Current News

by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org Investors in a Northeast Kingdom development question whether a state official was watching out for their best interests. In complaints to the state, they allege that Brent Raymond, the executive director of the Vermont Regional Center, was not playing enough of a watchdog role in his oversight of the Tram Haus Lodge project at Jay Peak. Raymond is charged with monitoring a novel investment program being used for development in the Northeast Kingdom.

A series of emails obtained by VTDigger shows that Raymond, who is charged with overseeing EB-5 projects in the state, has a close relationship with Bill Stenger, the CEO and president of Jay Peak.

Following a recent dispute between Stenger and a group of investors, Raymond assured Stenger he was “a great man” in a July email.

Intercept Corporation, a North Dakota company that processes electronic payments, will pay $75,000 to Vermont consumers and pay the State of Vermont $10,000 to settle claims that the company violated Vermont consumer protection laws. “Vermont currently has the strongest law in the nation to combat predatory high-interest, unlicensed loans – loans that historically were called payday loans,” said Attorney General William H Sorrell. “Our consumer protection law makes payment processors and others who assist illegal lenders directly responsible for the harms caused by illegal loans. This is the second settlement against a payment processor and a further warning to those who assist illegal lenders.” More information on illegal lending and the Attorney General’s efforts can be found here.

Keurig Green Mountain, Inc, (Keurig) (NASDAQ: GMCR), a leader in specialty coffee, coffee makers, teas and other beverages with its innovative brewing technology and WB Mason Co, Inc, the largest privately owned office products dealer in the United States, announced a multi-year agreement to offer WB Mason's SHAZAM coffee in K-Cup packs for the Keurig hot brewing system in away-from-home channels. SHAZAM will be the first brand to come into the Keurig family from a Keurig Authorized Distributor.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Representative Peter Welch (D-Vt.) Friday announced a $278,631 federal grant under the new Farm Bill to support specialty crops in Vermont. The grant will support maple producers, organic specialty crop farmers and herb growers among others and is a 33 percent increase in investment in specialty crops in Vermont from the previous year.

Over 300 people crowded into the Brooks House Atrium to celebrate the Grand Opening of the Brooks House on Friday, October 3. The renovation cost $24 million. Speakers all praised the determination and can do attitude that it took to save the landmark building and make it a center of economic development in Brattleboro. Speakers included Governor Peter Shumlin along with Brooks House Development Bob Stevens and Larry Cassidy, along with Congressman Peter Welch, Joyce Judy, president of CCV and Dan Smith, president of VTC.

Governor Shumlin said: "Only in Windham County, only in Brattleboro, can you take on the impossible and make the dream happen."

ECFiber continued its unique funding process by closing on the sale of $510,000 of privately placed promissory notes, purchased by 36 different individuals. This included $200,000 that ECFiber was asked to contribute to the 51 mile Business Broadband Improvement District (BBID) project the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA) announced June 30, to connect BBIDs in Braintree, Brookfield, North Randolph, Pomfret and Sharon.

According to ECFiber CEO, Stan Williams, “The combination of the VTA’s projects and our own planned expansion will allow us to have a presence in 19 of our 24 member towns, and will provide an excellent base on which to expand within these towns as well as our remaining uncovered member towns.”

As the nights grow colder, the Agency of Agriculture’s Consumer Protection Division is reminding Vermonters to takes steps to ensure they “get what they pay for” when heating their homes.

“With winter approaching, it’s important for Vermonters to know there are rules in place to govern transactions related to fuel and firewood,” according to Henry Marckres, Chief of the Consumer Protection Division of the Agency of Agriculture.

Whether you use fuel oil, kerosene, propane, or firewood, the Agency would like to share the following guidelines to help ensure the fuel you buy measures up:

Fuel

Dr. Chris Berger, CMB Interim Director and Director of Graduate Education for the College of Medicine, announced the winner of the 2014 Norman R. Alpert Award at the annual Graduate Research Day for the CMB Program event held October 2, 2014. Jacqueline Leung, a graduate student in the Cellular, Molecular and Biosciences (CMB) Program at the University of Vermont won for her publication, “Identification of T. gondii Myosin Light Chain-1 as a Direct Target of TachypleginA-2, a Small-Molecule Inhibitor of Parasite Motility and Invasion."¹

by Laura Krantz vtdigger.org and Vermont Business Magazine Vermont could gain as much as $11 million in tax revenue from legalized marijuana, according to an analysis performed by NerdWallet, a website that compares financial data for consumers. The nation as a whole could realize $3 billion in state and local taxes per year if it legalized pot, according to NerdWallet. The marijuana market in Vermont is worth approximately $54 million annually, NerdWallet estimated.

Creative Commons photo

Brattleboro Community Television (BCTV) announced today that it has selected Landmark College as Community Partner of the Year and Sovernet as Sponsor of the Year as part of its annual Producer Awards ceremony. Landmark College, in Putney, Vt., is a global leader in integrated teaching methods for students with learning disabilities (such as dyslexia), ADHD, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Sovernet Communications, headquartered in Bellows Falls, Vt., is a BCTV under-writer that provides BCTV broadband Internet service over its extensive Vermont fiber optic network. Both of the awards were announced at BCTV’s annual meeting on October 1.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) today launched an investigation into soaring generic drug prices.

“We are conducting an investigation into the recent staggering price increases for generic drugs used to treat everything from common medical conditions to life-threatening illnesses,” Sanders, chairman of a Senate health care subcommittee, and Cummings, ranking member of the House oversight committee, wrote in letters to 14 pharmaceutical companies.

They pointed, for example, to the price hike for Albuterol Sulfate used to treat asthma and other lung conditions. The average cost for a bottle of 100 pills was $11 last October. The average charge by this April had shot up to $434. An antibiotic, Doxycycline Hyclate, cost $20 last October for a bottle of 500 tablets. By April, the price was $1,849.