Current News

Vermont Business Magazine When Seven Days launched Vermont Restaurant Week 10 years ago, the goal was to celebrate Vermont’s vibrant food scene, drive traffic to local businesses and help our neighbors in need. At least one measure of the event’s success set a record this year: a $25,344.03 donation to the Vermont Foodbank. Over the past decade, Restaurant Week has generated a total of $147,395.36 for the Vermont nonprofit. Vermont Federal Credit Union is the presenting sponsor of Restaurant Week.

by Julie Lowell, Public Assets Institute Connecticut was able to do what Vermont couldn’t this past legislative session: raise the minimum wage to $15 and create a paid family and medical leave insurance program. Our New England neighbor could provide some guidance for the Vermont Legislature when it reconvenes in January.

Vermont Business Magazine University of Vermont Extension will expand a program proven to reduce risky behavior in youth, including substance misuse, called PROSPER to schools in St. Johnsbury, Newport and Derby. The program is currently in place at three Vermont schools. PROSPER, for Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience, was developed jointly at Iowa State University and Pennsylvania State University in 2001 and has been implemented in communities around the country since then. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated in nearly 80 published research studies.

Vermont Business Magazine United Way of Northwest Vermont—a local organization working to improve lives in Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle counties—recently approved $1.5 million in funding to the local community as part of its 2018-2021 community investment process. These funds represent the second year of a larger, three-year funding commitment to 51 local programs serving all three counties.

Vermont Business Magazine U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will present 35 citizenship candidates to the U.S. District Court for Vermont during a naturalization ceremony at Essex High School on Wednesday. Magistrate Judge John M. Conroy will administer the Oath of Allegiance to the candidates.  

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott today announced a new initiative to address the high cost of workers’ compensation insurance for logging contractors in Vermont’s forest economy. The Vermont Logger Safety and Workers’ Compensation Insurance Program—developed collaboratively by the Departments of Financial Regulation, Labor and Forests, Parks and Recreation, with input from logging safety trainers, the National Council on Compensation Insurance, insurance carriers and business owners in the forestry sector—will modernize safety training for logging contractors and their employees, reducing injuries and insurance claims and allowing them to qualify for reduced insurance rates.

Vermont Business Magazine Long a key element of SKI MAGIC LLC's 5-year strategic plan, Magic Mountain Ski Area has gained Vermont state permitting approval for doubling the size of its snowmaking pond to approximately 9 million gallons while taking the pond "off stream" to help create a better aquatic environment for downstream fish. The permit also allows the in-take of water from the Thompsonburg Brook along Route 11 for pond replenishment.

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program, a program of the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, awarded a total of $507,000 to fourteen farms in Addison, Orleans, and Rutland counties. These grants leveraged an additional $4.9 million for capital improvement projects and are matched by the farmers’ funds, bank loans, and grant funding from the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.

Anson Tebbetts, Secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, said, “The Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program’s Water Quality Grants are helping farms make lasting investments in environmental stewardship by reducing runoff and improving manure management, soil health and the long-term viability of these businesses.”

Vermont Business Magazine The Bombas Giving Program has donated 1,500 pairs of new socks to the Brattleboro Retreat's patient clothing program known as the Retreat Boutique. The Retreat Boutique is primarily a used clothing program that was launched by employees in 2016 to provide clean, quality garments for Brattleboro Retreat patients in need. It is run by volunteers who gather, sort, launder, and fold donations.

Vermont Business Magazine The Summer Gala—the Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) Foundation’s signature fundraising event and the region’s most elegant charity occasion—was held on the evening of June 8 at the Hubbell Homestead in Bennington. The event hosted more than 300 people and raised $250,000, of which nearly $220,000 will support advancements in breast imaging for early detection of breast cancer.

Vermont Business Magazine The United States Attorney for the District of Vermont announced that Louise Larivee, 60, of Swanton, pleaded not guilty today in United States District Court in Burlington to federal fraud charges. US Magistrate Judge John M Conroy released Larivee on conditions pending trial, which has not been scheduled. On June 13, 2019, a federal grand jury in Burlington returned a two-count indictment charging Larivee with conspiracy and federal program embezzlement.

According to the indictment, between 2013 and 2017, Larivee was employed by the Abenaki Self Help Association, Inc. as the director of a federal grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor.

by C.B. Hall, Vermont Business Magazine Williston-based AllEarth Rail, which is hoping to launch the nation's only privately operated commuter rail service, failed this spring in its push for the state to perform a technical analysis of how self-propelled rail cars of the type AllEarth owns could provide such a service. But the company's initiative is not dead.