THE LAST WEEK IN REVIEW
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SEPTEMBER 20-27, 2017
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COMPILED BY DAN BOLLES, SASHA GOLDSTEIN, MATTHEW ROY & ANDREA SUOZZO
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SEPTEMBER SIZZLE Vermont has seen record high temperatures during a recent stretch of hot, sunny fall days. That cool start to the summer was all a fever dream.
writer Molly Walsh reported. Their letter, dated September 15, asked for donations — and ideas. “This is an abrupt development and change to our strategy to complete project funding,” they wrote. In response, according to Milne, several donors have hopped on board. The construction project is not in jeopardy, he said. “At the sailing center, we teach people how to be resilient and how to change course when something happens out there on the water,” Milne told Seven Days. The development “was unfortunate news, but we didn’t miss a step and have shifted our strategy.”
The new Community Waterfront Campus & Sailing Education Center is being built just north of the city’s skate park. On Tuesday, the place was still a fenced-off hard-hat construction site, and workers scurried about with power tools. They had a deadline: Tony Pomerleau’s 100th birthday party was to be held at the new building on Friday. Mayor Miro Weinberger, Gov. Phil Scott and Vermont business leaders were expected to pay tribute to the businessman and philanthropist, who has donated $1 million toward the center. Look for updates to this story at sevendaysvt.com.
Police are hunting for a suspect who stole cannabis plants from a Moretown medical marijuana facility. Not chill, man.
BERNIE BITES
Four University of Vermont students named a new species of spider found in Cuba after Sen. Bernie Sanders. Viva la araña!
TOPFIVE
MOST POPULAR ITEMS ON SEVENDAYSVT.COM
1. “School: Vermont Teacher Fired for Demonstrating Nazi Salute to Third Graders” by Mark Davis. A substitute teacher at Georgia Elementary & Middle School caused a furor over the führer last week. 2. “A Student Shortage at Saint Michael’s College Leads to Existential Questions” by Alicia Freese. The current first-year class at the Catholic liberal arts school is the smallest in at least 15 years. 3. “Food Fight: Burlington-Area Grocers Spar for Customers” by Molly Walsh. Hannaford is expanding on Shelburne Road, and a new City Market/Onion River Co-op location is under construction nearby. 4. “Doughnut Dilemma to Close” by Sally Pollak. “Dough-nut be sad,” the owners of the Burlington shop wrote on Facebook, “new adventures await!” 5. “EB-Fail: Jay Peak Is Part of a Troubling Pattern” by John Walters. The failure of state officials to hold an investment project accountable is as troubling as the fraud itself.
tweet of the week: @taylorklong Everyone in the Northeast: [complaining about it still being hot] Me: [ecstatic that I got to go swimming two days in a row] FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @SEVENDAYSVT OUR TWEEPLE: SEVENDAYSVT.COM/TWITTER
Case, who was overseas at the time, firmly maintained on Twitter throughout the day that the house and barn were not hers. Despite her best efforts, the story had spread like, well, wildfire. National media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune, picked up the AP account. The next day, the Record stood by its story and reported that an angry Case, who is famously guarded about her personal life and has had well-documented incidents with stalkers, had called their offices and left a profane voicemail disputing the account. More evidence emerged that the Record likely had it right.
“That’s where she stays when she’s here,” assistant Barnet fire chief Joseph Barrett told Seven Days. So was it her place or not? She did register to vote in Vermont using the Barnet address where the blaze broke out, Secretary of State records show. According to the town’s grand list, the property is owned by an Illinois-based LLC. Its registered agent, St. Johnsbury lawyer Jared Cloutier, declined to comment. Case’s representatives did not respond to Seven Days’ requests for confirmation. Other outlets were similarly stonewalled, including internet myth-buster Snopes, which investigated the story. The website’s verdict? “Unproven.”
LAST SEVEN 5
fire that broke out September 18 in the Northeast Kingdom town of Barnet destroyed a barn and heavily damaged a nearby house, according to Vermont State Police. Not much about the blaze itself was especially noteworthy. But it was who may have lived in the house, Grammy-nominated songwriter Neko Case, that caught the attention of the Caledonian Record. The Associated Press quickly picked up the story, citing the Record’s account of the blaze. The news apparently came as a shock to Case, who moved to Vermont in 2009. “I keep getting reports that my house burned down?” she tweeted the morning of September 19. “Not my house. Not that that didn’t scare the crap out of me. @AP.”
SEVEN DAYS
DAN HALLMAN/INVISION/AP
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SEVENDAYSVT.COM
he Community Sailing Center’s new home is nearly complete. But the project, on Burlington’s waterfront, has hit an unexpected funding shortfall. The $5.75 million financing plan relied on $1.7 million in federal New Markets Tax Credits. A digital map showed that the project was just within a U.S. Census Bureau tract that would make it eligible. But in August, center officials learned that the building is just outside the tract — and therefore ineligible. Owen Milne, executive director of the sailing center, and Karen Marshall, its board chair, sent donors and community supporters an SOS, staff
That’s how much of a kickback a lawsuit alleges immigration lawyers received for each investor they brought to Jay Peak Resort’s EB-5 projects.
A new study found that Vermont is losing 1,500 acres of forest each year. It’s not just the state’s humans who have a housing shortage.
HIGH CRIME
The new Community Sailing Center
$25,000