THE LAST WEEK IN REVIEW
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AUGUST 16-23, 2017 COMPILED BY SASHA GOLDSTEIN, MATTHEW ROY & ANDREA SUOZZO
FEDS PLAN TO CLOSE STATE EB-5 CENTER F ederal officials intend to shut down the foreign investment visa center that Vermont has run since 1997, citing poor oversight of scandalplagued projects. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services “slammed the state for failing to adequately monitor eight Northeast Kingdom development projects financed through the federal EB-5 Program,” Terri Hallenbeck reported on sevendaysvt.com. In a notice to the state, USCIS wrote, “It appears that the regional center failed to properly engage in management, monitoring and oversight for many years, as required by the program.” Gov. Phil Scott, who got word of the development last Friday, went public with it Monday. He said that he had already intended to phase out the center. His administration will argue against shuttering it immediately in favor of a gradual shutdown, according to Mike Schirling, secretary of the state Agency of Commerce and Community Development. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit in 2016 alleging that Jay Peak Resort
HEAD FOR THE HILLS Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner reportedly vacationed in Vermont last week. “Glamping” in Barnard sure beats doing time at the White House.
owner Ariel Quiros and president Bill Stenger misused $200 million in investment funds for projects in Jay, Newport and Burke. The USCIS blamed the “malfeasance” on the failed oversight of the state-run center. The agency noted that then-governor Peter Shumlin promoted the NEK projects in 2013, despite concerns that a former Jay Peak partner raised about financial irregularities. The center oversees a federal program that lets foreigners earn green cards by investing $500,000 in development projects. Private entities run most of the EB-5 centers around the U.S. EB-5 investment can continue in Vermont, state officials said, through privately run EB-5 centers. Meanwhile, Schirling and Mike Pieciak, commissioner of the state Department of Financial Regulation, said they will argue that immediate closure of the center could force some 350 foreign investors without visas to have to reapply — and could also mean developers would lose out on those investors’ funds. Read Hallenbeck’s full post at sevendaysvt.com.
NEIGHBORS’ SPLAT
An Alburgh man was arrested for spraying a U.S. Border Patrol cruiser with manure — to protest lax enforcement of immigration laws. Shitty logic.
COLA CAPER
Someone pilfered 92 cases of soda last weekend from two Coca-Cola tractor trailers in Rutland Town. The motto is “Share a Coke” — not “Steal a Coke.”
40
That’s how many people have died this year in Vermont in vehicle crashes, according to the Agency of Transportation. That number includes four pedestrians.
TOPFIVE
MOST POPULAR ITEMS ON SEVENDAYSVT.COM
1. “Hood’s Off: Burlington White Nationalist Attended Charlottesville Rally” by Sasha Goldstein. Vermonter Ryan Roy explained to Seven Days how he became a “white identitarian,” and Uno Pizzeria & Grill confirmed he is no longer employed there. 2. “Broken Lizard’s Steve Lemme Dishes ‘Shocking’ Details on ‘Super Troopers 2’” by Dan Bolles. The long-anticipated sequel to the 2002 comedy classic is expected to drop next spring. 3. “Leahys in Love: A Senator and His Spouse Weather Cancer” by John Walters. For the past 14 years, the couple has lived with the possibility that Marcelle Leahy’s melanoma would return. 4. “No, Neo-Nazi Website the Daily Stormer Is Not Based in Burlington” by Sasha Goldstein. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate map” lists a white supremacist book club based in Burlington. 5. “The 500th Stuck in Vermont” by Eva Sollberger. Witches and loggers and cartoonists, oh my! The award-winning video series celebrates a milestone with a very musical episode.
DOWN ON DIXIE
FILE: DON WHIPPLE
Downtown Newport
@JayDiaz4Life new goal: remember daily that we are tiny beings on a big rock, circling a giant ball of fire, spinning in an infinite universe
WHAT’S WEIRD IN VERMONT
APOC-ECLIPSE
2:05 P.M.
The University of Vermont Medical Center emergency room reported no “incoming” injuries during the cosmic event. The Vermont State Police didn’t notice an increase in crashes involving motorists who forgot to remove their eclipse glasses. Ditto the Burlington police. As Deputy Chief
2:41 P.M.
3:10 P.M.
Shawn Burke put it, “Nothing eclipserelated impacted police services” — though several viewing parties broke out around the Queen City. According to one estimate, the eclipse was responsible for a loss in U.S. work productivity valued at $700 million. Seven Days was happy to contribute to that total. As 2:40 p.m.
3:40 P.M. rolled around and the eclipse peaked in Burlington, staff streamed outside and passed around a few pairs of eclipse glasses and a homemade pinhole viewer made out of a Chex box. The moon covered about 60 percent of the sun. Another group gathered at the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake
Champlain, while hundreds more set up on the lawn outside the Fletcher Free Library. Seven Days’ Katie Jickling was there to capture the excitement. “It’s good community-building,” Brian Perkins told her. “Much better than staying in your backyard,” chimed in another attendee. If you were among the unlucky ones who didn’t get a chance to see it, never fear. Burlington will be in the path of a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. So save those glasses!
LAST SEVEN 5
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housands of Vermonters watched a rare solar eclipse on Monday afternoon. And unlike our president, the state’s sungazers must have heeded warnings not to look directly at that big glowing orb.
1:35 P.M.
Photos taken at Middlebury College's Mittelman Observatory on Monday by telescope specialist Jonathan Kemp
SEVEN DAYS
2017
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Two different Middlebury homes flew Confederate flags last week — to commemorate the Civil War? Wasn’t Vermont on the other side?
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