Issue #605
Brattleboro raises stipends for members of Selectboard
During a two-day Annual Representative Town Meeting this weekend, meeting members increased Selectboard compensation, continuing the trend from previous years of focusing on people over line items.
“My goal here is to try to open the potential field of Selectboard candidates, to include some folks who are often underrepresented,” Meeting Member George Carvill (District 1) said in proposing an amendment to boost the pay of the elected town officials.
Governor says all adults should get vaccine by July 1
More than 31 percent of Vermont adults — about 171,000 — have received at least one dose
On the one-year anniversary of Vermont reporting its first two deaths from COVID-19, Gov. Phil Scott and state officials presented a new vaccination schedule that would have all Vermonters over the age of 16 to be fully vaccinated by July 1. At a March 19 news briefing in Montpelier,
'It's raw, man'
Turning Point presents 'A Beautiful Journey' storytelling event
Turning Point of Windham County will host “A Beautiful Journey,” an annual storytelling event to showcase the journeys of people who've lived with substance-use disorder and how they relate to the healing and transformative process of recovery. The event will be livestreamed on Turning Point's Facebook page, facebook.com/TurningPointofWindhamCounty, on...
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Our taxes are our legacy
The saying goes that two things in life are certain: death and taxes. On the surface, these two realities do not have much in common beyond their certainty, but, in fact, they are connected. Taxes are part of a legacy that each person creates which will shape the world long after their death. But with a large portion of tax money in the United States directly paying for weapons of death and destruction, all of us owe it to ourselves...
Stop the war on democracy!
Proving once again that the pen is mightier than the sword, Iowa's Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, signed into law on March 9 the first of what could be a nationwide avalanche of voter suppression laws that surpasses anything like this since the Jim Crow era. With 253 similar bills being pushed by Republican legislatures in 43 states, the assault against democracy by the increasingly desperate Grand Old Party continues. The Republicans have become a minority party that cannot win elections...
SEVCA receives $100,000 from 'Bernie mittens fund'
Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) announces a generous gift of $100,000 from the Friends of Bernie Sanders, made possible by sales of items bearing “the mittens meme,” which raised more than $1.8 million over the past two months. SEVCA's Executive Director Steve Geller in a news release called the gift “an unprecedented opportunity to address a wide range of needs that have been greatly exacerbated by the pandemic.” He said this unique unrestricted donation will help SEVCA both relieve the...
Broad Brook Community Center reaches key fundraising goal
Thanks to the generous support of their donors, the Broad Brook Community Center (BBCC) has successfully completed its matching challenge, as supporters donated and pledged $250,000 to the capital campaign to renovate the 125-year old Grange Hall. This amount was matched by an anonymous donor, for a total of $500,000 raised. According to a news release, BBCC will continue to reach out to local, state, federal, and private foundations and granting organizations to get to its ultimate fundraising goal. In...
State asks Vermonters to report when ponds and lakes lose their ice cover
The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is asking Vermonters to report when lakes and ponds lose their ice cover, also known as the “ice-out date.” Once a lake or pond is completely free of ice from shore to shore, DEC scientists can begin their spring water quality sampling efforts. The ice-out data also helps scientists track the effects of climate change in Vermont. “We need the public's help to alert us to ice-out information to better time our data...
Major grant provides funds to support residents at The Chalet
A $150,000 grant from TD Bank will help Windham & Windsor Housing Trust (WWHT) cope with myriad housing challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The money, says Executive Director Elizabeth Bridgewater, will support a collaboration between WWHT and Groundworks Collaborative, another social-services nonprofit, to provide housing and supportive services for residents living at The Chalet in West Brattleboro. The Chalet follows the model of the Trust's Great River Terrace, hailed as the first permanent supportive housing project in southern Vermont...
GMP announces new broadband deployment program
Green Mountain Power (GMP) has launched a Broadband Deployment Program to help more residents in some of the hardest-to-reach corners of the state get connected to broadband quickly and cost-effectively. The plan approved on March 12 by the Vermont Public Utility Commission could lower the cost for broadband providers to connect the hardest-to-serve customer by offering up to $2,000 per unserved location for infrastructure connection costs. “Getting reliable high-speed broadband to unserved and underserved communities is as essential as access...
Online community discussion examines dam relicensing
The Wilder, Bellows Falls, and Vernon dams started the process of securing new operating licenses in 2012. Final license applications were submitted in December 2020, and the owner, Great River Hydro, has proposed operational changes for their three dams that river advocates say will be a big win for the river. However, they say that Great River can still do more to protect this resource. Once issued, these dam licenses will remain in place for the next 40 to 50...
Milestones
College news • Emma Li of Brattleboro was named to the Dean's List for the fall 2020 semester at Simmons University in Boston. • Aaron Boles of Wilmington and Tuckerman Wunderle of Bellows Falls were named to the Dean's List for the fall 2020 semester at Emerson College in Boston. • Ethan “Pete” Paasche, a mathematical economics major from Guilford, earned the fall 2020 Dean's Award with Distinction at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. School news • Huxley Holcombe of...
Around the Towns
Putney monthly free produce distribution is March 25 PUTNEY - The Vermont Foodbank and the Putney Foodshelf will co-sponsor the next monthly drop of free produce and some nonperishables on Thursday, March 25, from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m., at Putney Meadows, 17 Carol Brown Way (the white building across from the Putney Food Co-op and the fire station). This food distribution takes place regularly on the fourth Thursday of every month. All are welcome. Because of COVID-19, those who need...
Holy Week at St Michael's Episcopal features teens and a sunrise Easter vigil
The Holy Week tradition of Tenebrae - or the Service of Shadows - originated in the early centuries of Christianity, combining the monastic services of both matins (after midnight) and lauds (at dawn). While in the past this mid–Holy Week service has been presented by adults of St. Michael's Episcopal Church and area musicians, this year all the Tenebrae texts will be read by St. Michael's teenagers: Julia Fedoruk, Tori MacKay, Tian Ragle, Zadie Olmstead, Julian Segal, and Asa Taggert.
BMAC marks 10 years of Glasstastic
Have you heard of Sheila and Neil, “the first non-flightless snails in the world?” How about a snoogle, kelpie, pegamallow, or preying beetis? Maybe you're familiar with the candy corn creature that “helps foster kids find their forever home with his tiny little brain and his huge heart”? Each of these whimsical creatures - and many more - are appearing at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) in the 2021 incarnation of Glasstastic, a popular biennial collaboration between elementary...
‘I ache for my Asian brothers and sisters’
I awoke. Ten minutes of devotional podcast and 10 minutes of National Public Radio podcast in bed. My heart sank. Eight dead, reportedly mostly Asian-American women in the Atlanta area. Oh, no. These are our sisters. News reports are still informing us of the details in Atlanta. It is true, the attacks seem not to be purely racially motivated. As with most incidents of violence, motivations are complicated, not simple. In Atlanta, preliminary reports indicate that the term “intersectionality” can...
Theatre Adventure receives funding to support online programming
The Board of Directors of Theatre Adventure, Inc. recently announces that the nonprofit has been awarded four grants to support its online programming for 2021. These grants have been received from the Puffin Foundation, Windham Foundation, Brattleboro Town Arts Fund, and the Vermont Community Foundation's Crosby-Gannett Fund. The Puffin Foundation has awarded Theatre Adventure a grant to support the Peer Mentor Leadership Project in an online format. Funds will be used for an assistant teacher who has developmental challenges, to...
Toughest foe in high school playoffs? COVID-19.
Vermont high school sports teams aren't just battling each other in hockey and basketball. They are also up against COVID-19. Several have had to withdraw from the postseason because of the virus, including one of our local schools. The Leland & Gray boys' basketball team, seeded No. 11 in the Division III tournament, had to withdraw and forfeit its first-round game against sixth-seeded Williamstown on March 17 due to what L&G Principal Bob Thibault called “a COVID-related situation.” Northern schools...
Considering loss
My father is dying. I sit with his 95-year-old body as it, moment to moment, lets go. He had a difficult life, suffered from reckless parenting when he was young, was very poor, was without food and housing in his teens, navigated the first 45 years of his life with no ability to read or write. As an adult, he often lost his job. He was turbulent and violent. On the other hand, he lived a long life with a...
The arc of marketing
My daughter-in-law, a savvy shopper, inadvertently exposed me to the racism of marketing in the year 2016. When I was living for several months in California, with my son's family, I would look idly at the catalogs that came almost daily in the mail until I began to pay attention. Two years before, I had attended a workshop, “White People Challenging Racism,” and with that lens, I found myself studying the images on the pages - colorful outfits for children,
Police pulled from Brattleboro Union High School
School resource officers (SROs) are no longer a presence at Brattleboro Union High School, prompting activists opposing law enforcement in schools to celebrate and Windham County Sheriff Mark Anderson to term it a “hasty decision.” After a March 17 meeting of the board's Social Justice Committee, Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) Superintendent Andrew Skarzynski and BUHS Principal Steve Perrin decided to cancel all SROs for the remainder of this school year. Recent community criticism of the presence of SROs -