Today the Vermont Agency of Transportation will be
holding an Open Forum and Public Hearing regarding the Middlebury State Airport
Runway Reconstruction and Safety Area Improvements. The Open Forum begins at 6 PM and provides an opportunity
for interested parties to ask questions of VTrans representatives specific to
their property. The Public hearing
begins at 6:30 PM so VTrans can receive comments and suggestions for changes
from interested persons. Project plans are available for review in the
Middlebury Town Clerk's Office.
The Elizabethtown-Lewis
Central School Board will meet at 6 PM today in the conference room of the
school. Items on the agenda
include public recognition of faculty and staff members for supporting
community members during the holidays, recognition of the Adirondack Youth
Climate Board and a presentation of the E-L-C-S Green Team. The meeting is open to the public.
A State of Vermont
official reported that project cost overruns at Porter Hospital to install and
implement an electronic medical records system, required the issuance of an
amendment to a 2010 certificate of need.
Steve Kimbell is the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Financial
Regulation and said that the hospital has been issued an amendment to the
certificate. The amendment addresses the project’s cost overrun. It’s an increase from $4.3 million to
$7.1 million. According to a
Porter spokesperson, they believe that the significant investment will improve
patient care, coordination and communication for their patients and the community.
Porter will be required to submit monthly reports to the Department of
Financial Regulation on the progress of the project, which should be completed
sometime next year.
A Church in New Haven is
on the move. The historic Advent
Church on Dog Team Road was removed from its original foundation last week. The church was built in the 1830s by parishioner
Samuel Noble Brooks and was moved a few yards south. Construction of a new residence, at the adjoining former
site of the Dog Team Tavern, began last month. The church also served as a community center for the
unincorporated hamlet of “Brooksville”.
You will find an historic marker at the site that tells the church’s
complete story.
Auditions for the
Middlebury Players' April production "The Three Penny Opera" will be
held at two local locations. The
first one is tomorrow at 7 PM in Middlebury College Axinn Hall, Room 229 and the
next audition takes place Saturday afternoon at 2 at the Middlebury Town Hall
Theater.
Green Mountain Power is
alerting customers to a telephone scam.
The utility said several small businesses in the Rutland area received
phone calls Monday evening from someone using a blocked number but claiming to
represent GMP. The caller
requested business owners to provide credit card information to pay their
account balances, threatening to disconnect their power if they did not pay. GMP officials say they have not made
such calls. Anyone who gets such a call is asked to notify police and warned
not to provide the caller with any personal information.
Port Henry may soon have
an art gallery. A meeting of local
artists has been scheduled to gage interest in the creation of an artist’s
cooperative. The meeting will be held on Thursday, January 24 at Noon at
George’s Restaurant. Organizers say participating artists will be responsible
for the gallery and all artists are welcome to take part. Besides an art
gallery, the new co-op may offer art classes. For information about the meeting
or the proposed cooperative call Jackie Viestenz at 546-9855.
A new organization
called Riley's Wishes is dedicated to helping seriously ill children, in memory
of a special boy who died of cancer.
Riley Knight of Ticonderoga passed away nearly three years ago at the
age of 11. The group’s mission is showing kindness to children who are ill and
making sure Riley is remembered. The group members also hope to do something
special for Riley’s classmates when they graduate eighth grade and again when
high-school graduation rolls around.
Jay Town Supervisor
Randy Douglas was sworn in Monday to an unprecedented fourth term as leader of
the Essex County Board of Supervisors.
Supervisor Randy Preston nominated Douglas for chairman of the board
saying Randy took the reins during the economic downturn of the whole country
and there could not be a more challenging time. According to county records, no
supervisor has served more than three terms as chairman. Douglas thanked his
colleagues for their overwhelming support.
The project to build a
replica 18th-century sawmill as a tourist attraction has been re-energized with
some state funding for its design.
The sawmill would resemble those that stood on the banks of the LaChute
River in the 1700s. The $45,000
State Department of State grant will be used for research and design of the
replica structure. A French sawmill was built along the north bank of the
LaChute River in 1756 to cut timbers used in the construction of what was then
Fort Carillon. The structure was
partially destroyed in July 1758 then burned by the French before the British
took the fort in July 1759, renaming it Fort Ticonderoga.
The We Love Our Troops
group is now collecting items to send to Moriah serviceman Luke Boyle and his
comrades stationed in Afghanistan. Those who’d like to contribute are asked to provide
such items as Valentine’s Day cards, thank you notes, valentine candy and other
goods, including packaged tuna, boxed soups, nuts and trail mix. A collection box is located at the
Moriah Town Hall on Park Street in Port Henry. The items must be shipped no
later than January 15th in order to arrive in time for Valentine’s Day.
The organizers of a
Vermont gun show say they will allow the display and sale of assault weapons
despite a request by the mayor of Barre that the weapons not be displayed in
the aftermath of last month's school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Barre
Mayor Thomas Lauzon tells The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus the representatives
of the Barre Fish & Game Club "were complete gentlemen", but they
declined his request.
Vermont State Police say
no one was injured when a car hit a train in Middlesex. The crash at 9:45 yesterday
morning occurred just off U.S. Route 2. Witnesses say 59-year-old Colleen Bloom
was trying to cross the tracks when her foot slid from the brake to the
accelerator causing her vehicle to hit the Amtrak Vermonter passenger train.
According to
Superintendent Dan French Google has donated 36 laptop computers to the
Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union recently. The computers are called “Chromebooks” because they run
using Google's Chrome operating system and will expand the district's
initiative of having one computer for every student. The press release said the laptops are good for schools
because they are easy to maintain and manage.
Vermont U.S. Rep. Peter
Welch says he wants to use the federal health care reform law to help control
health care costs. Welch outlined
his plans yesterday during a visit to a Montpelier doctor's office. He says it's possible to put Medicare
on a sustainable path without slashing benefits to seniors. Welch says organizations such as
"OneCare Vermont" reward providers for improving a patient's health
rather than the number of procedures they perform. He calls it a common sense approach that should be expanded
nationwide.
Three New York state
Assembly committee chairmen are asking Gov. Andrew Cuomo to suspend the comment
period on new gas drilling regulations until a health review is completed. The 30-day comment period for revised
regulations for shale gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing or fracking ends
on Friday. Numerous environmental groups and elected officials from around the
state have called on Cuomo to extend the comment period. They say it should
wait until after a health impact review now under way is completed and the
regulations revised to reflect the health review findings.
New design options for
the Route 7 road reconstruction through downtown Brandon are going in the right
direction, however proposed traffic lights and crosswalks are still contentious
issues. The Brandon Select Board
held a special meeting last week with CLD Consulting Engineering, of
Manchester, NH, which was tasked with studying new design specifications for
the road reconstruction. CLD proposed three options in the redesign of
Brandon’s Central Park. The reconstruction of Route 7 in downtown Brandon,
known as Segment 6, is scheduled to begin in 2014 and continue for at least two
years.
It's a sight one young
skier is not likely to forget.
19-year-old Jeff Palmer of Shelburne was near the Gatehouse Plaza at
Sugarbush when he noticed a Bull Moose coming right towards him. Jeff said he popped off his skis and
ran, with the moose veering up the slope as Palmer ran towards the woods. The state Fish and Wildlife Department
says it's had reports of this particular moose spotted by hundreds of people at
different spots around Sugarbush over the past two weeks, and at times trails
had to be shut down until it moved back in the woods. At this time, there are no plans to remove the moose.
Vermont State Police are frustrated over the high
numbers of lost skiers on Killington Mountain. Yesterday afternoon, once again State Police got a 9-1-1
call about two skiers who intentionally skied off the main trails and were
lost. One had medical issues, but
State Police tracked them down with G-P-S and got them down late last
night. Both were medically checked
out and released. State Police say
the number of skiers, mainly on Killington, is intentionally leaving the marked
trails, getting lost and straining resources.
Now that the 23rd Annual
People's State of the State is over, it's time for the New York Governor to
give his State of the State address.
Yesterday, members of the Hunger Action Network called upon Governor
Andrew Cuomo to raise minimum wage to 10-dollars an hour and provide more
funding for emergency food programs.
Governor Cuomo is expected to give his State of the State address at
1:30 this afternoon.
District attorneys
around the state are pushing new proposals to help curb gun violence in New
York State. The District Attorneys
Association of the State of New York has introduced numerous proposals the
group says address a wide range of issues that contribute to "senseless
gun violence." Among the
proposals is a statewide ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines and a law
that would ammunition to be micro-stamped for easier identification.
Officials say the state
of Vermont state will get $30 million in federal funds and insurance payments
toward a $42 million total price tag to help replace the state hospital in Waterbury. Gov. Peter Shumlin and others released
the figures yesterday while they were marking the start of construction on the
Green Mountain Psychiatric Care Center, a 25-bed facility next to the Central
Vermont Medical Center in Berlin. Construction
of the Berlin facility is expected to cost $28.5 million. The rest of total
price tag will be for other, smaller facilities in other parts of the state. State officials hope to have the Berlin
facility open by early next year.
A Colchester woman has
been sentenced to 30 days in jail for hitting a pedestrian with her car while
texting and driving. Twenty-year-old
Emma Vieira of Colchester had pleaded guilty in October to grossly negligent
operation of a motor vehicle with injury resulting for striking and seriously
injuring 53-year-old Deb Drewniak in August, 2011, as Drewniak was walking her
dog in the dark in Colchester. The
Judge sentenced Vieira to 30 days in jail, five months home confinement and
five years of probation.
