REPORTER THE
www.essexreporter.com
ESSEX
JULY 9, 2015
By JASON STARR The Essex Reporter
Three-year-old Katherine Mercon from Fairfax didn’t let the rain put a damper on her fun at the Maple Street Park events.
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t was a sodden but fun 22nd Annual Fourth of July Celebration in Maple Street Park in Essex. Just as the festivities were getting underway, a powerful storm moved through and torrential rains sent participants running for cover. For more photos from the event, see page 7b. PHOTOS | ROY MERCON
Participants wait out the rain in Maple Street Park.
Depot and Tony’s to vacate Five Corners ‘Time to stop fighting the traffic’
The building that houses Depot Home and Garden is under contract to be sold in August, displacing two long-time Essex Junction businesses. Depot Home and Garden will be consolidating with its parent company, LD Oliver Seed Company, in Milton. TonyÕ s Tack Shop is liquidating inventory and faces an uncertain future, with Essex resident Katelyn Wildey hoping to revive the store in or
near Essex. Depot Home and Garden originally opened as a warehouse in the mid-1980s for LD Oliver Seed, which is primarily a wholesaler of seed, fertilizer and gardening supplies. It has evolved into its own retail outlet selling animal food and gardening supplies. TonyÕ s Tack Shop, an equestrian goods retailer that started in 1967 in South Burlington, moved into the north side of the building in 2011.
The entrance to Depot Home and Garden and Tony’s Tack Shop in Essex Junction on Monday. PHOTO | JASON STARR
Prsrt Std ECRWSS U.S. Postage Paid Permit No. 266 Essex Junction, VT 05452 Postal Patron-Residential
Essex goes Global
A soggy celebration
By JASON STARR The Essex Reporter
Vol. 35, No. 27
LD Oliver Seed Company President Peg Nichols declined to identify the buyer. She said the prospect of the planned construction of a bypass road around Five Corners Ñ known as the Crescent Connector Ñ prompted the decision to sell the building. Ò ItÕ s always been a difficult place to get to,Ó she said of the store, which is hidden down a dirt road near the railroad tracks on Park Street. Ò It seemed like time to stop fighting the traffic and just move that inventory up here É For the next few years, before (the Crescent Connector) is all done, itÕ s going to add to the inconvenience of getting through Five Corners.Ó TonyÕ s Tack Shop is conducting a liquidation sale. The owners plan to be out of the building at the end of this month. A lot is riding on the sale, Wildey said. Her mother, Dina Marcotte, owns the shop, and Wildey is hoping to sell enough of the inventory to buy her out and start fresh with a new location and/or an online store. Marcotte said the advent of online shopping has eroded the shopÕ s revenue. Ò WeÕ ve been struggling the last few years to keep going,Ó said Wildey. Ò If it continues, it will have to be different. ItÕ s not working the way itÕ s been. Ò A lot depends on how things go with the sale,Ó she continued. Ò Our customers have to show us they want us here. People say they donÕ t want us to leave, but we havenÕ t seen them in a long time, so that doesnÕ t help.Ó Marcotte bought TonyÕ s Tack Shop in 2003 and moved it to Essex Junction in the nearby Flanders building. In 2011, the shop moved in with Depot Home and Garden. Wildey said she is looking for new location possibilities in Essex and Williston.
Ò ItÕ s the end of the world as we know it Ð and I feel fine.Ó That sentiment Ñ penned by the band R.E.M. in 1987 Ñ ruled the day last Wednesday at the suddenly former IBM campus in Essex Junction when a monumental transition involving roughly 4,000 employees and $1.5 billion was consummated with a party and press conference. Signs around the campus heralded: Ò orange is the new blueÓ in a nod to the outgoing corporate colors of IBM and the incoming colors of GlobalFoundries, the California company that now owns the micro-chip manufacturing facility. Federal regulators with the Ò Committee on Foreign Investment in the United StatesÓ approved the acquisition last Tuesday, clearing the way for IBM to transfer the facility that opened in 1957, along with $1.5 billion, to GlobalFoundries. According to GlobalFoundries officials and employees at the plant, substantially all IBM employees were offered similar jobs with identical salaries and improved health benefits as GlobalFoundries employees. One of those employees is Janette Bombardier, who headed up IBMÕ s Essex Junction campus and now does the same for GlobalFoundries. At a press conference, Bombardier said about 3,000 former IBM employees are now employed by GlobalFoundries. Ò Still hundredsÓ of IBM employees remain on the campus as tenants, she said. IBM had been looking to divest its hardware division, of which the Essex Junction facility was a part, and GlobalFoundries, which is owned by an investment arm of the government of Abu Dhabi, capital city of the United Arab
Emirates, is looking to become a global leader in microchip manufacturing. The deal includes a 10year agreement in which GlobalFoundries will provide technology to IBM, company executives said. GlobalFoundries counts among its microchip customers the suppliers of electronics to Ò a whoÕ s whoÓ in mobile phones and tablets, according to Brian Harrison, a GlobalFoundries executive who is overseeing the transition from IBM. The company also sees opportunity
GlobalFoundries was confirmed last week as the new microchip manufacturer at the former IBM plant in Essex Junction. PHOTO | JASON STARR
in the burgeoning internet connectedness of watches, phones and televisions Ñ the so-called Ò internet of things.Ó Ò Everything we have is becoming connected to everything else we have,Ó Harrison said. GlobalFoundries has five manufacturing facilities in Singapore, Germany and the United States. It has a growing presence in Malta., N.Y., where it has invested billions of dollars in recent years to build its most advanced semi-conductor foundry, Harrison said. The Essex
– See GLOBAL on page 3a
Committee calls for merger of Essex and Westford school districts By JESS WISLOSKI For The Essex Reporter Community members from Essex and Westford who have been investigating a possible school district consolidation agreed unanimously to merge the districts into one supervisory union last night. In order to proceed with the full unification of the districts, a majority of voters in Westford, Essex Village and Essex Town must approve. They are tentatively scheduled to vote on the issue in November. The unified district may eventually become known as the Essex Westford Unified Union School District (the name has not yet been finalized). If approved, the communities could be the first in the state to do so under a new law, called Act 46, which was passed in the spring by the Legislature. The group of 20 panel members, all of them volunteers representing parents, educators, and taxpayers across the three municipalities, approved of the merger agreement last night in the basement of Essex High SchoolÕ s library. The committee also approved 20 articles that will set the stage for the first three years of the new unionÕ s leadership. Ò There were definitely details we wrangled over a bit, and people maybe even walked away without feeling like they got 100 percent
– See MERGER on page 5a
Yankee Doodle sweetheart
Ava-Marie Eldred, 5 months old, of Essex, isn’t quite sure what to make of what she is seeing during her first Fourth of July parade in Colchester. PHOTO | ROY MERCON.