After serving the town for 25 years as a member of the highway department, Road Foreman Todd Lawley is retiring.
The Selectboard first mentioned Lawley's decision at a special Board meeting on Sept. 11 and announced they would attempt to fill the position internally.
Before beginning the public portion of the Sept. 18 regular Selectboard meeting, the Board went into executive session to discuss Lawley's retirement and to review applications for the job.
In open meeting, Board members unanimously voted to pay Lawley his accrued benefits, plus one month of COBRA health insurance. The body also unanimously voted to enter into negotiations with town employee Jay Wilson for the road foreman position.
Volunteers are needed to help with the renovation of the existing playground across from the Central Elementary School and Parks Place Community Resource Center. This project is the culmination of nearly two years of work on a Promise Communities Grant. The Bellows Falls Promise Community received a $200,000 grant...
Confluence ends its second season with the “2017 Painting Invitational,” composed of nine artists, local and not-so-local. This show has been put together from a personal vantage point by John Walker, the gallery's main curator. Colin Cochran, Steve Perkins, and Wendy Ide Williams have created work that ranges from...
Vermont Student Assistance Corp. will offer free workshops at more than 60 local high schools from early October through mid-December to help families fill out financial aid forms. These informal workshops offer guidance on filling out the FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and the Vermont grant application. The FAFSA is the basis for determining eligibility for federal Pell grants, the Vermont state grant, financial aid from the school that the student attends, and for student loans. Students...
Dummerston-based artist Linda Rubinstein makes one-of-a-kind books, figurative fabric sculpture, word-and-image journals, and maps of places she loves. An exhibit at the Dummerston Historical Society is centered on selections from her image and word journals about life in her chosen hometown of 45 years. She has just completed a map, Ode to Miller Road, that will be exhibited for the first time at the Historical Society on Middle Road in Dummerston Center. Also being presented is a sampling of the...
Officials with the New Hampshire Department of Transportation presented two public information meetings - one in Hinsdale, and one in Brattleboro - to introduce the Connecticut River bridge project. If public comment at the Brattleboro meeting is any indication, residents really care about driving to Mountain Road in Hinsdale. In a presentation that lasted just under two hours, attendees' questions kept coming back to whether the new bridge's design would allow safe left turns onto Wantastiquet Mountain's access road. The...
Selectboard makes appointmentsDUMMERSTON - The Selectboard filled two vacancies at the Sept. 13 regular board meeting. The Board appointed Teri Robinson to the Social Services Committee in a 3-0 vote, with board members Joe Cook and Hugh Worden abstaining. The Board appointed Maria Glabach as selectboard assistant in a 4-0 vote, with Steve Glabach - Maria's husband - abstaining. “Now she's official. Now we can ask her to do things!” said Selectboard Chair Zeke Goodband. Maria has served as interim...
College news • Cassidy Santorelli of Bellows Falls, a student at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Florham Campus in Madison, N.J., has been inducted into FDU's Phi Zeta Kappa honor society for the spring 2017 semester. • Tyler Clement, a biomedical engineering major from Vernon, was welcomed into Western New England University's chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta National Honor Society on Aug. 25, during the university's Convocation ceremony in Springfield, Mass. • Mikayla G. Lathrop of South Londonderry and Jiajin Shan of...
How the proposed Route 119 bridge to Hinsdale will impact traffic flows in downtown Brattleboro was a question asked, but not answered, at the public informational meeting in the Brattleboro Municipal Center on Sept. 14. New Hampshire Department of Transportation engineers delivered an excellent presentation and answered other questions. Representatives of the Vermont Agency of Transportation, Windham Regional Commission, and the town of Brattleboro were present but did not participate in the presentation and discussion. Nevertheless, they are responsible to...
Town seeks to fill vacancies BRATTLEBORO - The town is looking for citizens to serve on the following committees and boards: Agricultural Advisory Board, ADA Advisory Committee, Arts Committee, Citizen Police Communications Committee, Design Review Committee (alternate), Development Review Board (full-time and alternate), Fence Viewer (by statute, must be legal voter of the town), Honor Roll, Inspector of Lumber, Shingles & Wood, Planning Commission, Recreation & Parks Board, Senior Solutions Advisory Council and the SEVCA Board (recommendation only). Applications and...
After more than 20 years, Zon Eastes, the former conductor of the Windham Orchestra, Brattleboro's community orchestra, is finally making a dream of his come true: forming a musical ensemble that will play music especially close to his heart. Founded and conducted by Eastes, Juno Orchestra is a newly-established chamber orchestra made up of professional musicians from the area around Brattleboro, including Vermont, New Hampshire, and Western Massachusetts. “I was really thrilled with being able to produce this chamber orchestra,”
On Saturday, Sept. 30, Brattleboro will host its ninth annual Buddy Walk. The Buddy Walk was developed by the National Down Syndrome Society in 1995 to celebrate Down Syndrome Awareness Month in October and to promote acceptance and inclusion of people with Down syndrome. It has grown from 17 walks in 1995 to nearly 300 walks planned for 2017 worldwide. In 2016, more than $14 million was raised nationwide to benefit local programs and services as well as the national...
University of Vermont History Professor Emeritus Mark A. Stoler, Ph.D., will consider the legacy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Depression-era New Deal policies in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. His talk, “Nothing to Fear, But Fear Itself: FDR and the New Deal,” is the opening talk of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series for the 2017-2018 season, and it is free and open to the public. From 1929 to...
The new bridge over the West River is lovely. The one over Upper Dummerston Road is also attractively executed. It appears that the work on and around this latter bridge is completed, as I see nothing being done now. It is time for the “Road Work Ahead” and “End of Road Work” signs to be removed from the side of the road. Is this removal the responsibility of the construction company, or the state, or the county, or the town?
Now in its 52nd season, Friends of Music at Guilford has a long history with “Stage Music Projects.” These have ranged from musical theater song revues to concerts of arias and art songs presented by some of the region's acclaimed operatic performers. Also in the mix were fully staged but less well-known Broadway or off-Broadway shows and premieres of one-act or full-length operas created by some of the organization's musically gifted founders, among other composers. This fall, the group is...
Longtime Brattleboro Union High School mathematics teacher Kevan O'Donnell has been recognized by Yale University for his outstanding work as an educator. The university issued the following statement: “The Yale Office of Undergraduate Admissions has the distinct pleasure of recognizing the following educators as recipients of the 2017 Yale Educator Award. The Yale Educator Recognition Program recognizes outstanding educators from around the world who have supported and inspired their students to achieve at high levels. “Matriculating students are invited to...
Lisa Merton and Alan Dater's new documentary, Burned, is excellent in many ways, though weak in a few. Arlene Distler's review of the film captures a lot accurately but is also flawed on a couple of main points. Their task has not been an easy one. The film covers a lot of ground: southeastern U.S. clear-cut logging that fuels huge electricity-producing plants in Europe; Berlin, N.H., answering its economic woes by hosting New England's biggest biomass power plant; the community...
A newly published children's book by the Grafton Historical Society is being offered at a special discounted price to Vermont and New Hampshire schools this September for use in their classrooms. The Grafton Cavaliers features the adventures and episodes of the New England college boys who formed a cavalry unit to assist the Union Army in the Civil War. It is an historical novel based on actual people, places, and events in 1862. This will be the second book in...
Selectboard approves WCHS contract PUTNEY - The Selectboard unanimously approved the Fiscal Year 2018 contract with the Windham County Humane Society. This is a contract renewal, and the town will pay the Society $675 for the year. Interim Town Manager Chip Stearns reminded townspeople the Humane Society doesn't take “vicious or uncontrolled animals.” Weight limit changed on East Putney Ferry Road bridge PUTNEY - Town officials recently received a notice from the Vermont Agency of Transportation about a change in...
Landmark College will present “The Mentorships of Robert Frost,” a talk by Landmark College Professor Dan Toomey, at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 2, in the Brooks M. O'Brien Auditorium, East Academic Building. A study of Robert Frost's friendships with younger men is important for a number of reasons. In addition to expressing the poet's virtues - loyalty, kindness, and generosity - that were passed over or underplayed in Lawrance Thompson's still influential authorized biography, Frost's friendships show us a great...
A number of residents have expressed concern to the Selectboard about why Town Clerk Denise Germon stopped showing up for work more than four months ago - barely three months after her election. The discussion took place in the context of a broader concern: a series of recent departures of employees from the Town Office, a situation that board members insist is not directly related to Germon's employment. According to Selectboard members and Interim Town Manager Chip Stearns, Germon has...
From the cracks of our culture, the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis have risen again in a fury of hatred and violence. On Aug. 28, 1955, a black 14-year-old from Chicago, Emmett Till, was tortured and murdered by two Mississippi Klan members. The nation took notice. The arc of the moral universe is long. While visiting his uncle in Money, Miss., Till had apparently offended the protocols of the “Southern way of life” so proscribed by the Jim Crow caste...
On Saturday, Sept. 30, at 7:30 p.m., Gary Stroutsos, world flute master, will take us on a journey around the world, from China to Cuba to the Native American West. Woodwinds Without Borders will showcase the music that he has explored and mastered throughout his long career as a professional musician. The concert will take place at the Stone Church on the hill at 20 Church St. While of Greek, Italian, and Lebanese descent, Stroutsos is acknowledged to have made...
There have been eight studies done by the Senate Government Operations Committee during the past 15 years regarding rural policing and public safety. And every one of them, said committee Chair Jeanette White, D-Windham, ended up being filed away on a shelf in the committee room. “The shelf is starting to sag,” White said. But the issues of public safety in Vermont's smaller communities have not gone away. If anything, they've gotten worse. So, rather than do another study, White...
The Londonderry Conservation Commission invites the public to a fact-filled talk by biologist Sue Morse entitled “The Cougar Comes East.” The free program is Tuesday, Oct. 3, at 7 p.m., and will be held at Flood Brook School on Route 11. Not only are cougars being seen in eastern North America, some are attempting to recolonize their former habitats. In a phenomenon that was once flatly dismissed as an impossibility in the eastern U.S. and Canada, scientists have now documented...
Ken Burns's latest historical video narrative, The Vietnam War, reminds many of us of that historical era, the French and U.S. actions, and the proof of philosopher and essayist George Santayana's words, “Those without a sense of history are doomed to repeat it.” The documentary also reminds us of the systemic and righteous mendacity of U.S. leadership, oblivious to the huge ripples of suffering it was inflicting on peoples across the world. Suffering that continues today. And, for what? Even...
The Selectboard unanimously approved amendments to the town's traffic ordinances at the Sept. 19 regular Board meeting. This was the second reading and public hearing on the proposed changes. Article 1 of Appendix C (Regulations Governing the Control of Traffic) of the Brattleboro Code of Ordinances allows for a 44-foot commercial loading and unloading zone in front of 90 Elliot St. between the hours of 6 a.m. and 2 p.m., Monday through Friday. During other times, this zone will have...
Good day to you! We've been dealing with record-breaking late-September heat during the past several days, but that is all coming to an end as seasonable, cool Canadian air is set to sweep the southern Vermont region from late this week into early next week. There are a couple of minor rain chances, but aside from those, we should be enjoying dry, sunny, and seasonable autumn weather conditions. For Wednesday, we will be experiencing the final day of this recent...
Before they debut their first album with a Oct. 6 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York, FLOW, the new group assembled by the Brattleboro-based Grammy Award winner and Windham Hill Records founder Will Ackerman, will play a sneak preview concert at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro on Wednesday, Oct. 4, at 7:30 p.m. In addition to Ackerman, the group features world-class instrumentalists: acoustic guitarist Lawrence Blatt, Australian pianist/vocalist Fiona Joy, and flugelhorn virtuoso Jeff Oster. The album was recorded...
Current Brattleboro Town Manager Peter Elwell was 5 years old when the town tore down the original Brooks Memorial Library on Main Street in 1967. “My memories weren't very vivid,” he said. But he does remember the new library being built and that it opened on Sept. 23, 1967, five days before his father's 40th birthday. Corwin “Corky” Elwell was the Town Manager then. Five days from his 90th birthday, the elder Elwell shared the story about how the new...
Like many after the November 2016 election, Peg Alden found herself feeling overwhelmed and outraged about what was happening in this country. Wanting to do something that might make a difference, she found out about a newly-formed organization called Sister District, whose mission is to harness the energy of volunteers in deeply blue (or red) places and channel it to where it can make a real impact. Sister District uses a network of local teams that support strategic, winnable races...
Can speed and energy overcome a lack of experience and skill? The Leland & Gray girls' soccer team is trying to find an answer to that question this season. The Rebels are a team where ninth- and 10th-graders have to assume a major role. Going up against an equally young team, the Twin Valley Wildcats, on Sept. 21 in Townshend, the Rebels showed in a 4-1 win that speed can overcome inexperience. “Speed kills,” said Rebels coach Lucas Bates. “You...
C.X. Silver Gallery, 814 Western Ave., announces the opening reception and book launch of Liz Hawkes deNiord: Return as Ticket, on Friday, Sept. 29, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Hawkes deNiord's recent paintings “record the distillation of memory, dream, allegory, and emotion into impressions using paint and mixed media,” according to a press release from the gallery. “Her large abstract works represent a reflective response to world events and personal reflections and present a visual interpretation through vivid color.” She studied...
The Department of Public Works recently received a grant to fund a comprehensive study of the town's public drinking water system. The Drinking Water Asset Management Plan grant, administered by the Department of Environmental Conservation using state and federal money, annually gives funding to Vermont towns to take stock of their public drinking water systems. This year, the DPW received the maximum grant amount: $20,000. The terms of the grant require an in-kind $5,000 match from the town, which will...
New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution (NEC) is dedicated to protecting the environment from the dangers of nuclear radiation, particularly those associated with the nuclear-power industry. These dangers are well documented. Entergy Corporation, a multi-billion-dollar, publicly traded corporation in charge of a fleet of 10 nuclear reactors, has proposed selling the shuttered Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, for the purpose of expedited decommissioning, to NorthStar Nuclear Decommissioning Company, LLC, a demolition company with no experience decommissioning commercial nuclear reactors. What...