WVTK Local & State News February 9, 2011

Students in the Addison Northeast district will head to school today. Teachers called off a strike and agreed to work under conditions imposed by the area's school boards for the remainder of the year. An imposed contract can only last one year. So both sides will soon head back to the bargaining table to try again to hammer out a deal for next year. They hope to start those negotiations within the next couple weeks.

Vermont firefighters are counting down to their 122nd Vermont State Firefighters convention in the summer. The annual gathering is an opportunity to exchange ideas, compare firefighting and rescue plans, and socialize. This year's convention will be held July 22-24 in Middlebury. The convention was held in Middlebury four years ago. Most of the events are open to the public and many are free. The convention will bring several hundred people to the Middlebury area and will be great opportunity for area people to connect with those who serve our communities.

Addison County Home Health and Hospice recently received a check for $2,000 from Shaw's Supermarket in Middlebury. The funds would help the organization acquire a portable defibrillator. Addison County Home Health and Hospice has been providing comprehensive home health care services in Addison County since 1968. The nonprofit agency employs more than 180 full and part-time employees and serves people of all ages within the 23 towns of Addison County.

With so many labor issues on the table connected to teachers' pay, there is a call in Montpelier to create one statewide teachers' contract instead of boards and teachers negotiating at the local level. There are sometimes huge pay disparities between districts, depending on the size and wealth of a community. The smaller towns tend to have lower pay and the bigger more urban communities often have more money to spend on teachers.

Many Vermont municipalities are onboard when it comes to reducing diesel-truck idling. The Clean Air Task Force has claimed that respiratory problems caused by diesel exhaust will cost Vermont $78 million in health-care costs. Last spring, the American Lung Association in Vermont launched a program titled Vermont Idle-Free Fleets to raise awareness of claims relating to health effects and the economic and environmental impact of unnecessary diesel idling.

High-energy prices, high unemployment and a cold winter are prompting a record number of households to seek home heating assistance. The National Energy Assistance Directors' Association will announce today that 8.9 million households are expected to qualify for financial help this winter, up from 8.3 million last winter. It's the third year in a row the number of households needing assistance has set a new high. Vermont and Florida are the states projecting the biggest increase in eligible applications.

Lawmakers, lobbyist and others are looking over a plan for Vermont to be the first state to provide universal health care. Yesterday Governor Peter Shumlin unveiled how he will reach that ambitious goal as lawmakers heard about a plan that would change health care for every Vermonter. The governor's plan relies on federal money from President Obama's health care bill. That bill is currently in the courts and if it is struck down the governor's staff admits Vermont would have to start its health care reform all over again.

Burlington police are asking for the public’s help in locating a Waterbury man reported missing in early January. 40-Year-Old Alfred Adams of Waterbury was last seen walking into the woods near the rest stop by exit 10 on I-89 Northbound in late November. Adams was reported missing by family members who have said lack of contact is abnormal and are concerned about his welfare as he has several mental health conditions.

Essex County Soil & Water Conservation District will receive nearly $100,000 to help area farmers reduce the impact agricultural practices have on Lake Champlain's water quality. The money, recovered from a 2007 case in which a major power company violated the Clean Air Act, will target phosphorus reduction from area farms, improving operations, fighting pollution and improving the health of Lake Champlain.

Several Rutland city bridges and culverts are at “high risk of complete failure”. The Department Of Public Works Commissioner gave the Board of Aldermen a priority list this week, saying while three of the city’s worst-off bridges — Dorr Drive, Ripley and Forest Street — are due to be replaced under the State Bridge Program, another 10 of the city’s 28 bridges and culverts need attention in the near future.

The Downtown Rutland Partnership is once again offering micro grants to local businesses. The partnership will take application through March 14 for $750 and $1,000 grants paying for direct improvements to businesses within the Special Benefits District. The partnership will make similar grants available for marketing in the spring.

General Electric Rutland and Rutland Region Chamber of Commerce are teaming up to challenge local businesses and organizations to organize a team to walk in the March of Dimes Annual Walk for Babies on Saturday, April 30, beginning at Mill River Union High School in North Clarendon. The goal of the walk this year is to raise $40,000.

The American Association of Retired Persons has issued a report looking at ways that the City of Rutland can be made more pedestrian-friendly. The AARP study looked at five intersections: Merchants Row and Strongs Avenue; Woodstock Avenue and Deer Street; and where Route 7 meets West Street, Allen Street and Killington Avenue. It concluded safe crossings on Route 7 are too few and far between, that crosswalks are poorly — if at all — marked, and that crossing signal times are too brief.

Deliberations will resume this morning in the case of a man accused of sexually assaulting a young girl in his wife's custody. Shane Casey of Marshfield is on trial for the third time for the charges, as the previous two ended with mistrials.

A one-hundred-foot section of a dairy barn in Chester collapsed Monday night from the weight of heavy snow, trapping thirty-nine cows beneath. Fire crews were called in as well as the Southern Vermont Structural Task Force to help stabilize the barn and to free the cows at the Green Mountain Turnpike Farm.

That nagging question came up again before lawmakers this week, about what to do with Pete the Moose. A proposed law would prevent Doug Nelson and others from privately owning wildlife, although Nelson says he sold a hundred hunting permits on his property last year. Lawmakers take up the bill later this week, and if passed, the state would work with Nelson to bring the deer and moose population down, but Pete would be exempt.

In the clearest sign yet that the fight over the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant's relicensing may end up in federal court, the head of the company that owns the plant says its future is a matter of federal jurisdiction and insists the plant is fit for another 20 years of operation. One looming question is whether the state of Vermont can make that call, or whether the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has exclusive jurisdiction over reactors. The NRC is expected to approve Vermont Yankee's continued operation later this year.

A winter that has socked the Northeast with one storm after another is taking a physical toll on snow-weary residents. Doctors across the region are seeing a spike in strained muscles from shoveling, broken bones from slick stairs and sidewalks, and dangerously low blood banks as fewer people venture outdoors.