Update From Governor Shumlin

AP/Jim Cole

Senator Patrick Leahy and Governor Peter Shumlin survey damage from Tropical Storm Irene in Brattleboro.

Balancing the state budget, deciding on the future of the State Hospital and delivering state-wide broadband service were three of the challenges Governor Shumlin was facing in his first year in office. And then Tropical Storm Irene struck and complicated the process.

We speak with the governor about the impact Irene has had on these and his other priorities, including health care, education and taxes. We also look at the future of the state office complex in Waterbury.

Also on the program, we have two stories with a Vermont-Russia connection. Sam VanDerlip is a Vermonter who grew up in Adamant. His wife Julia Dobrohotova is Russian, and their two young daughters are growing up bilingual in Moscow.  VanDerlip provides an interesting vantage point on Russia’s parliamentary elections this month, and the protests that have ensued. And Mirjam Nousiainen was born on her parents’ farm in Winhall in 1926.  Her parents came to Vermont from Finland. But in the 1930s, they made a fateful decision to sell the farm and follow the dream of a socialist utopia by moving to the Soviet Union. Now 85 years old, Mirjam was recently in Vermont to reconnect with friends here.