Issue #700
Piano recital starts concert series at Guilford Community Church
A recital by pianist Rachel Johnson will be performed on Sunday, Feb. 5, at Guilford Community Church, the first in a series of concert featuring area musicians.
Starting at 2:30 p.m., it will showcase a repertoire from the Baroque, Classic, Romantic, and Impressionistic eras by composers such as J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy, and more.
A focus on service
Mike Mrowicki, a longtime state representative, looks at legislative priorities, from broadband to housing to guns
As Michael “Mike” Mrowicki, D-Putney, begins his ninth term as a state legislator, he suddenly finds himself flying solo. Last year’s redistricting separated Westminster from Putney and Dummerston in the Windham-4 district. His last term co-representative, Michele Bos-Lun, now finds herself representing turf that’s farther north — Westminster and...
St. Mike’s builds up a basketball program, one step at a time
The Austine School for the Deaf closed its doors in 2014, and the tiny gymnasium where standouts such as Darryl Wetzel, Mike Carter, Madonna Coburn, and Jill Donohue once played is now home to the Brattleboro Winter Farmers’ Market. The school itself is now owned by the Winston Prouty...
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Charter change would make housing worse for everyone
My wife, Sharon, and I own two apartment houses with five rental units next door to us. We keep a close eye on the property, and I do most of the maintenance on the five apartments. We urge voters to vote no to the proposed change to the Town Charter regarding “no-cause” termination of a lease. It is not good for Brattleboro, not good for tenants, and not good for housing providers. In all those years, we have needed to...
Artist, curator to speak on museum exhibit ‘Moons and Internment Stones’
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) will present a free online conversation between artist Alison Moritsugu, artist Erin Shigaki, and curator Sarah Freeman on Thursday, Feb. 2, at 7 p.m. Moritsugu, Shigaki, and Freeman will discuss the exhibit “Moons and Internment Stones,” on view at BMAC through February 12. The event is presented in partnership with Densho, a nonprofit organization committed to documenting the oral histories of Japanese Americans incarcerated in World War II. In “Moons and Internment Stones,”
Brattleboro EMS study sparks more questions
Town-funded consultants and the region’s main emergency medical provider concur on a key finding in a $39,000 review of local ambulance options: All provide quality care. If only they could agree on everything else. A new feasibility study by Wyoming’s AP Triton consulting firm concludes that Rescue Inc. — Windham County’s largest and longest-serving ambulance service — is the most economical choice for maintaining current local coverage. In comparison, a proposed Brattleboro Fire Department takeover of EMS duties would increase...
Former side judge will face charges
An assistant judge in Windham County has been criminally cited for allegedly falsifying her work schedule and collecting $8,518 to which she wasn’t entitled, according to a Vermont State Police press release. Patricia Duff, 60, was cited on Jan. 26 on charges of false pretense and grand larceny, according to state police. She is scheduled to be arraigned on Feb. 28 at Windham Superior Court in Brattleboro. Duff, who had been a side judge since 2006, resigned last summer after...
Windham County Humane Society warns of dangers to chained dogs
The Windham County Humane Society (WCHS) is trying to get the word out about the dangers of tying or chaining dogs outside. WCHS Executive Director Maya Richmond said in a news release that she and other Humane Society employees “have seen some terrible things” befall area canines. “Some owners tie their dogs outside because the dog may be destructive in the home or this was how their families cared for dogs when they were growing up,” said Richmond. “In many...
Online talk addresses youth media literacy
The Rockingham Free Public Library presents Media Educator Ben Boyington, a contributor to The Media and Me: A Guide to Critical Media Literacy for Young People on Saturday, Feb. 11, at 1 p.m. During the recent presidential election, media literacy became a phrase that signified the threat media manipulation posed to democratic processes, states a news release. Meanwhile, statistical research has shown that 8- to 18-year-olds pack more than 11 hours with some form of media into each day by...
Filmmakers preview documentary about nuclear weapons and institutional racism
The Landmark College Academic Speaker Series opens its spring 2023 schedule with a presentation entitled “Resisting Nuclear Armament in the 21st Century” by filmmakers Taylor Dunne and Eric Stewart on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 5 p.m., in the Brooks M. O’Brien Auditorium, located in the Lewis Academic Building. Dunne and Stewart will preview their in-production documentary Off Country, and facilitate a conversation about how experimental cinema and documentary can augment, resist, and subvert the institutional memory of the nuclear weapons...
We don’t deserve a guarantee of comfort every time we experience art or music
On Jan. 26, Brattleboro was treated to an evening of Windham County’s Got Talent. Young contestants got a chance to perform for the judges and the public. One young student, after an investment of time and hard work, was excited to perform Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.” However, less than hour before the performance, a parent voiced an objection to the song and asked that it not be performed. To their credit, the organizers encouraged the youth to go forward with...
Next Stage welcomes Balla Kouyaté, Mike Block for night of world music
Next Stage Arts presents a concert with Malian balafon player and singer Balla Kouyaté and American cellist, singer, and composer Mike Block, on Sunday, Feb. 5 at 4 p.m. Composer, kora player, percussionist, and vocalist John Hughes opens. Kouyaté and Block have been collaborating for over a decade, according to a news release, bonding over their shared interest in music from across the world and their commitment to innovating on their instruments. Kouyaté, who comes from the Djeli tradition of...
Around the Towns
SEVCA offers free tax prep services WESTMINSTER — Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) is again offering the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, which provides free income tax preparation and filing help to anyone who makes $60,000 or less and fall within the VITA scope requirements. SEVCA is offering a Covid-safe, low-contact service this year via secure drop-box locations in Windsor and Windham counties. Envelopes for client’s tax documents and VITA Tax forms for clients will be at all SEVCA...
The Rough & Tumble, with High Tea and Decatur Creek, to perform at at Stage 33 Live
Three groups take the stage at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12, at Stage 33 Live, at 33 Bridge Street in Bellows Falls. “A decade of relentless touring has earned ‘thriftstore-Americana’ duo The Rough & Tumble — Mallory Graham and Scott Tyler — the right to trot out the haggard road-worn trope,” say event organizers in a news release, “but they defy that stereotype and pretty much every other with their upbeat, commanding stage presence and razor-sharp banter, earworm melodies,
Dar Williams returns to BF Opera House to kick off Ray Massucco Concert Series
On Saturday, Feb. 4, Dar Williams returns to the Bellows Falls Opera House for her fourth appearance at the historic venue, kicking off the new Ray Massucco Concert Series. “Since the runaway success of her first album, The Honesty Room,” organizers say, “Dar Williams has become one of the most beloved singer/songwriters in America.” Massucco, a civic-minded attorney, part-time concert promoter, and full-time music lover, passed away unexpectedly in September. A group of friends who had worked with Massucco on...
Guilford Center Stage announces its 2023 season
Guilford Center Stage returns, after a three-year absence, with spring and fall productions of plays in its home at Broad Brook Community Center. Covid concerns cancelled the 2020 season, after which the former grange hall was closed for major renovation, now completed. The theater group will remain on Covid awareness as this season progresses. In a departure from its usual mission of presenting little-known plays, Guilford Center Stage will move in the opposite direction for its return production, with performances...
Four contemporary art organizations offer Vermont Prize for visual artists
Four of Vermont’s contemporary art institutions are teaming up to award The Vermont Prize, an endeavor that celebrates and supports creators of visual art in this state. The prize is a collaborative initiative of the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC), Burlington City Arts (BCA), the Hall Art Foundation, and The Current (formerly the Helen Day Art Center). “Although Vermont is a small state, there is an astonishing variety of exceptional visual art being created here,” BMAC Director Danny Lichtenfeld...
Milestones
College news • The following local students were named to the University of Vermont Dean’s List for the fall 2022 semester: Allura Cameron of Londonderry, Madeline Prouty of Londonderry, Elijah Ghia of Saxtons River, Ella Bursky of Westminster, Owen James of Brattleboro, Julia Luna of Brattleboro, Jasmine Wegiel of Brattleboro, Westerly Gooley of Brattleboro, Dylan Ray of Brookline, Alexander Urbaska of Newfane, Emmett Dews of East Dummerston, Maxwell Naylor of East Dummerston, Corissa Freeman of West Dover, Justin Fusco of...
‘It feels like coming home’
In 2020, Hayley Jane gave up music and moved back home to be near her family in California, where she ran a small shop in Carmel. “I completely detached from music, and it was very painful,” she recalls in a recent phone call. But Hayley Jane is back with a bunch of East Coast tour dates as she brings a stellar lineup of musicians to the Stone Church on Saturday. “Coming back to it feels so good, and it feels...
Honoring the stage
Housed in a former paper mill — which today looks very much like it did when the mill closed in 1963 — Stage 33 Live seems an unlikely spot for small, intimate live music concerts. In actual practice, the space has worked out just fine. Stage 33 Live is a no-frills live concert and listening room, featuring mainly folk, jazz, Americana, and roots music, with some interesting exceptions, performed by regional singer-songwriter musicians. There’s a stage, built by local music...
Food assistance program set to end March 31
Vermont Everyone Eats (VEE) will end March 31 after a hugely successful two-and-a-half-year run. The federally funded, short-term pandemic recovery initiative was created to help restaurants, farmers, and those who needed a meal navigate the acute economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We don’t get to eat out very often, and the foods you have prepared for us have been absolutely delicious,” one Brattleboro meal recipient told program organizers, likening the program’s offerings to “a catered meal.” “You should know...
Our slow-motion judicial coup
1 ‘A supremely political court’ Thomas Jefferson called the United States Supreme Court the “despotic branch.” Historically the least democratic of the three branches, this tribunal — unelected to life terms with no codified ethical standards — has overwhelmingly served elite political and corporate interests over citizen rights. What riled Jefferson most was Chief Justice John Marshall’s coup of 1803, which established judicial review, thus anointing the court with the ability to nullify acts of the legislative and executive branches...