WVTK Local & State News January 18, 2011

The National Weather Service has issued a WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY through 7AM Wednesday for Addison County & Eastern Essex County, NY. A WINTER STORM WARNING is in effect through 7AM Wednesday for Rutland County.
The Weather Channel Says: Snow Today – Mixed with Sleet Later On - High In The 20’s

At the last City Council meeting in Vergennes, the City and Boys & Girls Club of Greater Vergennes discussed the city-owned property on the east side of New Haven Road. The Vergennes ID School District deeded that land to the city last year when that board dissolved. The youth club board remains interested in some of the land, which is near city schools and recreation facilities, as a potential site for a permanent headquarters and clubhouse.

16 Middlebury College students are participating in the MiddCORE course. It includes studying neuroscience, selling books, learning to haggle, doing market research for a local dairy farm and meeting an ex-CIA spy. Their MiddCORE course spends at least eight hours each weekday learning about business and entrepreneurship with guest speakers and competitive challenges. The goal of MiddCORE is to take students out of their comfort zone and to force them to take risks they may not otherwise take.

Twelve Vermont youths, including some from Addison County, with difficult pasts recently got a unique opportunity to transform heightened moments from their own lives into works of art. The HighLow Project is an exhibit of pairs of photographs accompanied by audio narrations that re-enact “high” and “low” points in the lives of young adults who have received services from the Vermont Coalition of Runaway & Homeless Youth Programs. The project will be on display at the Folklife Center and in the Merchants Row storefront through February 28. An opening reception will be held this Thursday, from 5 to 7 PM in the storefront space next to Carol’s Hungry Mind Café. A few sample images with narration can be found at highlowproject.org.

Monkton writer Eugenie Doyle released her most recent children’s novel, “According to Kit,” in 2009. More than a year later, recognition for the book is still coming in. When the Society of School Librarians announced its annual book awards in late 2010, “According to Kit” was among nine novels for grades 7-12 given an “honored book” designation.

According to the Vermont Ski Areas Association Vermont’s ski areas reported a successful Martin Luther King holiday, the second of three major holidays during the season, with skier visits running well ahead last year’s numbers. Despite the good numbers to date, it’s too early to predict whether Vermont will surpass last year’s 4 million skier visits.

Currently two bridges cross Lake Champlain connecting Vermont and New York -- one at the northern tip and another at the southern tip. Now a New York lawmaker thinks both states need to start exploring the idea of building a third bridge to serve the Plattsburgh and Burlington area. The idea was raised after hearing from dozens about the unreliability of the ferry at certain times of the year. However money is tight with New York facing a ten billion dollar budget deficit and that Vermont lawmakers show no interest in exploring the idea.

After 45 years of issuing loans to Vermont college students, the future does not look bright for the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. VSAC issued a report to the legislature outlining the impact of legislation last year that ended the primary federal loan program that VSAC depended on. Students now get their loans directly from the government. The company has already reduced its budget by 18-percent in the last three years and cut 84 jobs. VSAC expects another ten percent cut this year.

School breakfasts are up in Vermont 

Vermont schools continue to see record participation in the school breakfast program,
compared to other states, according to the Food Research and Action Center’s School Breakfast Scorecard for 2009-10. 

More than 15,000 low-income children eat a free school breakfast on an average school day across the state according to the annual report.

A woman charged with felony drug charges for growing marijuana for her sick son won't go to trial. Prosecutors have agreed to refer Sue Thayer, of East Wallingford, to court diversion. If she completes it, the charges against her will be dismissed.

A nonprofit that keeps tabs on pollution is releasing a town-by-town list of Vermont's toxic threats, saying it wants people to be more aware of pollution - and government to be more responsive addressing it. The Toxics Action Center says the list was developed using government data in hopes of making people more knowledgeable about the environmental threats around them.

Vermont State Police say a house fire has killed an elderly Shaftsbury couple. Battling bitter cold, Shaftsbury Fire Department firefighters who responded about 4 AM yesterday found the house fully engulfed in flames and requested assistance from the Arlington Fire Department. The cause is still under investigation but that the fire appears accidental.

Barre city councilors are dropping a plan to regulate where sex offenders can live. If the council had approved the proposed charter change then the issue would have gone before voters in March. In 2009 a judge ruled Barre did not have the authority to restrict where sex offenders can live, saying the city first needed to pass a charter change giving it that power. That charter change would have also needed legislative approval.