The Middlebury Public Works Committee is meeting at
7:30 this morning in the Town Offices Main Conference Room. Items on the agenda include Public
Works Project Updates including the current Status of projects under
construction & plans for summer of 2013 also the discussion of and budgeting
for Driver Feedback Signs. Tomorrow
the Town Center Steering Committee meets at 9 AM in the Town Offices Conference
Room. Items to be discussed
include financing, the product brochure, and the identification of sources and
delegate contacts. Get details on
these meetings right now by visiting the Town’s Website.
A new community solar offering is coming to Addison
County next month. SunCommon launched in March 2012, serving only Chittenden
and Washington Counties and increasing the number of solar homes there by over
20% in just a few months. Since
March, more than 100 Addison homeowners have reached out to SunCommon,
requesting our program. SunCommon
is responding to that call by making this opportunity available in Addison
County beginning in October. You
can learn more by joining them on the Middlebury Village Green, Tuesday morning
at 11. Dave Conant with SunCommon
says now homeowners here will be able to go solar with no upfront cost and a
monthly payment the same or less than your utility bill.
The Agency of Transportation has announced that
Route 30 in Hubbardton will close from October 8 to October 15 for culvert
replacements. The project will
start Monday, with a target completion date of November 30. The project
consists of removing and replacing two culverts on Route 30. Except for the
week that the road will be closed, one-way traffic will be in place during the
day.
The Middlebury Select Board reviewed comments last
week received at its public meeting on the Town Plan that was held on September
18 and written comments received since the public hearing. The Board considered
its response to a number of comments and will continue to work on comments
received and the implementation of the Town Plan. The Board will take up its
review of the Town Plan at its next regularly scheduled meeting on October 9th.
Last week the Middlebury Select Board awarded the
bid for the supply and delivery of winter sand to JP Carrara. According to
Director of Operations Dan Werner the Town uses about 3,000 tons of winter sand
per year. Meanwhile the Intersection
of College, Weybridge & Academy Streets will remain Unchanged. The Board
discussed a suggestion of adding a stop sign on College Street westbound at its
intersection with Academy and Weybridge Streets, but did not act to add a stop
sign in this location.
The Exchange Street Speed Limit will not change.
Police Chief Tom Hanley reviewed the results of a traffic study on Exchange
Street near its intersection with Route 7 north with the Select Board last week
and recommended that, based on the study, there is no need to change the speed
limit at this time.
The Town Offices/Community Center Steering Committee
heard a report last week from the Finance & Fundraising Task Force, which
is working to identify funding sources based on the current project concept for
the town office building, using rough numbers of $3M to be raised for the
project through a combination of local revenues and energy savings used to
offset debt service expense, and $2-3M to be raised for the project through
fundraising from public and private sources. The F & F Task Force will pursue outside funding sources. The next F & F Task Force Meeting
is tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. in the Town Offices. The Town Center Steering Committee also discussed the need
to get information out about project and solicit input on the project. The
Committee will continue its discussion of these items at its next meeting on
Tuesday, October 9 at 10:30 a.m.
Meanwhile the Gym Task Force will meet on October 11 at 3:30 p.m. to
review the draft list of projects and plans for obtaining cost estimates for
the projects on the list.
Middlebury Business Development Advisory Board
Member Nick Artim has reported that the Board finished-up the statement of need
for fundraising and is currently making initial contacts with businesses in an
effort to raise the $36,000 business share of the MBDF initiative. Nick also reported that the job
description for the Business Development Director has been drafted for final
review by the Select Board before recruitment for the Director begins.
Residents voted at a special town meeting to
prohibit construction of commercial wind turbines on the Grandpa’s Knob
ridgeline. By a vote of 94 to 6,
Hubbardton residents voted against industrial wind. Holding the vote was an
effort by town officials to strengthen their position against the construction
of 20 wind turbines on the ridgeline east of the town. Although officials from the
other three affected towns — West Rutland, Castleton and Pittsford — have also
voted against the project, Hubbardton is the only one to hold a town-wide vote
on the issue.
A Vermont lawyer long involved in pushing the state
toward same-sex marriage has been named Vermont's Lawyer of the Year in the
area of family law. Susan Murray of the Middlebury-based firm Langrock, Sperry
and Wool represented the plaintiffs in the case that resulted in a 1999 state
Supreme Court decision saying Vermont was improperly denying marriage rights to
gay and lesbian couples.
Stories about Carly Ferro keep coming back to her
smile and her laugh. More than 200
people packed into a room at the Rutland Country Club for Ferro’s memorial
service Saturday. The 17-year-old Rutland High School senior lost her life
Wednesday in a car crash on Cleveland Avenue in Rutland. A local man faces
criminal charges, including manslaughter, in her death.
Vermont police are investigating a robbery at a
grocery store in West Rutland. Police say an unidentified man reached into an
open cash register while a cashier was making change for a transaction at the
Price Chopper supermarket shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday. Employees said the
man grabbed an undisclosed amount of money and ran out of the store.
Essex County’s $10 million public-safety radio
project is experiencing some delays but is still ongoing. There are construction permit delays, a
Federal Communications Commission radio-standards deadline and local costs in
the form of new pagers that some fire and ambulance departments must buy. County Manager Daniel Palmer said
recently the county still awaits the Adirondack Park Agency and State
Department of Environmental Conservation permits necessary for parts of the
project.
The Elizabethtown Community Hospital Auxiliary is
hosting a new-member night on Wednesday at 6 PM in the hospital boardroom.
Anyone interested in becoming a member is welcome to attend. The auxiliary participates in
fundraising efforts throughout the year, with all proceeds supporting the
hospital. The group donates clothing and snacks to those who need
emergency-room care, offers care packages to chemotherapy patients and gives
gifts and flowers to patients in the hospital during the holidays. It also
provides scholarship funding and purchases equipment for the hospital’s various
departments.
Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has shut down
two websites, finding them part of a work-at-home scam. The sites involved a mystery-shopper
program, which is used by legitimate retailers who hire marketing research
companies to evaluate the quality of service in their stores. The websites — www.idealcorp.net
and www.survsonl.com - lured consumers into becoming mystery shoppers to gather
information anonymously about the customer service of a particular store. But instead of getting paid, they were
duped into paying the scammers thousands of dollars.
Some farmers and ranchers in New York who previously were forced to sell livestock due to drought have an extended period of time in which to replace the livestock and defer tax on any gains from the forced sales, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Farmers who, due to drought, sell more livestock than they normally would may defer tax on the extra gains from those sales. To qualify, the livestock generally must be replaced within a four-year period. The IRS is authorized to extend this period.
A man who was tasered by a State Police trooper last June and died did indeed die as a direct result of the Taser. A report issued late Friday by the state medical examiner ruled the electrical charge from the Taser stopped Macadam Mason's heart, causing his death. State Police say Mason resisted arrest and acted aggressively before he was struck in the chest with the charge, and witnesses say Mason warned the trooper he had epilepsy and was threatening suicide before troopers arrived. Governor Peter Shumlin says despite what happened, state police policy will remain the same.
Some farmers and ranchers in New York who previously were forced to sell livestock due to drought have an extended period of time in which to replace the livestock and defer tax on any gains from the forced sales, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Farmers who, due to drought, sell more livestock than they normally would may defer tax on the extra gains from those sales. To qualify, the livestock generally must be replaced within a four-year period. The IRS is authorized to extend this period.
A man who was tasered by a State Police trooper last June and died did indeed die as a direct result of the Taser. A report issued late Friday by the state medical examiner ruled the electrical charge from the Taser stopped Macadam Mason's heart, causing his death. State Police say Mason resisted arrest and acted aggressively before he was struck in the chest with the charge, and witnesses say Mason warned the trooper he had epilepsy and was threatening suicide before troopers arrived. Governor Peter Shumlin says despite what happened, state police policy will remain the same.
Two Irish diplomats will be in Vermont this week,
hoping to bring even closer ties between the island nation and Vermont. The Irish ambassador to the U-S and
Irish Consul General will be in Burlington Thursday and Friday for talks and
events. The Vermont Council on
World Affairs and Champlain College, which has been sending about 300 students
to study in Dublin since 2008, is hosting it.
The Randolph-based Vermont Technical College is
getting a $3.4 million federal grant for training programs for state industries
that support agriculture, food production, waste disposal and energy
production. The Trade Adjustment
Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant will support the Applied
Agriculture and Food Systems Institute at Vermont Tech.
The annual Fall Foliage Festival kicks off today in
the Northeast Kingdom. For six consecutive
days, each day in a different town, several communities celebrate rural Vermont
at this colorful time of year. For
more than 50 years, the festival has been bringing together "Old Vermont"
with local crafts, hymn sings, band concerts, church suppers and historical
tours. Today's festival is in the
town of Walden at the Methodist Church.
Senator Charles Schumer is warning consumers that
huge increases in milk prices could be coming if Congress doesn't reauthorize
the Farm Bill. The current bill
expired yesterday, meaning that farm regulations will revert back to 1940s era
policies until a new measure is passed.
Schumer cites National Milk Producers Federation numbers in predicting
that milk prices could rise over six-dollars a gallon if a new bill is not
passed soon. The bill passed the
Senate, but Schumer says it is stalled in the House because leaders will not
bring it to the floor.
After an investigation police in Lake George
arrested a local man for a hit-and-run.
Authorities had found that 54-year-old Scott Ball did not have
permission to drive the car that was allegedly involved in the accident. He is facing charges of unauthorized
use of a motor vehicle and criminal mischief. He was arraigned and sent to jail due to lack of bail and
will be in court on a later date to face charges.
Some Vermont kids get key nutritional help from
free and reduced-price lunches in schools, but what happens when they go home
for the weekend? Sixteen schools
around the state are participating in the Backpack Program, which provides kids
with items to bring home with them on Friday to eat between then and Monday. The program got a recent boost from
Shaw's Supermarkets, which donated fruit cocktail through the Vermont Foodbank. Vermont Foodbank CEO John Sayles says
the Backpack Program has tripled in size since its inception five years ago and
now serves 650 school-aged children.
Shaw's has donated enough fruit cocktail to last the program from now
until March.
The Ticonderoga Montcalm Street Partnership is
finalizing plans for the upcoming Halloween Fest, which will be held on
Wednesday, October 31st in Downtown Ticonderoga. From 3:00 – 4:30 PM businesses and organizations displaying
a pumpkin in their windows will be participating in the event by handing out
treats to young people as they walk the sidewalks of Historic Downtown
Ticonderoga. Candy will also be given out at the Ticonderoga Community
Building. The Ticonderoga American
Legion invites children and their parents to attend their Free Annual Halloween
Party from 4:30 – 6:00 PM, which will include a costume contest with prizes,
games, hot dogs, juice, & chips as well as Halloween themed music. In addition All ‘Bout Critters invites
the community to attend their free Creature Feature Halloween Party from 5:00 –
7:00 PM with crafts, animals, and a Halloween themed movie as well as a chance
to see how Apple Cider is made.
Visit timainstreet.com
or their Facebook page for more information!
Kaylee Robison of the Hannaford Supermarket in
Middlebury and Amberly Kay Bonilla of Hannaford in Rutland have taken honors as
“Best Baggers” here in Vermont. Middlebury’s
Robison bested more than a dozen other competitors to become the 2012 Vermont
“Best Bagger”. Rutland’s Bonilla placed third. Every year during the Vermont Food Industry’s annual
convention and exposition, food store clerks get to show their stuff by
demonstrating how best to pack a sack of groceries. The competition, which took place last week at the Miller
Expo Centre in Essex Junction, included skilled baggers from around the state.
The Massachusetts-based Collings Foundation's Wings
of Freedom Tour, which includes a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a Consolidated
B-24 Liberator, and a P-51 Mustang, will arrive at the Rutland Airport for a
three-day visit, today through Wednesday.
The B-17 is one of only nine remaining in flying condition in the United
States. The B-24 and the P-51C Mustang are the sole remaining examples of their
type flying in the world. You are
invited to see the aircraft at the airport, inside and out. A $12 donation for
adults and $6 donation for children under 12 is requested for access to
up-close viewing and tours through the inside of the aircraft.
The Ticonderoga CROP Walk will be held on Saturday,
October 13th at 1 PM. Registration
will be at the Heritage Museum for the 1, 2 and 4-mile walks through
Bicentennial Park and Ticonderoga.
During that weekend 2,000 cities and towns nationwide are walking around
the theme “Ending hunger one step at a time.” A quarter of the donations
collected will be returned to the food pantries in Ticonderoga, Crown Point and
Hague.
