The town of Colchester has issued several violations against the Vermont Construction Company for housing company workers in “grossly hazardous and unsafe” spaces.
The company was issued an emergency order to vacate a portion of its office space at Hegeman Avenue last week. Part of the building was being used to house an estimated 17 people “despite having no approvals for life safety features for human occupancy of a public building,” the town’s complaint reads.
Town zoning and state fire marshal officials who visited the building last week said the property was “structurally unsafe,” with no smoke or carbon monoxide detectors, no fire extinguishers and several electrical violations, according to the complaint.
The emergency order was posted to the Colchester Selectboard’s upcoming meeting agenda scheduled for Tuesday. Town manager Aaron Frank said in an email that the violations were “concerning enough from a life and safety perspective to include” in the agenda.
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It’s the second time in recent months that Colchester has cited the company for housing its workers in unsafe and unpermitted housing. In September, town and state fire marshal officials found that 60 people were living in similar conditions in a house at 28 Vermont Avenue.
Tenants, who officials said were seasonal workers employed by the company, were living in small, congregate sleeping areas, in bunk beds and in some cases on air mattresses.
Like the Hegeman Avenue property, there were no sprinkler or fire alarm systems in place, which the state requires when more than 10 people are housed in a single space, according to Robert Sponable, the deputy director of the Vermont Division of Fire Safety.
28 Vermont Avenue in Colchester on Monday, December 9. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
Visible mold was found at the Vermont Avenue home, with no carbon monoxide alarms and broken smoke detectors, officials said.
Cathyann LaRose, Colchester’s planning and zoning director, said that property was also issued an emergency order to vacate in September and has remained empty since then. She described the property as “derelict.”
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“It is far from habitable, so nobody can live there — not without a significant amount of work and quite a bit of approval,” she said.
In an emailed statement, Dana Kamencik, one of the owners of Vermont Construction Company, said the company was “working closely with the appropriate authorities to address these issues and ensure compliance moving forward.”
The company, he said, was a “young and growing business.” He added that, “While we are still gaining experience, we take the recent violations in Colchester very seriously.” The company was incorporated in early 2016, according to the Better Business Bureau.
Vermont Construction Company owns at least four other residential properties in the county, including two in Williston, one in Essex Town, and one in Shelburne, according to business filings.
According to LaRose and town records, the company moved tenants from the Vermont Avenue property to a similar residential property it owns in Williston after the violations were issued against the Colchester property.
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Sponable said the state had identified “issues that we’re working through” at both the Shelburne and Essex properties but it hadn’t identified hazardous conditions similar to those observed in Colchester.
“We understand the housing issues and the housing shortages — the last thing we want to do is put anybody out on the street,” Sponable said. “But we do everything that we possibly can to make these buildings safe, or at least safe enough for them to be in there until these other issues can be corrected.”
Dormitory-style living is more common in areas closer to ski resorts, which employ seasonal workers, Sponable said.
“But most of the ski areas, they have buildings that they’ve built that are set up more like a college dormitory,” he said. “The building’s got a sprinkler system and a fire alarm system and things like that.”
Vermont Construction Company purchased a single-family home at 281 Hedgerow Drive in Shelburne to house company employees, according to state fire marshal inspection records. At one point it had 15 residents.
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That property has since racked up several violations, including failing to provide sprinkler and fire alarm systems, according to state fire marshal records.
A follow-up inspection on Sept. 20 found that, because sleeping quarters had undersized windows, the rooms “cannot be occupied at this time.”
A representative for the company told fire marshal officials at the time “that the plan is to find new housing for the majority of the residents, leaving two staff to rehab the house,” according to inspection records from May.
The property has since generated numerous written complaints from residents, and police have an extensive call log originating from the property, Shelburne Town Manager Matt Lawless said in an interview on Monday.
182 Hegeman Avenue in Colchester on Monday, December 9. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
“There have been quite a number of complaints on it and those have continued over the better part of a year,” he said.
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The complaints center around parking, late-night noise, and trash build-up outside of the property, but Lawless said the town has not chosen to issue violations against the property.
“The balance that they have to strike is, what rises to the level of disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace,” he said, “because there’s a set of things that you may do at home… that I think is annoying, but that is within your rights as a neighbor.”
Police haven’t issued any citations against the property, according to Shelburne dispatcher James Mack.
The company owns two more properties in Williston and one at 235 River Road in Essex Town, but it is not clear whether these properties are used to house company workers.
Sharon Kelley, the zoning administrator and health officer for Essex Town, said in an email that there have been several verbal complaints about trash build up at the property on River Road, but said no violations have been issued.
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In Williston, residents have similarly complained of trash at 192 Aspen Lane in emails to VTDigger. The company also owns a residential property on White Birch Lane.
Kamenick did not respond to an interview request, and did not respond to a follow-up email with detailed questions on Monday afternoon, but said in his initial email that the company “would respond to any complaints promptly.”
“We view community feedback as a critical part of our growth, and we are committed to resolving any concerns and continuing to build trust with the people we serve,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Peter Welch on Friday said the Pentagon had ordered the deployment of the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing to the Caribbean amid heightened tensions with Venezuela.
According to Welch, the deployment is part of Operation Southern Spear, which has been targeting drug trafficking in the region as President Donald Trump’s administration has sought the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
A Pentagon spokesperson on Friday referred questions to the Vermont Guard.
The 158th Fighter Wing, based in South Burlington, includes 20 F-35A Lightning II fighter jets and approximately 1,000 personnel.
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Joseph Brooks, a spokesperson for the Vermont Guard, told the Globe earlier this week that the unit had been ordered by the Department of Defense to mobilize, but he would not disclose the location or details of the deployment.
Brooks declined to comment further Friday night.
In a written statement, Welch thanked Vermont Guard members for their service but criticized the Trump administration for deploying them.
“I strongly oppose President Trump’s mobilization of the Vermont Air National Guard alongside thousands of other U.S. military units in what appears to be a relentless march to war,” Welch said. “An undeclared war against the Venezuelan regime would be illegal under our Constitution. If this president — or any president — wants to start a war with Venezuela, which has not attacked us and is not a source of the fentanyl that is killing Americans, then he needs to seek authorization from Congress, as the authors of the Constitution intended.”
Details of the deployment remained unclear Friday, though Seven Days, a Burlington newspaper, reported that the unit would be stationed at a recently reopened military base in Puerto Rico. The newspaper said some Vermont Guard members had already headed there to prepare for the deployment.
WINOOSKI, Vt. — A small school district in Vermont was hit with racist and threatening calls and messages after a Somali flag was put up a week ago in response to President Donald Trump referring to Minnesota’s Somali community as “ garbage.”
The Winooski School District began to display the flag Dec. 5 to show solidarity with a student body that includes about 9% people of Somali descent.
“We invited our students and community to come together for a little moment of normalcy in a sea of racist rhetoric nationally,” said Winooski School District Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria, himself a Nicaraguan immigrant. “We felt really good about it until the ugliness came knocking Monday morning.”
The Somali flag was flown alongside the Vermont state flag and beneath the United States flag at a building that includes K-12 classrooms and administrative offices. Somali students cheered and clapped, telling administrators the flag flying meant a great deal to them, he said.
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What ensued was a deluge of phone calls, voicemails and social media posts aimed at district workers and students. Some school phone lines were shut down — along with the district website — as a way to shield staff from harassment. Chavarria said videos of the event did not also show the U.S. and Vermont flags were still up and spread through right-wing social media apps, leaving out the important context.
“Our staff members, our administrators and our community are overwhelmed right now, and they are being viciously attacked. The content of those attacks is extremely, extremely deplorable. I don’t know what other word to use,” Chavarria said Tuesday.
Mukhtar Abdullahi, an immigrant who serves as a multilingual liaison for families in the district who speak Somali and a related dialect, said “no one, no human being, regardless of where they come from, is garbage.” Students have asked if their immigrant parents are safe, he said.
“Regardless of what happens, I know we have a strong community,” Abdullahi said. “And I’m very, very, very thankful to be part of it.”
The district is helping law enforcement investigate the continued threats, Chavarria said, and additional police officers have been stationed at school buildings as a precaution. Winooski is near Burlington, about 93 miles (150 kilometers) south of Montreal, Canada.
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White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson called the calls and messages the school received “the actions of individuals who have nothing to do with” Trump.
“Aliens who come to our country, complain about how much they hate America, fail to contribute to our economy, and refuse to assimilate into our society should not be here,” Jackson said in an email late Thursday. “And American schools should fly American flags.”
Federal authorities last week began an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota to focus on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S. Trump has claimed “they contribute nothing ” and said “I don’t want them in our country.” The Minneapolis mayor has defended the newcomers, saying they have started businesses, created jobs and added to the city’s cultural fabric. Most are U.S. citizens and more than half of all Somali people in Minnesota were born in the U.S.
At the school district in Vermont, Chavarria said his position as superintendent gave him authority to fly the flag for up to a week without the school board’s explicit approval.
The school district also held an event with catered Somali food, and Chavarria plans to continue to find ways to celebrate its diversity.
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“I felt sorrow for the students, the families, the little kids that are my responsibility to keep safe. And it’s my responsibility to make them feel like they belong and that this is their country and this is their school district. This is what we do,” he said.
BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont police officers are working overtime shifts along the Canadian border under a federal program that critics say could violate the state’s anti-bias policing laws.
“Up here, we’re so small we rely on our partner agencies,” said Swanton Village Police Chief Matthew Sullivan.
On a recent frosty Friday, Sullivan was patrolling along the Canadian border as part of Homeland Security’s Operation Stonegarden. The chief and other local officers work overtime shifts for the U.S. Border Patrol.
“It acts as a force multiplier because we’re able to put more officers out in these rural areas in Vermont,” Sullivan said.
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During an exclusive ride-along, Sullivan showed us a field where, as recently as last fall, migrants were smuggled across the border. “These people are really being taken advantage of,” he said.
From 2022 to 2023, U.S. Border Patrol encountered just shy of 7,000 people entering the country illegally in the region, more than the previous 11 years combined.
In several instances, police say cars have tried to crash through a gate in Swanton along the border. Others enter from Canada on foot and get picked up by cars with out-of-state plates.
The chief says the illegal crossings strike fear among local parents. “They didn’t feel safe allowing their kids outside to play, which is extremely unfortunate,” Sullivan said.
Through Operation Stonegarden — which was created in the wake of 9/11 — Sullivan and his officers get overtime pay from the feds. “We’re kind of another set of eyes and ears for border patrol,” Sullivan said. His department also gets equipment and training.
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Six agencies in Vermont participate in Stonegarden: The Vermont State Police, Chittenden County Sheriff’s Department, Essex County Sheriff’s Department, Orleans County Sheriff’s Department, Newport City Police Department, and the Swanton Village Police Department. Some three dozen across New England participate in Stonegarden. These agencies collect relatively small amounts from the feds — $760,000 in Vermont, $190,000 in New Hampshire, and $1 million in Maine.
But amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Stonegarden is under scrutiny.
“This has become quite relevant to a lot of people once again,” said Paul Heintz, a longtime Vermont journalist who now writes for the Boston Globe. “These three states have dramatically different policies when it comes to local law enforcement working with federal law enforcement.”
Vermont has some of the strictest rules about police assisting federal immigration officials. The Fair and Impartial Policing Policy limits cooperation with the feds and says immigration status, language, and proximity to the border cannot be the basis of an investigation.
“Vermonters have made clear through their elected representatives that they want state and local law enforcement to be focusing on state and local issues,” said Lia Ernst with the ACLU of Vermont. She says Stonegarden is crossing the line. “They don’t want their police to be a cog in the mass deportation machinery of any administration but particularly the Trump administration,” Ernst said.
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The ACLU and other critics are concerned that Stonegarden creates a cozy relationship between local police and immigration officials that can be used to enforce the president’s immigration crackdown.
Heintz says the distinction between civil and criminal immigration enforcement can be fluid. In most civil cases in which the feds seek to deport, Vermont law enforcement can’t play a role because it’s against the law. In criminal cases, which local police can enforce, immigrants can be detained and charged.
“An operation may start out appearing to focus on a federal criminal immigration issue and may turn into a civil one over the course of that investigation,” Heintz said.
“There is a lot of nuance to it,” admitted Sullivan. He insists his department is not the long arm of federal law enforcement and is instead focused on crime, including guns, drugs, and human trafficking. However, if someone is caught in the act of crossing the border illegally, that constitutes a crime, and the chief said he calls for federal backup. Though he said that rarely happens.
“It’s a criminal violation to cross the border outside of a port of entry, and technically, we could take action on that. But again, we’re not here to enforce civil immigration while working Stonegarden,” Sullivan said.
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182 Hegeman Avenue in Colchester on Monday, December 9. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
