Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said Schirling's appointment was part of an effort to reboot the two-year-old BTV Ignite initiative: Officials also announced that a board of directors has been appointed, and that the organization was filing for nonprofit status.
"This creates the footing for BTV Ignite to take off," Weinberger said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference outside the Burlington Electric headquarters. "Burlington has the building blocks to be a great tech city. The simple idea was if we got people from throughout the city together, we would accelerate its arrival."
Schirling, a Burlington native, started work last week. He is the first full-time employee of BTV Ignite, a group focused on bolstering educational opportunities in technology and helping Burlington's established tech companies and startups grow.
"What we're envisioning is everything from getting elementary students, all the way through high school, engaged more in [science, technology, engineering and math] and thinking about tech jobs, to making enhancements to the college and university curriculums so that Dealer.com, MyWebGrocer and Social Sentinel can find local talent," Schirling said in an interview.
Tags: BTV Ignite , Michael Schirling , Miro Weinberger , Burlington , technology , Image , Web Only
Friday, September 18, 2015
The 1987 UVM grad will talk about the methods and inspiration for his stories, including the series "Courting Favor." It won a Pulitzer Prize in April, Lipton's second.
The series uncovered a disturbing trend, showing how corporate lobbyists and lawyers gain influence over state attorneys general. To land the stories, Lipton doggedly amassed 8,000 pages of public records. He also got kicked out of a posh California beach resort where lobbyists mingled with AGs.
Lipton has not been idle since the Pulitzer win. Recent bylines include an exposé on a lobbyist with a six-figure federal government job and a look at how both the organic food industry and companies like Monsanto are influencing academic research being cited in the debate over genetically modified crops.
Tags: Eric Lipton , New York Times , Image , Web Only
Friday, September 11, 2015
Artists in Burlington's South End scored a major victory Friday in their campaign to prevent housing gentrification that could price them out of studios along Pine Street.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger announced Friday that he will not support housing in the Pine Street Enterprise Zone where it is currently prohibited. In an opinion piece published in the Burlington Free Press, Weinberger acknowledged that opposition from artists played a role in his stance on housing in PlanBTV South End, a proposed city plan for the area, which has been under discussion for months.
The Enterprise Zone’s current restrictions against housing have "allowed industry, the arts, and entrepreneurial spirit to flourish over the past two decades and slowed gentrification that has the potential to displace much of what we love about the South End, and only limited introduction of housing has been contemplated," Weinberger wrote. "However, the focus and concern about housing is distracting the much-needed, much broader discussion of the future of the South End. Thus, after listening carefully to this debate, I will not support a final plan that recommends adding housing as an allowable use in the Enterprise Zone."
Tags: Burlington , arts , development , Miro Weinberger , PlanBTV South End , Image , Web Only
Friday, September 4, 2015
Burlington crossing guard Steve Norman says he has launched the group to spread the word about his favorite presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
"There are 50,000 school crossing guards in the country, mostly retirees, single moms and disabled folks — few if any [are] millionaires," Norman said, tapping into Sanders' man-of-the-people message.
The longtime lefty activist moved to Burlington in 1983 and has known Sanders since. Norman plans to take the first step toward spreading the word at roughly 4 p.m. Monday during the launch party for the new advocacy group Rights & Democracy in Burlington's Battery Park.
He should be easy to spot: He'll be wearing a bright orange vest and holding a stop sign.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , crossing guards , presidential campaign , Image , Web Only
Thursday, September 3, 2015
The city council is on a bureaucracy-trimming mission, taking a close look at the Queen City’s 39 boards, commissions and committees to see if any could be consolidated or eliminated. Made up of volunteers, appointees or elected officials, these oversight bodies hold varying amounts of responsibility and power. Many place demands on department heads, and city staff must schedule and attend the public meetings to record minutes.
The cemetery commission — four volunteers who meet four times a year — seemed like one the city could, perhaps, live without.
Councilors, however, underestimated how seriously the commissioners take their responsibility, which primarily consists of monitoring the Greenmount, Elmwood and Lakeview cemeteries for vandalism, broken fences and other repair needs.
Tags: burlington city council , cemetery commission , Image , Web Only
Ethan Thibault, 37, is scheduled to appear in Chittenden Superior Court on Thursday to answer to the charge.
Burlington police asked Vermont State Police on Monday night to investigate Thibault after a woman obtained a restraining order against him, state police said.
She alleged prior assaults, the most recent of which occurred on Saturday morning in Hinesburg, state police said. Thibault, a Hinesburg resident, voluntarily met with investigators in the state police barracks in Williston. He posted $750 bail.
Burlington police said that Thibault has been placed on paid leave. The department said it will conduct an internal investigation once the criminal probe has concluded.
“Any time an officer is alleged to have committed domestic assault I take that extremely seriously,” Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo told reporters Thursday morning. “If this turns out to be true, then of course I’m disappointed ... that a police officer would do that having taken an oath to protect against that.”
Tags: Ethan Thibault , Brandon del Pozo , Wayne Brunette , domestic abuse , mental health , Hinesburg , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
When he was the mayor of Burlington, a congressman, and even after he became a U.S. Senator, this tidbit didn't lead to any raised eyebrows: Bernie Sanders applied for conscientious objector status back during the Vietnam War. Hardly seems out of character.
Now that Vermont's independent senator is vying to be president, that's getting a little more attention. The president, after all, has his or her finger on the button.
Can a conscientious objector be the commander in chief of the United States? That’s the question Vietnam veteran Steve Wikert of Iowa asked in a column published Tuesday in the Des Moines Register. Some national media outlets have picked up the story.
Sanders' application for conscientious objector status was denied — but not before he was too old to be drafted. That’s not breaking news, having been included in a Burlington Free Press profile in 2006, the year Sanders won a seat in the U.S. Senate. CNN also has included it in a list of “fast facts” about Sanders.
Sanders’ spokesman, Michael Briggs, confirmed that Sanders applied to be a conscientious objector. He told ABC News that Sanders was a pacifist as a college student in the 1960s but no longer is today.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , pacifism , conscientious objector , Vietnam War , Presidential Campaign , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Canadian citizen Yaw Obeng has obtained a visa and will begin his $153,000-a-year job as Burlington schools superintendent within the next few weeks. He'll also start a second, part-time job as a University of Vermont adjunct professor. That position was critical to securing Obeng an H-1B visa allowing him to collect a U.S. paycheck.
"This is wonderful news for the community of Burlington and its children," Porter said during a press conference at school district headquarters on Colchester Avenue.
The school district's immigration lawyers floated the idea of pursuing a visa through UVM after Obeng struck out in two previous visa applications, forcing school officials to delay his July 1 start date.
Tags: Yaw Obeng , Burlington Schools , University of Vermont , Image , Web Only
Thursday, August 20, 2015
"I was very, very upset about the shooting," said city Councilor Jane Knodell (P-Central District) during a meeting of the city council's public safety committee Wednesday night at the Sustainability Academy on North Street, across the street from the shooting scene. She called it a "real signal that things have escalated." The committee is holding four meetings in different neighborhoods to address residents' concerns.
Both Mayor Miro Weinberger and incoming police chief Brandon del Pozo attended, as did Howard Center staff.
Residents wanted to know how they could assist police, but they also had plenty of advice for law enforcement. Several people reported having unpleasant or unhelpful encounters with police officers and dispatchers and wondered why officers weren't more aggressive about putting a halt to the blatant drug activity they've witnessed. Seven Days reported on similar complaints in a recent story that recounted how one woman in the city's lower Hill Section hung a sign in a tree to discourage drug activity.
Tags: Burlington , Old North End , Burlington Police Department , Image , Web Only
Thursday, August 13, 2015
That was the lesson from the talk Captain Richard Phillips delivered Thursday to about 1,000 people at the Vermont Captive Insurance Association's annual conference in South Burlington.
While the crowd was assembled to network about the self-insurance market known as "captive," Phillips talked about a very different kind of captivity — the type where Navy SEALs come to the rescue instead of accountants and lawyers.
His message applied to all aspects of life: Don't quit. "Nothing is over until we choose to give up," Phillips said.
Dressed in a blue blazer and button-down shirt, Phillips could almost have passed for one of the many bankers, CPAs, lawyers and insurance gurus gathered at the Sheraton.
Tags: Pirates , Richard Phillips , captive insurance , Image , Web Only