Current News

Vermont Attorney General William H Sorrell announced today that Christopher Gaudette, age 37, and Frank Perretta, age 51, both of Grand Isle, Vermont, have been charged with animal cruelty in connection with an investigation into the operation of Bushway Packing, Inc. Gaudette has been charged with two counts of cruelty to animals, a misdemeanor, and one count of aggravated cruelty to animals, a felony. Perretta has been charged with one count of cruelty to animals. Neither Gaudette nor Perretta could be located by law enforcement officers, and therefore arrest warrants have been issued for both individuals.

Mach 7 Technologies (M7T), a global provider of flexible, PACS-neutral healthcare image management solutions, has relocated its global headquarters from suburban Chicago to greater Burlington, Vermont. The new office location serves as the company's base for Americas' sales and professional service operations, and finance and administration. The new office also houses global product management and strategic R&D functions.

On Thursday, June 3, the Vermont State Colleges Board of Trustees approved a resolution that authorizes the Community College of Vermont (CCV) to enter a lease agreement with DEW Construction Corporation of Williston, Vermont to design and build a new academic facility for CCV in Rutland. The facility will be located on the corner of Wales and West Streets, and will be a 30,000 square foot building. CCV will lease the facility from DEW, with occupancy scheduled for August 1, 2011. The new building will replace CCV’s current location at 24 Evelyn Street, where CCV has leased 12,000 square feet of classroom and office space since 1999.
CCV President Joyce Judy stated that “Rutland is CCV’s second largest location, and it is the fastest growing location in the college.” CCV had 900 students enrolled in the Rutland area in the spring 2010 semester, which is a 58% increase in student enrollment in the past five years.

The Mortgage Monitor report released by Lender Processing Services, Inc. (NYSE: LPS), a leading provider of mortgage performance data and analytics, indicates that signs of stabilization in the nation's home loan delinquency and foreclosure rates remain largely neutralized by the more than 7 million loans in distress.
According to the Mortgage Monitor report, the number of loans 90 or more days delinquent (including pre-sale foreclosure) declined 112,184 from 4,186,627 to 4,074,443 between March and April, with the total number of non-current U.S. loans plus REO (Real Estate Owned by banks, etc) just over 7.3 million (extrapolated to represent total mortgage market).

The Vermont Agency of Transportation on Monday, June 7 will close a segment of Route 104 in Fairfax so that it can rehabilitate a bridge over the Miller Brook. The bridge will be out of service through July 5, 2010, and traffic will be detoured. The official detour is rather long – Route 15 to Route 289 to Route 7 to Route 104A and then back to Route 104 – but that is the “official” detour as VTrans has to use state routes for any detour that we sign. However, there are quicker detours using local streets. Either way, motorists should schedule additional time to reach their destination.
The Fairfax bridge rehabilitation is a long-planned project that will provide the bridge with a new deck along with rehabilitated abutments. The rehab will also widen the bridge a little. The road closure will last only until July 5, but work on the project will continue until the end of September.

US Senator Patrick Leahy announced Thursday that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has agreed with his request to close the border crossing at Morses Line, Vermont. The closure process will involve a public comment period, extensive consultations with stakeholders, and further assessments on safety and traffic patterns -- steps that Secretary Napolitano estimates will likely take a year to complete.
In a letter to Napolitano after a DHS public meeting on May 23 requested by Leahy, the Vermont senator noted that public comments at the meeting were against building a new port of entry facility at the U.S.-Canada crossing in Franklin County, which would have meant the forced purchase of farm property from a Vermont farm family that opposes the project.

Hoping to improve customer understanding of electrical safety and prevent serious accidents, Central Vermont Public Service today announced a new safety campaign of advertisements and outreach efforts to protect Vermonters from inherent dangers.
The campaign includes a year-long series of newspaper advertisements throughout CVPS’s service territory, a new “Safety Corner” in each monthly customer newsletter, updated safety information at www.cvps.com/safety, and an increase in public presentations on electrical safety. Each of the elements complements the others, with similar information.

The State of Vermont has passed a new law that requires landscape architects to be licensed, making it the last state in the union to regulate the profession. The Vermont Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) worked with the legislature over the last eight years to encourage licensing requirements.
We re absolutely thrilled that Vermont has joined the rest of the nation in acknowledging the importance of the specific skills and education of our profession, says Kathleen Ryan, Vermont ASLA President. Our work affects the health, safety, and welfare of Vermont s people and environment, so we think it s important to protect that by making sure that anyone identified as a landscape architect is properly qualified.

The Vermont Field Office of Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve recognized over sixty outstanding Vermont companies who have gone Above and Beyond in providing their employees who are members of the Guard and Reserve with the highest level of support in protecting their civilian jobs while serving as members of the Guard and Reserve. This support is critical as the Vermont National Guard is in the midst of a deployment that is their largest deployment since World War II.

USDA Rural Development will present funding awards to seven area organizations to benefit Vermont s Northeast Kingdom on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 2 pm. The grants, given out nationally to small businesses in federally designated Rural Economic Area Partnership (REAP) zones, aim to spur economic development and create or save jobs in rural areas.

Vermont Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration Commissioner Paulette J Thabault announced today that she has ordered BCBSVT to return $3 million in premium refunds to subscribers to conclude the Department s investigation into the excessive compensation paid to former CEO, William Milnes. The Company agreed to enter into a stipulation and accept the requirement to return money to subscribers, rather than contest the matter in administrative hearings.

Draker Labs, a leading provider of monitoring solutions for institutional and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) systems based in Burlington, Vermont, has been selected by Photovoltaic Systems Manufacturing (PSM) to monitor PV systems that will be installed at 14 Arizona-based schools. Phoenix-based Salt River Project (SRP), one of the nation s largest public power providers, is funding the installation and maintenance of the rooftop-mounted PV systems. SRP will provide teachers with training and classroom materials related to renewable energy education. Data collected from Draker s monitoring solutions will be available to students and faculty, allowing them to apply real-world data in a variety of classroom applications.