‘Hype man’
Back home
Clear sailing
A DJ in Middlebury has learned to get the crowd going at karaoke night. See Arts + Leisure.
A Salisbury family got some great news about their cat on Christmas Day. See Page 10A.
The Commodore girls were held in check for a while by MUHS, but cruised home. See Page 1B.
ADDISON COUNTY
Vol. 73 No. 2
INDEPENDENT Middlebury, Vermont
Thursday, January 10, 2019
36 Pages
$1.00
Man in MUMS case seeks return of guns
Cummings to succeed Bob Thorn at CSAC
Family Court judge slated to decide request By JOHN FLOWERS alleged planned shooting. MIDDLEBURY — The Addison Authorities thwarted the plan County resident whose firearms thanks to information supplied by were confiscated by police in order another MUMS student. The Addison to keep them from a boy who had Central School District board on allegedly planned to Monday agreed to shoot up Middlebury “There’s only draft a resolution Union Middle School honoring that student last month has regained one way to find in what will be, by access to his guns out (if the teen necessity, a somewhat and could have them secretly had a muted accolade; the returned to his home as key to the gun boy and his family soon as this week. safe) — he gains have decided to remain Addison County access and then anonymous. State’s Attorney Also maintaining Dennis Wygmans and he goes and anonymity is the man Middlebury police shoots up the whose guns were confirmed that news school as he had confiscated as part of early this week as threatened. Is the Middlebury police an Addison County that the outcome investigation into the Family Court judge alleged shooting plan. prepared to hear details we want? I don’t Officials stressed of the high-profile case think so.” the man did nothing — State’s Attorney wrong. involving a 14-year-old Middlebury Dennis Wygmans police MUMS student who seized his had allegedly planned weapons — largely to shoot a fellow student, and anyone consisting of hunting guns — after else who got in the way, on the successfully applying to an Addison school campus on Dec. 18. County judge for an “Extreme Also implicated in the case is Risk Protection Order,” or ERPO. another 14-year-old student who Vermont’s Act 97 states that an ERPO had allegedly offered to procure “prohibits a person from possessing weapon(s), from a relative, for the (See Guns, Page 12A)
By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — Rachel Lee Cummings, former CEO at Age Well, will in February begin her role as the new executive director of the Counseling Service of Addison County. She will succeed Robert Thorn, CSAC’s longtime administrative leader, who’s retiring after almost four decades of service. Cummings brings a strong human services and business background to her new position, according to a press release issued Wednesday by the CSAC board. Prior to her work at Age Well, Cummings founded and ran RLC Guardianship Services and Armistead Senior Care, a non(See CSAC, Page 12A)
Corporate moves won’t affect city aerospace plant
Police: VUHS threat ‘was not real’ VERGENNES — Vergennes police on Tuesday afternoon investigated a report of a student threat to fire a weapon at Vergennes Union High School, but according to Vergennes Police Chief George
Merkel authorities determined “the ability to carry out the threat was not real,” and “no threat exists to the safety of students or the facility.” On Wednesday Merkel said a (See VUHS, Page 9A)
New FCC rule could hurt local access TV
MCTV, NEAT brace for potential cuts By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — Managers of Vermont’s cable access channels are warning that a new rule being pitched by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could significantly affect their revenues to a point where some stations might have to pare back services significantly, or even close down. If that happens it would certainly restrict the public’s ability to keep tables on their local government.
The 1984 Cable Act, among other things, established rules on how cable television operators must reimburse communities for the right to use public ways to extend their cable infrastructure to consumers. Cable operators must pay a franchise fee to substantially subsidize local cable access stations — also known as Public, Educational, and Governmental Access Channels, or PEGs. (See FCC, Page 9A)
Information superhighway
AJ BOWEN, A lineman with Eustis Cable Enterprises, installs fiber optic cable for Middlebury College and other customers on South Pleasant Street in Middlebury this past Thursday afternoon.
Independent photo/John S. McCright
By ANDY KIRKALDY VERGENNES — Despite recent major changes in the corporate structure of one of Addison County’s largest employers, a company spokesman said this week it should be business as usual on Panton Road in Vergennes. What in 2012 was a Goodrich Aerospace plant — and until late last year did business under the banner of United Technologies Aerospace Systems — now has a Collins Aerospace Systems sign facing Panton Road after parent company United Technologies Corp. completed a multi-billion-dollar acquisition. Collins Aerospace Public Relations Specialist Robert Edilson (See Plant, Page 12A)
Utility, environmentalists spar over Lincoln forest By CHRISTOPHER ROSS LINCOLN — A deal that should have ben a win-win-win for a pair of utilities, their customers and the environment has fallen through. Waitsfield & Champlain Valley Telecom (WCTV) has withdrawn from an agreement that would have relocated utility lines from a protected woodland to the roadside in Lincoln, buried new fiber optic cable through the forest and preserved
scenic views of Mount Abraham. The agreement fell through even after the Lincoln selectboard approved the deal and the Vermont Family Forests Foundation (VFF) offered to pick up some of the tab. “At the very last minute, WCTV suggested they did not want to be pinned down to implementing their project as they designed it,” said David Brynn, executive director of VFF, which owns
some of the land. The principal parties had hoped to finalize the deal in 2018, but on Dec. 17 WCTV proposed to double the project’s right-of-way and remove limits on the number of poles it could install. “It was a surprise to us,” Brynn said. “It was almost impossible to deal with.” VFF owns the 165-acre Anderson Fred Pierce (See Utility lines, Page 12A)
As classes resume at the college, locals hit the books By the Adults in the community learn by auditing Middlebury classes
CAROL AND REG Spooner of Middlebury, taking a break in a Middlebury College lounge, are among the local residents who keep engaged and rub elbows with young students by auditing classes at the institution. Professors say it can be as good for the younger adults as it is for the auditors.
Independent photo/John S. McCright
By SARAH ASCH MIDDLEBURY — Carol Spooner audited her first class at Middlebury College in the late 1980s. She sat in on an eight-person seminar course in the Religion Department about the bible and the environment. Spooner, who graduated from the college in 1950, called up Professor Robert Schine and got permission to take the class. Since then, Spooner, 90, has audited roughly one “You don’t take class per semester on subjects including music theory, exams and Chinese film, the Middle East you don’t write and environmental studies. papers. But you After she married her husband, get more out of Reg, in 1999, they began to it if you do the audit classes together. Spooner’s favorite class was homework.” called “Farm Stories” with — Buzz Brumbaugh now-retired professor John Elder. The students built relationships with local farming families and learned about their lives and the local farming economy. Spooner recalls riding with her classmates in a children’s school bus all around Addison County to visit the farms. “The best part was the families came at the end of it and they had a pot luck supper and the students presented a video presentation of their experience with that family,” Spooner said. In the last decade, the college has also taken steps to (See Classes, Page 9A)
way
With snow back in the forecast, folks residing or doing business in Middlebury are reminded of the town’s winter parking ban, which took effect Nov. 1 and extends through April 1. The ban prohibits parking between midnight and 6 a.m. on town streets and in most municipal parking lots. Vehicles parked in violation of the ban are subject to ticketing, (See By the way, Page 9A)
Index Obituaries................................. 6A Classifieds.......................... 6B-7B Service Directory............... 4B-5B Entertainment.........Arts + Leisure Community Calendar............... 8A Arts Calendar.........Arts + Leisure Sports................................. 1B-3B