WVTK Local & State News February 3, 2012

Coming up Monday morning you have a chance to meet with your Addison County legislators at the Bridport Grange Hall. The Addison County Legislative Breakfast will take place from 7:00 AM - 8:45 AM. Breakfasts start at 7AM then the program begins at 7:30. Purchase of breakfast not required to attend but helps the hosts to defray the cost of opening their hall. The Event sponsored by Bridport Grange #303 and the Addison County Farm Bureau. Get more info HERE.

An atmospheric researcher will be on hand at the next Science Pub at 4PM Sunday at the Lakehouse Pub & Grille in Castleton. Alan Betts of Atmospheric Research in Pittsford will lead a discussion on climate change in Vermont and how to deal with shrinking winters and increasingly floods. The Lakehouse Pub & Grille is located on Route 30 in Castleton. The event is free and open to the public. Food and drinks are paid separately. Two more Science Pubs are scheduled for March 4th and April 1st. For more information just contact the Lakehouse Pub & Grille. (802-273-3000)

The Community College of Vermont in Rutland campus has a new home. The brand new, 32,000-square-foot building, located on West Street, is nearly double the size of the old Evelyn Street building. CCV President Joyce Judy says the new space offers state-of-the-art science and computer labs with a focus on the allied health profession. She also says by constructing more classrooms, CCV is able to offer more classes throughout the day which makes scheduling the school day more convenient for students. The campus in Rutland is the second largest facility of all 12 CCV locations.

With unsafe ice conditions and no cold weather forecast before the weekend, The Benson Down Home Ice Fishing Derbies scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, February 4th and 5th, have been cancelled. Both derbies have been tentatively rescheduled as one-day derbies on Saturday, March 3rd, with fishing open to all Vermont waters.

A Crown Point woman faces two felony charges and four misdemeanors in connection with a report of guns being stolen during a burglary. 38-year-old Melissa S. Lamour was arrested January 23 in Moriah during a state police investigation. The thefts were reported December 21st. She was released pending prosecution.

A committee of the Vermont Senate has been hearing from parents and educators who want to expand the limited school choice now available in the state. Vermont currently has limited school choice among public high schools. Parents and educators testifying yesterday before the Senate Education Committee urged broadening that. Sen. Kevin Mullin, a Rutland County Republican and chairman of the panel, is backing a bill that would expand school choice down through the elementary school grades. Parents of younger children told stories to the committee about how their grade-school kids had trouble in one school but flourished after switching to another.

State Police have planned to remove about 30 decals from the doors of police cruisers after a member of the force brought a slight modification to the design to the attention of officials. The cow on the door decal has had the splotch modified into the shape of a pig. The decals are produced at the Vermont Correctional Industries Print Shop. Officials from the Department of Corrections Print Shop are working diligently to correct the emblem and print new decals for the Vermont State Police. The source and timing of the modifications are still being reviewed by the Department of Corrections. Any remaining decals have been destroyed.

The Vermont Technical College is going to begin offering a 4-year Bachelor of Science program in aviation called Professional Pilot Technology. The college said yesterday it had received approval for the program from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and is accepting applications for the fall semester. The college said retirements in the aviation industry are expected to surge over the next decade and the demand for pilots, engineers, technicians and information specialists is expected to be high.

The University of Vermont is whittling down the list of candidates vying to become the school's next president. The Presidential Search Committee is meeting today and is expected to recommend two of the five finalists to the board of trustees. That board will then meet this weekend to try and pick a new leader for the college. That selection likely won't be announced until March until a contract can be negotiated.

A fast-moving fire destroyed an old dairy farm this morning. It happened just after midnight at the Bassett Farm off of Route 12 in Woodstock. Firefighters say the antique farm complex is a total loss. Crews from eight departments spent more than two hours battling the blaze. There's no word yet on what started the fire.

A Vermont Senate committee is considering a bill that would create a farm guest worker program to allow the estimated 1,500 to 2,000 immigrant workers on Vermont dairy farms. The bill would create a state identification for the workers and a registry of those workers that would allow them to be eligible for state services. The bill's sponsor told the Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday that there's already a federal guest worker program for seasonal farm workers and for ski resort employees.

In-State tuition will increase four percent for each of the next two years as the result of a vote by the Board of Trustees for Vermont State Colleges. The board passed the motion nine to four naming reasons such as the growing cost of health care for college employees and little State funding for colleges. Some board members argued the five State colleges they oversee would face significant cuts if they did not pass the tuition hike. Three percent of the four percent tuition hike goes to the college and the rest to paying for health care for retiring college employees.

Vermont's two senators are fighting to keep the cost of going to college from soaring even higher. Many students already face huge financial hurdles to attend college, many graduating with crippling debt. And now the interest rate on federal Stafford education loans is about to double. A 2007 law that slashed the rate from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent will expire this summer unless Congress acts. Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders introduced legislation Wednesday that will keep the lower rate in place.

The state House has given preliminary approval to a bill that would redesign the state's mental health system following the flooding of the state hospital in Waterbury by Tropical Storm Irene. The bill calls for the construction of a new 25-bed psychiatric hospital in central Vermont, 14 beds to be added to the Brattleboro Retreat, six at the Rutland Regional Medical Center and greater use of smaller facilities for people with less severe mental illness.

About 40 opponents of a wind power project being built on a ridge in the northern Vermont town of Lowell came to the Statehouse to express their concerns to lawmakers. The group Energize Vermont organized yesterday's event, which included the showing of a film decrying wind power development on mountain ridges.

A group critical of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is telling state utility regulators they need to start over on their review of a 20-year extension of the reactor's state permit. The Public Service Board's review was on hold while a federal court considered the Legislature's effort to block the new permit by preventing the board from completing its review. Now plant owner Entergy Corp. has won that court battle and wants the board quickly to resume its review and issue the permit. But the New England Coalition says the record before the board is more than two years old and is tainted with discussions of nuclear safety that the federal court ruled the state is pre-empted by federal law from having.

The state Senate has passed a bill aimed at opening state environmental enforcement actions to more public involvement. The Senate's action on a voice vote yesterday came on a bill already passed by the House that allows people aggrieved by environmental violations to be given an opportunity to comment when the state takes enforcement actions.

Sister Elizabeth Candon, a nun who served as a secretary of the Vermont Agency of Human Services and as president of Burlington's Trinity College, has died at age 90. Candon died Wednesday at her home in South Burlington. The cause of death was not released, but she had been suffering from a respiratory ailment. Candon served as president of the now-closed Trinity from 1966 until 1976. In 1977 former Gov. Richard Snelling appointed Candon Human Services secretary. She held that post until 1983, when she returned to Trinity.

The Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce will host OneWorkSource and the InternetXpress @ Your Library services open house at the chamber office on Wednesday, February 15th from 10AM to 3PM. According to the Chamber’s Executive Director, The Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce, OneWorkSource and the Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Library System continue to create a strong partnership to better serve the Ticonderoga area by offering OneWorkSource open houses on a monthly basis. The open houses are available to employers, employees and community members in the Ticonderoga area. The services are provided once a month on the third Wednesday unless otherwise advertised. For more information about the open houses at the chamber office visit www.ticonderogany.com.

Green Mountain College will host the fourth annual Vermont Outdoor Job Fair from 11AM to 1PM on February 7th. Agents representing organizations specializing in outdoor programming have been invited, including the Student Conservation Association, Vermont Youth Conservation Corps, Vermont Youth Adventures, True North Wilderness Program and Windingo Adventure. Formal interviews will take place from 1 to 2PM in designated areas. The Outdoor Job Fair is free and open to the public. The GMC Office of Career Services, the Green Mountain Adventure Programming Office and the Academic Adventure Program sponsor it.