Current News

The Vermont State Police are identifying the two troopers who fired their patrol rifles as Robert Helm and Matthew Hood. They are both assigned to the New Haven Barracks. Trooper Helm joined the Vermont State Police in 2014 as a trooper at the Derby Barracks. He transferred to the New Haven Barracks in September 2016, then worked on temporary assignment at the Rutland Barracks from November 2017 to February 2018 before returning to New Haven.

Vermont Business Magazine Not to be a grinch, but as we enter the holiday season, a time of giving and celebration, it’s sobering to remember that the amount of waste generated is staggering. That waste isn't limited to wrapping paper and packaging. It includes food waste as well.  According to Worldwatch Institute, Americans generate an extra five million tons of household waste each year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, three times more food waste than at any other time of the year.  

Vermont Business Magazine In just about 24 hours the slopes of Burke Mountain will kickoff the 19.20 winter ski and ride season. The Mid Burke Express will begin daily operations of 9am-4pm Friday servicing eight trails off the summit. Get there early and be first chair famous with the first four skiers and riders who grab that coveted spot receiving an overnight stay to the Burke Mountain Hotel.  

Discounted tickets will be available for purchase: $45/adult; $35/junior; half-day tickets starting at 12:15 will be $28/per person. Sunday, 12/8 will be NEK Sunday all day long with tickets for all ages available for just $28/per person.  

The First Chair Famous from last year at Burke. Courtesy photo.

Vermont Business Magazine The Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission (TRORC) has been awarded a grant from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) Clean Water Initiative Program to organize a three-day wetland restoration training workshop. The aim of this workshop is to fulfill the current training needs of natural resource professionals across the state of Vermont in relation to ecologically effective and economically efficient wetland restoration design.

This training will be led by skilled wetland restoration professionals and will cover a variety of topics including restoration goals, evaluation techniques, funding opportunities, monitoring, and much more. It will feature a mix of both indoor instruction and outdoor site visits, including visits to a potential restoration site along the Black River in Plymouth, VT.

LCC Lake Champlain Committee In early September, Lake Champlain Basin Program Boat (LCBP) Launch Steward Matthew Gorton was conducting a routine boat inspection for invasive species prevention at a public access site in South Hero when he noticed an unusual plant hanging off a boat trailer backing into the lake. Gorton checked the boat and removed the plant specimen, which he later relayed to the Northeast Aquatic Plant Management Society and ultimately sent to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater for genetic analysis. Results confirmed the plant as Hydrilla verticillata, a particularly aggressive aquatic invasive.

by C.B. Hall, Vermont Business Magazine The statutory Vermont Rail Advisory Council (VRAC) voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday night in Barre in favor of a site near Burlington's McNeil Generating Station as the best place for overnight storage of the Amtrak train that is scheduled to begin serving the Queen City in late 2021. The vote opened a new phase of the prolonged controversy over the overnighting issue. A Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission report issued in July had rated a yet-to-be-built rail siding at Burlington Union Station as the best of five options for accommodating the Ethan Allen Express train overnight in Burlington.

Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont Medical Center is closing operating rooms at its Fanny Allen Colchester campus for the month of December, and shifting surgeries to its main hospital campus in Burlington, while hospital staff work with state officials and an outside consultant to investigate air quality concerns in the area of the operating rooms. Patients who have surgeries planned this month will be rescheduled as soon as possible. Patients whose surgeries need to be relocated or rescheduled will receive a phone call from their provider’s office to discuss their options. Over the next several days, teams from across the hospital will be reviewing operating room schedules, patient needs and available staff to determine when and where patients can be accommodated. Any patients with questions or concerns about a scheduled surgery should contact their surgeon’s office for assistance.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, a program of the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board (VHCB), awarded a total of $410,944 to 12 Vermont farms through its FY2019 Dairy Improvement Grants. These grants are made available with funding from Commonwealth Dairy, whose Brattleboro plant produces Green Mountain Creamery Greek yogurt from Vermont milk.

Grant recipients across the state were awarded up to $40,000 for capital improvement projects to improve cow health, farm efficiency, milk quality and production, and water quality. These grants leveraged $699,894 in additional investments, farm contributions, and grant funding from the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont’s Pico Mountain, part of the POWDR adventure lifestyle company, is scheduled to kick off its 2019-20 winter season at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, December 7, 2019 – the earliest opening in the past 20 years and on the heels of installing a 16,850 foot pipeline to source snowmaking water from Killington. Since installment of the new pipeline, Pico ponds have been refilled twice allowing us to recharge the snowmaking system faster and produce more snow when temperatures allow. Rather than relying on streams as we had done in the past this gives Pico the ability to make more snow, for longer periods of time and deliver a better guest experience.

Vermont Business Magazine On the afternoon of Tuesday, November 19, 2019, the WCAX-TV and WPTZ-TV antenna on the transmission tower at the top of Mount Mansfield unexpectedly caught fire and was damaged beyond repair. The fire damage resulted in WCAX and WPTZ losing the ability to transmit their broadcast signals. WFFF-TV and WVNY-TV, as well as their national parent company Nexstar Media, chose to put the public interest first. They immediately allowed WCAX and WPTZ to use WFFF and WVNY’s tower, also located on Mount Mansfield, to set up a temporary antenna.

Vermont Business Magazine The Kabbage Small Business Revenue Index reveals which states showed the most growth as the end of the year approaches. Kabbage placed Vermont at the third-highest in the nation at 173.90 on the Kabbage Index Value, based on monthly median-revenue growth for small businesses.

The Kabbage Small Business Revenue Index reports strong overall revenue growth in the first half (1H) of the calendar year 2019, with small businesses in the U.S. achieving revenue growth across every state and industry. The Kabbage Index Value (KIV), a value used to track revenue growth of small businesses, increased almost 22 points, from 136.8 to 158.4 points, indicating U.S. small businesses’ median revenue grew 15.7% in the first six months of the year. This represents a 22% increase compared to the same time period in 2018 and a large contrast from the second half of 2018 when small business revenue only grew 1.8 percent.