cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/17366624

It all started, Greg Bombard said, with a broken coffee maker. That’s what prompted him to get into his car and head to Dunkin’ on a winter day in 2018.

It ended this month when the state of Vermont paid Bombard $175,000 to settle the lawsuit that ultimately resulted from that short drive.

The settlement covers Bombard’s arrest that day by a state trooper who said the St. Albans Town man flipped him the middle finger — and a second, related citation nearly six years later, on Christmas Day.

According to video of the March 2019 encounter leading to the decertification, Amy Connelly was in custody in a holding cell at the St. Albans police station with her hands cuffed behind her back.

At one point in the video, Connelly can be seen standing up, appearing to raise a leg toward Lawton. The video shows Lawton pushing her onto a cell bench, grabbing her shirt near her neck, and punching her in the face.

Lawton and two other officers then push her face-first to the ground and cuff her ankles.

“In reviewing the incident,” Vermont Criminal Justice Council records stated, “the internal investigation found that (Lawton’s) actions were excessive, unnecessary, and a disproportionate use of force under the totality of the circumstances.”

The S.E.C. accused Stenger and Quiros of perpetrating a “massive” fraud, misusing more than half the money raised. Quiros had allegedly funnelled much of it through a variety of shell companies, and back into his own pocket—pilfering fifty million dollars, for example, to pay his taxes and to buy a condominium in Trump Place, in Manhattan, among other things. Stenger was not accused of stealing money himself. But, according to the S.E.C., he had presented fraudulent job and revenue projections for the projects to encourage further investment, and then looked the other way as Quiros enriched himself. Peter Shumlin, Vermont’s then governor, who had once described Stenger and Quiros as “miracle-makers,” held a press conference at the statehouse, and said, “We all feel betrayed.”

Quiros and Stenger both settled their charges with the S.E.C. The following year, the U.S. Attorney for Vermont indicted the pair. Both pleaded guilty; Quiros was sentenced to five years in prison, for wire fraud and money laundering, and Stenger was sentenced to eighteen months, for submitting falsified documents. (Burstein paid a civil fine while admitting no wrongdoing.) Paul Van de Graaf, a prosecutor on the case, characterized it as one of the most significant in the state’s history. “Many people in Vermont could not believe that something so bad had happened here,” he said. “We needed to show not only that it could but that it did.”

Video of Jewish Voices for Peace speaking at the Burlington City Council meeting.

Also, this girl became a meme.

From Montpelier Front Porch Forum (Issue No. 7318 • Sep 18, 2023):

FYI: VSECU Class Action Waiver

I called VSECU today about opting out of the binding arbitration class action waiver.

I was told all emailed requests to opt out need to be attached to the email…as a separate letter.

She said they will not accept a simple email but need an actual document that can be saved.

Also, please know that the email address is case sensitive. The "E" and "A" need to be capitalized.

[email protected]

Include the following in your letter - - Name - Account number

I am opting out/rejecting VSECU's binding arbitration / class action waiver

Edited to add another person's experience (because it seems valid the process of opting out) regarding the Class Action Waiver; posted on Montpelier FPF (Issue No. 7319 • Sep 18, 2023):

A week ago, I sent an email to [email protected] asking to opt out of the arbitration agreement. I provided all the required information, and asked for confirmation of receipt of my request. Not having received a confirmation, I went to the VSECU branch today. I was told emailing the opt out request would not work. This is despite the written waiver document explicitly stating one can opt out via letter or email at the above-stated email address. I was told that, in order to opt out, one must send a letter via the postal service to the following address:

New England Federal Credit Union Attn: Executive Assistant 141 Harvest Lane Williston, VT 05495

The request to opt out must include " your name as listed on your account, your account number (the young man at the branch office says that just means your member number, not the number of your checking and/or savings account - hopefully he knows what he is talking about). Your request must be received by NEFCU by November 5th.

If you are not familiar with the case, you can read more on Wiki.

TL;DR Phineas Gage had a big iron rod travel through his brain in an explosion in 1848. He survived but suffered significant personality changes. This became the topic of great debate about the brain and its functions.

Reposted from Front Porch Forum:

Vermont Historical Society 2023 Flood Archive Montpelier, VT Montpelier – No. 7208 • Andrew Liptak, The Vermont History Museum Aug 8, 2023

When it became apparent that the flooding that was taking place in early July was going to rival some of the other floods that loom large in our collective memory, we at the Vermont Historical Society decided to set up a new digital archive to collect images and other ephemera from it.

We hold a considerable number of records of past floods in our collection, including images and video from the Flood of 1927, the Montpelier flood of 1992, and of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, and others. Those records exist because they were documented by the people of Vermont and sent to VHS to preserve, and they're currently used by researchers, journalists, and members of the public to recall and understand those events.

We want to be able to have records of the 2023 flood as well: we're inviting the public to submit their photographs, audio files, video recordings, and other related documents to this crowdsourced archive, in order to preserve the memories of this tragic event for the future. You can check out the archive here: http://floodof2023.digitalvermont.org/

We've also begun to expand the media collection for the Flood of 1927 on our archival portal, Digital Vermont. Our digital media librarian has been uploading dozens of photographs and scans of documents from our collection for the first time, and you can check them out here: https://digitalvermont.org/items/browse?collection=12

We love visiting VT... I feel terrible over the storm/water damage. Another line of storms coming through Thursday evening.

Today's weather event is no joke! Roads will be out across the state. Check on your elderly neighbors, have batteries and flashlights, get some bottled water. Better safe than sorry! Good luck to all!

Credit: Montpelier Alive

A Vermont police officer was killed and two other officers were injured when a burglary suspect crashed into two police cruisers pursuing him, Vermont State Police said.

Once in a lifetime opportunity!

Where is the best maple creamee?

https://vtdigger.org/2023/05/25/the-vermont-creemee-database-vote-for-your-favorite/

One of my favorite paddling areas.