Current News

State officials are hoping members of the public will turn out to give their input about Vermont’s plans for spending millions of dollars in federal housing and economic development funds.
The state is holding a series of Community Meetings as it drafts a 5-year Consolidated Plan required by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the approximately $12 million of federal funds Vermont receives from HUD annually.
“We’re asking Vermonters to share their views on how these dollars should be spent,” said Tayt Brooks, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Economic, Housing and Community Development. “The grants that we award from these funds go to both housing and economic development projects for low-income Vermonters around the state.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today announced that $5.7 million in emergency support to more than 1,000 Vermont dairy farmers has been released. The assistance, coming at a time when dairy farmers have experienced the lowest prices in 40 years, is part of a $350 million dairy assistance measure sponsored by Sanders.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture began processing payments under the Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment program just prior to Christmas. Farmers have already begun seeing deposits.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a senior member of the Senate appropriations committee, and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), cochairman of the Congressional Dairy Farmers Caucus, helped guide the measure through the congressional appropriations process.

There were 2,383 new regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance last week, an increase of 981 from the week before. Altogether 14,114 new and continuing claims were filed, an increase of 1,058 from a week ago and 433 more than a year earlier. The Department also processed 4,902 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 183 fewer than a week ago. In addition, there were 2,716 Second Tier claims for benefits processed under the EUC08 program, which is an increase of 66 from the week before. The Unemployment Weekly Report can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/. Previously released Unemployment Weekly Reports and other UI reports can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/lmipub.htm#uc

Governor Jim Douglas and 10 other governors in the region took the next step toward developing a regional Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) by signing a Memorandum of Understanding that commits their states to continued participation in a regional effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fuels for vehicles and other uses.
“Vermont is a leader in limiting greenhouse gas emissions, but about 45 percent of our carbon footprint is generated from the transportation sector,” Governor Douglas said. “As with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, this partnership will help us meet our environmental challenges and encourage the creation of green jobs.”

Governor Jim Douglas has announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has established a critical grant partnership with the Vermont Department of Libraries and the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA) to help public libraries compete for federal broadband stimulus funds made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. VTA, in collaboration with the Department of Libraries, plans to submit an application to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) in early 2010.

ION HoldCo, LLC, a partnership majority owned by Sovernet Communications (a subsidiary of Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATNI)) along with twelve independent rural telephone companies in New York, announced it has received a federal broadband stimulus grant of $39.7 million to augment its existing 2200 mile fiber network with 1,300 miles of additional fiber-optic middle-mile broadband network.The project, the ION Upstate New York Rural Broadband Initiative, will be completed in partnership with the Development Authority of the North Country (DANC) and will enable high speed Internet access to underserved communities throughout upstate New York, along with parts of Vermont and Pennsylvania. An additional $9.9 million will be invested in the project by ION and DANC.“This is great news for our great state,” said ION CEO James Becker.

Green Mountain Power, based in Colchester, has filed with the Vermont Public Services Board a new alternative regulation plan that continues the benefits of the existing plan for another three years, and introduces new measures to encourage additional efficiency. The plan is the result of months of negotiations with the Department of Public Service.
The new alternative regulation plan includes a mechanism by which Green Mountain Power will be compared to other utilities from around the country. Currently the company operates in one of the top tiers of performance and strives to make it to the very top of the list of performance benchmarked against utilities from all over the country.

With snow falling, the Lake Champlain Bridge connecting Addison, Vermont, with Crown Point, New York, was demolished in the blink of an eye at 10:02 this morning. The sequence of charges appeared to go off as planned and the superstructure of the bridge debris fell straight down into lake. Reporters at the scene were caught off guard as a one-minute warning alarm went off just a handful of second before the bridge was detonated. Smoke and snow obscured what was left of the bridge for several minutes. Replays of the demolition can be found at the local network affiliates and at NYSDOT (CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO). Construction (PICTURES) of the new bridge is expected to start this spring. A temporary ferry is expected to start running soon very near the site of the now former Champlain Bridge.

Plasan, a global leader in the field of combat-proven survivability and armor solutions for vehicles, airborne platforms and personal protection, today announced it has won an additional contract for the delivery of 400 M-ATV armor kits as sub-contractor to Oshkosh Defense. Plasan has already delivered 3,200 M-ATV armor kits for the $3.3 billion contract awarded by U.S. Department of Defense to a team led by Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corporation and Plasan North America to produce 6,619 M-ATVs for deployment in Afghanistan.

Vermont’s aging housing stock is inadequate, causing low-income households to spend more of their money on housing than they can afford, according to a report released today. The 2010 Vermont Housing Needs Assessment estimates that the pace of new home construction needs to double to meet demand in coming years and push down prices.
“Families across Vermont are struggling to pay the bills,” Governor Jim Douglas said. “As legislators return to Montpelier, the focus must be on helping Vermonters rebound from the recession, whether it’s finding a good job or purchasing an affordable home.”
“This report is a wake-up call for policy-makers, reminding them that we must literally re-double our efforts to build more homes for Vermont families,” said Tayt Brooks, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Economic, Housing and Community Development.

Gardener’s Supply, the Burlington, Vermont-based garden products retailer, became 100 percent employee-owned as of Monday. Founder and majority owner Will Raap began selling shares to employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP) in 1987. An ESOP allows all employees to earn stock and share in company profits.
Selling Gardener’s Supply to the employees keeps the business in Vermont, and gives employees the opportunity to become owners of a business they helped build, something Will Raap felt was critical when he started the company in 1983.
“I’m delighted the work we started 27 years ago will continue. Our founding mission statement was to ‘spread the joys and rewards of gardening’, said Raap. “Gardening is even more relevant today than it was when we started.”

The Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) and the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) today announced that the Lake Champlain Bridge demolition has been rescheduled to Monday, December 28, 2009 at 10 am. due to ice formation on Lake Champlain and severely cold temperatures which have significantly delayed work to prepare the bridge for demolition.
Safety issues associated with the bitter cold and high winds, as well as icing around the bridge have caused the delay, according to NYSDOT’s blast subcontractor Advanced Explosives Demolition (AED). Therefore, the bridge will not be sufficiently prepared for demolition on the originally scheduled date, December 23.