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Vermont Business Magazine Average gasoline prices in Vermont are $3.20 per gallon, up 4.4 cents per gallon from last week's $3.16/g. The lowest price in the state yesterday was $2.79/g while the highest was $3.40/g, a difference of 61.0 cents per gallon. The national average is up 4.0 cents per gallon from a month ago and stands 32.5 cents per gallon lower than a year ago.

Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets Vermont Farm to Plate has released the The Vermont Food Security Roadmap to 2035. This new plan charts a path towards ensuring everyone in Vermont has the food they need and that Vermont communities are resilient and climate-ready. To achieve the plan's goal of a food secure Vermont by 2035 the Roadmap prioritizes systems and policy changes over individual-level interventions. It builds on government programs, community innovation, and the shared experiences of Vermonters in recent years. It includes policy recommendations and actions we can take in Vermont to create permanent, equitable food security for all. 

Vermont Business Magazine Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) Sunday released the following statement on the ongoing war in Gaza. “The United States cannot continue to fund Netanyahu’s horrific war against the Palestinian people. This is not JUST about 27,000 Palestinians killed and 67,000 wounded - two-thirds of whom are women and children. This is not JUST about 70% of the housing units in Gaza being destroyed or damaged. This is not JUST about 1.7 million people driven from their homes. This is not JUST about hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children starving to death."

Vermont Business Magazine At the Champlain Housing Trust’s recent Annual Meeting and Awards Dinner, members elected two new Board members and re-elected four to the Board, and recognized outstanding contributions to our mission from three individuals and two organizations. Over 300 people attended the event in Burlington to participate in the governance of the organization and celebrate the completion of Champlain Housing Trust’s 39th year. The Brenda Torpy Founders Award for Exemplary Contributions to Perpetually Affordable Housing went to Vermont Representative Tom Stevens of Waterbury, who is the chair of the House Committee on General & Housing. 

by Community News Service Staff Bus and other transit riders throughout Vermont are bracing for a big change come March 6. Green Mountain Transit is set to reinstate fares for Chittenden County–based services, including some that travel to Montpelier and St. Albans, after a more than three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fares aren’t only set to return — they’re changing. The transit system announced a $2 fare for urban local routes, a 33% increase. But fares for LINK Express routes are set to decrease by 50%, down from $4 to $2. That brings those two fares in line with the commuter routes fee.

Vermont Business Magazine The Perovskite Startup Prize has selected its first Liftoff Contest grand prize winner: Verde Technologies of Burlington. The team was awarded a $500,000 cash prize and a $100,000 technical support voucher to continue their journey toward commercializing their concept.  Verde Technologies is working with a network of national labs, research groups, and industrial partners to develop a domestically manufactured lightweight and flexible perovskite solar module. Their goal is to make these panels more efficient than foreign-sourced panels and less costly to install, resulting in a more robust solar supply chain and a lower levelized cost of energy. 

by John W Casella, Chairman & CEO, Casella Waste Systems, Inc The Vermont State Senate recently supported Governor Scott’s 2023 veto of H.158, an act relating to expanding the beverage container redemption system. The governor’s veto letter to the Legislators expressed concerns on how H. 158 would result in higher costs to Vermonters and with the passage of the Universal Recycling Law in 2012, it simply made no sense to “toss aside” the progress that has been made towards recycling by diverting the most valuable materials away from the single stream recycling system. 

by Vermont Attorney General Charity R Clark The Legislature is taking up a comprehensive data privacy law – one that gives you the power to sue if your data has been mishandled in violation of that law – right in the nick of time. Facial recognition can let strangers identify us on the street. Geolocation tracking apps and spyware can map our physical location. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools create “deepfake” videos of political leaders and celebrities that are indistinguishable from reality – and have already been used to create nonconsensual pornography. Social media algorithms collect data they sell and use to addict children to their screens. Data brokers sell our information, including predictions about our interests, our personalities, and our vulnerabilities, to anyone willing to pay for it. And even companies who do prioritize data privacy are vulnerable to data security breaches and the criminal enterprises that steal what they cannot buy. 

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Animation Festival welcomes animator and documentary filmmaker Dustin Grella as the Keynote Speaker for the March 22-23, 2024 festival hosted by Vermont State University Lyndon in partnership with Catamount Arts. Grella’s films have screened at the Cannes Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival, he’s won the Walt Disney Award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and his film "Prayers for Peace" screened at almost two hundred festivals worldwide and won more than forty awards. His work has been commissioned by The New York Times, PBS, and MIT Media Lab, and he teaches workshops and performs magic lantern shows out of a decommissioned school bus that he converted into a Mobile Animation Lab.

Leonine Public Affairs Week five marked the beginning of February and the beginning of the countdown to Town Meeting Day and crossover. With the legislature convening on January 3, lawmakers have been in session for the maximum number of days possible for the month of January. In other years the legislature doesn’t convene until the second week, making the first month significantly shorter. This random fact was not lost on the State House regulars, and a number of people from a variety of political persuasions could be heard commenting on “how long January feels” this year. 

by Norah White, Community News Service Legislators are weighing a bill that would standardize how restorative justice programs in each county receive funding from the state and referrals from prosecutors — with the goal of increasing fair access for affected parties. “We are working to have clear standards and procedures of how (restorative justice) programs are going to be developed across the 14 counties in Vermont, which is not necessarily the case now,” said bill sponsor Rep. Karen Dolan, D-Essex Junction, who also works for the Essex Community Justice Center. As the six sponsors of the bill, H.645, see it, funding for restorative justice centers is inconsistent and disorganized. Three state entities provide centers grant money — the attorney general’s office, the Department for Children and Families and the Department of Corrections — but there is no current standard for how those bodies allocate the funds.

Vermont Business Magazine Four Vermont contemporary art organizations are teaming up for the third year in a row to award The Vermont Prize. Launched in 2022, The Vermont Prize is a collaborative initiative of the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC), Burlington City Arts (BCA), the Hall Art Foundation, and The Current, intended to celebrate and support outstanding visual art being made in Vermont today.