The Middlebury Select Board will hold a Public
Hearing and Information Meeting on the Preliminary Proposed Town General Fund
Budget for FY14 tomorrow. This
includes Capital project Funds as well.
The meeting will begin at 7:00 PM in the Town Office Conference Room. The
total proposed budget is $8,943,097 with $6,366,592 to be funded by property
taxes. Your comments, suggestions
and input are important and appreciated.
Copies of the proposed budget may be obtained from the Town's website, at the Town Manager's office or by calling 388-8100 ext 201. Committee and Project reports will also
be part of this meeting. Visit the
Town’s Website to view the complete agenda.
Other meeting’s in Middlebury this week include the
Planning Commission; they meet this evening at 6 at MVAA on Collins Drive. Agenda
Items include a Discussion with Vermont Gas Systems at 7 PM. The Town Offices/Community Center
Steering Committee will meet tomorrow morning at 10:30 at the Town
Offices. The Middlebury Public
Works Committee is meeting in the Town Offices on Thursday afternoon at 4. Agenda
Items Include the Monroe Street Traffic Data, Review of Bids on a Dump Truck,
Road Salt Usage and Schedule for Replacement of a Sidewalk Tractor. Also on Thursday at 4, the Downtown Improvement
District Commission meets. They
are planning a Review of the Status of Grants and Pending Projects also a
Discussion of Downtown Parking.
Then on Friday at Noon the Design Advisory Committee meets at Noon at
the Town Offices. Agenda Items include a Review of Middlebury College's
Athletic Facility on South Main Street.
Get details on all of these meetings by visiting the Town’s Website.
Republican voters of the Vergennes area Addison 3
Legislative District nominated Warren Van Wick and Mary Ann Castimore as candidates
for Gov. Peter Shumlin to
consider replacing the late Republican State Rep. Greg Clarke. Both candidates have been active in
local Republican activities. The
Governor has already been asked to select one of the two Addison County GOP
candidates.
Pre-Tech Precision Machining in Mineville recently
received the coveted AS-9100-C certification. This is the quality management
standard specifically written for the aerospace industry awarded by the Online
Aerospace Supplier Information System. The certification places Pre-Tech among
the best in the Aerospace and Defense Quality Management System International
Standard. The certification may also be key to future expansion of the Pre-Tech
Mineville facility.
Ticonderoga High School athletes enjoyed a banner
season last fall on the playing field and in the classroom. All four Sentinel varsity teams that
include the football, women’s soccer, men’s cross-country and women’s cross
country teams, earned the New York State Public High School Athletic
Association Scholar-Athlete Team award. To get the honor each team’s academic
average must be 90 or better.
A wind-driven fire destroyed both a home and garage
at 4 The Portage in Ticonderoga Saturday afternoon. Three firefighters suffered injuries during the six-hour
battle to knock down the flames. All three were treated at Moses Ludington
Hospital and released according to the Essex County Fire Investigator. A water
main break further complicated the effort. The Town of Ticonderoga fixed the
pipes quickly, however the lack of water affected firefighters, changing their
source of water from hydrants to portable tanks filled with lake water. The cause of the fire is still under
investigation, though it appears to be accidental.
Essex County lawmakers are unhappy that Hacker Boat
Co. is using state money to move out of the county. The Capital Region Regional Economic Development Council got
Hacker a $600,000 state grant so it can expand its operations by moving to
Queensbury in Warren County. That
means closing Hacker-Craft plants in Ticonderoga is a loss of 38 jobs locally. Meanwhile the company plans to build a
new facility in Queensbury and consolidate its production and restoration in
the same building. Hacker Boat also has administrative and sales offices in
Hague’s Silver Bay hamlet in Warren County and said recently there were no
plans to close the Silver Bay facility, which is located on Lake George.
Despite of rising costs for fuel, highway salt,
pensions and insurance, the Town of Elizabethtown managed to keep its tax-levy
increase at 3.5 percent for this year, which is within the state tax cap. The allowable rate for Elizabethtown,
as calculated by the New York State Comptroller’s Office, is 4.3 percent for
this year. The total town budget is $1,519,762, with $798,853 raised by the tax
levy. The Fire District budget is $111,533, which brings the total for all
costs to $1,631,295 and the total amount to be raised by taxes to $910,381. The
tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value is up 29 cents from this year; the rate
is $6.18 per $1,000 for 2013.
You can dine out at participating restaurants this
Wednesday and help United Way of the Adirondack Region at the same time. Numerous eateries in Clinton, Essex and
Franklin counties are taking part in the third-annual DINE UNITED event, with
either a percentage of their proceeds, of the wait staff tips or a straight
donation going the agency, which helps fund 41 partner agencies that help the
community in various ways. Find a
complete list of restaurants and their locations at www.unitedwayadk.org
and click on the event tab.
According to Police a group of three teenage skiers
from the Pittsburgh, PA area, were the latest group of skiers who had to be
rescued after they deliberately skied out of bounds yesterday afternoon. Vermont State Police said the skiers,
all 17-year-old girls, were at Killington with a school group and skied out of
bounds at 1:16 PM Sunday from the Juggernaut Trail. The girls later called 911,
and their location was determined through GPS. The Killington Ski Patrol entered the woods and were able to
locate the teenagers and get them out unharmed. State police and E-911 were
also involved in the rescue.
A new program at Rutland High School encourages
students to take a global view in the 21st century. Vermont Secretary of Education Armando Vilaseca visited the
high school Friday to observe interdisciplinary collaboration in action and
discuss a new Global Studies program. Students will be required to study a foreign language
and perform 50 hours of globally focused community service, such as writing
letters for Amnesty International or raising money for clean-water projects.
The program is scheduled to roll out this fall.
Developer Mark Foley has purchased the former
Stoplite Lounge in Downtown Rutland.
Foley closed on the West Street building for $94,200. The bar closed last year
following a challenge to its license by the city. Meanwhile, Foley is working with Small Dog Electronics to
prepare the space that company will use in the Gryphon building later this
year. Foley recently re-branded the building as “The Shops at Gryphon Square”
and said the Small Dog announcement has generated strong interest in the
building’s remaining available retail space.
A 50-year-old Vermont man is being held on $100,000
bail following his arrest in connection with a bank robbery and an attempted
robbery of another bank. Police say John Fenley Jr. was arrested Friday after
they found more than $2,000 of stolen money at his home in Hartford. Police are
seeking an arrest warrant for a second suspect who lives out of state.
The skies will be active over southern Vermont and
New Hampshire when the Massachusetts Air National Guard conducts flight
training this month. The exercises will take place during the day on Wednesday
and again on January 30th. Air Guard officials say the training flights will
involve F-15 fighter jets finding and escorting nonmilitary aircraft to a
regional airport. The 104th Fighter Wing is preparing for an upcoming
inspection.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says repairs to
its fish hatchery in Bethel that closed after Tropical Storm Irene are almost
completed and the facility could begin raising fish again by March or April. The tanks that hold fish both inside
and out have been cleaned and disinfected and repairs to the water and
electrical systems are almost done.
A University of Vermont professor has won a
$400,000 National Science Foundation Career Award for his research proposal on
"smart" electrical grids.
Dr. Paul Hines, a professor in the College of Engineering and
Mathematics Sciences, has proposed research on "harnessing smart grid data
to enable resilient and efficient electricity." He says the research would study ways to use smart grid data
to find patterns of vulnerability in power systems, and would use the results
to reduce the risk of cascading power blackouts.
State police are looking for the driver who hit a
pedestrian Saturday night in Pittsford, and kept on going. It happened at the intersection of
Taylor Road and Route 7, when Naomi Taylor was walking southbound and was
struck by a northbound car.
Taylor, who is from West Rutland, was treated for her injuries at the
hospital. There's no description
of the car at this time, but State Police say it should have some right-side
damage.
Everyone is okay, but it was pretty scary Sunday
afternoon when high winds left about 70 people stranded on a ski lift at
Smugglers Notch. The powerful
winds caused a chair to derail on the Madonna 2 lift, and that left the others
stranded for about 90 minutes. No
one was hurt and one spokesperson for the ski resort says the staff is well
trained, but in the 25 years he's worked there, this is only the second time
they've needed to conduct an evacuation.
A Vermont lawmaker says he's going to pull a bill
banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. It's been less than a week since State Majority Leader Phil
Baruth proposed the bill. However,
on Sunday he told Seven Days Newspaper it's clear to him there's little support
in the State House for it. He made
the statement on Sunday, one day after hundreds of gun rights activists rallied
in Montpelier, showing their opposition to his bill.
Police say they've heard it all from drivers
stopped for speeding, but this case in Norwich may be a new one. Police stopped 21-year-old Samuel
Robbins over the weekend, saying he was driving at 82-miles-per-hour in a
40-mile zone on Woodstock Road.
According to police, Robbins blamed his high speed on the music he was
listening to in the car.
Governor Andrew Cuomo will be unveiling his state
budget for the 2013-2014 fiscal year tomorrow. New York is facing a projected budget deficit in the
upcoming fiscal year of around a billion-dollars, and Cuomo is expected to
close that with a combination of cuts and new revenue. The budget is expected to total around
132-billion-dollars in spending for the fiscal year. Cuomo will deliver the budget address at 2 PM tomorrow.
Thousands of gun rights activists held a rally at
the State Capitol in Albany Saturday to protest New York's tough new gun
control laws. Protesters huddled
in the bitter cold to express their displeasure over the measure that tightens
restrictions on assault weapons and ammunition in the state. The demonstrators heard from several
speakers and chanted loudly to help illustrate their message. The protest was one of many that were
held across the country in an effort organized by the group Guns Across America.
Started by then President-Elect Barack Obama in
2009. The National Day of Service has stuck around for another term but it's
not on partisan lines. "This
really has nothing to do with politics," Chittenden County's National Day
of Service organizer Anna Niemiec said.
"This really has to do with getting people connected to do service
in their community." Which is
what we found at the food drive in Monkton, VT. Where names on a volunteer list
meant more than signing up but pitching in. And at the Champlain Senior Center where a paint job that
originally had only fourteen commitments turned into much much more. "I think we had 45 but it was 43
that we had out here painting at one time," Senior Center Director Bonnie
Campono said. The organizers were
honest in that some of the volunteers came from Re-elect President Obama email
lists but what they had not counted on moving forward. "Undoubtedly people brought
friends," Campono said. Two
volunteers at Habitat for Humanity ReStore summed up best together. "I think we can go on in on a
nonpartisan basis and everybody group together and do something good for the
community," UVM teacher and volunteer Mary Cox said. "I just thought it was a cool
thing they were using their resources to get people to do community
service," UVM student and volunteer Connor Ferrara said.
As the gun control debate continues, several
hundred people rallied at the statehouse in Montpelier over the weekend in
support of gun owners. They were
also there protesting against the passing of more gun control legislation. The event was part of a nationwide
protest ... Taking place in 47 other states. The organizer says he was motivated by the assault weapon
ban in Burlington. "I think
that violence is the problem. I don't think that gun ownership is the problem; I
don't think that what kind of guns we can own is the problem. I know that I own
many guns that people may or may not agree with and yet none of my guns have
ever hurt anyone and they never will” with an excellent turnout organizers hope
to hold more events like this in the future.
