Curtiss Reed Jr., one of the founders of this newspaper, works at the intersection of economic development and inclusion and equity as CEO of CRJ Consulting Group, L3C.
BRATTLEBORO-Beyond the current national handwringing, Vermonters must ignore and resist acting on behalf of the anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-inclusion incantations of the megaphoned radical-right political pundits.
Mindy Haskins Rogers (mindyhaskinsrogers.com) writes and teaches in western Massachusetts. NORTHAMPTON, MASS.-What does it mean to be a "real Vermonter?" I was born and raised in Brattleboro, but I have generally eschewed the claim. Its parameters have always seemed murky, and I can't embrace the boast of inclusion when...
BRATTLEBORO-A colleague on the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) Finance Committee and I undertook a comparative analysis of the funds Brattleboro's Human Services Committee had to allocate and similar spending by our adjoining towns and Putney and also such spending by eight towns - four just larger and four just...
BRATTLEBORO-On Wednesday, March 12, at 7 p.m., Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St., will host the Vermont premiere of the audio documentary, Eyes on Freedom, on the lives and legacy of beloved peace and civil rights activists Wally and Juanita Nelson. There will be an opportunity to hear the one-hour documentary again on Sunday, April 6, at 6 p.m. at the Congregational Church of Westminster West, 44 Church St. Both community listening sessions will include time afterward for guided reflection...
DUMMERSTON-The Landmark Trust USA is embarking on a $1.25 million project at Rudyard Kipling's Naulakha, the former Dummerston estate of the Nobel Prize-winning author. The property, one of only 18 National Historic Landmarks in Vermont, is owned and managed by the historic preservation nonprofit for overnight vacation rental and small gatherings. According to a news release, the Naulakha Campaign will preserve the historic property, protect it from the ongoing impacts of climate change, and enhance the public's experience of the...
BRATTLEBORO-Don't miss this opportunity to dress in an elaborate mask and sparkling costume and dance the night away right here in Brattleboro on Saturday, March 15, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Vermont Jazz Center, 72 Cotton Mill Hill (snow date is March 16). Brattleboro Area Jewish Community (BAJC) invites everyone to join them as they celebrate Purim. This evening masquerade features klezmer music and dancing with Klezamir, "New England's dynamic roots rockin' klezmer band extraordinaire." There will be...
PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts presents a special evening of live music on Saturday, March 15, featuring two musical groups: Sol y Canto and The Soubrettes, at Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill, starting at 7:30 p.m. Sol y Canto is an award-winning, pan-Latin ensemble led by Rosi Amador (Puerto Rican/Argentine singer and percussionist) and Brian Amador (New Mexican guitarist, singer, and composer). For more than 30 years, this duo has brought their music to audiences across the country and beyond. Known...
PUTNEY-Since 2003, the Vermont Humanities Council has invited students, adults, and seniors across the state to read the same book and participate in a variety of community activities related to the book's themes. More than 200 different Vermont towns, cities, and villages have participated in Vermont Reads to date. The 2024–25 book Gather is the first young adult novel by Kenneth Cadow, who drew upon his 20 years of working with middle and high school students as a teacher and...
Brattleboro Town Report is available BRATTLEBORO - The Brattleboro Town Report is available for pick-up at Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St. Town reports can also be picked up at the Town Clerk's Office and the Town Manager's Office at the Municipal Center, 230 Main St. Town reports will also be available to Representative Town Meeting (RTM) members at the March 12 pre-Town Meeting informational forum, which will be held at Academy School in West Brattleboro, beginning at 7 p.m.
Obituaries • Michael "Joseph" Coughlin, 41, died peacefully, surrounded by his family and his wife's family, on Feb. 21, 2025. Michael was born at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital on Oct. 18, 1983, to Diane Marie Coughlin and Daniel Stevens Coughlin of Newfane. From the time he was a child, he was a dreamer. His dreams of flying began as a toddler, when he flew along in his dad's single engine Piper Cherokee 140, happily secured in his car seat. Around age...
WEST DUMMERSTON-Lydia's Friends, the friends-of-the-library organization that supports the Lydia Taft Pratt Library in West Dummerston, is hosting an Ecological Speakers Series. Their inaugural guest is Meg Mott, who will speak on "Floods, Science, and Democracy" on Tuesday, March 18, at 7 p.m. at the library. After 20 years of teaching Marlboro College undergraduates, organizers say Mott has taken her love of argument to the general public. They say her award-winning series, Debating Our Rights, brings humor and disagreement to...
BRATTLEBORO-CX Silver Gallery, 814 Western Ave., will host an Artist Talk featuring Melissa Rubin and Amy Beecher in conversation on Saturday, March 15, from 1 to 3 p.m. This event coincides with the solo exhibition "Field Notes: Recent Work by Melissa Rubin," currently on view at the gallery through May 25. During the talk, Beecher and Rubin will explore the themes, visual elements, and psychological layers of this exhibition, delving into the process, imagery, and inspiration behind the works on...
GUILFORD-The Guilford Central School and the family of the late Harriet Virkstis announce the creation of the Harriet Potter Stewart Virkstis Memorial Fund. According to a news release, the purpose of the Fund is twofold. It will be used to provide financial assistance to students who have a demonstrated interest in, or may benefit from, enrichment opportunities such as attending a summer camp or activities in the arts, athletics, or academics. Income may also be used "to provide support for...
-The Brattleboro Bears girls' basketball team's formula for success this season has been a simple one - play good defense and get the ball into the hands of junior guards Reese Croutworst and Abigail Henry. "When they score, we win," said Bears head coach Karen Henry. Croutworst and Henry delivered in the seventh-seeded Bears' 49-35 win over the No. 10 Colchester Lakers in a Division I first-round playoff game at the BUHS gym on March 5. Croutworst scored 22 points,
BRATTLEBORO-Under the direction of Alex Hacker, the Vermont Theater Company (VTC) brings a jolt of life, relevance, and innovation to Euripides' tense tragedy. The Bacchae, in an adaptation by Hacker himself, is "decidedly a translation," he said, "but in the spirit of Dionysus [the play's essential character], I took a few liberties to make it more performable and communicative in a way that stays true to the essence of the play." A Greek tragedy from circa 405 BCE, The Bacchae...
BRATTLEBORO-Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) and partners are hosting two events this weekend focused on the film The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism and the book version published this year by Penguin Random House. The public is welcome to register for a Friday virtual Literary Cocktail Hour with authors and film creators Peter Hutchison (joining from Brooklyn) and George Monbiot (joining from London). On Sunday, all are welcome to view The Invisible Doctrine at Brattleboro's Latchis Theatre to...
BRATTLEBORO-As three newcomers prepare to take seats on the Selectboard, at least one outgoing incumbent isn't surprised. "Any incumbent was going to lose," said Franz Reichsman of the March 4 town election results. "You raise people's taxes like that, and there's going to be some blowback for sure." Adding, with some humor, "I didn't expect to win, but I didn't expect to be dead last," Reichsman went on to say, "this was an anti-incumbent, anti-Selectboard vote." Coming on board to...
BRATTLEBORO-George Monbiot, British journalist, environmental/political activist, and author of several books on political and social justice and the environment, is a regular columnist for The Guardian. It was his 2016 piece on neoliberalism - what he calls "capitalism on steroids" - in that U.K.-based publication that led filmmaker Peter Hutchison, with colleague Lucas Sabean, to create The Invisible Doctrine: the Secret History of Neoliberalism. Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) and its partners will host a screening of the 75-minute documentary...
BELLOWS FALLS-A recount of ballots for the Rockingham School District three-year seat added one more vote for each of the candidates, but the results remained: Write-in candidate Christopher Kibbe beat Priscilla Lambert by three votes. A committee of seven citizens performed the recount March 10 in the Rockingham Town Hall under the watchful eye of Town Clerk Kathleen Kelly. Dennis Harty was elected to chair the group, and the recount took about 90 minutes as Lambert and Kibbe looked on.
BRATTLEBORO-Unofficial Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) March 4 election results say newcomer Jocelyn Fritts will take a seat at the table to represent Guilford instead of former Board Director Kelly Young, but a recount has been requested and is now being scheduled. Running for a first time, Fritts, who has relocated here from Florida, received just 28 votes more than Young in the unofficial count of 1,128 to 1,100. "I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the support...
WEST BRATTLEBORO-Windham & Windsor Housing Trust (WWHT) and its co-developer, Evernorth, have received a $6.2 million funding boost from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to help redevelop the historic Chalet property. The redevelopment is planned to preserve the original Chalet building and create a new neighborhood with a mix of housing types and architectural features. The conceptual design was informed by residents currently living at the Chalet and in the immediate neighborhood, along with municipal staff members and those...
BRATTLEBORO-Like many of you, I have been outraged by the actions of the Trump administration, especially the massive gutting of USAID and potentially freezing of all federal funding for some of our most urgent needs, like food shelves and homeless shelters. At the same time, the Trumpers are blaming the fiscal crises they are causing through terrible economic decisions on those already marginalized and often struggling - migrants, brown people, poor people, and others. What is especially heartbreaking is that...
PUTNEY-The town needs 80 new rental and owner-occupied homes over the next five years to meet the demand for new housing and to replace its aging housing stock, according to the recently released Putney Housing Needs Assessment and Action Plan. "The lack of new and available housing means that young families can't move into town, which leads to an older population shouldering the tax burden," stated Robert O'Brien, senior housing specialist for Camoin Associates, the Virginia-based consulting firm that produced...
Nicholas Boke is a freelance writer and international educational consultant. CHESTER-Vermont GOP Chair Paul Dame probably should have dropped the "handful of protesters" from his expression of concern about how Vice President JD Vance would be greeted when he and his family showed up in Vermont for a ski weekend. That "handful" turned out to entail at least quite a few hundred, if not thousands, of very angry people who stood along Main Street in Waitsfield as Vance and his...
Also signing this letter were Ellen Martyn, Sara Longsmith, Emilie Kornheiser, Elizabeth Tannenbaum, Peter Fallon, and Beth Kiendl, all of Brattleboro, and Ann Darling, of Easthampton, Massachusetts. BRATTLEBORO-As former members of the Brattleboro Human Services Committee, we encourage all members of the community to read this detailed, informative report to the town from the current members of the committee. We think that voting to eliminate or drastically reduce the town's share of funding of these organizations would be a shortsighted,
BRATTLEBORO-The Legislature is in the middle of a fraught and unusual session, with the midpoint approaching in the form of "crossover day" on Friday, March 14 - the day when bills that start in the House pass to the Senate, and vice versa. Lawmakers are deep into committee and caucus work, all the while dealing with a newly empowered governor and the unease that comes from not knowing what will be coming down the pike from Washington, D.C. "We are...
Nancy Braus , a retired independent bookseller, is a longtime activist. GUILFORD-Vermont Yankee, a nuclear reactor in Vernon, was opposed from the first moment of its conception. The struggle to close the aging reactor was epic in our region, and dozens of us who were most engaged in the protests, the legal challenges, the civil disobedience, and the legislative work continue to be grateful that the reactor is well into the decommission process. Even with this history, a group of...