Current News

Students, neighbors and Office of Student and Community Relations staff create one of the nine Neighborhood Grant-funded greenbelt gardens on Isham Street. (Photo: John Meija)

Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont’s Office of Student and Community Relations has received the Presidential Excellence Award from the International Town Gown Association for its work on Burlington’s Isham Street. The program the office implemented there led to large decreases in noise tickets, vandalism and burglaries after it was launched in 2012.

In its award letter the association, the leading higher education organization focusing on colleges’ relationships with their communities, described the office and its staff as "trail blazers in doing new and innovative work."

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Senior Games Association (VSGA), a program of the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, announces its summer season of competitive athletic events for people over 50. VSGA is also affiliated with the National Senior Games and 2018 is a qualifying year for the 2019 National Senior Games which will be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico in June of 2019. In the 2017 National Games, held in Birmingham, Alabama, 31 Vermont athletes competed bringing home 21 gold, silver and bronze medals

Hundreds of Vermonters over 50, as well as senior athletes from neighboring states, are expected to register and compete in a wide range of sports from Pickleball to Golf over the next three months.

Vermont Business Magazine This Saturday, June 16th, Small Town Monsters (2017’s The Mothman of Point Pleasant) and filmmaker Aleksandar Petakov will release "On the Trail of… Champ," an examination of the legend and the ongoing search for a bizarre, aquatic creature said to live in the depths of New York and Vermont’s Lake Champlain. On the Trail of… Champ is a five episode mini-series filmed during the summer and early Fall of 2017. Petakov was on and around Lake Champlain for one of the largest, most well-funded searches for Champ in history.

Vermont Business Magazine Berkshire Bank, with offices in southwestern Vermont, will once again participate in World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on Friday, June 15, by hosting free informational seminars at local senior centers and libraries across its footprint. World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD) is acknowledged annually in June as a call-to-action for communities to address the issues surrounding the physical, emotional, and financial abuse of elders.

Vermont Business Magazine For the fifth consecutive year, FreshTracks Road Pitch, will take place July 30th through August 2nd, 2018. Road Pitch is a four day motorcycle tour of Vermont in which a gang of “business bikers” (comprised of investors, entrepreneurs and business advisors) ride around the state and stop in 8 towns to listen to entrepreneurs pitch their business concepts. This year, the tour will stop in Essex Junction, Hyde Park, Lowell, Bennington, Rutland, Brattleboro, St. Johnsbury and Barre. The schedule tab on the Road Pitch website: www.roadpitch.co has a detailed listing of the dates and times for each event. There are still pitch slots available in some of the eight towns and entrepreneurs interested in pitching should apply to pitch by contacting the local organizers listed in the “find out more” link next to each event listing in the schedule tab.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Representative Peter Welch (D-Vermont) Thursday issued the following statement after the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) extended the deadline until Friday, June 22, for dairy farmers to enroll in the improved Margin Protection Program (MPP).

by Timothy McQuiston Vermont Business Magazine The money that separates the two sides in the state budget battle would be relatively easy to swallow, but the rhetoric is increasingly a bitter pill. Responding to Treasurer Beth Pearce's call for the governor and legislative leaders to come to a quick and decisive compromise on a new budget to avoid financial risk to the state, Administration Secretary Susanne Young today said that if there is risk it rests with the Democratic leadership, as the state is flush with cash and does not need to increase the property tax to pay for public education costs.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan released guidance today aimed at assisting employers in navigating Vermont’s new recreational marijuana law. The law goes into effect on July 1, 2018. The guidance, entitled Guide to Vermont’s Laws on Marijuana in the Workplace, provides employers with an overview of the changes to Vermont’s marijuana laws, and summarizes existing employment laws relating to drugs in the workplace.

Vermont Business Magazine Dairy price protection, water quality efforts and food security are among the local highlights of the new Farm Bill making its way through Congress. Senator Leahy (D-Vermont), senior member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, Wednesday announced that the 2018 Farm Bill, the Agriculture Improvement Act, approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee includes important victories for Vermont farmers, businesses and families.

by Julie Moore Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources If you are anything like me, you might not necessarily be able to pick an ash out of a tree line-up. However, after spending some time in the woods earlier this spring with one of our state foresters to learn about the unique traits of ash trees, including a very noticeable diamond pattern in the tree’s bark, I’ve started to notice them everywhere.

by Jeff Wakefield UVM Like most sugarmakers, Brian Stowe was used to working without a break from the start of the maple sugaring season in early spring to its bitter end in mid- to late April. “If you had dental or medical issues, taxes, anything – all that had to be done before or after; during the season, you’re committed, 24/7,” says Stowe, sugarhouse operations manager at the University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center. But after 28 sugaring seasons at the Proctor, Stowe encountered something new this year: weekends off.

Vermont Business Magazine Christine Hallquist's campaign for Governor has announced that Virginia Delegate Danica Roem will visit to Vermont tonight, June 14, and will make a public appearance at Switchback Brewing in Burlington, from 5:30-8 pm. Roem became the first openly transgender woman elected to any state house in the country. Her opponent was a man who called himself the “chief homophobe” and sponsored Virginia’s bill to end same sex marriage. When he tried to use her gender identity against her, she declared that her identity shouldn’t be a big deal. "This is just who I am.”

She focused on the issues impacting her district and won her race. In January Time Magazine included Delegate Roem on the cover and called her an “Avenger.”