The Selectboard has awarded a $14,650 bid to Shaftsbury-based TAM, Inc. for demolition of 2550 Route 11, one of the town's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program buyout properties.
According to minutes of the March 3 Selectboard meeting, TAM, Inc. came in lower than competing bids from David Chaves Excavating and Gurney Bros., and is experienced with buyout demolitions, having conducted some in Readsboro and Wilmington.
Also March 3, the Selectboard:
• Spent 16 minutes in executive session “to meet with Keith [Barton] about Transfer Station issues.”...
The last full-time news director on a commercial radio station in Vermont, Tim Johnson Arsenault - known on the air as Tim Johnson - has served the Brattleboro area for 40 years. “Pardon me, I might get a bit misty here,” said Johnson during an interview at the WTSA...
Nineteen years ago, Bellows Falls attorney Ray Massucco became involved with Youth Services' Bowl for Kids' Sake, an event held since 1981 at Brattleboro Bowl on the first Saturday of every April, to raise money for the agency's Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program. “Michael Hertz, Jesse Corum, and...
Nutrition advocates are always urging us to eat our vegetables. Supporters of local agriculture are always urging us to buy our food from local farmers and producers. Both are worthy goals. But what if your biggest concern is simply obtaining food to eat? What if you can't afford to buy fresh fruits and vegetables? Or if you haven't a kitchen to cook in? Or what if your cooking skills are limited and you don't know how to prepare a meal...
Births • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), Feb. 26, 2014, twin sons, Grayson Xavier Anderson and Braxxon Lawrence Anderson, to Nadina Anderson of Brattleboro and Kevin Masci of Old Saybrook, Conn.; grandsons to Doreen Christian of Liverpool, England, and the late Clarence Anderson, and William Masci, Adele Masci and the late Angela Masci, all of Old Saybrook. College news • Emily Cuerdon of Putney, a stage and production management major at Emerson College in Boston, has been named to the Dean's...
The two dozen people who attended a March 25 hearing on the state's new rail plan were emphatic about what they wanted: more passenger trains operating more often at times that were useful for travelers. But if the wish list was short, the response to that request for more trains was equally short - “It all depends on funding.” Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT) planner Costa Pappis was joined by consultants Joseph Barr, of Boston-based Parsons Brinckerhoff, and Andreas Aeppli,
As a parent, I am responsible for ensuring the health and well-being of my family. From the time my first child was born, I have chosen locally grown food as much as possible. But as a busy working mom, I also take shortcuts and buy convenience foods like tortillas, ice cream, and frozen waffles from the grocery store. I was amazed to learn recently that genetically engineered (GE) foods are now in approximately 70 to 80 percent of all processed...
It's a busy Monday afternoon at the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center, and Food Shelf Coordinator Denise Nuccio knows why. “It's the last week of the month, and people are running out of money,” she said. The waiting room is jammed with people waiting for their turn to go into the food shelf area to pick enough groceries to get through the remainder of the month - until their next 3SquaresVT payment comes in. Nuccio has already made two trips...
A 38-vote margin is hardly a mandate in any arena. Of all registered voters, about 5.7 percent were counted as in favor of the local-option sales tax, and about 5.3 percent against it. A hefty 11-percent turnout would be rejected as a boycotted vote if we applied the standards of the United Nations. What's appalling is that the author completely omits that the vote was up front and nonbinding. Yet she insists it formed a mandate, whereas it is a...
Plans have been reviewed, and the bidding process has begun, for work to install a culvert on Mountain Road over Kidder Brook. At a special meeting of the Selectboard March 17, members said bids will be accepted by the evening of April 7, with the bid awarded at their regular meeting April 14. In the opinion of Jessica Rizio, civil engineer with Beck Engineering, who spoke at the meeting, the road may be closed for about three weeks. Selectmen agreed...
A joint meeting between the Selectboard and School Board is set for July 1 in part to brainstorm ways to improve attendance at the next Town Meeting. Picking up the thread of discussion from this year's Town Meeting on March 4, Selectboard members on March 18 considered ways to encourage greater turnout for conducting town business. Ideas in play: providing lunch for attendees; including trivia questions with the town report, with winners of a trivia contest winning prizes; and, reportedly,
Youth Services will host its annual Summer Camp Fair on Friday, April 4, on Gallery Walk Night from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden on Main Street. Many summer camp providers will supply activities and entertainment for the children. The public is encouraged to take advantage of this great opportunity to arrange a fun-filled summer for their offspring while being entertained. To entice the public to stop in, Youth Services is holding two free drawings for...
A couple of weeks ago, I unknowingly dropped my wallet while carrying my young daughter out of Tulip Cafe in Brattleboro. We crossed the street to go into Altiplano, and I didn't realize my wallet was missing for about 10 minutes. We made a hasty exit to run back across the street. Before going back into the café, I was greeted by two onlookers. They'd noticed that my wallet had fallen out of my pocket just outside the door. A...
Agatha Christie is worth going back to, isn't she? Underneath the pretty plotting and stereotypical characters lie real human emotion and feelings. And that she created an iconic character in Hercule Poirot with her first book when she was 25 is no mean feat, either.
The League of Women Voters of Vermont urges that this paper and its readers provide strong support to Vermont Senate Bill 255 and House Bill 208. These bills would ensure that all employees would accrue a minimum number of paid hours annually so that they can take paid time from work to take care of their own health and safety needs and those of their family. Half of all private-sector employers do not provide paid time off for absence from...
Walpole Farmers' Market (WFM) is accepting applications from vendors interested in participating in the market this summer. The WFM, a small market of many local farmers and farm businesses, will be held on the Walpole Town Common from May 16 through Oct. 17 on Fridays from 4 to 6 p.m. The group supports the production and consumption of local agricultural products, increases awareness of the value of these products, expands the market for them, and helps foster sustainable practices. If...
What's black and white and red all over? That's the question being asked around town as Our Place Drop In Center invites the public to a swing dance on Saturday, April 5, at the Walpole, N.H., town hall. Rob Fletcher and Ballroom Blitz will play for dancing from 7 to 10 p.m. The event is BYOB, but snacks will be available for purchase. Prizes will be given for the best male and female black, white, and red outfits. The event...
A few weeks ago, I got “the itch.” I looked around my domicile, and every square inch was covered. The tops of cabinets held dusty artifacts that had long ago become cozy homes for spiders. Cabinets were as packed as my pants. There was no room at the inn. The thing about stuff is that it permeates every pore of our idea of what home is, and all of our empty spaces beg and plead to be filled. We happily...
Artist Jim Giddings retired from Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) in December after serving 31 years as building manager and art handler. “Jim has had a longer association with the museum than any employee ever,” says BMAC Director Danny Lichtenfeld, who says he thought perhaps that greatest tribute to all Giddings had done for the museum is to present a solo exhibition of his works created during his tenure: 1982 through 2013. You see, while transporting, hanging, and focusing...
Storyteller Simon Brooks brings his talent for telling side-splitting stories to Saxtons River on Saturday, April 5, at 7:30 p.m. in a performance arranged by Main Street Arts. The event, at Christ's Church, is sponsored by TMG Enterprises LLC. Tickets are $15, and sold at MSA or at the door on the night of the show. Brooks (www.simonbrooksstoryteller.com), an award-winning British storyteller, educator, and voice-over artist, brings humor to most of his stories. These are sometimes wry, sometimes edgy, and...
BEEC hosts Salamander Soiree at River Garden BRATTLEBORO - Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center hosts a Salamander Soiree at the River Garden in Brattleboro on Saturday, April 5, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. The event kicks off this year's Salamander Brigades, where BEEC enlists volunteers to help salamanders cross the roads on the first warm rainy nights in the spring. To add to the festivities, there will be live music by The Otherwise, delectable hors d'oeuvres, a Salamander Crossing Guard fashion...
The Brattleboro Area Jewish Community expresses its sincere thank you to the Vermont businesses that provided support to our fundraising efforts on March 15 to assist area families in need. We also greatly appreciate the assistance of our local volunteers in this effort and, most of all, we thank the many individuals and families who came from local communities and as far away as Manchester and Keene, N.H., for their support of our event. Our klezmer concert and Purim benefit...
The Brattleboro Selectboard made a pitch to lawmakers for a bigger slice of the economic pie March 26. The lawmakers under the Golden Dome listened politely. All five members of the Selectboard, interim Town Manager Patrick Moreland, and Town Manager Executive Secretary Jan Anderson had traveled to Montpelier to seek alternatives for raising revenues that could offset municipal property taxes. “We're unduly burdened because we're providing services to the region as a whole,” said Selectboard Chair David Gartenstein, who attested...
“This ain't Uncle Stevie's swan song.” So promises Stephen Stearns, founder of New England Youth Theatre (NEYT), who wants to make it clear that while he is stepping down as artistic director, he's not heading out the door. Now 70, Stearns is handing off his administrative responsibilities to free up time to write about his life's work - and to pour more into NEYT as a teacher, director, and board member. He also will work with alumni to develop a...
On Friday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m., Brattleboro Music Center presents Musicians From Marlboro at Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main St., in the final concert of its 2013-14 Chamber Music Series. Musicians From Marlboro, the touring extension of the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, offers exceptional, young professional musicians together with seasoned artists in varied chamber music programs. The resulting ensembles offer audiences the chance to discover seldom-heard masterworks and enjoy fresh interpretations of chamber music favorites. The program has...
Kurn Hattin Homes for Children invites you to its seventh annual Jazz Invitational on Wednesday, April 9, at 7 p.m. Featured are the Keene Orchestra directed by Scott Mullett; jazz singer Samirah Evans; and Master of Ceremonies Eugene Uman of the Vermont Jazz Center. This year's program features youth jazz ensembles from Bellows Falls Union High School, Brattleboro Area Middle School, Northfield Mount Hermon School, Kurn Hattin Homes For Children, Vermont Academy, and the Vermont Jazz Center. The Keene Orchestra...
Brussels sprouts once seemed to be more of an obligation than a delight. Relegated to the “dowdy” category of foods, alongside prunes and cottage cheese, the globular little vegetable was often dumped from a freezer bag into a pot of boiling water, to add gassy, bitter flavor to a holiday table otherwise replete with rich, savory dishes. As recently as the late 1990s, about 80 percent of California farmers' Brussels sprouts crop was destined for the frozen-foods processing market, according...
On March 22, Brattleboro's Representative Town Meeting defeated the 1-percent local-option sales tax and approved the budget for fiscal year 2015, which includes the first interest payment on the second police/fire facilities bond. So, what happens next? First, let's state the obvious: Brattleboro is in a bind. It took many of us to get it there, myself included. We initially approved the police/fire facilities project and then rejected cutting the overall budget enough to scale it back. Meanwhile, we defeated...
The names for the condition have changed over the years. After the Civil War, doctors called it “soldier's heart.” In World War I, it was called “shell shock.” In World War II, it was called “battle fatigue.” Vietnam gave it new name: “post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).” And now, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have spawned a new name for a condition as old as war itself - “moral injury” - affecting a number of the more than two million...
One of the nice things about being a cheesemonger is that no matter where you go - a party, the doctor's office, jury duty - chances are, your profession is the one that causes most people to “ooh” and “ahh.” (Maybe astronauts get more attention when they announce their vocation, but I wouldn't know. I've never met an astronaut.) Considering many in my profession are friendly curmudgeons, it's somewhat of a mixed blessing. The great thing about it? Nobody considers...
Maple syrup is in the air - literally. As we pass sugarhouses on our way to work, we see maple steam fill the sky with sweet smoke. It's been a late start to the sugaring season this year and, I hope, just the beginning. As I write this column, icy rain gathers on our slushy muddy driveway. The end of winter in Vermont reminds me of a child visiting a candy store and being told it's time to go: the...
This year, we Representative Town Meeting representatives had to choose between the rock that is the seemingly unyielding, outsized town budget and the hard place of adding a tax or other unsavory options to accommodate the spending. We didn't stay overnight, and we didn't even miss dinnertime. That was a good thing. The weather was crummy, for once, as morning slid into afternoon and then into evening. That, too, was a good thing. For the rest of it, I don't...
On Tuesday, April 15, President Ellen McCulloch-Lovell of Marlboro College and student representatives will each sign the Real Food Campus Commitment, joining more than 100 colleges and universities across the country. The commitment promises that Marlboro will procure at least 20 percent of the food consumed on campus from local or community-based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane food sources - “real food” - by 2020. “Colleges like Marlboro have to show leadership in our communities by modeling ways to support...
Despite detailed misgivings, the Vermont Public Service Board has granted Louisiana-based Entergy Corp. a required Certificate of Public Good (CPG) to continue operating its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon until the end of the year. “In its 12 years of operating in Vermont, Entergy VY has failed to comply with numerous Board orders and statutory requirements,” the board said in its March 28 ruling. In its 98-page final order, the three-member PSB board wrote that granting the nuclear...
It might have been April Fool's Day, but some Representative Town Meeting members weren't joking around. As a result of a petition circulated among the body by three of its members, the $16 million municipal budget is headed for a town-wide vote by Australian ballot. Town Clerk Annette Cappy received the petition with 56 signatures on April 1, requesting the Selectboard schedule the vote to reconsider the municipal budget that Annual Representative Town Meeting approved overwhelmingly on March 22. Cappy...