1+ week, 1+ day ago (569+ words) The Office of the State Auditor found significant shortcomings with how the Vermont Department of Health reviews complaints related to food and lodging establishments, according to a recent report. The report is the first audit of four planned for the coming months by Auditor Doug Hoffer and his staff, part of an effort to assess how the state government responds to Vermonters" complaints." The department"s Food and Lodging program is responsible for ensuring that Vermont restaurants, hotels, and other similar establishments, follow the state"s health and sanitation regulations and protocols. The program provides licenses and inspects more than 6,000 food establishments and regulates lodging facilities, while addressing the complaints it receives from the public. The audit selected 45 complaints for review out of the 1,081 complaints the program received between 2022 and 2024. The types of complaints that come in include allegations of…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago (724+ words) We're halfway to our Thanksgiving goal of 1,200 members and 3,600 meals for the Vermont Foodbank. Will you join? Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for'VTDigger. New federal guidance received Oct. 31 will cause some green card holders in Vermont who arrived as refugees or asylum seekers to lose food benefits at the end of the month, state officials said Thursday.' There's still time to give! Your donation sustains VTDigger's nonprofit news and helps the Vermont Foodbank deliver meals to families in need. Meanwhile, State Attorney General Charity Clark and colleagues from 20 other states sent a letter Wednesday to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, requesting corrections to what they argued are incorrect legal interpretations in that guidance. "It's really unfortunate that the feds changed the rules," said Tracy Dolan, director of Vermont's State Refugee Office. "These folks didn't do…...

2+ week, 2+ day ago (715+ words) Your Thanksgiving gift fuels VTDigger's reporting and sends 3 meals to a neighbor through the Vermont Foodbank. MONTPELIER " Vermont officials are building a case to appeal President Donald Trump's rejection of a state request for federal disaster aid that would help a number of Caledonia and Essex county towns foot the bills from major flooding this past July. Gov. Phil Scott made the request for a major disaster declaration in August. If approved, it would have unlocked Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to help municipalities cover the costs of repairing critical infrastructure and starting new projects to halt the risk of future flooding, among other possible expenses. The state's application cited about $1.8 million in damages, which is more than the $1.2 million threshold states need to meet to qualify for a federal disaster declaration. On Thursday, Doug Farnham, Vermont's chief recovery officer,…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago (325+ words) Your Thanksgiving gift fuels VTDigger's reporting and sends 3 meals to a neighbor through the Vermont Foodbank. The No Kings protests in October, which drew over seven million people across the country, were hailed as the largest demonstrations in American history. Now the question for many people is: What works to stop authoritarianism? "When you have 3.5% of a population, which in the United States is roughly 12 million people, that means a movement is representative. It's hard to ignore. It's highly disruptive. And behind those 3.5% are many, many more people who support the aims of the movement," Stephan told The Vermont Conversation. She cited examples of "people taking courageous stands both as individuals and collectively." These include "the powerful image of the Idaho teacher, Sarah Inama, who refused to take down the sign "Everyone is Welcome Here' in her classroom, which resulted…...

3+ week, 11+ hour ago (764+ words) BURLINGTON " Vermont's state chapter of the Republican Party narrowly reelected its current chair, Paul Dame, to another two-year term on Saturday over a challenge from a sitting state senator. Dame won the election by just three votes, 50-47, over Essex County Republican Sen. Russ Ingalls. The vote was held during the state GOP's biennial convention at a hotel on the Lake Champlain waterfront in Burlington. Also on Saturday, the party voted in a new vice chair " Rep. Zachary Harvey, R-Castleton " as well as a slate of other statewide officers who oversee the party's electoral strategy and manage its finances." Harvey beat out two other candidates for the No. 2 job: Gregory Thayer of Rutland and William Kolb of Northfield. Dame had endorsed Kolb, over Harvey and Thayer, for the vice chair role. The roughly 100 people who voted in Saturday's election, which was…...

1+ day, 7+ hour ago (1393+ words) The wishlist for achieving a more stable health care system in Vermont is a long and lofty one: By 2031, the Agency of Human Services says it aims to strengthen the rural health care workforce in the state and increase access to timely care in those rural areas, all while increasing quality and reducing cost." One big piece of achieving those goals rests in moving more of the health care Vermonters receive outside of hospitals, the agency argues in its latest vision for hospital transformation, made public last week. What might become a reality depends in part on grant funding decisions the federal government is expected to make by the end of this year. The national opportunity became available in September after funding for the program was inserted into the federal budget reconciliation package to win the needed support of rural…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago (837+ words) The late Burlington author Bill Mares had yet to be diagnosed with cancer when, two autumns ago, the 83-year-old received a call from Jeff Danziger, a Dummerston friend and nationally syndicated political cartoonist. "I remember Bill sitting here by the fire," Chris Hadsel, Mares's wife of 53 years, recently recalled, "and, next thing we knew, Danziger was suggesting a book about what Vermont's going to be like in the future." No one foresaw how the resulting essay collection " "2050: Vermonters Take a Swipe at the Future," set for release this weekend " would arrive with a bittersweet backstory. Danziger saw his book suggestion as a follow-up to his 2017 teaming with Mares on "The Full Vermonty: Vermont in the Age of Trump," which featured 20 collaborators ranging from former Gov. Madeleine Kunin and Vermont Life magazine editor Tom Slayton to Weybridge writer Julia Alvarez and…...

2+ week, 2+ day ago (681+ words) Your Thanksgiving gift fuels VTDigger's reporting and sends 3 meals to a neighbor through the Vermont Foodbank. The three members of Vermont's congressional delegation all voted against a deal that ended the federal government shutdown because it did not include most Democrats' key demand throughout the impasse: an extension of health insurance tax credits." President Donald Trump signed the measure into law late Wednesday, just hours after the House passed it, 222-209. Six House Democrats joined most Republicans to pass the proposal; Vermont's U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., was not among those who crossed party lines. "I'm a hell no," Balint said in a statement following the vote. "I can't in good conscience vote for something that further damages an already broken health care system." The spending package will keep the federal government's lights on through the end of January 2026. It will fund…...

3+ day, 16+ hour ago (743+ words) We need 258 members to help us reach our goal by Thanksgiving and send 3,600 meals to the Vermont Foodbank. BRATTLEBORO " Activist Nancy Braus has protested nearly a half-century on area streets to tax the rich and feed the poor. But townspeople here still did a double take when they learned she was giving a local family shelter her recent inheritance of $1 million. "It was a bit of a shock and really takes your breath away," said Chloe Learey, executive director of the Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development that will use the money to host up to 10 households at a time. Your gift today will be matched and send 3 meals to the Vermont Foodbank. We need 258 members to help us reach our goal. It's just one way Braus has defied expectations. "I don't believe in inherited wealth," the 71-year-old…...

3+ week, 2+ day ago (454+ words) This story by Isabel Dreher was first published in The Herald on Nov. 6, 2025. "It gave me an opportunity to archive what I've done for the past 55 years, which I never would've done," he said. "It's my legacy, and I hope people like it." Tucker and Rowell went to high school together and their professional relationship is built on decades of friendship. For Tucker, as a lover of stories, having a local publishing company is a way to share the important stories of Vermont. That, she says, is exactly what Rowell does. In the 1990s, Rowell became an associate producer on "Man With a Plan," John O'Brien's 1996 film about Fred Tuttle, the real-life Tunbridge farmer and his fictional run for U.S. Congress. Tuttle occupies his fair share of pages in Rowell's book. "This was before the movie came out," he said, poring over…...