Vermont

Cock-a-doodle-don’t? Vermont towns can’t agree on roosters. – VTDigger

Published

6 days ago

April 5, 2026

Cock-a-doodle-don’t? Vermont towns can’t agree on roosters. – VTDigger

Backyard chickens in towns and cities throughout Vermont have been banned in some places, while allowed in others. Photo by Al Frey/Williston Observer

Amanda Rancourt was facing a predicament.

She had started raising chickens in response to rising egg prices. But last May, a clutch of baby chicks she was raising in her backyard had grown up. Unexpectedly, one of the supposedly all-female chickens had a surprise for Rancourt.

The chicken turned out to be a rooster.

Rancourt knew what that meant. She could keep the chickens. But she lives in Barre City.

The rooster would have to go.

“It’s unfortunate. I literally live on the Barre City, Barre Town line,” she said. “It just kind of stinks we weren’t able to keep him, legally.”

Over the past few years, complaints across Vermont municipalities regarding roosters and their chatter have spurred many towns to ban them within their borders. Ordinances banning roosters have been in place in Burlington, South Burlington, Williston and Essex Junction for years. Yet regulations are not consistent, even between neighboring communities. The town of Barre, where Rancourt lives, has rooster regulations, while just up the road, the city of Montpelier does not.

As winter finally lets up and backyard flocks begin stirring from their coops, Vermont municipalities are increasingly saying “no” to roosters, creating a patchwork of local regulations that routinely pit the state’s agricultural heritage against suburban quality of life.

More communities have begun considering new bans. Last fall, the St. Albans City Council unanimously voted to ban roosters, with the threat of daily fines and possible court-ordered removal if a rooster is not moved, according to officials. A series of noise complaints regarding roosters crowing around the city had pushed the government to look at restrictions, St. Albans Mayor Tim Smith said.

Urban density fueled the complaints, with most residents living just 30 feet apart. And perhaps a blind spot in the city’s animal control laws helped the backyard chickens proliferate, said Chip Sawyer, St. Albans’ planning director and author of the proposed ordinance.

“A barking dog, you can deal with,” Sawyer said. “You can order someone with a barking dog to keep their dog inside. You can’t really order a rooster to be kept inside the home.”

The new rule drew little resistance. Only one family with a pet rooster complained, Smith said.

“To have some one person feel that his activities, his hobbies, whatever you want to call it, take priority over his neighbors is, in my opinion, very selfish,” Smith said.

Meanwhile, a similar dispute between neighbors in Shelburne prompted the town to debate adopting its own restrictions on roosters.

“They start yodeling at dawn and go on until dark,” wrote Ruth Hagerman, a Shelburne resident, in an email to town government representatives that was shared with VTDigger.

“They are disturbing the peace of those around them and are providing a textbook example of how neighborly policing doesn’t work.”

Yet after debating a drafted law, which was based on ordinances in neighboring municipalities, the Shelburne selectboard decided during a meeting last year to keep things as they were.

Shelburne Town Manager Matt Lawless was wary of overregulating how residents raise animals and produce their own food.

“We need to be cautious, I think, in when we deal with nuisance or when we’re concerned about health and safety, that we also look at the positive value provided, and we not make it hard for people to do things that are good,” Lawless said.

A ban on roosters felt too controlling, according to Shelburne board member Andrew Everett. He felt that for Shelburne, a community that is a mix of suburban and rural, changing traditional Vermont ways should be resisted until absolutely necessary.

Meanwhile, Williston’s war over backyard chickens has now spanned nearly a decade, with residents on smaller properties twice rebuffed in their efforts to keep hens. The city still classifies chickens as livestock, prohibited on any lot under an acre. The most recent attempt to lift the ban died in September 2023. Selectboard members who had previously supported the ban again voted to peel the chicken provisions off a broader housing package, shelving them indefinitely.

The trend of banning roosters from Vermont municipalities has caused a somewhat unintended wrinkle: what happens to the roosters?

The growing number of roosters that need to be re-housed has become an issue, said Pattrice Jones, cofounder of VINE Sanctuary in Springfield, an animal sanctuary that assists in rescuing roosters.

Sanctuaries around the state have been overwhelmed with requests to take roosters, Jones said. Chicks from hatcheries and farm stores that unexpectedly turn out to be roosters — and misconceptions about roosters being inherently violent — add to the problem.

But the growing list of local ordinances banning roosters has resulted in even more requests to take them in, adding to VINE’s “perpetual” waiting list, Jones said.

For many, emotional attachment to their roosters complicates the decision of what to do with the feathered pets.

“We hand raised them from when they were chicks and my kids were attached to them,” said Rancourt, the Barre chickens owner.

After a few months of looking, she was able to find a more rural home for her rooster, away from the suburban neighborhoods and the rooster ban in Barre.

“We understand that if they ended up becoming a problem with people, that they may end up having to cull them and eat them,”.

“Personally I couldn’t do that.”

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Related Topics:Backyard chickens Chickens Featured Roosters

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Vermont

Noah Kahan backs Vermont bill targeting ticket scalpers

Published

6 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Press Room

Noah Kahan backs Vermont bill targeting ticket scalpers

MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont musical sensation Noah Kahan is supporting a state bill aiming to crack down on ticket scalpers.

House Bill 51 would cap the amount that tickets could be resold for and stop tickets from being sold twice. That way, buyers don’t end up with a ticket already belonging to someone else. It demands that resellers ensure refunds in certain circumstances and proposes annual licenses for ticket resellers.

Kahan offered his support in a video statement to the Senate Economic Development Committee.

“As an artist that cares very deeply about the fan experience and accessibility of concert tickets, this bill is a critical step in eliminating predatory resale behaviors and offer Vermonters a great solution for exchanging and reselling tickets in a safe marketplace,” Kahan said.

The bill also addresses enforcement, authorizing the attorney general to monitor and penalize resellers.

It’s unclear if the bill will move forward this session.

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Vermont

deRosset from Vermont to Notre Dame – Daily Nous

Published

18 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Press Room

deRosset from Vermont to Notre Dame – Daily Nous

Louis deRosset, currently professor of philosophy at the University of Vermont, will be moving to the University of Notre Dame.

Professor deRosset works in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of logic. He is the author of Fundamental Things: Theory and Applications of Grounding, among other writings, which you can learn more about here.

He will be taking up his new position as professor of philosophy at Notre Dame this fall.

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Vermont

The state is racing to implement nearly $200 million in rural health transformation projects – VTDigger

Published

1 day ago

April 9, 2026

Press Room

The state is racing to implement nearly 0 million in rural health transformation projects – VTDigger

Attending physician Amanda Ratliff examines patient Gary Gale, of Marlboro, with Tara Gomo, house nursing supervisor, in Sept. 2025, in White River Junction. Photo by Jennifer Hauck/Valley News

It’s the “exciting hair-on-fire phase” of implementing the $195 million in rural health transformation grant funds Vermont is promised from the federal government, as Jill Mazza Olson described it to the House Health Care Committee this morning.

There has been a frantic, racing energy around acquiring and spending the federal funds since the applications opened in the fall, giving states just six weeks to build out their five-year plans. That effort paid off when the officials learned in December that Vermont would receive nearly double what they expected.

Now, the Vermont Agency of Human Services is working to obligate all of this year’s money by the end of September and spend it by the feds’ September 2027 deadline.

Olson and Sarah Rosenblum, who have been leading this work for the Agency of Human Services, gave both the House and Senate health care committees an update of where that work stands Thursday morning.

Right now, Olson and Rosenblum are in the throes of posting opportunities for sub-grants and contracts, for organizations to carry out the many facets of Vermont’s proposed work.

So far, they’ve put out six such notices for work to bolster rural health care. There are notices for $1.45 million to bring dialysis and ventilators to nursing homes and $810,000 to develop licensed nursing assistant training programs.

One project seeks bids for organizations to operate residences for people recovering from substance use disorders while another would invest in mobile clinics for dental, medical, mental health and substance use disorder services. Yet another proposal aims to put money toward pharmacists’ ability to “test-to-treat” and help reduce patient reliance on primary care or the emergency room.

The last active bid seeks contractors who can help AHS build out an even more in-depth strategic plan for how to use these funds to help rural communities.

Olson and Rosenblum said that they are close to posting the final 10 notices soon, which will center on improving technology and payments to support primary care providers. Once the last of those are out, they will shift into a new phase of this massive project.

When the application windows close, AHS’s transformation team will begin sorting through the proposals and working with the federal government to figure out how to approve and implement the projects before the timeline is up.

With all the rushed excitement to spend this one-time money, Rep. Alyssa Black, D-Essex Town, the chair of the House Health Care Committee, worried about the Agency of Human Service’s ability to do its primary job.

“Do you think that this is so all-consuming that it might be a distraction? What are the essential things that we need our AHS to be doing that we want to make sure they’re still continuing to do and not get distracted by the shiny object?” she asked.

The stability should come soon, Olson responded. The agency has already hired two full-time staffers to implement this plan and have the approvals they need to hire the rest of the team dedicated to working on this project.

Maybe then, Olson can douse the hair-on-fire feeling, and finally get a full night’s sleep.

In the know

A pop star in the People’s House?

That’s right — sorta. Vermont’s own Noah Kahan offered his endorsement of a bill currently making its way through the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee on Thursday.

The committee watched a brief video Kahan recorded explaining his support for H.512, a bill supporters hope will cut down on online ticket scams and scalpers.

“As an artist I care very deeply about the fan experience,” Kahan said, “This bill is a critical step in eliminating predatory resell behaviors.”

Stick season? More like s-ticket season. Ugh.

— Ethan Weinstein

Gov. Phil Scott on Thursday appointed former Sen. David Soucy of Barre Town to the House seat recently vacated by longtime Rep. Topper McFaun.

Soucy, a Republican, previously served in the Senate, representing Rutland County during the 2017-18 legislative session. He was elected to the Barre Town Selectboard last year.

Scott, in a press release, said Soucy “has been involved in his community for many years and will be a strong voice for common-sense legislation” in the Statehouse.

Read the full story here.

— Corey McDonald

The Vermont Supreme Court has declined to intervene in the Scott administration’s effort to uphold its employee return-to-office policy — for now.

Last week, the Vermont Labor Relations Board ordered that the administration rescind its policy requiring employees to work at least three days per week at their worksites.

Gov. Phil Scott and top administration officials said at the time that the state would appeal the decision and request a pause on the order from both the labor board and Vermont’s high court.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration “must first seek a stay” from the labor board, denying a request to pause last week’s decision.

Steve Howard, executive director of the Vermont State Employees’ Association, called the ramifications of last week’s legal proceedings “very confusing” for state employees.

With its decision last week, the Vermont Labor Relations Board has called into question what working life could look like for the approximately 8,000 Vermont state employees.

Read the full story here.

— Ethan Weinstein

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