Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Owners vacated the homes when the airport bought them in 2016 and 2017 after federal noise standards deemed them uninhabitable. The seven Lily Lane condos in South Burlington are now owned by the City of Burlington, which had intended to demolish the homes or move them from the zone.
Instead, people who work at the airport now live in them rent-free, as Burlington officials work to convince the Federal Aviation Administration, which funded the purchases, to allow the condos to remain standing. Gene Richards, BTV’s director of aviation, said Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger encouraged him to “exhaust every opportunity there is to have the homes stay where they are.”
Why the change in plans?
A Federal Aviation Administration grant program required the airport to give 39 homeowners near BTV the opportunity to sell their homes in 2016. All of the Lily Lane owners took advantage of the offer; the last one sold in June 2017.
As part of the FAA program, about 145 houses near the airport have been removed since 1997. But most were “older and in disrepair” compared to the Lily Lane condos, which are well-constructed, energy-efficient units that were built in 2010, Richards said.
“We’re really hoping we don’t have to remove them,” he said. “It’s a unique and special situation.”
The airport workers who live in them now serve as “security caretakers,” according to Richards. Their presence prevents the kind of looting and vandalism that plagued other homes emptied as part of the program, he said.
Tags: South Burlington , BTV , Burlington International Airport , Gene Richards , Kevin Dorn , Meaghan Emery , Miro Weinberger , mayor , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
The announcement comes as allegations of widespread priest abuse coverups in Pennsylvania have roiled the Catholic church. Locally, the Vermont diocese has grappled with allegations of horrific abuse at the long-shuttered St. Joseph's Orphanage.
Coyne did not provide a timeline for release of the list, but said he would convey "a sense of urgency" to the committee. He said he would soon reach out to potential committee members. Coyne is scheduled to hold a press conference later Wednesday.
"The crimes of the past were horrific and the damage to the victims and their loved ones horrendous," Coyne said in a prepared statement. "We will never be able to apologize adequately but will continue to try and hopefully have some positive impact in their lives going forward."
Tags: Christopher Coyne , priest abuse , Catholic church , St. Joseph's Orphanage , Burlington , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
The downtown site was ready for the work, Sinex told Seven Days in an email. Not moving forward would delay the project up to three months and would mean higher costs for construction, he told reporters before the council's vote.
The council gave Sinex permission to lay the foundation of the proposed 14-story building before all the project's funding and contracts were in place. Sinex said at the time that he planned to start the foundation work within two weeks.
Nearly six weeks later, he has not filed the paperwork to get a city permit for the foundation, according to Burlington's Department of Public Works.
Tags: Don Sinex , Miro Weinberger , CityPlace Burlington , Kurt Wright , Jane Knodell , Image , Web Only
Thursday, October 4, 2018
The guidance director was already facing six charges, filed on September 7, related to allegations that he faked a student transcript, behaved unprofessionally with a substitute teacher and showed general incompetence at his job.
In a September 26 charging document, Secretary of Education Dan French wrote that Macias “inappropriately engaged a student witness in a discussion of the licensing charges against him, in a manner that he should have known would cause the student severe emotional distress.”
French recommended that Macias’ educator license be permanently revoked.
Tags: Agency of Education , Mario Macias , Dan French , Ted Fisher , Russ Elek , Burlington , Burlington High School , education , guidance , guidance counselor , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Springer, who currently works at the department as chief operating officer and manager for strategy and innovation, will replace Neale Lunderville, who stepped down in May to serve as interim director of the city's Community and Economic Development Office.
Weinberger announced the decision at a press conference Tuesday inside the Burlington Electric Department. He noted that Springer was selected after a nationwide search. "It is hard to imagine a candidate that comes to this role with a more diverse and relevant set of experiences," Weinberger said.
Tags: Miro Weinberger , Neale Lunderville , Burlington Electric Department , Darren Springer , Image , Web Only
Monday, October 1, 2018
Minnesota Public Radio fired Keillor last year. A subsequent investigation by the station’s news department found multiple cases over decades in which Keillor made suggestive statements about women who worked for him and, in one case involving "dozens" of incidents, inappropriately touched a coworker.
Burlington Book Festival executive director Rick Kisonak defended the decision to host Keillor in a Facebook post Sunday. But by Monday evening, he'd changed his mind.
“There’s a lot of very positive feeling for [Keillor] out there," Kisonak said. "But there’s a lot of anger and a lot of hurt, and I certainly didn’t want that, and certainly didn’t expect that. And now that that really has sort of reached the kind of critical mass that it has ... we’re certainly not people that are insensitive to these issues.”
Tags: Burlington Book Festival , Garrison Keillor , Minnesota Public Radio , Rick Kisonak , Andrew Liptak , literature , books , sexual harassment , Image , Web Only
Monday, September 24, 2018
Councilors acknowledged the magnitude of the projects but backed them wholeheartedly, passing both measures with overwhelming support.
Councilor Dave Hartnett (D-North District) said voting on the high school made it "one of the best nights" for the council. But he acknowledged that the expense means "we're going to have to sacrifice."
Tags: Burlington City Council , Mayor Miro Weinberger , Burlington School District , bonds , wastewater , Memorial Auditorium , Election 2018 , Image , Web Only
Thursday, September 20, 2018
It's not without a cost — $30 million. On Monday, the Burlington City Council will consider whether to put a related bond vote on the November ballot.
If Burlingtonians approve it, they can expect to pay $64 more annually for water by the time all the improvements are implemented within the next four or five years, Mayor Miro Weinberger said at a press conference in front of the city's main wastewater treatment plant.
“This is an opportunity for Burlington to take strong, decisive action to keep the lake the economic, cultural and recreational driver of our city and state that it has been since our founding,” said Weinberger, surrounded by city councilors, city workers and advocates for Lake Champlain.
Officials initially planned to come forward with a plan by December 1, in time to get a bond on the March Town Meeting Day ballot, but accelerated the timeline after repeated overflow problems.
Tags: Burlington , Lake Champlain , clean water , stormwater , wastewater , Miro Weinberger , mayor , Vermont , city council , Election 2018 , Image , Web Only
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Haji, a University of Vermont senior, was one of the speakers at the event and called for greater civic engagement from members of New American communities.
The gathering at the Old North End Community Center specifically targeted New Americans and was intended to teach them the nuts and bolts of voting, to inspire them to become politically engaged, and to give them an opportunity to make their concerns known to Sanders. It attracted a crowd of about 150 people, most of whom were members of the Burmese, Bhutanese, Iraqi, Somali and Sudanese communities.
Tags: Senator , Aden Haji , Ahmed Noor , Sandrine Kibuey , Hemant Ghising , Barb Prine , Ali Dieng , Bernie Sanders , Chris Pearson , David Zuckerman , New Americans , Election 2018 , Statewide 2018 , Image , Web Only
Saturday, September 15, 2018
The board and Obeng announced that guidelines for material to be published in the Burlington High School Register are no longer in effect. Instead, the board and administration will develop a policy that is consistent with the free speech and student journalist protections under Vermont's New Voices law, the announcement said.
It effectively scuttles a policy that BHS principal Noel Green conveyed Friday, after a dramatic week of shifting decisions over coverage.
On Tuesday, Green ordered Register editors and their teacher-adviser to remove a story from the paper's website that detailed Vermont Education Agency allegations of unprofessional conduct against BHS guidance director Mario Macias. He denies the allegations.
Tags: the Register , Burlington High School , Yaw Obeng , censorship , Image , Web Only