The Middlebury Select
Board will meet tomorrow evening at 7 in the Main Conference Room of the Town
Offices. Items on the agenda
include Reports from various committees including the Recreation and Town
Steering Committee. Adoption of the National Flood Insurance Program
Regulations will take place. The Vermont
Gas Systems' Request for Letter of Support for the Addison Natural Gas Project
will be addressed. There will also
be reports on various projects and a discussion of the FY14 Budget, including the
responses to date from Department Heads, the Estimated Grand List & the Revised
Schedule. To view the complete
agenda just visit the Town’s Website.
Middlebury College has
teamed up with two other liberal arts institutions, Williams and Connecticut
colleges, to lead a three-year initiative that will implement strategies they
hope will accelerate recruitment in liberal arts schools. The project, known as Creating
Connections Consortium, or C3, will target faculty with historically
underrepresented backgrounds. The three colleges will play host to three to
four two-year post-doctoral fellows to immerse them in a liberal arts
environment. The C3 initiative is funded by a $4.7 million grant from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. A fourth host college will be added during the
second year of the project. The first C3 summit is scheduled for fall 2013 with
the first fellowships starting up in spring 2014.
Vermont State Police are
currently investigating a burglary in Cornwall. Susan Burdick discovered that several pieces of jewelry had
been stolen from her residence. Anyone with information is encouraged to
contact the Vermont State Police in New Haven at 802-388-4919. Information can
also be submitted online at www.vtips.info or text "CRIMES" (274637) to Keyword: VTIPS.
You are invited to join
the Addison County Chamber Of Commerce for the December after hours mixer which
will be held at the Waybury Inn on Thursday December 20th from 5 –
7PM. Joe & Tracey always treat everyone who attends very well! As in past years, donations will be
collected for a local non-profit. This year the recipients are HOPE and Helen
Porter Healthcare & Rehabilitation. Please bring two (2) food items or you
can pay the usual mixer admission fee, which will be donated to Helen Porter. For more information and to RSVP to Sue
just visit the Chamber’s Website.
The Vermont Symphony
Orchestra’s Brass Quintet and Counterpoint Holiday Concert will ring in the
season at the Congregational Church in Brandon on Monday, December 17th
at 7:00 PM. The concert is a joint benefit for the Boys and Girls Club of
Brandon and the Benjamin White Memorial Scholarship Fund at Otter Valley Union
High School. Tickets cost $22 for adults, $18 for students and seniors 65 and
over, and free for children under age 18 with an adult ticket purchase. Tickets
are available at the Brandon and Pittsfield branches of Lake Sunapee Bank and
the Boys and Girls Club of Brandon, and by telephone at the VSO office. For more information, or a complete
listing of forthcoming VSO events, please call (800) VSO-9293, ext. 10, or
visit www.vso.org.
The Ticonderoga Area
Chamber of Commerce will host an Open House with the North Country Small
Business Development Center on Tuesday, January 15, 2013. Services provided by the North Country
SBDC will be available at the Chamber office typically on the second Tuesday of
each month. The open house will be from 9:30 AM – 3:00 PM at the Ticonderoga
Area Chamber of Commerce office. In
addition on the 15th from 8:00 – 9:30 AM the Chamber in coordination with the
North Country Small Business Development Center and Mannix Marketing will host
a Business Seminar entitled Facebook 101. This seminar will cover the basics of
setting up a Facebook page for your business or organization as well as using
Facebook in your marketing plan. Refreshments for this seminar will be provided
compliments of Dunkin Donuts of Ticonderoga. For more information just visit www.ticonderogany.com.
The Ticonderoga Area
Chamber of Commerce is working to improve their community calendar of events in
order to become the central calendar for the area. TACC is looking for area
businesses, organizations, and committees to share their event information as
well as a schedule of upcoming special events. The calendar will serve as the
central location for community members and visitors in finding events within
the area as well as a referencing tool used when planning future events in the
Ticonderoga area. While individual events are encouraged to be submitted to the
community calendar, organizations can also submit their yearly schedule of
events. Events can be submitted by emailing chamberinfo@ticonderogany.com or visiting the Chamber office in Downtown
Ticonderoga. For additional
information regarding the Community Calendar of Events visit www.ticonderogany.com, the Chamber’s Facebook page or call 518-585-6619.
The Chilson Volunteer Fire
Company will hold its 35th annual dinner dance Saturday, February 9th, at 5:30
PM at the EMA on Maplewood Lane in Ticonderoga. Proceeds of the dinner dance will help Chilson Volunteer
Fire Department purchase a federally mandated radio system. The Chilson fire department will
receive some equipment from Essex County, but will need at least $16,000 of its
own funds for additional radios, conversions and installations. Tickets for the dinner dance are on
sale now for $15. For more information e-mail ChilsonFire13@hotmail.com or visit the department on Facebook at Chilson
Volunteer Fire Department.
Kevin Buch, the field
engineer with Flatiron Construction, recently accepted the 2012 Jeffrey J. Zogg
Build NY Award for Flatiron’s work on the Lake Champlain Bridge. The award was
presented at the Associated General Contractors of New York State 26th annual
statewide Construction Industry Conference held in Saratoga Springs. The new
bridge both preserves the historic integrity and aesthetic quality of the
original bridge, while incorporating features that will contribute to a 75 to
100-year design life.
Rutland Mayor Christopher
Louras has told the Board of Aldermen that significant cuts to water and sewer
are going to involve personnel. The
Mayor and the Public Works Commissioner have provided a list of prioritized
cuts ahead of this week’s Public Works Committee meeting on the water and sewer
budget. The list was assembled in response to a request to show how a proposed
increase in water rates could be cut from 6.6 percent to zero.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
along with Sen. Olympia Snowe is leading a bipartisan coalition of senators in
urging Agriculture Committee leaders to keep a key dairy pricing reform
amendment in any final Farm Bill agreement. The Snowe-Gillibrand amendment that
was included in the Senate Farm Bill would jump-start the process to bring
certainty for the nation’s dairy farmers by stabilizing milk pricing. It has
passed the full Senate as part of the 2012 Farm Bill.
Delegates to the New York
Farm Bureau State Annual Meeting cast their ballots recently in Albany to elect
their representation on the state’s Board of Directors. It culminated a
three-day-long meeting where resolutions were discussed and voted on to set
NYFB’s 2013 policy agenda. Dean
Norton, who has served as president of New York Farm Bureau for the past four
years, was re-elected to a third two-year term.
Andrea Mead Lawrence’s
name will soon be on Pico Mountain Ski Resort’s newest building, but until then
it adorns a sign on a fence. Vermont
Adaptive Ski and Sports and the Pico Ski Education Foundation officially
announced Saturday that their new facility at Pico would be named in honor of
Lawrence, Olympic gold medalist and daughter of the ski area’s founders. Work
on the Andrea Mead Lawrence Lodge is scheduled to begin in April.
Cold weather makes
electric cars ineffective because their batteries run out quickly, but students
at Green Mountain College have built a new garage that should help. On Friday
afternoon Twenty-one students of the Renewable Energy and Ecological Design
course unveiled a solar-powered garage that will house an electric vehicle used
by the school as part of its fossil fuel-free commitment. The students were
charged with creating a charging station for the electric vehicle that would
also keep the car warm during cold winter days.
Vermont State Police say
five people suffered minor injuries in a chain-reaction crash on Route 103 in
Shrewsbury. Police say 3 of the
vehicles were moving during the crash at about 2:45 Saturday Afternoon while
five parked vehicles were hit by others involved in the crash. Police say a northbound vehicle crossed
the centerline, hitting a southbound car. The crash caused a chain reaction
involving another moving vehicle and five vehicles parked at a car dealership. A motorist in one of the moving
vehicles had to be freed from her car by emergency personnel.
House Speaker Shap Smith
says he has his own misgivings, but he won't block the Vermont House from
debating decriminalization of marijuana. Governor Peter Shumlin supports
decriminalization and has argued that he does not want to see young Vermonters'
future job prospects be harmed by getting arrested for small amounts of
marijuana.
Two Vermont hospitals that
affiliated a year ago say they've been able to realize more than $1 million in
cost savings in the first year of their partnership. Fletcher Allen Partners,
the parent corporation of Burlington's Fletcher Allen Health Care and Berlin's
Central Vermont Medical Center, say they've been able to save money on
purchasing supplies and on human resources.
Several Vermont
individuals and groups are being honored for their work to promote and take
care of trees in their communities. The tree steward awards went to Susan Smith
of Charlotte, the city of Montpelier, the Dummerston Conservation Commissioner,
Will Sightler and Polly Thompson of Rockingham.
A driver lost his life
after a head-on collision in Killington.
The name of the 47-year-old man from Starksboro has not yet been
released, but authorities confirm the crash was on Route 4 near the Killington
Skyeship gondola. The driver of
the other vehicle, Earl Smith of Loudon, New Hampshire was airlifted to a
hospital and is now listed in stable condition. The cause of the crash is under investigation, but state
police say at this point it appears alcohol was a factor. Full and empty beer containers were found
in the cab of the Dodge pickup driven by the Starksboro man.
The mayor of Winooski is
going to talk publicly today about his F-35 experience last week. Mayor Mike O'Brien joined Governor
Peter Shumlin and Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger on a one-day trip to Elgin
Air Force Base in Florida, for a first-hand experience hearing F-35 fighter
jets. The Air Force wants to base
the planes with the Vermont Air National Guard, and some opponents say the
newer jets are also much noisier.
So far, O'Brien has not given his support to either side of the
argument, but will give his impressions later today to the city council.
It's the 17th of December,
and many Vermonters are finally seeing some good accumulations of snow. The Vermont Association of Snow
Travelers is eager to get started with some sledding, and says the trail season
is now here. Considering how bad
it was last year, any snowfall is welcomed and considered encouraging. The trail season kicked off Sunday. A study by the association estimated
snowmobiling brings close to half a billion dollars to the state's economy each
year.
The skies may be dark
today with storm clouds, but a commissioning ceremony is marking the formal
opening of its first solar project in Rutland. The 150-watt solar farm off Cleveland Avenue is located at
the former city landfill. Green
Mountain Power says contractors and students from Stafford Technical Center who
worked on the project will join city and utility officials for the event. It's just the beginning, according to
utility and municipal leaders in Rutland.
Construction for a larger solar farm in the town begins next fall.
Three Vermonters are
planning to gather to cast the state's three votes in the Electoral College
that will formally elect President Barack Obama to a second term. Today is the day when the state's three
members of the Electoral College - the national body that actually elects the
president and vice president - meet at the Statehouse.
Governor Andrew Cuomo is
demanding that the federal government tighten the nation's gun laws in the wake
of the school incident in Connecticut.
Cuomo says the unspeakable tragedy is every parent's worst nightmare,
caused by mental health problems and a culture of violence. The governor also says it is a gun
control issue, and that federal gun laws don't make sense. Cuomo says the nation can do a better
job, but admits the politics of the country make change difficult.
The Vermont Department of
Mental Health is offering any help for those troubled by the Sandy Hook
Elementary school shooting. The
department of Mental Health says with the tragic shootings in Connecticut,
children will be understandably troubled when they hear this kind of news. Talk
to them and let them know that everyone in the community is working together to
make sure that they and their families and pets are safe. To help adults talk with children about
such tragedies, they offer guidance on their website, or dial 2-1-1 for help.
