Thursday, February 25, 2021
South Burlington has hired away the city manager from "Burlington's Brooklyn."
Jessie Baker, who held the top city post in Winooski for four years, will begin her new role on June 1. She will replace current South Burlington city manager Kevin Dorn, who has held the job since 2013. He'll train Baker for a month before retiring.
The South Burlington City Council was impressed with Baker’s “caliber, competence and persona,” Helen Riehle, the council chair, said in a statement announcing the hire this week.
“We are ecstatic that she will become both the first female and the next City Manager,” Riehle said.
Tags: Jessie Baker , South Burlington , Winooski , Web Only , Image
Friday, February 19, 2021
The travel perk kicks in two weeks after Vermonters and out-of-state visitors have received both doses of vaccine, Gov. Phil Scott said at Friday's COVID-19 press conference.
State leaders also said they would soon ease visitation and activities restrictions at long-term care homes, where roughly two-thirds of those who have died with COVID-19 in Vermont have resided.
Tags: COVID-19 vaccine , COVID-19 , travel restrictions , quarantine , long-term care , eldercare , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, February 9, 2021
The guilty plea comes in conjunction with Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan's decision to refile state charges against Lewis last month. She is accused of stealing instructor Darryl Montague's .22-caliber revolver during a lesson at his Westford gun range and shooting him multiple times.
Lewis' prosecution became a political lightning rod in 2019, when Chittenden County State's Attorney Sarah George decided to drop the case against Lewis and defendants in two murder cases. In doing so, the reform-minded George cited determinations by state and defense experts that Lewis, 36, was insane at the time of the shooting and needed ongoing treatment.
Tags: Veronica Lewis , T.J. Donovan , Christina Nolan , Phil Scott , U.S. District Court , attempted murder , insanity , firearms charges , Sarah George , Jessica Brown , Darryl Montague , Web Only , Image
Thursday, February 4, 2021
Attorney General T.J. Donovan announced on Thursday the state's sliver of a reported $573 million settlement with 47 states.
Tags: McKinsey , T.J. Donovan , opioid settlement , opioid epidemic , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
Williston resident Emmanuel Capitaine has been separated from his Toyota RAV4 since last March, when he drove it to the Montréal-Trudeau International Airport to catch a flight to Paris. Days later, Canada closed its border due to the pandemic.
Capitaine, a dual French-American citizen with family in the Brittany region, brought his 5-year-old son on the March 11 trip to France. When they landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport, the friend who picked them up informed Capitaine of the impending shutdown.
“I thought it was a joke,” Capitaine said, “but he was not laughing."
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Monday, February 1, 2021
But the Franklin County woman says she was proud to represent her state, her Abenaki culture, and her career as a member of the military.
“It’s never about me,” Matthews said. “It’s about representing my people. I just want to make people proud.”
Matthews is a member of the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi in Swanton, where she grew up; her parents were also of Mohawk, Lumbee and Muskogee descent. She served in the U.S. Coast Guard and then the U.S. Air Force as a member of the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing. She left the service in 2015 — on July 4th, she noted — and a couple of years later was recruited to join the Native American Women Warriors, a Colorado-based veterans group.
The volunteer organization performs color guard details across the country and has a network that provides support to other veterans — women, Native American or not — who are dealing with PTSD or need other assistance.
“It’s just embedded in my blood to always help,” Matthews said.
Tags: Takara Matthews , Abenaki , veteran , Native American Women Warriors , Vermont , Mitchelene BigMan , inauguration , Joe Biden , Kamala Harris , Web Only , Image
Thursday, January 28, 2021
A further review of refrigeration issues involving the 860 doses in question found that they had not been "impacted by temperature inconsistencies and can be used with full public confidence," the Vermont Department of Health said in a press release.
Tags: COVID-19 vaccine , Moderna vaccine , Springfield Hospital , vaccine spoilage , Vermont Department of Health , Web Only , Image
In a video message posted Wednesday evening, President Mark Anarumo blamed the outbreak on "egregious and frankly embarrassing" behavior by students that led to "unreasonably and unsustainably high" levels of infection.
Effective immediately, Anarumo said, "I will support a voluntary departure of any student who does not believe they want to be here, whether because the value is not what they expected, or because they feel unsafe."
Tags: Norwich University , Mark Anarumo , COVID-19 , college reopenings , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
The State of Vermont will discard 860 doses of COVID-19 vaccine — nearly 1 percent of all doses received to date — because of a storage issue at Springfield Hospital, officials said Wednesday.
The doses of Moderna vaccine were apparently stored slightly above than the maximum allowable temperature, prompting the manufacturer to order that they be tossed due to concern about their viability, Human Services Secretary Mike Smith said during a regularly scheduled press conference.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Moderna vaccine vials must be refrigerated at temperatures between 2 degrees and 8 degrees Celsius.
"It was at 9 degrees at Springfield Hospital," Smith said.
Tags: COVID-19 vaccine , Moderna vaccine , vaccine spoilage , Springfield Hospital , Mike Smith , Anna Smith , Mark Levine , Web Only , Image
Thursday, January 21, 2021
The recent investigation, spurred by five anonymous complaints, did not find any shortcomings in infection control that may have contributed to viral spread. It confirmed instead that a staffing crisis led to dangerously diminished care.
Tags: Elderwood at Burlington , Elderwood , Department of Disabilities , Aging , and Independent Living , DAIL , COVID-19 outbreak , nursing home , nursing home staffing , quality of care , citations , Vermont Long-term Care Ombudsman , Sean Londergan , Web Only , Image