WVTK Local & State News April 13, 2011

Middlebury voters will vote this evening on a proposed 2011-2012 Mary Hogan Elementary School spending plan. The vote will take place at the school district annual meeting at 7:30PM in the school gym.

A nursing assistant at a Vermont assisted living facility has been charged with stealing a patient's pain pills. Fifty-8-year-old Robyn Page, a licensed nursing assistant and medication technician at The Lodge at Otter Creek, pleaded not guilty Monday to two counts of obtaining a regulated drug by deceit and one count of abuse of a vulnerable adult. Page, who lives in Brandon, could get six years in prison and $12,000 in fines if convicted.

A Benson woman is accused of embezzling more than $200,000 from a Brandon art gallery. Pamela Ann Natoli pleaded not guilty yesterday to three counts of wire fraud. The 53-year-old worked at The Gallery in the Field. According to prosecutors, she wrote checks to herself from the gallery owner's account.

Lake Champlain is edging toward flood stage. By mid afternoon yesterday, it was at 99.6 feet, according to the National Weather Service in Burlington. Flood stage is 100 feet. Minor flooding was expected as the water was forecast to rise to as high as 100.1 feet by Thursday morning.

Fair Haven could be the future site for a biomass plant that would provide energy for thousands of homes. The company, Beaver Wood Energy says it has the support of the community but is still having trouble getting the permits from the state. More than 70 people showed up to last night's meeting in Fair Haven, interested in finding out more about the proposed biomass plant. Beaver Wood officials say they are getting no support in Montpelier. They say they need the community's help to pressure lawmakers to move forward with the project.

To fight a huge deficit in the Ticonderoga Central School District's tentative budget, teachers have agreed to forgo most of their contractual wage increases. After some negotiation, the School Board and Ticonderoga Teachers Association came to an agreement on contract concessions. The School Board must OK the budget by April 22, and more budget meetings are scheduled.

Castleton State College has hired a new director of the Spartan Arena in Rutland Town. Steven Wolf, Castleton’s football team special teams coordinator, replaced Scott Dikeman, who was appointed as the college’s new dean of administration last month.

A woman who was subjected to a stun gun when police responded to an erroneous report of a burglary says she's not guilty of assault charges. Julia Benjamin of Middlebury entered the pleas Monday to charges stemming from a confrontation Sunday in her father's apartment in Bradford. Vermont State Police say they were called by a neighbor reporting a stranger inside and a broken window panel.

A search resumes this morning for a fisherman presumed to have drowned after getting pulled into a dam on the Lamoille River. Authorities say 26-year-old David Driscoll of Essex was fishing on Arrowhead Mountain Lake yesterday with a friend when the motor on their boat failed and the boat was pulled towards Milton Dam at the southern end of the lake. A Milton police officer on the dam's catwalk managed to pull his friend from the fishing boat, but Driscoll was presumably washed down into the Lamoille River.

Republicans in the Vermont House are expressing skepticism about a plan Gov. Peter Shumlin has put forward to replace tax credits for renewable energy development with smaller grants. Shumlin wants to make grants equal to 50% of the tax credits granted for solar and other renewable projects, rather than pay for them with a new 55-cent surcharge on electric bills, as was earlier proposed by his Department of Public Service.

There has been a step forward for a plan to bring cell and faster Internet service to parts of Vermont. The Senate gave preliminary approval to the bill Tuesday. The authors say the measure will provide $400 million in federal, state and private dollars. It also would speed up permitting for communications facilities in the Green Mountains. Despite some objections the telecom bill won preliminary approval in the Senate, but it faces a number of possible amendments when it comes up again today.

The Vermont House has advanced legislation that would give citizens greater ability to participate in state environmental enforcement actions. The bill given preliminary approval on Tuesday calls on the Agency of Natural Resources to provide public notice of a proposed penalty against a polluter, and allows members of the public 30 days to comment on the proposed enforcement actions.

Skiers and snowboarders under 14 will be required to wear a helmet at New York ski areas under a bill being considered in Albany. North County Senator Betty Little is sponsoring the bill, which won unanimous support in the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. Parents of kids caught without a helmet could be fined $50. If approved, New York would be the second state with such a law. New Jersey approved a similar law just last week.

The newly appointed chairman of the Republican National Committee is coming to Vermont. Reince Priebus will speak to the Vermont GOP's annual spring dinner tonight in Burlington. State GOP Chairwoman Patricia McDonald says about 200 people will be on hand for the $100-per-person event at the Hilton Burlington.

A 16-year-old Vermont boy is charged with hitting an adult in the head with a rock at Leland and Gray High School, in Townshend. State police were called to the school Monday evening after receiving a report of a fight in progress. Troopers say a 50-year-old Bondville man had been hit in the head with a rock. The boy was charged with aggravated assault and other offenses and ordered to appear in court next month. His name wasn't released.

Essex County lawmakers have decided to promote from within for their new Office of Real Property Tax Services director. The County Board of Supervisors has named the department’s assistant director, Charli Lewis of Westport, director. She has been assistant director for two years.

New York's Republican Senate majority is refusing to negotiate any weakening of a bill that would cap the growth of property taxes. Governor Cuomo's bill would cap local property tax growth at 2%, with few exceptions. Proposals would increase the cap to as much as 4% a year and include more exemptions that could suspend the cap.

Vermont state troopers are gearing up for another busy summer season and they're hopeful it will be a safe one. Last May Vermont lawmakers passed legislation that made texting while driving illegal. Twenty-nine other states now have similar laws, but it's hard to tell if it's making much of a difference. Since Vermont's law went into effect last June, only 64 drivers have actually been cited. By comparison more than 1,000 drivers were cited last year for not wearing seat belts.

There is more pain at the pump as gas prices jumped over $4 a gallon in northern New York yesterday. After holding out in the $3.90s for weeks, several gas stations pushed their prices over $4 a gallon for regular gasoline. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.76.

The Hannaford Career Center inducted thirty-one students into the National Technical Honor Society on Thursday, March 24th. The ceremony was held in the Middlebury Union High School auditorium. A dessert reception followed, enjoyed by newly inducted members and their families and friends.

Two thousand world-class athletes and Olympic hopefuls will converge on Burlington this summer. The Vermont Convention Bureau announced that the Queen City has been selected as the host site of the 2011 and 2012 USA Triathlon National Championships. The world's top athletes and more than 4,500 spectators are expected for the event in August. State officials say those people are booking hotel rooms throughout five Vermont counties. And they anticipate the national event will provide a multi-million dollar boost to the economy.