MONTPELIER — Gov. Phil Scott said his administration plans to present a slate of recommendations to Burlington leaders in the coming weeks to address what he called a “crisis” related to homelessness and public drug use in the state’s largest city.

Scott’s comments, during a press conference Wednesday, come several weeks after Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak charged that the governor was not doing enough to help her city, or other municipalities around Vermont, respond to persistent social and economic challenges that have garnered significant statewide attention.

At the same time, Scott and leaders from his administration argued that the city isn’t doing enough on its own to enforce existing laws, including cracking down on illegal drug use and drug dealing as well as property crimes. A man’s death last month after he was assaulted near downtown’s City Hall Park has also inflamed local safety concerns.

“I look at this as like a crisis that they’re facing, much like a flood,” Scott told reporters, speaking in response to a question about the city’s economic vitality. “And the first thing that we need to do is respond to the flooding and help people — and then, the recovery part after. So, it’ll be a two-step process.”

The Republican governor said he met with a group of Burlington business owners Tuesday and plans to meet soon with residents and academic leaders, all of which would inform his recommendations. He would not share any specific policy changes he might propose. Scott said his administration would present its plan to Mulvaney-Stanak, who’s a Progressive, as well as the Democratic-controlled Burlington City Council. 

Late last month, the council overwhelmingly passed a resolution aimed at barring people from camping overnight in City Hall Park — something that is not allowed under local ordinances but has nevertheless become commonplace — and bolstering the presence of law enforcement officers in the area, among other measures. 

In the park, which is located just off the Church Street shopping hub, “acts of violence, drug trafficking, open drug use, the fencing of stolen goods, disorderly conduct, unlawful mischief, and similarly unacceptable incidents are far too commonplace,” the council resolution states.

Scott’s press secretary, Amanda Wheeler, said in an email Wednesday afternoon that the governor’s plan would focus on “public safety, holding service-resistant repeat offenders accountable, and connecting those in need of treatment to services.”

City leaders have not explicitly asked Scott to make policy recommendations, the governor said. But he contended that his goal was not to impose changes on the city that it would not want.

“We’re not going to force ourselves onto the city much like we’re seeing across the country with the current administration in Washington. That’s not our role,” Scott said. “If the city would like our help, we would lay out a plan to let them know what we can provide, and what we can’t.”

Mulvaney-Stanak wrote in an emailed statement Wednesday afternoon that she was “pleased to hear” the governor and his administration were considering ways to help Burlington.

The city is developing a list of specific requests for the state government that it believes would complement efforts already underway locally to address health and safety challenges, the mayor wrote. Her office is doing its own outreach to community members as part of that process, too.

“I look forward to meeting with the Governor to discuss our respective ideas and identify areas for deeper collaboration and coordination on both immediate and longer term solutions,” the mayor wrote.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Gov. Phil Scott says he’ll give Burlington a plan to tackle safety challenges.

Beth Hankes said her sex shop in Burlington was meant to be “the resource that I hadn’t had.” 

Struggling with sexual health issues and feeling trapped in the corporate world, she noticed a lack of modern, accessible and “joyful” stores selling sex products in the area. So in 2021, she opened Earth + Salt, the first women-owned sex shop in Burlington.

Now a certified sex educator, Hankes runs educational events at the store at least once a month. When Kell Arbor, health and wellness director at the Pride Center, approached the store to ask if they would sponsor Burlington’s first-ever Sex Week, she was so eager that she ended up becoming heavily involved in organizing it. 

The upcoming Sex Week, scheduled from Sept. 14 to 20, features 18 events and runs the gamut from educational panels to art shows and performances to how-to workshops. Earth + Salt plans to host two events, and others will take place at the Spiral House, the Karma Birdhouse, the Pride Center and the Burlington Waterfront Park.

Hankes and Arbor pulled together local sex educators as well as their connections in New York and elsewhere to offer the events, which vary in price from free to roughly $20.

Arbor said Sex Week was partly meant as a counterbalance to Burlington’s more “family-friendly” Pride event, which took place on Sunday. 

“I have been hearing from community members that we need more saucy, juicy, sexy things, not just within Pride, but within the community, centering queer and trans folks,” Arbor said. 

Arbor, whose pronouns are fae/faer, said the events were meant to be LGBTQ+ friendly by nature, but all are welcome. Only two events, mixers for BIPOC Vermonters and bisexual Vermonters, are restricted to people in each of those groups. 

“That’s what equity is about, right? Lifting up the perspectives of people most left out, that we might all see new ways forward,” fae said. 

Arbor said that as an HIV-positive Vermonter, fae have encountered ignorance around sexual health, even among health providers. “I’ve seen where the gaps were in my care with doctors saying women don’t get STIs,” or sexually transmitted infections. “That’s very inaccurate. One, I’m not a woman, and two, women get STIs,” fae said. 

Three events are aimed specifically at health practitioners, including one on sexual health for older adults and one on trans-inclusive practices in health care, according to the event website. 

At the same time, the organizers hope to draw people into the conversation by centering and celebrating pleasure in its workshops on kink and other sexual practices. “Pleasure is more of a sustainable invitation in. That’s why I like ‘edu-taining’ models,” Arbor said. 

Hankes said the event will feel like a release point for all the pressures and restrictions that have been building up this year regarding sexual health and marginalized communities. 

“We’re still going to be ourselves,” she said. “We’re still going to have this point of pleasure, education, community and give ourselves access to that, because obviously the government and the current cultural climate is not going to give us that.”

Arbor said events like these feel even more essential in the current political climate. The Pride Center was hit hard by federal funding cuts to HIV prevention earlier this year. 

“When we’re being attacked at our identities because of who and how we love, that’s all the more reason to invite people into education about how we might all free ourselves into more pleasure,” Arbor said. “I’m always like, ‘if we’re too busy having orgasms, we can’t bomb the world.’”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington’s first-ever ‘sex week’ celebrates inclusivity in sex education.

BURLINGTON — Debbie Hazen recalls turning 6 when the nuns who ran the city’s former St. Joseph’s Orphanage locked her in an attic trunk in the early 1960s.

“They told me there were bats and snakes and spiders in there that were going to get me,” she said of the dark place.

Hazen never imagined she would eventually find herself outside the orphanage dedicating a “memorial healing space” for the more than 13,000 children who lived at the Catholic facility from its opening in 1854 to its closing in 1974.

“This has been a long time coming and quite the journey for all of us,” Hazen, now 70, told a crowd of 100 fellow survivors and supporters Friday. “For some, this will complete their healing. For others, there’s still much to do.”

The North Avenue memorial, which features a sculptural arbor and stones etched with the words of former orphanage residents, is the final project in a five-year restorative justice process.

“Your voices have been instrumental in shaping our approach to child protection,” Chris Winters, commissioner of the Vermont Department for Children and Families, told survivors. “This memorial is not just a reminder of the past, but it’s also a symbol of your resilience and of our commitment to a future where every child is safe.”

Former orphanage residents once feared no one would believe their memories of mistreatment, so they didn’t start publicizing their childhood conditions until the 1990s. But authorities didn’t launch an investigation until a 2018 BuzzFeed article exposed the full extent of past “unrelenting physical and psychological abuse.”

By 2020, the review confirmed “abuse did occur … and that many children suffered,” although the accusations were too old to pursue criminal charges. To compensate, local and state leaders initiated a “restorative justice inquiry” to help former residents push responsible parties to adopt measures “to ensure that these harms never happen again.”

Working with social service and legal professionals, former residents lobbied for a 2021 state law that eliminated time limits on filing civil lawsuits alleging childhood physical abuse — a success that won them the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services’ 2021 Survivor/Activist Award.

But the orphanage’s overseers — the state’s Roman Catholic Diocese, the Sisters of Providence and Vermont Catholic Charities — would not meet with survivors as a group nor consider requests for childhood records or restitution.

As part of the inquiry, participants told their stories through several public projects, including two anthologies, a Vermont Folklife-supported oral history and traveling exhibition, and journalist Christine Kenneally’s 2018 BuzzFeed exposé and 2023 follow-up book, “Ghosts of the Orphanage.”

Inquiry organizers also released a 176-page final report that summed up the restorative justice process as both “helpful and healing” and “difficult and painful.”

The new memorial rose with help from Burlington’s Department of Parks, Recreation & Waterfront and supporters who donated $160,000. The dedication featured current and former  local and state leaders as well as survivors who came from as far away as Florida.

“I would like to acknowledge all the unseen victims who have gone unnoticed,” said Debi Gevry, 62, whose father, struggling to care for her and her two siblings, placed them at the orphanage in the 1960s.

“He did so thinking he was doing what was best for his children,” she said in a speech. “On a mechanic’s wage, he paid for our keep not knowing the suffering we were enduring on a daily basis.”

Gevry, who said she wasn’t hugged until after leaving at age 12, went on to raise her own family.

“I have yet to heal from the traumas hidden deep in my soul,” she said. “I have unknowingly passed on my fears and anxieties to the next generation. This is just a small example of the ripple effect abuse carries.”

Gevry closed by reading a poem she wrote. Chiseled into a memorial stone, it’s punctuated by the refrain, “We will be remembered.”

“I may never be completely whole,” she said, “but I will not be silenced.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: For Vermont survivors of orphanage abuse, the restorative justice process is over. The journey is not..

An adult and a juvenile pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder charges Tuesday in connection with the Aug. 11 beating in Burlington and subsequent death of a South Burlington resident.

Scott Kastner, 42, was allegedly the victim of a “frenzied mob style assault” by a group of people around 1:30 p.m. on Aug. 11, according to Burlington police. 

The attack began in an alley off Church Street and spilled on to City Hall Park. The victim was “savagely punched and kicked” while he was on the ground, causing a severe brain bleed that prompted emergency intubation and surgery at the University of Vermont Medical Center, according to court documents.

Kastner died five days later from complications due to blunt force trauma to the head, and the medical examiner preliminarily ruled his death a homicide, according to police. 

Originally from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Kastner leaves behind four children, six siblings and his parents, according to his obituary.

Police arrested one of the suspects on Friday and another on Saturday. At least three other minors have also been charged in relation to the case, police said.

Isaiah Argro, 26, of Queens, New York, and a 16-year-old Colchester resident VTDigger is not naming, were ordered held without bail by Judge Timothy Doherty after arraignments Tuesday morning in Chittenden County Superior criminal court in Burlington. The juvenile was charged as an adult. 

A second-degree murder conviction carries up to a life sentence, with a presumptive minimum term of 20 years, according to the charge sheet filed by the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Argro, who also uses the last name Agro, allegedly punched Kastner in the head approximately 10 times, police wrote in court documents. He is being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.

The teenage defendant allegedly hit Kastner in the head approximately six times and pointed a gun at him, according to court documents. 

The judge further ordered the defendants must not have contact with each other nor with a woman who was a witness, according to court documents. Argro has previous criminal charges in New York, police said.

Amid continued debates about safety downtown, the Burlington City Council last week passed a resolution that includes increasing police presence, among other measures, to help create a safer and more welcoming City Hall Park. It also passed  a companion ordinance for some less serious violations to be processed through a restorative justice system.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Two plead not guilty in downtown Burlington ‘mob-style’ beating death.

Updated at 7:35 p.m.

BURLINGTON — The City Council overwhelmingly passed a resolution Monday night intended to create a safer and more welcoming City Hall Park after hearing extensive testimony.

Sponsored by City Council President Ben Traverse, D-Ward 5, the 3-page resolution aims to “revive City Hall Park as a more accessible, family-friendly gathering space” by enforcing existing laws “to address criminality and other unwelcoming behaviors.”

This includes keeping the park closed to the public from midnight to 6 a.m. as posted, maintaining a “more consistent presence” of police and public safety personnel, and developing a standardized response to low-level drug issues in the park.

The 9-2 vote — Melo Grant, P-Central, and Marek Broderick, P-Ward 8, voted no — comes six days after a man died after he was allegedly assaulted by a group of teens in the park. Interim Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke identified the victim Tuesday as Burlington resident Scott Kastner, 42.

Burlington residents and leaders have hotly debated the challenges of addressing increasing homelessness and public drug use downtown in recent months. At Monday’s meeting, some business owners claimed they are losing business and staff. Meanwhile, some residents said they find downtown unsafe and unwelcome, while others opposed further criminalizing the unhoused and called for greater compassion and creative solutions.

The resolution is meant to reach that middle ground and is “one step forward in starting to do what we can as a city,” said Progressive Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak who has recently sparred with Gov. Phil Scott on  how to improve conditions in the city.

“I oppose this because it’s inadequate to meet the moment that we find ourselves in and it’s harmful to the most vulnerable members of our community in a way that will not solve anything,” Broderick said, citing continued gaps that exist in housing, mental health care treatment and an overburdened criminal justice system.

More than 75 people attended the public hearing that lasted more than an hour.

“City Hall Park has become a major hot spot for lawlessness, drug abuse and other bad behavior,” said Dave Marr, a New North End resident for 50 years. “This has gotten to the point where many are afraid to go to the park, let alone stay and enjoy it.”

He encouraged the city to “enforce our rules and start cleaning up our city.”

Some business owners said the ongoing safety issues and the Main Street construction project have been detrimental to attracting staff and customers downtown.

Sheri Campbell, a salon operator downtown, said she lost 80% of her staff in the last 12 months. Leslie Wells, who owns restaurants downtown, said business is down 30%. Mad River Distillers founder John Egan said since 2024 they’ve been losing staff at the corner store downtown “because they felt unsafe.” All of them urged the council to pass the resolution.

Others pushed back on the language used in the resolution and the assumption that those who are unhoused or battle substance abuse or mental health disorders are the reason downtown is deemed unsafe.

At a time when the Trump administration is limiting access to Medicaid, food stamps and “encouraging the criminalization of homelessness everywhere,” downtown resident Sam Bliss said he is sad to hear his neighbors blaming the victims of a housing and affordability crisis.

“On the one hand, I’m hearing folks complaining that the police aren’t doing their jobs, and, on the other hand, also calling for more police at the same time,” said Bliss, who is an organizer of the Food Not Cops/Food Not Bombs lunch program that has also faced some debate this year. He asked the city to be “more imaginative than calling for more police” to address the issues downtown.

FaReid Munarsyah, South End resident and co-organizer of The People’s Kitchen, a volunteer-led community effort that is serving free hot food three nights a week in the park, asked councilors to visit during the Tuesday night dinner.

Ed Baker, a North End resident and former social worker, urged the city to open the long promised overdose prevention center that he said would save lives. Forty-five people have died due to opioid-related deaths through May this year, according to the health department’s data.

After robust discussion, councilors voted to pass the resolution at 9:40 p.m., with one member absent.

Traverse, the council president, said he continues to hear that public safety downtown is a top priority for families, visitors and businesses, especially given recent incidents of violence, substance use and drug trafficking in the park.

“What we have going on in the park is a very troubling mix of not only criminal behavior but evidence of a mental health crisis in our state, substance use disorder crisis in our state and our affordability challenge,” said Shawn Burke, interim chief of the city’s police department.

Despite challenges of enforcing the park ordinance and staffing shortages, Burke shared data showing a majority of the department’s time and resources have been invested in policing the downtown area. 

As police continue to work with the city, courts and businesses “to make Burlington as vibrant and safe as humanly possible with the resources that we have,” Burke said he appreciated the resolution but warned there are no quick fixes to these issues.

The council also unanimously passed a companion City Circle ordinance Monday to create a rapid response process for civil and criminal ordinance violations to be processed through a restorative justice system in partnership with the Burlington Community Justice Center.

“People who receive tickets will be referred to the City Circle,” Burlington City Attorney Jessica Brown said at the meeting. “And the hope is that they will engage with the City Circle and address any harm that may have been caused, any accountability and repair harm to the extent possible.” 

“I see these efforts as happening in partnership with continued investments in substance use recovery and treatment services, of expanding our available mental health resources, of growing our affordable housing stock,” said Mulvaney-Stanak, who supported the resolution.

The mayor said she plans to review national best practices for resolving the issues of “non-violent illegal and anti-social behavior in public spaces, including new community health based strategies to reduce open illegal drug use,” according to the resolution passed, which calls for a report from the mayor and police by Sept. 29.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington City Council passes resolution to make City Hall Park safer.

BURLINGTON — On Sunday afternoon, Burlington police officers found explosive devices in an apartment building on Pearl Street they deemed to be associated with a resident, Justin Perkins, according to a press release from the Burlington Police Department. The 40-year-old man was arrested Thursday for allegedly bringing a pipe bomb to his work site in Colchester the week before. 

Before he was arrested last week, Perkins had talked with his coworkers about building bombs and making ghost AR-15 rifles in his residence, according to court documents. 

Around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, officers responded after someone reported explosive devices in the building. The road in front of the apartment, at 90 Pearl St., was blocked off for the afternoon. 

Residents were evacuated from the apartment building and “explosive devices were safely removed and neutralized,” according to the press release. 

Police officers were assisted by local firefighters, the Vermont State Police Bomb Squad, the Vermont Hazardous Materials Response Team and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to the press release. John Russel, who works at Leonardo’s Pizza across the street, said the employees watched responders climb large firetruck ladders to a window in the apartment building. 

Residents were assisted by the American Red Cross before they were allowed to re-enter the building after it was deemed safe around 11 p.m., according to the press release. 

The incident comes four days after Perkins was arrested for allegedly bringing a pipe bomb to a job site on Dylan Avenue in Colchester. Court documents state that Perkins brought the bomb, which was about the size of a water bottle, to work on Aug. 14.

That day, he brought the bomb wrapped in what looked like white rags or a trash bag and “was excited to show” it to his coworkers, explaining how it worked and alleging it was simple for him to make, according to court documents.  

Perkins’ criminal history includes three failures to appear, 15 felony charges with one conviction, 43 misdemeanor charges with nine convictions, and three assaultive crime charges resulting in one conviction, according to court records. 

Perkins’ employer alerted police about the bomb on Aug.15. After his arrest on Aug. 21, Perkins was granted $10,000 bail, but did not post it, according to court documents. As of Monday morning, he’s being held without bail, according to the press release. 

The Burlington Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Burlington did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Monday. The Vermont State Police referred all comments to local police. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Explosives in Burlington apartment allegedly connected to man with Colchester pipe bomb.

Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak called on Gov. Phil Scott this week to do more to help the state’s largest city respond to homelessness and curb public drug use. But Scott and his administration argued the city needs to be the one to step up first.

The back-and-forth across different forums underscored how some state and local leaders have been at odds over each other’s role in addressing persistent social and economic challenges that, while not unique to Burlington, have nevertheless subjected the city to statewide scrutiny.

“The city has made their bed, and they are going to have to ask for specifics to help turn the corner,” Jennifer Morrison, Scott’s commissioner of public safety, whose job includes overseeing the Vermont State Police, said at a press conference Wednesday.

At one point, the commissioner — who was Burlington’s interim police chief in 2020, when protests prompted city councilors to cut the size of the police force by attrition — characterized visiting the city right now as a “terrifying” experience, though did not explicitly say why she thought that. She had interjected during an exchange between Scott and a reporter from WCAX News.

“The problems in Burlington did not occur overnight. They will not be fixed overnight,” Morrison said. “And it requires that everybody commit to principles of accountability — shifting the pendulum back to the middle so that the use of public spaces is just as important for law-abiding people and businesses to thrive as it is for service-resistant people who make others afraid or commit crimes.”

The WCAX reporter had asked Scott, a Republican, what his administration was doing that could help Burlington address concerns raised at a Tuesday meeting the mayor’s office held with local business owners. According to WCAX, a number of attendees told Mulvaney-Stanak, a Progressive, that drug use and dealing in downtown was hurting their businesses.

Joe Magee, a spokesperson for Mulvaney-Stanak’s office, said the mayor’s response in that virtual meeting echoed what she wrote in an op-ed published in VTDigger last week. 

In that opinion piece, the mayor said Vermont municipalities “do not have the staff or resources to adequately respond” to what she called a combination of homelessness, substance use disorders and mental health crises. She said the governor’s decision to allow a sweeping round of evictions from state-sponsored motel rooms to proceed on July 1 — a move that specifically impacted families with children and people with acute medical needs — put more pressure on social services in and around Burlington.

In a statement to VTDigger Thursday, Mulvaney-Stanak also said she took issue with the governor’s and his administration’s comments at the press conference a day prior. 

“I continue to hope for stronger collaboration with the Governor and his team, and I was disappointed that they decided to take an adversarial tone in communicating to Burlington through the media,” the mayor said.

Scott said at the Wednesday briefing that he was not sure what additional help his administration would be willing to provide the city unless local leaders took steps to boost enforcement of existing laws, including cracking down on public drug use, he said. 

The governor acknowledged Burlington businesses were facing numerous challenges including a well-documented decline in Canadian tourism spurred by blowback from President Donald Trump’s sweeping trade war. But regardless of that and other factors, Scott said, it was wrong for the mayor to suggest his administration is not doing enough to help.

“I think it’s easy to blame others when some of your strategies are failing,” he said. 

Some Burlington leaders have called for the city to bolster local law enforcement, too. On Thursday, City Council President Ben Traverse, a Democrat representing Ward 5, wrote an open letter calling for a police presence “during all open hours” in downtown’s City Hall Park, which has become a hot spot for drug use and dealing. 

Traverse also called for the park to be cleared overnight — when it is closed — of people sleeping. That’s not allowed under city ordinances, though in reality, many people regularly use the park for overnight shelter.

Traverse wrote that his letter — which was sent by the city’s Democratic Party — was in part a response to recent news that a man died after being assaulted and injured near the park.

“I call on my friends in the Progressive Party, and all political persuasions, to join me in collectively building a more resilient Burlington by focusing on the issues voters elected us to tackle,” Traverse said in the letter, which was first reported by Seven Days. 

Traverse, who represents the city’s South End on the council, said in the letter he planned to discuss his requests at the upcoming council meeting on Monday.

In a separate email to Burlington residents Thursday, Mulvaney-Stanak emphasized that the city could not address what she called “complex and overlapping public health crises” on its own. The Progressive mayor urged her constituents to use a contact form on Gov. Scott’s website to make a plea for greater state support. 

“I am urging Vermonters to contact Governor Scott to tell him that municipalities and many of our local businesses are at a breaking point,” the mayor wrote, “and that it should be a State priority to develop a coordinated response to our collective public health, housing, and mental health crises.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Phil Scott, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak trade blows as state leaders take aim at homelessness, public drug use in Burlington.

BURLINGTON — Upbeat music, colorful lights and delicious smells drew a crowd to a table set up at the corner of City Hall Park downtown Tuesday night.

Amid volunteers dishing out heaped plates of pesto salad and biriyani from a fold-out table was a man expertly folding and filling dough triangles with mixed veggies, while another fried them in a pan of hot oil set up on the sidewalk.

“Free food, free people, free speech,” chanted a cheerful FaReid Munarsyah, a Burlington resident and co-organizer of The People’s Kitchen, a volunteer-led community effort to cook and serve free hot food.

Well-known for his community activism, particularly around food insecurity, Munarsyah and the People’s Kitchen banner are often present at local community events, such as the World Refugee Day celebration at Leddy Park in June.

When he heard about the recent struggles faced by Food Not Cops/Food Not Bombs — another mutual aid free food distribution group in the city — Munarsyah decided to join the effort to feed hungry downtown residents.

“Businesses and the City Council don’t like us being here so we are here harnessing people’s power,” he said as he folded paper-thin egg rolls.

For many years, Food Not Cops/Food Not Bombs has served free lunch out of the Marketplace Garage downtown. This summer, 150 area businesses signed a letter alleging the effort “has had a negative impact on the area.” They sent it to the mayor asking that the food distribution “be relocated to a more appropriate and secure setting.”

The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

That led to a counter letter signed by dozens of organizations and businesses expressing support for the meal program, followed by a protest outside City Hall before the May 20 City Council meeting. Sam Bliss, one of the organizers of the lunch program, also wrote an op-ed stating that Food Not Cops makes downtown safer.

Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak signed a resolution allocating $10,000 to support the program’s relocation “to a more accessible and better-resourced location.” Bliss recently told VTDigger the volunteers have not collected the funds. 

“There’s not agreement within the group that it’s a good idea to take the money,” he wrote in a message.

The attention the issue has received led to “The People’s Potluck Protest Picnic & Distro,” hosted Tuesday nights by the People’s Kitchen, according to flyers posted on social media. The group recently began serving hot food in a corner of the park off College Street three nights a week and plan to continue, especially through the winter, according to Munarsyah.

“The city needs to be taking care of its people, right? You want safety, then you start feeding people. People who are not hungry are less desperate,” he said.

It was a slow night this week, but the previous two Tuesday dinners served about 120 and 150 people, he estimated.

This week’s meal included a green salad, pesto chicken pasta salad, vegetable biriyani, seafood biriyani, and fresh peaches with whipped cream for dessert that was donated by a resident.

“It’s delicious,” said a woman who identified herself as Tanya and helped herself to two freshly fried, crunchy eggrolls. 

She said she used to work at a soup kitchen her parents started in Brattleboro about 45 years ago.

“I worked there my entire life all the way ’til they died. Now I’m in need of food,” she said. “I never thought that the tables would turn but here I am on the other side of the table.”

Munarsyah, originally from the Phillipines, is known for cooking food and hosting dinners at his home where all are welcome to cook and eat. So not all who stopped by to volunteer or eat were unhoused. 

Rep. Brian Cina, P/D-Burlington, was among the volunteers there. They said they first started helping during the Occupy Vermont movement in 2011, and continued serving food to the encampment at Sears Lane in 2021 and during the wave of evictions as the state’s motel program was scaled back.

“We saw horrible things,” Cina said, their voice cracking as they described people dying and freezing in the cold and having to call the hospital or arrange for blankets and emergency help.

People’s Kitchen intends to continue serving hot dinner in the park three nights a week and provide essential supplies to those in need in partnership with other efforts, such as the Street Community Action Team of Burlington. It does so with the help of donors like farms and businesses, as well as public donations.

The recent attention Food Not Cops/Food Not Bombs garnered has Munarsyah worried about whether the city will target the volunteer-run effort for removal or impose permit and licensing requirements.

“I think they’re going after the wrong people,” he said. “Politicians, who were responsible for the housing crisis to begin with, are in no position to criticize people who are actually doing something about the housing crisis. And we’re doing something. We’re helping people who are unhoused and anybody who wants a meal, and it’s free.”

As volunteers packed up leftovers and cleaned the area, a plastic LED sign on the table continued to flash colorful messages: “Free food. Good Food. Good mood. 100% halal.”

Disclaimer: The reporter of this article has volunteered to serve food with People’s Kitchen on several occasions.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Food as protest: People’s Kitchen serves free hot meals downtown in solidarity with Food Not Cops .

A man who police said was assaulted and injured near City Hall Park in Burlington, allegedly by a group of teens a week ago, has died, interim Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke confirmed Tuesday morning.

News of the man’s death had previously been reported on news sites and on social media. 

Burke said that he was still awaiting autopsy results determining the cause and manner of the man’s death. The chief declined to provide the man’s name or any other details surrounding the man’s death.

Officers on foot patrol around 1:30 p.m. on Aug. 11 in City Hall Park in Burlington came upon an assault taking place involving several people on Church Street near the park, according to a press release issued last week by Burlington Police. 

“As the Officers approached, the group fled on foot and by bicycle,” the release stated. “Officers were able to chase and apprehend three juveniles who were involved in the assault.”

The juveniles were later issued citations to appear in Chittenden County Superior family court, the release stated. Juvenile court matters are heard behind closed doors. 

Because the matter involved juveniles, Burke said he could not provide additional information, including their ages. He also declined to discuss what may have prompted the incident. 

“That’s all germane to the investigation, and we have to preserve the integrity of that,” the police chief said. 

One of the teens arrested had a firearm, according to the release, and “further investigation revealed the firearm having been displayed during the assault of the victim.”  

The injured person, who police described as an adult man, was taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington for treatment for serious injuries, the release stated.

The police chief said the investigation was continuing and that there may be additional arrests.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Man dies after assault last week near City Hall Park in Burlington.

The city of Burlington lifted a water conservation notice for some city and Colchester residents Thursday morning, two days after it was announced.

Tuesday’s advisory affected customers who receive a water bill from Burlington Water Resources or Colchester Fire District 2, which the city also serves. The reservoir and tanks serve about 10,000 customers in Burlington and about 2,800 in Malletts Bay.

“The cause of the conservation notice was the booster pump failure on the water main that supplies the Colchester water tank,” Chapin Spencer, the city’s director of public works, wrote in an email Thursday. “Without the booster pumps, our regular supply lines to the tower could not keep up with the higher water demand that we saw during the heat wave.”

The alert was sent midday Tuesday after the water in a Colchester tank fell 2 feet below the minimum desired level, Spencer said earlier this week. On Thursday morning the drinking water level was back to normal and the alert was lifted. 

“With our customer’s water conservation efforts, now both the Colchester water tank and the Burlington reservoir are replenished and up to normal levels,” Spencer wrote.

The two booster pumps feeding the Colchester water tank that failed are approximately 25 years old, said Spencer, who oversees upgrades to Burlington’s aging infrastructure. One is fixed, and despite significant maintenance, the other pump is not online yet.

“We do exercise the pumps weekly, but moving forward we are now going to exercise the pumps for a longer duration to more fully test them,” Spencer said in the email.  

Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington lifts water conservation alert.

Camryn Woods is a reporter with the Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.

BURLINGTON — On a warm Sunday evening in June, Margaret Skinner crouched near a young honey locust tree and plucked away the net of weeds that surrounded it. Her efforts, she knew, could help the sapling breathe by reducing its competition for nutrients and water.

This honey locust is just one of 600 trees that Skinner and her team of volunteers nurture throughout the summer. Most of the trees, having traveled in a tractor trailer truck from Oregon, will spend their most vulnerable years being cared for in the South Burlington–based tree nursery called Branch Out Burlington.

Once they graduate from the nursery three to four years later, the trees will provide shade, carbon sequestration and valuable habitats throughout the state of Vermont.

Branch Out Burlington, affectionately referred to by its members as “BOB,” is dedicated to enhancing the urban forest in Burlington, engaging community members through events like tree walks and weeding days and hosting an annual tree sale. 

Skinner helped found the group in 1996 when the city lacked resources to care for its trees. Two years later, she was granted access to land that would become the nursery — at the time, stocked with only 40 trees, according to Skinner — which is currently located off of Shelburne Road in the University of Vermont Horticulture Farm.

“I don’t want to just plant trees. I want to make sure the trees that get planted in the community get cared for, because they weren’t and they were dying,” said Skinner, who also works full-time as an entomologist at the University of Vermont.

This care, Skinner said, includes removing weeds, selectively removing branches to improve health, securing trees in place with wooden stakes and watering them. Young trees can also be easily damaged by outdoor equipment like weedwhackers and lawnmowers, which should be avoided around them, she said.

That Sunday evening, Skinner was joined by the president of Branch Out Burlington, Jacob Holzberg-Pill, and the organization’s web designer, Nathan Hoffmann, who are part of the board’s eight to nine members.

When he found Branch Out Burlington, “I was looking for things to do that were outside, that were tree related, that were part of the community,” said Holzberg-Pill, who had moved to Burlington with his 1-year-old son. “I contacted Margaret, and I was like, “Hey, could I come help out?’”

Hoffmann joined the organization three years ago, when he was looking for volunteer opportunities as a graphic designer at OnLogic, a computer hardware manufacturing company. After attending multiple weeding events, he started going to the board meetings, cementing his long-term involvement.

“I wanted to learn more. There’s a wealth of knowledge here that you’d never believe. It was just such a cool opportunity to get more involved and to be a part of the community, doing something that was much bigger than me,” Hoffmann said.

On Tuesday, July 8, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Branch Out Burlington held a Weeding Bee in the nursery, which is open to the public every second Tuesday during the summer months. Its 20-some attendees chatted, cleared weeds from tree beds and puzzled over iPhone pictures of unidentified damage on folks’ front yard trees.

Once the weeding was done, Skinner provided free pizza and homemade cookies to volunteers. A ticket raffle was held, with prizes ranging from urban forestry books to a handmade wooden birdhouse.

“It’s a really special, fun way to get away from the work week and meet wonderful community members of all ages and from all over,” Hoffmann said. 

The Essex Junction Tree Advisory Committee, established by the city council in 2013, also makes an effort to be at the Weeding Bees. They have two rows of trees specifically allocated to the city, but volunteers help care for the entire nursery. 

“It was a win-win for us because we could, with our budget, be able to really increase the number of trees we could get into the community,” said Nick Meyer, chair of the committee.

Weeding Bees and Branch Out Burlington’s other volunteer opportunities, like pruning and grafting workshops and tree planting events, make urban trees economically viable for cities. 

When trees are bought older and immediately ready to plant in urban environments, they’re much more expensive, according to Holzberg-Pill — potentially around $500 each. 

Instead, Branch Out Burlington buys its trees from Oregon nurseries for $50 at younger ages with the knowledge that they’ll be stewarded by volunteers for a few years until they’re ready to move. 

Branch Out Burlington’s July 2025 newsletter wrote that it give away hundreds of trees to local schools, towns and non-profits that have the means to take care of them every year. The ability to fund projects like this comes from donations and tree sale profits. 

Green Mountain Farm-to-School, a nonprofit that builds healthy school environments, the Intervale Community Farm, a Burlington-based agricultural center, and Perkins Pier in Burlington, for example, have received tree donations, according to the newsletter.

Going forward, Skinner hopes to continue developing Branch Out Burlington’s media presence. “We are lucky to get 20 people up here to help take care of these trees once a month,” she said. “As I look around the nursery, I could spend every day, all day, and there would still be work to do.”

Urban trees are becoming more important as the climate warms, according to Meyer. 

“If we didn’t have any trees on all our sidewalks and open areas, days like today would be even hotter,” Meyer said. Cooling the temperature in cities and slowing rainfall in tree canopies are forms of stormwater management, and green spaces can give a visually softening effect to concrete environments, Meyer said.

“Hopefully these trees are going to be here for generations,” he said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Where do city trees come from? Meet the people behind Burlington’s tree nursery.

Vermont Green Football Club fans say they scored two victories last week. One was in the club’s first national championship game in the United Soccer League’s second tier, and the other was in a fan-organized fundraiser for assistance to immigrant communities.

During the club’s deep run into the playoffs, banners in the stands bore not just Vermont crests and “Allez les Verts” messages, but illustrations of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, and “Abolish ICE” in block letters. 

Political neutrality in soccer has been the subject of international debate at the professional level. According to Mike Jenack, a Vermont Green fan who organized much of the effort to raise over $25,000 for Migrant Justice and the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund, the club’s core identity is inextricable from its founding commitment to social issues. Political advocacy is not just a silver lining, Jenack said — it’s part of why people show up in the first place.

“I have conversations frequently with people who were never fans of soccer prior to attending a Vermont Green match,” he added.

“Sports are a place (where) people should be organizing,” said Patrick Infurna, the club’s co-founder. 

Infurna described environmental justice as “the center of our mission” for Vermont Green. It’s a goal that can contain a wide variety of issues, he said. The club’s 2024 mission report details its progress toward net-zero emissions, work to address systemic racism in the sport and donations to a number of local climate organizations.

In July, the club organized a raffle benefiting the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. The nearly $4,000 raised will be a significant addition to the organization’s Farmer Emergency Fund for disaster relief, according to Lindsey Brand, a spokesperson for the organization.

“The way we tend the land and grow the food not only determines food is available for people to consume, but also how our ecosystems are stewarded,” Brand said. “Farming is really kind of a core intersectional issue.”

Beyond the club’s own limited capacity for advocacy, Infurna said, fans have created an independent network of social advocacy that springs from the same priorities. 

“We’re relying on the voices of our neighbors … to come use the platform that we’ve worked hard to build,” he said of the fans and advocates who speak at games.

The Green had its most successful season ever this year, with no losses in 22 games. The national final in Burlington, the hosts said, sold out “instantaneously.” They estimated over 5,000 people attended the game — twice the capacity of the ticketed stand.

Along with momentum on the pitch came unprecedented levels of engagement with the club’s socially-engaged fundraisers, Jenack said. His was by far the largest fan-run fundraiser in the club’s history.

Will Lambek, a spokesperson for Migrant Justice, said the club reached out shortly after its founding in 2022. This season, Lambek participated in halftime speeches at several games.

“It’s a great way to share the work of the organization and bring calls to action to a large group of people,” he said.

Lambek called the fundraising efforts at the end of the season both “tremendous” and well-timed.

“The workload is increasing because of the intensification of attacks against immigrant communities,” Lambek said.

At halftime in the national semifinal game on July 27, Lambek translated statements from Jose Ignacio “Nacho” De La Cruz, a farm worker who was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in a high-profile incident in June.

Jenack said these speeches, heard by thousands of spectators, are an important part of the club’s culture. 

“They’re telling us what it is that they do and why it matters,” he said.

The club also has held themed games like “pride night” and “labor night” in its four seasons to date, during which the club highlights local leaders in relevant organizations, and sometimes organizes donations.

Mike Popovitch, a member of the Green Mountain Bhoys — a group of ardent Green supporters — is also in a leadership group of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, a local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. He said this kind of exposure can be important for unions to explain their work.

“A labor movement on its own cannot survive without community support,” Popovitch said.

The Green Mountain Bhoys have often been at the center of fan-led activism. The group announced a fundraiser Friday for Medical Aid for Palestinians.

The club’s affiliation with political movements has not come without disagreement, largely from visiting away fans, Jenack said. He urged any locals who don’t feel represented to attend anyway. 

“I’m still gonna shake your hand,” he said.

Infurna said he wanted to create an inclusive environment, but that the club wasn’t willing to be neutral on issues it feels are urgent.

“We don’t believe that we’re doing something so egregiously provocative or politically inappropriate,” Infurna said. “If there was somebody who is so uncomfortable with what our club is doing that they didn’t want to come, then I’m at peace with that.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: For Vermont Green FC, soccer and social advocacy go hand in hand.

Eliot Barrengos is a reporter with Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.

BURLINGTON — In fall 2023, Colchester High School pitcher Zach Davis sat at a table in the cafeteria and signed a contract to pitch for his hometown Lake Monsters. 

The Vermont teen joined a growing list of baseball players from the Green Mountains to take the field for the Burlington baseball team. 

“It was around the winter or late fall of my senior year of high school. I reached out to my college coach and asked if it would be possible for me to play here this summer,” Davis said. “We gave (Lake Monsters head coach Matt Fincher) a call.”

It was a moment the right-hander had dreamed of just a few years earlier. 

“It sounds pretty cliché to say, ‘You can do what you put your mind to,’ but it is really true,” he said. “I remember coming to games — one in particular, my junior or sophomore year of high school — and I was just thinking, ‘Hey, I want to play here when I’m in college.’ So yeah, it’s a cliché, but there’s a lot of truth to it.”

He debuted for the team the summer after he graduated from Colchester High School, playing for a couple of months before heading to Bryant University, where he is now a rising sophomore.

For fellow pitcher Cole Tarrant, the story followed a similar script — minus the cafeteria. Tarrant, a southpaw also from Colchester, initially reached out to the Lake Monsters coaching staff, hoping to sign on for the summer after his first season at Hobart College in upstate New York. 

The rising junior has been coming to games since he was in Little League. 

“I remember when my grandparents brought me to a game — I was 6 or 7,” he said. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is really cool.’ It was always my dream to play baseball at a high level … It’s kind of a full-circle moment to be back out here.”

At the time, Fincher could only offer the lefty a temporary contract for the 2024 season. When injuries and departures inevitably created roster turnover, Tarrant had the chance to join the team for the full season. 

After falling short of their championship aspirations last summer, both pitchers returned for the 2025 season. A couple of hours before facing the New Britain Bees last week, the pair reflected on their time with the team ahead of the Lake Monsters’ playoff start on Sunday.  

“I felt like it helped me a lot for my junior year, so I figured I’d do it again. I thought it could help me again this summer,” Tarrant said.

For Davis, the Monsters have represented the perfect place to hone his craft as a pitcher for Division I Bryant. 

“I have a lot of support, and I thank God for that,” Davis said. “I’m very grateful for my family, friends and the people that support me with what I do. Like, just for example — tonight, my whole family’s coming to the game. Family-friends are coming.”

Vermont is not necessarily known for producing top-end baseball talent. But both hurlers know that playing for the hometown team can be especially meaningful on the Little Leaguers who sit in the stands. 

“Even my parents have friends with little kids who tell me how awesome it is to come see me — ’cause they know me. I think that kind of inspires them, too,” Tarrant said. 

The Lake Monsters have not captured a championship since their run in summer 2021. For the guys in the dugout, the prospect of capturing the franchise’s second trophy in five years is, in Davis’s words, “really exciting.” 

“Some of us have been here since May, and guys have come in and out. But for a lot of us, this is the last little stretch,” he said. 

The Lake Monsters currently sit in second place in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League standings and boast a 38–19 record. 

“We have a chance to do something fun, something cool, and play baseball a little longer. No matter what happens, I love this team. I had a great time. I won’t regret anything we did this summer,” Davis said. 

Regardless of how this season ends, both pitchers feel their team is leaving a mark on baseball in Vermont. 

“They’ve been really successful here for four years now,” Davis said. “The organization’s done great on and off the field — they’ve created an environment that people want to come and watch. I only see it getting better.” 

Read the story on VTDigger here: For 2 Lake Monsters pitchers, playing baseball at Centennial Field is a ‘dream come true’.

BURLINGTON — With shovels in the ground and hard hats on, officials chucked soil, throwing up clouds of dust at a construction site off North Avenue on Thursday afternoon.

The event celebrated the groundbreaking of 100 Cambrian Way. Come next year, there will be 40 new, permanently affordable apartments in the mixed housing development at Cambrian Rise, in Burlington’s North End, built in partnership with Champlain Housing Trust and nonprofit developer Evernorth. 

The building will run mainly on solar and geothermal power and will not rely on energy generated from fossil fuels, according to Eric Schmitt, COO of Evernorth.

“But we’re not only delivering on climate solutions,” he said. “100 Cambrian will be a long-term asset to the city. It means that these homes will give families the stability to raise their children here and know that this housing will still be affordable for their children and their grandchildren.”

The new building will be the third to offer affordable housing at the site. Ten apartments have been set aside for families with vouchers from the Burlington Housing Authority, which could help lift recipients out of homelessness. 

The trust and Evernorth completed the 72-unit Laurentide building there in 2019, and Cathedral Square’s Juniper House with 70 apartments for adults 55 and older opened in 2021. 

A fourth building planned — Shale Beach Condominiums — will add 30 permanently affordable condos through the Champlain Housing Trust’s shared equity program, offering homeownership at a fraction of current prices, Michael Monte, CEO of the housing trust, announced at the event.

“These 40 apartments will help people feel safe and secure in a home,” Monte said.

State Treasurer Mike Pieciak said housing is Vermont’s number one economic issue. He has heard from employers who fail to attract or retain talent because it is too expensive for people to rent or buy a home in Vermont, he said. It’s also a social issue, he added.

“The lack of housing is one of the leading drivers for homelessness,” Pieciak said, underscoring the importance of building more homes, particularly affordable ones, statewide. 

Apartment sizes at 100 Cambrian will vary and, on average, cost $1,325 for a one-bedroom, $1,530 for a two-bedroom and $1,840 for a three-bedroom apartment, according to a Champlain Housing Trust press release.

The $23.8 million project has been funded by 14 sources. A third of it came from federal and state tax credits through the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, $8.8 million came from state and federal funds committed by the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, $3 million came from the City of Burlington, and $1 million came from a donor that wanted to help the homelessness situation in the city, according to the release.

It is designed by Duncan Wisniewski Architecture. Wright and Morrissey are the general contractors. Eric Farrell is the master developer of the neighborhood, the release stated.

The new development is part of Burlington’s effort to build 7,200 new homes in 25 years, particularly affordable housing.

The event drew more than 50 partners, politicians and stakeholders to the site on a hot afternoon. 

“Ensuring our community has ample safe and affordable housing is a top priority for my administration,” Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak said in the release.

Speakers also noted the opening of Fox Run — a similar climate-friendly 30-unit complex in Berlin on Wednesday. Built in partnership between Downstreet Housing and Development and Evernorth, it is the first new affordable development built in Berlin in a decade, MyNBC5 reported.

As the federal government pursues massive tax cuts, Vermont may receive more federal tax credits to support housing development, said Maura Collins, executive director of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, which administers the federal tax credits.

Collins quoted a song from Hamilton which goes, “What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”

“Not all of us are going to be able to be here at the ribbon cutting, and not all of us are going to be able to see the dozens and dozens and dozens of families who live in this building to come,” she said. “But this is a legacy of the good work that is done by all of these organizations.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Eric Schmitt’s role at Evernorth.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Champlain Housing Trust breaks ground on 40 affordable apartments in Burlington’s North End.

BURLINGTON — On Wednesday afternoon, a typically routine commission meeting of airport officials was swept up in the growing backlash over the second Trump administration’s ramped up push to deport undocumented immigrants. 

Dozens of Vermonters spilled out of the tiny Wright Room, a conference room on the second floor of the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport, and into the atrium to demand that Vermont’s largest airport take a stand against the transfer of people detained by ICE through its terminals.

The commission meeting was the culmination of months of conflict between Burlington-based activists who have tracked the movement of people detained by ICE through the airport and airport officials who continue to assert they have no communication with or control over the federal agency. 

“I’ve had no communication with ICE, ever, on these situations,” Nic Longo, aviation director at the airport, said after the meeting. “The last communication I had with ICE was a few months ago that said, ‘If you don’t move your cars I’m going to be towing them.’” 

But activists, who have been tracking the movement of ICE agents and people detained by the agency through the airport since May, have argued that the transfer of detainees amounts to illegal human trafficking because of their perceived lack of access to legal representation and communication with their family members. 

In early July, activists attended an airport commission meeting and presented data they’d collected, which showed more than 450 people detained by ICE had been moved through the airport since January. Then, on July 16, activists claimed their protest of moving three women detained by ICE through the airport in the early morning hours led to those women being removed by ICE from the airport. On July 25 and Aug. 1, activists recorded and shared with VTDigger two instances of ICE agents moving people detained by ICE through nonpublic side doors of the airport and into what appeared to be TSA security checkpoints. 

“Trump and ICE have trafficked over 450 people through BTV airport since January, terrorizing our neighbors and sending them to concentration camps in Arizona, Louisiana, and Texas,” a flyer for the monthly meeting created by an activist read. The flyer went on to say that the airport was “complicit” in this relocation by “granting special access to masked agents and hiding them from accountability while pretending to be ignorant.”

Almost 40 Vermonters rotated in and out of the room that held only 18 chairs for the public to speak during the public forum portion of the monthly meeting. Their comments, both in person and online, lasted almost three hours. Even more people milled about on the second floor, listening to testimony from speakers through a megaphone connected to a Zoom recording. 

Airport commissioners listened quietly and often nodded along. Longo said there were more people than they typically see at the monthly meetings, and they changed the meeting room, with a maximum capacity of 30 people, to accommodate a rotating cast of speakers.

Many speakers shared stories of their affection for the small airport, and their disappointment that airport staff weren’t taking a public stand. Others shared stories of working with immigrants and refugees who were detained, including farm workers who have spent decades in Vermont’s dairy industry. 

Along with activists who had been monitoring the airport, teachers, veterans, former lobbyists and retired lawyers showed up to demand action. One Vermont woman cried while making a public comment over Zoom, sharing the experience of growing up in fear that her father would be deported before he received his U.S. citizenship. Some people called for a boycott of the airport, and others asked for commissioners and the aviation director to resign. 

Jana Porter, a 75-year-old Vermonter who spoke in person, echoed many speakers when she called the commissioners complicit in the movement of ICE detainees. 

“It’s time for you to take a stand on this and say no,” Porter said. “ICE is not going to be sneaking human beings in the back door in the dark of the night.” 

The movement of ICE agents through non-public side doors, recorded by activists, was mentioned by several speakers as their impetus for attending the commissioners’ meeting. After the meeting, Longo said using a side door, either by a member of the public or airport staff, was not allowed unless there was coordination with a law enforcement agency. When asked why ICE agents were using non-public side doors, Longo said he had no idea. 

“As far as I’m aware, we have not given out a badge to access any of our doors to ICE,” Longo said. “Their coordination would have had to have been through another federal agency.” 

The Department of Homeland Security, the umbrella agency over ICE and the Transportation Security Administration, does have such a badge that they could have shared with ICE agents, Longo said. He didn’t know where ICE agents went after entering the side door, he said. 

At the end of the meeting, Longo addressed the speakers and acknowledged their time spent sharing their perspectives and advising the commissioners. He said he and the mayor were working to address their concerns after meeting with activists over the last few weeks. 

“We have a lot of work to do, and we have a lot of limitations,” Longo said. 

Commissioner Chip Mason said it was frustrating to hear hours of emotional testimony and that it felt personal to be accused of being complicit with ICE’s activities. He asked Longo for a deliverable focused on the issue. Longo said he didn’t know if one existed, calling the situation “one of the most complex things I’ve worked on since I’ve been here.” 

“I don’t think public pressure is going to be abated until a work product comes forward,” Mason said. “I could quit, you could quit, but I don’t know if we as a commission have the authority to tell ICE they can’t move through our airport.” 

In July, airport officials told VTDigger they are obligated to work with federal law enforcement officials because the airport receives millions of dollars in federal grants. But a recent decision by a California judge prevents the federal government from withholding funds for impeding ICE’s actions, according to Longo. Vermont was part of the lawsuit that spurred that preliminary injunction.

But the airport’s relationship with ICE remains legally dicey. 

According to a memo the airport received in June after requesting legal advice from Kaplan Kirsch, a national law firm, the city’s obligations are “immensely complicated and changing in real time as litigation proceeds on various fronts challenging the administration’s changes to how local governments like the city are directed to interact with ICE.”

The memo emphasized that many of the conclusions in the report could change day to day as legal challenges unfold, but it stated that ICE had broad legal authority to enforce federal immigration law and operate through the public areas of the airport. City action to interfere with ICE actions or operations could lead to criminal penalties, according to the memo.

“The law might say that the airport must allow it,” David Miskell, a retired organic farmer, told commissioners during the public forum. “I believe our brave little state has done many U.S. firsts. We can stop ICE hate here in this Leahy airport.”

The city could, in fact, have some effect on ICE operations because it has the power to regulate the airport, according to the memo. The law firm suggested some rules and regulations that could affect ICE and its operations without targeting the agency, such as enforcing vehicular rules, limiting access to non-public areas like offices or portions of the airfield and limiting the servicing of chartered flights.

Longo said he has talked to colleagues at other airports across the country and they had a shared frustration over interactions with ICE, but that none felt they had direct control over the actions of federal law enforcement agencies. 

Helen Riehle, another commissioner at the meeting, requested more information on federal and state human trafficking laws, and how other similarly sized airports were handling their relationship with federal law enforcement agencies around the country. 

“Right now, airports are kind of alone on this subject,” Longo said. “It’s very, very challenging talking to other directors and colleagues because each airport is doing a different thing with a different solution.”

Longo noted that the airport had begun putting signage on the back of bathroom stalls in different languages to call out human trafficking. An activist called that hotline last Thursday after witnessing ICE agents move detainees through a non-public side door, but said the hotline redirected them to an ICE tipline, according to Leif Taranta, a fellow activist who heard the call. 

Commissioner Connor Daley asked if the situation with ICE could be a standing item on the airport commission’s agenda moving forward.

“I don’t think this is the end,” Riehle said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermonters demand action on ICE transfers at airport meeting.

Updated at 11:31 p.m.

BURLINGTON — Vermont Green Football Club are national champions. 

The Green toppled Seattle-based Ballard FC, 2-1, in Saturday night’s United Soccer League Two championship game at the University of Vermont in Burlington. Thousands of fans turned out to the Green’s home stadium at the school, Virtue Field, to watch the team cap off its undefeated 2025 season with its first-ever national-level prize. 

United Soccer League Two is a semi-professional, summertime competition made up largely of collegiate players. It has about 150 total teams across the country.

“Unbelievable. Unreal,” Maxi Kissel, the forward who scored the Green’s go-ahead second goal, said after the match ended. He was surrounded by at least a dozen kids, all clad in Vermont Green merchandise, who had run onto the field to get his and other players’ autographs. “I knew what I had to do — and I’m so thankful that I did it.”

Saturday’s game was deadlocked at 0-0 until just after halftime, when Vermont Green midfielder Julien Le Bourdoulous slotted home a penalty kick. Ballard then tied the game at one apiece around the one-hour mark. Both teams continued to trade chances for the next half-hour, but with the game approaching the final whistle, it looked likely to be heading to overtime. 

That was until the Green won a corner kick in the match’s final moments. After the initial delivery from the corner, Kissel latched onto the end of a second bouncing cross toward the goal and pounded the ball past Ballard’s goalkeeper, sending the stadium into an eruption of cheers. The game ended shortly after.

“It was tough. That’s the best team we saw all year,” Vermont Green coach Chris Taylor said after the match. “But we knew the longer the game went on, we’d be the stronger team.”

Saturday’s win was the culmination of a dream run for Vermont Green, which is in its fourth season and has garnered international attention for its outspoken support of climate justice and other progressive social causes. The team regularly draws sellout crowds for its home games, boasting some of the highest average attendance of any similar team in the country. 

After tying just three regular-season games and winning every other, the Green won its local United Soccer League Two division, the Northeast Division, in early July. Later that month, the team topped the league’s regional Eastern Conference bracket to advance to the final stages of the national playoffs.

Saturday’s win marks the second national championship for a Vermont-based soccer team in the past year. Last December, the University of Vermont men’s soccer team won the NCAA Division I championship, the first national collegiate title in a major sport in school history. Four UVM players were part of the Vermont Green team that won Saturday’s game.

Kissel, the late goalscorer, was one of those players. He said last fall’s win for UVM was echoing in his head as the final whistle blew on Saturday night.

“We did it again,” he said, catching his breath before repeating: “We did it again.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘Unbelievable. Unreal’: Vermont Green FC wins national soccer championship.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have begun quietly moving detainees through a nonpublic side entrance at the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport, according to activists. The new tactic, activists say, bypasses public scrutiny and calls into question previous statements airport officials have made regarding their involvement in transfers.

Activists, who have been monitoring the airport for months and argue that ICE is carrying out illegal transfers of immigrant detainees, told VTDigger they observed ICE officials escorting a group of people through a side door early Thursday morning.  

A video taken by activists and shared with VTDigger shows a white 15-passenger van parked around 3:30 a.m. Thursday at a side entrance of the airport that appeared to lead to the security screening area. An unidentified man in a gray shirt at the back of the van is seen holding out both his hands and telling two activists, “Y’all need to stay right there.”

Unidentified people can also be seen walking through a heavy metal doorway. 

Julie Macuga, a Burlington resident and activist who has helped surveil the airport, and Leif Taranta, a second activist, attempted to get information from the people moving inside the airport before they disappeared into the building, along with the man in the gray shirt. 

The video then shows the activists walking inside the airport to find that a metal gate closed off the Transportation Security Administration security screening area.

The activists said ICE’s 3:30 a.m. arrival was earlier than usual and before TSA opened for the day. It’s the second time in less than a week they’ve witnessed ICE officials move detainees through a side entrance, according to videos and emails the activists shared with VTDigger. 

Airport security later told the activists that they were aware of the activity, and that the people they had seen go through the door included ICE agents, one video showed.

An additional video reviewed by VTDigger, taken on July 25, shows unidentified men in masks moving people from a white van parked behind a BTV airport truck through a different side door and directly into the airport’s TSA security checkpoint line.

In response to criticism about the large number of detainees passing through the Burlington airport, airport officials have suggested in previous meetings and interviews that they don’t know when ICE transfers happen and that they have little interaction with the agency.

“We don’t get advised. We don’t get any communication,” said Nic Longo, the airport’s director of aviation, at a recent airport commission meeting. 

In an email response to VTDigger’s questions, David Carman, deputy director of aviation at the airport, said the use of the side door does not represent a change in airport policies. 

“Airport staff do not get involved with assisting with ICE/DHS detainee movements, nor does the airport have any communication with ICE on when or how the movements are taking place,” Carman said in the email. 

For years, federal law enforcement agencies “have had access to the secure areas of the airport for the purpose of law enforcement and supporting other federal law enforcement agencies,” he said. 

“Any actions pertaining to ICE detainee movements and how they bring detainees to the post-TSA checkpoint public spaces of the airport (where passengers board aircraft) are federal law enforcement and DHS decisions, and completely outside the purview of the airport,” he added. 

But activists say the apparent use of a nonpublic side door represents a change in the way ICE agents are using the airport. 

When pressed by activists at a recent airport commission meeting, Longo said airport staff have pushed back against ICE when agents parked in areas where parking wasn’t allowed — nearly towing the vehicles in some cases. At the time, Longo said the airport’s goal was to treat the agents like other law enforcement officials or members of the public. 

Almost two weeks later, Longo said it’s extremely rare for airport staff to interact with ICE, but because the airport receives federal grant funding through the Federal Aviation Administration, it was obligated to cooperate with the federal government.

Longo told VTDigger that airport officials allow ICE to transport detainees through the airport because it’s a public use facility, and he can’t pick or choose federal agencies or members of the public who can use the facility. 

“Our obligation is to cooperate and not impede U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Longo told VTDigger on July 15. 

When asked about federal agents using the side door at the Burlington airport, James Covington, a spokesperson for ICE’s Boston field office, told VTDigger that “ICE Boston does not wish to comment on security protocols.”

‘They’re in the custody of government agents’

One of the videos taken Thursday shows advocates going to the closed airport police office, which the Burlington Police Department operates, according to Carman. They called the airport police number and told the responder they had witnessed people being in through a side door. 

“I’m aware of what you’re referring to and those people have been identified as ICE agents,” the police officer responded. 

Taranta asked if police had reviewed legal documents. 

“I know that as police you’re allowed to ask them for documentation that the transport itself is legal,” Taranta said.

“Yeah I have no reason to ask them for that,” the officer said.

“So the fact that there have been past illegal transfers doesn’t make you as an airport security make you think you should ask that this one is legal?” Taranta asked. 

“Nope, I’m not doing that,” the officer said. “I’m aware of what’s going on here. I’m confident that they are who they say they are.” 

“Are you sure the detainees are legally being taken from this country?” Macuga asked. 

“They’re in the custody of government agents,” the officer said. 

Macuga told him that wasn’t an answer. 

“Well it is,” the officer said. “I’m not going to debate this any further with you. I’ve got other stuff going on.”

The Burlington Police Department did not respond to a request for comment. 

‘I have to do my job right now’

ICE detentions and deportations have skyrocketed under the second Trump administration, with more than 36,700 people booked into ICE detention in June, and more than 56,800 held in ICE custody as of July 13, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization housed at New York’s Syracuse University. 

A study by the loose group of activists, which includes Macuga and Taranta, showed roughly 450 people detained by federal law enforcement in immigration cases have been transferred through Vermont’s largest airport since January.

The videos shared with VTDigger show the potential escalation by ICE officials in moving detainees beyond traditional public access routes into the airport to avoid detection as activists continue airport surveillance, according to Macuga.

The group of activists sent an email to the mayor’s office and Longo, Burlington airport aviation director, following the event. 

In the email, the group told officials that activists were in the public portion of the airport over the past week “as a stop gap measure while the airport and city improve their policies.” 

The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment. 

“We thought it was heading in a good direction,” Macuga said of prior conversations with city officials. “But then things really started to escalate in the past week to a point we haven’t seen the whole time we’ve been doing this work.”

Macuga said the activists’ work has led people across New England to reach out to them and that a network is forming of people who want to take on similar work at their own airports. 

They’ve also been training people to be bystander activists, including learning basic Spanish phrases. Over the last two weeks, someone in their advocacy network has stayed at the airport multiple days a week, Taranta said. 

“We want people to be safe, and to be told by TSA agents that investigating human trafficking in an airport is not their job is very chilling,” Taranta said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Video: Activists sound alarm over immigrant detainee transfers through nonpublic side door of Burlington airport  .

BURLINGTON — Some seven months ago, Maxi Kissel, clad in the green and gold of the University of Vermont men’s soccer team, slotted home the goal that won Vermont its first national collegiate championship — in any major sport — in school history.

Winning one national title would be impressive enough. But on Saturday, Kissel, along with three other players who lifted the NCAA Division I trophy for UVM last fall, will be on the university’s home field in Burlington to compete for a second one.

This time, they’ll be playing for Vermont Green Football Club, a semi-professional team also based in the Queen City. The Green compete in United Soccer League 2, which has about 150 teams across the country. The clubs field mostly college players who often hope the summertime showcase will attract the eyes of professional scouts.

“It’s a bit surreal,” Kissel said Wednesday afternoon, taking a break during a team training session at UVM’s Virtue Field. In just a few days, the stadium’s bleachers and surrounding fences are set to be lined with thousands of fans for the 7 p.m. game against Ballard FC, a team that’s based just north of downtown Seattle. 

“It’s like, wow — we haven’t lost a game in ages,” said Kissel, who’s a forward from Germany, speaking about himself and his peers on both UVM and Vermont Green. (Vermont Green has gone undefeated so far this season.) “We just do our best every day — and, thankfully, good things happen.”

Kissel has played a key role on Vermont Green’s offense in recent weeks. He scored one of the three goals the team needed to overcome FC Motown of New Jersey in an early round of the United Soccer League 2 playoffs this month. Then, in last Sunday’s semifinals, he notched a goal in Vermont’s dramatic, penalty-kick shootout win over Alabama’s Dothan United.

Vermont would not have won that semifinal without another UVM stalwart — goalkeeper Niklas Herceg, also from Germany, who blocked two of Dothan United’s penalty kicks during the shootout. UVM defender Nathan Siméon, of Quebec, and midfielder Ryan Zellefrow, of Pennsylvania, have also been go-to starters for the Green’s playoff run.

“With the UVM team, we kind of went into the games — especially in the college (tournament) — knowing like, no matter what happens, we were going to win,” said Zellefrow, also during Wednesday’s training. “And this team feels so similar.”

That two Vermont-based soccer teams have found so much success, one so soon after the other, feels unlikely in a state with no professional sports franchises of its own. But players and coaches said the pair of national tournament runs is hardly a coincidence.

UVM’s championship win — a product, in part, of a roster bolstered by top players recruited from around the country and the world (the case for many college teams) — “captured the imagination of so many people around the state,” said Chris Taylor, Vermont Green’s head coach, in an interview after Wednesday’s training wrapped up.

Having more Vermonters interested in soccer, in turn, helped Vermont Green build on what was already some of the highest average home game attendance of any team in United Soccer League 2 in the country, Taylor said. Vermont Green’s semifinal drew about 4,000 spectators out to the UVM stadium, and Saturday’s match could see more.

“They paved the way, I think, for this season. We’ve obviously got some of their best players as well,” Talyor added, speaking about the UVM men’s soccer team. “I don’t think we have the season we’re having without UVM’s season.”

Zellefrow noted that Vermont Green’s robust fanbase has also spurred talented collegiate players who hail from other countries, which have had strong soccer fan cultures for far longer than the U.S., to want to spend the summer playing in Burlington.

More than half of the players on Vermont Green’s current roster were born outside the U.S, according to the club’s website. 

“I think those guys, when they come to Vermont and see the fans, and the community and so forth, they feel like they’re at home,” said Rob Dow, the UVM men’s soccer coach. “They’re talking about, ‘Oh, I grew up in this power club in Germany, or in Belgium or France — but I never felt this type of energy before.’”

Like UVM last year, Vermont Green has made several late-game comebacks this year to keep its season going. Some fans have loaned the team versions of the “Cardiac Cats” nickname UVM’s team earned in 2024 after a similar series of late-stage heroics. 

Taylor, the Vermont Green coach, said his team has been successful at the tail end of games in part because of its deep bench of talented players who can be brought in as substitutes with fresher legs, essentially helping Vermont “just outlast” other teams.

It’s a strength that will likely be put to the test in Saturday’s final against Ballard FC, Taylor said, which has consistently been among the best United Soccer League 2 teams in the country in recent years. Ballad won the national championship game in 2023. 

“They make games really fast,” Taylor said. “Their pressure is really good. They’re a pretty relentless team.”

Kissel, the UVM and Vermont Green forward, said he, too, was confident in the team’s ability to come back late if needed. He credited the fans’ unabated support — but agreed the parallels with his college team’s run are hard to ignore. 

“Maybe it’s a Vermont thing,” he said, smiling.

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘This team feels so similar’: Heading into a championship, Vermont Green FC builds off UVM men’s soccer’s success.

Nectar’s, a linchpin of the local music community and night life in Burlington, is officially closing its doors after a half-century on Main Street. The small, independent music venue served as a springboard for many acclaimed musicians over the years, notably the popular jam band Phish.  

First reported by Seven Days, the downtown staple announced its closure on social media Wednesday. An outpouring of comments offered stalwart support to Nectar’s. 

“Nectar’s will no longer occupy the space that helped shape the soul of Burlington’s music scene,” the company wrote in an Instagram and Facebook post. “While our time at this beloved address is coming to a close, the spirit of Nectar’s will live on.”

The decision came after Nectar’s took a summer hiatus starting June 8 amid waning foot traffic as a result of the ongoing Main Street construction project and public safety concerns in downtown Burlington, the company previously said.

The venue’s owners said they aimed to use the pause to envision a future course for Nectar’s.

“The energy has shifted. And for a small, independent venue like ours, that shift cuts deep,” the company said in Instagram and Facebook posts on May 8. “We believe in what Nectar’s stands for. And we believe Burlington still needs places like this — spaces that nurture creativity, foster community and keep the music alive.”

Nectar’s owners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington music venue Nectar’s closes after 50-year run .

Burlington officials are moving ahead with plans to replace a monument to an Abenaki chief with a new sculpture commissioned by the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi, which is one of four groups recognized as Native American by Vermont’s state government.

But the Missisquoi group’s involvement in the project has spurred protest from one of Burlington’s state representatives, who has also been a vocal critic of the state’s past tribal recognition decisions. Independent Rep. Troy Headrick told Burlington officials last month they should seek input on the project from two Abenaki nations based in Quebec, where tribal leaders maintain that many members of Vermont’s state-recognized tribes can’t claim continuous ties to historic Abenaki people, or to any Indigenous people.

“It is deeply concerning that the Abenaki communities at Odanak and Wôlinak, whose documented ancestral ties to this region are well established, have not been consulted in this decision-making process,” Headrick wrote in an email about the monument plans to Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and her chief of staff. He shared the message with VTDigger.

Headrick’s comments have brought contentious questions about Abenaki identity in Vermont before Burlington city leaders. These questions have also colored state legislative debates in Montpelier and other nearby state capitals this year.

At issue in Burlington is a sculpture known as “Chief Greylock” that was installed in the city’s Battery Park in the late 1980s. Greylock was an Abenaki chief who is famed today for leading Abenaki people during wars against English colonists in the 18th century.

The sculpture was “named and embraced by the Abenaki community,” although it was not a direct representation of Indigenous people historically in Vermont, according to a memo about the project from Doreen Kraft, executive director of Burlington City Arts, a city department that supports local artists.

Moreover, Kraft told the Burlington City Council earlier this month, city officials have been worried about the structural integrity of the wooden statue for years. An analysis last fall found that it was significantly rotted inside and in danger of collapsing.

Following that report, officials decided the artwork should be taken down for public safety, Kraft said. The sculpture was taken down last Thursday, with only its base left, according to Joe Magee, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office.

In its place, Burlington plans to put up a new wooden sculpture donated to the city by the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi, which is based in Swanton. Under a March 2022 resolution approved by the city council, the Missisquoi group is, “the tribal authority to represent Abenaki matters” between local Abenaki people and the city government.

The new sculpture, according to photos in city council documents, has a similar shape to its predecessor though adds on clear references to the Missisquoi group, including the group’s flag and the words “Missisquoi Abenaki.” It also bears carvings of wildlife and an “Indian head,” Brenda Gagne, the Missisquoi chief, said in an interview.

The piece is meant to focus on Missisquoi’s history more broadly, rather than on Greylock, himself, Gagne said.

But Headrick told city officials in an email that decisions about the design of the new sculpture should have included input from other sources. Among those sources, he wrote, should have been Odanak and Wôlinak First Nations, both of which are headquartered northeast of Montreal but claim Vermont as part of their ancestral territory.

The First Nations’ leaders have argued for years that many members of the four groups the state of Vermont recognized as Abenaki in 2011 and 2012 are, in fact, not Indigenous. Odanak and Wôlinak leaders have accused the state-recognized groups of appropriating Abenaki culture. In letters and public statements, the First Nations’ leaders have also urged organizations in Vermont to work with them, rather than the Vermont-based groups, when seeking Indigenous people’s perspectives.

The groups that the state of Vermont has recognized have asserted that they can, in fact, claim Abenaki identities and have repeatedly urged the First Nations to stay out of their affairs. In addition to the Missisquoi, those groups include the Elnu Abenaki, Nulhegan Abenaki and the Koasek Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation.

Several weeks after Headrick’s email to the mayor’s office, city officials pulled an item off the agenda for a July 14 city council meeting that would have allowed the city to formally accept the new sculpture already commissioned by the Missisquoi group.

In an interview Monday, Magee characterized that decision as a temporary pause so the city can do further structural analysis of the old sculpture’s base, which is set to also be used for the new one. He said the delay in formally accepting the new sculpture was not due to questions about tribal identity or legitimacy, and emphasized that the city still plans to accept the new artwork.

Magee said the city has not reached out to Odanak or Wôlinak leaders. He would not say whether or not the city planned to reach out to them. He emphasized that the city would continue to abide by the 2022 agreement to work with the Missisquoi group.

“The city has had a good working relationship with the Missisquoi Abenaki tribal council since the adoption of the resolution in 2022, and you know, we want to continue and maintain that relationship,” he said. 

“The administration is aware of the conversations happening on a larger level,” he added, referring to assertions about the Vermont groups’ legitimacy. “And the city does have an interest in figuring out how we can engage with other bands, other tribal councils, to fully honor Burlington’s history — and the history of Burlington land as Indigenous land,” he said.

Daniel Nolett, the executive director of Odanak First Nation’s tribal government, said in an interview Tuesday that he hoped Headrick’s outreach would prompt Burlington officials to contact him or someone else in his office. 

Nolett said his family is directly related to Greylock. While he understands that the now removed sculpture was a public safety threat, he added, he wished he had gotten a heads-up from the city.

“The statue was in the state that it was — it posed a safety issue, so it had to be taken down,” he said. “That’s not an issue. The only issue is that we should have been part of this project for the new statue.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the organizational structure of Burlington City Arts.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Plans to replace Burlington monument bring controversy over state-recognized tribes to Queen City leaders.

With temperatures climbing into the upper 80s on Tuesday, most of Burlington’s beaches and a couple in state parks are closed due to blooming cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae. 

Along Burlington beaches, cyanobacteria blooms in swimming water led to closures at both ends of North Beach, both ends of Blanchard Beach, Texaco Beach, Oakledge Cove and Blodgett Water Access Point on Tuesday afternoon.

Beaches were also closed in Kill Kare State Park in St. Albans Town and part of the beach at Lake Carmi State Park in Franklin. Warnings for low to moderate amounts of cyanobacteria have been issued along both ends of Leddy Park beach in Burlington and along three state park beaches. 

Beachgoers can often spot cyanobacteria with their plain eye. 

Blooms “most commonly look like pea soup or a blue-green paint spill on the water,” but they can also look pink, brown or red, according to Bridget O’Brien, an environmental health scientist with the Vermont Department of Health. 

When water is contaminated with cyanobacteria, it’s deemed unsafe for recreation and swimming. Cyanobacteria is a naturally occurring organism in the water that tends to “bloom” or rapidly multiply in the sun and when the water is warm — commonly in the late summer, O’Brien said.

The bacteria can produce toxins that cause skin irritations and gastrointestinal issues, but can also cause neurological symptoms like numbness and dizziness, O’Brien said. 

Officials advise that children and pets stay out of the water during warnings, as they’re more likely to get symptoms after exposure, O’Brien said. 

In addition to hot temperatures that have likely contributed to cyanobacteria blooms, the southern half of the state is experiencing very dry conditions, said Eric Myskowski, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Burlington. 

Those dry conditions are expected to get worse throughout the week, Myskowski said. On Tuesday, officials at the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation forecasted a high risk of fire danger across southern Vermont and a moderate risk of fire danger across the northwest corner of the state.

For people in the Queen City looking to escape the heat, North Shore Natural Area is the only town beach that’s been green-lit to swim in without warning from Burlington Parks, Recreation and Waterfront. Red Rocks Park in South Burlington also remains open along with the town beaches in Colchester. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Cyanobacteria warning closes most of Burlington’s beaches.

This story was updated at 10:38 p.m.

Vermont Green Football Club’s magical season will continue next week in the USL League Two national championship after a 4-2 penalty kick shootout victory over Dothan United Sunday night.

Owen O’Malley netted the Green’s fourth goal in the shootout, punching the club’s ticket to the national championship next Saturday — and sending the sold-out crowd at the University of Vermont’s Virtue Field into a raucous celebration.

“I do it for the fans, man, you know?” O’Malley said. “I just love these guys so much.”

Goalkeeper Niklas Herceg made two dramatic saves in the shootout to help secure the win.

“The reaction (to me) saving the penalties was incredible. It gives you more energy to maybe save the next one again,” Herceg said.

The Green and Alabama-based Dothan battled through an evenly matched, scoreless 90 minutes in regulation. Vermont Green seemed to have the edge in the two 15-minute extra time halves. But despite a few chances, Vermont couldn’t find the back of the net.

“At the end of the day, we deserved to win,” said Vermont Green FC Head Coach Chris Taylor.

The 2025 season has been the club’s highest-achieving by far, with a 16-match undefeated record, a first-place finish in the northeast division, and an ongoing deep run into the playoffs. In 2024, the Green placed third in its division and won two playoff matches, but were ultimately knocked out by the nationally top-ranked Seacoast United of New Hampshire.

This year, the club will play for the national title — and for the growing fanbase in Vermont.

“These boys, they’re special,” Taylor said. “It’s a humbling experience, I would say, for me to see a community like this support our team.”

Theo Wells-Spackman contributed reporting for this story.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Green FC heads to the championship.

Eliot Barrengos is a reporters with the Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.

BURLINGTON — The line for entry at Centennial Field nearly stretches to Colchester Avenue. More than 30 minutes before first pitch, parking spots have evaporated. The smell of sunscreen lingers, kids buzz with the freedom of their outdoor voices and chatter bleeds into the sounds of the ballpark.

Sweaty and patient, they’re all there to catch the Vermont Lake Monsters. 

“Hotdog Hysteria” nights like this, on the first of July, are one of a long list of promotions designed to pull in crowds and keep them coming back, even on nights when the franks are the usual $4. Tonight, they’re just 25 cents, and predictably, the concession line snakes across the park to the bullpen on the other side. 

From June to August, if the crowds are any indication, the Lake Monsters have made themselves a must-see event. 

Just a few years ago, the future of baseball in Burlington was far from certain. In 2020, Major League Baseball shrunk its minor league circuit, and teams like the Lake Monsters were left on the outside looking in.

Those changes put a long history in peril: Between 1994 and 2020, the Lake Monsters boasted 132 Major League alumni. The team’s park, leased from the University of Vermont in the summer, was built in 1906 and is one of the oldest in the country. Over the course of 119 years, it hosted multiple Hall of Famers as they made their way to the big leagues.

That’s when Chris English stepped to the plate. A native of Montreal, English led the Nos Amours Baseball Club group that purchased the Lake Monsters in March 2021. With no MLB club providing players, the front office needed to find ways to build a roster — and swiftly. 

One of English’s first calls was to former general manager C.J. Knudsen. 

English called once, then again, Knudsen said, with the former manager rebuffing the idea of rejoining the team. 

“Then he called me a third time,” Knudsen said, and the two came to an agreement: Knudsen would come back.

“We had no players,” he said. “It was basically myself, Chris and Morgan Brown, who’s our director of baseball operations, and we were able to rebuild the franchise and rebuild the roster.” 

The franchise’s reinvention as part of a summer league for college players began that first summer in 2021.

“We had 67 different players play for us, 11 Vermonters, and somehow we were able to put together an amazing win streak,” Knudsen said. 

A championship trophy in the team’s inaugural 2021 season in the Futures Collegiate League followed. 

In affiliated minor league baseball, the Major League club has complete control of the coaches and players on the field for its smaller counterpart. 

As an amateur team, the Lake Monsters have enjoyed a newfound flexibility to build rosters on the field that represent Vermont while committing more firmly to partnerships with Vermont businesses off the field, Knudsen said. 

“I think the fans loved it because the level of baseball is much better than when it was a single-A, short season,” Knudsen said. “The guys are all in college. They’re from all across the country, but there’s also some Vermont identity here.”

Baseball in Vermont has seen declining youth participation. Long winters and competing youth sports have made it harder to engage young ballplayers. Knudsen said he understands that community impact is more central than ever to the franchise’s mission — and that now, with the power to choose their players, the Lake Monsters could help revive the game in the Green Mountain State.

“I think that people can identify when they see a person’s name like Wyatt Cameron last year, or Colby Brouillette, you know. Wyatt Cameron’s from Salisbury, Vermont. Colby Brouillette from Georgia, Vermont … people know their names,” Knudsen said. “It gives the opportunity for boys and girls playing Little League Baseball and youth sports to potentially play for the Vermont Lake Monsters because they literally can see it.” 

Since the new ownership came into place, the team has pursued local products for the park: An ice cream stand sources from an Arlington dairy; the franchise formulated its own hot sauce and enlisted a bottler in Barre so fans can take it home.

And this year, for the first time, the ballpark will go by a new name: Delta Dental Park at Centennial Field (a 10-year sponsorship deal, Knudsen said, that will help fund the things fans enjoy).

It has been 20 years since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, five since professional play left Vermont entirely. “We are celebrating our 31st season here,” Knudsen said. “That’s a long time for a sports franchise to be in business and operate.”

The one constant? The crowds lined up outside.

Read the story on VTDigger here: How the Lake Monsters kept swimming.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is planning to provide $22.7 million to the Vermont Agency of Transportation to assist in replacing the Winooski River Bridge in Chittenden County, according to a Thursday statement from Vermont’s congressional delegation.

The bridge, which connects the cities of Burlington and Winooski, is more than 95 years old. Though it is not currently a danger to those who use it, state transportation officials said in a project outline that its maintenance needs and narrowness merit a rebuild.

The total cost of the bridge was estimated last year at $60 million to $80 million, and the project previously received a $24.8 million federal grant in 2022.

“The replacement of the Winooski River Bridge will boost northern Vermont’s critical infrastructure, improve safety and accessibility, and make Winooski more resilient to extreme weather,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., said in the release.

The new bridge is expected to feature improved drainage systems. The sidewalk area will also be widened for shared, safe use by pedestrians and bicycles, according to the Agency of Transportation.

The U.S. Department of Transportation allocated the latest federal money through a grant program funded by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

In Thursday’s statement, Vermont Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn called the new grant “crucial” for the project.

The delegation also nominated the project for an additional $8 million in congressionally directed spending during the federal fiscal year 2026, which begins Oct. 1.

Officials say that construction on the bridge should begin in 2027.

Read the story on VTDigger here: US Department of Transportation to provide $22.7M for new Winooski River Bridge.

In what could be the first case in which activists have successfully intervened to stop immigrants in the custody of ICE from being flown out of Vermont, three women escorted by agency officials early Wednesday morning turned around, left the airport and were returned to the jail where they had been held for several days.

This surprising turn of events comes after activists have spent months tracking the transportation of immigrants by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport and asked local officials to intervene and discontinue cooperation with deportations that have skyrocketed under the second Trump administration. More than 57,800 people were held in ICE custody as of June 29, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization housed at New York’s Syracuse University.

A study the loose group of activists presented to the airport commission in early July showed at least 450 people detained by federal law enforcement in immigration cases have been transferred through Vermont’s largest airport since the start of January.

Lexington Kennedy, a 21-year-old Burlington resident, said they arrived at the airport together with another Burlington activist around 3:50 a.m. to observe the movement of ICE detainees through the airport.

Around 4:15 a.m., the two said they observed a white Sprinter van pull up to the airport with Department of Homeland Security license plates. Around 4:30 a.m. the van doors opened and three plain clothes officials emerged and took three women from the van into the airport. They were joined inside by a fourth plain clothes official, the two activists said.

While the activists said the officials had no identifiers beyond the van that could identify them as ICE agents, VTDigger confirmed that at least two of the three women seen at the airport were in ICE custody and were returned back to Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. VTDigger was able to confirm these details through information the activists provided, including A numbers — the nine-digit number ICE uses to track detainees — from papers the detainees’ carried. The activists said they obtained the information directly from the detainees in the airport.

People VTDigger interviewed differed in their description as to why the women in ICE custody ended up not boarding the flight. The activists said airline officials turned away the people in ICE custody after being informed their policies allowed them to refuse to board someone on a flight who did not want to go. The activists said they made the case to the airline officials, and the three detainees were visibly crying as they stood at the airline check-in counter.

A spokesperson at American Airlines denied it was the company’s decision to keep the ICE officials from boarding a flight with the three women in their custody. Instead, the airline spokesperson said the ICE officials and the three detainees chose not to travel Wednesday morning and that it was not an airline decision. The airline said it could not confirm flight details of the ticketed passengers.

ICE did not return a request for comment. 

While Julie Macuga, a Burlington resident, was not present Wednesday morning, she said she witnessed an earlier transport of seven female ICE detainees through the airport around 4 a.m. on May 30. Macuga also attended the July 3 airport commission meeting where activists encouraged airport staff to make a statement about ICE transportations through the hub. She said the interaction between ICE and activists on Wednesday morning was part of their ongoing work to monitor the transport of people in the custody of ICE at the airport.

“I’m hoping this sets a precedent for airlines at the airport that there is something they can do that’s already in their policies,” Macuga said. 

Macuga said she and other advocates are continuing conversations with local officials like the airport commission to secure a statement describing, or even condemning, the use of the Burlington airport by federal immigration officials.

A video of the incident shared with VTDigger by the activists shows a pair of community members approaching the three women in ICE custody outside the airport and asking in Spanish if they had phone numbers that could be used to contact anyone.

“Nope,” an agent replied, and asked the two activists to back up.

The activists said they had asked the women for their names and emergency contacts before ICE officers stepped in front of them and formed a wall with their arms and bodies. They said the officers told the three detainees not to speak to the advocates.

The activists said two of the detainees provided their A numbers and gave directions on how to reach out to emergency contacts or family members, underscoring a desire by the women to fight back against ICE detention if given a chance, they said.

ICE officials brought the detainees to the American Airlines desk, according to a photograph provided by the activists, who said they witnessed the interaction as they stood to the side. They said airline officials told the group that if the three women were expressing an unwillingness to travel, the airline could not let them on the plane because the airline could be liable. The activists told VTDigger that the ICE agents argued with airline staff before departing the airport with the three women.

The activists declined to name the airline fearing its employees could face retaliation, but flight logs show the flight ICE officials intended to board with the detainees was likely American Airlines 1015 to Washington National airport scheduled to depart at 6:10 am. The activists said ICE agents told them the planned final destination for the three women was Phoenix, Arizona. 

Airport officials said they could not confirm flight details. 

Vermont’s Department of Corrections jail tracking system shows two of the detainees were re-booked at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility later Wednesday morning, about an hour and a half after they left the detention center.

The two detainees, a 21-year-old and a 28-year-old, were initially booked on July 11. They were released just after 4 a.m. Wednesday and re-booked the same day at around 5:30 a.m. They were released again just after 12:15 p.m., but their current location could not be confirmed. 

Kennedy said they and the other activists who converged at the airport Wednesday are not affiliated with any particular group and were merely  civilians concerned about human trafficking. 

“Our primary objective is to make sure anti-trafficking laws and policies that already exist are being enforced,” Kennedy said. “Ideally that would be the job of somebody at the airport, and until that happens, civilians can and will show up and do that ourselves.”

Nic Longo, aviation director at the Burlington airport, said in an interview Wednesday afternoon that he had heard about the interaction between members of the public and ICE agents, but neither he nor any airport staff were involved. Longo said he was not at the airport at the time. He said it was the first time he has heard of such a situation unfolding at the airport. 

“Interrupting or disturbing our activities is a really, really tough scenario here at the airport,” Longo said.

Asked why airport officials allowed ICE to transport detainees through the airport, Longo said that, “I can’t pick and choose any federal agency that can and cannot access this public use facility,” he said. “It’s no different that I can’t pick and choose which members of the public can use this facility.”

Longo said it is extremely rare for airport staff to interact with any outside agency, including ICE. The airport, which accepts federal grant funding through the Federal Aviation Administration, is obligated to cooperate with the federal government, he said. The funding includes about $30 million in grants the airport will use in fiscal year 2025 and about $180 million the airport will request over the next couple years, Longo said. 

“Our obligation is to cooperate and not impede U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement action,” Longo said.

The activists argued that the fact that ICE is a federal law enforcement agency doesn’t make its actions legal. 

They noted the case of Kseniia Petrova, a genetics researcher at Harvard Medical School, who was detained at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility and flown through the Burlington airport this spring before a Vermont judge declared her detention unlawful in May. 

Kennedy said they believe it is the first time the transport of ICE detainees through an airport has been stopped. 

Law enforcement officers, including immigration officials, are supposed to provide detainees with meaningful translation services, notice of their rights and an opportunity to communicate with counsel, said Jill Diaz, executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. 

“But what we see in practice is that ICE is moving so quickly and carelessly that we’re seeing people who are getting detained without being charged with an immigration violation,” Diaz said. 

It is not clear how or why the three women were in ICE custody.

Ethan Weinstein and Henry Fernandez contributed reporting.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Advocates say they helped prevent 3 ICE detainees from being flown out of Vermont.

BURLINGTON – On a hot Tuesday, several people stopped for food and water by tables set up in a tree-shaded spot on Church Street at the entrance of City Hall Park.

A longtime volunteer-run free lunch program, Food Not Cops, served an estimated 50 to 75 people by 1:45 p.m. with brioche, peanut butter, kale salad and kale chips, fried plantains, white beans, pizza and more.

Running quietly out of the Marketplace Garage for years, the effort received more public attention this year after 150 area businesses signed on to a letter alleging the operation in the garage “has had a negative impact on the area” and asking that it “be relocated to a more appropriate and secure setting—not eliminated.”

That led to a counter letter signed by dozens of organizations and businesses expressing support for the meal program, followed by a protest outside City Hall before the May 20 City Council meeting. Sam Bliss, one of the organizers of the lunch program, further wrote an op-ed stating that Food Not Cops makes downtown safer.

Amid intense debate, Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak signed a resolution last month allocating $10,000 to support relocation of the effort “to a more accessible and better-resourced location.”

The money has not yet been claimed, however, and the City Council-imposed deadline for the mayor to come up with a proposal for relocation passed Monday. Meanwhile, volunteers two weeks ago relocated the mutual aid effort to the park downtown on Church Street. 

Whether that is a better or worse location depends on who you ask. 

Some who came for lunch Tuesday said they like the visibility that makes the free food more accessible to those who didn’t know about the program. Others said the central location makes them uncomfortable, pointing to heavy police presence in the park.

“I just think it’s a lot better here because there’s a lot of people who didn’t know about it before,” said Amberina Gonzolas, who stopped for a bite there.

Originally from Puerto Rico and in Vermont for 12 years, Gonzolas said, “I like that people like me who have issues with the state (such as access to food stamps) can get free food.”

A social worker and volunteer since 2022, who declined to be named without her employer’s knowledge, said she used to come from St. Albans to eat at the Food Not Cops lunch. 

She said it’s unfortunate there is police scrutiny over a free food distribution program, a basic necessity. “It keeps a lot of people away now that there’s this social barrier, so we are thinking of moving again,” she said.

There were three police officers and two community service officers in the vicinity Tuesday. At least two arrests were made in the park during the last half hour of the 1-2 p.m. lunch distribution. Volunteers weren’t sure if they were among those who came for the lunch program.

“We have not directed staff to increase patrols in response to the food distribution program,” Shawn Burke, the city’s interim police chief, wrote in a brief email. “We have been providing a strong presence in the park, and the downtown in general, since April.”

At Monday’s City Council meeting, organizer Brian Clifford from Essex said he didn’t want the mutual aid service to become a fight between the group and the city.

“So I know we’ve arrived at sort of an awkward situation here, but I’m hoping that the city can take this as an opportunity to recognize our legal rights to do our little daily anti-capitalist and abolitionist protest in public places, and just to back away from the idea that you can decide where we go without respecting our consent and agency,” he said.

Mulvaney-Stanak, who has been engaged in talks with Food Not Cops since last October, wrote in her June 3 memo that she is looking to find “a mutually beneficial path forward” and that “the insistence upon placing a deadline on these efforts has only hindered our ability to make progress.”

She plans to continue to engage with the volunteers while considering the needs of all who enjoy City Hall Park, she said this week.

“The administration is committed to supporting people accessing food in our City given the high number of community members living with food insecurity, while also remaining committed to everyone being able to access and safely use public spaces,” her July 14 memo states.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington struggles to find solution as Food Not Cops program moves to City Hall Park.

BURLINGTON — Emergency maintenance at the city’s Main Wastewater Treatment Plant has led to the closure of several beaches since Monday, with solids and sludge contaminating the water. 

Blanchard Beach, Oakledge Cove, Blodgett Access Area, the Coast Guard ramp and Perkins Pier are some of the closed beaches, according to a Monday statement by the Department of Public Works. Signs have been posted at beaches and public access areas.

The contamination occurred when workers removed one of the plant’s clarifiers for maintenance, as the other tanks couldn’t handle the extra sludge. The Main Plant will have a fifth final clarifier that will make the plant more resilient, lowering the risk of similar issues in the future, the statement read.

Officials tested the water for E. coli contamination and decided not to re-open the beaches Tuesday afternoon. Results showed a concentration of 260 colonies per 100 milliliters of water, exceeding the EPA’s acceptable limit of 235 colonies per 100 milliliters.

The department stated the beaches will likely reopen around 6 p.m. Wednesday. 

People are advised to refrain from swimming and check water quality updates on the Swim Water page of the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington beaches close after wastewater treatment leak.

The Howard Center, a nonprofit in Chittenden County and Vermont’s largest health care provider dedicated to supporting people with substance use disorder, mental health issues and developmental needs, announced plans to cut 27 staff roles and will not fill 30 currently vacant roles. The center will also cut certain programming and services starting in September.

The cuts follow “three years of multimillion-dollar operating deficits driven by rising health care costs and rising program costs,” where “at times, Howard Center has had only single-digit days of operating cash on hand,” according to a July 8 press release from the center. 

90% of the Howard Center’s budget goes toward the salaries and benefits of its staff.

The Howard Center has a self-funded health care plan, but this has not spared it from rising health costs across Vermont, according to Howard Center CEO Sandra McGuire.

“What we have experienced in the cost increase is the same thing that is driving the increase across the board, across the state, which is increased utilization, increased hospital costs and increased prescription costs. … Early on, we were shielded from those increases and it was positive for us. But in recent years, as our costs have more than doubled in the past five years, it is really the same trends and themes that I read about all across the state,” McGuire told VTDigger.

Since 2021, health care prices have increased for the center by 100%. In response to these increases, the Howard Center must reduce costs by almost $2.5 million in fiscal year 2026 — which started July 1 — and reach $3.6 million in savings annually to “stabilize operations,” according to the center’s press release.

As a result, the center will slash 27 filled jobs and eliminate 30 vacant positions. To minimize cuts, “impacted employees will be offered existing positions” at the center, according to the release. 

“We currently have over 150 vacant positions for programs and services that will be continuing,” McGuire said. “Hopefully we can have a pretty comparable position for folks, but not always. … So staff make that choice themselves, right? Whether or not they wanna stay with us in a different position or not.”

When asked why there were over 150 vacant positions, McGuire pointed to the demographics of an aging state.

“Certainly over the years of the pandemic, like many others we lost staffing and that staffing has never recovered to the same level. … So we have worked hard to adjust programming and positions to be able to adapt to a new status quo,” she said. “… But in the more immediate term, ourselves, like many businesses, have not been able to staff at the levels that we were able to  eight to 10 years ago.”

The organization also plans to shut down day programming of Westview House, a home for adults with mental illnesses to socialize with one another during the day. The center also plans to consolidate substance use disorder services in Grand Isle, Franklin and Chittenden counties, however, mobile services in those areas are expected to continue.

“We are actively working on conversations with other community providers with all of these changes to see what gaps could be filled in different ways. We’ve been having those conversations with providers for a while, and we will continue to, particularly as most organizations’ resources are getting a bit slimmer in the near term, hopefully not in the long term,” McGuire said. 

Between fiscal year 2022 and 2023, the center’s cash fell from $18.7 million to $8.2 million, followed by an over $2 million drop that left the center with just $6 million in fiscal year 2024.

State grants and contracts between 2023 and 2024 also decreased from $10.1 million to $8.3 million during this time. Federal grants took an even larger hit, dropping from $4.7 million to $1.3 million.

As of June 30, 2024, the Howard Center had over $7 million in investments and a $6 million line of credit with TD Bank. McGuire said she doesn’t want to touch those to fix current financial woes, as they would be short-term solutions to an institution with a daily operational cost of $400,000.

McGuire said the current cuts are unrelated to Medicaid cuts at the federal level, but that the center is monitoring those as they come.

“Our budget is about 90% Medicaid overall. [The cuts] are really in response to our ongoing funding, and what we have for the dollars for this year and what our projected expenses are. We don’t know the impact yet. We are working to understand that as is everyone else what the impact of the federal dollars will be,” McGuire said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Howard Center announces layoffs and cuts, citing rising health care and programming costs.

Aidan Pearl, 22, graduated in May from Champlain College with an undergraduate degree in law. He’ll be one of the last cohorts of students to graduate from the school through that program.

In June last year, the private, non-profit school began phasing out five majors — law, broadcast media production, data analytics, finance and accounting — announcing then that students would no longer be admitted for those majors beginning this upcoming fall, according to Nicole Junas, the chief executive of Junapr, a public relations firm working with Champlain College.

The move is part of a broader strategy by the Burlington-based school to design a new “career-focused” curriculum for the fall of 2026 “that is focused on and driven by employer needs and student interests,” according to a fact sheet provided to VTDigger by the college.

That effort includes redesigning the school’s 27 majors and streamlining academic offerings by merging or phasing out programs with lower enrollment numbers, according to Alex Hernandez, the college’s president.

The accounting program, for instance, saw its enrollment decline from 60 students in 2015 to 20 in February 2024, according to documents from the school’s Academic Affairs Committee. The law program, similarly, had little student interest, Hernandez said, and had only three students apply in the fall of 2023, while the data analytics program had only two applications.

“Our majors evolve over time to meet the needs of Vermont, to meet the needs of our students,” Hernandez said in an interview. “And so we’re really looking at, where are there career opportunities?”

The adjustments to curriculum, the school wrote in a fact sheet, “are not about reducing academic opportunities,” but are “about modernizing how Champlain delivers education in ways that preserve the college’s distinctive strengths while creating more room for student agency, innovation, and adaptability.”

But students who have either recently graduated, or who remain in programs being phased out, fear for the school’s future, and said the administration is playing down their impact.

As part of the college’s restructuring last year, a “very small number” of faculty members were eliminated, said Junas, the public relations executive. The college could not comment beyond that, she said, citing “individual personnel matters.” She noted though that “no widespread layoffs occurred as a result of the program phase-outs.”

Still, that has caused some consternation among the students still enrolled in the college’s accounting program and others being eliminated. (Students still enrolled in those programs will graduate with a degree).

Pearl, who served as the head of the college’s student government before graduating, estimated that 12 people were laid off, while 20 additional staff members and faculty left on their own.

“My worry is, whatever the direction is, whatever the efficacy of that plan is, we are losing people along the way that would execute that plan,” Pearl said in an interview. “I truthfully think the direction we’re going in is going to lead to the doors closing.”

‘Social capital risk’

The changes at Champlain College come as small, private colleges and universities across the country are facing tremendous financial pressures. Responding to declining enrollment and increased operating costs post-Covid, many schools have been forced to cut programs and staff, or close altogether.

Champlain College is no different. Enrollment numbers reported at the start of the school’s fall semesters have steadily declined since 2016. That year, the school enrolled 4,778 graduate and undergraduate students at the beginning of its fall semester, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

By fall 2023, enrollment had dropped to 3,328 students, down more than 30% from 2016. This past school year, the school saw this trend continue, with roughly 3,200 undergrad and grad students enrolled in the fall of 2024, according to the college’s fact book for the 2024-25 school year.

The college’s finances, meanwhile, are facing headwinds. The school ran budget deficits in 2023, 2021 and 2019, according to publicly available tax forms filed by the non-profit.

A more than $60 million bond the school issued in 2016 to refinance its debt — and to finance the construction of the Eagles Landing student housing project on Burlington’s St. Paul Street — has weighed on the college’s cash flow.

A federal audit of the school’s finances in 2023, conducted because the school was a recipient of federal grant money, found the college was “not in compliance” with a minimum debt service coverage ratio — meant to measure whether an organization has enough cash flow to pay its debts.

The college corrected course in 2024 after bringing on a consultant, a federal audit conducted in 2024 noted. But earlier this year in May, the college’s bond rating was lowered, and its outlook downgraded to “negative” by S&P Global Ratings, which cited “the college’s history of significant enrollment declines” in its analysis.

The ratings agency noted in their report there was a “social capital risk, as fewer graduating high school students expected in the region” may continue to put pressure on the college’s enrollment expectations. 

Their negative outlook “reflects our expectation that as both enrollment and operations remain pressured,” the school will have to draw from its endowment or reserve funds, “further worsening financial resource ratios” compared to the college’s peers, the ratings agency wrote.

Hernandez, the college’s president, remains optimistic, and said the school has been “really strategic and worked really hard to improve our finances over the last couple of years.”

While 990 tax filings are not yet available for 2024, Hernandez said the college “made an important step forward in 2024” to improve the school’s financial health.

“We expect to do that again in 2025,” he said.

‘Growing our community’

The school’s recent reorganization is meant to lean in on the school’s strengths, Hernandez said. While several programs are being phased out, Hernandez said schools are being “redesigned” to offer a more fluid education for students.

The college now offers 27 different majors for its on-campus students, Junas said, while more than 130 degree and certificate programs are available through both the school’s in-person curriculum and through Champlain College Online, which Hernandez noted has seen growing enrollment in recent years.

Hernandez said there was a “natural evolution” of adding, redesigning or stopping programs.

Hernandez, who teaches entrepreneurship in the college’s Robert P. Stiller School of Business, noted that while an accounting program is no longer available, students are still offered accounting classes through the school’s new Business Administration major.

“We’re moving towards a more flexible approach to our business programs, where you can study things like entrepreneurship, finance, accounting underneath a broad business umbrella,” Hernandez said. “It’s just a different strategy.”

The college has added programs in years past, including an animation and sonic arts program, Hernandez said. The school’s Game Design major has been ranked by The Princeton Review as one of the top ten Game Design programs in the country, alongside institutions like the University of Southern California and New York University.

Champlain College was also one of the first in the country to offer an undergraduate cybersecurity major, Hernandez said, which has since been nationally designated by the National Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity and by the National Security Agency, according to the school’s website.

“Part of growing our community, growing our enrollment on the on-campus side, is really driven by this new curriculum and the vision for what experiential, hands-on, flexible learning looks like in this world of AI, in this world where students need experience when they go out into the job market,” he said.

He added that, “more than anything, we’re just trying to stay focused on, how does higher education, how can Champlain College, evolve to meet the moment that we’re in knowing that there’s a lot of challenges right now for the sector.”

But amid these trends, students and faculty members who spoke to VTDigger say they are uncertain of the college’s strategy.

With fewer professors and academics on staff, some fear it will lead to a worsening educational quality, which could further compound declines in enrollment.

One student, still in the college’s business school who requested anonymity to speak candidly out of fear of retaliation, said the college has relied increasingly on adjunct professors since faculty from the school were let go. The quality of teaching they’ve brought in, the student said, “has not been up to the standard it should be.”

“It’s not prepping people for what they need,” they said. “They have said that they are going to give us the same quality of education that we’ve had in the past — which I think that most people would agree that it hasn’t been.”

Pearl said the changes were not effectively communicated to the broader community, and the cuts to programs in 2024 led to worries among the student body.

“At that time, students were finding out about the layoffs and the departures, because those faculty and staff were messaging students and saying, ‘Hey, I’m leaving,'” he said. “The correspondence we got was very much not aligned with the severity of what was going on. Most students didn’t learn of the full extent of the layoffs until the fall.”

Hernandez and Junas pushed back on that criticism. A fact sheet provided to VTDigger stated the college “communicated its academic program adjustments clearly and directly to the campus community in June 2024, with specific outreach to students enrolled in affected majors.”

‘Climate of uncertainty’

Faculty members also expressed concern the college was not fully committed to its existing programs and faculty members.

According to records and minutes of the school’s Academic Affairs Committee obtained by VTDigger, some in the college were hesitant to eliminate a program like accounting. While the committee ultimately voted to approve the discontinuance, concerns remained.

“The thought of having a named business school without offering an accounting major may have negative effects on the school overall,” the committee wrote. “Given the evidence, and the college’s need to boost enrollment, this seems like a major that the college may want to invest in rather than cut.

“However, given the curricular transition that the college is currently experiencing, that opportunity may not fit the direction the college has chosen to pursue,” the committee wrote. “In such a climate of uncertainty, this was a very difficult decision for this committee.”

One former faculty member, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation, said it was disconcerting to see “programs that had been there for a while, people who had been there for a while, sort of just being cast aside.”

Pearl said he agreed broadly the school should tighten its belts amid declining enrollment. “I will not defend that the law program should have stayed. The law program was declining,” he said.

But he worried programs with high career success rates, like accounting, were being eliminated. 

“We let good programs die that truthfully, had we put more investment into them, I think would have done the college a lot of good,” he said.

Hernandez disagreed, telling VTDigger that 90% of students who leave Champlain College “are employed or have a successful career outcome within six months of graduation,” while over 80% of students take jobs in the fields they studied.

But “if we don’t have enough students for a program, it’s challenging to run a program,” he said.

Hernandez is confident in the college’s ability to transform and “to really meet the moment that we’re in right now.”

“It’s no secret that higher education as a sector is experiencing a lot of different challenges,” he said. “We’ve been really intentional and strategic around that — we’re designing a new curriculum right now that is intended to be even more experiential, even more flexible.”

But faculty members worry that with fewer programs, declines in enrollment may only continue.

“You have to bring in a certain critical mass of students,” said another former faculty member who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “And if those students aren’t there to bring in, you start running in the red.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Facing declining enrollment and financial headwinds, Burlington’s Champlain College reshapes its academic programs.

This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.

The city of Burlington decided on Thursday to “indefinitely pause” a sanctioned parking area for people experiencing homelessness before the initiative had even begun.

The “Safe Overnight Parking pilot project” at Perkins Pier along the city’s waterfront was slated to begin on Friday, July 4. City officials announced its creation on Tuesday, as a response to a round of evictions from the state’s motel voucher program that has primarily impacted families with children and individuals with severe medical needs.

But on Thursday afternoon, city officials decided to halt the project, in response to “substantial community feedback, and out of concern for the safety of program participants based on threatening comments made by members of the public on various online platforms,” according to a city press release.

Joe Magee, deputy chief of staff for Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, said city officials received a significant number of concerned messages from “residents, and businesses, and folks who have boats docked” near the Maple Street lot. 

Social media posts expressing hostile sentiments about the project also led city officials to worry about the safety of unhoused people staying there, Magee said. The police department planned to do additional patrols of the area, Magee said, but the parking lot would not have had a “stationary overnight security presence.”

The city had received two inquiries from people who had wanted to park overnight in the lot, which was supposed to have space for twelve vehicles, Magee said. Officials had not yet approved any registrations for it.

Between June 23 and July 1, state officials anticipated 140 adults and 61 children would lose access to the motel voucher program in the Burlington area. The current wave of evictions from the program is in large part the result of an executive order expiring that had protected families with children and people with acute medical needs, like those who are homebound or receiving cancer treatment. 

Burlington officials estimate that hundreds of people are already sleeping outdoors or in vehicles in the city, with tents tucked along the waterfront bike path an increasingly common sight.

“The city does not have the resources or staff to be able to … address the shortage of shelter alone,” Magee said. “We really need state partnership to come up with more tangible solutions.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington abruptly halts plans for overnight parking for unhoused people.