WVTK Local & State News June 28, 2011

The first meeting of the ad hoc “regional technology team” at the Addison County Regional Planning Commission took place last Wednesday. The meeting brought together representatives from a wide variety of local industries and businesses that deal with technology. With the input from that meeting the organization will be drawing up a regional technology plan that will outline training and connectivity needs for the region.

Addison Central Supervisory Union health coordinator Mary Gill and more than dozen other elementary school teachers, counselors and principals are learning how to help make parents’ jobs a little easier. They spent last week in a training program offered by the Vermont Family Based Approach. It’s a program for creating wellness coaches to promote mental health and wellness in young families. The goal of the training is to enable participants to take central roles as those coaches and create one-on-one bonds with families of preschoolers in the district to help them chart the healthiest path for their children.

The Mary Hogan Elementary School board is looking to fill two positions. Board member Ruth Hardy has stepped down from the board for family reasons. She was in her first three-year term on the seven-member panel. Meanwhile Serena Eddy-Moulton, who’s an eight-year veteran of the board and its former chairwoman, also stepped down recently, citing a need to spend more time with family.

The Addison County State’s Attorney’s Office will soon be looking for a part-time prosecutor to focus on cases involving crimes against women. Addison County Deputy State’s Attorney Teri Ames will be stepping down from her job tomorrow to spend more time with family.

Eating Well Magazine in Charlotte is getting a new owner. Magazine publisher Meredith is buying the privately held magazine. No word on the purchase price. Eating Well says Meredith plans to invest in the brand and expand its circulation from 350-thousand to 500-thousand. The magazine's CEO was also given a new role with Meredith to oversee EatingWell, More, Fitness and Diabetic Living magazines. No job losses are expected at Eating Well's Charlotte offices.

Some residents around Lake Bomoseen hope an ever-growing problem with littering and trash left behind by visitors around the lake is addressed soon. Midweek summer visitors around the Green Dump and on Creek Road recently left behind a large amount of trash. The Green Dump and other recreation areas in Lake Bomoseen are very popular among locals and youth. Residents around Lake Bomoseen and northern Castleton try to go around and pick up little bits of trash that are left, but the amount of trash left last week was too much.

Municipalities and non-profit groups in Essex and Clinton counties will get to take the first steps today toward getting reimbursed for damage from recent severe storms. Representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency will brief potential aid applicants in the Stafford Center for Arts and Technology auditorium at Clinton Community College in Plattsburgh at 9AM and at the Essex County Public Safety Building in Lewis at 2PM. The sessions are open only to municipalities and non-profit organizations in each county that had storm-related damage between April 27th and May 8th.

The Ticonderoga Montcalm Street Partnership's Enterprise Committee is working on a pair of projects to revitalize the downtown area. The third annual StreetFest is being planned and the "Dollars for Downtown – Change for Change" campaign is under way. StreetFest will be held Saturday, July 30th. Montcalm Street will be closed from Lake George Avenue to Champlain Avenue for the event, creating a pedestrian mall in the downtown area, from 10 – 3 that day. The deadline for vendors to register for StreetFest has been extended until this Friday June 30. (Interested vendors should contact Sandie Bolton at 502-5313 or Sue Rathbun at Rathbun Jewelers on Montcalm Street at 585–2244.)

Rutland Sen. Kevin Mullin has sent a letter to his fellow Rutland County lawmakers lamenting the proposed sale of Central Vermont Public Service Corp. to one of two Canadian companies vying for control of Vermont's largest electric utility. In the same email, he was highly critical of the Shumlin administration for what he called its bias toward last week's $702 million counter offer by Gaz Metro and its subsidiary Green Mountain Power Corp. to buy CVPS.

If a merger of the state’s two largest electric utilities takes place, one of downtown Rutland’s existing buildings could become the new company’s regional headquarters. The Gaz Metro offer includes a commitment to relocate the CVPS headquarters from Grove Street to the downtown. The new office would become the Colchester Company’s southern Vermont headquarters. The CVPS board of directors of has authorized discussions with Gaz Metro over its unsolicited acquisition proposal.

The mandatory boil water order affecting the village of Castleton was lifted yesterday morning. The boil water order was issued in Castleton on June 20 after coliform bacteria was found in the water system. Various tests to the water system determined that the problem was located in the pipes along South Street. The boil water order was lifted after tests on the quality of the water came back clean for three consecutive days.

The Rutland City Democratic Committee will hold a talk on home heating alternatives at 7PM Wednesday in the Fox Room of the Rutland Free Library. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will feature Vermont Commissioner of Public Service Elizabeth Miller and James Moore, director of sustainable energy for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

We may get some relief at the gas pumps this Independence Day weekend. The national average for a gallon of regular is down to $3.59. The average in Vermont is $3.74 - 5 cents lower than a week ago. And New York's prices are highest at $3.86, but still 3 cents less than a week ago.

It's about to get more expensive to buy cigarettes in Vermont. Starting Friday, the tax on a pack of cigarettes sold in Vermont will increase 38 cents, to $2.62 a pack. The Burlington Free Press reports the increased cigarette tax is expected to produce $4.63 million in new revenue the first year.

Senator Bernie Sanders says he's blocking Senate confirmation of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission nominee because the agency asked the Department of Justice to intervene in a lawsuit between the state of Vermont and the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, which the state wants closed. Sanders says he's placed a hold on the nomination of NRC nominee William Ostendorff.

More Vermont towns are giving disabled military veterans breaks on their property taxes. About 200 Vermont communities allow disabled vets to deduct $40,000 from the assessed value of their homes to reduce their property taxes.
A bill in Congress would expand the impact of a Vermont outreach program for veterans returning home from deployments to Afghanistan and elsewhere. Congressman Peter Welch says the bill, if approved, would expand the program's reach to all 50 states.

With New York gearing up for same-sex weddings, Minnesota could be next. Gay-marriage supporters there will be trying to end a 31-state losing streak at the polls and defeat a proposed amendment on the 2012 ballot that would limit marriage to one-man, one-woman unions.

After an extraordinarily busy spring, the Vermont & New Hampshire Valley chapter of the American Red Cross is appealing for more volunteer help. Red Cross officials said that 96% of their work force is made up of volunteers, many of whom have pitched in as Vermont coped with record spring rain and flooding around Lake Champlain and Vermont rivers. Anyone who is interesting in volunteering should contact the Vermont & the New Hampshire Valley American Red Cross. (Angela Russell at (800) 660-9130, ext. 107.)

Vermont is again being featured on a list for having high taxes. Kiplinger's ranks Vermont as the most tax unfriendly state for retirees. Vermont's top billing is due to several factors including that the state has an income tax, a sales tax, an estate tax and relatively high taxes for rooms and meals. Vermont also has one of the highest property tax rates in the country. And of particular concern for retirees, Vermont grants no exemptions for retirement income and taxes out-of-state pensions fully.

The Vermont National Guard wants a few good men, women and children to help welcome the First Lady. Military families from all over the state are being invited to attend a visit Thursday by Michelle Obama to the Guard's Aviation Support Facility in South Burlington. Those who turn out are being urged to park at the intersection of Poor Farm Road and the Vermont Air Guard's East Gate, where they will board busses to the Aviation Support Facility beginning at 11:45AM Photo ID will be required.