VPR News

A very unusual legal case will be decided in Montpelier Tuesday. The Vermont Supreme Court will hold a special hearing to determine whether Gov. Peter Shumlin has the authority to appoint a new member to the court.

For the past four years, Chittenden County Sen. Tim Ashe has been chairman of a finance committee that oversees some of the state's most difficult revenue problems. As he prepares for his new role as Senate president pro tem, Ashe says Vermont's budget outlook is cloudier than ever.

The president of Saint-Gobain says his company might not be responsible for the water contamination in Bennington County.

There are three catchment areas for the broken among us: hospitals, public schools, and jails. Healthcare is a third of our state budget, public education another third, and jails cost twice what we spend on higher education.

A legislative committee is recommending that districts that merge under Act 46 also consider consolidating their property assessment offices.

It takes a lot of electricity to keep an ice skating rink running. That's part of why the Woodstock Union Arena has created a four-tier plan to reduce energy costs, which account for about one-third of its business expenses.

As chairwoman of the House Committee on Appropriations, South Hero Representative Mitzi Johnson is no stranger to tough leadership assignments. As the presumptive Speaker of the House, Johnson is preparing to juggle more than just budget challenges next year, and says she wants to lawmakers to learn more about Vermont’s problems before they try to solve them.

I’m 56 years old, and things are more settled than they used to be. Looking back at my life and career now, there were stretches of turmoil when something, either professional or personal, was rocky.

A nearly 500-foot tall proposed wind turbine is causing contention in the small town of Holland in the Northeast Kingdom. But this is just the latest in a series of controversial renewable energy projects causing a stir in the rural area, pitting pastoral beauty against innovative environmental causes.

It appears the siting of industrial wind projects could be a key issue during the 2017 legislative session. That's because Governor-elect Phil Scott says he wants lawmakers to enact a two-year moratorium on all large, ridgeline wind proposals.

Next month, the minimum wage is increasing in four of the six New England states. Massachusetts’ 2017 rate of $11 an hour puts it in a tie for top statewide rate in the country, along with Washington state. Not far behind are Connecticut, with a new rate of $10.10 an hour, and Vermont, at $10.

The federal government just released its final plan for the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge. The government says it wants to expand Conte, including adding about 54,000 acres along four rivers in Vermont that flow into the Connecticut.

At the close of each year, we pause to remember people who have recently passed away. This is especially true in the arts where, for 2016, we remember, among others, actors Gene Wilder and Alan Rickman, musicians David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Merle Haggard, Sharon Jones, and Prince. The theater world lost playwright Edward Albee and Liz Suedos. Film will miss Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami.

If Vladimir Putin had walked into my Lyndonville polling place on November 8, I can’t imagine he would have been given a ballot. But in a sense, he may have all-but voted, covertly, from afar.

When I was eighteen I dropped out of college before the first day of classes. I was working as a reader at Random House, a job I figured Radcliffe graduates would envy, and I didn’t want to give it up. When I told my parents my decision, they yawned and said, “Don’t worry; you’ll go when you want to.”