An exploding kerosene heater is to blame for an apartment fire at a four-unit apartment building at 27 Brattle St., on Feb. 6.
According to a news release from Brattleboro Fire Chief Michael Bucossi, personnel from both the police and fire departments responded to an emergency call at 5:27 p.m. Upon arrival, smoke was seen coming out of a second-floor apartment.
The Fire Department quickly put out the fire in the apartment, which Bucossi said sustained major heat and smoke damage.
Two occupants of the residence, who were not identified by authorities, were taken to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and treated for minor injuries. Bucossi said one was treated for smoke inhalation, the other had minor burns.
Strolling of the Heifers will present a mid-winter Beer, Cider and Cheese Festival on Friday, Feb. 13, from 5 p.m to 8 p.m at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden on Main Street in Brattleboro. The event is a fundraiser for Strolling of the Heifers, and takes place in...
Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center (BEEC) will be offering Valentine Specials of Chocolate Scat Samplers for sale at the Feb. 6 Gallery Walk to benefit scholarships for their nature vacation camps. For many years now, BEEC has been leading groups through the woods of southern Vermont, teaching them to read...
On Saturday, Feb. 21, musician and educator Ben Carr is hosting two ukulele workshops followed by a solo ukulele performance at the Open Music Collective, located at 74 Cotton Mill Hill, Studio A-335. The Beginner Ukulele Workshop is from noon to 2 p.m. If you always wanted to learn how to play the uke but didn't know where to begin, this is your chance. Topics covered include posture, basic chords, strumming, singing, and a bit of uke history. Workshop cost...
The Greater Falls Warming Shelter has recently been awarded a grant by TransCanada Corporation for its Warm in Winter initiative. The $2,000 grant will go towards operations at the shelter, which is open seven days a week to provide emergency overnight shelter for those who are dealing with unstable housing situations. Now in its sixth year, the shelter is located across the bridge from Bellows Falls in North Walpole, N.H., in a building that has had many uses over the...
College news • The following area students have been named to the Dean's List for the fall 2014 semester at the University of Vermont: Elizabeth Clarke of Brattleboro, a first-year public communication major; Jordan Wyckoff of Brattleboro, a senior early childhood preschool major; Jamie Martell of Brattleboro, a junior civil engineering major; Colby McGinn of Brattleboro, a first-year biology major; Oliver Pomazi of Brattleboro, a first-year neuroscience major; Carlyn Madden of Brattleboro, a sophomore political science major; Cleo Rohn of...
Emergency Winter Shelter training offered for new and current volunteers BRATTLEBORO - On Sunday Feb. 15, the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center will host a training for volunteers who help manage and maintain the Emergency Winter Shelter. This training will begin at 1:30 p.m. at downtown Brattleboro's First Baptist Church, 190 Main St. This training will be attended by both new and current volunteers. The agenda includes a meet-and-greet, an overview of volunteer responsibilities, and time for current volunteers to...
For a dozen years, the town of Brattleboro has piggybacked its mass emergency notification system off one employed by Vermont Yankee. With the plant's closure, the Code Red system will eventually disappear. Meanwhile, the state is ramping up its new emergency alert system, VT-Alert, and offering trainings to interested municipalities. While Code Red's remaining lifespan is uncertain now that the plant has shut down, Brattleboro Fire Chief Michael Bucossi said now is an opportune time to make the shift. Bucossi...
After slightly more than 42 years of splitting atoms and generating electricity, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant was permanently shut down on Dec. 29 when control-room operators inserted dozens of neutron-absorbing control rods into the reactor core for the final time. Entergy, the plant's owner and operator, voluntarily closed the boiling-water reactor, citing economic and other considerations for the move. The halt to power production at the Vernon plant marks the end of an era for Vermont Yankee's workforce...
Fire Chief Michael Bucossi told the Selectboard on Feb. 3 that anyone who wants to receive emergency messages through VT-Alert must sign up for the program at users.vtalert.gov. VT-Alert aims to provide up-to-date information during emergencies so that residents can be informed and respond in a crisis. The service is free to use. The VT-Alert website is provided by the Vermont Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (DEMHS). BENS users must sign up to the new system, Bucossi said.
Work is about to begin to restore the former Newfane depot for use as a railroad museum. The Friends of The West River Trail (FWRT) learned more about this project, and others, when the group held its annual meeting at the former South Londonderry depot last month. Laura Wallingford-Bacon, president of the Windham County Historical Society in Newfane, said her organization purchased the 1880 building for $42,000 from the children of Fannie and Bill Mantel last fall. It had been...
Vernon Historians have new Facebook page VERNON - The Vernon Historians have sailed into the 21st century with a new Facebook page complete with timeline, photos, and recent posts. The group's “about” statement describes the group's mission: “[to] provide the community with access to the town's past, from photographs and biographical records to how to make homemade ice cream.” The Historians report that everything from meeting and event notices to photographs and oral histories will be made available on this...
The Vermont Theatre Company will hold auditions for their May production of Robert Anderson's “I Never Sang For My Father” to be directed by Bob Kramsky on Monday, March 2, at 7 p.m., at the Hooker-Dunham Theater in downtown Brattleboro. “I Never Sang For My Father” is the powerful drama of a middle-aged man who has to come to terms with his aged parents, an elderly mother whom he loves, and an 80-year-old father whom he never loved, as hard...
The proposed Brattleboro Union High School District budget for fiscal year 2016 of $27.8 million was approved Tuesday night by perhaps the least-well-attended school budget meeting in recent memory. Of the 14,174 eligible voters from the district towns of Brattleboro, Vernon, Guilford, Putney, and Dummerson, only 73 were in attendance at the BUHS gym, or 0.5 percent. The budget passed overwhelmingly on a voice vote. Brattleboro resident Dick DeGray said that he was “very disappointed” that none of the local...
The Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St., offers free sessions on its public access computers for filing taxes online. Because the IRS and Vermont Department of Taxes have severely limited their distribution of paper tax forms through libraries, many citizens are turning to online filing, which has many benefits-including, in many cases, a quicker refund. The library cooperates with the Windham County United Way and its partner agencies to provide access to www.myfreetaxes.com, where citizens with household incomes at or...
The scientific basis for decommissioning is the continually decreasing hazard from any plant doing it. As the hazard decreases, the size of the Emergency Planning Zone can shrink. At any time, the potential hazard comes from the radioactive atom splitting products. In operation, there is a steady, large amount of radioactive products. Once operation stops, the amount of radioactive products decreases continually. The radioactivity creates heat in the fuel and surroundings, enough to require water cooling for five years. After...
The Actors Theatre Playhouse of West Chesterfield, N.H., and Brattleboro is accepting Ten Minute Play submissions for its eighth seasonal Ten Minute Play Festival. The Playhouse is celebrating its 39th season as the oldest continuous performing arts group in the tri-state regions of Southeastern Vermont, Southwestern New Hampshire, and Central Massachusetts. For the last 29 years, they have been in residence at the Citizens Hall in West Chesterfield, offering a wide range of classical and contemporary productions, staged readings, workshops,
Our firm represents HomeServe USA Corp., a company that provides home emergency repair services to more than 1.8 million consumers in 48 States across the country, including Vermont. I am writing to express our concern about a troubling headline, “Public Works Department warns of misleading solicitation by pipe insurance firm,” which appeared above an article about our client published in The Commons on Jan. 28. The headline is problematic because not only does it fail to accurately reflect the content...
Point of clarification: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be holding a public meeting, not a public hearing. In a meeting, there is no test of truthfulness. In a hearing, everything the NRC says in under oath and on the record. NRC regulations require the agency to come hold this one public meeting on the Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report. However, whenever NRC licensing actions involve nuclear reactors, as is the case at Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, an opportunity to file requests...
Judith Thomas's Country Cole Slaw Mix in a big bowl: ¶1 cup mayonnaise ¶3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice ¶2 tablespoons sugar ¶1 teaspoon salt Add: ¶6 cups shredded cabbage ¶1 cup shredded carrots (about 3 carrots) Chill and serve. Variation: add 1 cup of diced sweet red pepper and a few tablespoons of prepared horseradish. Leda Scheintaub's Basic Sauerkraut This recipe is adapted from Cultured Foods for Your Kitchen: 100 Recipes Featuring the Bold Flavors of Fermentation, Rizzoli New York,
As a cooperator from Philadelphia, I can indeed say that those of us co-op advocates from across the country are interested in the news about co-ops. This letter certainly helps fill in some blanks, and I must say that I am a proponent of policy governance as a means to help a board to better do its job: to implement the will of the membership or ownership of a co-op. The members of each co-op are the investors, economically and...
Food Connects, the Brattleboro organization dedicated to connecting local consumers, schools, and other institutions to farms in and around Windham County, has chosen cabbage as February's “Harvest of the Month.” Harvest of the Month [HOM] “is a Farm-to-School campaign that provides ready-to-go materials for the classroom, cafeteria, and community that promotes the use of local, seasonal Vermont foods” says Food Connects. On the HOM Website (www.vermontharvestofthemonth.org), anyone can access their free resources - the Cafeteria newsletter, Educator newsletter, Family newsletter,
To the Voters of Newfane: I've been honored to serve as Newfane school moderator since 2007, Newfane town moderator since 2010, and moderator of the Brookline and Newfane joint school meetings from the start. At each meeting I've moderated, my faith in democratic self-rule is strengthened as I've witnessed my neighbors speak up to be heard, even when what they have to say is unpopular, and I've been heartened as I've watched my neighbors listen tolerantly, even when they disagree.
As a writer, social-justice activist, and outspoken critical thinker, I'm no stranger to controversy, but the controversy generated over the shift in governance at the Putney Food Co-op has been a little stranger than most. On the one side fly accusations of being “misinformed” and “alarmist”; on the other, wry comments about “drinking the Kool-Aid” and the “Whole-Food-ization” of co-ops hint at “Stepfordized” paradigms co-opting progressive ideals. All this over a food co-operative!? But the more I investigate, the more...
This was such a well-written article. Thank you for contributing to the solution of the homeless in this way. In many instances, as I read it, it brought tears to my eyes. I regularly hang out at the Flat Iron Exchange and am friends with Mark Kenney. I try and give a warm greeting to “Pete,” the subject of the piece, when he comes in. We have all talked about how we can take action within the community to try...
Some of the 44 people who assembled in the combined auditorium/cafeteria at Vernon Elementary School were disappointed at the turnout, hoping more would come to hear about what the Vermont Council for Rural Development could do for the town. More people came to town meeting after VY closed, one resident complained. But Paul Costello, the nonprofit's executive director said the turnout for this type of introductory meeting was big. VCRD has worked with at least 45 small towns in the...
On Sunday night, parents and (joyful) students in the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) received robocalls informing them that, yet again, school was cancelled Monday. The snow that started early Sunday morning and didn't stop spilled into roads, driveways, and sidewalks, making Monday, Feb. 9, the district's third snow day of the 2014-15 school year. Many schools in southern Vermont have had several unscheduled three-day weekends thanks to the fluffy white stuff. Unfortunately, the big “but” in the room is...
Another Monday, another snowstorm. For the third straight week, Windham County had to deal with heavy snow and another Monday of slippery roads and sidewalks, closed schools and businesses, and snowbanks that keep on rising. According to spotter reports made to the National Weather Service's office in Albany, N.Y., this latest storm, which started on Sunday and continued through Monday, left a total of 12 inches in Wardsboro; about 13 inches in Guilford, Bellows Falls, and Townshend; and 16 inches...
For a town in Vermont, a state that gets more annual snowfall than any other in the nation, you would think Brattleboro would have snow-clearing down to a science. Or at least an art. It doesn't - and that needs to change. Just over a week ago, those gathering downtown on a crisp Friday night found this out the hard way as they emerged from local restaurants and watering holes to find their cars snatched from the streets without a...
Marlboro College will have a new leader this summer. Kevin F.F. Quigley steps in as the college's president, bringing with him international experiences and a love of liberal arts education. “Liberal arts education, especially in distinctive and academically rich settings such as Marlboro College, has a unique ability to anticipate change and prepare individuals for thoughtful, purposeful and effective engagement in the world,” said Quigley. “At its best, this education stirs a passion for life-long learning, encourages discernment and judgment,
A federal grant and sponsorship by a local church made it possible for 10 students at NewBrook Elementary School to become American-Red-Cross-certified babysitters at an all-day class held on Jan. 25. The students learned important skills to keep children in their care safe and happy, from the nuances of changing diapers and burping babies to dealing with emergency situations. The class even covered how babysitters can safely market their skills. The babysitting course was offered through Learning After School (L'AFTER),
I've been working with cheese for just under 20 years now; September will be my Cheese Anniversary. (Is that a real thing? Like a Silver Anniversary? Well, now it is.) I've probably tasted well over 1,000 different cheeses in my life. While many were life-changing experiences, a few cheeses stand out so much, I can remember where I was when I tasted them. The Cellars At Jasper Hill's Bayley Hazen Blue, made in Greensboro, in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, is one...
Sunny Lowdown will bring his raw, deep blues to Main Street Arts on Saturday, Feb. 14, for a night of listening and dancing in a blues cafe setting beginning at 7:30 p.m. Drawing from the music of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, Jesse Mae Hemphill, and R.L. Burnside, Sunny and his band play music some critics have described as “swamp music,” but Lowdown shuns labels. “I'm just me - Sunny Lowdown,” he says. “If you want to categorize...
The terms “Vermont” and “experimental music” aren't often found in the same sentence. For the last hundred years, the state's three most popular musical exports have arguably been Rudy Vallee, Phish, and Grace Potter. In Windham County, Putney's Yellow Barn and the Marlboro Music Festival are world-famous to classical and chamber music lovers. And, with our rural, agricultural milieu, one could be excused for imagining every musician here plays acoustic guitar or banjo, or moonlights in a contra-dance band. But...
Brattleboro is not the only Vermont town deserving landmark status in the world of electronic music. About an hour up the Connecticut River, in White River Junction, in the building that now houses the Upper Valley Food Co-op, once lived the headquarters for New England Digital. “New England Digital started in the late 1970s, and between then and the late 1980s, they were at the vanguard of electronic music,” says Matt Bucy, former programmer for the company. The invention that...
Great hockey teams are usually built upon great goaltending. A good goalie can turn a so-so team into a championship team, and the absence of reliable goaltending can turn a contender into an also-ran. Both of the Brattleboro hockey teams lost last season's goaltenders to graduation - Greg DiSilva for the Colonel boys, Alex Fellows for the Colonel girls. Both teams have struggled to find someone who can provide consistency between the pipes. It usually takes time, and game experience,
“I consider myself an underground musician,” says Ruth Garbus, a Brattleboro guitarist, singer, and songwriter. What does that mean? “It leaves room for weirdness,” Garbus explains. She defines “underground” as “not trying to appeal to the majority,” adding “it means being happy to be undiscovered by most people." Garbus thinks it's wonderful when people find her music on their own, and like it, but she says: “I have no desire to cultivate an audience." The current descriptor “fake-pop” used for...
Acclaimed writer/director/producer Eric Schaeffer is coming home. The Latchis Theatre is bringing Schaeffer's newest film Boy Meets Girl to Vermont for a one-week run from Feb. 13-19. Although he lives in New York City, Schaeffer grew up in southern Vermont and attended Brattleboro Union High School in the 1970s. He now owns a house in Jamaica, where he spends time at least once a month. “The Latchis is part of my youth,” he says. “I had my first dates there.
Lunchtime at school is not always the easiest place to be a kid. For some kids, lunchtime is the least of their worries. Especially when they have a special meeting planned. An example of such a pair is Betsy Gentile and Heidi Henry. This match, facilitated by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Windham County, has been meeting since Heidi was in elementary school. Gentile, Heidi's “big,” as they say, would come from work and share a table in the classroom...
“Like warmed up cabbage served at each repast / The repetition kills the wretch at last.” Juvenal Satires (c. 120 A.D.) Pity the poor cabbage, for it gets a bad rap. Unlike sexier members of the brassica vegetable family - kale in all its varieties and brussels sprouts - cabbage has not yet achieved the same foodie cachet. Regular old head cabbage is seen as utilitarian, the food of the lumpen proletariat. “Tasty and economical, cabbage has long been considered...
Routine tests at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant have detected Strontium-90 (Sr-90) in monitoring wells at the site. The Vermont Department of Health (VDH) states that the levels of the radioactive isotope are low enough that they pose no immediate risk to people's health. The VDH announced the findings on its website on Feb. 9. Routine tests of water samples in August 2014 from groundwater monitoring wells at VY turned up the Sr-90. According to the VDH, the tests...
The end of the road is still far away from inside the Green River Covered Bridge project. The 1830 bridge on Jacksonville Stage Road will receive an anticipated $550,000 of repairs this coming summer to update its load from 4 to 8 tons if several key pieces fall into place. The live load rating for the bridge was lowered in June 2014 after failing to meet regulations for its marked rating. A critical point for keeping the live load rating...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present indie/folk/rock quintet Winterpills, plus Roots-Rock/Junk-Folk trio Rusty Belle at Next Stage on Saturday, Feb. 21, at 7:30 p.m. One of the most exciting bands to emerge from Northampton, Mass., in recent years, Winterpills plays haunting, delicate, dynamic music with shimmering melodies and aching lyrics. Critically praised as a mirror of sorrows and a beacon of hope, Philip Price (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Flora Reed (vocals, keyboards), Dennis Crommett (vocals, guitar), Max Germer (bass)