Vermont news

• Report finds poverty and income gap growing in Vermont

  01-01-2018 23:48 via vtdigger.org
  Economic gains in Vermont are not improving the lives of most residents, according to a new report from the Public Assets Institute, a left-leaning Montpelier think tank.
  The group’s annual analysis of economic and quality-of-life indicators says that benefits from the state’s economic growth mainly go to those who are already doing well.
  From 2006 to 2016, average nominal income for the top 5 percent of Vermont earners rose 42 percent. Over the same period, the bottom fifth of earne
  
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• Longtime affordable housing leader’s exit line: ‘Do not relent’

  01-01-2018 21:35 via vtdigger.org
  Connie Snow, right, and Deb Zak look over new apartments in the Daly Shoe building in Brattleboro. Snow has retired from Windham & Windsor Housing Trust after 30 years as executive director. Brattleboro Reformer file photo
  BRATTLEBORO – During the past 30 years, the organization now known as Windham & Windsor Housing Trust has operated under three names and has expanded into two counties.
  But there’s been just one executive director.
  Connie Snow retired from that post as of S
  
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• Live From Montpelier: Life Behind The Scenes At The Statehouse dlvr.it/Q8SZn0 https://t.co/DaQj50rnoB

  01-01-2018 20:21 via twitter.com
  
  Live From Montpelier: Life Behind The Scenes At The Statehouse dlvr.it/Q8SZn0 https://t.co/DaQj50rnoB
  
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• Margolis: Sexual conduct purge has its own dangers

  01-01-2018 20:00 via vtdigger.org
  Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., right, and Al Franken, D-Minn., at a hearing. File photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger(Jon Margolis writes political columns for VTDigger.)
  On further review, as they say in the National Football League, Sen. Patrick Leahy says he shouldn’t have urged Sen. Al Franken to resign after all.
  “I have stood for due process,” said Vermont’s senior senator, without fully explaining why he did not stand there in the matter of his Minnesota colleague, acc
  
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• BACKCOUNTRY FEVER: New Terrain, New Huts, New Frontiers

  01-01-2018 13:00 via vtdigger.org
  Leaders of the Catamount Trail Association, Vermont Huts and RASTAdiscuss new huts, glades and backcountry skiing around the state at Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum on January 11th.
  STOWE, VT: On Thursday, January 11 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm the movers and shakers in Vermont’s burgeoning backcountry ski movement will come together at Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum’s monthly Thirsty Thursday series in downtown Stowe to talk about the future of backcountry skiing in Vermont.
  R.J. Thomp
  
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• How Do You Vote? 50 Million Google Images Give a Clue

  01-01-2018 01:33
  Artificial intelligence is making it possible for Street Views to be mined for insights about the economy, politics and human behavior — just as text mining has done for years.
  
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• Jason Lorber: Don’t call Trump stupid

  01-01-2018 01:05 via vtdigger.org
  Editor’s note this commentary is by Jason Lorber, of Burlington, the president of Aplomb Consulting and a comedian who served four terms in the Vermont Legislature. This piece was first published in the Burlington Free Press on April 5, but was recently mentioned in a column  in the Wall Street Journal by William McGurn on Dec. 25.
  As a progressive Democrat, I have a message for my colleagues, “We need to stop calling Donald Trump stupid.”
  Donald Trump is not stupid. And n
  
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• GunSense Vermont founder seeks new direction: into elective office

  01-01-2018 01:03 via vtdigger.org
  Ann Braden, a Brattleboro resident who founded GunSense Vermont in 2013, has stepped away from the advocacy organization to focus on the publication of her first novel and a possible run for office. Photo by Mike Faher/VTDigger
  BRATTLEBORO – Even as she founded GunSense Vermont in early 2013, Ann Braden considered herself an unlikely leader for a political movement.
  So it wasn’t necessarily a difficult decision for the Brattleboro resident to step away from that group recently to pur
  
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• Jeffrey Reel: The nature of spirituality in a democracy

  01-01-2018 01:00 via vtdigger.org
  Editor’s note: This commentary is by Jeffrey Reel, of Lyndon Center, who is the general manager of Natural Provisions in St. Johnsbury.
  The guests remained seated around the dinner table, and the conversation drifted to the news of the day – the crime, the grime, and the “senseless” violence, from domestic abuse and street crime, escalating to full blown social decay, civil strife and war. With the exception of my father, all were devoutly religious, so my father challeng
  
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• Tom Evslin: America the not so great

  01-01-2018 00:55 via vtdigger.org
  Editor’s note: This commentary is by Tom Evslin, an entrepreneur, author and former Douglas administration official. This post first appeared on his blog, Fractals of Change.News about the new Lanzhou to Xian high-speed train in China made me sad. Service started this year with 35 round trips per day. Travel time is reduced from seven hours via the old train to two and a half hours on the new train, which runs at 155 mph.
  I’m happy for people who travel between Xian and Lanzhou or ma
  
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• $37M bond sale on tap to boost affordable housing

  01-01-2018 00:30 via vtdigger.org
  BURLINGTON — A $5 million purchase by People’s United Bank will help the state sell $37 million in bonds to fuel one of the largest expansions of low-income housing in Vermont’s history.Lawmakers approved the bond sale earlier this year after wrangling over how to add to the state’s low-income housing stock. The Vermont Housing Finance Agency, a nonprofit established by the Legislature to finance affordable housing initiatives, will sell the bonds. The Vermont Housing and
  
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• Delegation: Life in Trump’s Washington demands new tactics, goals

  01-01-2018 00:12 via vtdigger.org
  WASHINGTON — From President Donald Trump’s inauguration to the Women’s March, the narrowly defeated Obamacare repeal to the narrowly passed tax reform bill, the Russian election interference probe to #MeToo — 2017 was a year of high drama in Washington.
  Vermont’s delegation, all three of whom are in the minority in Congress, sat down with VTDigger to reflect on the challenges and accomplishments of the year, finding themselves in new roles, and coming to terms with
  
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