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BRATTLEBORO

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View 7-day forecast

Weather sponsored by

Keeping your community covered. Please help us reach our year-end goal.

Donate Now

Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.

BUHS sophomore Sebastian Alvarez attended his first Vermont State Board of Education meeting as an appointed student representative on Oct. 21.
Featured Story

Brattleboro sophomore named to Vermont State Board of Education

BUHS and Windham Regional Career Center student Sebastian Alvarez, 16, will bring a career-center and special-education perspective to statewide policy

BRATTLEBORO-Sebastian Alvarez knows firsthand that not every student learns the same way.

Now the 16-year-old Brattleboro sophomore will get to make that case to the people who set education policy for the entire state.

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News

Brattleboro starts the budget process for FY25

A first look at the draft proposal of a $22,473,369 operating budget for fiscal year 2025 shows a 2% increase ($434,692) to the current fiscal year's $22,038,677 operating budget. As the budget process continues, any - or none - of 13 potential additional expenses could be included in it. Calling it the "first bite" when reviewing the proposal as such on Nov. 21, Selectboard Chair Ian Goodnow said while the board could pass the "base budget sandwich" without adding to...

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Journeying away to see the world — and our connections

A group of Leland & Gray High School students will spend the spring semester exploring food systems and culture here at home, then travel south to several Gulf Coast states, as well as Vietnam and France, to study how food is grown, produced, distributed, prepared, and consumed. To raise money and help pay the estimated $140,000 needed for the 15 students and three teachers expected to participate, the group prepared and served a Community Dinner in Town Hall on Nov.

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‘One of the best people I ever knew’

When Deirdre Baker was named grand marshal of this town's Fourth of July parade in 2012, she didn't let that morning's storm clouds dampen her spirits. She already had weathered too much for that. The year before, Baker was planning a free public Christmas breakfast when, set to celebrate her 50th birthday, she was unable to shake a stuffy nose. Doctors said it wasn't a cold or allergies, but instead sinus cancer. To reach and remove it, they'd have to...

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In Putney, a housing crisis flies under the radar

People experiencing homelessness live in a range of conditions. Some live in motels, like the more than 93 Brattleboro households participating in the state's General Assistance Emergency Housing Program. Others, largely uncounted, live in tents in the woods, in friends' barns and sheds, in cars, garages, and campers - all situations that do not meet all the human needs for comfort and security. In Putney, approximately 40 people live outside and in campers, according to Fire Chief Tom Goddard, who...

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Westminster names new town manager

After the position has been vacant for 18 months, the town has hired Louis Bordeaux as its new town manager, effective last week. A resident of Bernardston, Massachusetts, Bordeaux has worked in local government for just over a decade. Prior to that, he had a long career in mid- and upper-level retail management. Bordeaux said that he got into politics at the urging of a friend in 2012, when a three-year seat on the Bernardston Selectboard opened up. He ran...

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Can media help solve society's problems?

The public is invited to attend a Media Mentoring panel discussion on Thursday, Nov. 30, at 7 p.m. on Zoom about a different approach to media that seeks to uncover and report on how people are trying to solve problems - not just the bad news, but what's working and why - offering communities with information they need to participate in a healthy democracy. Leading this global shift in journalism is MMP guest David Bornstein, CEO and co-founder of the...

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Alternative school expands campus, program

Community House has added a high school at 80 Linden St. to its Community School House programs and Oak Street campus holdings. With the acquisition and renovation of the historic, newly renovated Deacon John Holbrook House, day students in grades 9-12 in the program now, for the first time, have a dedicated high school building. According to the organization's website, it provides a short-term residential stabilization and assessment program for children 6–12 years of age, an independent and general special-education...

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Village mural gets some repairs

As it approaches a quarter century since it was originally painted, the large mural on the Flatiron Building greeting northbound travelers as they enter the Bellows Falls Square is undergoing repairs and stabilization efforts. Based on original design sketches and paintings by local artist Ezra Veitch, the 32-foot-by-40-foot mural, created in 1999, depicts The Square as it would have looked a hundred years earlier. The town's trolley tracks, now long gone, are visible in the painting. Some of the town's...

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