Friday, May 7, 2021
On Friday, Greenride Bikeshare announced that it had completed its long-awaited goal of replacing its 105 pedal bikes with 200 electric-assist ones in an effort to make the pay-as-you-go system easier and more convenient. The company also plans to double its locations in Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski — up to an eventual 30 — to ensure riders have some extra power as they traverse the hilly local landscape.
"We've doubled the fleet, made it more fun to ride and easier to get around," said Bryan Davis, senior transportation planner at the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, one of numerous organizations that helped launch the bike-share system three years ago.
Tags: E-Bike , Bike-Share , Greenride Bikeshare , Burlington , Miro Weinberger , Web Only , Image
On Thursday, Champlain College in Burlington announced that it would require all students to be fully vaccinated before the start of the fall semester, pending U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the vaccines.
Under the current emergency authorization order, some experts contend that vaccine mandates exist on shaky legal ground. But full approval will make such requirements "a little more feasible," John Grabenstein, a former executive director of medical affairs for vaccines at Merck and a former Department of Defense immunologist, told NBC News.
Pfizer filed a request on Friday for FDA approval for its COVID-19 vaccine, a process that public health officials estimate could take up to six months.
St. Michael’s, a private Catholic college in Colchester, will also require students to get vaccinated before returning to campus in the fall, according to spokesperson Alex Bertoni.
Employees, Bertoni said, will be “strongly encouraged” to get shots.
Tags: coronavirus , vaccine , COVID-19 , colleges , mandate , required , St. Michael's College , Champlain College , Middlebury College , University of Vermont , Norwich University , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
The truck driver, Anthony Mason, 27, was reported to have threatened to kill the resident during the incident, police said in a press release.
He was later arrested at his Richford home. He is expected to be charged with attempted second-degree murder, grossly negligent operation of a motor vehicle and unlawful mischief. The three charges will be filed with a hate-crime enhancement, police said, which can add more time to prison sentences.
Police said 27-year-old Michael Wilson called authorities shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday to report that Mason, whom he knew, drove over a dirt bike before hitting his porch near him and his dog. Police say Mason caused "considerable" damage to Wilson's dirt bike and yard.
On Wednesday evening, a judge ordered that Mason be held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility for lack of $10,000 bail. He’s scheduled to be arraigned at 1 p.m. Thursday at the Vermont Superior Court in St. Albans.
Tags: Hate Crime , Richford , Racial Slurs , Attempted Murder , Web Only , Image
The spending plan also calls for investing in racial equity by hiring additional staffers for the city’s Office of Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, a promise that Weinberger made in his State of the City address last month.
The mayor said he hopes the influx of federal cash will help tamp down tax increases after what has been an economically challenging year.
“This creates a complex and an exciting challenge,” Weinberger said at a virtual press conference on Wednesday. “With this budget, we must restore full city operations, make structural progress on strategic priorities and really carefully steward this unprecedented infusion of one-time resources.”
Tags: Burlington , city council , budget , FY22 , Mayor Miro Weinberger , REIB , policing , racial equity , Web Only , Image
The majority of the board members for the Vermont Performing Arts League, a nonprofit that oversees the organization, have also resigned — as has one of their replacements.
The shakeup comes weeks after VTDigger.org revealed substantial allegations of sexual misconduct against Bergstein, who founded the performing arts league in 1978 alongside his wife and business partner, April Werner.
Tags: Vermont Performing Arts League , North End Studios , Ben Bergstein , April Werner , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
The board’s decision came after Superintendent Tom Flanagan recommended that the district halt the project because of widespread contamination from polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on the high school campus.
“I feel strongly, after collaboration and consultation with my team and with our experts in this work, that it is no longer possible to meet our stated goals of the ReEnvisioning Project,” Flanagan told the board. “The PCB contamination and remediation that will be needed to address the contamination pushes us over the threshold of what is possible in this building, and I believe that we need to start fresh with a new build.”
Burlington voters approved a $70 million bond in November 2018 to undertake the extensive renovation of the city’s high school and technical center. As part of the project, the school district was required to perform environmental testing of the property.
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The department disabled its online application last week after a surge of fraud that started in mid-April. Individuals or groups in the U.S. and internationally have been using people's names, addresses and other personal information to file fraudulent claims, collecting the money through direct deposits.
On Monday, Labor Commissioner Mike Harrington said 2,300 new claims came in April 27, and 1,700 on the following day. After the department disabled its online application, the numbers plummeted to just 159 on Thursday, 154 on Friday, and 30 on Saturday, said Harrington.
Monday, May 3, 2021
But it looks like the number, which was widely quoted in January, was inaccurate, said Joyce Manchester, a senior analyst at the JFO, and Mat Barewicz, an economist at the state Department of Labor. It probably overstates the discrepancy.
The figure of 73 percent came from the Legislature's Joint Fiscal Office and the state Department of Labor, using data from the U.S. Department of Labor. It was shared with lawmakers and by advocates for women. It prompted conversations about how to help women return to the workforce.
Manchester said last week she had backed away from using the number.
“I have been spreading the word that we may have been misled by data that somehow isn’t quite right,” said Manchester, who had cautioned in January that she needed to do more analysis on the data she was using. “There may be something funky in the data set.”
Tags: Vermont women , unemployment , department of labor , Web Only , Image
The immense crowd formed on the lawn of the Redstone Campus around noon and weaved its way toward the Waterman Building, where students took over the front steps to share their own stories of sexual assault and slam the administration for failing to protect them.
"I have heard countless 'me toos' shouted into the dark because our university doesn't give a damn about what their students are going through, or the safety of their students," UVM senior Syd Ovitt, 21, one of the event's organizers, said into a megaphone. "That should not have to fall on any one person — that should fall on the university. It is their job to keep us safe. And it is their job to hold students accountable."
Tags: University of Vermont , Sexual Assault , Sexual Violence , Protest , Walkout , Syd Ovitt , Athena Hendrick , Web Only , Image
The city’s Parks & Recreation Commission, which also serves as the Harbor Commission, will take the issue up at its 5:30 p.m. meeting, under an agenda item labeled “ferry scuttling.”
It will be the first of two public hearings on a proposal that environmental groups, concerned about impacts on water quality, have opposed.
The Lake Champlain Transportation Company wants to sink the retired ferry Adirondack about a mile off the Burlington shore to create a “reef” that divers could explore.
The 108-year-old ferry has been operating on Lake Champlain between Burlington and Port Kent for 65 years.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation granted the company a permit, but local organizations have appealed the decision.
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