WILMINGTON - Voters approved spending $2,207,095 on the general fund, and $1,410,174 on the road budget at the March 6 Town Meeting.
Voters also approved continuing funding for recycling at the former Town Garage, to add $265,000 to the highway equipment capital fund, and $125,000 for the fire department equipment capital fund.
...At the Town Meeting registration table in the Guilford Central School gymnasium, a French-made black wool beret waited for its owner, a “lost-and-found” sign next to it. “Someone brought the hat from last year's meeting,” when they found it was left forgotten, Town Moderator Rick Zamore said. “Guilford is...
Given the recent close call at Fair Haven Union High School, I wonder if David Van Deusen remains as sanguine about the continuation of the status quo in Vermont concerning questions of gun legislation as he maintains. While it may, by the greatest good fortune, remain just below the...
Last year, on U.S. profits of $5.6 billion, Amazon didn't pay federal income tax. The company's “warehouse associates,” who work at $12.63 per hour, did.
Most sensible people realize that when someone is seriously wounded, you must stop the bleeding before dealing with the actual cause of the wound, or else the victim is likely to die. As recently occurred in Florida, the blood of our children is being shed while we adults debate the causes and prevention strategies. Improved background checks, competency and mental-health requirements, school-safety drills, family-unit revitalization, and spiritual renewal are all worth considering, but we've been studying this issue since Columbine...
Although many articles inspired lengthy debate, all of the articles voted on the floor at the 2018 Town Meeting warning passed without amendment. Articles 3 and 4, which ask voters to authorize “the legislative body” - in this case, the Selectboard - to appoint the town clerk and treasurer, were decided by Australian ballot. Results were unavailable at press time. Three of Putney's four legislators appeared at the meeting to give residents a recap of their recent efforts, and what...
The Brattleboro Music Center announces the Windham Orchestra's 32nd annual Concerto Competition, open to serious instrumental and vocal music students in grades 9 through 12. Eligible students must live in or attend schools in the Vermont counties of Windsor, Windham, or Bennington; New Hampshire counties of Cheshire, Sullivan or Grafton; or Massachusetts counties of Berkshire, Franklin, or Hampshire. The winner will receive $200 and perform with the Windham Orchestra under the direction of conductor Hugh Keelan. “This is an opportunity...
Students, visual artists, teachers, writers, and facilitators are encouraged to participate in “The Bill of Rights Project.” According to a news release, this is an opportunity for people of all ages, political persuasions, and talents to participate in The Resistance, a series of art exhibits and events in the Bellows Falls area scheduled for this summer. In images and/or words, individuals can offer their thoughts on the Bill of Rights, either responding to a particular amendment or to the document...
Next Stage Arts at 15 Kimball Hill will present Bold Women, Brazen Acts on March 17, at 7:30 p.m., in honor of Women's History Month. Admission is $12 suggested donation at the door. Bold Women, Brazen Acts is based on That Takes Ovaries! Bold Females and their Brazen Acts, conceived and edited by Rivka Solomon. It is produced by writer, journalist, workshop leader, and speaker Elayne Clift, and co-directed by Rebecca Waxman. The play features Nan Mann and Nancy Stephens...
Wendy Redlinger's Jazz soirée, located at 2596 Tater Lane, presents the Bob Stabach 4tet on Sunday, March 11, at 3 p.m. The 4tet will be performing original new compositions along with some Great American Songbook classics recast in the jazz style. Most of the new compositions are penned by Bob Stabach, the saxophonist and leader of the group. One of the new compositions is titled “Portrait.” Stabach started composing this piece three years ago, then shelved it until three months...
College news • Allison V. Stamler of Brattleboro, a member of the Class of 2020, has been selected for inclusion on St. Lawrence University's Dean's List for academic achievement during the fall 2017 semester. • Noah Sampson-Frank of Putney, who is in the software engineering program, made the Dean's List for the fall 2017 semester at Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology. • Starr M Gutierrez and Shealine Marie Rivera Caraballo of Brattleboro and Chayse Jarvis of Newfane all were named...
Women's Action Team hosts #MeToo solidarity rally BRATTLEBORO - On Thursday, March 8, at 5 p.m., at Pliny Park, the Women's Action Team invites the community to gather in downtown Brattleboro on International Women's Day in #MeToo solidarity against sexual abuse and stand with survivors of sexual assault and harassment. The #MeToo Movement gained momentum in October 2017, after the Weinstein “revelations” of sexual assault hit the media. The Twitter hashtag #MeToo spoke for millions who had been sexually abused...
I am a resident of Windham County concerned about health care and the status of Act 48, Vermont's universal health-care act. The act was passed by Vermont's Legislature in 2011 and was scheduled to be funded by 2017. Its funding is long overdue. Accessible, affordable, and comprehensive health care must remain a major focus and priority for our state. I am a senior citizen, but proper health-care coverage is a universal need for all Vermont residents of all ages and...
Students from Vermont Academy, Twin Valley Middle High School, and Brattleboro Union High School will travel to the Barre Opera House on March 8 to compete in the 2018 Vermont Poetry Out Loud state competition. They will join students from 34 Vermont high schools representing 11 counties to vie for the State Championship in the national poetry recitation competition. The state winner will compete in the National Competition in April. “The Poetry Out Loud program not only connects students to...
While David van Deusen tries to reassure us that Vermont's violent crime rate is low, he omits the fact that the state's suicide rate is high and that firearms are a frequent method of suicide, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Gathering such statistics has been made difficult because of the lobbying of the National Rifle Association. The Dickey Amendment to the federal Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1996, promoted by...
The tragic massacre in Florida and Vermont's own near miss in Fair Haven emphasizes that we continue to be caught up in an epidemic of gun violence. More than 33,000 people die in firearms-related incidences in the U.S. annually. In Vermont, 420 people died from gun-related violence from 2011 to 2016, many the result of domestic violence and suicide. And yet, the same pattern repeats every time a tragedy occurs: Groups retreat to tired talking points that are created and...
Members of the all-volunteer Planning Commission, working with the Town Planners, are getting ready to roll out the 2018 Town Plan. The commissioners will hold a public hearing on March 19, and they encourage townspeople to attend and offer their feedback on the draft document. A Town Plan serves “as the policy document to guide municipal decisions related to land use and development regulations, environmental protection, the provision of municipal facilities and services, strategies for economic development, and the quality...
Community College of Vermont student Melissa Buffum received a $2,500 medical assisting scholarship from the Brattleboro Rotary Club Gateway Foundation at a March 1 award ceremony at CCV's Brattleboro academic center. Buffum is the fourth recipient of the Jesse M. Corum IV Scholarship. The Brattleboro Rotary Club Gateway Foundation established the scholarship in September 2014 to honor late Brattleboro Rotarian Jesse Corum IV, who was an active Rotarian for 27 years. Corum was committed to supporting local education and enhancing...
Thank you, The Commons, for providing such a vibrant forum of ideas and opinions in your Voices section. I really appreciated this piece. Although I'm not yet entirely in agreement with the writer David Van Deusen, he certainly provided clear reasoning behind his opinion and led me to hesitate in my full support of gun-control legislation. The article has sparked much contemplation for me personally and led to some thoughtful dialogue with others. No political topic stands alone, however, and...
In a recent VtDigger article, we get a rare glimpse into the mind of a potential school shooter. According to the story, “His first target, though,” the would-be shooter, Jack Sawyer, told the detective, “would have been the school resource officer,” Scott Alkinburgh, a corporal in the Fair Haven Police Department. Sawyer said he would have taken out Alkinburgh first because he was the only person at the school who could possibly have stopped him. Here you see how the...
32 Pills: My Sister's Suicide [2017 • Hope Litoff • 85 min. • USA • Doc] After struggling with mental illness for most of her life, New York artist Ruth Litoff committed suicide at age 42 in 2008 by overdosing on prescription pills. Six years later, her younger sister, Hope Litoff, decides to film herself while she empties a packed-to-the-brim storage unit filled with Ruth's belongings. Hope is driven by the need to understand Ruth's illness and desire to end...
We have read with great concern and consternation Rebecca Holcombe's memorandum on “Student Voice and Civil Debate,” addressed to superintendents, principals, independent school headmasters, and all educators in Vermont. In this memo, the secretary of education urges the aforementioned parties to foster students' ability to use their voices to advocate for change, yet suggests that students not participate in the walkouts planned at many schools, but rather share a 17-minute period of silence in the auditorium. (The irony of asking...
According to a recent Reformer story, our community hospital agreed to pay the federal and state government over $1.6 million for “knowingly” filing false claims. Among my colleagues and friends, the act of filing false claims is also known as stealing - in this case, stealing from the taxpayers. While it was stealing $1.6 million from the taxpayers of the state and country, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital was also receiving a tax exemption from the taxpayers of Brattleboro. A full exemption...
Good day to you, southern Vermonters! We have got a major snowstorm underway for the region as this paper hits the streets of Windham County. A classic nor'easter will form and move up the coast, passing over Nantucket and bringing heavy snow to the region. Snow showers will continue Thursday into Friday with a break over the weekend before more snow and rain is possible early next week. With that said, let's head over to the details and take a...
Thoughts on reducing gun violence: It has become clear to most Americans that we desperately need to curtail all types of gun violence. The tragic consequences of our current lack of firearms regulation is too much to bear. We need to take action now. A reasonable place to start the conversation is to compare gun ownership to driving. It’s commonly accepted that to operate a motor vehicle, everyone should be subject to reasonable restrictions and regulations and drive responsibly: •...
Following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., our nation is once again deadlocked in a debate over how to put an end to the seemingly endless string of gun-related tragedies playing out in our schools and places of work. President Trump has suggested that we can solve the problem by arming teachers. He has also suggested that we should open more mental hospitals as a way of getting perpetrators of these crimes “out of...
It took more than a year to pull off, but it looks like the proposed sale of the defunct Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to a New York-based decommissioning company is moving closer to taking place. On March 2, a memorandum of understanding was filed with the Vermont Public Utilities Commission. It calls for Entergy, the current owner of Vermont Yankee, and NorthStar, the company that wants to buy the Vernon site and decommission it, to set aside additional money...
This proposal to overhaul the SNAP program, like so many recently, is terrifying. Of course, even if the infrastructure costs of pulling off such a feat would massively cut into the benefits that families actually receive, providing that box of canned and processed food would be a nice fat deal for a few corporate buddies of the administration. I have been on food stamps for many years. Even before I had children, I qualified financially to receive them - even...
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” To “keep arms” means to “have weapons,” to “bear arms” means to carry them. “Weapons” is generally taken to mean “guns” as opposed to tanks, missiles, and cannons. According to Merriam-Webster, “infringe” means to “encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights...
The Brattleboro Music Center's popular Singing Strong! program for seniors who love to sing returns for a spring session. The new season of Singing Strong! begins Tuesday, March 13, and sessions are scheduled from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. in the BMC's Recital Hall each Tuesday through May 1. The cost is $65 for eight weekly sessions. The program is for those who just love to sing - no auditions, requirements, or performance experience required. Says program director Susan Dedell, “We're...
At the start of Dummerston Town Meeting moderator Cindy Jerome reminded the gathering crowd that as a community in a civil society, there is a “tremendous gap between saying 'I am right' and 'I believe I am right.'” She needn't have worried. The meeting was nothing if not thoughtful and dignified. And long. At its peak, attendance hit about 140. As usual, older people predominated, but high school students and even a few babies were also present. The meeting started...
Incumbency still meant something to Brattleboro voters this year, as they returned the current Selectboard and Brattleboro Union High School Board members to new terms in the March 6 town election. According to the unofficial results, Town Clerk Hilary Francis said incumbent Selectboard member Brandie Starr, running unopposed for a three-year term on the board, garnered the most votes of any candidate on the ballot with 1,004 votes. Francis said 1,186 voters turned out for the election, a “low-to-low-average turnout,”
Josh Davis, executive director of Groundworks Collaborative, recently joined me for a radio interview to discuss the programs and services that the agency provides. The Groundworks Seasonal Overflow Shelter opened in November in its new quarters on the Winston Prouty campus, with a number of changes in staffing and routines. For years, the shelter operated in downtown Brattleboro in the First Baptist Church. The new site is not as centrally located, so Groundworks is running a shuttle bus daily for...
Bluegrass, jazz, classical, and swing will be on tap when the Andrew Collins Trio performs Saturday, March 10, at 7:30 p.m., in the Chapel at Immanuel Episcopal Church, 20 Church St. In his native Canada, Collins has received rave reviews. The Toronto Star wrote, “Light of touch, fast of wit, copiously imaginative, and a musical scholar of the highest distinction, Toronto mandolin virtuoso pulls out all the stops” And Exclaim! magazine declared, “To call Andrew Collins a master of the...
Is our president in the pocket of the National Rifle Association? It was well noted by observers that President Trump's response speech to the recent Florida high school shooting, though compassionate in nature, did not mention gun control. According to Fortune.com, “In the 2016 election, the NRA spent $11,438,118 to support Donald Trump - and another $19,756,346 to oppose Hillary Clinton. That's over $31 million spent on one presidential race.” Might this be a factor in his blatant omission? *
Sandglass Theater's Winter Sunshine Series' 11th season of performances, workshops, and school engagements continues on Saturday, March 17, with two performances of Everybody Loves Pirates! by Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers at Sandglass Theater at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Eight-year-old Lucy and her goofy pal Little Chucky are searching for buried treasure, but a gang of bumbling pirates keeps getting in the way. The kids get some help from their new ocean-dwelling friends, including enthusiastic superhero Lobster Boy, his reluctant sidekick...
The first week of the Vermont high school sports winter playoffs ended with all the local teams watching from the sidelines after first round losses. This week, the boys' basketball playoffs begin, and two of the three local teams that qualified for the postseason have tough road games in the first round. • Twin Valley is the only local team with a winning record. With victories in five of their last six games, they finished at 11-9, which got them...
Even with more than four decades as a touring professional in the music business, Claudia Schmidt still faces the dilemma of how to market herself. “People most often put me in the category of singer/songwriter,” Schmidt explains. “But I sing other people's songs too. In fact, I consider myself a pretty good jazz singer. “Nonetheless, the folk-music people are hesitant to hire a jazz singer, and those in jazz won't take me seriously because I come from the world of...
If you've ever wondered how there could ever be too much of a good thing, then the 2018 Women's Film Festival is for you. Instead of finding one “best in fest” independent film to praise, I've found four or five or maybe even six - and I've only seen one-third of the 50 films they're showing. This is the 27th year for the Women's Film Festival - the big yearly fundraiser for the Women's Freedom Center. It will be held...
The horror of the Parkland, Florida massacre cannot be overstated. In six minutes, a cowardly bully murdered 17 innocent people. However, as we contemplate this truly awful event, we should not lose sight of the 100 or so Vermonters who kill themselves with guns each year, often with handguns and often alone. These events are rarely reported in the media, lead to no political posturing, and leave the survivors and first responders to grieve in isolation, mostly without any community...
With Town Clerk Denise Germon's resignation at midnight on March 6, it was up to the town's Board of Civil Authority to appoint someone hours later to preside over Town Meeting. The BCA, which consists of the town's justices of the peace, the Selectboard, and the town agent, met in the Fifth Grade room at the Putney Central School at 9 a.m. on March 6 - an hour before Town Meeting was called to order. Under statute, it is the...
Administrative Assistant Shannon Meckle characterized this year's meeting as “smooth and uneventful.” Newfane resident Laurie Merrigan agreed. “It was the most sedate and polite town meeting I've been to,” she said. Merrigan said she has been attending the annual meeting “since I was old enough to vote.” Most articles passed without amendments, with a few notable exceptions. Three articles - numbers 10, 11, and 12 - were defeated. These asked voters to decide whether the terms for town clerk, treasurer,