Thursday, March 15, 2018

Page 1

Premiere A new local theater troupe debuts with a musical version of Anne of Green Gables. See Arts + Leisure.

Close games

Water sample

The Panther men’s lax team played two home tilts that went down to the wire. See Page 1B.

The River Watch Collaborative will train volunteers to monitor our creeks and streams. Page 3A.

ADDISON COUNTY

Vol. 72 No. 11

INDEPENDENT Middlebury, Vermont 

Thursday, March 15, 2018  40 Pages

$1.00

ANWSD’s Canning takes job in Kuwait

Superintendent recruited for new post

By ANDY KIRKALDY becoming the superintendent of VERGENNES — Addison the Universal American School of Northwest School District Kuwait, in Kuwait City. Superintendent JoAn She was intrigued, Canning said she had as she had been while no plans to leave her reading about the job post before a possible in Ed Week back in retirement in the next 2010. She applied year or two. unsuccessfully for that But that was before opening, which turned Canning heard in out to be filled, and January from a recruiter another one in Abu who had kept her résumé Dhabi, which she didn’t after an unsuccessful get. But the recruiter did job application in 2010, not forget her and urged just before she became her to apply for the the Orange Southwest Kuwait job again. CANNING Supervisory Union “He said he was Superintendent, the really struck by my post she held for four years before résumé, but didn’t have an opening coming to Vergennes in 2014. at the time,” Canning said. “So I said The recruiter asked, Canning at least I’ll have interviews. I’ll learn said, if she would be interested in (See Canning, Page 12A)

MIDDLEBURY UNION HIGH School students MaryAnn Eastman, left, Sophie Marks and Arianna Slavin stand in a long line of gun violence protestors who gathered on Middlebury’s Cross Street Bridge Wednesday morning. The protest included 17 minutes of silence for the 17 victims of the Parkland shooting last month.

Independent photo/Trent Campbell

Hundreds demand end to gun violence MUHS, Middlebury College students prod lawmakers By EMMA POPE McCRIGHT & SOPHIE POPE McCRIGHT MIDDLEBURY — “We need to do this until the term ‘school shooting’ is no longer in our vocabulary,” said Greta HardyMittell, a Middlebury Union High School senior. On Wednesday, the East Middlebury resident joined around 300 demonstrators — students from MUHS, Middlebury Union Middle School and Middlebury College plus many local residents of all ages — in a gun-control rally on the Cross Street Bridge in Middlebury. The approximately 50 high school students had initially planned to walk out of classes and hold a vigil in honor of the victims of the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., before joining (See Action, Page 2A)

After years, Ferrisburgh could act on dog rescuer

Neighbors complain about noise, filth and now rats By ANDY KIRKALDY FERRISBURGH — Sand Road resident Lauren Fisher told the Ferrisburgh selectboard last week the barking is worse in the summer. “It’s all hours of the day and night,” Fisher said. “It wakes us up at 2 a.m.” Family friend Ziggy Comeau described how the smell hit her when she got out of her car in the Fishers’ driveway, a few yards away from a small ranch home that hosts up to 30 dogs. “My eyes were burning,” Comeau said. “It was bad.” Now, Fisher told the selectboard, her neighbor’s property is not only

home to those dogs and many cats, but is also infested with rats that have chewed her siding and some subflooring. “They were scratching the walls at night,” Fisher said. More than two dozen people on March 6 crowded into the selectboard meeting in Ferrisburgh’s town office building to complain about Heidi’s Haven, a nonprofit dog rescue operation operated by Sheila McGregor — who also showed up to defend her work. McGregor’s 912-square-foot home sits on about an acre on Sand Road’s east side and has a (See Neighbors, Page 12A)

Mt. Abe students battle snow, bureaucracy for gun protest

MIDDLEBURY UNION HIGH School students Wren Colwell, left, and Theo Wells-Spackman, and Middlebury College student Julian Gerson start a chant on the Cross Street Bridge in Middlebury during a school, college and community gun violence protest and memorial demonstration Wednesday morning. Independent photo/Trent Campbell

By CHRISTOPHER ROSS BRISTOL — Four weeks after 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., were shot to death, students from thousands of schools across the nation got up and walked out of class on Wednesday. The National School Walkout, as the event was dubbed, was organized to honor the Parkland shooting

victims and protest gun violence in America. Many students at Mount Abraham Union High School had planned their own protests, but heavy snowfall the night before prompted school closings throughout Addison County. Protests in Middlebury proceeded in spite of the weather, but in Bristol Mount Abe students (See Mt. Abe, Page 3A)

Democrat seeking to unseat Rep. Peter Welch Freilich running as a political outsider

By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — Dr. Daniel Freilich believes he can become part of the cure for a Congress he said is paralyzed by partisan gridlock and beholden to big money interests. Freilich, a Brownsville Democrat, U.S. Navy captain and medical doctor, is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., this August. As a member of the military and as a physician, Freilich believes he can lend some valuable insights into the oft-debated issues of health care reform and gun control. And he’s also got some strong opinions on renewable energy, economic equality and getting corporate money out of politics. “In Congress, we need leaders with moral clarity, outside the influence of money, to give us a fighting chance for good decision-making on behalf of all people,” Freilich proclaims on his new website, drdanforcongress. com. “Our vision for America must be one in which all citizens — regardless of income, race, gender, faith or orientation –— are empowered with

the same access and influence over the political process. Then, and only then, we will be able to focus on effectively addressing our most pressing priorities.”

This isn’t his first run against a formidable opponent from his own political party. Freilich ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., back in 2010. Freilich, during a March 8 interview with the Independent,

shared some of the policy priorities he will hammer home during what many would call a quixotic campaign against a very popular and wellfinanced Welch. Freilich hopes to topple the six-term incumbent in the Democratic Primary, and do it

DR. DANIEL FREILICH, a Democrat from Brownsville, will challenge U.S. Rep. Peter Welch in a primary this August.

Independent photos/Trent Campbell

without accepting any special interest or corporate money. So he plans to make it a good, old-fashioned, shoeleather-and-chicken-suppers odyssey, with a lot of hand shaking and visits with local and statewide media. He believes Vermonters will find his campaign strategy and views — which are unabashedly left-of-center — refreshing, particularly among the many devotees of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. “The long-term thinking is that one will gain the confidence of the electorate, who will find this is the kind of representation they’ve wanted forever,” Freilich said. “I think we’ll have enough money by the time we get to the election to compete. I’m positive the numbers will be competitive, actually. “Whether we can win, we’ll find out.” Freilich also believes he can benefit from a “backlash” incumbents are facing during the era of President Donald Trump, who has become an increasingly polarizing political figure. “I’m positive that as we get (See Freilich, Page 12A)

By the way United Way of Addison County is hosting two days of information sharing and training next week in a seminar called “Poverty and Economic Inequality: What does it mean for prevention?” The event will be held March 19 and 20, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Middlebury Inn. (See By the way, Page 14A)

Index Obituaries........................... 6A-7A Classifieds.......................... 5B-8B Service Directory............... 6B-7B Entertainment.........Arts + Leisure Community Calendar......... 8A-9A Arts Calendar.........Arts + Leisure Sports................................. 1B-2B


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