The Town Of Middlebury Public Works Committee will
hold a meeting this Friday at 7:30AM in the Middlebury Town Offices Conference
Room. Discussion of the South
Street & Green Mountain Place Project will take place including a review of
project bids. They will also
review the Public Works Standards for Water Main construction. Get more information anytime on the
Town’s Website.
Here is a small correction to a story we reported
on yesterday regarding the location where a vehicle was stolen. Vermont State Police are currently
investigating the theft of a 1987 Gray/Silver Audi Sedan from McGrath
Storage Facility in New Haven. The car was allegedly stolen in May of last
year however the complainant did not call to report the theft until June 1st
of this year as she was unable to locate the paperwork and VIN for the car. The
estimated value of the car is $1,200.00. Anyone with information is asked to
contact The VSP New Haven Barracks. (1-802-388-4919)
The Agency of Natural Resources officials announced
the approval of the Otter Creek Basin water quality management plan this week. The plan reflects years of work in the
Otter Creek Basin to evaluate the health of the surface waters. The Basin 3 water quality management
plan provides an overview of the health of the basin and a description of the
priority future and ongoing steps to restore and protect the quality of its
surface waters. The central component of the water quality management plan is
the implementation table, which includes specific actions to address threats to
surface waters in the basin.
Addison County Transit Resources was recently
awarded a $100,000 grant by Jane’s Trust of Boston, Massachusetts. These funds contribute towards the 20%
local match requirements of a $2.85 million Federal Grant previously awarded to
ACTR for the construction of the Community Transportation Center. ACTR plans to
be operating out of the new Community Transportation Center by March 2013,
shortly after reaching its 20th anniversary of service to the community. To learn more about ACTR’s services,
and/or contribute to the capital campaign for the Community Transportation
Center just visit www.actr-vt.org
or call 388-1946.
The Addison County Chamber of Commerce is pleased
to announce its 18th Annual Scholarship Golf Tournament. The event takes place
on Friday, June 22nd at Middlebury College’s Ralph Myhre Golf Course.
Participants will enjoy 18 holes of golf and an awards party during which the
2012 scholarship recipient will be recognized. There will be several skills
competitions including a feature of the tournament that was introduced last
year—two players will be randomly selected to take a shot at $1,000,000. The
Addison County Chamber of Commerce Scholarship is one of the largest
scholarships offered to students of the Hannaford Career Center. J.P. Carrara
& Sons returns again as the event’s major sponsor. Sponsorships and
participation in the tournament make it possible to fund $4,000 each year in
scholarships to graduates of the Hannaford Career Center. For more information on sponsoring or
participating in the tournament, call Andy Mayer at 388-7951 or email andy@addisoncounty.com.
The Bulwagga Bay campground is a major revenue
source for the town of Moriah, but could it be an under-utilized asset? That’s the question Moriah officials
are asking. To find out the town
will hire a consultant to investigate the town-owned campsite, beach and boat
launch operation and to make recommendations. The study will be done in
conjunction with the Moriah Economic Development Group and the Essex
County/Lake Placid Visitors Bureau.
Fife & drum corps from around the country will
be part of this year’s Ticonderoga StreetFest. The corps will be in town to participate in the annual Fort
Ticonderoga fife & drum crops muster and have agreed join the Fort Ti Fife
& Drum Corps at the downtown event Saturday, July 28th. The
fourth annual StreetFest will be held 10AM to 3PM on Ticonderoga’s Montcalm
Street. The event will feature arts and crafts, shopping, food, fun,
entertainment and family activities. The Ticonderoga Montcalm Street
Partnership sponsors StreetFest.
The Lake George Association is asking landowners
and citizen scientists to be on the lookout for a botanical bully. The Yellow
Iris may look pretty, but it's a highly invasive, non-native species. According to the association's Director
of Education, Emily DeBolt, it is damaging wetlands throughout the region. Vermont
added the yellow iris to a list of plants that cannot be sold in garden
centers, but it is still legal to buy yellow iris in New York. The Lake George Association is asking
people to help get rid of it.
The Addison County Humane Society is hosting their
Fifth Annual RUFF RIDE, a bicycle and motorcycle ride to benefit the animals on
Sunday, June 24th. The bicycle rides will start at 10 am at Ski Haus of Vermont
in Middlebury. The motorcycle ride will start at 8:30 am at Cycle Wise in New
Haven. All rides will begin with
registration and continental breakfast and will finish at the Middlebury Green
for a BBQ, music, prizes, and lots of fun. The entrance fee for the ride is $25.00 per person and
includes the BBQ, free t-shirt and lots of fun! Our very own Bruce & Hobbes will be there to emcee the
festivities! Funds raised from the
RUFF Ride will be used to meet the rising costs of caring for the animals. For
more information, please visit www.addisonhumane.org
or call Jackie at 802-388-1443.
The Rutland County Parent Child Center has been
selected to participate in the Benchmarks for a Better Vermont Performance
Institute, a grant-funded organizational development program. The Institute is designed to help
Vermont’s nonprofit organizations build mission-appropriate and sustainable
systems of performance measurement and will analyze and assist RCPCC at no cost.
It’s official — Bombardier Transportation has
signed a contract for 300 subway cars with the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority, to be delivered to New York City Transit. The order is valued at about $599 million. The MTA
Board of Directors approved the contract with Bombardier on March 28th. The new
cars will be built at Bombardier’s fully integrated manufacturing plant in
Plattsburgh. U.S. Congressman Bill Owens called the contract confirmation great
news for the North Country.
Whenever it issues a decision, the Vermont Supreme
Court encourages readers to catch and report mistakes before the ruling goes
into the law books. Now Secretary of State Jim Condos, a non-lawyer, has done
just that. In a recent ruling, the
court ruled that some records related to alleged police misconduct that were
requested by the Rutland Herald were, as the court put it,
"nonpublic." The
Burlington Free Press reports that Condos urged the court to change that
wording. He argued that records withheld by government agencies are still
public and must be maintained in accordance with state law. A court official wrote to Condos to say
a correction would be made.
Long-time Vermont State Sen. Vincent Illuzzi is
moving closer to a run for statewide office. Illuzzi is gathering the petition
signatures to seek the Republican nomination for state auditor. He says he's
drawn to this race because incumbent Auditor Tom Salmon is not seeking
re-election.
Broadband computer services are now available to
4,000 rural customers in north central Vermont. Yesterday Governor Peter
Shumlin helped Vermont's Cloud alliance announce that it had added four new
towers that will expand service to homes and businesses in Woodbury, Hardwick,
Wolcott and parts of Elmore, Greensboro, Walden and Cabot.
The University of Vermont has received a $5 million
grant to support a three-year research program on smart grid electrical
systems. This was UVM's sixth try
for the graduate research grant from the National Science Foundation. A smart grid seeks to match electric
power supply with consumer demand.
Officials tell the Burlington Free Press about two-thirds of the $5
million will support 22 doctoral students in the program. UVM also will hire
two faculty members in power engineering and behavioral sciences.
The annual North Country SPCA Golf Tournament is
coming up! This year's tournament, "Gimme Shelter," will be held on
Friday, July 20th at the Westport Country Club. Registration is at noon, with a
shotgun start at 1PM. A buffet and prizes will follow conclusion of play. Team
registration should be turned in by Monday, July 16th to allow them time to
plan the number of meals as well as carts and hole sponsor signs. Details and online registration can be found
at www.ncspca.blogspot.com. You can also register by phone at 962-4470, fax your entry to
351-4130, email your entry to ncspca@markedbywm.com, or mail in your entry with
check to: NCSPCA, 23 Lakeshore Road, Westport, NY, 12993. Monies raised by this
event will be used toward the building of their new shelter!
Brandon Music on Country Club Road will present
Michael-Louis Smith this Sunday at 7PM in the Music Café! NYC guitarist Michael-Louis Smith plays
with a sound that is warm and broad, echoing influences of Wes Montgomery,
Grant Green and John Scofield. While an in-demand musician in New York City's
vibrant jazz scene, Smith frequently tours the northeast circuit. He will
perform at Brandon Music with his long-standing Hot House ensemble. The concert
is a part of a year-round weekly jazz series at Brandon Music. 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.
Reservations are required for dinner.
For ticket info and reservations just visit www.brandon-music.net!
Spring has arrived in Addison County and gardens
are blooming! Some are public gardens open for all to enjoy. Many more however
are private gardens. This Sunday
from Noon to 5 the Sheldon Museum offers a unique opportunity to see six of
these “secret gardens,” all in Cornwall, Shoreham and Middlebury. Tickets for
the Spring Garden Tour are $25. Proceeds benefit the Sheldon Museum. Contact the museum for tickets and
information.
Fewer people visited Vermont ski resorts this past
winter. New numbers just released
by the Vermont Ski Areas Association show skier and rider visits were down
about 11 percent from last year and down five percent from the state's ten-year
average. Vermont did fare much
better than ski resorts in most other parts of the country. Nationwide skier visits were down about
16 percent this past winter.
Approximately 400 people die every day due to
hospital errors, according to an independent national non-profit. The Leapfrog Group, run by employers
and other large purchasers of health benefits, developed a Hospital Safety
Score to measure safety issues, such as errors, accidents and infections. More than 26-hundred hospitals across
the country were rated, including 6 hospitals in Vermont. Only three received "A's",
Brattleboro Memorial, Central Vermont Medical Center in Barre and Southwest
Medical Center in Bennington. You
can get more information on the hospital ratings at www.HospitalSafetyScore.org.
From
Fox 44 and ABC 22 News, Your Voice in Vermont and New York:
Police are actively looking for a woman in her
forties from Tennessee who fled in a black BMW with Tennessee license plates
after shooting into the door of her apartment. Police say there was an altercation between a landlord
and a tenant at Roadmaster Auto Sales. There are some apartments located on the
property. The police
received a report just before 1 p.m. Wednesday about shots being fired. St. Albans Police Chief, Gary
Taylor, said, there was an apartment close by with people in it, but no
injuries were reported. The
landlord told us that the woman had been living in the apartment for 30 days
and displayed some refractive behavior.
Bellows Free Academy, CCV and the St. Albans Town School did go on
lockdown as a precaution. Police
say, based on her irrational behavior she should be considered armed and
dangerous. If you have information
about this incident, contact the St. Albans Police Department at 802-524-2166.
Every year it costs $26.5 million dollars for
people in Chittenden County to have their trash picked up. And the county's
solid waste district has an idea to cut costs. "It would save about 4.4 million dollars just in the
residential," said Tom Moreau, general manager at Chittenden Solid Waste
District. The plan is to
consolidate the 14 private haulers that often travel down the same streets to
collect garbage and assign them routes. An idea Moreau says might have many
benefits, "Could it be more efficient, less costly and less impact on the
air and the roads if we just have one truck going down the roads and that's
it?" But even with those
benefits there are some tweaks that they still need to be worked out for
example: Who will do the billing,
the solid waste district or the private haulers? And, how will the routes be
divided among haulers? Moreau says
in order to preserve competition and keep small hauling companies in business,
the answer might be to divide the county into several small sections, "If
it's a bigger, let's call it a contract, say with 10 thousand homes, maybe that
hauler will have to subcontract with a small hauler to keep that small hauler
going." These solutions could
take years to figure out but the district won't finalize anything until
everyone is happy. "The board
wants to be favorable and thoughtful and however long it takes to be fair and
thoughtful is however long it's going to be," said Moreau.
