Current News

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Climate Economy Action Team (CEAT) today announced their 2019 agenda for advancing economic progress and making Vermont more affordable by helping Vermonters use energy more efficiently and meet their heating and transportation needs with renewable energy sources.

Vermont Business Magazine Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development Anne Hazlett today announced that USDA is investing $1.2 billion to help rebuild and improve rural water infrastructure for 936,000 rural Americans living in 46 states. “Our infrastructure is aging in Vermont,” Vermont USDA Rural Development state director Anthony Linardos said. “We need to be investing water systems across our state to accommodate current and future capacity. These types of infrastructure improvements are essential for community development, and are the foundation for enhancing the quality of life and prosperity in rural Vermont.”

by Maia Segura, Vermont Business Magazine The Cotton Mill in Brattleboro isn’t just an incubator space for artists, artisans, and creative entrepreneurs. It has been at the center of the region’s thriving creative economy for decades. This year the historic mill celebrates the 20^th Anniversary of the Cotton Mill Open Studio and Holiday Sale December 7-9, 2018. Festivities abound as business residents open their doors to offer a look behind the scenes, and host selected outside artists and artisan vendors who all help drive the creative economy in Windham County.

Vermont Business Magazine Grow Compost of Vermont announces its new partnership with the Maine-based company, Agri-Cycle, New England’s largest organic waste hauler servicing MA, NH, ME, VT, and NY. The partnership will provide feed for animals, healthy soils, and energy creation through anaerobic digestion, and will exponentially increase the volume of food waste diverted from Vermont’s only landfill. Increasing the volume of food waste diverted brings Vermont closer to reaching its goals set out in the Universal Recycling Law (Act 148) and continues to use food scraps for their highest and best use, aligning with EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy. The Vermont Legislature adopted EPA’s hierarchy in creating Vermont’s Universal Recycling Law, banning food scrap from landfill disposal by July 2020.

Vermont Business Magazine Loss of habitat. Declining pH levels of our oceans. Global temperature trends. The world around us is being changed by human activity and our reliance on fossil fuels. Recognizing that the study of natural systems is the means for both monitoring and mitigating the human impact on the very ecological systems that sustain us, Sterling College announced today the new Robert B. Annis Center for Ecology.

Thanks to a $350,000 grant from the R.B. Annis Educational Foundation, construction of Sterling’s science and research facilities will begin in May 2019; $50,000 of the award is dedicated to scholarships for ecology students. The Robert B. Annis Center for Ecology at Sterling College will prepare the next generation of environmental stewards with exemplary education and research opportunities, positioning its alumni to solve complex ecological problems.

Vermont Business Magazine On Thursday, November 30, representatives from New England Federal Credit Union (NEFCU) presented a symbolic “big check” for $20,000 to Burlington’s Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS). COTS Executive Director Rita Markley accepted the donation.

Vermont State Police Tuesday night, Dec. 4, 2018, school officials at Harwood Union High School in Duxbury notified the Vermont State Police in Middlesex of a threat that had been discovered written on a mirror in a boys bathroom at the school. Following investigation, the Vermont State Police identified Dick Peck, 51, of Moretown, a custodian at Harwood Union High School, as the source of the written threat.

Vermont Business Magazine The Center on Rural Innovation (CORI) today announced that the Black River Innovation Campus (BRIC) has received $724,000 in federal grant funds to support continued progress in building a digital economy ecosystem in Springfield. The award was first announced by the US Economic Development Administration (EDA) as part of its most recent Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) i6 Challenge competitive grant program. The BRIC award is one of only 40 awards in the country this year, and the first award in the history of the program with a rural digital economy focus.

Vermont Business Magazine Attorney General TJ Donovan announced Vermont’s participation in a $6 million multistate settlement with Midland Funding LLC. As part of the settlement, Vermont will receive $67,309. Twenty-one Vermont consumers will receive some form of debt forgiveness. The settlement is between Midland and attorneys general of 38 states.

Midland is a debt buyer. After buying debt, Midland files debt collection actions against consumers for unpaid debts. The settlement concludes a multistate investigation into Midland’s deceptive practices of: (i) filing debt collection cases without the ability or intent to prove them; and (ii) signing affidavits without personal knowledge of the facts and without verifying the underlying information concerning consumers’ debts.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Public Radio has announced that journalist Mark Davis will join VPR as Assistant News Director early next month. Davis will be a leader in shaping VPR's news coverage and long-term reporting projects, helping VPR refine and strengthen our reporting In the coming year, Davis will also play a role in helping us improve how Vermont Edition, Brave Little State and the newsroom work together to cover important and pressing issues across the state.

"I have always admired Vermont Public Radio, and I have a lot of respect for the many VPR staffers I have gotten to know in my time as a reporter in this state,” Davis said. “Some of the most powerful and innovative journalism today is coming from public radio stations, and I think this is a particularly exciting time to join VPR and help produce rich storytelling and in-depth news across its many platforms."

​Vermont Business Magazine Vermont’s independent newsweekly, Burlington-based Seven Days, has hired three experienced writers to join its editorial staff. They include a new Sate House reporter, an arts reporter, and one staff reporter.

First step toward requesting federal disaster declaration
Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Emergency Management (VEM) Director Erica Bornemann has requested a Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA) from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to determine if the state qualifies for a federal Public Assistance disaster declaration following a winter storm and power outages that began November 26. The request asks for assessments in Caledonia, Chittenden, Essex, Franklin, Lamoille, Orange, Orleans, Washington, and Windham counties.

Local, state, and federal officials will begin the assessments on Thursday, December 6.

A broken pole lies across a power line from the November 2018 storm. GMP photo