The Frequency: Daily Vermont News Vermont Public

Homeowners are taking more precautions to protect their property from flooding in the face of climate change – but it’s resulting in some counterintuitive choices. Plus, one of the Vermont Legislature’s longest-serving lawmakers won’t seek reelection, President Biden approves a disaster declaration tied to January storm, Efficiency Vermont has a new tool to help Vermonters figure out weatherization and EV incentives, and the Vermont Center for Ecostudies is studying how tick pesticides impact other insects.

Constructing apartment buildings with mass timber, which is touted as an environmentally friendly alternative to steel and concrete. Plus, local reaction to new EPA rules on so-called forever chemicals, Addison County’s top prosecutor gets her law license reinstated, new state unemployment numbers are in, and rabies is on the rise in Caledonia County.

Property tax burdens are forecast to spike amid rising school budgets. What state lawmakers are — and aren’t — doing to draw down tax burdens. And how Gov. Phil Scott is responding.

The hard choices education officials will need to make as numerous school budgets continue to get voted down. Plus, Vermont’s new education secretary indicates she wants to explore school consolidation, why Gov. Scott isn’t satisfied with a new bill updating Act 250, a federal grand jury indicts a man for setting fire to the door of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ office, volunteers are asked to help clean up the Burlington waterfront ahead of Earth Day, and the tentative sale of an independent Vermont book publisher to a huge international counterpart.

Efforts by an organic farmer and men serving time in a Maine prison to grow fresh produce for the incarcerated population there. Plus, Vermont House lawmakers move a bill that will only slightly reduce property taxes this year, a lawsuit is filed over a school district’s handling of its budget vote on Town Meeting Day, controlled springtime burns get underway in the Green Mountain National Forest, doctors at UVM are studying new ways to treat rectal cancer, and two Vermonters win coveted Guggenheim fellowships.

Good news on the health of birds in the northern woods of Maine. Plus, Vermont ski resorts rebound from a tough winter with help from the eclipse and late season snowstorms, what this year’s early ice out at Joe’s Pond signifies for algae blooms this summer, Vergennes is chosen as the site for a new juvenile treatment center, a mentoring program in Randolph helps high school students with their transition to college, and a program to help BIPOC Vermonters become homeowners is expanding.