Friday, August 30, 2019
A leak has knocked out gas service to most Church Street, Burlington businesses in the middle of the dinner rush hour, Vermont Gas officials confirmed Friday evening as Labor Day weekend kicked off.
S.D. Ireland construction workers accidentally hit a gas line on St. Paul Street between King and Maple streets around 3:30 p.m., city Public Works director Chapin Spencer told Seven Days. Crews were excavating to build a sidewalk as part of the ongoing street reconstruction project when they broke the line, he said. No one was injured.
Vermont Gas responded and shut off gas service to repair the line, company spokesperson Beth Parent said. After repairs, crews will visit each customer and reset their service before the gas line is fully restored. That could take several hours, Parent said after 6 p.m.
"We understand and appreciate their patience," she added. "We know this is not convenient, but safety is our No. 1 priority."
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On a visit Tuesday to Stony Pond Farm, a 60-head organic dairy in Fairfield, Leahy said the growth of the organic food market into a $50 billion industry had attracted massive producers that don’t necessarily share the values epitomized by Vermont’s organic family farmers.
“Factory-scale farms want a piece of the action. They want to cut corners. They want to erode the true intent of organic farming,” Leahy said. “They are flooding the market with cheap alternatives.”
The ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee vowed to head back to Washington to close loopholes in the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act that he helped author.
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Franco declined to specify the reasons for Nikki Fuller's medical leave, citing privacy concerns, and Fuller declined to comment.
Burlington Superintendent of Schools Yaw Obeng said via email that Fuller stopped working under the Family and Medical Leave Act on May 20. She drew her $118,816 annual salary for the next 12 weeks.
Fuller has since exhausted her paid leave time and is no longer drawing a salary, according to Obeng, who responded to Seven Days' public records request about Fuller's employment status.
Tags: Burlington , schools , diversity , Nikki Fuller , Web Only , Image
Thursday, August 29, 2019
With the arrival of the next generation fighters just weeks away, critics led by Rosanne Greco, a retired Air Force colonel, are demanding the secretary of the Air Force block the basing of the plane at Burlington International Airport until new sound studies can be conducted.
They argue that sound studies predicting how the fighter would affect the area assumed that the jets would use their afterburners less than 5 percent of time. New documents, however, suggest afterburner usage might be 10 times that much — or more, Greco said.
“The Air Force finally had to admit to the public what they knew for a long time — that at the large Air Force bases where the F-35 is currently flying … they are taking off in afterburner 50 to 100 percent of the time,” Greco said at a press conference Thursday outside Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-Vt.) Burlington office.
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Vice President Mike Pence is returning to Vermont for Labor Day weekend.
The nation’s No. 2 executive is expected to land at Burlington International Airport around 2 p.m. Friday, BTV aviation director Gene Richards said. The aircraft, which Richards said will probably not be the large jet traditionally thought of as Air Force Two, is expected to taxi to one of the Vermont Air National Guard ramps.
The airfield will be closed for 15 minutes before and after arrival, the aviation director wrote in a note to staff. The Federal Aviation Administration has instituted temporary flight restrictions at BTV from 1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. on Friday.
“It’s midday; it’s not really a big deal,” Richards said, noting that it could potentially affect a few commercial flights. “It’s the right time of the day. If he’d come real early in the morning, I’d have a real problem with him.”
Tags: Mike Pence , Vermont , Labor Day Weekend , Gene Richards , BTV , Burlington International Airport , Lake Hortonia , Rutland-Southern Vermont Regional Airport , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Allegations against the state, put forth by an unnamed couple, appear to dovetail a 2018 report by a parent advocacy group that identified what it saw as systemic failures in Vermont’s child protection system.
One of the most egregious claims in the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court asserts that a DCF case worker compelled one of the plaintiffs, a mother, to begin taking the opioid-weaning drug suboxone, itself an opiate, by convincing her it was necessary to regain custody of her children.
The state’s behavior “shocks the conscience,” attorneys for Shlansky Law Group of Burlington wrote on behalf of the plaintiffs. The family is seeking damages.
Tags: Department for Children and Families , Child Protective Services , Child Abuse Registry , Web Only , Image
But the hospital disputed those findings and criticized the office for a blindsiding public announcement that made a national example of UVM Medical Center in the Trump administration's effort to expand protections for religious objectors.
The medical center also defended its approach to balancing protections for employees' beliefs with patients' access to legal care.
UVM Medical Center could lose federal funding if it refuses to change its policies.
Tags: University of Vermont Medical Center , Office for Civil Rights , abortion , religious freedom , Web Only , Image
Monday, August 26, 2019
Weinberger had hoped to soon see project plans and illustrations and hear how Brookfield Asset Management would minimize the impacts on neighbors who are tired of the hole in the middle of downtown. But he didn’t get his wish at Monday night’s city council meeting, which marked the first time since July that representatives from Brookfield have spoken publicly about their plans for Burlington’s infamous pit.
Instead, their comments amounted to what some councilors called a “non-update update.”
Brookfield vice president of development Aanen Olsen told councilors what they’ve heard many times before: The multimillion-dollar Burlington Town Center redevelopment is a large and complex undertaking that is currently in litigation, which limits what developers can say publicly.
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As part of his plea agreement, Spilman would also forfeit $50,000 in proceeds from the under-the-table marijuana business he ran from his head shop across Church Street from Burlington City Hall.
U.S. District Judge Christina Reiss said she would decide whether to accept the agreement at a December sentencing hearing.
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"This individual is not american, he is dangerous, he wants to carry firearms and I heard him say that he wants to harm individuals with said firearms," said that tip, submitted though an online portal. The agency asked a Vermont State Police trooper to find and interview the man named.
A trooper conducted a vehicle stop. The man was with his wife and their newborn child, according to an affidavit filed by Homeland Security Special Agent Timothy O'Leary.
Tags: Cole Swarkowski , Immigration and Customs Enforcement , racism , University of Vermont Medical Center , U.S. District of Vermont , federal court , harassment , Web Only , Image