Thursday marked the first of several waves of evictions planned for this spring and summer, as the state winds down pandemic-era programs that have sheltered an estimated 80% of Vermont’s unhoused population in motels.
The National Weather Service expects that temperatures will set records on June 1, the same day Vermont’s motel voucher program is ending for roughly 800 people.
The federal lawsuit comes days after a court-issued deadline that required Banyai to move several buildings from his property, and it accuses town officials and Judge Thomas Durkin of attempting “to infringe on protected constitutional and state law activity by way of local zoning regulations.”
Hunters and wildlife advocates have been at odds over the rule changes, which were required by legislation passed in 2022.
More than 150 new homes will feature rooftop solar panels, in-home Tesla Powerwall batteries for storage, onsite utility-scale battery storage, induction stoves, electric vehicle chargers and interconnected smart electrical panels.
Officials with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation have asked people who use community water sources to keep an eye out for messages about scheduling a water line check.
With Thursday’s vote, the House avoided a repeat of last year’s episode, during which it failed to override Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of the clean heat standard by only one vote.
The body needed a two-thirds majority to overcome Scott’s veto, and senators cleared that threshold with a 20-10 vote Tuesday morning. The House is expected to hold its own override vote Thursday.
“We're in a different world than we were in even five or 10 years ago, and there are forces looking to destabilize civil society. We can't deny it anymore,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth. “So this bill is a way of saying, ‘not now, not here, not ever.’”
Many environmental projects in Vermont rely on volunteers, including the Vermont Butterfly Atlas, which is “pretty much entirely powered by volunteer butterfly enthusiasts across the state,” said Nathaniel Sharp, an ecologist with the Vermont Center for Ecostudies.
