MONDAY EDITION
ADDISON COUNTY
INDEPENDENT
Vol. 28 No. 10
Middlebury, Vermont
Monday, June 13, 2016
Bristol dentist tells stories of life Student gets farming the Great Plains the grades • A Salisbury teen found that an alternative program enabled her to get a diploma. See Page 2.
Legion honors Bristol fire chief • Chief Brett LaRose is recognized for building trust and showing leadership. Read the Bristol Beat on Pages 1417.
By GAEN MURPHREE BRISTOL — Bristol dentist Jim Cossaart will be flying to Kansas this weekend, as he does several times a year, to repair barbed wire fences and move some cows around. The Cossaart family has been farming and ranching on the same piece of Kansas soil since 1870. Jim Cossaart’s love for that land, his love of farming, his determined struggle as a young farmer to keep body and soul together during the farm crisis of the 1980s and his return to the farm as a Vermont dentist to heal the land and heal himself is the subject of his recent memoir, “A Piece of Kansas Soil.” (See Cossaart, Page 7)
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Dog park supporters seek contributions By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — Organizers of a new Middlebury dog park have jumped through most of the planning hoops for their pet project and are now trying to fetch the $15,000 it will take to buy a fence to encircle the roughly two-acre property adjacent to the Porter Medical Center campus. The dog park is the brainchild of several Middlebury-area pet owners who have yearned for a safe, local place for pets to frolic off-leash. (See Dog park, Page 7)
Trio of teams shoot for titles • The Eagle softball and baseball squads and Tiger girls’ lacrosse all were set for state championship games this weekend. See Pages 18-21.
Going under MIDDLEBURY UNION HIGH School seniors Ian McKay, left, Tsering Chophel and Nick Holmes start to go under the waters of Lake Dunmore during the school’s annual senior raft race last Thursday afternoon. For more photos from the race see Page 23.
Quartet to play Brahms and more • The Northern Third Piano Quartet will perform 19thand 20th-century music at Brandon Music. See Arts Beat on Page 10.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell
Lawmakers endorse ‘fix’ to solar siting bill Bray plays role in marathon session By JOHN FLOWERS MONTPELIER — The state Legislature emerged from a marathon special session on Thursday with an amended version of a renewable energy siting bill that had
been vetoed by Gov. Peter Shumlin on June 6. The governor said on Friday that he would sign the bill, known as S.260, designed to give more local control over the siting of solar projects to communities that develop energy plans that are consistent with the state’s long-term renewable energy goals.
Shumlin had vetoed the bill — formerly known as S.230 — citing four specific problems with the legislation. Two of those complaints had to do with how the bill addressed wind power regulation. He asked lawmakers to reconvene on Thursday to make changes to S.230 so he could sign it. Thursday’s special session was
fraught with political twists and turns. There were two bills under discussion. S.230 was the original bill that Shumlin vetoed; S.260 was a new bill that was almost exactly the same except for changes in about a dozen lines that would make it acceptable to Shumlin. To take up the new bill and pass (See Solar bill, Page 28)