This Week's Issue: Aging Prisoners, Woodstoves and Public TV Trouble

A new issue of Seven Days hits the newsstands today. Here's what you'll find inside:

• This week's cover story: Grey is the New Orange. Vermont's elderly prison population is a rapidly growing group, straining the state's correctional facilities.
• New details have been revealed in the case of the mentally ill man who was fatally shot by Burlington police last year. Documents say the cops knew they were dealing with a "mental-health issue" but didn't know  Brunette's name before he was shot to death. 
• A ski area sans chairlifts? Backcountry skiers are organizing to encourage more institutional support for off-piste winter sports.
• Current weather is a prime reason to fire up the woodstove — but are wood heaters polluting Vermont's air?
• In Fair Game: Vermont Public Television faces a staff revolt and the potential loss of federal funds due to allegations against its board. Plus, T.J. Donovan opts out of a potential primary rematch with Attorney General Bill Sorrell, and state Sen. Peter Galbraith raises a ruckus over health care funding.

Get all these stories and more in print, online or on the app.

Cover photo by Tom McNeill

Wintry Blast Prompts State and Nonprofit Groups to Find Roofs for Homeless

Before yesterday, Wayne Dow hadn’t slept under a roof since early springtime. Homeless for many years and sleeping most recently near the Barge Canal in Burlington’s South End, the  60-year-old said today that he had planned to spend the whole winter outside. But on Thursday morning, “I got up and just said, ‘Alright, Nature, you win!’”

So after Dow (pictured, right) peeled off his icy crust of a blanket yesterday morning, he contacted the Committee on Temporary Shelter. COTS assigned him a bed in a Church Street homeless shelter. As he explained this, he was smoking a cigarette outside the COTS daystation on Buell Street. He’d just had lunch there — ham and potatoes au gratin — and was heading to the pharmacy to pick up cold medicine.

That Dow sought shelter was understandable. Thursday, Burlington temperatures were hovering around zero degrees Fahrenheit. Friday, the National Weather Service recorded a high in Burlington of negative two degrees and the temperature was expected to plummet overnight to 15 below. And that was before factoring in the wind chill. (The ink in this reporter’s pen froze several times during the reporting of this story.)

This Week's Issue: Winter Preview and Solar Woes

The leaves are falling off the trees — time to break out the hot chocolate and sit down with this week's winter preview issue of Seven Days. It includes a trip to the Putney theme park/timewarp Santa's Land, as well as these news and politics stories: 

• The state incentivizes homeowners to put in renewable energy installations such as solar panels that feed power back into the grid. But some small, local utility companies don't want any more.
• Can ski resorts be sued when skiers and snowboarders are hurt on the slopes?
• Ever been to a members-only ski area as exclusive as a posh country club? That's what you'll find these days at Haystack in West Dover.
• In Fair Game: Gov. Peter Shumlin pooh-poohs the federal shutdown (then flies to D.C.), Vermont Health Connect gets off to a slow start and a newspaper editor gets fired in the NEK.

Get this week's issue in print, online or on the iOS app.

Cover illustration by Sean Metcalf

"Bloom Season" Is Upon Us

Fall is right around the corner. But until the leaves turn red and gold, people around Lake Champlain must contend with changing colors of a different sort: For the last two weeks, pea-green blooms of algae have been popping up in Missisquoi, St. Albans and Malletts bays.

“Mid-August through September is, unfortunately, what we in the business call ‘bloom season,’” says James Ehlers, executive director of the nonprofit Lake Champlain International.

Scientists have determined that early summer rain brings nutrients like phosphorus into the lake, and long stretches of sunlight facilitate photosynthesis, resulting in the pea-green film, Ehlers explains. 

“It’s not unlike April showers bring May flowers,” he says.

This Week's Issue: Parks, Prostitution, PATRIOTs and Pipes

In this week's wood pulp-and-ink edition of Seven Days:

• Burlington's Parks and Recreation Department has struggled with management and morale problems for years. Can the new director, Jesse Bridges, right the ship?
• Following last week's cover-story exposé on prostitution in Asian massage parlors in Chittenden County, two of the establishments closed their doors, while a third is still accepting customers. Police have yet to visit any of the parlors, and seem uncertain about how to respond to what could be human trafficking. (Curiously, the adult site that listed the sexual services available at these parlors, Rubmaps.com, appears to be down).
• As downpours intensify, Burlington's storm-water system is fast becoming overwhelmed. Public works employees are working on a fix, but it could be expensive.
• And in Fair Game: U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy is cosponsoring legislation in response to the NSA phone records scandal that would make public rulings by a secretive surveillance court. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders takes on ... the Vermont ski industry? And Gov. Peter Shumlin's real-estate troubles take a political turn.
• Need something lighter? How about a Segway tour, little free libraries, Revolutionary War reenactors or eating without a gallbladder?  

This Week's Paper: A Reporter With a Record; Marijuana Dispensaries Face Financial Pressures

In this week's print edition of Seven Days, you'll find these bits of news:

• In Fair Game: the new cops and courts reporter at the Times Argus is a convicted sex offender — and the TA doesn't want to talk about it.
• Vermont environmentalist Bill McKibben
  and his allies are pushing divestment as the next big weapon in the fight against climate change.
• Vermont's future medical marijuana dispensaries will likely face money woes in the face of high licensing fees, few patients and federal laws that consider them illegal.
• Speaking of pot: A former New York City prosecutor, now a Vermont Law School professor, has launched a new blog to examine drug policies, and their consequences, in the United States.
• One year after the Occupy movement, activists are turning to a new trend: offering free food to the needy.
• And just for fun, find out what Seven Days writers have on their wish lists for Vermont. (Paul Heintz wins the award for least practical suggestion.)

 

Shumlin: Vermont "Escaped the Bullet" of Superstorm Sandy And Is Ready To Help Our Neighbors

As a glimmer of sunlight peeked out of the clouds above Vermont's Emergency Operations Center in Waterbury, Gov. Peter Shumlin had equally bright news to report to Vermonters in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

"We are pleased that we have escaped the bullet on Sandy without more damage [and] without loss of life," the governor told reporters Tuesday morning. Shumlin was quick to thank the hundreds of emergency personnel and utility workers who were deployed in recent days, some of whom were pulled in from as far away as Ontario. He also offered resources and equipment to nearby states to help in their recovery and cleanup.

As several million residents of New York, New Jersey and much of New England are without power and cleaning up after devastating flood and wind damage, Shumlin authorized the deployment of two Vermont National Guard helicopters to New Jersey to help in that state's recovery. The governor also said he'll be speaking to President Obama and regional governors and mayors later today to offer any assistance they may need.

Hurricane Sandy Roundup: Vermont Avoids Storm's Worst

Vermonters prepped for the worst with Hurricane Sandy approaching, but it looks like the state largely escaped the storm's wrath.

Sandy's wind wasn't as devastating as feared. According to the National Weather Service, gusts in Vermont topped out at 72 miles per hour atop Mount Mansfield, 61 mph near Lyndon Center and 60 mph in Underhill. At its worst point more than 16,000 Vermonters lost power, though that number is now below 10,000 as of this writing, primarily in Rutland, Windham, Windsor and Bennington counties. About six million people in total on the East Coast lost power due to Sandy. As expected, rainfall was not an issue in this storm — most Vermont locations got well below an inch of rain.

350.Org Activists: Fossil Fuel Industry Stirred Up Sandy

As clouds scudded across Burlington's skies, about 50 activists gathered on Church Street Monday afternoon to "connect the dots" between weird weather and the fossil fuel industry.

The rally was sponsored by 350.org, a political-action group formed by Vermont author Bill McKibben to address climate change. About a dozen supporters of the movement stood on the steps of city hall holding signs with the logos of oil companies pasted at the center of the meteorological symbol of a hurricane.

The Burlington event took place the day after 350.org unfurled a giant circular banner in Times Square emblazoned with the demand to "End Climate Silence." The New York action was organized on the eve of the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, described as the largest Atlantic storm in recorded history ever to hit the northeastern United States.

Katherine Blume, a local leader of 350.org, told the Burlington crowd that Sandy is the newest dot in a series that includes record-high temperatures, "glaciers melting all over the world" and a growing death toll attributable to climate change. "We saw one of the dots last year with Irene and unprecedented flooding in Vermont," Blume declared. "Why aren't we hearing over and over in the media and in our schools that we're facing a planetary emergency called climate change?"

What to Expect From Hurricane Sandy — a Seven Days Preparedness Guide

So, you wanted some much-needed relief from the seemingly endless barrage of 2012 election coverage and campaign advertising? Well, you've got it — in spades.

Hurricane Sandy now has Vermont's full and undivided attention and will continue to dominate the airwaves and blogosphere for the foreseeable future — or at least as long as the power stays on. (Is it just me, or does the latest NASA satellite photo of Hurricane Sandy look like a huge fist about to punch the entire eastern seaboard in the groin?)

For the latest, straight-from-the-horse's-mouth local forecast from The National Weather Service Office in Burlington, click here. 

In the meantime, here's the 11 a.m. update from Vermont Emergency Management's emergency operations center in Waterbury:

Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn said he does not expect Hurricane Sandy to be another Irene in terms of the scale or breadth of devastation in Vermont. The storm's punch is expected to peak in Vermont at around 8 p.m. Monday night, with the strongest winds and heaviest rains lasting through 4 a.m. Tuesday morning.