MONDAY EDITION
ADDISON COUNTY
INDEPENDENT
Vol. 29 No. 40
Music for the masses •Emily Taubi will be among the performers at a free Feb. 1 show of strings, piano and sax at Middlebury College. Page 10.
Middlebury, Vermont
Middlebury floats small town budget increase By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury residents at town meeting will consider a fiscal year 2019 municipal budget of $10,574,426, of which $7,331,905 would be raised through local property taxes. It’s a proposed spending plan that would result in an increase of about one-third of one
penny in the community’s current municipal rate of 98.2 cents. One penny on Middlebury’s property tax rate raises roughly $75,000. The Middlebury selectboard at its most recent meeting agreed to warn the budget, which will be voted by (See Middlebury, Page 35)
Monday, January 29, 2018
36 Pages
$1.00
Former co-chief of ambulance service pleads in embezzlement By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — A former codirector of Middlebury Regional EMS has pleaded innocent to four felony charges of embezzlement, stemming from allegations that she stole a combined total of $7,802 from the nonprofit over a more than year-long period to pay
for personal items, gifts for friends and her own medical expenses. Lisa M. Northup, 46, entered her plea during her Jan. 22 arraignment in Addison Superior Court, criminal division. She had until early last year shared administrative leadership (See Embezzlement, Page 14)
MUHS maintains school choice • Board preserves 15 spots for students from outside the district. See Page 2.
Girls’ education author in Bristol
• Champlain professor will illustrate the barriers to teaching girls around the world. See Page 17.
MUHS girls look to keep winning
• The Tigers had taken two of three after a slow start heading into a Friday night home game. See Sports, Page 18.
‘Cabaret’
THE KIT KAT dancers strut their stuff during rehearsal for “Cabaret” at Town Hall Theater last Thursday night. The show, which was performed to sold-out crowds over the weekend, is a January Term collaboration between the Middlebury College Department of Music and THT. Independent photo/Trent Campbell
Blue moon will be rising over Vt. • Early Wednesday morning there will be a moon-rise that is unusual in three ways. See Page 25.
Ferrisburgh spending proposed to increase
Highway department the main driver By ANDY KIRKALDY FERRISBURGH — The Ferrisburgh selectboard on Wednesday adopted a roughly $1.935 million town spending proposal for the 2018-2019 fiscal year that would raise spending by about 4.1 percent, assuming voters also back charitable contributions on the ballot.
Selectboard members also adopted a town meeting warning that included two more measures that could boost spending by another 1.8 percent: a proposed $115,000 purchase of a loader over a fiveyear period, and an increase in the highway department contingency fund by $10,000 to $40,000. Assistant Treasurer Pam Cousino
said town officials expect payments on the loader to be about $23,000 a year over the five-year term. And the other major increases in what is an overall boost of about $77,000 in the proposed budget can also be found in the highway department. This past March, town residents approved the purchase of a new, fully equipped $190,000 tandem dump truck, and $38,000 appears in
the budget adopted on Wednesday as the first payments for that vehicle. Also, $10,382 shows up to pay for a used heavy-duty pickup truck that was not in the current budget, but should have been. The department bought it two years ago and the town has spent $10,000 on it this year, but it was accidentally omitted from the budget, according to Treasurer Deb Healey, who was elected this past (See Ferrisburgh, Page 35)