WVTK Local & State News January 4, 2011

With the first official U.S. Census data showing growth in Vermont’s population by 2.8 percent, estimates from 2009 indicate that Addison County’s growth may have been slower. Official county and municipal numbers will not be available until February or March. According to estimates, Addison County’s population grew by just 2.2 percent between April 2000 and July 2009, from 35,974 to 36,760.

Tomorrow Night at 7 the Addison Northeast Supervisory Union Board’s Negotiation Committee will meet to discuss the board’s next steps in the teacher contract negotiations process. At a meeting back in December negotiators for both sides reached an impasse leaving school board members to decide whether they should impose a contract on the teachers.

Cornwall residents will again be asked to weigh in on the future of the Lavalley Store building in March. This after an unsuccessful citizens’ effort to raise enough funds to renovate the 120-year-old building and have it function as a full-time business.

Green Mountain Power will establish public charging stations for electric vehicles traveling in Addison, Chittenden and Washington counties next spring. Central Vermont Public Service Corporation announced it is exploring a similar service.

Addison County child care providers are concerned that parents will have a tougher time landing financial assistance under a new state plan that would see applications processed at a central call center in Waterbury rather than by officials in the county. The plan to phase out a dozen child-care subsidy “eligibility specialists” currently spread throughout the state. The switch to Waterbury is slated to start on February 1 and be completed by early July.

The workshop and office of Naylor & Breen Builders, Inc. in Brandon burned to the ground early yesterday morning. 

Firefighters continued to fight flames well into the early morning hours. The fire was believed to have originated in the spray-finishing booth of the cabinet shop. Insulation between the hollow attic and the ceiling’s wooden truss rafters was the tinder for the uncontrollable fire that brewed for hours under the metal roof.

The water pipes in downtown Brandon were shut down for almost three hours yesterday because of a water main break on Park Street. A service water line on Park Street was leaking about 50 gallons of water per minute. About 65 percent of their customers, including all the downtown businesses, were affected by the leak. The cause of the leak was probably the age of the pipe and the amount of water being pumped on a regular basis.

A Pittsford man is assisting police in solving a crime done to his own property by using a camera. 

Robert Kallen of West Creek Road in Florence caught people destroying his property on tape. He said three men smashed the rear window, windshield and taillight of his Toyota pickup parked in his driveway, and the bay window of his wife’s beauty shop located in the home. There is a cash reward for anyone with information that will lead to an arrest. Anyone with information is being asked to call the state police.

Last year Ticonderoga Federal Credit Union was able to save 100 phones from the dump and donate them to help victims of domestic violence. This year Ticonderoga Federal Credit Union will again team up with the STOP Domestic Violence Center of Essex County for its second annual cell phone drive. The Drive is currently underway and will continue through the month of February. For more information on the cell phone drive, contact your local Ticonderoga Federal Credit Union branch or visit their Web site at www.tfcunow.com.

The Vermont Public Service Board has approved a 7.46 percent Central Vermont Public Service rate increase. Even with the increase, which will take effect with bills mailed today, CVPS’s rates will remain among the lowest of the major utilities in New England. Under the base rate change a residential customer using 500 kilowatt-hours per month would experience a $5.77 increase.

Another deployment of National Guard members from Vermont is about to get underway, but this time it's the Air Guard who is leaving. About 200 Vermont Air Guard support staff will be deployed for 30 to 60 days in Korea.

Vermont's congressional delegation is headed back to Capitol Hill this week as Congress prepares to convene Wednesday. But with Republicans now controlling the House and promises of a new agenda, things may be a little different in Washington. Nevertheless, Senator Patrick Leahy says he's optimistic the President's agenda will not be dismantled by the GOP.

Governor-elect Peter Shumlin is planning a big three-day inaugural bash. First he'll hold a reception in Southern Vermont on Wednesday. On Thursday Shumlin will be sworn in and hold an outdoor celebration on the statehouse lawn. Shumlin will cap it off with a ball at Sugarbush Resort Friday night.

Vermont businesses are bouncing back and that means more jobs are on the way. That is the result of a new survey, which found businesses are planning to hire. Before the recession in 2006, 53-percent of businesses surveyed said they were planning to increase employment in the next six months. Two years later, in the midst of the recession, that number dropped to just 25-percent. Now at the end of 2010, the number of companies looking to expand their workforce has rebounded to 51-percent.

A photographic mural of a Vermont maple sugar making scene by artist Norman Rockwell is hanging again in a hall of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture. Rockwell created the black and white image - of a sugarhouse with smoke coming from its chimney with people checking sap buckets - after becoming friends with Henry Fairfax Ayres, once the chairman of the Vermont Sugar Makers Association.

Congress' failure to adopt climate change legislation, the Gulf oil spill and the nation's first greenhouse gas rules top a list from an environmental law school of the country's 10 most critical environmental and policy issues of 2010. The list, released yesterday by Vermont Law School, outlines regulatory, legislative and other issues of concern in 2010 and what might happen in 2011.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says he's taking a 5 percent pay cut, along with five top aides and Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy. Cuomo says he'll return to the state that portion of the $179,000 governor's salary, which was set by law in 1999. It amounts to $8,950. Cuomo says that New Yorkers have learned to do more with less in order to live within their means, and the government has to do the same.

Essex County is kicking in some money to help run the revitalized Empire State Games next month. The Essex County Board of Supervisors has contributed $5,000 so far for the 31st Empire State Games, slated for Feb. 25 through 27 at Olympic facilities in the Lake Placid area.

Get a new flat-screen TV for Christmas and wondering what to do with that old console? If you're in Vermont or 23 other states it won't do to haul it to the landfill. Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania and South Carolina have new laws banning electronic waste from landfills. That brings to 24 the number of states with similar measures. And most of the states call on manufacturers to help pay for recycling programs.

Vermont's Governor went back to his alma mater yesterday, Middlebury College. Teaching will be Governor Jim Douglas' next job after he leaves state government this week. It is J term at Middlebury College, where students take just one course during this cold winter month. In this case, the subject was Vermont and the governor. There were 24 in the class with a half a dozen from Vermont.