As the Vermont Senate takes up debate on the health care reform bill, questions such as “How will we fund it?” and “What about...?” in all its permutations aren't going away.
An audience peppered the special assistant to the governor for health reform, a health insurance executive, a health care provider, and a former resident of Sweden with questions Monday night at the Brattleboro Retreat.
Richard Davis, a health care reform advocate from Guilford, organized “Health Care Reform in Vermont: What's Happening? A Broad Perspective” at the suggestion of Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, and Rep. Michael Mrowicki, D-Putney.
White told the more than 30 people gathered in the Retreat's Educational Conference Center that she sees the process of implementing health care reform in Vermont as analogous to the process of building a house.
I grew up on Marlboro Avenue in the late 1950s and 1960s. Donna Borofsky was my piano teacher. Her husband Pal owned Sam's Army and Navy, and her two sons, Scot and Brad, were about my age. We all attended school together, first at Oak Grove Elementary and later...
The Great Falls Food Hub (GFFH) recently received a $25,000 grant from the John Merck Fund that will further help it to advance its mission of developing a regional food center and distribution system. The John Merck Fund has been a supporter of other regional food system projects in...
It's 8 a.m. on the first day of the eye clinic. A line of people weaves along the side of El Cruz Rojo, the rustic Red Cross building that serves as a temporary home base for the eye care clinic in El Mochito, Honduras. Inside, Dr. Lynde Kimball, an optometrist from Brattleboro, and his wife, Connie Kimball, bustle about in preparation. The Kimballs, who spearhead the clinic, pop open wooden crates, revealing glasses of all shapes and sizes, categorized according...
The Brattleboro Area Jewish Community (BAJC), 151 Greenleaf St., has scheduled several events in association with the season of Passover, which begins on Monday evening, April 18, and ends Tuesday evening, April 26. • Teaching Seder for interfaith middle-school-aged children at BAJC. Friday, April 15, 6 p.m. The seder will be led primarily by BAJC Hebrew school students, with assistance from Rabbi Heyn. Members of several local churches will be sending their middle-school-aged children to learn from our students about...
For many Americans, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s place in U.S. history begins and ends with his famous and oft-quoted “I Have a Dream” speech, which he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 1963. But in the final five years of King's life, his activism shifted from civil rights to economic justice. It was no coincidence that his last public act before he was gunned down on April 4, 1968 was to rally...
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. • Robert Clayton Anderson, 67, of Bonita Springs, Fla., and Northfield, Mass. Died March 28 at his Florida home. Husband of Mary A. McCollum) Anderson for 42 years. Father of Victoria B. Anderson of Brattleboro; Troy M. (Tina) Anderson of Ft. Myers, Fla.; and Clayton R. Anderson of Bonita Springs, Fla. Brother of Byron Anderson,
The 2009 spelling champ team “To Bee or Not to Bee” won the top prize at the third annual Spell Check! A Spelling Bee for Grown-Ups, held on Saturday on the main stage of the Latchis Theatre. More than 200 people watched “To Bee or Not to Bee,” a team from the New England Youth Theatre composed of Rick Barron, Jerry Stockman, and Lisa Cox, defeat 14 other teams to win not only bragging rights but also the opportunity to...
In the March 16 edition, an article about the informational meeting prior to the Brattleboro Town Meeting reported that “District 2 representative Mary Cain spoke out against the [Town Human Services Review] committee's decision not to fund organizations supporting the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community in southern Vermont.... She said that the lack of funding effectively said to the estimated 1,500 Deaf and hard-of-hearing community members in the area that, 'we're not agreeing to help these people be independent and to...
Last November, Caleb Clark and Laura Goldblatt got married and bought a home in a quiet neighborhood about a half-mile from downtown. Their home was built in 1905 and, like many homes of its type and age in town, it has a small, two-car garage built in the rear of the property. But where most people would see a two-car garage, Clark and Goldblatt see a real estate opportunity. Working with Brattleboro architect Robert Swinburne, the couple plans to tear...
The students of Twin Valley Middle and High Schools in Wilmington have become a force to be reckoned with when it comes to cooking. On March 26, for the fourth year in a row, cooking teams from the school went to the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction to participate in the Jr. Iron Chef Vermont competition, and the Twin Valley middle school and high school teams both came away with Best in Show titles. Hakuna Matata, one of three...
Yes, being next door to “tax-free” New Hampshire affects Brattleboro's economy. “But it's not destiny,” said Stuart T. Arnett, an economic developer with Arnett Development Group, LLC, of Concord, N.H. As part of Brattleboro Town Plan 2011, the town plan revision process, the planning department hired consultants Roger C. Hawk, of Hawk Planning Resources, LLC, of Concord, N.H., and Arnett to facilitate and make suggestions for the integration of Brattleboro's three neighborhood plans. Hawks and Arnett attended an open forum...
From your editorial about hunger in Vermont [March 30], it's clear that many people in Vermont and here in Windham County have a difficult time providing food for their families. There are government programs and local nonprofits trying to help bridge this gap. The Boys & Girls Club of Brattleboro has been providing free dinners to area youth for over four years. Initially, our staff saw club members eating large amounts of after-school snacks and stuffing snacks in their pockets...
Creativity is not a tourist site. We live in a place that prides itself on being an “art town.” We sell that image to newspapers and magazines in the hope that it will drive the tourist trade our way. And it seems to be working. But being an art town can't just be a shallow marketing ploy. There are consequences. It means that we are lucky to live among highly intelligent, sensitive, eccentric people who are marching to the beats...
Robert Allen of Dorset, who for many years was the president and chief executive officer of the Vermont Country Store, will be the new interim president and CEO of the Windham Foundation. Allen will start in early May and will succeed John Bramley, the current foundation CEO and president since December 2007. Bramley is set to retire in late May. The selection of Allen came after a two-month search for a Vermont chief executive with high-end retail experience to continue...
I am now intimately acquainted with the phrase “March madness.” This familiarity comes not from watching basketball, but from watching weather. Those many inches of white and fluffy snow that fell in late February are now unsightly piles in my yard, dirty and hard as a rock from freezing rain - the side dishes of winter, as my friend Verandah calls them. More snow, sleet, and rain are forecast for tomorrow. March is like having the flu. You know you...
Members of the Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategy (SeVEDS) committee's Windham County Economy Post-VY (WCEPV) subcommittee tentatively agreed with Vermont Yankee opponents on ways to collaborate during the subcommittee's inaugural meeting last Thursday. The truce came in conjunction with an economic planning project to present to the Legislature for funding approval. The WCEPV subcommittee is asking for a planning grant totaling $3.175 million over 10 years. According to the proposed project plan, the money would provide technical assistance, staff support,
Music • BMC presents Lydian String Quartet: On Saturday, April 9, at 7:30 p.m., the Lydian String Quarter will present “Encore! Encore!” at Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro as part of the Brattleboro Music Center's Chamber Music Series. “Encore! Encore!” was created to showcase works written by composers who enjoyed success early in their careers but who were compelled to stay connected to their inner muse, to reinvent themselves as they grew older - who came back, yet again, to...
Windham and Bennington County residents spoke out on March 26 about what they saw as barriers for southern Vermont women, and the Vermont Commission on Women (VCW) listened. The VCW, a state agency working to help women achieve legal, social, economic, and political equality, approached the Women's Film Festival coordinators to host the listening forum as part of the festival. The event at the New England Youth Theatre was the first listening forum held in the southern portion of Vermont...
Ever since I launched a website, I've become the daily recipient of a certain kind of e-mail spam that I find somewhat charming. The subject line usually reads, “Dear Beloved,” and the e-mail itself begins, with great politeness, “I will be very glad if you do assist me.” The writers then go on to tell me who they are and how they come to be in possession of millions of dollars, euros, or gold which they need my help to...
How does a local business compete with the big box stores? For Jeremy Haskins, store manager of J & H Hardware in Bellows Falls, the answer is simple: Take the things that the big box stores do well, and customize them for the needs of a small town. Haskins, 30, has worked in the retail industry since his first job as a Hinsdale High School student at Walmart. By the time he graduated from Lyndon State College, he was an...