Chroma Technology Corporation has completed a $4 million capital program after a $22 million major facility expansion in 2018.
The company said in a news release that it has continued to make significant equipment purchases to expand capacity as well as support new technical capabilities.
Chroma “has enhanced its substrate cleaning operations, increased optical coating capacity, and made major capacity improvements in its final product configuring operations,” the company said.
The company has also added advanced metrology equipment to support development work and the increasing technical demands of its customers.
The Vermont Theatre Company announces auditions for its first post-pandemic live production, Songs of Summer, a musical cabaret featuring songs of Broadway and beyond, to be performed in August in the area. The VTC is looking for five or six singers to perform solo numbers, or duets, as well...
With last year's passage of Act 164, cities and towns across the state will be deciding if they want to opt in to allowing recreational cannabis sales. The complex and dense bill still has a long road ahead before we have a clear vision of what recreational sales will...
The Village of Saxtons River will hold its annual meeting Monday, April 12, at 7 p.m., via Zoom. The voters will be asked to elect four trustees whose terms expire this year. Current trustees Amy Howlett, who holds a one-year term, and Matthew Brennan, who holds a two-year term, are seeking re-election. Trustees Louise Luring and Benjamin Wallace, holding two- and one-year terms respectively, are not seeking re-election. Other one-year positions up for election are moderator, village clerk, treasurer, tax...
Transitions • Sarah Day has joined Berkley & Veller Greenwood Country Realtors of Brattleboro as a licensed Vermont Realtor. Day comes from a long career in sales and customer service. Her most recent job was with New Chapter, a division of Proctor & Gamble, handling international business development projects in Europe, the Middle East, and in Asia. Obituaries • Karl Decker, 88, of Monroe, Conn., and Townshend. Died March 18, 2021 at his home in Monroe. Karl was a teacher,
Rock Against Racism VT - a group of artists and musicians working together to fight discrimination and promote diversity in southern Vermont - will hold its first live event on Sunday, April 18, at 4 p.m. Join the group's members at the Third Eye Collective in Brattleboro for music by Portland, Maine–based Eniam, speakers, and art demonstrations. The event takes place in the lot next to 80 Flat St. (the C.F. Church building). Organizers describe it as “an opportunity to...
Brattleboro can now take pride in having seven sister communities (well beyond that of any comparable town in New England). These include two Native American communities plus towns in El Salvador, Haiti, Kenya, and India - and a town with similar compassionate interests in New York state. Read on to see how we, together as a community, can do something remarkable. There will soon be a signboard in downtown Brattleboro pointing to these sister communities, plus classroom interactions across these...
Attorney General T.J. Donovan, the Association of Africans Living in Vermont (AALV), Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, and the Vermont Institute of Community and International Involvement (VICII) have teamed up to create what they call “The People's Law School” - a series of free, virtual presentations on contemporary topics affecting the lives of Vermonters. The free series, which begins on Wednesday, April 7, will provide practical information about a range of topics, including the Fourth Amendment, representing yourself in small claims...
SOLOs Episode 7: Originals - a video montage of monologues and song by six area performers filmed by Brattleboro Community Television - premieres simultaneously on BCTV and on YouTube Friday, April 9, at 7:30 p.m. The free opening is capped with an online session at 8:15 p.m., where audience members can chat with cast, directors, producers, and technical staff. Each episode of SOLOs is a co-production of the Rock River Players (RRP) and the Hooker-Dunham Theater (H-D), filmed on the...
April means the start of work getting your garden into shape for planting, and good garden soil begins with good compost. The Rockingham Free Public Library presents Master Gardener Ham Gillett in a free composting question-and-answer session on Thursday, April 15, at 7 p.m. If you have backyard compost questions, send them along to the RFPL at programming@rockinghamlibrary.org or call 802-463-4270. Receiving questions beforehand allows Gillett to crowdsource everyone's queries for the benefit of many in an efficient, informative manner.
Senior Center set to reopen on April 12 BRATTLEBORO - The Recreation & Parks Department will reopen the Brattleboro Senior Center on Monday, April 12. Patrons will be able to enter only through the back door of the Gibson-Aiken Center. (This is the door that connects to the parking lot behind the building.) Doing so will help ensure that safety procedures are followed correctly. Assistant Director Sarah Clark or a trained volunteer will be at a table near the back...
Brattleboro Area Hospice has launched a new initiative that doubles your impact and helps your neighbors in need. According to a news release, the impetus for the newly created Neighbor 2 Neighbor Fund grew from a conversation between local residents Connie Baxter and Greg Moschetti. They were considering where to donate their federal COVID-19 relief checks. “Greg, being on the board for Groundworks Collaborative knew there was a need by Groundworks clients for gift cards at Experienced Goods Thrift Store,”
It's spring, and I decided to spring for a new pair of Birkenstocks. I knew I wanted to buy local from the Shoe Tree, but I just couldn't resist going online to see what the cost difference might be. What a surprise! Most of the listings for the style I wanted, including on Amazon, were about $125, plus shipping. (I don't have Prime.) Then I went downtown, and the Shoe Tree had the exact style and size I was looking...
Next Stage Arts Project presents 2020 Sundog Poetry Book Award winner Lucas Farrell as part of its Next Stage Speaks literary series on Thursday, April 8, at 7 p.m. Hosted by former Vermont Poet Laureate Chard deNiord, of Westminster West, this free Zoom event celebrates the April 6 launch of Farrell's award-winning book of poems, The Blue-Collar Sun, published by the Sundog Poetry Center in the Lamoille County town of Johnson, in partnership with Green Writers Press of Brattleboro. Farrell...
The Atrium Hallway Gallery in the Brooks House, 130 Main St., has a fresh new look for spring, with an exhibit spotlighting the artwork of four members of Brattleboro-West Arts. Titled “New Passage,” the ongoing show's latest offerings demonstrate the diverse talents of BWA members, from Kay Curtis's Swing Dance series of drypoint monoprints to Bobbi Angell's botanicals to Sharon Myers' prints using lingerie to Lesley Heathcote's animal and bird pastels. The exhibit is at the invitation of fellow Brattleboro-West...
Brattleboro Community TV recently received five awards from the Alliance for Community Media - Northeast Region 2020 “Nor'easters” Video Awards contest for programming aired in 2019. BCTV received two of the awards on behalf of local organizations that created or submitted videos. “The videos awarded reflect the excellent quality and diversity of programming created by community members and staff and shared on BCTV's channels over the past year,” said BCTV Executive Director Cor Trowbridge in a news release. “We appreciate...
The sun shone bright and the wind blew chilly across the lawn of the West Brattleboro Station 2 as firefighters and family members gathered around Leonard Howard III and Charles W. Keir III. One after the other, the two men raised their right hands and repeated their oaths - as fire chief and assistant fire chief, respectively - to Town Clerk Hilary Francis. What Howard and Keir's brief swearing-in ceremony on March 29 lacked in fanfare, it more than made...
As state representatives, we share our support and concerns about Westminster's vote to withdraw from the town's forced merger with Athens and Grafton. Voters have voted, and in a democracy those votes are supposed to be counted and heeded. Residents are understandably concerned about the future of democracy in Vermont. Westminster, as well as Grafton and Athens, voted (in two different elections) that Westminster should be allowed to separate and operate its own elementary school. There were townwide votes that...
Saxtons River is a village of volunteers - from the fire department and FAST squad to the Fourth of July Committee. This spring, the Village Trustees are looking for new volunteers to join our local government, keeping Saxtons River clean, safe, and lively. Vote to elect the new positions at the Annual Meeting, Monday, April 12. Needed: two registered voters from the village to replace retiring trustees. The five-member board meets at 7 p.m. on the first and third Mondays...
Leading up to Brattleboro's March 20–21 Annual Representative Town Meeting (ARTM), the one issue I was cogitating most extensively about was the relationship between the body's Human Services budget and the Community Safety Review Team's report (CSRTR). The intersection of these two topics, however, did not fit squarely into any article on the warning, and so it never actually came up. I would, however, like to raise this publicly now in the hopes that it will generate a useful exchange...
After enduring four years of lies and divisive rhetoric that culminated in a violent assault on our democracy, we as a nation are facing the arduous task of healing and finding common ground while working for the common good and a return to decency. Members of the Brattleboro community recently gathered for Annual Representative Town Meeting to engage in the democratic tradition of cooperative decision-making and civil debate. That same day, a small group of outsiders whose views do not...
What concerns me about hate groups is how their hate seems to infect, or bring out the hate in, those who oppose them. That's depressing, because then hate wins. There's got to be a third way beyond the hatred of the bad guys and the hatred of the good guys.
In the first section of the March 17 issue, on page A5 next to a photo of State Sen. Becca Balint, I read about efforts to attract visitors and new residents to Brattleboro. The three articles on the front page of Section C are about (1) the opioid crisis, (2) people not feeling safe in Brattleboro, and (3) inequities in school funding. The dissonance struck me. If I were considering a move, or even a visit, to Brattleboro, the articles...
A walking path, a kayak launch, a public restroom, and an outdoor amphitheater: those are a few of the design features unveiled by the Hinsdale-Brattleboro Existing Bridges Subcommittee. The group is charged with defining what the Brattleboro and Hinsdale, N.H., communities want for Hinsdale Island (more universally know as “the Island”) and the walkway that will replace the current stretch of Route 119 after the new Hinsdale-Brattleboro bridge is completed. “Very early on in our work we set out some...
The ongoing challenges and sacrifices brought about by the coronavirus pandemic have tested each of us in ways that might not have been imaginable just a year ago. Yet during this unprecedented time, we have learned that adversity can inspire new approaches to solving our common problems. We are encouraged to say that such is the case with the relationship between union and management at the Brattleboro Retreat. To describe the Retreat's union/management relationship over the past few years as...
Spring is on the horizon! This time of year, Windham County residents slowly wave goodbye to chilly winter and welcome sunnier days. But along with sugaring, shrinking snow piles, and crocuses comes Vermont's most infamous interlude, mud season. A spin around local Facebook posts shows a variety of vehicles up to their gunwales in mud, gravel roads with ruts deep enough to swallow the family pet, and signs saying “road closed. local traffic only.” Is this year worse than previous...
Local athletes and their coaches and families can take a bow for how they got through an abbreviated winter high school sports season in Vermont. With the exception of one COVID-19 situation that cropped up at Leland & Gray just before the basketball playoffs, all our local schools got through the season unscathed by the pandemic. That is a big deal, especially in light of all the schools in northern Vermont that had to make early exits from the playoffs...
E. Jean Carroll is sticking to her story. She's the high-profile woman who is suing Donald Trump, alleging that he raped her in the 1990s in a posh New York department store dressing room. Twenty-five other women have also accused the former president of sexual abuse and harassment, and it's no surprise that he's denying all of the accusations. Now, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is in trouble. As of March, seven women have accused him of sexual harassment or...