The Middlebury Public Works Committee is meeting in
the Town Offices tomorrow afternoon at 4. Agenda Items Include the Monroe
Street Traffic Data and Road Salt Usage.
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 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.
The Addison County Chamber of Commerce will be
hosting a meeting open to both members and the public entitled “HealthcareDecisions for Small Businesses in 2013.” The meeting will be held on Wednesday,
February 6th from Noon to 1 PM in the Ilsley Library Community Room. The featured presenters are Bram
Kleppner, CEO of Danforth Pewter and Co-Chair of the Medicaid/Exchange Advisory
Board and Sean Sheehan, Director of Education and Outreach for Vermont's Health
Benefit Exchange at the Department of Vermont Health Access. This event is open
to the public and is free of charge. Attendees are welcome to bring a bag lunch
to this noontime meeting. An RSVP
is appreciated to Sue Hoxie (sue@addisoncounty.com) or 388-7951 x2.
The annual Vermont Farm Show returns to the
Champlain Valley Expo grounds in Essex Junction next week. The free statewide event runs Tuesday
the 29th through Thursday the 31st. This is Vermont’s
largest agricultural showcase and it attracts many consumers as well as
agribusiness workers and experts from Addison and Rutland counties. The 2013
edition of the big show will celebrate its 81st year. Being among one of the nation’s most venerable statewide
agriculture expos, the show will make its second showing at the Champlain Valley Expo. This year, the show’s popular
Consumer Night will be held Wednesday, the 30th. Food shoppers will be able to
enjoy the event’s Buy Local Market with Vermont-sourced foods and products.
A discussion was held at Middlebury College about
whether environmental and social concerns should influence investment policies
of college and university endowments.
Last night’s event at the McCullough Student Center is planned to be the
first in a series of discussions about Middlebury's endowment. The discussion will focus on what
factors the college's board of trustees should consider in determining whether
to place restrictions on how Middlebury's endowment is invested, and the
advantages and disadvantages of using divestment as a means of addressing
climate-related concerns. The
panelists will include Middlebury officials and investment professionals.
Coming up this Sunday at 6
PM, Brandon Music will present a concert by celebrated local musician Caitlin
Canty. General Admission is $15
and reservations are encouraged. A pre-show dinner package is available for
$30. The Vermont native, who now resides
in New York City, has folk-pop roots with a Western tone. Call (802) 465-4071 or email
info@brandon-music.net for reservations or information.
The Westport Central School Board will hold a
special budget meeting tomorrow at 5:30 PM in the library. All board of education meetings are
open to the public.
Snow
artists are being sought in Schroon Lake.
Participants are wanted to take part in a snow sculpture contest. The
contest is part of the inaugural Winter Event, a series of activities in the community
running from February 15th through March 17. The snow sculpture contest will kick off Winter Event
Friday, February 15th in the town park.
The theme will be “Honoring our Children.” Up to 25 contestants will
compete for almost $700 in prizes.
People can enter by contacting Joanie Cunningham at
Joaniesgoodies@gmail.com or 532-9900.
Administrative
issues that were holding up the sale of Essex County’s Horace Nye Nursing Home
are almost resolved. County
Attorney Daniel Manning III said he recently spoke with representatives of the
Bronx-based Centers for Specialty Care to negotiate the last two administrative
obstacles to the $4.05 million sale. The next step is to hire a licensed
surveyor to produce a land survey of the Horace Nye property behind the Essex
County Government Center. He said the existing deed for the Nursing Home's 2.5
acres is not that accurate.
A
new $400,000 grant program will help reclaim Adirondack waterways damaged by
acid rain. Attorney General Eric
T. Schneiderman announced the Adirondack Acid Rain Recovery program recently in
an agreement with the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency. The
newly created program will enable the use of modern science to speed the
recovery of New York’s lakes, rivers and wildlife from decades of abuse from
Midwest smokestacks.
The
Diamond Run Mall has lost another major retailer. American Eagle Outfitters closed its store Monday after a
dozen years at the mall. According
to an American Eagle spokeswoman the mall has a low occupancy rate of 60
percent and per their current strategy plan, they seek to return great results
to their shareholders and one of those ways is to re-evaluate their store
footprint as they look at closing or moving stores in underperforming
locations. American Eagle operates
two other stores in Vermont, one on Church Street in Burlington and one in the
University Mall in South Burlington.
Dog
licenses for this year are now available from the Rutland City Clerk’s office. The deadline for registering is April
1. An up-to-date rabies certificate is required to register. Licenses are $13 for dogs that have
been spayed or neutered and $17 otherwise. Late fees are $16 for spayed or
neutered dogs and $22 for others.
That
mortifying Facebook photo you were tagged in last week? May not be such a
deal-breaker after all. Vermont
lawmakers want to shield the social media profiles of job applicants from the
prying eyes of their would-be employers.
For the second year in a row, Sen. Dick Sears is pushing a legislation
that would make it illegal for employers to request from job seekers their
passwords to Facebook, Twitter and other social network accounts. Sears said he’s unaware of any
instances of Vermont employers demanding access to applicants’ online profiles
as a condition of employment. He said reports of the trend nationally, however,
merit some proactive steps in the Green Mountains.
The
state of Vermont is dissolving the state office responsible for expanding
broadband computer access in the state by moving those responsibilities into
the Agency of Commerce and Community Affairs. The role of the office called Connect Vermont had been to
create and expand high-speed broadband access statewide by the end of this
year. The office of Gov. Peter
Shumlin says the commerce agency will continue the efforts to expand broadband
services and monitor the progress while assisting service providers. Shumlin says expanding broadband
services remains 1 of his top priorities.
The changes follow the resignation of former Connect Vermont chief Karen
Marshall, who left her post in state government earlier this month to become
the president of the VTel Data Network.
Vermont
environmental groups are urging the Legislature to keep efforts to stem climate
change at the center of its agenda.
A half dozen groups sent representatives to a Statehouse news conference
on Tuesday to speak on issues ranging from the need for more money to
weatherize Vermonters' homes to a ban on tar sands oil running through a
pipeline that crosses northeastern Vermont. The Vermont Public Interest Research Group, Vermont Natural
Resources Council and the Building Performance Professionals Association of
Vermont were among the groups represented.
Officials
at Vermont's Norwich University say they've exceeded their goal for a
fundraising campaign they called "Bearing the Torch." The 3-year campaign by the Northfield University
that lasted through the end of 2012 raised about $24 million, exceeding its
original goal of $20.2 million. It
was the fifth Norwich fundraising campaign in a row that exceeded its goal
since 1984 when the school launched "Norwich 2000." The campaign largely supports a
scholarship endowment.
Gov.
Andrew Cuomo is backing up the progressive agenda he shouted about in a rousing
State of the State speech a week ago with a financial plan he presented in the
measured tones of a CEO. Cuomo
included ways to use a total of $30 billion over several years in expected
federal funding to restore communities devastated by Superstorm Sandy. He also
plans to use some aid for upstate communities still recovering from tropical
storms Irene and Lee in 2011. Cuomo
avoids calling for a tax increases while increasing school aid 4.4%. He also
funds ways to implement his gun control measures from a week ago. Cuomo says he also wants to fund
marketing and jobs programs aimed at economically struggling upstate
communities.
The
Cuomo administration has proposed suspending the driver's license of anyone who
owes more than $10,000 in overdue taxes.
As part of its proposal for the fiscal year starting April 1, the
administration is calling for the new program to help with collection
enforcement of "past-due tax liabilities." Those are described as "fixed and final," where
the taxpayer has exhausted their rights to administrative and court review. It would be modeled after the state
program using license suspension to compel child support payments.
The
Cuomo administration wants to spend almost $36 million in the coming fiscal
year to implement new restrictions on guns that were passed last week. The money would be used to add state
police staff to oversee recertification of all pistol licenses every five years
and register formerly legal rifles now categorized as assault weapons. Troopers would also help improve safety
at schools. The budget proposed Tuesday includes nearly $33 million in capital
spending for a new statewide database with gun registrations and information
like felony convictions or mental illness determinations that would disqualify
someone from having a gun.
Bundle
up good before heading outside today, and prepare for some of the coldest
weather of the season. A
wind chill alert went into effect Tuesday night, and will continue through this
evening. It's going to be
dangerously cold, with sub-zero temperatures lasting for a long while, and the
wind chill values at a biting 35-degrees-below zero. The usual precautions are to limit your time outdoors, limit
the amount of exposed skin, and bring the pets inside or make sure they have a
warmer space.
When
it comes to political integrity, not many states make the passing grade,
according to the Center for Public Integrity. The group joined forces with Global Integrity and Public
Radio International to investigate and rate each state in the country on things
like transparency, accountability and anti-corruption mechanisms. Not one state earned an "A"
grade, with Vermont ranking 26th with a "D-plus" grade. Investigators say the "small town
feel" of the Green Mountain State is why it's one of the few states with
no ethics agency or asset disclosures.
New Jersey was at the head of the class with a B-plus, while Georgia
placed last.
Vermont
State Police troopers are looking for the driver of a car, which slid into a
home in Rutland Town. The accident
happened Tuesday night, when the eastbound Chevy on Cedar Avenue missed a
curve, traveled more than a hundred feet across a front lawn and collided with
the northwest corner of the home.
Troopers say it caused significant damage to the home's exterior as well
as damage to belongings inside.
The driver ran away, according to State Police, and despite a search
with a sheriff's K-9 unit still has not been found.
Governor
Andrew Cuomo is laying out plans to fund the recently enacted gun control
legislation. Cuomo is proposing
nearly 36-million dollars to implement New York's new SAFE Act. Most of that amount will go to the
creation of an electronic database for gun permit registrations. Numerous Republicans in the state
remain livid over the new law.
Education
funding is on the increase in New York State. Governor Cuomo's newly unveiled budget proposal includes
889-million dollars in state aid for education, an increase of four-point-four
percent from the previous budget. The increase also includes a move to
implement full-day pre-kindergarten across the state.
Gas
prices continue to be a touchy subject matter. Tuesday night a public hearing
was held in regard to prices in Vermont. The national average is $3.27 a
gallon. New Yorkers are seeing 3.69, Vermonter $3.54 and Granite stators are
seeing $3.40. It's those prices
that have people fuming. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders called for an
investigation. While there are
still a lot of unanswered questions as to why we pay more in Vermont, it is
clear that representatives are asking the questions and making note of the
public's frustrations. According
to AAA, the state is the 7th highest in average gas prices. Tuesday legislators
met with the public to hear their opinions. "This is mainly for us to get information from the
public on their feelings," said Chair of House Transportation, Patrick
Brennan. "We know our
customers, 40 years in business so as they trickled away, we knew they were
gone," said Cheryl Cote, who owned a gas station in Canaan, she says the
state tax hurt her business, "Since the infrastructure tax was
implemented, I've lost 130 thousand gallons of gas sales." Why is the price high? Here are
just a few reasons according to distributors, "Just the price of doing
business in Vermont, the rural parts of the state, the cost of transportation
getting the fuel here," said Brennan. And from retailers it's, "Credit card fees, overhead
lights, electricity," said Brennan.
So when I asked what can be done about the high prices? "I'm not sure we can do anything
but just bringing this issue to light and maybe we can work hand in hand with
some of the distributors and come to a common ground where we can actually
reduce pricing," said Brennan.
That infrastructure
tax mentioned in the story goes to repair the states roads and bridges. For a complete list of gas prices
around the state visit: http://gasbuddy.com/.
16
months after Tropical Storm Irene blasted the city, Waterbury is rebuilt. Every
household in that area that asked for help got it. "Rebuild Waterbury" actually served more than
double the number of people FEMA thought they would serve. Rena and Richard Eizor have lived in
their home for 44 years, raised three kids, and at their age, were forced to
remodel their home because of Tropical Storm Irene. "You would not have believed that it would have come
back together," Richard Eizor said.
But for the Eizor's, and 103 other households it did. Waterbury was
rebuilt. "We feel proud of
what we've done," Theresa Wood said, of "Rebuild Waterbury." Theresa Wood's mother also lost
nearly everything in the storm, and that's why she dedicated her time to getting
people back in their homes. But she didn't work alone... it took a
village. "We logged over ten
thousand hours of volunteer service in the last year," Wood said. "Rebuild Waterbury" tackled
projects as big as laying new foundation and constructing new walls, and as
small as trim work and flooring. "We
really appreciate everything they did for us," Rena Eizor said. The Eizor's were displaced for three
months. Water in the basement reached the ceiling and took out the whole first
floor. "We came back and
found a horrible, horrible mess," Rena Eizor said. Several families had help from FEMA,
and insurance, but "Rebuild Waterbury" filled the gaps, and through
mostly private donations raised close to a million dollars. There's a closing celebration at
the Crosset-Brook Middle School this Saturday from 4:30-7. So while homes have been rebuilt, many
people say Waterbury won't be whole until the state office complex is
rebuilt... and so far, no work is being done there, and the legislature hasn't
secured funding.
