Current News

The Town of Hartford now has a state-designated Growth Center, a move that will help streamline permitting for future development and pave the way for additional benefits to support development in the town.
The Vermont Downtown Development Board approved the town’s revised Growth Center plan at its meeting on Wednesday after accepting some alterations to address concerns about the boundaries of the district.
“This is a very important step for Hartford,” said Kevin Dorn, Secretary of Commerce and Community Development and chairman of Vermont Downtown Development Board. “It will encourage denser and more mixed use development in appropriate areas, and give the town some valuable tools to aid future growth.”

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture announced this week that it will discontinue its Vermont Seal of Quality program. Agriview, a newsletter published by the Agency of Agriculture, stated that since the 1990s, budget and staffing issues at the Agency have resulted in a lack of quality standards enforced on products which bear the seal. Launched in 1982, the program originally had 14 distinct product categories with separate quality standards. According to Agriview, any Seal of Quality only has integrity with consumers if quality standards exist and are enforced.
According to a press release from the Secretary of State s office, all new applications to the program were denied starting January 1, and all references to the program have been removed from the department s Web site. The decision, which was announced on Monday, has drawn criticism from both Secretary of State Deb Markowitz and Lt Governor Brian Dubie.

Michelle Kwan, the most decorated figure skater in US history (five World Championships, nine US National titles, two Olympic medals), who is also an author and US diplomatic envoy, will add doctor to her already impressive resume, when she receives an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at Southern Vermont College’s 83rd Commencement Exercises on Saturday, May 8.
Kwan, a California native, will also address the graduating class as its commencement speaker. Named the nation’s first Public Diplomacy Envoy for the U.S. State Department in 2006, Kwan travels widely to speak with youth across the globe about America, its culture and values, and the life lessons learned through sports. She is currently a graduate student at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of International Affairs.

A $2.5 million federal Stimulus Grant from the federal Agency of Commerce, announced today, completes the funding to launch the $3.8 million e-Vermont Community Broadband Project. This major campaign to stimulate broadband use in 24 Vermont towns will be produced by a partnership of organizations dedicated to expanding broadband access and its practical use. The “e-Vermont Partnership” will be led by the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) over the next two years. VCRD is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of the locally-defined progress of Vermont's rural communities. Additional support for this project came from Vermont philanthropists and corporate associates.

Entergy Corporation today announced it has identified and stopped the source of tritium leakage at its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and has begun initial work to support the remediation of soil and groundwater at the plant site.
The successful effort to identify the source of the leakage, fix the problem and prevent a recurrence capped an intense and rigorous effort by Entergy with the oversight of state and federal regulators that began in January when elevated levels of the radionuclide tritium were detected in monitoring wells built for that purpose.

Vermont s leading businesses appear increasingly optimistic toward all three of the survey s metrics: sales prospects, capital expenditures and employment levels for the spring and summer months, when compared against third quarter 2009 forecasts. The mood was assessed near the end of the first quarter and released today by Vermont Business Roundtable Chair Bill Stritzler and President Lisa Ventriss.
The strongest change that we saw was in the area of sales, in which 63 percent of respondents expect their sales to increase in the next six months, compared to 34 percent from the previous survey. That tells me that our CEOs expect consumer behavior to improve through this summer. Ventriss said.

The US House on Tuesday passed a provision advocated by Rep. Peter Welch that would close the Reverse Morris Trust (RMT) tax loophole and save taxpayers $260 million. The loophole was used by Verizon to avoid federal taxes when it sold its northern New England landline operations to FairPoint Communications in 2008.
By a vote of 246 to 178, the House approved the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Act (H.R. 4849). The legislation, which invests in local infrastructure projects and small business tax credits, is paid for in part by closing the RMT loophole. It incorporates a bill introduced by Welch and 21 other members of Congress this January (H.R. 4486), which focused on closing the RMT loophole.
“This loophole is bad for taxpayers, bad for consumers and bad for workers. By closing it and investing the savings in job creation, hardworking Americans – not corporations – will benefit,” Welch said.

Governor Jim Douglas was honored last night with a 2010 Health Quality Award from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). Governor Douglas was recognized for his work to improve Vermont’s health care system through a focus on chronic disease prevention and management resources. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius was on hand and provided the keynote address.
“This is a tremendous recognition of the work we have done in Vermont to provide quality, affordable coverage to more people,” said the Governor. “Prevention is key to reining in costs and the Blueprint for Health as been instrumental in improving our health quality standards and is a model for the nation.”

Reading scores for Vermont students were among the highest in the country on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), released today by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center on Educational Statistics (NCES). Overall, only Massachusetts outperformed Vermont on the fourth-grade test, while no other state outperformed Vermont at the eighth-grade level.
Vermont students were also among the highest achievers in the country when the NAEP mathematics results were released in October 2009. Only Massachusetts and New Hampshire had significantly higher math scores at the fourth-grade level and only Massachusetts had significantly higher math scores at the eighth-grade level.

Governor Jim Douglas has announced that $110,000 will be granted to the Precision Valley Development Corporation to continue clean-up activities at the former Fellows Gear Shaper property in Springfield.
This proposal will help continue with the re-development of a critical downtown property, said Governor Douglas. This will not only help the town s economy, but will turn a blighted property into clean, safe commercial space, including space for the Springfield Hospital health center.
These funds are being made available to PVDC from the State s Brownfield Fund, which will be leveraged with another $80,000 from the Southern Windsor County Regional Planning Commission s (SWCRPC) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) supplemental funding through the Environmental Protection Agency.

The work to isolate the remaining internal leak from the A AOG recombiner steam trap drainline into the AOG tunnel is complete, according to a statement released Tuesday afternoon from Vermont Yankee. Monday night, the A drainline was successfully isolated. On Tuesday, inspection of the AOG tunnel using a remotely operated camera indicates that the internal leak from the A drainline to the tunnel has stopped. When the inspections are complete, the A drainline will be rerouted and be put into standby status.
Vermont Yankee engineers and technicians are continuing to plan for soil and groundwater remediation. The installation of the well and equipment to support the pumping operation for extracting groundwater continues. To date, there has been no detectable tritium levels found in any samples taken from drinking water wells or the river. The Vermont Department of Health and Nuclear Regulatory Commission personnel are monitoring the investigation.

In a case of national importance, Vermont Superior Court Judge Dennis Pearson found that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company s advertising claims of a reduced risk cigarette were deceptive and misleading, in violation of Vermont s Consumer Fraud Act and a 1998 settlement agreement and court order.
This is a huge decision with national implications and Vermont has once again led the way, said Attorney General William H. Sorrell. The Court has ruled that companies cannot make health claims about their products unless they have the proof to back them up, said Attorney General Sorrell. This decision also shows that the tobacco industry has to live up to the promises they made in the 1998 nationwide settlement.