Begun in 1970 to clean the roadsides of the interstate highways, Vermont's statewide Green Up Day has since expanded to a general clean up of roadsides, streams, vacant lots - wherever accumulated trash is an eyesore or, worse yet, an environmental hazard.
Windham County Green Up committee volunteers have already begun arranging meeting sites, putting up posters, making provision for refreshments for volunteers, and attending to myriad details for this year's effort.
Burton Touch Free Car Wash & Detailing and WTSA Radio will hold their 11th annual benefit for the project on Friday, April 29, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the car wash on 873 Putney Rd.
Green Up trash bags will be passed out, along with a selection of beverages compliments of Leader Beverage.
On Wednesday, May 4, at 7 p.m., in the Athens School, an open forum will be held concerning the development of a town plan. Tim Johnson from WTSA Radio in Brattleboro will be the moderator. The forum is funded by a Municipal Planning Grant that was awarded by the...
Thanks to Jerry Goldberg for a terrific uplifting interview. It is great to finally read something positive about our area after all the negativity. I am so glad to have Luke in our community with his wonderful positive attitude and feeling for the area, for bringing a great business...
Green River Bridge detour alert GUILFORD - Construction season is upon us, and the detour for the Green River Covered Bridge project is scheduled to begin June 20, according to Town Administrator Katie Buckley. As of that date, no vehicular and pedestrian traffic may cross the bridge. Work on the bridge begins on May 23, but to allow for school bus travel it won't close until school is out. The bridge will re-open Aug. 27. For details on the project,
When the Selectboard added an actionable item to the April 11 regular Board meeting agenda, did they violate the state's open meeting law? Just after the call to order, Board member Mike Fitzpatrick made a motion, “to add Assistant Town Clerk wages to the agenda,” and the Board unanimously voted in favor of the change. Later in the meeting, the Board went into Executive Session, came out of it, and then unanimously voted to pay Assistant Town Clerk Dedra Dunham...
The Streetfeet Women, a Boston-based writer/performers' ensemble, will present a reading of poems and prose pieces entitled “What Does It Mean to be Human?” on Friday, April 29, at 6:30 p.m., at the Putney Public Library at 55 Main St. The program includes Mary McCullough's 10-minute play, “Twilight Time,” Christina Liu's “Surrogate,” poetry by Mary Birnbaum, fiction by Andrea Humphrey, and nonfiction by Elena Harap, all exploring ways in which we see, or do not see, one another as full...
Author and Jungian analyst Polly Young-Eisendrath will look at the Buddhist perspective on engaging with daily life in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library on Main Street on Wednesday, May 4, at 7 p.m. Her talk, “What the Buddhists Teach: Finding Clarity in Everyday Life,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series and is free and open to the public. Young-Eisendrath will discuss the Buddhist model for remaining fully engaged in the ups and downs of...
East stairwell at Transportation Center to close for repairs BRATTLEBORO - The stairwell on the east side of the Brattleboro Transportation Center will be closed temporarily to allow for a complete replacement of the stair unit. In addition, there will be a temporary closure of the rear portion of the alleyway between 77 Flat St. and 64 Elliot St. to protect the public during construction and to allow crews unobstructed access to the job site. The work will be performed...
The Bellows Falls Union High School Drama Department is pleased to present “The Wedding Catastrophe” by Eileen Moushey for the school's annual Murder Mystery Dinner Theater. The fun-filled evening with live actors and audience participation will take place on Friday, April 29, in the Bellows Falls Union High School cafeteria and includes dinner and dessert, as well as an elaborate clue hunt. This is a fundraiser for the BFUHS 2016 New York City Field Trip, sponsored by Sonnax. A news...
A 17-minute film, “The Magic Lantern Along the Pennine Way,” will be shown on Sunday, May 1, from 7 to 9 p.m., at C.X. Silver Gallery, 814 Western Ave., as part of the closing reception for Susan Brearey's exhibition and book launch, “Elemental Images,” with music by Tim Eriksen followed by a forum and conversation. This event is free and open to the public. Brearey is featured in the film. “This was my summer collaboration with artist Dylan Stone and...
College news • Randii Elie and Daija Germain of Brattleboro were among more than 160 students who presented their undergraduate research at Keene State College's 16th annual Academic Excellence Conference on April 9. This student professional conference is designed to showcase the academic work of Keene State students and the collaborative work between students and faculty. It allows students to share excellent work with a broad audience, and prepares them for submitting proposals to professional conferences. • Tilden Remerleitch of...
The Main Street Arts Coffeehaus Concert Series will present the folk quartet 2x2 on Saturday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m. 2x2 pairs Valerie Kosednar and Mark Grieco with Betsy and Lee Rybeck Lynd in a concert of a cappella and accompanied music distinguished by a broad range of styles, including traditional and contemporary folk songs from around the world. Formed two years ago, the group has been well received as a folk quartet in concerts around the region. The concert...
The Brattleboro Clayworks is preparing for the annual Empty Bowls Dinner with a Bowlerama event on Saturday, April 30. Bowlerama offers an opportunity for those who have little or no experience in clay to create a bowl to donate to the dinner, held each Columbus Day weekend at Landmark College as a fundraiser for the Groundworks Food Shelf. Bonnie Stearns, Alan Steinberg, and Annie Lauterbach will be available to help bowl-makers get started, provide basic instruction, and troubleshoot if assistance...
Community College of Vermont (CCV) is partnering with G.S. Precision to offer a Certified Production Technician (CPT) course in Brattleboro, beginning May 18. This course is the first step in establishing a manufacturing pathway to help G.S. Precision close a skills gap at its Brattleboro facility and to help workers receive the necessary training to fill open positions. Courses like the CPT help workers advance their careers by developing specialized skills that G.S. Precision and other Vermont manufacturers are looking...
The Vermont Small Business Development Center (VtSBDC) of Brattleboro is sponsoring a workshop, Introduction to QuickBooks, at Marlboro College Graduate Center, Room 2E, in Brattleboro on Tuesday, May 10, 9 a.m. to noon. The workshop will focus on the basics of using QuickBooks to help you get control of your finances, including choosing the right QuickBooks product, properly setting it up, and getting a solid understanding of how it works. Learn the fundamentals of entering data accurately and how to...
After more than a year of intense planning and contentious debate, the Vernon natural-gas plant project has come to an abrupt halt. Energy giant Kinder Morgan decided April 20 to pull the plug - at least for now - on its Northeast Energy Direct pipeline, and that means there will be no fuel supply for a proposed 600-megawatt gas-fired Vernon plant. Local officials noted that Kinder Morgan has “suspended” the pipeline project, meaning that work might resume at some point.
Job fair at Commonwealth Dairy BRATTLEBORO - Ehrmann Commonwealth Dairy is sponsoring a job fair at their yogurt manufacturing location on Omega Drive in Brattleboro. The job fair will be held on Saturday, April 30, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Openings are available in the following areas: production, packaging, warehouse, maintenance and quality assurance. They are also looking for supervisory candidates in both the warehouse and production operations. Customer service class offered at VtSBDC BRATTLEBORO - Customer service can...
Two longtime Vermont institutions will welcome new leaders with the announcement on April 20 that the CEO of the Windham Foundation will become president of Green Mountain College. Robert Allen will take charge of the private environmental liberal arts school in Poultney upon the July 1 retirement of Dr. Paul Fonteyn, who has headed the 600-student campus for the past eight years. Board chair Elizabeth Bankowski will serve as the philanthropic organization's interim leader until the nonprofit hires a permanent...
The Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) is hosting an “Idea Jam” at the Vermont Jazz Center on Thursday, May 5, starting at 6 p.m. This is the launch for a program called INSTIG8 which strategically fosters a safe environment for creative entrepreneurs to try, fail, learn, build, explore, and connect to other like-minded individuals while developing their business concepts and models. In a news release, BDCC says that INSTIG8 will be “the point-of-entry for developing and early-stage firms” in Southern...
If members of the Community Collaborative For Guilford - calling themselves “CC for G” - get their way, the town will get its own community center. Elly Majonen and Jim Haine, members of CC for G, appeared at the April 11 regular Selectboard meeting to share the group's progress and ask the Board to sponsor them in applying for a planning grant from the Vermont Community Development Program. CC for G grew from a number of meetings and conversations in...
The sixth annual Slow Living Summit will take place in Brattleboro April 28-30 and will focus on food and agriculture entrepreneurship, with a number of sessions open to the public. The summit is presented by Strolling of the Heifers, a Vermont-based food advocacy organization that works to connect people with local food and to support innovation and entrepreneurship at farms and food businesses. Subtitled “How to succeed in business by slowing down,” the summit will offer in-depth explorations of key...
It isn't cheap to maintain an insurance policy on a nuclear power plant. But, as of this month, Entergy Vermont Yankee is getting a big break on premiums: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the company can cut its onsite proper-damage insurance coverage from $1.06 billion to $50 million. Citing the fact that the Vernon plant has been shut down for more than 15 months, the federal agency says a much smaller insurance policy still will be adequate to cover cleanup...
Democracy in Vermont is dead. From the early days of one-room schoolhouses to the present, town residents and taxpayers have been directly involved in their students' education. Act 46 takes this role away from us. The Dummerston community has built and paid for its school building and grounds. All decisions pertaining to our school are made annually by Dummerston residents by discussion and Australian ballot. Implementation of Act 46 completely removes the people from direct decision-making about their children's education.
More than two decades after John Grega's wife was killed in a Dover condominium - and more than a year after Grega died in a car crash - the state of Vermont will pay $1.55 million to settle claims that he had been wrongfully convicted of murder. The settlement of Grega's state lawsuit, and the concurrent dismissal of his federal complaint, mark the end of all legal claims he had made following his release from prison in 2012 after new...
In thinking of May Day, what arises in my mind appears at first to be a medley of disconnected images: sweet baskets of posies, men with ribbons and bells stomping and jingling through town, workers around the world celebrating their strength and their labor history, and maypoles. The disconnect, however, is due only to gaps in our history books, for May Day is International Labor Day. The two holidays share the same story. The story began with European pagan traditions...
Doug Blodgett stood before a group of about 30 people seated in the Townshend Town Hall's main meeting room on a recent balmy evening to “provide some factual information to tamp down the pervasive myths about rattlesnakes.” The Windham Regional Woodlands Association hosted Blodgett, a rare-snake researcher and wildlife biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, for his presentation, “Rattlesnakes in Vermont.” On April 21, attendees, including a handful of children, braved slides and videos of an animal most...
Over the past 10 years, Vermont's suicide death rates have averaged 30 percent higher than the rates for the United States as a whole. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death of all Vermonters age 14-35, the third-leading cause for those ages 35-44, and among the top 10 causes for all Vermonters. It turns out that the idea “that if someone wants to kill themselves, they will find a way” is a myth. Studies that follow people who made serious...
The Selectboard gave its support to a request for the town to host the All-State Music Festival in May 2017. Brattleboro Union High School music department head and band director Steve Rice brought the news to the Selectboard on April 19. According to Rice, “This event brings together about 400 of the state's top high school musicians to rehearse and perform in four All-State ensembles.” Over the four-day festival, students will perform in jazz, orchestral, band, and choral ensembles. Rice...
The Police-Fire facilities project will move forward with its same project manager, architects, and construction company. The Selectboard approved contracts for these professional services on April 19. Efforts to renovate the town's two fire stations and one police station are relaunching after the board put the project on hold two years ago. Owner Project Manager Steve Horton's contract is based on a $100 per hour fee not to exceed $105,000, Town Manager Peter Elwell said. Horton has worked on the...
Representatives from Deerfield Valley Rescue (DVR) gave an update at the April 19 Selectboard meeting. DVR Business Administrator Heidi Taylor opened her presentation by thanking the Halifax Volunteer Fire Department and Halifax EMS. Halifax is a significant distance from DVR's base in Wilmington. “We couldn't make it work,” she said, without those partners. Then she ran the numbers. On the service side, she said that of DVR's 884 calls in 2015, 41 were to Halifax; of the 170 subscription forms...
The staff and board of directors of Groundworks Collaborative thank The Commons for its continued commitment to report on homelessness in a respectful and dignified way. Olga Peters' recent story is no different. However, given the recent changes at Groundworks Collaborative, it would be good to clarify and expand on a couple specifics. Groundworks Collaborative was established in 2015 as a result of the merger of two well-established organizations: the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center and Morningside Shelter. Our mission...
My very first encounter with Brattleboro was not necessarily love at first sight. In fact, I was not sure how to react to several aspects of the town, especially the many characters who seemed to all dwell here. It definitely seemed more “city” than my first introduction to Vermont several years prior. But in the fall of 2008, after a few months of visiting back and forth, my defenses started to come down and I can tell you the exact...
I had to read this piece twice because I thought I must have missed the joke. I'm told this was intended to be funny; I'm afraid it has missed the mark. We moved to Brattleboro to be part of this community, and we get to know our neighbors (good and bad), and often venture out onto evil, violent Elliot Street for drinks at one of the three bars or to visit one of the excellent restaurants, bookstores, hair salons, the...
A project is underway to mitigate some of the worst damage from Tropical Storm Irene while contributing to regional resilience. A group of volunteers will converge on Friday, May 6 - Arbor Day - for a day of community action: planting more than 400 trees on a scoured bank along the Saxtons River where three homes were severely damaged by Irene in 2011. This riparian buffer planting is part of a new approach to conservation that focuses on disturbed rather...
Why is baseball an endlessly fascinating game? Because you can have a game featuring the two best pitchers in southern Vermont and have one of them not make it out of the fourth inning, while the other goes the distance, and ends up the losing pitcher. Because a team that scored 21 runs in one game can be shut down and held to three hits the next day. Because you can have a game where both teams are not hitting,
Brattleboro School of Dance will present its second annual recital for young students on Sunday, May 1, at 3 p.m., at the Latchis Theater in downtown Brattleboro. BSD owner and artistic director Jennifer Moyse says the recital is a chance to see what the school's youngest students are learning in creative dance, jazz, tap, hip-hop, and modern-dance classes. Moyse adds that this year's hour-long show also features the work of the newly formed BSD junior company in dances they have...
Having launched their theater company with sell-out performances of “Our Town” last August, the Rock River Players now present George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's “You Can't Take It With You” on May 5-8 at the Williamsville Hall on Dover Road. In its review of the 2014 Broadway revival of “You Can't Take It with You,” The New York Times wrote, ” A lot of shows can make you laugh. What's rare is a play that makes you beam from...
The Brattleboro Reformer will have a new owner on May 2. The four new owners and members of the Stockbridge, Mass.-based Birdland Acquisition LLC would not disclose the purchase price of the daily paper and its three sister papers - the Bennington Banner, the Manchester Journal, and The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass. - from Digital First Media (DFM). They did confirm, however, that the sale of the four papers from DFM's regional corporate subsidiary New England Newspapers Inc. (NENI),
After months of simmering tensions, Vernon School Board's frustrations boiled over as members voted unanimously April 25 to “withdraw immediately” from Act 46 merger studies in Windham Southeast Supervisory Union. Vernon officials cited ongoing concerns about local budgetary control; future school closures; and the fate of the town's unique school-choice arrangement. Board Chairman Mike Hebert said the vote should be seen as a rejection of the Act 46 Study Committee's continued consideration of a union-wide merger on an accelerated schedule.
A warm, unseasonable winter has forced an undisclosed number of layoffs at Mount Snow ski resort. But resort administrators expect to hire back those employees soon. And they say the furloughs aren't related to a $52 million cash crunch in the resort's EB-5 foreign investor program - a problem that has slowed new development at Mount Snow. “One has absolutely nothing to do with the other,” Mount Snow President Dick Deutsch said. “One is on the development side ... and...
Shanta Lee Evans-Crowley, president of the Arts Council of Windham County, believes Windham County has an enduring legacy of inspiration, creativity, and artistic culture. “There are many who have visited Windham County and recognize it as a world unto itself,” Evans-Crowley says. “We are extending an invitation to come witness, be a part of this magic.” From May 6 through May 8, 2016, the Arts Council of Windham County is celebrating what makes Windham County so special by inviting residents...
Rattlesnakes are an endangered species in Vermont, and the chance that a human being not specifically looking for one will see one is next to nil, according to Doug Blodgett, wildlife biologist with the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. He said he gets frequent calls from people absolutely convinced there is a rattlesnake in their midst. The culprit is usually a milk snake or a water snake, which mimics the tail-shaking motion of a rattlesnake when threatened, Blodgett told attendees.
As part of the ongoing celebration of their 20th anniversary year, the Brattleboro Women's Chorus will present a concert of compositions entirely by its founder and conductor, Becky Graber. On May 7, at 7:30 p.m., at Next Stage in Putney, and May 8, at 4 p.m., at Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro, the chorus will be accompanied by Bill Ballard on alto sax and Connie Green on flute. Green played with Graber many years ago in the Brattleboro Brass Band.
For readers of the Brattleboro Reformer, the surprise announcement last week that the newspaper will be sold in a handful of days to a consortium of investors from western Massachusetts comes as welcome news. Brattleboro and Windham County need a strong, engaged daily news operation, and the infusion of energy, enthusiasm, and money into the Reformer could not be better news or come at a more critical time for an area that is in so many ways at a crossroads,