Thursday, January 7, 2016
"When the police chief said you could show up with a ticket and not get in, I took that as a challenge," said Burlington resident Mark Conrad, who stood in the darkness by himself when he arrived outside the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts at 4:30 a.m.
Conrad is no fan of Trump's and hopes to be able to razz the Republican presidential contender during his scheduled 7 p.m. appearance.
"I just want to ask [Trump] a question that will bother him."
Burlington has been on alert for a fiasco since Wednesday, when the Trump campaign announced it had given out roughly 20,000 tickets for the 1,400-seat Flynn. Police warned that they would have to close downtown streets and turn away thousands of people from the Flynn. Meanwhile, liberal activists scheduled multiple events for later this afternoon to protest Trump's appearance. Local and national media, unable to resist the narrative of Trump holding court on Bernie Sanders' turf, prepared to swarm the area.
But the day got off to a tranquil start.
Tags: Donald Trump , Burlington , police , Del Pozo , Weinberger , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
The proposal for a work-shop-live-eat-and-have-fun complex has changed significantly since last spring: The new design would restore the connection between Bank Street to the south and Cherry to the north and create a regular block of St. Paul Street between them. It would provide access to pedestrians, bikes and cars and become a public street.
Also planned: Three levels of above-ground parking with 948 spaces, nearly doubling the 575 spaces at the garage on Cherry Street that now serves the mall. The proposal includes 274 units of housing, 350,000 square feet of office space and 218,000 square feet of retail space, almost twice as much as there is now.
Two of the new buildings would be 14 stories tall — about 150 feet — and require a zoning change to raise the city's current height limit. That detail, which has been under discussion since the spring, has not changed.
Some of the new infrastructure, including the new block of St. Paul street, would be paid for under a tax increment financing (TIF) agreement, if voters agree to a bond for the money at the polls. Tax revenue from the project would then be used to repay the bonds.
Tags: Burlington , town center , mall , Devonwood , height limit. Don Sinex , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Edin Sakoc's conviction for lying to immigration officials was overturned by a judge in July. In documents filed in U.S. District Court, the former Burlington resident agreed to leave America and never return in exchange for having charges against him dropped.
The "denaturalization" process is expected to take several months. Sakoc has a wife and young daughter who could remain in the U.S.
Sakoc was accused of kidnapping and raping one woman and assisting a soldier who murdered two other women during the Bosnian War in 1992. Sakoc, a Muslim, was in a military unit that battled ethnic Serbs. The women he is accused of targeting were Serbs. He denied the rape, and said he participated in legitimate wartime actions.
Tags: Edin Sakoc , Bosnia , U.S. District Court , Burlington , Essex , Image , Web Only
The cable access station says it combed through more than 1,000 hours of Bernie tape to compile an hour-long look at his rise from long-shot mayoral candidate to presidential contender. You can buy the DVD online for $25.
Footage includes the kickoff rally for Sanders' 1985 mayoral campaign, Sanders at the airport returning from a controversial trip to Nicaragua, the opening of the Burlington Community Health Center, and an appearance at a St. Albans railway workers strike.
As a bonus, there's random footage of Bernie playing softball, hockey, tennis and basketball. Just because, apparently.
But mostly, there is a lot of Bernie standing at a podium, saying Bernie things.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Bernie Bits , Burlington , CCTV , Presidential Campaign , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Locke spent two decades with the Hartford Fire Department, serving as chief for the last seven. Mayor Miro Weinberger acknowledged that Hartford's 20-person squad is much smaller than Burlington's, but he praised Locke's leadership, particularly in 2011, when he presided over the town's emergency services during Tropical Storm Irene.
Locke left the fire department in mid-August to serve as Hartford's interim town manager after the previous manger abruptly resigned.
Standing in front of the brick station on South Winooski Avenue, Weinberger told reporters that Locke takes an analytical and data-driven approach — attributes he seeks when selecting department heads. Firefighters lined up behind Weinberger and Locke for the announcement.
Tags: Burlington fire department , Miro Weinberger , Hartford , city council , Steven Locke , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
After the city adopted a “diversity and equity strategic plan” more than a year ago, the mayor on Monday gave his first annual update on what his administration has done to diversify its ranks, root out bias and reach constituents who aren't engaging in city affairs because of language or other barriers.
The 82-page plan, which contains 49 “action steps,” is far from being fully implemented. Its author, Curtiss Reed of the Vermont Partnership, who continues to advise the administration, urged councilors not to expect “instant gratification.” Reed, several senior city officials and three people of color who aren’t city employees meet monthly to advise the mayor on implementing the plan's recommendations.
Among the changes they've overseen: More than 400 city employees have received civil rights training, including the mayor and his department heads. The city is making more of an effort to advertise job openings in places likely to attract minority candidates. And candidates for managerial positions will be asked a uniform set of questions to avoid "implicit bias" during the interview process.
Tags: Miro Weinberger , Burlington city council , Brandon del Pozo , Curtiss Reed , Image , Web Only
Monday, December 7, 2015
The Bove family has long augmented the downtown eatery that opened in 1941 by selling jars of their sauce in grocery stores across the country. For several years, the sauce has been made and packaged in a Youngstown, Ohio facility, owner Mark Bove said at a press conference Monday inside the Pearl Street restaurant.
"We are coming home ... and thrilled to make the investment in the state where we started," Bove said
The 15,000-square-foot facility in Milton, located on Route 7 a mile from Interstate 89, will open in 2016 and will employ "five to 10 people," Bove said, most of whom currently work in the restaurant. Bove decline to say how much the Milton facility cost to build.
It will have a tasting room and will offer tours. The Bove family will continue to produce their frozen meatballs and lasagna in Shelburne, but could eventually move those operations to Milton, Bove said.
Tags: Burlington , Bove's , Milton , Phil Scott , Mark Bove , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Burlington’s Taxi Licensing Appeals Panel issued the three-month suspension against Blazer Transportation on October 16, citing a “pattern of disregard for the city’s regulations.” Allegations against the company, which Seven Days has previously reported, included “brazen and unapologetic overcharging of customers” and employing a driver whose license had been suspended for driving under the influence.
The panel also revoked the taxi driver’s license of Blazer owner Ricky Handy, and suspended the taxi driver’s license of his son, Christopher Handy, for three months.
Tags: Burlington , taxi regulations , Uber , Blazer Transportation , Image , Web Only
"We are not here to litigate the design,'' said Marchildon, executive director of Vermont AARP, which hosted the event with cooperation from city leaders backing the project. "The Parkway is moving forward."
The meeting at Champlain School unfolded in an orderly manner with no rabble-rousing to speak of. After presentations on the road design by state and local officials, including Chapin Spencer, director of Burlington Public Works, a panel took questions from the audience, not via microphone, but submitted on index cards, which Marchildon read aloud to the panelists for responses.
Explaining the format of the meeting, Marchildon said he wanted avoid allowing anyone to dominate at the microphone. At the end, he said that he had enough time to ask all but three questions, adding that he "read them all verbatim" and "did not editorialize."
The format was undemocratic said Burlington resident Barbara McGrew. There were people in the audience Monday who had things to say about improving the design of the road, but they didn't get a chance to speak because of the meeting's format, McGrew said. "The city is very good at coming up with processes that seem like they are orderly, but silence a lot of people."
Tags: Burlington , Champlain Parkway , Transportation , AARP , Chapin Spencer , Image , Web Only
Monday, November 16, 2015
The price tag to remove the contaminated dirt stockpiled in Burlington's Leddy Arena parking lot has been tallied up, and it's not cheap: $339,000.
Burlington Parks and Recreation director Jesse Bridges will ask the city council tonight to authorize that amount be paid from the $800,000 tax increment financing allotment that voters approved last year for waterfront park improvements. The mini-mountain of soil at Leddy will likely be hauled away to a landfill in Vermont or New York and used as "daily cover" — the dirt that is applied over each day's deposit of trash.
Bridges is working with Chittenden Solid Waste Disposal to get tipping fees waived or reduced, which could reduce the disposal price tag. But if environmental regulators say the dirt can't be used as "daily cover" and it has to be disposed as solid waste, the removal costs could go up, Bridges warned in a memo to the city council.
Trash company ENPRO beat out Casella in a bid to remove the 2,500-cubic-yard pile, now covered in tarps.
Tags: Burlington , environment , Leddy Park , Jesse Bridges , Image , Web Only