Current News

by Bradford J Worthen We are fortunate to have two Amtrak train services in Vermont. It is the hope of the Vermont Rail Action Network (VRAN) that more people will discover the train as a viable upgrade to traveling by car, bus or airline. On July 19th, the Vermonter will return to St Albans with service to Washington, DC, and the Ethan Allen will return to Rutland with service to the newly renovated Penn Station in New York City.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Community Loan Fund (VCLF) has been awarded $1.8 million dollars from the US Department of the Treasury’s CDFI Rapid Response Program, to deploy to Vermont businesses and communities hit hardest by COVID-19. VCLF is among 863 CDFIs nationwide awarded a total of $1.25 billion dollars in Rapid Response Program funds, to aid underserved communities across the country negatively impacted by COVID-19. Awards were announced by Vice President Kamala Harris, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, US Senator Mark Warner, and US Representative Maxine Waters on June 15th.

Vermont Business Magazine The VDH is reporting today four new cases of COVID-19 (24,406 total) and no deaths, which are holding at 256. There has not been a COVID-related fatality in three weeks and only one in the last six. Cases across the Northeast and Quebec also have declined rapidly, though the Canadian border is expected to remain closed at least through July.While Vermont leads the nation in all vaccination measures, state officials continue to urge the 99,605 Vermonters who have not yet been vaccinated to get a shot in the arm. There are many walk-in clinics and pharmacies across the state available and the vaccines are free.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) Tuesday visited the Huntington Community Forest to coincide with the release of a special report, "Community Forests: A Path to Prosperity and Connection” by the Trust for Public Land. The property, immediately adjacent to the Brewster-Pierce Memorial School, is one of many forests in Vermont and across New England and the nation that offer community members and students the opportunity to learn, play, and connect with nature and each other. Vermont has completed seven CFP projects, more than nearly any other state — most recently the Huntington Community Forest.

Vermont Business Magazine Burlington Electric Department (BED) issued a peak alert for today/Tuesday, June 29 as part of its Defeat the Peak program launched during summer 2017, encouraging members of the Burlington community to reduce their energy usage from 4-7 pm today.

Vermont Business Magazine The Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Residential Abuse Unit (MFRAU) today announced a settlement with Health Care & Rehabilitation Services of Southeastern Vermont (HCRS) of Springfield resolving allegations that HCRS violated the Vermont False Claims Act. The settlement, reached in collaboration with the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont, resolves claims that HCRS improperly submitted Medicaid claims for services provided by an employee who was on the Office of the Inspector General, US Department of Health and Human Services (OIG-HHS) exclusion list and barred from receiving payments from federally funded health care programs. HCRS has agreed to pay to the State of Vermont and the United States a total of $170,037.76, of which Vermont Medicaid will receive $101,254.61 in program restitution.

Vermont Business Magazine Central Vermont Council on Aging has appointed John Mandeville of East Hardwick as its new executive director. An experienced senior-level leader, John has served for the last eleven years as Executive Director of the Lamoille Economic Development Corp in Morrisville, one of 12 Regional Development Corporations in the state. Mandeville will succeed outgoing Executive Director Beth Stern who resigned from CVCOA in October 2020, as well as Jeanne Kern and Davoren Carr who have served as Interim Co-Executive Directors since November of 2020.

Vermont Business Magazine Juniper House, Burlington’s newest affordable, service-enriched housing community for adults 55 and older, is now fully open on Cambrian Way off North Avenue in Burlington. To guard against COVID, move-ins have been staggered and carefully choreographed since mid-March. Today all but four of the 70 households have moved in; among them are nine residents who previously did not have a home.

Vermont Business Magazine At its meeting Monday night, the Burlington City Council approved the Mayor’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget unanimously by an 11-0 vote. The $87.5 million budget goes into effect July 1. Mayor Miro Weinberger said it continues the administration’s track record of responsibly stewarding the city’s finances while making new investments in equity, climate, and the economy. It also includes a municipal tax rate of $0.67, which is about 4 percent higher than the current year, but a lower rate than initially proposed because of a recent increase in property values. The goal was to return spending to pre-pandemic levels.

UVM Police has received multiple reports of burglary on the UVM Campus that occurred over the weekend of 6/26- 6/27/2021. Offices in Coolidge Hall and the Patrick Gymnasium were burglarized during this period. Taken from the athletic complex were several digital movie cameras used for broadcasting UVM athletic events, and other miscellaneous camera equipment.

by John McClaughry Two weeks ago I wrote a column on “The Vermont Proposition”, a product of 22 “rural summits” organized by the largely Federally-funded Vermont Council on Rural Development. While paying my respects to its authors – “well written, earnest, sometimes cogent, and in places inspiring” - I expressed considerable skepticism about such “vision statements”.

Many of the desired outcomes developed in the 26-page document are certainly worthwhile. Uniting to put an end to what racism may still exist is unarguable. Expanding economic opportunity, developing human capital, fostering innovation, creating jobs and creating a tax structure that encourages people to invest in Vermont are worthy goals, so long as the Vision stops short of using government to underwrite crony capitalism for favored people and businesses.

Having said that, the Vermont Proposition is open to considerable criticism.

Vermont Business Magazine Southwestern Vermont Health Care’s (SVHC) Medical Matters Weekly with Dr. Trey Dobson, a weekly interactive, multi-platform medical-themed talk show, will feature Nicholas Weinberg, MD, an emergency physician at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and a member of the organization’s Wilderness and Austere Medicine Fellowship faculty, on its June 30 program. The show will air live at noon.