Current News

Sovernet Communications, Inc, a leading telecommunications provider, announced the launch of high capacity transport from Boston to Sovernet’s network in New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. The contiguous transport from the major regional interconnection Point of Presence (POP) located at One Summer Street in Boston will provide carriers with Ethernet long haul transport capability throughout Sovernet’s expansive 4500 fiber route mile, geographically diverse footprint.

Sovernet’s Boston fiber connection enables protected, high capacity, carrier transport to all other major POP’s, including 60 Hudson Street in New York City and 1 Sundial in Manchester NH. With its upstate New York subsidiary ION, the company now has entrance facilities into more than 50 central offices and POP’s across the network.

Vermont Business Magazine A protest at Vermont Gas Systems this morning resulted in one protester being led away in handcuffs. It also resulted in Vermont Gas accusing the Rising Tide Vermont protesters of "assault" on an employee during this morning's demonstration at the Vermont Gas headquarters in South Burlington.

Sara Mehalick is interviewed by a WPTZ Channel 5 reporter Tuesday morning as she is chained to the front door of Vermont Gas Systems in South Burlington. Photo by Katie Kittell, Vermont Business Magazine.

Standing on the front porch of the recently rehabilitated St. Albans House, Governor Peter Shumlin today signed into law three bills to address the critical issues of jobs and community revitalization, housing affordability, environmental protection and transportation investment.

“Together these bills, along with an additional $500,000 in tax credits, will ensure that more historic buildings like the St. Albans House are rehabilitated, that more businesses and jobs are located in our downtowns, and that new homes are built within walking distance to stores, restaurants, schools and public transit,” Shumlin told the group of business owners, homebuilders, and environmental groups attending the signing event.

“By directing more development to community centers, we also support our agricultural renaissance and assure our productive farms and forests remain a vital part of the Vermont landscape,” he added.

by Chris Graff This is not a column about Grace Potter. It easily could be. She is a star on the national stage who never loses sight of her Vermont roots and her Vermont neighbors. She is amazingly generous and has lent her voice and her star power to help Vermont and Vermont organizations.

by Laura Krantz vtdigger.org Many Vermont opiate addicts say their habit started with a legitimate prescription from a doctor. Others first bought pills stolen from someone else’s medicine cabinet. As Vermont combats opiate addiction, the state board that oversees doctors has issued a new policy on how to prescribe opioid painkillers, such as oxycodone.

The Vermont Board of Medical Practice in April adopted a new set of guidelines for physicians prescribing the highly addictive and easy-to-abuse drugs to people who suffer from long-term pain.

The Vermont Supreme Court has affirmed the Agency of Natural Resources’ issuance of an operational-phase stormwater permit for the wind development in Lowell. “The Court made clear that it will not second-guess the Agency’s expertise in highly technical areas like stormwater management,” said Attorney General William H. Sorrell. “The Court affirmed that the Agency may use its expertise to approve innovative approaches to manage stormwater that fully protect Vermont’s waters,” he added.

The Vermont State Colleges Board of Trustees will have a new Chair for the first time in eight years. At its Thursday meeting held at Castleton State College, the VSC Board elected Martha O’Connor of Brattleboro to take the gavel from outgoing Chair Gary Moore of Bradford.

O’Connor is serving in her third six-year term on the VSC Board. She was first appointed by Governor Howard Dean in 1999 and subsequently reappointed by Governor Jim Douglas in 2005 and Governor Peter Shumlin in 2011. She has chaired the Board’s Finance and Facilities Committee since 2006. O’Connor has a rich record of public service in Vermont.

“Central Vermont Medical Center patients and employees have been asking for CVMC to open an urgent care center for many years,” stated CVMC President and CEO Judy Tartaglia. “The need for Express Care in Central Vermont was identified in 2009 and has been in our Strategic Plan ever since. Our community needs a lower cost, high quality and easily accessible alternative to an expensive Emergency Department.”

Express Care is designed for adults and children with minor illnesses or injuries. No appointment is needed and all insurances will be accepted. All Vermonters and visitors to Vermont will be welcome. On-site Lab and x-ray are available.

The clinic will be staffed with many of the same providers the community currently knows and respects.

by Laura Krantz vtdigger.org Some low-income Vermonters will still be forced to repay the federal government for state errors with the food stamp program, after a bill asking the state to pick up that tab failed this session. The problem dates back to last year, when the feds sanctioned Vermont for miscalculating the amount of money it awarded to food stamp recipients, in many cases giving people too much.

The federal government, which pays for food stamps, fined the state $500,000 and asked those Vermonters who were victims of the errors to pay back the extra.

Some lawmakers, however, felt those low-income residents should not be asked to pay for an error that was not their fault.

US Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders has announced that he will introduce legislation to increase accountability at the Department of Veterans Affairs and reintroduce comprehensive legislation – which Senate Republicans blocked last winter – to improve veterans’ health care, education, job-training and other benefits.

Sanders (I-Vermont) is working with the White House on a VA accountability bill that will be filed as soon as Congress returns from its Memorial Day recess. The chairman also announced that a hearing will be held on June 5 to address that bill and other legislation.

When 12-year-old Marisa “Missy” Magel passed away suddenly while at summer camp in rural Texas, it was from a disease her family never knew she had—brain aneurysm disease. The disease claims 32,000 lives annually in the United States—more than prostate cancer—partly because brain aneurysms are often misdiagnosed as migraine headaches.

Now a $150,000 grant to the Center for Telehealth at Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H) from the Missy Project, a foundation her family started in 1999 following Missy’s death, will help brain aneurysm patients in northern New England have rapid access to neurovascular specialists; access that may have helped save Missy’s life.

John McClaughry From 1906 to 1951 the Springfield municipal gas plant converted coal to gas and piped it to homes throughout the village. In that latter year liquid propane became a much better option, so grinding and heating coal was discontinued. Left behind was a bunch of contaminated structures, pipes and buried barrels of coal tar mixed with various environmentally nasty byproducts.

The old gas plant site was, however, right on Clinton Avenue, the main road into the village. The town government was eager to get the old plant demolished and the site returned to the tax rolls for some better (and cleaner) use. In 1997 Vermont-owned Bradford Oil Co. bought the eyesore of a site to build a modern gasoline plaza and convenience store. The Springfield Regional Development Corporation (SRDC) rejoiced.