Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Business owners, who have tolerated construction in the area for years, are worried about having no traffic on St. Paul from Main to Maple streets starting in early April and running through August.
Dick Vaughn, who opened Perky Planet Coffee two months ago on the stretch, said his business relies on foot traffic. The closure “will be devastating,” he said.
The two-block stretch has been a construction site on-and-off for years. The Stratos building was redeveloped in 2014, and Champlain College broke ground on its four-story 194 St. Paul Street student housing complex in 2016.
The latest construction is part of the city's Great Streets Initiative, a renovation of several downtown streets. The finished version of St. Paul will include widened sidewalks, more trees, bike racks, and space for awnings and outdoor seating for restaurants.
Tags: St. Paul Street , Robert Goulding , Department of Public Works , Miro Weinberger , road construction , Web Only , Image
Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) presidential campaign said Tuesday that women now make up 70 percent of its national leadership team. It announced 15 new and newish hires for senior positions, including 10 women and at least four people of color.
The news, first reported by the women's lifestyle site Refinery29, appears aimed at addressing criticism that Sanders' 2016 campaign was too white, too male and too Vermonty. Senior adviser Jeff Weaver — a white, male Vermonter — had been promising for months that the 2020 campaign would be far more diverse. One of Sanders' first hires was campaign manager Faiz Shakir, who has been described as the first Muslim American to hold such a position on a major presidential campaign.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , presidential campaign , Vermont , Web Only , Image
Friday, March 15, 2019
Future candidates for Vermont’s top military office would undergo a new vetting process and be elected at a different date under a bill approved Friday by a House committee.
The measure aims to bring some structure and greater accountability to an election process for the state’s adjutant general post, a process candidates and legislators have described as an awkward “free-for-all.” Lawmakers elected Col. Greg Knight adjutant general on February 21.
The bill, unanimously approved by the House General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee, would create a nine-member Adjutant and Inspector General Nominating Board that would review the credentials of candidates for
the position, which oversees the state’s National Guard.
The board would then forward the names of qualified candidates to the rest of the legislature for election or reelection to the post every two years.
The committee considered whether those names should instead be forwarded to the governor for appointment, but the committee chose to retain legislative control over the election process, Rep. Tom Stevens (D-Waterbury) said.
Tags: adjutant general , Vermont , National Guard , Statehouse , Greg Knight , Tom Stevens , Web Only , Image
The Associated Press first reported Thursday that the nonprofit think tank founded by the senator's wife, Jane O'Meara Sanders, and her son, David Driscoll, would stop raising money immediately and close its doors by the end of May. In a press release issued later that evening, the institute said that it was making the move in order to "avoid confusion or even the misperception of any overlap" between the institute and Sanders' presidential campaign.
“We are proud of the work that the Sanders Institute has done to promote progressive solutions to the economic, environmental, racial and social justice challenges that America faces,” Driscoll said in a written statement. “That policy work has always been completely separate from electoral politics. We are taking this step in keeping with that core principle of good governance.”
As a 501c3 nonprofit, the institute is barred from certain lobbying and electoral activities. In an interview with the New York Times, O'Meara Sanders acknowledged that the situation "could become too mushy" if she remained active with the institute while campaigning for her husband.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Jane O'Meara Sanders , David Driscoll , Sanders Institute , Our Revolution , Web Only , Image
After a bitter debate Friday morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee narrowly approved a compromise bill proposed by Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington) that would require a 24-hour waiting period for handgun sales in Vermont.
The measure is a scaled-back version of a bill introduced by Sen. Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden), who wanted a 48-hour waiting period for all gun sales. His proposal had support from the family of 23-year-old Andrew Black, an Essex man who shot and killed himself in December, hours after purchasing a gun.
Baruth, who sits on the five-member Judiciary Committee, was unable to find two allies for his proposal. Instead, he signed on to Sears' compromise, which still needed support from one more committee member in order to pass.
Tags: gun control , waiting periods , handguns , Dick Sears , Alice Nitka , Joe Benning , Jeanette White , Phil Baruth , high capacity magazines , Web Only , Image
Thursday, March 14, 2019
It wasn’t their first rodeo. Many of O’Rourke’s key staffers — particularly from his online team — spent the 2016 campaign working for another crowd-pleasing populist: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
At least eight former Sanderistas have decamped to O’Rourke’s campaign, according to online records. Several held top jobs on the Vermonter’s 2016 campaign before joining up with the Texan’s 2018 U.S. Senate race and 2020 presidential run.
“I have friends in both campaigns whose skills and talents I admire, but Bernie’s loss is Beto’s gain,” said Michael Briggs, who served as Sanders’ top spokesman in 2016 and who has not joined a 2020 campaign.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Beto O'Rourke , Becky Bond , Zack Malitz , Kenneth Pennington , Elizabeth Bennett , 2020 campaign , Web Only , Image
Sen. Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden) sponsored the measure and is for it, while Sen. Joe Benning (R-Caledonia) plans to vote no. That leaves three Democrats — Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), Sen. Alice Nitka (D-Windsor) and Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham) — who have yet to state their positions on the legislation.
The votes of two undecideds will sway the outcome.
Baruth, who advocated for universal background checks for years before that policy became law in 2018, said he’s "not hard-selling anybody" on the bill.
“They’re going to look at the evidence and make up their minds, and we need two other votes,” Baruth said, adding that he believes the evidence clearly shows that waiting periods for gun sales could save lives. A second part of the bill would require guns to be safely locked up when not in the control of their owner.
White and Sears each said Thursday that they hadn't decided whether they will support the bill. Nitka said she'd made up her mind but wouldn't tip her hand to Seven Days. "I’m not telling you where I’m at," she said.
Tags: waiting period , firearms , guns , gun control , safe storage , Phil Baruth , Phil Scott , Tim Ashe , Jeanette White , Alice Nitka , Joe Benning , Dick Sears , Andrew Black , suicide , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Mayor Miro Weinberger announced the deal at a press conference in his office on Wednesday afternoon, calling it "progress far better than was thought possible seven years ago." Schurz representatives did not appear at the press conference, though the company did have officials in Burlington on Wednesday, according to the mayor.
Tags: Burlington Telecom , Schurz Communications , Miro Weinberger , Web Only , Image
The suit was originally filed on February 18 by a total of 16 state attorneys general. Four more states, including Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, joined the suit Wednesday. It alleges that Trump's February 15 declaration exceeds the power of the executive office, violates the U.S. Constitution and would — by allocating budgeted funds to pay for a border wall — illegally divert federal funds appropriated by Congress for other purposes.
"The president has manufactured a political crisis over the wall," Donovan said, "and wants to divert funds already dedicated [by Congress] to serious public policy ends."
Tags: T.J. Donovan , Donald Trump , Web Only , Image
Industry groups and a lobbyist for movie theaters voiced opposition to the proposal Wednesday, arguing that such a law would do more harm than good for the environment and human health.
Students and environmentalists, on the other hand, said the bill, S.113, represents the first step in tackling Vermont’s share of the global plastic waste problem, which is fueled by disposable products that decompose slowly.
The proposal doesn’t ban other single-use containers such as takeout boxes and coffee cups but calls for a study committee to look into the consequences of banning those items.
Tags: plastic ban , plastic straws , plastic bags , styrofoam , Judith Augsberg , John Rodgers , Malayla Green , Brian Campion , Corey Parent , Mark MacDonald , Matt McMahon , Statehouse , Web Only , Image