Current News

Vermont Business Magazine This year, celebrate the arrival of summer during Vermont Days, an annual event designed to connect Vermonters and visitors to the state’s history and outdoor activities. Vermont Days will be held Saturday, June 11, and Sunday, June 12, 2022. The weekend celebration includes free entrance to Vermont State Parks and Vermont State Historic Sites, Free Fishing Day on June 11, several family-friendly events, and a special bus service between Rutland to Bomoseen State Park.

Vermont Business Magazine Bennington College announced that it has received a major gift of art from renowned television and film writer and producer Norman Lear to benefit its Art for Access program. Lear has gifted The Breakers, an important Abstract Expressionist painting from 1962 by Hans Hofmann, a key figure of postwar American art. The donation advances the dual aims of the Art for Access program: to invite gifts of art to enrich and enhance the campus and teaching, and to generate scholarship funds for talented students through the sale of select works at regular intervals. Known for his exuberant, color-filled canvases, and renowned as an influential teacher for generations of artists—first in his native Germany, then in New York and Provincetown—Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) played a pivotal role in the development of Abstract Expressionism.

Vermont Business Magazine This morning, at a press conference at Pierson Library in Shelburne, former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin endorsed Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray for Congress. Gray will face Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint in the Democratic primary.

Vermont Business Magazine The Legislature crafted and yesterday Governor Phil Scott signed H.518, the Municipal Energy Resilience Initiatives Bill into law, setting the stage for $45 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to support municipalities with technical assistance, energy assessments and municipal weatherization, fuel switching and other potential cost- and carbon-cutting resilience measures.

Vermont Business Magazine More than a dozen agricultural organizations and businesses will gather to thank Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) for his work on behalf of farms, farmers and the nation’s entire agricultural sector Saturday in Richmond. Organic Valley has taken the lead in creating this event, which will highlight Leahy’s role in creating the national organics standards, labeling and certification program, as well as his years of work on behalf of dairy farmers and the agricultural sector more generally. Leahy is a longtime member and a former chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Vermont Business Magazine On Thursday, House Speaker Jill Krowinski and House Natural Resources Chair, Amy Sheldon issued the following statement on the veto of H.606. Governor Scott announced earlier Thursday that he had vetoed the environmental and conservation bill. “H.606, the Community Resilience and Biodiversity Protection Act, was part of a package of environmental legislation that sought to build on our conservation work and help us reduce the impact of climate change on Vermont communities. This bill now joins other environmental protection legislation that Governor Scott has vetoed in recent years, including the Global Warming Solutions Act and the Clean Heat Standard. By now, it’s clear he is not interested in taking real action to reduce our carbon footprint and address climate change."

Vermont State Police On Thursday at approximately 1:21 pm Vermont State Police, Williamstown Fire Dept., Williamstown EMS and Barre Town EMS responded to a report of a tractor trailer rollover on VT RT 64 in the town of Williamstown. Investigation determined that a tractor trailer was traveling eastbound on VT RT 64. Witnesses reported that the tractor trailer’s brakes were smoking and mechanical failure is suspected to have been a factor in the crash. Investigation revealed that the tractor trailer flipped onto its side while attempting to navigate a sharp corner and subsequently left the traveled portion of the roadway. The tractor trailer slid into a ditch and came to a position of uncontrolled rest on it’s roof. The operator was transported to Central Vermont Hospital in Critical condition where he was pronounced deceased. The passenger was pronounced deceased at the scene of the crash by EMS.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, announced today that the committee will hold a hearing Thursday, June 9, at 11 am titled “Saving Social Security: Expanding Benefits and Demanding the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share or Cutting Benefits and Increasing Retirement Anxiety.” Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Social Security today remains one of the most popular and successful government programs in the history of the United States. Before it was enacted in 1935, more than half of the nation’s seniors lived in poverty, as well as countless Americans living with disabilities and surviving dependents of deceased workers.

Vermont Business Magazine The Community Health Centers (CHC) has opened an additional practice in Essex as their ninth location. Essex has the highest number of CHC patients, second only to Burlington, making the Junction a perfect fit for CHC’s newest location. Located just outside the five corners, this new practice will allow residents of Essex to conveniently access the many benefits offered by Federally Qualified Health Centers, such as financial assistance through a Sliding-Fee Scale, interpreter services, prescription assistance, nutrition services, and connection to counseling and psychiatry.

Vermont Business Magazine Nedde Real Estate in Burlington has released recent transactions. These include the sale of 1-3 West Main Street, Vergennes, VT a 1.1 acre of land fully permitted for a 9 townhouses development to Cornerstone Solutions, LLC; the lease of 18,994 square feet of industrial space at 784 Hercules Drive to Burlington Furniture Company; and the lease of 4,021 Square feet of flex space at 10 Farrell Street, South Burlington to Dynamo Hockey Club, LLC.

Vermont Business Magazine Attorney General T.J. Donovan is warning Vermonters about a new variation of the family emergency scam in which scammers are demanding that cash be handed over in person to a “courier.” By presenting a fake emergency in which their loved one needs help getting out of trouble, scammers pressure panicked family members, including grandparents, into acting before they can realize it’s a scam. Until recently, scammers took a hands-off approach in collecting money, demanding gift cards, wire transfers, or virtual payments. Now, the Attorney General’s Consumer Assistance Program (CAP) is receiving reports that scammers are enlisting “couriers” to collect cash directly from unsuspecting family members at their homes to resolve the fake emergency. Vermonters who receive these calls should resist the urge to act immediately and take steps to verify the caller’s identity.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Scott today signed eight bills into law, including the natural burial bill. Scott also vetoed H.606, An act relating to community resilience and biodiversity protection. H.606, he said, is unnecessarily tied to – and unreasonably limited to – permanent protection. The ANR has repeatedly said that permanent preservation has not been, and cannot be, the state’s exclusive conservation tool and this bill, intentional or not, would diminish the existing and successful conservation tools we have. The VNRC objected to the veto saying, given current and future development pressures on Vermont’s landscape, alongside historic biodiversity loss and climate change, this bill would have created a statewide conservation plan that would identify a full range of conservation approaches to employ. The bill passed the Senate without objection.