Current News

Longtime aide Kate O'Connor's new book, "Do The Impossible: My Crash Course on Presidential Politics Inside the Howard Dean Campaign," is sparking headlines in her home state of Vermont - and a series of joint public appearances with the former candidate.
O'Connor and Dean are scheduled to hold the first of a series of book appearances Friday, Jan. 20, at 6 p.m. at Manchester, Vt.'s Northshire Bookstore - an affiliate of the memoir's publisher, Shires Press.
The 482-page paperback offers an insider's view of the unlikely juggernaut that captivated grassroots voters and confounded the Democratic political establishment in 2004. Starting with the bid's humble beginnings, the day-to-day account chronicles the highs and lows as Dean and his staffers learn how to deal with the press, other politicians and the double-edged nature of popularity.

Southern Vermont College’s Board of Trustees has announced that SVC’s President Karen Gross has been named as a Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), serving in the Office of the Undersecretary of Education for one year, starting January 17. To enable President Gross to carry out her new duties and serve the DOE, the Board of Trustees has granted her a one-year leave of absence from the College, during which time the College’s Chief Operating Officer, James Beckwith, will serve as Acting President.
Under the terms of her appointment, President Gross will focus on issues in higher education including increasing student access to college, improved alignment between high school and college, educational affordability, programmatic quality and college completion rates, all topics she has championed at SVC since her arrival in 2006.

In an effort to recognize and honor Vermont’s best companies, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce andVermont Business Magazinecreated the Deane C. Davis Outstanding Business of the Year Award in 1990. Named for the former Governor of Vermont, this annual award honors a Vermont business that shows an outstanding history of sustained growth while displaying an acute awareness of what makes Vermont unique.
Each year the Vermont Chamber of Commerce andVermont Business Magazinepresent the Deane C. Davis Outstanding Business of the Year Award during the annual Vermont Business & Industry EXPO. The award is given to the Vermont business that has made exceptional accomplishments on a consistent basis and demonstrated success by:

Vermont Natural Coatings’ groundbreaking PolyWhey wood finishes arenow available through one of the East Coast’s leading distributors of hardware, paint andbuilding materials. The decision by Emery-Waterhouse to carry Vermont Natural Coatings’ lineof wood finishes is a major step forward in the Vermont company’s exposure to consumersthroughout the country.
‘Our goal is to provide the highest quality professional and environmentally sound products toour dealers,’ said Emery-Waterhouse President and CEO Stephan Frawley. ‘The durable, safeand easy to use Vermont Natural Coatings PolyWhey® products fill the bill on all counts and arean ideal profit center for our dealers.’
Emery-Waterhouse has more than 1,100 paint, hardware and building supply customersthroughout New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, West Virginia andDelaware. The company will distribute Vermont Natural Coatings PolyWhey® interior andexterior finishes and wood cleaners.

Draker Laboratories, the industry's leading independent provider of turnkey monitoring solutions for commercial and utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, today announced several key highlights and major milestones reached in 2011.
‘The past year has further demonstrated the increasing role of solar PV projects in helping the United States and the world meet growing demand for renewable energy generation,’ said Charles ‘Chach’ Curtis, CEO of Draker Labs. ‘We are proud to serve this dynamic market with our industry-leading monitoring and control solutions which allow commercial and utility-scale solar PV systems to achieve optimal performance and maximize financial returns for project developers.’

by Anne Gallowayvtdigger.org The state’s budget shortfall has been nearly cut in half, according to new information from the Joint Fiscal Office, the Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal research arm.
Steve Klein, the chief fiscal officer for JFO, told the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday that the budget gap, which had been pegged at $74.5 million in November in a consensus forecast with the Shumlin administration, had been revised downward to $46 million.
Stephen Klein, chief fiscal officer of the Vermont Legislative Fiscal Office presents budget information to the House Ways and Means Committee. VTD/Josh Larkin
Klein said Medicaid costs were $16 million less than expected and assumptions for the budget adjustment (the mid-year true up of the state budget) were $13 million lower than anticipated (in effect, base spending was flat in the first six months of the fiscal year, and the budget adjustment increase was zero).

The phone has been ringing off the hook and Magic has answered. The Magic Mountain Tube Park is officially open for the season so southern Vermont has its tube back. In a snow-starved winter so far, people are even more anxious to get outside and do something. And, besides skiing and riding, one of those things is sledding which is pretty tough to do if theres no snow in the backyard.
Magic Mountain’s Tube Park, conveniently located at the central base of the mountain will have all three lanes grooved out and ready to go starting Friday January 6th.After school from 4-7pm. Saturdays the park is open from 11am to 7pm and on Sundays from 11am to 4pm. The Alakazaam Tube Park has great viewing from the lodge and families can enjoy great food and refreshments at the Black Line Brew Pub located on the upper floor.

The percent of delinquent and foreclosed mortgages in Vermont continues to increase slowly, as the 2011 increase in non-current mortgages was 7.9 percent. The November Mortgage Monitor report released today by Lender Processing Services, Inc. (NYSE: LPS) shows that while mortgage delinquencies at the end of November 2011 were nearly 25 percent less than the January 2010 peak, the trend toward fewer loans becoming delinquent, which dominated 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, appears to have halted. At the same time, new problem loans - those loans seriously delinquent as of the end of November that were current six months prior - have not improved significantly in the last year. This degree of stagnation indicates that while the situation is not getting markedly worse, it is not improving either, and inventories of troubled loans remain significantly higher than pre-crisis levels across the board.

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets today announced the launch of a new online service that allows licensed Vermont businesses to file, renew, and pay online for their annual retail and W&M (weighing-and-measuring) licenses. The new web service is intended to create more convenience for Vermont businesses, while saving on both business’ and state government budgets overall.
"This new online licensing service is a great first step toward enhancing the Agency's use of technology to support Vermont businesses, many which already subscribe to e-commerce best practices," said Chuck Ross, Secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.

Citing potentially adverse economic impact throughout New England, an ad hoc group of the region’s energy industry stakeholders and public policy officials has requested ISO-New England (ISO-NE) to conduct a formal study on regional power pricing impact if Vermont Yankee and other nuclear power plants, are forced to close.
Vermont Yankee 628 MW 4,782,473 MWh
Pilgrim 685 MW 5,917,813 MWh
Millstone Unit #2 879 MW 7,414,566 MWh
Millstone Unit #3 1,235 MW 9,335,738 MWh
Seabrook 1,247 MW 10,910,055 MWh
4,674 MW[1] 38,360,645 MWh[2]
[1] Source: ISO-NE 2011 CELT Report. Peak output.
[2] Source: NEPOOL Generation Information System.Annual production.

The Vermont House of Representatives took action this afternoon to pass a bill to help individuals and towns devastated by the spring flooding and Tropical Storm Irene.The bill authorizes the Commissioner of Taxes to reimburse municipalities for property tax abatements granted in the wake of those natural disasters. The bill passed unanimously and is now on its way to the Senate.
Speaker Shap Smith and Representatives Oliver Olsen and Ann Manwaring released the following statements on the passage of H461:
‘In the storms of the past year, significant damage was done to private properties across the state,’ said Speaker Shap Smith. ‘I am glad we were able to expedite this bill to provide help to those hit hard by natural disaster.’
‘This bill provides important tax relief for communities and individuals who were already struggling with the burden of storm related expenditures,’ added Representative Olsen.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin stood before a joint assembly of the Vermont Legislature in the House chamber this afternoon and offered his second State of the State address. His speech focused heavily on the effects of Tropical Storm Irene and the rebuilding effort which followed the August 28 storm. "Vermont Strong" became a metaphor for the recovery effort and Shumlin used it frequently, not only in regards to the successful rebuilding of infrastructure after Irene, but for the community effort that will be required to overcome other issues the state and Legislature will face, namely the economic recovery and writing a balanced budget.