You do the community a great service by printing obituaries free of charge. Like many others, I feel that birth and death notices are considered to be news.
In a tight-knit community such as Brattleboro and the surrounding towns, people need to stay informed about their neighbors. What a shame it would be if financial hardship prevented a citizen from announcing the death of a loved one.
Charging for obituaries sets a dangerous precedent - that news items are published based on the submitter's ability to pay rather than the community's need to know.
...Calculating a town's homestead and nonresidential property tax rates, said Town Lister Albert Jerard, requires a multi-layered process. Vermont's rate structures exist as education funding mechanisms established by Act 60 and Act 68. The state applies nonresidential tax to any property not used as a primary residence, such as...
On July 1, Vermont's new electronic waste (e-waste) recycling program began, providing free and convenient recycling of e-waste to residents, charities, schools, and small businesses with 10 or fewer employees. The recycling program, known as “Vermont E-Cycles,” was created by a law passed by legislators last year requiring manufacturers...
I attended my first drug-reform conference in Washington, D.C. in 1987. I am a bit ashamed that I started so late in life. Since then, it seems that my (and our) efforts did very little to help. Today, the U.S. incarcerates more of its young people than any other country, much of the time for drug-related crimes. The proportion of our non-white prison population incarcerated for drug-related offenses is off the scale. Our total prison population per capita is unmatched...
This summer, the Halifax Historical Museum will have an exhibit of photos from the 1890s through the 1930s, when Halifax was a popular resort destination with travelers from Boston and New York City. The museum, which is located in the center of the village of West Halifax, next to the fire station, is open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday until Labor Day. *** With coming of the railroad and trolley lines, Vermont became more accessible to city...
In his letter in the June 29 issue of The Reformer, Tom Kauffman of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C. (which is fully funded by Entergy and other nuclear power companies) wrote: “The NRC commissioners are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.” President Obama's election campaign got money from the nuclear power industry. The industry also pays these legal bribes to many senators. (The exact amounts are at www.OpenSecrets.org.) Kauffman continued, “The...
Obituaries Editor's note: The Commons will publish brief biographical information for citizens of Windham County and others, on request, as community news, free of charge. • Anna Grace Ayers, 71, of Wardsboro. Died July 3 at Kindred Hospital in Springfield, Mass. Wife of William W. Ayers for 53 years. Mother of Ralph Ayers and his wife, Donna; and Russell Ayers and his wife, Juanita. Sister of Elizabeth Swan, the late David Swan, and the late Lee Mitchell. The daughter of...
Legendary cartoonist Skip Williamson has a mascot named Krampus tattooed on his upper arm. A small red devil, Krampus seems smart, mischievous, and utterly seducing. In fact, he seems a lot like the internationally recognized artist, cartoonist, designer, and writer himself. Williamson's real first name is Mervyn. However, when he was a child, he was a bit of a troublemaker, so he earned the nickname Skip, after Percy Crosby's comic strip character, Skippy. Still the troublemaker, Williamson has always courted...
Imagine one of those winter nights when the snow squeaks underfoot because it is below zero. Five people gather in the moonlight. On entering a small, rural farmhouse in a New England town, each person heads directly for the woodstove. Parkas, wool hats, and dripping boots are piled on a chair near the warmth. This small group stands around a scarred oak kitchen table. Against the far wall, the hums of the woodstove occasionally disintegrate into small gasps of collapsing...
For the second year in a row, the Brattleboro Boys & Girls Club is hosting the Going the Distance ride to raise money for the club. A total of seven cyclists - three new, four returning - will start at the Canadian border and ride 200 miles down the length of the state along the Connecticut River Valley before finishing in Brattleboro. Dr. Robert Nassau, board president, is one of the returning riders, along with Chris Chapman, Jim Robinson, and...
Does a quality Assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program work if employees report to their supervisors? Raymond Shadis, technical advisor to the New England Coalition, says “no.” Entergy, owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, presented a QA/QC oversight program to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month. Shadis described the program as “integral to the dumbing down of regulations,” so the licensee can avoid the regulations. QA/QC departments inspect systems and parts within a company. At a nuclear...
Brattleboro Holistic Health Center opened earlier this month with a celebration during the July Gallery Walk. Housed in the former site of Watercourse Way, this health center recently evolved into a worker-owned cooperative. “This all began several years ago as a group of friends dreaming about a way to combine our practices to offer Brattleboro accessible, holistic health care,” said worker-owner Emily Amanna. “It is really inspiring to see all our individual passions working together to create this Center." The...
For years, Bartleby's in Wilmington and the Book Cellar in Brattleboro (which share a common owner) have been supporters of the Whitingham-Halifax Lions Club holiday food-basket program. Thanks to their support and so many others in the community, our club has been able to bring joy and nourishment to many families in need. Now it is our turn to support these wonderful people. As we all know, the devastating fire on April 18 in Brattleboro forced many businesses to close...
This year, for the first time, the Brattleboro Literary Festival, in conjunction with Marlboro College, will offer workshops for poets and fiction writers. New York poet Jeanne Marie Beaumont will run the poetry workshop, while the fiction workshop will be led by Nicholas Delbanco from the University of Michigan. Both sessions take place on Friday, Oct. 14, from 1-4 p.m., at the Marlboro Graduate Center in downtown Brattleboro. Beaumont's advanced poetry workshop will explore poetry as an art of communication,
The current hoopla over the risk of brain cancer that cell phones might pose is almost comical. Not because it's silly; the risk might be real, and the issue calls for more empirical evidence. It's laughable because of all the other carcinogenic and other health threats out there to which we pay so little attention. Take, for example, air pollution. Ample evidence exists about the effects of short- and long-term exposure to filthy air, yet we do little to curb...
Adam Minihan of Rindge, N.H., not only bested his classmates at the Lakes Region Community College automotive service program in Laconia, N.H., but he also took the top prize at this year's national automotive skills championship in Kansas City, Mo. Minihan, who works full-time as an auto mechanic at Auto Mall, a General Motors dealership in Brattleboro, scored 100 percent in the competition that tested 54 contestants from the each of the 50 United States, Guam and Puerto Rico on...
It's been almost two years since the Vilas Bridge, the crumbling historic concrete span that links Bellows Falls and North Walpole, N.H., was closed by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT). It might be another four years before it reopens, and that is only if New Hampshire somehow finds the $3.4 million, and the political will, to fix a bridge in a part of the state that most politicians in Concord rarely think about. Considering that another bridge exists...
On July 7, a California firm specializing in education finance research was picked to do an independent study of Vermont's much-debated system of paying for its schools. Lawrence O. Picus and Associates, LLC, of North Hollywood, Calif., was the unanimous choice of a special legislative joint fiscal committee overseeing the proposed study, which was sanctioned and given a $200,000 budget by the Legislature last session. State Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, who chairs the committee, said Picus is a national expert...
When Dick Cheney was running the country, it was clear his “chaos theory” was guiding international policy. The chaos within the borders of an unfriendly nation would occupy the powers-that-be, who would be preoccupied with civil unrest to the extent that it precluded other actions, domestic or international. In the current domestic climate here in the United States, there seems to be a similar sentiment running through certain political thoughts and actions - namely, acting on the premise that no...
Attorney General Bill Sorrell has announced that he will not prosecute Entergy Corp. for misleading statements made by employees who were testifying to the state about underground pipes at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. At a July 6 press conference, Sorrell said the state lacks “the smoking gun evidence to prove to our satisfaction” that the misstatements constituted perjury. “Perjury is a tough crime to prove,” Sorrell said. Sorrell's office issued an eight-page report on the criminal investigation that outlined...
The Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (BMAC) is celebrating two major milestones - the 60th anniversary season of Marlboro Music and the 90th birthday of photographer Clemens Kalischer - with a new photo exhibit that opens on Saturday. Since 1956, Kalischer, who splits his time between Stockbridge, Mass. and Brattleboro, has been photographing the Marlboro Music School and Festival - arguably the most famous, and most beloved, summer retreat for the world's top chamber music performers and a place where...
Last week, members of the Special Charter Committee approved establishing an Office of Assessment, wrapping up five months of deliberations sparked during February's special town meeting on the Town Charter. Town Meeting members formed the committee in February during a Special Town Meeting to draft a recommendation on the Office of Assessment for inclusion in the Town Charter. The committee consisted of Town Meeting representatives, town officials, and representatives from the Board of Listers. The new Office of Assessment, headed...
Artistic Directors Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida are among 27 artists who will be heard in the opening concerts of the Marlboro Music School and Festival's 60th Anniversary season on Saturday, July 16, at 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, July 17 at 2:30 p.m., in programs of works from Brahms to Zemlinsky on the hilltop campus of Vermont's Marlboro College. From the 92 works explored (all suggested by the 80 resident artists) during the first three weeks of its two-month season,
Last week, Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell announced that he was not filing criminal charges against Entergy. He announced this decision with as much anti-Entergy innuendo as he could manage. While newspapers describe a person caught red-handed as an “alleged” murderer, Sorrell speaks as if he is sure that Entergy is guilty of a crime, but he just couldn't find the evidence. None of this innocent-until-proven-guilty stuff for Sorrell. He explains that perjury is so hard to prove, he lacks...
Central Vermont Public Service has accepted Gaz Metro's purchase offer. On Monday night, CVPS board members voted to recommend the $472.4 million bid from the Montreal-based utility over the offer from Fortis, Inc., a large holding company headquartered in St. John's, Newfoundland. The deal, if it is approved by shareholders and the Vermont Public Service Board, will result in the consolidation of CVPS and Green Mountain Power, which is already owned by Gaz Metro. The merger will create one large...
An impatient truck driver who decided to try an unauthorized shortcut around a traffic backup on Main Street ended up crashing into the Latchis Theatre marquee on Monday afternoon. According to Brattleboro Police Lt. Robert Kirkpatrick, Richard J. Belt of Claremont, N.H., a truck driver from Harvey Building Products in Waltham, Mass., was cited for driving on the sidewalk, which is a non-criminal offense. Gail Nunziata, managing director of the Latchis Corp. and the Brattleboro Arts Initiative, said the crash...
Last week, kids from the five boroughs of New York City came to Brattleboro to participate in the Fresh Air Fund. Celebrating its 135th year, the Fresh Air Fund is an opportunity for disadvantaged kids to experience life outside of the city. “The Fund is a private organization that began in 1877 by pastor to give kids from boroughs of New York the experience of the country,' explained Tom Kosiba, the Windham region coordinator. “It was started with an interest...
“I'm concerned,” Agency of Human Services (AHS) Secretary Doug Racine said about budget cuts facing the agency. AHS provides numerous services for vulnerable Vermonters, he said, and it is struggling to keep up with increased demand for services and fewer resources to deliver them. Racine visited Windham County last Thursday to connect with AHS staff members and to hear their thoughts on the issues facing the agency. Staff members told him that some of the agency's computer systems are “antiquated.”
Whitingham and Wilmington voters approved consolidating their schools Tuesday in an effort to provide better academic opportunities to their students while keeping costs down. Voters in the two towns, by a 14-vote margin, decided to add the elementary schools, currently under the jurisdiction of their respective towns, into the two-town governance structure to include Whitingham Elementary and Deerfield Valley Elementary under the Twin Valley system. The amended contract will also allow for the renovation of two school buildings, and the...
Taxes will go up for homeowners and down for nonresidential properties for fiscal year 2012, according to outgoing Finance Director John Leisenring, who presented the homestead and nonresidential tax rates to the Selectboard last week. The board unanimously approved the rates: $2.6499 per $100 for homeowners, and $2.5276 per $100 for nonresidents. Property owners within Brattleboro's Downtown Improvement District will pay an additional $0.1369 per $100 in taxes. These total rates will generate over $12 million for the municipal operating...
In the world of education today, one of the biggest controversies is standardized testing. Does it accurately gauge how well a person is doing in school? Should teachers be held accountable for how well their students do on the tests? Is the cultural bias that has been found in standardized testing too large for some children to overcome? Because I have gone to a private school, I have had the unusual experience of never having taken a standardized test -
For art enthusiasts and lovers of the lush Vermont summer landscape, the Rock River Open Studio Tour will provide an abundance of both. On the weekend of July 16-17, 18 artists living along the Rock River in the West River Valley will continue the annual tradition of welcoming visitors into their homes to experience their artwork in the settings that inspired it. The tour was conceived by a core group of local artists who wanted to harness the artistic talent...