Current News

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture has partnered with the Vermont Community Foundation to create the Vermont Farm Disaster Relief Fund, which will assist Vermont farms that sustained damage from Tropical Storm Irene.
The relief fund will pool contributions from donors and will make grants directly to farmers affected by the storm.
‘Following Tropical Storm Irene, the Agency of Agriculture received calls from many farmers seeking guidance about lost land, lost crops, and lost livestock, as well as calls from Vermonters interested in supporting farmers,’ said Chuck Ross, Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture. ‘Until now, there was no designated fund to which we could direct callers. The Farm Disaster Relief Fund creates a vehicle where we can connect the resources of concerned donors to the needs of affected farmers who have suffered damages from tropical storm Irene.’

On Sunday, August 7, 74 Vermont community teams and 13 breast cancer survivor teams from the eastern U.S. and Canada competed for a day of fun and fundraising at Burlington’s Waterfront Park. Thanks to the thousands of participants, donors, sponsors, and volunteers, this year the Citizens Bank Lake Champlain Dragon Boat Festival raised over $236,900 to benefit Survivorship NOW and Dragonheart Vermont. Now in its 6th year the festival has raised nearly ¾ of a million dollars for local cancer-related charities. The 2011 pledge partner is Survivorship NOW, Dragonheart Vermont’s new Network on Wellness initiative. Survivorship NOW will provide on-going exercise, support and wellness programs for community cancer survivors to help them live life to the fullest after their clinical cancer treatment ends.

Vermont Law School’s classes started today, two days late, because of school closure due to electricity, telephones and Internet service being interrupted by Hurricane Irene. All systems have been restored.
Scores of VLS students have been volunteering and helping South Royalton residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the storm. The students have been delivering food, cleaning up flood damage, delivering supplies and doing other tasks.
Floodwaters on campus damaged two buildings, three riverside parking lots and an outdoor classroom, while the school’s Internet server center had a mechanical failure. Flooding also damaged the homes of or stranded several faculty, students and staff in South Royalton and other communities.

September 1, 2011 ‘ 8 am update. Central Vermont Public Service crews made extraordinary progress Wednesday, and less than 5,900 customer outages are left to restore.

Thomas S Leavitt, Executive Vice President of Merchants Bank, announced that Merchants Bank, in partnership with The Vermont Foodbank, has started a fundraising drive to support those hardest hit by hurricane Irene. Donation centers have been established at Merchants Bank branches across Vermont. Please visit www.MBVT.com for a branch listing.
This effort will primarily be focused on re-stocking the food shelves, meal sites and kitchens in the areas of Vermont most impacted by the storm and its aftermath. Vermonters are encouraged to make monetary donations at their local Merchants Bank branch office.
Monetary donations will allow for the purchase of supplies needed to respond to specific needs across the state. Monetary donations can be made directly to The Vermont Foodbank at www.vtfoodbank.org or by calling 1-800-585-2265.

Governor Peter Shumlin and the Vermont Agency of Transportation today announced the roll out of a brand new web-based Public Information Project that was made possible through a partnership with Google. A new map, utilizing Google, will advance the emergency response effort following Hurricane Irene. The map can be found at the VTrans website: www.aot.state.vt.us.

‘In the wake of this unprecedented storm that has ravaged our infrastructure it is all hands on deck, and the state is working to assess both state and local roads and bridges,’ said Sue Minter VTrans Deputy Secretary. ‘A new and improved mapping system, which will be publicly available, will help us identify and publicize damaged infrastructure for the travelling public, as well as for our response team,’ she said.

Middlebury Interactive Languages (MIL), the premier provider of world language instruction for K-12 students, has named former Massachusetts Governor and national education leader Jane Swift as CEO. Swift brings more than two decades of leadership in education technology, public policy and administration to MIL, a joint venture of Middlebury College, renowned for its world language programs, and K12 Inc., the nation’s largest provider of curriculum and online education for K-12 students.

August 31, 2011 ‘ 5 pm. With more than 270 bucket trucks, diggers, track and other all-terrain vehicles, Central Vermont Public Service crews accessed some of the isolated areas in central and southern Vermont today.

Vermont has the lowest percentage of non-current mortgages (delinquency/foreclosure) of any state east of the Mississippi and the ninth lowest nationally. The July Mortgage Monitor report released by Lender Processing Services, Inc. (NYSE: LPS) shows that foreclosure timelines continue their steady upward trend, as a payment has not been made on the average loan in foreclosure in a record 599 days. Of the nearly 1.9 million loans that are 90 or more days delinquent but not yet in foreclosure, 42 percent have not made a payment in more than a year with an average delinquency of 397 days, also a new record. At the same time, first-time foreclosure starts in June were near three-year lows, and first-time delinquencies accounted for only 25 percent of new delinquent inventory.

At 11:45 pm on Tuesday, Vermont Electric Cooperative’s (VEC) operations center announced that the final restoration of VEC power outages caused by tropical storm Irene had been completed. During the course of this major outage event, about 10,000 VEC members experienced power outages of varying lengths.
Outages began to occur on Sunday as high winds and heavy rains moved through VEC's service territory. While most outages were restored within the first 24 hours, others lingered into Tuesday. The combination of deeply saturated soil, fully leaved trees and high winds led to conditions in which trees of all sizes toppled onto electric lines and into right of way areas. Also hampering restoration efforts were numerous road closures due to damage caused by flash floods.

Irene has had a devistating effect on Vermont. The following is a brief report on how the Vermont Campgrounds have fared.
Peter Daniels, Executive Director of the Vermont Campground Association, reports that they have two campgrounds that have suffered total flooding. Camping on the Battenkill in Arlington will not be able to access the damage until the river recedes. They may not be able to open this fall. Abel Mountain in Braintree has also suffered severe damage when the river flooded the campground and destroyed their office and bathhouses. All the utilities will need rebuilding. They may not be even able to open next year. Horseshoe Acres in Andover has already brought in heavy equipment and outside contractors to open up for the weekend. Rivers Bend in Middlebury saw half of their campground flooded,including the bathhouse and laundry, but are now open and ready for the weekend.

Online advertised vacancies were down 163,900 in August to 3,990,600, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine (HWOL) Data Series released today. Vermont was down 400. The August drop follows a decline of 217,000 in July and a decrease of 100,000 in June. The Supply/Demand rate stands at 3.35, indicating there were just over 3 unemployed for every online advertised vacancy in July, the latest monthly data available for unemployment.