Current News

Gifford Medical Center in Randolph was recently named among the Top 100 Critical Access Hospitals in the nation in a first-ever comprehensive rating of critical access hospitals.
The Top 100 list was complied by The National Rural Health Association (NRHA) using the ‘Hospital Strength Index,’ an objective way of measuring 56 different performance metrics in three categories: market strength, value-based strength and financial strength. Only three Vermont hospitals, including Copley Hospital in Morrisville and North Country Hospital in Newport, made the list. There are 1,327 critical access hospitals in the United States, according to the Rural Assistance Center.

Vermont Law School will release its second annual Top 10 Environmental Watch List at 9 am on Monday, December 12, 2011, to spotlight the nation’s most critical environmental law and policy issues of 2011 and how they may play out in 2012.
The report, which is produced by the top-ranked U.S. environmental law school, will be available at http://watchlist.vermontlaw.edu/
The Watch List is written by VLS’s Environmental Law Center faculty and Vermont Journal of Environmental Law students, who provide common-sense insight into current and upcoming judicial, regulatory, legislative and other issues. The report’s goal is promote public understanding of environmental issues that affect our everyday lives and the natural world.

The Institute for International Education has ranked the University of Vermont fifth in the nation among public doctoral universities for the percentage of its undergraduate students ‘ 32.5 percent ‘ who participate in study abroad programs.

The university is ranked 32nd among all doctoral universities in the country. There are 282 doctoral universities in the United States.
The ranking was released in November in the institutes annual Open Doors report, which collects data on international educational exchanges.

At midnight on Sunday, December 11, the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) will close a 1.1 mile section of Route 107 in Stockbridge so work crews can expedite final repairs to the road and replace two culverts that were damaged by Tropical Storm Irene. The road is expected to remain closed for more than a week. Closing this segment will enable the Agency to meet its goal of opening the road before the end of the year.
Route 107 between its intersection with Route 100 in Stockbridge and the Post Office in Gaysville is already closed to all but local traffic. Sunday’s closure, however, will shut down this 1.1 mile road segment to all traffic, including to local residents.

The People’s United Community Foundation, the philanthropic arm of People’s United Bank, announced today that it has awarded $10,000 to Habitat for Humanity International Inc. ‘ Bennington Area Habitat for Humanity, and has awarded $5,000 to the Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS).

The Bennington Area Habitat for Humanity constructs simple, decent, affordable houses in partnership with families who currently live in substandard and unsafe conditions and who have no possibility of obtaining a home through any conventional means.

The VSJF Flexible Capital Fund announced today that Vermont Smoke and Cure is the first recipient of a new investment loan program designed to help small businesses grow. The Flex Fund will lend the company $600,000 ‘ part of an overall financing package that will help it expand into the former Saputo cheese manufacturing plant in Hinesburg.

Seventh Generation, the nation's number one green brand, announced a community partnership with the Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes Elementary School in Burlington, Vermont.
The nation's first K-5 school with a sustainability theme, the goal of the Academy is to prepare students to be responsible citizens and agents for change, in their community and beyond. Located a few blocks from Seventh Generation's headquarters, the school is an international model for using sustainability as a lens for place-based education and service learning. Seventh Generation has participated in a literacy building program at the Sustainability Academy and has provided non-toxic cleaning products for classrooms and teachers. This holiday season, the company will be "adopting" five families of the Academy in need to fulfill the children's wish lists.

Hampton Direct is donating $40,000 worth of Twin Draft Guards to help alleviate Vermont’s heating crisis. The energy-saving, weather proofing products are being distributed to low income households seeking assistance from Vermont’s five Community Action Agencies.

The minute temperatures dropped into the ‘snowmaking zone,’ Bolton Valley snowmakers were at the ready, firing up the snowguns last night in anticipation of the area’s opening for the 2011-2012 ski and snowboard season on Saturday, Dec. 10. Snowmakers will make snow whenever temperatures permit.
‘It’s been a challenging few weeks with warm temperatures but the cold weather is dropping in at the right time for us ‘ about one week out from opening day’which is about the amount of time we need to get trails open for the season,’ said Josh Arneson, director of sales and marketing. ‘While some natural snow would be nice, so long as it stays cold and dry, we’ll continue to make our own storm.’
Bolton received 5-7 inches of snow the day before Thanksgiving in its first official snowstorm of the season, however warmer temperatures made that natural snow disappear. On average, Bolton receives more than 300 inches of natural snow annually.

Governor Peter Shumlin is reminding Vermonters impacted by Tropical Storm Irene of the state’s toll-free hotline offering advice and answers to questions involving insurance claims resulting from storm damage.
‘While the unseasonably warm weather has been a welcome reprieve for Vermonters recovering from flooding, concern about the approaching cold weather has triggered an increase in requests for help in resolving insurance and flood relief claims,’ the Governor said.
The Vermont Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities & Health Administration (BISHCA) has staff on hand to assist individuals with problems encountered getting assistance. BISHCA has received about 160 requests for information since the storm hit in late September.
BISHCA Commissioner Steve Kimbell is concerned that in the months since the flooding some Vermonters have forgotten where to go for information and advice.

GE Aviation announced with Rolls Royce on Friday the discontinuation of a program to develop an alternative engine for the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35 or in GE's development the F136 engine). The entire JSF program is very behind schedule and very over budget. Both The Atlantic and Aviation Week have suggested there is little alternative other than termination or full buildout for a program estimated to cost $1 trillion. GE, with a turbine-making plant in Rutland, Vermont, had been squeezed out of the development for the engine, but had forged ahead with its own plans in hopes that the Pentagon would opt for a better solution to the engine now receiving federal funding.
Vermont also is on a short-list of possible bases for the F-35 when and if it is ever built and deployed, as the Vermont Air Guard base at Burlington International Airport is under consideration to replace its F-16s with a more modern and stealthy weapon system.

Today Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding and Irene Recovery Officer Neale Lunderville released updated information, damage, and cost estimates for Tropical Storm Irene. This update reflects Congressional waivers of the $100 million cap and 180-day emergency work limit for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Emergency Relief (ER) program, as well as a compilation of smaller changes.
Both the best and worst case models show the waivers for FHWA and the anticipated 90% cost share for FEMA Public Assistance. The principal differences between the models are the low and high range of damage estimates to the Federal-Aid Highway System ($175-250 million range), and an unresolved question about reimbursement for certain Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) costs. Both scenarios add new information and cost estimates as outline below.