Current News

As spring approaches, Vermont’s travel destinations are concluding a busy season spreading the word about Vermont at out-of-state shows for consumers and group tour organizers. Most of the shows that Vermont businesses attend take place at expositions within metro centers in New England, New York, and Canada. According to the Vermont Department of Tourism & Marketing, Vermont is uniquely positioned within a day’s drive of 80 million people.
Todd Paton of the Rock of Ages Visitors Center recently returned from the AAA Travel Marketplace at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts. Billed by AAA as “one-stop shopping for everything travel related,” the annual show features hundreds of exhibitors and hosts about 20,000 consumers exploring the expo in the three-day period.

Related Company: Stowe Mountain ResortAmerican International Group, Inc (NYSE: AIG) has announced that its 2014 Winter Summit raised $686,800 to benefit Disabled Sports USA’s (DSUSA) Warfighter Sports program. The Stowe event raised $586,800 for the program and AIG contributed an additional $100,000.
The event this year included DSUSA members who represented the US at the Sochi, Russia, Paralympics, including Jon Lujan, a Marine veteran who was elected U.S. flag bearer by his fellow Paralympians.The Winter Summit has been held annually at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont for more than 25 years. It is attended by AIG business partners and insurance professionals from across the insurance industry, as well as DSUSA athletes, all of whom participate in ski and snowboarding races to raise funds for the Warfighter Sports program.

Ready, set, chop! On Saturday, March 22, over 270 middle and high school students will compete in the state’s seventh annual Junior Iron Chef competition. This year, organizers are taking the program to new heights.
In 2008, Vermont Food Education Every Day (VT FEED, a partnership of NOFA-VT, Shelburne Farms, and, at the time, Food Works at Two Rivers Center) and the Burlington School Food Project (BSFP) founded one of the first youth culinary competitions to focus on local food and school meals. Guided by coaches – local chefs, food service directors, and teachers, student teams create original recipes that incorporate at least five local vegetables and follow USDA school meal standards. This year, teams have the added challenge of sourcing all their ingredients themselves. With these rigorous guidelines, youth contestants work through real-life challenges similar to those food service face creating healthy, nutritious meals for schools.

by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org Representative Tess Taylor, majority whip of the Vermont House of Representatives, announced today that she would be leaving the Legislature immediately to become executive director of Vermont’s CURE, a pro-single payer 501(c)(4) organization funded by the American Federation of Teachers.
Tess Taylor, left, Cary Brown and Governor Peter Shumlin. VTDigger file photo
The Vermont Coalition for Universal Reform, a newly formed issue advocacy group, will work to build broad-based public support for the Shumlin administration’s planned universal health care program.
Taylor, a Democrat who represents Barre, has been a member of the House since 2008, became majority whip in 2013.
Taylor told the Democratic caucus that she would be leaving her seat and her post in the leadership immediately. She described the announcement as a “bittersweet moment for her.”

New unemployment claims fell again last week. Weekly claims had decreased for the first seven weeks of the year before a two-week increase. This is the second and more substantial drop in a two-week period. For the week of March 15, 2014, there were 702 new, regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance in Vermont. This is a decrease of 213 from the previous week's total, and 76 fewer than they were a year ago.
Altogether 8,539 new and continuing claims were filed, a decrease of 397 from a week ago and 937 fewer than a year ago. The Department also processed 79 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 2 fewer than the previous week.

by Morgan True vtdigger.org Organizations representing Vermont’s small businesses say they’re disappointed the state will have to continue to rely on insurance companies to enroll small businesses and their employees in Vermont Health Connect insurance plans.
Businesses with 50 or fewer employees, who are required to buy health coverage through the state’s health care exchange, still can’t use the website to sign up.
For just about everything you wanted to know about the state’s health care exchange, but were afraid to ask, go to VTDigger’s user’s guide to Vermont Health Connect.
The guide includes an interactive chart that helps you find your estimated subsidy level instantly.

Related Company: Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee LLCby Anne Galloway vtdigger.org
A Vermont Yankee employee reported in November that security management “detonated a suspicious item” that resembled a pipe bomb inside the nuclear power plant compound.
An official from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a statement that the situation was not handled appropriately, and Entergy staff in Vernon did not follow proper procedures.
The suspicious item was a length of pipe that was “capped” on both ends, according to a condition report that was submitted by an anonymous Entergy employee.
Vernon police were called to the plant Nov. 4 and the officer who responded turned off his portable radios and cellphones as he approached the pipe in the “south forty,” a shipping and receiving area outside the “protected area” where nuclear power production buildings are located at the plant, according to the report.

Faraday, based in Middlebury, is a cloud software provider delivering better customer acquisition to the home improvement industry. It has recently closed on a $880,000 Series A round of financing. The oversubscribed financing was led by FreshTracks Capital, with renewable energy services provider 3Degrees, seed-stage venture investor LaunchCapital, environmental opportunities focused investor ARB, and a number of individual investors including several cleantech executives also participating. Cairn Cross, Managing Director of FreshTracks Capital, and Richard Graves, Co-Founder and VP of Corporate & Business Development at Ethical Electric, joined the company's board of directors.

Natural Merchants Natural Merchants, LLC, based in Grants Pass, OR and Cartagena, Spain, announces the Non-GMO Project Verification of its core portfolio of wines, the first wines imported from Europe to obtain the seal. Natural Merchants works with family-owned wineries throughout Europe to produce USDA Certified Organic No Sulfites Added Wines, as well as wines made with Organically Grown Grapes. Five of the winery partners, located in Italy, Spain, Austria, Greece and France, are participating in the Non-GMO Verification Project.
“Consumer demand for non-GMO products has increased dramatically in the United States, as an estimated 80% of all packaged goods are now genetically engineered,” says Edward Field, President of Natural Merchants. “The demand flows over into wine and other alcoholic beverages and we are delighted to offer the first ever wines from Europe to be Non-GMO Project Verified.”

Today, Seventh Generation, the nation's leading brand of non-toxic and renewable bio-based household, baby and personal care solutions, amasses a first-ever, national campaign to instigate meaningful change to reform The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that has laid dormant since 1976. Unlike other major environmental laws, TSCA has never been updated and has proven to be an ineffective law for regulating chemicals. For the past 30 years, the law has allowed 62,000 chemicals to remain on the market without required testing.
With capes, masks and petitions in hand, comes a new generation of activists ready to make a change.
Photo courtesy of Seventh Generation

Related Company: People's United BankThe People’s United Community Foundation, the philanthropic arm of People’s United Bank, announced today that it has awarded $12,000 to Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) in Burlington, Vermont.
CVOEO assists low-income individuals in achieving economic independence in order to address fundamental issues of economic, social, and racial justice. The grant from People’s United Community Foundation will support its Growing Money Program.
With free financial classes and coaching, the Growing Money Program helps low- and moderate-income participants reach their financial goals, improve their credit scores, and identify areas for saving. Individuals learn to manage spending, create a budget, access banking products and services, how to work with creditors and avoid predatory lending.

Spring is around the corner, and with its arrival comes the need for horse-owning Vermonters to ensure that their companions are protected from diseases transmitted by mosquitos, such as Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) and West Nile Virus (WNV).