Addison Independent

VERGENNES - ...The e-Vermont grant will help with the technological challenges as the Bixby looks past its birthday — the Bixby served as the lead applicant for the grant. The city and the Vergennes Partnership, the nonprofit that oversees the health of downtown Vergennes, are also administrating the broad-based grant. Statewide grant partners include the Vermont Council on Rural Development, the Vermont Department of Libraries, Digital Wish, the Vermont Small Business Development Center, and Vermont state colleges...

BRISTOL — For hundreds of years, Vermont has been a name known regionally, nationally and even internationally for its food products — butter, cheese, milk, maple syrup and apples. But out-of-state residents couldn’t get their groceries directly from Vermont.

Now that’s changing with the help of businesses like Bristol’s Graze, which delivers farm-fresh food from Vermont to homes in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

MONTPELIER — At a summit in Montpelier this past Friday, members of the Vermont Council on Rural Development’s Working Landscape Partnership laid out a plan that they hope will preserve and bolster the state’s agricultural and forestry economy.

The more than 300 people gathered at the Future of Vermont’s Working Landscape summit included planners, legislators and governor-elect Peter Shumlin. Among the faces were many from Addison County who are interested in sustaining the area’s agricultural way of life and the culture surrounding it...

VERGENNES — When Vermont Commissioner of Education Armando Vilaseca visits Vergennes this week, he will discuss two issues the Vermont Board of Education has identified as critical — one in which local officials said Vergennes Union High School is already a statewide leader and another in which by March Vergennes-area schools may lead Vermont.