Charlie Hunter
Our train station is literally a gateway to the town
Pretty much everybody in Rockingham and Bellows Falls agrees that having to tear down historic buildings is a very sad thing, and that the time to act is early enough, before they are prohibitively expensive to save. Robertson Paper, the Stables by the Waypoint Center, the Methodist Church/Grange/YMCA.... all have been lost in the last few years.
The Bellows Falls train station, constructed 100 years ago in 1922, is in need of extensive repair. Fortunately, the recently passed infrastructure bill contains specific pots of money for renovating small-town stations served by Amtrak.
North, Cowan, and Zimmer stand out for Rockingham Selectboard
Due to the pandemic, voting for town offices looks to be particularly challenging this year. In Rockingham, we are blessed with a plethora of candidates for Selectboard. In my opinion, three particularly stand out: Bonnie North for the three-year position and Rick Cowan and Elijah Zimmer for the two...
Silas may be gone, but his voice is still being heard
An obituary for a beloved cat raises $3,700-plus for the Windham County Humane Society
Making the decision to end the life of an elderly pet is excruciating. To help deal with the impending demise of my beloved small, yellow cat of 18 years, Pvt. Silas Goodrich, I started to compose an obituary for him. Silas must have had at least some Siamese in...
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End of the line?
My friend Sarah Ovenden and I run a small company called Roots on the Rails. A couple of times a year, we book moderately well-known musicians (the “roots” part) who can draw a crowd of 50 or so fans, charter five vintage, privately-owned passenger railroad cars (the “rails” part), and set out to visit some cool places that are served by passenger train. We've done 45 or so trips since 2003, with musicians ranging from Cowboy Junkies to Ramblin' Jack...
Rockingham development office, BFADC: a dysfunctional fiefdom
In January, I read a letter to the then-current Rockingham Selectboard regarding what I saw as the aberrant behavior of the Rockingham Development Office. At that time, I suggested the board conduct a thorough performance audit of the office over the last eight years and make a thorough list of projects undertaken versus projects completed by this town department. At the Selectboard meeting of March 7, I reiterated that call. Beyond that, however, seeing the continuing stonewalling behind a dysfunctional...
Sheriff shouldn’t blame the opposition
To read that Sheriff Keith Clark apparently feels he has received a “raw deal” regarding the disastrous launch of his planned detention center in Rockingham beggars the imagination. To complain that citizens are leery of a project for which he has provided no budget, no concrete plans, and no avenue for meaningful input is ludicrous. It wasn't the idea of Rockingham residents to jam a 120-bed detention facility into a residential neighborhood in Bellows Falls - no, that idea resides...
An almost Nixonian sense of secrecy
Let it first be said that a more holistic, comprehensive approach toward treating nonviolent offenders is a great idea. One also applauds the progressive vision for law enforcement from our county sheriff. And the idea of rehabbing a 10-years-dead-and-gone mill on the banks of the Connecticut River is wonderful. However, as a citizen of Rockingham, where the ironically named Liberty Mill Justice Center is proposed, one might be forgiven for wanting to look beneath the hood a bit. There are...
Amtrak is not going to be profitable
Last week's wreck in Philadelphia showed the need for massive investment in rail infrastructure in America. Instead, one day later, the House of Representatives voted to cut investment in Amtrak in 2016. The argument goes that operator incompetence - “taking a 50-mile-an-hour curve at 102” - caused the wreck, not an infrastructure problem. This makes my head hurt. The curve is there because the right-of-way was laid out 150 years ago. There should be a state-of-the-art right-of-way for a system...