The Queer Community Social, a new, free event for members of the LGBTQ communities and their allies, made its debut Dec. 20 at The Flamingo Diner on Canal Street.
It will continue to happen on the third Tuesday of every month at the diner.
“This one was the holiday mixer. Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice - whatever people practice, it's wedged in there,” said Flamingo co-owner and event host Matt Goddard.
“I wanted something free to the public aimed toward the queer community,” Goddard said. “For a few years I've been hosting the Tri-State Gay Men's event,” which was created when the Brattleboro AIDS Project lost funding for The Men's Group, “and while I like doing it, it's exclusive. It's mostly a certain age group. I thought it would be nice to have a multi-generational group.
The Brattleboro Area Jewish Community says it has adopted an “audacious” change in its approach to membership. Previously, BAJC membership involved a request for a specific financial commitment (aka “dues”), with the caveat that they “do not turn anyone away who wishes to be a member” and that “special...
Open house planned for Cappy BRATTLEBORO - Brattleboro Town Clerk Annette Cappy will retire after 28 years of exemplary service to the town. An open house is scheduled on Thursday, Dec. 29, from 1 to 4 p.m., in the Town Clerk's Office. Light refreshments will be served. All are...
After a representative from the Vermont Occupational Safety and Health Agency inspected the Town Garage, the town received notice of four violations, Town Manager Cynthia Stoddard said. But because town officials, including Highway Superintendent Brian Harlow, quickly began fixing the problems, Stoddard was able to get the penalties reduced. Stoddard told Selectboard members at their Nov. 30 regular meeting that the four violations were because: an exit route in the back of the garage was partially obstructed; access to an...
Dan DeWalt has seen restorative community justice's success at Leland & Gray Union Middle & High School, where he teaches fine woodworking. Now, he wants to bring this method of conflict resolution to the rest of the West River Valley and beyond. DeWalt created Restorative Community Justice of Southern Vermont, a nonprofit organization with a mission to introduce and provide restorative practices to the community. “These practices focus on repairing harm and reintegrating those involved in conflict back into the...
Obituaries • Paul J. Aumand, 88, of North Walpole, N.H. Died Dec. 9 at his home. Born in Bellows Falls on June 17, 1928, the son of Ernest and Mary (Ratchford) Aumand, he attended schools in North Walpole, was a 1946 graduate of Bellows Falls High School, and graduated from Dean Academy and St. Michael's College. He receieved his Master's degree in engineering. He was an All-American football and basketball player at St. Michael's. He was self-employed as a builder...
Leland & Gray Union High School has announced that 40 hours of community service will now be a graduation requirement for all students, beginning with the Class of 2019. In a news release, Principal Bob Thibault said this is “an exciting new step for Leland & Gray. We are firm believers in community service as a worthwhile and potentially rewarding experience for young people.” Addressing logistics, Thibault said that “given the rural location of our school, it has taken some...
The generous spirit of Charlie Slate, who died in 2008, lives on through the annual Christmas Breakfast he founded in 1982. His family is preparing for this year's edition of the Charlie Slate Memorial Christmas Breakfast at American Legion Post 5 on Linden Street. As his granddaughter, Jadi Flynn, tells the story, on Christmas Day 1981, Slate dropped off his wife at work. He then drove around town looking for someplace to eat, and realized there was nowhere to go.
On Saturday, Dec. 31, Brattleboro's Last Night Committee will present a fun-filled and substance-free day of celebration for New Year's Eve. According to a news release, the day kicks off with a Senior Potluck Luncheon at the Brattleboro Senior Center from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., with featured musical guests “Sing, Sing, Swing.” The day will also include the following: • From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., KidsPLAYce will offer toddler and preschool free play. For more information, call 802-254-5212.
If the town's highway budget passes at March's Town Meeting, Putney will get a new full-time employee and a new excavator. During the Selectboard's work sessions with Town Manager Cynthia Stoddard to work on next year's municipal budget, Stoddard mentioned “two new things this year” in the highway section. If this budget is approved at Town Meeting, the highway portion will go up by 3 percent, Stoddard said. Plans are to add a sixth worker to the highway department. This...
The Brattleboro Music Center is celebrating the holidays a little early this year, thanks to a $500,000 gift from an anonymous donor. The money supports the Center's ongoing capital campaign. Work has begun on the Guilford Street property that will be the Center's new home next summer. “All of us at the BMC are deeply grateful to the donor for believing wholeheartedly in this project and for helping make our new music center a reality,” BMC Managing Director Mary Greene...
For eight years running, The Sweetback Sisters have been selling out theaters across the Northeast with their signature take on the holiday sing-along. The country, swing, honky-tonk, and old-time music sextet will again be performing their annual Christmas concert in Brattleboro at the First Baptist Church, 190 Main St., on Wednesday, Dec. 21, at 7 p.m. According to a news release, this show requires audience participation (lyric sheets are provided) and a love for all kinds of holiday music. All...
In response to the Selectboard and Town Manager's continued frustration with Town Clerk and Treasurer Anita Coomes's failure to complete her duties - and to avoid future incidents - they are considering changing the funding and structure of the town's financial offices. The proposal would keep the Treasurer position an elected one, but reassign most of the duties to a part-time bookkeeper, interviewed and hired by the Selectboard. This would provide another layer of oversight of the town's finances. Town...
During the final days of the calendar year, when town officials put together the next fiscal year's budget for consideration at March's Town Meeting, representatives from different nonprofit and social-service groups lobby selectboards to get funding through municipal taxes. This year, the Putney Selectboard unanimously agreed to put two natural-resources-related items on next year's town budget. At Town Meeting, voters will see a $650 line item for the Southeastern Vermont Watershed Alliance to support their water quality monitoring. The nonprofit...
The battle has been won, but the war continues. That is the best way to put into perspective a recent decision by the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation to overturn a treatment decision by Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Vermont. A Vermonter with hepatitis C, whom I will call Patient X, insured through BCBS, asked the insurer to pay for a drug recommended by the patient's primary-care doctor as well as by a gastroenterology expert at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
When Tom Moffitt was putting together a business plan for Ehrmann Commonwealth Dairy, his oft-repeated goal was to hire 40 employees within five years. He recalls that there were “quite a few disbelieving faces.” A little over five and a half years since the Brattleboro plant opened, Commonwealth now employs 150 in Vermont. And on Dec. 14, Moffitt announced yet another expansion of a facility that produces large quantities of the popular Green Mountain Creamery yogurt brand. The $20 million...
At age 21, Brittany Allard believes she may have found her niche. The Brattleboro resident is a member of the first class graduating from an accelerated medical assistant training program - the result of a new collaboration between Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and Community College of Vermont. Hospital and college administrators tout the 14-week program as an innovative way to meet workforce needs, since the Hospital offered full scholarships to eight students and guaranteed that they would have jobs upon completing...
Cost projections from new filings by NorthStar Group Services Inc., the proposed buyer of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon: • $811.5 million: Total costs at Vermont Yankee from 2019 to 2052 • $511.1 million: Nuclear Regulatory Commission license termination costs • $287.8 million: Spent nuclear fuel management • $12.6 million: Site restoration • $17 million: Amount expected to remain in trust accounts after cleanup...
A New York company says it might start cleaning up the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in 2019 and could finish the job as early as 2026 - the most accelerated schedule released to date. The disclosure came in newly filed documents seeking state approval for Entergy's proposed sale of the shut-down Vernon plant to NorthStar Group Services Inc. The companies want to close the deal by the end of 2018, and they're asking the Vermont Public Service Board to rule...
Whatever and however you celebrate, I'm wishing you and yours a very happy holiday season this year! It looks like the weather will cooperate and foster fairly uneventful driving conditions this upcoming weekend, save for a few showers of rain or snow. As I'm fond of saying from time to time, no big whoop! We've got a few frontal boundaries moving through the region over the next week, but none of them promises to deliver much in the way of...
Sean Altman makes his second appearance at Next Stage in as many weeks, this time with his bawdy and rowdy comedy revue, Jewmongous!, on Friday, Dec. 23, at 7:30 p.m. Altman's first CD, Taller Than Jesus, was a bit of a departure from the work he was best known for as the founder and leader of Rockapella, the house a cappella band for the beloved public TV show, Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego. But with cuts like his...
Today, something odd happened. The significance of my trip to the grocery store sunk in, and the shock of it stunned me. For the first time in my life, I used food stamps at a grocery store. And for the first time in my life, I bought food without worrying about the cost. It took a day to understand what I'd felt: the relief, the absence of anxiety, almost an elation, as I filled my basket, then handed the clerk...
The Brattleboro Colonels boys' basketball team headed into an 11-day break in fine fashion after winning their first three games of the season. After rallying to beat Pope Francis, 85-78, in overtime on Dec. 10 at the Pioneer Valley Tip-Off Tourney at the University of Massachusetts, the Colonels kept up the momentum with two big victories last week in the BUHS gym - a 72-59 win over Monument Mountain on Dec. 13 and a 71-27 blowout of Leland & Gray...
Some of the finest undergraduate singing groups in the nation will perform at the Latchis Theater on Saturday, Feb. 4, at 7:30 p.m., in Brattleboro's 14th annual Collegiate A Cappella Concert. A benefit for the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, the concert will feature the legendary Yale Whiffenpoofs, the Tufts Beelzebubs, Tufts Amalgamates, University of Maine Renaissance, Middlebury Dissipated Eight, and University of Vermont Cat's Meow. Founded in 1909, the all-male Yale Whiffenpoofs consists of seniors who perform extensively throughout...
At a Nov. 15 Brattleboro Selectboard meeting, Windham & Windsor Housing Trust Executive Director Connie Snow announced that her nonprofit has an option to buy the Lamplighter Motel on Putney Road. The Housing Trust and Groundworks Collaborative are teaming up on a $4.3 million plan that would convert the Lamplighter into 22 fully-contained apartments. There would also be a community center and green space in the middle of the complex. The apartments would be about 350 square feet, and each...
“We should give him a chance.” “Once he's in office, things may well change.” “America prides itself on ensuring a smooth, orderly transition.” No! No, no, no! You don't give plutocrats, oligarchs, or incipient fascists a chance. They don't change when they win - they only grow bolder, tell more lies, expand and tighten control, find more enemies to attack. That's why we must call them out every chance we get, right from the get-go! It's only mid-December as I...
On a recent wintry morning full of school closures and delays, about 30 community members braved the steep, snow-packed driveway of the Winston Prouty Center's Austine Campus to sit together in a circle and talk about how grassroots efforts and legislative action can protect the civil rights of many Vermonters. The group, which met on Dec. 12 in Holton Hall, included social service leaders and their clients, students, six members of the Windham County delegation to the Legislature, and a...
For as long as he can remember, anthropologist and watercolor painter Charles Wagner Norris-Brown refused to accept the fact that adults could tell him what to do. Never fully trusting the grown-up point of view, he confesses, “I always liked the freedom of children's thinking better. It is beautiful how they think about the relationship of the world and nature, especially children from 8 to 12 or 13. They are not inhibited by prejudice and other preconceived ideas. They are...