Communities in Addison, Lamoille, and Orleans
counties that suffered damage to public infrastructure during the storm of May
29, 2012 are eligible for reimbursement for eligible damage-related costs. Local governments, private non-profits,
and Indian tribes are eligible to apply for Public Assistance. Eligible
applicants that wish to apply for Public Assistance are strongly encouraged to
attend one of two applicant meetings on July 10th and 11th. The Addison County meeting will take
place at the Vermont State Police Barracks in New Haven Tuesday, July 10th
at 2PM. Communities that have questions can call Ben Rose, Vermont Emergency
Management Public Assistance Officer at (802) 585-4719.
The Town Of Middlebury will hold its regular Select
Board Meeting tomorrow at 7 PM at the Russ Sholes Senior Center. Items on the agenda at tomorrow’s
meeting include a Riverfront design update, the FY2013 water and wastewater
budgets, a public hearing on reducing the South Street speed limit from 30 to
25 MPH from Porter Field Road to the Eastview Entrance and the award bid for
construction of a Grit Drying Bed for the wastewater treatment facility. For a complete agenda just visit the
Town Of Middlebury’s Website.
This month’s Middlebury Arts Walk features two new
venues. Zone Three Gallery at 152
Maple Street, in the Marble Works and a pop-up gallery, featuring the work of
at least ten different artists, located in the Lazarus Building on Main Street.
The Arts Walk is just one of the free artistic events happening in Middlebury
Friday night. This week you can
linger and attend the Festival on the Green. A free guided tour of exhibits will start from 51 Main at
the Bridge at 5:30 PM for anyone who is interested. Visit the website to
download a copy of the current month’s flyer and walking map: www.MiddleburyArtsWalk.com.
Friends and businesses in the Middlebury area are
helping keep Adam Myers’ memory and spirit of service alive through a special
fundraising event coming up on July 21st.
Dubbed the Adam Myers Memorial Fundraiser, several local businesses have
teamed up to raise money for the Middlebury Fire Department. Blueberry Hill
Inn, R.K. Miles, Mister Up’s, Two Brothers Tavern, Goodro Lumber, Waterfalls
Day Spa, Otter Creek Brewing, Woodchuck Cider, American Flatbread, Noonie Deli,
Vermont Federal Credit Union, and others, including many individuals, have
stepped up with donations of cash and raffle items for the first annual Adam
Myers Memorial Fundraiser. On Saturday, July 21st there will be a Myers
Middlebury Mini Muster at Middlebury’s Recreation Park from 10 - Noon. Then friends and family will gather
again at 7PM at Two Brothers Tavern where you can enjoy the music of Snake
Mountain Bluegrass. Following the
bluegrass show, more than $2,000 in raffle prizes will be awarded. Tickets are $2 each or $5 for three and
are on sale at the firehouse and the tavern.
The Rutland Downtown Farmers’ Market will have a
new permanent home. Last week, The Vermont Farmers Food Center signed papers
that will transform the former Mintzer Brothers into a facility that will
provide housing for the winter market and a variety of food-oriented festivals,
an educational center, a new home for the Rutland Community Cupboard and a
local distribution, storage and preparation site for the Vermont Food Bank. The
summer market will continue to be held in Depot Park and Evelyn Street.
The Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce, Hope For
Hunger, Inc. and the Ticonderoga Festival Guild will host a Concert Series in
Bicentennial Park entitled “Music Along The LaChute.” The live musical
performances will take place in July and August for the community and area
visitors in Bicentennial Park in Downtown Ticonderoga. The first is the series is coming up
this Sunday, July 15th at 4PM.
You are encouraged to bring take out from your favorite Ticonderoga Area
restaurant as well as chairs or blankets to sit on. All concerts will be free
and open to the public but donations both monetary and nonperishable food items
will be accepted. Proceeds are to benefit local food pantries and feeding
orphans in Haiti through Hope For Hunger’s Chicken Helping Haiti Project. For a listing of restaurants and a
complete concert schedule visit www.ticonderogany.com.
The Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce will host
an open house with the North Country Small Business Development Center and
OneWorkSource this Wednesday from 9 AM to 3 PM at the chamber office on
Montcalm Street. The Chamber will
also host will also host a OneWorkSource and the InternetXpress @ Your Library
services open house at the chamber office next Wednesday, July 18th
from 10 AM to 3 PM. Get details
right now on the Chamber’s Website: www.ticonderogany.com
The Essex County Department of Public Works
Superintendent says he needs a big loan to finish repairs from last year’s
devastating floods. Last week, in
response to his request, the County Board of Supervisors voted to send his
department a $1 million loan from the county’s general fund, primarily to
repair or replace bridges damaged in the 2011 floods. The highway chief said the money will be repaid when Federal
Emergency Management Agency and the State Emergency Management Office pays them
for the damage.
Public library members of the
Clinton-Essex-Franklin Library System have programs to help keep young people
reading and learning over the summer.
“Dream Big Read!” is the theme of the 2012 reading program that will be
held in libraries throughout the region, including the Sherman Free Library in
Port Henry. For more information about programs and reading incentives for
juvenile and teen-aged readers, visit your local public library. The
Clinton-Essex-Franklin Library System’s web site at www.cefls.org
features a current listing of events in libraries throughout the region as well
as tips, resources and reading lists for young readers and parents.
The Cornell University Willsboro Research Farm will
host a field day on Tuesday from 10 AM to 4 PM. Organic wheat production,
milling and baking will be a major focus and will include discussions with a
representative from Crown Point Bread Co., Sam Sherman from Champlain Valley
Milling, Heather Darby from the University of Vermont and Michael Davis from
Cornell University. The event is free and open to the public. For more
information, call 963-7492.
Rutland City leaders say they are piecing together
an approach to blighted properties.
The Board of Aldermen gave unanimous approval last week to a policy
allowing for tax stabilization on such properties while a forum scheduled for
6PM Wednesday at the Rutland Free Library is intended to help figure out what
those properties should become. Rutland
Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Brennan Duffy said the forum is part
of the housing needs assessment commissioned by the RRA. Its purpose is to help
gauge the public perception of Rutland’s housing needs.
A two-alarm apartment fire over the weekend in
Brattleboro may be a case of arson.
That's according to investigators looking into the fire Saturday night
in Brattleboro's Lawrence Block on South Main Street. The three-story 10-unit building received moderate damage
and one firefighter had to be treated for heat exhaustion. Authorities are offering a thousand
dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever
is responsible for the fire.
Damage from a fire Saturday night at the Williston
Marriott is now estimated at about a million dollars. It took crews three hours to put the fire out at the
TownePlace Suites building, but despite the extensive damage, no one was hurt. WPTZ is reporting investigators believe
“an improperly discarded cigarette” caused the fire.
The investigation of a woman who jumped from a
moving tractor-trailer rig and died is continuing. Police say right now the death of 28-year-old Elizabeth
Lyons of Lynchburg, Ohio does not appear to be suspicious. She was a passenger in the big rig
driven by Robert Simpson, who is 51 and also from the same Ohio town. Police say it all happened early Friday
morning in the town of Benson.
Lyons was taken to Fletcher Allen Health Care with severe head injuries,
and that's where she later died.
The people who live and work in Waterbury and
survived together Tropical Storm Irene are expressing their feelings in a
public art project. On Sunday,
they gathered where a circling brick pathway holds together the garden and art
display outside of the local forensics lab. More than three hundred bricks hold the names and thoughts
of those who participated. The people say the art project isn't just about
rebuilding but remembering, and that's why this project is a way of healing.
There's a proud group of Vermonters who will be
triumphantly returning home today from China with some medals. WCAX is reporting the Dragonheart
Vermont Sister Team competed this past weekend in the Crew Club World
Championships in Hong Kong. The
Vermonters won a gold medal in the 200-meter dragon-boat race, and silver in
the 500-meter event. While they
are not sisters by birth, they're sisters in spirit as these women are breast
cancer survivors. The team
consists of 19 females and one male paddler, plus a drummer and a steer person.
Black bear sightings in Vermont are at an all time
high. It's a problem that is stretching over the entire state of Vermont black
bears are coming out of the woods searching for food and ending up near
people's homes. "Bears are looking for food,
and unfortunately it's in people's back yards," said Forrest Hammond, with
the Vermont Fish and Wildlife. He
has been busy dealing with the bears all over the state of Vermont, "I've
spoke with at least eight game wardens today and probably responded to at least
20 people who've called me directly." He says black bears are leaving their natural habitat and
coming into contact with people. And it's mainly because of climate change. "This year we had early frost and
a lot of their foods they've been eating cured out. There are fewer raspberries
than there should be." Bears
are on the lookout for food in your back yard and one thing really attracting
them bird feeders. "If you
haven't taken it down already, take it down and leave it down," said
Hammond. And leave it down until
December because once the bears find the bird feeder, they can quickly get into
other mischief. "Breaking
into buildings, destroying bee hives, going into chicken coops and killing the
chickens," said Hammond. But
he says there is no need to be terrified bears fear people and can be scared
off easily, "That's what we ask people to do, make noise, holler at them,
throw, so they know this is not a good place to get food from." If you come into contact with a bear
that is destroying your property you're asked to call your local game warden
and if you simply spot a bear, you can report that sighting to the Vermont
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A new rule has been proposed to regulate public
activities on land owned by the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. The
proposal allows hunting and fishing on the more than 133,000 acres but
prohibits snowmobiling, mountain biking and horseback riding except in
designated corridors. Officials say the proposal will give game wardens the
authority to enforce the rule. The Fish and Wildlife Board has given
preliminary approval to the proposal in the first of 3 votes.
Police say an Ohio woman has died after jumping
from a moving tractor-trailer in Vermont. Police said 28-year-old Elizabeth
Lyons of Lynchburg, Ohio, jumped from the cab of the truck at about 1:30 AM
Friday on Route 22A in Benson. WCAX-TV reported that the woman has since died
at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington.
The head of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
neurology department says a Vermont man who died after being shot with a stun
gun might not have been able to understand a trooper's command before he was
shot. Dr. Gregory Holmes said
39-year-old Macadam Mason had suffered a brain seizure the night before and was
possibly unable to heed the trooper's command. Mason was an epilepsy patient at
the hospital. Holmes told the
Valley News that the feeling at the hospital was that police should not have
used a Taser.
Vermont's Norwich University in Northfield is
helping U.S. service members better understand the different cultures in which
they might operate. A special
bachelor degree program open exclusively to service members assigned to or
retired from the U.S. Special Operations Command graduated its first seven
students in June. One of them was
Army Sgt. First Class James Karr, who served three tours in Iraq as a soldier
and a fourth as a civilian. He said he learned how to minimize risk by making
culturally astute decisions early on.
The Special Operations Command is known for sending commandos into
volatile situations but it also works to find ways to win the war of ideas
through cultural understanding - advancing U.S. interests without firing a
shot.
The Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife says
there are still openings for educators who want to take a summer course on the
outdoors taught by natural resource experts. The hands-on field course from July 15-20 at the Buck Lake
Conservation Camp in Woodbury gets educators into Vermont's streams, forests
and wetlands. The three-credit graduate course taught through Johnson State
College. The department's
Education Coordinator Alison Thomas says connecting teachers with the outdoors
can in turn expose their students, enabling them to make informed decisions
about Vermont wildlife and their habitat needs when they become adults. She says the course helps
pre-kindergarten through high school teachers from any discipline improve their
instructional strategies and make their lesson plans more interesting and
relevant to their students.
Champlain Centre in Plattsburgh is preparing to
celebrate its 25th Anniversary. Champlain Centre, originally known as Champlain
Centre North at the time, opened July 1, 1987. The mall will celebrate the
anniversary this Friday. As the mall has grown, it has become a base for
employment, community groups, mall walkers, students, tourists and families.
People can shop, browse, dine, take in a movie or simply socialize. The mall is also known for its support
of many non-profit groups and their causes.
For 18 years, Vermont's SolarFest has been the
Woodstock of the Vermont summer music festival scene, offering three days and
nights of great music on a solar-powered stage. Held July 20-22 on
Forget-Me-Not Farm in Tinmouth, SolarFest offers an exciting and eclectic mix
of local and national bands. The musical line-up for this year's SolarFest
features local as well as nationally renowned performers. For more information just visit www.solarfest.org.
Rutland Middle School teacher Bianca McKeen won the
2012 Vermont Science Teacher of the Year Award for grades K-8. McKeen was nominated this past spring
by several colleagues. She applied for the award through the Vermont Academy of
Science and Engineering by entering her resume, a letter of recommendation and
a summary of her teaching philosophy.
VASE honors outstanding Vermont teachers by granting two annual awards
to teachers who are an inspiration to their colleagues and leaders in the
improvement of science education.
