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.
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.
With humble beginnings, a flyer and a meeting place, a paradigm began to shift in Southern Vermont.
On June 13, 2005, in the community room at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro, community organizer Tim Stevenson screened The End of Suburbia, a film that addressed “world oil peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels.”
“About 15 to 20 people showed up,” Stevenson said. “Most of the people at least knew something about peak oil and global warming issues. We all shared those concerns. We were attuned to the idea of not calling on or depending on Washington, D.C. for a solution.”
With that small gathering, Post Oil Solutions (POS) was born with a specific mission in mind: “To empower the people of the central Connecticut River Valley bioregion to develop sustainable, collaborative, and socially just communities leading to a self-sufficient, post-petroleum society."...
Saving energy takes a lot of energy. Mike Ghia's all-volunteer, four-member streetlight committee, a subgroup of the Conservation Commission, can attest to that after its members examined every single one of 454 street lights in and around Rockingham. Their mission: To evaluate which lights the town of Rockingham can...
Citing what he termed accusations “thrown around” by “faceless, guiltless bottom feeders” and “libelous and slanderous remarks” that have made it difficult for him to run his business, Selectboard member and vice chair Bob Thomson is stepping down. Board Chair Thomas MacPhee said that he had spoken several times...
A local property owner and his partner have dropped their appeal to the Vermont Environmental Court to build a crematorium, chapel and a pajama factory. Citing the mounting cost of legal fees and the long process of appeal, Mary DeSimone and John Moisis have abandoned their fight to overturn a zoning board of appeals decision. The ZBA had failed to approve DeSimone's application for the industrial-zoned property at 30 Island St., just above the Waypoint Center. “It's dead in the water,”
Graduating seniors at Bellows Falls Union High School carry an aura of optimism in spite of what is facing those who will enter the job market. Four out of the five youths interviewed for this story are prepared to look for work or already have jobs for the summer before attending college in the fall. The fifth said he missed deadlines and isn't sure what he will be doing this summer. Sidelined by an injury, Mike Blanchard, 18, said, “I'll...
In a move that shocked many residents of town and village, the Rockingham Selectboard made good their promise earlier in the year “not to be dictated to” regarding the budget, and ratified on June 1 their earlier vote to eliminate three positions - one of which was all ready vacant - and the positions of two public works employees, Administrative Assistant Joanne Perry and Public Works Director Everett Hammond. The vote was ratified this week following a previously contended after-meeting...
The long discussed merger of the municipal governments of the town of Rockingham and the village of Bellows Falls appears to be off the table for now. Bringing town and village municipal governments under one board is still the way to go, according to village resident and former School Board member Jim MacAuliffe. He authored the newest merger plan after the Merger Committee's year-long research effort. The resulting proposal failed to garner enough votes last fall. On the heels of...
The Rockingham Listers have received a third-party appraisal of the Bellows Falls TransCanada hydroelectric generation facility by a New Hampshire appraisal firm at $107 million for a property the town values at more than $126 million. According to Camilla Roberts, Chair of the Rockingham Board of Listers, George Sansoucy, P.E., LLC., whose firm was hired by the state of Vermont to weigh in on the value of the properties, said this week that the hydro facility in Rockingham will be...
