Friday, March 30, 2018
Franco, who is representing project opponents, contends that the city violated the settlement agreement the two parties reached last July. By not allowing his clients to weigh in on the changes, Franco argues, Sinex denied them their constitutional rights to due process.
He and his clients are asking that Sinex pay for "emotional distress damages" and attorney fees. Franco declined to comment on the decision to reopen the case.
Tags: John Franco , Don Sinex , CityPlace Burlington , Burlington Town Center , Image , Web Only
By a 17-13 vote Friday afternoon, the Vermont Senate gave final legislative approval to S.55, a wide-ranging package of gun restrictions. After final review by the legislature's legal team, the bill will go to Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who said after the vote that he would sign it, assuming it passes routine muster by his chief counsel.
"I have every intention of signing it," Scott said. "I made a commitment that I want to do everything we can to provide our citizens with the safety they deserve."
Earlier in March, the Senate approved a version of S.55 that required universal background checks for gun purchases and a 21-year-old minimum age for gun purchases. The House then amended the bill to include a ban on bump stocks and limits on gun magazine capacity.
Tags: Dick Sears , Tim Ashe , Phil Scott , Jane Kitchel , Dick Mazza , Alice Nitka , John Rodgers , Bobby Starr , gun control , S.55 , Image , Web Only
Sen. Claire Ayer (D-Addison), chair of the Health and Welfare Committee, outlined the idea in a Friday morning committee hearing, which also featured testimony on how the proceeds of a tax might best be used.
Ayer said that she and Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) happened upon the idea in Governing magazine, which examined how states are trying to fund substance abuse programs. According to legislative fiscal analyst Nolan Langweil, several other states have considered an opiate tax, but none has enacted one.
Tags: Ann Cummings , Bob Bick , Claire Ayer , opiate tax , Opioid Crisis , opioids , Phil Scott , Tim Ashe , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 29, 2018
About 70 people attended the presentation at the Dealer.com building in Burlington, where a seven-person panel made up of law enforcement, medical and government officials weighed the costs and benefits of such sites.
Last year, Chittenden County State's Attorney Sarah George, one of the panel members, created a commission to study the idea of bringing a site, where heroin users could go to inject drugs under supervision, to Burlington.
But in January, the Vermont Senate Judiciary committee decided not to take up a bill that would have enabled them this year.
Tags: Brandon del Pozo , Burlington , Grace Keller , heroin , Mark Levine , opiates , Opioid Crisis , overdose , safe injection site , Sarah George , Image , Web Only
That's the bad news the Vermont House Energy and Technology Committee received Thursday morning from officials of the Department of Public Service, which regulates utilities in the state. The loss of CoverageCo service will leave 26 rural communities and some 150 miles of rural roadway without cell service.
CoverageCo provides service along state highway corridors unserved by other carriers through the deployment of roughly 150 microcell units resembling small satellite dishes. Clay Purvis, director of telecommunications and connectivity for the Department of Public Service, told the House panel that 102 of the microcells are not working.
And Public Service Commissioner June Tierney testified that the entire CoverageCo system will go dark on Saturday, when a firm most of us have never heard of cuts ties with it.
Tags: June Tierney , Clay Purvis , Laura Sibilia , Curt McCormack , CoverageCo , Syniverse , Image , Web Only
The Senate voted unanimously in favor of H.422, which passed the House last year and gives police officers the option of temporarily seizing guns from someone cited for domestic violence. And the House approved S.221, which the Senate unanimously passed in February to allow police to get a court order to remove guns from people who are deemed by a judge to be an “extreme risk” to themselves or others. Lawmakers are expected to give final approval to the bills Friday.
In what will likely be a close vote, the Senate on Friday is also expected to approve S.55, which would mandate universal background checks for gun purchases, raise the purchasing age to 21 and ban bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. The House passed the bill Tuesday, and Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint (D-Windham) told Seven Days on Thursday afternoon that she anticipates it will pass the Senate, unchanged, on a vote of 16-14 or 17-13.
Tags: Vermont House , Vermont Senate , gun control , Phil Scott , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
That night, the House gave preliminary approval to the legislation, known as S.55, on an 85-59 vote.
Four days and another six hours of debate later, Keefe had another chance to weigh in on the bill Tuesday night. This time, the Manchester Republican voted for it, joining an 89-54 majority in sending it back to the Senate.
During those two days of voting, members of the Vermont House considered no fewer than 15 amendments. The abundance of roll-call votes offered an unusually clear and detailed look at how 150 state reps approached the politics and policy of gun laws. Seven Days compiled the results of five of the most controversial amendments, as well as Friday's and Tuesday's votes on the underlying bill, and interviewed lawmakers about their decisions. (See chart below illustrating how each House member voted.)
Tags: Vermont House , Vermont Statehouse , gun control , background checks , Image , Web Only
Mayor Miro Weinberger can sign or veto the resolution, according to Katie Vane, a spokesperson for the mayor. A veto would then require two-thirds of the council to vote to override the decision.
Weinberger needs to "take action or provide a response" by the council meeting on April 16, according to Vane, and he plans to make a decision by then.
On Tuesday, the mayor indicated that he'll be deliberate.
“I will use that time as needed to continue the further work on this issue that I promised, and to make this decision with care," Weinberger said in a statement.
Tags: Vermont Air National Guard , Miro Weinberger , F-35 , Burlington City Council , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
The Senate will now take up the bill, S.55, which would mandate universal background checks, raise the purchasing age for guns to 21, and ban both bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. The magazine ban spurred the most discussion during Tuesday's debate, which lasted six hours and followed a 10-hour debate last Friday.
A last-minute lobbying effort to exempt Vermont gun manufacturers from the ban on magazines with more than 10 rounds was victorious.
Reps. Corey Parent (R-St. Albans) and Eileen Dickinson (R-St. Albans) argued that without such an exemption, the bill would jeopardize hundreds of jobs at Century International Arms, a global firearms dealer with a factory in Franklin County.
Tags: Vermont House , gun control , Phil Scott , Century International Arms , Brian Cina , Paul Poirier , Brian Savage , Corey Parent , Eileen Dickinson , Image , Web Only
Vermont State Police investigated an allegation in 2014 that a state employee had been arrested while on an EB-5-related trip in China and found no evidence to support the claim, Public Safety Commissioner Tom Anderson said Tuesday.
The unusual statement was the latest official response to an incendiary allegation levied by Stowe attorney Russell Barr. He has sued state officials on behalf of EB-5 investors who lost money in the Jay Peak scandal. After a court hearing on the investors' lawsuit last week, Barr told reporters he has evidence that one of the 10 defendants had been arrested on an EB-5 trip to China in "2013 or 2014" for "having sex with a minor" and was bailed out by another state official.
Anderson revealed that Vermont Republican Party vice chair Brady Toensing made a complaint to the Vermont State Police Internal Affairs Unit in October 2014, alleging that a state employee had been arrested on a trip in September 2013. Toensing did not provide the employee's name or the reason for the supposed arrest, but said that members of the Vermont State Police Executive Protection Unit who went to China "would have been aware of that arrest" and "should have reported the possible illegal conduct," according to Anderson.
Tags: EB-5 , Phil Scott , Brady Toensing , Thomas Anderson , Vermont State Police , Peter Shumlin , Jay Peak Resorts , Image , Web Only