Reporter THE ESSEX
March 2, 2017 • The Essex Reporter •1
March 2, 2017
Vol. 37, No. 10
Prsrt Std ECRWSS U.S. Postage Paid Permit No. 266 Burlington, VT 05401 Postal Patron-Residential
Essex Jct. Fab plans to hire hundreds
GlobalFoundries at full capacity By COLIN FLANDERS
Above photo by COURTNEY LAMDIN, below photo by KAYLEE SULLIVAN Above, senior airman Marissa Van Zee of Essex Jct. was greeted last Thursday at the Vermont Air Natinal Guard base by her family, who traveled from South Dakota for the 158th Figher Wing's homecoming. Below, Sloane Tumilowicz, 4, and her brother Luke, 6, clutch a poster filled with drawings and well wishes from Sloane’s preschool classmates. Their dad, deputy commander Col. Christopher Tumilowicz was among the 310 airmen who returned home from the Middle East after a three-month deployment.
Home, sweet home
Essex airmen return from Middle East By MICHAELA HALNON With additional reporting by COURTNEY LAMDIN and KAYLEE SULLIVAN
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enior Airman Marissa Van Zee of Essex Jct. wasn’t sure what to expect when her bus pulled up to the hangar at the Vermont Air National Guard base in South Burlington last Thursday night. Members of her family couldn’t make it to the sendoff in the same spot last December, when she boarded a massive plane with 310 fellow airmen for a mission in the Middle East called Operation Inherent Resolve. Waiting for Van Zee this time, though, were parents Jennifer and Lonny Grathwohl. The couple lives in South Dakota and had embarked on a threeday, 2,050-mile road trip to welcome their only daughter home. “I got a little bit excited,” Jennifer Grathwohl said. “This is what she loves to do, and I was nervous, but I know that this
is what she loves to do.” Grathwohl stayed in touch with her daughter and sent care packages regularly. Christmas was tough, she said, admitting with a laugh that she hid in a room alone for a time. A VTANG press release said members of the 158th Fighter Wing provided precision air-toground attacks against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, flying over 600 combat missions and deploying over 800 weapons, according to the release. Called a short-notice deployment, the airmen departed just after Thanksgiving, less than 30 days after they learned of the mission. Van Zee has served for three and a half years and works in the weapons division. She called the deployment a good experience, noting this mission was the first time she could work directly in her area of expertise. Still, she was excited to get her own shower and bedroom
GlobalFoundries announced plans to hire around 200 additional people, a departure from the Essex Jct. facility's usual narrative of layoffs and reductions. The fab plans to hire both full-time and long-term supplemental staff over the next few months, spokesman Jim Keller said. Those jobs will range from engineering and technician jobs, including electrical, lab test and process engineers, as well as some internship and coop jobs, Keller said. “We’re running at full capacity. So in order to maintain that, you have to have the right manpower,” he said. GlobalFoundries Fab 9 currently employs about 2,800 people. That number has remained mostly stagnant since GlobalFoundries’ acquisition of IBM in 2015, save for a handful of layoffs after the news was first announced. See GLOBALFOUNDRIES, page 2
New zoning regulations protect views By COLIN FLANDERS Essex’s picturesque views now have an added layer of protection thanks to a new round of zoning and subdivision amendments that went into effect late last month. The most notable change is a scenic overlay district, which community development director Dana Hanley said covers about 15 scenic areas on Essex’s public roadways. She laid out the issue at the selectboard’s Feb. 6 meeting. Development on town roads has resulted in increasingly blocked views of Mt. Mansfield and Camel’s Hump, as houses have cropped up close to roadsides, Hanley said. “Using traditional subdivision regs, our scenic views were just literally getting eaten up over time by smaller developments,” Hanley said last month. See ZONING, page 2
See VTANG, page 4
CUSI seeks lower lease rate after sharp increase By MICHAELA HALNON
Photo by MICHAELA HALNON A playroom in the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigation's downtown Burlington office. Representatives from the nonprofit are currently working to negotiate a lower lease agreement.
Vickie Rathgeb emptied a container of colorful clay on a table, sitting in a kid-sized wooden chair no more than a foot above the floor. “Play-doh is an intricate part of working with little people,” said Rathgeb, director of the Children’s Advocacy Center in downtown Burlington.
From Rathgeb’s viewpoint, the small space shared by the CAC and the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations looks like a typical playroom. A basket of skinny markers rests on a knee-high table next to an easel with clean, white sheets of paper. A closer look identifies some obscure features. In the corner of the ceiling there’s a See CUSI, page 16