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(04/30/14 5:37pm)
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has indicated in recent interviews that he is considering a presidential bid in 2016.
“We need candidates who are prepared to represent the working families of this country, who are prepared to stand up to the big money interests, who are prepared to support an aggressive agenda to expand the middle class,” Sanders said in a recent interview with TIME. “I am prepared to be that candidate.”
Bernard “Bernie” Sanders is the current junior United States Senator from Vermont. Before serving as Senator, Sanders served in the United States House of Representatives on behalf of Vermont and also served as mayor of Burlington.
Sanders is a self-described democratic-socialist who is know for his unorthodox political views. Currently, Sanders is one of two independents in Congress, and for many years, Sanders was the only independent member of the United States Congress. Sanders is the longest-serving independent in United States Congressional history.
Even though Vermonters and other supporters of Sanders have already begun to lobby on behalf of the controversial socialist senator, Sanders has explained his presidential aspirations are still completely exploratory.
“We’re giving thought about [running],” Sanders said in a recent interview when he was asked whether or not he would be running the presidential primaries in 2016. “But we’ve got many, many months [before making a final decision].”
In the next few months, Sanders plans to continue to explore the feasibility of running for president. In the past few weeks and months, Sanders has gotten in touch with a number of prominent activists and political commentators to engage in discussions as to the viability of a potential campaign.
At the same time that Sanders is starting the campaign conversation with political commentators and theorists, he has begun to organize the groundwork for a campaign by arranging a number of speaking engagements to outline his position on the issues that he feels are important. A number of recent engagements demonstrate Sanders’ cultivation of an increasingly public personal profile.
Three weekends ago, Sanders travelled to New Hampshire — the first political primary state and a hotbed of political discourse — to discuss the dangers of the potential development of an American oligarchy.
Sanders also travelled recently to Charleston, S.C. to participate in a discussion with a group of students called “FightforCofC” who are protesting recent administrative decisions. In his talk,
Sanders emphasized the importance of grassroots organization and collaboration. Much of the content of Sanders’ recent speaking engagements has centered on his vision of a new American political revolution.
Sanders is critical of American political apathy and says that the point of a political revolution is “creating a situation where we are involving millions of people who are not now involved, and changing the nature of media so they are talking about issues that reflect the needs and pains that so many people are currently feeling.”
While many people take issue with what they perceive as Sanders’ radical socialist stance, others are vocal proponents of his ideas of social reform and expansion of the middle class.
In an article published on April 28, the Washington Post reported that Bernie Sanders generated more Facebook chatter than any other member of Congress.
The report showed that Sanders has a knack for generating political discussion. Whereas popular republican Rep. Paul Ryan has more than 10 times as many ‘likes’ on Facebook as Sanders, Sanders has more than 30 times as many people talking about him on Facebook.
Sanders’ hidden power lies in his ability to spur conversation. While he may or may not be able to garner the requisite support to be a serious late-stage contender in the 2016 election, he could have an enormous impact on the election during the primary phase.
If Sanders, an independent, chooses to run as a democrat, the implications could be enormous for a democratic party that could then fracture along ideological lines.
One of Sanders’ primary motivations for considering a 2016 bid is to challenge the views of likely democratic forerunner Senator Hillary Clinton.
“People are hurting, and it is important for leadership now to explain to them why they are hurting and how we can grow the middle class and reverse the economic decline of so manypeople,” Sanders said in a recent interview. “And I don’t think that is the politics of Senator Clinton or the democratic establishment.”
While Sanders is critical of Clinton’s views, he remains wary of the divisive impact his campaign could have on democratic voters. While Sanders knows that he could divert a number of votes from Senator Clinton if he chooses to run as a democrat, he also fears that his campaign could have the more destabilizing effect of evenly splitting the democratic party and paving the way for a “right-wing Republican” candidate to swoop in and take an unfair lead — a scenario of which Sanders would very much disprove.
Sanders’ politics are considerably less centrist than the politics of serious presidential contenders of both parties in recent elections, and a Sanders campaign would be an unusual one by the standards of recent presidential elections.
Sanders’ supportive Facebook following, however, is testament to his popularity in Vermont and elsewhere. Sanders’ mass appeal to independent voters gives him considerable leverage moving into the 2016 election cycle — and some commentators are urging people not to ignore his potential influence.
While Sanders may hold much of his political leverage in his ability to affect the outcome of the primaries, it would be imprudent to write him off as a contender in his own right.
After all, Sanders has a history of overcoming steep opposition. When Sanders first ran for state office in Vermont, he captured two percent of the total vote. In his following attempt, he only captured one percent of the vote.
Despite these early obstacles, Sanders has managed to become a highly respected senator for Vermont with a vocal following. In his most recent election, he garnered more than 71 percent of the statewide vote.
For now, Sanders will focus on the 2014 election cycle, where he hopes to assist in campaigning for a number of democratic candidates whom he supports. In the background though, Sanders has already sown the seeds of a potential 2016 bid, and it is likely that he will continue to cultivate them by means of a number of increasingly public speaking engagements in upcoming months.
(04/10/14 2:33am)
On Friday, April 4th, Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA) buses resumed their regularly scheduled routes.
This decision came after a tense, 18-day standoff between CCTA management leaders and drivers came to an end.
The CCTA board of commissioners and representatives of the bus drivers produced a three-year contract after days of deliberation. The board of commissioners then ratified the contract with a 53 – 6 vote.
The drivers, who were represented by the Teamsters Local 597 chapter, saw the contract as a great victory for working-class Vermonters and for the transportation industry in the state.
After long negotiations, the two parties agreed to fix a 2 percent raise into the salary of all CCTA drivers for each year of the three-year contract. Furthermore, the CCTA management made provisions for a number of workplace concerns that were expressed by dissatisfied drivers.
Chief among the arguments levied by the drivers were concerns about shift lengthening, overly strict rules and penalties, part-time hiring policies, undue invasions of privacy and the observance of religious holidays.
Drivers had been frustrated with working conditions for months preceding the climactic strike, and they were happy to have their conditions met by the management. They are also generally excited to return to work.
“We’re looking forward to going back to work,” said driver Rob Slingerland. “We’re looking around at our fellow drivers and understanding just how unified [we] became through this. And we fully understand we’ve got to stay unified.”
A large swath of the greater Burlington community was significantly affected by the lengthy strike. More than 10,000 regular CCTA customers had to find alternate means of transportation options for the weeks during which the strike was taking place. Among those negatively affected by the strike were students at the University of Vermont (UVM) and at Burlington public schools.
“These past few weeks have been very challenging for Vermonters who count on CCTA every day to get to appointments, to work and to school,” said Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin.
As the strike was going on, a number of community members mobilized to assist the drivers and the Teamsters group that represented them. Members of other unions, students and general local residents assisted in strike efforts by handing out leaflets and starting conversations with other community members about CCTA working conditions.
At the conclusion of the contractual negotiations, the drivers walked away with what they considered a victory for themselves and for their customers. The 63 drivers who attended the final negotiation meting expressed thanks to the many community members who demonstrated their solidarity and support during the strike.
“It’s a very good feeling to know that somebody’s got our backs when the times got tough and we ended up striking,” said Slingerland. “[The community members] were there. Now it’s time to pay that back.”
Commuters in the area are happy to have the bus schedule back on track, and many have been even happier to realize that the CCTA has offered local bus rides at no expense for the first half of this week in an effort to apologize for inconvenience caused to customers during the strike.
(04/10/14 2:30am)
Vermont’s education may be in for an historical overhaul if legislation passed in Vermont’s house of representatives last month passes at the end of this legislative cycle.
The proposed bill, H.883, would radically consolidate public education in Vermont by reducing the number of school districts in the state from 273 to 50 in the next five years.
Historically, the Vermont public education system has struggled to reconcile impulses for local governance with the financial benefits of consolidation.
In 1777, Vermont’s state constitution was the first in English-speaking North America to mandate universal public funding for education. This initial mandate led to the creation of a number of tiny, independent village elementary schools.
The importance of agriculture in the early development of Vermont’s residential landscape created a highly diffuse population across the state — and a highly diffuse network of public schools across the state to provide education to all corners of the state.
In the nineteenth century, migration to Vermont swelled due to increased prosperity and the success of Vermont’s agricultural industry.
The simultaneous increase in agricultural productivity and overall population led to an increased school-going population that remained spread out through the state due to the continued importance of the agricultural sector.
The diffuse network of tiny schools and school districts in Vermont persists in modern Vermont. The average number of students per Vermont school district is just 313 students, which is less than one tenth of the national average, according to a 2009 report.
Opinion on school board consolidation is mixed in Vermont, and each side of the argument has vocal advocates and opponents.
Proponents of school board consolidation argue that pooled financial resources will enable small schools and school districts to diversify the educational offerings available to students.
“Are you going to cut your music program or are you going to cut your art program?” asks Dan French, superintendant of the Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union. “That’s where [Vermont] is heading if we don’t do governance change.”
Proponents think that consolidation will afford students in rural districts the opportunity of sharing teachers and other educational resources that individual districts would not be able to afford them individually.
Critics of consolidation are equally vocal. Most detractors of school board consolidation cite the loss of venerated schools and of local influence on education as detrimental byproducts of consolidation.
Vermont schools may be generally small, but they are reliant on the input of local people for educational policy. Critics of consolidating policy measures argue that eliminating school districts would undermine local control by putting undue power in the hands of representatives from larger towns — at the expense of students in small towns who would have benefitted from specialized education.
“Access to decision makers and local community involvement is what makes Vermont successfully tick and our schools succeed,” said Debra Stoleroff, director of the Renaissance Program at Twinfield Union High School in Plainfield, Vt.
In addition to the argument that small schools are more attuned to the needs of students, opponents of consolidation have also voiced concerns over the lost social benefits of small-town schools. Stoleroff says that small, local schools serve an important social function by fostering higher graduation rates, discouraging risky behavior and mitigating the divisiveness of poverty.
The H.833 Bill does not mark the first time that Vermonters will consider consolidation at a large scale, however.
In 1892, Vermont’s state legislature required that Vermont schools — which all functioned as independent school boards unto themselves and thereby constituted more than 2,500 school boards across the state — to consolidate into localized school districts.
These original districts were created in accordance with historical settlement patterns in order to maintain cohesive local value systems.
In most cases, settlement patterns lined up neatly with town boundaries, and therefore the 1892 legislation had the effect of incorporating numerous schools within towns into a single school district — thereby reducing the costs of operating up to 8 school districts in a single town.
In 1896, the state passed legislation that enabled individual districts to form “supervisory unions” in which individual districts still continued to control hiring, budgetary decisions and policy decisions while jointly electing a largely nominal “superintendent” meant to liaise between school boards and federal tax purveyors.
Beyond the town-scale consolidation, however, Vermont schools have resisted any attempts to further merge administrative bodies.
Since the 1896 decision, though, the many large-scale attempts to continue the process of consolidation by merging school districts have floundered. The school district landscape has remained largely unchanged, therefore, since the 1892 consolidation.
In 2010, the state legislature passed Act 153, the Voluntary School District Merger Act, which offered town school boards a number of incentives to consolidate. An interim report published by U.V.M.’s Jeffords research center in 2013, however, confirmed what many education commentators had already realized — that the act was ineffective at encouraging consolidation.
A number of school boards have already issued formal statements in response to the passage of the H.883 bill in the house. On March 26, the Rutland Northeast and Rutland Addison supervisory unions passed resolutions formally rejecting the consolidation bill.
In a statement issued by the Rutland Northeast and Rutland Addison supervisory unions, the board stated their belief that “eliminating local school board governance is not conducive to promoting our democratic ideals and fostering social capital.”
The Vermont Superintendents Association endorses the bill, but the Vermont School Boards Association has declined to adopt a formal stance due to the diversity of opinion among members of the association.
The conversation about consolidation is far from over. Steve Dale, head of the Vermont School Boards Association, reminds his colleagues and fellow citizens that “[the consolidation conversation] requires us to strike a balance between the students and the taxpayers [and] balance that with our deep love of our very, very local democratic processes.”
The bill still has to go through the state’s Ways and Means and Appropriations committees before it undergoes final deliberation in the house — and then the state Senate must still deliberate on the bill. The huge surge in debate, however, seems to foreshadow continued consideration of educational consolidation and perhaps a dramatic shift in Vermont’s school-board landscape in the near future.
(03/19/14 4:05pm)
Alexander Twilight Hall — the austere brick building separating the town from Middlebury College — is named for Alexander Twilight, the 1823 Middlebury College graduate who is known today as the first American black college graduate.
Today, Twilight is widely touted as an example of Middlebury’s rich legacy of inclusivity and racial diversity.
But who exactly was Alexander Twilight? Was he really the first black man at Middlebury?
The answer to that question is more complicated than it might first appear.
Twilight was born in 1795 in Corinth, Vt. His father was a free mulatto named Ichabod Twilight who fought in for the Union in the American Revolution, thereby earning his freedom.
While slave plantations were unique to southern states, slavery was nonetheless widespread in New England in the 18th century.
While Vermont nominally prohibited slavery in 1777, the indenture of blacks continued for decades.
Despite early state legislation, Vermont businessmen seized on the imprecise wording of the statute — which guaranteed that no adult be indentured — to exploit young black individuals for labor. Accordingly, Alexander Twilight became an indentured servant as a young man.
Some scholars see the practice as selective slavery, whereas others view it as a system of apprenticeship meant to provide social welfare to impoverished and disenfranchised blacks.
“Children frequently were indentured to a neighbor to learn a craft or a skill,” explained Middlebury College Associate Professor of History Bill Hart.
Whether labeled “slavery” or “apprenticeship,” Alexander Twilight’s indentured farm work prevented him from going to school as a young man. However, he worked for wages on the weekends and was able to earn his freedom a year early.
At 20, Twilight enrolled in the Orange County Grammar School in Randolph, Vt., where he undertook an accelerated course of study. He spent five years there before enrolling at Middlebury as a third-year student.
When Twilight was admitted, Middlebury administrators did not know that he was black. In fact, few acquaintances of Twilight knew of his ancestry at all.
“Throughout his lifetime we can not find evidence to suggest that he identified as [black],” Hart said.
In fact, most who knew him assumed Twilight was white. Twilight’s apparent ‘whiteness,’ however, was not always readily accepted. An initial census listed his family as, “‘all other free persons except Indians not taxed by the government,’’’ Hart said. ‘”All other free people’ could mean free blacks, unaffiliated Indians, [or] mixed race people.”
In every census from 1810 onward, the Twilights are listed as white.
The reason for this switch is likely the absence of Alexander’s father Ichabod from the family picture.
Ichabod’s fate is not known for certain, but scholars believe he passed away when Alexander was a young boy. When the census examiners returned in 1810, he no longer lived with the rest of the Twilight family.
Twilight’s mother was a ‘quadroon,’ or a quarter black, so Twilight was reclassified as white. This characterization followed him for the rest of his life.
“He neither embraced nor rejected his racial identity,” Hart said.
“The fact that he was mixed-race added another obstacle,” explained Peggy Day Gibson, the director of the Old Stone House Museum — the site of a school for which Twilight was headmaster from 1829 to his death in 1857, in a 2013 statement. The obstacle was smaller, she asserted, “because he could pass for white.”
In the years after Twilight’s matriculation from the College, race became an increasingly controversial issue across New England.
In the 1820’s and the 1830’s, the Second Great Awakening precipitated the emergence of a number of social movements in New England, including abolitionism.
Early abolitionists fell into three primary categories: immediatists, who argued for the immediate abolition of slavery and incorporation of black people into the republic, gradualists, who advocated a gradual process of integration, and colonizationists, who thought that free blacks should establish new settlements in Africa.
At Middlebury, Colonization theory predominated. The American Colonization Society was formed in 1816 with the principal objective of establishing a black Republic in Liberia. Benjamin Labaree, Middlebury’s fourth president, was a vocal colonizationist who served as the President of the Vermont Auxiliary Colonization Society.
In the years after Twilight, Labaree and other Middlebury students and faculty debated the merits of colonizationism and the future role of black people in American society.
In exceptional instances, by the early 19th century elite mulattos began to infiltrate the overwhelmingly homogeneous institutions of New England.
In 1826, Edward Jones, a prominent mulatto from Charleston, S.C., and John Brown Russwurm, a Jamaican-born black man, graduated from Amherst College and Bowdoin College, respectively. A West-Indian born black man named Edward Mitchell was admitted to Dartmouth in 1824 after pressure from students, and became Dartmouth’s first black graduate in 1828.
Jones, Russwurm and Mitchell were all publicly mixed-race at their graduations, unlike Alexander Twilight.
By the 1830’s, however, abolitionists were clamoring for wider racial acceptance.
In 1845, Middlebury, Dartmouth, Williams, Amherst and the University of Vermont each received recommendations for four black prospective students from Philadelphia. They all rejected the applicants.
In justifying his assertion that, “Middlebury is not designed especially for the colored race,” Middlebury President Labaree couched his argument in geography. “Middlebury is not inclined particularly to encourage negroes from all parts of the country to resort here for education,” but, “Colored young men in Vt. and States adjacent, who would naturally fall to us, we will cheerfully receive.”
Despite Labaree’s argument for the prioritization of local students, white students came from a number of states, including Pennsylvania.
Reverend Mitchell, a colonizationist pastor in Rutland, helped Labaree respond to allegations of inconsistency by writing a letter of recommendation for nineteen-year old black Rutland resident, Martin Freeman. Seizing on the opportunity to shore up Middlebury’s reputation in the anti-slavery community, Labaree chose to accept Freeman.
Unlike Alexander Twilight’s admission, Freeman’s admission was well-publicized and controversial. Despite his self-professed unease at the all-white school, Freeman excelled at Middlebury and became class salutatorian when he graduated in 1849.
After Freeman graduated he emigrated to Liberia, joining Amherst’s Jones and Bowdoin’s Russwurm in fulfilling early colonizationists’ aspirations to send educated black Americans back to Africa.
For decades after Freeman, only a handful of black students — no more than one per year — were admitted to the College. Among those admitted was Middlebury’s first black female student, Mary Annette Anderson, who graduated in 1899. The prestigious Bronx School of Science contributed many of Middlebury’s black matriculants in the early 20th century.
In 1962, The Campus published an editorial warning the college administration that “an absence of Negroes during the current revolution in race relations would be a grave deficiency in any college.”
It was not until the galvanization of the Civil Rights movement in the late 1960’s and the pivotal assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that the number of black students at Middlebury slowly began to rise.
The Campus published an article in 1965 headlined “20 Negroes Apply for Admission to Class of ’69” that celebrated the sharp increase in black applications to Middlebury — up from a single application just three years earlier.
In 1970, Middlebury created a “Dean of Diversity” position, and fifteen years later created a diversity panel called “The Twilight Committee.”
Concomitant with increases in the admission of blacks at Middlebury in the 1960’s and 1970’s came increased scrutiny of Middlebury’s past racial history.
Alexander Twilight’s story was virtually unknown until 1971, when an edition of the Middlebury College newsletter featured an article about “the first black American college graduate — Alexander Lucius Twilight class of 1823.”
The timing rediscovery of Alexander Twilight’s blackness was no accident.
Following the Civil Rights movement, Amherst College asserted that Edward Jones, Amherst class of 1826, had been the first black college graduate in America. Not to be outdone, Middlebury College historians dredged up old census data to indicate that Alexander Twilight had been the nation’s first college graduate — despite his ambiguous racial identity whilst a student at Middlebury.
Owing to Twilight’s undisclosed racial identity as a student, his admission graduation was not monumental during his lifetime as it is now — for all intents and purposes, he was just another free ‘white’ man graduating from a small liberal arts school.
Middlebury is not alone among academic institutions in its revisionist evaluation of racial history. An article published in the New York Times last Sunday headlined “New Contenders Emerge in Quest to Identify Yale’s First African-American Graduate” describes the messy and imprecise process of identifying early college graduates on the basis of tenuous racial associations.
Admissions policies at Middlebury and other institutions shifted widely due to changing leadership and shifting perspectives on race in America.
The legacy of Twilight and other early black college graduates remains relevant today, as Middlebury continues to attempt to create a racially diverse student body.
In 2005, a Middlebury College Task Force on the Composition of the Student Body outlined a goal of “increase[ing] the number of U.S. students of color who graduate to 15 percent within six years.”
In 2012, only 5.4 percent of the members of Middlebury’s freshman class were black. In 2012, the percentages of black students in freshman the classes at both Williams College and Wesleyan University were more than double Middlebury’s percentage.
Middlebury’s racial landscape is still shifting. As the College continues to strive for a diverse student body in the future, a nuanced and critical reflection on both the shortcomings and the successes of Middlebury’s racial history is necessary to form an appropriate plan for Middlebury’s future.
(03/05/14 4:37pm)
A hotly debated proposal to relocate the Middlebury Town Hall passed in a vote taken this Tuesday, March 4th.
The decision comes after weeks of debate in the Middlebury community as to the relative merits and drawbacks of the proposal. Proposal 6, the controversial plan, represents an endeavor to move the Middlebury Town Hall and the town’s recreation facilities from their current location in between College and Main Street.
The plan calls for a relocation of the Town Offices to a new location a few hundred feet across the road from the current Town Hall Office to the Osborne House site at 77 Main Street, and a relocation of the current recreational facilities to a new location proximate to the Middlebury Union Middle and High schools on Creek Road.
As outlined in the plan, the current Town Office and Recreational Facility will be demolished and the parcel of land upon which it was built will become the property of the College.
In order to finance the project, the Town of Middlebury will take out a bond in the amount of $6.5 million. Of that $6.5 million, the College has pledged to pay $4.5 million of the up front costs and contribute a further million dollars for relocation and demolition costs of the current facilities.
Currently, the College plans to create a park in the space, but plans are preliminary and planning officials at the meeting told the audience that the community would remain involved as designs for the space are drawn up.
In the weeks prior to Monday’s Town Hall meeting, debate approached a fever pitch.
Due to the incredible volume of letters received by Middlebury’s newspaper, the Addison County Independent, editor and publisher Angelo Lynn had to issue a statement limiting readers to the submission of a single letter each in the time leading up to the Town Meeting.
Similarly, numerous residents have produced lawn signs, bumper stickers, and pins emblazoned with slogans like “Save the Gym!” and “Don’t Sell the Heart of Middlebury.”
At Monday’s meeting, the 280 voting Middlebury residents who checked into the meeting arrived at the discussion — which took place in the decaying Town Hall building itself — to discover an unusually politicized atmosphere.
At the door, an organization of opponents of the proposal called “Middlebury Residents for Preserving our Municipal Site” distributed flyers outlining “a dozen one-sentence reasons to vote NO on article 6.”
Jim Douglas, former Vt. governor and Executive in Residence at the College, moderated the event, which alternated between tones of rancor and conciliation throughout the night.
In the interest of broadening the discussion and hearing as many voices as possible, Douglas proposed a cap of two minutes for personal comments, a measure to which the townspeople agreed heartily.
What proceeded were a number of introductions to and expositions on the proposal. These presentations represented the sixth public informational session about the proposal, and supplemented the numerous tours of the aging facility that had been offered to Middlebury residents in recent weeks.
Opponents of the proposal objected to the length of the presentations, claiming that the presenters had exceeded their two-minute time limit.
One objector “request[ed] that the moderator be removed for not following his own rules.”
Douglas contravened by indicating that the two-minute time limit had been instituted for the comments portion of the proceedings and not for the presenters, a distinction affirmed by the townspeople.
Arguments against the proposal focused on the rushed time-frame, the myopic nature of the real-estate sale, and the exclusion of local citizens in the planning process.
“The proposal favors expediency over quality,” argued Middlebury resident Adam Franco at the Town Meeting.
Another Middlebury resident likened the rift between townspeople to “an infected wound,” and described proposal six as a short-term “band-aid” when the community really needed an “antiseptic” to solve the problem in the long term.
In the first half of the proceedings, all of the commentary was offered by Middlebury townspeople opposed the proposal. Addison County Independent editor and publisher, Angelo Lynn, described this vociferous group a few weeks ago as a “very vocal minority,” implying his opinion that a silent majority of Middlebury townspeople supported the proposal from the beginning.
At the end of the meeting, however, a number of citizens took the microphone to express their support for the proposal.
Arguments in favor of the proposal stressed that it represented a “pragmatic” approach rather than an “idealistic” approach. Middlebury residents questioned the integrity of the decaying Town Hall structure and stressed that changes must be made to the building before someone gets hurt.
Monday’s debate represented the most recent public-forum debate over the proposal to relocate the Town Hall structure, but by no means the only public discussion.
On Feb. 25, more than 400 citizens and stake-holders packed the auditorium of the Middlebury Union High School for an acrimonious debate at the School Board’s Annual Meeting and Budget Hearing.
At this budget hearing, the voters chose to authorize the lease of the land on Creek Road to the Town of Middlebury by a margin of 306-118. This action set the stage for Proposal 6 at the Middlebury Town Meeting by imbuing the town with the authority to use the land on Creek Road for the new proposed recreational facilities.
Now that the vote is complete, the town estimates that the construction will begin in Sept. 2014, with an expected date of completion to be set for Aug. 2015.
(02/27/14 1:14am)
A large fire destroyed the Mountainside condominium complex near Sugarbush Resort in Warren, Vt. on Feb. 17.
The origin of the fire is still under investigation by local authorities, but reports indicate that the fire started just after one thirty in the morning.
According to the Vermont State Police, the Warren Fire Department arrived on the scene at 1:55 a.m. after receiving a phone call describing the growing blaze. Barking dogs sounded the initial alarm, waking their owners and alerting them to the blazing fire outside.
Working in tandem, responders and residents were able to successfully evacuate all of the buildings’ inhabitants.
The blaze was already too large to contain without assistance when the Warren Fire Department arrived. Warren Fire Chief Peter DeFreest described the blaze as the largest he had ever seen.
Auxiliary crews from the fire departments of Waitsfield, Berlin, Moretown, Stowe, and Waterbury arrived to assist their Warren colleagues battle the flames.
Firefighters had particular difficulty responding to the fire for a number of reasons.
Early efforts to contain the flames were ineffective due to a lack of water, according to Chief DeFreest.
Residents of the condominiums report that the fire alarms in the complex did not immediately go off. It is unclear whether the fire alarms were defective, improperly maintained, or otherwise compromised.
Regardless of the source of the alarms’ disfunctionality, their failure to promptly sound delayed the arrival of firefighters. This delay allowed for the fire to spread quickly through the large complex, compounding the difficulties already faced by the firefighters rushing to the scene.
Furthermore, the building did not have an internal sprinkler system in place, making the fire considerably more difficult to respond to for responders. The layout of the building impeded access to the backside of the building, limiting firefighters to a single avenue of engagement with the flames. Difficult weather conditions also made the firefight difficult.
The coalition of firefighters persisted in fighting the fire throughout much of the morning, The last of the building’s occupants were evacuated just after 3 a.m., and firefighters continue to battle the smoke and flames for hours afterwards.
The fire is the largest Warren has seen in many years. In total, 36 condominiums were destroyed before the firefighters were able to fully extinguish the inferno.
Initial damage figures also indicate that it was one of the most costly fires to hit the region. Preliminary estimates place the infrastructural toll at more than $2 million.
Sugarbush does not exclusively own or manage the Mountainside condominium complex, even though it is situated in what the resort calls ‘Sugarbush village.’ Sugarbush Resort rents out six or seven of the units in the complex, and the rest of them are privately owned.
Sugarbush hosted all of the evacuees of the Mountainside condominium complex, including their heroic canines, in the Timber restaurant located at the base of the Sugarbush ski area. Sugarbush owner Win Smith personally arrived at the Timber restaurant at 4:30 a.m. to assist in relief efforts.
Sugarbush Resort is assisting all of the residents of the condos find somewhere else to stay, according to Sugarbush’s vice president of marketing and communications Candice White. In addition to housing Sugarbush guests and season pass holders, the Mountainside condominiums also housed a number of Sugarbush employees, further complicating the situation for Sugarbush.
Local authorities continue to investigate the cause of the fire. In the meantime, Sugarbush Resort and Waitsfield Telecom and Green Mountain Access have jointly established a website, available at www.mountainsidefire.org, that is collecting donations to assist people affected by the fire.
(02/19/14 6:38pm)
John Quelch, an ardent ice fisherman, invited me to join him on the pond last weekend after I called him to ask some questions about ice fishing. Expecting only to meet John for a conversation, I was excited to get the chance to join him out on the ice.
Before I met John in person, he made me promise not to print the name of his beloved fishing pond.
“Just to be clear up front,” he told me when I first spoke with him on the phone, “you can’t print the name of the pond.”
So, if you are reading this article in the hopes that you might pick up a few new ice-fishing hotspots, I will let you know up front that you are out of luck.
When I arrived at John’s pond, I parked the car and tromped out a hundred yards through thick snow to a bright green structure sitting like a jewel in the middle of the expanse of snow-covered ice.
While John has set up his holes within walking distance of the banks of his pond, many other ice fishermen choose to set up shop further afield — many use snowmobiles, ATVs or even trucks to haul all of their gear out on to the lake.
With difficulty, I followed the sled tracks to the middle of the lake and greeted the camouflage-covered man sitting resolutely in the folding chair outside of the wooden structure and sipping a Bud Light.
“Is John Quelch around?” I asked the man.
“Sure is,” the man replied. “This is his, after all,” he said, gesturing vaguely to the wooden structure and all of the equipment behind his chair. I had no idea what, exactly, was John’s, but it seemed to me that it was something significant.
John, who stood in the middle of the lake holding a green contraption attached to a fishing reel, waved me over to him from a distance. Dressed for the weather in a sturdy, hooded canvas jacket and a pair of sunglasses to offset the blinding white sunlight, John took me through the step-by-step process of ice fishing.
John began the tour with the green structure in the middle of the lake that served as his de facto headquarters.
“So do most ice fisherman use warming huts like this one?” I asked him.
“I guess you can call it whatever you want,” John told me affably, “but it’s called a shanty. Not everyone uses a shanty, but most guys do.”
The shanty itself consisted of four plywood walls and a tin roof built on top of a pair of skis. The interior boasted two small benches that could accommodate four non-claustrophobic individuals, a few small shelves, a central table and small plexiglass windows that enable John to keep an eye on his rigs even when he is warming up in the shanty.
Armed with a plastic fork, I speared a chunk of sizzling venison from the tiny stove that sat atop the lone table in the little wooden structure at John’s insistence.
He built this particular shanty with his father years ago, and he drags it out every year alongside a sled full of his gear as soon as the ice becomes solid enough to support the weight. The shanty is the ember of warmth that maintains John’s body heat through the frigid Vermont winter mornings.
The outside of the shanty was painted in a rich emerald green. Beside the door is a placard that provided John’s name and hometown.
John’s shanty is the only one on his pond, and thanks to a tight-lipped group of friends, his exclusive access to the waters underneath the ice is not often challenged. On the day that I went out to visit John, however, there was another group of two people on the northeast corner of the pond, a mere 30 feet from the outer perimeter of John’s equipment.
“I know I got a bit too close to them,” John told me, arching his head in the direction of the other anglers, “but I always fish here.”
John explained to me that proper ice-fishing etiquette typically requires that all parties on a particular lake maintain a respectful distance from one another. This serves the dual purpose of maintaining the psychically important territory and preventing obnoxious fishing line entanglements that sometimes occur when fish yank a length of line through a neighbor’s gear.
More often than not, John is alone on his lake for the entire day. He prefers his smaller, quieter lake to some of the larger, more heavily fished lakes. Despite his preference for fishing alone or with a small group of friends, however, John is still an active participant in state derbies, which are fishing contests that are often sponsored across the state of Vermont. In the past, John has won the bronze and silver awards, but he has yet to capture the largest fish in the competition and claim the gold.
On the same morning that I fished with John, more than 380 people were out on Lake Bomoseen, which hosted a derby over the course of the weekend. These hundreds of participants set up shanties all across the lake in the hopes that they would win a portion of the cash prize awarded for capturing the largest fish.
John was out on the lake with a bunch of his friends on this particular morning because the weather was so friendly. On many mornings, it is dangerous to stand outside on the lake for more than a few minutes, John explained to me, so shanties are important for serious fishermen. John, who did not strike me as much of a complainer, left what exactly he meant by dangerous to the imagination.
On this particular morning, however, I got lucky. The sky was ablaze with sunshine, and the biting cold had receded to afford us a balmy morning in the mid 30’s.
John had arrived at his pond at around six in the morning to begin drilling his holes for the day. Eager to make the most of his outings — this was the eighth of his winter season this year — John is diligent about arriving early to make the most of his time on the water. In John’s book, a successful day of fishing goes “from dark til dark.”
John bores into the ice with a gasoline-powered auger, a massive handheld corkscrew that drills holes with an eight-inch diameter down through the ice. When he arrives in the morning, John drills eight holes into the ice, clearing the area around the holes of snow so as to allow unrestricted access to the depths below later on in the day. Vermont law allows each fisherman to operate eight holes at a time. The only exception to the eight-hole cap is Lake Champlain, Vermont’s largest body of water, which allows each fisherman to oversee 15 holes.
John arranges the holes in a circle beginning and ending with his shanty. From a bird’s eye of view, the configuration resembles an oval-shaped necklace with a giant emerald at the end. Into each hole, John places a fishing rig.
The rigs are wooden cross-posts that sit in the holes. The undersides of the crosses contain reels of 150-foot long, reinforced double-woven green filament. John first measures the depth of the bottom of the pond at each site and then affixes a small leader to each line to ensure that the bait — a bunch of shiners flitting around in a plexiglass bucket — its roughly one foot on top of the pond’s floor, where most of the fish are thought to live.
John’s apparatus features an underwater jock, which would remain functional and continue to let out line even if the top of the hole were to freeze.
On the top of the rig mechanism sits a small orange flag that flips up into the sky to indicate that a fish has taken the bait. Once the rigs have all been set up, John and any of his friends can simply sit in the chairs by the shelter and relax.
Although John must periodically walk around the perimeter of his rigs and poke the tops of the holes with an ice skimmer to keep them from freezing, much of the day is spent relaxing on the lake.
In addition to the venison that John had cooked on the stovetop in the shanty, John and his friends were well stocked with bratwursts and beer to keep them going through the long day of fishing.
While I only arrived at the pond at nine, John and his friends had been on the pond since the early morning, and they had already caught a few small perch. After all of the venison disappeared, one of John’s friends grabbed a filleting knife and began dismembering the squirming fish with a few deft strokes of the knife. Having quickly separated the fish into piles of scales, bones and meat lying on the snow, he took the fish fillets and put them on the skillet in the shanty.
As I stared into John’s bucket of shiners and listened to the perch begin to sizzle and pop as it cooked on the tiny gas stove, John snapped me out of my distraction by yelling “Tips up!” in chorus with all of his buddies.
An expression describing the movement of the small orange flags mounted atop the rigs, the rallying cry “tips up” is the expression on the tip of every expectant fisherman’s tongue. At long last, John’s diligence was validated.
I walked quickly through the snow to watch John haul up a pike from the thin hole. The pike was beautifully striped, with gorgeous scarlet markings. Pike, which aren’t eating fish, are some of the most common hauls in ice fishing.
John laid the fish on the ground outside of the hole and expertly removed the hook from its mouth with an implement that resembled a pair of pliers.
The pike more than made up for its lack of appeal to the stomach with a brilliant appeal to the eyes. Swathes of red, blue and yellow swirled into one another along the fish’s tail, and the pike’s powerful lower jawbone jutted out aristocratically.
“That’s a beautiful fish,” I told him.
He smiled, and the creases around his eyes expanded behind his sunglasses.
“It sure is,” he said. Without another word, he tossed the pike through the small hole and back down into the cold water below. Afterwards, he walked back to his shanty with a grin hewn into his coarse beard, already looking forward to the next tip up.
(02/13/14 3:59am)
Two weekends ago, twin fatalities rocked the Vermont ski community. The two deaths are the latest in a tragic series of winter sports-related fatalities that have occurred across Vermont this winter season, reminding winter sport enthusiasts across the state and the country of the inherent risk of snow sports.
Kendra Bowers, a sophomore at the University of Vermont (UVM), died in a ski accident in Warren, Vt. on Saturday, Feb. 1st and Torin Tucker, a junior on the Dartmouth College ski team, passed away that same day during a race in Craftsbury, Vt.
According to authorities, Bowers was skiing with friends and family on Saturday morning at Sugarbush ski resort when she lost control at an intersection of two merging trails and struck a trail sign.
Bowers was transported to the bottom of the mountain by ski patrollers and the rushed to the Central Vermont Hospital, where she died roughly an hour after she sustained the injury. According to the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, Bowers suffered a broken neck. The state medical examiner’s office reported that Bowers was wearing a helmet when she sustained the injury.
Bowers, a nineteen-year-old Newport, R.I. native, was a student of environmental studies at UVM, an a cappella singer, and a prominent student who was admired by her peers at UVM and beyond.
Tucker, a 20 year-old ski racer from Sun Valley, I.D., was competing in a cross-country ski-racing event called the Craftsbury Marathon in Craftsbury, Vt. when he collapsed in the middle of the race. Despite immediate resuscitation attempts, Tucker passed away just minutes after he hit the snow.
Later medical reports revealed that Tucker had an undiagnosed heart condition affecting his left coronary artery that induced cardiac arrest during the strenuous 50 kilometer race.
The respective schools of the two skiers have both held memorial services to commemorate the passing of these two accomplished students.
Unfortunately, Bowers and Tucker are not the only ski fatalities this winter in Vermont.
Skylar Ormond, a 23 year-old native of Canandaigua, N.Y., died roughly two weeks before Bower and Tucker on Jan. 17 in a snowboarding accident at Killington Resort in Killington, Vt.
Ormond, who was snowboarding with two friends when the accident occurred, turned sharply to avoid a collision with one of his friends, and careened into the woods, where suffered a significant impact with a tree.
Ormond was transported to the Rutland Regional Medical Center, where he died of internal injuries shortly after his arrival at the hospital.
Regrettably, Ormond was actually the second person involved in a fatal crash at Killington this season. Jennifer Strohl, a 21 year-old from Jim Thorpe, P.A., went missing at the resort on Thursday, December 12th. Her body was found a few feet off of a Killington trail approximately six hours after she was reported missing. Reports indicate that she sustained substantial head trauma and that she was not wearing a helmet.
A 45 year-old New Jersey man named Lawrence Walck also died on Saturday, Jan. 11 at Stratton ski resort after a fatal sledding crash.
This tragic winter season in Vermont is understandably upsetting to skiers and riders across the country. The incidence of winter sport-related fatalities is nothing new in Vermont, however. Skiing, snowboarding and other winter sports like sledding and skating typically involve high speeds and are inherently dangerous.
At mountain resorts that offer winter sporting activities such as skiing and riding, staff members take great care to ensure the safety all visitors. All major ski resorts in Vermont operate ski patrols units that are trained to respond to injuries, crashes and any other crisis situations that may arise on the mountain.
The Middlebury College Snow Bowl operates its own ski patrol unit. Founded in 1946, the Middlebury College ski patrol is headed by director Steve Paquette and assistant director Sean Grzyb and is comprised of highly-trained Middlebury students who have received National Ski Patrol Certification.
At the end of the day, however, there are some situations that cannot be ameliorated by even the most diligent ski patrollers and the most comprehensive safety mechanisms.
A number of factors, including the conditions of the snow, visability, temperature and human eroror contribute to the thousands of ski accidents that occur in Vermont every year.
Despite the improvement of safety technology, the number of winter sport-related fatalities has increased steadily in recent years. A report published by the University of Washington in the spring of 2013 reported that the number of head injuries in young people caused by snow sports increased 250 percent from 1996 to 2010.
A recent article published in The New York Times asserted that an increased use of ski helmets has not curtailed the incidence of brain injuries and death. According to the National Ski Areas Association in a recent report, 70 percent of skiers and riders currently wear helmets — this represents a nearly threefold increase from 2003 — but fatalities caused by snow sports have not decreased.
While some people believe that the failure of increased helmet coverage to curb brain injuries and death on the slopes is attributable to the limitations of even the most advanced helmets to mitigate massive head trauma, others believe that helmets give skiers and riders an artificially inflated perception of their safety, encouraging them to engage in risky behaviors.
Whatever the underlying reason for the continued prevalence of brain injuries and deaths on the slopes, recent events in Vermont provide a harrowing reminder of the importance of safety when participating in snow sports.
The National Ski Areas Association recommends that all skiers and riders adhere to the principles enumerated in a campaign called “Heads Up” that began in the winter of 1999-2000 as an effort to reduce accident frequency by means of education. Their guidelines, applicable to all snow sports activities, are listed in the table above.
According to Steve Paquette, the director of the ski patrol at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, the single most important step that skiers and snowboarders can take to ensure the safety of themselves and others is to take the time to “know the mountain” and to “find trails that accommodate their abilities.”
As Middlebury students and other snow sport enthusiasts head to the slopes for the remainder of this winter season, please make sure to follow the safety outlines posted, be aware of all conditions that may affect performance and control and take a moment to grab a trail map and review the layout of the mountain.
(05/08/13 9:28pm)
The United States Air Force recently announced a postponement of plans to create a base for a number of F-35 fighter jets in Vermont. This announcement comes after months of debate about the suitability of Vermont as a home base for these planes.
Some Vermonters consider the selection of their state as the future home of these planes to be a tremendous honor, while others are worried that the planes will have a damaging impact on local communities.
The Air Force’s decision to postpone the opening of their base at the Burlington International Airport was undertaken partially to enable the organization of an additional public written comment period over the course of this upcoming summer to enable the public to voice their opinions on the issue.
“The process continues to be transparent, deliberate and repeatable,” said Major General Steven Cray, the adjutant general of the Vermont National Guard. “Which is the best way to give decision makers all of the relevant and appropriate information.”
While the Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Norway and Denmark have contributed a collective equivalent of $4.375 billion toward the project, the United States is the primary financial backer of the roughly $40 billion project.
Due to the financial and military importance of the fleet of F-35’s to the United States military, discussion of an ultimate base for the aircraft began at an early stage.
Utah, Idaho, Florida, and South Carolina were also considered as potential host states for the base of the new squadron of F-35s.
In deciding between these five states, Air Force officials had to weigh airport capacity, cost and other environmental factors. In order to minimize costs, they tapped into pre-existing Air National Guard units. This requirement further narrowed the field of potential base locations to Jacksonville, Fla., Columbia, S.C. and Burlington, which houses the Burlington Air Guard Station.
The military chose to proceed with preliminary plans to situate the F-35 base in Vermont despite a significant local opposition to the project for a number of reasons.
The military cites the existence of an F-16 program at Burlington International Airport and the ability to coordinate and train with Canadian F-18s as some of the benefits to creating a F-35 base in Vermont. Vermont’s Green Mountain Boys — an accomplished state air militia dating back to 1946 — are an established air militia that will facilitate the establishment of an efficient and effective program. The pre-existing infrastructure and the access to training and support networks would make the project particularly cost-effective in Vermont.
F-35 advocates point to a number of other economic benefits to the program as justification for the jets in spite of their noise. Projections indicate that the F-35 program will create 266 new military jobs that will generate $3.4 million in salaries.
Many of the proponents of the proposed F-35 program argue that the influx of the new planes will be an important way to ensure the continued vitality of Vermont’s military in spite of budget cuts. A tentative Air Force budget for next year indicates a 5 percent cut in funding — which is a cause of concern for states like Vermont that have smaller military branches.
Attracting the F-35 program is significant not only because it brings a number of short-term economic benefits to the state, but also because it ensures the long-term presence of a robust military operation in Vermont.
“It’s not just another year to year decision on where to put planes,” said David Carle, a spokesman for Senator Patrick Leahy (D). “The F-35 changeover has been in the works for many years, and is changing the Air Force in many ways throughout the entire system.”
Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy (D) saw the potential for an increased military presence in the state as a valuable opportunity for the state to remain involved in national military affairs.
“The F-35 is the Air Force’s future,” said Leahy. “And the Vermont Air Guard should be a vital part of the Air Force’s future.”
Not all people, however, are excited to see these changes — particularly over the skies of the Green Mountain State.
Critics of the F-35 project also believe that the military relied on flawed data, incorrect projections and political alliances to justify their decision. Opponents of the project claim that the placement of the coveted F-35 program in Vermont instead of a number of other suitable rural locations came about as a way to reward Vermont’s Senator Leahy for his vocal support of the F-35 program in the Senate.
Allegations that the military relied on falsified data are secondary to what most Vermonters consider to be the primary complaint made by Vermonters that the noise generated by the jets will disrupt life on the ground in the three towns most affected directly by the noise — Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski.
Unlike other proposed sites for the base where civilians don’t live in the area surrounding the airfield, the area around the Burlington International Airport is densely populated — so densely populated, in fact, that an estimated 7,000 Vermonters will live within an area deemed by a commission of officials from the Pentagon and other agencies to be “incompatible for residential use.”
People living under the direct space of these planes will likely experience a roar in excess of 65 decibels — which equates to the noise generated by freeway traffic, according to the Temple University Department of Civil/Environmental Engineering.
Residents of the high volume zones have also complained that the Air Force purposefully used outdated 2008 statistics rather than more recent 2011 statistics to downplay the size of the geographic area affected by the clamor of the jets.
Revised estimates of the environmental impact of the planes also predict that the planes will have a more damaging impact on air quality than was initially forecast, which has caused a wave of renewed protest within the state.
“Burlington was not the highest-rated base operationally or environmentally for the F-35,” pointed out Rosanne Greco, a retired Air Force colonel and member of the South Burlington City Council.
Attitudes about the noise levels vary between the numerous cities considered for the base — and within those communities themselves. Although many residents in the high volume zones that will be affected by increased noise have argued that the din will disrupt their lives, others have indicated that they would be happy to put up with the extra noise to support the military.
Mitch Shaw, a journalist for the Utah Standard-Examiner, indicated that he and many of his Ogden, Utah neighbors would be happy to put up with the increased noise.
“It may be noisier than what we have now,” said Shaw. “But it’s the sound of freedom.”
Despite continued protest from Vermonters living under the proposed flight path of the planes and the continued willingness of other communities to host the F-35s, the Air Force is projected to finalize its decision to establish the F-35 base in Burlington later this year.
In the event that Vermont is ultimately chosen as the home of the new F-35s, the squadron could take to the skies as early as 2015.
(05/02/13 12:59am)
This summer, Vermont’s 720 licensed medical marijuana users will be able to purchase their medical marijuana in state for the first time.
Three dispensaries will open in the state over the course of the summer. Champlain Valley Dispensary in Burlington and Vermont Patients’ Alliance in Montpelier will both open on undisclosed dates this coming June. Rutland County Organics, a third dispensary based in Brandon, is also expected to open by July 4.
Lindsey Wells, a representative of Vermont’s Medical Marijuana Program that operates as part of the Department of Public Safety, recently began disbursing details about the dispensaries to in-state medical marijuana patients. Wells’ letter outlined semantic details such as hours of operation, prices and contact information in anticipation of the opening of these dispensaries.
Medical marijuana was legalized in Vermont nine years ago when the state legislature passed Senate Bill 76, which delineated the conditions for medical marijuana use.
The bill, formally titled “An Act Relating to Marijuana Use by Persons with Severe Illness,” was created to provide pain relief to patients suffering from multiple sclerosis, cancer, HIV/AIDS, cachexia and other chronic diseases.
Vermonters who are licensed to purchase medical marijuana must all have a patient identification card. In order to obtain such an identification card, patients must first receive a medical recommendation for marijuana from a medical practitioner in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York or Massachusetts.
Once in possession of an official patient identification card, Vermont patients for whom medical marijuana has been prescribed are allowed to possess a maximum of two ounces of marijuana, and are also allowed to possess smoking devices such as pipes and vaporizers. They are also legally allowed to possess two mature marijuana plants or seven immature marijuana plants.
Since the legalization of medical marijuana in 2004, patients to whom the drug — or their doctors — has been prescribed have been expected to grow their own marijuana in secure indoor facilities. Now that a number of dispensaries will exist in the state, Vermonters with patient identification cards will no longer be required to grow their own crops of marijuana.
As reported in the April 10 issue of the Campus, the Vermont legislature is currently deliberating on decriminalizing the possession of marijuana for all citizens.
However, despite efforts to decriminalize the drug, marijuana possession does remain illegal in the state for people without a card, and some critics are worried that dispensaries will increase the illegal possession of marijuana.
Owners and operators of the dispensaries, however, argue that security will be strictly enforced.
“There will be 24-hour surveillance,” said Shayne Lynn, a representative of the Champlain Valley Dispensary. “There will be two people at the store at all times and [they] will take all the necessary precautions.”
Vermont was the first state to place its medical marijuana registry and its dispensaries under the complete jurisdiction of law enforcement agencies, and the process by which marijuana is purchased from dispensaries will remain highly regulated. The dispensaries will operate under a strict set of guidelines that are enforced by the Department of Public Safety.
Patients who wish to purchase marijuana from one of the dispensaries must choose which dispensary they wish to use. Once they have done so, they will be issued a new identification card that will enable them to legally make purchases from the store.
Once a patient has been issued an identification card linked to a particular dispensary, they will no longer be able to grow their own marijuana.
Furthermore, in an attempt to make medical marijuana affordable for low-income patients, all three dispensaries will offer percentage discounts based on income.
The three dispensaries will be offering multiple varieties of marijuana, many of which are designed to relieve particular medical ailments. Furthermore, all three of the dispensaries will offer smoke-free options to marijuana consumption such as tinctures, edibles, oils, salves and sub-lingual sprays.
Vermont law allows for a maximum of four dispensaries in the state. Applications to become the state’s fourth and final dispensary will open within the next two months.
(04/24/13 1:14am)
MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury resident Bernard Kimball, 65, was shot outside of his Jackson Lane apartment last Saturday. Police report that the incident occurred at 1:12 a.m. on Saturday morning.
The Middlebury Police Department and other local authorities are still looking for the suspect in the shooting, described as a young male roughly 17 to 19 years of age.
The police report that the young man was roughly six feet tall, with a thin to average build and a goatee. At the time of the shooting, the suspect was wearing blue jeans and a dark-colored vest.
The gunman was also reported to have been accompanied by two unidentified accomplices at the time that the shots were fired. All three of the unidentified criminals fled the scene before the Middlebury Police Department arrived, and they were last scene running south on Jackson Lane early Saturday morning following the shooting.
There is no known motive for the shooting, and the suspect and his two accomplices are still at large.
After the shooting, Kimball was taken to Fletcher Allen Healthcare, where he was treated for his gunshot wound. Kimball is in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery.
Interestingly, the shooting occurred just one day after Addison County State’s Attorney David Fenster and Vermont State Attorney General William Sorrell each released separate reports on the shooting that occurred in Middlebury in October.
The incident under review occurred on Oct. 4, 2012 when 57-year-old Middlebury resident Demarais engaged members of the Middlebury Police Department in a gunfight for nearly 45 minutes.
Unlike the recent incident with Kimball, the George Demarais gunfight resulted in the Middlebury resident’s death. The two reports released on April 19 indemnified Middlebury Police Department Sgt. Jason Covey and Patrolman Kevin Emilio for exerting deadly force against Demarais, who had a history of depression and psychological instability. The report found that the police officers present at the gunfight were in imminent danger of death and that the use of deadly force was therefore justified.
Both the recent Kimball shooting and the release of the two reports on the Demarais shooting come at a time when the issue of gun safety is a hot topic in the United States and Vermont.
Two days before the Kimball shooting on April 18, Senator Patrick Leahy (D) released a news release on the national gun debate in response to a highly contentious senate decision that killed a background-check bill.
As reported in the Campus in February, the national debate on gun safety that followed the Newtown massacre caused a group of more than 300 protestors to convene outside of the statehouse in Montpelier to protest proposed limitations on gun ownership in the state.
Despite numerous attempts to pass gun control measures, the decision of lawmakers in Vermont foreshadowed the impending national decision and failed to pass any gun control legislation. As a result, the issue of gun control remains polarizing at both state and national levels.
As the national gun control debate develops, the Middlebury Police Department will continue the search for Kimball’s shooter and his two accomplices. The police are following unspecified leads.
Anyone with any information about the shooting is strongly encouraged to report it to the Middlebury Police Department at 802-388-3191 as soon as possible.
(04/10/13 1:47pm)
On March 22, a number of Middlebury residents attended a public service board meeting to debate the construction of a proposed natural gas pipeline that will run underneath Addison County.
This plan — which involves the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Chittenden County down through Addison County to Ticonderoga, N.Y. — is part of a two-part project undertaken by an energy company based in northern Vermont called Vermont Gas.
Despite the endorsement of the project by a number of large institutions in the Addison County area, town residents are worried about the disruptive impact of the pipeline in their towns and on their farms and the environmental impact of the gas, much of which is derived from the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Residents have launched an opposition campaign to prevent the approval of the project by the public service board
Vermont Gas Systems, operating in Chittenden and Franklin Counties, is spearheading the effort to install natural gas pipelines in order to expand natural gas infrastructure to the middle and southern counties of Vermont. Vermont Gas currently provides energy to roughly 40,000 Vermonters by means of a network of more than 650 miles of subterranean pipelines and, as the Campus reported in January, the company recently built a natural gas pipeline from Canada to Chittenden County.
The expansion and diversification of Vermont’s energy array is an ongoing project that has been undertaken by Vermont Gas’s parent corporation, Northern New England Energy Corporation (NNEEC). NNEEC is the parent company of Vermont Gas, Green Mountain Power and Portland Natural Gas Transmission System.
A larger Quebec energy conglomerate called Gaz Metro administers the NNEEC. Gaz Metro is affiliated with multinational Canadian-based energy corporations Enbridge and Trencap. This broad network of stakeholders complicates decisions made by Vermont Gas on the ground. Anna Shireman-Grabowski ’14.5, an opponent of the proposed pipeline, explains how the complexity of the politics within the natural community can be problematic for local Vermont populations.
“You’re dealing with Gaz Metro, [which is] a Canadian company with an interest in Canadian fracking development,” said Shireman-Grabowski. “Then you’re dealing with Enbridge, who has expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure and general interests in mind.”
Vermont Gas and associates began planning for the pipeline more than two years ago. In the early stages of discussion, Vermont Gas relied largely upon the support of several large institutions to legitimate its claims.
International Paper, a mill in Ticonderoga, N.Y., has been a proponent of the pipeline since the embryonic stages of the project’s proposal. The second segment of the pipeline would terminate in Ticonderoga and provide the mill with an inexpensive source of fuel.
“They’re trying to extend it through Addison County and part of Rutland County and under Lake Champlain to supply International Paper Company through a private contract,” said Shireman-Grabowski.
The agreement to which Shireman-Grabowski is referring is a contract signed by the International Paper company last October to contribute $70 million to the project, which will involve the installment of a pipeline 30 feet under Lake Champlain to deliver natural gas to the mill.
Cabot, another large industrial player in Middlebury who could benefit from the theoretically inexpensive and stable energy provided by a direct natural gas pipeline, also wrote a letter in support of the pipeline.
The third significant institutional endorsement of the pipeline was Middlebury College, which became interested in Vermont Gas while investigating the feasibility of establishing a biomethane transportation network. The College was interested in biomethane, a renewable fuel source that is derived from farm waste and cow manure, and it turned to Vermont Gas as a potential partner.
“Originally, the idea was that the College would invest in alternative infrastructure for the biomethane to go directly from the farms to the school,” said Shireman-Grabowski.
The College and Vermont Gas had different visions for the biomethane transportation network, however. While Middlebury proponents had envisioned a network that solely transported biomethane, Vermont Gas envisioned a dual-purpose pipeline that channeled both natural gas and biomethane.
Although this plan would put a small amount of biomethane into the system, it would require the construction of significant pipeline natural-gas transportation infrastructure. Shireman-Grabowski and others criticize this concept on the grounds that the slim benefits of the biomethane will be outweighed by the perpetuation of reliance on fossil-fuel infrastructure.
“The College can write it off as carbon neutrality even though in order to achieve that Vermont Gas had to build this massive state-long pipeline bringing fracked gas from Canada,” said Shireman-Grabowski. “The externalities are just overwhelmingly huge. “
Shireman-Grabowski suggested that if the College were to seriously look into biomethane, it must do so independently.
Upon learning that the College endorsed the pipeline, a number of students have opened up a dialogue with College administrators to formally rescind the letter of support issued two years ago.
“Students, faculty and staff are coming together to tell the administration we do not support their decision to endorse the pipeline and will engage with them in the process of revoking the College’s support,” said Molly Stuart ’15.5, an opponent of the pipeline.
The natural gas that would be routed through Middlebury if the Vermont Gas project were to come to fruition would largely come from deposits in Alberta. It relies on a system of underground pipelines that transport the gas from western Canada to Quebec. Although initial plans revolved around conventional drilling techniques, most of the oil-drilling sites are switching to the process of fracking.
“It’s important to know that when they signed that letter, nobody knew that the gas was going to come from fracking,” said Shireman-Grabowski. “Originally Vermont Gas had stated that it would all be from conventional drilling.”
Fracking — the highly controversial process of injecting high-pressure fluid into shale deposits to release trapped pockets of natural gas — represents a technological practice that is not yet fully regulated. The process requires a dangerous cocktail of toxic chemicals that, when employed irresponsibly, can contaminate drinking water and cause severe environmental degradation.
“Vermont [considers fracking to be] so dangerous that we will never allow this in our state,” said Shireman-Grabowski, referencing a Vermont law that bans fracking. “But yet here we are putting in infrastructure that allows [fracking] to happen in Alberta, allows that to happen in New York and puts other communities in danger.”
Critics of the natural gas pipeline point to the potential environmental damage caused by fracking, and the disruptive impact of the physical pipeline in their backyards and on their farms, as evidence that the environmental toll of the proposed pipeline is far too great.
Supporters of the pipeline, however, counter these claims with the argument that the project will provide a number of environmental benefits to the state of Vermont. According to Vermont Gas, the project will reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 16,000 tons per year, reduce energy usage by creating greater fuel efficiency and reduce the number of large transport vehicles on the road and their emissions.
Although much of the debate is centered on the environmental implications of the natural gas provision, dialogue also focused largely on the economic ramifications of the proposed pipeline.
Gaz Metro’s massive scale and broad network has a number of implications at the local level. According to Shireman-Grabowski, 24 of the 35 people who spoke out in support of the pipeline at a recent public service board meeting worked for Vermont Gas or a company from which Vermont Gas had already solicited support.
The argument for the pipeline offered by the 11 unaffiliated advocates was that the pipeline would lower energy costs for Vermonters. According to Gaz Metro, natural gas has been 30 percent cheaper than electricity for the average business, and 24 percent cheaper than electricity for a small business in the last twelve years.
“In total the project will reduce Addison County’s energy bills by over 200 million over the next 20 years,” said President and CEO of Vermont Gas Don Gilbert in a press release.
Shireman-Grabowski noted, however, that opponents of the pipeline also advanced an economic counter argument. Critics of Vermont Gas argue that the pipeline is highly economically inefficient. Arguments focus on the fact that money could better be spent elsewhere.
“People have been making really strong economic argument against the pipeline,” said Shireman-Grabowski. “It will only reduce Vermont’s CO2 emissions by 0.16 percent, whereas investing $66 million in weatherizing simply the majority of the homes in Addison County would save an amount of energy vastly larger than that.”
In the initial proposal, Vermont Gas outlined a timeline in which the pipeline would be live by late 2014. The numerous opponents to the pipeline, however, have already introduced a number of complaints that will delay the process for at least a year and perhaps indefinitely.
Tension is increasing as Vermont Gas begins the preliminary surveying for the pipeline even without the final decision of the public service board.
“We have every reason to believe that somebody from Vermont Gas contacted someone in the Vermont transit authority and asked them to take down the signs,” said Shireman-Grawbowski, referencing an incident in which a municipal employee who, at the insistence of Vermont Gas officials, took down a number of protest signs that had been put up by opponents of the pipeline. “They’re playing dirty before they’ve even got approval for this project, which just goes to show you how much they’re counting on it going through.”
The public service board will select a number of opponents as formal “interveners” in coming weeks. These people will lodge formal complaints and form the basis for the debate over the commencement of phase one of the project, which will ultimately decided upon in a public service meeting on September 11. In coming weeks, Shireman-Grabowski and number of Middlebury students — many of whom have already attended public service board meetings to offer their perspectives — will meet with President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz and Vice President and Treasurer for Finance Patrick Norton to discuss the option of formally rescinding support for the pipeline.
Representatives of Vermont Gas will be in attendance at a town meeting in Middlebury on April 15 on Monday night. Middlebury students and faculty are encouraged to attend and offer their perspectives on the issue.
(03/13/13 2:44pm)
On Saturday, March 9, more than 5,000 chili enthusiasts from across the state and across the country flooded downtown Middlebury for the fifth annual Vermont Chili Festival.
The Chili Festival, which has been ranked as one of Vermont’s top 10 winter events by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce every year since it started, is the largest festival hosted in the town of Middlebury.
On the morning of the March 9, the town closed off Main Street for the festival. The day’s festivities included live music by Vermont band the Grift, a performance by the College’s own Riddim dance troupe, face-painting, a beverage tent, street performers, a Zumba flash mob and many other exciting activities and performances.
The star of the show, however, was the chili.
The day is structured around a massive chili contest — the winner of which is determined by popular vote.
Upon paying the $5 admission fee, visitors of the chili festival received a chili badge, a spoon and three voting tokens to be given to the visitors’ favorite chili makers.
This year, there were more than 50 entries. These 50 participants included both professional and amateur chili chefs from across the state. The wide spread included a number of local restaurants, social organizations, and a joint entry from the College’s Dining Services and the Solar Decathlon Team.
The choice was nothing if not difficult for visitors. The festival featured different types of chili from all across the state.
Festival-goers were impressed with the wide variety of options available, which included beef chilis, chicken chilis, fish chilis, moose chilis, veggie chilis, seafood chilis and other exotic chili options.
Furthermore, in an attempt to improve the dining experience and woo potential voters, many chili purveyors provide a little something extra. As if the staggering amount of delicious ingredients in the chili wasn’t enough, many vendors provide small pieces of cornbread or chips. Some kiosks featured self-service condiment bars, and others offered eclectic accompaniments like jelly beans or cider.
Competitors vied for a grand prize of $1,000, a second-place prize of $750 and a third-place prize of $500. In addition, winners of six chili categories also received $100 each. These categories were beef, chicken, pork, game, veggie and kitchen sink — a combination of many different ingredients. For a list of all the winners, see below.
Some of the proceeds from the event went to Addison County HOPE and the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO).
THE WINNERS
-->Overall:
1st Place — Indulge Salon
2nd Place — Black Sheep Bistro
3rd Place — Tourterelle
Beef:
1st Place — Jessica's
2nd Place — The Pour House
3rd Place — Greg's Meat Market
Chicken:
1st Place — Indulge Salon
2nd Place — Tourterelle/Misty Knoll
3rd Place — St Stephen’s
Pork:
1st Place — Black Sheep
2nd Place — Bluebird Tavern/Whistle Pig
3rd Place — The Lakehouse
Game:
1st Place — Fish Tail Tavern
2nd Place — Middlebury Fire Department
3rd Place — Sweet Marie's
Kitchen Sink:
1st Place — Cyclewise
2nd Place — Liberty Mutual
3rd Place — Otter Creek Brewery
Veggie:
1st Place — Middlebury College Solar Decathlon Team
2nd Place — Addison Central Teens
3rd Place — American Flatbread
(02/27/13 4:48pm)
Montpelier, Vt. — This past Saturday, more than 300 Vermonters gathered at the statehouse in Montpelier to protest recent attempts by Vermont legislators to impose stricter gun control measures in the state.
These proposed regulations — prompted in part by the recent Newtown, Conn. tragedy — reflect a renewed national interest in gun control.
Vermont legislators have proposed two recent gun control bills. The first, proposed on Jan. 15 by Sen. Philip Baruth (D) attempted to “prohibit the manufacture, possessions or transfer of semi-automatic assault weapons.”
Gun rights activists reacted with vehement protest and convinced Baruth to withdraw his bill.
“Large capacity magazines have been used in just about every mass shooting in the last three decades,” said Representative Linda-Waite Simpson (D), who proposed a second gun control measure in the House after Baruth’s was retracted. “I just want them to have to take their finger off the trigger to change the magazines.”
Waite-Simpson’s bill — which awaits final deliberation — does not prohibit the purchase of semi-automatic weapons, but it does limit the size of removable ammunition clips, bars convicts from carrying weapons and institutes stricter background-checks.
“There are a lot of parents in the state who I believe are really quite concerned about how easy it is to access firearms and I stand with those parents,” said Waite-Simpson. “I am trying to give them a voice in this debate.”
This debate occurs in the unique context of historical gun ownership in the state and in America as a nation.
“There’s a passion for firearms in Vermont,” explained Henry Parro, president of Parro’s Gun Shop and Police Supply, Inc. in Waterbury, Vt.
This passion extends far beyond Vermont’s borders. Indeed, a passion for firearms is a defining characteristic of America — and has been for along time.
Americans own more guns than citizens of any other country in the world, with more than 300,000,000 non-military firearms owned by Americans as of 2009.
There are 88.8 guns for every hundred Americans, which means that America also has the highest gun ownership per capita of any nation in the world — a full 34 percent higher than war-torn Yemen, the next highest nation on that list.
The gun — a symbol of mythic individualism and independence — has long been a central icon in the American popular conscience due to its important role in the history of American independence, subsistence hunting and westward expansion.
Guns, however, have always had critics, and the debate about the role of guns is as old as American gun culture itself.
In the early 19th century, the firearm argument crystallized into a debate about the the Second Amendment, which states:
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Proponents of gun-control laws argued that the Second Amendment implies a collective right to bear arms, in the form of a “well regulated militia.” Advocates of unrestricted gun ownership, however, argue that the second amendment guarantees the right of all individuals to bear arms regardless of military affiliation.
A 2008 Supreme Court case — District of Columbia v. Heller — ruled that “the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia,” thereby guaranteeing American citizens their right to keep and bear arms and ending the collective vs. individual debate.
The restrictions that apply to gun ownership in different states, however, vary greatly — Vermont embodies the mythical spirit of gun ownership perhaps more than any other state.
Vermont gun laws are notoriously lenient. Most states require gun owners to apply for permits in order to carry concealed weapons. Vermont is one of four states that makes no such provision — in fact, in Vermont, anyone over the age of 16 may purchase and carry a handgun without the consent of a parent or guardian.
Gun-rights activists use the phrase “Vermont carry” to refer to the right of individuals to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
The laxness of gun laws in Vermont is not accidental — guns play a particularly important role in Vermont culture due to the prevalence of game hunting in the state. As of 2007, 42 percent of Vermont residents were gun owners.
Despite lenient regulations, the state has the sixth-lowest firearm murder-rate in the nation and the fifth-lowest firearm assault-rate in the nation according to FBI statistics.
Some gun advocates point to the permissive culture as a reason for low crime rates.
“It keeps the criminals in check,” said Parro. “Because we have no gun laws to speak of, you can pretty much be assured that there is a firearm in every home … if I was a criminal I wouldn’t want to get shot — or have that risk.”
Gun rights activists hail Vermont as a national model for positive gun ownership, pointing to the low incidence of gun-related violence as evidence of a responsible gun culture.
“We have tremendous respect for our natural resources, for hunting and a really responsible approach to using weapons,” said Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin in an interview with the Burlington Free Press. “We use them as a tool to prosperity.”
There are many factors that complicate Shumlin’s view of guns in Vermont. An avid hunter and a regular handler of firearms himself, the governor has a perspective shaped by his personal affinity for hunting and the generous contributions to his re-election made by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
However, guns remain problematic in other states.
Recent tragedies such as the theater shooting in Aurora, Colo. and the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn. are some of the many reminders of the dangers of guns when they are used inappropriately.
“Newtown could have been anywhere. Columbine could have been anywhere in this country. Aurora could have been anywhere in this country,” said Waite-Simpson. “These things are not limited to state lines.”
Proponents of stricter gun control claim that stricter gun laws and more regulation will prevent incidents like Aurora and Sandy Hook, while gun-rights advocates disagree.
“It’s a band-aid on a broken leg approach,” said Parro.
“[In] the incident at Sandy Hook, many federal and state laws were broken before anyone died,” continued Parro. “If it were five more federal laws that he broke, would it change his mind? I don’t think so.”
The role of guns in any state is a complex one. While many people blindly accept guns as parts of their lives, still more see guns as useless killing machines. These misperceptions frustrate gun owners and complicate gun-control issues.
“[Some people think that] when somebody does something bad with a firearm, it’s not the person’s fault,” said Parro. “It’s the firearm’s fault.”
Parro and others are frustrated that society frequently blames the gun industry for complex problems like shootings.
“Why is it that when somebody is DUI — driving down the interstate — and they cross the center line, and they kill a family of six, why isn’t it the car’s fault? Why isn’t it Budweiser’s fault?” asked Parro.
Despite the many double standards guns face, they do serve an important purpose in many areas of the country. In rural states like Vermont, guns play an important role in wildlife management, whereas in urban areas most guns are owned for self-defense purposes.
The differing purposes of gun ownership determine the prevalence of different types of guns owned in various areas. Most Vermont guns are hunting rifles, while most guns owned in urban areas are defense-oriented handguns.
Much of the modern debate on gun regulation hinges on the discussion of still another class of firearm — assault weapons. It is argued that these weapons — which are not designed for hunting game or self-defense — have no place in civilian society.
This manner of thinking is what motivated Baruth to propose his bill on Jan. 15.
The bill prompted a massive public outcry in support of gun ownership. More than 250 gun-rights activists gathered in the Vermont statehouse in the days following its proposal to protest the bill and argue for the maintenance of Vermont gun rights.
“Because somebody did a bad thing in Connecticut, the people under the gold dome in Montpelier are saying we should punish the law-abiding citizens of Vermont for this other guy’s action,” said Parro, encapsulating the argument of the protestors. “That’s wrong.”
“Enough is enough,” continued Parro. “Let’s go after and prosecute the people who are breaking the law … instead of blaming law-abiding citizens.”
By Jan. 20, public opinion convinced Baruth to withdraw the bill — but not before it generated considerable controversy.
When the City Council in Burlington, Vt. voted in favor of advancing the bill before it was tabled, a local gun range decided to bar Burlington law enforcement officials from their facilities as an act of protest.
Gun control advocates expressed frustration with protestors, who they feel often overreact and ignore the finer points of legislation.
“It’s very hard to have a rational conversation about what we really should be doing or not doing,” said Waite-Simpson. “It just seems that whenever there is any kind of legislation that even mentions the word ‘firearms’ it just creates a panic and a paranoia about infringing on Second Amendment rights.”
Tensions between gun-rights proponents and critics in Vermont remain at a hot simmer. The assembly of protestors both for and against expanded gun control proves that the Vermont community remains divided on the issue.
It is unlikely that the gun industry in Vermont will slow down. Parro said gun sales have increased since the two bills have been introduced.
As Vermont and the rest of the nation continue to debate the role of firearms in society, it is imperative that the roles of firearms are considered in the context of the uses of guns in different parts of the country and the culture surrounding guns and gun-ownership in a given area.
“Gun control has been a debate for many years and probably will be a debate for many more years,” said Parro.
“Unless we look at the whole spectrum of the social fabric, approaching one aspect is not going to fix the problem,” said Waite-Simpson.
While Vermont won’t see the control debate disappear any time soon — guns are far too important as hunting tools, historical symbols and mechanisms of self-defense to go away — Vermont may set a new standard for the nation on gun regulation as this bill works its way through the legislative process.
(02/20/13 3:42pm)
Montpelier, Vt. – Last Thursday, the Vermont state Senate passed a bill by a margin of 22-8 to allow Vermont physicians to help terminally-ill patients take lethal dosages of prescription drugs.
Passage of the bill came only after many hours of debate in a deeply divided senatorial chamber. Although the bill passed by a considerable margin on Thursday, the bill narrowly avoided termination the previous Tuesday after the Senate voted 17-13 against the judiciary committee’s recommendation to kill the bill.
The bill now moves on to the Vermont House — which will either pass the bill with the changes made by the Senate, or make changes of its own.
If the House passes the bill, Vermont will become only the third state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, behind Oregon and Washington.
“The Vermont legislature is poised to pass an Oregon-like Death with Dignity bill,” reported George Eighmey of the Death With Dignity National Center (DDNC) on Feb. 6.
The debate about physician-assisted suicide first exploded onto the American legal scene in 1906 when a piece of legislation calling for the legalization of physician-assisted euthanasia was introduced to the General Assembly of Ohio.
In 1999 the highly publicized conviction of Jacob Kevorkian — a highly controversial Michigan medical practitioner who spearheaded a movement for medical euthanasia and was dubbed “Dr. Death” by critics — brought the issue of assisted suicide to the national fore.
Today, contention surrounding the issue continues — beginning with the very name given to the process. Critics of the process call it “assisted suicide,” while proponents call it “death with dignity.”
Proponents of the principle emphasize that people have “the right to die,” and that the process can save patients from tremendous amounts of pain and suffering. These people also claim that reasonable laws can be constructed to safeguard human life and ensure that death with dignity would only occur in appropriate cases.
The DDNC rigidly defines the demographic of patients who are eligible for death with dignity.
“We advocate for … physician-assisted death,” said the DDNC in an official release. “Terminally-ill patients who are mentally competent to make their own medical care decisions may request a prescription of medication to hasten their deaths.”
Critics of the process of “assisted suicide” claim that the process would put undue pressure on terminally ill patients and their families to pull the plug, and that the process would allow for unnecessary deaths and other abuses. Critics also stress the fact that doctors will have too much power.
The state of Oregon became the first to explicitly sanction physician-assisted suicide with the passage of the Death with Dignity Act in 1994. Since that time, referendums have occurred in numerous states, but only the state of Washington — which passed a Death with Dignity Act in 2008 — has achieved legal success.
As Vermont draws one step closer to joining the ranks of Oregon and Washington with the passage of the legislation last week, it is important to critically examine the language of the legislation as a way to understand the two sides of the debate.
When introduced last Tuesday, the bill considered by the Vermont Senate was a comprehensive program for end-of-life care in Vermont — one that allowed for the prescription of life-ending drugs to terminally-ill patients with less than six months to live.
The bill passed on Tuesday in its comprehensive form when four previously undecided Senate members chose to vote in favor of the bill to continue the discussion.
On Wednesday, however, Sen. Peter Galbraith (D) and Sen. Bob Hartwell (D) halted the easy passage of the bill by proposing an amendment that radically altered the extensive bill. The amendment replaced the lengthy bill that would have allowed the prescription of life-ending drugs with a brief substitute bill that simply gives legal protection to doctors whose patients self-administer lethal doses of drugs.
When consideration of the bill resumed on Thursday, the rhetoric in support of both sides of the argument was impassioned. Senate members recommended a number of amendments, all of which were debated at great length.
Two final amendments emerged — one that was put forth by Sen. John Rodgers (D) and one that was advanced by Sen. Ann Cummings (D). Rodgers’s bill restored much of the original text of the bill, while Cummings’s greatly abbreviated it. Rodgers’s bill contains many safeguards designed to protect Vermonters from misuse of the death with dignity option, while Cummings’ shortened bill focused instead on limiting the scope of the bill.
After an intermission designed to safely lower heart rates, members of the Senate chose Cummings’s pared-down version of the bill and approved it to be sent through to the House.
While proponents of the initial bill were disappointed by the outcome because of the watered-down language of the final product, proponents of physician-assisted euthanasia see the passage of the bill through the Senate as a step in the right direction.
In an interview with Seven Days reporter Paul Heintz, Sen. Dick Sears (D) expressed his satisfaction with the proceedings of the Senate, if not with the outcome.
“I’d have rather seen the bill die,” said Spears. “But I think the system worked as it was designed. All sides were heard and, in the end, the bill passed.”
It is likely that the House will make sweeping changes to the legislation due to the haste with which the changes to the bill were made and the highly abbreviated nature of the product.
Many commentators expect that much of the original language and content of the bill will be restored, while others expect the House to maintain the sparse language and limited scope of the amended legislation. Either way, the House faces an important decision with numerous ramifications for end-of-life care for Vermonters.
(01/23/13 2:52pm)
The landscape of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is about to experience a dramatic shift, and, remarkably, it has nothing to do with heavy snow.
In addition to readying itself for a year of above average snowfall, the remote corner of Vermont known as the Northeast Kingdom — an area adjacent to the Canadian border that encompasses Essex, Orleans and Caledonia counties — is preparing for the commencement of an $865 million development project that is projected to create 10, 000 new jobs in Vermont.
Co-owners of Jay Peak Resort Bill Stenger and Ariel Quiros are the driving forces behind this development project.
The vision that these two men share for the revamped Jay Peak Resort represents a radical departure from the Jay that many Vermonters have known for years. The two co-owners have made the Jay Peak ski area — which has been open for skiing since 1957 — the centerpiece of their enormous development project.
The project, called the Northeast Kingdom Economic Development Initiative, encompasses seven primary construction and renovation projects across the Northeast Kingdom:Jay Peak Resort, Burke Mountain Resort, AnC Bio research facility, Menck Window Systems manufacturing facility, Newport Marina Hotel and Conference Center, the Renaissance Block on Main Street in Newport and the Newport Airport.
“We believe this undertaking will fundamentally alter the economic landscape of the Northeast Kingdom and how the international business community views this region of Vermont,” said co-founder of the Northeast Kingdom Development Initiative Bill Stenger.
The dizzying breadth of Stenger and Quiros’ project begs a number of questions. Foremost among them is the central question of financing. How can these two men afford to undertake such a costly project?
The answer lies in an unexpected fragment of immigration law known as the EB-5 visa program. The EB-5 visa program enables foreign investors to procure green cards in exchange for an investment in the American economy. The EB-5 program stipulates that the investment must create or preserve at least 10 jobs for US workers.
The program also requires an investment of at least $1 million, unless the investment is made in what is known as a ‘Targeted Employment Area” (TEA). TEA designation is conferred primarily on rural areas and areas with high unemployment levels.
Congress created the EB-5 visa program in 1990 as a part of the Immigration Act of 1990 in the hope that the program would act as an economic stimulus. Due to numerous complications such as charges of fraudulence and inefficiency, the program remained highly underutilized.
In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, however, sources of funding became scarce, and businesses began to have more and more difficulty raising capital. Stenger and Quiros quickly latched on to the EB-5 program as a way to quickly generate large amounts of capital when domestic sources of capital became difficult to find.
Due to low population density in Essex, Orleans and Caledonia counties, Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is designated as a TEA. Having already attracted hundreds of foreign investors, the EB-5 visa program has the potential to revitalize the sparsely populated Northeast Kingdom.
“It is our belief that when everything is complete, the Northeast Kingdom will be an economic engine for Vermont,” said Quiros in a press conference.
“This initiative will not only require more than 2,000 construction workers, but will create thousands more jobs in manufacturing, biotechnology, hospitality and tourism,” he continued.
Despite the many advantages outlined by Quiros and Stenger, the unusual method of capital solicitation has proved to be polarizing, and it has garnered widespread national attention.
Critics of the program in Vermont claim that the EB-5 program is elitist and that it will disenfranchise local Vermont business owners by flooding the quiet Northeast Kingdom region with foreign capital. In some towns in the Northeast Kingdom, local residents and business owners are struggling to remain open.
At the other end of the spectrum, proponents of the EB-5 program laud Stenger and Quiros for simultaneously creating new Vermont jobs and bolstering Vermont’s tourism industry.
The controversy surrounding the EB-5 program extends well beyond the borders of the state. In December 2011, writers Patrick McGeehan and Kirk Semple wrote an article for the New York Times that criticized the EB-5 program for encouraging gerrymandering and corruption.
Many critics have expressed concern that EB-5 and other so-called “cash for visa” programs will also deepen preexisting socioeconomic divides in the immigrant community.
Terry Smith, a writer for the Athens News, an Ohio newspaper, wrote an article entitled “Hey, let’s do what Northern Vermont is doing” in which he praises the Stenger and Quiros for turning a “long-depressed rural area” into a “year-round recreation Mecca.”
As the EB-5 controversy rages on, however, Stenger and Quiros are still hard at work. The co-owners have already attracted more than 330 investors from more than 55 countries; these investors have provided Stenger and Quiros with more than $250 million to begin their massive development project.
Stenger and Quiros have already begun to put their money to work. Millions of dollars worth of renovations to Jay Peak ski resort have already been completed.
Other projects — such as the building of a large hotel and biomedical facility in Newport — are slated to begin in late 2013.
The two owners of Jay Peak are confident that the EB-5 program will continue to generate enough money to sustain the project at all phases of development.
“The residents of the Northeast Kingdom have a bright economic future,” commented Quiros in a press release.
All projects in the Northeast Kingdom Development Initiative are projected to be completed within the next 36 to 60 months.
(11/14/12 4:44pm)
As millions of projection-hungry Americans eagerly gathered around their television and computer screens on election night to monitor the imminent electoral flood, Vermont became the first state to break the silence when analysts tallied the state’s three electoral votes in President of the United States Barack Obama’s column.
Although the state was called in Obama’s favor with only a tiny fraction of precincts reporting, the prediction was a safe one. Vermont — which was also the first state captured by Obama in the 2008 election — has voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992.
Vermont was one of three states in which President Obama received the majority of votes in every county (the other entirely blue states were Governor Mitt Romney’s home state of Massachusetts and Obama’s birth state of Hawaii).
Obama’s 35.8 percent margin of victory of Vermont was the third highest in the nation for the second consecutive election, trailing only Washington, D.C. and Hawaii.
Although some votes remain uncounted, preliminary tabulations indicate that Obama captured 67 percent of the vote in Vermont compared to Romney’s 31 percent.
Although Vermont still voted decisively in favor of Obama, overall voter turnout in the state decreased. There was an 8.2 percent decrease in voter turnout in Vermont — 325,046 Vermonters voted in the 2008 election and only 298,513 voted in the 2012 election.
Although voter participation in 2012 was slightly lower than in 2008, not much else changed in Vermont’s political landscape. The state’s political composition is exceedingly homogeneous — incumbent candidates won all of the major elections in Vermont, and Democrats captured all but two of these major offices.
At the state level, incumbent Governor Peter Shumlin (Dem.) defeated candidate Randy Brock (Rep.) by a sizable 20 percent margin. Incumbent Independent Senator Bernie Sanders defeated Republican challenger John MacGovern by 46 percent and incumbent Congressman Peter Welch (Dem.) defeated challenger Mark Donka (Rep.) by an even heftier margin of 49 percent.
Incumbent Democratic Attorney General Bill Sorrell defeated Republican candidate Jack McMullen, Progressive candidate Ed Stanak and Liberty Union Party candidate Rosemarie Jackowski. Incumbent Republican Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott, one of the few office-holding Republicans in Vermont, defeated Democratic/Progressive candidate Cassandra Gekas.
(11/08/12 12:08am)
Vermont Hard Cider, a Middlebury, Vt.-based beverage company, was recently sold to the Irish beverage company C&C Group for $305 million dollars.
Vermont Hard Cider, which was started in a garage in Proctorsville, Vt. in 1990, is the producer of Woodchuck Cider, the most popular hard-cider brand in the United States.
While hard-cider is still an outlier in the alcoholic beverages market in the United States — hard cider sales currently account for less than 1 percent of gross national beer sales — cider is immensely popular in the United Kingdom, where the beverage accounts for 15 percent of beer sales.
Vermont Hard Cider joins a host of other high-profile alcoholic beverage companies to be purchased in the last year. The Anheuser-Busch InBev conglomerate recently bought out Mexican beer-company Grupo Modelo for $20.1 billion, and Heineken recently announced its plan to purchase Singapore-based Asia Pacific Breweries for $4.6 billion.
C&C is not the only company that has noticed the growing demand for hard cider products. Last August, Heineken purchased Strongbow Cider, the second-largest American hard-cider brand behind Woodchuck and the largest international, from Vermont Hard Cider for an unknown sum.
Within the last year, Anheuser-Busch InBev introduced its Michelob Ultra Light Cider, MillerCoors recently bought Crispin Cider Company and Boston Beer Company (the makers of Samuel Adams) recently launched a line of hard ciders called Angry Orchards.
Despite the arrival of these many newcomers, sales of Woodchuck Cider have steadily increased in the last few years.
According to Vermont Hard Cider, sales of Woodchuck are up 25 percent this year, and the company anticipates $15 million dollars in profits this year — up 50 percent from a hefty profit of $10 million in 2011. In 2011, Woodchuck Cider accounted for 2.2 of the five million cases of hard cider sold in the United States.
Nate Formalarie, communications manager at Vermont Hard Cider Company, said that the rapid growth of the Woodchuck Cider brand required greater investment.
“In C&C group we find a like-minded partner,” he said. “They are committed to using the finest ingredients, supporting local agriculture and working to reduce their environmental footprint. They will invest in the expansion and future of the Vermont Hard Cider Company, providing a solid base for the overall U.S. portfolio.”
C&C’s decision to purchase U.S. based Vermont Hard Cider reflects the company’s intention to develop the international cider market. Analysts at C&C hope to capitalize on a rapidly growing — albeit underdeveloped — hard cider industry in the United States.
“The U.S. cider category has recorded strong growth in the period from 2005 to 2011,” C&C explained in a press release on Oct. 23. “In the first six months of 2012, the category grew by 57 percent.”
Shifting consumer preferences are the primary driver of the increased demand for hard cider in the United States. Hard-cider — which has not enjoyed widespread consumption in the U.S. since before prohibition when cider was the most popular alcoholic beverage for colonial Americans — is growing more popular due in large part to consumers’ desire for ciders and craft beers that present more natural alternatives to highly processed mainstream American beers.
“Instead of drinking a commodity beer off the shelf that’s yellow and fizzy, there are craft beers that [consumers] are willing to try now,” said Steve Parkes, owner of Middlebury’s Drop-In Brewery, in an interview with the Campus in September. “People are fed up with being fed commodity products.”
Representatives of C&C assure consumers that few structural changes will be made to the operation of the company.
Although the company will be owned by C&C, it will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary, and Bret Williams — the visionary president and chief executive officer of Vermont Hard Cider who bought the company for just $2.3 million in 2003 — will continue to run the business.
All of the 125 employees of the company will stay remain employed, and the primary facility will remain in Middlebury. Furthermore, C&C has stated that it plans on continuing with plans to build a new 100,000 square ft. cidery adjacent to the existing 62,000 square ft. facility in Middlebury.
This new cidery — which will enable Vermont Hard Cider to remain competitive in the increasingly competitive global market for hard cider — is expected to bring at least 30 to 35 new jobs to the Middlebury community.
The new cidery will dramatically increase production levels and it is projected to cost between $20 and $30 million, and work on the facility is expected to begin next year.
(10/31/12 9:07pm)
The Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) recently unveiled plans to restore the passenger rail line along the state’s western corridor. This new rail system will run from Bennington to Burlington via Middlebury and Rutland, giving residents of Middlebury direct rail access to both Rutland and Burlington.
Currently, the railroad that bisects the town of Middlebury only transports freight.
In the past, however, the railway that runs through downtown Middlebury also provided passenger service. A plan introduced at a Vermont Rail Action Network (VRAN) meeting held in the Kirk Alumni Center on Tuesday, Oct. 23, however, outlined comprehensive plans to revive the defunct passenger railway that once ran through Middlebury.
Chris Cole, the policy, planning and intermodal development director at VRAN, announced plans to renovate the long defunct western corridor passenger line and partner to restore decaying railroad overpasses in downtown Middlebury.
The project is estimated to cost between $35 million and $45 million dollars, and initial projections put the completion date at some point in 2017.
Although the project is a costly one, both Cole and Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin indicated that plans to upgrade Vermont railways will continue with or without federal funding. Shumlin feels that investment in Vermont’s railways should be a policy focus for the state of Vermont in the future. Cole expects that the state will be able to use federal highway funding, though it is not yet clear if that will be available.
Renovation of the state’s rail network is priority for the Shumlin administration.The renovation of the western corridor rail line is only a small component of Shumlin’s broader plan to quadruple passenger railroad usage and double the amount of freight transported along Vermont railways by 2030.
Work on the railways is expected to begin soon — at least 12 separate construction zones have been identified for renovation within the next year. It is thought that roughly 70 miles of railway will need to be renovated in the next few years to realize the goal of a comprehensive railway from Bennington to Burlington by 2017. In the long-term, the project is also focused on extending the national Amtrak network into Burlington.
Many critics of the public transportation system in America are worried that existing automobile and airplane networks will not be able to accommodate increasing numbers of commuters. According to Shumlin, rapid population increases in Vermont and across the United States necessitate transportation alternatives. Shumlin and other state policymakers see an improved rail network as an affordable alternative to automobile and airplane use.
Shumlin and Cole predict that an expanded rail system in Vermont will benefit the state of Vermont in a handful of ways; chiefly, expanded railways will give the state economy a significant boost.
The Amtrak line and the extended intra-state railway coverage will provide tourists with more comprehensive access to the state of Vermont, which will generate significant revenue. Improved accessibility will benefit businesses by expanding the sphere of Vermont tourism. The new railway system will give tourists without cars unprecedented access to Vermont towns and cities.
Furthermore, the expanded railway line will streamline transportation to and from Chittenden County — the state’s largest commercial cente’— thereby making statewide commercial freight transportation vastly more efficient. An improved public transportation system will give workers across the state inexpensive and direct commuting options.
The benefits of the expanded railway system are far from being strictly economic in nature. The proposed expansion would also benefit the state environmentally.
The expansion of the public transportation system will give the many people living in Chittenden County — Vermont’s most densely populated area — accessible and inexpensive public transportation options that make it possible to limit their personal fuel consumption.
Jack Byrne, director of the sustainability and integration office at the College, sees the railway expansion as a step in the right direction. He explained that increased railway use by students and faculty would cut down on high-emission automobile and airplane trips. If all goes according to plan, students and faculty will have convenient access to Burlington, Rutland and beyond in only a few short years.
(10/10/12 4:49pm)
George Demarais, 57-year-old Middlebury resident, engaged members of the Middlebury Police Department in a gunfight that lasted for nearly 45 minutes last Thursday, Oct. 4 and ended in his own death.
Police responders arrived at Demarais’ home — located on a wooded lot along Vermont 116 near the border of Middlebury and Bristol, Vt. — after receiving a suicide call from Demarais in which he outlined his desire to die by a law enforcement officer’s gun. Upon arrival, members of the Middlebury Police Department discovered a copy of his last will and testament — which donated his pet cats to the local animal shelter — posted on his front door.
Six officers from the Middlebury Police Department assumed strategic positions around the perimeter of Demarais’ house. Demarais, who was inside the home, ignored multiple requests to open his front door, and he eventually emerged from his home brandishing a long firearm at around 4 p.m. in the afternoon.
He disregarded requests to drop his weapon and fled to a wooded area adjacent to his house where he had constructed a barricade out of fallen trees and large stones. Police later learned that Demarais had also stocked his makeshift bunker with food, water, extra ammunition and a battle helmet.
Demarais — a former corrections officer at a Vermont prison — remained camped out in the woods for nearly two hours while the Middlebury police force arranged for the arrival of a hostage negotiation team and a tactical support unit.
The police officers tried to reason with Demarais, but he began shooting at them when they advanced on his position around 6:15 p.m. The officers, armed with M16’s and a .45 caliber carbine, responded to Demarais’s gunfire with a volley of defensive shots. The police officers secured a position at a distance of around 20 yards, and the gunfight continued intermittently for nearly 45 minutes.
During lulls in the shooting, officers attempted to negotiate with Demarais, but he responded with taunts and refused to emerge from the woods. After almost 45 minutes, Demarais’ gunfire ceased, and when the police advanced on his position, they found that Demarais had been shot and killed.
The gunfight is the first police shooting reported in Middlebury since the 1970s and only the second fatal shooting in the state of Vermont this year.
A medical examiner later determined that Demarais had sustained two gunshot wounds from Middlebury police officers. The identities of the officers who struck Demarais are unknown, but the medical examiner confirmed that the gunshot wounds were not self-inflicted. In a macabre twist, Demarais died in the grisly manner that he had desired.