VERNON - “A couple of department heads” recently expressed to Selectboard Chair Christiane Howe that they “have been approached about their budgets while they were with their families,” she announced at the Oct. 19 board meeting.
Howe suspects this has happened more times than she has been made aware.
“I'd like to ask you for them: talk to them during business hours,” she said, requesting members of the public not try to conduct official business with department heads “when they have time off.”
“Just let them be with their families,” she added.
An adolescent alternative-rock band from Brattleboro, Nomad vs. Settler, took first prize in Youth Services' Battle of the Bands. The performance took place Nov. 6 during Brattleboro's Gallery Walk Night in front of an enthusiastic crowd of several hundred fans. Sponsored by Whetstone Station, Supreme Fitness, and Hazel Restaurant,
For a democracy to work, the citizenry must have access to the work of government and the ability to make comment. The reasonable assumption, said Secretary of State Jim Condos, is that all municipal meetings and documents are public unless there is a specific exemption in state statute saying...
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) is accepting submissions for the 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, a prestigious national recognition initiative for teenagers with exceptional artistic and literary talent. Vermont students in grades 7-12 are invited to submit art and writing entries in dozens of categories, including ceramics, digital art, painting, photography, poetry, humor, science fiction, and personal essay/memoir. The submission deadline is Dec. 16, 2015. Students and teachers seeking guidelines or additional information are encouraged to visit...
After a lengthy discussion, recommendations to the contrary, and a very close vote (3-2), the Selectboard decided to accept resident Dick Virkstis' request to put an additional speed limit sign on East-West Road. The sign, showing the road's speed limit of 25 mph, will go on the base of the hill on the downhill side, near the Salmon Brook Bridge. This action is the Selectboard's response to residents' complaints, including some from Virkstis, about speeding vehicles on the stretch of...
Selectboard member Steve Glabach, who represented Dummerston at the Vermont League of Cities and Towns' (VLCT) annual Town Fair, reported to his colleagues some of the events of the Oct. 8 meeting. Part of the VLCT's work is “support for legislation that strengthens local government,” according to its website [www.vlct.org], and to that end, during the Town Fair the VLCT solicited the opinions of the town officials in attendance. One item concerned stormwater runoff. Glabach said towns now have to...
Forrest Gump ran across America multiple times, in less time than it has taken to get a skatepark in Brattleboro. NASA's Exploration Rover traveled all the way to Mars while this town has floundered on getting a skatepark. It has taken longer for Brattleboro to get a skatepark than World Wars I and II, combined. In fact, the Panama Canal, the Empire State Building, the Burj Khalifa, the Titanic, the White House, Michelangelo's statue of David, and the St. Louis...
Transition Dummerston hosts potluck, program DUMMERSTON - Transition Dummerston's monthly potluck and program will be on Friday, Nov. 20, from 6 to 9 p.m., at the Dummerston Community Center, 150 West St. The program will feature a showing of the film The Wisdom to Survive. The film lays out the challenge of climate change and offers “pathways to creative solutions,” according to a news release. It features a number of Vermont voices. The potluck will go from 6 to 7...
College news • Kyle Record of Grafton was among 181 first-year students who received a Dean's Scholarship this year at Keene State College. This renewable merit scholarship is awarded annually to incoming freshmen who demonstrate academic excellence with either a high school GPA of 2.5 or greater and a minimum SAT score of more than 1,700 or a high school GPA of 2.75 or greater and a minimum SAT score of more than 1,600. Full-time in-state students receive $2,500 annually,
A Nov. 7 fire that caused extensive damage to four apartments at 16-38 Valgar St. has been determined to be suspicious in nature. A joint statement on Nov. 11 from Fire Chief Michael Bucossi and Police Chief Michael Fitzgerald said that investigators from the Brattleboro Fire Department, Brattleboro Police Department, and Vermont State Police “have been working continuously since the morning of the fire to determine an origin and cause, and conducting interviews to gather information.” As of press time,
Vermont Republican Party Chairman David Sunderland is taking us all down a bad road in his opposition to the proposal to raise the Vermont gas taxes incrementally over 10 or more years. Yes, that is part of the proposal. It is also part of the point. Even Exxon's scientists knew as far back as the late 1970s that such carbon pollution was beginning to change our world's climate in significant ways. (This is according to an extensive report from the...
The Project Feed the Thousands Campaign kicked off its 21st annual food drive on Nov. 13, working to distribute cereal, juices, peanut butter, canned foods, soups, crackers, and many other non perishable foods, as well as personal hygiene items such shampoo, deodorant, toothbrushes, and soap to those in need. “The community goal this year is to raise $100,000 in cash, as well as to collect enough provisions for 200,000 meals,” said Jeff Morse, project co-chair and president of River Valley...
Vernon's Fiber Optic Committee, formed in June 2015 as part of the town's Planning Commission, continues its research into whether Vernon wants, and can support, a fiber optic network to provide the town with high-speed Internet. At the October 19 regular Selectboard meeting, Bronna Zlochiver, who serves on the committee, provided an update on its progress. She said the committee recently met with Ron Cassel, CEO of East Hanover, N.J.-based Millennium Communications Group, to discuss his company's experience installing and...
Poets Don McLean and Tom Ragle will read “Our Favorite Poems,” their second collaborative reading, on Thursday, Nov. 19, at Guilford Community Church at 7 p.m. Admission is by a donation in any amount, to benefit the work of the Community Church. This program follows Ragle and McLean's initial program of sonnets last May at the church. On this occasion, each reader has chosen from his favorite poems, spanning four centuries. Ragle served as president of Marlboro College from 1958...
The Selectboard has approved the contract with three artists involved in the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Our Town place-making grant. Artists Andrea Wasserman, Elizabeth Billings, and Evie Lovett will produce the arts installation over the winter and spring, with the project completed by the beginning of July. On Oct. 6, the board formally selected their project “From the River, To the River” after two rounds of screening. The federal NEA grant, plus private donations, total $56,000. In the...
The St. Petersburg (Russia) Men's Ensemble will be spending a portion of its 10th annual East Coast Tour in this area. The quartet, singing a cappella, has prepared a concert highlighted by a special adaptation by their director, Kirill Sokolov, of 10 pieces from the All Night Vigil by Sergey Rachmaninov, Op. 37. The All Night Vigil was created in 1915. The arrangement by Sokolov is meant to be a gift for the centennial celebration of this Russian music as...
Stone Church Arts presents classical guitarist Frank Wallace at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 21. The concert will take place in the Chapel at Immanuel Episcopal Church, 20 Church St. Since 2001, Wallace has been a prolific composer of solos, songs, and chamber music with classical guitar. He has written more than 100 songs, most of them in cycles ranging from three to 15 songs, with poetry from many sources, including Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Theodore Roethke, Robert Creeley, Federico García...
An evening of community contra and square dances will take place at the Evening Star Grange in Dummerston Center on Saturday, Nov. 21, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Andy Davis will be calling the dance. Music will be provided by the band Flicker. This is a group of young musicians with Ellery Witman and Hillary Weitzner on fiddles, and Avery Witman on cello. Everest Witman will be sitting in on guitar. There will be a traditional folk tale midway through...
State officials have gone to great lengths - including filing a federal lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission - to protect the Vermont Yankee decommissioning trust fund from what they see as improper expenditures. Ironically, it's now possible that some of the state's expenses for that fight may come out of the very same fund that officials have sought to preserve. Plant owner Entergy has been notified that Vermont will bill the company for legal fees incurred in the state's...
All are welcome to sing shape note music on Sunday, Nov. 22, from 3 to 5:30 p.m., at St. Michael's Episcopal Church, 16 Bradley Ave. Shape note singing is powerful, a cappella singing in four-part harmony. Using a form of musical notation developed in New England around 1800, singers first sing through the notes using their syllable names. Song choice and leadership are shared by all who wish. Listeners, beginners, and people of all ages are invited to sing this...
The Brattleboro Music Center outgrew its Walnut Street location decades ago, but only last week did the 63-year old organization actualize a dream and sign a purchase agreement for a property on Guilford Street. Next steps like inspections and permitting have begun at the property, currently owned by the Winston Prouty Center for Child Development, and the BMC has started raising funds for the prospective relocation. The Prouty Center announced earlier this month that it submitted a purchase and sale...
Communities that host nuclear plants should have a significant role in developing rules that govern how those plants are shut down and cleaned up, local advocates say. That's the gist of a new opinion approved by the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel - the panel's first such official opinion since forming more than a year ago. On a 15-2 vote at a Nov. 12 meeting at Vernon Elementary School, the panel approved a short position paper advocating new ways...
Visual artist Craig Stockwell may be known primarily for abstract painting, but increasingly he has become interested in finding ways that storytelling and history can play a part in his artistic process. Consequently, a genealogy of Stockwell's ancestors who have lived in and around Brattleboro for generations has proven to be an ideal subject for his new drawing commissioned by the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (BMAC). “About a year ago, Mara Williams [the chief curator of BMAC] invited me...
Town considers law enforcement coverage GUILFORD - The Selectboard is considering contracting with the Vermont State Police for the town's future law enforcement needs. At the Oct. 26 board meeting, Lieutenant Paul Favreau, commander of the Vermont State Police's Brattleboro barracks, spoke to the board about how his department might serve the town. “We're not making a decision tonight; we're just getting information,” Board Chair Anne Rider said. Earlier this year, Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark visited the board to...
The Gallery at the Garden in downtown Brattleboro features two new exhibits for the month of November: The Golden Cage, an exhibit of photographs and interviews focused on Vermont's dairy farmers and migrant workers, and The Beauty of Relaxation, with creations by Maureen Mansfield. The gallery is located at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden, home of Strolling of the Heifers, at 157 Main St. The gallery is open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except during special events at...
After more than four decades in radio news, WTSA News Director Tim Johnson Arsenault will step away from the mike. He made the announcement on Nov. 11, during WTSA-FM's “Morning Brew” show. “It was my decision, and my decision alone,” he said. “For many years, I've served a number of elected offices in Vernon, and I'll be seeking one [in 2016] that will require my full-time attention.” Arsenault, the station's news director and co-host of the Morning Brew, said he...
Police continue to seek information about a trailer truck carrying 43,000 pounds of frozen peas which crashed on Route 9 between MacArthur and Hamilton roads on Nov. 13. Vermont State Police Trooper Jeff Hudon said that speed was a contributing factor in this crash, which sent the driver of the truck to the hospital and closed Route 9 for nearly eight hours. Hudon asks that anyone with information regarding the crash call the Brattleboro barracks at 802-254-2382. According to an...
The public is invited to visit the Green River Road weaving studio of Carol Schnabel as she and seven other area artisans participate in the 16th annual Guilford Holiday Studio Sale on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, Nov. 20 and 21. Retired Guilford School teachers Margaret Dale Barrand and Nancy Detra are creating whimsical pop-up puppets, using the cardboard yarn cones that were accumulating in Schnabel's studio, and some of the fabric scraps left over from Barrand's Morris dancing...
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) invites creators of all ages to design and build original sculptures and display them at the museum this fall in BMAC's eighth annual Lego Contest & Exhibit, taking place on Nov. 20-22. “This has grown into a great community affair,” said BMAC Director Danny Lichtenfeld. “We regularly receive entries from contestants ranging in age from toddlers to senior citizens. Most entries are from the tri-state area surrounding Brattleboro, but we always have some...
The South continued its dominance of the Vermont Senior Bowl last Saturday, rolling to a 54-19 over the North in the 15th edition of the all-star football game at Middlebury College's Youngman Field. Rutland's Andy Kenosh and Fair Haven's Ryan Alexander combined for 21 completions on 49 passes for the South, which won its fourth Senior Bowl in the last five years and has a 9-6 edge over the North in the series. The game plan for the South was...
Citing personal reasons, Guilford Selectboard Chair Anne Rider stepped down from her post at the end of the Oct. 26 board meeting. “[G]iven the busyness of the upcoming budget season and our transition in terms of town administrator, it seemed to me that it would be better for the town to have someone in the chair role, who could be 'boots on the ground,'” Rider said in an email to The Commons. Rider will remain on the Selectboard until her...
Main Street Arts (MSA) will show the work of Collin Leech starting on Saturday, Nov. 28, and running through Dec. 28. An opening reception will be held Thursday, Dec. 3, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Leech studied painting at the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music and Art in New York City and later at the Maryland Institute College of Art. In 1993, after moving to Vermont, she began teaching classes at the River Gallery School, where she continues to...
Two weeks after a developer came to town to disclose details of what could be Vermont's biggest wind-turbine site, the project's opponents presented an impassioned case against building any windmills in Stiles Brook Forest. The tone of the two gatherings could not have been more different. While developer Iberdrola Renewables on Oct. 26 touted a relatively low-impact, renewable-energy facility that could pour $1 million annually into the combined coffers of Windham and Grafton, those who are concerned about the proposal...
In making the first detailed proposal for a gas-fired power plant here, the Planning Commission threw out some big numbers at a Nov. 10 meeting: 600 megawatts of power production, $750 million in development costs, 400 to 600 construction jobs. But questions far outpaced answers during a 90-minute session at Vernon Elementary School, where some in a standing-room-only crowd raised health, safety, and environmental concerns even as others argued for new jobs and tax revenue to cushion the blow of...
The man Sultan Rashed referred to as his “buddy” when he was alive pleaded not guilty on Monday to shooting and killing him. Leonard Moffatt, 39, of Sharon, is being held without bail at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield for first-degree murder, said Deputy State's Attorney David Gartenstein after Moffatt's brief arraignment in Windham Superior Court on Monday. Police charge that Moffatt regularly met Rashed to buy drugs, and by some witness accounts, the alleged killer owed the...
The people huddled under umbrellas and in raincoats weathered the drizzle and late hour to see - and be seen by - NBC's Today Weatherman Al Roker. Pliny Park, at the corner of Main and High streets, sparkled from the many strings of white lights arranged around trees and from decorative lights on the Brooks House. Roker breezed through Brattleboro Thursday night as part of his world-record-setting “Rokerthon 2” tour, which followed up his previous world record for the longest...
As someone who launched her first legislative campaign before she graduated from college, state Rep. Kesha Ram says she's used to being underestimated. “I think what my opponents and others didn't know about me at that time was that I am an incredibly hard worker,” said Ram, a Burlington Democrat now serving her fourth term in the House even though she has not yet reached age 30. Ram says she is bringing that same work ethic to the 2016 race...
Howard Prussack So much carnage and terrible news streaming from Paris. ISIS has managed to do what even the Nazis never did using just eight people to bring so much death to ordinary civilians. What will the world do now - pray? I just don't think prayers will help the victims; I don't think ISIS cares so much for our collective prayers. Why did this happen, from what spring of evil did this cancer of ISIS emerge? We can't kill...