March is Student Art Month in Windham County, and the Arts Council of Windham County is again organizing events to showcase the great art our young people produce.
Now observed for a 34th year, Student Art Month also recognizes the teachers and schools helping young artists to blossom.
An opening ceremony at the Boys & Girls Club features a performance by The Snaz, a young indie rock band, on Friday, March 7, at 5:30 p.m. From there check out openings of high school visual arts shows downtown at Gallery Walk:
• Two-dimensional art not including photos will be displayed at the Brattleboro Boys & Girls Club, 17 Flat St.
Deborah Wright must go. It was her barely hidden agenda that led to the unjust firing of Rockingham Free Public Library Director Célina Houlné. It was her barely hidden contempt for all who oppose her agendas which embarrassed the village of Bellows Falls when she was a trustee, and...
As most people know, there is a vast difference between telling the truth and telling people what they want to hear. In that space, many suppositions lie. For some, hidden agendas are acted out and untruths are spoken. A lack of diligence to the elected position is taken while...
I plan to support the slate of four candidates who are running for the openings on the Rockingham Free Public Library (RFPL) Board of Trustees. I would encourage anyone who cares about the library and wants to see positive changes on the board to vote for Doreen Aldrich, Carol Blackwood, David Gould, and Ray Massucco. It's time for a change! The RFPL is one of the best libraries in the state. The divisiveness with some members of the current board...
Sydney Fisher has been selected to compete against other Boys & Girls Club members for the Vermont Youth of the Year title and a $1,000 scholarship from the Tupperware Foundation. As the Youth of the Year for the Boys & Girls Club of Brattleboro, Fisher, 17, is among hundreds of youth across the country BGCA is recognizing in 2014 for their sound character, leadership skills, and willingness to give back to the community. Youth of the Year is the greatest...
Vermonters have been watching in recent weeks as members of the state legislature consider proposed statutory changes related to timely access to judicial review for the small number of psychiatric inpatients being considered for court-ordered treatment. It's a difficult but necessary discussion that I think Vermonters are ready to have. I hope we don't lose sight of the actual patients whose lives are at the center of this discussion. With that in mind, I offer a true story. I have...
To clarify: The purpose of the tax on non-wage income (dividends, interest, etc.) is to make sure that taxpayers whose primary source of income is not wages also contribute to Green Mountain Care. The 10-percent tax would be due only on the amount by which non-wage income exceeds wage income. Very few people would pay it, since most people receive more in salary than they do in interest and other such income sources. S.252 does not increase the amount Vermonters...
Births • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), Jan. 24, 2014, a son, Brek Ryan Holton, to Karina Martin and Ryan Holton, of Wilmington; grandson to Russell (Skip) and Simonne Holton of Wilmington, and Steve and Jane Martin of Davenport, N.Y. College news • The following local residents were named to the fall 2013 Dean's List at St. Michael's College in Burlington: Samantha R. Harris, a junior classics major from Brattleboro; Megan E. Majonen, a junior English and French major from Guilford;
It was a great weekend to be a Slovenian in Brattleboro. Ski jumpers from Slovenia swept the top three spots on both days of competition, Feb. 15-16, at Harris Hill. In Saturday's FIS Cup, Miran Zupancic traveled 316 feet to win the 25th annual event. Second went to Mitja Meznar; Ernest Prislic took third. The Slovenian trio also dominated on Sunday in the Fred Harris Memorial Tournament, as Zupancic, Meznar, and Prislic again finished 1-2-3. Zupancic's best jump: 329.7 feet.
The other day, I happened to speak to a director of a business that employs more than 150 employees. My focus was on Sen. Peter Galbraith's health-care funding bill (S.252), which recommends an 11-percent tax on employer's wages and a 2-percent tax on employees' wages (as a substitute for employer's share and employee's premiums) in order to finance universal health care. Noting that he was in favor of universal health care, this businessperson opined (off the cuff) that his business...
Please allow me to introduce myself to your readers. I am running for trustee of the Rockingham Free Public Library. I was born and raised in Bellows Falls and Gageville and attended parochial and high school here. I have worked for the Town of Rockingham since 1988, currently as town clerk and treasurer. I am running for this office on a slate that includes physician Carol Blackwood, retired pastor David Gould, and lawyer Raymond Massucco. Together, our goal is to...
If this is the end of the legendary career of Kelly Clark, it was a pretty good final chapter. West Dover's gift to snowboarding earned her third Olympic medal on Feb. 12 with a bronze in the women's halfpipe at the Sochi Games in Russia. She won the gold in Salt Lake City 2002 and a bronze in Vancouver 2010. She now holds more Olympic medals than any other snowboarder since Olympic snowboarding debuted at the Nagano games in 1998.
The Commons' recent report about AT&T's efforts to woo the good people of Putney was especially revealing by the AT&T representative's caveat that “the town's permission for the application and its protest, if any is lodged would have little apparent weight in the state's decision.” As Newfane learned, regardless of what the public might want, AT&T will trust its union-busting, anti-democratic law firm, Downs Rachlin Martin, to do the legwork to ensure that the Public Service Board grants permission without...
“This is not normal,” a New York City resident observed the other day about the polar vortex, snow, ice, then spring-like days followed by more snow and more ice. “The Earth is off its axis or something.” You think?
When education pioneer Friedrich Froebel invented the nurturing “garden of children” he coined as kindergarten in 1840, he couldn't have anticipated that rigid literacy training, minimal recess, and a controversial “Common Core” curriculum would one day bear its name. Kindergarten just isn't what it used to be - many educators recommend starting at age 6 because the school day is so demanding - and some parents are seeking alternatives. The Neighborhood Schoolhouse in Brattleboro says it is responding to that...
Vermont Vaudeville, the Northeast Kingdom-based company specializing in cutting-edge variety entertainment, is touring Vermont this winter - and landing on the New England Youth Theatre stage on Saturday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m. The troupe is funded in part by a grant from the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts and support from Vermont Public Radio. Vermont Vaudeville has produced shows at the majestic Hardwick Town House, a community-run venue in the heart of Hardwick, since...
Life Line Screening offers preventive health screenings at First United Methodist Church on Tuesday, March 4. In recognition of March as Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, included are take-home colorectal cancer tests called FIT, for Fecal Immunochemical Test. These tests are simple, accurate, and recommended for the early detection of colorectal cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as cited by Life Line Screening in a press release, the risk of developing colorectal cancer increases with age such...
Town over budget on winter roads; salt supply low NEWFANE-The town is over budget on sand and salt for road maintenance, and salt is now in short supply. That's the word from Road Foreman and Selectboard Chair Todd Lawley, speaking at the Feb. 6 board meeting. He added that the roads may reflect that scarcity until the town can get hold of more salt. “It's been a long winter so far, but they tell me spring's coming,” Lawley said. That...
Last year marked Latchis Arts' first Red Carpet Gala, a celebration of the movies and arguably the world's most famous film industry awards show, the Academy Awards, at the Latchis Theatre. The lobby saw a red carpet, paparazzi, an interview booth, and hundreds of Brattleboro glitterati who turned out to be seen in their Oscars finery. On that beautiful silver screen inside was the main event, beamed all the way from Hollywood. And now it's time for the sequel. When...
New Chamber head to address WBA WEST BRATTLEBORO - On Thursday, Feb. 20, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., the West Brattleboro Association (WBA) holds its monthly meeting at The New England House, 254 Marlboro Rd. This is the rescheduled date after the Feb. 13 meeting was postponed due to inclement weather. Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce's new director, Kate O'Connor, is scheduled to share her goals for the Chamber. She will also listen, learn, and participate in a discussion about...
Guests at the Greater Falls Warming Shelter can eat their meals out of bowls made with love thanks to a project of the children of the First Universalist Parish of Chester. Working with potter Susan Leader, the children created bowls to donate as another in a series of connections they have made with the shelter over the past two years. Each month, the children help the church prepare a meal for the shelter's guests, and last year they worked with...
Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) is gearing up to host an exhibit of work by the 2014 Vermont winners of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Award-winning submissions will be displayed in the museum's Wolf Kahn & Emily Mason Gallery during regular museum hours from Feb. 22 to March 8. The exhibit features winning artworks in many media, and from across Vermont, including photography, printmaking, drawing, ceramics and glass, various digital arts, painting, and sculpture. BMAC will also host...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 70 percent of people say they would prefer to die at home. However, the CDC says 70 percent of people die either in a hospital or a nursing home. Why is there such a gap between those two numbers? To Joanna Rueter, it is mainly because people shy away from talking about death. Rueter is an advanced-care planning coach, a trained hospice volunteer, and the owner of Sustainable Aging, a...
Route 30 will be closed for up to six consecutive days in either late February or early March as part of the Interstate 91 Bridge Replacement Project, according to information provided by the managers of the $60 million project. The actual closure dates will be announced at least 72 hours in advance after the team confirms it has good weather for the work. Once the closure begins, through traffic will be barred on Route 30 through the area of the...
The Windham Orchestra's 28th annual Concerto Competition for young musicians was held at the Brattleboro Music Center on Sunday, Feb. 2. Two co-winners were named, both Massachusetts high schoolers. And you can hear them this spring. They are cellist Nate Steele, 14, who studies in Deerfield, and violinist Alexander “Sasha” Yakub, 15, who studies in Amherst. According to Windham Orchestra Director Hugh Keelan, the competition had nine contestants and the field was what he called breathtakingly high. Indeed, he said,
The Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation has scheduled the first in a series of meetings to share information and collect feedback from the public about the establishment of voluntary timber harvest guidelines in Vermont. The meetings will be held in locations throughout the state in late February and early March, including on Tuesday, Feb. 25, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Chester Town Hall. In 2013 the Vermont Legislature passed Act 24, which requires the Commissioner of Forests,
Wastewater requests approved PUTNEY-The Selectboard on Feb. 12 approved a pair of water and wastewater allocation requests permitting the owners at two properties to boost their capacity for new uses. • William Arnold, 118 Main St. - A store has moved out and the owner is proposing to put in a restaurant (breakfast, lunch, and dinner; 35 seats). The allocation for water rises from 117 gallons of water a day to 1,499; the allocation for wastewater surges from 104 gallons...
The hit of last fall's Brattleboro Literary Festival, when she was one of the outrageous judges of the Literary Death Match, Carmelita Tropicana is returning to Vermont for a performative talk with actor/director/writer Ain Gordon. “I had such a blast at the festival that I can honestly say that I had one of the best times I ever had in front of an audience,” says “Tropicana,” whose irrepressible spirit and irreverent humor have delighted audiences for more than three decades.
Voters in Brookline, Jamaica, Newfane, Townshend, and Windham have another chance, April 2, to pass the 2015 Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School budget. The school board chose that date after voters in those towns on Feb. 5 collectively shot down a nearly $7 million budget representing a 2.8 percent increase over the current year's spending plan. School board members and administrators were left looking for public input as to why the budget failed, 132-122, and what voters...
Filled with a standing-room-only crowd, the main hall of the Kahn-Mason Gallery at Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) was transformed for one night last Friday into a seedy bar, the Double Deuce Lounge. There, the audience got to see “Royal Flush,” a celebration of drag, the act of assuming the appearance of a gender with which one does not identify for the purposes of performance. The show was produced and introduced by Harral Hamilton, with live performances from local...
I understand that at FACT-TV's Feb. 10 forum for candidates for the Rockingham Free Public Library (RFPL) Board of Trustees, someone mentioned that I had broken Vermont's open meeting law six times. This is not a good thing. However, if you reflect on it, it's also not a very high number of violations. Just this week, on Sunday, one of the two trustees appointed to our board this summer - the one who is running for a three-year library position...
Voters of the District #6 school district approved the $27.7 million fiscal year 2015 school budget during the district's annual meeting on Feb. 11. Less than 1 percent of eligible voters from the five-member towns attended the annual school meeting in the Brattleboro Union High School gym, a turnout Moderator Tim Arsenault later called “appalling.” Robert “Woody” Woodworth, District #6 school board chair, said that the school budget maintains services offered in the previous year. The fiscal year 2015 budget...
Fair warning: This column is long. And complicated. And more than a little bizarre. What follows is meticulous documentation of flagrant breaking of Vermont law. The events I describe - over meeting minutes and an accompanying public statement by a board chair - simply did not need to happen. And it's time for this pattern of behavior by the leadership of the Rockingham Free Public Library Board of Trustees to stop. Here and now. So go grab a coffee and...
Candidates for the Rockingham Selectboard will meet the voters in a forum on Monday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m., in the Rockingham Town Hall Lower Theater. The forum will be telecast live on FACTv/Channel 8 and rebroadcast later. Moderator is Mike Smith. Sponsoring the forum: Citizens for Participation in Rockingham (CPR), a nonpartisan group whose mission is to encourage participation in the democratic process as expressed in voting and running for office. Anyone unable to attend who has a question...
Friends of Music at Guilford presents “Lucy Terry Prince & The Black Man in Song” on Saturday, Feb. 22, at 3 p.m. at Guilford Community Church. Featured performers include Guilford-based educator Linda Hecker and tenor Irwin Reese and pianist Julia Bady. Hecker will share insights into the life of Lucy Terry (1730-1821), who grew up a slave in nearby Deerfield, Mass., married a free man, Abijah Prince of Northfield, and raised a large family in Guilford, then recently established. Lucy...
Rockingham voters have a well-defined choice in setting the stage for the smooth operation of Rockingham Free Public Library. Choice is what is clearly needed to ensure regaining the public's trust in its duly-elected library Board of Trustees. I intend to vote for the unified slate of Board of Trustee candidates, “Trustees You Can Trust”: Doreen Aldrich, Carol Blackwood, David Gould, and L. Raymond Massucco. Each seeks to work with the Trustees who will remain seated on the board following...
Social justice means many things to many people. For the four justice-oriented businesses of the Root Collective, social justice includes synthesizing justice and business while providing space for the community. The Root Social Justice Center (informally called “the Root”) and Root Collective reside under the same roof on 28 Williams St. During the day, the space is home to the four businesses that “operate collectively to sustain a space that strives to be free of oppression, harm, and injustice,” according...
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) show that population growth in Windham County and the rest of Vermont has been low, with nearly as many people moving in as moving out. According to data gathered between 2007 and 2011, Windham County's population is 44,090. The county saw 1,991 people move in from other states, and 2,185 people move out of state. Where did those 1,991 people come from? The three most popular origins were Cheshire...
The Bellows Falls Trustees gave the go-ahead to resubmit a bond to voters that would fix and upgrade a large portion of the existing water delivery system within the Village limits at a cost of $8.2 million. All improvements were identified and prioritized in a March 2012 report that was reviewed and approved by the state. This cost of the bond will not be paid by taxes, but rather would raise household water costs for a $100,000 home from $47.31...
The Annual Town Meeting in Rockingham this year looks like it will be relatively tranquil. Voters will gather at the Bellows Falls Opera House on Monday, March 3, at 7 p.m. to vote on a $4.9 million town budget and a $10.6 million school budget. Both items will be voted on by Australian ballot. Voting for town officers takes place on Tuesday, March 4, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., at the Masonic Temple on Westminster Street. The proposed town...
Now that there have been a couple of sizable snow storms, and the forecast is calling for some rain and warmer temperatures for this weekend, the Brattleboro Fire Department encourages you to follow these safety tips to maintain a fire-safe home: • Test your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and make sure they're installed on all levels of your home. • Keep at least three feet around your heating equipment free from fabric, paper, liquids, and other hazards, and turn...