Archive - Apr 2010 - Page
April 15th
VERGENNES — The current workforce at Goodrich Corp.’s Vergennes plant stands at 780, about 20 fewer than a year ago. But if the company’s local hiring plans work out, more workers will soon punch in and out on Panton Road than did in mid-2009, and the workforce could return to where it stood before layoffs began early last year.
Sol Mirelez, marketing communications manager of Goodrich’s Sensors and Integrated Systems division — which includes the Vergennes plant — said the company is now advertising for more help there.
MIDDLEBURY — The former bookkeeper for the Addison Northeast Supervisory Union in Bristol pleaded guilty in Addison District Court on Monday to one count of felony embezzlement and one count of misdemeanor petty larceny after stealing more than $40,000 from the school district.
ADDISON COUNTY — On a brisk mid-April morning, Jeremy Gildrien worked alone in the large greenhouse beside his Middlebury home, fashioning from a mound of earth the “soil blocks” that would someday soon nurture small, green seedlings.
The breeze cut through the greenhouse as Gildrien worked among the rows of spinach and radishes and pea shoots, each sending up sprouts. He and his wife, Caitlin, are beginning farmers, and they’re learning that much of the work on their vegetable farm is solitary.
WEYBRIDGE — Local lawmakers served notice on Monday they are not enamored with a proposal to save around $20 million annually by consolidating Vermont’s 280 school districts into fewer than 50 and trimming public education personnel.
That public education consolidation plan, endorsed by Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca, is part of a “Challenges for Change” cost cutting plan aimed at producing $38 million in savings for state government. Lawmakers are currently trying to shore up a $154 million shortfall in the fiscal year 2011 state budget.
MIDDLEBURY – Where can you find solar houses, glass blowing, analyses of the Chilean health care system and old wooden trapping boats?
Students will be doing presentations on all of these — and more — this Friday at the Middlebury College Spring Student Symposium.
To be fair, the solar house won’t be on display, since it isn’t built yet. But building plans for the house will be on display all day at the symposium, an event that gives students a chance to present projects they have been doing to the wider community.
BRISTOL — Local foods advocates, educators and farmers convened on Tuesday afternoon with a full plate of work in front of them: Participants in the county-wide summit first and foremost want to see school districts in Addison County serving more food that is locally grown and produced — but that goal was the tip of the iceberg.
MIDDLEBURY — The Middlebury College men’s lacrosse team on Tuesday bounced back from its first home loss of the spring by outlasting visiting Skidmore, 11-9.
The Panthers, ranked No. 17 in NCAA Division III, are 6-3 overall and in a five-way tie for third place in NESCAC at 3-3, trailing Connecticut and Tufts, each 6-0.
They were coming off a disappointing 11-6 loss to Bowdoin (also 3-3 in NESCAC) on Saturday, and are heading into their final regular season home game, vs. Trinity (1-5 NESCAC) on Saturday at 2 p.m.
VERGENNES — When Ferrisburgh’s Kelsey Howard first came to the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Vergennes five years ago, she was an 11-year-old so shy she admits she spent a year doing little more than sitting in a corner with club supervisor Kathy Ciociola.
