queen City has celebrated
live music during the annual Discover Jazz Festival. Music resonates from every
corner of Burlington — from the region’s premier performing arts facility, the
Flynn Center, to the Church Street Marketplace, to Waterfront and City Hall
Parks, to neighborhood restaurants. This 10-day event is a chance for the
community to revel in jazz’s spectrum of different forms and meet the
world-renowned artists. Visit www.discoverjazz.com.
From
Fox 44 and ABC 22 News:
The National Weather Service has confirmed that
Tuesday's storms did produce a tornado in West Glover, Vermont. Experts say it was considered a weak
tornado but it's still rare for any tornado to hit the state. As storms hit the area Tuesday,
National Weather Service meteorologist Brooke Taber watched as a dangerous
thunderstorm moved across northern Vermont. "We did have this classic tornadic signature on radar
for about an hour," says Taber.
Taber's suspicions proved right after a visit to West Glover
Wednesday. That's where he says he
saw up to 50 trees that were uprooted, twisted or snapped and some damage to a
home. "We did see debris signatures that were associated with a tornadic
thunderstorm and we did rate it an EF-0," says Taber. Taber says the tornado packed winds of
up to 80 miles an hour, cut a path 100 yards wide and was on the ground for a
third of mile. On Wednesday, he
also checked out what up to five inches of rain and flash flooding damaged in
northern Vermont. "People
were saying they saw walls of water that did the damage in 30 minutes,"
says Taber. He says that washed
out roads, culverts and moved cars.
Taber says the collision of strong winds, warm temperatures, high
humidity and fronts produced Tuesday's storms. "They are not very typical. Usually once to two times a
year we'll get storms of these magnitudes," says Taber. Taber says a tornado only hits Vermont
about once a year. He says the
rating, EF-0, which is the lowest tornado rating, is the usually strength for a
tornado in Vermont.
Vermont taxpayers, be on the lookout. The Green
Mountain State is cracking down on unpaid taxes, costing some people a chunk of
change. For the first time in the
75 years his business has been operating, John Center, the owner of Fabian
Earth Moving, Inc., was told he was not paying his taxes correctly. "It was kind of a trying
experience. The auditor spent the better part of 3 weeks at our business,"
Center said. The auditor found
that Center owes Vermont a couple hundred dollars for some obscure taxes like a
sales tax for grass seed, or for equipment parts from out of State. "You know we try to keep up on
State Web sites and this kind of thing but a lot of times when you call a State
agency if you talk to five different people you're going to get a lot of
different answers," Center said.
But Center is not the only one who is being forced to pay up. A few
years ago, Vermont's legislature hired several new auditors in a move to pinch
every penny to help close Vermont's budget gap. "We want to make sure that everyone is paying the right
amount of taxes. Don't need to raise taxes if everybody is paying what is
actually owed," Tax Commissioner Mary Peterson said. For some people, that may mean paying
several years worth of taxes that they did not know existed. That could be
anywhere from a hundred to hundreds of thousands of dollars. "People do need to keep up with
the tax laws," Peterson said.
But she also recognizes that tax policy can be confusing. "We're actually hiring some
outreach specialists so that we can do a better job of developing our policies
and educating people on what those policies are," Peterson said. The aggressive tax collection has only
had average results. It gave the State roughly $7 million in extra tax revenue.
That is compared to the State's projected budget gap of $46 million this year. To
learn what you can do if you have unpaid taxes, click HERE.
A plan to alleviate heavy traffic near Exit 16 in
Colchester is making progress. Wednesday night the public got a chance to voice
concerns and ask questions about the multi-million dollar project. The proposed
project is called a ‘Double Crossover Diamond Interchange,' and while a number
of residents seem happy change is being made to the overpopulated intersection
there a number of concerns when it comes to pedestrian safety and overall
driver confusion. Driving down
Route 2 and Route 7 in Colchester can be a gridlock headache, but a project is
in the works to improve the traffic congestion. It requires both sides of traffic to briefly cross on
opposite sides of the road. The project will also widen US Routes 2 and 7 from
the Winooski town line up one mile north into Colchester. "It will allow a free flow of
traffic for the left turn lane as you get southbound on the interchange and
will actually free up a lot of the congestion on the interchange," said
Kevin Marshia with the Vermont Agency of Transportation. Some people at the meeting agree it will be beneficial
for drivers. "It's clear that
its well thought out and carefully designed in regard to motor vehicles,"
said a member in the audience. However,
several had concerns about pedestrian safety, "They may have difficulties
trying to get across these ramps."
Project designers say they hope to start construction in 2014-2015. The
public has 10 days from Wednesday's meeting to submit commits and concerns on
the project.
