Thursday, January 28, 2016
As officers swarmed Stephens' Elmwood Avenue apartment, he asked police, "Who wants to die?" He taunted officers trying to break down his door to "hit harder" and raised his muzzleloader rifle when they finally entered.
DEA Agent Tim Hoffman and Vermont State Police Trooper Matt Cannon, assigned to the task force, fired 13 shots from their assault rifles, hitting Stephens seven times. Three other rounds they fired exited Stephens' apartment, and two entered a neighboring apartment. A resident there was not hurt.
Stephens’ rifle could not have fired, because he had not inserted the primer, Donovan said. Cops could not have known that, authorities said.
Tags: T.J. Donovan , DEA , Burlington , Eric Miller , Vermont State Police , Image , Video , Web Only
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
That was the message that Burlington police commissioners sent Tuesday night at their first meeting since a Drug Enforcement Agency "no-knock" raid on Elmwood Avenue in December. The raid killed convicted drug dealer Kenneth Stevens, and stray rounds that officers fired entered a nearby apartment. No one else was harmed.
Little sympathy surfaced during the meeting for Stevens, the target of the raid, whose extensive criminal record included a 2012 conviction for selling heroin to a roommate who died of an overdose. He was also charged in 1996 with shooting his girlfriend's brother in the head.
Still, police commissioner Jerome F. O'Neill, a private attorney and former federal prosecutor, blasted the raid as overzealous and dangerous to law-abiding citizens who lived near Stevens.
"Hello DEA," O'Neill said after the meeting. "Get the message: You really need to do things differently around here."
Commissioners grilled Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo for an hour about the December 22 raid. The BPD was involved as a backup to the DEA, which led the exercise.
Tags: Burlington police commission , DEA , Brandon del Pozo , no-knock drug raid , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Council members found themselves in this conflicted position after the city attorney determined that the phrasing of a citizen-led petition to get a similar question on the ballot didn't pass legal muster. The group of New North End residents who led the petition effort are hoping that a strong vote in support of four traffic lanes will dissuade the city from pursuing a pilot project that would reduce that section from four to three traffic lanes and add two bike lanes.
The question is advisory, meaning the city isn't obligated to abide by the voting results.
Cyclists showed up in full force Monday night, with war stories about getting hit by cars and harassed by motorists while commuting on North Avenue. They urged councilors to ditch the ballot question, which, they suggested, could let public opinion dictate a safety issue.
Jason Van Driesche, advocacy and education director at Local Motion, characterized the petition effort as the "opening salvo from a small but determined group" that wants to derail the pilot project and keep "a dangerous street frozen in time."
Noting that there has already been an "intense public process," Andrea Todd, a member of the North Avenue Task Force, argued that bringing the pilot back up for debate would "disrespect the work that's happened on the Task Force."
One of the petitioners, Tony Bell, who told the council he's lived in the New North End for more than 40 years, said he and others "pounded the pavement in all kinds of weather to try to stop what we see as poor decision-making by local government."
Tags: North Avenue , Burlington city council , New North End , Local Motion , Image , Web Only
Friday, January 22, 2016
In addition, the agency plans to rebrand itself as Green Mountain Transit.
CCTA said its Automatic Vehicle Location system will feed information about the location of buses and any last-minute schedule changes to users' cell phones. The initiative will be largely paid for by funding from the Vermont Agency of Transportation.
"This highly sought after system has been a high priority for CCTA and its passengers for quite some time," CCTA General Manager Karen Walton said in a prepared statement.
On Tuesday, CCTA's Board of Commissioners decided to seek bids to implement the mobile ticketing system, which will allow riders to purchase tickets and board buses with their phones.
Tags: CCTA , Burlington , Green Mountain Transit , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
"I think we're missing a big opportunity," Lang told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a public hearing Tuesday night at the University of Vermont's Davis Center. Citing the attraction of Vermont's cheese, maple syrup and beer, he said, "It could be this, too."
When the Senate committee, which is considering legislation that would legalize recreational sale and use of marijuana, went to the state's largest city and held a hearing at the state's largest college on whether to legalize marijuana, most in the audience — not surprisingly — were for it.
Speakers stacked up 21-7 in favor of legalization, according to Sen. Joe Benning's count. The Republican from Caledonia County, who supports legalization, said speakers at three earlier hearings this week, in Bennington, Brattleboro and Springfield, also leaned in favor, but by smaller margins. He said he expects a hearing Wednesday night in St. Johnsbury to draw more nay-sayers.
Tags: Cannabeat , marijuana legalization , University of Vermont , Vermont Senate , Image , Web Only
Thursday, January 14, 2016
The residents of Burlington's New North End are embroiled in a fight over the future of North Avenue, which connects the neighborhood to downtown. For years, the city has contemplated how to improve the accident-plagued road, and in 2014, the city council approved a pilot study that would test several changes during the upcoming spring and summer months. Most contentiously, it would replace a four-lane section of North Avenue with three lanes and add bicycle paths.
Proponents of the project say it will provide useful information that could help the city make North Avenue safer for cars and cyclists alike, and city leaders have promised to ditch the new configuration if it doesn't work. The task force ushering the project onward unveiled a website this week.
Tags: North Avenue , New North End , Miro Weinberger , Image , Web Only
We're pleased to join the current century. Follow and tweet at us! @ColchesterPDVT #technology
— Colchester PD VT (@ColchesterPDVT) January 14, 2016Tags: Police , twitter , Brandon del Pozo , Colchester , Hinesburg , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Normally relations between the council and the commissions that it appoints — which oversee everything from the airport to the police department — are congenial. But late Monday evening, after the council had completed its agenda and most of the crowd had departed from city hall, Republican Kurt Wright brought up the matter. Calling the letter "really unfortunate," Wright said he was "very disappointed" with the commission.
For months, the commission, in an effort spearheaded by member John Bossange, had doggedly lobbied the council in favor of a smoking ban in public parks, casting it as a public health imperative. Smoking bans are commonplace in many cities and have long been discussed in Burlington.
Tags: Burlington city council , smoking ban , Church Street , Kurt Wright , Dave Hartnett , John Bossange , Image , Web Only
Monday, January 11, 2016
In a letter sent Sunday to U.S. Attorney Eric Miller, Vermont Republican Party vice chair Brady Toensing alleged that O'Meara Sanders made material misstatements in a 2010 loan application when the college was seeking to purchase a 32-acre campus. Citing stories published by VTDigger.org and two conservative websites, Toensing accused O'Meara Sanders of overstating by nearly $2 million the amount of money donors had committed to finance the acquisition.
"The evidence indicates that Ms. Sanders, as president of the college, successfully and intentionally engaged in a fraudulent scheme to actively conceal and misrepresent material facts from a federal financial institution," he wrote.
Toensing filed the complaint on behalf of Rutland City Treasurer Wendy Wilton, the 2012 Republican nominee for state treasurer, and "other aggrieved Vermont parishioners" of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington. The diocese, which previously owned the 32-acre plot overlooking Lake Champlain, lost between $1.5 million and $2 million when the college failed to repay a $3.65 million loan to the church, according to VTDigger.
The complaint comes just three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, in which Sen. Sanders is competing for the Democratic presidential nomination. A spokesman for the senator said Monday in a written statement that Toensing's letter was politically motivated, calling it "recycled, discredited garbage."
Tags: Senator , Jane Sanders , Bernie Sanders , Burlington College , presidential campaign , Brady Toensing , Wendy Wilton , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Sinex still wants a smart growth exemption from Act 250 for the $230 million makeover of the aging downtown mall and said Monday he will apply for the waiver later this year. He said he will take the hotel out of his mall-redesign plans.
He called Monday's jurisdictional opinion “absolutely meaningless" and said it wouldn't affect his immediate designs for the 40-year-old mall in the heart of Burlington. "We sought a clarification only for purposes of giving us options in the future," Sinex said.
The most recent publicly revealed plans, presented last week, didn't show or mention a hotel. They call for demolition of the current mall and transformation of the space into a mixed-use complex with 274 new units of housing, which the developer has said would be include both condos and rental units, with 20 percent designated as affordable housing. The plans also include 218,000 square feet of retail space, 350,000 square feet of office space and 948 parking spaces on three above-ground levels, after the current 575-space garage is torn down.
Tags: Burlington , town center , development , downtown , Act 250 , Don Sinex , Image , Web Only