Friday, August 29, 2014
After briefly trying to quell the crowd of chanting Burlington College students who surrounded her car Friday morning, the school's president, Christine Plunkett — clearly flustered — told them what they wanted to hear: "OK, I resign! Happy?"
The students cheered, hugged one another and dispersed, allowing Plunkett to drive out of the parking lot.
"I do not believe Christine is resigning," said the board chair, Yves Bradley, reached by phone after the meeting. Emphasizing that the board remains "in full support" of her, Bradley said he had not spoken to Plunkett since the students confronted her but had been apprised of the situation. "I think she was ambushed," he said.
The college's spokesperson, Coralee Holm, told reporters "I'm not confirming anything," and she did not return phone calls later.
Approximately two dozen students had marched roughly one mile from the college to the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, where Plunkett and the Burlington College Board of Trustees were meeting. Before starting off, they’d walked the hallways of the school, trying to recruit professors to come with them. At least two did. “When 20 of them show up at your office door, it’s kind of hard to say no,” explained Piers Kaniuka, who chairs the college’s integral psychology program.
Stationing themselves at each of the chamber building's four exits and chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, Christine Plunkett's got to go," they waited for an hour until Plunkett and Holm came out the front doors a little after 11 a.m.
The students cheered, hugged one another and dispersed, allowing Plunkett to drive out of the parking lot.
"I do not believe Christine is resigning," said the board chair, Yves Bradley, reached by phone after the meeting. Emphasizing that the board remains "in full support" of her, Bradley said he had not spoken to Plunkett since the students confronted her but had been apprised of the situation. "I think she was ambushed," he said.
The college's spokesperson, Coralee Holm, told reporters "I'm not confirming anything," and she did not return phone calls later.
Approximately two dozen students had marched roughly one mile from the college to the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, where Plunkett and the Burlington College Board of Trustees were meeting. Before starting off, they’d walked the hallways of the school, trying to recruit professors to come with them. At least two did. “When 20 of them show up at your office door, it’s kind of hard to say no,” explained Piers Kaniuka, who chairs the college’s integral psychology program.
Stationing themselves at each of the chamber building's four exits and chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, Christine Plunkett's got to go," they waited for an hour until Plunkett and Holm came out the front doors a little after 11 a.m.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Alicia Freese
From left, Congressman Peter Welch, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Senator Patrick Leahy at the ECHO Center in Burlington.
Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack came to town to announce the arrival of a more welcome form of green — $46 million of federal funding to clean up Lake Champlain.
Standing with U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) on the ECHO Center balcony, which overlooks a markedly less scummy section of the lake, Vilsack said he’d just been looking at worrisome water samples. “There’s no question it needs help.”
The federal government is doubling its contribution to the effort, according to Vilsack. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) sent $45 million Vermont’s way over the last decade; now it’s making the same investment over a five-year period. The money will be spent to help farmers create buffers, adopt better tillage techniques and put up fences to prevent livestock from accessing nearby bodies of water, among other conservation efforts. The state is also receiving $1 million immediately help producers plant "crop covers" to stabilize vulnerable soil.
Tags: Lake Champlain , Patrick Leahy , Peter Welch , Tom Vilsack , Burlington , politics , Image , Web Only
Updated at 3:02 p.m.
Mark Donka woke up to some good news Wednesday evening as he prepared for an overnight shift at the Woodstock Police Department: The Associated Press had declared him winner of an unusually close race for the Republican nomination to Vermont's lone congressional seat.
In the hours after polls closed Tuesday night, Donka was running neck-and-neck with two other Republicans, according to partial results posted online by the secretary of state's office. But after every precinct was counted, according to the AP, Donka pulled ahead with 4,341 votes, or 36 percent. Donald Russell of Shelburne finished with 4,020 votes, or 33 percent, and Donald Nolte of Derby had 3,802, or 31 percent.
The photo finish, Donka says, "kind of shocked us." Having won the GOP nomination two years before, the Hartford resident thought he had it in the bag.
"Now it's time to roll up our sleeves and really get to work," he says.
Mark Donka woke up to some good news Wednesday evening as he prepared for an overnight shift at the Woodstock Police Department: The Associated Press had declared him winner of an unusually close race for the Republican nomination to Vermont's lone congressional seat.
In the hours after polls closed Tuesday night, Donka was running neck-and-neck with two other Republicans, according to partial results posted online by the secretary of state's office. But after every precinct was counted, according to the AP, Donka pulled ahead with 4,341 votes, or 36 percent. Donald Russell of Shelburne finished with 4,020 votes, or 33 percent, and Donald Nolte of Derby had 3,802, or 31 percent.
The photo finish, Donka says, "kind of shocked us." Having won the GOP nomination two years before, the Hartford resident thought he had it in the bag.
"Now it's time to roll up our sleeves and really get to work," he says.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Updated Wednesday, Aug. 27 at 10:07 a.m.
The biggest news out of Tuesday’s primary election may have been just how few Vermonters even bothered to cast a ballot.
How low was voter turnout?
“All I can tell you is it was low,” Secretary of State Jim Condos said Wednesday morning.
By then, more than 87 percent of polling places had reported preliminary figures to Condos’ office — and the race for governor had drawn just 33,261 votes. More than 439,000 people are registered to voter in Vermont.
Pomfret businessman Scott Milne, the preferred candidate of the GOP establishment, handily defeated three others for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. In 10 weeks’ time, he’ll face Gov. Peter Shumlin — a well-financed, two-term Democrat who easily dispatched his own primary opponent.
“I believe I have the opportunity to offer a voice to hundreds of thousands of Vermonters who, like me, want more balance and want a change in the governor’s office,” Milne said Tuesday night.
The biggest news out of Tuesday’s primary election may have been just how few Vermonters even bothered to cast a ballot.
How low was voter turnout?
“All I can tell you is it was low,” Secretary of State Jim Condos said Wednesday morning.
By then, more than 87 percent of polling places had reported preliminary figures to Condos’ office — and the race for governor had drawn just 33,261 votes. More than 439,000 people are registered to voter in Vermont.
Pomfret businessman Scott Milne, the preferred candidate of the GOP establishment, handily defeated three others for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. In 10 weeks’ time, he’ll face Gov. Peter Shumlin — a well-financed, two-term Democrat who easily dispatched his own primary opponent.
“I believe I have the opportunity to offer a voice to hundreds of thousands of Vermonters who, like me, want more balance and want a change in the governor’s office,” Milne said Tuesday night.
Tags: Murray Ngoima , Mary Alice Herbert , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Matthew Thorsen
Christine Plunkett
In an email sent to employees Monday, President Christine Plunkett called it an “inadvertent oversight as our staff balanced many responsibilities over the summer” that was "neither a planned nor intentional step," and she assured her staff that their accounts were being swiftly replenished.
The college failed to deposit both the employee contributions — which come directly from their paychecks — and the employer match.
"This is, of course, a grave concern," Plunkett's email continues, "as the contributions include your own employee funds as well as College contributions. I am well aware of the legal obligations to remit those funds in a timely manner."
Joellen Leavelle, outreach manager for the Pension Rights Center in Washington, D.C., said employers are legally obligated to deposit employee contributions within seven days, but failing to meet that requirement is a common problem. “We’re glad the college realized the mistake and worked as fast as it could to correct the problem, and we hoped it learned from its mistake and will not do it in the future,” Leavelle said.
Tags: Burlington College , Christine Plunkett , Image , Web Only
Monday, August 25, 2014
Updated Aug. 26 at 2:44 p.m.
Louis Freeh, who led the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1993 until 2001, was seriously injured in a Barnard car crash Monday afternoon.
According to Vermont State Police spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro, Freeh sustained unspecified injuries in a single-vehicle crash while driving south on Route 12. His grey GMC Yukon left the east side of the road, striking a mailbox, a row of shrubs and, finally, a tree, Dasaro said in a written statement.
Freeh was airlifted to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. He was the only person injured in the crash, which was reported to the state police at 12:16 p.m.
Dasara said Monday night that the cause of the crash had not been identified. On Tuesday, she said a preliminary investigation had ruled out drugs and alcohol as a factor, though the accident remained under investigation.
Louis Freeh, who led the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1993 until 2001, was seriously injured in a Barnard car crash Monday afternoon.
According to Vermont State Police spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro, Freeh sustained unspecified injuries in a single-vehicle crash while driving south on Route 12. His grey GMC Yukon left the east side of the road, striking a mailbox, a row of shrubs and, finally, a tree, Dasaro said in a written statement.
Freeh was airlifted to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. He was the only person injured in the crash, which was reported to the state police at 12:16 p.m.
Dasara said Monday night that the cause of the crash had not been identified. On Tuesday, she said a preliminary investigation had ruled out drugs and alcohol as a factor, though the accident remained under investigation.
Vermont Republican Party leaders spent months last spring beating the bushes for a gubernatorial candidate like Pomfret businessman Scott Milne.
But as Tuesday's primary election draws nigh, several of those leaders have jilted Milne in favor of Vermont Libertarian Party candidate Dan Feliciano, who hopes to win the Republican nomination as a write-in candidate.
"I'm supporting the best-qualified, best prepared candidate to run against [Democratic Gov.] Peter Shumlin," says Vermont Republican Party vice chairman Brady Toensing, who announced his support for the Libertarian on Friday.
Joining Toensing are party treasurer Mark Snelling, a 2010 candidate for lieutenant governor and the son of the late governor Dick Snelling; Rutland City Treasurer Wendy Wilton, the party's 2012 nominee for state treasurer and a state party committee-woman; Darcie Johnston, a party operative who managed Randy Brock's 2012 gubernatorial campaign; and a dozen other lower-level party activists who announced their support for Feliciano on Monday.
"He has articulated positions that I think really face Vermonters, and he doesn't shy away from speaking specifically to those issues," Snelling says.
But as Tuesday's primary election draws nigh, several of those leaders have jilted Milne in favor of Vermont Libertarian Party candidate Dan Feliciano, who hopes to win the Republican nomination as a write-in candidate.
"I'm supporting the best-qualified, best prepared candidate to run against [Democratic Gov.] Peter Shumlin," says Vermont Republican Party vice chairman Brady Toensing, who announced his support for the Libertarian on Friday.
Joining Toensing are party treasurer Mark Snelling, a 2010 candidate for lieutenant governor and the son of the late governor Dick Snelling; Rutland City Treasurer Wendy Wilton, the party's 2012 nominee for state treasurer and a state party committee-woman; Darcie Johnston, a party operative who managed Randy Brock's 2012 gubernatorial campaign; and a dozen other lower-level party activists who announced their support for Feliciano on Monday.
"He has articulated positions that I think really face Vermonters, and he doesn't shy away from speaking specifically to those issues," Snelling says.
Sneakers Bistro, a Winooski breakfast hot-spot, is one of several businesses that has voluntarily maintained a small garden on a plot of publicly owned land to help beautify the city. As part of “Operation Bloom,” participating businesses are allowed to post a small advertising sign in their garden. Sneakers decided to have fun with its sign at the bottom of the Winooski traffic circle.
“Yield for Sneakers Bacon,” it read.
Not everyone got the joke.
Last week, a Winooski woman who identified herself as a “vegan and member of a Muslim household,” posted a notice to Front Porch Forum, saying of the bacon sign: “Its insensitive and offensive to those who do not consume pork.”
Citing Winooski’s demographic diversity — 31 languages are spoken in the local K-12 school — she requested that it come down.
“Although I love Sneakers and the delicious food they serve, I strongly believe this sign is unnecessary, offensive, insensitive, and should therefore be taken down,” she wrote.
For a couple days, a largely respectful debate ensued on the online forum page, with some posters saying the complainer was being overly sensitive.
"While you do have the right to express your opinion, you don't have the right to not be offended,” one Winooski resident wrote. “There are things throughout our environment that offend all of us. It happens.”
Not everyone got the joke.
Last week, a Winooski woman who identified herself as a “vegan and member of a Muslim household,” posted a notice to Front Porch Forum, saying of the bacon sign: “Its insensitive and offensive to those who do not consume pork.”
Citing Winooski’s demographic diversity — 31 languages are spoken in the local K-12 school — she requested that it come down.
“Although I love Sneakers and the delicious food they serve, I strongly believe this sign is unnecessary, offensive, insensitive, and should therefore be taken down,” she wrote.
For a couple days, a largely respectful debate ensued on the online forum page, with some posters saying the complainer was being overly sensitive.
"While you do have the right to express your opinion, you don't have the right to not be offended,” one Winooski resident wrote. “There are things throughout our environment that offend all of us. It happens.”
This weekend brought a rare bit of good news from the otherwise war- and insanity-torn Middle East: the release of American journalist Peter Theo Curtis, who was kidnapped in Antakya, Turkey in October 2012 as he was entering Syria. Curtis was held for two years by a group called Nusra Front, Al Qaeda's official Syrian wing.
A 45-year-old Woodstock, Vt. native and Middlebury College alum who often writes under the name Theo Padnos, Curtis clearly has a hankering for venturing to places most of us fear to tread. In the mid-2000s, he pretended to convert to Islam in order to join a radical Yemeni mosque, then later wrote about his experiences in the 2011 book Undercover Muslim: A Journey into Yemen.
Earlier in his career, Curtis spent time teaching literature to thugs, rapists and murderers in the Woodstock Regional Correctional Facility. It was there he met Laird Stanard, a 17-year-old convicted murderer who'd killed his own mother. Curtis' experience later became the subject of his 2003 memoir, My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun.
Seven Days profiled Curtis/Padnos in a November 12, 2003 story, "Murder, He Wrote: Theo Padnos reveals his read on kids who kill." Memorable from that interview and story was Padnos' ability to get people to like and trust him, then reveal things about themselves no one else knew.
Earlier in his career, Curtis spent time teaching literature to thugs, rapists and murderers in the Woodstock Regional Correctional Facility. It was there he met Laird Stanard, a 17-year-old convicted murderer who'd killed his own mother. Curtis' experience later became the subject of his 2003 memoir, My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun.
Seven Days profiled Curtis/Padnos in a November 12, 2003 story, "Murder, He Wrote: Theo Padnos reveals his read on kids who kill." Memorable from that interview and story was Padnos' ability to get people to like and trust him, then reveal things about themselves no one else knew.
Tags: Theo Padnos , Peter Theo Curtis , Image , Web Only
The prosecution of a Shelburne man charged with murdering his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son could be undercut after experts recently discovered that skull fractures and other injuries suffered by the boy occurred as long as two weeks before he died, according to court documents.
Prosecutors have charged Joshua M. Blow, 26, with second-degree murder. Blow was the only one home with Aiden in the hours before he was pronounced dead on July 21, and gave conflicting stories about what happened to the child in the moments before he ran next door and had neighbors call 911.
Aiden died a few hours later at Fletcher Allen Health Care.
"This was not an accident," Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan told reporters after Blow's arraignment in July. "This was intentional."
Now, a Chittenden Superior Court hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday to discuss revelations from Vermont Chief Medical Examiner Steven Shapiro that Aiden Haskins' skull was fractured at least five days and as many as 15 days before he died on July 22. Shapiro also found that Aiden suffered compression fractures to his vertebrae "days to weeks," before he was found dead.
Prosecutors have charged Joshua M. Blow, 26, with second-degree murder. Blow was the only one home with Aiden in the hours before he was pronounced dead on July 21, and gave conflicting stories about what happened to the child in the moments before he ran next door and had neighbors call 911.
Aiden died a few hours later at Fletcher Allen Health Care.
"This was not an accident," Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan told reporters after Blow's arraignment in July. "This was intentional."
Now, a Chittenden Superior Court hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday to discuss revelations from Vermont Chief Medical Examiner Steven Shapiro that Aiden Haskins' skull was fractured at least five days and as many as 15 days before he died on July 22. Shapiro also found that Aiden suffered compression fractures to his vertebrae "days to weeks," before he was found dead.
Tags: law enforcement , state's attorney , T.J. Donovan , Image , Web Only