On her recent visit to The Grammar School in Putney, a mother walked into the preschool classroom and found the children gathered around a table helping Lead Teacher Ken Brautigam perform a science experiment with baking soda, a bottle, and a rubber glove.
The students were in various outfits, some of them having migrated over from the dress-up corner, and they were all intent on what he was doing.
“The atmosphere was appropriately relaxed, which allowed the students to ask questions, and Ken was happy to repeat the experiment over and over so that students could see the glove inflate many times over,” said Apple Gifford, mother of one of the preschoolers.
“He fielded their questions with patience, and did not demand their attention, but rather earned it with his steady, calm approach to the activity.”...
Adams Hill Road “took a pretty good hit” in recent rains, particularly the lower section. That's according to Selectboard Vice-chairman Todd Lawley, delivering his road foreman report at the board meeting on Sept. 19. Lawley explained that crews had been working on the road since Sept. 14, and that...
Voters decided against reconsidering the village budget for fiscal year 2014 in a special meeting on Sept. 19. The meeting was necessary after a petition signed by 102 village voters asking for reconsideration of the budget forced another vote. However, voters last week again supported the budget they approved...
Well-provided public services are an essential feature of an attractive community. To gut essential services, such as fire and police, will only make this wonderful village a far less attractive place to live, and head it into decay. Some of those who propose doing so have family members who've been in trouble with the police. Perhaps they resent this and prefer the trouble of lawlessness for us all over the trouble of more police focus on their relatives' activities. Those...
The Selectboard is considering a transportation alternatives grant through the state transportation agency to combat the growing problem of Japanese knotweed. Selectboard member Gloria Cristelli explained at the board's Sept. 19 meeting that the AOT's Transportation Alternatives Program is accepting applications for funding to either develop feasibility studies or to develop projects that lead to construction. All projects must demonstrate a strong transportation link. The part of the program that the selectboard is interested in would help with vegetation management...
St. Michael's Episcopal Church welcomes the parish and the greater community to celebrate the close of the church's capital campaign and the completion of renovations and new construction. The event is Saturday, Sept. 28 and Sunday, Sept. 29. Construction included a new chapel at the 156-year-old church on Bradley Avenue, off Putney Road. The weekend is also designed to give thanks to members of the parish, the neighborhood, the architects, the construction team, the Vestry, and St. Michael's' clergy and...
Nicholas Lawley, son of Selectboard Vice-chairman Todd Lawley, also the town's road foreman, is cleared to work for the Town Highway Department as needed. The motion, made by Selectboard member Mike Fitzpatrick at the board's regular meeting Sept. 19, was seconded by Gloria Cristelli. Member Chris Druke expressed concern about liabilities, budget, and transparency, according to unapproved draft meeting minutes. The motion carried with three in favor, and Todd Lawley abstaining. Board Chair Jon Mack was not present.
Selectboard members agreed with a proposal from Purinton Road resident Cynthia Fisher, on behalf of herself and several of her neighbors, to help maintain approximately 100 feet of Purinton Road in the winter with the town's small truck. That stretch of the road is town-owned. Fisher noted that she and the other residents looked into footing the tab for a turnaround to accommodate town trucks for the purpose of maintaining the whole road. Nevertheless, the board declined to extend maintenance...
Londonderry residents and a team from Marlboro College's Center for Creative Solutions (CCS), in partnership with Windham Regional Commission (WRC), recently explored how to best use soon-to-be town-owned properties severely damaged by flooding from Tropical Storm Irene. Participants in the six-day planning workshop, held in early August, generated three different options for how the buyout properties provide opportunities for flood control and can serve as a commons for residents and visitors. Conventionally, the pairing of these purposes could be seen...
Thistle down, birch bark, maple leaves, and lichen will once again become fairy cottages, workshops, and hideaways for one magical weekend in the Grafton woods. On Saturday, Sept. 28, and Sunday, Sept. 29, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., The Nature Museum at Grafton will hold its fifth annual Fairy House Tour. Visitors will follow a trail dotted with fairy houses, then return to The Nature Museum to create their own fairy dwellings in the gardens. Tour goers can try...
The beautiful service of Choral Evensong will be sung at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28, at St. Michael's Episcopal Church. The 24-voice choir, directed by Susan Dedell, will sing settings of the Evensong Canticles by Everett Titcomb, with additional liturgical music by Vaughn Williams. Those in attendance will be invited to sing a variety of evening songs and chants, which are woven throughout the service. The little-known music of Everett Titcomb (1885-1968) occupies a unique niche in American sacred...
Share your interests and ideas with regional cable viewers through video. BCTV offers training and video production equipment to volunteers who want to make programming for broadcast on cable channels 8 and 10. BCTV provides equipment and technical support to anyone who is trained - for free. Cost of all classes is $20 per person, and space in class, when available, is reserved at time of payment. All classes are at BCTV in the Brattleboro Municipal Center. BCTV is community...
The Windham County Humane Society (WCHS) will host the 13th Annual Walk for Animals on Saturday, Sept. 28. Organizers note that, for the first time, this year's event will take place at the Crowell Lot on Western Avenue. Registration starts at 9 a.m., with the walk starting at 10 and heading down Green Street to Elliot Street to Main Street and up High Street and back to the Crowell Lot. Prizes will be awarded around 11, once walkers have returned...
Our Place Drop-in Center has come up with a way to help school children fill the food gaps on weekends when they don't have access to free lunches. The Weekend Food Program for Kids is a special food pantry that children can visit on Friday afternoon to stock up on healthy snacks they carry home in a donated string bag. Items available can include popcorn packets, 100 percent fruit juice, orange juice, milk, granola bars, raisins, small soups, dried fruit,
Births • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), Aug. 28, 2013, a daughter, Taylor Lucienne Hescock, to Angela (Kehoe) and Robert Hescock of Wardsboro; granddaughter to Lissa and Jim Hescock of Wardsboro, and Cindy and Bob Kehoe of Windham. • In Keene, N.H., (Cheshire Medical Center), Aug. 24, 2013, a son, Bentley Isaiah, to Corrina Kuusela and Jason Williams of Westminster. • In Burlington (Fletcher Allen Health Care), Aug. 8, 2013, a daughter, Rachel Victoria Mullarkey, to Melissa (Giroux) and Robert Mullarkey...
The staffers, faculty, students, and alumni of New England Youth Theatre, many of whom have been involved in cinema projects recently, invite you to check out these films, each a labor of love and craft: Jane Baker, a teacher and director at NEYT, wrote and directed “110 Llandaff,” a short film based on Baker's childhood family travails in Philadelphia in the mid-1970s. Principal shooting of the film, starring David Koechner and Paula Pell, wrapped Sept. 15 [“Brutality in silence,” Arts,
Backed by a 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant, Leland & Gray Student Council advisors Karren Meyer and Principal Dorinne Dorfman recently led a three-hour youth culture leadership training for high school student council members, captains of athletics teams, representatives of the National Honor Society, music programs, and the L&G Players. In all, 28 students participated in guided whole-group discussion, reviewed scenarios, presented ideas, and met in breakout groups. Theater director and NHS advisor Annie Landenberger and athletics/activities director Marty...
Vermont attorney Bruce Hesselbach's latest novel, “Perpetual Motion,” is a pre-WWI steampunk romance involving time travel, dirigible chases, appearances by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Richard Wagner, and gun battles. Hesselbach, who has been writing fiction since college, won his first prize for a story in 1975 and has written professionally since the mid-1980s. “I was a Yale English major and I won the James Ashmun Veech Prize for distinguished fiction writing. That was a great encouragement. My professor wanted me...
The Brattleboro Music Center's 2013-14 concert season opens with a performance of the complete cycle of Beethoven's sonatas and variations for piano and cello. World-renowned musicians, the cellist Sharon Robinson and pianist Benjamin Hochman, will play Beethoven's complete works for cello and piano - five sonatas and three sets of variations - in two concerts on one day at Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro. Concertgoers are also invited to join the BMC for a special buffet dinner at Blue Moose...
The Brattleboro Colonels' soccer teams got a good test of where they stand so far this season with a weekend home doubleheader with the Burr & Burton Bulldogs, who just moved up to Division I in soccer this season. The Colonel girls opened the series with a 2-1 loss in overtime on Friday night at Tenney Field. Burr & Burton put 32 shots on goalkeeper Aimee Johnston, who played a tremendous game to keep the Bulldogs at bay. Brattleboro took...
Windham County Career Expo brings employers, job seekers together BRATTLEBORO - Top employers are coming together to promote careers in southeast Vermont. On Thursday, Sept. 26, from 2 to 6 p.m., at the Quality Inn on Putney Road, 25 employers, along with several colleges, technical schools, and employment services agencies, will be staffing informational tables as part of Windham County's first-ever Career Expo. The Expo will showcase several of the county's largest employers in health care, hospitality, manufacturing, wholesale trade,
Entergy Corp. will grant the wishes of many Vermont officials by closing its 41-year-old Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in 2014, but the company's relationship with the state is far from over. The Louisiana-based company and the state are embroiled in four separate lawsuits, and the specifics of those cases shifted last month when Entergy announced the plant's pending shutdown. The first case is Entergy's application before the Vermont Public Service Board for a new operating license, called a certificate of...
Morningside Shelter's third annual Hike for the Homeless is Saturday, Oct. 5. Begin your hike up Mt. Wantastiquet at 10 a.m. or noon. Registration opens at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. (Rain date is Sunday, Oct. 6) at the Mountain Road trailhead off Route 119 in Hinsdale, N.H. Whether hiking to the summit or walking the river trail at the base of the mountain you'll enjoy spectacular fall foliage and outstanding views of Brattleboro - and you'll be supporting an...
Grace Cottage Family Health offers flu shots to the public on Oct. 5 and 19, both Saturdays, from 8 a.m. to noon. No appointment is needed. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone older than 6 months get a yearly flu vaccine, ideally by October. According to Grace Cottage, getting an annual seasonal flu vaccine is your best way of avoiding seasonal flu and lessening the chance you'll spread it to others. Symptoms such as...
Next Stage Arts Project presents an evening with Vermont's own crime writer, Archer Mayor, on Friday, Sept. 27, at 7:30 p.m., at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill. Mayor is a local hero with a national reputation, a beloved hometown son who writes about the streets, towns and community that students and community members know intimately. His latest book, No. 24 in his Joe Gunther police procedural series, is “Three Can Keep a Secret,” in which Investigator Joe Gunther deals with...
In proud Vermont tradition, plenty of our neighbors are doing great work for Newfane. Consider attending one of these public meetings and see where you can raise an issue or lend a hand: • Selectboard - Meets on the first and third Thursday of every month, 6:30 p.m.; special meetings are scheduled as needed. Newfane Town Office. • Planning Commission - Meets on the second and fourth Monday of every month, 7 p.m.; special meetings and site visits are scheduled...
It seems unlikely that a public library could become a battleground for justice - unless it's about banned books or visits from Homeland Security - but this ongoing painful drama at Rockingham Free Public Library has reached a crucial point. Last week, a majority of five trustees voted to fire an excellent director. Their refusal to allow the director to respond to the full board to allegations about her job performance made in their corrective action plan is insulting and...
On Oct. 3, the first day of the 2013 Brattleboro Literary Festival, the Center for Digital Art (CDA) in Brattleboro hosts the fourth annual Words and Video Exhibition, a free screening of short films and video art pieces. The works are presented in collaboration with the Brattleboro Literary Festival and Write Action, a local writers' group. As in previous such exhibitions, the pieces selected for the Words and Video Exhibition were inspired by works of writing, or were made in...
It is rather mind-blowing to hear about the recent wringing of hands on the part of the Selectboard over the coming year's budget. Where, oh where, was this concern last fall, when Town Meeting representatives were asked to vote on the fire/police station bond? Except for Selectboard member David Gartenstein's asserting that he would not vote for the bond without an additional funding source and then-board member Dora Bouboulis's nay vote, this project seemed to be a sacred cow we...
The cantor has always played a central role in Jewish religious services as the person who leads a congregation in the singing of prayers. But until modern times, the role traditionally has been performed by males. While Orthodox synagogues still follow that tradition, some Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist synagogues have opened the post to women. Kate Judd, who will be installed as the spiritual leader of Congregation Shir Heharim's (Brattleboro Area Jewish Community) spiritual leader on Sunday, Sept. 29, considers...
Andrew Carnegie must be turning in his grave. When the great philanthropist provided funds for the Rockingham Free Public Library to be built in 1909 - one of four public libraries he endowed in the state - he could little have imagined that shortly after its centennial, in the midst of major renovations that would recapture its history, the library known as one of the best in Vermont would be in such turmoil. How heartbroken he would be to see...
A new alliance between Kingdom County Productions and Marlboro College dedicated to bringing high-quality performing arts events to Windham County will be presenting three world-class events at Marlboro College in the next couple of weeks. It all starts with singer/songwriter Ethan Lipton's Obie Award-winning show “No Place to Go” on Sept. 28, and continues with A.M. Doyle's humorous and poignant play, “Robert Frost: This Verse Business” on Oct. 5 and British early music vocal ensemble Stile Antico performing “Choral Treasures...
To all those who are criticizing the Bellows Falls Village budget vote last week, the whining and carping after the fact is not productive, nor does it put you in a very good light. This was the third vote relating to the budget, and those who wanted to reduce the budget could not gather enough support. Don't blame those who supported the current budget that was passed in June, blame the lack of support for reducing it. Don't call it...
What's the difference between a cluster, a district, and a hub, and which of these structures would work for the Brattleboro area arts community? Those questions were the start of a Brattleboro CoreArts Project meeting last Saturday morning at Equilibrium on Elm Street. Brattleboro was one of 80 towns nationwide to get an “Our Town” grant. The town was awarded a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund the Brattleboro CoreArts Project - an initiative that...
Randolph T. Holhut, moderator: A recent front-page story in The Boston Globe covered Maine Yankee and their host town, Wiscasset, Maine, and how it's faring in the two decades or so since the plant closed. Ray Shadis, you lived through it. Here's your chance to tell us what the Globe got wrong. Raymond Shadis: The story hit about three areas: a decline in business activity, tax increases and, I suppose, an overall fall in morale in the town. Maine Yankee...
The leaves are turning in the hills of southern Vermont, and that means it's time for the members of Brattleboro-West Arts to open their studio doors and offer the public a window on the creative process - and an intimate look into some of the environments where art takes shape. During BWA's fifth annual Open Studio Tour on Sept. 28 and 29, 20 artists and craftspeople will show their work from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at 14...
Brattleboro Utilities Division crews will start fall flushing of the town water mains on Thursday, Sept. 26, at 10 p.m. and continue through Saturday, Oct. 12. Some daytime flushing will continue throughout the weeks of Oct. 15 and 21. Water main flushing will occur during both night and day. Customers are asked to check the flushing schedule closely, as flushing causes water discoloration, low water pressure, and, in some areas, periods of no water. Night flushing will take place from...
The Town of Brattleboro seeks citizens to serve on the following committees and boards: Agricultural Advisory Board; Arts Committee; Citizen Police Communications Committee; Development Review Board Alternate; Honor Roll Committee; Inspector, Lumber, Shingles, and Wood; Senior Solutions Representative; SEVCA Representative; Town Manager Search Citizen Committee; Town Service Officer; and the Tree Advisory Committee The newly formed Town Manager Search Citizen Committee is an ad hoc committee of the Selectboard for the purpose of providing citizen feedback about second-round town manager...
Single-lane closure of the passing lane on the northbound and southbound spans of the West River Bridges on Interstate 91 is scheduled to begin Sept. 26. The lane closures will remain in effect during the construction of the temporary crossovers, and will be removed over the weekend when no workers are present. Look for slowing to 40 mph through the work zone on Route 30, and plan on leaving a little more time to travel through there until August 2016.
The emailer was driving along Route 142 near the Connecticut River when she saw a bird just above the water. “This bird was big!” she wrote. “Very light, mottled feathers, mostly white, but what really caught my eye was the distinctive black eye 'patch.' “As I watched, the bird made a very tight circle, folded its wings, and dove straight into the water! It flew back out, apparently unsuccessful, because I did not see anything in its talons.” She saw...
Morris Root from Root Engineering advises immediate maintenance on Grout Pond Dam, the stones of the sluiceway of which he says have settled due to internal erosion. “There is a significant amount of water exiting at the toe of the dam. It is presumed that the source of this water is the cracks in the sluiceway,” Root said in correspondence to Steve Bushman, the town's dam safety inspector, which was read into the record of the Sept. 19 Selectboard meeting.
Entergy Corp's Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon is slated to close by the end of 2014. Indeed, a number of nuclear plant operators have announced they will shut their aging reactors within the next few years, and 18 reactors already closed are being decommissioned. The regulatory, community, environmental, and economic mises en scène in which these plants' reactors whirled to life in the 1960s and 1970s differ greatly from the arenas packed with spent fuel - and nowhere...
Town Office Building Committee Member Guenther Garbe reports that the town is re-advertising for bids for Town Office repairs, and that bids are due Oct. 17. The original bids, for work Garbe said should have come in under $20,000, came in at around $46,000, he reported at the Sept. 19 Selectboard meeting. The project calls for replacing rotten beams beneath the town office; repairing and replacing attic insulation and installing vents; filling in the cistern beneath the town office; and...
Rockingham Free Public Library trustees, in a 5–3 vote on Sept. 18, fired Library Director Célina Houlné in an early- morning meeting attended by several dozen citizens and members of Friends of the Library. The attorney for the former director has promised to sue the board and, potentially, individual members. In the aftermath of the vote, a trustee resigned from the board, the second in three months to do so. According to Jan Mitchell-Love, board chair and member of the...
The Selectboard tabled discussion of health insurance options for town employees but set a special public meeting on the subject for Thursday, Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. at the Town Office. Town employees have a potential variety of new options for health insurance under a new federal law that aims to see all Americans covered in a health care program by Jan. 1. They need to be enrolled by Dec. 15. The board said at its regular meeting Sept. 19...
Staff at the Rockingham Free Public Library are happily hauling books and furnishings back to Rockingham Street. “The move back into the building is progressing nicely,” Youth Librarian Sam Maskell tells The Commons. “Shelves are getting installed and the unpacking is really happening. I'm very excited about this; it's been a full year since the youth department has had its full collection and been in its space.” The youth department was the first section of the library to pack up...
Bridge projects and federal property buyouts in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene are still underway, according to Selectboard member Chris Druke, who delivered a report on the subject at the board's Sept. 19 meeting. Druke said Hunter Brook Bridge repairs were moving along, and that the second abutment has been poured and is curing and that beams should be arriving in a few weeks. She noted “great progress” on Lynch Bridge, where “the beams were being built as we...
After more than a year of site evaluations, feasibility studies, and planning, the Brattleboro Housing Authority (BHA) announced the site for a new senior housing complex to be called Red Clover Commons. The 55-unit, three-story building will be located on a 2.8-acre site at 464 Canal St., next to Walgreens. “We are moving the Melrose [Terrace] residents out of the floodway,” said Christine Hart, BHA executive director. In 2011, Tropical Storm Irene flooded Melrose Terrace, a public housing complex for...