Current News

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) Wednesday was presented with the WASH Advocate Award for his strong support for ending the global safe drinking water crisis. In a presentation in the US Capitol, Leahy was joined by Vermont advocates Carolyn Meub and Barbara Carris of Pure Water For The World. Also on hand was his wife, Marcelle Leahy, a Registered Nurse. In one of Leahy’s visits to Haiti to inspect relief efforts funded by Leahy’s panel in the aftermath of the massive 2010 earthquake, she visited a project headed by the Vermonters.

The 2014 WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) Advocate award was presented by Patti Simon, wife of the late Senator Paul Simon (D-Ill.), Meub, executive director for the Vermont-based Pure Water for the World (PWW), and Carris, board member for PWW.

Improvements to Maple Street Apartments in Hardwick have made this 16-unit, senior housing development a warmer, safer and more attractive place to live--but not before the residents had to contend with the dust, noise and inconvenience of living through the 13-month rehabilitation process. To both mark the completion of the renovations and recognize the residents for their patience and cooperation, the two nonprofit owners of Maple Street Apartments treated the residents to a thank you luncheon on Thursday.

by Hilary Niles vtdigger.org Management of Vermont’s 9-1-1 emergency communications service will transition to FairPoint Communications in 2015. The North Carolina-based company, plagued by residential service complaints and, since October 17, a union strike throughout Northern New England, won a competitive bid for the five-year contract that took effect November 5. FairPoint will have nine months to implement its system and transition from the current provider, Intrado Inc, of Colorado. The company will be paid $1.8 million for the set-up, followed by a total of roughly $9.5 million for 60 months of operations and maintenance.

The Village Revitalization Initiative – a cooperative effort between Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and the Preservation Trust of Vermont – is drawing more national recognition as the recipient of a National Trust for Historic Preservation Richard H Driehaus Award for the preservation and restoration of Vermont’s historic buildings and communities, in downtowns across the state. The award to the Trust and to Leahy was presented at the annual National Preservation Conference in Savannah, GA, on November 13. The award recognizes the partnership between Leahy and the Preservation Trust of Vermont to direct funding through the HUD Economic Development Initiative (EDI) to build stronger and more economically vibrant village centers. Funding secured by Leahy through his work on the Appropriations Committee has been used to rehabilitate historic community buildings located in the heart of a Vermont community center or small downtown.

Champlain Community Services, Inc has announced an award of $100,000 over three years from The Gibney Family Foundation of South Burlington. The grant represents an investment that enables CCS to fully launch its School2Work career development initiative for high school students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. School2Work partners with area high schools and businesses, and a number of partner agencies, to offer career development, industry-specific training, and job placement in the competitive economy,” said Michelle Paya, director of supported employment at CCS. The initiative builds on the expertise and resources of the agency’s nationally recognized supported employment program, Way2Work.

by Tom Brown and John Herrick vtdigger.org In a wide-ranging news conference Wednesday, Governor Peter Shumlin repeated his commitment to single payer health care but promised to listen to Vermonters who feel he’s moving too fast on that and other issues. Holding his first full-blown news conference since his narrow victory over Republican Scott Milne in last week’s election, Shumlin promised to “talk, listen and learn” from the results. Shumlin said he remains an advocate for publicly financed health care but is more concerned with finding alternatives to rising health care costs.

by Morgan True vtdigger.org The Vermont Health Connect website will go back online on Saturday, November 15, the first day of the open enrollment period. State officials made that announcement Wednesday, and expressed cautious optimism that they will soon be able to put past failures behind them. Agency of Human Services Secretary Harry Chen and Lawrence Miller, chief of Health Care Reform, said they have the systems and processes in place to get it right.

Vermont Health Connect has resolved the security issues that forced it offline in September, and has been reconnected to the federal hub for several weeks, Miller said.

But he cautioned: “No matter how good testing goes, and how good everything else goes, there will be the unexpected.”

by Bruce Lisman Good public policy badly executed is not better than bad public policy executed well. The outcome is often the same for Vermont citizens—bad. And, of course, bad ideas executed badly are a special hell for Vermonters. We’ve just re-elected a government that has made bad ideas, bad management, and bad leadership seem ordinary. No whining here. The people voted to return many of them to office—but protested by withholding support for our Governor and reducing the ruling party’s majorities in the House and Senate.

It’s a rebuke and a fair warning to those just elected. The Governor is wrong: we don’t want ‘bold’ leadership; we want competent leadership. We expect them to act as fiduciaries for the public’s money. We want them to take seriously the embedded philosophy of Vermont that would offer a helping hand or a comforting hand to those in need but balanced with those other great Vermont characteristics, frugality and commonsense.

It pays to read this list. Whether online, or in the annual published list of unclaimed property, searching for your name in Vermont’s unclaimed property database could mean money in your pocket. The State Treasurer’s Office is currently holding more than $67 million in unclaimed financial property. From November 13-19, Vermont’s daily newspapers will carry a 28-page insert that lists new unclaimed property claims of $75 or more turned over to the Treasurer’s office within the past year. There are 6,929 entries in the insert, with listings that span the alphabet and addresses statewide. While the bulk of the listings are individuals, businesses and non-profit organizations are also included. Last fiscal year, there were 14,055 claims paid. The average claim amount was $383. In the past 10 years, the Treasurer’s office has returned more than $48 million to the rightful owners.

Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell is warning electric power consumers of a re-occurring telephone scam. The Attorney General’s Consumer Assistance Program has received reports of fraudulent calls to Vermonters from individuals claiming to represent a power company and threatening imminent disconnection of power if funds are not sent immediately. Caller ID for these calls may show a number the same as or similar to a power company phone number, even though they are not originating from a utility. If you receive a call from someone claiming your power is about to be disconnected, hang up. If you want to verify the claim, call the customer service number on your utility bill. If you need assistance in resolving an actual disconnection issue with your utility, you may contact the Vermont Department of Public Service at 800-622-4496.

Vermont could dramatically reduce its climate pollution while improving the state’s economy and growing jobs, according to a new economic study released Wednesday by a diverse coalition of environmental, business and low-income groups. The benefits would be achieved by putting a price on carbon pollution and returning the revenue to Vermont citizens, businesses and municipalities through tax cuts and investments in clean energy.

The Power-Gen 2014 Women in Power committee has announced that Green Mountain Power's Mary Powell has been named a finalist for the Power-Gen 2014 Woman of the Year Award. The finalists were selected from nominations received from members of the power community and represent diverse facets of the industry. Along with Powell, the finalists are Diane Drehoff, Director of Maintenance Marketing at Siemens Energy, a global technology company that is active in more than 200 countries, focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalization; and Colleen Layman, PE, Associate Vice President and the Resources Business Group Water principal for HDR Inc., an architectural, engineering and consulting firm with 8,500 employees in more than 200 locations around the world. Powell is president and CEO of GMP, an electricity utility based in Colchester, Vermont, that serves approximately 265,000 residential and business customers.