WVTK Local & State News February 4, 2011

Twenty-two students in Middlebury College's International Program are back after some scary experiences in Egypt. The students had been there for several weeks, but say last Friday's protests began to turn dangerous with a lot of gunfire. Saturday, they were told they had to return to America immediately. They ended up waiting at the Alexandria airport for 34 hours until they could finally get a flight out.

Teachers in the Addison Northeast Education Association opened their strike headquarters after negotiations with the district's school boards failed. Teachers there have been without a contract for more than eight months. Talks Wednesday night were the latest failed effort at reaching a settlement. That means the board will impose working conditions on the teachers, who have voted to go on strike next Wednesday if an agreement has not been reached.

Addison Northeast Supervisory Union officials are trying to explain why a six-figure deficit has showed up on the school districts books six months after the close of the fiscal year. At this weeks meeting of the Mount Abraham Union High School board, officials said the district business manager had made projections last June that poorly estimated Mount Abe’s revenues and expenditures for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Measures are in place to prevent similar errors in the future. Along with a new business manager, a consultant will be hired to analyze the process currently used by the supervisory union to develop its projections and spending plans.

Meanwhile, residents in six of the Addison Central Supervisory Union’s seven member towns will vote this March on proposed 2011-2012 elementary school budgets that proposed lower spending than this year’s.

Carmelita Burritt will not be running for town clerk in Monkton this year. She has held that position since 1973. Sharon Gomez is likely to become the community’s first new town clerk since the Nixon administration. Burritt will continue on temporarily as an assistant in the office.

Ten Addison County towns will soon mark a very special birthday. This year the towns of Shoreham, Bridport, Addison, Leicester, Middlebury, New Haven, Cornwall, Panton, Salisbury and Weybridge will commemorate the 250th anniversary of receiving charters from Benning Wentworth, the first royal governor of New Hampshire, in 1761.

Vermont Railway officials have confirmed plans to acquire private and public land along the corridor of a proposed 3.3-mile-long rail spur that would link the Omya quarry off Foote Street in Middlebury with the main line west of Otter Creek. They hope to start building the project during the spring of 2013. Meanwhile, Vermont Railway has formed a new entity, “Otter Creek Railroad,” to take the lead on the project estimated to cost around $30 million and last two construction seasons.

Union workers will likely not see pay increases in Ticonderoga in 2011. Employees in the water and sewer department have agreed to a one-year contract with no pay raise. Talks are ongoing with the town highway and police employees, however the town Supervisor expects both to agree to a one-year pay freeze in exchange for a promise of no layoffs.

Residents of Addison, Ferrisburgh, Panton and Waltham will be offered a choice on March 1st on how their towns will fund the Bixby Free Memorial Library. The Vergennes library has always been listed on the Town Meeting Day ballot in each community as a charitable entity making a specific funding request. However in Vergennes aldermen have always included the library in their budget.

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin is hoping to create jobs through a wide-ranging series of proposals that include job training, veterans' employment and encouraging foreign investment in the state. Among the specific proposals is a $2,000 tax credit for an employer who hires a veteran or a $1,000 credit for an employer who hires someone who has been unemployed.

South Burlington teachers said they’d vote March 2nd whether to strike, unless the school board comes up with a tentative contract. The South Burlington school board's next scheduled meeting is February 16th. Teachers have worked without a contract for more than eight months. The South Burlington Educators' Association says the board is indicating it’s walking away from negotiations, and the union won't stand for it.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders says he wants Vermonters to know that hundreds of contractors found to have defrauded the U.S. military are still doing business with the military. Sanders made the comments after his office in Washington released a report that found defense companies that defrauded the U.S. military between 2007 and 2009 still received $285 billion in contracts from the Pentagon during the same period.

Vermont lawmakers are weighing a bill that would establish a government transparency office to enforce the state's public records laws. The bill, which would also set up a committee to review more than 250 exemptions contained in the law, is aimed at providing what state government lacks now - a person or office that enforces the law and advises citizens who have been denied in their public records requests.

New York State Police are warning the public about two popular scams that keep resurfacing. The first targets senior citizens. Callers claim to be a grandchild in need of money and the scammer asks that money be wired to them. The vacation scam typically involves an e-mail. The scammer hijacks someone's account and e-mails everyone on the contact list to ask for help getting back home from an international vacation, claiming all their money has been stolen. Call police if you believe you've been targeted.

Crown Point Central School students are planning a field trip. The sixth grade will make the school's first-ever whale watch adventure this spring. The weekend trip will be similar to whale watch treks taken by Ticonderoga Middle School and St. Mary's School in Ticonderoga. The 16 students in the Crown Point sixth grade are raising money for the trip. They will host an Italian dinner Thursday, February 10th at 4:30 PM at the school cafeteria.

International Paper's Ticonderoga mill recently awarded $44,070 in grants through the International Paper Company Foundation. Non-profit organizations and schools received the IP grants for new or expanded programs in literacy education, environmental awareness, and employee volunteerism. Grant applications and guidelines are available to any non-profit organization by logging onto to the following website: www.ipgiving.com.

The new Downtown Rutland Partnership website is expected to come online next Tuesday. The website will include a step-by-step tutorial on permitting and other aspects of starting a business in Rutland along with individual sites for members that can be used as official websites for member businesses. The site’s address remains rutlanddowntown.com.

According to Addison County Chamber of Commerce officials, Commissioner Megan Smith, head of the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing, will speak in Middlebury next Tuesday, February 8th at the Chamber's monthly membership meeting. The meeting will be held in the Community Room at Ilsley Public Library from 11:30 AM – 1 PM. An RSVP is requested. Smith will discuss changes to the state's tourism marketing programs. There will be time for questions and answers at the end of her presentation.

Traci Moore has accepted the job of executive director for the United Way of Rutland County. Longtime chief Chuck Sharp vacated the position last month. Moore started her work at Vermont Achievement Center as an “annual fund coordinator” which is the key person when it came to raising money from local and corporate sponsors, writing grant applications and marketing the center’s programs. Because of that experience she is prepared to bring the United Way into the future.

The state of Vermont is updating its public transit plan, and it's asking for public input to do it. Last updated in 2007, the Public Transit Policy Plan consists of policies, goals and strategies for meeting the needs of transit users in the areas of fixed routes, paratransit, transportation brokerage and ride sharing. The Vermont Agency of Transportation, which is updating the plan, is holding public meetings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to gather suggestions.

Vermont utility regulators are holding hearings on a wind power project in the Northeast Kingdom town of Lowell. Green Mountain Power Corp. has won the approval of town voters for the 21-turbine project, but now the state Public Service Board must decide whether to issue a certificate of public good.

Vermont State Police say 24-year-old Greg Zagar, of Clinton, NY, was skiing at Pico Mountain Resort with a group of friends at 12:30 yesterday afternoon when they went out of bounds off Upper Giant Killer and he got lost. Crews were able to guide him out of the woods on his cell phone. At least nine skiers have required rescue at Vermont ski mountain’s in the past week alone.