Feb 16-22, 2011
How Green Mountain Manufacturers are Staying Competitive; Mardi Gras Parade Rolls Downhill
UVM Forum Asks: Vermont Yankee, Yea or Nay?
In roughly one year, the operating license of Vermont’s lone nuclear power plant — Vermont Yankee — expires. Despite a continued push by Entergy, the plant’s owners, along with a vocal group of businesses and citizens, there appears to be little evidence that lawmakers, or the governor, will reverse last year’s legislative vote and pave…
Tom Salmon Won’t Seek Reelection, Mulls Future
State Auditor Tom Salmon announced to his 3539 friends on Facebook last night that he won’t seek reelection in 2012 — less than two months after he was sworn into a third term. “I have enjoyed my service to the state but will not seek re-election as state auditor,” Salmon wrote around 9 p.m. “It…
‘Right-To-Die’ Bill Introduced in Legislature
Armed with a new poll that says 64 percent of Vermonters support a right-to-die law, a group of lawmakers introduced legislation today that would give terminally ill patients the choice of ending their own lives. After intense lobbying, the group Patient Choices Vermont secured 43 co-sponsors for H-274, including every House member from Burlington, minus Republican…
Vermont Chefs Nominated for James Beard Honors
This morning the James Beard Foundation announced the semifinalists for its über-prestigious JBF Awards for the best chefs and restaurants in the United States. Though Vermont didn’t garner any nominations in the biggest categories such as Best New Restaurant (Bluebird Tavern made last year’s cut) or Outstanding Chef (generally reserved for superstars), three Green Mountain…
Vermont’s Unionized Workers Under Pressure to Pay More
No expectations that Vermont will see some of the massive labor protests currently going on in Wisconsin, where the Republican governor has said he’d like to pretty much do away with state employees’ collective bargaining rights. The Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, has even asked the state National Guard to be ready to keep the…
The Bottom Line
Dear Mistress Maeve, My boyfriend has never had, and swears he will never have, anal sex, so how in the world do I get him to do it with me? I’ve told him over and over how much I love it, but he’s pretty vanilla when it comes to sex. I’m very open with him…
Facebookers Will Decide Whether Randolph Center Farm Gets $10,000 Grant
Commercial grain growers in Vermont are a tiny group, and Randolph Center’s Beidler Family Farm is among them. In addition to a herd of 35 dairy cows, Brent Beidler, along with his wife Regina and 13-year-old daughter Erin, farm 15 acres of wheat, spelt and millet. They sell their milk to Organic Valley and their…
Shelburne Museum Names Interim Director
Robert Skiff Sr. is going to wake up and smell the lilacs. Well, not till May, actually. But that’s a good thing, as there are a lot of chores to do at the Shelburne Museum — like, get the place ready to open for the season — before its bazillion bushes bloom. When that happens,…
Making It: How Green Mountain Manufacturers are Staying Competitive
Since 2001, Vermont has lost 180 manufacturing companies — and 15,000 jobs — to industry forces largely beyond its control. The silver lining? Those businesses left standing are doing all kinds of things right. “We’re on the verge of a pretty bright time for manufacturing in Vermont,” predicts Paul Demers, a business adviser with the…
Cabot Creamery: Vermont Makes It Marketable
Cabot Creamery | Est. 1919 | Cabot, Montpelier, Middlebury, Chateaugay, N.Y., West Springfield, Mass. | 1028 employees How did Cabot Creamery become a $400-million cheese biz? Look no further than the logo on any package of extra-sharp cheddar. There, in soft colors, is a bucolic Vermont farm scene with barns and silos nestled under the…
Vermont Precision Tools: Medical Bits
Vermont Precision Tools | Est. 1968 | Swanton | 140 employees in Vermont, 103 employees in Kentucky Vermont Precision Tools owes a good chunk of its business to a chance encounter two decades ago at a trade show in Texas — and the company’s willingness to try a new idea. “A doctor came along and…
Twincraft Soap: The Sweet Smell of Innovation
Twincraft Soap | Est. 1971 | Winooski, Essex | 225 employees The first thing you notice at Twincraft Soap in Winooski is the smell — a potent, perfume-y mix of what seems like thousands of different fragrances. That’s not too far off the mark. Twincraft manufactures 26,000 separate soap formulas for some of the biggest…
AllEarth Renewables: Following the Sun
AllEarth Renewables | Est. 2005 | Williston | 24 employees What has made David Blittersdorf one of Vermont’s most successful alternative-energy entrepreneurs? In a word, adaptability. When Blittersdorf founded Hinesburg-based NRG Systems in 1982, wind energy was in its infancy and the wind-measurement instruments his company manufactured were in high demand. But when federal tax…
Hazelett Strip-Casting Corporation: If It Ain’t Broke…
Hazelett Strip-Casting Corporation | Est. 1958 | Colchester | 154 employees Anyone who routinely travels West Lakeshore Drive in Colchester can be forgiven if they’ve never noticed Hazelett Strip-Casting Corporation. The view of Malletts Bay across the street is much more eye catching. In fact, it’s one of the reasons brothers Bill and Richard Hazelett,…
Cabot Hosiery: A Strong Defense
Cabot Hosiery | Est. 1978 | Northfield | 100 employees Ric Cabot, executive vice president and co-owner of Cabot Hosiery Mills in Northfield, isn’t being flippant when he says that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been great for his business. In fact, many of Cabot’s fellow residents of Northfield — home to Norwich…
Country Home Products: Doing Mow With Less
Country Home Products | Est. 1985 | Vergennes, Winooski Country Home Products is based in Vergennes, but its brush mowers and solar-powered hot-water heaters are assembled in Winooski. The factory floor is neatly divided into small workstations, each with two or three employees bolting together bright orange wood chippers, stump grinders and tow-behind backhoes. Things…
Chroma Technology: Work to Own
Chroma Technology | Est. 1991 | Bellows Falls, Burlington | 100 employees Many local manufacturers complain about the burdens of doing business in Vermont. Their litany features taxes, electricity rates, Act 250 and other state regs. To Paul Millman, however, Vermont is a state of virtue. “I can’t imagine living and working anyplace else,” says…
WallGoldfinger: Green Mountain High-End
WallGoldfinger | Est. 1971 | Northfield | 45 employees The Northfield office of corporate furniture manufacturer WallGoldfinger is papered with lists highlighted with the names of the country’s top architecture, finance and law firms. Those many blazes of yellow — all WallGoldfinger clients — are the reason for the company’s lasting success. WallGoldfinger’s stock-in-trade is…
News Quirks
Curses, Foiled Again After breaking into the same house he’d broken into eight months earlier, John Finch, 44, found himself trapped, according to police in New Castle County, Del., because the homeowner had changed the locks in the meantime so that a key was required to open the door, even from the inside. Finch entered…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls,” said comedian George Carlin. “There are mornings when your dreams are more real and important than your waking life,” says my favorite dream worker. “There are times when the doctor isn’t feeling well, and only his patient can…
Jock Doctrine
At Middlebury College, a provocative exhibit considers the male athlete
Vermont Woman Who Led Fight for ’99ers’ on Verge of Homelessness
A Brattleboro woman who led an effort to raise awareness about the plight of people who exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits and were facing eviction is herself now on the verge of homelessness. Alexandra Jarrin, who was featured on the front page of The New York Times last August and on CNN in…
Green Mountain Avengers at NYC Fashion Week
Here in Vermont, we’re aesthetically as far removed from the fashion capitals of the world as you can get. You’re about as likely to see grease-stained Carhartts and duct-tape-covered puff coats cruising down the runways of Paris or Milan as you are to spot an albino moose (which will be never, since a hunter shot…
WTF: What’s the story behind the ice dicks?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: We just had to ask…
Open a Window
Side Dishes: The Café Window, 97 Blakely Road, Suite 5, Colchester, 652-2444
![CarShare Vermont [212]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/episode212.webp?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
CarShare Vermont [212]
2/11/11: CarShare Vermont held their annual Share the Love benefit bash Friday night at Main Street Landing’s Union Station in Burlington. Eva talked to members about the concept of car sharing and went out for a drive with Nora (the car) and Patrick (a member) to see the sharing in action. Music: Pariah Beat, Pariah…
Letters to the Editor
Don’t Forget Sarducci’s So much ado about the new trendiness in Montpelier [“Capital Fare,” February 2]. Why is it never mentioned that the stalwart of Montpelier dining — Sarducci’s — is just that, the stalwart? The food is amazing. The prices fit both the Applebee’s and the Hen of the Wood budgets. Gastro joints come…
VT Filmmakers Say Film Commission Is “Failing” at Its Mission
Almost exactly a year ago, the Associated Press ran a widely circulated article about the potential end of the Vermont Film Commission. The tiny state agency, headed by Executive Director Joe Bookchin, was threatened by then-Gov. Jim Douglas’ budget cuts. The VFC was spared. But now it faces a damning critique — from some of…
Barre City Mayor Proposes New Occupancy Standards in Response to Seven Days Story
This afternoon, Barre City Mayor Thom Lauzon told Seven Days that on Tuesday night he intends to present the Barre City Council with new occupancy standards for all rental units in the city, and credits Seven Days for bringing the matter to his attention. Lauzon said he first became aware of Barre City’s lack of a…
Federal Appeals Court: Sidewalk Preacher Has No Right to Shout on Church Street
UPDATE below with comment from William Ray Costello. A federal appeals court has ruled that Burlington sidewalk preacher William Ray Costello has no legal right to shout the gospel on Church Street — even as one of the judges questioned the constitutionality of Burlington’s noise ordinance. Costello (pictured) — a born-again Christian from Milton who…
