BRATTLEBORO-As three newcomers prepare to take seats on the Selectboard, at least one outgoing incumbent isn't surprised. "Any incumbent was going to lose," said Franz Reichsman of the March 4 town election results. "You raise people's taxes like that, and there's going to be some blowback for sure." Adding, with some humor, "I didn't expect to win, but I didn't expect to be dead last," Reichsman went on to say, "this was an anti-incumbent, anti-Selectboard vote." Coming on board to...
PUTNEY-The town needs 80 new rental and owner-occupied homes over the next five years to meet the demand for new housing and to replace its aging housing stock, according to the recently released Putney Housing Needs Assessment and Action Plan. "The lack of new and available housing means that young families can't move into town, which leads to an older population shouldering the tax burden," stated Robert O'Brien, senior housing specialist for Camoin Associates, the Virginia-based consulting firm that produced...
BELLOWS FALLS-A recount of ballots for the Rockingham School District three-year seat added one more vote for each of the candidates, but the results remained: Write-in candidate Christopher Kibbe beat Priscilla Lambert by three votes. A committee of seven citizens performed the recount March 10 in the Rockingham Town Hall under the watchful eye of Town Clerk Kathleen Kelly. Dennis Harty was elected to chair the group, and the recount took about 90 minutes as Lambert and Kibbe looked on.
BRATTLEBORO-Three new members will join the Selectboard following an election that, fueled by a surge of new local political activism, became a pointed referendum on crime and punishment, on drugs and recovery, and on high property taxes and humanitarian spending. According to unofficial results posted by Town Clerk Hilary Francis, Oscar Heller defeated Jill Stahl Tyler, 1,412-961, for the open three-year seat on the board that was vacated by the current chair, Daniel Quipp. In a crowded field for two...
TOWNSHEND-Before the Feb. 25 girls' basketball game between Leland & Gray and Bellows Falls, a special ceremony honored members of the undefeated Leland & Gray girls' basketball teams from 1952 and 1955. Leland & Gray Athletic Director Tammy Claussen called forward to center court the four former players - Mary Cutts Mewes and Mary Robinson Laitres, who were both members of the 1952 team, and Marty Gould Morrison and Marilyn Bills Chapin, who were on the 1955 team - where...
BRATTLEBORO-After 14 years as assistant town manager, Patrick Moreland is stepping down to become the executive director of DVFiber, the nonprofit fiber-optic Internet provider serving southeastern Vermont. Moreland has been assistant town manager since 2011, serving with Barbara Sondag, then–town manager. Her tenure was followed by those of Peter Elwell, Yoshi Manale, and current Town Manager John Potter. Moreland did stints as interim town manager twice: for six months in 2022 and for a 19-month "opportunity," as he calls it,
