Recent repairs to the 100-year-old Rockingham Free Public Library have improved the environment for employees and patrons, but an architect has warned that, without an additional $1.9 million in repairs, the building will continue to deteriorate.
Ann DiBernardo says she couldn’t use her own town’s library because of mold and asbestos problems. “I got headaches when I came inside,” the Rockingham Selectboard member said.
“When I first came into the library, I couldn’t stay inside for long,” Library Director Celina Houlne explained. When offered the job, Houlne says she told the library’s Board of Trustees that “I would love to work there but that it wasn’t a healthy work environment and something would have to be done about it.”
With a number of patrons and staff reporting respiratory reactions in the library, Bellows Falls Village Trustees contracted with Todd Hobson from Claypoint Associates, an environmental consulting firm from Williston, to investigate the cause of this poor air quality.
The cost of health care has been rising at twice the rate of inflation for about 30 years. It continues to rise at almost 14 percent per year and may be getting worse. The health-care industry is very creative and devises marvelous new treatments and procedures. But the health...
In a village in rural Indonesia, a woman lies dying from infection after giving birth, unattended, two days earlier. Last year, the daughter she delivered prematurely was stillborn, and the low-birth-weight baby she had before that died when he was a week old. In Sub-Saharan Africa, another mother labors...
Selectboard Chair Andrew MacFarland, writing to the town's Planning Commission, recently noted an “inevitable tension.” The planning process, which seeks the common good but might well not accommodate the wishes of particular individuals and groups, must coexist with the political process, which “must take into account the personal, interpersonal, social and emotional responses to the plan,” MacFarland wrote. Even with broadly shared goals among affected parties, the difference between a town plan's vision and the means of its realization can...
With expenses outpacing contributions, the First Baptist Church's decision to sell a valuable stained-glass window caught the national press's attention and triggered an outpouring of donations and community concern. Will the new donations be enough to keep the window in the church? “We'd like to keep the window, and it's what we're working towards, but it's too soon to tell,” says Trustee Karen Davis. The 88-member church's finances have been ravaged by declining membership. When the current building was dedicated...
Rick Hube, who died Dec. 21 in Florida of an aneurysm, was that rare thing in politics - someone incapable of malice. Or, for that matter, defeatism. He seemed more than resigned to the role of minority membership in the state legislature and could, at times, seem almost to relish it. It's far easier to propose audacious policies and programs if you know that there isn't much chance you'll be tasked with coming up with ways to implement them. And...
I believe we should “think globally, act locally.” Climate change is on the forefront of the news and minds of people all over the world. Now is not the time to be shutting down power plants that have low carbon footprints. We have the most environmentally friendly, cleanest, and safely run source of power in our backyard. Vermont Yankee has been the major contributor to Vermont's number-one ranking of lowest carbon footprint. Not relicensing Vermont Yankee will threaten Vermont's commitment...
Gordon Bristol, of Newfane, one of 15 members of his family who worked in the printing, typesetting, and prepress industry in Brattleboro in the past century, says printing has been “a good salt-of-the-earth industry for the town.” “If you needed a job, you knew that you could find one there,” he said. Not anymore. Due to its strategic geographical position as a river valley town and tri-state gateway, and its proximity to New York and Boston, the town, almost from...
What does it mean to be human? Seventh and eighth graders at Hilltop Montessori School study this question from multiple angles as part of a two-year curriculum, Being Human. Their latest six-week segment, “A Sense of Place,” explores what comprises a community, and students' studies have culminated in films that feature a montage of photos, music, and storytelling called “Life in Brattleboro: The Society Project.” “The purpose of the project is to get students into the field to discover what...