WVTK Local & State News October 22, 2012

The Addison County Chamber of Commerce will be hosting a Candidates’ Forum on Thursday, focusing on the Addison County races for the Vermont House of Representatives and Senate. It will be held from 8:00 to 9:30 AM at the Ilsley Library Community Room in Middlebury and we’ll carry it live on 92.1 WVTK.  Our very own Bruce Zeman will be moderating the event.   Many of our state representatives in uncontested races will also be in attendance for a discussion of issues and legislation important to you. It will cost $5 to attend and coffee and baked goods will be provided. An RSVP to maria@addisoncounty.com would be appreciated.

The Westport Town Council has one more special meeting to work on the 2013 budget.  The meeting takes place at 5 PM tomorrow, all with regular board meetings to follow.  The meeting is open to the public.

Last Wednesday - Friday Bruce & Hobbes hosted their 2nd annual 72-hour fundraiser in support of the Homeward Bound Animal Welfare Center, formerly Addison County Humane Society.  During the fundraiser, “Bruce & Hobbes - Ca$h for Paws,” with your help they raised a grand total of $16,585.00!  Also during the event Bristol Police chief Kevin Gibbs swore Hobbes in as a Bristol Police Officer. The chief not only made a donation, but also agreed to donate $1 for every law enforcement professional that matched his $50 donation!!  Hobbes, with the help of the Homeward Bound Animal Welfare Center's Executive Director, Jackie Rose, Took the oath, live, on WVTK!!!

The Middlebury Select Board will hold its regular meeting tomorrow evening at 7 in the Main Conference Room of the Town Offices.  Items to be covered at this meeting include the continued review of the Town Plan, including recommendations and comments from the Planning Commission on the Select Board Proposals of October 9^th.  Reports will be heard from various committees including the Middlebury Business Development Fund Advisory Board, the Recreation Committee, the River Task Force and the Town Center Steering Committee.  There will also be an update on the Middlebury Fire Department Project.  For the complete agenda just visit the Middlebury Select Board page on the Town’sWebsite.

A New Haven man told Vermont State Police his goose decoys were taken from his yard Saturday.  Harold Tricou told police his two decoys, valued at $50 for both, were taken around noon.  The decoys are described as black and white and made of plastic.   Anyone with information is asked to call the Vermont State Police New Haven Barracks at 388-4919. Information can also be submitted anonymously online at www.vtips.info.

On Saturday the Pittsford Recreation Department hosted its second annual Fall Disc Golf Tournament.   The course, approximately two miles long, consists of 18 “holes” with varying degrees of difficulty.  The proceeds from this year’s tournaments are donated to help pay for recent renovations to the Otter Valley Union High School varsity baseball field.  Players were asked to pay a $10 entry fee, which went toward the overall donation. 

The Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce will host four business seminars at the Chamber office on Montcalm Street in Downtown Ticonderoga during October, November and December. The business seminars are being provided through a partnership with the North Country Small Business Development Center and made possible through the sponsorship of Mannix Marketing, Dunkin Donuts of Ticonderoga, and Stewarts Shops of Ticonderoga.  This first one is coming up on Thursday from 8 – 9:30AM. The ‘Talking Business Roundtable’ is a chance for business owners to come together to discuss common issues and concerns that impact small businesses as well as share positive suggestions for resolving these concerns as well as recommendations for seminars and trainings needed.  For details on this and the other seminars please visit www.ticonderogany.com.

The Derrico family of Ticonderoga is among the winners of The Fresh Air Fund’s 2012 Photo Contest.  All winners were selected from the hundreds of pictures sent in by volunteer host families across 13 states from Virginia to Maine and Canada, reflecting the memorable experiences they shared with their New York City visitors this past summer. Categories include Fresh Air Silliness, Family Moments, Reach for the Sky and Fun in the Sun. Winning photos can be viewed online at www.freshair.org. 

Essex County has seen an increase in the number of adults who have earned college degrees.  In 1970, 8.1 percent of those over 25 years of age had college degrees in Essex County. By 2010, 25.5 percent of adults here had completed college.  The percentage of adults with college degrees in Essex County was less than the national average of 27.9 percent in 2010. The college-educated rate here was less than the New York average of 32.1 percent.  The number of adults in the United States with college degrees has nearly tripled since 1970, when only 10.7 percent of adults had graduated from college.

A replica 1756 sawmill, that Ticonderoga officials hope will be the centerpiece of tourism effort, is a step closer to reality.  The town has received a $44,760 grant to fund the research and design of the project, which was initially proposed by then-Supervisor Bob Dedrick in 2009.  A French sawmill sat on the north side of the LaChute River near the falls in 1758. PRIDE has coordinated the archeological studies needed to move the project forward. 

Ticonderoga Central School District officials are asking the state to create a special fund to help finance education within the Blue Line.  The Ti school board has adopted a resolution asking the state to create a special fund for Adirondack schools and is asking local school districts and other officials to join in the campaign.  Ti school superintendent John McDonald has suggested that those who use the Adirondack Park could generate the money for the education fund. 

The old grange hall on Factoryville Road in Crown Point has been demolished and removed.  The former Ethan Allen Grange Hall was damaged by floods last year and had been taken by Essex County for unpaid back taxes.  Crown Point Town Supervisor Charles Harrington said the vacant building collapsed after the floods. He said the work was done under a Federal Emergency Management Agency contract.

With a state grant in hand, Ticonderoga and Crown Point Central School districts are preparing to study whether consolidation would benefit them.  Ticonderoga School Superintendent John McDonald Jr. said a State Local Government Efficiency Grant for $45,000 was just awarded to the districts.  If Ticonderoga and Crown Point school boards voted to merge the schools, each district would then have to hold two public referendums: both advisory votes and final votes. All four votes would have to be in favor of consolidation for it to take place.

Small dairy farmers in the Northeast and Wisconsin say a tough year has been made worse by Congress' failure to pass a new farm bill before the old one expired.  Many dairy farms were already struggling with low milk prices and high fuel and feed costs as the worst drought in decades helped push up the price of hay and feed. Dozens in states like California, the nation's leading milk producer, have filed for bankruptcy.  In Vermont, the end of the milk income loss contract, which paid dairy farmers when milk prices fell below a certain level, has created another wave of panic after more dairy closures earlier this year.  Myles Goodrich, of Molly Brook Farm in West Danville, says his family is paying $4,000 a month more now to feed its 120 or so cows than it did a year ago.

Vermont administration officials say they won't know until at least January how much federal disaster money will be available to rebuild the state office complex in Waterbury that was flooded by Tropical Store Irene. The Shumlin administration has worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency since Irene ravaged the state in August 2011 to get as much as $120 million to rebuild the complex and re-locate the state hospital, which was also flooded.  Sue Minter, the state's Irene recovery officer, told two legislative committees Friday that state and federal officials are still working up estimates on how much can be reimbursed by FEMA.

Vermont State Police are investigating the theft of copper grounding table taken from three Green Mountain Power substations.  Police say a total of about 45 feet of ½-inch cable was reported stolen earlier this month from two utility substations in Randolph and one in Sharon.  Officials think the cables were cut with a large set of bolt cutters. When the cables were cut, it resulted in power outages in several neighborhoods in Sharon and Randolph.

Vermont State Police are investigating the theft of a license plate from a state police cruiser. Police say the plate was taken while the cruiser sat in the driveway of a trooper's home in the Bennington area sometime between 7 PM Friday and 4 PM Saturday. Police say the plate is labeled "Vermont State Police" with the numbers "428" on it.

When it comes to helping Vermont, yep, there's an app for that, and it was developed over the weekend.  That was the goal of the 24-hour contest known as the Vermont Hackathon, with 127 people forming 32 teams, all trying to create an application to make Vermont better.  The winning app was Data Metamorphosis for Vermont Business Landscape; with the first-place prize a cool four thousand dollars.  MyWebGrocers, FairPoint Communications and Dealer-dot-Com sponsored the event.

It's the last leg of a long journey for a dozen wind turbine blades.  The twelve pieces, each weighing ten-and-a-half tons, were off-loaded Sunday from railroad cars and will soon be put on trucks headed for a mountain along the border of Milton and Georgia.  A spokesperson for Georgia Mountain Community Wind, the company owning the wind farm says they are on track for finishing the project by the end of this year.  It's anticipated the project should supply enough energy to power about 27-hundred homes.

While it's happened in other states, Vermont's first Zombie Run happened over the weekend, and was an apparent success.  More than nine-hundred people with their faces painted up like zombies came for the obstacle course run Saturday in Essex Junction.  Some of the people came from as far away as New York City and Montreal.  All proceeds raised that day are going to the Smile Train.

For the first time since resigning as New York governor more than four years ago, Eliot Spitzer returned to Albany yesterday in a public capacity.  Spitzer attended a fund raising lecture in the city, where he predicted that President Obama would be reelected as president despite his poor showing in the first debate with Mitt Romney.  Spitzer also says Hillary Clinton should run for president in 2016, and without elaborating says current Governor Andrew Cuomo's stance on legislative redistricting is troubling.

From Fox 44 and ABC 22 News – Your Voice in Vermont & New York:

October is breast cancer awareness month and two American Cancer Society "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" walks were held yesterday.  The fifth annual event took place and Dorset Park in south Burlington along with its debut in Rutland at the Diamond Run Mall.  Both events were filled with cancer survivors and people supporting the fight against the disease.  Two women who supporting each other’s battle against breast cancer are the Burton Betties... A snow boarding pair that's message to newly diagnosed people is to stay strong and confident.  “I’ve always stayed positive through the whole thing you know and I just that's something you have to. You have to or it's...there's no other alternative right...I mean there's no other option.”  You can learn more about making strides against breast cancer by visiting cancer dot org slash strides online.

On Sunday the Local Motion board announced it's official they raised one-point-six million dollars -- more than enough to repair the bike path.  It all happened today at the organization's first annual meeting party in Burlington.   It was a family friendly event with rides, great food, entertainment, and one huge announcement; the big fix fundraising campaign was a success.  "It’s pretty gratifying to be able to raise that much money. It shows the value of local motion and the project that we were undertaking that we were able to raise the amount of money that we did."  They hope to have the bike ferry running almost full time by next summer.

Lake Champlain Chocolates has a new line of three dark chocolate bars and they're called Blue Bandana Chocolates.  The ingredients are a little different this time around.  They're made from raw cocoa beans brought from Madagascar and Guatemala.  These specialty bars are only available at Lake Champlain Chocolates' stores in Vermont.