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Green Tree Servicing, LLC, a national servicer of residential mortgage loans, will pay Vermont consumers a total of $55,250 for the company’s debt collection practices and late payment of property taxes. Green Tree will also pay $176,750 to the State. According to Attorney General William Sorrell, the settlement is the first in Vermont to focus on mortgage-related issues since a series of multistate and federal settlements with national banks and servicers.

“We must ensure that home mortgages, which are so central to the financial well-being of Vermonters, are serviced in accordance with the law,” he said.

by John herrick vtdigger.org Brandy Ofciarcik-Perez pointed from her lawn to a sharp bend in the road as a flatbed truck carrying granite slabs overshot the center line in its trajectory down the hill toward her home. “People fly through here,” the 40-year-old dance instructor said, holding one of her three children by the hand. “I used to actually put up barriers.” Traffic is just one of the concerns raised by residents of Graniteville Road about an asphalt plant operating at the Rock of Ages quarry. More than two dozen neighborhood residents also say the plant is noisy and pollutes the air. Many landowners in the self-proclaimed Granite Center of the World have posted signs in their yards saying “stop the asphalt plant.”

Campaign for Vermont, a non-partisan citizen driven advocacy organization, has requested that Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer review the accuracy of “equalized pupil” and “education spending” calculations used by the Agency of Education and local school districts. These two highly obscure terms are defined in Vermont’s statutes and play a central role in setting local education property taxes, reallocating students from among school districts, and penalizing school districts with seemingly high spending levels per pupil. No other state utilizes these terms when managing their education funding system.

For fiscal 2014, the application of the legal requirements associated with “education spending” and “equalized pupils” resulted in the following:

Danforth Pewter and Gardener’s Supply Company, two nationally recognized Vermont-based specialty companies, have turned to the sun for emission-free solar power. The two companies will share the output of the newly installed Vermont solar array. The 144 KW system, constructed on the Pulling Farm in Addison features dual axis AllSun Trackers, manufactured nearby in Williston by AllEarth Renewables and a Power Purchase Agreement by SolarSense, LLC, a provider of clean, reliable and affordable power.

Danforth Pewter is a family-owned fine pewter crafter based in Middlebury, Gardener’s Supply, headquartered in Burlington is an employee-owned company providing environmentally friendly gardening products and information through its website, catalogs, and retail stores.

Vermont’s groundwater will now be better protected from pollution discharged into underground wells. Today the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued new Underground Injection Control Rules, replacing less protective 1982 standards. The rules regulate waste below ground through Vermont’s Underground Injection Control Program, authorized under the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

“This new rule provides a strategic and targeted approach to increasing protections for Vermont’s groundwater,” said DEC Commissioner David Mears.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) is urging Vermont’s dairy farmers to take advantage of US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s decision to extend for a week the signup period for the new dairy farm production price insurance program created under the 2014 Farm Bill.

Vilsack on Wednesday afternoon announced that the signup deadline for the new Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy) will be extended to December 5, 2014, and that the comment period for the new MPP-Dairy rule would be extended until December 15, 2014.

The Vermont Housing & Conservation Board has approved $3,657,169 in grants and deferred loans to create, preserve or rehabilitate 152 affordable homes and to conserve 1,198 acres of farmland and working forest. VHCB Executive Director Gus Seelig said, “The Board is please to support these community-driven projects in all corners of the state. Housing developments receiving commitments of VHCB funding are located in Lyndonville, Brattleboro, Bennington, Burlington and Hinesburg, while land will be conserved in the towns of Ferrisburgh, Hinesburg, Hartland, Bridgewater and Reading.”

HOUSING AWARDS:

Heating season is here, and it’s time to button up. Standing before a display of weather stripping, caulking and other heat-saving materials at Montpelier’s Aubuchon Hardware store, Gov. Peter Shumlin recently urged Vermonters to pitch in on the Button Up Vermont Day of Action on Saturday, November 1. “Button Up Vermont is a rallying day for us all to come together and tighten up our homes for winter,” he said. “This is important: it will put money in your pocket, it’s good for the planet and it’s good for our kids and grandkids.”

This second annual Button Up Day of Action is aimed at bookending Vermont’s successful “Green Up Day,” with the goal of motivating Vermonters to do something simple – or significant – to stop wasting heat (and money).

Applications are now being accepted for the 2015 Governor's Awards for Environmental Excellence. The annual awards honor the actions taken by Vermonters to conserve and protect natural resources, prevent pollution and promote sustainability.

Applications are encouraged from:

Loja Real Estate from Walnut Creek, CA, announced on Tuesday the acquisition of a three tenant shopping center tenanted by Trader Joe's, Pier 1 Imports and Healthy Living Market located off Dorset Street in South Burlington. Loja Real Estate purchased the property from a private investor for approximately $24 million. The transaction closed on October 15, 2014.

Vermont Business Magazine FairPoint Communications stated Tuesday that a spike in vandalism on its network during the ongoing strike is "no coincidence," an implication which the unions say is a "desperate" move on the telecommunication company's part. The worker stoppage on the Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine operations of the region's largest telecom has been bitter from the start. Negotiations began on a new contract last April. The contract expired and FairPoint implemented new employee rules and benefit packages in late August.

Vermont Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy have both urged the parties to get back to the bargaining table.

With a federal license now in hand, Green Mountain Power plans substantial improvements to Otter Creek hydroelectric units that will increase rated capacity of the century-old plants by almost 65 percent. In the new license order, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a GMP proposal to upgrade stations in Proctor, New Haven and Weybridge, allowing the expansion of the combined plants from 14 to 23 megawatts. The three stations were purchased in 2010 from the Vermont Marble Power Division of Omya.

“These improvements will significantly expand those hydro units by more than 50 percent, providing more low-cost energy for our customers and replacing market purchases,” GMP President and CEO Mary Powell said. “This is part of our mission to deliver more renewable, reliable and cost-effective energy to Vermonters. We are so pleased that clean energy projects like this and Kingdom Community Wind are helping lower rates for customers.”