Current News

Northwestern Medical Center (NMC) is pleased to announce that the Joint Commission has recognized NMC as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures in the area of pneumonia care. NMC is the only hospital in Vermont to earn the ‘Top Performer’ designation. For the first time, the Joint Commission’s 2011 annual report on quality and safety, Improving America’s Hospitals, lists hospitals and critical access hospitals that are top performers in using evidence-based care processes closely linked to positive patient outcomes.
‘Our staff works very hard to incorporate evidence-based practice, based on sound scientific evidence for the best patient outcomes,’ says Celeste Kane Stebbins, RN, Med/Surg/ICU Nurse Manager at Northwestern Medical Center. ‘We are thrilled to be recognized for our work in this area.’

Deb Markowitz, Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and Ron Shems, Chair of the Vermont Natural Resources Board, are holding public hearings in October on improving Vermont’s environmental and land use permitting processes. The purpose of the hearings is to hear from Vermonters about what works and what needs improvement in the ANR, Act 250 and municipal permitting and appeals processes. ‘It is important to hear from the public,’ said ANR Secretary Markowitz, ‘so we can address real issues people are experiencing in our environmental permitting process.’ Public input is sought on the following questions:

The Vermont Community Foundation and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture have announced that the Vermont Farm Disaster Relief Fund has awarded over $300,000 in the first grant round to farmers affected by Tropical Storm Irene. The grants came two weeks after application guidelines were posted and four weeks after the fund was established to address the critical needs of Vermont farms that sustained damage from Irene.
According to the Agency of Agriculture, over 400 farms have reported damages and a rough estimate of farmland impacted by Irene exceeds 15,000 acres; a conservative estimate of crop losses and crop land damage needing repair exceeds $10 million dollars.

With cooler temperatures are forecast for the weekend, near-peak color is expected to emerge in the Northeast Kingdom and the higher elevations of the Stowe-Morrisville area of Lamoille County.
State foresters say most areas of northeastern and north central Vermont are showing vibrant fall colors that are near, or in some higher elevations, at peak. Elsewhere, expect various stages of color across the state, including the mountain and river valleys where the foliage change ranges from early to mid-stage.
‘The foliage is nearing peak in the mountains of Richford, Montgomery and Enosburg. The valley is starting to show some very nice color (just getting to mid-stage color) and it makes a nice drive through the valley and into the Mountains,’ says Nancy Patch, Franklin-Grand Isle County Forester. The lower elevations along Lake Champlain remain predominantly green.

The chief executives of Vermont’s leading businesses appear poised to maintain their growth plans through early 2012, echoing results from the previous survey. The survey was completed between September 8 and September 22 and released today by Vermont Business Roundtable Chair Steve Voigt, CEO, King Arthur Flour and President Lisa Ventriss.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, employees of Sonnax Industries of Bellows Falls, Vt. were looking for ways to help. Like many others in Vermont and New Hampshire, they had been directly affected by this tragedy or had friends and neighbors who were. Sonnax President & CEO Tommy Harmon issued the following challenge to employees: donate money for the Red Cross of Vermont and New Hampshire and the Vermont Food Bank, and the company would match employees’ contributions, dollar for dollar, up to $5,000. In addition, Harmon and Sonnax board member Rick Fritz would personally match contributions, creating $4 of disaster relief for every dollar pledged by Sonnax employees.

US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has announced two US Army contracts ‘ one for $6.5 million and the other for $2.8 million ‘ to buy wireless sensors from Applied Research Associates (ARA), which has a manufacturing plant in Randolph, Vermont.
ARA won the competitive contract for producing their Expendable Unattended Ground Sensors, which are placed in the ground and used to protect troops. These small devices, the size of a hockey puck, are equipped with long-life batteries and antennae, and are used, among other ways, for perimeter monitoring at remote Army bases. The sensors can detect footsteps and vehicle traffic, even in windy or rainy conditions. They are called ‘expendable’ because they cost far less than other sensors on the market.

This week, NorthCountry Federal Credit Union presented a donation of $2,500 to the Champlain Housing Trust in recognition of adding its 500th home to its permanently affordable homeownership program. The donation was authorized by NorthCountry’s Board of Directors and recommended by the staff, who has worked closely with the Housing Trust over the years to provide affordable homeownership opportunities to low and moderate income Vermonters.
‘This donation is such a generous one, and we’re so pleased that our friends at NorthCountry appreciate our efforts,’ said Brenda Torpy, CHT’s CEO. ‘For the credit union to step forward like this unsolicited and make a gift recognizing our lasting impact in the community, it just means so much to us.’

Hurricane relief efforts in Southwestern Vermont will get a $50,000 shot in the arm thanks to a donation of the proceeds from Southwestern Vermont Health Care’s annual Harvest Ball. The proceeds had been designated for Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. However, the health system’s leaders decided to use the funds to help communities in Bennington and Windham counties savaged by Hurricane Irene in late August.
‘Hurricane Irene was the most devastating event our area has seen in many years,’ said Thomas Dee, president and CEO of Southwestern Vermont Health Care. ‘Donating the proceeds from the Harvest Ball is one way that we can directly help the people in our communities recover.’

With virtually no opposition, shareholders of Central Vermont Public Service Corp (NYSE-CV) have approved the sale of the company to Gaz Métro Limited Partnership in voting that concluded this morning. Gaz Métro is the parent company of Green Mountain Power and Vermont Gas Systems; CVPS and GMP will ultimately merge into one Vermont company after the sale is completed in 2012.
Shareholders began voting in late summer by phone, mail and Internet, and final votes were cast today at a special shareholder meeting in Rutland. Over 75 percent of the outstanding shares of the company were represented at the meeting, and of those, more than 97 percent voted in support of the $702 million sale.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation today announced that the Amtrak Vermonter train will return to service this Saturday, October 1, 2011, with a northbound journey from Washington, DC to Saint Albans, VT. On Sunday, October 2, regular Amtrak service with northbound and southbound trains in full operation will commence. There will be slow orders on some portions of the rail line which will initially delay the train up to one hour from its regular schedule but the New England Central Railway (NECR) anticipates that these slow order locations will be reduced as rail work crews continue to improve the rail line.

WCAX-TV is pleased to announce a series of changes to its award-winning newsroom.
Vermont native Kyle Midura joins the newsroom as a reporter. Midura, a graduate of Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, comes to WCAX-TV from Billings, MT, where he was a reporter at KULR-TV.
Also joining WCAX-TV is Deanna LeBlanc, who will lead our team in Southern Vermont working as the bureau chief in Rutland. LeBlanc is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism where she studied broadcast news.
WCAX-TV’s Susie Steimle has been named Montpelier Bureau Chief. Steimle will cover politics and government issues during the upcoming legislative session and also report on political campaigns in 2012. Steimle graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in Radio-TV Journalism.