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• The unofficial historian of Stowe Mountain Resort

  06-04-2025 12:58 via vtdigger.org
  
  Brian Linder, inset, is known for his tireless documenting of Stowe Mountain Resort’s history, such as this photo of the Mansfield lodge in the ’40s or ’50s. Image courtesy of Brian Linder
  Owen Evans is a reporter with Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.Among his peers, ski patroller Brian Lindner is often described as the unofficial historian of Stowe Mountain Resort, a title he’s earned afte
  
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• Jay Diaz and Jill Martin Diaz: What Vermonters should know about free speech and immigrants’ rights

  06-05-2025 14:19 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Jay Diaz, an attorney and civil rights litigator with Darby Kolter & Roberts in Waterbury, and Jill Martin Diaz, an immigration attorney and executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project.“Terrorist sympathizers.” “Operating on behalf of terror cells.” These are phrases recently used by a member of the Vermont House Judiciary Committee during ACLU of Vermont testimony about immigrant protesters. In recent weeks, Vermont mad
  
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• Mellie MacEachern: Health care administrator, fire thyself

  06-05-2025 13:10 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Mellie MacEachern of Craftsbury. She moved to Vermont in 2021 with her husband to begin a family. She is a freelance health care policy reporter for industry publications in the Southwestern U.S., and formerly worked in health education and advocacy for Planned Parenthood Arizona. Last summer, she gave birth at Copley Hospital’s birthing center.I’ve worked in health care policy for 10 years, with a specific emphasis on reproductive health care access. In this ti
  
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• Hartford likely to demolish large portions of high school because of PCB contamination

  06-05-2025 13:08 via vtdigger.org
  
  Hartford Area Career and Technical Center students arrive for classes on Friday, May 2, 2025, in White River Junction. Due to the presence of PCBs, a large portion of the technical center and high school may need to be demolished and replaced. Photo by Jennifer Hauck/Valley NewsThis story by Liz Sauchelli was first published by the Valley News on May 5.WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — More than half of Hartford High School needs to be razed and rebuilt because of chemical contamination, and school o
  
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• Shelburne Museum mixes past and present in new exhibitions

  06-05-2025 03:25 via vtdigger.org
  
  The steamship Ticonderoga and the Colchester Reef Lighthouse seen at the Shelburne Museum on Aug. 6, 2020. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThis story by Briana Brady was first published by the Shelburne News on May 1.Shelburne Museum’s opening day is Saturday, but some of the six new exhibits the museum is hosting have been in the works for more than a year.While the museum is known for its dedication to New England history, from quilting to the massive Ticonderoga steamboat, the new e
  
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• West Virginia and 23 other states join lawsuit targeting Vermont’s Climate Superfund Law

  06-05-2025 01:45 via vtdigger.org
  
  Supporters of a bill that would make big oil companies pay for the costs of climate change attend a press conference at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Tuesday, January 16, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerTwenty-four states have joined the American Petroleum Institute and U.S. Chamber of Commerce as plaintiffs in their lawsuit against Vermont’s climate superfund law. “It’s different parties making the same argument,” said Anthony Iarrapino, an attorney who lobbi
  
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• Mental health agency declined to respond to calls before double homicide, lawsuit says

  05-05-2025 23:30 via vtdigger.org
  
  Matthew Gomes, appearing remotely from the Northeast Correctional Complex, is arraigned before Judge Michael Harris in Washington County Superior criminal court in Barre on Nov. 18, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerTwo days before she was killed in November, allegedly at the hands of her son, Montpelier resident Mary Gomes made multiple calls to a local mental health agency about him — but an employee declined to visit her home, a new lawsuit alleges. The allegation was raised in
  
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• Brattleboro officials reduce defeated town budget, yet proposed taxes remain up by double digits

  05-05-2025 22:44 via vtdigger.org
  
  Brattleboro residents gather downtown for the year’s first-Friday-of-the-month Gallery Walk. Photo by Kevin O’Connor/VTDiggerBRATTLEBORO — Six weeks after residents defeated a forthcoming municipal budget for the first time in town history, local leaders are set to present a new proposal to a special Town Meeting this month.“When I run into anybody, they will say three things every time,” selectboard member Oscar Heller said Thursday at the last of eight budget-revi
  
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• Demoted Woodstock police chief files $5 million suit

  05-05-2025 22:13 via vtdigger.org
  
  Former Woodstock Police Chief Joe Swanson, left, listens while Woodstock Municipal Manager Eric Duffy testifies during a hearing before the Woodstock Village board of trustees on March 19, 2025, in Woodstock. Swanson has been on paid administrative leave since October 2024. He asked for the hearing about his job performance to be done in public. Photo by Jennifer Hauck/Valley NewsThis story by John Lippman was first published by The Valley News on May 3.WOODSTOCK — Former Police Chief Joe
  
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• Lawson’s Finest & the Vermont Community Foundation celebrate the Vermont Women’s Fund

  05-05-2025 18:53 via vtdigger.org
  
  The Vermont Community Foundation is proud to be home to the Vermont Women’s Fund, a statewide initiative dedicated to advancing gender equity through strategic philanthropy and community leadership.That shared commitment to progress was on full display at an unforgettable event, hosted by Lawson’s Finest tocelebrate International Women’s Day and the enduring impact of women in business, philanthropy, and community life.Led by La
  
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• Russell Frank: Let’s rethink our primary system

  05-05-2025 16:17 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Russell Frank of Montpelier. Now retired, he worked for the state in the Agency of Human Services for 20 years.Every day each of us make judgments where we lack sureness about someone or some thing, or there is not a clear answer. Such as whether to have lunch with someone, which refrigerator to purchase, which job candidate to hire or where to go on vacation. One of the most important judgments we make is for which political candidate  we should vote.   
  
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• Morgan Crossman: Head Start is at risk and there is vital need for proactive funding solutions

  05-05-2025 16:11 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Morgan Crossman, executive director of Building Bright Futures.As Vermont’s Early Childhood State Advisory Council named in the Federal Head Start Act, Building Bright Futures is deeply concerned about reports that the upcoming federal budget proposal may eliminate Head Start and Early Head Start. These programs are essential to meeting the basic needs of Vermont families.BBF is committed to ensuring that all of Vermont’s children and families have access to the
  
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• Young Writers Project: ‘Kindness, accidentally’

  04-05-2025 13:16 via vtdigger.org
  
  “The Beginning of Life,” by Jaquira Earley, 17, of West RutlandYoung Writers Project is a creative, online community of teen writers and visual artists that started in Burlington in 2006. Each week, VTDigger publishes the writing and art of young Vermonters who post their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for youth, ages 13-19. To find out more, please go to youngwritersproject.org or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at&nb
  
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• Then Again: Ethan and Ira’s Canadian debacles

  04-05-2025 13:13 via vtdigger.org
  
  American General Richard Montgomery was honored with poems, pamphlets, monuments and paintings after his death at the Battle of Quebec in 1775. John Trumbull’s romanticized depiction of Montgomery’s death is in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery. Photo via Wikimedia CommonsIf Ethan and Ira Allen had their way, Canada would have been America’s 14th colony. The Allen brothers were hardly alone in pushing to have Canada join the United States. In 1774, delegate
  
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• Sec. Julie Moore and Commissioner Kerrick Johnson: Unfunded laws have only theoretical benefits

  04-05-2025 13:11 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Julie Moore, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and Kerrick Johnson, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service.Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Act and Climate Superfund Act (Act 122) have created legal mandates, but — so far — the Legislature has not provided the necessary funding for this work. Without action from the Legislature in the near term, it is not clear how these laws can be implemented effectively, with pote
  
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• Leslie Burg: Rutland can’t afford to lose Head Start, or the programs that keep us together

  04-05-2025 13:09 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Leslie Burg of Manchester. She is a community member of the Rutland Head Start Policy Council and an emerita professor of literacy and disabilities at Northeastern University.Rutland is a city that represents the best of what it means to be American: hardworking, community-minded and resilient. But right now, we are facing a crisis that could upend the lives of hundreds of local families — and leave an already stretched community reeling. The Trump administration
  
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• Family’s bookbinding business a page turning story of resistance, resilience

  04-05-2025 13:06 via vtdigger.org
  
  Marianna Holzer demonstrates the bookbinding process with her father’s old tools. Photo by Ian Kreinsen/The CitizenThis story by Ian Kreinsen was first published in The Citizen on May 1.Marianna Holzer leafed through a carefully bound photo book that tells her family’s story.On one side of her family, her Swiss grandfather passed the bookbinding tradition on to his son, who passed it on to her. On the other side, her German mother’s family resisted Hitler’s regime.Today,
  
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• 92% of Vermonters have REAL ID-compliant licenses ahead of national deadline

  04-05-2025 13:03 via vtdigger.org
  
  Travelers move through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport ahead of Memorial Day, Friday, May 24, 2024, in Atlanta. Photo by Mike Stewar/APDespite many other states still lagging behind, 92% of Vermonters already have a REAL ID — which will be required under federal law for domestic air travel starting May 7.After the deadline, U.S. air travelers 18 and older will need a REAL ID or another TSA-acceptable form of identification — such as a passport or Enhanced Driver&rsqu
  
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• Ethan Allen has an image problem. Is the internet and present-day polarization to blame?

  04-05-2025 12:48 via vtdigger.org
  
  Ethan Allen, as portrayed in a 1927 advertisement for Ticonderoga pencils. Photo courtesy Vermont Historical SocietyAs Revolutionary War leader of the Green Mountain Boys militia, Ethan Allen had seemingly no sooner captured Fort Ticonderoga from British troops on May 10, 1775, when he put quill pen to parchment to chronicle his effort.“I have,” Allen wrote, “taken the greatest care and pains to recollect the facts and arrange them; but as they touch a variety of characters and
  
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• From ICE to Hannaford: Vermonters rally on May Day for human rights and social justice amid escalating Trump administration attacks, rollbacks

  03-05-2025 01:42 via vtdigger.org
  
  Thousands in Williston marched in support of immigrant and farmworker rights on May Day 2025. Photo by Auditi Guha/VTDiggerWILLISTON — Immigrant rights, trans rights, worker rights and support for Palestinians were forefront at a May Day rally in Williston Thursday evening. Organizers estimated 2,500 people marched to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s facility on Harvest Lane and then to Hannaford Supermarket in a peaceful protest that condemned recent actions of Preside
  
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• Final Reading: Vermont’s House Transportation Committee weighs bicycle safety proposals

  03-05-2025 00:34 via vtdigger.org
  
  Rep. Phil Pouech, D-Hinesburg, speaks as the House Transportation Committee takes testimony at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Wednesday, February 12, 2025. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerIdaho is not a place, as far as I know, that comes up in the Vermont Statehouse all that often. But the House Transportation Committee has been considering a proposal first enacted in that state — and that supporters here say would make it safer to ride bicycles in busy areas.Rep. Phil Pouech, D-Hinesburg
  
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• As Barre voters prepare to weigh in on this year’s budget, flood woes from years past still linger

  03-05-2025 00:09 via vtdigger.org
  
  Kaycen Hedges tries to clear mud from Third Street in Barre on Thursday, July 11, 2024, after overnight flooding. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThe most fateful decision made about Barre City’s fiscal future might not be made by voters at its Town Meeting Day election on May 13. Rather, it’s the decisions made by state lawmakers, federal agencies and the Trump administration at large that have already affected Barre’s coffers as it slowly pulls itself up from two major fl
  
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• Proposed farmer relief fund for floods and more could now include loggers

  02-05-2025 23:03 via vtdigger.org
  
  Ross Putney trims up logs he cut with a log loader on a landing at a logging operation in Tunbridge on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerSam Hartnett is a reporter with Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.A bill to help farms recoup losses due to extreme weather could bring forestry businesses into the mix as it makes its way across the Legislature.S.60 sets up a farm relief fund th
  
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• Vermont Supreme Court upholds convictions for Rutland child care provider in baby’s death

  02-05-2025 22:43 via vtdigger.org
  
  Stacey L. Vaillancourt, 53, of Rutland is brought in to Rutland criminal court for her arraignment after being charged with manslaughter and cruelty to a child arising from the January death of 6-month-old Harper Rose Briar at the defendant’s state-certified in-home day care facility. Pool photo by Robert Layman/Rutland HeraldThe Vermont Supreme Court has upheld the convictions of a former Rutland child care provider found guilty on charges of involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to a chil
  
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• Vermont’s reentry simulation mimics the bureaucratic morass of leaving prison

  02-05-2025 22:27 via vtdigger.org
  Participants at a reentry simulation hosted by the Vermont Department of Corrections attempt to receive forms of identification. By Ethan Weinstein/VTDiggerMONTPELIER — About 95% of people incarcerated in Vermont will one day leave prison. But getting out — and staying out — relies on a system that often appears rigged against those reentering society. “The system as it’s built today forces individuals to jump through hoops that many of us in this room wou
  
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• Vermont’s first reentry simulation mimics the bureaucratic morass of leaving prison

  02-05-2025 22:27 via vtdigger.org
  
  Participants at a reentry simulation hosted by the Vermont Department of Corrections attempt to receive forms of identification. By Ethan Weinstein/VTDiggerMONTPELIER — About 95% of people incarcerated in Vermont will one day leave prison. But getting out — and staying out — relies on a system that often appears rigged against those reentering society. “The system as it’s built today forces individuals to jump through hoops that many of us in this room wou
  
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• Jamie Dansereau: Imagine what’s possible when after-school becomes essential

  02-05-2025 13:03 via vtdigger.org
  
  This commentary is by Jamie Dansereau of Westminster, director of afterschool and summer programming for West River Education District.If you know me, you know I’m a big dreamer. I’ve never been one to say, “We can’t do that.” Instead, I find myself asking, “How can we make it happen?” And when it comes to after-school programming, that question drives me every single day.After-school programs are where so many young people discover what lights them up,
  
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• Trump takes Vermont’s climate superfund law to court

  02-05-2025 01:27 via vtdigger.org
  President Donald Trump, left, and Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark. Photos by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons and Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThe U.S. Department of Justice is challenging Vermont’s climate superfund law in court. A complaint filed Thursday afternoon in the U.S. District Court of Vermont targets the law, arguing that the federal Clean Air Act and federal government’s power over foreign affairs preempt the state law, making it unconstitutional. The Department
  
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• Judge orders state to give motel voucher recipients more notice before evicting them

  02-05-2025 00:53 via vtdigger.org
  A motel program participant is evicted after losing eligibility. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThis story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.A Vermont Superior Court judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the Agency of Human Services, requiring that the state give motel voucher program recipients adequate notice before ending their benefits — and give them enough time to appeal.The order,
  
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• Final Reading: A big swing at the Big Bill

  02-05-2025 00:46 via vtdigger.org
  Sen Scott Beck, R-Caledonia, listens during a meeting of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Wednesday, February 26, 2025. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerAs the Senate passed its “Big Bill” on the state’s 2026 budget today, Senate Republicans took a big swing on a suite of environmental rollbacks.Minority leader Sen. Scott Beck, R-Caledonia proposed two amendments to H.493: one would have repealed both the clean heat standard and
  
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