Jeff Potter
Holding tight to fall
Forget the official solstices and equinoxes and other astronomic definitions of our world and its position relative to the sun: we know in our gut and in our heart of hearts whether a new season has arrived in a meaningful manner.
For me, that watershed moment between summer and fall comes with the subtle appearance of the first yellow, orange, or red leaf on the car windshield in the morning.
What’s in a name? (Or more than 20 names?)
Many readers were baffled and upset that we published an Open Letter and withheld attribution. Your editor describes why we did so.
When a representative of a local downtown business came to The Commons' newsroom with a letter commenting on issues and concerns affecting downtown Brattleboro - but with the stipulation that it be published without its signatories' names - I did not expect that piece would ever see print. But...
Next week’s Voices to address panhandling issues and questions of anonymity
Last issue's Open Letter, “A direct negative impact on our economic sustainability,” signed by 20 downtown Brattleboro businesspeople and submitted for publication on condition of anonymity, has generated more than a little bit of conversation and some significant response. That response has run the gamut - not only because...
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500 issues and counting
The fact that this issue of The Commons is our 500th doesn't mean it's appreciably different from what we did last week or will do for our next. But if big, round numbers are useful in any way, they provide us a context with which to gauge our journey together in this improbable undertaking in community journalism. Starting from the very beginning, when The Commons was more of an ideal and a concept than it was a consistent and predictable...
Credits
This Special Focus section is reported and written by Shanta Lee Gander and MacLean Gander, with additional reporting by Matthew Vernon Whalan. Jeff Potter edited and designed the section and provided additional research and data analysis. By way of transparency, we note that Shanta Lee Gander reported this piece while winding down her activities on the Brattleboro Selectboard, from which she will step down when her term ends next month. None of her reporting was done under the auspices of...
Perfect location, sight unseen
When Andrea Fontana set out to write a coming-of-age graphic novel set in the 1980s, he decided it would take place in Brattleboro - a place where, oddly, the writer, essayist, and lover of film and comic books from Genova, Italy, has never set foot. But with the electronic help of dozens of members of a local Facebook group, Clara and the Shadows, which will be published in Italy next year, will include some touches of local authenticity. For the...
Powering down
When Kelly Ross stood outside her South Hill Road home in Jamaica on the night of Nov. 26, she saw something dramatic from the power lines. “It was a fireworks show,” she said as she prepared coffee for a steady stream of customers at D&K's Jamaica Grocery. It took four full days from that Monday night for Ross and her boyfriend, Raj Taylor, to get power restored - almost five days later, on Friday, Nov. 30. Ross and Taylor were...
‘Now or never’
Jatoba played its last regular show in 2017, but, in the words of member Jason Scaggs, the self-described “groovegrass” band has “left some loose ends hanging around." Like the CD that was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2015. But that album, the band's third, is now complete, and a CD release party will celebrate the arrival of “Last Man Standing” on Saturday, Nov. 10, with three of its original lineup - Scaggs, John Jamison, and Jeff Richardson - back on stage...