Health Care and Rehabilitation Services, southeastern Vermont's nonprofit, community mental-health agency, recently announces the recipients of its 2018 Jim Bartley Community Partnership Awards.
According to a news release, the awards were presented at the agency's annual meeting on Nov. 7 to the Windham & Windsor Housing Trust and to Robin Rieske, Prevention Consultant for Vermont's Alcohol & Drug Abuse Programs in the Brattleboro District.
They honor the relationships built over many years between HCRS and these community partners as they work to meet the mental health and substance abuse needs of individuals and families in southeastern Vermont.
The Windham & Windsor Housing Trust has provided housing opportunities for many of the individuals and families served by the agency. Many HCRS clients struggle with homelessness; the partnership between the two organizations has provided untold numbers of individuals and families with a place they can call home.
In partnership with Windsor-based musicians' collective What Doth Life, it's “loud fun crunchytime” at Stage 33 Live, according to a news release, when The Jobz and Jessica Rabbit Syndrome come to record and film concert sets starting around 6:30 p.m., and going to around 9 p.m. on Jan. 20.
Strolling of the Heifers is hosting its first-ever Fermented Food Fair on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 18 and 19, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days, at the River Garden on Main Street. This event is free and open to the public and will feature a wide array...
Because my company works with many different types of businesses, and the people who work in them, we get to see an interesting cross section of the workplace. Some situations are unique, but more often the similarities remind us that people are people are people. This common thread of humanity is most apparent when it comes to the dual impact that family needs and work responsibilities have on individuals. At times, it feels more like “Family Needs versus Work Responsibilities:
Melissa Coughlin recently joined the Youth Development team at Youth Services as the new youth shelter case manager. According to a news release, Youth Development programming at Youth Services provides services for youth ages 12-23 who are experiencing homelessness, housing instability, or are at risk for displacement from their families or homes. Coughlin is based in Youth Services' Brattleboro office and provides direct support and referral services aimed at securing safe, stable housing and family reunification. Christine Linn, Youth Development...
In 2017, one of President Trump's key advisors, Steve Bannon, said the administration's goal would be the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” Years earlier, Republican theorist Grover Norquist said he aimed to shrink government “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Given Trump's unprecedented staff turnover rates, estimated at 65 percent, his refusal to fill important positions in the State Department and other agencies, and the ongoing government shutdown, it...
As Vermont continues to struggle with a shortage of high-quality childcare for working families, Community College of Vermont is offering a new way for educators to get the training they need. Beginning in spring 2019, CCV will deliver an accelerated online version of its childcare certificate program. “There is currently high demand for qualified professionals available to work in the early childhood field in Vermont,” said Becky Millard, director of Northern Lights at CCV, the hub of the state's early...
School District Auditors' Reports now available BRATTLEBORO - The Brattleboro Town and Town School District Auditors' Reports for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018, are now available upon request and may be picked up at the Brattleboro Town Clerk's office, 230 Main St. The Auditors' Reports will also be available as part of the Town and School District Annual Report, which will be available at the Town Clerk's office no later than Feb. 22. Based on a vote at...
I went back to read MacLean Gander's original piece [“From type to stereotype,” Essay, Dec. 5]. I fault the writer, like so many reporters, for casually using statistics, mentioning stereotypes without details - and, more egregiously, both assuming there are agreed-upon stereotypes and going on to lump together all male Trump supporters (without questioning). What happened to individualism and respect for one another's views? Not everyone with a given trait or belief or orientation or color can be placed in...
College news • The following local students were named to the Dean's List for the fall 2018 semester at the University of Vermont: Alyssa Cote of Bellows Falls, Simon Bupp-Chickering of Saxtons River, Eleanor Guyon of Saxtons River, Zoe Schemm of Saxtons River, Zachary Streeter of Westminster, Eve Pomazi of Brattleboro, John Sawyer Shaw of Brattleboro, Sophie Zimmerman of Guilford, Alexander Bocech of East Dover, Ryan Borgesen of Newfane, Anya Alden of Putney, Eben Collins of Putney, Baxter Cragin of...
WWAC presents an interfaith panel of 'wise guys' to discuss resistanceBRATTLEBORO - On Friday, Jan. 18, at 7 p.m., Windham World Affairs Council will present a free program entitled “An Interfaith Dialogue on Resistance” at Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main St. in Brattleboro. WWAC has invited Professor Amer Latif of Marlboro College to represent a Muslim point of view and James Levinson, formerly spiritual leader of the Brattleboro Area Jewish Community, to represent a Jewish point of view. Rev. Scott...
Oliver Wendell Holmes declared, “Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.” That description, according to a news release, could be applied to B, a 17-year-old songwriter, singer, and multi-instrumentalist “with consummate skill and a powerful social conscience” who will perform at the first Stone Church Arts concert of 2019 on Saturday, Jan. 19, at 7 p.m. in the Chapel at Immanuel Episcopal Church, 20 Church St. Mary Gauthier says “B is a...
Five local culinary artists will participate in a panel discussion entitled “Food as Artistic Expression” at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center on Thursday, Jan. 17, at 7 p.m. Admission is free. Panelists Erin Bevan of the Four Columns Inn, Sharon Myers of Sharon Myers Fine Catering, Cai Silver of Dim Sum Tea House and Catering, and John Singer and Dar Tavernier of Tavernier Chocolates are well-known not only for their gastronomic delights but for their aesthetic sensibilities as well.
At the last two Brattleboro Town School board meetings, the chair, Jill Stahl-Tyler, spent a great deal of time complaining about the Vernon School District being a part of the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU). She went so far as to read a letter that she was going to send to the State Board of Education, urging that body to reassign Vernon to another supervisory union. She even requested that the district be reassigned to the Windham Central Supervisory Union.
With reference to James Ehlers' open letter to the Vermont Senate, proposing an amendment to the state constitution to the effect that “all people have a natural and inherent right to a clean and unspoiled environment,” I want to offer an endorsement and share a quote that has stayed with me for a long time. U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, in his 1972 dissenting opinion in Sierra Club v. Morton, wrote: “Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation.
In recent weeks, The Commons has presented well-reasoned arguments for and against increasing Brattleboro's local-option sales tax. Penned by local business owner Nancy Braus (against the increase) and Selectboard member Tim Wessel (pro increase), these were valuable contributions to the public debate. Unfortunately, the public servant chose to step beyond the merits of the increase and question whether the business owner even has a legitimate role in the discussion. “I ask that Nancy, and other shopkeepers who are not Brattleboro...
If you liked 2018, you will probably love 2019. Our national leaders continue to squabble. The scene in Washington often looks like a schoolyard at recess time. In fact, they have even orchestrated an extended recess. We are now in an indefinite shutdown. During his recent trip to Iraq, President Trump said the people of the United States were “no longer the suckers.” But there is a lot of evidence to contradict his statement. And the proof is all around...
Vermont Theatre Company will host auditions for their production of Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton on Thursday, Jan. 24, at 6 p.m., and Saturday, Jan. 26, at 10 a.m., at the Hooker-Dunham Theater, 139 Main St. The production will be directed by James Gelter, produced by Justin Fetterman, and performed on May 3-5 and 10-12. Gaslight, sometimes known as Angel Street, is a Victorian thriller written in 1938. The play brought about the term “gaslighting,” which means “to manipulate someone by...
The partial federal government shutdown is putting thousands of Vermonters at risk of hunger, in particular those who receive 3SquaresVT - known nationally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). With the end of the shutdown still uncertain, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), one of the federal agencies affected by the shutdown, has authorized states to issue benefits early for the month of February. According to a news release, the Economic Services Division of the Vermont Department for Children...
Kudos to Bruce Lawrence and his team for their persistence in diminishing the smell of the waste treatment plant. I live in Morningside, and know what that was like. They did great work. I have wanted to visit the plant, but am sensitive to sulfur, and the smell even from afar set off symptoms that were not good. I would also like to speak to Lawrence's comment about flushing wipes, which are indeed not flushable. Speaking as a former New...
Two local business and economic development groups have joined to ask the Selectboard to add an item to the fiscal year 2020 budget: $42,000 to market the town to visitors. Members of the boards of the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance seek the funding from the 1-percent local-option tax that is added to Vermont's 9-percent rooms-and-meals tax and a 10-percent tax on alcohol served in restaurants. The statewide tax - not to be confused with...
The 2019-20 legislative biennium began at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Jan. 9, with lots of changes in the House leadership but little change in the Senate. There was relatively little turnover in the Senate after last November's election, while the House welcomed 40 new members, its largest freshman class since 1992. House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, and Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D-Chittenden, returned to the leadership positions of their respective chambers. Thirteen of the 14 House...
Good day to you, hearty southern Vermonters! We have entered an active winter weather week in southern Vermont. Between Arctic cold, windy conditions at times, and two winter storms on the way, there's lots to talk about, so let's jump into the details! For Wednesday, we'll have a low pressure system passing well to our north along the international border. As this moisture-starved storm tracks west to east, it will drag a cold front through the region by Wednesday afternoon.
In online discussions of local issues, it seems common for citizens to speak of the people who make decisions as “they.” “They should put a light at that intersection.” “They're raising our taxes once again.” “They” is everywhere in online discussions, and even in person, of course. But in discussion of local politics or decisions, not national or worldwide issues, its use strikes me as curious. On one level, of course, it's a semantic term of convenience: a lazy use...
Perhaps not coming as a complete shock after its founder and director Sara Coffey was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives last fall, Vermont Performance Lab recently announced it will wind down in summer 2019. Nonetheless, the loss of this innovative arts organization will certainly prove to be a great loss to the community in and around Southern Vermont, and beyond. Created in 2006, Vermont Performance Lab has been a “performance incubator” located in Guilford. In a recent news...
This was supposed to be a simple story about Atul Gawande - a New England surgeon turned author of the nationally best-selling book Being Mortal - born of an unexpected meeting in the fall of 2017. “The conversation I felt like I was having was, do we fight, or do we give up?” I heard him say on public radio the weekend before. “And the reality was that it's not 'Do we fight, or do we give up?' - it's...
At the turn of the year, it is customary to acknowledge not only successes, but losses from the past year. Brattleboro suffered one loss that has not been clearly reckoned in our local press: the loss of students on the School for International Training (SIT) campus. Last January, SIT announced it would not admit an on-campus class of graduate students for this past fall 2018 semester, choosing to transition to low-residency, online, and internationally based programs. That has meant the...
Every Thursday from 3 to 5 p.m., the airwaves of WVEW are filled with the sounds and stories of Bollywood. Vidhi Salla, host of “Vidhi's Bollywood Jukebox” on the nonprofit, community-supported radio station, takes an in-depth look at India's multi-million-dollar Hindi-language film industry. The name “Bollywood” is a portmanteau of “Bombay” - the former name of the city of Mumbai, which is where the industry is based - and “Hollywood.” Mumbai is also where Salla produces her show - at...
At the midpoint of the Vermont high school girls' basketball season, there were three undefeated teams in Division II as of the end of last week - Lake Region (7-0), Randolph (9-0), and Bellows Falls (8-0). However, in the Vermont Principals' Association's rankings, Lake Region and Randolph are No. 1 and 2, respectively, and BF is tied for eighth with U-32 (4-4). What's up with that? The answer to that question is index points and strength of schedule, both of...
A new black, blue, and white sign reading “NorthStar: Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Project” appears on Governor Hunt Road, having replaced the one that long labelled the now-closed nuclear power plant the property of Entergy Corporation. Last week, the companies announced the completion of the sale of the single-unit boiling water reactor, which operated for 42 years to NorthStar from Entergy, which has owned the plant since 2002. The announcement came on Jan. 11. The Vermont Public Utility Commission approved the...