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The Essex
June 29, 2017 • The Essex Reporter • 1
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{ Thursday, June 29, 2017 }
Two minors charged in EHS 'swatting' case 14-year-old Vt. boy among pair headed for juvenile court By COLIN FLANDERS The Essex Police Department announced Tuesday morning two juveniles, including one 14-yearold Vermont boy, will be charged in connection to the Essex High School swatting incident in April. In a press conference Tuesday morning at the Edward J. Costello Courthouse in Burlington, Chief Brad LaRose said the other suspect’s age can’t be shared since he lives out of state.
LaRose said the suspects’ identities have allowed law enforcement to verify the incident was indeed the result of “swatting,” or a fictitious call to prompt a significant emergency response. He said beyond that, police can’t divulge much information — including the suspects’ names or motives — due to privacy laws in cases set for juvenile court. The April 12 incident began when a male suspect informed Essex police he intended to harm
EHS students with weapons and explosives. The call sent all Essex Jct. schools into an hourslong lockdown while more than a dozen police and emergency response agencies rushed to the high school. LaRose said EPD was assisted “tremendously” by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and confirmed Essex’s incident wasn’t related to the several lockdowns in South Burlington that happened just a week later. See SWATTING, page 4
PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
Police Chief Brad LaRose answers questions during a press conference at the Edward J. Costello Courthouse in Burlington on Tuesday morning.
Company seeks drivers as deadline approaches By COLIN FLANDERS Counting the days to next school year might feel a bit overzealous. Yet for the company that will be busing Essex Jct. students, summer couldn’t feel shorter. Brian Hemenway, general manager of Student Transportation of America, parent company of Mountain Transit, said he’s struggled to find bus drivers and cautioned he will need “flexibility” from the district when the 2017-18 school year begins. “I can get the buses here, but I can’t necessarily import the drivers,” he said. Hemenway said he’s filled none of his 11 open positions in Essex Jct. He foreshadowed the challenge back in April, blaming Chittenden County’s low unemployment rate, which puts a high demand on qualified drivers. Two months later, with only four people in training, Hemenway is a bit concerned. “We really need the community to come together, get involved and help us out here,” he said. Then, he slipped into his recruitment pitch. Bus driving can be the perfect side gig for retirees or at-home parents, he said, and “committed” applicants can breeze through the 40 hours of classroom training in a few weeks. Plus, Mountain Transit offers a $1,500 sign-on bonus for people who go on to get their commercial driver’s license, a requirement for bus drivers. He matches that offer to anyone who refers a candidate that becomes a certified driver. Drivers start at around $16 an hour and are paid for two-hour shifts regardless of how little time is spent on the bus. With the village’s small landscape, he estimated most routes topping off at 40 minutes per shift. He’s even looking to hire dedicated trip and shuttle drivers and said he could hire up to 25 drivers “without batting an eye.” Hemenway said there’s still time to become fully staffed before school starts. Still, he plans to fill the longest routes first and backfill the rest. Before drivers can hit the road, however, Mountain Transit needs to finalize its route layout. Hemenway’s tech team has entered student names and addresses into a computerized system that narrows the pool based on eligibility as determined by the school board — outside a half-mile for K-8 and a mile for high-schoolers. Hemenway said that system is nearly finished creating a rough draft of stops and routes. Next comes the human element. A group of people with local knowledge — including Hemenway, who grew up in Essex Jct. — will wade through the draft and fine-tune routes to ensure they work with the village landscape,
'My fellow Americans' 60 people become U.S. citizens in ceremony at EHS By KAYLEE SULLIVAN
A
merican flags and red, white and blue memorabilia waved in Diego Uribe’s hand last Thursday as he reached for his pant leg, revealing a flagthemed sock. He was one of 60 people who pledged an oath of allegiance in the Essex High School auditorium on June 21, becoming a United States citizen. The journey, he said, wasn’t easy. “I’m feeling great. Very happy. It took me …,” he said, trailing off. “It took him 22 years!” a friend interrupted, proudly beaming behind him. Surrounded by friends and family, Uribe explained his start as a student in the U.S. from Colombia. He graduated, eventually earned a master’s degree and now teaches Spanish at Dorset Elementary School. All with different stories, the 60 new Americans ranged in age from 19 to 78 and originated from 27 countries. Some have lived in the U.S. for years on end by marrying into American families, receiving a green card or seeking a student or work visa. Once they make the decision to naturalize, new Americans submit an application to U.S. Citizenship and Im-
migration Services, which hosted the event. A seven-month process ensues, including interviews, fingerprinting and the civics test. Individuals have 100 prepped questions to study. When they enter the room on test day, they’re questioned on 10 of them and must answer six correctly. An English reading and writing section is also pertinent, USCIS public affairs officer Anita Rios Moore said. When it’s all over, the candidates stand with their hands raised before a judge, Moore explained. Judge John M. Conroy proceeded over Thursday’s ceremony, which transformed the EHS auditorium into a courtroom. Uribe said getting his green card was the most difficult part of his journey, but with perseverance and trust that everything would go smoothly, he persisted — just as his friends and family did to take a group photo, American flags and all. The experience was not only a learning process for him, but for his students as well, who digested the
See BUS, page 4
See CITIZENS, page 4
PHOTOS BY KAYLEE SULLIVAN
TOP: Family and friends of Diego Uribe pose for a photo after Friday's ceremony. ABOVE: Uribe, right, and Edwin Lawrence show off their socks.
Town fixes police parking lot
PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
The Essex Police Department parking lot is being redone after it was improperly constructed back in 2014. The town is using a $172,000 settlement toward the project.
By COLIN FLANDERS Residents driving by the Essex Police Department this week might wonder why the parking lot of their 3-year-old, $7 million facility is in disrepair. The problem is, town officials say, the station’s lot was never right to begin with. Last spring, less than a year after the lot’s debut, the pavement started heaving. A technical review conducted by a third-party firm found the lot didn’t allow for
proper drainage. “It looked like a mogul course,” Essex Police Chief Brad LaRose said. The town entered negotiations with J. Hutchins Excavating, Lamoureux & Dickinson Engineers, Bread Loaf Corporations and Wiemann Lamphere Architects before accepting a $172,000 settlement last November. The settlement will be used to defray a $208,000 bid from Don Weston Construction. The remainder will be covered by some of the
$85,000 left over from the police station project, administrative director Doug Fisher said. Essex public works director Dennis Lutz said the contractors are following a design from a New York City-based engineering firm. Construction began earlier this month and is scheduled to wrap up in mid-August. The contractor will repair the front lot first. Officers will park cruisers there while the back lot is repaired, LaRose said. See LOT, page 3