This week, Vermont’s health insurance exchange was shut down, Northeast Kingdom families will receive bungalows from Habitat for Humanity, hand foot and mouth disease hit Vermont schools, GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne called for a freeze on statewide property taxes and dances will go on in Bennington but without twerking.
These were some of the voices in the news this week:
Exchange Shutdown Catches Lawmakers By Surprise, 9/18/14
(Chief of health care reform Lawrence Miller) “Security advisors say if you are going to do something for a security reason, you do not telegraph that ahead of time, because you simply make yourself an attractive target in the interim.”
Northeast Kingdom Families To Get Bungalows From Habitat For Humanity, 9/18/14
(Elisabeth and Daniel Prue, of Coventry) “We put this on our land so that we could get out of that debt. ” “The way the economy is ... we wanted to be able to go into a house with very little or no loan.”
'Tis The Season... For Hand, Foot And Mouth Disease, 9/18/14
(Dr. Breena Holmes, the director of Maternal & Child Health at the Department of Health) "It is named after the places where you see tiny blisters (in the mouth, on the fingers and on the bottoms of the feet). It also has the symptoms of a regular old runny nose, sore throat, cough and fever. And occassionally vomiting, diarrhea. Although less common.”
Milne Calls For Freeze On Statewide Property Tax Rate, 9/17/14
(GOP Gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne) “It’s an idea that came from municipal leaders that we’ve talked to across Vermont. The Governor’s tax commissioner has to come out in November of this year and suggest to towns and school boards what the statewide property tax increase is going to be for the next year. We’re suggesting that should be zero.”
Twerking Still Prohibited, But Bennington High Schoolers Will Get Their Dance, 9/18/14
(Mount Anthony Union Principal Sue Maguire) "And we said, 'We’ve got to do what’s right,'" Maguire says. "Because by that time we had had girls share with us that they felt uncomfortable, and if even one of them felt uncomfortable it’s not okay. And it wasn’t always consensual. Males would come up behind them and they didn’t even know who they were and what was happening."
