The Commons/October 27, 2010 issue

E le c t ion

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P R E V I E W

IN L A S T W EE K ’ S PAPE R :

State Representative races

• Windham-1: Michael Hebert (R) vs. Richard Davis (D). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE 4 • Windham-6: Rep. Richard Marek (D) vs. Gaila S. Gulack (R) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE 5 • Windham-Bennington-1: Richard Moran (D) vs. Geralyn Sniatkowski (R). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE 5 S TATE S ENATE R ACE S

Sen. Jeanette White (D), Peter Galbraith (D), Lynn Corum (R), Hilary Cooke (R): Two will win.. . . . . . PAGE

3

State’s Attorney

Tracy Kelly Shriver (D) vs. Gwen Harris (I) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE 4

S TATE R EP R E S ENTATIVE R ACE S

Windham 3-1: Morton/Stuart Windham 4: Moore/Obuchowski/Partridge Windham-Bennington-Windsor 1: Olsen/Trask W IN D H A M CO U NTY S H E R I F F

Clark/Manch VE R M ONT S TATE A U D ITO R

State’s Attorney

Larry Robinson (R), Joseph Spano (D), Patricia Duff (D). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE 4

Hoffer/Salmon

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Brattleboro, Vermont Wednesday, October 27, 2010 • Vol. V, No. 26 • Issue #73

W ind h am C ounty ’ s A W A R D - W I N N I N G , I ndependent S ource for N ews and V iews

Ghostly goings-on galore in BF area

YOUNG, GAY and

BULLIED

page 14

The Commons

BRATTLEBORO—With the click of a laptop computer, the future arrived in Brattleboro on Monday.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy was at the keyboard to fire up a 250-kilowatt generator that takes methane gas from the former Windham Solid Waste Management District landfill on Old Ferry Road and turns it into electricity. Central Vermont Public Service is buying the electricity made at the site, which it estimates is enough to power

bRATTLEbORO

Sondag gets new two-year contract as town manager page 2

Voices

Time to end the corporate deception on Vt. Yankee

High school is tough for any teen. For gay students, it can be a deadly environment.

Allison Teague/The Commons

Brattleboro Union High School Gay-Straight Alliance advisor Jim Stacy and Rose Lucas, a BUHS senior who openly identifies as lesbian, distribute purple ribbons to raise awareness of gay youth suicide.

page 11

Sports bOYS SOCCER

Wildcats, Rebels earn top seeds in tournament

The Commons

B

RATTLEBORO—For many, the high school years are an emotional minefield. Some manage to navigate it successfully. Others are scarred for life by the experience.

And for those who do not identify as heterosexual, the high school years can be pure hell.

The recent spate of news coverage of the suicides of six gay youths around the country

n see methane, page 2

has focused attention on the plight of LGBTQ youth — those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, otherwise describe themselves as “queer,” or still question their sexual identity. Their struggles in a setting where being different is fodder for bullying, or worse.

Disproportionately, young people who identify as other than straight kill or attempt to kill themselves.

BUHS senior Rose Lucas, one half of the only openly same-sex couple in school, n see LGBTQ YOUTH, page 6

Brattleboro Community Justice Center to show obstacles facing ex-offenders trying to make new lives for themselves

By Olga Peters The Commons

BRATTLEBORO—For exoffenders released from prison, their first day breathing free air is one of the best days. It can also be one of the hardest.

The Brattleboro Community Justice Center hopes community members will gain insight into the obstacles thwarting exoffenders’ successful reintegration into society at a workshop at American Legion Post 5 on Linden Street.

The free Oct. 28 workshop will run from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., and simulates four weeks in a new parolee’s life. Participants visit different stations representing actions parolees must take to

meet their parole requirements like obtaining housing, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or securing a job.

Attendees receive a travel voucher, money and a list of what they must accomplish. “Jail time” awaits participants failing to complete required tasks.

Julie Etter, an AmeriCorps/ VISA volunteer with the Brattleboro Community Justice Center, says participants learn “how impossible it is, even when you try so hard, to do the right thing.”

A participant from a previous workshop told Etter, “You taught me something I didn’t know I had to learn.”

Former offenders who receive n see PRISON, page 2

Remembering the true spirit of Halloween A local witch shares her thoughts on religion and the repercussions of history

By Olga Peters The Commons

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page 8

By Allison Teague

300 homes.

But that is only the beginning of what Carbon Harvest Energy has planned.

When the Burlington-based Carbon Harvest completes what it calls the Brattleboro Renewable Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Project, the waste heat from the generator will be used to heat a 20,000-square-foot greenhouse and aquaculture facility that will provide organic food to local markets and the Vermont Foodbank.

A commercial-scale algae farm

Coming home is harder than you think

VIEWPOINT

page 9

Project to turn waste into energy, and fuel a greenhouse and aquaculture facility in the process

By Randolph T. Holhut

News

What’s harder to say than ‘i’m gay?’

Lights on for new generator in Brattleboro

B

RATTLEBORO—Say the word “witch” and what comes to mind?

Harry Potter? A pointed hat, green face and warts? The crone who tried to cook Hansel and Gretel? Flying on broomsticks?

Bewitched? Women dancing

around bonfires with the devil?

How about healers? Wise elders? Or a religious tradition dating back thousands of years with “first, do no harm” as its primary tenet?

“There are a million traditions, but ‘do no harm’ is what brings them together,” said Stacy Salpietro-Babb, a 34-year-old hospital admissions coordinator, wife, mother and Strega Witch,

one who practices an Italian form of lunar witchcraft.

“People have different paths to the same truths,” she said.

Originally raised Catholic, Salpietro-Babb, describes herself as a “skeptical witch” and said her desire to have her own spiritual tradition brought her from Catholicism to Witchcraft Courtesy photo 15 years ago.

Stacy Salpietro-Babb, shown here with her fourn see WITCH, page 15

year-old son, Russell Babb.

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T h e C ommons

BR AT TLEBORO

Contract awarded for next phase of wastewater treatment plant

Betsy Jaffe, Manager

• Randolph T. Holhut, News Editor Olga Peters, Staff Reporter • David Shaw, Photographer • Nancy Gauthier, Advertising Manager Nancy Roberts, Advertising Sales Adrian Newkirk, Ad Composition • Cal Glover-Wessel, Distribution

By Olga Peters The Commons David Shaw/The Commons

Will Raap of Green Business Incubator, left, talks with Craig LaNoye, the facility manager of Carbon Harvest Energy’s methanepowered electric generator at the Windham Solid Waste Management District’s former landfill in Brattleboro.

Deadline for the Nov. 3 issue Friday, Oct. 29 About The newspaper

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• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

n Methane

is also planned for developing other products, including biofuels and a sustainable fish feed replacement and nutraceutical applications. The whole project has an estimated price tag of about $2 million, and Carbon Harvest estimates it will show a return on the investment in about five years.

“For the last 200 years, we’ve operated on a linear model of extract and deplete, consume and waste,” said Don McCormick, Carbon Harvest’s founder and designer of the project, at Monday’s ceremony. “We need to leave this model and move toward a circular model that is sustainable and wastes nothing.”

Generating energy from decomposing waste is nothing new in Brattleboro. Back in the 1980s, the 30-acre landfill was one of the first in the nation to harness methane for electric generation. But other forms of energy was cheaper back then, and as a result, there were few takers for landfill power. The plant fell into disuse and taken offline in the 1990s.

Now, CVPS is buying the landfill’s power under Vermont’s new feed-in tariff program, which requires the state’s utilities to buy a percentage of electricity from renewable sources at above-market rates.

“You wouldn’t have this project without the feed-in tariff,” said Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro, a member of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee. “This program provides the seed money for renewable energy projects.”

from page 1

water from the recirculating aquaculture system will be filtered and then recycled as fertilizer for plants grown hydroponically, a technology known as “aquaponics.” This water will also be used, along with carbon dioxide from the power plant, for a research project to grow algae for biofuels and feed.

McCormick said the Brattleboro facility will also serve as green technology research center that will be used by the University of Vermont and UVM Extension, Dartmouth College, Marlboro College and other institutions.

Besides marking the first phase of the Brattleboro project, Monday’s event was designed to also salute the partners who helped secure its funding, such as the Vermont Clean Energy Development Fund, the Vermont Economic Development Authority, the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund and the town of Brattleboro.

“This was not a ‘cookie-cutter’ project,” said McCormick. “It took a lot of vision and a lot of collaboration to do this.”

And one key part of the collaboration was Leahy, who secured funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for the project.

“This is the kind of responsible energy project that we need,” he said. “I love the idea

Sondag contract renewed

SALE ENDS

By Olga Peters The Commons

‘Totally integrated system’

BRATTLEBORO—The town Right now, the waste heat has renewed Town Manager from the generator is going up Barbara Sondag’s contract until the smokestack.Save Within a few October 2013. % At the Selectboard’s Oct. months, it willover be sent instead 19 meeting, Vice-Chair Dora to a greenhouse, which after mail-in will rebate grow 100 After $4 tons of organic veg- Bouboulis objected to the twoetables and raise 25 $ fish Mail-in Rebate. Youtons pay of 5.99 year renewal on the grounds that year-round forKiller the Vermont no town manager should have Rat & Mouse more than a one-year contract.

Foodbank and local markets.

Ready Mixed Baitbits 4/Pk. Bouboulis felt citizens should “We using any Kills micewon’t and rats inbe a single feeding.

70744 Limitor 2 rebates. chemicals fertilizers,” said have the right to remove someMcCormick. “We will have a one from office if they were totally integrated system. In na- unhappy with an official’s perture, every single ending is the formance. She said elected offibeginning of something 32 Gal. Wheeled Garbageelse, Can cials like Selectboard members Heavy duty wheels and handle.

Snap-on lid. 7208176 could be voted out but voters and nature never, ever wastes couldn’t remove a town mananything.”

For example, nutrient-rich Thanks for aager, if needed.

199

of Vermonters blending together the benefits of two of our strengths – organic agriculture and renewable energy — so we might be a model for others to follow.”

As for vision, Will Raap provided that. The founder of Gardener Supply Co. and the Intervale Center in Burlington was an early adopter of sustainable agricultural practices. His Green Business Incubator got involved with Carbon Harvest early on.

“This project can be the catalyst for the creation of a sustainable economy,” Raap said, “What is really cool about this project is that it’s being done at a place that was already an innovator in turning waste into energy.

Taking waste management, energy production and agriculture and combining it all into one integrated system is a great idea.”

But for all the futuristic ideas involved in Carbon Harvest’s project, Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Roger Allbee said it is really just the continuation of a long Vermont tradition.

“The history of agriculture in Vermont is one of adapting,” he said. “This is really the old Vermont model of use everything, waste nothing and take our ingenuity to come up with ways to extend the growing season and keep producing food throughout the year.”

Sept.

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60

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She also stressed her comments did not reflect on Sondag’s performance but on the town’s system of governance.

Jesse Corum, Selectboard clerk, said Sondag’s contract already contained a clause saying the town manager could be removed from her position.

Selectboard member Daryl Pillsbury said he agreed somewhat with Bouboulis, but to get good people for a job, the town needed to offer stability. He said he wanted to give his full support to Sondag.

“Quality where you see it is really something special to have.

Glad that we have her [Sondag],” said Selectboard Chair Dick DeGray.

SALE Great Summer!

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BRATTLEBORO—The Selectboard last week awarded Pizzagalli Construction Co. of South Burlington a $22.5 million contract for the next phase of construction on the Waste Water Treatment Plant Upgrade project.

Hoyle Tanner Engineers, the project’s consultants, and the Wastewater Treatment Plant Oversight Committee recommended Pizzagalli’s $22,500,500 bid to the Selectboard. It is contingent on the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation’s authorization.

According to Eugene Forbes, senior vice-president of Hoyle Tanner, the town received three bids, opened Sept. 23, of which Pizzagalli’s bid came in the lowest and below the engineer’s estimate of $22,968,000.

Forbes said Pizzagalli will undertake “phase 2” the biggest part of the project — construction of the main plant. He described Pizzagalli as a “good company” known for bringing

n Prison re-entry support are less likely to re-offend, says Larry Hames, the center’s executive director.

According to Hames, by giving parolees the skills to thrive in their communities, restorative justice programs help create safer communities.

Also, restorative justice costs less than prison. According to Etter, the justice center will help six former offenders reintegrate for the $48,000 annual cost of imprisoning one person.

The workshop takes place a few times a year around the state, says Etter, but has not run in downtown Brattleboro for a while. She says the Justice Center hopes between 40 and 50 people will attend.

Etter hopes participants will discover how to “accept folks for the mistakes they’ve made.”

Darah Kehnemuyi of Dummerston participated in a 2007 workshop.

Kehnemuyi, an attorney, has 30 years experience with the justice system, including five years with the Brattleboro Community Justice Center. He serves on a reparative justice panel and two Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) a re-entry program providing social and emotional support for parolees.

“Individuals who work with COSAs have little to no social networks when leaving prison, so having connections to folks in the community allows them to better access jobs and housing,” explains Etter.

“Re-entry’s a big problem,” Kehnemuyi says.

He feels restorative justice benefits everyone, noting that such programs need more funding and volunteers.

He believes if more parolees receive help after release, they can better navigate common

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obstacles like housing, transportation and finding work that lead many parolees back to prison.

Kehnemuyi says parolees face the stigma of their having done jail time and their lack of skills to take responsibility for themselves — which landed them in jail in the first place.

Consequently, many end up back in jail.

In his opinion, about 5-10 percent of people in the court system are dangerous and deserve prison. Most of the rest need help and made “stupid decisions in stressful circumstances,” due to drugs, alcohol or mental health issues.

Not that the community should take responsibility for everyone, Kehnemuyi says.

He just thinks the community doesn’t need to make the situation harder.

“The biggest hurdle for prisoners is being labeled as ‘socially inferior.’ They carry that with them,” he says.

This label corrodes their selfconfidence adding to any previous issues.

Kehnemuyi thinks anyone contemplating volunteering with the prison system should attend the workshop.

The Madison-area Urban Ministry, a social justice organization in Wisconsin, designed the re-entry simulation workshop. According to its website, www.emum.org, the interfaith coalition started as an experiment in the 1970s as a collaboration between the United Church of Christ, Church Women United, and a neighborhood association.

According to Etter, the justice center has served eight exoffenders through its re-entry program and COSA, and 11 ex-offenders through programs overall.

“Come with an open mind.

[The workshop] is as close as you’re going to get to the real thing before choosing to volunteer,” Kehnemuyi said.

Contact Etter at 802-2518143 or jetter@brattleborocjc.org for more information or to register for the workshop.

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projects in on budget.

“These guys [Pizzagalli] are fantastic to work with, in my opinion,” said Selectboard member Daryl Pillsbury, who has worked with the company before.

According to its website, Pizzagalli is one of the largest employee-owned construction companies in the United States, and constructing wastewater treatment plants is one of its specialties. It has offices in South Burlington, Maine and North Carolina.

Town Manager Barbara Sondag explained loans and bonds would fund the remainder of the project. However, she said the town would continue to apply for grants. If the town is awarded any, the grant monies can pay off the loans. She said the town could have risked foregoing loans for possible grants, but may have ended up with a money gap if the grants didn’t come through.

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• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

3

Election 2010 preview VE R M ONT S TATE S ENATE — W IN D HA M CO U NTY

Democrats White, Galbraith do not fear GOP challenge

Cooke, Corum are GOP’s tag team in state senate race

By Randolph T. Holhut

By Randolph T. Holhut

The Commons

The Commons

The Democratic candidates for state senate have been put on the defensive over issues such as Vermont Yankee, health care reform, education funding and taxation.

However, incumbent Sen. Jeanette White of Putney and former Ambassador Peter Galbraith of Townshend say they believe a majority of Windham County’s voters will support their views over Republican rivals Lynn Corum and Hilary Cooke (see related story this section).

“We pay a fair amount of taxes, but we get a lot for our money,” said White. “We’re usually ranked at or near the top in education, health care, public safety and environmental quality.

If you don’t have public support for these things, you don’t have these services.”

“Why is Vermont a great place to live and great place to do business?” asked Galbraith. “Because people want to live in a place with a solid sense of community.

But we’re a small state and can’t be all things to all people. We have to focus on the key things that are important to our quality of life and economic climate.

Most of the time, what’s good for quality of life — a clean environment, good schools, an effective government — are good for business too.”

White has served in the Senate for eight years and works as a grant manager for the town of Brattleboro. Galbraith served as U.S. ambassador to Croatia during the Clinton administration and most recently as a United Nations’ Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan.

He also was a staff member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1979 to 1993.

BRATTLEBORO—Lynn Corum believes that there’s safety in numbers.

While Hillary Cooke, a Brattleboro insurance consultant, was an early entrant into the Aug. 24 Republican primary for state senate, Corum hadn’t planned on running.

But as the future of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant became more and more of a campaign issue, Corum was concerned that the Democratic candidates for state senate — incumbent Jeanette White of Putney and former Ambassador Peter Galbraith of Townshend — were controlling the debate.

“It’s easier to ignore just one of us,” said Corum. “It’s harder to ignore two of us.”

So the longtime member of the Brattleboro Union High School Board ran as a write-in candidate in the Republican primary, and got three times the votes she needed to qualify for the Nov. 2 ballot.

Vermont Yankee, and what they believe is a looming economic disaster if the plant is shut down in 2012, is one of the main issues driving Cooke and Corum’s campaigns for Windham County’s two seats in the state senate.

The VY question

Both White and Galbraith support shutting down the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon when its current operating license expires in 2012.

White said she takes the tritium leak at Vermont Yankee seriously. “At other nuclear plants that have had these leaks, the ‘big three’ — strontium, cesium and plutonium — are never far behind. Traces of these elements have been already been found at VY.” To her, the argument over Vermont Yankee comes down to one thing — the plant is nearly 40 years old and cannot be counted upon to run safely for another 20 years.

“The power purchase agreement offered by Entergy wasn’t a good deal,” White said. “If it was, CVPS and Green Mountain Power would have taken it. They have already moved on and replaced the power they’ve bought from VY with other sources.

They don’t need VY anymore.”

“VY is a very small part of the New England grid,” said Galbraith. “We’re not going to be running out of electricity anytime soon.”

White also believes the economic impact of the plant’s closure has been overstated.

“I hate to see anybody lose their job, but the state has laid off more workers in the past year than there are employees at VY,” she said. “Yes, there will be a short-term loss of jobs and revenues if VY closes, but it won’t be as devastating as people think.”

“There will still be a significant number of people working at VY after it shuts down,” said Galbraith. “And many of the people who work there will do fine. They are specialists with skills that are in demand, and they’ll find jobs elsewhere.”

Galbraith believes that VY’s fate has already been decided in the Senate this year, and the focus should instead be on the decommissioning process and making sure Windham County receives help with the transition.

“You had 70 percent of the Republicans and 90 percent of the Democrats voting no. They did so after hearing hundreds of hours of testimony and took a vote as required by state law.

The issue is settled, and it is time to come together as a community and move on. From my years as a diplomat, I’ve learned that when you convince people to turn away from their seriously held positions and focus instead on their interests, you can make progress.”

Randolph T. Holhut/The Commons

State Sen. Jeanette White and former Ambassador Peter Galbraith visit the Windham County Democrats headquarters in Brattleboro during an open house last Thursday.

White agrees that there will not be another vote in the Senate, or the House, on VY’s future.

“Take another vote? We’ve said what we had to say,” said White of the 26-4 vote in the Senate earlier this year on Vermont Yankee’s relicensing.

“In the eight years I’ve been in the Senate, we’ve taken tons of testimony on VY, and I think people finally got sick of seeing Entergy’s people come to the Statehouse and lie to us.”

Health care options

On health care, White wholeheartedly supports a single-payer system, while Galbraith has taken a more nuanced approach.

“I think we can do singlepayer health care, absolutely,” said White. “It’s simple — one entity handles the payments to the doctors and the hospitals, everyone pays in and everyone is covered, just like Medicare. I have Medicare, and it’s a great plan. There’s no reason why Vermonters can’t have the same kind of coverage.”

While Galbraith believes that single-payer “is the ideal for health care,” he questions how feasible it would be for a single state to create its own system.

“You would need to capture all the federal dollars, and solve the issue of tax deductibility for health insurance,” he said. “Those would be difficult things to do.”

So, Galbraith proposes an alternate solution — a public insurance option that would be a “not-for-profit, open-to-all insurance plan.” It would offer a minimum catastrophic coverage policy “to keep people from medical bankruptcy” and preventive care coverage that would pay for routine visits, screenings and tests up to $1,000 per person.

Education funding

White admits that the current education funding system “is a bit of mess,” but believes that it hews to “the basic tenets of the Brigham decision — that every Vermont child should have access to an adequate education.”

She said the system needs some tinkering, but that the socalled “prebate” system where Vermonters pay their property taxes based on their income is worth preserving.

“I lived here for almost 40 years, and there have been four or five different tries in that time at coming up with a way to fund education,” she said. “There is no perfect funding system that everyone will like, but what we have does what it needs to do.”

Galbraith said that the biggest problem with the system established by Acts 60 and 68 is that “the funding mechanism is

so complex, no one can understand it. And in my experience, when policymakers do not have a simple explanation for how a program works, you lose the support of the people.”

Economic policies

White says Vermont has one of the best affordable house programs in the country. She points to the collaboration between the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and the Vermont Housing Finance Agency to work with housing and conservation nonprofits and historic preservation groups to both conserve and protect the Vermont landscape and revive historic downtown districts.

“I’ve talked to people around the country, and they want to copy the Vermont approach,” said White. “But the Douglas administration wanted to dismantle this program, and a Dubie administration will likely try to. It would be a huge mistake.”

Galbraith said he is a believer in protecting and preserving open space in Vermont, but he would like to see Act 250, the state’s development law, simplified somewhat.

“To be clear, I’m not interested in weakening Act 250,” he said. “I would like to see the procedures for review and taking public testimony to be more streamlined and that a finer distinction is made between largescale business development and small landowners.”

And, as he has frequently said on the campaign trail, expanded broadband Internet and cell phone service is a must for Vermont.

“It’s a disgrace that Afghanistan and East Timor, two of the poorest countries in East Asia, have better cell phone service than Windham County,” he said.

PAI D POLI TICAL ADVER TISEMEN T

Courtesy photo

Lynn Corum

the county’s economy will be devastated.

“Economists say that the loss of one job influences the safety of five other jobs,” said Corum. “There are 400 people who work at VY who live in Vermont. What’s going to happen to the housing market when all these people leave the area?”

Cooke shares Corum’s view that the Senate overstepped its expertise on VY, and that the Vermont Public Service Board ought to have the final say on whether the plant should be allowed to operate another 20 years.

“I’m not a nuclear engineer and it concerns me that there Inspiration from are 26 people in the Senate who an interview think they are,” said Cooke.

For Corum, it was an in- “We need to trust the regulaterview with Galbraith for tory process and know that the her “Neighbor to Neighbor” process is working.” program on Brattleboro Community Television that Health care galvanized her decision to run.

Given Cooke’s background “He feels the Senate voted with designing health insurance decisively to close VY and that plans for local businesses, he there is nothing more to do has a keen interest in the issue. about it,” said Corum. “I think He supports the Legislature’s Galbraith is wrong and believe decision to study the state’s that another vote is possible health care system, but believes next year.” that lawmakers needs “to face Both Corum and Cooke the reality of what a Vermont say the Senate’s 26-4 vote in public option means.”

February was a politically mo“The savings in providing tivated act to help the guber- universal access isn’t in the natorial campaign of Senate way it is funded, but in the President Pro Tem Peter way care is delivered,” said Shumlin.

Cooke. “That’s the difference “It was knee-jerk legislation between health insurance rewith a side order of gubernato- form and health care reform. rial politics,” said Cooke. “It Hopefully, Act 128 will crecame at a time when people ate a viable, workable and were afraid and worried about sustainable model we can all the tritium leak. I thought it agree on.” was the wrong time to play politics with the issue.”

Education Corum called it “an oppor- funding tunistic vote that came at the Like Cooke, Corum beexpense of about 1,000 of our lieves that Act 60 and 68, the neighbors’ jobs.” She believes statewide school funding sysif VY closes in 2012, housing tem, needs to be overhauled. values will plummet, unem“Vermont’s tax structure is ployment will skyrocket and designed to preserve wealth,

Courtesy photo

Hilary Cooke

which is why there are so many trust funders who live here,” said Corum. “The income sensitivity provision of Act 60 looks only at income, not wealth, so you end up with millionaire retirees getting prebates while young families pay more. That’s why Act 60 is economically unsustainable: eventually you’re going to run out of young people to feed off of. The state needs to look at assets, not income.”

Cooke believes the answer to the rising cost of education is expanded school choice options and a more rigorous focus on how education is delivered.

“Like health care, the work on a solution is wrapped up in the funding part, and not the delivery part,” said Cooke.

“We’ve gotten so far away from the original intent of the Brigham decision that we need to go back and take another look.”

The future

Corum and Cooke are not all doom and gloom. Corum believes that Vermont has unique advantages — a good education system and a hardworking and resourceful people — that make it a good place to start a business.

“But to take advantage of that, we need to create an economy that generates jobs,” she said. “Windham County has the oldest population, the weakest economy and the slowest rate of economic growth.

We have to stop demonizing businesses and promote policies that give incentives for companies to come here.”

“This is a big and a diverse county,” said Cooke, who lived in Dover and Williamsville before moving to Brattleboro in 1999. “There are a lot of different people with different ideas and the issues are so complex, the solutions don’t fit neatly into one camp.”

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ELECTION 2010

4

T h e C ommons

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

VE RM ONT STATE REP R E SENTATIVE — W IN D HA M - 1 D I S T R ICT W IN D HAM COUNTY STATE’S ATTOR NEY

Davis, Hebert: a study in contrasts Harris makes fourth run; first electoral test for Shriver

By Randolph T. Holhut The Commons

The future of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon has overshadowed almost every other issue in this year’s political campaigns in Windham County.

And no race in the county has been more heated in regards to VY than the Windham-1 House race between Republican Mike Hebert of Vernon and Democrat Richard Davis of Guilford.

Hebert and Davis are running for the seat being vacated by Republican Patricia O’Donnell of Vernon, who is stepping down after 12 years in the Legislature.

About the only common ground between Davis and Hebert is that they both are health care workers. Davis has been a registered nurse in Vermont for 33 years, and Hebert, a registered pulmonary therapist, has worked several hospitals around New England.

Beyond that, there are sharp differences between the two candidates.

VY’s future

Hebert supports extending Vermont Yankee’s operating license. The plant’s original 40year operating license expires in 2012.

“I think everyone agrees that if the plant isn’t safe, it should be shut down,” said Hebert. “But that shouldn’t be a legislative decision. That’s for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide. It’s something that should be left to the experts, the ones with the scientific knowledge to make a sound decision.”

In Herbert’s view, Vermont Yankee is safe. “I know the people who work there, and I’ve been inside the plant,” he said.

“At this point in time, I think it’s safe.”

Davis believes the plant should be shut down at the end of its current operating license in 2012. He said he has been going door to door in Vernon and has found a surprising number of people who support the idea that VY should be decommissioned.

“The things I hear the most is that they don’t trust Entergy and that they think the plant is too old,” Davis said. “People, or at least the ones who don’t work at the plant, aren’t as concerned about jobs or the economy as they are about safety. And some of these people used to be supporters of the plant. It’s just a

By Randolph T. Holhut The Commons

Mike Hebert

Courtesy photo

difficult thing to talk openly about in Vernon.”

Davis said that he “doesn’t buy the economic arguments” about the need to keep the plant open past 2012. “There are about 650 workers at VY and about half of them live in Vermont. I have a hard time believing that the loss of 300 jobs will wreck our economy.”

He also is quick to point out that the possibility that the plant could shut down in 2012 “shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. Everyone has had fair warning, but not a lot of planning has been done.”

Heath care contrasts

Davis said that all you need to know about how Republicans feel about health care reform is that the party’s candidates have avoided forums on the subject all across the state. In the recent forum sponsored by the Vermont Workers’ Center in Brattleboro, only state Senate candidate Hilary Cooke showed up for the GOP. “The Republicans say we can’t afford health care reform,” said Davis, “but I think we can’t afford not to do something about it.”

Davis serves as executive director of the Vermont Citizens Campaign for Health, a statewide grassroots organization that advocates for a single-payer health care system in Vermont.

He admits that after all these years, the phrase “single payer” makes people tune out.

“When you explain to small businesses and others how a single-payer plan works, they think it’s a good deal,” said Davis. “Most people are going to end up paying less. Whatever

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Richard Davis

tax is needed to pay for universal health care is going to be less than what they pay now for insurance premiums, and everyone will be covered.”

Davis said he thinks paying into a universal health care system should be tiered — with people who earn more, paying more — but that access should be equal.

Hebert agrees with Davis that changes to the health care system are needed, but that a single-payer plan is not the answer.

“I’m more open-minded on this issue than people think,” he said. “The issue is not about health care, for people aren’t refused care if they can’t afford it.

The problem is that the cost is shifted on someone else. Richard and I both agree that there needs to be some kind of resolution of the problem, and we just can’t keep kicking it around.”

Hebert says he supports a variation of the Massachusetts model, where all residents are required to have health insurance and subsidies are provided for those who can’t afford it.

“The Legislature should determine what a basic health care policy should look like, and then have a means-tested program where every one has to buy in, but help is available for those who can’t,” he said.

Education funding

As someone who has served on town and regional school boards for years, Hebert said educational issues were as much a motivation for him to run for O’Donnell’s seat as health care and Vermont Yankee’s future.

“I think we need more school choice,” Hebert said. “We need a system that funds students, not schools.”

Hebert points to Vernon, where students in grades 7-12 have a choice of which school they wish to attend. Vernon students can be found at NorthfieldMount Hermon and Pioneer Valley Regional across the border in Massachusetts, as well as at Brattleboro Union High School.

The town pays the cost of educating students up to the state’s average per-pupil cost, and parents pay the rest.

Davis said he has heard the complaints about Acts 60 and 68, “but I haven’t heard anyone offering a workable solution” to fund education in Vermont.

“The Brigham decision was pretty clear about what needed to be done to adequately fund our schools,” he said. “People want local control, but unless you are willing to give up all state and federal funding, it can’t happen.”

Davis and Hebert are scheduled to hold a debate at the Broad Brook Grange in Guilford on Oct. 28. No debate is planned in Vernon, but a “meet the candidates” night will be held on Oct. 27 from 6:30-9 p.m. at the Vernon Elementary School.

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collaboration with area law enforcement agencies, and improve the quality of prosecution of cases.

“The police are doing a great job, but I see a lack of case preparation and a lack of witness preparation in the state’s attorney office,” Harris said. “If you decide to take a case to trial, you better be sure you have the resources to go forward.”

Harris maintains that even though Davis has been gone for three years, “not a lot has changed in that office. It has the resources to do a good job. I think it’s a question of leadership.”

Shriver, who first joined the Windham County State’s Attorney office as a deputy in 1999, disagrees. She points to what she considers the most important change, the specialization of the prosecutorial team in her office.

Now, Shriver says one person handles sex abuse cases, another person handles domestic violence cases and a third person handles drunk driving and drug cases. This leaves Shriver to deal with property crimes and major felony cases.

“I would like to think that

the relationships with law enforcement agencies have built upon [Davis’] work, but I have made this my office and that the sense of justice, the reasonableness, and the tenacity I bring to this job differs from my predecessor,” Shriver said.

“I have a willingness to look at each case as more than just ‘what are the charges.’ You have to look at the individual needs of each victim and each defendant and use all the resources we have to make sure the outcome is fair and just.”

That goal of a fair and just outcome has become more difficult as the criminal justice system in Vermont deals with budget and staff cuts as well as an increased case load, Shriver said.

“Since the recession started, property crimes have increased greatly, and most of them are crimes of survival — people stealing to survive — and that’s a big change from the past,” she said. “We have as many child sex abuse and domestic violences cases as ever. The people’s safety depends on accountability and certainly of justice, and our challenge is to use our resources in the best way to achieve that.”

BRATTLEBORO— This year’s election marks Brattleboro attorney Gwen Harris’ fourth run for the position of Windham County State’s Attorney.

Harris’ previous three tries were against longtime incumbent State’s Attorney Dan Davis, who retired in September 2007 after 19 years in the position.

Tracy Kelly Shriver of Brattleboro, a Democrat, was appointed State’s Attorney in October 2007 by Gov. Jim Douglas to replace Davis.

Shriver now faces her first election, and Harris believes that her vision of how the county’s criminal justice system should be run will appeal to voters.

Harris, who is running as an independent, has been a trial attorney in the area for 20 years, and has faced Davis and Shriver in court on many occasions. In talking to people around the county, she said there is a growing perception that “people are receiving the punishment they should be getting” and that “there’s just a revolving door at the courthouse.”

Part of that perception, she said, is due to the number of offenders who get released on conditions and end up back in court on another offense a short time later.

Harris said that there should be one standard of justice, and that she would seek stricter conditions of release and higher bail for offenders, as well as stricter penalties for those who violate those conditions. The same hard line would be taken against probation violators.

She also said she would seek Randolph T. Holhut/The Commons Courtesy photo more input from and better Gwen Harris Tracy Kelly Shriver

Three vie for county’s two assistant judge posts

By Randolph T. Holhut The Commons

BRATTLEBORO—The three candidates for the two positions of assistant judge in Windham County are in the awkward position of running for a job for which most of its duties have been removed.

Larry Robinson, a Newfane Republican, and Democratic newcomer Joseph Spano of Brattleboro are running, as is incumbent Democrat Patricia Duff of Brattleboro. The other current assistant judge, Mary Ann Clarkson, is stepping down.

It used to be that assistant judges — or side judges, as they are often called — used to sit with the presiding judge in court and served as “finders of fact” on civil cases in Superior and Family courts. They also had the power to rule alone on traffic cases, uncontested divorces and small claims disputes.

Each county elects two assistant judges. Since it is an elected position, assistant judges were traditionally seen as the “people’s representative” on the bench.

But a judicial reorganization plan approved by the Legislature earlier this year has sharply reduced their duties.

As of next year, the state’s criminal, civil, family and environmental courts will be merged in one Superior Court under the jurisdiction of the state Supreme Court, and county court employees will now be state employees.

Also, county Probate Courts have been merged with the family court.

So what duties are left for a Windham County assistant

judge?

According to Robinson, assistant judges will oversee the county budget and the upkeep of the buildings and grounds of the courthouse in Newfane and the Sheriff’s Department across the street. Judicial duties are now restricted to the family court and traffic cases.

“The job title really ought to be county commissioner,” said Robinson. “The Supreme Court and the Legislature took away most of our judicial responsibilities.”

In a way, you could say that Robinson was born for this job. His father was once the Windham County Sheriff and he grew up in the building that now houses the Sheriff’s Department.

He served as a Vermont State Trooper for a decade before taking the post of county clerk at the court in Newfane. He retired after 31 years in 2008, and then served as the clerk of the works for the renovations to the Sheriff”s Department offices.

“I want to see the courthouse and the Sheriff”s Department kept up in the way that it should be,” said Robinson. “I was born and brought up here, and I believe that with my experience working with the assistant judges and the budgets over the past 30odd years, I would be a good fit for this job.”

Spano, a Massachusetts native, came to Brattleboro after living and working in California for more than 20 years.

“My wife is from California and my family still lives in the Boston area,” said Spano. “We were looking for a place to retire and fell in love with Brattleboro.

We bought a house in West Brattleboro last fall, and while we renovating it, we met a lot of really wonderful people and felt the urge to get involved in the community.”

Spano, who served in both the Army and the Air Force, said he has no prior legal experience but he does have budgeting expertise from his time running an electronic components company in California. “Luckily I was born with a lot of common sense,” he said Duff has been an assistant judge for four years and helped to oversee renovations to the Newfane courthouse and the Sheriff’s Department headquarters. She said she has enjoyed working with Clarkson, who handled traffic court duties. That job will fall to whoever wins this race.

Duff said if she wins re-election, she’ll take the training courses that would qualify her to hear those cases.

“The duties of the job have changed, but there will still be some courtroom work for us to handle,” she said. “The biggest changes are merging the family and probate courts and switching the current courthouse staff from the county payroll to the state payroll.”

Duff, who has three teenaged children, is well-known around the county as a justice of the peace and a chef. She said she knows her opponents well.

“Larry has been around the courthouse for years, and Joe sought me out when he decided to run,” she said. “It’s nice to be in an election where everybody likes each other.”

T h e C ommons

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

ELECTION 2010

5

VE RM ONT STATE REP R E SENTATIVE — W i n dh a m - Be n n i n g to n - 1 d i s t r i c t

Moran faces challenge from Sniatkowski

By Olga Peters The Commons

Democratic incumbent John Moran and Republican newcomer Geralyn Sniatkowski say they understand their communities in the WindhamBennington-1 House district of Dover, Readsboro, Searsburg, Somerset, Stamford, and Wardsboro.

“We need to be expansive, not restrictive,” if Vermont wants to survive the economic crisis, Moran said.

“I have a stake in seeing our community thrive,” Sniatkowski said.

If re-elected, Moran will take his third trip to Montpelier. He said the work of a citizen-lawmaker excites him and he enjoys representing the interests of his constituents. Moran has also served for 20 years at the community level as a school board member and health officer.

If sent to Montpelier, Sniatkowski wants to make the state better and more affordable for families and business friendly.

She’d start by lessening the tax burden on property and small business owners.

A full-time job

Moran said he has turned the representative job into a yearround position by attending numerous community gatherings and going door-to-door to speak directly with constituents.

“I sure do listen,” he said.

Economic development is a big issue for the district, he said.

The state must continue to invest in public infrastructure such as roads, bridges and telecommunications because they make Vermont more accessible for businesses and visitors. Many infrastructure jobs, he adds, also

pay good wages.

Tourism packs a big punch in Windham-Bennington-1, home to the Mount Snow and Stratton ski resorts. Moran plans to find support dollars for advertising and marketing.

Moran said he helped lead the creation of the Tri-Town Economic Development Committee. Dover, Whitingham and Wilmington banded together to form the committee after two snowless winters devastated the towns’ largely tourist-based economies.

He says right now, tourismgenerated tax money benefits the state more than residents.

He wants to ensure tourism taxes instead return to the area that generated them for economic development purposes.

However, he believes strong economic development and sustainability requires a balance between spending, borrowing and saving, but the ongoing economic crisis has knocked this balance “out of whack.”

Moran worries that people and banks have become restrictive with their spending, which in the long term slows recovery, he said.

Fair taxation is another concerning issue for Moran and his constituents. Wardsboro, Dover, Searsburg are net-sending towns.

“It’s time to seriously review Act 60 and Act 68,” Moran said.

“The promise of Act 60 and Act 68 did not deliver,” he said.

Equal money does not guarantee equal education, said Moran, who looks forward to the legislature’s Vermont Blue Ribbon Tax Structure Commission report analyzing education-funding options in January.

One key to education spending, said Moran, is revisiting Act 60’s promise of equal money

for each student ensuring equal opportunities.

But, equality has not been the case, said Moran, because Act 60 never defined what education dollars could be spent on.

Moran said he would also like to do away with the common level of appraisal (CLA) as part of restructuring Act 60.

A town’s CLA is based on fair market value but many towns’ CLA is based on “speculative housing” or second homes within the town.

Dover, for example, has a median income lower than Vermont’s average and many residents cannot earn a livable wage. Yet someone coming from out-of-state to buy a second home determines the worth of year-round homes.

“It’s unfair if the home is not speculative,” he said.

Property taxes are destructive to small businesses, the engine of economic development, and is killing off the business base, he said.

“We’re reaching a point where enough areas in the state are becoming concerned. We may be at a point where we can make some serious changes [to the tax system],” Moran said.

Regarding the issue of school choice, Moran feels decisions of school governance should remain at the local level and the state should protect the current school choice system.

But, he adds, it’s important to define what people mean by school choice. If citizens want to have local schools, Moran feels their towns should operate K-6 schools.

For Moran, the Vermont Yankee issue comes down to reliability. “I don’t want to stake our energy future on an unreliable plant,” he said, adding that

the state should honor Vermont Yankee’s original agreement to close the plant in 2012.

“Entergy is unreliable as a company. Their word is not bond,” said Moran. He worries Entergy will stick Vermonters with its bills.

Moran believes the HydroQuèbec energy deal can replace the power Entergy provides.

A representation of her community

“I’m a good representation of my community and have a stake in the community,” said Sniatkowski, a mother of three and co-owner of the Mountain Park Cinema in Dover.

She said her role as a parent and business owner differentiates her from Moran.

This is Sniatkowski’s first run for any form of local or state political office. But with three kids and a business, she feels she’s well versed in education and business issues.

Sniatkowski said she understands the struggles faced by people in her district. She’s running to set an example for her kids, one of standing up and taking action rather than complaining.

Property tax issues top the list of potential constituents’ concerns. Dover’s taxes, she explained, have increased due to a recent reassessment, yet incomes “are stagnant.” The result, she said, are parents with young children and the elderly questioning their ability to stay in their homes.

Sniatkowski said everyone else has had to cut back financially and so should the government.

“Belt tightening needs to happen,” she said.

She said she approaches the budgeting issue from the perspective of a business owner. All

Marek faces newcomer Gulack The Commons

NEWFANE—The House race in the Windham-6 district features incumbent Democrat Richard Marek, who is seeking his fifth term, against Republican Gaila Gulack, for whom this race marks her first foray into politics.

Both say they have the ears of voters and understand the needs of the residents in the district’s towns of Marlboro, Newfane and Townshend.

“In Vermont, we make an attempt to hear what people have to say by taking lots of testimony [in the Legislature] and it often changes your opinion on a bill,” Marek said. “It sways both sides to more common ground.”

“This is a democracy and you get what you ask for,” Gulack said. “I won’t represent selectively but cohesively.”

Hitting the ground running

Gulack decided to run for the House because she believes the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature has left many Vermonters without a voice in Montpelier.

“With all that’s going on, I heard a lot of issues and needs [going unanswered]. This state is so ‘blue,’ it seems there’s no point to even run,” she said.

She said she realized if she didn’t speak up and serve, she forfeited her right to complain.

Gulack feels Vermont has crossed a point where it must achieve a better balance. “People are trying to hard just to survive.

There’s nothing extra anymore,” she said.

Gulack hopes to save Vermonters money through changes to education funding, keeping the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant open, and encouraging small businesses through a streamlined permitting process.

She would consider cutbacks to all state agencies because, in her opinion, “entities expand into their spaces.”

One way to save money is reducing the number of days that the Legislature is in session. “[Vermont’s legislature] is open longer than Texas,” said Gulack. “Does Vermont really need that?”

Gulack said she will advocate for her district to increase broadband Internet and cell phone service, preferably by the end of next year, because “it’s not a given who gets first crack at it.”

She thinks it’s a public safety problem when essential institutions like Grace Cottage Hospital and the Sheriffs Department don’t have cell reception. Also, she said, people won’t move to the West River Valley without modern telecommunications, and that affects businesses and

education.

Vermont Yankee has gotten a lot of undeserved negative press, Gulack said, and she prefers to see that it continue to operate until the state develops alternative energy sources.

Gulack believes Vermont Yankee is safe and shutting it down would “devastate” the area economically and energy-wise.

As a volunteer with the community emergency response team (CERT) and radio amateur civil emergency service (RACES), Gulack said she would never support something she thought could hurt people.

Not to mention, she said, the current alternatives — such as wind, solar and hydro — aren’t much better economically or environmentally.

Gullack supports reforming the way the state funds education. She said Acts 60 and 68 eat away at residents’ incomes, and she questions why 38 percent of the education funding goes toward administration costs.

Everything must be at the table when it comes to making cuts, she said. “Vermonters are incredibly kind and generous,” she said, “but, as a woman in Marlboro said at another meeting, ‘my compassion is limitless, but my resources are not.’”

Gulack says her position with the Windham County Sheriffs Department will allow her the flexibility to serve in the Legislature. She knows she’s a newbie, but said she’s up to the job of serving in Montpelier.

“I’m a jack of all trades, and master all trades pretty fast,” she said.

Serving up good public policy

Marek, a former EMT who has sat on numerous state and local boards, said he’s interested in public policy and community service.

He ran a five-week campaign in 2002 after his predecessor came down with cancer. He decided to run after asking, “How do I involve myself and give back to my community?”

The job of representative is more important to him now more than ever. “I have become engaged in every aspect of how Vermont works and how to make it better,” he said.

Marek said his personal political philosophy centers on conserving the best of Vermont — its sense of place, history, civility, respect for the environment, caring about people — and to enhance them as much as possible.

He describes taxes and education funding as a “perennial issue” that has cycled up for discussion every 10 years for the past 100 years. He calls Act 68 the “Republican rendition of Act 60” and laughs because the

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Geralyn Sniatkowski

the state commissioners need to be approached and asked to find savings. “Government is not known as the most efficient entity,” she said.

But, she adds, tourism and marketing should be spared because they are revenue generators. She points to state tax receipts for fiscal year 2010 as proof of tourism’s power, noting that the two taxes that exceeded revenue estimates were sales taxes and meals and rooms taxes.

Constituents also worried about the health of businesses, she said. “Government does not create jobs, business creates jobs,” she said, adding that small businesses act as the “engine that runs Vermont” and that tourism creates jobs.

She is also adamant about changing the state’s education funding system.

Dover, a sending town, sent over $10 million to the state last year, according to Sniatkowski.

Yet, her local school can’t afford to repair its roof, while Burlington installed artificial turf on its athletic field.

“We need to define what equal education is under Act 60,” she said.

She said one solution is

defining what is equal within the core curriculum and letting towns appropriate money locally for anything schools want above the core.

Regarding Vermont’s 140year history of school choice, Sniatkowski said parents should decide what’s best for their children. By offering parents a choice, it keeps local control over education.

She and her husband, a retired police officer now employed at Mount Snow, moved to East Dover eight years ago.

The couple first came to the area as second-home owners and fell in love with the community and quality schools.

“We love it here. We’re so happy here,” she said.

Prior to the move, Sniatkowski spent 18 years as a women’s apparel buyer, which, she said, taught her great multitasking skills.

“You get used to the chaos,” she said.

But, joking aside, Sniatkowski said she understands her community’s frustration.

“For me this election is about doing what’s right for this community,” she said.

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Republicans often brand the act “unfair.”

“However we fund education, some communities will find it doesn’t serve individual interests,” he said.

This time around, he said, the Legislature will need to meet Vermont’s constitutional imperative to provide equal access to a quality education and find a system that’s fair and equitable while keeping the education funding numbers in balance.

He said the current attacks on taxes from candidates like gubernatorial candidate Brian Dubie articulate the need for change but not how to make numbers work. “It’s basically political talk and doesn’t advance the discussion,” he said.

A responsible approach to tax reform is the Blue Ribbon tax structure commission report which will be based on detailed analysis and fairness due to be presented to the Legislature in January.

“There’s a significant difference between listening to people and agreeing with them,” Marek said in response to Gulack’s charge that he’s not listening to his constituents.

“This is why we have ballot boxes,” he said, and why voters in four consecutive state elections have elected more Democrats each time. He points out he received over 600 votes in the August primary, while Gulack received fewer than 100.

“Good policy actually pays off in the end,” Marek said, “if you can figure out what it is.”

In his opinion, the people making the argument of feeling silenced feel that way because they have very different points of view from most Vermonters. He believes how Vermont will move forward will depend on the new governor.

If Democratic candidate Peter Shumlin wins the seat, Marek said, the state will move forward on corrections, single-payer health care, and modifications of environmental policies. If Republican Brian Dubie wins, the state will be impaired on

vermont-elections.org

Richard Marek

progress and in a defensive posture, he said.

Marek said he is “open but skeptical” to Challenges for Change, a redesign of government functions approved by the Legislature earlier year. He voted for the plan and agrees with its general concept of finding how to make state programs run better, but he’s not in favor of cutting human services. However, he says, “the [budget] crisis is too deep to hold anyone harmless.”

He doesn’t want to revisit the Vermont Yankee relicensing issue and feels Entergy must pay for the entire decommissioning process. In his opinion, some treat the VY vote as an open-ended question, but the Legislature is the voice of Vermonters and the Senate has said “no.”

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6

n LGBTQ youth said she and the rest of the GayStraight Alliance (GSA) members were compelled to take a public stand in light of the suicides.

“That could’ve been me,” Lucas said. “I’ve thought about suicide. I’ll openly admit it.”

She said she has gotten a death threat.

“That was a couple of years ago with a different administration,” she said. “I told them [then] and they didn’t do anything.”

But Lucas said harassment is still a part of her daily life. She said the more prominent members of the GSA all get harassed, especially on the bus.

“Any number of kids being bullied [are not necessarily gay],” said Curtiss Reed Jr., executive director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity.

The nonprofit Vermont Partnership works with schools to comply with state laws, enacted in 2004, designed to address bullying and harassment in public education. It also advocates for students and their families.

But not every classmate in high school is a potential bully, and there are signs that increasing numbers of high school students are taking action to end the cycle of abuse.

Building alliances

Jim Stacy, the registrar at Brattleboro Union High School, has advised the GSA, with the assistance of Maureen Daylor, a para-educator. “Last I knew, harassment was one of the biggest issues in the school,” Stacy said.

On Oct. 20, as part of a nationwide movement to draw attention to the suicides and to the bullying identified as a factor in the deaths of young people, Stacy, Daylor and members of the GSA, wearing purple, sat at a table in front of the school library distributing purple ribbons to schoolmates.

Lucas said that the group made around 350 cards with purple ribbons for people to wear. At a little after noon that day, they estimated about half the student body had come by to pick one up.

Lucas and virtually all of the other students sitting at the GSA table noted they had experienced some form of harassment or bullying.

Josh Lake sat with his arm around his sister, Jessica, and said, “I’m straight and even I have experienced [harassment] because I openly support my sister, who is bisexual and a prominent member of the GSA.” Jessica Lake said phrases like, “that’s so gay” can be hurtful.

T h e C ommons

from page 1

Allison Teague/The Commons

Maureen Daylor, assistant advisor to the BUHS Gay-Straight Alliance, and students Devin Stone, Rebecca Bissette and Katelyn Sylvester distribute ribbons and literature.

“I try to tell them that they have no right to use someone’s identity as part of a derogatory statement,” she said. “[That statement says] being gay is synonymous with being bad,” said senior André Nadaeu, who identified himself as a bisexual. “It’s like saying to someone, ‘that’s so Asian’ or ‘that’s so Mexican.’”

Reed said that it is not a question of bigotry as much as it is a matter of simple insensitivity.

“We don’t think how insidious our popular culture is, or the negative aspects of that culture in terms of degrading others,” he said. “It’s common to distinguish ourselves from others by putting others down.”

Reed added that often young people use language unconsciously or sloppily, unconscious of how hurtful their words can be.

But sometimes it’s all too conscious.

Lucas said that people passing in the hallway and on the bus say “dyke” or “fag,” cloaking the word in a cough. The death threat three years ago was pencilled into a notebook in her backpack.

“It used to hurt and make me mad,” she said. “Now I just feel sorry for them. Don’t they know fags are gay males?”

But Lucas’s pain still shows in spite of her bravado.

“What am I supposed to do?

It happens every day,” she said.

“After a while, you can’t go to [the school administrators] and report it every single time it happens. It gets tiring.”

BUHS Assistant Principal Steve Perrin said he had students

asking him all day long for a purple ribbon. “I finally picked up about 50 of them and handed them out until the end of the day,” he said.

Two young men came by the table to ask for ribbons and shook hands with several of the GSA members. They said they were both straight but supported what GSA was doing.

“No one should have to die because of their sexual orientation,” one said. “It’s not right.”

Bullying and harassment “put too many lives at risk. It’s hard to see lives ended before they really began,” Lucas said.

Lucas said she thinks it’s harder for gay males, though.

“They have these macho role models,” she said. “It’s easier [for gay women] because we are just seen as a tomboy, which is more acceptable.”

Senior Katelyn Sylvester said she is “questioning” and has been for about a year. She said she joined the GSA because she began to see incidents of discrimination. “There’s a lot more discrimination than people think, and it’s not OK.” She, too, brought up the “that’s so gay” phrase as one example.

Stacy said he hopes the GSA will give students a sense that “behind every shadow there is light” and that there is hope in spite of the pressure to fit in.

The damage done

Dr. Robyn Ostrander, the medical director of child and adolescent services at the Brattleboro Retreat, treats youth who require hospitalization after suicide attempts.

Allison Teague/The Commons

BUHS Gay-Straight Alliance members Josh Lake, Jessica Lake and Andre Nadeau distribute ribbons.

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Ostrander noted that among LGBTQ youth, being gay as a factor for suicide “is larger.”

She said that among youth 15 to 24 years old, suicide is the third leading cause of death.

“There is data that more kids who are gay attempt suicide and have suicidal plans,” she said.

According to the Vermont Department of Health 2009 Youth Risk Behavior survey, 24 percent who identified as gay and 21 percent of those who identified as bisexual attempted suicide. These figures are based on hospitalization following an attempted suicide.

Windham Northeast Supervisory Union Assistant Superintendent Chris Kibbe said his Bellows Falls-based school district has been ahead of the curve.

“Our model is that we hope the kids treat each other kindly.

We don’t have a list of do’s and don’ts,” Kibbe said. “We do have policy that is in compliance with reporting and investigating [bullying and harassment], and resolution, and we train educators, administrators and community members with workshops and guest speakers.”

About six years ago, the WNESU formed a diversity committee that meets monthly and oversees educational compliance with Vermont laws regarding bullying and harassment, as well as outreach education in the community.

“The crucial thing we try to work on is the climate,” Kibbe explained, noting that when students know they can get away with bullying or harassment, they will do just that.

“But if the message is zero tolerance, and there are messages of diversity that say ‘be kinder to each other,’” he said, the school environment improves.

Perrin noted that BUHS has instituted similar systems for victims of bullying or harassment to make a complaint.

“Our teachers and administrators are trained on what to do when they receive a report,” Perrin said. “If our teachers hear [bullying or harassment] or a student using certain language, they act on it immediately.”

Several years ago, in the aftermath of a series of high-profile racial incidents, Perrin said a “no-bystander movement” was formed under the administration of Principal James T. Day. It was designed to instill a spirit of harmony and understanding in the increasingly diverse Brattleboro community.

“And that worked really well here,” Perrin said. “Incidents [of racially directed harassment and bullying] reports dropped almost immediately.”

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• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Harassment by the numbers According to the Vermont Department of Health 2009 Youth Risk Behavior survey, 24 percent of those surveyed who identified as gay and 21 percent of those who identified as bisexual attempted suicide. These figures are based on hospitalization following an attempted suicide.

According to Erika M. Edwards, M.P.H., at the Division of Health Surveillance for the Vermont Department of Health, in Windham County, out of 1,516 students surveyed, 23 percent of those who identified as LBGTQ attempted to commit suicide compared with 3 percent of those who identified as heterosexual, at least once in the previous 12 months. A larger number — 34 percent — of LGBTQidentified students had a plan for suicide, compared to 7 percent of heterosexuals.

Edwards noted: • 30 percent of Windham County students who identified as LGBTQ reported being bullied at least once in the past 30 days, compared to 14 percent of Windham County students who identified as heterosexual; • 39 percent of Windham County students who identified as LGBTQ reported being bullied electronically (such as through e-mail, chat rooms, instant messaging, websites, or text messaging), compared to 14 percent of Windham County students who identified as heterosexual; and • 14 percent of Windham County students who identified as LGBTQ did not go to school at least once in the past 30 days because they felt unsafe at school or on their way to or from school.

Chris Kibbe, Windham Northeast Supervisory Union assistant superintendent, pointed out that Vermont law addresses bullying and harassment separately. “But fortunately, we are way ahead of the rest of the nation and have laws in place to keep our schools safe for several years.”

Vermont state law defines bullying as any overt act or combination of acts directed against a student by another student or groups of students and which: • is repeated over time; • is intended to ridicule, humiliate, or intimidate the student; and • occurs during the school day on school property, on that other than the Gay Straight Alliance, LGBTQ issues of harassment and bullying are not addressed directly by the BUHS administration.

“Our goal is to let students know they can talk to us,” he said. “But we need the initial report [of bullying or harassment] to address it.”

“We want all students to feel comfortable here [at BUHS],” Perrin said. “We have ninthgrade diversity classes where I talk about what bullying and harassment are. We role-play situations that have to do with negative behavior. Some of it easy and some is complex.

“We take a look at the law and what is technically harassment or bullying, and we talk about it.

We ask the kids about how they feel when it’s directed at them.”

Perrin said that he even uses the description of people or concepts as “so gay” as an example.

He said kids who use it are not really saying that.

“They’ll tell me what they mean is ‘You’re so stupid,’ and I say, ‘Well, why don’t you just say that instead?’ We try to get them to use different language.”

Prevention and resolution

“Education is key,” notes the state Human Rights Commission (hrc.vermont.gov) website.

The commission advises that “it’s important when you see [and identify] the behavior, that it stop, that the perpetrator understands it’s unacceptable, and that the victim finds some sort of resolution.”

Perrin said often, resolution can be as simple as the victim having the opportunity to talk to the perpetrator. “That happens a lot. They just want to say how [what happened] hurt and to get an apology.”

Dr. Ostrander reiterated that education is key to preventing suicides among youth, whether they are LGBTQ or heterosexual.

“Educating the public about what depression looks like and how to go and talk to someone who you think is in trouble is important for teachers, guidance counselors, family members,

a school bus, or at a schoolsponsored activity, or before or after the school day on a school bus or at a school-sponsored activity.

Harassment is defined more complexly under state law as an “incident or incidents of verbal, written, visual, or physical conduct based on or motivated by a student’s or a student’s family member’s actual or perceived race, creed, color, national origin, gender identity, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, or disability,” which, intentionally or not, undermine and detract from or interfere with “a student’s educational performance or access to school resources or creat[e] an objectively intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment.”

The changes to the state law followed the suicide of 13-year-old Ryan Halligan, of Essex Junction, who killed himself after years of bullying at school and via the Internet.

“We have no doubt that bullying and cyber bullying were significant environmental factors that triggered Ryan’s depression,” Ryan’s parents, John and Kelly Halligan, wrote on a website (www.ryanpatrickhalligan.com) devoted to their son’s memory and issues of bullying and depression in youth.

“In the final analysis, we feel strongly that Ryan’s middle school was a toxic environment, like so many other middle schools across the country for so many young people,” they wrote.

John Halligan spearheaded the drive to enact the Vermont Bully Prevention bill in 2004.

He then worked to change state law to require adding teaching about depression and suicide to the curriculum required in public-school health classes, a change passed into law in 2006.

A new Vermont hotline has been established for LGBTQ youth and adults who are suicidal, 866-4UTREVOR. Dialing 211 connects any caller in Vermont with a local mental health professional; as does 800-273-TALK. Kids who are homeless can also call Youth Services at 802-257-0361.

Any student experiencing bullying or harassment should contact a school administrator, counselor or trusted adult immediately. communities and their leaders,” she said.

“People need to know what it looks like,” Ostrander added.

“Often kids will divulge how they are feeling just because someone is taking the time to be interested and is asking them.”

And that, she said, “reduces the risk of a successful suicide right there.”

Ostrander said that kids are always looking for role models around them.

“If their role models are depressed and suicidal, it’s a recipe for disaster,” she said. “Once kids know someone who has tried or committed suicide, it kind of lowers the bar for suicide for them. It seems like a more reasonable option. They see it as being an OK solution.”

Though young LGBTQ people have more risk factors for suicide and homelessness than heterosexually identified youth, simply identifying as LGBTQ does not by itself lead to either homelessness or suicide.

“Being gay is usually just one part of what’s happening,” said Sue Dennison, youth development director at Youth Services, a Brattleboro-based agency that provides help and resources to at-risk young people. “There are usually a lot of stressors.”

Ostrander noted the difficulty of measuring the number of LGBTQ youth who have died at their own hands.

“There’s no way to know that number,” she said. “The families don’t talk about it, and it’s not published in an obituary. And they’re not there to ask.”

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” said Brian Remer, project manager for the Vermont Youth Suicide Prevention Project. “If you are not accepted or are bullied by a group, then it’s easy to feel you’re better off without it.”

“We all just want to know we belong,” said Remer. “We want to have a purpose. It comes down to helping one another [find it].”

“Bottom line, if we care for one another and treat one another kindly, that would eradicate [bullying and harassment] completely,” Kibbe said. “We wouldn’t be dealing with this issue.”

T h e C ommons

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Brattleboro Town Clerk to hold additional hours BRATTLEBORO—Early/ absentee ballots for the general election and Special Town Meeting to be held on Tuesday, Nov. 2, are available in the Town Clerk’s office.

Anyone wishing to vote prior to Nov. 2 may apply for an early/absentee ballot until 5 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 1.

Early/absentee ballots may be voted in person in the clerk’s office, mailed to the voter by the clerk’s office, picked up by the voter or delivered to the voter’s residence by two justices of the peace.

All voted ballots must be received by the clerk before the polls close on election day in order to be counted. For more information or to request an early/absentee ballot, call

802-251-8157.

If you are unsure whether your name is listed as a registered voter in your town, or for more information about voter registration and early/ absentee voting, contact your town clerk.

Hours for the Brattleboro Town Clerk’s office are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. In addition to regular hours, the office will open Saturday, Oct. 30, from 9 a.m. to noon for early voting and will be closed on Election Day. Voting on Nov. 2 will be held at the Brattleboro Union High School gym on Fairground Road. Polling hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Parks to go smoke-free

By Olga Peters The Commons

BRATTLEBORO— Next summer, the Parks and Recreation department will initiate smoke-free zones in Brattleboro parks.

According to Director Carol Lolatte, the department made the decision after discussions with a concerned group of citizens worried about the impact of secondhand smoke on children. For years, says Lolatte, the town has posted signs like “caution, developing lungs at work” around play areas in town to dissuade people from smoking

around children.

The citizen group, however, said Lolatte felt more needed to be done and Parks and Recreation agreed.

Lolatte said due to the time of year, the smoke-free zones won’t be enacted until next summer.

Parks and Recreation will use the winter months to designate smoke-free areas and order signs.

Citizens chimed in on the change on an iBrattleboro discussion thread Oct. 12. Some respondents favored the new zones while many felt the zones were just one more rule and went too far.

7

Fifth Winter Farmers’ Market season begins Nov. 6 BRATTLEBORO — The Brattleboro Winter Farmers’ Market promises to dazzle your senses with over 30 vendors on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the River Garden in downtown Brattleboro.

Returning vendors include Dwight Miller Orchards, Fertile Fields Farm, Deep Meadows Farm, Potteryworks, Orchard Hill Bread, Putney Mountain Winery, Huong’s Vietnamese Cuisine and many more. The variety of local food available includes fresh baked breads, cookies, pies and scones, granola, maple popcorn, goat milk caramels, homemade sauerkraut, tomato sauce or pesto.

Besides local farm produce, and beautiful homemade products, lunch and live music will be

[

or for your holiday table as well as last minute holiday gifts.

The Winter Farmers’ Market is sponsored by Post Oil Solutions served up each week. Something and will be held every Saturday new this year is the opportunity except Christmas Day through to visit with a certified herbalist March 26. EBT and Debit for a private consultation. cards accepted. Contact them at “We are so thrilled with farmersmarket@postoilsolutions.org how this market has grown or 802-869-2141. and developed over the past four years,” said market manager Sherry Maher. “As we enter our fifth season we have more area farmers represented than ever, and are excited to Exotic Thai Cuisine be open every Saturday from November through March. Now The Far East Just our customers don’t need to figGot a Little Closer! ure out our schedule, they just need to remember to go to the 7 High Street Winter Farmers’ Market every Brattleboro, VT Saturday.”

This year, there will be a (802) 251-1010 Christmas Eve market on Friday, ThaiBambooVT.com Dec. 24, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., to get fresh produce and desserts

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Douglas to guest on FACT program BELLOWS FALLS — State House Conversations, a Falls Area Community Television (FACT) talk show featuring Vermont state government guests cohosted Suzanne Groenewold and Rep. Michael J. Obuchowski, will feature outgoing Governor Jim Douglas as guest on Dec. 14.

Douglas will reflect on his tenure as chief of state.

The show originates live from the FACT studio every other Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. on Channel 10 of the Bellows Falls area cable system.

Our Place helps local cooks stay sharp ROCKINGHAM — A knife sharpening and care clinic to benefit Our Place Drop in Center’s Project Feed the Thousands will be held at Thyme to Cook from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 29.

Bring up to three knives to be sharpened (no serrated knives please!). The first one is free, and the next two are $2 each.

Reva Davis of Wusthof Knives will sharpen your knives and talk about knife care. Refreshments will be served.

Thyme to Cook is located at the end of Exit 6 on Route 91 north, at the intersection of Routes 5 and 103. Call 802-4284077 for more information.

Shows will be rebroadcast after initial airing throughout the next two weeks; please check listings. State House Conversations is also broadcast on WOOL-FM 100.1 Saturdays and Sundays at 8 a.m. and Mondays at 7 a.m.

Other scheduled guests through the New Year include Vermont Supreme Court Justice John Dooley on Nov. 2, Windham County Sen. Jeanette White on Nov. 16, State Rep. Carolyn Partridge on Nov. 30 and State Rep. Mike Mrowicki on Dec. 21.

This space for rent You are looking at Windham County’s best advertising value. To promote your busi­ ness in the next issue of The Commons, call Nancy at (802) 2466397 or e-mail ads@ commonsnews.org.

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T h e C ommons

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

SPORTS & RECREATION Rebel boys get top seed in Division III Colonels, Wildcats earn No. 2 spots

• Leland & Gray finished the regular season strong and as a result earned the top seed in the Division III tournament and a bye into the quarterfinals.

They started last week with a 3-1 home win over Windsor last Monday. Colin Nystrom assisted on both of Noah Chapin’s goals, while Nick Lawley scored off a Matt Bizon pass.

The next day, the Rebels shut out Bellows Falls, 6-0.

Chapin had three of the goals, and assisted on two others. Nystrom, Chayse Jarvis and Lawley scored the other goals and defenders Zachary Wilkins, Josh Fontaine, William Nupp and Eric Ginter shut down the BF attack.

The Rebels finished up a winning week with a 3-0 win over Green Mountain. All the goals came in the first half as Nystrom, Lawley and Chapin all found the net.

Leland & Gray ended the regular season at 12-2. They will face the winner of the Enosburg/Lake Region playdown game on Friday at 3 p.m. in Townshend.

• Twin Valley bounced back from a 1-3 start to win 10 straight games. With an 11-3 record, they took the No. 2 seed in Division IV. Goalkeeper Tony Bernard posted his sixth shutout of the season in a 3-0 win over Black River on a blustery Monday afternoon at Baker Field. All the scoring was in the second half as Colin Lozito scored twice — assisted by Eli Park and Bernard, respectively — and Ian Murdock scored an unassisted goal.

Last Friday in the regular season finale, the Wildcats clinched a share of the Marble Valley League title with a 3-1 home win over Bellows Falls.

Lozito scored one unassisted goal and assisted on goals by Nick Birch and Dylan Barge.

Ryan Mammone scored for BF, which finished its season at 5-9.

• Brattleboro crushed Hinsdale, N.H., 8-0, on Senior Night last Monday at Tenney Field. Greg Reuter scored two goals and assisted on four others. Tarique Rashed and JoseDiego Silva also had two goals each. Travis Elliot-Knaggs and Charles Greene-Cramer also chipped in with the scoring.

The Colonels got the No. 2 seed in the Division I tournament with a 11-2-1 record and a bye into the quarterfinal round. They will face the winner of the Colchester/St. Johnsbury play-in game on Friday at 3 p.m. at Tenney Field.

Girls soccer

• Brattleboro capped off Senior Night last Wednesday with a dramatic 1-0 overtime victory over Mount Anthony.

Sophomore Halle Lange got the game winner three minutes into the first overtime period with a 20-yard shot that sailed over the MAU goalkeeper’s head.

The Colonels wrapped up the regular season with a 7-5-2 record and were seeded No. 7 in the Division I tournament. They host No. 10 South Burlington on Oct. 27 at Tenney Field.

• The Leland & Gray Rebels beat Windsor, 3-1, at home last Monday. Callie Ginter had two goals and Chelsea Cox had a goal and an assist. The Rebels finished the regular season at 5-6-3, and got the No. 11 seed in Division III. They will be on the road on Oct. 27 to face sixth-seeded Oxbow.

• Twin Valley shut out Green Mountain, 1-0, last Monday in Chester. Shannon Lozito scored off a direct kick from Devin Logan in the 25th minute for the game’s only goal.

The Wildcats closed out the regular season with an 8-5-1 record and, as the No. 9 seed in Division III, will travel north to face BFA-Fairfax on Oct. 27.

• Arlington blanked Bellows Falls, 5-0, last Monday. The Terriers had another 5-0 shutout dropped on them on Thursday in Wilmington, this time at the hands of Twin Valley. Devin Logan scored four goals and Sammy Cunningham added another for TV. Bellows Falls ended its year at 1-12-1.

Football

• The Brattleboro Colonels are still winless after a 55-0 thrashing by the Hartford Hurricanes last Friday night.

Hartford scored early and often, taking a 21-0 lead after one quarter and a 48-0 lead at the half. The Colonels will try to salvage their season with a home win over arch-rival Mount Anthony at Natowich Field on Friday night.

• Bellows Falls rolled over Winooski, 40-6, on Saturday.

The Terriers’ ground game again proved unstoppable as Ryan Hayward ran for two touchdowns, include a 90-yard run on the opening kickoff. Leo Barnett, Joe Aslin and quarterback Jeremy Killburn also notched rushing touchdowns and Kilburn threw a touchdown pass to Will Bourne. BF is now 5-1 in Division III play and wraps up the regular season at Springfield on Saturday.

Randolph T. Holhut/The Commons

Twin Valley’s Abbi Molner (17) tries to kick the ball, but instead gets the leg of Leland & Gray goalkeeper Keira Capponcelli during a game earlier this month in Townshend. Both teams are headed into the Division III playoffs.

Burton last Monday. Kelsey Kinsman, Brenna DeVincentis and Tatiana Frizzell were the scorers as the Colonels put 13 shots on goal.

That was good, but it got even better the next day when Frizzell knocked in the winning goal with just 39 seconds left in overtime for a dramatic 2-1 victory over Rutland. Kim Crosby scored for the Raiders 26 minutes in, but with 1:14 left in the first half, Brattleboro’s Jesse Woodcock converted a penalty stroke to tie the game. Goalie Caroline McCarthy had six saves.

The Colonels tried to make it three wins in a row on Friday night, but were shut out by Windsor, 3-0, on Senior Night at Tenney Field. The Colonels wrapped up the regular season at 3-8-2 and were seeded 10th in the Division I tournament.

They will be on the road to face No. 10 Colchester on Oct. 27.

• Despite finishing the regular season with a 0-12-1 record, the Bellows Falls Terriers are going forward with a trip to the playoffs. They travel north to face the top seed in Division III, Missisquoi, on Friday, Oct. 29.

took fourth in the girls’ meet in 21:17 to lead Brattleboro to a fourth place finish in team competition. Maud Benit finished 13th in 22:44, followed

by Helen Manning (25th in 24:12), Emma Straus was next (35th in 26:15) and Kayla Bailey (38th in 27:10).

Next up for the Colonels is the Division I state meet at Thetford Academy on Saturday, Oct. 30.

Rec briefs

• Rosters for women’s basketball are due at the GibsonAiken Center, 207 Main St., Field hockey Brattleboro, by 4 p.m. on • It has been a long, diffiThursday, Nov. 5. Women’s cult season for the Brattleboro basketball pick-up scrimmages Colonels, but the payoff came will be held on Mondays from last week with a pair of home 6-8 p.m. through Nov. 22. wins at Tenney Field.

• The annual Ski, Skate & The Colonels picked up Snowboard Sale, sponsored their second win of the season by the Brattleboro Recreation with a 3-1 victory over Burr & & Parks Department and the Brattleboro Outing Club, will be held Saturday, Nov. 6, from 8-11 a.m., at the Gibson-Aiken Center.

Snowboards, skis, ski boots, poles, and bindings (both downhill and cross country) will be on the second floor gymnastics room. Skates, all winter sports clothing and Cross country hockey equipment will be for • Brattleboro’s Jacob Ellis sale in the senior center. was the top boys’ finisher at the People who wish to enter Marble Valley League chamitems in the sale must bring pionship meet in Bennington them to the Gibson Aiken on Tuesday. He ran the three- Center on Friday, Nov. 5, mile course in 17 minutes, 4 between noon and 7 p.m. seconds. Four other Colonels only. Any winter sport artiplaced in the top 20: Zeke cle can be listed for sale, but Fitzgerald (sixth in a personal only 10 items per family will best time of 18:18), Austin be accepted for each floor.

Lester (10th in 18:33), Spencer For more information, conOlson (12th in 18:39, a pertact the Recreation & Parks Randolph T. Holhut/The Commons sonal best) and Allen Unaitis Department office at 802-254Leland & Gray forward Noah Chapin, who has scored (13th in 19:07, also a personal 5808 between the hours of 10 nearly half of the Rebels’ goals this season, tries to best. Brattleboro finished sec- a.m. and noon and 1-5 p.m., work the ball around Twin Valley defender Ryan ond in the boys’ team meet to Monday through Friday, or Bernard, right, during their game earlier this month Mount Anthony. visit www.brattleboro.org and in Townshend. Both Twin Valley and Leland & Gray Hannah Reichel continues click on “Recreation & Parks.” will be top seeds in the Division III playoffs. her steady improvement, as she

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The Claremont, N.H., Cardinals avenged their Sept.

12 loss to Putney with a 4-2 victory in Dummerston on Oct. 17. The game featured some very good pitching for both teams.

Claremont pitcher Mike Wells (from Thetford) went six innings allowing five hits, four walks, and one earned run while fanning four. He was relieved by Scott Christian who allowed two hits, two walks, one unearned run, struck out two and picked up the win.

Putney’s Danny Lichtenfeld scattered five hits over eight innings, walking five and striking out six. He took the tough loss on three unearned runs in the eighth. Richard Bissell was perfect in one inning of relief.

Gabe Pozzi had two hits, a stolen base, and scored a run for Putney.

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VOICES

OPINION • COMMENTARY • LETTERS Join the discussion: voices@commonsnews.org

S av i n g gay youth VIEWPOINT

Harder to say than ‘I’m gay’ Growing up gay in the South was bad. The constant bullying? That was worse.

I

Dover

was a bullied gay teen.

Those words are still hard for me to say. Not because I am ashamed of being gay. I came out of the closet when I was 18 years old and have never looked back.

Those aren’t the words that are hard to say.

What’s hard, 20 years after the fact, is to admit that I was bullied.

In a way, coming out as someone who was bullied has in some ways been harder for me to do than coming out as gay ever has been.

I grew up in the South. It’s not easy to be a gay teenager anywhere, but the South in the early 1990s didn’t exactly qualify as safe space.

My high school was no exception. Despite the fact I attended public school, our fundamentalist Christian school principal allowed church groups to distribute anti-gay materials in the halls.

It was hardly the environment in which a young gay person could feel supported.

And so, when the bullying started my freshman year of high school, I didn’t feel like I had anywhere to turn.

Rev. Emily C. Heath serves the congre-

gations of the West Dover Congregational Church and Wilmington Congregational Church as their pastor. Visit the It Gets Better Project at www.itgetsbetterproject.com.

I thought it was in some way my fault. I bought into the idea, perpetuated by the latter teacher, that I had in some way brought it on myself. I took the inaction of the other teacher to mean that there was nothing wrong with the bullying.

And so, I internalized it.

I knew even then, at some level, that I was gay. But it would take me four more years to come out.

In retrospect, I know that the bullying, and the responses from the adults who knew about it, was a big part of that. I was taught by my peers that to be gay was to be worthy of abuse. And I was taught by my teachers that I deserved it.

Who would want to admit that they were gay after that?

But bullying was not the fiThere were two main insti- nal word for me. gators: one, the son of a cop, Thankfully, the bullying was an aspiring police officer; ended after that year. I finished the other, a young woman who, high school with a large group years later, I found out was gay of friends with whom I am still herself. in contact. I went off to college, The taunting was daily came out, and found that my and happened in class, where world did not end. Since then, I couldn’t get away from it.

I’ve been fortunate enough to During my morning class, he build a family of friends who would sit next to me and ask, have brought joy and love into “Is it true? Are you a dyke?” my life.

During my last class of the day But I never talked about she would do the same. the experience of being bulI never seriously considered lied. Not even with my LGBT talking to a teacher about it. friends.

Given the atmosphere at my It wasn’t until about a year high school, I felt sure I would ago when I was having coffee not have been heard. Or, even with several friends that I spoke worst, I thought I’d be blamed about it. somehow.

One friend was talking about In fact, two teachers overhow her daughter, who was heard the bullying. One did the same age as I was when the nothing. The other told me bullying started, was being bult - bigger that if I changed the way I lied at school because she was GTP pro- dressed, I wouldn’t be a target suspected of being gay. anymore.

For some reason, I talked The worst part of it was that about it that day. Something

about hearing about her daughter, and realizing that there was no way her daughter could possibly deserve that treatment, allowed me to let go of that shame for the first time.

That’s how deeply the bullying can affect you. For 20 years you can lead a life in which you receive affirmation, love, and support, yet you can somehow, on some level, still believe the messages given to you in your youth that you somehow brought the abuse on yourself.

Clockwise from top left: Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, Tyler Clementi, and Seth Walsh — all bullied for being gay or being perceived as gay, and all victims of suicide.

There has been a great campaign going on lately called “It Gets Better.” In that campaign, those of us who experienced bullying as gay youth tell our stories and assure today’s gay youth that it does indeed get better. And, that’s true. It

does.

But, for those of us who want to support LGBT youth, it’s not enough to just say “it gets better.” We have to make it better.

If you are in a position to affect the lives of young people,

you are in a place of tremendous responsibility. Whether you’re a parent or grandparent, a teacher or coach, a minister or rabbi, or even a trusted mentor, you can make a difference.

Have an honest and open n see BULLIES, page 10

Telling kids that it gets better Taking measures against an epidemic

S

Saxtons River

eth Walsh was

in the sixth grade in the small town of Tehachapi, Calif., when he came out to his mother. She told him she loved him no matter what.

But his peers were not so kind.

They taunted him to death, literally. Seth hanged himself.

He was 13.

Billy Lucas, 15, of Greensburg, Ind. also hanged himself after constant slurs against him by classmates.

Asher Brown, 13, who lived near Houston, shot himself as a result of school taunting.

Tyler Clementi was older than these boys when he jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate and an accomplice posted live video of Tyler having sexual relations with another male student at Rutgers University.

The tragedy and waste of

Dan Savage, right, editorial director for The Stranger, an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle and syndicated sex columnist, and his husband, Terry Miller, left, launched the It Gets Better project for gay people to talk directly to despondent teens via YouTube video. Almost 1,000 people have submitted videos.

E L AY N E C L I F T these deaths is a phenomenon we should all be worried about.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning

(LGBTQ) youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to the Massachusetts 2006 Youth Risk Survey.

A later study conducted

by San Francisco State University in 2009 revealed that adolescents who were rejected by their families for being LGBT were more than eight times more likely to report having attempted suicide.

And for every completed suicide by a young person, a 2003 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that between 100 and 200 attempts are made.

These youth are at high risk of suicide largely because of the pressure society imposes upon them at a time when all people face the n see ‘IT GETS BETTER,’ page 10

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VOICES

10

n ‘It Gets Better’ daunting developmental task of finding their identity and establishing emotional and/or sexual intimacy in relationships.

While heterosexual youth find their feelings, identities, and relationships acknowledged and supported, “genderminority youth” see the world around them as an emotional wasteland full of threatened violence, harassment, and potential assault. Try navigating that world in adolescence.

“If you’re in a small community, the pressure is hard enough,” Eliza Byard, executive director of the New York-based Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educational Network, told The New York Times after Tyler Clementi’s suicide captured national attention.

“People get enough signals about ‘how wrong it is to be gay’ without anyone in those communities actually having to say so.”

Dan Savage, a Seattle writer who is gay, understands all too well what these kids are up against.

With his husband, Terry Miller, Savage has launched the It Gets Better Project, seeking contributions of videos to YouTube from adults who wish to speak directly to these young people.

In Savage and Miller’s eightminute contribution, they talk about their own experiences as gay youth, segueing into a glimpse of their adult lives in which they have adopted a son and live life as any other family.

The campaign is inspired by former San Francisco mayor Harvey Milk, who famously said, “You gotta give ’em hope.” Milk, the first openly gay elected public official, was assassinated in 1978 while still in office.

n Bullies discussion about bullying with the youth you know. Talk about acceptance. Talk about respect. Let them know how you feel, and listen to what they have to say. This is especially true if you know kids who are being bullied.

Let them tell them about what is going on, and then do whatever you can to support them and make sure that they are able to live in safety and with hope.

And, there’s one final thing.

If you, like me, survived

from page 9

Elayne Clift (www.elayneclift.com) writes about politics and social issues.

from page 9

anti-gay bullying (or any other kind of bullying), talk about it.

What happened was not your fault, and the kids who are going through this need to know it’s not theirs either.

Tell your story. Show them it gets better. And prove to them that the life that is waiting for them is worth living. We have to speak louder than the voices of the bullies who are out there.

But when we all speak together, that’s not hard to do. n

Early education: An investment that pays huge dividends

T

here is plenty of scientific data that shows that brain development peaks from birth to age 5. All the behaviors and skills that will determine whether a child will be successful in school, and ultimately successful in the workplace and the community, are determined in those first few years.

When children enter kindergarten ready to learn, that policy results in improved high school graduation rates and higher earnings later in life. Early-childhood education also reduces the need for intervention programs and is essential for both our current and future workforce.

Where and how our children spend these first few years has an enormous affect on their future, and our future as nation. This is why early childhood care is so critical.

A recently released report, Early Care and Education — Investing in Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers highlights the long-term value of

rian Remer, project manager of the Umatter initiative, refers to “the stigma” associated with mental illness. [“New initiative seeks to prevent youth suicides in Vermont,” Commonsnews. org.]

Well, I guess we must be trained to “stigmas” from somewhere — why not from a newspaper?

Please drop this affront from your language — no matter who applies it, or against whom.

high-quality early care and education, the issues parents and providers face, and what still needs to be done to assure that all of Vermont’s children are given the best start possible.

This report, produced by the Permanent Fund for the Well-Being of Vermont Children, the A.D. Henderson Foundation, and the Vermont Community Foundation, found that 71 percent of the 38,000 Vermonters under age 5 spend at least part of their time in the care of someone other than their parents.

Vermont families on average have a greater need for child care than families living in other states, and that need comes at a premium. For a medium-income Vermont family with two working parents and two preschool-age children, the cost of child care averages about 22 percent, or $16,120, of the household budget.

As many working parents know, it is a challenge

to find affordable and quality care for their children. That’s why nearly one-third of all the children in need of child care are receiving financial assistance. Yet only 45 percent of Vermont’s 4-year-olds are enrolled in a publicly-funded preschool.

Quality early education and child care, the report found, comes down to three things — people who are nurturing and well-trained, a place that is safe and appropriate for children, and an approach to learning that offers a variety of learning opportunities. But while Vermont is ranked fourth in the nation for the quality of its child care standards, it’s ranked 44th when it comes to oversight of those standards.

The people who work in child care and early education are among the lowest paid professionals in Vermont.

The average annual income of child care worker is $19,700, and the average preschool teacher’s salary is $28,640.

The average turnover in these

fields is about 40 percent per year.

Early childhood education has become an issue in the campaign for governor, but leaving the politics of an election year aside, there are steps that can be taken now.

The report recommends greater philanthropic support for child-care centers, as well as strengthening the support network for parents and care providers. It also recommends increased access to training and continuing education for child-care providers and more public-private partnerships that encourage high-quality early child care.

The importance of good, affordable early child care is undeniable. Increased private and public investment in early care and education now will have a long-term impact on the social and economic wellbeing of our state.

Vermont can, and should, lead the way on this issue.

LETTERS FROM READERS

Festival of Squashes raises funds for library T

he first Westminster West Festival of Squashes, a fundraiser for the Westminster West Public Library, held Oct 16 in Westminster West village, was a great success.

Festival-goers enjoyed a wide range of dishes at the squash café. The squash identification treasure hunt introduced children and adults to the diversity of squash that can be grown in our region, and children also got to exercise their creativity in designing intriguing squash sculptures. Neil

Taylor provided festival-goers and organizers with much needed chair massages.

Longtime Westminster farmer Howard Prussack presented a slide show detailing his experience growing squash over 39 years to an appreciative audience, and fielded many questions about timing of planting and harvesting and management of pests and disease. Thai chef Aew Ladd demonstrated her delicious steamed custard-filled winter squash which was enjoyed

Former volunteer disillusioned with Salmon

I

t seems like such a short while ago that I would have volunteered to work for young Tom Salmon’s campaign. I was even one of those Democrats he phoned when he wondered whether he should persist to ask for a recount. At the time I counseled, “Yes, go for it!” After his DWI charge, I even phoned his dad to tell him that I would still support Tom. But I never imagined that Tom would become such a rabid Republican that he’d espouse the venomous farright rhetoric as he has in recent months. After being so disappointed at my misplaced confidence and trust in Tom Salmon, I took the time to really study the superb qualifications and experience of Doug Hoffer.

Doug has been an independent policy analyst on issues such as public pension funds, economic development, and tax policy,

Newspapers shape attitudes about mental illness

B

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

EDITORIAL

“Today we have the power to give these kids hope,” Savage wrote of the project.

“We have the tools to reach out to them and tell our stories and to let them know that it does get better. Many LGBT youth can’t picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can’t imagine a future for themselves.”

“So let’s show them what our lives are like, let’s show them what the future may hold in store for them.”

He’s right, of course. But the problem is that not all gay youth at risk will find their way to Dan Savage, or to other gay adults who can convey to them that it really does get better and that there is hope for the future.

That job falls to all of us, gay or straight. As parents, clergy, mentors, teachers, prospective employers, we can – we must – let gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or questioning youth know that there is life after adolescence, and that life can be fulfilling and joyful.

We must do this, because to paraphrase a well-known ad campaign, a young life is a terrible thing to lose.

The question is: Do we believe it ourselves? Are we adults prepared to accept the continuum of gender and to feel comfortable with it, whether close to home or farther afield?

Don’t we owe at least that much to Seth Walsh, Billy Lucas, Asher Brown, and Tyler Clementi — innocents all, who simply needed to hear, and believe, that it will get better? n

T h e C ommons

I note the funding for this organization (www.umatterucanhelp.com) comes from the U.S. and Vermont state governments.

Supporting a “stigma” is a contrary use of tax dollars.

Associating a “stigma” is not “help.”

Harold A. Maio Ft. Myers, Fla. The writer identifies himself as a “retired mental health editor.”

he was author of the Job Gap Study and a consultant to the state auditor for five years. He was responsible for the $40 million budget when he lead the Burlington Electric Commission (19952000). He earned a B.A. from Williams College and a J.D. from the SUNY-Buffalo Law School.

Both Doug’s experience and his education far outweigh those of his opponent.

I have spoken with Doug at length at four “meet-andgreet” gatherings for candidates. Doug’s quiet, warm, genuine civility, combined with his excellent listening skills, encourages one to appreciate his intellect.

It is with much confidence that I will vote for Doug Hoffer, because I trust his ability and willingness to oversee the finances of our very special state.

Christina Angell Townshend

by all, and author Crescent Dragonwagon wrapped up the event with equally delicious squash poetry.

This event could not have happened without the generosity of many many individuals who cannot all be mentioned here. We are most grateful for your help! We particularly want to thank all of the creative cooks in our community who donated food; Susan Talbot, who co-managed the café; the vendors who added their wares to our festivities; Peter Stamm, who prepared specialty coffees, and the following local farms who donated ingredients: Harlow Farm, Allen Brothers,

Holton Farm, Green Mountain Orchards, Walker Farm, High Meadows Farm, Old Athens Farm, and Livewater Farm.

We celebrate your hard work and thank you for recognizing with your support the essential role the library plays in the culture of our community.

Tatiana Schreiber Westminster West The writer submitted this letter on behalf of the board of trustees of the Westminster West Public Library, which also includes Carlene Raper, Mary Ceglarski, Alison Taylor, Jim Taylor, Collin Leech, and Barbara Rogers.

Much more work to do, Rep. Partridge says

I

strongly encourage the voters of Athens, Brookline, Grafton, Rockingham, Windham and a portion of North Westminster to exercise your right to vote on Nov. 2.

I humbly ask for your consideration and vote on Election Day and also suggest that you consider using your “early voting” option by contacting your town clerk.

I offer my experience, leadership, caring dedication, and hard work if I am re-elected.

We face many challenges this coming biennium, including building a balanced, responsible budget; making progress in ensuring that all Vermonters have access to affordable health care and pharmaceutical drugs; promoting job creation and economic development; and continuing our work on property taxes – looking for ways to improve the

system while maintaining our commitment to high-quality education for all of Vermont’s children, as well as income sensitivity and equity.

Many other very important issues will emerge during the next two years, and I would like the opportunity to continue to represent the people of the Windham-4 district in Montpelier.

The closer we come to a 100-percent voter turnout, the closer we come to a true democracy. Let your voice be heard! I thank you for your consideration and appreciate your vote.

Carolyn Partridge Windham The writer is a candidate for re-election in the Windham-4 district.

Shumlin consistently backs early-childhood education

I

am supporting Peter Shumlin for Governor for many reasons. One major reason is his unequivocal support of early childhood care and education.

I worked in public education my entire career. In my roles as a classroom teacher, special educator, director of the Title I program for Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, and a member of the Vermont State Board of Education, I have been completely convinced of the vital importance of children entering elementary school ready to learn.

Current research on the

I

brain tells us that the way the brain develops in the first few years of life has a profound impact on a child’s chances for success in school and life; 700 new neural connections develop every second for the first few years of life. The brain is at its most flexible and best able to organize new information during that time, too. How a child interacts with a parent or caregiver during those years has a huge impact on brain development.

At the same time, we know that 71 percent of Vermont children under 5 are in care of someone other than parents.

CLARIFICATION

n an e-mail she wrote after her Viewpoint piece [“Please stop ‘helping’ us,” The Commons, Oct. 20] was published, State Rep. Patricia O’Donnell, R-Vernon, said she contributed her open letter addressed to Democratic candidate for governor Peter Shumlin in her capacity as a state representative and not as the Windham County chair of 77 Flat Street, Brattleboro, VT 05301 the election campaign of Brian (802) 254-5200 Monday-Saturday 10am-5:30pm Fridays til 7pm Dubie, Shumlin’s Republican

opponent.

“It is a letter that I would have sent even if the election was not in progress,” she wrote. “We in Vernon are so sick of Peter’s comments about us, we are very capable of taking care of what is happening in our community and his comment about feeling nothing but sadness for the hard-working people of Vernon is over the top and we do not want him to exploit us any longer.”

All this information points to the importance of equal access to affordable, quality earlychildhood care and education for all Vermont’s youngest children. In Vermont, towns like mine, which have no publicly funded preschool, have no access to public funding for a new preschool. That is fundamentally unfair.

We need to have a governor in office who will support equal access to publicly funded preschools. This will save us money in remediation costs for our kids when they are in

school. This is an investment Vermont cannot afford not to make.

Peter Shumlin has recognized the importance of making early childhood education an equal partner in the education system. He has been a consistent supporter of early childhood education in the Senate and throughout his career. His leadership in the governor’s office will be essential for Vermont.

Anne Rider Guilford

A progressive choice

I

n the last month, national polls have shown that 3 out of 5 people would prefer supporting a third party to either the Democratic or Republican.

In our state, county and town, we have one — the Progressive Party, which stands with regular people on issue after issue, from fair taxation to better schooling to health reform.

I’m not running for a really political office like Selectboard member or lister or school board member, where I would effect political change, but for a neutral office in which I may

be of service to others, not only on a daily basis but in particular when the Board of Civil Authority is convened to review appeals of some possibly unfair decisions.

At such times, I believe the presence of someone representing the Progressives may be a great help.

Frank Reeve Wilmington The writer is a candidate for justice of the peace in Wilmington.

T h e C ommons

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

VOICES

11

LETTERS FROM READERS

Shumlin cherry picks worthy jobs

C

andidate Peter Shumlin speaks out of both sides of his mouth and thus I find it hard to trust what he says.

An excellent example of this in an interview appeared in the Vermont Business Magazine (VBM) October issue. He told VBM that his long-term strategic goal as governor would be “about reviving small businesses, creating jobs, and getting Vermonters back to work, and that’s why I’m running.”

All very well and an admirable goal.

However, midway into the interview, he responds to a question about how he would go about reducing the cost of health care without switching to single payer.

“We have three payers [Blue Cross Blue Shield, MVP, and Cigna] left outside of the government,” he said. “We need

to be willing to tell insurance companies to take their profits and leave, because we don’t need them anymore. They haven’t done anything to make Vermonters healthier.”

He suggests the Vermonters who work for these health insurance companies (more than 300 just at Blue Cross Blue Shield) pack up and leave!

How does this square with keeping businesses here in Vermont and getting Vermonters back to work?

What this will do will only serve to cause others to lose their jobs, not to mention all the peripheral consequences of such losses.

We all know how he voted on Vermont Yankee (Entergy) and what that will cost — only some 650 jobs! Now he takes aim at the three health insurance companies left doing

business in the state. What business area is next and will your job be safe with this person at the helm?

Just as importantly, he should know that there is at least one Vermonter whom two of the insurance carriers he wants to kick out of Vermont have made healthier. That person is none other than my wife, who five years ago was close to perishing, but Blue Cross Blue Shield and MVP have made it possible for her to live a healthy, productive life. The insurance premiums paid to these companies covered the care my wife needed.

Candidate Shumlin is simply wrong to cherry pick which jobs are worthy — we need all jobs for Vermont to be a place we can call home.

Jesse Corum IV Brattleboro

Democracy worked in VY vote

A

n open letter to state Rep. Patty O’Donnell [“Please stop helping us,” Viewpoint, The Commons, Oct. 20]: I lived next door to a plumber for 30 years, but I certainly don’t know plumbing “from the ‘inside’ and know it well.”

Russian planes used to fly over Sarah Palin’s house, but she doesn’t know foreign policy.

So I won’t be asking you questions about nuclear safety, and I won’t be asking the workers either. A bunch of those people lied to the state of Vermont last year. They lied to

you. I seem to recall you were ticked off at the time, but I guess you’re over that.

If you folks are as smart as you keep telling us, you put some of the Vermont Yankee tax money under the mattress.

You’ve probably got a plan to reap the benefits of decommissioning, which will create another long period of economic activity. After that, I don’t know; post-nuclear tourism?

Or maybe you’ll tax the spent fuel casks, just like the state.

It’s time to calm down and face facts. This is still a democracy — imperfect as hell, but functioning. You got your nuke

by a margin of one vote in the Vermont House, and the rest of us have had to live with it for 40 years. Vermont decided to close the plant on schedule by a bipartisan and resounding majority vote in the Senate.

Without Peter Shumlin, that vote wouldn’t have happened; you’ve got a right to blame him for that. But at 26-4, he didn’t lead the Senate anywhere it didn’t want to go.

By the way, did Entergy tell you about its latest steam leak before it hit the press? Just wondering.

Jessie Haas Westminster

Union: Shumlin used VY stance as litmus test for other labor issues

T

his year, several labor leaders stood in Peter Shumlin’s office, seeking help with a bill that passed the House and would ensure people’s homes are protected against faulty workmanship, house fires and even death.

Shumlin said, “You stood with the enemy [businesses and supporters of Vermont Yankee], and now you’re in here asking me for my help?

You’re [expletive starting with f].” He said this in front of leaders of Vermont labor organizations, including my own.

Union leaders must stand up for our members and not

allow Peter Shumlin to strip us of our dignity. It is not just the angry, crude language; it is the assumption that we must always do what he wants or pay the price. I cannot imagine any union representative settling for these ground rules in advance.

Organized labor has always supported the Democratic Party with funding and elbow grease. I will no longer settle for false promises. Shumlin says he’s about jobs and can get the tough thing done. Then he cuts 800 state employees and spearheads eliminating another 1,200 jobs by closing Vermont

Yankee, adding an additional $10 million dollars to the $114 million deficit.

Our work gives us dignity because we care for ALL workers. Therefore I would rather establish new relationships, than be enslaved by Shumlin’s political demands. What else are we but slaves if we concede to a high-handed “public servant”?

George Clain South Burlington The writer serves as president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 300.

Support for Oliver Olsen

T

he last two years of financial turmoil have turned all of our attention to matters of economic health and vitality, as well as financial security. The current gubernatorial campaign has been appropriately focused on matters of how we should encourage growth to provide for an increasing standard of living for all Vermonters.

These are not easy matters: Vermonters are not of one

mind about what our economy needs to look like for our security or should look like for our well-being. In my day job as economic development director for the Windham County region, these are my constant concerns.

I write now to support Oliver Olsen for state representative because he has in his time in office put attention on the matter of our economic future. He

has invested time and energy in the district on the ever-vexing matter of broadband. He continues to ask in the halls of the legislature: How will this bill affect our economic health?

Vermont needs people with Oliver’s energy and focus to help us achieve sustainable economic health.

Jeffrey M. Lewis Brattleboro

Weary of elections The political process discourages an honest debate about the issues

I

Williamsville

through substance abuse wouldn’t be a solution to the pain and deprivation of poverty, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and homelessness?

used to look forward

to elections. They used to give me hope — but not lately.

I know that as soon as the votes are counted and the winners determined for this midterm election, electioneering for the next presidential election cycle is going to begin, and I’m tired of political campaigns.

I’m sure I’d feel differently if politicians running for office would discuss the issues we face with honesty and directness. If the media reported the candidates’ positions on the issues, I’d probably be more engaged and less cynical about the process.

But lately, campaign reporting is more about how much money candidates raise, where they stand in the polls, and who has distorted the truth about whom – so that the issues are lost in the mud, and it’s hard to find a clean fact or two.

In Vermont, our brief, legislative biennium forces politicians to make policy fairly quickly, and the campaign season for state office has been relatively short.

As a result, laws are made, passed, or changed with a swiftness absent at the federal level, where politicians seem to be more concerned with re-election than governance.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the presidency, where the president begins running for a second term almost as soon as he’s sworn in, and he and his party start fundraising even sooner.

It isn’t until the second term — when there is one — that a president, concerned with his legacy, attempts meaningful, long-range solutions to chronic political problems.

The fundraising alone is obscene.

A nation famous for whining about taxes and yet demanding all kinds of government fixes, from extended unemployment benefits to cleaning up BP’s oil spill in

DEBORAH LEE LUSKIN the Gulf, nevertheless willingly donates millions of dollars to support political parties, candidates, and ballot initiatives.

The fundraising numbers are then reported in the press as if an election were a horse race rather than a democratic process.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In Britain, for instance, election campaigns last only one month. That probably wouldn’t work here, but a single, six-year term for the presidency might.

Along with a shift to a sixyear presidency, I’d like to see our political electoral language change from the metaphors of warfare. It bodes ill, I think, to talk about politics as a war — from the war chests politicians amass to the campaigns they fight, the attacks they launch, and so on.

When elected, these metaphors continue – from the war on drugs to the battle against illegal immigrants.

As evidenced by the real wars the US is currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s clear that wars don’t work.

What would it take to shift our language and perspective from one of battle to one of compassion?

Instead of fighting a war on poverty, what would happen if we embraced the impoverished? Instead of tossing money at enforcing drug laws and incarceration, what would happen if we shifted our focus to prevention?

What would happen, for instance, if we shifted our spending priorities from trying to fix the problems of addiction after the fact by providing better support for women, children, and families so that self-medication

I despair of making these changes at the federal level, but I’m intermittently hopeful that we can achieve some of them at the local level.

Organizations like the Windham Housing Trust, for instance, make a huge difference in the lives of people who would otherwise not have a roof over their heads.

Several organizations help feed the hungry in our community, some providing groceries and others serving hot meals. The Reformer Christmas Stocking will again provide clothing against the cold for local children in need.

Unhappily, it is at the federal level that the big bucks are spent — mostly for the military which, oddly, no one seems to oppose.

By contrast, we seem to argue hot and loud about spending relatively minuscule amounts of money on our local schools and social services, including health care.

But we don’t do the obvious calculation of how much not supporting these services up front costs.

By not providing topnotch education, we have more people leaving school without the skills to support themselves.

By not providing health care, more people delay medical care, get sicker, and enter the system through hospital emergency rooms — the most expensive portal for health care.

I can’t do much to influence public policy at the national level, where the language of war predominates and the money for war is appropriated with patriotic rhetoric. But in Vermont, known for independence and ingenuity, we can overcome the military state of political affairs and work together in a new language of cooperation and compassion. n

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Moran: a politician who gets into the gutter — literally

O

n a recent October afternoon, as the sun warmed the air and added brilliance to the landscape, a political candidate went door to door on Main Street in Stamford to meet his constituents, answer questions, and ask for their votes in the upcoming election.

He pulled into the driveway at one house and saw a gentleman, Richard Hoyt — a veteran of World War II and the Korean Conflict and a retired New York State Trooper — trying to position a stepladder at the back of the house. His friend, Evelyn Baxter, stood nearby watching nervously.

Instead of simply handing them a brochure and going on to the next house, the candidate asked if he could be of help, and the couple said yes.

The job was cleaning the leaves out of the gutters. The candidate climbed up the ladder and completed the task for them. They were pleased that the job was finished and that no accidents had happened, but most of all, were appreciative of the unsolicited assistance and time this man gave to them.

He is Rep. John Moran.

John has worked diligently and thoughtfully in Montpelier during the legislative sessions for the past four years to represent the people of WindhamBennington-1. He has worked in our district full time listening

to his constituents’ concerns and the issues that affect them individually and as communities, assisting them in finding answers to their questions, joining elementary schoolchildren as they excitedly tour our beautiful capitol building, and celebrating and honoring the achievements of our towns and brave veterans.

He is proud to see the results of the ongoing work he did with so many others to bring the Wine Festival and Blueberry Festivals to our area.

Not only did those events bring tourists to the region, but also outstanding Vermont products were showcased.

The list of things John has accomplished is long, and the list of things he wants to do is longer. He is a man who cares about this district. He cares about everyone who lives here and will fight to preserve our rights and services. I know he

is honored to have been given this opportunity to serve and looks forward to continuing to do so.

If you’re wondering about those gutters in the spring — yes, he’ll be there to help.

Please cast your vote for Representative John Moran on Nov. 2.

Cherie Keeler Moran Wardsboro

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VOICES

12

T h e C ommons

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

VIEWPOINT

No child through the cracks

VIEWPOINT

Public school can’t be all things to all people.

That’s why there isn’t one simple solution for bullying.

Westminster Rick Gordon, Ph.D, is the founding director of Compass School, a priI get a call from a parent, a therapist, or vate school for grades 7-12 in a teacher desperately Westminster. looking for some hope to help a struggling adolescent.

The symptoms I hear about children is largely not the fault vary — poor academic perforof a particular school but one mance, feelings of loneliness, inherent in the public-school victim of bullying by peers or system. It is simply unreasonadults, sadness, depression, able to expect any single inpersistent non-attendance at stitution to be all things to all school, threats of personal people. harm.

No restaurant tries to do Adolescence can be a tough this, nor does any cell-phone time, and being in a setting that manufacturer or house builder. isn’t working for the student, Individuals’ needs and preferfor whatever reason, can make ences are simply too diverse this period of life even more to be served well by any single challenging. institution.

Although bullying in schools Imagine only one restauis the most recent headline rant for the whole town of grabber — with suicides being Brattleboro. What would they just one tragic effect — the in- serve to please everyone? Prime ability of schools to help every rib for all? (Horrors for vegchild is nothing new. etarians.) Localvore salad?

There have always been kids (Where’s the beef?) A litwho failed in school in even tle Thai food, some Chinese greater numbers than today’s dishes, a few pizzas, a sampler appalling nationwide nonof barbecue? (Who can cook all graduation rate of more than these with quality?)

30 percent. There have alFor the same reason, it is ways been kids left out, beaten unreasonable to ask any single down, given up on, or alienated school to serve every child in a from school. geographic area.

Individual students differ too We hear ongoing debate greatly in their interests and about whether our public learning styles, parents hold schools are doing a good job. different beliefs and orientaThe answer is an emphatic “yes tions, various interests have difand no.” ferent priorities that they wish Yes, our schools do a great to impose on all in school. job serving ever-more-needy It is a tribute to the undychildren with ever-increasing ing efforts of educators that our expectations. For a lot of kids, schools work for so many chilthe existing public schools are dren. But, we also know that quite good. even the very best of our pubThe problem is that for some lic schools don’t work for some individuals, the existing schools kids. are absolutely not working.

Our public schools do a terThese may be the kids who end rific job serving a wide range up most alienated and left out. of students. Many kids love Speaking in generalities, our their teachers, the school atpublic schools serve children mosphere, and the dynamics of well. From the perspective of peer culture. some individual children, the But we only have to accept effectiveness of our schools is this inevitable failure of school more problematic. for individual children if we reIf even one child is ill-served main wedded to the idea that by their local public school, we the only option is the one pubas a society need to figure out lic school in the child’s district. how to do what we can to help them find success. We cannot We have a long history of noafford, either morally or ecoble but inevitably futile efforts nomically, to let any child fall to “reform” public schools by through the cracks and fail to imposing uniform solutions to get the education and opportu- what are, at heart, individual nities each deserves. problems.

A spate of recent editoriThis problem for individual als offer more examples of the

A

lmost every day,

well-intentioned, but ultimately unworkable, notion that we can somehow solve a school problem like bullying with a generic program applied to all students.

Some programs focus on trying to teach all kids in schools to be respectful and caring; others suggest stricter rules or punishments.

Whatever the plan, it is assured that this won’t stop bullying for every kid, and individuals will continue to be victims of those who slip through the cracks, won’t buy into the lessons of their teachers, or will be undeterred by harsher consequences.

Time to end the corporate deception Entergy needs to stop pummelling citizens and decisionmakers

For a large number of students, the opportunity for a fresh start in a new and different setting will mean much more than any one-size-fitsall “reform” effort imposed on schools to end bad behavior, improve academic performance, or increase student motivation.

There are examples within Vermont of areas where students have real school choices that better allow every child to find success.

The state of Colorado allows choice for every child among any public school in the state — with charter and magnet schools offering unique opportunities to expand options. Minnesota offers publicly funded students a range of options including traditional schools, college options, teacher-developed charters, online classes, virtual high school, and independent competencybased learning units.

If we are serious about really leaving no child behind — giving every child the opportunity for academic, social, and emotional learning — we cannot continue to promote a system that confines every child in a school that, for whatever reason, is not working for him or her.

This isn’t fair to kids and it isn’t fair to educators.

Ultimately, the costs to taxpayers of endless efforts to impose reforms that force uniform solutions on every school are unbearable.

More importantly, the cost to society of losing individual kids is even greater. n

Brattleboro Chad Simmons — a member of the Safe & Green Campaign, a grassroots citizens is the equivalent of group living in communities a schoolyard bully from Vermont, Massachusetts, with deep pockets. and New Hampshire surroundUnfortunately for us, the Louisiana-based corporation ing Vermont Yankee — describes himself as “actively that operates the Vermont Yankee nuclear power facility working towards the safe closure, clean-up, and replacement chooses to utilize its money of the facility.” and resources to incite fear through manipulative advertising, risky business propositions, and economic threats. announced it is being invesEntergy has a history of tigated in four states by the dishonest and illegal pracU.S. Department of Justice tices. From New England to for its “competitive practices” New Orleans, the energy con- involving power procureglomerate unabashedly purment, dispatch, and transsues profit with little regard mission systems, as well as its for the economic and enviutility unit policies. We await ronmental damage it wreaks. more details.

The company’s pattern Up until April of this year, resembles that of British Entergy was aggressively lobPetroleum (BP) and its hanbying Vermont and New dling of the Gulf oil catasYork regulators for the ability trophe. In both instances, to spin its operations off into slick, expensive ad campaigns a risky, debt-ridden limited trump honestly addressliability corporation named ing the rampant, systemic Enexus. mismanagement.

Citizen outrage and In 2009 Vermont’s attorthe global economic colney general requested that lapse caused in great part Entergy cease an ad camby morally inept corpopaign falsely stating that rate executives highlighted Vermont Yankee operates the irresponsible nature of with “zero emissions.” Of Entergy’s proposal. Entergy course, this claim is false, as CEO J. Wayne Leonard went Vermont Yankee regularly re- so far as to suggest it could leases radiation into the enfind other ways to limit its livironment as well as small ability if Enexus was not apamounts of carbon dioxide. proved. Vermont and New Despite the request, supYork regulators inevitably reporters and employees jected the Enexus proposal. continue to use the term “emission free” in editoIn 2009 and 2010, we rial pieces and letters to the witnessed blatant acts of editor. dishonesty as Entergy representatives provided inaccuIn 2008, after a decade-long rate information to Vermont court battle, New Orleans regulators and legislators ratepayers were awarded $34 about the existence of undermillion in electric bill refunds ground piping at Vermont stemming from Entergy’s Yankee. overcharging practices. This This was followed by the led the attorney general of discovery of a massive triMississippi to bring suit tium leak from the very same against Entergy for similar “nonexistent” piping, polrate manipulation. luting the soil and groundRecently, Entergy water. The full extent of

E

A B S E TI S

AN

JOHN

2010 STROLLING OF THE HEIFERS NEW ENGLAND FARM RELIEF CONCERT

ntergy Nuclear

this leak (as well as others) is unknown, as we continue to learn about additional groundwater contamination and potential drinking water contamination.

An Oct. 3 Associated Press article, “Vermont Nuke Plant Still Lobbying for License,” reported that Entergy spent over $120,000 on paid advertising for one television station during the first nine months of 2010 — one station. Between regular newspaper ads and an aggressive TV and Internet marketing campaign, Entergy seems confident it can pummel citizens and decisionmakers long enough in order to get its way.

Entergy Corp. has bullied our communities long enough. It is time for Entergy to stop its deceptive paid ad campaign and cease all efforts to rewrite history.

In February of this year, the democratically elected Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of closing Vermont Yankee as scheduled in March of 2012. We are now less than 18 months away from that date.

Entergy has an enormous responsibility ahead that includes the closure and clean-up of the reactor site, storage of high-level radioactive waste, pollution mitigation, and the transition of its workforce, including retention, just compensation, and training.

Entergy should immediately begin collaboration with state, federal, and local officials to ensure that thorough transition and clean-up processes are promptly developed and implemented.

It is about time for Entergy to end the aggression — and focus on its responsibilities. n

LETTERS FROM READERS

Outgoing representative calls Stuart a worthy successor

I

have been working closely with Valerie Stuart since she won the primary and became the Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives in Brattleboro District 1, the seat I have had the privilege of holding for the past 20 years. I must say that I have been very

impressed with her both as a person and as a candidate.

Serving as a state representative is a wonderful way to make a difference, if one is willing to listen and work hard.

Valerie has shown her enthusiasm to do both. When she tackles a project, she does her

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homework, gets input from other people, and dives in with all cylinders firing. She has the energy and hard-working determination it takes to be a good state representative.

To that, add her strong background of service to Brattleboro; her deep caring for children and families, agriculture, and our environment; and the prosperity of our community at large. She will make a great state rep.

Valerie’s experience and skills will complement those of our other two Brattleboro state reps, Sarah Edwards and Mollie Burke, forging a new team that will continue to fight for the needs and concerns of Brattleboro — and Windham County in general — in the Vermont House.

I am voting for Valerie Stuart for Brattleboro District 1 State Representative, and I hope my District 1 neighbors and friends will do the same. Please vote at Brattleboro Union High School on Nov. 2.

Gini Milkey Brattleboro The writer represents Brattleboro’s District 1 in the state House of Representatives.

T h e C ommons

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

13

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT ARTS CALENDAR

Iconic roots musician to perform Replaces Richie Havens in Strolling of the Heifers benefit BRATTLEBORO—John Sebastian, the songwriter, singer and storyteller who burst on the scene in the 1960s with the Lovin’ Spoonful and is still spreading the gospel of American roots music, will appear at the Latchis Theatre in a benefit concert on behalf of the region’s struggling farmers.

The Strolling of the Heifers New England Farm Relief concert, featuring Sebastian along with special guest Meg Hutchinson, will take place on Saturday, Nov. 13 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are available online via www.brownpapertickets.com, by phone at 800-838-3006, or in person at Vermont Artisan Designs or the Latchis Hotel front desk, both on Main Street in Brattleboro. Tickets are priced $45, $35 and $25, with a postconcert reception $15 with any ticket level.

Proceeds are earmarked for the Strolling of the Heifers Microloan Fund for New England Farmers, which extends loans to farmers who are not able to obtain credit through traditional sources.

Sebastian agreed to fill in for the earlier-announced headliner Richie Havens, who had to cancel for medical reasons.

Sebastian’s musical contributions during more than four decades have become a permanent part of American musical fabric.

The Lovin’ Spoonful made this new American music like nobody before or since, putting their first seven singles into the Top 10. At first the band would take older material from blues, country, folk and jug band sources — what we now term roots music — and made it sound modern.

The band’s songs include “Do

You Believe in Magic?,” “You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice,” “Daydream,” and others.

Sebastian was born in 1944 in New York City to creative parents; his father was a noted classical harmonica player and his mother a writer of radio programs. Regular visitors to the Greenwich Village home included Burl Ives and Woody Guthrie, and the young Sebastian became a fan of, and then a participant in, the folk music revival that swept the nation in the late ’50s.His skills on guitar, harmonica, and autoharp soon made him a sought-after accompanist on the Village folk scene.

After leaving the group he founded, he performed at massive festivals like Woodstock.

He had been involved in music for films and Broadway, and his theme song to Welcome Back, Kotter became a chart-topping solo record.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he continued to record, tour, and educate aspiring musicians with his instruction books for harmonica and guitar. The 1990s also saw him return to the group format with the J-Band, a contemporary celebration of his jug band heritage.

Sebastian’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 hasn’t slowed him down.

He was the subject of the PBS special Do You Believe In Magic: The Music of John Sebastian, and an album of duets with David Grisman was released in 2007.

He has also lent his music in support of social, environmental, and animal rights causes.

Meg Hutchinson is a lyricbased, contemporary acoustic songwriter. Originally from rural western Massachusetts, Hutchinson is now based in the

Coming to

MARLBORO COLLEGE

A Sixty Year Cycle Vietnamese woodblock prints featuring Phan Cam Thuong

November 1-28 Drury Gallery Opening Reception Wed., November 3, 4 pm Lecture by Vietnamese scholar Trian Nguyen Mon., November 8, 7pm Ragle Hall Gallery hours Sun.-Thurs. 1-5pm while college is in session

Information 802-251-7644 Marlboro College Marlboro, Vermont www.marlboro.edu

prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky Competitions, The New York Times has applauded her “eloquent, powerful” interpretations of repertoire ranging from Bach and Beethoven to Crumb. She is on the faculty of Vassar College and the Bard Conservatory of Music.

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist and teacher. Born into a musical family, he began violin studies at age four with his father Eugene Phillips, a composer and former violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony. He continued his training at the Juilliard School. He was a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1976, and has performed as soloist with many American symphonies.

Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, 25-year-old violinist Arnaud Sussmann has performed as a soloist all over the world with many of today’s leading artists. Sussmann has

www.brattleborotix.com. For further information, call 802-463-9595.

Seasons will be presented Saturday, Oct. 30, 7– 8:30 p.m., at the River Garden, 157 Main St., Brattleboro.

Save the Secret of The Seasons is a participatory musical experience — a “co-opera” — that stimulates audience members to address their relationship to global warming and climate change. Based on songs written by John Ungerleider and Bill Conley for the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009, the program is designed to engage the audience with the external and internal challenges that global climate change is bringing to our lives.

A Secret of the Seasons YouTube video can be found on the Envirobeat blog at envirobeat.com. For more information, contact John Ungerleider at 802-258-3334.

the Ukulele” will take place Sunday evenings from 6-7 on Nov. 7 -Dec. 12 at Maple Leaf Music, 23 Elliot St., Brattleboro.

The $95, six-week workshop is for those who have a basic grasp of the major, minor and 7th chords and have learned a few songs with strumming and fingerpicking patterns on the ukulele. Participants will learn how to develop simple chord melody arrangements of popular folk tunes and expand upon current chord knowledge by adding new inversions, 6ths and 7ths. The goal is to be able to play the melody along with the chords so you become your own accompanist.

A beginners’ workshop is planned for January. E-mail blackjackoak@msn.com or call 802999-3662 for information.

• A “co-opera” on climate change: Save The Secret Of The

• The Steel Wheels at Boccelli’s: The Steel Wheels

(www.thesteelwheels.com), a fourpiece American band from Virginia whose music is rooted in the territory between blues and bluegrass, will appear at Boccelli’s on the Canal in Bellows Falls on Sunday, Nov. 14 in a benefit concert for Post Oil Solutions.

Music room doors are at 7 p.m.; the show is at 7:30 p.m. Boccelli’s will serve dinner in the café room www.johnbsebastian.com starting at 5 p.m. Tickets are $12 John Sebastian will perform at the Latchis to benefit in advance, with $20 front row the Strolling of the Heifers’ microloan program for “Angel” tickets available online farmers. only. Advance tickets are available at Village Square Booksellers, Boston area. her new album The Living Side, Fat Franks and Boccelli’s in She has won numerous song- which came out in February.

Bellows Falls, in Chester at Misty writing awards in the U.S., Strolling of the Heifers is dedi- Valley Books, in Brattleboro Ireland and U.K., including rec- cated to saving family farms by at Brattleboro Books, and at

ognition from the John Lennon Songwriting Competition, the Billboard Song Contest and prestigious competitions at Merlefest, NewSong, Kerrville, Falcon Ridge, Telluride and Rocky Mountain Folks Festivals.

She released Come Up Full on Red House Records in 2008, and is now celebrating the release of

Sophie Shao & Friends launch BMC Chamber Music Series BRATTLEBORO— On Saturday, Oct. 30, the Brattleboro Music Center will present Sophie Shao, one of the leading cellists of her generation, and an ensemble of tremendous virtuosic talent at Centre Congregational Church.

Sophie Shao & Friends, including Daniel Phillips, violin, Arnaud Sussmann, violin, Eric Nowlin, viola, Sophie Shao, cello, and Pei-Yao Wang, piano, will perform the first concert in the BMC’s 2010-11 Chamber Music Series. The program includes Ravel’s Sonata for violin and cello, Elgar’s quintet in a minor for piano and string quartet, op. 84, and Schumann’s piano quintet in E-flat major, op. 44.

At 19, cellist Sophie Shao received the Avery Fisher Career Grant, and has since performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Winner of top

Music

won several international competitions and awards.

Second-prize winner of the 2006 Walter W. Naumburg competition, violist Eric Nowlin has performed extensively throughout the United States as well as abroad. Nowlin, an active chamber musician, has participated in festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival and the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia. He is a regular member of the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York City, and also tours with Musicians from Marlboro and Musicians from Ravinia’s Steans Institute.

Pianist Pei-Yao Wang, a chamber musician, made her official orchestral debut with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra at age 8 and has since performed as soloist with the Stamford Symphony, Orlando Symphony, and Taipei Philharmonic.

The concert is the first in the center’s 2010-11 Chamber Music Series. For more information, visit www.bmcvt.org.

connecting people with the food they eat. Each year on the first weekend of June, it presents the Strolling of the Heifers Parade on Main Street in Brattleboro, followed by the Live Green Festival.

In partnership with The Carrot Project, in 2008 it launched the Microloan Fund, which addresses the credit needs of farmers not able to borrow elsewhere.

More information can be found at www.strollingoftheheifers.com.

For more information about the artists, visit w w w. j o h n b s e b a s t i a n . c o m and www.meghutchinson.com.

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• Ukulele classes at Maple Leaf Music: “Chord Melody on

Dance

• Break-dance artist performs in Bellows Falls:

Motivational artist and breakdance performer Patrick Perez (www.patrickperez.org) will showcase his skills and share his stories for area youth and parents during performances on Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. at the Bellows Falls Union High School Auditorium in Westminster.

Perez uses break dancing and timely, comical stories to connect with students and families.

The performance, co-sponsored by the Greater Falls Prevention Coalition, is open to students 13 and older and their parents. A n see ARTS CALENDAR, page 16

FAMILY SUPPORT SPECIALIST Early Education Services is seeking a Family Support Specialist to deliver Early Head Start services for a home-based caseload of 12 families living in Windham County. A minimum of AA (bachelors preferred) in childhood development. A degree in social work or related field is acceptable with course work in early childhood a plus. Experience working with diverse families with children, and a reliable vehicle and valid driver’s license is required. The qualified candidate will join our team of dedicated family support staff in providing families with weekly early childhood activities, parenting support and resource/referral to area agencies. Starting salary range is $13.50 - $14.50 with an excellent benefit package.

Please submit resume and three references to: Carol Castine, Family Services Manager

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14

Ghostly goings-on in the Great Falls area Three houses, three tales of the unexplained

By Allison Teague The Commons

R

OCKINGHAM— New England has a long and rich history of ghosts and unexplained events, and the valley around the Great Falls is no different.

The Commons chased down a couple of ghost stories and was invited along to photograph spirits. You make up your own mind whether you believe or not.

Nancy, who told her tale on the condition that she be identified by her first name, lives in an old Victorian house built in the late 1800s in Bellows Falls for a bachelor. “His mother must have helped him design the house, because there’s a ton of closets, more than any other Victorian I’ve ever seen,� she said with a laugh.

For years, Nancy owned a cat that triggered her husband’s allergies. The cat lived to 23 years old. “I’ll never get another cat.

I respect that he lived with it all those years,� she said.

Now she has a dog, Joey, a medium-sized mixed breed, and the two of them will sit together at night watching television or maybe reading.

Then the dog will behave strangely. “It’s always dark, it’s always quiet, and we’re always alone, just Joey and me,� she said. “She sees something in that hallway I can’t see, and it raises her hackles.� “When it’s quiet, all of a sudden she’ll sit up and look towards the hallway — and it’s always in the same spot,� Nancy said. “It’s not a smell, because her nose twitches when she smells something. The hairs on the ridge of her back will raise up, and she’ll just sit and stare at that spot in the hallway.�

Nancy describes the TV room as off the master bedroom and part of a suite of rooms. “I don’t know what the room could have been,� she said. “Maybe a dressing room.�

Nancy said this has happened on and off since they have lived there; the last time was “sometime this summer.� She said her husband remains skeptical, as he is always out of the room when it happens. “I’m convinced animals can sense things we can’t,� she said.

Nancy said she senses and sees nothing, and it never makes her feel uncomfortable when Joey goes on alert.

A ghost in the SWEET cook’s room

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

HALLOWEEN HAPPENINGS Brattleboro

• Haunted house at the Masonic Temple: Brattleboro

Lodge #102 Free and Accepted Masons is conducting a haunted house from 6-9:30 p.m. on Oct. 29, 30 and 31 at the Main Street Masonic Center in Brattleboro, next to the Post Office.

Tickets are $5 per person and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Feed the Thousands program. If you bring a donation of canned food, admission will only be $4. This event is only for people 9-years-old and older. • Forest of Myster y at BEEC: Bonnyvale Environmental

The cost for adults is $8/$6 for BEEC members, and children $6/$4 for members, with discounts available for groups of 10 or more.

Call 802-257-5785 for reservations. Payment in advance is also appreciated. The performances are recommended for ages 6 years and older. • Halloween Parade open call: If you are a designer, cos-

tume maker, musician, street performer, dancer, percussionist, circus artist, stilt walker or any other artistic or creative maven, you are invited to participate in the second annual Brattleboro Halloween Parade on Sunday, Oct. 31.

The theme for Halloween 2010 is XS RED. The parade begins at the corner Grove and Main streets at 7:30 p.m. Afterwards, there will be the grand costume party and competition at the Stone Church.

Bring your excess, bring your red and most of all, bring yourself, your friends and family.

The first festival last year featured a truly spectacular costume party and prizes were awarded by many of the businesses in town.

This year, organizers anticipate a bigger parade, with more revelers and more cohesive parade music. For more information, contact Richie Richardson at 347-995-1819.

Education Center presents its annual “Forest of Mystery� on Friday and Saturday nights, Oct. 29 and 30.

In this year’s show, The Phantom Road, travelers enter the supernatural realm of spirits and specters. Hear the music of the forest phantoms! Learn the legends of wandering souls. Hourlong journey’s begin every 15 minutes from 6:15-8 p.m.

Those who have never been the Forest of Mystery can indeed look forward to a unique theatrical experience. Unlike typical drama, the “Forest of Mysteryâ€?, is an outdoor performance in which the audience is far more than just passive spectators. In small groups, the audience is guided through the woodlands and fields by mysterious characters Wilmington as the forest is transformed into a • Spooky Stories Night place of mystery and magic.

Hike: Join the Boyd Family Farm

for a Halloween Night hike on Saturday, Oct. 30, at 5:30 p.m.

Trek into the forest for some fireside stories and hot cider then make the terrifying trip back to the safety of our cars! Be sure to dress for the weather and wear your costume! Call Rockhopper Outdoor Education for more information 802-368 -203. Pre-registration is recommended. Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for kids 3-13, and free for kids under 3. Visit www. boydfamilyfarm.com for more information.

Walpole, N.H.

• H a l l owe e n Fa r m e r s Market: The Walpole Farmers

Market will wrap up the season on Friday, Oct. 29, with special Halloween activities for kids between 3:30 and 5 p.m. The market itself runs from 3 to 6 pm. It is held on the Common, but in the event of inclement weather, will move indoors into the Town Hall. Kids can enter a costume contest and enjoy face painting, butter making, an obstacle course, and relay races while parents get their groceries and support local farmers.

For more information, visit www.walpolefarmersmarket.com, e-mail jill@walpolefarmersmarket. com, follow along on Facebook, or call 603-756-3168. If you would like to receive email updates about the market, send along your e-mail address.

Allison Teague/The Commons

A gargoyle sits atop Readmore Bed and Breakfast, whose owners have experienced some unexplained phenomena.

She should know. She’s the one who heard it.

The dressing table sits against the wall just to the right of the door into the hallway from the room, now a guest bedroom.

When she and her husband, Stewart, were renovating the house between 1997 and 2000, they stayed in the room while working on the rest of the house.

Read recalls standing at the dressing table one day, brushing her hair and looking in the mirror. Suddenly, she heard a knock on the door. She demonstrated an ordinary knock — like a knock from someone about to enter a room.

Imagine Read’s surprise when she opened the door and no one was there. Her husband was nowhere near and denied he was the culprit, and no one else was in the house. “It didn’t scare me. I felt like whoever it was, they were polite,� she said with a laugh.

Read said it happened quite a few more times during the couple’s tenure in the room before they moved into their third-floor quarters, but admits that since the house was finished, it has not happened to her knowledge. “We had a couple of guests who thought they might have heard something in the room,� she reported. “One thought she heard a soft knock and no one was there, and the other heard something like a crash

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Dot Read, owner of Readmore Inn and Bed and Breakfast in downtown Bellows Falls, notes on her website that the former cook’s room might have a resident ghost.

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of something falling over in the room, that hadn’t.�

She shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe the ghost is used to us now,� she said.

Read said during the same time period, there were several other incidents of unexplained noises in the house outside the Teddy Roosevelt Room off the second-floor atrium. “My mother told me about it one morning after she’d stayed the night in the room,� Read said. “She came down to breakfast and asked me why our dog was in the hall last night. She’d heard what she thought were his tags jingling. The dog had been upstairs with us all night.�

Read said her mother described the sounds as similar to metal objects clinking against one another. Her mother is not the kind of person to hear things, she pointed out.

Nor was she the only one who has heard the sound. Read said a couple of other people who stayed in the room heard it, too. “One woman asked the morning after they’d slept there what someone was doing delivering tea in the middle of the night.

She thought she’d heard a tea cart jangling by outside her door. There’s no tea cart, and we definitely weren’t delivering midnight tea,� Read declared, smiling.

The Readmore is also well known for the gargoyle that sits

Allison Teague/The Commons

Michael Reynolds takes a photo at the Rockingham Meeting House. The resulting image contains “orbs,� or visual artifacts, that Reynolds considers an indication of paranormal activity. atop the northeast corner of the house on the roofline.

The gargoyle sits reading Grimm’s Fairy tales and is said to leave the roof only to find something new to read. “It’s a friendly gargoyle,�

Read said. “It’s reading a book‌ read more, get it?â€? she said with a smile. “It’s guarding against illiteracy.â€?

A magnet for spirits

Michael Reynolds claims to have experienced many ghostly spirits in his life. “I seem to attract them,� he said.

Reynolds said that he grew up in a Victorian house “seriously haunted by a poltergeist,� so he is not new to ghostly happenings. He and his partner, Roger Riccio, own and operate the Rivermist Bed and Breakfast, also in downtown Bellows Falls.

Reynolds writes that “our pets react to unseen entities, affixing their gaze [‌] in mid-air and barking at something we cannot see,â€? explaining just one of a multitude of hauntings he and Riccio have witnessed. “One night Roger awoke to find a darkened figure standing perfectly still, staring at him as he slept. He and the phantom stared at each other for so long

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that Roger eventually succumbed to sleep without ever witnessing the spirit vanishing,� Reynolds continued. “Once while standing on the front sidewalk peering through the window, I saw a shadow cross the parlor wall when nobody was in the house,� Reynolds wrote. “We frequently hear somebody stomping down the second-floor hallway.�

As if that is not enough, Reynolds wrote, “We often smell odd odors such as flowery cologne, unaccountable food scents, or most frequently the unmistakable pungent smoke of a cigar.�

Reynolds said the terrifying experiences, first as a child and now an adult, led him to research ghosts. “The fact that understanding dispels fear was the motivating factor,� he said. “I’ve read about many strange things in an effort to understand my own circumstances. However, no amount of reading lessened the terror I experienced in my childhood.�

Reynolds said he had experienced ghostly presences elsewhere as well, and agreed to meet at the Old Rockingham Meeting House for show and tell.

On a bright and warm autumn day, Reynolds conducted a tour through the two-story building, pointing out where a previously closed gate to one of the upstairs stalls had swung open in front of him. Nothing happened during the visit.

After stepping to the front of the balcony that faces the pulpit below, Reynolds snapped several photographs. In fact, he was taking photographs throughout the tour.

Suddenly, he said, “I’ve got some orbs.�

Three different spheres, or orbs, appeared in his photograph, apparently floating below in the gallery of the Meetinghouse. A second photograph of the same spot, this one from a reporter’s camera, detected nothing.

Later, Reynolds blew up the photo, confirming five orbs.

Many people all over the world have begun gathering specifically to attract and photograph such phenomena. They are supposed to be attracted by vibrations emanated by living beings present.

Googling “orbs� on the images search page brings up hundreds if not thousands of photographs people have taken around the world of orbs or spheres. “I get them a lot,� Reynolds said.

A tour of the cemetery found no more orbs or ghostly presences, but did find wonderful old slate carved tombstones from the 1700s, haunting in their grief still palpable after centuries at the passing of loved ones.

Reynolds pointed out the ancient underground chamber similar to others found around New England whose history is unknown, but are suspected to be of ancient Celtic origins.

Its interior is small, and only a child-sized body could be stored inside during winter months, if indeed that is what it was used for. Facing directly east toward the autumnal rising sun, it may have had other uses for the ancients who built it.

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, orbs or animals that can sense ghostly presences, it does not take long to find someone who can recount an event they cannot explain somewhere in the ancient valley above the Great Falls, where people have lived and died for thousands of years.

T h e C ommons

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

n Witch The earth-based religion that focused on understanding life through the surrounding world made sense to her — she could see and experience aspects like sunsets and full moons.

“It’s such an old wise tradition, and that’s why I love it,” she said.

She explains Witchcraft as working within the groove of the natural energies that surround us in a very grounded and practical way.

“It’s walking the path of the bigger energies you see,” she said.

And yes, Witchcraft deals with magic, she said. But this magic is not for tricks — rather, it’s about drawing to you what you need.

One of the legends of her tradition says if witches do not turn the wheel of the year, the season won’t change. Luckily, the world has always had some form of witch to keep the wheel turning, she said.

15

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

from page 1

The emptiness at the top of the stairs Some close encounters with local spirits

I wikipedia.org

Title page from the Malleus Malefica, the volume that identified witches by what is now the stereotypical wart on the nose. time, which makes it possible to view any other time,” she said.

The veils between the worlds thin, making it easier to communicate with the spirit world.

The old rite of leaving food for deceased loved ones is at the root of the current tradition of passing out candy on Halloween.

Dressing up in costume was a way for people to blend in and out of the sight of wandering spirits, she said.

She said many Christian rituals have been layered over Sabbats rites to make Christianity easier to sell to the peasants. For example, the Winter Solstice, which symbolized the birth of the Sun God, morphed into Christmas, a celebration of the birth of the Son of God. “Halloween was the one they couldn’t take away,” said Salpietro-Babb.

Salpietro-Babb said she feels a little “grumpy” sometimes because Halloween is a witches’ holiday, but many people “look down their noses” at the religion of Witchcraft.

“I don’t believe in witches” and “Do you kill babies and animals?” is a contradictory onetwo verbal punch Salpietro-Babb hears often.

“I’m tired of answering those questions. They’re hurtful and mean. People would never say that to [someone of] other religions,” she said, noting her mother, a Christian, never had to justify her creed.

Witches are real, she said.

They exist, she said, just as Catholics do, and it’s not a matter of opinion.

She said she no longer wears her pentacle, a traditional symbol of peace and protection, to her day job.

A co-worker approached her pointing at her necklace saying, “People have been tortured by people like you.”

Salpietro-Babb shrugs, noting that her co-worker wears a cross on which her savior was tortured and died.

“People forget symbols,” she said.

It drives her “nuts,” she said.

If people do something, then they should know why, she said — like understanding that jack o’lanterns were used to light the way for the spirits of ancestors.

But Salpietro-Babb understands the root of her co-worker’s statement. Centuries of bad press have buried witchcraft under fear, hatred and misconceptions. She watches the teens around her strut pentacles as a style, not understanding the way of life behind the symbol.

Brattleboro ’d forgotten to turn on the light at the bottom of the stairs.

The garden level of Bliss House between the muted wall light in the stairwell where I stood to the pool of light over my desk sunk into darkness filled with the hulking shapes of file cabinets, a paper cutter and photocopier. It would be a dark walk back to my desk.

A door latch clicked behind me.

Bliss House, home to SIT Study Abroad, can be a noisy place to work after hours.

Footsteps. Doors opening.

Closing. Random bangs and clanks.

“It’s the Bliss House Ghost,” a co-worker told me.

The night before I had run into her office thinking the banging on her door came from someone locked inside.

Her office door stood open.

“Who’s here?” I called to the empty building, assuming my co-worker would answer.

The banging stopped.

Bliss House, sits on top of a hill over looking the World Learning campus. Caretakers have moved the farmhouse to

Olga Peters usually

shoulder. The back of my neck tingled.

This is ridiculous, I thought.

What are you afraid of?

I turned and faced the emptiness at the top of the eight different locations since stairs. its construction in the 1700s.

See, I told myself.

“Anything with that kind of The top stair creaked as if history has got to have some taking someone’s weight. The kind of ghost,” said friend next step creaked. The third and colleague Lisa Johnson. step. The fourth.

Lisa’s desk sat on the first My skin developed a rash floor of Bliss. She heard the of goosebumps. I didn’t wait footsteps pacing the upper for the fifth step. floor hallway and knocking When it comes to ghosts, around in the director’s office I’m also a self-proclaimed when she worked late. wuss.

“But it never felt like a Clearing the bottom steps, scary ghost,” she said.

I shot for the sanctity of the light above my desk.

When it comes to ghosts, I spun around, expecting I’m an agnostic. to see some filmy shape melt I don’t assume every out of the shadows and come shadow belongs to a ghost. at me.

Basically, anything’s possible Instead, the creaking on in this weird, wide, wonderful the stairs ascended. A door world. Your guess is as good clicked closed again, and I lisas mine. tened as the footsteps paced But on this night, standthe hallway above. ing on the stairs, faced with Maybe my imagination ran walking into the darkness and away with me. the sound of an opening door Or maybe I ran away from when I was the only breathing an opportunity to meet whothing in the building, weird ever went bump in the night. overshadowed wonderful. n Hinges creaked over my writes about less ethereal matters as staff reporter for The Commons.

not practicing Witchcraft, she said.

For example, Salpietro-Babb refuses to cast love, because for the spell to succeed, she’d have to thwart someone’s free will and go against her spiritual teachings.

One little-known fact about Witchcraft traditions, said Day outside Salpietro-Babb, is that spell castof time ing is considered a lower form of Salpietro-Babb loves magic. Balancing two forces like Halloween. the sun and moon is considered Known as Samhain in her trahigher magic. dition, a seasonal rite, the holiShe stresses Witchcraft, day marks the transition between Wicca and Satanism are not summer’s end, when the old interchangeable. world dies, and the start of the Witchcraft is the roots of a Celtic New Year. According to very old tradition with multiple Salpietro-Babb, Halloween exists branches, of which one is Wicca. between the old and new years, Introduced in the 1950s by not belonging to either.

Gerald Gardner, after England Halloween is “a day outside of repealed the Witchcraft laws in 1951, Salpietro-Babb said Wicca focuses more on personal development and a higher power, VERMONT CHEDDAR whereas Witchcraft focuses on a

By Silvio Graci god/goddess entity. kill you.” told her little skeptic that, if she Salpietro-Babb said many loAccording to Salpietro-Babb, “It feels like the world hasn’t worked hard enough she could cal witches practice indepenSatanism practitioners worship moved on,” she said. light a candle with magic, or, dently rather than in communal the power of negativity and do The irony of people’s fear, said she could use a match and get covens but that the pagan comnot practice Witchcraft — pe- Salpietro-Babb, is that we use on with the rest of her life. munity as a whole is strong. riod. Confusing the two is one pagan names and symbols every When it comes to magic, she Salpietro-Babb practices with of Salpietro-Babb’s biggest pet day without realizing it. added, the better question is, two to three other people but peeves.

For example, the days of the “What is it you need?” does not belong to a coven.

“History’s written by those week are named for many of the Spells never work how you “This is a great area to be a who win,” said Salpietro-Babb. old gods and goddesses. Monday think they will, so you need to be witch,” she said.

Events like the Inquisition translates into “The day of the clear, said Salpietro-Babb. and the Salem Witch Trials have Moon” and Friday is named after taught people to fear witches. the Norse goddess Frige.

Reusing Items=Reducing Waste=Increasing Wallets According to Salpietro-Babb, Salpietro-Babb laughs and the stereotypical image of the recounts a conversation with a green-faced witch with warts on young boy she called “her little her nose came to modern times skeptic.” At a recent school fair courtesy of the Inquisition, or fundraiser, where Salpietro-Babb what some historians call “the conducted Tarot readings, a litwomen’s holocaust.” tle boy told her he didn’t believe An old text used in witch in magic. hunts, the Malleus Malicuform “It means you’re smart,” said or The Hammer of Witches, de- Salpietro-Babb. tailed how to identify witches by Salpietro-Babb feels people Clothing, Shoes, Toys & Gear on Consignment for the Tots thru the Tweens Rt 5 Putney, VT • 802.387.4469 • Open Mon-Sat 11-5 • join us on facebook for inventory updates the wart or moles on their faces. must discover their path, not just The green face came from one believe carte blanche. of the identification tests.

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THE ARTS

16

n Arts calendar

PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT

from page 13

T h e C ommons

PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT

PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT

PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT

We are

Democrats, Republicans, Progressives and Independents asking you to vote for peter Galbraith for Paid Political Advertisement Paid Political Advertisement the Vermont Senate. He will be a forceful advocate for Windham County and we need his common sense approach in Montpelier...

present an adaptation of The Phantom Tollbooth, written by Norton Juster on Nov. 3 at 4:30 • Claire Porter performs at p.m. All tickets are $6 at the door.

Marlboro College: Marlboro TAP productions use music, College will present a free per- dance, sign language, and puppetry formance of Namely, Muscles, a to tell the story. All TAP perforone-woman show conceived and mances are ASL interpreted and performed by choreographer Claire NEYT is wheelchair accessible.

Porter at 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 5 in the Serkin Center Dance Studio.

Porter plays the role of Dr. Nickie Lectures Nom, an acclaimed forensic specialPaidof Political Advertisement • The political cartoons ist, who is reading from her book of Dr. Seuss at Brooks Memorial poetry dedicated to 96 major mus- L i b r a r y : U M a s s - A m h e r s t cles in the body. As her reading goes Professor Emeritus Richard Minear hilariously awry, Dr. Nom finds her- will explore the wartime political carself entangled as well as enthralled toons of Dr. Seuss in a talk at Brooks by all the muscles of the body and Memorial Library in Brattleboro on their names.

Wednesday, Nov. 3.

Based in New York City, Porter’s His talk, “Dr. Seuss Goes to War,” work has been produced by national is part of the Vermont Humanities and international venues. She holds Council’s First Wednesdays lecan M.A. in Dance from Ohio State. ture series and takes place at 7 p.m.

Minear will examine Seuss’ editorial cartoons of 1940–41, drawn for Theater PM, a short-lived but influential pro • The Phantom Tollbooth at gressive New York daily newspaper.

NEYT: The New England Youth For more information, conTheatre’s Adventure Wednesday tact Brooks Memorial Library Afternoon Youth Troupe will a t 8 0 2 - 2 5 4 - 5 2 9 0 o r v i s i t “Peter has performance for Bellows Falls Middle School students will take place during the day.

• Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Paid Political Advertisement

...AND HERE’S WHY:

www.vermonthumanities.org.

Film

deep roots in Vermont and a great love for our State. He has integrity and is not afraid to speak out for what is right. And, with him in the Senate, we can make real progress toward quality health care for all Vermonters.”

“Peter has deep roots in Vermont and a great love for our

—DR. BoB BAckuS, WARDSBoRo

state. He has integrity and is not afraid to speak out for what is right. And, with him in the Senate, we can make real “When the best and the brightest progress toward quality health care for all Vermonters.” volunteer, enlist them. ” Backus, Wardsboro –Dr. Bob

–MicHAEl oBucHoWSki, foRMER DEMocRAtic SpEAkER tHE VERMoNt HouSE, RockiNGHAM anofextraordinary advocate for small business in

“Peter will be Windham County.”

–Donna Simons, Owner, Candle in the and Night, Halifax “Peter Galbraith Ahas courage

“Peter Galbraith would bring to the Vermont State Senate, the seasoned voice of a profoundly creative diplomat, author and world traveler with complex problem solving skills, so greatly needed in our current turbulent “We need Peter Galbraith in Montpelier because of his global environment. experience and ”ability to bring different groups of people –GoV. tHoMAS p. SAlMoN, together. WithfoRMER his experience, Peter can bring the right jobs GoVERNoR of VERMoNt and sustainable growth toAND our rural communities.” pRESiDENt of tHE uNiVERSitY of VERMoNt, –Ann DiBernardo, Select Board Member, Rockingham BElloWS fAllS

“With Peter’s international governmental and business “Peter Galbraith is very thoughtful and connections, we can look forward to the opening of new sees theworldwide big picture. ” markets for Vermont’s many innovative products.”

–DiANA BiNGHAM, BRAttlEBoRo

–Arthur H. Westing, Putney integrity. He will serve Windham County “Peter Galbraith served our country in the world’s most exceptionally well.” am comfortable Peter Galbraith willissues from “Peter Galbraith’s knowledge of public policy dangerous places and produced results. He negotiated the “I rockyhorror.com –StEpHAN MoRSE, foRMER REpuBlicAN For the second year, the Latchis Theatre inend to one usand all.”local perspectives will be extraordinarily federal, state, war andof helped another. HouSE, He’ll do aNEWfANE great job represent SpEAkER tHE end VERMoNt Brattleboro will present a pre-Halloween screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show onrepresenting us in Montpelier.”

Thursday, Oct. 28, at 10 p.m., offering a night of –Daryl Pillsbury, Member, “Peter’s vision, courage,Select andBoard integrity singing, dancing and talking back to the movie Representative, screen. New this year, Daniel Korngluth, Harral are justformer what State Windham CountyBrattleboro Hamilton and friends will act out the action on the screen. Tickets are $10 at the door, and needs in Montpelier.” proceeds benefit the Brattleboro Arts Initiative.“Peter Galbraith would bring to the Vermont State Senate, the

—SENAtoR pEtER SHuMliN, putNEY

seasoned voice of a profoundly creative diplomat, author and world traveler with complex problem solving skills, so greatly “Peter Galbraith served our country needed in our current turbulent environment.”

MILESTONES in the world’s mostP.dangerous places –Gov. Thomas Salmon, Former Governor and produced results.

He negotiated of Vermont and President of the University Births, deaths, and news of people from of Vermont, the end to one war and helpedBellows Falls Windham County

–MikE BERNHARDt, foRMER useful representing Windham County.”REpuBlicAN lEADER of tHE VERMoNt HouSE, –Jeff Lewis, Brattleboro Development loNDoNDERRY Credit Corporation

“We need people in Montpelier who “Peter Galbraith is uniquely by his experience to weren’t the cause of ourqualified economic help make Vermont’s unique qualities and products problems. ” appreciated and competitive around the world.”

–DARt AND JoY EVEREtt, BRAttlEBoRo

–Rep. Richard Marek, Newfane

“It is incredible that a small “Because I want people in Montpelier who weren’t part of community such as ours could getting us into the economic mess we arebein!” represented by someone with –Dartthe Everett, Brattleboro breath and depth of experience “Vermont someone as Peter needs Galbraith. ” with Peter’s vision to fight for the

librarian at the Moore Free Library end another. He’ll do a great job in Newfane and as president of“Peter the Galbraith is very thoughtful and sees the big picture.”

Newfane Garden Club. She also taught representing us in Montpelier.

–Diana Bingham,” Brattleboro Editor’s note: The Commons will remedial reading at local elementary –DARYl pillSBuRY, SElEct BoARD schools, and for 16 years volunteered publish brief biographical information for right health careREicHSMAN system, attractAND jobskAtE to Vermont, and finally MEMBER, foRMER StAtE REpRESENtAtiVE, citizens of Windham County and others, at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.

–ANDY puRDiE, :A BRAttlEBoRo on request, as community news, free of M emor i al i n format ion“Peter MARlBoRo Galbraith listens, is balanced and has sound ensure all of Windham County receives broadband and cell celebration of her life will be held at charge. judgement.

We want those proven skills at work in service.”

Newfane Congregational Church on • Marjorie Marnie Harrington Fjeld, 79 , of Tempe, Ariz. Died Oct. 30 at 1 p.m.

Montpelier. Peter has our support.”

–Stephan Morse, former Speaker of the Oct. 15 at home. Wife of the late • Mar y “Shirley” (Millerick) Richard Fjeld. Mother of Carter Miller, 73, of Scituate, Mass. Died –Robin Stern and Potter Stewart Jr., Brattleboro Vermont House and former CEO of (Skip) Fjeld and his wife, Linda, of Oct. 16. Wife of the late Donald H. the Windhamformer Foundation, Don Webster, State Newfane Representative Sarah Edwards, Toby Young, Chair, Yakama, Wash.; and Eric (Rick) Miller. Mother of Shawn M. Miller Fjeld and his wife, Kathy, of Tempe. and his wife Deborah of Pembroke, Representative, Brattleboro Progressive, Brattleboro Board, Westminster “He understands the complexity of health care inSelect Vermont.

Sister of William Harrington Jr.; Paul Mass.; James A. Miller and his companion, Renee of Scituate; and the Harrington and his wife, Shirley of Galbraith’s plan to create aMollie Vermont Public OptionChris will help “Peter Galbraith is aPrentiss Vermonter has made a big Smith,who Brattleboro Representative Burke, Angell, Townshend Bellows Falls; and Ramon Harrington late Sheila M. Miller. Sister of William all of us.”

–Dr. John Bookwalter, Putney difference in the world and will do the same in Montpelier.” and his wife, Bonnie of Charlestown, Millerick of New Hampshire and John Progressive, Brattleboro Christin Fagan, Newfane Marilyn and Larry Cassidy, N.H. Born in Bellows Falls, and at- J. Millerick of Brattleboro. Born in –James Valente, Chair, Brattleboro tended schools in North Westminster Brattleboro, she moved to Scituate in Representative Carolyn Partridge, Dummerston and Bellows Falls. Worked at Bell’s 1960. Worked as a nurse at the South “Listening to all sides. Patience with perseverance.

Democratic Town Committee Dan Yates, Brattleboro Democrat, Windham store in Cambridgeport, Bryant Chuck Shore Hospital for 10 years, before Billsounds Johnson, Dummerston Intelligence. Creativity. Finding common ground. That and Grinding in Springfield and Cote working for the Cardigan Nursing Dr. John Silkensen, Brattleboro Jewelry Store in Bellows Falls before Home in Scituate for more than 20 Representative Mike Mrowicki, like a good state senator to me.”

“The real question is why we should not jump at the chance Donna Remy-Powers, Brattleboro moving to Arizona in 1964. She retired years. M emor i al i n forma Democrat, Putney Ann broad DiBernardo, Selectand Board after many years working at Arizona tion : A funeral Mass was held on –Don Webster, former State to have a person of such experience stature, both State University. Memor ial in- Oct. 21 at St. Mary of the Nativity Member, Rockingham Jeff Lewis, Brattleboro Brattleboro as a negotiator and statesman, representing us in Representative GiniRepresentative, Milkey, formation : Internment will be in Scituate, with interment on Oct. held at a later date at the Windham 22 in St. Michael’s Parish Cemetery Democrat, Brattleboro Steve Anderson, Emily Mason and Montpelier?”

–StevePutney Anderson, Putney Cemetary. There will be a memorial in Brattleboro. Donations to to the Wolf Kahn, Brattleboro service for her at the home of Paul Maggie Mae Jordan Fund, in care “He gets to the heart of complicated issues.”

Representative John Moran, John Carnahan, Brattleboro and Shirley Harrington. 15 Tuttle of Sovereign Bank, 380 Chief Justice –Prentiss Smith, Brattleboro “PeterPutney can take to Montpelier a new perspective and a new St., Bellows Falls, at 1 p.m. on Oct. Cushing Highway, Cohasset, MA Democrat, Wardsboro Dr. John Bookwalter, David at Clark, Chair,level.”

30, followed by a social gathering. 02055. Condolence to the family may voice to help deal with problems the state Donations to the Athens Christian be sent to www.richardsongaffeyfuRepresentative Dick Marek, BFUHS School Board, Westminster Phyllis and Joe Mandell, Newfane Community Church, P.O. Box 7, neralhome.com.

“Peter GalbraithDemocrat, will moveNewfane Vermont forward technologically –John Carnahan, Brattleboro Cambridgeport, VT 05141, or to a • Marian Agnes Peloso, 75, of Curtiss Reed Jr., Robin Stern and without jeopardizing those parts of life in Vermont that we Townshend and New Port Richey, charity of ones choice.

• Robert L. “Bob” Heald, 95, Fla. Died Oct. 15 in Florida. Wife Senator Jeanette White,–Christin Putney Fagan, Vermont Potter Stewart, Jr, Brattleboro appreciate.”

Newfane “Peter Galbraith also has a longPartnership history offor getting the job of Venice, Florida, formerly of of the John L. Peloso. Mother of Fairness and Diversity, Brattleboro. Died Oct. 12. Father of John E. Peloso and his wife Becky done, frequently Gordon Bristol, former Marion and Mark Schlefer, Putney in extremely high stakes situations where Patty Heald of Venice. Brother of John of Townshend; Lee Ann Lawton Brattleboro “I ofsupport PeterState Galbraith because he will bring a sorely the impacts have very wide consequences.”

Representative, Heald of Winter Haven, Fla. Served of Chester; and Toni-Ann Lazar Maggie Newton, Brattleboro in the Army during World War II. Townshend. Stepmother of Barbara Monte Barnett, Rockingham –David Clark, Chair, BFUHS School Board, Westminster needed dose of Williamsville pragmatic thinking and lawmaking to Was a volunteer driver with Meals on Garfield and her husband Sam of her James Valente, Brattleboro Wheels for 23 years in Venice, Fla. Townshend; Leslie Randall andMontpelier.”

–Dan Yates, Brattleboro Dan DeWalt, Newfane Robert and Cathy M emor i al i n format ion : A husband Daniel of Jamaica; and “He brings an intellectual rigor that connects Windham Jacqueline Peck and her husband private service was held in Florida.

DuGrenier, Townshend John Bouffard, Brattleboro Betty Frye, Guilford Donations to the Reformer Christmas James of Townshend. Predeceased County to the world.”

“Peter will bring common sense, intelligence, and proven Stocking, P.O. Box 703, Brattleboro, by a brother Dennis Thompson. Born Reed Webster, Rockingham Carol & Arthur Westing, Putney –Curtiss in Brooklyn, N.Y., and workedleadership for VT 05302.

Dora Bouboulis, Reed Jr., Vermont Partnership for to the Senate.” many years at the Carolton Hospital • Helen G. (Hobie) Kohout, Vice Chair, Select Board,Silkensen, Brattleboro Catherine Fairness andGruver, Diversity, Brattleboro –Dr. John Donna Simons, Owner, 89, of Dummerston. Died Oct. 13 in Fairfield, Conn. Memorial inat Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical formation : A graveside service Brattleboro Dianich Gallery, Dummerston A Candle in the Night, Halifax Affiliations for identification purposes only.

Center in Lebanon N.H. Wife of was held at the Oakwood Cemetery in Townshend on Oct. 21.

Donations to a Joseph Kohout for 61 years. Mother of Joseph A. Kohout of Walpole, N.H.; Hospice organization of one’s choice.

Susan Kohout of West Chesterfield, N.H.; Kerry Kohout of Boston; George Kohout of Northampton, Mass.; Births Margaret Anderson of Williamsville; Michael Kohout of Dummerston; • In Keene, N.H., (Cheshire and Barbara Pacelli of Concord N.H. Medical Center), Oct. 12, 2010, a Sister of Margaret (Dolly) Auclair son, Jackson Carter Jillson , to and husband Theodore of Otterburn Crystal (Billetdeaux) and Chris Jillson Park, Quebec. Predeceased by her sis- of Brattleboro; grandson to Darlene ter Mary, and two brothers, Michael and Mark Billetdeaux of Hinsdale, and John, both pilots for the Royal N.H., Kim Jillson of Brattleboro, Canadian Air Force. Born in Montreal, and Victor Jillson of Guilford; greatshe came to the United States when she grandson to Pat and Phil Perkins of was 21 to work at the British Embassy Brattleboro, Marilynn and Nelson in Washington, D.C., during World Jillson of Dummerston, and the late War II. She later worked for UNICEF Victor and Judith Gero of Hinsdale. in New York after the war, where she • In Burlington (Fletcher Allen Health met her husband. After taking time Care), Sept. 28, 2010, a daughter, off to raise her family, she returned to Lucille Grace Umansky, to Lisa work as a secretary of Fairfield (Conn.) Anderson and Shawn Umansky of University for 20 years. Moved to Hinesburg.

Dummerston in 1985, and served as

Obituaries

AlSo: