Current News

The office of the Vermont Attorney General has approved a new plan for closing Intervale Compost Products (ICP) in Burlington, averting an order that would have closed the facility yesterday. The deal allows for the current facility to remain in operation for a year, until a new, $1.25 million covered-facility in Williston comes on line. In exchange for the delay, the CSWD will pay the state $10,000 on a to-be-named environmental project.

The Chittenden Solid Waste District, which owns and operates Intervale Compost Products, plans on opening a new facility on Redmond Road in Williston in February 2011. The new location will accept the same food, yard, and farm debris as ICP currently accepts, and will process it into compost.

For the week of June 26, 2010, there were 1,111 new regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance, an increase of 8 from the week before. Altogether 10,363 new and continuing claims were filed, an increase of 152 from a week ago and 4,225 fewer than a year earlier. The Department also processed 2,948 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 353 fewer than a week ago. In addition, there were 1,776 Second Tier claims for benefits processed under the EUC08 program, which is a decrease of 154 from the week before. In addition, the Vermont Department of Labor announced on June 30 that it would be discontinuing extended unemployment benefits (STORY) beginning July 10 because the state's unemployment rate has fallen below 6.5 percent (STORY), which is below the federal mandate for such benefits. The Unemployment Weekly Report can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/.

Gifford Medical Center’s fifth annual Last Mile Ride will rev into a town near you on Saturday, August 21st. The annual charity motorcycle ride benefits Gifford patients at the end-of-life or in advanced illness.
Gifford in Randolph provides special care in a garden-side suite, the Garden Room, for patients at the end of life and to their grieving families. The medical center also has an Advanced Illness Care Team dedicated to improving care for all in advanced illness and even has specially trained palliative care physicians.
The ride was created by a Gifford motorcycle rider and nurse, Lynda McDermott of Randolph, to support the Garden Room and special services for dying patients, like massages for pain management, family photos by a local professional - Janet Miller of Braintree - care packages, bereavement mailers, grief support, help for all with Advance Directives, staff training, and much, much more.

As a result of the decline in Vermont’s unemployment rate, the Vermont Department of Labor (VDOL) announced today that it will discontinue paying Federal-State extended unemployment compensation program benefits effective the week ending July 10, 2010. The May unemployment rate was 6.2% bringing Vermont’s three month average unemployment rate down to 6.4 percent, below the 6.5 percent federal and state threshold required to establish extended Unemployment compensation benefits (EB). The EB program was designed to provide up to 13 additional weeks of unemployment benefits during periods of high unemployment to individuals who exhaust regular state unemployment benefits. This means no EB payments will be made after the week ending July 10, 2010. Claimants impacted will be mailed a notice shortly advising of the end of their benefits.

Heavily subsidized by the Chinese government in violation of global trading rules, the Chinese paper industry has tripled production over the past decade, killing jobs throughout the United States and driving up the massive U.S. trade deficit with China, according to a report released today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). In Vermont, according to the study, some 1,005 jobs are at stake.
The EPI report, No Paper Tiger: Subsidies to China’s Paper Industry from 2002–2009, says that China’s rapid rise in the global paper industry has been fueled by more than $33 billion in government subsidies from 2002 to 2009. The full report can be found at www.americanmanufacturing.org

Online advertised vacancies was up a solid 600 jobs in Vermont while they only inched up nationally by 19,600 in June to 4,154,000 following a small decline in May, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine (HWOL) Data Series released today. New York and New Hampshire also showed strong gains. The gap between the number of unemployed and advertised vacancies (supply/demand rate) stood at 3.62 unemployed for every advertised vacancy in May (the last available unemployment data) but is down from 4.73 in October 2009.
- Job demand remained essentially unchanged in May and June but up over 500,000 nationally during the first 6 months of 2010- Demand for sales workers continues to climb- Job demand is strong in several states in the Northeast including NY, NJ & PA- NOTE: The June release incorporates new seasonal adjustment factors

Stratton Mountain Resort is proud to announce the first Vermont Solutions Festival, August 27 and 28, held in collaboration with the state of Vermont to celebrate sustainability, sport and wellness.
"The Vermont Department of Tourism & Marketing is excited to be a partner in the new development of the Vermont Solutions Festival,” said Steve Cook, Deputy Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Tourism. “This event will showcase the Southern Vermont region, Stratton Mountain Resort and its long-time commitment to sustainability and it will also exhibit Vermont’s efforts in developing global solutions with global impacts.”

Fitch Ratings assigns an 'AAA' rating to the following 2010 Vermont Municipal Bond Bank bonds, issued under the 1988 General Resolution:
-- $22,970,000 series 1 bonds;
-- $9,680,000 series 2 bonds (federally taxable recovery zone economic development bonds);
-- $1,365,000 series 3 bonds (federally taxable qualified school construction bonds);
-- $40,570,000 series 4 refunding bonds.
The bonds are expected to sell via negotiation during the week of June 28, 2010.
In addition, Fitch affirms $504,130,000 in outstanding General Resolution bonds at 'AAA'.
The Rating Outlook is Stable.
RATING RATIONALE:
-- The program, which consists of 295 borrowers, is diverse with low single-borrower concentration.

Legal developments concerning a Pulitzer Prize-winning weekly newspaper published on the California coast but formed in the state of Vermont is offering hope for beleaguered newspapers throughout the country. The newspaper, the Point Reyes Light, incorporated in May as an L3C, a Low profit Limited Liability company authorized under Vermont law. The first-in-the-nation L3C statute was approved by the Vermont legislature and signed into law by Governor Jim Douglas in 2008.

Connor Homes of Middlebury, Vermont, has announced that it has recently been granted the exclusive license to produce a line of homes to be endorsed by Winterthur, the museum, garden, and library that is the former home of Henry Francis du Pont. The design inspiration for this new line of historically authentic, architecturally detailed homes comes from the museum’s extensive archives as well as interpretations and adaptations of existing architecture presently found on the Winterthur estate.

Adult obesity rates increased in 28 states in the past year, and declined only in the District of Columbia, according to F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2010, a report from the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). More than two-thirds of states (38) have adult obesity rates above 25 percent. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. Vermont had one of lowest rates at 22.8 percent to rank 46th.

Winners were announced yesterday for the 38th sofi Awards for the outstanding foods and beverages of the year. Presented by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade(NASFT) the awards honor the outstanding specialty foods and beverages of the year in 33 categories. "sofi" stands for specialty outstanding food innovation.
The awards were presented at the Summer Fancy Food Show by noted Executive Chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns at a red-carpet event at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York.
The 2010 sofi Gold Winners are:
Appetizer, Antipasto, Salsa or Dip: Simply Delish - Simply Delish Chunky Dip - Sweet Chili
Baked Good, Baking Ingredient or Cereal: The Sticky Toffee Pudding Company - Sticky Toffee Pudding
Cheese or Dairy Product: Ritrovo Italian Regional Foods - Ritrovo Selections - Mt. Townsend Limited Edition Truffle & Salt Seastack
Chocolate: Poco Dolce - Sesame Toffee Tiles