Walking into my first night at writer's group felt like walking back to New York. The concept of a writing group was new and exciting to me. I didn't have any expectations except to put pen to the paper I forgot to bring.
Funny how new things, places, and people always remind you of old things, places, and people. I could almost imagine the honk of horns, the constant reminder of people outside the window walking, talking, laughing, fighting, making up, and making out in the street below.
The apartment was out of New York, with an eclectic mix of objects and people: the mini kitchen, the beaded lamps, windows large with generous, rich drapes and books piled high in every nook and cranny. It was all so familiar yet not, like the chocolate stout I'd never had before and the friendly, welcoming faces I've never met.
Yet the quiet was there, the peace that never existed in the city. I still marvel at the sounds I would have been deaf to 15 months ago, like the droning fridge, the dancing click of laptop keys, the steady breath of Fred, barefoot, bespectacled, trim, William Powell–esque mustache, intent over his writing tablet. I noticed that everyone is barefoot except me, and I wondered if I should have asked if I should remove my boots.
At the end of April and the beginning of May of this year, both the Vermont House and the Vermont Senate unanimously passed a bill that will change the way credit card companies interact with merchants in this state. U.S. Representative Peter Welch (D-Vt.) has introduced legislation in Washington...
Increased carbon dioxide plus increased solar energy equals global warming. Right? Wrong! There is something quite surreal about the current claims being tossed about by warmists - those true believers who shriek that we are in the final throes of cataclysmic, species-ending, man-made global warming. And they persist in...
Music will fill the air at the four-day Roots on the River Festival, coming up on its 11th year this weekend in Bellows Falls. And money will flow. About 1,600 people attend one or all of the weekend's events. This means that about 1,600 people will do one or more of the following: buy tickets, buy CDs, rent hotel rooms, buy food and drink, fill their gas tanks and shop. Some people travel long distances to attend the festival. “For...
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...
Torben Larsen pulls off his work gloves. A sharp line of copper-colored dirt marks where the glove ended like a sandy tan line. He's covered in dirt and sweat like his four fellow wall builders, all working to beat the 7½-hour time limit for their dry stone wall certification test. The dry stone walls that snake through New England's woods and fields can stand strong for 150 years when built correctly. But because many dry stone walls are failing, architects...
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...
Athens • Flag Day community market and yard sale: On Saturday, June 12, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Athens Brick Meeting House Common will serve as the site of the second annual Flag Day community market and yard sale, organized by the Athens Brick Meeting House Committee in an effort to raise the both the funds and the awareness needed to help preserve the meeting house. In addition to yard sale items, visitors will find a variety of...
Well, folks, state tournament action got under way last week with several of our local high school teams in action. So let's get to it! In Brattleboro on June 1, the No. 4 Colonels hosted No. 13 Burlington in the opening round of the Division I baseball tournament on June 2, with the Colonels posting an impressive 7-0 win over the Seahorses at Tenney Field. Despite leaving 13 runners on base, Brattleboro managed enough timely hits and rode the great...
I am sorry to report that as a result of the March 2010 Town Meeting vote on the proposed fiscal year 2011 budget, the library has been required to reduce its personnel line item by $16,000. What this means is a reduction in staff hours and therefore a reduction in the number of hours open each week - from 56 to 50. There will be hours reductions on two days: Thursday, 1 to 6 p.m. (formerly, 10 a.m. to 6...
Vermont is named and known for its green. But shamefully, our “green stamp of approval” is less obvious. At the end of legislative session, Vermont granted Hydro-Québec, a massive foreign enterprise, a “renewable energy” status. This provision was attached to an otherwise good renewable energy bill, which began in the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee around late January. After hearing of this proposal in mid-April, I immediately began to contact some of Quebec's Cree and non-Cree that live in...
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...
It is sad to watch any institution be forced into selling off its most valuable possessions to stay afloat. But that is the position that Brattleboro's First Baptist Church found itself in, and that is why its famed Tiffany stained glass window of St. John the Divine was sold to anonymous buyer for $85,000 and will soon be placed in the Halim Time and Glass Museum in Evanston, Ill. While it is good that the century-old Tiffany window will be...
On June 2, 28 fourth- through sixth-graders of Oak Grove School had a unique field trip. They, along with 20 older volunteers, toured three schools in one afternoon with a stop at the River Garden in Brattleboro for their final performance. The multi-generational group of 47 sang two sea chanties, a 15th-century spring carol, a square-dance to “Smoke on the Water” (not the classic Deep Purple song) and the Beatles' “With A Little Help From My Friends.” This group is...
Obituaries Editor's note: The Commons will publish brief biographical information for citizens of Windham County and others, on request, as community news, free of charge. Traditional full obituaries will eventually be published as news on www.commonsnews.org as we receive them. As community support for the newspaper increases, we will surely reconsider publishing more traditionally complete obituaries in the print newspaper. • Marsha L. Bond, 63, of Brattleboro. Died June 1 at Pine Heights in Brattleboro. Sister of Linda Bond Woods.
While some towns around Vermont are dealing with a shortage of paint for redoing crosswalks and road markings, local highway departments say they have enough to take care of their needs. “There's no paint shortage here,” said Larry White, crew chief of the Rockingham Highway Department. White had not heard anything about a paint shortage either. “I'm standing here looking at a pallet full of paint for the year,” he said, adding that his department won't be cutting back on...
The Wednesday Farmer's Market has moved back uptown, at least for this season. With the planned start of construction later this summer of the new Brattleboro Food Co-op building, the Wednesday market was forced to leave its home of the past couple of summers on the Whetstone Pathway. It is now back at the place where it began, outside the Gibson-Aiken Center on Main Street. The market will be held every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through Oct.
One year ago I asked the Brattleboro Selectboard to reexamine our town's policies regarding dogs in town. Twice, after dogs were found locked in cars on Main Street on hot days, the town animal control officer (ACO) chose to sit and wait by the cars for the owners to return, rather than immediately release these dogs, one of which was a puppy. These incidents are recounted in a letter I sent to the Selectboard in July of last year. Because I cannot...
Fred Eaglesmith's cult status has never been more threatened. Bellows Falls' Roots on the River Festival, now going into its 11th year this weekend, June 10-13, was built for and around Eaglesmith, the Canadian singer, songwriter, rocker, humorist, poet of the rural life and all-around entertainer. Through venue changes, heatstroke, clouds, rain and mud, the festival's one constant has always been change. “It's been going a long time and it's changed and changed and changed,” Eaglesmith said. “Didn't it start...
The Selectboard approved the Listers' request for a 30-day extension to file the reappraisal Grand List Abstract with the state. Under the new timeline, the Selectboard will set the tax rate early to mid August. Residents will also receive their tax bills early to mid August. Town Appraiser Al Jerard said the reason for the extension was to allow enough time for grievance hearings, which increase during reappraisal years. Over 800 grievances were filed in the previous reappraisal year 2005.
Members of the public have voiced concerns regarding the Selectboard's perceived lack of public hearings regarding new mast arm traffic signals slated for downtown. This summer, the Vermont Agency of Transportation plans to repave Route 5 from Fairground Road in Brattleboro to Putney including replacing the current pedestal traffic signals on Main Street with mast arm lights. On mast arm traffic lights, the signal lights hang from a long boom stretched across the street. There are also plans to install...
Apparent enthusiasm, good food and better-than-ever produce plus some brilliant Chinese food made by two Chinese sisters,opened the third season of the Thursday Townshend Farmer's Market last week. The market, which will be held Thursdays on the Common from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m., featured 15 booths offering wares like heady bunches of bright green cilantro grown by Cory Walker of Guerilla Grown Produce in Westminster, sturdy heirloom tomatoes grown in the almost black dirt of Kindle Farm School in Newfane...
In a letter in the Reformer, Mark S. Whitaker asks what's wrong with the status quo for land use in Dummerston. He urges townspeople to attend a public hearing with town officials on June 9 and speak against a proposed town plan that would protect open space. Whitaker seems unaware that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the right of towns to use zoning to save their farm- and forest-land. The number of houses in Dummerston more than doubled between...
We have five good Democratic candidates for governor, all with experience in state government and similar positions on major issues. Each would make a far better governor than Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, and the winner will receive my enthusiastic support. But since we get to choose, let me make the case for Sen. Peter Shumlin. I've been in many political fights with Peter, sometimes on the same side, sometimes not. I have a profound respect for his political abilities.
I have read Jan Ameen's letter [The Commons, June 2] about the Special Town Meeting to consider pay-as-you-throw trash disposal in Westminster, and I must respond to its startling tone and clarify who voted that night. As an intelligent, hard working, thoughtful resident of Westminster for nearly 30 years who voted against PAYT at the special town meeting, I object to being categorized as “limited,” “self-limiting,” “the worst of a town resident” and “uninformed.” And having attended the same town...
“The first thing people need to know about PACE is that it's not PAYT,” said Peter Falion of the Brattleboro Town Energy Committee. PACE, Property Assessed Clean Energy, is an opt-in program enabling commercial and residential property owners to pay for energy improvements through property taxes. In Vermont, five towns have voted in PACE and 30 more are considering the program. “This is a completely optional program. It won't raise anyone's taxes,” said Paul Cameron, town energy coordinator and director...
A discussion of the problems and solutions to the violence, drugs and intimidation taking place on Elliot Street came up before the Selectboard last week. “It has really become an unsafe, violent place in our community. That needs to stop,” said Selectboard Chair Dick DeGray. The discussion quickly turned emotional as Selectboard members, business owners and residents weighed in. Many business owners and residents shared stories of intimidation and verbal assault. One local woman said she has been repeatedly accosted...