Friday, April 15, 2016
He will step down on May 6.
Owens said he had already planned to resign June 30 due to the "ongoing stress of being separated from my family." Appointed to the post by Mayor Miro Weinberger in 2012, he often drives back and forth between Burlington and Hanover, N.H., where his family lives.
In a letter sent to Weinberger on Friday, Owens wrote that "given the recent public attention regarding an unresolved personal matter about the housing and welfare of an elderly woman in San Francisco, I have decided to accelerate my departure."
Owens is evicting a 99-year-old woman named Iris Canada from an apartment he owns with his wife and brother in San Francisco. He claims she moved out of the apartment years ago, leaving it in disrepair and violating the terms of their agreement, which allowed her to remain there for the rest of her life.
Canada denies this, and is contesting her eviction in court. This week, housing activists drew attention to the court battle, and dozens of news outlets began covering it.
Tags: Burlington , CEDO , Miro Weinberger , Peter Owens , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
In the last 24 hours, more than a dozen news outlets have run stories about Iris Canada’s fight to stay in an apartment she’s lived in since the 1940s. Owens, the landlord, bought the 1,200-square-foot unit on Page Street with his wife and brother in 2002.
In 2005, they gave Canada a “life estate interest,” allowing her to rent the unit for the rest of her life as long as she continued to live there by herself and kept the place in good condition. Canada agreed to pay $250,000 in installments of $700 per month.
In December 2014, Owens and his co-owners filed a complaint in the Superior Court of San Francisco County alleging that Canada had been living in Oakland for two and a half years, was behind in her payments and had “allowed the property to fall into disrepair.” They asked the court to evict Canada and order her to pay the $171,600 balance, as well as damages.
Tags: CEDO , Burlington , Peter Owens , eviction , Iris Canada , Image , Web Only
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Burlington Electric Department general manager Neale Lunderville also rents in Burlington. But he spends nights at his house in South Burlington, he explained in an email Wednesday night.
Seven Days reported on Wednesday that several department heads, including Burlington schools Superintendent Yaw Obeng, have gotten waivers from a charter provision that says they must be registered to vote in Burlington within a year of being hired — in effect, residents.
As Seven Days reported, Obeng lives in South Burlington. And Rusten, who does not have a waiver, rents a room in the Queen City but generally stays at his home in Hinesburg.
Tags: Neale Lunderville , Bob Rusten , Jane Knodell , Image , Web Only
Monday, April 4, 2016
Mayors assess their own performance at this annual display of pomp — spoiler alert: they usually give high marks — and outline goals for the upcoming year.
Weinberger wasted no time touting the recent upgrade of the city’s bond rating to ‘A’ status. (Even people on the other side of the political aisle have conceded that the current mayor is delivering on his promise to clean up Burlington’s finances.)
The second-term Democrat identified aging infrastructure — sidewalks, streets, pipes, etc. — as the city’s “largest remaining financial challenge.”
Weinberger also dwelt on the need to address Burlington’s “growing opiate addiction challenge.”
Emphasizing the need for community policing, he continued, “In the weeks ahead … we will have more officers on foot and bike patrol than at any time in recent memory.”
The mayor mentioned the mentally ill man fatally shot by Burlington police: “The heartbreaking death of Phil Grenon two weeks ago was a reminder of the difficulty and importance of this work, and of what is at stake in policing a city.”
Tags: Miro Weinberger , Burlington City Council , Burlington Town Center , Jane Knodell , Image , Web Only
“The Air Force is facing a shortage of experienced, active-duty fighter aircraft maintainers as we transition from legacy aircraft to the F-35A,” said Lt. Gen. John Cooper, the deputy chief of staff of the Air Force for logistics, engineering and force protection, in a statement released Monday. “Adjusting the initial plan and slightly accelerating F-35A arrivals at Burlington Air Guard Station ... to fall 2019 will allow the service to stick to the overall F-35 rollout schedule, while capitalizing on the Air National Guard’s experienced fighter aircraft maintenance force as we put additional measures in place to increase the number of trained active-duty maintainers.”
The Vermont Air National Guard, based at Burlington International Airport, was the first reserve unit in the country scheduled to receive the next-generation fighter jets, despite vocal opposition from environmentalists and local residents concerned about noise.
Local opponents have filed a lawsuit in federal court trying to prevent the F-35s from arriving in Vermont.
The Air Force has said that 18 F-35s will be based in Vermont, replacing the F-16 fighter jets currently stationed in Burlington.
Tags: F-35 , Burlington International Airport , Vermont Air National Guard , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Around 9:30 a.m. Thursday, police were notified of the incident at the 294 North Winooski Avenue building, Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said. No one was injured.
Police said there were no known threats made against the Workers’ Center or its employees. Surveillance camera footage of the nearby area did not yield an image of a suspect, del Pozo said.
Tags: Burlington , Workers' Center , police , Black Lives Matter , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
A Burlington police officer fatally shot a distraught 76-year-old man after a lengthy standoff at his College Street apartment on Monday night, authorities said.
Burlington police, who were summoned to the apartment by a mental crisis worker, tried for five hours to negotiate with Ralph “Phil” Grenon, Vermont State Police said. Around 10 p.m., Grenon approached officers with two knives in his hands and refused to drop them, Vermont State Police said. Officer David Bowers, 23, fired multiple shots at Grenon, who was pronounced dead at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
Bowers, who joined the department in 2014, was placed on paid administrative leave, Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
Grenon had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was involuntarily medicated in the former Vermont State Hospital several years ago after refusing treatment, according to court records.
Tags: Burlington police , Brandon del Pozo , Vermont State Police , mental health , Image , Web Only
Monday, March 21, 2016
Dodson, 50, says he’ll pursue what’s been at the core of his work for two decades, including during stints as a school principal and his position since 2008 — director of Champlain’s Center for Service and Civic Engagement.
“My work is supporting communities, supporting families and children to get the things they need — education, skill sets, networking — to create the lives that they want and deserve,” Dodson said Monday in an interview with Seven Days.
His résumé includes work in finance in New York City, various posts at Saint Michael’s College and four years as founding principal of Lee Academy Pilot School in Dorchester, Mass.
Tags: Kyle Dodson , YMCA , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a right wing icon who created the prison camp in 1993 and has ridden it to national fame, surprised Sanders by interrupting her press conference. He offered her a tour of the sprawling facility, where inmates live outdoors in temperatures that can exceed 100 degrees.
Arpaio further surprised Sanders by mentioning that he had Burlington ties.
"I was head of [the] federal Drug Enforcement [Administration] in Burlington, Vt.," he told her, explaining that he ran the unit between 1978 and 1982 — the year after Bernie Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington.
"I am a very big fan," Arpaio told Sanders, then paused for a while and resumed, "of Ben & Jerry's ice cream."
Tags: Senator , Jane Sanders , Joe Arpaio , Burlington , Bernie Sanders , presidential campaign , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
The movers and shakers behind the effort: a group called the Vermont Furs, who are members of the “furry” fandom. Enthusiastic about anthropomorphic cartoon animals, they dress up in hirsute costumes, but had been told that the mask ordinance prohibited them from doing so in public in Burlington. The ACLU of Vermont also played a key role, arguing that the ordinance violated First Amendment rights.
Monday night, the full city council approved a revised ordinance that outlaws masks only if someone is wearing one with the intent of committing a crime, or to intimidate people or infringe on their civil rights.
Tags: ACLU of Vermont , Burlington city council , mask ban , Image , Web Only