WVTK Local & State News October 26, 2011

VTrans has closed the one-lane Route 73 Bridge near the Brandon Gap so a two-lane culvert can replace it. The closure means residents cannot use Route 73 to reach Brandon and will have to detour using Route 125 North or Route 4 South.

Workers at the new Lake Champlain Bridge are beginning to wind down their operation at the Vermont side of the construction site. With just a month or so left until the bridge opens for traffic, teams of workers from Flatiron are adding the finishing touches to pre-cast concrete deck panels and span sidewalks. Workers were also finishing up last minute touches to road surface on the arch span section. As of last week, Flatiron’s mobile construction shacks were being packed up in preparation for shipment to new, out-of-state job sites.

Police in Vergennes are investigating what they say is a prank gone wrong at Vergennes Union High School. The School's varsity soccer field was dug up Friday night at what school officials are calling a crucial time, right before the girls’ senior soccer game Saturday. Police say they don't have any leads now but they are looking for someone with a motive. Also since this did affect so many people at the school, police say it's like having their own team of investigators all working towards the same goal.

Construction work continues on the new, three-story Rutland Academic Center for the Community College of Vermont at the corner of West and Wales streets in downtown Rutland. The project began in April. The new center will be open for spring semester classes starting this January. CCV’s new home will house classrooms, science labs, art labs, computer classrooms, student work areas, and administrative offices.

Federal Emergency Management Agency are at ProBuild Lumber Yard on Route 9N in Ticonderoga this week to provide advice. The mitigation experts will be at the store 7AM to 5PM through Thursday. More information on ways to protect your home from future disasters is available at: www.fema.gov. Choose the menu for Recover and Rebuild.

Rep. Peter Welch will offer a workshop on grant writing at 1PM Monday in the Fox Room of the Rutland Free Library. The workshop is designed for organizations new to the federal grant application process and will include a discussion of grants.gov, a website designed to be the primary resource on federal grant funding. The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited. Participants can register at welch.house.gov/signup.

1 of 3 regional hubs set up in Vermont to help restore mobility along state highways following Irene is closing on Friday. More than 1,000 highway-recovery personnel were mobilized through the Vermont Agency of Transportation's Rutland Region Incident Command Center in Rutland. The workers helped rebuild bridges and highways in 52 towns in the southwest part of the state.

Castleton Town officials are requesting architectural consultant proposals for a new municipal building and the renovation of existing town offices while employees prepare to move for a second time. The Select Board will review the proposals before any final decisions are made. Officials plan to go for a bond vote at town meeting next year. Meanwhile, the offices will move during the first week of November to three office trailers that will be installed at the old Goddard site.

Investigators say they believe a cell phone could help them figure out what happened to Bill and Lorraine Currier. The Essex Junction couple was last seen nearly than 5 months ago. Despite the new information, police say the latest search didn't turn up anything new that might lead them to figure out what happened to the couple. They hope to send officers back to the area for a second search before the end of the year.

Vermont's first commercial wind farm in Sheffield is making electricity. Developer First Wind is hosting a ribbon cutting ceremony today in Sheffield. The 40-megawatt, 16-turbine project will generate enough power for more than 14,000 Vermont homes, or almost half the homes in the Northeast Kingdom.

A top Vermont transportation official says most of the state's road network has been repaired after Tropical Storm Irene damaged it, but no one knows how long some of those repairs will last. Deputy Transportation Secretary Sue Minter says drivers need to be cautious. Some road projects that would normally have taken years of study and planning before construction would have begun were fixed in days or weeks.

Senator Bernie Sanders is set to announce a federal grant for a dental clinic in Morrisville. Sanders will visited the Community Health Services this morning to announce the funding. After that, Sanders will make a stop Lamoille Union High School and then Johnson State College where he will speak to students.

A private consulting firm hired by Vermont says student performance may not justify the amount of taxpayer money being spent on it. Two laws, passed nearly a decade ago, created a statewide tax that each Vermonter would pay towards education funding. According to the study, nearly $17,000 is spent on each Vermont student. That is higher than any other State in New England and the national average. And on Tuesday, the Vermont House Ways and Means Committee learned that despite all of that money, Vermont students have only average performances on standardized tests. The Chair of the Committee says it is too early to determine if that State's education funding system is flawed.

Preliminary statistics show that Vermont's tourism industry weathered the fall foliage season well, despite the damage from Tropical Storm Irene. State officials were concerned that the damage to Vermont's transportation system would discourage people from coming here during the foliage season. But the chief economist for the Legislature says early indications suggest that the state has come through the fall in good shape. He notes that revenues for the rooms and meals tax are up 11 percent for the first three weeks of this month.

The Green Mountain Club wants to donate private land it recently purchased in Bolton to the state. But town officials question the deal. They say it could cost the town much-needed tax revenue. At a meeting last week, the Club asked the Bolton Select Board for a letter of support so it could transfer the land to the Forests, Parks and Recreation Department. The land would become part of the Mount Mansfield State Forest. But the Select Board Chair says the board has some reservations. The Board says it will conduct more research and hold public hearings before deciding whether to support the Club's plan.

Congressman Peter Welch is asking President Obama to reimburse taxpayers for America's military efforts in Libya. With Moammar Gadhafi dead, Welch says the hard work now falls to the people of Libya in deciding whether they want a civil society or a civil war. And he's urging President Obama to have Libyans pay for the cost of America's effort.

For a third time, a judge has told protestors to stay away from a blasting site in Lowell. Green Mountain Power is blasting to build a wind farm, but opponents have camped out on land adjacent to the property hoping to delay the blasting. GMP has threatened to sue the landowners for any delays caused by the campers. Tuesday a judge continued a temporary restraining order until October 30th. A Superior Court judge has listened to three days of testimony. The judge has taken the matter under advisement and plans to issue a written ruling. No timetable was released though when that may be.

Presidential candidates will have to wait at least a few more days to find out the date of the New Hampshire primary. Secretary of State Bill Gardner said Tuesday he wouldn’t announce the date until next week, after the filing period closes. He is widely expected to pick Jan. 10 now that Nevada Republicans voted last weekend to shift their presidential caucuses to early February.

New York has a new system that aims to protect vulnerable adults. It's similar to an amber alert system that sends out alerts when a child is abducted, but the missing adult alerts are for grownups with impairments like Alzheimers or a brain injury that get lost. The information will go out over the same networks used for amber alerts.

New York's largest health insurance company has agreed to publicly disclose more data used to justify premium increases. The agreement is part of an effort by state Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky to make rate increase filings public, which could result in reducing the number of requested hikes. Lawsky says Tuesday that UnitedHealth Group has agreed to end the secrecy now.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is urging the Federal Communications Commission to enact stronger regulations against phone-bill "cramming." He is part of a multi-state coalition that includes 16 other attorney generals urging action to prevent unauthorized third-party charges on telephone bills. A recent U.S. Senate report found the practice costs consumers more than $2 billion per year.

The Hinesburg Artist Series Fall Concert will be held Wednesday, November 9th at 7:30PM at Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg. Featured ensembles will be the South County Chorus, the Hinesburg Community Band and In Accord, under the direction of Rufus Patrick. The concert is free and donations are welcome.

This Sunday, parishioners of St. Alphonsus Roman Catholic Church in Pittsford will celebrate the church's 151st anniversary. A breakfast will be served after Sunday mass with an entertaining look at the parish’s service to the community. Fr. Charles Boylen was the first spiritual head of St. Alphonsus in October 1860, just five months before the Civil War started. For details about the 151st anniversary, call the parish office at 802-483-2301.

Free dental health screening services will be available to Ticonderoga children. A group of dental professionals will volunteer their time to do the free screenings November 4th and 7th at Ticonderoga Elementary School. Parental permission is required for students to receive the screenings. Permission slips have been sent home with children.