The Middlebury Select Board will be holding it’s
regular meeting this evening at 7 in the Main Conference Room of the Town
Offices. Items on the agenda for
this meeting include the signature authorization of Closing Documents for the
Purchase of 38.3 acres of Conservation Land off Washington Street Extension,
adjacent to Chipman Hill. Various
Committee Reports will also be heard and a FY14 Budget update that will review
and revise the Budget Proposal & Prepare for a Public Hearing on the Budget
Proposal set for January 22nd.
For a look at the complete agenda just visit the Town Of Middlebury’sWebsite.
A reminder that you are invited to join the Addison
County Chamber Of Commerce tonight for the presentation, "Embezzlement,
Fraud & Theft: It Can (and does) Happen Here." Holden Insurance is
presenting the meeting and speaker.
Don’t think you can be duped? Do you have all the right checks and
balances in place? Embezzlement has happened in our own backyard. Join the Chamber to hear Tom Hughes—a
one-time banker, accountant, business manager, and small business CFO. Tom will talk about some of the things
he’s learned. Everyone is welcome! The presentation will take place from
6:00 – 7:30 this evening in the Ilsley Library Community Room. Please RSVP to sue@addisoncounty.com
or 388-7951 x2.
On Wednesday the Vermont Agency of Transportation
will be holding an Open Forum and Public Hearing regarding the Middlebury State
Airport Runway Reconstruction and Safety Area Improvements. The Open Forum begins at 6 PM and
provides an opportunity for interested parties to ask questions of VTrans
representatives specific to their property. The Public hearing begins at 6:30 PM so VTrans can receive
comments and suggestions for changes from interested persons. Project plans are
available for review in the Middlebury Town Clerk's Office.
Coming up tomorrow at the Sheldon Museum art
teacher Sarah Flinn and 5th and 6th grade teacher
Catharine Canavan from Weybridge Elementary School will present a talk on their
collaborative student project detailing the history and development of the town
of Weybridge. The exhibit was
inspired by the 250th anniversary celebrations for the town of Weybridge and
the Henry Sheldon Museum outreach program Maps to the Past. The exhibit is
currently on display at the Henry Sheldon Museum through January 12th. Bring a brown bag lunch at Noon and
beverages and dessert will be provided. Museum members may visit free, others
pay a minimum donation of $2. For
information call 388-2117 or visit www.henrysheldonmuseum.org.
The “Ski Bum League” ski
race series at the Snow Bowl starts this Friday. The league is a recreational
series and all levels of skiers are encouraged to participate. There are 10
races scheduled on Fridays from 1:30 to 3:00 PM through March. An après ski
gathering follows each race. You can form a team of at least 3 people or be
placed on an existing team. Join the fun! Contact middskibum@gmail.com
for more information.
The founder of the
Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance has left the organization. Alex Levitch has resigned from the
executive board of directors. Alex
said he resigned because he no longer had the time to devote to the alliance.
He is owner of Adirondack Camp in Putnam.
The Ticonderoga Revitalization Alliance is a not-for-profit, local
development corporation whose mission is to restore economic prosperity in the
Ticonderoga region. Its goal is to serve as a clearinghouse for ideas and
resources and be a catalyst for public-private partnerships and investment
opportunities. Alex emphasized he
feels strongly about the future of the alliance.
A school-board veteran
has filled a post left vacant by resignation from the Essex Town Council. The council appointed Bryan Garvey to
fill the last year of James LaForest’s term as councilor. He will complete that unexpired period,
which ends December 31st of this year. The post will be on the November general election ballot. Essex Town Supervisor Sharon Boisen
said there were five applicants for the council position, and the board felt
Garvey is community-spirited and will do a good job.
The Westport Central School
Board will hold a budget session and regular meeting at 5:30 PM tomorrow in the
library of the school. Topics for
discussion include the budget and policy review. There will also be a
presentation on the ‘Dignity for all Students’ Act. The meeting is open to the public.
The Willsboro Central
School Board will meet at 6 PM tomorrow in the conference room of the school. Agenda items include business and
finance reports and personnel discussions. The meeting is open to all.
The Elizabethtown-Lewis
Central School Board will meet at 6 PM this Wednesday in the conference room of
the school. Items on the agenda
include public recognition of faculty and staff members for supporting
community members during the holidays, recognition of the Adirondack Youth
Climate Board and a presentation of the E-L-C-S Green Team. The meeting is open to the public.
Rutland City Police are
investigating a robbery and an attempted robbery at two convenience stores
Friday night, possibly involving the same suspect. In both cases, police said, the man did not show a weapon
but “had his hand in his pocket like he had one.” Police first received a call at 9:15 PM from employees at the
Jiffy Mart at 98 State Street.
Jiffy Mart workers told police the man got into a “dark-colored,
sporty-looking car with white plates” and a spoiler on the trunk, and drove
north on Pine Street. About
25 minutes later, police received a call from Mac’s Market at 145 North Main Street.
Mac’s employees said the man had a blue bandana covering his face and was
wearing a blue baseball cap, a black sweatshirt with a hood, a blue “polo”
shirt over a white T-shirt and baggy pants. Anyone with information about
either incident is asked to call Rutland City Police at 802-773-1816.
Vermont police have made
an arrest in three armed robberies in Chittenden County in which the suspect
used a long-barreled handgun. Police
say 29-year-old Jason A. Peet is accused of robbing the Simons Store in South
Burlington, and the Champlain Farms and Maplefields stores in Colchester on
November 25. Authorities say Peet
allegedly pulled the trigger on the handgun multiple times in the Champlain
Farms at the intersection of Route 2a and Route 7 in Colchester, but the weapon
did not fire. Police say
Pete, who is currently jailed in another matter, is scheduled to be arraigned
on Tuesday on charges of attempted murder, and assault and robbery and
attempted assault and robbery.
A plan that could
replace the Vermont Air National Guard's aging fighter planes is running into
fierce opposition from people who feel the new plane, the F-35, is just too
loud. The South Burlington airport
is the Air Force's "preferred alternative" as the Air National Guard
base to host the first batch of F-35s that would be ready for use in combat. Plans
call for different versions of the F-35, the nation's newest fighter plane, to
be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marines. In many locations where the
Department of Defense has considered basing or flying the planes - from San
Diego to Maine - there have been noise concerns.
Vermont lawmakers
convening in Montpelier this week will be hearing from a range of activists
joining in what they're calling a 'Put People First' movement. Leaders of
several organizations say they'll gather at noon on Wednesday to push an agenda
including affordable health care access for all, accessible transportation, a
healthy environment and inclusion of people with disabilities. Organizers say
they expect hundreds of people to attend the rally and will deliver thousands
of postcards to lawmakers demanding that their agenda be attended to.
A Washington-based group
of people with Vermont ties will be celebrating President Barack Obama's second
inaugural in two weeks. Vermont U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy is urging that Vermonters
in the Washington area consider attending the group's inauguration part on
Sunday evening, January 20. Washington area residents who have a strong
affinity for Vermont founded the Vermont State Society in 2008. Leahy says he
went to its inaugural association in 2009 and thoroughly enjoyed it.
A 60-year-old skier who
got lost after going off the trail at Vermont's Bolton Valley has been found
and is in good condition. Police said that Michael Krasnow of Charlotte was
located Friday night after ski patrols, mountain rescue crews from Stowe and
Waterbury and state police searched for him. Michael had called the Bolton
Valley Ski area on his cell phone Friday afternoon and said he skied out of
bounds and got lost in the woods.
The annual Vermont Farm
Show is returning to the Champlain Valley Fair Grounds. It will be the second year that the
show will be at the fairgrounds after moving from the Barre Civic Center, which
hosted it for years. It's being held from Jan. 29-31. Organizers say the new site is more spacious and provides a
better experience for guests. The
Farm Show is opportunity to meet vendors, see agricultural products, machinery
and farm animals, and attend trade association meetings. This year includes a
Buy Local Market, with foods and products from Vermont farms. There also will
be a "Capital Cook-off," in which teams from the Vermont House of
Representatives, Senate, and Agency of Agriculture will have 90 minutes to
create a dish using Vermont products.
Governor Andrew Cuomo
says new state power to limit rate hikes will save New Yorkers more than $500
million on health insurance premiums in 2013. Cuomo announced yesterday that health insurers requested
average increases of about 12.4%, but the state Department of Financial
Services cut the average increase to 7.5%. The rate actions under a 2-year-old law affect health
insurance policies covering about 2.3 million New Yorkers, mostly in small
groups, plus people covered by large group HMOs, individual direct-pay plans
and Medicare Supplement policies.
New York’s 5-year plan
for fighting cancer targets smoking, poor nutrition and obesity to limit the
disease that is now diagnosed in more than 100,000 New Yorkers annually. Among the state's 19 million residents
are nearly 1 million cancer survivors. The plan also calls for tracking their
quality of life and ensuring appropriate follow-up care including ongoing
screenings. Cancer kills about
35,000 people in New York each year.
The report from a group of providers and organizations, including the
state Health Department and the American Cancer Society, lists a series of
measurable goals for early detection, treatment and public outreach.
New York State has taken
ownership of the Essex Chain of Lakes tract in the Adirondacks. The Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports
the deal to buy the 18,294 acres from The Nature Conservancy for almost $12.4
million closed on December 21st. The
purchase is the first in a 5-year program of buying 69,000 acres timberlands
for a total of $48 million. The
land is in the towns of Minerva and Newcomb and includes 11 lakes and ponds,
nearly 15 miles of Hudson River shoreline and 8.5 miles on the Cedar River
shoreline. There won't be public
access to most of the property until the fall, when two hunting club leases on
a total of 11,600 acres expires.
The new Vermont State
Legislative session kicks off this week.
Activities begin Wednesday with both the House and Senate convening,
electing top officers along with the House clerk and Senate secretary. On Thursday, Governor Peter Shumlin and
other statewide elected officials are sworn in before a joint assembly. Issues likely to come before lawmakers
this session are dealing with the projected shortfall of 50 to 70 million
dollars, doctor-assisted suicides, and decriminalizing marijuana.
Governor Andrew Cuomo
will deliver his third State of the State address on Wednesday. The governor is expected to call for
stronger gun control laws during his address, fueled by the school shootings in
Connecticut last month. Cuomo is
also expected to call for an increase in the state minimum wage, and for more
assistance to victims of Storm Sandy.
Cuomo's address will take place Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 at the
Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany.
The UPS Store in Rutland will host the next Rutland
Region Chamber of Commerce mixer from 5 to 7 PM tomorrow. The UPS Store is
located at 31 North Main St. in the CVS Plaza. The mixer will feature hors
d’oeuvres, networking and door prizes including a print by Peter Huntoon. For
more information contact the Rutland Chamber, call 773-2747.
PEGTV recently broke ground for a new
1,500-square-foot addition to its headquarters in building 24 at Howe Center in
Rutland. The addition will provide
for new office space, storage and a garage for the PEGTV van, according to a
press release. PEGTV signed
a new 10-year lease on the soon-to-be expanded facility. PEGTV is comprised of
channel 15, for public programming, channel 20, for education programming, and
channel 21, for government programming, and is available to all cable
subscribers throughout Rutland County.
Visit them online at www.pegtv.com.
President Obama signed a
piece of legislation into law this week that will protect the families of
thousands of emergency medical technicians across the country. But it was in honor of one Vermont man
that this bill finally got the push it needed to become law. At a snow-covered memorial in Pittsford
you can read the names of Vermont emergency responders who lost their lives in
the line of duty. Including Dale Long.
"We did transport him to the hospital and make all attempts to
recessitate him but couldn't," Vermont Ambulance Association Treasurer
Bill Hathaway said. Hathaway was
director of Bennington EMS, where Dale was an EMT, when Long was in an
ambulance crash in 2009 that killed him. At the time there was no federal
program to compensate the families of non-profit EMS responders "Two o'clock in the morning you
get a page to go out on a call and your spouse, wife, husband whomever. You
don't know if they're coming back," Hathaway said. But now there's the Dale Long Act,
which provided more than $320,000 to the families of non-profit EMS responders
who lose their lives in the field.
It wasn't easy getting the piece of legislation bearing Dale's name to
pass in Washington. But one of Vermont's senator's had met Dale before he died
in 2009 and was willing to go to any length to make sure the bill bearing
Dale's name passed. "I gave
senator Leahy a call and I said senator this lends a face to the law,"
Hathaway said. "Dale would be
so humbled by all this he might even be embarrassed," Rich Long, Dale's
brother, said. But there's no
doubt Dale would be proud of his brother. Both Rich and his wife joined
Colchester Rescue after Dale's death.
"I love my brother and I miss him very much but I can't have him
back. But what we can do is pay forward some of the good work he was
doing," Rich Long said. And
now a law bearing his brother's name will help pay back those who suffer the
loss of someone who lived to serve.
"This has a tremendous impact on not just Vermonters but all states
where they have volunteers in action doing volunteer EMT’s work," Rich
Long said. In Vermont it will help
cover the lives of 1200 Vermont Emit’s and paramedics.
