Former governor Howard Dean endorses Democratic Chittenden County state senate candidate June Heston in Burlington on Monday, July 13, 2020. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Vermont’s longest-serving governor is thinking about getting back in the saddle.  Howard Dean, a Burlington Democrat who led the state from 1991 to 2003, has been discussing whether to challenge Republican Gov. Phil Scott in this fall’s election, WCAX first reported Friday.   Dean confirmed his interest in a text message to VTDigger on Saturday.  “I am considering running,” he said.  Dean ..read more

Jarvis Green, founder and artistic director of JAG Productions, in his dressing room at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction, in April 2023. File photo by Alex Driehaus/Valley News/Report For America This story by Nicola Smith was first published by the Valley News on April 24. JAG Productions, the White River Junction theater company that has championed the work of Black and LGBTQ+ artists, has announced that it is closing in June after eight years of bringing groundbreaking work to the Upper Valley. Jarvis Antonio Green, JAG Productions’ founder and artistic director, wrote in a p ..read more

Rep. Sara Coffey and Sen. Andrew Perchlik. Photos by Glenn Russell/VTDigger One of the biggest questions facing transportation policymakers today — not just in Vermont, but across the country — is about balance. As more people switch to electric vehicles, how should states make up the lost gasoline tax revenue, while still keeping EV adoption attractive?  Vermont’s Agency of Transportation is working up a replacement for the money that EV users don’t pay at the pump: an annual fee based on how many miles one drives. The state plans to have this “mileage-based user fee” in place once at l ..read more

Stock photo by Sora Shimazaki via Pexels A court officer has been fired over comments he reportedly made to jurors that prompted a judge to throw out a guilty verdict in a sexual assault case. Windsor County Sheriff Ryan Palmer said Thursday that Cpl. Mark Belisle, who had been suspended pending the results of an investigation, was terminated from the sheriff’s department on April 19. Palmer said Barre City Police Chief Brad Vail conducted the probe into Belisle’s conduct during the trial. Belisle, reached Friday, said he was pursuing “options” that might be available to appeal Palmer’s decis ..read more

Ariel Quiros leaves U.S. District Court in Burlington after being sentenced to five years for his role in the EB-5 fraud case on April 29, 2022. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger A bid by former Jay Peak Resort owner Ariel Quiros seeking to reduce his five-year prison sentence in the largest fraud case in Vermont’s history has been denied for a second time. Judge Geoffrey Crawford, who sentenced Quiros in April 2022 for his role in the EB-5 scandal that rocked the state, issued a ruling this week in federal court in Burlington rejecting a bid by the man described as the mastermind of the f ..read more

Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak listens during a meeting of the City Council on Monday April 15. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak on Thursday said the city’s $9 million budget deficit has now swelled to nearly $13 million due to a miscalculation of employee benefit costs and other increasing expenses. The new deficit forecast comes after a more accurate analysis of employee benefit costs was completed for the next fiscal year. Salary growth and employee health benefit expenses, initially estimated at $3.4 million in December, are now pegged at $7 mill ..read more

This commentary is by Brianne Goodspeed, senior editor at Chelsea Green. As one of the employee owners who will benefit from the sale of Chelsea Green Publishing to “international publishing behemoth” Mondadori, I found your story about the sale (“Chelsea Green to be sold to international publishing behemoth”), as well as your characterization of the company and the company’s cofounder and publisher, Margo Baldwin, to be lacking in depth and perspective. I’d like to offer a different take. I’ve worked at Chelsea Green for 16 years, first as an assistant to the publisher and then in various e ..read more

This commentary is by Liz Medina, executive director, VT AFL-CIO. What keeps the few in power over the many? It’s simple: divide and conquer. The “same old rich man strategy” — in the words of the artist collective the Peace Poets – is as old as the institutions of colonization and slavery. The British Empire and the emerging plantation class in the United States stoked racial resentments to prevent landless Europeans and enslaved Africans from standing together across racial lines to demand freedom and justice.  In the 20th century, it was a growing interracial industrial labor movemen ..read more

Boaters paddle through the flooded intersection of Main and State Streets in Montpelier on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger As head of the Center for an Agricultural Economy in the Northeast Kingdom, Sarah Waring was surprised by the number of rules the federal government had for a grant to build a simple wooden pavilion in a park in Hardwick.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture told staff, “‘oh, but you actually need to separate the design from the build. And you actually need to have three procurements that are fair,’” and other rules to protect taxpayers dollars ..read more

Photo via Adobe Stock The Vermont Criminal Justice Council has unanimously approved a selection of long-debated changes to Vermont’s fair and impartial policing policy in an attempt to curtail biased treatment of people by law enforcement based on personal characteristics. The changes, many of which centered on citizenship status, earned qualified applause from an immigrants’ rights group, which said they were a step in the right direction but did not go far enough. Last updated in January 2018, the policy lays out guidelines for unbiased policing, including under what circumstances law enfor ..read more