The Commons/Feb. 23, 2011

SPECI A L FOCUS

Uncertain future for Vermont’s small schools As the state begins urging towns to share schools and resources to save money, some communities resist for reasons that are educational, financial, and emotional. How did we get here? ■ SECOND SECTION

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Brattleboro, Vermont Wednesday, February 23, 2011 • Vol. VI, No. 8 • Issue #89

WINDHAM COUNTY’S AWARD-WINNING, INDEPENDENT SOURCE FOR NEWS AND VIEWS

News BRATTLEBORO

Shumlin visits Drop In Center

Brattleboro candidates spar in forum

PASSING the SPATULA

Eight candidates will vie for two seats in March 1 election

page 2

Post Oil Solutions earns award

By Olga Peters The Commons

page 3 ROCKINGHAM

Hot race for Selectboard, school boards page 5

Voices

Historic Miss Bellows Falls diner gets new owners

DEBORAH LUSKIN

Debate over school funding is nothing new page 6

The Arts

ALLISON TEAGUE/THE COMMONS

The interior of the Miss Bellows Falls diner has changed little since it first arrived in town in 1942.

By Allison Teague The Commons

MEET THE MET

Opera fans enjoy HD broadcasts at Latchis page 14

Sports SKI JUMPING

Glasder wins in his Harris Hill debut Page 12

BELLOWS FALLS—“I’ve always wanted to own this place,” said Sue Bouley of Charlestown, N.H. Bouley’s dream has come true as she and Wayne Stone of Athens are now the new owners of the historic Miss Bellows Falls diner at 90 Rockingham St. Bouley had worked at the diner in the past, and she said she knew it was up for sale last spring when she met Stone for

the first time while they were both working at Mack’s Place Eatery in Grafton.

Her career as a bartender and cook gave her an insider’s look at the business, so when she approached Stone later in the summer with the idea of going into business as co-owners of the famous diner, the idea took hold.

The financing came together and, by November, they had made an offer. They signed the papers on Feb. 3.

Stone has been in the restaurant business for 40 years

■ SEE CANDIDATES, PAGE 2

Voters to consider $10.5 million bond proposal The Commons

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■ SEE DINER, PAGE 4

Committee makes case for BF school renovations

By Allison Teague

Vermont Independent Media

as a short-order cook and in management, but he said the Miss Bellows Falls “is the end of the road. This is it. I’m all settled in.”

He said that Bouley “has the personality and cooking skills, and I have the management skills” to make the diner run smoothly. Their staff consists of two waitresses, three cooks, and three dishwashers.

“We all just pull together,” Stone said, noting that one of the dishwashers has been at the diner for seven years. “When

BRATTLEBORO—With the days ticking down to the March 1 town election, the eight Selectboard candidates answered questions from the public at last week’s WTSA candidate’s forum.

Competing for the one threeyear seat are Spoon Agave and Kenneth Schneck.

The six candidates competing for two one-year seats — Joe Bushey, Christopher G. Chapman, Hilary Cooke, David Gartenstein, Kathryn Turnas II, and John Wilmerding — also made their cases for serving on the board.

The winners will fill the seats being vacated by Jesse Corum, Martha O’Connor, and Daryl Pillsbury.

WTSA News Director Tim Johnson moderated the forum, taking questions from voters present in the audience and via e-mail.

“It’s very important that we all take part in this thing called democracy,” said Johnson in his introduction.

First up, candidates answered why citizens should vote for them.

The candidates cited their wealth of experience and commitment to Brattleboro.

“I feel I am the candidate for the future,” said Agave.

Agave unsuccessfully ran for Selectboard last year. He has served on the Selectboard in the past and currently serves as chairman of the town Charter Review Commssion.

He said that Brattleboro had to glean information from the past and present to evaluate its progress and where the town was headed. He also said that the town couldn’t rely on Montpelier and the federal government to

solve its problems.

When the economy and tax base are down, it’s our problem, he said.

“I will bring a new energy to the Selectboard,” said first-time candidate Ken Schneck, dean of students at Marlboro College and host of This Show is So Gay, a nationally syndicated radio program that originates from WVEW in Brattleboro.

“I’m committed to this community and want to mirror my commitment with this three-year term,” he said.

Schneck said he would bring a positive outlook, a dedication to listening, and creative problem solving to his work on the Selectboard.

Cooke said he viewed part of a Selectboard member’s role as being “a diligent custodian” of taxpayers’ dollars.

Cooke, who ran for state senate last November, said that he would support the work of standing organizations like Building a Better Brattleboro and the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp.

“I like the kind of community I live in and will continue to call home,” Cooke said.

However, he said that he would also recognize the opportunity to shape the future by working with newer organizations like Post Oil Solutions and Transition Towns.

“There are more issues that unite us than divide us,” said Cooke.

Turnas said that she would represent an unrepresented part of the community. She is a retired senior citizen who lives on Social Security and sometimes receives food from the local food shelf.

Turnas also listed her service on numerous town boards, such as the Development Review

BELLOWS FALLS—The details of a $10.5 million renovation plan for the Bellows Falls Middle School were presented to residents at a public meeting last Thursday at the school.

Following a vote at the 2010 Town Meeting to allocate $20,000 for a study, the Rockingham School Board Renovation Committee and Black River Design, a

Montpelier-based consulting firm, spent a year coming up with a plan for the future of the 1926 school building.

Committee chair Michel Harty led the meeting and, along with representatives from the School Board and school administrators, answered questions from the public.

Those in attendance were concerned about the cost of the project, how it will affect property taxes, the effect on classes ■ SEE RENOVATION, PAGE 4

A postcard shows the former Bellows Falls High School, the 1926 building that now accommodates middle school students. According to the BFMS Renovation Committee’s website, it has been at least 56 years since most of the building’s major systems were installed.

PA I D A D V E R T I S I N G • T O P L A C E YO U R A D , C A L L ( 8 0 2 ) 2 4 6 - 6 3 9 7 O R V I S I T W W W . C O M M O N S N E W S . O R G HEADLINE VERMONT documentary on journalism in Vermont

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NEWS

2 139 Main St. #604, P.O. Box 1212 Brattleboro, VT 05302 (802) 246-6397 fax (802) 246-1319 www.commonsnews.org Office hours by appointment 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Monday–Friday Jeff Potter, Editor

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• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

BR AT TLEBORO ■Candidates Board and BCTV. She said that she is an avid recycler. “It’s my responsibility as a citizen of Brattleboro to be part of the decision making that happens in this community,� Turnas said, adding that she wishes there were more women running.

A member of the Safe & Green Campaign, Turnas said of Vermont Yankee, “It’s got to be shut down.�

Bushey, a lifelong Brattleboro resident, kept his comments short and sweet, saying that the Selectboard needs “a common man and a little common sense.� “I want to serve on the Selectboard to sound a different voice and to raise issues people don’t want to talk about,� said Wilmerding, the former director of the Brattleboro Music Center.

Wilmerding said that his skills as a trained mediator and originator or Windham County’s reparative probation panels would help him get to a “yes� outcome in conflicts.

Wilmerding said that he does not support Vermont Yankee and that Vermont’s status as one of the whitest states in the nation is “nothing to be proud of.�

Gartenstein highlighted his experience with budgets. As a Brattleboro Union High School board member, he said that he helped turn in responsible school budgets that also preserved educational programs.

Gartenstein added that he was no stranger to navigating difficult issues like the transition of the Canal Street School from a neighborhood school to the home of Head Start and the Windham County Child Care Evening Care program.

As a nine-year member of the DRB, Gartenstein said he had experience listening to all voices involved in an issue. “I felt this was a good time to step up. I’m a big fan of citizen government,� said Chapman, who has spent time lobbying in Montpelier for issues close to his heart.

If elected he plans to serve with all he has, said Chapman.

Using the analogy of Brattleboro as an airplane, he said that he believes in innovation, but it’s just as important for a Selectboard to keep the plane flying straight than doing barrel rolls. “We’re at the edge of the envelope where needs meet resources. [But] things sparkle at the edges,� said Chapman of the economic challenges facing Brattleboro.

One question posed to the candidates was how the Selectboard could make Brattleboro more affordable, especially for lowto middle-income households?

Schneck said that Brattleboro had to remember it’s not the “one and only,� and reach beyond the town limits. He felt the Selectboard could advocate for the town by going after opportunities such as the numerous proposals offered by the Shumlin administration.

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The Selectboard could do more to stimulate the local economy in part by attracting new business, said Schneck, a fan of tax stabilization deals.

Cooke agreed, saying that he supports commerce and said the town should try to find more jobs for higher and moderateincome earners. Regarding affordable housing, he said the town should be cognizant about the tax base by maintaining a balance between public and private housing. “We are responsible as citizens to communicate to who we elect,� said Turnas.

She cited the often-empty public seating at Selectboard meetings as an example of dropped communication. She also said the Selectboard must “walk the community.�

She said that citizens should also care for each other, and that it wasn’t the Selectboard’s responsibility to take care of everybody.

But, she added, if she were elected, she would change the Selectboard’s current attitude of “this is how it’s always been done.� Things change and Brattleboro must change with them, she added.

Bushey said that maintaining an affordable housing stock was important to keeping Brattleboro affordable. He also thought the town should focus on green jobs, like the Carbon Harvest Energy project at the Windham Solid Waste Management District.

A return to farming would also bring jobs and a more stable food stock to Brattleboro, he added.

Wilmerding said that Brattleboro needed to evaluate how it assesses housing values for tax purposes. The town needed a professional assessors department so assessors will listen to everyone not just to those with money or the legal know-how to mount an appeal.

Gartenstein said that responsible job growth, affordable housing, and a strong educational system would serve the town well. Part of responsible development in a town included keeping the taxes down and keeping services in line with the existing tax base. “There’s only so much the Selectboard can do to take on such a complex challenge,� said Chapman.

He said that keeping the town open for business and keeping the budget tamed were the Selectboard’s main jobs. “What is affordability?� Agave asked.

He said that getting on the same page would be the first thing any Selectboard first action. He wanted the town to find ways to be more self-reliant, and not continue assuming it could rely on Montpelier or Washington.

All the candidates agreed that Vermont Yankee’s closing was inevitable. “The closing of VY will have

a profound effect,� said Cooke, adding the area should have started planning a long time ago for the shut down.

Cooke supported the continued operation during his State Senate campaign against Jeanette White and Peter Galbraith who opposed the nuclear plant.

He said if the election’s result equated to a referendum then voters wanted the plant closed and the community needed to engage with this reality.

Turnas characterized the discussion around Vermont Yankee’s closure as a “panic,� and seemed people had fallen for “propaganda� that renewable forms of energy like solar and wind were new technologies. “Yes, it will have an impact but we will handle it,� she said.

Bushey expressed concern about the loss of high-earning jobs. He said Brattleboro would have to balance this void somehow with other forms of energy generation. “I think we’re okay here. I think we’ve made the right decision to close Vermont Yankee,� said self-proclaimed anti-nuclear activist Wilmerding.

Gartenstein favored closing the plant in 2012 as an allaround good move. He hoped some workers would find jobs at the site during decommissioning process. He also favored investing in green jobs.

Chapman said when Vermont Yankee closes, the shift in tax revenue will deal the Selectboard a new hand of cards. The board will have to play that hand when it comes. “I’m honestly not sure what we’ll do. Brattleboro is a lot like a deer in the headlights,� said Chapman. “I’m not sure [it will affect Brattleboro] nearly so much as people think,� said Agave.

Schneck said that the nonprofit sector will feel Vermont Yankee’s closing. The Selectboard will have to step up, and work with the nonprofits feeling the loss of the plant’s charitable contributions.

Johnson asked what the candidates would do regarding the facility upgrades needed for the police and fire departments?

The candidates agreed that the police and fire departments were core to the community’s safety and deserved the best facilities.

But, none of the candidates believed building better facilities financially possible at this time.

Voting will take place at the BUHS gym on March 1. Polls open at 9 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.

In addition to electing town officials, voters will also vote on three referendum questions.

The first two entail expanding the Selectboard and changing the board’s terms of service.

The third asks whether the Selectboard should sign a letter of concern on Vermont Yankee that is being circulated by the Safe & Green Campaign.

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Despite our similar name, The Commons is not affiliated with Vermont Commons,, a statewide journal that is Commons strongly linked with a movement advocating Vermont’s secession from the United States.

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‘Protecting the most vulnerable’ Governor comes to town promoting state aid to combat cold, hunger, homelessness

By Olga Peters The Commons

BRATTLEBORO— Brattleboro shed its winter coat on Friday as it enjoyed an afternoon where the temperatures approached 60 degrees.

It was a happy break from a long and snowy winter. Perhaps the biggest sigh of relief came from the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center’s staff.

They know that cold, hunger, and homelessness are a lifethreatening combination. “People come in hungry.

Hungry and cold,� Drop In Center executive director Melinda Bussino told Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin.

Shumlin toured the Drop In Center during an afternoon visit to Brattleboro on Friday.

The Drop In Center on South Main Street provides clothing and food to people struggling financially or homelessness. It also provides for other needs, such as a warm space to stay during the day, as well as a shower and a washing machine. “We know how hard you all are working and there’s more demand then you’ve ever seen,� said Shumlin.

He spoke with Bussino and staff about the $300,000 in grants that the state is sending to homeless shelters. The grants are part of a $6 million Budget Adjustment Bill that Shumlin signed on Feb. 16. It is an annual act that makes a mid-course correction to the current fiscal year’s spending plan, based on changes in the challenges facing Vermont since lawmakers approved the budget last spring.

According to a press release from the Shumlin administration, the bill portions out $500,000 to combat homelessness. It includes grants to homeless shelters, as well as $200,000 in general assistance to help renters who late in their payments avoid eviction, and to aid homeless Vermonters with security deposits for housing. “We have challenging decisions to make in this building moving forward,� Shumlin said in the press release. “It is imperative that – just as we did in passing the Budget Adjustment bill – we work cooperatively to balance the needs of Vermonters with their ability to pay for those services.�

The bill also calls for approximately $19 million from the federal Jobs Bill to help schools experiencing budget constraints.

Vermonters with traumatic brain injuries can expect $700,000 in assistance through

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the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living.

Finally, the bill provides $280,000 to the Department for Children and Families to supply living assistance to the elderly, blind and disabled.

Standing in the Drop In’s narrow food shelf area surrounded by donations like canned beans and bread, Bussino told Shumlin that during the center’s previous fiscal year, the center staff handed out over 56,000 bags of groceries. “The number of clients who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless is up, but the big jump, 33 percent in the Food Shelf and about 26 percent in the homeless, was last year,�

Bussino said.

She has also seen a change in clients’ zip codes with more people claiming “053� as home base than in previous years. She’s also seeing more working poor, she said.

About one-third of the clients are veterans, said Bussino.

They come to the center because they are uncomfortable with the Veteran’s Administration (VA) system. But, she said, there are better VA caseworkers in the area now helping veterans.

She said in general, more people access the center’s food shelf in the winter because they are choosing between paying for heat or paying for food.

Bussino showed Shumlin the garage where the center stores other food and supplies, like blankets.

She pointed to the pallets of cookies and shelves of soda.

Although grateful for the donations, not all the food is nutritious she said. Sugar, provides many homeless clients with the bulk of their daily calories.

After his tour of the Drop In Center, Shumlin responded to criticism that his budget has hit human services programs too hard. “We designed a budget that holds our most vulnerable Vermonters harmless from any cuts,� he said.

Shumlin declined to define what qualified someone as vulnerable or “poorest of the poor,� because qualifiers like income ranges don’t provide the whole picture.

But he did say that some of the criticism lobbed at his budget decisions did not take in all the facts, such as the $175 million budget shortfall forecast for fiscal year 2012, or the administration’s desire to create efficiencies in the state’s big bureaucracies as a way to lower costs.

Bussino said the Drop In Center always needs donations of food and personal care items.

Tuna, peanut butter, canned meals; cereal and vegetables are the greatest need as well as deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, and diapers.

In the winter, clients need warm winter clothes and boots.

In the spring, the center will need tents, tarps, and space blankets.

To contact the Drop In Center, visit www.brattleborodropin.org or call Melinda Bussino at 800-852-4286, ext.

103.

THE COMMONS

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Absentee voters to vote on referendums BRATTLEBORO— Voters will tick the boxes on two new referendums slated for the March 1 town ballot.

Absentee voters, however, who cast their ballots before the referendums’ supporters submitted their petitions on February 10, can expect to hear from the Town Clerk.

Town Clerk Annette Cappy said she urges absentee voters to contact her office. She added she would also send a letter explaining the situation next week to the approximately 60 absentee voters.

One of the referendums appearing on the ballot asks voters if they want to increase the Selectboard from five to seven members.

The other asks whether Selectboard members should serve either two-year or threeyear terms instead of the current one and three-year terms.

The referendums grew out of a Special Town Meeting held Jan. 22 and Feb. 5 where Town Meeting Representatives voted on proposed changes to the town charter developed by the Charter Review Commission.

In a close 53 to 43 vote, representatives said “nay� to expanding the Selectboard.

They also voted down doing away with the one-year terms.

After the meeting, Charter Review Commission members

Spoon Agave and Larry Bloch circulated petitions to put the two changes to a town-wide vote.

Bloch said after the Special Town Meeting that the two questions should go to a townwide vote considering the Town Meeting vote had been so close.

At the time, Bloch said he thought the no-votes reflected a resistance to change. “Certainly do your homework before you cast you’re vote,� said Selectboard chair Dick DeGray at the Feb. 15 Selectboard meeting.

DeGray went on to say that an affirmative vote would have a deeper impact on the town than appeared on the surface.

DeGray spoke against both suggestions at the Special Town Meeting.

A yes vote for either referendum, means Brattleboro voters approve adding these two changes to the charter, said Cappy. But, the changes will remain suggestions until approved by the Legislature.

According to Cappy, absentee voters can vote on the referendums in person at the Town Clerk’s office or at the polls March 1. Voters can also mail in their ballots if time permits. Absentee voters can contact the Town Clerk’s office at 802-251-8157 or acappy@ brattleboro.org.

NEWS

Post Oil Solutions earns VSAC annual award

By Randolph T. Holhut The Commons

RANDOLPH T. HOLHUT/THE COMMONS

Vern Grubinger of UVM Extension talks about the work of Post Oil Solutions during an award ceremony last Saturday at the Brattleboro Winter Farmers’ Market.

Luna Azul to open on Main St. BRATTLEBORO— Luna Azul, an upscale Mexican restaurant, will open its doors at 39 Main St., across from the Latchis Theatre, on Feb. 23.

Owner-Chef Laura Fidler describes the 25-seat restaurant as “casual fine dining.� “I love Mexican food,� said Fidler, who thinks the cuisine is the perfect blend of refined flavors and comfort food.

Fidler said she many people when they think of Mexican food they’re thinking TexMex. She is aiming for more authentic Mexican food.

One of the dishes gracing

the menu is a chicken crepe with almond mole sauce.

Fidler has also planned a number of vegetarian and vegan meals.

Luna Azul is located at the site of the former 39 Main restaurant, which Fidler also owned. She said she chose to close 39 Main when the economy went “haywire.� Now, after renovations, the space has a new culinary life.

Reservations are encouraged but not required. To contact Luna Azul, call 802-254-3997.

BRATTLEBORO— New data shows that Brattleboro’s recycling rate has rise from 18.8 percent to 23.2 percent, according to town recycling coordinators Moss Kahler and Cindy Sterling.

According to Kahler and Sterling, the 23.2 percent includes recycling residents bring to the Windham Solid Waste Management District’s (WSWMD) Fairground and Old Ferry Road drop-off sites in addition to curbside pickup.

The 18.8 percent has only factored for curbside pickup provided by the town. “It’s not something phenomenal but it is significant,� said Kahler.

The Recycling Coordinators and volunteers surveyed people dropping materials for recycling at the Old Ferry Road and Fairground Road sites.

Residents cited convenience as the main reason for using the drop-off sites over using curbside, said Kahler.

Contributing to the sense of convince were living close to the drop-offs, not having enough storage space to wait for a bi-weekly pickup, or confusion over pickup dates, said Kahler.

Sterling said before seeing the adjusted recycling rate, she and Kahler had a goal of a 30 percent recycling rate. Now, she thinks they might aim for 35 or 40 percent. “A 35 percent rate is no problem. We may want to go higher,� she said.

And she thinks Brattleboro residents can achieve the higher goal once they take better advantage of the district’s commercial organic waste program, Project COW. According to Kahler, organic waste often weighs the most of all types of trash, because it contains the most liquid.

Project COW accepts a multitude of organic waste including vegetable peelings, meat, pet waste, waxed

New thrift shop opens in West Townshend WEST TOWNSHEND — The West River Community Project is sponsoring the “Community Closet,� offering men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, footwear and toys on Wednesday and Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon.

The thrift shop is located on the second floor of the former West Townshend Country Store

BRATTLEBORO—The Vermont Sustainable Agriculture Council has selected Post Oil Solutions (POS) to be the 2010 recipient of its annual award.

POS was honored at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont conference in Burlington on Feb. 13, and received at the Brattleboro Winter Farmers’ Market last Saturday.

The group was recognized for what the council called its “outstanding team effort to build sustainable, collaborative and socially just community-based food systems.�

Vern Grubinger of UVM Extension, who nominated the group, said POS is the first nonagricultural entity to receive this award. “There was a lot of competition from other farms and organizations around the state, but Post Oil put together some impressive data about what they’ve done over the past five years, and it made a compelling case,�

Grubinger said.

Some of POS’ accomplishments since its founding in 2005 include starting the Brattleboro Winter Farmers’ Market and the Townshend Farmers’ Market. starting a farm at the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, initiating three

school gardens in support of local Farm to School Programs, dedicating a VISTA position for Farm to School programs in Brattleboro, and offering a series of workshops focused on eating out of the garden year-round.

What have been some of the results of this work?

According to Grubinger, sales at the Brattleboro Winter Farmers’ Market and the Townshend Farmers Market exceed $223,000 from 2009 to the present, sales of local food to low-income families in the Westgate Apartments and Elliot Street Market Basket Project total more than $10,000 to date, and direct sales through lowincome food programs such as EBT and Farm to Family at all POS markets were more $8,000, and more than 700 participants gained skills in food production and preservation at 45 workshops held around Windham County. “All this is something that you don’t see a lot of elsewhere around the country,� said Grubinger.

Tim Stevenson, one of the lead organizers of Post Oil Solutions, accepted the award from Grubinger. “This award is not just about us,� he said. “It’s about a region and how fortunate we’ve been to work with so many different people and organizations. We have shown it’s possible for a

volunteer, grassroots effort to make a difference. It’s been astonishing to see the growth of interest in local food and local agriculture in our area.�

At the same time, Stevenson acknowledges that there is still much work to be done.

Some of that work includes an ambitious project to create a local food processing and distribution center in Bellows Falls called the Greater Falls Food Hub and encouraging the formation of more Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs at local farms. “Windham County still imports 95 percent of its food, and we need to bring that number down,� he said. “We’ve made a good start with all of our programs, but there’s lots more to do.�

The Sustainable Agriculture Council (SAC) is a legislated body with the charge to identify needs, set goals, select priorities, and make annual recommendations regarding sustainable agriculture research, demonstration, education and financing in Vermont.

Established in 1994, UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture provides timely information to Vermont communities and the UVM campus. The center cultivates understanding, innovative practices, and policies to advance sustainable food and farming in Vermont and beyond.

COUNTY NEWS & NOTES Vermont Country Store hosts fundraiser for farmers with collapsed barns

income, and special focus on those age 60 and older.

Two certified AARP tax counselors will be at the library on Tuesdays in March, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sign-ups are necessary, WESTON – The Vermont call the library at 802-463-4270.

Country Store is reaching out to support its neighboring farmers who have been affected by Rabies clinic offered barn collapses by organizing a in Wilmington fundraising brunch on Sunday, Feb. 27, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., WILMINGTON — The at the Bryant House Restaurant Wilmington Fire Fighters in Weston.

Association presents its annual All proceeds raised will rabies clinic at the Fire House support the Taylor Farm in on Saturday, March 5, from 9 Londonderry and the Rohman- to 11 a.m.

Wai Farm in Chester, whose The clinic is open to all pet barns collapsed recently under owners, with low cost vaccinathe tremendous weight of snow tions provided by Veterinarian build-up this winter.

Trudi Matt. Dog licenses for cardboard and paper towels.

The Vermont Country Store Wilmington residents will also It is open to everyone living is partnering with Strolling of the be provided. within WSWMD. Heifers, a nonprofit organizaThe WSWMD’s Old Ferry tion dedicated to educating the Road site hosts Brattleboro’s public about sustainable agricul- Sugar on Snow only Project COW dumpster. ture in Vermont and committed supper served in Sterling said she would like to preserving the livelihoods of to see composting downtown farming families and the health Guilford on March 5 soon as well. of consumers who depend on loGUILFORD — A Sugar Sterling hopes eventually cal farm products. on Snow Supper will be held the town will provide organic Proceeds generated from the Saturday, March 5, at Broad waste curbside pickup. brunch will be channeled to Brook Grange in Guilford.

The next step for the Strolling of the Heifers who will Traditionally the first sugar Recycling Coordinators is disburse the funds equally to the supper in Windham County learning all they can about Taylor Farm and Rohman-Wai each year, the meal features ham, Brattleboro’s recycling habFarm. Any unused funds raised baked beans, cole slaw, potato its, service needs and wants. will be distributed to farms in salad, rolls, pickles, homemade To that end, they will be other parts of the state to help donuts, and Guilford maple sending out a short survey with repairs associated with other sugar on snow. to all area households. They barn collapses this winter.

There will be three seatings: at have also posted the surReservations for the fundrais- 5, 6 and 7 p.m. At each seating, vey online. Only one survey ing brunch are recommended a half-gallon of Guilford maple should be filled out per houseand may be made by contacting syrup will be raffled. Tickets for hold. Surveys returned before The Bryant House Restaurant at the supper are $10 for adults; $5 March 13 will be entered into 802-824-6287. Those not able for children ages 5-12, and $2 for a raffle to win a prizes donated to attend the fundraiser may still kids age 4 and under. by local businesses. donate to the cause by making Reservations for a particular The coordinators have intheir tax-deductible contribution seating are recommended, as cluded with the survey maildirectly to Strolling of the Heifers the supper usually sells out in ading, educational materials to via their secure website at www. vance. A waiting list will also be strollingoftheheifers.org. prepare residents for the enkept, and those with reservations forcement of Brattelboro’s who cannot make it are asked to recycling ordinance begintheir cancellation. There Post Oil Solutions and phone ning April 1. are usually a few unreserved After April 1, residents must Nature Museum host seats left for the 7 p.m. seating, properly sort their recycling. those who show up withcold frames workshop for Also, they cannot put recycling out a reservation. Reservations in plastic bags, which can gum BELLOWS FALLS — Post made be made by calling Thayer up the WSWMD’s machines.

Oil Solutions and the Grafton Tomlinson at 802-257-5359.

Triple-T Trucking & Hauling, Nature Museum will host a cold The Grange hall is located on the hauling company conframes workshop on Sunday, Guilford Center Road, four miles tracted with the town to pick Feb. 27, from 2 to 4 p.m., at the west of the Guilford Country up recycling, will leave behind United Church of Bellows Falls, Store. recycling not fitting these cri8 School St. The workshop will be led by teria, said Kahler.

Trash bags containing recyPost Oil’s garden master, Robert Transition Putney clables will also be left behind King. The fee for this workshop hosts economic after April 1. is a 10/$40 sliding scale with no Kahler said he knows the one refused for lack of funds. summit on March 9, 10 new policy will be a pain for Pre-registration/payment is rePUTNEY — As part of residents so he hopes everyone quired however. To register, call an on-going effort to explore remembers April 1 is “head802-843-2111. Payment at door ache day.� is $20, and only if there is room.

In a previous interview The simple glass covered with The Commons, Kahler wooden frame was a state of the said, one reason for the April art growing device 100 years 1 deadline is because the ago. It can be used throughout town’s recycling ordinance all four seasons and provides LE! doesn’t mean anything witha simple alternative to a freePORTAB out enforcement. standing greenhouse. Through slides and discussion, the basics of cold frame operation will be presented as a way to extend the on Route 30. The building now season both in spring and fall. houses the West Townshend For further information, visit post office and the West River www.postoilsolutions.org.

Community Project.

Any profit from the thrift shop will go to WRCP and support Tax help available at their local programs, which in- Rockingham library clude chronicling community history and development of farmBELLOWS FALLS — The ing and vegetable production in Rockingham Free Public Library the area for distribution to lo- is a designated site for tax prepacal restaurants, institutions and ration assistance this year, thanks consumers. to AARP. This service is for taxpayers with low to moderate

Survey data helps adjust Brattleboro’s recycling rate

3

practical strategies for enriching our communities and reviving the local economy, Transition Putney, co-sponsored by the Putney Planning Commission, the Putney Inn, the Marlboro College Graduate School and the Putney Central School, will host a series of events focused on “Vitalizing Our Local Economy� on March 9 and 10.

Michael Shuman, one of the country’s leaders in building rural economies, is the featured guest. Shuman, a noted economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur, is widely recognized for his research into the economic advantages of small-scale businesses in an era of globalization.

He is the research and economic development director for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).

He has authored, coauthored, or edited seven books, including The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition, which was awarded a bronze medal for best business book by the Independent Publishers’ Association, and Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in the Global Age. He holds an A.B. with distinction in economics and international relations from Stanford University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

As Bill McKibben writes in the forward to The SmallMart Revolution, “We want and

deserve the delight that comes with working communities‌ towns where you depend on the people around you, and they depend on you —that’s called living. It’s about starting something—vibrant local economies that will make our cities and towns the places we very much want them to be.�

In just the same vein, the Transition Movement, a global organization with hundreds of recognized Initiatives all over the world, promotes the building of community health and resilience through socio-economic localization. Vermont’s special mix of wise Yankee old-timers, hardworking farmers, creative entrepreneurs, artists and artisans that makes up the core of our diverse communities has proven particularly receptive to the ideals of transition.

There are recognized Transition Initiatives established in Montpelier, Hardwick, Shelburne, Manchester, and Charlotte, as well as in Putney.

Paul LeVasseur, one of the Putney group’s founders, explains their success at building community support and enthusiasm: “Transition is not meant to be in opposition to anything; it’s a party, not a protest. It has that very positive can-do energy.�

For more information, contact LeVasseur at paull@sover.net.

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NEWS

4

THE COMMONS

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

BELLOWS FALLS/ROCKINGHAM ■ Renovation

ALLISON TEAGUE/THE COMMONS

Sue Bouley and Wayne Stone, the new owners of the historic Miss Bellows Falls diner on Rockingham Street.

■ Diner

FROM PAGE 1

I’m not in the way standing at the end of the counter, which I do a lot, you know we have a professional staff.”

Later on this morning, one customer, retired Chester resident and teacher Lynda Tallarico, had ordered a French toast breakfast “fixed just the way I would at home, with real Vermont maple syrup.” She said how perfect the place was for a stop between her visit to the Springfield pool and a trip to the Bead Store on Canal Street, followed by a leisurely morning of shopping in Bellows Falls.

Stone, overhearing her remark noted “we don’t have any generic ingredients in our food. We use real maple syrup, Heinz ketchup, and Thomas’s English Muffins.”

As the farmers’ markets start to open up, Stone said he intends to move into using local foods as well. He said he’s interested in supporting local farmers and the localvore movement in Vermont.

Stone’s plans also include bringing back an “old-fashioned milkshake machine.” He said he’d like to bring back the jukeboxes at each booth, “but when I looked into it, that was just too expensive.”

And yes, Stone said business has picked up quite a bit since they’ve bought the diner.

“One Saturday, we had a line out the door,” he said.

He did say that the fare was “standard greasy spoon,” but customers may order “whatever they want when they want it.”

A handwritten sign at the end of the counter reads “Yesterday was National Chili Day. Chili is always better on the second day.

Chili and corn muffin - $5.50.”

Stone said their current hours, from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., may change in the next month or so to include dinner hours and will be “open straight through.”

Stone said the rules have changed a bit, too. Formerly, customers were not allowed to sit in the quarter-sawn oak booths by the windows if they were not ordering a full breakfast.

“The new rules are there are no rules,” Stone laughed. “Sit wherever you want. Order whatever you like. Stay as long as you wish.”

Stone then amended his statement. “I guess there is one rule.

No horses inside the door.”

Well preserved Stone said he’s felt comfortable in Bellows Falls from the first time he saw it 30 years ago.

On his first visit to the diner, he was intrigued by the original black and tan square-tiled floor, the original oak benches, and the enameled panels, all still in nearmint condition in spite of over a half century of constant use.

According to Stone, the diner was built by the Worcester Lunch Car Co., the Massachusetts factory that modeled its diners after the railroad diner cars familiar to travelers. The company built 651 diners from 1906 to 1957.

Worcester Diners were known

for their compact design, holding from as few as 10 seats to as many as 70.

The earliest purveyors of cheap, fast food, Worcester Diners could be found all over New England and as far south as Florida. Most were early-morning eateries for the working class on their way to factory jobs, as in the case of the Miss Bellows Falls diner, before factories started shutting down in the 1970s.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, the Miss Bellows Falls [diner] was the 571st Worcester Diner, built sometime in the 1930s. The diner was originally in Lowell, Mass.

It was first called “Frankie and Johnny’s” when the diner arrived in Bellows Falls in 1942. The original lettering can still seen on the back side of the diner through the kitchen.

Stone said that one of the reasons for the longevity and condition of the diner is the steel beams that have supported this building since it was set on the current site.

Signs of wear and tear are minimal, Stone said, and the historic diner design has never been altered.

“This was the first granite countertop I’d seen in a diner,” Stone said, pointing at the counter a few feet away.

Stone believes the Miss Bellows Falls diner to be the last intact lunch car in Vermont.

“There was one in Newport, but

it was moved to Woburn, Mass., last year.”

The diner has borne witness to much local history, some of which has come to light since the duo took over the business.

“I got a call from a woman just last week,” Stone said. “She told me that she used to go down to the train station and ‘see the boys off’ in the troop trains [during World War II] first thing in the morning, then walk up here for breakfast, where she’d always sit in the first booth.” He gestured to the booth behind him.

“Then she said she’d go home, change clothes, and go to work at the factory across the street… which of course isn’t there anymore,” he said, pointing east out the window. “I guess seeing ‘the troops’ off was kind of her mission.”

Stone said he also got a call recently from the first owner’s daughter, informing him of her father’s passing.

“She just called. She thought I’d want to know.”

Stone said he has felt welcomed by the community since he got here. He noted the revitalization projects around the downtown area.

“The Miss Bellows Falls fits right in,” Stone said, adding that he’s “looking forward to celebrating the diner’s 100th birthday,” an event that will cement his connection to the diner and the community.

Available Pets for Adoption WINDHAM COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY Make a friend for life

916 West River Road, Brattleboro, VT 802-254-2232 View all at: wchs4 pet s.or g

My name is NESTLE and I am smooth and sweetjust like the chocolate! I also am a similar color as well. I am a social, fun and sporty fellow looking for my forever home! I am housetrained and am super smart and already know some basic obedience and manners. I do well with some dogs but I would not do well with cats - I like them just a bit too much!! Do I sound like the fun and handsome best friend you have been searching for? Look no further!

Hi, I’m NICHOLAS - pleasure to meet you! I have plushy soft fur, a deep, deep purr, and I’m the perfect size to cuddle on your lap. I’m a curious explorer, too, always checking out what’s happening around my space. That’s probably what that scar on my right eye is from. But, no worries, I can see perfectly fine. I like to think it adds a touch of mystery to my look. Up until now, I’ve lived happily with my people, brother and a dog, but a family member recently developed bad allergies to cats, so I’m looking for a new home. Gentle and calm, I get along with other animals. Properly introduced, I could do well in a multi-pet household or solo, and would be fine as an indoor (or mainly indoor) cat.

Though I may seem a little shy at first, I’m really just a careful boy, taking time to know my guests; I absolutely love to be stroked and petted, and I’m a sweet, warm companion. So, stop and visit for awhile, let’s get to know each other!!

My name is TATER and I am one fun and hot potato!I am a young Boxer mix who is ready for a new home full of fun and activity! I am very smart and I already know sit and down. I am currently learning how to go to a mat and stay, and how to walk nicely on leash. Best of all, I’m already housetrained! I would do well in a home with no cats - I love to chase them! I would like a female dog as a companion and playmate. The shelter will require an introduction to make sure we’d be a good match. I tend to be a bit blustery with male dogs - I am a teenager after all. I love kids and have lived with them previously but I should be around children who won’t be put off by a big dog who can get excited and jump. Kids 10 and up would be the best fit. I am very handsome, eager to please and a super sweetheart would you like to get to know me better? Stop by and meet me!

Hello there - my name is QUINN. Kind of a funny name for a girl, but I came in as a stray from Brattleboro and my gender was a little unclear at first. Maybe you can adopt me and give me a more feminine name! I love to sit in the window and watch the world go by, or in your lap for some love and attention, although I prefer coming to you over being picked up. I’d be fine with other cats, but I’m not sure about dogs, so a slow and thoughtful introduction would be important.

This space is graciously sponsored by: 648 Putney Road Brattleboro, VT

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603.352.9200

at the school, and the length of time it would take to complete the project.

On March 1, voters will be asked to consider a $10.5 million bond request by the Rockingham School District to pay for the renovations. The polls will be open between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the Town Hall in Bellows Falls.

Other options had been discussed in depth over the past year and dismissed. The Grafton/ Athens, Westminster, and the Bellows Falls Union High School boards had all been approached about consolidation of school districts. All boards expressed an unwillingness to look into any such option, alhough Dave Clark, Chair of the District 27 Board, said in a press release last week that the board “simply wishes to make it known that it desires to continue to work proactively with Rockingham School Board to address educational issues of mutual interest.”

Explaining the need Harty gave a short history of the school and the renovation project. After a year of study and collaboration with Black River Design, it was determined that renovation of the middle school was the only option available to address the needs of the middle school.

Doing nothing, Harty said, was not an option for the safety of the school, children, and anyone who uses the school.

The last major upgrade of the school’s heating and electrical systems was done in 1955, Harty said, when an addition was built onto the original 1926 building and much of its original infrastructure was either replaced or upgraded.

The building, which had been used as the high school until a new one was built and opened in Westminster in 1971, is known today for its inadequate and inconsistent heating and electrical systems. Some classrooms are freezing cold, while others swelter, and electric use is monitored so that electrical breakers are not tripped due to overloads, which happens often.

The middle school has struggled with maintaining codes, said Harty, so fixing the source of the problem made sense.

John Hemmelgarn of Black River Design said that his firm has been involved in “dozens and dozens” of school renovation and design projects throughout the state. He presented a summary of what work needs to be done, as well as associated estimated costs.

Heating the building will rely upon two systems — one using fuel oil, and the other using wood pellets. Hammelgarn said they decided to have two systems so one could always back up the other one in case of really cold days. He said while oil was readily available, its price is volatile.

Wood pellet prices are more consistent and supplies could come from local sources.

Hammelgarn said that quite a bit of research was done on preserving the historic windows, while making the so-called “thermal envelope” more secure. Storm windows were seen as the best solution. The basement would also be dug out and insulated better, according to the Black River plan. Sprinkler

FROM PAGE 1

systems would be added to bring the building into code.

A ‘21st century’ school The renovation committee also worked with Black River Design to address egress in case of fire resulting in three different escape routes on each floor where previously some floors only had one; improving handicap access through the front of the building on a ramp via a secure entrance; and designing a dedicated science lab that would replace the cobbled together room now in use.

“We want to bring the middle school up to 21st century learning standards and make sure children have access to a real science lab,” said Principal Cheri McDaniel-Thomas.

Making sure all classrooms have access to current computer technology is part of the plan, McDaniel-Thomas said, as well as space for use by the community.

The $10.5 million cost includes asbestos removal, required permits, a clerk of the works [someone who is on site ensuring that everything is being done in a timely fashion], consultants fees, surveying, moving and storage, and the purchase of new furniture and computer technology.

During the meeting, Hammelgarn concurred with board members that asking for every possible contingent cost now would ensure that the project did not stall because of lack of funding. Harty and Hammelgarn also noted that construction and material costs were lower now than they have been in years, but that the cost would go up in the near future if the bond were not approved this year by voters.

Based on the current property taxes on a $200,000 home in Rockingham, the bond would add between $180 and $220 to the yearly tax bill. Harty said that estimate was dependent on whether the bond was financed through a low interest bond at 1 percent through the federal government, or through a conventional bond at 4.5 percent.

As many homes in Rockingham qualify for reduced tax bills based on the income sensitivity provisions of Act 60, Harty said it was difficult to pin down exactly what the tax rate would be per household or family.

Concerns expressed by the public about whether the student base would remain the same over the next 10 years were addressed by Harty, who noted that the Bellows Falls Middle School was a core school, and if student population were to drop, consolidation would occur around it, and other schools would send their students to Rockingham.

But Harty admitted that student population was impossible to predict.

The public meeting was recorded by Falls Area Community Television, and is available on its website at http://www.fact8.com/ e107_plugins/media_library/ media_library.php?titles.26. view.6778.

A website with architectural drawings, financial information, schedule and planning, and classroom impact can be found at http://bfmsrenovation.squarespace.com.

Mental health crisis care available in Springfield SPRINGFIELD—Last June, Health Care and Rehabilitation Services (HCRS) initiated an important innovation in mental health crisis treatment when they opened Vermont’s first Crisis Care Center in Springfield.

Typically, when a person is experiencing a mental health crisis, he or she must go to the local hospital’s emergency room and a crisis screener is called in for an evaluation. Unfortunately, most ERs are overburdened with medical emergencies resulting in lengthy waits for mental health treatment, which adds a layer of additional stress to an already stressful event.

HCRS’ Crisis Care Center offers a more affordable and clientfriendly way to handle mental health crises. The Crisis Team specializes in treating adults, adolescents, and children struggling with an acute crisis such as suicidal or homicidal thoughts, feelings of being out of control or unsafe, and other types extreme emotional distress.

The crisis staff can provide referrals to counseling, psychiatric and substance abuse services, and inpatient psychiatric admission, based on the needs of the client.

While the Crisis Care Center treats a wide array of mental health issues, it is not a medical facility. Therefore, individuals in crisis who have serious medical issues, who have taken an overdose, or who are injured, should go to their nearest ER. In these instances, the ER staff will call for a crisis screener once the patient is medically stable.

In addition to being a cost effective and client friendly way to treat mental health crises, the Crisis Care Center substantially reduces wait times for clients in crisis. The typical client in the Crisis Care Center is seen within 15 minutes of arrival, and is usually ready to go in less than two hours.

The Crisis Care Center is located next door to HCRS’ Headquarters in Springfield at 386 River St., and is open Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. It accepts walkins until 5:30 p.m. In the near future, HCRS intends to open a second Crisis Care Center in Brattleboro. If you or someone you know is in need of crisis services, call their 24-hour crisis hotline at 800-622-4235 to coordinate a screening.

THE COMMONS

NEWS

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

5

Lively races for selectboard, school boards await Rockingham voters

By Allison Teague The Commons

ROCKINGHAM—Forums arranged and moderated by local resident Pat Fowler have given candidates for the Trustees of Rockingham Free Public Library, the Rockingham and Bellows Falls Union High School board, and the Selectboard a chance to go before the public with their election platforms.

One forum was held Saturday.

A second forum will be held Feb. 23 at 5:30 p.m. at Falls Area Community Television studios at One Hospital Court for candidates who did not attend the first one.

In the Selectboard race, incumbent Peter Golec is running against Lamont “Monte� Barnett for a three-year seat.

Golec cited lifelong residency and integrity as his qualifications.

He has served on the Selectboard for the last two years, on the Saxtons River Trustees for 10 years, and the Rockingham School Board for five years. He said respecting the intent of the voters is important.

His goals, if elected, include getting projects such as the Hotel Windham renovation and the TLR [Mill complex] building on Mill Street moving ahead faster.

The TLR building should be a priority, as “once the building starts to deteriorate, it’s going to go down fast, and it will cost the taxpayers more money to tear it down.� He also wants to coordinate “all the splinter groups working for town development so the community is shooting at one goal.�

Barnett said that “the challenge for us is to provide for the [needed services of the community’s citizens] while keeping the community affordable.� He noted that caring for the elderly in their time of need, educating children, providing recreational opportunities for all, providing emergency management services and adequately maintaining roads and bridges are all vital to the community.

Barnett has served on numerous committees. He was the Selectboard chair for eight years, the Bellows Falls Downtown Development Alliance president for three years and served as the Chamber of Commerce president in 1996. He has taken a leadership role in numerous downtown development projects, such as the Howard and Exner block developments, and several Saxtons River projects.

Incumbent Ann C. DiBernardo is being challenged by four candidates for a oneyear Selectboard seat — sitting Village Trustee Lance Allen, PK’s Pub owner Josh Hearne, and Deborah Wright, who is also running for a seat on the Trustees of the Public Library.

Allen said that he has served on the Trustees for two years and is a taxpayer in the town of Rockingham. If elected, he will “keep an eye on the budget, understanding� that it is a “continuous struggle between keeping services [while] keeping the budget down.�

In a written statement, DiBernardo said that she has “been through many contentious issues — the merger, siting a landfill on the Connecticut River, bringing a prison to Rockingham, purchasing our own hydro facility, employee layoffs, to name a few. I survived them all, and each one made me a stronger person.�

DiBernardo said she originally ran for office because “I was sick of the ‘good ol’ boys.’ Nobody ever ran against them.

I helped organize Citizens for Participation in Rockingham because of this, [and] we held candidates forums, registered voters, etc. Now I feel I am one of those good ol’ boys and its time to let some of the younger people run for office. Things will never progress in a community without new blood and new ideas.�

She said she has enjoyed being on the Selectboard, and would like to serve for one more term “to finish up the projects I have been working on.�

Wright, who has also thrown her hat in the ring for a three-year seat as Library Trustee, as well as the one-year Selectboard seat, said she felt confident in being able to serve in “both seats concurrently� if elected.

Wright’s background in local municipal government in Washington state has given her a broader perspective. As a Selectboard member, she said she would like to be more proactive and see greater responsiveness from board member’s to constituent concerns and questions, having seen questions and concerns tabled for further research, only to be dropped and

unaddressed.

She said one solution could be a municipal blog where constituents could ask questions that could be answered by Selectboard members, and discussions could occur. As a DJ at WOOL Radio and a local business owner, and as someone who didn’t grow up in Rockingham, she says she regularly takes a look at things from the larger perspective.

Hearne was not available at press time for comment.

School boards Carol Blackwood is a candidate for a one-year seat on the Rockingham School Board. As a retired naval officer and physician, she said that she is “well equipped to assess and come to an informed decision based on a considered approach of all the facts.�

She has served the community all her life and feels that supporting children’s education is important in society. Blackwood said she did not have a stance on the Middle School renovations yet but would look at all the facts and weigh what was the best choice.

Blackwood faces Bill Metcalfe, who said in a phone interview that his 18-year involvement in special education and social work, as well as his recently obtained masters in social work, gives him the “unique perspective of dealing with issues and choices with a holistic approach.�

As the father of two children in the middle school, he said he understands the importance of environment on education.

If elected, he would like to “see transparency and open communication between the school boards, parents, and the community before making decisions.�

He said he is concerned about the shape of the middle school and “something needs to be done,� saying he feels the costs are worth the better environment for kids to learn in the classroom.

The two-year seat has incumbent Joseph Brissette as the only candidate. Suzanne Groenewold withdrew her name, citing a conflict of interest, as she is a paid employee of the school district.

Brissette said he has worked hard the past two years, and would continue to work hard to see that the children in school get the best education “we can give them.� He said he will focus on working together with all the members of all the boards and committees. He said he found listening to be the best method to learn and make informed decisions.

Chad Illingworth is running against Annie Guyon for the three-year Rockingham School Board seat.

Guyon noted her participation in the Saxtons River school playground project, as well as helping organize a community task force to keep Cornerstone Pediatrics from shutting down. She cites her background in communications and public relations, as well as being a parent who cares about the local community and schools. “The need for a quality education is universal, as is the need to do what’s right fiscally for folks in the community who are struggling to make ends meet,� Guyon said in a written statement. “I have a lot of hands-on experience in helping our local schools and our local economy. I’m a positive, respectful and hard-working person who feels very lucky to live in this community and know I would be an asset to the School Board, the District and the town of Rockingham.�

Illingworth grew up in the community, has coached at the Middle School for the past 18 years, and is a parent. He said that his focus would be to have education be a “fun place for the kids.� He said he knows the kids care about their education “because they tell me,� and he would be listening to them, as well as the parents and the administration, and “to work as a team towards the goal of the best education for the kids, a positive and fun educational experience.�

Incumbent Janice MitchellLove is running against Jim “Jiggs� McAuliffe, who was on vacation at the time of the first forum, for the three-year seat on the BFUHS Board.

Mitchell-Love said that she would be “the only educator on the board,� since she is a teacher at Community College of Vermont’s Springfield site.

She said she is active on many, “too many� boards, and felt she has contributed positively in all of them. She said she’s a “good people person,� and that it’s important to “work with people you disagree with in a respectful

manner.�

Mitchell-Love said that she feels the middle school renovation project is “vitally important for the future history of the town,� not only for educational purposes.

McAuliffe said he has two reasons for running: “Kids first, and the taypayers second.�

He said he has reviewed the current budget carefully and, in doing so, came up with a “budget of $575,000 less without affecting a single program.� He said he did so by examining the teacher-student ratio, noting that 10 years ago there were 575 students at the high school.

This year, there are 369, and next year, 15 fewer students are expected. However, the number of adults in the building has

remained steady.

He said that most classes have 10 students or fewer and that, currently, per-student costs are around $3,000. McAuliffe said average costs on the high end should be no more than $2,500 per student. McAuliffe stated that the boards are there to look out for the taxpayers, and with Rockingham’s higher than average taxes, he felt it was the responsible thing to run.

Library trustees There are four candidates for a three-year Library Trustee seat: Sherri Arvin, Laura Senes, Steven Fuller, and Deborah Wright.

Arvin stated that, as a parent with a BFA degree and someone who crunches numbers during

the day, she has a “good idea how to find creative solutions� to the real world parameters of budgets, “doing more with less and meeting increases in demand for services on a budget,� that either goes down or stays the same.

She said she would do her best to help keep programs already in place.

Senes, a naturopath and a mother of a young child, as well as member of the PTO and a teacher at CCV in Springfield, said she “understands the importance of library programs� both as a mother and because of having worked in a library before.

She said the library renovations “could be addressed through increased fundraising and grantwriting efforts,� and she wants to see volunteerism increased to

provide more programs for kids and adults by members of the community.

In a written statement, Fuller noted that he was a member of the Restoration Committee and had served as “janitor-handyman� while in high school, and had seen the “the changes [the] building had gone through in the past 35 years.�

As an incumbent, he would continue to work on behalf of the community in improving the building and services. Fuller’s understanding of building repairs is informed by his knowledge of the costs, having spent two years as treasurer and three years on the building committee.

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6

THE COMMONS

VOICES

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

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

‘Let the bridges fall down’ The two kinds of opinion about education that exist on the Town Meeting floor Williamsville

those supporting the idea of a new school grew dispirited and silent, the town grocer stood mer chancellor up. of Washington, Fisher describes him as usuD.C.’s public schools, recently ally wearing “a white apron D E B O R A H remarked, “There are many standing behind the counter ...

LEE LUSKIN nations who have figured out selling sugar and tea.” But he what works in education. Look dressed in civilian clothes that at Singapore.” day — just another member of Rhee, the CEO of FISHER DESCRIBES the two the community who had someStudentsFirst, a group workkinds of opinion that exist at thing to say. What he said was ing for educational reform, said Town Meeting. this: that last summer, she heard the There are those who think “We are being told that our prime minister give a speech that what was good enough town cannot afford to keep its “in which he outlined the plan in the past is good enough for bridges safe and also make a for making Singapore No. 1 in the future, writes Fisher, adddecent provision for its chilthe world, financially. His eco- ing that this opinion is boldren’s education. . . Not one nomic plan was rooted in edstered by the human love for of us here really believes it. We ucation. He knows that if the the past and the human dislike just can’t think of anything to country can make its education for taxes. say back ... [But] what kind system the best in the world, Those who hold the opposof town would we rather have economic success will follow. ing opinion view the future fifty years from now – a place “That’s the opposite of what as an opportunity to improve where nit-wit folks go back and we do here in America. We upon the past. They’re the ones forth over good bridges? Or a see education as a social iswho put forth plans with budtown which ... prepares [their sue, not an economic one. And gets for a new school, plans children] to hold their own what happens to social issues that engendered spirited dein modern life? If they’ve had in times of economic hardship? bate at Town Meeting and that a fair chance, they can build They get swept under the rug.” were repeatedly defeated when their own bridges. . . If we have It reminded me of a story in brought to a vote. to choose, let the bridges fall Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s colAs Fisher explains, everydown!” lection of Memories of Arlington, one was in favor of education Fisher says the grocer’s Vermont, her home town, — in theory. But theory can’t speech was met with silence which was published in 1957, compete with the physical real- and marked the turning point the year before she died. It’s ity of roads that need resurfac- in the life of the town. The vote about a particular town meeting and bridges that need to be for a new school passed that ing that was memorable, she replaced, or the price tag for day — by an overwhelming says, “because in it a crisis was these wants. majority. reached and passed.”

This same debate went on Fisher also says that the story It was the year that Arlington year after year, as Fisher tells it, has since been translated and voted to build a new school. with the material needs of the published in magazines across As Fisher relates the story, body speaking louder than “the the world. Nearly 50 years Arlington had inadequate disneed for human development later, it is evident that it’s been trict schools located among the and growth.” translated into Chinese. town’s scattered settlements.

But one year, when the deVermonters should take These one-room affairs had bate was particularly hot, and note. ■ served well during the nineteenth century, when children learned the necessary basics to enter the workforce and participate in civic life, all of which took place at a horse-andbuggy pace, without electricity or plumbing.

Times changed. Trains and automobiles arrived. Before long, citizens could no longer remember how they managed without electricity, refrigeration, or telephones.

According to Fisher, the people of Arlington understood that the education they provided their children had to keep pace with the increasing complexity of modern life.

A group of citizens worked diligently to promote the building of a new school that would provide the kind of education that would give the children in their town a fair chance at becoming useful, productive citizens.

But the cost of such a school was breathtaking, higher even than the cost of keeping the roads and bridges in good repair. According to Fisher, the WWW.DCFAWARD.ORG proposition was voted down Dorothy Canfield Fisher. every year.

M

ICHELLE RHEE, the for-

VIEWPOINT

Talking to a teenager about suicide When the symptoms are indistinguishable from the normal actions of teenagers, talking is all you can do Brattleboro ’LL ALWAYS REMEMBER that late afternoon I spent sitting across from a bright and talented young man in a psychiatric hospital’s group room.

Half of his face was boyishly handsome. The other half was scarred from a car crash that no one called an accident.

He politely answered my questions about music and books, but we both knew I was there to keep my eyes on him while his psychiatrist, therapist, and terrified parents discussed his requests behind closed doors.

He steered the conversation back to what he had asked for. He wanted his belt back so he could walk without holding his pants up. He wanted his shoelaces back so he could stop shuffling down the hallways in untied boots.

He wanted a few minutes of privacy.

Since his parents had admitted him — after his third attempt to take his life — a staff person was added to each shift with one assignment: Watch this boy. He slept; someone watched. He dressed; someone watched.

He sat on the toilet; someone watched.

Yet even with the constant vigil, he reported progress.

The new meds made him feel better. He made friends on the ward. He felt safe for the first time in a long time.

He warned that the constant watching put his recovery at risk. He said he would never completely fit in with the others if he couldn’t let go of his pants or tie his shoes.

The meeting ran long. A different staff person took my place. I drove home through dark Vermont woods. I likely kissed my infant daughter goodnight and read while my wife fell asleep by my side.

The treatment team and the parents granted the young man’s request. He had worked hard and earned their trust. They returned his belt and his shoelaces and told the staff to perform random but frequent room checks.

Around 11 o’clock that night, just when I would have been turning off my reading lamp, this bright and talented young man took his hard-won

I

DAVID PETRIE publishes his stories about fatherhood on the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com/david-petrie). He lives in Brattleboro with his wife and four children.

is low, but I can’t back up this claim. According to some experts, only one in six people leaves a suicide note. Maybe the pain of living becomes so great that the focus narrows to the task at hand.

There are some common freedom and a brief moment signs that a teenager might be of privacy, and he hung him- thinking about taking his or self. Friends slept in the surher life. They include changes rounding rooms. Highly in eating or sleeping habits, trained staff stood around the neglect of personal appearcorner. ance, persistent boredom, and/or a decline in the quality I THINK OF this young man of schoolwork. as my oldest child walks In other words, a suicidal down high-school hallways teenager might start looking made quieter by one fewer like a teenager. voice. A bright and talented When we sat my daughter young woman in the next down to talk, she wanted to grade shot herself at home know specific details. We told over a long weekend. her we wouldn’t share them if My wife works as a stuwe knew. dent assistance professional Instead, we told her we in the local schools. She gets loved her more than she notified when there is troumight ever understand. We ble or crisis, so we found out spoke of the family a few about this tragedy shortly af- miles away now suffering a ter it happened. Details were pain we couldn’t begin to sketchy. We didn’t know if comprehend. We reminded our daughter knew this young her that she was young, and woman, but we knew some of she still lacked perspective her friends had played sports and the ability to rationally with her, so we sat my daugh- process decisions when unter down to talk about what der stress. had happened. With today’s We assured her that someelectronic grapevine, she alone would break her heart ready knew. someday. She would make According to the National what she would think were Center for Injury Prevention catastrophic mistakes. She and Control, the top three might feel horrible about causes of death for people be- herself. tween the ages of 15 and 24 All of this was to be exare accidental injuries, homi- pected, we said, and we cide, and then suicide. would be there for her when In 2007 (the last year that it happened. We spoke about statistics are available), more families we knew who sufthan 4,000 teenagers and fered terrible loss but still young adults killed themcontinued on. We explained selves. They left behind thou- how important it was to tell sands of parents, siblings, an adult if she was worried aunts, uncles, grandparents, about a friend, or if she felt and friends who might ask really terrible herself. themselves for the rest of When I worked at that psytheir lives, “Is there somechiatric hospital, my oldest thing I could have done difchild was an infant. I didn’t ferently? Is there something I really think of myself as a parcould have done?” ent then. I couldn’t picture A distraught staff memthat young man’s parent’s ber at the psychiatric hospipain. Now it is all I can think tal asked a similar question. about. And the parents aren’t The hospital’s chief execuat fault. Friends often don’t tive officer reminded us, know what is going on.

“Sometimes, depression is a Depression can be a termiterminal illness.” nal illness. Some people never want to be stopped.

I WANTED TO find statisBut the living need to talk tics on how many people tell about suicide. It might be all someone they’re going to we can do. ■ commit suicide before they do it. I’ve heard the number

EDITORIAL

Quantity versus quality on Selectboard

W

HAT’S THE only thing worse

for a town meeting representative than spending more than 13 hours over two Saturdays debating changes to your town charter?

Spending more than 13 hours debating changes to your town charter and seeing your work go for naught.

It’s bad enough that Representative Town Meeting members could only finish consideration of 15 of the 33 articles put forth by the town Charter Revision Commission on Jan. 22 before the meeting was adjourned to Feb. 5.

Within minutes after the proposal to expand the Selectboard from five to seven members was struck down by a 53-43 vote, commission members Larry Bloch and Spoon Agave began circulating a petition to put the measure to a town-wide vote on March 1.

However demoralizing to some Town Meeting members, their efforts nonetheless served as a successful lesson illustrating the checks and balances of Representative Town Meeting. Now, just as voters did during last year’s pay-as-you-throw debate, Brattleboro’s electorate as a whole will get to weigh in on expanding the five-member Selectboard to seven members and to vote on a proposal to change the term lengths for members to four two-year terms and three three-year terms.

Expanding the number of seats on the board is a dubious proposition.

Given the quality of the professional staff in the Municipal Center, including Town Manager Barbara Sondag, a five-member board is able to adequately oversee the responsibilities of town business.

Further, the plan will do little to change the belief among many residents that only a masochist with too much time on her or his hands would consider public service. Considering the difficulty in attracting people to run for public office, a bigger board would not necessarily produce a better board, especially considering that many of the candidates for next week’s election are vying for a one-year slot that would be eliminated.

Bloch and Agave argue that more members would foster a wider range of ideas and discussion on the board; Elwin “Corky” Elwell, a former town manager and current charter commission member, disagrees and believes that adding two more board members often means prolonging discussions on the issues without appreciably improving the quality of the dialogue.

Furthermore, according to the research of one computer science scholar, “The division of labor effect reduces time to complete in a proportional fashion (1/N), but the loss due to team member interaction increases quadratically (on the order of N²).”

In English, that means that more people talking and communicating get less done than you might think, creating a less effective board and, certainly, frustration among elected officials and citizens alike.

ANOTHER POINT debated in the Representative Town Meeting sessions is the issue of Selectboard demographics, raising questions among the representatives considering the charter changes. Their questions, in a nutshell: Does the current five-member configuration create a board that truly represents the changing interests of the community as a whole?

And if not, would a larger board provide more opportunities?

In Brattleboro, far too often the term “diversity” becomes a code word for “people who agree with me.”

The true measure of diversity shouldn’t come only in the form of candidates who mirror a voter’s own beliefs or political dogma, though, of course, that is relevant and important.

Rather, truly effective town officials demonstrate the capacity to think critically, listen fully, engage wholeheartedly, and govern decisively and transparently.

Could a town use good leadership from widening the spectrum of citizens? Of course. The town can be richer by encouraging candidates

who bring their own personal worldviews and experiences that is informed by minority viewpoints, whether they dervive form of racial identity, sexual preference, different physical or cognitive abilities, or simply a candidate’s gender.

At present, we see spirited campaigns with more candidates than seats to fill. When voters have choice, it forces discussion and debate, and everyone — the voters, the town, and the candidates themselves — ends up better for the process and the competition. Increasing the number of seats would likely only guarantee seats for any warm body who expresses an interest in the job, which sets the bar too low for effective Selectboard leadership.

For those dissatisfied with a lack of diversity, it’s heartening to see a wide array of candidates facing off this year, from Republican Hilary Cooke to political newcomer Ken Schneck, who recently said that a friend of his observed, “Only in Brattleboro could you, as the gay Jew, be considered the conservative of the two candidates.”

So we believe that, however messy, the current board configuration has worked and — with the requisite effort by all involved and the continuing engagement of the citizenry — can continue to work.

We’ll see on March 1 whether Brattleboro’s voters agree.

THE COMMONS

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

VOICES

7

LETTERS FROM READERS

V ER MON T YA N K EE

T H E BR AT T L EBORO BA L L OT

A catastrophic scenario

Support for Cooke, Turnas, and seven members T C

hoosing which candidate to vote for is always a risk. Once elected, your candidate might disappoint you, so I never endorse a candidate, because that would be urging others to join in my gamble.

With that understood, I shall discuss my choices for the two one-year Brattleboro Selectboard seats.

My choices are guided by the idea that improving the way the Selectboard functions is more important than whether I am likely to agree with the candidates’ positions on particular issues. The only way to prevent the example of the current dysfunctional leadership from having a lasting effect is to replace it with excellent leadership that sets a new standard.

Over the years, the prestige of the Selectboard has deteriorated to its current low. The chairman’s idea of democracy seems to be: “You elected us, now shut up and get out of our way.”

The board tolerates minimal public participation because Vermont’s Open Meeting Law requires it, but the concept of a truly collaborative process is absent. During the past year, too many people who are knowledgeable and have good ideas have decided not to speak out at Selectboard meetings, saying: “Why bother? They won’t listen.”

When people feel that they must choose between risking public humiliation and silence, it is not healthy for our town.

I am planning to vote for the two one-year candidates who I believe are most likely to bring

positive change to the board: Kathryn Turnas and Hilary Cooke.

“Positive changes” would mean a board where decision are no longer rammed through without adequate examination, simply because a threemember majority feels it is in control, but where all ideas are given a hearing.

Kathryn Turnas has impressive experience as a member of the Brattleboro Development Review Board, on the BCTV board, as vice-president of the board of trustees of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, and as a Town Meeting representative. She is practical and effective while keeping sight of the big picture. It would be a big plus to have her on the Selectboard.

I know Hilary Cooke from Chamber of Commerce meetings. He is empathetic, intelligent, and a good listener.

Hilary would connect naturally

with Post Oil Solutions as well as with the business community. He understands that listening, finding common cause, and collaborative action get the best results.

When you know that there is a fair and open process, then even if the decision does not go your way, the result is not alienating. Ultimately, a collaborative process will result in better decisions and unify our town. This year, we have an opportunity to seat Selectboard members whose example will have a lasting effect.

I also I plan to vote “yes” on the referendum to increase the number of Selectboard members to seven.

I served on the board of a non-profit for 11 years. We had 17 members working on several projects. Our responsibilities were nowhere near the challenge of overseeing the Brattleboro town government, which we load onto five people.

A seven-member board would be a more effective team.

There are enough talented people in Brattleboro to fill two additional seats. Currently, there are eight candidates competing for the three open positions.

A poorly attended session of our Representative Town Meeting turned down the Charter Review Commission’s recommendation (which came out of three years of serious study and discussion) for an expanded board by a close 53– 43 vote. Fifty-three is a mere 41 percent of the 129 town meeting representatives.

It has become increasingly clear that our Selectboard is in need of structural reform. The right of the citizens to have final say via referendum is a healthy element in our system of checks and balances.

Steven K-Brooks Brattleboro

Janis: write-in candidate for school board

I

am writing to announce my write-in candidacy to represent Brattleboro on the BUHS #6 Board. Having served on the Brattleboro Town School Board for eight years, 3½ years as the chair and currently as vice chair, I would like to bring my experience and perspective to the high-school board.

Besides my years as a lawyer and as a consultant to conservation organizations, I have spent over 25 years in higher education, the last 19 teaching economics at the University of

Massachusetts at Amherst.

While keeping an eye on costs, I have always been a strong supporter of public education, believing that the benefits of education flow both to the student and to the community at large.

A good, strong public education can provide the basis for any student’s future success and can help anyone achieve his or her goals. A good, strong public education also helps us all by enriching and enabling generations of young people

who can successfully participate in all aspects of our community, including commerce, the arts, and government.

If elected, I would plan on stepping down from the Town School Board after Representative Town Meeting.

Doing so would give someone else a chance to come on board and bring fresh perspectives.

Thank you for your past support. I ask for your vote on March 1.

Rus Janis Brattleboro

Stereotypes in column perpetuate stigmas I

n her column “High Noon in the OK Corral” [The Commons, Feb. 16], Elayne Clift quite rightly takes our society to task for the ease with which one can buy a vast assortment of weapons.

However, in her plea to end the kind of violence that took place in Tucson this past January, she demonizes those who are among the most likely targets of violence themselves: people with serious mental illness.

In decrying the movement toward deinstitutionalization, Clift writes: “The problem was (grossly simplified), states never adequately funded community clinics or mental health services, which no one particularly wanted in their neighborhoods anyway; psychotropic medication trumped long-term care, and before you could say ‘criminally insane,’ the streets were full of deranged, dangerous individuals for whom one felt compassion while trying not to consider what might be coming down the pike if these poor souls weren’t cared for properly.”

The implication is that, in the 1970s, mental hospitals only housed people who were criminally insane people who — in Clift’s words — were “deranged, dangerous

individuals,” let loose to run amok in the streets. Such was never the case. In addition to holding people with mental illness, state mental hospitals were notorious for warehousing people who were poor, physically disabled, intellectually disabled, and/or autistic. I have a disabled aunt who died in one. She was not mentally ill.

As for the population about whom Clift speaks in such frightening terms, the vast majority of people with serious mental illness are neither deranged nor dangerous. Most are not perpetrators of violence, and are a danger to no one, except perhaps themselves. For schizophrenics, the risk of dying by suicide is greater than the risk of committing a violent act against another person; the risk of being a victim of violence is greater still.

According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, “people with severe mental illness — schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or psychosis — are 2½ times more likely to be attacked, raped, or mugged than the general population.” A 2003 University of Southern California study found that

Facts bely story’s characterization of Salmon arrest

I

read, with some surprise, Randy Holhut’s piece on Tom Salmon, “Learning Experience,” in the Feb. 9 Commons. In the piece, Holhut writes, “Even though he was a prominent state official, Salmon sought no special treatment.”

This strikes me as a questionable statement. Tom Salmon isn’t a bad guy, but he is a political animal. My guess is that Holhut, whom I know to be an excellent reporter, was probably under a deadline and, in essence, rewriting a press release.

I

Salmon is, naturally enough for an ambitious politician setting himself up to challenge Bernie Sanders for his Senate seat in 2012, trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

“Salmon wants fellow DUI offenders to open up about how it affected their lives” was the subhead. Fair enough. But it is disingenuous for a newspaper to report as fact that Salmon sought “no special treatment.”

According to a piece in the Nov. 1, 2010, edition of Seven Days about the police video of Salmon’s DUI, “In the seconds before Trooper Brandon Doll administered the roadside breathalyzer test, Salmon f you drink, don’t drive. Don’t asked, ‘You know I’m the state auditor, right? I’m like even putt.

—DEAN MARTIN the state treasurer, governor and lieutenant governor,’ said

Got an opinion?

(Of course you do! You’re from Windham County!)

Got something on your Friday to be considered for next mind? Send contributions (500 week’s paper. words or fewer strongly recWhen space is an issue, we ommended) to editor@com- give priority to words that have monsnews.org; the deadline is not yet appeared elsewhere.

adults with schizophrenia are 14 times more likely to be victims of a violent crime than to be arrested for one.

As for the danger that schizophrenics pose to society, it is quite small. A 1998 study in the British Journal of Psychiatry found “that 99.97% of those with schizophrenia would not be convicted of serious violence in a given year, and that the probability that any given patient with schizophrenia will commit homicide is tiny (approximate annual risk is 1:3,000 for men and 1:33,000 for women).” The body of evidence does not point to the relative strength of schizophrenia or other serious mental illness as a risk factor for violence.

But stereotypes abound, and the stigma associated with serious mental illness is one of the reasons that most community clinics never got off the ground.

Clift is right to point out that these community-based facilities were ones that no one “particularly wanted in their neighborhoods anyway.”

But why did community after community turn down the opportunity to care for people who were seriously ill?

It was a decision that was driven by fear — fear based on

stigma and stereotype. Studies indicate that around 75 percent of television shows dealing with mental illness focus on violence, with a notable absence of positive stories showing the recovery of mentally ill people.

These types of misrepresentations have a significant impact on our society’s attitudes.

According to Americans’ Views of Mental Health and Illness at Century’s End: Continuity and Change, between 1950 and 1996, “the proportion of Americans who describe mental illness in terms consistent with violent or dangerous behavior nearly doubled.”

Is it any wonder that people with serious mental illness end up homeless and victimized?

Stereotyping mental illness as the root cause of violence has a profound impact on the lives of people who live with these illnesses. The stigma alone keeps people from seeking help.

And the antidote is not pity.

Mentally ill people are not the “the poor souls” that Clift so patronizingly calls them. They are human beings — our sisters, our brothers, our neighbors, and our fellow travelers.

Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg Brattleboro

Appreciates the tribute to Blanche Moyse

A

note of appreciation to Larrimore C. Crockett for his article on Blanche Moyse [“Blanche Moyse’s life lessons: An appreciation,” The Commons, Feb. 16]. It was one of the most beautiful tributes I’ve ever read — so much so that I’m saving it to read again from time to time, to refresh my own habits and actions.

Thank you so much, Mr. Crockett.

COURTESY BAMC Pat DeAngelo Blanche Moyse.

Brattleboro Salmon....After placing Salmon in the car, the trooper turned to a Montpelier police officer and said, ‘He says he works for the state or the governor or something — he threw that card out a few too many million times.’”

I’d say it would be fairer to say, “After initially letting troopers know how important he was, Salmon stopped, seeing as how that wasn’t getting him anywhere.”

Or, better yet, not say anything about special treatment at all.

I’m sure you guys work under the gun — too much to

report, too little time. But what you write is going to get used in political campaigns. And now, on the record, The Commons has said that Mr. Salmon didn’t request any special treatment. Well, maybe, kinda, sorta. But he hinted at it. Better not to make a blanket statement than to simplify a situation with considerably more nuance than that.

I’d urge you to think ahead as to how one’s words may be used in the future.

Charlie Hunter Bellows Falls

he situation at Vermont Yankee is this: In the event of overheating, the plant’s control rods would be brought into use.

General Electric has revealed that the control rods may be defective and can bend, which would prevent them from doing their job.

If the control rods fail when they are needed, the emergency requires the high-pressure coolant injection system. This is the system that started leaking and caused the recent evacuation at the plant. Clearly, we have no way to know how faulty this system is.

Recent revelations have shown the zirconium cladding used at Vermont Yankee can catch fire at a temperature much lower than anticipated when procedures and regulations were originally written.

Nevertheless, the current standards of operation will continue to be used for the foreseeable future.

If the high-pressure coolant injection system fails and a cladding fire starts, it has

to be put out with water-free foam. This system has never been tested in a real-life situation.

Clearly, it is easy to imagine how a catastrophic failure can happen at Vermont Yankee. This being the case, I can only believe that the advertisement that the plant is “safe, clean, and reliable” is false.

I think all your readers should understand this.

George Harvey Brattleboro

Thanks for editorial

B

ravo! Great editorial [“Entergy to Vermont: See you in court,” The Commons, Feb. 16]. Very clear and concise.

It’s exactly what we need to understand about Entergy’s duplicity. It clarifies how solid Vermont’s case is against allowing continued operation beyond March 21, 2012. Thanks.

Bill Pearson Brattleboro

MALFUNCTION JUNCTION

Hell, no! They won’t go slow!

But it’s because they’re impatient with waits at ‘Evasion Junction’

S

ince the recent hoo-hah about Evasion Junction and the new traffic plan in town, absolutely nothing has happened! Except that in the Reformer, pedestrians have been admonished to not jaywalk downtown, and in your car it now takes 10 minutes to get through Evasion Junction if the train comes in as it does on no fixed schedule twice a day.

I recently wrote an editorial for Vermont Views, repeated in The Commons [“Transportation evasions at Malfunction Junction,” Feb. 2], but before I published it, someone in the know in the town called and said that the trick would be finding anyone who would claim to be responsible for the new arrangements.

There is a word: responseable. And this caveat was true: there has been no response.

Meanwhile, traffic habits continue to be atrocious in the town. Far too many people are driving too aggressively with cell phones in their ears in the middle of high-density motor and pedestrian traffic — and at a time of year when pedestrians and motor traffic are slowed down because of icy conditions.

How come, on the way to the library, I can stand by one of those huge pedestrian greenyellow, day-glo crossing triangles outside the courthouse and 100 yards from the police station, and 15 vehicles go by, most of them actually accelerating up the rise toward the park, where there is another crossing in 150 feet, now going too fast to stop anyway?

Finally, one car stopped in the near lane, and I started to cross, but another car overtook it in the far lane and passed 5 feet from me, already shifting up and doing 35 miles per hour.

But I know why people do it! They have been stopped so long in town that they want to get on with their lives, and they are impatient.

It’s a pity Brattleboro doesn’t have a central square where things could get worked out by the people themselves — they do these protests better in Egypt. Of course, for every rally there needs to be a counter rally. Maybe the other groups could chant: “All we are saying, is give pedestrians a chance.”

And the other group could chant right back at them: “Hell no! We won’t go slow!”

Anyway, if you are responsible for sorting this traffic nonsense out or know who is, please drop me a line. Quality of life is not just some abstraction only artists can address; pedestrians can also comment on the very tangible experience of walking around in the town.

Currently the quality is down, on foot or in cars, and silence has been the stern response.

Phil Innes Brattleboro

Under warranty?

L

ast week, the pedestrian crossing button for the Malfunction Junction traffic light that’s closest to the Riverview Cafe was visibly falling apart and didn’t work.

Today, I saw that someone had tried to fix it with tape, but it still didn’t work.

Seeing as the state bought this button just a few months ago, hopefully the state can get the company that made the button to fix it for free.

Eesha Williams Dummerston

8

THE COMMONS

MILESTONES Births, deaths, and news of people from Windham County Obituaries Editor’s note: The Commons will publish brief biographical information for citizens of Windham County and others, on request, as community news, free of charge.

• Caroline Arletta Palmer Bailey, 84, of Brattleboro. Died

Feb. 15 at Thompson House.

Wife of the late Jackson Holbrook Bailey for 43 years. Mother of Jay and his wife, Janet, of Brattleboro; Christopher and his wife, Nadya Belianina, of Tucson, Ariz.; and Bruce and his wife, Lucy, of Hesperus, Colo., and Linda Bailey and her husband, Edwin de Bruijn, of Brattleboro. Sister of Stuart Palmer of Medford, N.J. Born in Indianapolis, daughter of C. Mervin and Esther Allen Palmer, she attended George School in Newtown, Pa., and received her high school diploma there in 1943.

Attended Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., graduating with a B.A. in Biology in 1949. Moved to Japan with her husband, whom she met at Earlham, under the auspices of the American Friends Service Committee, doing relief work in Tokyo from 1951 until 1954. Over the next 40 years, they returned to Japan many times. In the early 1980s, they spent a year in Japan doing research on the history and people of Tanohata village in northeastern Japan. That work was the basis for a book published in 1991, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives. Her work focused first on the family, but also included being active in the Society of Friends wherever she lived, and traveling with and supporting her husband in his various collegiate and international activities. When her husband officially retired from Earlham in 1994, they moved to Brattleboro. MEMORIAL INFORMATION: A memorial service will be held March 26 in Brattleboro.

Donations to American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry St, Philadelphia, PA 19102.

• Carol Anne Bradeen, 49,

of Athol, Mass. Died Feb. 12 at her son’s home in Athol. Mother of Jessica and Steven McGivern of Athol. Sister of Mary Farrar.

Stepsister of Mark Harris of Boulder, Colo.; Raymond Harris of Tucson, Ariz.; and Daniel

Harris of Lafayette, Colo. Born in Newport, Vt., the daughter of Harold and the late Eloise (Thurber) Bradeen, and grew up in Brattleboro and Vernon.

Graduated from Brattleboro Union High School, Class of 1980.

Moved to Athol in 1986 and was employed at MBW, where she worked for 14 years and had many friends. MEMORIAL INFORMATION: Funeral services were held Feb. 15 at Fiske Funeral Home in Athol. Donations to the Carol Bradeen Memorial Fund, in care of Athol Savings Bank, P. O. Box 937, 444 Main Street, Athol, MA 01331.

• Winifred R. Clark, 97, of Brattleboro. Died Feb. 14 at Hilltop House in Brattleboro, where she had been a resident since 1998. Born in North Bennington, the daughter of Rev. James S. and Edith (Clawson) Clark, she graduated from high school in Northboro, Mass., in 1930 and then came to settle in West Brattleboro in 1936, where family members had lived since 1815. She attended Middlebury College and was a graduate of Marlboro College. Taught fourth grade in the Hinsdale (N.H) Elementary School for eight years, was later was a secretary at the Northfield-Mount Hermon School. She had also been employed by the Experiment in International Living, and held various sales positions for a number of stores in Brattleboro as well. For the past 73 years, she was an active member of the First Congregational Church of West Brattleboro, where she served as Sunday School teacher, historian, and as a missions committee member. She was also involved during the early years of the Brattleboro Habitat for Humanity and gave generously of her time and money to many other charitable organizations. She appreciated local musical concerts and special times with friends, and loved knitting, crocheting, and sketching. MEMORIAL INFORMATION: A time of remembrance was held at the First Congregational Church on Feb. 20. Donations to the First Congregational Church Memorial Gift Fund, P.O. Box 2389, Brattleboro, VT 05303.

• A l t o n L . C u t l e r, 8 6 , of

Brattleboro.

Died Feb. 19 at Vernon Hall.

Husband of the late Shirley A. Whitney for 54 years. Father of Pamela Layman and husband, Keith, of Port Jefferson Station, N.Y.; Cindy Manley and partner, David Fredericks, of Harrisburg, Pa.; and Sheila Starkey of Columbia, S.C.; and Joseph Cutler and partner, Kelly Brown, of Holden, Mass. Brother of Barbara Cutler of Vernon; Sadie Shippa of Northfield, Mass.; Shirley Cutler of Newfane; Robert Cutler of Ohio; and Richard Cutler of Vernon. Predeceased by three sisters, Joyce Dunklee, Madeline Aldrich and Phyllis Holmes. Born in Ware, Mass., the son of Leroy and Doris (Goldsmith) Cutler.

He was raised and educated in Ware and attended schools in Athol. Served in the Army during the Korean War. Spent 10 years working for Perkins Home Center in West Chesterfield, N.H. Prior to that, he worked at Brown & Roberts Hardware in Brattleboro for 20 years. Was a communicant of Vernon Advent Christian Church and was a member of the Vernon Seniors. Enjoyed woodworking, clock building, fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, and vegetable gardening. M EMOR I A L INFOR M ATION : A funeral service will be conducted on Feb. 24 at 10 a.m. at the Vernon Advent Christian Church. Burial in North Cemetery in Vernon will take place in the springtime. Donations to Grace Cottage Hospital, c/o Dr. Robert Backus, P.O. Box 216, Townshend, VT 05353, or to Vernon Hall, 13 Greenway Drive, Vernon, VT 05354. Condolence messages may be sent to www. atamaniuk.com.

• F r a n k Wilder Johnson Jr., 61, of

Vernon. Died Feb. 18 at his home. Husband of Nancy J. Fitts for 10 years.

Father of Mark Johnson and his partner, Michael Smith, of Florida; and Martha Dubois and her husband, Ricky, of Barre. Brother

of Dennis Johnson and wife, Cheryl, of Henderson, N.C.; Alane Bruce of Brattleboro; and Paula Ewen and her husband, Rod, of Athol, Mass. Predeceased by a brother, Douglas Johnson. Born in Brattleboro, the son of Frank and the late Evelyn (Sanderson) Johnson. Raised and educated in Vernon and was a graduate of Brattleboro Union High School.

Class of 1967. Mr. Johnson earned many certificates of excellence and accreditations as a licensed power plant engineer. For the past 19 years, he was the power plant engineer for the Brattleboro Retreat.

He also worked as a maintenance supervisor at the Grafton Village Cheese Co. After high school, he worked at the Molly Stark Furniture Co., and spent 19 years at the Smead Lumber Co., both in Vernon. He was a very caring person who had a love for nature and enjoyed hunting, vegetable gardening, making maple syrup and going on cruises. He also took pride in the fact that he built his own home, where he enjoyed cooking and hosting gatherings for his many friends and family.

MEMOR IA L INFOR M ATION : A funeral service was held Feb. 23 at the Vernon Union Church. Burial in West Dummerston Cemetery will take place in the springtime. Donations to the Windham County Humane Society, P.O. Box 397, Brattleboro, VT 05302.

Condolence messages may be sent to www.atamaniuk.com.

• E v e l y n K e r b e r , 8 9 , of Vernon. Died Feb. 10 at Vernon Hall Assisted Living. Wife of the late Paul Kerber. Mother of Arthur Kerber and his wife, Akemi, of Millerton, N.Y.; and Peter Kerber and his wife, Beverley, of Guilford. Sister of Helen Auletta of Melville, N.Y.; and George Deal of Northport N.Y., Predeceased by brothers Adam and Walter Deal, and a sister, Alice Bliss.

Born in Hicksville, N.Y., the daughter of Bertha and Joseph Deal of Oyster Bay, N.Y. During World War II, she worked on airplanes as a “Rosie the Riveter” at Republic Aviation. After the war, she and her husband established and ran Kerber Poultry Farm in Huntington, N.Y., for 25 years.

In 1967, they moved to Antrim, N.H., and went into the real estate business. Oil painting, dried flower arrangements and gardening were her interests and pastimes. She was known for her high energy, good spirits and catching smile.

MEMOR IA L INFOR M ATION : A spring graveside service will be held in Maplewood Cemetery in Antrim N.H. Donations to the Activity Programs at Vernon Hall, 15 Greenway Drive, Vernon, VT 05354 or Hillsboro House, School Street, Hillsboro, NH 03244.

• I r v i n g G. L ay c o c k , 7 4 ,

of New Smyrna Beach, Fla. Died Feb. 11 at the Southeast Volusia Hospice Care Center in Edgewater, Fla. Husband of the late Nowana Laycock and the late Catherine Layock. Father of Debra (Joe) Gilman and Cindy Steel, both of Guilford. Brother of Donald Laycock of Mesa, Ariz.

Born in Providence, R.I., he was an industrial food caterer and co owner of Food Service of New Hampshire in Keene, N.H. He moved to New Smyrna Beach 24 years ago. An Air Force veteran,

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

he was a life member of the Elks Lodge in Keene and a member of the American Legion Post 17 and AMVETS, both in New Smyrna Beach. He was also a single engine flight instructor and enjoyed flying, playing cards, traveling and fishing. MEMORIAL EMOR IAL INFOR MATION: No service information was available. Donations to Hospice of Volusia/Flagler, Southeast Volusia Care Center, 4140 S. Ridgewood Ave., Edgewater, FL 32141.

• K e r m i t R e i l l y, 8 0 , o f Londonderry. Died Feb. 17 at home. Born on the family farm on Reilly Road, the son of Tressie and Floyd Reilly, he was the first of his extended family to go to college, graduating from the University of Vermont in 1953. In the years after college, he continued to work with his parents on the farm while picking up jobs in the community, including the Swiss Inn and at Bromley Mountain. For more than a decade, he was a postal route driver in Londonderry. As Justice of the Peace, he presided at hundreds of weddings over the past 40 years. He became a Deacon of the Peru Congregational Church at age 33. He took that calling seriously and began to preach, preaching there through the many years when it was without a pastor. Soon, he found himself doing funerals for friends and neighbors, weaving wonderful memories of those who had died. MEMORIAL I N F OR M AT ION : A memorial service will be held at the Peru Congregational Church at 10 a.m. on March 12, with a burial to follow in the spring.

Donations to the Peru Congregational Church Bathroom Fund, P.O. Box 212, Peru, VT 05152.

Brattleboro. Died Feb. 14 at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. Wife of the late Junie Whidden for 60 years. Mother of Diana Page of Brattleboro; Dennis Whidden of Brattleboro; and Edward Whidden of Arkansas. Predeceased by a son, Randolph, and three sisters and four brothers. Born in Long Island, Maine, the daughter of Harry and Clara Alexander Clarke, she was raised and educated in Portland, Maine, and was a graduate of Portland High School. She was a faithful and devoted homemaker for most of her life and for a number of years had worked as a telephone operator in Portland after graduating from high school. Of her pastimes and interests, she enjoyed crocheting and time shared with her family, especially her grandchildren.

MEMOR IAL INFOR MATION : A memorial service was held Feb. 18 at the Atamaniuk Funeral Home in Brattleboro. Donations to Shriners Children’s Hospital, 516 Carew Street, Springfield, MA 011042396. Condolence messages may be sent to www.atamaniuk.com.

• Harriet (Taylor) “Bonnie” Wood, 84, of Brattleboro. Died

Feb. 15 at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Wife of the late Joseph Wood for 19 years.

Stepmother of Robert Wood of Venice, Fla., and Douglas Wood of Guilford. She was predeceased by a sister, Dorothy Yeltema. Born in Fort Myers, Fla., the daughter of Arthur and Mada (Driggers) Taylor. She was a lifetime member of the Eagles and the VFW Auxilliary. MEMORIAL INFORMATION: A memorial gathering will be held Saturday, Feb. 26, at the High Rise at 107 Elliot St., from • Viola Bonnell Rivera, 69, 1 to 4 p.m. Graveside services will of Brattleboro. Died Feb. 13 be held at Morningside Cemetery at Pine Heights in Brattleboro. in the spring.

Daughter of Peter and Isabel Bonnell. Mother of Kim Clement and Cornelia Rivera. Sister of William Bonnell. MEMORIAL INFOR M ATION : A memorial visiBirths tation was held Feb. 17 at Ker Westerlund Funeral Home in • In Brattleboro Brattleboro.

(Memorial Hospital), Feb. • Albert “Al” Schutzman, 95, 22, 2011, a son, E t h e n of Greenwood, S.C., formerly Michael Lenois , to Sarah of Brattleboro. Died Feb. 3 at Cassell and Michael Lenois Hospice House in Greenwood.

Jr. of Bellows Falls; grandson Husband of the late Veronica to Michael Lenois Sr., Denise Fedorovich for 68 years. Father of Jordan and Pamela Gleason.

Geraldine “Geri” Grant and hus• In Doylestown, Pa., (Doylestown Hospital), band, Ed, of Keene, N.H.; Mary Ann Wren and husband, Timothy, Jan. 9, 2011, a daughter, of Abbeville, S.C.; and Miles H a l ey M a r i e S h ep a r d , Schutzman of the Philippines. to Angela (Holloway) and Predeceased by three brothCorey Shepard of East ers, Joseph, Edward, and Julius Norriton, Pa.; granddaughSchutzman, and a sister, Shirley ter to Donna and Harvey Gassman. Born in New York Noel of Northfield, Mass., City, the son of Harry and Rae the late David Holloway, (Jacobs) Schutzman, he served in Gary Shepard of Vernon, the Army in Europe during World and the late Marline Shepard; War II. Following the war, he regreat-granddaughter to turned to New York City, where Isabell and Clifford Grover for many years he worked as a of Bernardston, Mass. cab driver. He later worked in the restaurant business with his wife where they owned and operated College news Burger Chef in Boyertown, Pa. In 1982, the Schutzmans relocated • Seniors Ryan to Brattleboro and opened a resPatterson of Brattleboro taurant on Putney Road under and A l i s o n R o w e l l of the same name. The restaurant Townshend, both of whom eventually was leased and became attend Elmira (N.Y.) College, Hardees. Active fraternally, he was were recognized as Cowles a 32nd degree Mason and a forScholars at the college’s remer member of Brattleboro Lodge cent Winter Convocation. #102 F&AM. His membership Patterson is majoring in within the Masons spanned 60 Business Administration and years. Enjoyed horseback riding, is the son of Ann and Tom travel, socializing with other peoPatterson. Rowell is majoring ple, watching Western movies and in Biology and is the daughter time shared with his family. He of Robert and Susan Rowell. was known for his generosity and • Isabel McLoughlin spirit of friendship. MEMORIAL of Brattleboro is one of 781 I N FOR M AT ION : Burial in St. students at the University Michael’s Parish Cemetery in of Mary Washington in Brattleboro will be in the springFredericksburg, Va., recently time. Donations to Brattleboro named to the university’s Area Hospice, 91 Canal Street, Dean’s List for the fall seBrattleboro, VT 05301 or to a mester of the 2010-11 acahospice program of one’s choice. demic year.

• Edna C. Whidden, 85, of

SPECI A L FOCUS

MAX BREITENEICHER/THE COMMONS

Left: The front door of West Halifax Elementary School (student population 56). Above: Stephanie Aldrich, the school’s principal and kindergarten teacher. “I don’t think there’s anyone in the town who would say, well, if we can save a couple thousand bucks, it’s worth giving up our school,� she says.

Big changes loom on horizon for small school districts Amid declining enrollments and Act 60 complexities, the state is desperate for money, and state education officials are turning up the heat on the most rural school districts to join forces.

But are Windham County towns prepared to give up their local control of education — or the schools at the hearts of their communities? “A school or schools shall be established in each town, by the Legislature, for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by each town, making proper use of the school lands in each town, thereby to enable them to instruct youth at low prices.� —Vermont Constitution, 1777

By Max Breiteneicher The Commons

T

here have been many earnest state-led attempts to push consolidation and centralization of Vermont schools and school districts over the past 100 years.

All have failed.

That’s mostly because of the opposition of towns loyal to the history and civic value of the small schools that have served their communities by educating small groups of students for generations.

But this year, as state government faces massive revenue shortfalls and local officials in Windham County pare budgets to the bone, small schools and the role of local control are undergoing a fundamental change as communities and state officials are looking hard at the costs and practicalities of funding public education.

According to Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca, the state has a student-to-staff ratio of 4.55-to-1. “We can’t maintain that,� he says. “Nationally, the ratio’s about 8 to 1. Our public school staff have increased probably

about 3,000 over the same time period that we’ve lost about 15,000 students. Those are unsustainable numbers.�

It’s a problem that’s heating up. “It’s coming to a boil in the state of Vermont,� says Jack Rizzo, superintendent of Windham Southwest Supervisory Union. “This is a historic problem,� says Stephan Morse, a member of the state Board of Education and chair of the state’s school consolidation commission. “Since 1997, the student enrollment has gone down 14 percent, and the full-time employees have gone up 23 percent,� Morse says. “We simply can’t afford to have all these schools in our small state,� Morse says. “It’s impossible to maintain.�

A patchwork system Like other institutions, most public schools in Vermont have been built out, over the years, from their original structures.

Some have been renovated, razed, and rebuilt, and some have been left unaltered.

In the early 1800s, Vermont had nearly 2,500 small schools and up to eight school districts in

a town. The boundaries of these districts were established according to historical settlements, and each small school was largely governed by that settlement’s values and concerns.

In 1892, the state government established school districts according, more or less, to town boundaries, decreasing the number of districts to fewer than 300.

In 1896, the state allowed towns to join larger school supervisory unions, while maintaining their local schools and boards.

By most appearances, Vermont’s schools still function under the system established in 1896. Today, there are 278 school districts. A town-elected school board of three or more members oversees each school in each district. There are currently about 1,300 school board members in the state.

Each supervisory union is served by a superintendent whom all the boards hire together. Town boards are tasked with hiring the principal and setting policy for their respective schools, and with approving or amending their schools’ budgets, among other duties. The school boards and supervisory unions are collectively known as “governance.�

And yet, the actual system that decides who gets what, to quote everyone acquainted with it, is very complex.

Act 60 and Act 68, passed in 1997 and 2003, respectively, allow the state to collect taxes from every resident and property owner, and to distribute that pool

of money to schools on a moreor-less per-pupil basis.

One problem for small and shrinking schools is that, below a certain enrollment level, costs don’t function on a perpupil basis.

For example, whether five students are in a class or 15, the cost is nearly the same. That’s because students don’t cost much. The staff and the building account for nearly all the cost of the classroom.

So, small schools are often trying to do the same work with much less money.

Part of a 2010 bill by the Legislature, “Challenges for Change,� requested that all schools in Vermont cut roughly 2 percent of their budgets, for a statewide total of $23 million.

But there was such resistance from already-squeezed small and shrinking schools that the request was never made more than optional, and the cuts ending up totaling only $4 million.

This year, Gov. Peter Shumlin said that the federal government will cover the remaining $19 million.

And now comes Act 153, the Voluntary School District Merger Act. The request asks schools to consider consolidating with other schools, districts with other districts, and boards with other boards, while providing incentives for them to do so.

Schools and districts have until 2017 to take advantage of its provisions. So far, only about 10 districts have indicated interest.

For small and shrinking

schools, declining enrollments and the complexities of state funding make these tentative forays into state education reform challenging, especially during the yearly budget season.

The heart of a town It’s recess at West Halifax Elementary, and kids are sledding down the hillside above a modest, snow-covered playground.

The school shares a building with the town office; an older woman shuffles up the steps to get a license for her dog. This building, along with a post office, comprises downtown Halifax.

There’s no store or gas station, and almost half the houses in town are second homes.

Halifax educates about 56 students, from kindergarten through eighth grade. “You really don’t wind up coming through Halifax just coincidentally. It’s really not on your way to anywhere else,� says Stephanie Aldrich, principal and kindergarten teacher. She’s eating lunch in her tidy office, her laptop open behind her. “I’ve worked at the school for seven years and taught various grades,� says Aldrich, who has the patient grace particular to kindergarten teachers. “Our enrollment has been slowly declining since I got here. At one point, it was much bigger.�

Halifax has just put the year’s budget together, and Aldrich says it’s always a challenging time.

“We’re pretty bare bones as far as our budget goes. When we do our budget, we’re really looking at how is this going to affect the tax rate. If we raise the budget, it’s obviously going to raise the tax rate, and we know it’s not a town with a lot of money,� she says.

The school board takes the budget “very seriously, and they do everything they can to cut everything out of the budget that they possibly think we could do without,� Aldrich adds. “So far, that’s just been recognized, and we haven’t had problems,� she notes. “But you always walk into Town Meeting on pins and needles, knowing that anything cut from the budget would be significant. I can’t imagine what else we would cut.�

With this Spartan budget, the staff is forced to be creative and to work long hours with some of the lowest salaries in the state, Aldrich says. “One of the ways we keep things high quality is everyone does multiple jobs,� she says. “So all of the teachers teach two grades.�

Almost all of the school’s staff, including the maintenance team and the school cook, run afterschool programs. “We don’t get to go on fancy field trips and, instead of buying a new science curriculum, sometimes the teachers have to spend time on the Internet pulling up updated lesson plans,� Aldrich says. “It definitely provides challenges,� she says. “We have to ■SEE SCHOOLS, PAGE 10

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SPECIAL FOCUS

10

■ Schools figure out how can we get to the same end, and not have all the whistles and bells.”

Aldrich’s boss, Rizzo, has called West Halifax, with its polite and smiling students, a “blessed learning community.”

“I think we really are functioning well in one sense — our kids are performing really highly,” Aldrich says. “We had crazy-high test scores, we have 90-percent enrollment in our after-school program, and we have kids that are just happy.”

The educational success of the school, along with its greater meaning to the town, make it difficult to consider moving the students and giving up the environment of the tiny school, Aldrich says.

“The question that comes up every year at Town Meeting is, ‘Would it be cheaper to tuition the kids to another school?’

But at what point does it being cheaper make it worth it? I don’t think there’s anyone in the town who would say, well, if we can save a couple thousand bucks, it’s worth giving up our school.”

Aldrich, who describes herself as “someone that lives in the town and wants to see the town going in 20 years,” poses the question: “Would younger people move to the town if there was no school? I would hate to see the town start to dwindle even more because of that.”

This sentiment seems to be the basic idea that keeps Vermonters operating their small schools — they serve kids well, and they’re essential to a small town’s identity.

“The Department of Education said the majority of Vermonters would be behind the consolidation movement, and I’m thinking, ‘Well, the majority of Vermonters live in places that wouldn’t be affected by the consolidation movement,’” Aldrich says. “This might not be a question of the majority. It’s what do the small towns think, too.”

Smaller and smaller Declining enrollments put small schools in a bind: The statewide funding pool has created a nexus of interconnected towns paying for and getting paid by one another.

Acts 60 and 68 created a system in which property- and income-tax payers from everywhere in the state pay into one pool of money. Some towns pay more into the fund than they get from it, and some receive more than they give.

Any one school’s budget thus becomes a statewide concern.

The money that comes to a school like Halifax might come from Wilmington taxpayers, and those same funds might also be needed in St. Johnsbury.

The financial structure works in opposition to the small, locally controlled school model.

As one might expect, the situation gets complicated.

Twin Valley High School in

THE COMMONS

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

FROM PAGE 1

Wilmington is a sprawling building that looks like an 1800s inn from the front and that, around back, has the heavy brick and steel construction of any postwar high school.

This building has been through numerous transformations and renovations over the years, and could well be in for more. There are roughly 170 students in grades 9-12, down from a peak of about 240.

Principal Frank Spencer sits at his desk in the school’s upper office. He started working here right out of college, and he will retire at the end of this year. His resume reveals a series of school consolidations and changes.

“I’ve been in this same building for 40 years, but I’ve had at least five different jobs,” says Spencer, who “started as a teacher, then became halftime teacher/half-time assistant principal and athletic director, became the principal of the Wilmington Junior Senior High in ’87, became the principal of the Wilmington Middle/High School in ’91, and then became the principal of Twin Valley High in 2004.”

Spencer has been through a consolidation before and, because of low enrollment, his school might be on the verge of another.

“Seven years ago, the decision was made to consolidate the middle and high school for Wilmington and Whitingham,” Spencer says. “Now, the Twin Valley Middle School is located in Whitingham, Twin Valley High is located here, and now we’re talking about consolidation of K-12.”

Putting both schools in one building would require renovations, and it’s difficult to justify the spending to the town, says Spencer.

Wilmington pays more into the education pool than it receives — primarily because of its high property values, many second homes, and a relatively small school.

Spencer says that Act 60 created a “huge challenge and problem” for Wilmington, Dover, and other towns with similar financial pictures.

“In the original Act 60, for every dollar we spent on our education, we had to ship a dollar to Montpelier to be sent around to other towns,” he says.

Wilmington voters, he adds, defeated a bond vote to renovate the Middle/High School “in large part because, at the informational meeting, someone stood up who had a sign that said $8 million, which was the cost of doing it, equals $16 million.”

That 1:1 ratio of dollars spent to dollars contributed to the state education fund was modified over the years, but the reality remains that Wilmington pays for other towns’ schools and doesn’t have a say in how the money is spent.

“If they need that money to maintain essential education, I

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Leland & Gray Union High School Principal Dorrine Dorfman.

Westminster West School: a case in point

By Randolph T. Holhut The Commons

WESTMINSTER WEST— The Westminster West School is one of the smallest in the state.

It has one full-time teacher, and there are only 18 students enrolled at the school this year.

Its projected enrollment for the 2011-12 school year is 14.

Westminster’s other elementary school, Center School, has 200 students and can easily accommodate the Westminster West kids.

School officials have said that the Westminster West School needs a minimum of 30 students to be cost-effective.

Economic sense should dictate that the town close the Westminster West School. But the decision to open or close a school goes beyond mere economics. Parents say that the small student-to-teacher ratio provides a better learning environment.

And there is the memory of Claire Oglesby, who died in 2009 and taught more than three decades at the school.

She is revered by her former students and fellow educators for the magic she created there, including one of her former pupils, Gov. Peter Shumlin, who acknowledged her influence on him in his inaugural address.

Estimates of how much can understand that, but there’s a school up north that renovated their gymnasium three years ago, and I talked to the administrator there, and he said when they did the presentation for the bond vote they essentially said, ‘Wilmington’s going to pay for it,’” Spencer says.

“Renovating our gym is something we’d love to be able to do,” he adds.

School budgeting was also easier to explain to the town before Acts 60 and 68, Spencer says.

The actual property tax rate residents pay is now decided after the budget is approved, in part by the state’s appraisal of property values.

“You can still talk about the budget and how you’re spending the money, but people get frustrated because there’s no way to tell them definitively,” he says.

WNESUWC.LEARNINGNETWORKS.COM

Sharing is a regular part of morning meeting at Westminster West Elementary School. money would be saved annually by closing the school range from as low as $30,000 to as high as $80,000. These figure do not include any money the town might get from selling the school building.

Even if the Westminster West School were to close, school officials say that what it costs to run it amounts to less than 5 percent of the school budget and would have little affect on the tax rate.

Last fall, a drive began to “It’s as though you went to Shaw’s and said, ‘I’d like to buy this,’” and they said, ‘OK, we’ll send you the bill.’ ‘Well, how much is it going to cost?’ ‘Well, we can’t tell you how much it’s going to cost. If you want it, take it.’”

Ongoing confusion from the days when a town funded its own school remains as well, Spencer says. The fact that households making less than $90,000 are probably paying education taxes based on their incomes, and not on their property values, isn’t clear to a lot of people.

Spencer says that he hears people at town meeting who argue against education spending because of property-tax increases that won’t affect them. “It’s so difficult to explain to people what the impact will be, that there are still people who will treat it like

have the school’s fate decided upon at this year’s Town Meeting. It ultimately failed last month when the Selectboard decided not to put the question on the warrant.

Even if the question were put to voters, any decision involving school closure is ultimately for the school board to decide.

Legally, residents can approve or reject a budget, but all other WNESUWC.LEARNINGNETWORKS.COM educational matters are un- Longtime Westminster der the sole purview of school West School teacher boards.

Claire Oglesby. the old days.”

Maintaining educational opportunities in this economic environment is a delicate balance, Spencer says, but it’s essential to sustain some costly programs.

“An example is funding extracurricular activities. Students who are engaged in athletics, drama, things like that, are the ones who will normally excel in academics,” he says. “So, if you can provide students with a reasonable variety of extracurricular activities, you’re likely to have greater performance in the classrooms.”

The other factor for Twin Valley, Spencer says, is that roughly 25 percent of students are tuition students.

“Our snowboarding team is relatively expensive, but we have tuition students who come here so they can be on the snowboarding team,” he explains. “If we don’t have it, there’s a good chance they might go somewhere else. If you cut $10,000 on the snowboarding, then you’ve lost $20,000 because two of the tuition students left. You can go downhill very quickly if you start making those cuts.”

Spencer says that even in his 40th year at the school, he has no idea what the future holds financially and educationally.

“But to me, the immediate solution a lot of schools or districts should look at is a fair and reasonable consolidation,” he says. “It seems highly unlikely Vermont is going to mandate it, but somewhere along the way, if they really want to make these cuts, closing down schools is about the only way.”

A balancing act Leland & Gray is a middle and high school in downtown Townshend. A side wall of the building is spray painted with what would be graffiti, were it not that it spells out a quote from As You Like It. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” the wall says.

Leland & Gray, which has been around in various

incarnations since 1833, stands as an example of a relatively stable consolidated school district for 400 students from five member towns. It offers innovative programs and community support. The school is very close, geographically and otherwise, to the supervisory union.

Dorinne Dorfman started as principal in July. She’s energetic, young, and carries a walkie-talkie as she moves through the halls.

Dorfman first met students from Leland & Gray in the capital of Inner Mongolia, Hohhot.

She was on an exchange fellowship through the University of Vermont.

“There I was, in this city where no one spoke English, at this arts school, and Leland & Gray showed up and gave a production on the history of jazz in America,” she says. “There were hundreds and hundreds of people in the audience.”

Dorfman’s introduction came through Journey East, one of Leland & Gray’s most popular programs. Every other year, 28 students apply for an intensive course of Chinese language, culture, and theater arts. They create a production that they perform throughout China for the month of April.

In another two-year program called “Hands on, Minds Engaged,” 12 students, some with special needs, who struggle in traditional classrooms, work together with two teachers to build boats. There is also a grade 9-11 independent study project, which introduces students to internships, volunteer activities, scouting, and exploration of post-high-school career opportunities.

These programs end up both saving and making money, Dorfman says, because placing kids with physical or learning disabilities or behavioral problems at other schools is very expensive — upwards of $60,000 a year per student for special education.

“We have three full-time professionals working with students in a way that’s different from anything else,” she says. “At a

THE COMMONS

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

SPECIAL FOCUS

MAX BREITENEICHER/THE COMMONS

Twin Valley High School Principal Frank Spencer. skeleton-staffed school, they have nobody and have big-time behavioral problems, and they’d just have external placements or expel kids. We may save the taxpayers a lot of money, because we have very few off-site placements.”

The programs also help attract kids from other schools who pay tuition to Leland & Gray, she says. “Even within our own supervisory union, there are students we still need to attract to Leland & Gray. That would prevent us from ever really having a skeleton staff, because then we can’t compete with Burr and Burton, or Brattleboro.”

Still, enrollment is declining, and the school has cut French this year to level-fund its budget.

“It just doesn’t look good.

There’s a chart in the annual report that shows incredible drop-off,” says Dorfman. “So, if we look at the fourth-grade classes, there may be 25 percent fewer students in our towns like Jamaica, Townshend, and Newfane.

“When I talk to people who graduated from here 30 years ago, there were 30 or 40 kids in their class. So we are returning to what once was.”

The school has remained successful, she says, “because there’s a community here that believes Leland & Gray means something. It’s not about money, but it is about community investment. There’s very open communication and strong dialogue, and a shared vision that all the students are our students.”

This shared vision makes establishing the budget with the board and superintendent easier, she notes.

“Any major concern I have, particularly financially, I call them right away,” she says.

Dorfman says that a strong relationship between the school, the board, and the superintendent can make all the difference.

“There are certainly school board members in other districts who would like to see how every penny is spent, or who would love to see particular people fired, or who don’t believe in unions,” she says. “I remember attending a board meeting at a town and a board member said, ‘Well, can’t we just fire that whole department?’

“So, it can be very contentious, and for the school board chair and the principal and the superintendent to work against each other is a very poor prognosis for the district,” Dorfman says.

Making it work David V. Dunn chairs the middle school, high school, and career center boards in Brattleboro — roles he’s held for

seven years. Dunn has seen significant changes in governance over his tenure.

Dunn says that the Brattleboro high school board has overcome some of the challenges of governance in the recent past.

“The way governance is set up invites dysfunction,” he says.

“Back in early 2000, the board had 17 members. There were members of the board who had children in private school. There were members who had specific agendas they were there to move through.

“We made the decision that the board was not functioning as it should, because of its size, so the board was decreased by a legislative act to nine,” Dunn says. “Since that time, the board has been very stable.”

Brattleboro has one of the largest high schools in the state.

Enrollment is steady, and it is projected to increase a small amount over the next five years, Dunn says. But still, setting the budget is difficult, in part because the school board is forced to gauge community sentiment informally.

“The board’s role is to balance the needs of the school with the taxpayers’ ability to pay for it,” Dunn says. “It’s a constant balancing act, in part because the board doesn’t see a lot of public participation and, if we do, it’s in a private forum — people speaking to me or calling me.”

Dunn says that “it’s hard for the public to come out and say, ‘Cut education.’ I think that most people acknowledge that the school system is a crucial element in a successful community.

“So on one hand, people want to support it, but on the other hand, the ability to pay for it is constantly being challenged in the current economy.”

The board needs to be very clear on its role, Dunn says.

“You need a decisive board that does government and not management,” he says. “If the objectives aren’t being achieved, you need to make changes.

That’s a difficult action for some board members, because you may end up terminating people.

Some of these people are your neighbors.

“It’s also inexperienced board members who perceive that their role is to manage rather than to govern,” Dunn observes.

“Once you get into management, you usurp your management’s power.”

Rizzo, the Windham Southwest Supervisory Union superintendent, was just hired this past summer, and he still likes to visit every school three times a week. His educational philosophy is “students first,” he says.

“I’ll get to know every kid,

VERMONT.GOV

Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca has urged the town of Windham to consolidate because of the cost to the state. Carolyn Partridge, chair of the Windham School Board points out that Windham “is a sending town” — a town whose taxpayers contribute more to the state’s education fund than the school receives.

write every child a birthday card, go to their games, their plays. But we have seven schools, which, geographically, is challenging.”

Rizzo is charged with managing seven principals, including Aldrich in West Halifax. He works for seven school boards.

He attends about 14 board meetings a month in seven towns.

Rizzo, who started as a principal in western Massachusetts 24 years ago, says that adjusting to Vermont’s particular governance system has involved a learning curve.

“In Vermont, you have this ability for school boards to hire and fire, so you literally have passengers flying the airplane, and it’s a recipe for disaster,” Rizzo says, predicting that most superintendents — 90 percent, he says — would identify governance as their biggest issue.

Local boards are charged primarily with setting policy, and the superintendents, principals, and teachers with carrying it out.

“How can that happen if the board has hiring and firing power?” Rizzo asks. “How do you leave emotion out? How do you not hold a grudge? I think Vermont could be one of the finest school systems in the country if we just corrected that.”

Any efforts to do so will be met with a mantra of “‘We don’t want to lose local control,’” Rizzo says.

“But what do you really want to control? It’s set up to fail. It’s set up to have problems,” he says. “If you’re on a board, and your kid comes home and says ‘Mr. Smith yelled at me,’ when it comes time to sign Mr. Smith’s contract, you’re going to think twice about it.”

On a school board, “you really have a blank check,” Rizzo says.

“It’s a free ticket into crossing over into the operational realm.”

Rizzo’s district includes some of the smaller schools in the state, and he’s acutely aware of the challenges of providing quality education at many schools with declining enrollments.

“Something’s got to give, because we cannot continue to sustain ourselves. You can’t offer all these enhanced learning opportunities, because you can’t afford them,” he says.

“How do we look kids in the eye, and give them a really solid and comprehensive education, and yet still maintain local control? You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”

Obligation of the state Steven John has worked as superintendent of the Windham Central Supervisory Union for two years. He is grandfatherly, lean, and chuckles frequently.

The union covers 365 square miles and has 1,000 students, 11 towns, nine schools, and 11 school boards with a total of 51 members. It is trying, with moderate success, to get its member towns to agree to explore Act 153, or the Voluntary School District Merger, that would establish a Regional Education District (RED).

Essentially, this law would create one board to run all the schools, and to get the schools to share resources, staff, and, perhaps eventually, space.

It’s been a tough sell.

In part, John says, that’s because “the elementary school boards value their own schools, in their own communities, and it’s the center of not only education but, in many ways, the life of the town. So, to study the possible formation of a RED is

a very provocative, very formative adventure.

“The only reason to look at this is if you can increase the learning opportunities, not only in your community, but in your neighboring communities,” John observes, pointing out that the possibility of “some greater efficiency in terms of collaboration, in terms of education programs, sharing faculty, and other instructional resources is tempting.”

But John believes that efficiency isn’t sufficient motivation “for a town to consider no longer having a locally elected board that has control over their particular school.”

Merging the governance of the schools and, in the future, perhaps the schools themselves, would provide efficiency in leadership, John says.

As it stands now, his union office works with nine different boards to manage nine separate budgets and nine separate contracts with teachers, with food service, and with other entities.

“The ability to sustain such programs, and the support it takes from the WCSU office to support those individual boards, is where the state is certainly providing an opportunity for the small boards to consider forming a more collaborative, cohesive group,” says John.

John says that school boards are increasingly holding superintendents more accountable “for getting the best opportunity for learning and performance outcomes for their students. That really should require the superintendent’s presence in the buildings, and direct consultation and coaching of the principals. That’s my responsibility.”

But the current system holds him back from those efforts.

“If a superintendent such as myself is spending three or four nights a week at board meetings until nine or later, it’s an impossible workload to be able to cover the office and be present in the buildings to the extent that I aspire.”

This interplay of heavy workload and many bosses is one reason behind the high turnover rate for superintendents in Vermont.

Historically — and currently — about 20 percent of the positions in the state sit vacant.

John says that the responsibilities of a union and superintendent were very few until federal money started funding schools in the late 1960s.”

“When the money started coming through for the Great Society — for Head Start and Title I — all that money had to come to the state. The states needed some way of holding accountable the individual districts and the boards regarding the use of funds. We became the local education agent.”

As a result, the more regionalized oversight of supervisory unions was imposed on a system largely governed by local tradition.

“There has been a tradition of autonomy, where the principal has been seen to be the chief employee of the board in a small town, and that can sometimes lead to more loyalty on the part of the principal to the local board than to the superintendent,” John says.

“I’m an obligation of the state, and not one, necessarily, that some of the small boards would choose to have,” he adds. “We’re facing that statewide. It’s not unique here.”

In that tradition of autonomy, getting everyone on the same page is uniquely challenging — perhaps even impossible.

Yet that’s essentially what boards and unions have been asked to do with Act 153 and Challenges for Change — teach their historically independent, localized systems to collaborate.

“When I think about why should someone in Windham care about someone in Marlboro — well, why should they?” asks John.

“They should, but that’s one of the challenges of leadership that I face, and that the board chairs face as they try to collaborate,” he says, pointing out the opportunity that comes in the face of crisis.

Declining enrollment and economic duress could “lead to more need to depend on each other, to lean on each other,” John says.

The tiniest school Carolyn Partridge has the unique perspective of serving as a state representative from Windham County, as chair of the House Agriculture Committee,

This Special Focus piece is published with the generous support of individual donors, and businesses, including SHEPHERD’S FLOCK, CHRISTOPHER CAMPANY, CONNIE EVANS, JONATHAN DIAMOND, ANNIE HAWKINS, and JUDITH LAWRENCE. • If you value this reporting, we hope you’ll consider joining them in supporting this journalism at donate.commonsnews.org or at www.kickstarter.com (until March 14)

11 and as chair of the Windham School Board.

The Windham Elementary School now teaches 16 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. The enrollment is expected to rise to 30 in the next few years, Partridge says.

Even with such low enrollment, it’s difficult to imagine kids having to travel to another town for school.

“The school is 13 miles from the nearest other elementary school, so what you end up doing is to take very small children, very far from home, very early in the morning,” she says.

“We would be glad to accept children from other schools if they wanted to join with us, but I don’t know if people are going to want to travel 13 miles, despite the fact that we have very high test scores and our kids are doing very well,” Partridge adds.

Windham gives more money to the state education pool than it uses, Partridge says.

When Partridge heard Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca “using our school as a poster child for a school that should really consolidate with another school,” she phoned him.

“He said, ‘We can’t afford to keep schools like Windham open. We just can’t keep sending resources to you. You’re too small.’

“I said, ’The people in the town of Windham send more to the state than we use at our school, by a big margin. We’re a sending town. I know we’re not supposed to talk that way, but it’s true. We’re already sending that money to the state, and then some.’”

This conversation details almost exactly the way in which the state is struggling to reconcile the need for consolidation with the standing tradition of local control.

In Acts 60 and 68, Vermont set up a funding system that assumes all for all — a truly complex, by most accounts flawed, but nonetheless remarkable attempt to get Vermont towns to pay for one another’s schools.

This system was deployed within an existing governance model in which every board saw itself as a separate entity with control, at the very least, over the basic fact of paying for its school.

The perception of local control persists, despite the fact that no matter how much or how little a town puts into the education pool, it’s technically not the town’s money anymore. Financially, it belongs to everyone.

Vilaseca, who has served as commissioner for two years, started teaching in Vermont in 1979 and has become a vocal supporter of changes to the governance system, claiming that local control isn’t much to stand on anymore.

“Look at what they don’t control right now,” says Vilaseca.

“Teacher licensing, special

education, food service and cafeteria, graduation standards, the accountability system, 504 and Title I programs. All are mandates from the state or federal governments.

“Where school districts do have control is the hiring of people. They have control over extracurricular activities, and they may have control over some of the facilities, but most of the major things are really not within their purview.”

With “a statewide funding and statewide tax system for education, those are now statewide decisions we need to consider,” Vilaseca says. “There is a connection now that we didn’t have before.”

This collectively accountable education system is too expensive and too fragmented to run through many autonomous boards, he says.

“There’s no one the school board is accountable to, except the taxpayers, who then can vote them out of office next time they come up,” Vilaseca points out.

The economic outlook isn’t rosy for the next three or four years for Vermont, nor are the enrollment numbers, Vilaseca says.

Vilaseca adds that Vermonters will “have to look beyond what’s in the best interests of our individual communities, and look at what’s in the best interests of our state.”

The commissioner says that increasing student-to-staff ratio by around 0.25 percent — to 4.75 students for every adults — would save the state about $23 million.

These statistics are where the state struggles in its presentation of this new educational world.

These small numbers — 4.55 to 1 — are in actuality more than 90,000 kids, and more than 19,000 people with jobs, respectively.

They are all individuals with families. They all live in towns historically in charge of their schools, and many live in towns that have little else. Proponents of consolidation are essentially asking communities to give up, reinterpret, and relearn centuries-old values for the sake of the broader commons.

With such large questions, the numbers don’t reflect the human element.

“I think each little town you could see as an individual, and I think they definitely see each other as very distinct,” says Stephanie Aldrich in West Halifax. “There’s a lot of shared Vermont culture, but there’s a lot of distinctions.”

For Vilaseca, the complex realities boil down to a simple truth.

“If we don’t accept that there’s going to be change, we have to accept that it’s going to be fragmented and expensive, and people can’t complain about taxes and the cost of education,” he says.

MAX BREITENEICHER/THE COMMONS

Windham Central Supervisory Union Superintendent Steven John, and WCSU School Board Chair Emily Long.

12

THE COMMONS

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

SPORTS & RECREATION Glasder wins in his Harris Hill ski jumping debut Hockey

M

ike Glasder made his first trip to Harris Hill a memorable one on Sunday when he captured the 2011 Fred Harris Memorial Ski Jump Tournament.

The Chicago native won the Senior division with 239.5 total points. He had the longest jump of the day on his first try, 97 meters.

Austrian and 2009 champ Christian Reiter, who came in second, was the target jump winner with a not-for-competition mark of 98 meters. Reiter finished with 237 points. Fan favorite and three-time champ Vladimir Glyvka was ninth.

The two local jumpers in the event did well. Putney’s Willy Graves was the top local finisher in the Senior division.

He was fifth with 181.5 points, while Spencer Knickerbocker of Brattleboro was fifth in the Junior I division with 187 points.

Graves, who was on the U.S. Ski Team from 2006-2009, is helping Westminster College in Utah start up its ski jumping team. Knickerbocker has been accepted to the University of New Hampshire, but is planning to defer to pursue a career in Nordic combined, a event that mixes ski jumping with cross-country skiing.

Nina Lussi of Lake Placid, N.Y., was the top women’s jumper with 179 points. There were six women in the event, an all-time high for Harris Hill.

Wind was a big problem all weekend, as gusts up to 35 mph threatened to cancel competition for Saturday’s Pepsi Challenge, the warm-up event for Sunday’s competition. Knickerbocker was fifth in that event Saturday with 185 points in the Junior I Division.

Glasder and Reiter finished first and second, respectively, while Reiter had Saturday’s longest jump, 97.5 meters.

• The Brattleboro boys lost to Taconic, 4-3, last Wednesday — their eighth onegoal loss of the season. Nik Rancourt, Romello Lindsey and Adam Griffin all scored for the Colonels. The result was more decisive on Saturday, as Stowe beat the Colonels, 7-2.

Jamie Martell got both goals for the 4-13-1 Colonels. • The Brattleboro girls improved to 9-6-1 on Saturday as Emily Watson scored 5 goals and Maddie Rollins had 3 more as the Colonels blitzed North Country, 10-2, in Newport. Madison Doucette and Miranda Moseley also scored for the Colonels. Lou Lou Terwillger got her first varsity start in goal and played well to get her first win.

RANDOLPH T. HOLHUT Sports Roundup Crowds were sparse on Saturday, but Harris Hill was packed on Sunday. All in all, it was a good weekend for ski jumping and another big step toward returning Brattleboro to its rightful spot as a Mecca for the sport.

Boys’ basketball • Brattleboro picked up two wins last week against Massachusetts opponents.

The Colonels started out the week by grinding out a 64-53 home win against Monument Mountain on Feb. 14. Travis Elliott-Knaggs and Nate Forrett each scored 12 points and Tommy Heydinger added 11 points for the Colonels.

They followed that up with a 75-59 win in Northfield over Pioneer Regional. Travis Beeman-Nesbitt scored 18 and Tommy Heydinger had 21 as the Colonels improved to 13-3. • Twin Valley used a 13-1 fourth quarter run to finish off Arlington and pull out a 4239 road win on Feb. 14. Colin Lozito led the Wildcats with 14 points, while Troy Birch had 10 points and 14 rebounds.

Three-point shooting and great team defense were the keys to the Wildcats’ 7024 win over Black River last Friday. Ian Murdock sank 5 three-pointers on the way to a 21-point night, while Birch dominated inside with 27 points, 18 rebounds and 6 blocked shots. Twin Valley led 28-4 after one quarter, and cruised the rest of the way as they improved to a 7-7 record. • Proctor is undefeated and

Nordic skiing

• It took until almost the end of the season, but Brattleboro finally got to host a ski meet last Wednesday at the VABEC course. Even then, the combination of icy conditions on the hilly part of the course and mushy conditions on the flats forced some adjustments to the 1.3-kilometer course for the Marble Valley League’s Classic Championship.

Brattleboro’s Halle Lange was the standout, winning the DAVID SHAW/THE COMMONS girls’ race with a time of 18 Mike Glasder of Chicago comes in for a landing during Sunday’s Fred Harris minutes, 36 seconds. She led Memorial Tournament in Brattleboro. Glasder, making his Harris Hill debut, the Colonels to a second-place team finish behind Mount was the Senior division winner.

Anthony, 19-27. Two other Brattleboro girls placed in the the top team in Division III. Rutland last Thursday. Matt and 9 rebounds. Now 13-7, top 10 as Maddi Shaw took The Leland & Gray Rebels Bizon had 21 points, 7 rethe Rebels will likely be the sixth in 19:49 and Linnea Jahn gave them a scare on Feb. 14 bounds, 7 assists, and 5 steals. No. 8 seed in the Division III finished eighth in 20:09. in a 51-44 road loss. Noah Fontaine added 10 points and playoffs.

Graham Glennon was the Chapin and Josh Fontaine each 10 rebounds, while Chapin and • A good defensive game had 11 points, but the Rebels Colin Nystrom chipped in 15 was undone by poor free throw top Colonels finisher in the boys’ event, clocking in at could not overcome a 14-3 and 1o points, respectively. shooting in Brattleboro’s 52run in the first quarter by the • Bellows Falls lost to Mill 41 overtime loss to Hartford on 16:46 for 10th place. He was the only Colonel in the top 10, Phantoms that left Leland & River, 55-33, last Thursday.

Feb. 15. The Colonels had 15 Gray playing catch up for the Peter Falzo and Joe Aslin steals and led by 11 going into as Brattleboro finished third rest of the night. each scored 7 points for the the final quarter, but Hartford behind Woodstock and Mount The Rebels recovered with Terriers. outscored Brattleboro, 18-7, to Anthony.

The last of the three-race a 77-23 thrashing over West tied it up at 39-all at the end of MVL Championship series, Girls’ basketball regulation. the classic relay, is set for Feb. • Leland & Gray snapped a In the final quarter, the 23 as Prospect Mountain in four-game losing streak with a Colonels went 3-for-10 from Woodford.

61-50 win over West Rutland the free throw line, while the on Senior Night on Feb. 15.

Hurricanes were a perfect Senior guard Aly Marcucci just 8-for-8. Hartford shut down Miscellany missed a triple-double with 19 the Colonels, 13-2, in over• The Woodman Athletics points, 10 assists, and 9 steals. time to win it. Taylor Kerylow Booster Club of Brattleboro, Ashley Goddard added 11 led Brattleboro with 11 points a nonprofit organization that points and Bethany Robinson and 5 steals; Mary Richardson supports Woodman’s gymand Callie Ginter both scored added 8. nasts in their various athletic 10 points in the Rebels’ last The Colonels traveled to endeavors, is having a raffle. regular season home game.

Bennington last Friday and lost First prize is a week at Camp The Rebels then faced a bru- 60-32 to Mount Anthony. The Woodward in Pennsylvania, tal stretch of three road games Patriots hit 8 three-pointers where the winner can choose in three nights to end the regu- and went 15-for-19 from the between gymnastics, snowlar season. Last Wednesday, free throw line. The Colonels boarding, skiing, cheering, they dropped a 63-26 decision struggled to keep up after a skateboarding, inline skating, to Green Mountain in Chester. solid opening quarter. Kelsey BMX or digital media camps.

Goddard had 10 points and 9 Patterson was Brattleboro’s Tickets are $5, contact rebounds. top scorer with 14 points as the Daron or Priscilla Tansley Victory No. 13 for the Colonels fell to 4-14. at 802-387-5654 or 802Rebels came last Thursday in • Bellows Falls picked up 387-5654 for more informaLudlow, with a 54-25 win over their second win of the seation. The drawing will held Black River. Alex Morrow had son with a 48-32 road win over on March 6 at the Hip Hop DAVID SHAW/THE COMMONS 16 points and 14 rebounds, Woodstock. Emily Dufault had Classic meet at Woodman Christian Reiter of Austria, the 2009 champion, won the target jump competition while Ginter added 11 points. 10 points and 12 rebounds as Athletics. Attendance is not rewith a mark of 98 meters.

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THE COMMONS

13

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

End of an era at Leland & Gray After 42 years of coaching, Tom Connor steps down

By Randolph T. Holhut The Commons

TOWNSHEND—In the late 1960s, a young teacher from Rutland was working on his master’s degree in education at Antioch College’s Putney campus. As part of his course work, he was assigned to the old Leland & Gray Seminary in Townshend.

Tom Connor, a graduate of Mount St. Joseph and the University of Vermont, already had a couple of years of teaching experience under his belt at Newbury High School in the Northeast Kingdom. But once he got to Townshend, he didn’t want to leave.

He joined the faculty of the newly-formed Leland & Gray Union High School District in 1969, just as the new high school building was being erected.

Forty-two years later, Connor is still at the school, but as of this week, he has one responsibility taken from his plate. After 42 WWW.IMAC.EDU.CN of coaching at every level After 42 years coaching almost every sport at Leland years of the school’s baseball and bas& Gray, Tom Conner has handed over those duties. ketball programs, he is stepping

down. His last game leading the eighth-grade girls basketball team was Feb. 17.

Now 68, Connor hopes to continue as head of the school’s Journey East program, but says he is definitely thinking about retirement from the classroom too.

As a boy in Rutland, Conner played more baseball than basketball, because “I never grew in high school.” Between the Catholic Youth Organization programs in Rutland and his years at Mount St. Joseph, he said there was plenty of opportunities to get involved in sports.

“Rutland was a great place to grow up,” he said.

When he got to Leland & Gray, he immediately got involved coaching varsity baseball.

The following school year, he added basketball to his coaching portfolio.

“I’ve coached everything but soccer,” he said. “Rutland wasn’t big on soccer when I went to school. Football was the fall sport.”

Connor had his greatest success with the Rebels as a varsity

coach in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1977, he coached the boys’ basketball team to a Division III title. In 1978, he coached the girls’ basketball team into the Division III semifinals in 1978 and 1979. Also in 1979, he coached the baseball team to the Division III finals.

His favorite team was his boys’ varsity basketball teams in 1987 and 1988. After losing in the semifinals in 1987, the Rebels took the title the following year.

“I coached those guys since the seventh grade,” Connor said. “They all went as group to basketball camp at UVM when they were in junior high and they came back determined to win a state title. The 1987 and 1988 teams stand out because they were totally committed to doing whatever it took to be great.”

His varsity girls’ basketball teams in the 1970s had the same spirit. “A lot of them had jobs at the ski areas, but they still came to practice six days a week and worked hard to make themselves better.”

Hard work and dedication are

the keys to athletic success, but what has impressed Connor over the years is the involvement of the student-athletes in other extra-curricular activities.

“We don’t have one-dimensional jocks here,” he said. “You see those same kids in the drama and music programs and all the other activities we have. I think it’s great.”

Connor teaches global studies at Leland & Gray, which makes him a natural fit for Journey East.

The program has sent more than 200 students to China and Inner Mongolia over the past decade.

“We’re doing interviews for the 2012 trip right now,” he said. “It’s truly a life-changing experience for every person who does it.”

After 42 years of coaching, Connor says he’s coaching the grandchildren of students he first coached in the early 1970s.

“The kids are blown away by that,” he said. “But I have loved it all. I have so many good memories from all the activities I’ve been involved in.”

Wintering in WINDHAM A GUIDE TO OUTDOOR AND INDOOR ACTIVITIES AND FUN

Entertainment Music • Open Mic Night in West Townshend: On Thursday, Feb.

24, at 7 p.m., there will be an open mic night at the old West Townshend Country Store on Route 30. Robert DuGrenier will be the master of ceremonies. All who wish to play or listen are invited, and any donations of refreshments are welcomed.

For more information, contact DuGrenier at rd@dugrenier.com.

• Dan Bern at the HookerDunham: Frighteningly witty,

thrillingly irreverent and monumentally insightful, Dan Bern is best known for his prolific songwriting and magical stage presence. He will be at the Hooker-Dunham Theater in Brattleboro with backing band Common Rotation on Friday, Feb. 25, at 8 p.m.

Bern has released some dozen albums since 1997, while performing everywhere from small clubs to Carnegie Hall. Recently, Bern has focused much of his talent and sharp wit on writing songs for movies and other projects.

He composed over a dozen songs for the Jake Kasdan/Judd Apatow spoof, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, starring John C. Reilly, and contributed several more songs to Apatow’s Get Him to the Greek, starring Russell Brand and Jonah Hill.

He wrote the title song for Jonathan Demme’s 2008 documentary, Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains , and also contributed original songs for Demme’s 2010 off-Broadway production of Family Week, which included a Bern duet with Emmylou Harris.

Tickets are $15. For reservations, call 802-254-9276. For more information, visit www.danbern.com, www. commonrotation.com and www.hookerdunham.org.

• Anais Mitchell at HookerDunham: Twilight Music presents

contemporary folk singer/songwriter Anais Mitchell and folk/rock/classical quintet Darlingside at HookerDunham Theater & Gallery on Saturday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m.

Part dustbowl rabble-rouser, part Cosmic American poet, Mitchell writes songs that are as intimate as conversations and as rich in detail as short stories. Her CDs shimmer with creative spark, spilling over with worldly metaphors, intense emotions and unshakeable reverence to the art of song.

Most recently, Anais has staged Hadestown, an original folk-opera based on the myth of Hades and Eurydice, and released Hadestown, the album, performed by Ani DiFranco, Justin Vernon/Bon Iver, Greg Brown and Mitchell herself, among others.

A Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk competition winner, she is the rare musician who is equally comfortable wielding an acoustic guitar alone onstage, sharing a disc’s worth of altcountry duets, or scripting a vast operatic journey into the underworld.

Opening for Mitchell is Darlingside, a Northampton, Mass.-based “string rock” quintet. Tickets for this show are $16 general admission/$14 students and seniors. For ticket reservations and information, call 802-254-9276.

For more information, visit www.anaismitchell.com, www.darlingside.com and www.hookerdunham.org.

• Jayne Kelly in Bellows Falls: Stone Church Arts welcomes

Jayne Kelly to Immanuel Episcopal Church and its Steinway nine foot concert grand piano in Bellows Falls, on Saturday, Feb. 26, at 7:30 p.m.

Kelly is a classical pianist, teacher, and jazz singer, and teaches extensively, with an emphasis on adult instruction. In her classical set, she’ll perform works from Beethoven, Debussy, Janecek and Prokofiev.

Then, in a jazz set accompanied by Walt Sayre on piano, she’ll sings

various songs, including jazz standards.

Admission is $17 for adults ($13 for seniors and children under 12) in advance and $20 ($15) at the door.

Tickets are available at Village Square Booksellers (Bellows Falls), Toadstool Bookshop (Keene, N.H.), Brattleboro Books, Misty Valley Books (Chester), and at www.brattleborotix.com or available at the door. For more information, call 802-463-3100.

• Stockwell Brothers at Flat Street Brew Pub: Newgrass and

contemporary folk trio The Stockwell Brothers will perform at the Flat Street Brew Pub on Saturday, Feb. 26, at 9:30 p.m.

Bruce, Barry and Alan Stockwell’s music spans traditional and progressive styles, but their trademark acoustic sound features new singer/songwriter material recast with banjo, alternative rhythms and three-part harmonies.

Featuring 2005 Merlefest bluegrass banjo contest winner Bruce Stockwell, The Stockwell Brothers have performed alongside artists from Bill Monroe, Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs to Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Jonathan Edwards and Asleep At The Wheel, recorded with Mike Auldridge and Phil Rosenthal of the bluegrass supergroup The Seldom Scene, and toured throughout the United States and in Canada and Europe.

Flat Street Brew Pub is located at 6 Flat Street in downtown Brattleboro.

Admission to the show is $5. For information, call 802-257-1911. For more information, visit www.flatstreetbrewpub.net and www.stockwellbrothers.com.

• Merfeld, Keyes and special guests at Marlboro: Pianist

Robert Merfeld and violinist Bayla Keyes return to Marlboro College for its Music for Sunday Afternoon series on Sunday, Feb. 27, at 3 p.m., in Ragle Hall.

The duo will be joined by Julia Glenn (violin) and Paul Glenn (violoncello and double bass) for portions of an eclectic program that includes Johan Halvorsen’s Passacaglia, based on a theme by George Friedrich Handel, and 20th century composer Nelson Keyes’ Three Love Songs for Piano. The group is also scheduled to perform sonatas by Bach, Bartok and Ravel.

This performance is free and open to the public. Donations will be accepted to benefit the Luis Batlle Music Chair during the concert. In case of inclement weather, call the Marlboro College Events line at 802-451-7151.

• Brattleboro Women’s Chorus prepares for spring season: The Brattleboro Women’s

Chorus resumes weekly rehearsals on Wednesday, March 2, at All Soul’s Church in West Brattleboro.

New and returning singers are welcome to join the singing gatherings Wednesday nights from 7-8:45.

Director Becky Graber teaches many songs by rote and by ear, with practice CDs for home study, and financial aid is available to make the chorus available to all interested women and girls over 10.

The rehearsals culminate in May concerts, and the music selections this spring continue to be “songs of home”. For more information, visit brattleborowomenschorus.org, e-mail bwchorus@gmail.com or call Graber at 802-254-8994.

• Violinist Bella Hristova p e r f o r m s w i t h V S O : The

Bellows Falls Opera House will once again host the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, joined by famed violinist Bella Hristova, on Friday, March 4.

Music Director Jaime Laredo has already brought two outstanding young soloists to Vermont this season. In March, as part of the VSO’s Masterworks performances, this one entitled “Voyages,” he introduces his

Social networking hits the slopes Mount Snow uses Foursquare to reach a new audience

By Olga Peters The Commons

DOVER—Devotees of Foursquare, a location-based city guide and social network, have new badges to unlock and locations to explore. Mount Snow Ski Resort has joined 14 other ski areas selected by foursquare.

“Foursquare is part friendfinder, part city guide. We want to make cities more fun and interesting to explore,” said Jonathan Crowley, Foursquare’s director of business development.

According to Vinnie Lewis, Mount Snow communications director, the resort became the first ski resort in the country to launch a foursquare page and badge campaign.

“By about 15 minutes,” he joked.

The popular site allows businesses to post promotions and deals for followers “checking in” to their venue.

The friend-finder city guide also rewards users with digital “badges” and other perks for checking in, said Crowley. For instance, he just “unlocked” the Gym Rat badge by working out at the gym 10 times in 30 days.

Crowley describes the badges as “digital candy” that users store in their virtual trophy cases.

The challenge of unlocking the Gym Rat badge motivated Crowley to get off the couch, brave the winter cold, and get to the gym.

protégé, violinist Hristova, who will perform Dvo ák’s Violin Concerto.

Hristova was born in Pleven, Bulgaria, in 1985, and began violin studies at the age of six. At age 12, she participated in master classes with Ruggiero Ricci at the Mozarteum in Salzberg. In 2003, she entered the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where she studied chamber music with Steven Tenenbom. The awardwinning violinist is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma with Laredo at Indiana University. She plays a 1655 NicolÒ Amati violin, once owned by the violinist Louis Krasner.

The VSO will also perform Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 and

Windham Housing Trust is offering Homebuyer Education Workshops Tuesday, March 22 & 29 4pm to 8pm Saturday April 30 8am to 5pm Tuesday, May 17 & 24 4pm to 8pm

Encouraging users to dig in and mine all their cities have to offer is a major difference between foursquare and other social networks like Facebook.

“Check in here” signs have popped up across the resort from Carinthia Park, to the Base Lodge, to the Station Tap Room restaurant.

Within 24 hours of launching foursquare at the mountain on Jan. 20, Mount Snow had 4,500 followers, said Lewis.

Three weeks later, the number has grown to 8,744.

Followers of Mount Snow have left tips suggesting fellow foursquarers stick around Cuzzins Bar & Grill for Saturday night music, where to get the best hot buttered rum, and where to find secret seats during the busy lunch hour.

“My brother [foursquare co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley] and I have been visiting Mount Snow for years, so we’re especially excited to see our home mountain putting so much effort behind their foursquare tips, Specials and badge promotion,” said Crowley.

The Crowleys are Mount Snow season pass holders and have skied the mountain for six years. They selected ski resorts to partner with Foursquare as a side project to their regular work with the company.

“We know Mount Snow like the back of our hands,” said Crowley, who feels Foursquare

is a great avenue to share the best of Mount Snow with other skiers.

Mount Snow’s related promotions range from coupons, free beverages to a reserved parking spot for the mountain’s “mayor” a title reserved for the person checking into a location the most.

“It’s the best [parking] space at the entire mountain,” said Crowley.

Lewis said the promotions at the resort will continue to evolve and change. “We don’t want it to become stale,” he said.

He recommends independent businesses sign up for foursquare. “I have a hard time believing it [Foursquare] won’t help everyone in the area,” Lewis said.

Rewards and promotions can help businesses attract new customers and reward loyal ones, said Crowley.

Crowley, who lists his location as New York, N.Y., said that he never checks a restaurant’s menu when he and his wife go out for dinner. Instead, he reads tips left by other followers on his mobile phone.

According to Crowley, more and more vendors around Mount Snow sign up with the company every day.

Foursquare is not a data dump. A location’s bells and whistles are only revealed to people at the location.

Access to foursquare, which works on any smart phone and

John Corigliano’s Voyage.

Tickets are available through the Vermont Festivals LLC office at 802463-9595, online at www.brattleborotix.com, or at one of the following outlets: Village Square Booksellers and Fat Franks in Bellows Falls, Misty Valley Books in Chester, or Brattleboro Books in Brattleboro.

by Sally Newton, Michael Donahue and friends. There will be an hour for children and beginners. starting at 7 p.m., experienced dancers are welcome to join and help out. Dances will be taught throughout the evening as well.

Refreshments will be sold.

Those who wish to help with refreshments may contact Sally Newton at 802-874-7141.

• Contra dance benefits farmers: On Saturday, March 5,

there will be a contra and square dance at the Jamaica Town Hall to benefit Taylor Farm in Londonderry, which had a barn collapse under all the heavy snow we received several weeks ago.

Music and calling will be provided

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via SMS (texting), has had issues. According to Lewis, the cell signal at the mountain’s base can be “spotty.” Dover, like many areas in Windham County, has gaping holes in its cellular coverage.

Lewis said Mount Snow installed a cell tower on its summit to accommodate guests from areas accustomed to a 21st century connection. But even with a cell tower beaming a signal over the mountain, the topography gets in the way.

“It’s a great opportunity.

We’re very thankful that they [Foursquare] thought of us this way,” said Lewis.

Co-founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai launched foursquare in March 2009 at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas. The two met in New York City in 2007.

According to the company’s website, the they started building the first version of foursquare at Dennis’ kitchen table in New York’s East Village.

According to Crowley, the program hit the ground running in large cities like New York and Austin then moved into the suburbs. The company has built media partnerships with other the likes of Bravo and events like the National Football League’s Super Bowl.

To date, 6.5 million people are signed up for foursquare. To follow Mount Snow, visit www.foursquare.com/mountsnow.

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THE COMMONS

• Wednesday, February 23, 2011

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Bringing the Met to the Latchis

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KEN HOWARD/METROPOLITAN OPERA

Susan Graham in the title role and Placido Domingo as Orest in the Metropolitan Opera’s 2007 performance of Gluck’s “Iphigenie en Tauride.� The two reprise their roles in a performance that will be simulcast at the Latchis live on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 26 and 27. theater. But Nunziata explains that the choice of a smaller theater was mainly an economic one.

Installing HD is expensive, she says. The cost would have been $100,000 for the main theater, compared to the $30,000 for the smaller Theater 3. Even raising the $30,000 that was needed took an active effort by the Brattleboro Arts Initiative. “We had a $7,500 challenge grant from a very generous anonymous donor, which has been met,� says Nunziata. “And, generally, we’re delighted that the pieces have fit together so smoothly.�

Those pieces include HD projection, a satellite dish, and an upgrade to the sound system in Theatre 3, the 130 seat auditorium on the lobby level next to Latchis’s main theatre; also the efforts of “at least 100� dedicated opera fans, who donated the remainder.

Nunziata has no regrets about the compromise of the small theater. “We just wanted to get [HD] in the door. We’re taking this process one step at a time.�

Brattleboro opera fans seem delighted with the results.

Audience members Marjorie and Steven Sayer, who had to travel down to Hadley, Mass., in previous years to see HD transmissions, are pleased with the convenience of having opera Serving Windsor & Windham Counties

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right here in Brattleboro. They are also happy to be able to support the Latchis.

Everyone seems to love the price. As one audience member said, “to see these operas in New York, a couple would have to pay over $500 dollars with travel, tickets, hotels and restaurants.

Here, it’s less than $50.�

The Metropolitan is not the only opera company transmitting via HD. Other theaters, such as La Scala in Milan and the Paris Opera, now show performances via satellite. Last month, Covent Garden in London transmitted Donizetti’s Anna Bolena in high definition and in 3-D. Nor is HD limited to opera.

Sports events, classical and pop concerts, ballet, and even public performances of Glenn Beck’s Common Sense Tour and Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion all are now being transmitted in HD. The Sayers regularly travel up to Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center to enjoy a season of the English National Theater in HD. Although, for now, the Latchis has no immediate plans for any of these things, Nunziata cryptically hints, “Who knows what the HD future holds for the Latchis?�

The Met: Live in HD series is made possible at the Latchis by a generous grant from the Preservation Trust of Vermont and Brattleboro Savings and Loan. It is co-sponsored by Vermont Public Radio and the Brattleboro Music Center.

Tickets can be purchased on-line from BrattleboroTix at www.brattleborotix.com, or by calling the Brattleboro Music Center at 802-257-4523. Tickets will also be sold at the door on the day of the performance, if available. Ticket prices are $24 for Saturday, $22 for Sunday, $268 for the 12-opera season.

Jim Anderson’s pre-opera talk begins an hour before the Saturday performance in Theater 4 and costs $10. The season schedule is posted at www.brattleboroarts.org, www. bmcvt.org, and in the Latchis Theatre lobby.

and

BRATTLEBORO—Before audiences see opera at the Latchis Theater, Jim Anderson thinks it a good idea that they be taught how to sing it.

In one of his talks before a showing of an The Met: Opera Live in High Definition, he told everyone to open his or her mouth wide, “like making a big yawn, and produce some nice round sounds,� which many did, laughing as they sang and getting a taste of what it might be like to perform like Pavarotti or Callas.

So far, Anderson has given a talk before the first five operas shown at the Latchis and plans to continue throughout the rest of the season. Before moving to Brattleboro, he spent 25 years in Europe pursuing an operatic career, which he claims is much easier abroad then here. “There are over 70 opera houses in Germany alone,� he says, “with over 300 performances a year.�

He knows, and has even performed, in most of the works being shown at the Latchis this season. A funny and gregarious speaker, Anderson tells the story of the opera and, as he also has worked with many of the performers in these productions, anecdotes about the singers and directors themselves.

He also helps those in his audience new to opera how to understand the music, which for many of them is often strange and difficult.

Jim Anderson’s pre-opera talks is just one of the reasons that The Met: Live in HD has been such a great success in Brattleboro.

According to Gail Nunziata, director of the Brattleboro Arts Initiative, there is such a strong core group of loyal followers that “every Saturday performance has been virtually sold out.� (Seats are more available for the encore presentation the following Sunday at 11 am.)

At any given showing, the audience’s passion is very obvious.

People clap and shout bravo after an especially good aria or duet.

During the intermission, they mingle and converse about the live performance as if they actually were at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

The next Metropolitan Opera

HD transmission is Iphigenie en Tauride, by Gluck on Saturday, Feb. 26, at 1 p.m., and Sunday Feb. 27, at 11 a.m.

More famous for his operatic retelling of legend of Orpheus, Gluck in Iphigenie returns to classical mythology for this nuanced and elegant interpretation of a primal Greek myth.

Susan Graham stars in the title role, with Placido Domingo costarring as her brother Oreste, and Paul Groves as Pylade, Oreste’s loyal friend. The performance, sung in French with English subtitles, is conducted

by Patrick Summers.

Future operas this season at the Latchis include Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Verdi’s Il Trovatore, and Wagner’s Die Walkure.

Transmitting opera live via satellite to theaters across the globe was the idea of Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb.

It is, according to Heidi Waleson of The Wall Street Journal, “now entering its fifth season . . .[and] contrary to the expectations of many, has been a runaway success. In 2006, [the Met] began transmitting live, high-definition opera performances into movie theaters, beginning with six shows in 248 theaters in eight countries.

[This] season features 12 operas in 1,500 theaters in 46 countries.

Last season, 2.4 million tickets were sold to nine different shows.

The Met’s share of the gross was $24 million, and after subtracting production costs and revenuesharing payments to its unions, the company realized over $8 million in net revenue.�

For Brattleboro, however, The Met: Live in HD is a new adventure.

Nunziata says “we wanted the Met HD opera in Brattleboro for a long time, but it took a number of years before the Metropolitan Opera people seemed able to focus on such a small town.�

Yet once they did, they were wonderful to work with. “It was a real collaboration with the Met and the Latchis,� said Nunziata.

Many opera lovers may have hoped the operas would be shown in the big historic theater at the Latchis, especially since these live transmissions are already selling out the small

NE NLY B R AT T L E B R The

The Commons

lives in a box and only understands German.

This performance is part of the • Dante and his Inferno: Poet and Dante translator Michael Winter Sunshine Series of famPalma will discuss the popular- ily performances, a collaboraity of Dante’s Inferno in a talk at tion between Sandglass Theater, Brattleboro’s Brooks Memorial Crabgrass Puppet Theatre and Puppetwork New Library on March 2. His talk, The Towering Inferno, is part of the England. It is recommended for Vermont Humanities Council’s ages 4 and up. Tickets are $8. To First Wednesdays lecture series and make reservations, or for more information, contact Sandglass at takes place at 7 p.m.

The most frequently translated 802-387-4051 or info@sandglasswork in America today is Dante theater.org.

Alighieri’s Inferno—a 700-yearold book-length poem. Palma Poetry will consider the enduring appeal • Poetry series begins of this medieval masterpiece and at The Book Cellar: The what it has to say to a contempo- Book Cellar in Brattleboro will host rary audience. a two-part poetry series entitled Palma is a poet and transla- Back West and Out East, aimed at tor and serves on the board of the exploring contemporary poetry in Italian Poetry Society of America. the United States. Featuring work His fully rhymed translation of the from the heart of Western America Inferno was published in 2002 by as well as that of traditional New W. W. Norton & Company.

England, a broad spectrum of The Vermont Humanities themes will emerge that illustrates Council’s First Wednesdays series is notions of regionalism and diversity held on the first Wednesday of every alongside shared kinship and unity. month from October through May, Week one in the series focuses featuring free lectures from speak- on the West and introduces author ers of national and regional renown. Frances McCue. She will be reading Upcoming Brattleboro talks in- from her new collection of poetry, clude “Did Karl Marx Predict the The Bled, and also from her prose Cuban Revolution?� with Amherst collection, The Car That Brought professor Javier Corrales on April You Here Still Runs.

13 (rescheduled); “The Changing Part travelogue, part memoir, Face of Islam: Transformation in part literary scholarship, The Car Modern South Asia� with Mount That Brought You Here Still Runs Holyoke College professor Kavita traces the journey of McCue and Datla on May 4; and “Beethoven’s photographer Mary Randlett as they Sketchbooks� with pianist Michael follow the path of iconic Western Arnowitt on June 1 (rescheduled poet Richard Hugo through the from Feb. 2). towns that inspired many of Hugo’s For more information, contact poems.

Brooks Memorial Library at 802Returning 40 years after Hugo 254-5290 or contact the Vermont visited these places, and bringHumanities Council at 802-262- ing with her a deep knowledge of 2626 or info@vermonthumanities. Hugo and her own poetic sensibilorg, or visit www.vermonthuman- ity, McCue maps Hugo’s poems ities.org. back onto the places that triggered • Documentarian comes them. Together with twenty-three t o L a n d m a r k C o l l e g e : poems by Hugo, McCue’s essays As part of its 25th Anniversary and Randlett’s photographs offer Speakers Series, Landmark College a fresh view of Hugo’s Northwest. will host ABC News Executive “Even though the essays are Producer Terence Wrong on about small towns in Idaho, Thursday, March 3.

Washington and Montana, the Wrong has been a producer at book has a reference to the Mole’s ABC news for more than two de- Eye, a bar in Brattleboro that I’ve cades. During that time, his work always loved,� McCue says. “It’s a has been recognized with more than road trip book and one of my ear30 major awards for documentary liest road trips was hitchhiking up journalism, including a Peabody, I-91 to Vermont and ending up in three Emmies, and an Alfred I. the Mole’s Eye.�

Dupont-Columbia University The Bled is a different kind award. of book — a collection of poems His most recent work was the about McCue’s husband, who died ABC News docu-series Boston Med, in Morocco. McCue and her huswhich aired last summer. Other band and daughter were living in multi-part series have included Marrakesh while she worked as a Hopkins in 2008, and Hooking Up Fulbright Senior Scholar. in 2005, a journey through the ofMcCue serves as the writerten bizarre world of online dating. in-residence and lecturer at In 2003, Wrong and his team the University of Washington’s spent 18 months in various units Undergraduate Honors Program. of the NYPD to produce NYPD She was the founding director 24/7, the most invasive look inside of Richard Hugo House, one of the nation’s largest police force to the nation’s biggest literary cendate. In 2002, an earlier multi-part ters, from 1996 to 2006. She has series, Boston 24/7, focused on life been a Fulbright Senior Scholar, inside a big city mayor’s office. an Echoing Green Fellow, and a Wrong’s first series was Hopkins Klingenstein Fellow.

24/7, a groundbreaking voyage in The first reading in this series is medical cinema vĂŠritĂŠ. scheduled for Friday, February 25, Prior to producing multi-part at 6 p.m. As always, events at The documentaries, Wrong had es- Book Cellar are free of charge, but tablished himself among network seating is limited. Contact them at television’s most accomplished pro- 802-254-6810 or info@bookcelducers of single hour documenta- larvt.com, or come by the store at ries. He spent the first 13 years of 120 Main St. to reserve your place. his career overseas as a “hardâ€? news • Poet Wyn Cooper Reads producer stationed at bureaus in at Marlboro College: A free, Beirut, Jerusalem, Frankfurt, and public reading by poet Wyn Cooper London. In this capacity, he wit- will be presented on Tuesday, nessed many momentous events March 1, at 7 p.m., at Marlboro firsthand, including the fall of the College’s Ragle Hall.

Berlin Wall, the Czech revoluCooper will read from his fourth tion, numerous African famines, book of poetry, Chaos is the New acts of terror, and wars both large Calm (BOA Editions 2010). In and small. it, he expands the parameters of The lecture will begin at 7 p.m. the sonnet form, putting rhymes on the Landmark College Campus in unusual places, inventing new in Putney. The public is invited. stanza structures, and addressing Admission is free. a variety of subject matter ranging from travelogue to inner monologue, from social commentary to Performing solitary musing. arts Wyn Cooper has published • Winter Sunshine Series three previous volumes of poat Sandglass Theater: On etry: The Country of Here Below Saturday, Feb. 26, at 2 and 4 p.m. (Ahsahta Press, 1987), The Way at Sandglass Theater in Putney, Back (White Pine Press, 2000), Ines Zeller Bass will perform and Postcards from the Interior Punschi, her take on the classic (BOA Editions, 2005). His work German puppet character Kasper. has appeared more than 60 magZeller Bass performs two hilari- azines, and he has taught at the ous stories with hand puppets under University of Utah, Bennington a sun-umbrella. In the first story, College, Marlboro College, and Kasper and the Cow, the stocking at The Frost Place, where he now capped hero is joined by his friend, serves on the advisory board. He is the loveable giant, Augustin, to re- the co-organizer of the Brattleboro trieve his red suitcase stolen by the Literary Festival and a consultant insatiable cow named Babette. for the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet In the second story, The Surprise, Monroe Poetry Institute.

Kasper finds himself taking an unCopies of Chaos is the New Calm expected flight that ends abruptly in will be available for sale during his Grandmother’s clothesline. This the reading. In case of inclement playful inter-active family show weather, call the Marlboro College is rounded out with an appearance Events line at 802-451-7151. from Tschokolino, a shy clown who

Lectures

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