Current News

Governor Jim Douglas today awarded a $1 million Community Development Block Grant to a proposed multi-level retirement community located adjacent to the Porter Medical Center campus in Middlebury. At a ceremony on the 40-acre site of the proposed Eastview at Middlebury facility, Governor Douglas said it was expected to employ 29 people within the first two years of operation and could create up to 45 jobs.
‘Not only will these jobs help strengthen the economy of Middlebury, but the seniors of this area will have more options for housing and continuing care in the community,’ the Governor said.

A free presentation is offered on Leveraging the Vermont Brand on Sept. 13, when Vermont Chief Marketing Officer Christine Warneke will report on the recent Vermont branding research study and explain how the results can be used to maximize business potential in the state. The presentation is made possible through the collaborative efforts of the State of Vermont, NEKTTA (the Northeast Kingdom Travel and Tourism Assoc.), IWoW (the Incubator without Walls), and the NEK Chamber of Commerce to bring cutting edge research to NEK to aid small business owners.
The study investigated perceptions about Vermont and how they affect decision making as related to vacation choices. Vermont has been promoting its brand as a vacation getaway since 1891, and, according to the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, the ‘brand is well-established and consistent.’

The Organic Trade Association (OTA), which has called Greenfield, MA, home since 1990, today is celebrating the upcoming move of its headquarters to the Graduate Center building in downtown Brattleboro planned for later this fall.

Vermont State Auditor Tom Salmon reported today that Entergy and the State of Vermont had expected controls in place for managing and monitoring over $400 million of decommissioning trust fund assets. However, he suggested several improvements to increase the likelihood that adequate assets will be available in the future to cover the costs of decommissioning the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon, primarily through more timely and complete monitoring of the trust fund by the Vermont Public Service Department (PSD).
‘Entergy has established a range of policies and procedures to safeguard and manage assets which you’d expect to see in a trust fund and the State has instituted processes to monitor the sufficiency of the trust fund,’ Salmon said. ‘However, we identified several points of concern and have made suggestions to provide greater assurance that the trust fund will have adequate resources in the future to pay for site cleanup as required by the State.’

A $1 million gift to the University of Vermont will fund an endowment for athletic scholarships.
George H. Schofield, UVM Class of 1951, named UVM as beneficiary of a $1 million life insurance policy that became payable this summer. Mr. Schofield, the retired president, chief executive officer, and chairman of Zurn Industries of Erie, Penn., died in 2008 at age 78. He was co-captain of the football team while a student at UVM and with his wife Barbara, also UVM class of 1951, was a long-time donor to the university. Barbara Schofield will celebrate her 60th UVM reunion in 2011.

Northern Power Systems, Inc, a next-generation wind turbine company and leading manufacturer of community wind direct-drive turbines, today announced the acquisition of Knight & Carver Wind Group’s community wind turbine blade manufacturing business in South Dakota. Terms were not disclosed. This acquisition, combined with Northern Power’s deep design and manufacturing experience as well as robust quality control systems, will further facilitate the high-quality domestic manufacturing and assembly of key components of the Northern Power 100. Knight & Carver has been a supplier of blades to Northern Power.

Governor Jim Douglas has appointed nine new members of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, the first step in establishing a program for state recognition of Native American tribes in Vermont.

A new law that set up the recognition process revised the makeup of the panel and increased the number of members on the commission from seven to nine, and also imposed a Vermont residency requirement for the first time.

‘These new members of the Native American Commission represent a broad cross-section of Native American communities and geography, and will bring a fresh perspective to the task at hand,’ said Giovanna Peebles, State Historic Preservation Officer and director of the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation.

The Banking Insurance Securities and Health Care Administration (BISHCA) conducted their annual hospital budget reviews in Montpelier and South Burlington this week. While hospital budget reviews have been in place for 15 years, this year hospitals had to comply with additional requirements created by the Legislature last session. This new law, Act 128 of 2010, is intended to slow the rate of hospital budgets through setting targets for net revenue growth at 4.5 percent in 2011 and 4 percent in 2012. Hospitals met this target and the additional target that BISHCA established for aggregate rate requests to be no higher than 5.9 percent. The average rate request is 5.7 percent.

From a snow groomer waxing philosophic, to an apple grower explaining the art of "pie-chi," the characters starring in the new video vignettes featured on ThisIsVT.com offer viewers a glimpse into some of the personalities that are the life of Vermont's vibrant tourist industry. The short films were shot as part of a campaign for the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing that emphasizes the state’s diverse human assets.
‘Our recent research on the Vermont brand showed that vacationers are looking for ‘good value,’ ‘diverse experiences,’ ‘unspoiled landscape’ and ‘warm, friendly people,’" said deputy commissioner of tourism and marketing Steve Cook.
‘With this in mind, Spike and VT Tourism conceived and created ThisIsVT.com.’

Housing Vermont and an affiliate of the Springfield Housing Authority have partnered to redevelop Main Street’s historic Ellis Block, which was destroyed by a devastating fire on July 8, 2008. The renovated building will include a three-screen movie theatre and nine affordable apartments. During a groundbreaking ceremony at the Ellis Block in Springfield on Friday, US Senator Patrick Leahy announced he has secured a $125,000 federal appropriation to help rebuild workforce housing and a theater lost to a 2008 fire. The appropriation, finalized earlier this summer, ensured that the project could break ground.
The $3.4 million reconstruction project also includes a $1.286 million federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant made possible by another Leahy-authored provision, included in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.

At a press conference today, Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss announced that the City will be conducting a “Complete Streets” demonstration project as part of the repaving of Colchester Avenue. Mayor Kiss was joined by City Councilor Sharon Bushor of Ward 1, staff from the Department of Public Works, and Jennifer Wallace-Brodeur of AARP-VT, as well as representatives of several other organizations involved in the project.

Vermont Business Magazine New unemployment claims in Vermont returned to numbers resembling those of early May last week after a one-week jump. Claims have been going through a cycle of steady increases followed by a steep drop the last several months, climbing about 1,100 before settling back to under 600. This has been the case while the unemployment rate has kept falling. However, weekly claims have been consistently below the numbers from 2013.

For the week of May 24, 2014, there were 573 new, regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance in Vermont. This is a decrease of 128 from the previous week's total, and 110 fewer than they were a year ago.