As a member of Representative Town Meeting, as a Selectboard Meeting attendee, and as a Brattleboro community member, I have witnessed Daniel Quipp act as a thoughtful and measured leader on the board over the past two years. I respect the way that Daniel carefully considers each issue that comes before the board and seeks input from a wide variety of people in town before making a decision.
Throughout COVID, I have seen him make decisions to help keep our community as safe as possible. He has been ahead of state- and national-level curves on a number of important pandemic issues. Daniel was an early and strong supporter of our town's mask order in the middle of May, which was shortly after stores were allowed to reopen. Gov. Scott didn't implement a statewide mandate until August.
Daniel was also an early advocate for a moratorium on water/sewer disconnections, protecting residents who have been financially affected by the pandemic. Additionally, he voted to approve freezing Small Business Loan repayments, helping protect our local business community during this same time.
The Selectboard has had a number of other equity-related issues come before them this year, including what became the Community Safety Review and a rental housing ordinance, limiting how much landlords can ask for from renters when moving into a new home. Daniel supported both of these initiatives.
College news • Mackenzie Boyle of Jamaica graduated from the University of New Hampshire in December 2020 with a BSENSC degree in Environmental Science: Geosystems. • Mary M. Ellis of Vernon was named to the Dean's List for the fall 2020 semester at the University of Alabama. • Gabrielle...
Soon it will be Tuesday, March 2: Prepare to vote in the Town Meeting Day and Windham Southeast School District elections. • First, register to vote or make sure you are registered. You can do that online by using the online voter registration page at olvr.vermont.gov and request your...
DVFiber, a communications union district (CUD) consisting of 20 towns in southern Vermont, seeks to build a fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network to more than 10,000 unserved and underserved households and businesses. DVFiber recently released a request for proposal (RFP) in search of private sector partners to develop a public/private partnership agreement. “Like our partner CUDs across the state, we are laser-focused on securing affordable, equitable high-speed internet for our communities,” DVFiber board Chair Ann Manwaring said in a news release. “The...
This past year has presented enormous challenges for southern Vermont, but it also offered unique opportunities for ordinary people to support their communities in crucial ways. Community members are being asked to identify extraordinary individuals by nominating young professionals from the Windham Region (encompassing Windham County and the towns of Readsboro, Searsburg, Winhall, and Weston) or Bennington County to be honored as one of this year's Emerging Leaders of Southern Vermont. The annual recognition - cosponsored by the Southern Vermont...
Brattleboro, WSESD absentee ballots available BRATTLEBORO - Absentee ballots for the Brattleboro Annual Town Meeting and Windham Southeast School District vote, to be held Tuesday, March 2, are now available. Due to the pandemic, the doors to the Municipal Center are locked to the public, and no in-person early voting takes place this year. Absentee ballots for these two elections must be requested. Anyone wishing to vote absentee may apply for a ballot until 5 p.m. on Monday, March 1,
I attended the Guilford Selectboard meeting on Jan. 25 and was disheartened by two articles being proposed for the warning for Town Meeting. In essence, these articles propose dissolving the newly formed Windham Southeast School District. The decision to put these articles on the warnings of every town in the district left me with many questions. Why this sudden rush to throw out a model that has only recently been adopted? The new district has only been in existence for...
Vermont Matched Savings, a matched savings account program from Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA), has immediate openings for eligible community members. This program offers participants an opportunity to receive a match of $1 for every $1 saved, all the while learning about money management. Matched savings accounts are savings accounts that help low- and moderate-income individuals and families reach a savings goal. You deposit up to $1,000 that you have earned through work or self-employment into your account, and state...
The Rockingham Historic Preservation Commission has been awarded two 2021 Certified Local Government Grants totalling $19,750. This funding, from the Vermont Advisory Council on Historic Preservation was awarded at their meeting on Jan. 21. It will support commission programming and an analysis of the painted finishes at the Rockingham Meeting House to help conserve interior and exterior woodwork of this National Historic Landmark. Eight applications requesting $94,200 in grant funding were submitted, and $73,750 was awarded. Applications for two projects...
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) will present an online panel of internationally known artists whose work focuses on ocean pollution on Thursday, Feb. 18, at 7 p.m. Moderator and artist Andy Yoder will lead Alejandro Durán, Pam Longobardi, and Aurora Robson in a discussion of their work and the ways they draw inspiration from the crisis happening in our oceans, particularly around plastic trash. Durán collects trash on the Caribbean coast of Mexico and transforms it through “Washed...
Brattleboro Coalition for Active Transportation (BCAT) was one of six organizations and individuals honored by the Vermont Sierra Club during its annual Transit Day Conversation and Awards event, held in Montpelier on Feb. 4. The club collected nominations for community members, leaders, and organizations contributing toward a clean and equitable transit system in their communities. “Vermont is made stronger and more connected by the efforts of people like these in communities across the state,” the club said in a news...
The Governor's Institutes of Vermont (GIV) is looking for passionate and motivated high school students from all across the state. Applications have just opened up for GIV's fun and intensive summer 2021 online Immersion programs in arts, engineering, entrepreneurship, environmental science and technology, global issues and youth action, health and medicine, mathematical sciences, and technology and design. GIV says its summer Immersions “are designed to be much more than an online course, or a lecture series where students watch talking...
The Windham County Democratic Committee is looking for donations to its reverse rummage sale to support families in the Community Asylum Seekers Project who are living in the area while they await asylum hearings. The WCDC has set up a website with opportunities to help, including an appeal for a volunteer with a pickup truck to gather and deliver the donated items the weekend of Feb. 20 and 21 as well as a Spanish interpreter. Other household items are on...
Due to the pandemic, voting for town offices looks to be particularly challenging this year. In Rockingham, we are blessed with a plethora of candidates for Selectboard. In my opinion, three particularly stand out: Bonnie North for the three-year position and Rick Cowan and Elijah Zimmer for the two one-year positions. All three bring to the table a love for Rockingham's heritage and a belief in its future, combining a desire to preserve the best elements of our past with...
Vermont Department for Children and Families Commissioner Sean Brown testified before the House Human Services and Education Committees on Friday, Jan. 29 about the proposal from Gov. Phil Scott's administration to move child development activities from one division to other departments and agencies based on the areas of expertise. Brown called this the beginning of a conversation and a process for engagement of key stakeholders to get input. It was clear that the input would be about how to accomplish...
Our opportunity to participate in the Democratic process by voting for town Selectboard candidates is fast approaching. Three candidates for the Rockingham Selectboard seats have the energy and drive to fill these seats. These candidates have an understanding of the history and the present, and they have a vision for our town's future. I urge you to vote for Bonnie North (three year term), Rick Cowan (one-year term), and Elijah Zimmer (one-year term), on Tuesday, March 2, or by absentee...
The Crowell Gallery at Moore Free Library, 23 West St., is extending the exhibit of Newfane artist C. Peter Erickson, “On the Way By: Painting En Passant” through February, allowing additional opportunities to see an unusual exhibit that combines a unique airbrush technique with popular images. In his artist statement, Erickson says he applies en passant, the original French chess definition of “passing through” to his art, “establishing the world's impermanence, its placement neither here nor there, but somewhere along...
Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire (VNH) and Rescue Inc. have begun providing homebound patients over age 75 their COVID-19 vaccine where they are most comfortable and safest - at home. With the scarcity of workforce in rural areas, Hilary Davis, VNH director of external relations, said in a news release that community health providers “need to be creative and work together. This is just one of many success stories to come.” According to the Vermont Department...
After weeks of uncertainty due to COVID-19 restrictions, Vermont's high school basketball players were able to take the court on Feb. 12. Like everything the pandemic has touched over the past 11 months, things looked a little different. There were no spectators in the stands, aside from media members and school support staff. Players and officials wore face masks. Instead of sitting together on a bench, players were spread out in the stands and physical contact was kept to a...
I am running for Selectboard because I deeply believe that local government and citizen involvement in local government is the key to improving all of our lives. A little about me: I grew up in Henniker, N.H, graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in classical and near eastern archaeology and a minor in ancient Greek, and have until recently spent the majority of my working career in IT. These diverse interests have taught me how to navigate the...
Town meetings and elections are coming up in Vermont. This presents a mess of unusual challenges during these restricted times. The pandemic has severely wounded our local economies and made everyday life more difficult for everyone. Yet, a crisis of this magnitude can also open doorways to changes that could revitalize our communities in ways perhaps not envisioned before. Now it is probably more important than ever to pay attention, become engaged in local issues - and, most importantly, to...
I am pleased that Danny Taylor is running for the Athens Selectboard and road commissioner, and recommend that my neighbors and fellow Athenians join me in voting for him at Town Meeting. What particularly recommends Danny's candidacy to me is his honesty and personal integrity. On the basis of my own experience, I have found him to be a person I can trust. Danny doesn't lie when he talks with me. He is honest. I can take him at his...
The Spring 2021 Landmark College Academic Speaker Series opens with a free online talk by author Sejal Shah on Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. Shah will read from her 2020 memoir This Is One Way to Dance (University of Georgia Press) and share her experience “moving through place and time, reflecting on identity, race, and the challenges of finding voice as a woman of color in America,” according to publicity from the college. She also brings the perspective of...
I'm writing to share why I'm running for Selectboard and road commissioner in Athens. First, I'd like to share a little about myself. I'm a lifelong resident of Athens. My roots here run deep: I live on a road with five generations of my extended family, and both my father and grandfather worked for the town road crew. I raised my family here, and now my son and his family live next door. One of the primary reasons I want...
We, the undersigned teachers and staff of Dummerston School, have met to discuss the ballot question about whether to withdraw from the merged school district. Many of us were surprised to learn that this very important question was added to the ballot on Jan. 20 by the Selectboard. A question with such complex ramifications certainly deserves very thoughtful consideration by all and extensive education for the electorate. We collectively encourage voters to vote no to Article 14 for the following...
The Senate Republicans have certainly taught former President Trump a lesson, but will our democracy survive it? The nation knows he is guilty. And now his guilt is their guilt. They are like the white juries in the South who acquitted lynchers, murderers, and Klansmen for a century and more. White supremacists defending their own. And though Trump did not, as he bragged he could, “shoot somebody on 5th Avenue” and not lose a vote, he did get a police...
We endorse Rick Cowan, Bonnie North, and Elijah Zimmer, who are running for the Rockingham Selectboard on Tuesday, March 2. Last July we said we would be reminding voters regarding the four Selectboard members who voted in favor of having Main Street Arts remove the set and technical equipment brought into the Bellows Falls Opera House for its postponed production of Cabaret. We were both involved in the production, and we remember very well how shortsighted and unfair this decision...
March 15 marks the one-year anniversary of St. Michael's Episcopal Church's time of separation, as well as deep and previously unthinkable changes in our lives, due the COVID-19 pandemic. The church's online Lenten series this year, “Voices from the Wilderness: Reflections on a Year of Disruption,” will reflect on this time and all the changes it has wrought. All are welcome to join in all or any part of the six evening events, which will be held on Tuesdays, from...
The Arts Council of Windham County (ACWC) has announced the first round of grantees for this year's Brattleboro Town Arts Fund (TAF) program. Eight community-focused creative initiatives were selected from a competitive field of proposals received in this second year of the TAF program. According to a news release, the program “promotes the development and presentation of creative projects that contribute positively to the greater community and to the vibrancy and diversity of Brattleboro's arts and cultural landscape.” This year,
I was surprised and confused when I read the about the push to break up the Windham Southeast School District. Since then, I have spent hours attending meetings and researching this proposal in an attempt to understand its implications. It turns out that there are many unanswered questions and potentially concerning outcomes. And yet, voters in Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, and Putney must decide to approve or oppose these articles on the Tuesday, March 2 Town Meeting ballot. I urge you...
Mainly Music Productions recently announced that Stephan Brandstatter, a local musician, composer, and percussionist, was awarded second place in the open age group (for entrants ages 12 and older) in Creative for Justice, a contest sponsored by the New England Arab American Organization (NEAAO). Selected from multiple dozens of entries, his composition “Sounds of Peace,” performed on pitched brass bowls, was called “soothingly peaceful” by the contest judges. It will be included on his debut CD to be released later...
Now that the second Trump impeachment trial has ended in acquittal, it is clear that the Republican party has put the final nail in the coffin of democracy. The Democrats share a lot of the blame, but it is the Republicans who have made it clear that the pursuit of truth is no longer a guiding principle of the American form of government and that justice is an ideal that is not attainable. Politics has always been a dirty business,
The online music website All About Jazz calls drummer Jonathan Barber “wise beyond his years” and writes that he “carries and commits to the very notion of a legacy holder in his every gesture.” On Barber's newest recording, Legacy Holder, he pays tribute to the great drummers who have come before him, especially Tony Williams. But his voice is fresh and informed by the new trends laid out by a new generation of trendsetters like Makaya McCraven, Mark Guiliana, and...
The Brattleboro Women's Chorus welcomes new members to help celebrate the group's 25th anniversary year by singing weekly via Zoom. Gatherings will take place on Thursdays via Zoom this spring, starting March 4, from either 10 to 11:30 a.m. or 7 to 8:30 p.m. Rehearsals culminate in the Zoom Singalong performance on Mother's Day, Sunday, May 9. The chosen music is an eclectic mix from around the world that organizers describe as “spirited, uplifting, and designed for online learning.” Recordings...
In Vermont, Town Meeting is the occasion where the audience becomes legislators. However, the tradition of people exercising their responsibilities as local lawmakers looks different this year due to the necessary public health measures that towns are taking in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of in-person gatherings, approximately three-quarters of Vermont's towns have opted to conduct business on Tuesday, March 2, using Australian ballots, a temporary measure enacted into law in response to the pandemic. In Windham County, only...
When was the last time you danced at the Stone Church to musicians performing live music? What movie did you last watch in the Latchis main theater? What story was most recently told during Fables Storytelling on the first floor of Next Stage Arts? How long since your children sat in a circle for story hour at their local library? Like a sad game of Mad Libs, the phrase “before the pandemic” could fit most responses. The COVID-19 pandemic has...
Health Care and Rehabilitation Services (HCRS), southeastern Vermont's non-profit community mental-health agency, announced that Jedediah Popp has been hired as the new project co-director for the Windham County Consortium on Substance Use (COSU). According to a news release, Popp will join Rosie Nevins-Alderfer, who has been director of the consortium for the past year, as co-director. COSU is a countywide collaboration of local organizations that work across the continuum of substance use prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery to address...
(1)Many school systems in the United States begin their instruction of what is called the modern civil rights movement with the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954. A few will go back as far as the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case in order to establish an identity and setting for the modern civil rights movement. Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but...
COVID-19 forced the Harris Hill Ski Jump to cancel its annual February competition, but it hasn't stopped Vermont's sole Olympic-size venue from leaping forward and launching its centennial celebration for 2022. “There aren't many traditions in sports that go back 100 years,” Peter Graves, an East Thetford resident and 11-time Winter Games broadcaster, said in announcing a Harris Hill Story Project to gather competitor and crowd memories. “Historically, this is one of the oldest tournaments in the world.” It all...
On March 11, 10 years will have passed since the terrible tsunami and meltdowns of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi complex in Japan. The catastrophe is far from over. In fact, most of the impossible problems the world faced on the day of the event have yet to be solved. The reality is that the radiation continues to be at too high a level for decontamination experts to clean up. There are several notable areas of concern. • The...