WVTK Local & State News February 12, 2013

Planning has stated a natural gas line that will connect travel though Vergennes and Middlebury and eventually connect to International Paper in Ticonderoga in 2015.  Vermont Gas has already been meeting with residents in the towns between Chittenden County and Vergennes.  They are now planning meetings in Cornwall and Shoreham to discuss the pipeline’s proposed path to Lake Champlain.  Vermont Gas has scheduled an informational meeting for next Monday at 7 PM at the Shoreham Firehouse.  A similar meeting will soon be scheduled in Cornwall. 

Today is Hunger Awareness Day at the Vermont State House.  According to a press release, more than 8,200 people will walk through the doors at food shelves and meal sites around the state.  The Vermont Foodbank is striving, with the help of its staff, volunteers, Board of Trustees, and community partners to make 100 meetings with legislators on the issue of hunger.

Ripton voters on Town Meeting Day will be asked to spend up to $150,000 to put a new roof on their elementary school. And in a separate vote on the same day, they’ll be asked to add to that new roof 200 solar panels in order to generate electricity to reduce the school’s energy bill for at least the next 20 years.

The Vermont Federal Credit Union will soon be in its new location at One Court Square in Middlebury.  The Credit Union purchased the former Chittenden Bank property and has been remodeling the building.  The new space is 4 time larger than their current location on Washington Street.  Once the renovations are complete they will be moving to their new location. 

A group of Vermont lawmakers is joining with some civil rights groups to push for legislation that would create new rules governing police use of electronic stun guns. The bill they are proposing would set up statewide training and rules for law enforcement officers using Tasers and similar devices. This new push follows the death of a Thetford man who died of a heart attack after a state trooper shot him with a Taser.  A report last month found that trooper was justified using the stun gun.

Vermont police are investigating an armed robbery at the Sears department store in South Burlington.  The hold up happened at Sears at the University Mall around 1 o’clock yesterday afternoon.  Police say a masked man used a knife rob a clerk.  A K-9 tracked him across the street to the Anchorage Inn but lost the scent.  Police recovered a pair of sneakers and a knife in the Umall parking garage.