Current News

The Department of Defense today committed more than $2.1 million for a one-year extension of a Vermont National Guard outreach program to help veterans returning from deployments in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The Vermont Guard program was funded since 2006 by federal grants secured by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. With continued funding for the program in jeopardy, a Sanders provision was added to a 2011 Pentagon appropriations bill that designated $16 million for Vermont and seven other states.
Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) asked Army Secretary John M. McHugh and Gen. Craig McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau, to use the $16 million to continue the program under a national Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program.

Citing a sharp increase in the number of assaults on health care workers in recent years, Gov. Peter Shumlin today signed a bill that would make such assaults a crime with stiffer penalties.
The Governor signed the bill outside the Emergency Room at the Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin, where health care workers requested the change following numerous assaultive incidents.
‘This bill will help us protect the medical personnel who, along with our law enforcement and firefighters, work to keep us safe and protected,’ the Governor said, shortly before signing the bill into law.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont has received national recognition for the content, clarity and design of a key communications document that provides members with information about their claims and benefits.
Dalbar, Inc., a leading third-party evaluator of communications quality for the financial services and health care industries, has awarded BCBSVT’s Explanations of Benefits document its ‘Excellent’ designation and ranked it fourth out of 37 providers whose EOB’s it reviewed.
‘While many insurers treat their Explanation of Benefits statements (EOB's) as a necessary evil, the reality is this communication offers great opportunities to increase customer loyalty and satisfaction," said Kathleen Whalen, managing director at DALBAR.
"Clearly BCBSVT recognizes the importance of this customer touch point, and has transformed it into an understandable and useful consumer tool."

Governor Peter Shumlin unveiled a new website today, BroadbandVT.org, a one-stop information resource and interactive tool for Vermonters to use in the quest to obtain statewide, universal availability of broadband service.
‘I think we are all well aware that some Vermonters are without broadband service today,’ the Governor said. ‘We have federal, state and privately funded projects in progress to build more broadband connections. As we achieve the broadband build out, we need to identify those remaining unserved areas down to the location level.’
He said one of the important features of BroadbandVT.org is it allows Vermonters to participate and tell us where ‘ down to their individual home addresses -- they know service is missing.

Local Internet company, Power Shift, is pleased to announce that it is now offering a new email service to its business customers. CloudMail is a next generation email solution that features secure hosting within a Cloud environment, as well as enhanced email applications.
‘We have had challenges in the past with email services and servers,’ notes Ryan Meravi, Power Shift’s sales manager. ‘With CloudMail, the challenges are in the past. Emails are hosted in the Cloud, an extremely stable and secure environment, and the additional features should appeal to small and large business customers alike.’
The new email service is available to all Power Shift’s domain hosted email customers now, and features increased storage, enhanced spam protection, easy syncing of calendars, contacts, and email with mobile devices, and more.

From the ingredients in its products to the packaging, Seventh Generation is always evaluating how to reduce its environmental impact, increase product performance and safety and create a more sustainable supply chain. That's why the company is proud to announce a partnership with Preserve's "Gimme 5" program, allowing customers to recycle #5 plastic right where they shop.
"We're always trying to increase the post-consumer content in our packaging," said Peter Swaine, director of global strategic sourcing at Seventh Generation. "Now we're fully closing the loop on our #5 plastic, making it easy for our customers to recycle their laundry caps so in turn we can create more sustainable packaging for the products they love."

by Anne Galloway, www.vtdigger.org May 11, 2011 Despite the Shumlin administration’s best efforts, the third time wasn’t the charm for the Amtrak western corridor project. The U.S. Department of Transportation passed over Vermont’s most recent bid for $83 million in funding for track improvements that would have enabled the state to offer passenger rail service from Burlington to Rutland. The western corridor is now used for freight.
Dig Deeper

LINKS

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials: Vermont Route improvements
Vermont Rail Action Network: High-Speed Rail In Vermont?
Federal Rail Administration: U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood Announces $2 Billion for High-Speed Intercity Rail Projects to Grow Jobs, Boost U.S. Manufacturing and Transform Travel in America

DOCUMENTS

by Anne Galloway, www.vtdigger.org May 9, 2011 Democratic lawmakers compromised with little difficulty on their few disagreements over specific expenditures in the capital bill last week. The sticking points ‘ money for a Montpelier biomass plant, funding for replacement plans for the Vermont State Hospital and a commitment to give the Vermont Telecommunications Authority significant funding for broadband ‘ came down to details, all of which were easily surmountable.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., (NASDAQ: GMCR), a leader in specialty coffee and coffeemakers, announced today that is has closed its underwritten public offering of 9,479,544 shares of its common stock, which includes 1,290,000 shares purchased by the underwriters pursuant to an overallotment option. Certain stockholders also sold an aggregate of 410,456 shares of common stock in the offering.
On May 11, 2011, the Company also completed a sale of 608,342 shares of its common stock to
Luigi Lavazza S.p.A
. ("Lavazza"), pursuant to the Common Stock Purchase Agreement entered into between the Company and Lavazza on May 6, 2011, which was filed as Exhibit 10.1 to the Current Report on Form 8-K filed by the Company on May 6, 2011.

Accompanied by advocates for disabled Vermonters, Governor Peter Shumlin today signed S.90, a bill designed to ensure the state’s statutes, policies and other documents use respectful language when referring to people with disabilities.
The bill creates a working group to, among other tasks, identify words that should not be used in Vermont statutes and regulations, and suggest words that reflect a positive view of people with disabilities. In addition, the report will identify specific statutes related to respectful language that should be addressed by lawmakers.
‘In addition to being respectful in our day-to-day language, we need to review our official documents and policies and remove the words that are hurtful and demeaning toward our disabled friends, family members and neighbors,’ Gov. Shumlin said.

The Vermont Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and Green Works, Vermont Nursery and Landscape Association have joined forces in a new initiative called PlantWise Vermont. Through PlantWise, horticultural businesses are encouraged to sign on to a Voluntary Code of Conduct to stop selling and using invasive terrestrial plants. Green Works has issued a letter to its 180 members urging them to join the effort and 58 horticultural professionals throughout the state have already signed on.
A number of non-native exotic plants can still be legally sold in Vermont, including burning bush, Norway maple, Japanese barberry, common barberry, yellow iris and all cultivars of these species. Green Works is asking its members to voluntarily stop the sale and use of these invasives.

Martin Wolf of Seventh Generation in Burlington, Vermont will be honored tomorrow in Boston’s Faneuil Hall as part of EPA’s annual Environmental Merit Awards for 2011.
As director of product sustainability and authenticity at Seventh Generation in Burlington, Wolf brought lasting change to the cleansing products industry. He developed frameworks for environmental product design, while educating co-workers, customers and consumers about the environmental impacts of such products.