BRATTLEBORO-The Downtown Brattleboro Alliance (DBA), in partnership with Brattleboro Flea, has announced the opening of Market on Main, a seasonal holiday market which organizers say "will transform 74 Main St. (formerly Sam's Outdoor Outfitters) into a winter wonderland, featuring over 50 local artists, makers, and beloved community vendors, including Beadniks."
"Downtown is always the place to shop for gifts during the holidays, and this year we knew we wanted to give the community something extra special," said Kate Trzaskos, DBA's executive director.
Sam's Outdoor Outfitters remains vacant after shutting its doors in April, and Trzaskos said "filling the space with activity feels important, especially now. Holiday shopping and Sam's go hand in hand, so we asked our partners at the Brattleboro Flea if they wanted to create some magic."
"Our vendors are thrilled to be in this iconic space on Main Street," said Julia Tadlock, founder of Brattleboro Flea.
PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts and Twilight Music present a triple bill of contemporary folk singer-songwriters - Hayley Reardon, Sam Robbins, and Emily Margaret - on Friday, Nov. 29, at 7:30 p.m. Reardon is a storyteller whose songs "serve as postcards from an artist brave enough to take the road less...
Winter parking ban begins in Brattleboro BRATTLEBORO - The Brattleboro Parking Department would like to advise everyone that the winter parking ban is now in effect until April 15, 2025. Overnight parking is forbidden on all streets in the town of Brattleboro. Vehicles parked for longer than one hour...
BELLOWS FALLS-Grammy- and Emmy-nominated guitarist David Becker brings his "Planets" solo tour to Stage 33 Live on Saturday, Nov. 23, for a 7 p.m. performance. He's been selling out theaters in Japan, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and America. "Becker is one of the most highly regarded jazz musicians working today," say organizers, "combining diverse influences and a passion for the new and different - playing for the present, with an eye on the past and future." He has notched up...
College news • Lisa Janovsky of Jacksonville received a Master of Science in Nursing from Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts, following the conclusion of the summer 2024 semester. • St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, recently welcomed Caroline D. Tarmy of South Londonderry as a member of the Class of 2028. Tarmy attended Stratton Mountain School. • The University at Albany (N.Y.) is welcoming Cathleen Sullivan of Guilford for the fall 2024 semester. Sullivan is majoring in social welfare-part...
BRATTLEBORO-Norma Dream, Elijah Berlow, and Mary Elizabeth Remington take the stage at the Heart Rose Club on Green Street Extension on Friday, Nov. 22. "Fill your belly with soup and take in the raw, authentic stylings of the musicians alongside good company," invite organizers in a news release. Norma Dream is the songwriting project of Norma Jean Haynes: folksinger, banjo player, and wandering musician. Based in western Massachusetts, Haynes has followed a love of traditional song to Corsica, Bosnia, England,
BRATTLEBORO-The Brattleboro Women's Chorus (BWC) presents its fall concert, "We Toast the Days," on Nov. 23 and 24, at 4 p.m. at the Brattleboro Music Center. Under the direction of chorus founder Becky Graber and featuring guest songleader Anna Patton, this hour-long performance will showcase the unified voices of over 60 singers celebrating music composed by women. This fall's concert promises a rich and diverse program, featuring "I Dream of Poppies" and "Little Duck" from Vermont composers Jennifer Jones and...
BRATTLEBORO-On Tuesday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m., the Latchis Theatre will ring again with the sounds of Sing Nowell: Songs & Carols for Midwinter & Christmastide. This is the third year of the community celebration bringing together Andy Davis and Fred Breunig of Nowell Sing We Clear, the vocal ensemble Windborne (Lauren Breunig, Jeremy Carter-Gordon, Lynn Rowan, and Will Rowan) as well as an ensemble of Arthur Davis, Emma Schneider, Guillaume Sparrow-Pepin, and Laurel Swift. Tickets are available at tinyurl.com/SingNowell2024.
BRATTLEBORO-Gov. Phil Scott has appointed Steven M. Brown Jr. as the state's attorney in Windham County. Brown, of Brattleboro, who has served as interim state's attorney since Shriver's retirement in July, was sworn into office on Nov. 13. He previously served as the office's deputy state's attorney for 17 years, focusing on criminal litigation and prosecution, including serious felony, drug offenses, and motor vehicle crimes. He tried 60 jury trials, handled appeals to the Vermont Supreme Court, and supervised investigations...
Karl Meyer has been a stakeholder, intervenor, and member of the Fish and Aquatics Studies Team in the relicensing bids for FirstLight's Northfield Mountain and Turners Falls operations since 2012. He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, and he has not signed a non-disclosure agreement at any point. GREENFIELD, MASS.-On Oct. 10, Tim Jones, the acting director of Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Wetlands and Waterways, presided over a public "information" session in Turners Falls,
DUMMERSTON-Vermont Theatre Company opens its 40th season with "An Evening of One Act Plays" at the Evening Star Grange in Dummerston Center, featuring four diverse short plays that together cover a range of human emotion and expression. J.M. Synge's classic In the Shadow of the Glen, directed by Kay Beckett, is a somber, dark meditation on death and the loneliness of the human spirit set in an isolated cottage in Ireland in the early 1900s. Director Jesse Tidd brings a...
Mike Mrowicki has represented the Windham-4 district (Putney and Dummerston) in the Vermont House of Representatives since 2007. PUTNEY-For those experiencing sticker shock from viewing their property tax bills this year, you're not alone. I get it. Or, I got it, as our tax bill soared on a 1,000-square-foot house on 2 acres, 5 miles from town on a dirt road. My wife and I both work two jobs to keep food on the table and a roof overhead, and...
TUCSON, ARIZ. AND HEATH, MASS.-John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in his 1983 analysis of power that power rests in the power of persuasion. Persuasion requires effective communication of words, thoughts, and one's vision. The political climate in recent years reflects the stark opposite of communication. Instead, we scream, rant, rage, unfriend, walk away, call each other misinformed, ignorant, and stupid; then end years-long relationships with friends and family who disagree with us. Trump's decisive and overwhelming victory is, in large part,
-With the end of the fall high school sports season in Vermont come the accolades for the student-athletes. The Southern Vermont League (SVL) announced its all-opponent selections earlier this month, and our four local schools were well-represented. • In boys' soccer, Brattleboro midfielders Charlie Kinnersley, Jackson Pals, and Orion Masterson were all first team selections in the A Division. Midfielders Eason DeMarscico and Teo Ogden, defensive back Benjamin Bibimba, forward Gordon Kalill, and goalkeeper Sam Bogart earned honorable mention. Green...
BRATTLEBORO-An achievement that has been decades in the making is about to finally happen with the announcement that the new General John Stark Memorial Bridge linking Brattleboro and Hinsdale, New Hampshire, will be open to motor vehicle traffic by the end of the day Thursday, Dec. 5. According to the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans), a new traffic pattern is scheduled to be in place in Brattleboro on that date. Barricades will be set up on Bridge Street to encourage...
BRATTLEBORO-Once you have lived through a civil war, or been beaten and tortured and starved, or watched your family killed in front of your eyes, and then taken a dangerous route to find safety for you and your family in - of all places - Windham County, Vermont, the looming threat of a former president re-elected on a hard-line anti-immigration platform might not necessarily faze you. "We will wait and see," said Joe Wiah, the executive director of ECDC Brattleboro,
PUTNEY-What's to come? Fascist movements require a constant din of vitriol, paranoia, and a long list of enemies to justify extreme measures, which include dehumanization and eventually violence. Stephen Miller will round people up and put them in cages and camps. Elon Musk has promised economic hardship for the majority of the American people who will come under his thumb. Steve Bannon has promised to dismantle the government and replace knowledgeable people with ideological drones. This is an old Republican...
NEWFANE-The former office of John Morrison, a longtime broker with Barrett & Valley Associates Real Estate Office on Route 30 - a little boxcar-like building - has been transformed into a small gallery with an artists' workspace in the back. While it's been open on weekends and had a soft opening in October, Ed Jekot's 1330 Gallery formally opens on Friday, Nov. 22. Freshly renovated, the space at 561 Route 30 welcomes area artists' paintings on warm gray walls under...
ATHENS-In the days ahead, I would suggest that we all consider the advice of Lesson #1 from Yale professor Timothy Snyder's book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. "Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. […] A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do." Tim Stevenson Athens This letter to the editor was submitted to The Commons. This piece, published in print in the Voices...
BRATTLEBORO-Tom Nolan objects angrily to Brattleboro Common Sense's remarks about the banners in the Dummerston School. Please ignore the irrelevant details about the climate committee which he chaired. BCS has just as much authority, since we started the committee and had two associates on it. We did not draw attention to either of them, as Mr. Nolan does. We only mentioned the illegal ejection of a member from the committee as an example of censorship, which is relevant to the...
NEWFANE-I was called out, by name, in a letter in the Voices section. About halfway down the page I was challenged to answer a few questions that had nothing to do with the point of my original letter ["Name calling, belittling, and insulting eliminates any chance for constructive dialogue," Letters, Oct. 9]. Which was that we should be able to have differing views without name calling - all of us. The writer said he would be happy to have a...
BRATTLEBORO-A group of residents has successfully petitioned for a special Town Meeting to debate whether to rescind new municipal rules against such public offenses as drug use and dealing, physical threats and property damage. The local selectboard voted 3-2 for an "acceptable community conduct" ordinance in September after hearing community complaints about a 16% increase in police calls. In response, petitioners who charge the new conduct code is "criminalizing poverty and addiction" have collected signatures from 5% of Brattleboro's more...
PUTNEY-A fourth appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court has proved unsuccessful in stopping the proposed housing project on Alice Holway Drive. In its Nov. 15 ruling, the court cleared the way for landowner Windham & Windsor Housing Trust (WWHT) to proceed in its plan to build 25 units of mixed-income housing in two buildings on land on Alice Holway Drive next to the Putney Community Garden and the Putney Farmers Market. The ruling by the state's highest court affirms the...
BRATTLEBORO-Brattleboro Senior Meals provides a much-needed service to our community by cooking hundreds of meals each week which are then delivered by dozens of volunteers to area senior citizens and community members with disabilities. Delivering meals is an incredibly rewarding volunteer opportunity that I would encourage everyone to try out. The opportunity can be consistent or intermittent, if you prefer to be a substitute. I deliver every Friday on a route that takes me less than 90 minutes to complete...
WESTMINSTER WEST-Thank you to David Brooks for clearly saying in his Nov. 8 New York Times column what has been obvious since the spotted owl wars (save the birds, not the people), the March on the Pentagon (college students jeering at the National Guard farm boys), and the daily lecturing of ordinary people that has been going on for decades. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. However, I was still shocked by the outcome of the election, since even...
Hannah Sorila is a writer and community organizer who aims to align intention and impact in community safety and public policy. BRATTLEBORO-If Brattleboro were seen as a community and not a business, the emergency would be that we have neighbors living outside, on our streets, because they do not have access to a safe and stable roof over their heads. If Brattleboro were seen as a community and not a business, we would understand that the solution to homelessness is...
The writers note that they originally sent this letter to their congregation. "We offer it for your publication in the hope that it might give people of other traditions encouragement to articulate their own perspectives, and as an invitation to work together for justice in America for all people." BRATTLEBORO-The election has brought about a significant set of challenges to those of us who profess our faith in Jesus Christ. The president-elect, in his own words, those of his surrogates,
GUILFORD-So Trump has been elected - again. If last time was bad, this time will be much worse. I am baffled and angry. Have those who voted for him not heard what he has been saying for the last four years? Do you think prices will really go down after he deports close to a million people? The ripple effects will be immeasurable, as workers are taken and sent back from whence they came, resulting in less workers, higher prices,
BRATTLEBORO-In the predawn hours of Nov. 7, a fire tore through the abandoned remains of the former Sportsmen's Lounge on Canal Street. The incident quickly gained attention for more than the dramatic photos and videos of the burning building circulating on social media,as the blaze disrupted electricity, internet, and landline telephone service, leaving residents and businesses experiencing the stark reality of disconnection in an increasingly connected world. "It actually burnt the power line off and melted all the communication lines...