Current News

During the morning and evening commutes on Thursday, May 27, Amtrak Police, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel and law enforcement officers from federal, state, local, rail and transit police agencies are being deployed at passenger rail and transit stations throughout the Northeast as part of an exercise of counterterrorism and incident response capabilities.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today that the United States must learn a profound lesson from the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and make certain we protect our oceans from future disasters and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels.
Sanders introduced legislation that would ban offshore drilling along America’s ocean coastlines and increase fuel efficiency in American cars.
The measure would prohibit drilling in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and along Florida’s gulf coastline. A moratorium on drilling in those areas that Congress approved every year since 1982 lapsed in 2008.
Sanders’ bill also would set a fuel economy standard of 55 miles per gallon, up from an average of 35 mpg that American car makers must achieve by 2030 under current law.

Senate leaders have appointed U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) as one of the 12 Senate conferees who will negotiate the final form of the landmark financial reform legislation that now has passed the Senate and the House in different forms. The conferees will meet in June.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power station automatically shut down yesterday at approximately 3:25 pm. The plant was at 70 percent of its normal output after restarting from its refueling and maintenance outage. Plant systems responded safely as designed. Plant technicians are investigating the cause of the shutdown. Initial indications are that the shutdown was caused by a problem 345KV switchyard located outside the plant. There has been no release of radiation. The plant will be restart after the problem has been identified and repairs have been completed.
Source: Vermont Yankee. 5.26.2010

Vermont Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Congressman Peter Welch announced Wednesday that three Vermont towns will receive grants for the improvement of public safety services through the purchase of equipment and upgrades. This funding comes from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
This Recovery Act funding is provided through USDA Rural Development’s Community Facilities program, which helps finance essential community facilities for public use in rural areas. The funding for Vermont, is part of $33 million in funding assistance USDA Rural Development is providing to 74 community facility public safety projects in 26 states across the country. Through this program, USDA ensures communities can provide essential public safety infrastructure to rural families.
Below is a list of the Vermont recipients:

Governor Jim Douglas today signed into law a $595 million transportation bill at the Miller Brook Bridge project in Stowe. The fiscal year 2011 transportation budget contains record spending for bridge rehabilitation and repair, as well as record or near record sums for other transportation programs, including rail and paving.
“These investments continue the strong commitment we’ve made to our physical infrastructure in recent years,” Governor Douglas said. “This transportation budget will generously fund many priorities, such as paving, bridges and rail, and create jobs across the state. I thank Chairman Mazza, Chairman Brennan and the Transportation committees, as well as Secretary Dill and his team at AOT, for their strong commitment to Vermont’s physical infrastructure.”

With temperatures reaching record highs throughout much of the region, Stratton Mountain Resort celebrated the occasion, not with beach towels, but with skis and a snowboard.

The attached photo and video comes from the setup for the first annual Mountain Mayhem Rail Jam, held on Sunday, May 30 at Stratton Mountain Resort. The snow chute was carved from the same 22 foot superpipe that Olympians Hannah Teter and Louie Vito rode at the U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships in March.
Clearly the best way to beat the heat was on the snow!
Source: Stratton. 5.26.2010

The Vermont Business Magazine (VBM), in partnership with the Vermont Chamber of Commerce (VCC), has established a Vermont Business Hall of Fame to be hosted at the University of Vermont's College of Business Administration. Each past winner of the Deane C Davis Award will be honored as a new member of the Hall of Fame with an induction ceremony. The first such ceremony was Tuesday night at UVM's Kalkin Hall.
The Deane C Davis Outstanding Vermont Business of the Year Award is presented annually by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and Vermont Business Magazine at the opening ceremonies of the Vermont Chamber's Business & Industry EXPO. This year the award was presented Wednesday morning to BioTek Instruments of Winooski. Other finalists were the Foley Family of Companies of Rutland, and Small Dog Electronics of Waitsfield.

This morning at the Opening Ceremonies of the Vermont Business & Industry EXPO, organized by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, Governor Jim Douglas presented the highly anticipated Deane C Davis Outstanding Vermont Business of the Year Award to BioTek Instruments, Inc of Winooski. BioTek is the 20th winner of this annual award that was conceived by Vermont Business Magazine and the Chamber in 1990.
In an effort to recognize and honor Vermont s best companies, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and Vermont Business Magazine created the Deane C. Davis Outstanding Business of the Year Award in 1990. Named for the former Governor of Vermont, this annual award honors a Vermont business that shows an outstanding history of sustained growth while displaying an acute awareness of what makes Vermont unique.

Washington, DC and Burlington, VT, May 26, 2010 Kiplinger s Personal Finance announced today that it has named Burlington one of its 10 Best Cities for the Next Decade with a focus on locales that specialize in innovative thinking. This year s picks are profiled in the July issue of Kiplinger s Personal Finance magazine, on newsstands June 8, and online now at www.kiplinger.com/links/bestcities with additional interactive features.
To identify the winners, Kiplinger s teamed up with Kevin Stolarick, research director at the Martin Prosperity Institute, a think tank that studies economic prosperity. New ideas generate new businesses, says Stolarick, who this year evaluated U.S. cities for growth and growth potential. In the places where innovation works, it really works. People in fields such as science, engineering, architecture, and education are catalysts of vitality and livability in a city.

South Burlington resident, Michele S. Gatto, President of the Association of Life Insurance Counsel (ALIC), was host to the Association s 148th Annual Meeting at Château à lan Resort outside of Atlanta, Georgia May 22-25, 2010.

The Annual Meeting theme: Charting the Future Amidst Challenge & Change: New Rules, New Regulation and New Risks has been an integral component in Gatto s leadership at the ALIC.

Michele has proven to be accomplished in her ability to reach goals and ensure the organization s stability and depth, comments Karen Shaff, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Principal Financial Group and Past President of ALIC. She has substantially preserved and enhanced the hallmarks of the ALIC: professionalism, legal scholarship, and fellowship. The ALIC was founded in 1913 to promote these principles as the bar association for lawyers in the life insurance industry.

BARRE, Vermont -- (BUSINESS WIRE)--Rock of Ages Corporation (NASDAQ:ROAC) today announced that a purported shareholder of Rock of Ages has commenced a purported class action lawsuit against Rock of Ages, all of the members of its Board of Directors and certain officers, and Swenson Granite Company, LLC ("Swenson"), in connection with the previously announced acquisition proposal submitted by Swenson on May 6, 2010 to Rock of Ages' Board of Directors. The plaintiff alleges, among other things, that the directors and named officer defendants of Rock of Ages breached their fiduciary duties in connection with the Swenson proposal, that Swenson's proposed offer is inadequate, and that the persons constituting a group with Swenson with respect to the Swenson proposal, including Rock of Ages' controlling shareholders, would benefit from the proposed transaction to the detriment of Rock of Ages' other shareholders.