Town Manager Barbara Sondag said voters at this year's Representative Town Meeting will make decisions in the context of constraining the town's budget without cutting essential services during tough economic times.
Sondag called the recent budget decisions “tricky.”
“We didn't want to come in with unacceptable cuts,” she said. “You need to prioritize services because people need them. It's important that financial resources and human resources go toward services that are the right priorities.”
“From the town's perspective, I think we'll have some good discussions,” said Sondag about the Saturday, March 20 Annual Representative Town Meeting. The meeting, which begins at 8:30 a.m. in the Brattleboro Union High School gymnasium, will be broadcast on Brattleboro Community Television.
The Selectboard voted Feb. 16 to reject a bid for the land that serves as a greenway that connects Western Avenue and Stockwell Park - at least for now. During the public comment section of the Feb. 2 meeting, commission member Peter Gaskill asked the Selectboard to reject all...
The Selectboard denied a permit for a sandwich board sign on a town-owned sidewalk, sparking debate among the members of the board and the public at the Feb. 2 and Feb. 16 meetings. Musa Alici, owner of Alici's Bistro at 51 Harris Place, had received a zoning permit from...
New Hampshire Representative Steven Lindsey appeared before the Selectboard seeking the town's support for naming the two bridges spanning the Connecticut between the town and Hinsdale, N.H. Lindsey, a sponsor of two pending bills in the New Hampshire House of Representatives that name the bridge, told the board that the smaller, eastern Parker truss bridge on Route 119 from the island to Hinsdale would be named the Charles Anderson Dana Bridge. Charles Anderson Dana, born 1819 in Hinsdale, worked as...
“It's not that we have a lot more money. We don't. We're using it a lot more wisely,” Financial Director John Leisenring told the Selectboard in discussing the comprehensive town audit for fiscal year 2009. According to Selectboard member Dick DeGray, the town used to overspend its budget routinely without reflecting a deficit when it took in more than the bottom line. After the town experienced a revenue shortfall in 2005, a number of difficult budget years followed, requiring the...
The Works Bakery Café will open on Main Street this spring, marking the sixth store for the enterprise. The 21-year-old café plans to open its doors in May in the Galanes building at 118 Main St., the former location of Optima Computers. The Works Bakery Café also has locations in Keene, Portsmouth, and Concord, N.H. and Portland, Maine. President Richard French of Spofford, N.H., appearing before the Selectboard at the Feb. 2 meeting, said the business is “committed to making...
Entergy representatives met with the Selectboard at its Feb. 15 meeting to clarify the impact of tritium leaking from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. Board members of the plant's home town, whose residents overwhelmingly stood in favor of the plant at last year's Annual Town Meeting, found themselves reassured. “Tritium is found in water everywhere in small amounts,” said John Dreyfuss, then the director of nuclear safety assurance at the plant who was removed from his duties and placed on...
At the Feb. 2 Selectboard meeting, Chair Thom MacPhee responded to resident requests that an agenda item at the March 1 and 2 town meeting be added with regard to the relicensing of the Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee power station in Vernon after previously ruling that this “was not town business” and therefore would not be reconsidered. MacPhee stated that he “couldn't recall what” he had said but that he didn't mean “it couldn't be considered as 'other business'” at...
In reviewing 2010 budgets for the Village of Bellows Falls, the Village Trustees faced a challenge: how to cut 30 percent from the Police Department budget without losing coverage. Interim Municipal Manager Francis “Dutch” Walsh, in implementing a request from both the Selectboard and the Bellows Falls Village Trustees to look into shared dispatch costs between Springfield and/or Hartland, asked Police Chief Ron Lake to describe the impact such a cost-saving measure would have on his department. Walsh said Lake...
Negotiations continue between the Selectboard and TransCanada, the company that operates the hydroelectric dam in Bellows Falls, but Village Trustees say they have been refused participation in the process. Village Trustee Stefan Golec said he asked the Selectboard why Trustees were not invited, and was told there was a concern that “new people” brought into the discussions at this point would upset negotiations. With budget crunches across the boards, village resident Mary Barber voiced concerns that it was important that...
Interim Municipal Manager Francis “Dutch” Walsh has told the Selectboard that the Conservation Committee has been “doing a good job.” The committee, formed in 2009, will become a formal Conservation Commission pursuant to state law if voters approve the measure at Town Meeting. In its current form, the committee has analyzed which street lights need to be maintained and which of the 423 streetlights in Rockingham can be eliminated to cut costs. “They are saving a lot of time for...
There is no debate. Vermont Yankee has made bad decisions and been less than perfect partner with the state. A breach of trust with the people of Vermont leaves a terrible scar on all of us. In my mind, there are still many, many unanswered questions about whether we should relicense for another 20 years. Today, I and others have tried many avenues in order to be responsible and compromising before the final outcome to no avail. I cannot stand...
As a consequence of a water pipe in Town Hall that burst Feb. 19, John O'Connor was dismissed from his job as finance director three days later. The pipe burst at approximately 2:50 p.m., according to minutes from the emergency meeting the Selectboard held the next day to discuss the event that nearly destroyed the town records in the Town Clerk's vault, caused extensive water damage to the third floor office, and interrupted town business for a full day of...
Does Entergy Nuclear really want to continue operating Vermont Yankee? The Vernon nuclear-power plant is not profitable, Entergy recently told financial analysts. Other Entergy businesses are subsidizing it. The cost of repairing leaking buried pipes and cleaning up tritiated radioactive groundwater currently is unknown, but is likely to be tens of millions of dollars, not chargeable to ratepayers or the decommissioning fund, but subtracted from Entergy's bottom line. Since the Vermont Senate voted not to authorize extension of the operating...
Vermont Governor Jim Douglas was technically correct when he described the Senate's recent high-profile Vermont Yankee vote as “meaningless.” By rejecting the bill that would have given the Public Service Board authority to issue a Certificate of Public Good to Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, the Senate effectively didn't change a thing. As things now stand, we still have a scenario where the now-beleaguered nuclear power plant will be powerless to continue operating in Vermont without that certificate after its original...
There is a bookstore in Washington, D.C. called Politics and Prose. I'm not surprised it's doing so well in spite of Amazon.com and megastores like Borders or Barnes & Noble. For one thing, it understands the connection between the two words that comprise its name, two words I've been thinking about while reflecting on how polarized our political landscape has become. Is it only in politics that we have grown to be so dramatically bifurcated? It seems to me that...