Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Vacasa, North America’s largest vacation rental management platform, has launched its second annual Top 25 Best Places to Buy a Vacation Home report, highlighting the best US destinations to invest in a vacation rental property. Killington was ranked second in the nation and Warren (Sugarbush) was number 14. The Vermont towns were the only locations ranked in the Northeast.

Vermont Business Magazine Feeling unhappy and cranky? The treatment: take a walk under some trees in the park. That may not be the exact prescription of your doctor, but a first-of-its-kind study shows that visitors to urban parks use happier words and express less negativity on Twitter than they did before their visit—and that their elevated mood lasts, like a glow, for up to four hours afterwards. The effect is so strong—a team of scientists from the University of Vermont discovered—that the increase in happiness from a visit to an outpost of urban nature is equivalent to the mood spike on Christmas, by far the happiest day each year on Twitter. 

by M. Kathleen Shaw, DVM, Vermont Veterinary Medical Association Hot summer days make most of us want to get out and enjoy nature, often bringing along our dogs, and it is important to be aware of algae blooms and the potential life- threatening consequences of human and animal contact with them. Algae are tiny plant-like organisms that are found in all types of water. They are essential to the earth because, like plants, they produce oxygen we need to survive. They are found worldwide -from ponds, lakes, and streams in Vermont to the hot springs of Yellowstone to oceans and even under the ice caps in sea water.

Fourteen entrepreneurs from seven climate solution start-ups graduate from the Vermont-based business accelerator to help reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the heating and transportation sectors.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont State Treasurer Beth Pearce today announced that participants in the state’s investment account for Vermonters with disabilities, VermontABLE, have accumulated $1.25 million in assets. The news comes as the Treasurer’s Office highlights #ABLEtoSave Month, a nationwide initiative to raise awareness about ABLE accounts.

Vermont Business Magazine Tax revenues are still coming in largely above targets, continuing their strong showing from the spring. The personal income tax, the most important General Fund revenue source, was up nearly 7 percent over expectations. Meanwhile the corporate tax, which tends to spike, was almost 70 percent ahead of targets. Secretary of Administration Susanne Young released Vermont’s Revenue Results for July 2019 today.

A limited number of tickets to the women’s World Cup at Killington go on sale today for select viewing areas. Standing areas to view race will be free and open to public.

Vermont Business Magazine The City of Winooski has announced that the Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC) has awarded the City a $450,000 grant through their Economic & Infrastructure Development Investment program to support the Main Street Revitalization Project. This grant will reduce the project cost to taxpayers in Winooski by approximately $600,000 in debt and interest.

Vermont Buiness Magazine The threat for thunderstorms across central and southern Vermont has Green Mountain Power (GMP) rescheduling today’s EV Test Drive Event in Rutland. The National Weather Service says thunderstorms are possible in Vermont throughout the day, and especially across central and south-central Vermont this afternoon. Forecasters say the storms this afternoon could cause localized flash flooding.

by Rob Roper This past spring the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce surveyed 500 young professionals, primarily Burlington area residents between the ages of 22 and 34, and learned that over 40 percent intend to leave Vermont. Now we can put some faces on those statistics. Taylor Dobbs, 29, a prominent reporter who worked for VPR and most recently Seven Days, has decamped with his wife, an educator, for North Carolina. Ben Jickling, 25, a two-term independent Representative from Brookfield, is leaving to take a job with a medical software company in Wisconsin. Both were life-long Vermonters.

Vermont Business Magazine Representatives from Middlebury College, Vanguard Renewables, Vermont Gas, Goodrich Farm, and the State of Vermont gathered on August 20 at the farm in Salisbury, to mark the official groundbreaking for an anaerobic digester. The facility will combine cow manure and food waste to create Renewable Natural Gas (RNG). The project is a milestone toward the college’s goal of using 100 percent renewable energy sources, and Middlebury will be the primary consumer of the RNG produced at the dairy farm. During the event, speakers from each organization discussed the facility, which will be the largest anaerobic digester east of the Mississippi River.

Vermont Business Magazine Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Patty Murray (D-Wash) and Gary Peters (D-Mich) on Tuesday requested that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) conduct a comprehensive review of the Border Patrol’s use of interior immigration checkpoints as part of their border security mission and their compliance with the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right of Americans to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Two-thirds of Americans live within 100 miles of the Northern, Southern and maritime borders of the United States, and could be stopped and searched within that “border zone.”