Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) announced legislation Wednesday to give large, profitable corporations such as Amazon and Walmart a choice: pay workers a living wage or pay for the public assistance programs like Medicaid, food stamps and public housing its low-wage workers are forced to rely on.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermonters throw away approximately 60,000 tons of food and food scraps each year. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources wants to cut that number by 33 percent and will be offering $975,000 in grants to solid waste districts and municipalities to manage food scraps more sustainability.

Vermont Business Magazine The East Central Vermont Telecommunications District, aka ECFiber, announced this week that it has successfully raised another $8.5 million of bonding to extend its fiber-optic internet network in several member towns. “Funding on this scale makes it possible to build out smaller towns border-to-border, while continuing to fill in selected neighborhoods of larger towns where we already have partial coverage,” said District chair Irv Thomae. “It will also allow us to undertake detailed network design for all remaining unserved areas within our service territory, which we expect to finish building in 2019 and 2020 with two additional rounds of financing.”

Vermont Business Magazine Adam Longworth and Lorien Wroten are the new Executive Chef and General Manager, respectively, at The Pitcher Inn in Warren. Most recently the two owned and operated The Common Man Restaurant, also in Warren. Inn owner Maggie Smith says that this is a significant milestone for the inn that has hosted travelers since the 19th century.

by Bill Schubart I love working in the woods and I’ve come to know all the great trees on our land. They’re like friends – the surviving American elm that looks like a frozen geyser as it towers above the other trees, the dying butternuts in disarray, the wolf pines, the sturdy black cherries, and, of course, the centenarian sugar maples.

Vermont Business Magazine The Cancer Center Community Crusaders, known as the 4Cs, hosted their 5th Annual Day of Celebration in coordination with Southwestern Vermont Health Care’s Centennial Community Day on Saturday, June 10 at the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center Campus in Bennington. Eight crews and more than 4,000 participants at the event contributed to the group’s nearly $60K fundraising total for the year.

The day activities included the annual Cupcake Challenge, entertainment, basket raffle, and more. The program also included inspirational speeches and awards for fundraising crews.

by Rob Roper Recently hundreds of news publications around the country, including several here in Vermont, participated a coordinated editorial campaign decrying criticism aimed against the media. Their general complaint is over the president accusing them repeatedly of being “fake news” and an “enemy of the people,” allegations which they describe as dangerous attacks on a “free press.” As one prominent Vermont editorialist wrote, “A free, fact-based press was built right into the foundations of that when the First Amendment was adopted in 1791.” This fundamentally misunderstands the Constitutional right.

Senator Patrick Leahy I have served in the Senate for 44 years, a span that includes 19 nominations to the Supreme Court. I have never seen so much at stake with a single seat. And I have never seen such a dangerous rush to fill it. President Trump promised that he would only nominate judges to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v Wade. Judges who would dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Judges who would re-shape our judiciary. If that is not judicial activism, I do not know what is.

Vermont Business Magazine The Burlington Electric Department (BED) today issued a Request for Information (RFI) through which BED is requesting ideas for new projects and programs that will help reduce or eliminate fossil fuel consumption as part of the City of Burlington’s effort to become a “Net Zero Energy City” across electric, thermal, and ground transportation sectors and BED’s effort to meet its 2018 “Tier 3” program goals under Vermont’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES).

Vermont Business Magazine Hunger Free Vermont has been awarded a $50,000 grant from National Life Group Foundation to support their core program providing free training and technical assistance to schools and childcare providers. In the past year, Hunger Free Vermont worked with more than eighty-five schools and childcare providers to add and expand federal nutrition programs that make sure all children get the quality nutrition they need to develop and learn. Over 38,000 children in Vermont are at risk of hunger.

Vermont Business Magazine In July of 2018 the Vermont Department of Health (VDH) issued a new Groundwater Health Advisory for five (5) perfluorinated compounds (PFAS). The PFAS compounds include: perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluoro-octane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluoroheptanoic acid (PFHpA), and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA). As a result of this Health Advisory the Groundwater Protection Rule and Strategy is being amended to adopt an enforcement standard of 20 parts per trillion (ppt or ng/l) for these substances. That means that the sum of the five PFAS compounds should not exceed 20 ppt in drinking water. EPA has adopted a drinking water health advisory level of 70 ppt for two compounds (PFOA and PFOS).

Vermont Business Magazine More than 130 iconic buildings and landmarks across the United States and Canada, including the Bennington Battle Monument, will be illuminated in a show of support for the sixth biennial Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) "roadblock" telecast airing in both the US and Canada on Friday, Sept 7 (8:00–9:00 PM ET/PT, 7:00–8:00 PM CT). All will light up in a combination of SU2C's signature colors: orange, red, yellow, gray or white.

The New York Stock Exchange; Wrigley Building in Chicago; Niagara Falls; Peace Bridge connecting Buffalo and Fort Erie, Ontario; Helmsley Building in New York City; Capital Wheel outside Washington, D.C.; One Liberty Place, Cira Tower and FMC Tower in Philadelphia; and more are among the major U.S. buildings and landmarks lighting up in support of Stand Up To Cancer, which is commemorating 10 years of raising awareness and funds for groundbreaking cancer research that is saving lives now.