The town's representatives to the Windham Regional Commission told the Selectboard on Oct. 16 that it was their hope that bridges 29 and 36 on the East-West Road would be slated for “fast track” repair or replacement.
According to draft meeting minutes, Lew Sorenson spoke about the Interstate 91 bridge replacement project and the increased traffic this will bring to several roads in town. He reportedly urged the Selectboard to request additional coverage from the Sheriff's Department when that stretch of Route 30 is shut down.
Meanwhile, the WRC is acknowledging what Sorenson called “a widespread need” for Planning Commission and Development Review Board trainings. He and Roger Turner, the town's other WRC rep, said that they are willing to organize these sessions.
The Selectboard took up a variety of chores at their meeting Oct. 16, according to draft meeting minutes:...
Selectboard members on Oct. 7 took up the issue of pay and benefits for the town clerk/treasurer's position, and decided to look more closely into how other towns account for people who fill multiple roles in determining benefit eligibility. The board may craft a warning to outline when elected...
State Sen. Bob Hartwell updated the Wilmington Selectboard on Oct. 16 on legislative discussions for a proposed bill that could affect property owners on Lake Raponda. Citing the success of lake and shoreland protection laws on the books in Maine and New Hampshire, both of which now enjoy much...
Board looks into sidewalk proposal LONDONDERRY- Both Joel Kuhlberg of the Planning Commission and Bob Wells were on hand on Oct. 7 to discuss with the Selectboard a proposal for pedestrian walkways in the north village and to determine whether the board is interested in looking into feasibility. A group had met with Matt Mann of the Windham Regional Commission and discussed possibilities of a sidewalk on the north side of Route 11, the south side, or a riverwalk pathway...
The cause of an Oct. 16 fire on Elliot Street that left 17 people homeless remains under investigation. According to Fire Chief Michael Bucossi, investigations into the three-alarm blaze at 214 Elliot St. have successfully determined that the fire started on the third floor. Interviews by Brattleboro Fire Department fire investigators and Brattleboro Police into the fire's root cause are ongoing, said Bucossi. “At this time we have no reason to think the fire is suspicious [arson],” said Bucossi. Gallons...
In a 5-to-4 vote on Tuesday night, the Rockingham Free Public Library Board of Trustees decided to uphold its Sept. 18 vote to terminate Library Director Célina Houlné. The decision came following a lengthy two-day hearing where Houlné was given an opportunity to present her response to an evaluation and the corrective-action plan (CAP) that found her job performance deficient. After nearly 2½ hours of deliberation, no trustees who had originally voted to terminate the library director were convinced to...
The Rockingham Free Public Library will be closed from Oct. 23-31 and will be opening at the newly renovated 65 Westminster St. on Nov. 1. During this transition, and continuing through the month of November, the library will not be charging fees for items returned late. Library materials can be returned in the drop box located in front of the building next to the sidewalk. Despite being closed, the “Bully” documentary screening and discussion is taking place on Thursday, Oct.
The combination of dropping temperatures and increasing numbers of homeless has placed pressure on local shelters. The Emergency Overflow Shelter could provide a temporary stop-gap for people sleeping outside, but the overnight shelter located at the First Baptist Church on Main Street needs volunteers to open early. Lucie Fortier, executive director of the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center, and Joshua Davis, executive director of Morningside Shelter, say they would open the emergency shelter a month early, on Nov. 3, if...
Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of abuse used by one partner in an intimate relationship to gain or maintain power and control over the other partner. Until recently, domestic violence has focused on adult survivors. But abuse doesn't happen in a vacuum - it has an impact on every family member. Especially the children. According to the international group Futures Without Violence, it is estimated that in the United States, 15.5 million children live in homes where domestic...
Don McLean has just published his first novel, but the stories and poems in it are not his own. They were written by his mother, Jean Stewart McLean, and have never been published until now. McLean decided to compile her work, with the hopes of publishing some of it, after her death in 1963. “I inherited all of her manuscripts, most of which are typewritten. And I felt bad that she'd never gotten anything published. She'd sort of given up...
In celebration of its 44th season, the Windham Orchestra will perform two Fourth Symphonies, and premiere the works of four local composers during the 2013-14 concert season. On Sunday, Oct, 27 in Brattleboro, and Friday, Nov. 1 in Westminster, under the direction of Hugh Keelan, the orchestra will open its season with “The Social Waltzes” of Frederick Palmer, Brattleboro's postmaster from 1845-1848, arranged for orchestra by Maestro Keelan; Brandenburg's Concerto No. 2; and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. Featured in the...
Residents of Brattleboro, Dover, Jamaica, and Townshend are invited to bring household hazardous waste to collection sites on Saturday, Nov. 2. According to the Windham Solid Waste Management District (WSWMD), residents of the four towns, as well as any resident of Windham County, can participate. Collection events are 9 to 11 a.m. at Dover Transfer Station, Jamaica Transfer Station, and Townshend Town Garage, and from 9 a.m. to noon at the WSWMD transfer station on Old Ferry Road in Brattleboro.
On Saturday, Oct. 26, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Windham County Sheriff's Department, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and in coordination with local law enforcement agencies and prevention coalitions through Windham County, will offer Drug Take-Back Day. This service is free and anonymous. The National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day aims to provide a safe, convenient, and responsible means of disposal while educating the general public about the potential for abuse of these medications. During the last Take-Back...
Brattleboro's Nevada Powers has delivered many great performances as the top runner for the Colonels girls' cross country team. However, the race she ran on Oct. 15 in the Marble Valley League A Division championship in Brattleboro was as gutsy as they come. Over the weekend, Powers escaped serious injury when the car she was riding in got into an accident in Brattleboro. Powers ended up with a wrenched neck, but another passenger in the car, teammate Becca Freeman, suffered...
The eighth season of southern Vermont's longest-running and most diverse indoor farmers' market kicks off at the River Garden on Saturday, Nov. 2, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. With the upcoming transfer of the River Garden property from Building a Better Brattleboro to the Strolling of the Heifers, fans of the Winter Farmers' Market are delighted it will be keeping its Main Street address. Tim Stevenson, founder of Post Oil Solutions, which sponsors the market, says Post Oil is...
Births • In Keene, N.H., (Cheshire Medical Center), Sept. 7, 2013, a son, Joshua Murray, to Stephanie Lawlor and Richard Dupuis of Bellows Falls. College news • Kara E. Piergentili of Dummerston is a member of the class of 2017 at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. She graduated earlier this year from Brattleboro Union High School. Transitions • Tony Blofson, MD has been hired by Brattleboro Memorial Hospital as Medical Director of BMH Physician Group, the hospital's network of...
The Center for Digital Art in Brattleboro hosts Power Animal Systems, a multimedia performance ensemble known for blending experimental music, video installation, and a cast of animal-human hybrid creatures from another dimension, on Friday, Oct. 25. Donning sporty Spandex uniforms and anthropomorphic headpieces, the Power Animals enact “species-queer” alien rituals “satirizing Earth's divisive power structures: species, gender, sexuality, religion, and hierarchy,” CDA said in a program announcement. Created by Albany, N.Y.,-based visual artist, musician, and teacher Jason Martin, Power Animal...
I love the Rockingham Free Public Library. I have been an active user at RFPL for 53 years. I can remember the day I got my library card, back when children had to be able to sign their names to acquire them. That day was very important to me, and I know how lucky we are to have such a vibrant, beautiful, functioning library. There have been an ongoing issues with the RFPL for many months now, starting with the...
Throughout the month of November, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) will once again be sponsoring “Beards for BMH” to raise awareness of men's health issues. The campaign is designed to spark conversation about prostate cancer screening, erectile dysfunction, testicular cancer and other men's health issues. Participants in the campaign will pay a $10 registration fee, solicit sponsors, shave their faces clean on Nov. 1 and grow their beards over the next 30 days. Armed with facts and talking points about men's...
The Brattleboro Film Festival will offer “So, You Want to Write a Screenplay? Scriptwriting Essentials,” a free, two-part workshop that will be taught by veteran Hollywood screenwriter and Brattleboro Film Festival Advisory Board member Tim Metcalfe, whose credits include “Revenge of the Nerds,” “Kalifornia,” “The Haunting in Connecticut” and, more recently, the critically acclaimed “Higher Ground,” directed by and starring the Oscar-nominated actress Vera Farmiga. The three-hour workshop runs 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on successive Sundays, Nov. 3 and...
Brattleboro seeks to fill committee vacancies BRATTLEBORO - The town of Brattleboro seeks citizens to serve on the following committees and boards: Agricultural Advisory Board; Arts Committee; Citizen Police Communications Committee; Development Review Board (alternate); Energy Committee; Honor Roll Committee; Inspector, Lumber, Shingles, and Wood; Senior Solutions representative; SEVCA representative; Town Service Officer; and Tree Advisory Committee. Applications for appointment by the Selectboard at its Nov. 19 meeting are due by 5 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 14. For more information...
In his first meeting as a member of the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel (VSNAP) on Oct. 16, State Rep. Mike Hebert, R-Vernon, found himself in the thick of a debate on making sure that Entergy, the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, decommissions the Vernon facility as quickly as possible. A vote by the panel recommending that the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) support this course of action for the 41-year-old reactor in Vernon ended in a...
When vocalist Evelyn Harris took the Arts Block stage last March, she expected to share it with Samirah Evans. After all, she was there at the invitation of the former New Orleans jazz and blues singer, who had been producing a “Ladies in Jazz” series at the Greenfield, Mass. concert hall for months. A sudden and extreme case of vertigo that morning left Evans unable to perform. Harris made the concert her own, earning three standing ovations from the packed...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present roots music quartet Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem at Next Stage on Saturday, Oct. 26 at 7:30 p.m. Hailed as one of America's most inventive string bands, Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem mix traditional, original, and contemporary sounds on fiddle, guitar, bass, and recycled percussion, and top it all with joyous harmonies from four skilled lead singers. Together they'll hang a 200-year-old Georgia Sea Islands song over a New Orleans groove, set...
When writer and performing artist Seth Lepore's grandmother died last year, he was on tour. The former Vermonter was devastated. He had been very close to her, and he knew a vital part of his existence was now gone. As a way to deal with his grief, Lepore decided to write a memoir about their relationship. But not long into the project, he realized that a one-man show would be the best vehicle to pay tribute to a woman that...
I recently had a birthday. One of my “traditions” is to eat ice cream at the Chelsea Royal Diner's outdoor stand. It was a beautiful day - Vermont at its best with a clear blue sky and just warm enough for comfort. Birthdays do call up thinking on the past. As I reveled in the family surrounding me, the diner itself seemed to speak. It is such a humble edifice. It speaks of earlier times and good, affordable meals. This...
The five-member Brattleboro Town School District Board returned from their closed executive session to an empty room that had teemed with some 40 audience members only an hour earlier. Four members of the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union administration waited outside the Academy School auditorium, ground zero for a tense five-hour grievance hearing on Oct. 16 for a teacher who says that she wants to shine a light on an alleged pattern of bullying and intimidation in the school's teaching environment...
An effort has launched to organize volunteers and businesses to prepare meals for the victims of a devastating fire last week. With the help and cooperation of the Vermont and New Hampshire Upper Valley chapter of the American Red Cross, Bethany Thies has begun to coordinate the disparate efforts of people wanting to help those who have been without a home since the three-alarm fire tore through the apartment house at 214 Elliot St. Thies, who began delivering meals on...
In the fall of 2011, artist and musician Marek Bennett journeyed to Eastern Europe. Traveling though his great-grandmother's native region of Eastern Slovakia, Bennett lived with distant cousins and studied local stories, food, languages, folk music, and artwork. He also took part as his relatives observed seasonal traditions and celebrated holiday harvests. At the same time, Bennett saw firsthand how the Greek debt crisis brought the European Union to the brink of disaster, toppling the Slovak government and collapsing the...
Is empathy making a comeback? In Brattleboro and the surrounding area, we have well-established evidence that it is. Since 2005, Daryl Pillsbury and Richard Davis have been running the Windham County Heat Fund, created to help families in financial crisis to heat their homes during the unforgiving, often brutal Vermont winters. Even after applying for fuel assistance from the state of Vermont, many families fall through the cracks, either over-qualifying for sufficient aid or receiving too little fuel to make...
Marlboro College is pleased to announce that it was promised more than $1.3 million in September thanks to the generosity of the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation and Marlboro College Trustee Ted Wendell. The funds will support a range of programs, including the Bridges orientation program for new students, which is integral to the academic success of students at this small and close-knit learning community. The Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation pledged Marlboro a grant of $825,000 over the next...
On Saturday, Oct. 26, County Forester Bill Guenther host the Big Tree Tour around Windham County. Now in its 20th year, participants will look at trees listed on the Big Tree Registry, some significant runners up, and some that may be farther down the list but are very significant in size. Meet at the Vernon Town Offices at 8:30 a.m. After a short introduction, the tour will depart at 8:45 sharp. The first stop will be the state champion sassafras,
Dear Vermont Health Connect website programmers: I find your security questions to be highly inappropriate and discriminatory against low-income Vermonters who have lived lives without the privileges that your security questions assume everyone to have experienced. You have made it so that many people who did not finish high school; who were adopted, the child of a single parent, or don't have access to their birth records; who cannot work due to disabilities; or who didn't enter college or take...
Whap! I turn hard to my left, startled by the noise. I glance through the forest, aware that this is the first day of moose season. I take a few cautious steps and then: Whap! Whap. Again, I look left, and this time I see water gently splashing against the trees and underbrush, then a small ripple charging away. It's a beaver alerting me to his presence, and he's dammed up a stream to make himself a home. I step...
Regularly, for a number of years now, we've had studies or meetings with different names but the same idea: Brattleboro's future is in the arts. And now there's the CoreArts Project, with $50,000 of public funds to figure out how “arts and place shape each other” here - or should. If we are successful in making the arts Brattleboro's “anchor of attraction,” it's expected that that will benefit artists and the town economy and citizenry. But the reality is more...
The evening was a warm, fall night, with a full moon rising in the east. The water ran noisily beneath the concrete spandrels, as the leaves took on a golden glow from the setting sun. A large-winged predator swooped, hunting along the Connecticut River for its evening meal. Food was laid out on the Vermont side of the Vilas Bridge and luminarias lined the concrete railing along both sides. A sign hung briefly from the bridge before it was torn...
The cause of a fire on Elliot Street, Oct. 16, that left 17 people homeless remains under investigation. According to Fire Chief Michael Bucossi, investigations into the three-alarm blase at 214 Elliot Street have succeeded in identifying the fire as starting on the third floor. Interviews by Brattleboro Fire Department fire investigators and Brattleboro Police into the fire's root cause are ongoing, said Bucossi. “At this time we have no reason to think the fire is suspicious [arson],” said Bucossi.