Balancing the town budget is rarely a cake walk for any municipality.
And building Brattleboro's budget for fiscal year 2015 may require the Selectboard to make tough decisions.
The board held an early-morning budget meeting with the interim town manager and department heads in the Hanna Cosman Meeting Room of the Municipal Center on Nov. 25 to begin to solve the puzzle of how to fund the municipal operating and capital budgets while keeping property taxes at a manageable level.
The board initiated the budget process in September. Town Meeting Members will vote on the budget in March 2014.
In 2004, the Vermont Legislature passed S.76, the bill authorizing medical marijuana. This law allows for marijuana, grown by dispensaries, to be distributed to Vermont residents. The process is as follows: the patient qualifies for a card from the state; a prescriber writes a letter, not a prescription; the...
The Windham County Sheriff's Department is proposing to double its workforce here, adding a full-time deputy who would live as well as work in the community. “We're trying to modify how we do business. While we feel we've been successful, we want to provide better service,” Sgt. Mark Anderson...
Next Stage Arts Project presents a screening of “The Central Park Five,” a documentary by David McMahon, Ken Burns, and Burns' elder daughter, Sarah, on Friday, Nov. 29, at 7 p.m. This event is a benefit for Next Stage Arts, which is organizing a full schedule of year-round events such as classical and folk/rock music concerts, spoken word events, vaudeville, and theatrical performances. The suggested donation is $10. Sarah Burns, as one of the film's co-directors and the author of...
Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Cullen, a longtime Boston Globe reporter and columnist, will speak about “Whitey Bulger and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice,” on Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 7 p.m., in the Main Room at Brooks Memorial Library, as part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesday series. Cullen, whose been at the Globe since 1985, lived in the shadow, and sometimes in fear, of South Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, sentenced Nov. 14 to two consecutive life terms...
Nov. 19 was a day to give thanks if you have a toilet. More than two billion people worldwide lack access to toilet facilities, even rudimentary ones such as outhouses and pit latrines. They have nothing. The result: open defecation, both in rural settings and in urban slums throughout the world. Half the hospital beds in developing countries are occupied by patients suffering from diseases stemming from contamination of their water. Indeed, the United Nations' World Water Assessment Program and...
It has been one year. November 28, 2013 is the first anniversary of my father's (Gary Blomgren's) death. It happens to land on Thanksgiving Day this year. I have been trying to write this thank-you letter for a year now. Even as the shame, guilt, and embarrassment piled up at not being able to complete this task, I just couldn't. I reminded myself that Dad would be appalled at my lapse of manners. It didn't matter. Every time I sat...
The recent notification to the Brattleboro Retreat that we have fully and successfully met all Conditions of Participation for our recent Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) survey provides a moment in time to reflect on how far we have come as an organization and as a state. Mental illness and addiction can threaten human life just as heart disease and cancer do. Those of us at the Retreat who have chosen this work have done so out of a...
Margo Torrey, one of the founders of the Putney Craft Tour 35 years ago, says she's amazed how her idea for arts patrons to visit artists in their studios has grown and flourished. “Initially we were just a small group of people who work in craft, 13 of us, who gathered together in a building in downtown Putney to show the public what amazing artists lived in this town,” she says. “The great idea of a tour came a couple...
I do support health insurance for all, and Vermont has been way ahead of the rest of the United States in providing excellent insurance options with good coverage. “Obamacare” is bringing the same, better coverage to the rest of the country. However, with 2014 almost on us and the demand of the Vermont Health Connect exchange, the small-business owner is really hit hard in several ways: 1. Sole proprietors and husband-and-wife partners will no longer be able to buy their...
Three major arts organizations are joining forces this Thanksgiving weekend for a novel “Weekend of the Arts” in Putney. The Putney Craft Tour, Next Stage Arts Project, and Sandglass Theater are waving one banner for what Ken Pick, potter and one of the founders of the Putney Craft Tour, celebrating 35 years this year, says will be a great treat for locals and visitors alike. Not only will the annual Putney Craft Tour take place during the day, as usual,
Shopping at Hannaford is something that every SIT Graduate Institute student can claim to have done, but I don't think every SIT student can claim to have the same experience that I had. Imagine six people in the college's shuttle being driven to the supermarket to get some food and drinks for the night's festivities. All of us pay for our respective items, and we leave. While waiting in the shuttle for one of the slower members of our group...
The motto “Working for a town that works” guided Jerry Goldberg through his eight years heading the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce. As he prepares to leave the chamber, the town's professional advocate and stalwart showman reflects on the thrills and spills of leading a chamber of commerce in the “One and Only Brattleboro.” “I'll do my part, and the town will do its part,” Goldberg remembers telling himself almost a decade ago. Goldberg sits in his office at BACC,
The scent of hot cocoa fills the Chester Depot. A harpist tunes his instrument. Volunteers in red Santa hats fill a basket with candy canes, and Thermoses with drinking chocolate. Santa Claus, bedecked in his professional red velvet suit and white fur trim, leans against the doorframe. Bill Kopf (a.k.a. Santa) of Hartland reminisces about his boyhood in New Jersey. His grandfather and father started Bridgewater's fire department. Kopf started as Santa's helper approximately 30 years ago, handing children bags...
Kate O'Connor has seen her share of leadership positions, from her current role on the Brattleboro Selectboard to years spent under the Statehouse dome during the Dean and Shumlin administrations. In her new role as executive director of the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce, O'Connor plans to unite the area's diverse entrepreneurs and businesses for a better, stronger region. “It seemed an exciting job at a challenging time,” said O'Connor, sitting in the conference room of the BACC. The economic...
Our story last week on Dummerston's efforts to get a handle on property replacement revaluations [“Town, VLCT still at odds over insurance coverage costs”] incorrectly identified the VLCT Property And Casualty Intermunicipal Fund as being based in Connecticut; it is based in Vermont. Ken Canning, director of risk management services for VLCT, wrote the paper Nov. 20 to say he denies he told a Dummerston Selectboard member that if three local contractors' estimates ring in at less than PACIF's evaluation,
I was full of Christmas cheer as I took a trolley from Cambridge to Boston to wait for the train to Brattleboro. It was snowing heavily. I was excited about spending a Vermont Christmas with my brother Paddy, his wife Betty, and their little daughter Leish, but I was also excited at the thought of meeting my girlfriend Tina in New York after Christmas. To my surprise, I began to realize how very close we'd become in a short time.
Puppeteer Eric Bass has performed his award-winning “Autumn Portraits” many times over the years. On Saturday, Nov. 30, at 7:30 p.m., he offers a special presentation of his beloved fall classic at the Sandglass Theater on Kimball Hill. A signature piece for Bass, Sandglass' artistic director, “Autumn Portraits” has been performed for 30 years to great acclaim in theaters and festivals throughout Australia, Europe, Israel, and the United States. As Sandglass notes on its website, Bass is sole performer in...
Share the holiday spirit with friends and crafters inside the buildings of the Cotton Mill at the 15th annual Open Studio Event and Holiday Sale. This year there are more events, vendors, goods. and services to explore than ever. On Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 7 and 8, the doors and halls open for folks from Southern Vermont and beyond to experience the hospitality not only of the artists, musicians, bakers, cooks, circus performers, and craftspeople of the Cotton Mill, but...
After five years of the remains of Hinsdale Greyhound Park and OTB in Hinsdale, N.H., sitting fallow, demolition has begun on what's left. The track, first known as Hinsdale Raceway, opened off Route 119 in 1958 for standardbred harness racing. It added greyhound racing in 1973. In the 1960s and 1970s, before casinos and state lotteries, it was not unusual to see the parking lot full, even for afternoon racing, and to see traffic backed up through Brattleboro's “Malfunction Junction.”
Seventeen local residents have been selected to serve the community and learn valuable leadership skills through a collaborative initiative of Marlboro College's Division of Graduate and Professional Studies in partnership with Youth Services, SeVEDs, United Way of Windham County, and Latchis Arts. In Marlboro College's “Get on Board” program, Windham County residents aged 22-44 are eligible to become “Get on Board” fellows: Following a competitive selection process, applicants were matched with boards - in a non-voting capacity - based on...
Everything is broken. My favorite plate, my favorite pair of heels, my favorite suede boots, my favorite holiday... In the midst of modern-day Thanksgiving come platitudes like this one: “I'm so thankful that Bobby got a 100 on his being a super-perfect kid test that no one else was taking. Thank you, baby in a manger.” And I roll my eyes to such great lengths that my eye whites catch a random gathering of twigs in my unraked lawn on...
The NewBrook Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department (NBFD) announces the launch of its 2013-14 annual fund drive, this year dedicated to overhauling one of the department's principal pieces of firefighting equipment. NBFD's Pierce Saber pumper-tanker, designated 23-Engine 3, has been in service since 1996. Next spring, it will go to the Pierce factory, in Appleton, Wis., for refurbishment. The truck, in excellent condition, is a good candidate for overhaul. Most of the work will be concentrated on upgrading the pumping...
Births • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), on Nov. 2, 2013, a son, Alexander Michael Gantt, to Hannah Braskie Gantt and Andrew Gantt of Vernon. Grandparents are Mark and Sharlene Braskie and Rev. Michael and Barbara Gantt. College news • Alyson Marcucci of West Dover was inducted into Castleton State College's chapter of the Sigma Beta Delta International Business Honor Society. The induction took place on Nov. 13 in front of family and friends at Castleton President Dave Wolk's home. Created...
It was a clear, crisp, December day. The mid-afternoon sun gave a warm golden glow to the southern flank of Black Mountain along Rice Farm Road in Dummerston. We were winding down our long day on the Christmas Bird Count. We stopped to do a quick check of the scrubby fields, not expecting to find much. We could not have been more wrong. In the shrubby berry bushes, we first heard cedar waxwings, then saw them moving rapidly, voraciously feeding...
At the Nov. 13 Selectboard meeting, board member Steve Glabach said he'd been to the Bunker Farm's Nov. 10 open house and had come away impressed. “It was really, really good. I'm glad I went. It seemed like young people who are working really hard, and they did a nice presentation. They need to be complimented,” he said. In a competitive process conducted by the Vermont Land Trust to match experienced and creative farmers with affordable farmland, four farmers recently...
Thanksgiving closings in Brattleboro BRATTLEBORO - In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, all Brattleboro town offices will be closed on Thursday and Friday, Nov. 28 and 29, with the exception of emergency services. Brooks Memorial Library will close at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 27, and will be closed on Nov. 28. It will be open for regular hours on Nov. 29 and 30. Parking is free at all metered spaces and in the pay-and-display lots on Nov. 28 and...
Christian Science Church hosts Thanksgiving Day Service BRATTLEBORO - There's a reason the day is called Thanksgiving. Gratefully acknowledging our blessings is a deeply healing spiritual practice. First Church of Christ, Scientist will host a special gratitude service on Thanksgiving morning at 10:45. Lay readers will read “The President's Thanksgiving Proclamation” and scriptural selections of praise and healing. The service also includes the vocal solo “Sing to The Lord of Harvest,” hymns, and expressions of gratitude. Everyone is welcome to...
Cherry Street Artisans' sixth annual Holiday Sale & Café takes place Saturday, Dec. 7, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 8, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 44 Cherry St. This unique, friendly environment is presented by 12 artisans who honor handmade objects, artisanal food, live music, and the pleasure of being with others. The venue, an in-town Victorian home, fosters an intimate, non-commercial atmosphere. The “Cherries” exhibit their beautiful and original crafts as a small craft...
With six weeks to go, it is now certain that the Shumlin administration's self-imposed deadline of universal broadband Internet coverage for Vermont by Dec. 31, 2013 will not be met. But the state is much closer to that goal than it was in January 2011, when Gov. Peter Shumlin first unveiled his plan. At a news conference on Nov. 20, Shumlin said that less than 1 percent of the homes in Vermont - about 3,000 in all - still lack...
It's here: the season of good cheer. With days and nights filled with holiday-themed office parties, social gatherings, gift exchanges, and celebrations, it's the time of year when friends come to call and glasses of wassail are raised to toast the old and the new. Holiday parties are a great way to spread the joy of the holiday season, show gratitude, and celebrate accomplishments. But while enjoying the festivities, if alcohol is involved, it's important to be reminded of our...
I believe in and support peace, compassion, truth, artistic expression, an informed and ethical democracy, economic, social, and environmental justice. If you share these ideals, I would like to enlist your help. The people of the central Philippines need help on a massive scale after being struck by a massive typhoon. Please, if you're able to, open your hearts and wallets to help those devastated by that storm. According to a story in The New York Times about the plight...
A disturbing incident that took place at the Hannaford Supermarket in Brattleboro was brought to our attention at our most recent meeting: On Oct. 19, Christopher Bridges, a graduate student at the SIT Graduate Institute at World Learning, was falsely accused of stealing a case of beer by a store employee. Accompanying Mr. Bridges were Nicole Maier and Victoria Castro, both SIT graduate students. Ms. Castro had, in fact, paid for the case of beer Mr. Bridges carried out of...
The AIDS Project will commemorate World AIDS Day on Monday, Dec. 2, from noon to 1 p.m., at the River Garden on Main Street. The event will open with a 10-minute candlelight vigil on the sidewalk, followed by a short program of local and international speakers, music by talented musician Amanda Bernhard, and the donation of a quilt for a person living with HIV/AIDS handmade by local residents. Light snacks will be available. The entire community is invited to honor...
In 1985, I began my career as music director at Kurn Hattin Homes for Children, a charitable home and school serving children at risk or in need. After 28 years, I still feel the same passion and motivation as the day I started. Every day, this work underscores my belief that, as a music educator, I am helping to improve lives and make the world a better place. For students at Kurn Hattin, music is a powerful gift. Many have...
On Nov. 2, Brattleboro Area Hospice (BAH) presented its Cherished Goods Auction at the VFW in Brattleboro. A whole host of people came out to support this annual fundraiser and bid on a wide range of goods in both the silent and the live auction, ably done by Kit Martin. The interest in our auction this year was piqued by specially selected, refurbished, hand-painted, and otherwise embellished mirrors complementing the many terrific items donated by our league of Hospice friends.
The Jamaica Memorial Library announces it is the recipient of the 2013 CliF Rural Library Award. The library was one of 12 chosen from both Vermont and New Hampshire. Children's Literacy Foundation (CliF) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to inspire a love of reading among low-income, at-risk, and rural children in communities throughout the Twin States. Through the Rural Library Award, Jamaica Memorial Library will receive more than 150 new books to add to the children's collection. The...
Nowell Sing We Clear, celebrating Christmas as it was known for centuries in Britain and North America - and as it continues in many places - returns to the Latchis Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 16. One of the area's most popular holiday programs, Nowell will dazzle in its rollicking mid-winter carols, which just might ring through the Connecticut River Valley. Nowell Sing We Clear hails from an age when this time of year was a time for...
When the late June Butler heard about the Brattleboro School Endowment, she reportedly said, “What a great idea. If I give something to this endowment, the money would go to all the children in the town.” Butler arranged to leave part of her estate to the Brattleboro School Endowment. Likewise, the Brattleboro Rotary Club (www.brattlebororotaryclub.org) found a solid partner in the Brattleboro School Endowment, to which it voted to direct $5,000 of its annual golf tournament proceeds. The reason: the...
The Brattleboro Rotary Club and the Brattleboro Sunrise Rotary Club are digging deep to help surviving victims of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which ripped through the Philippines Nov. 8, killing thousands. The clubs donated vital funds to ShelterBox, an international disaster relief organization working to provide shelter and access to clean water and life-saving equipment immediately following large-scale disasters. When disaster strikes and homes are lost, Rotary clubs are among the first to rise to the occasion, seeking to help disaster...
The 90-member River Singers Community Chorus invites you to its annual holiday concerts at the acoustically beautiful White Church in Grafton on Saturday, Dec. 7, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 8, at 4 p.m. Led by Mary Cay Brass, the River Singers is a multi-generational chorus giving rise to an eclectic mix of community-based music from many cultural and musical traditions. A typical River Singers holiday concert opens with songs celebrating the winter holidays. In that tradition, this year's...
Vermont Theatre Company announces auditions for its spring production of Woody Allen's Cold War-era comedy “Don't Drink the Water,” the wacky story of a dysfunctional American family trapped behind the Iron Curtain. A 1969 comedy film, starring Jackie Gleason and directed by Howard Morris, was based upon Allen's 1966 play of the same name. Performances are May 2-4 and 8-11, 2014, at the Evening Star Grange in Dummerston Center. Marilyn Tullgren directs; Nancy Groff and Randy Bright produce. The production...
In recent weeks, town manager Willis “Chip” Stearns III reported separately to the Bellows Falls Trustees and the Selectboard regarding the fiscal year 2014 and 2015 municipal budgets. On Nov. 16, Stearns told the Selectboard the budget was essentially level-funded for fiscal 2015, but “one of the major costs is the sidewalk and wall on Cherry Hill, from Green Street, at an estimate of $180,000.” Cherry Street loops from School Street and past the Bellows Falls Elementary School, to connect...
Jacob Alan Roberts works with a laptop propped on his knees in a mostly empty office. Sounds of traffic trundling along Main Street echo through the large windows that give views of People's Bank and shops on Elliot Street. “I have to hit the ground running,” says Roberts, setting the computer on a nearby bookcase. His companions occupying Building a Better Brattleboro's new office, above Burrows Specialized Sports, 105 Main St., include a second chair and standing coat rack. Roberts...
Secretary of State Jim Condos and Deputy Secretary of State Brian Leven, an attorney, passing through town on their second Biennial Transparency Tour, stopped by with a message for Windham County public officials and government employees. “Open-meeting laws and access-to-public-records laws are some of our most important laws,” Condos told The Commons. “It's about transparency. It's about democracy. It's about the people's right to know.” The public officials came to town on the heels of an inundation of public document...