Tuesday, May 25, 2021
The event marked the one-year anniversary of Floyd's death and drew elected officials, community leaders and others to City Hall Park, where attendees held a silent vigil lasting nine minutes and 29 seconds — the same amount of time that former officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck.
C D Mattison, who organized the vigil, briefly addressed the crowd to reflect on Floyd's final moments, which were captured on video by a 17-year-old bystander and quickly seared into the national consciousness.
"George Floyd should be alive today. We know that," Mattison said. "And what pained me so much for his family — and most certainly for George Floyd, as he cried out for his mother — was the gathering of people who were there in witness, and how excruciating it was for them that they felt they could not intervene on his behalf and save him, because their very own lives were at risk as well."
Tags: George Floyd , Vermont , Vigil , Burlington , Zoraya Hightower , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
The civil complaint, filed in Vermont Superior Court on Tuesday, accuses the diocese of allowing the Rev. Leo Courcy Jr. to continue his ministry for decades with "unfettered" access to children, despite knowing he was a pedophile.
Tags: Bishop Christopher Coyne , Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington , sexual abuse , statute of limitations , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Electric aviation startup Beta Technologies plans to build a 270,000-square-foot manufacturing plant at the Burlington International Airport that will employ up to 500 people, the company said Tuesday.
Beta, which is headquartered in a hangar near the main terminal, announced the expansion plan at the same time the company closed a $368 million fundraising round that attracted investment from Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund, among others.
Proceeds will bankroll the new assembly facility for its Alia electric aircraft, according to a Beta press release. The company hopes to break ground this fall.
The total amount of new funding exceeded the $333 million Beta had sought to raise, according to SEC disclosures first reported by Seven Days last week in a cover story on the company. Beta founder and CEO Kyle Clark told Seven Days in an interview for that story that he hoped to continue expanding the startup, which has tripled in size over the last year to more than 230 employees, in his home state of Vermont.
Tags: Beta Technologies , Burlington International Airport , Burlington , South Burlington , Electric Aircraft , Vermont Business , Amazon Climate Fund , Web Only , Image
Friday, May 14, 2021
Vermonters who are fully vaccinated do not need to wear masks or socially distance in many settings, Gov. Phil Scott said on Friday, rules that adhere to new federal guidance.
The governor also relaxed gathering limits and lifted all domestic travel restrictions. The switch comes more than two weeks before the anticipated date of June 1 for the changes. The moves are effective as soon as Scott signs an executive order, which he planned to do later Friday.
The announcements are significant steps toward normalcy as the proportion of adults who have received at least one vaccine dose crosses 70 percent. Nearly 52 percent have completed their vaccine regimen. Children ages 12 to 15 are also now eligible to get vaccinated.
"It's time to reward all the hard work you've done over the last 14 months," Scott said.
Tags: Vermont Department of Health , U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , masking , mask mandate , coronavirus , covid-19 , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
The majority of the board members for the Vermont Performing Arts League, a nonprofit that oversees the organization, have also resigned — as has one of their replacements.
The shakeup comes weeks after VTDigger.org revealed substantial allegations of sexual misconduct against Bergstein, who founded the performing arts league in 1978 alongside his wife and business partner, April Werner.
Tags: Vermont Performing Arts League , North End Studios , Ben Bergstein , April Werner , Web Only , Image
Friday, April 30, 2021
The complaint in U.S. District Court in Vermont alleges the longtime doughnut and bread maker violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN Act, which requires companies with more than 100 employees to provide 60-day notice to employees — as well as local and state officials — before mass layoffs.
Tags: Koffee Kup , Jeff Sands , Vermont Department of Labor , WARN Act , American Industrial Acquisition Corporation , Web Only , Image
Monday, April 26, 2021
The official tally of Green Mountain State residents was 643,077, up from 625,741 in the 2010 count, the U.S. Census Bureau reported. Vermont's growth lagged behind the 7.4 percent increase in the United States overall. The national growth, the New York Times reported, is the nation's most sluggish recorded population increase since the 1930s.
Aside from Massachusetts, which matched the national growth rate, New England states reported even smaller increases. Maine, with 2.6 percent growth, and Connecticut, with 0.9 percent, lagged behind Vermont. New Hampshire experienced 4.6 percent growth.
Gov. Phil Scott's office released a statement calling the bump a pleasant surprise, noting that 2019 estimates had suggested the state's population may have declined slightly.
"It is too early to see what might have driven that change, and we look forward to understanding why we outperformed the 2019 estimates," the governor's press secretary, Jason Maulucci, said in an emailed statement. "[B]ut one factor could be that Vermont’s leading response to the pandemic attracted people to move to our state."
Tags: U.S. Census , Vermont , population , increase , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Overall, “Montpelier was very welcoming” to the family, which had moved from Florida, Gordon said. Though she remembers only one other Black family in town, at most, "I loved growing up there."
Gordon went on to a career in education and as an advocate for equity and inclusion. On May 10, she starts a new position as the first equity director in Winooski, the most racially diverse municipality in Vermont.
Gordon’s position was created by a three-year, $300,000 working communities grant program run by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She'll oversee aspects of the grant: creating an equity commission to ensure community members are heard during decision-making processes; and strengthening partnerships between schools, businesses and community organizations.
Tags: equity and inclusion , Yasamin Gordon , Vermont , Winooski , Xusana Davis , Tyeastia Green , Web Only , Image
Friday, April 16, 2021
Vermonters ages 16 to 18 may register for vaccines on 10 a.m. Saturday, two days earlier than others in the previously designated 16 to 29 age group. Older members of the group can register beginning at 6 a.m. on Monday.
Gov. Phil Scott said the head start came out of "empathy" for high school students who have had a difficult year. He also noted that the students might otherwise have trouble scheduling timely appointments because the Pfizer vaccine is the only one of three currently approved for people ages 16 and 17.
Tags: COVID-19 vaccine , COVID-19 vaccine registration , Pfizer vaccine , high school , Gov Phil Scott , Web Only , Image
Thursday, April 15, 2021
Following federal guidance, Vermont is extending a "pause" on administering COVID-19 vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson through at least April 23.
The Vermont Department of Health announced the move Thursday. It comes after members of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel met on Wednesday and said they needed more time to review a possible link between the vaccine and an extremely rare type of blood clot.
Tags: COVID-19 vaccine , Johnson & Johnson vaccine , Vermont Department of Health , Web Only , Image