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August 23, 2018 • The Essex Reporter •
RepoRteR
FREE Vol. 17, No. 34 essexreporter.com
{ Thursday, August 23, 2018 }
District backtracks on busing plan By AMANDA BROOKS Fewer students than initially planned will receive bus transportation to Essex Westford School District this school year. Such was the announcement from chief operating officer Brian Donahue last Wednesday morning, one that comes just two weeks before the start of school. Plans have unexpectedly changed since the school board meeting on August 7, a discussion The Reporter reported on in last week’s paper. Donahue said several bus routes were nixed from the original plan for the Aug. 29
school start date. Now, only Essex Elementary, Founders Memorial and Essex Middle schools will have busing provided by Mountain Transit. Essex High School will have no busing, but Westford students K-12 will be bused because a different transportation vendor serves that town, Donahue said. The discrepancy stems from a miscommunication between Mountain Transit and the EWSD transportation team, he said. EHS will get bus services once drivers become available. EWSD will then look to expand service to Essex Jct. K-12 students, prioritizing by age, proximity to the school
and access to pedestrian infrastructure, Donahue said. Donahue said the biggest challenge for the district is relying on the transportation vendor, Mountain Transit, to come through on hiring enough drivers. “The process ends up being much more under their control and ultimately under the applicants’,” Donahue said. “While we found we were able to generate dozens of leads and now have at least nine [drivers] in the pipeline that are going through training and testing, they’ve had a tougher time with their own recruitment.” Donahue noted the regional, statewide
and national bus driver shortage has made recruitment challenging. He said EWSD offered incentives to attract applicants, including higher starting wages, paid training time and starting and referral bonuses, but the split shifts and long training process makes hiring drivers difficult. “Realistically [candidates] can find higher-paying, full-time jobs with garbage companies or trucking companies,” EWSD board member Patrick Murray said. “The pool that we’re pulling from is much more narrow in scope, and it has a lot of competition in it.” See BUSING, page A4
Judge orders sanity eval for hate crime suspect
PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
Sheldon Rheaume, 23, of Essex, appears in Chittenden Superior Court on Monday beside attorney Mandy Lewis. A judge ordered Rheaume undergo a sanity evaluation prior to deciding on his bail.
Essex man faces another charge for allegedly stealing Black Lives Matter flag from EHS By COLIN FLANDERS
PHOTO BY COLIN FLANDERS
ABOVE: Jeff Sisters points at a map during the Essex Selectboard's firearm ordinance work session last Thursday, at which members voiced tentative support for loose changes to the ordinance that would allow shooting for eight months out of the year in two town parks. BELOW: Matt Cohen speaks to the selectboard.
At hunters’ urging, selectboard leans toward limited ordinance changes By COLIN FLANDERS The Essex Selectboard voiced support for a revised shooting ordinance last week that would allow hunting in two town parks for eight months of the year while leaving a large swath of private land untouched – a decision that would appease hunters and change little. Members heeded to the urgings of a predominately pro-hunting crowd at last Thursday’s work session, twice extending a proposal to permit shooting only during deer season. Instead, they voiced tentative support for prohibiting shooting throughout the summer – from June 1 to September 30, estimated as the parks busiest months – and allow hunting the rest of the year. The board isn’t bound to that route. Mem-
bers plan to hash out further details, including specific dates, at a future meeting and must host public hearings before finalizing any changes. But the work session provided the public its first real sense of the board’s direction after months of outreach, surveys and forums and suggested residents are unlikely to see major changes any time soon. The selectboard focused the session on three areas: publicly-owned land at Indian Brook and Saxon Hill parks and a large swath of private properties in the northern quadrant of town. Citizens weighed in during 20-minute public comment windows between the board’s discussion on each area. Chairman Max Levy kicked off the night See SHOOTING, page A2
An Essex man accused of using racial slurs and pointing a gun at a store clerk last week must undergo a sanity evaluation before a judge sets bail. Sheldon Rheaume, 23, walked into Chittenden Superior Court shackled and said nothing during his brief appearance Monday. He was there for a bail hearing, but lawyers first met with Judge Nancy Waples in chambers. A half-hour later, Waples informed Rheaume he would remain in custody while he undergoes the evaluation. Rheaume has remained jailed since last week, when he pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct – the third carrying an additional penalty because prosecutors say the alleged crime was motivated by hate. Through attorney Mandy Lewis, Rheaume pleaded not guilty Monday to an additional charge stemming
from a June incident in which police say he stole the Black Lives Matter flag off the pole at Essex High School. The school raised the flag in May as part of a student-led effort. Prosecutors requested Rheaume be held without bail at his arraignment last week due to what they called the randomness of his actions. Asserting he was a risk to the public, prosecutors said Rheaume’s only motivation appeared to be his victim’s race. Early on August 14, Rheaume walked into Maplefields on Main Street and directed racial slurs at a store clerk, a woman of color, sitting behind the counter, court records say. He left the store to complain to another employee, referring to the clerk again in racial epithets. When she walked outside, Rheaume told her, “I’ll handle you.” He took out a gun, waved it in her face and pointed it at her, court records show. He then told the employees he will shoot anySee HATE CRIME, page A3
Selectboard uninterested in joining nurse labor dispute By COLIN FLANDERS The Essex Selectboard appeared uninterested in picking sides when asked this week to pass a resolution supporting nurses in their contract fight with the University of Vermont Medical Center. “If the selectboard and the town were having an issue with their union and management, I would not be too thrilled if some outside party came and tried to get in the middle of it,” Levy said Monday night. “I don’t see it as the selectboard’s fight.” Tanya Vyhovsky, a Vt. House of Representatives candidate in the Chittenden 8-1 District, raised the issue during Monday night’s
meeting, citing a resolution included in the board’s packet signed by a few dozen Essex residents in support of the nurses’ union on the progressive advocacy group Rights & Democracy website. Vyhovsky asked the board to request a “fair resolution” to the ongoing negotiations between the union and UVMMC. “I, as a member of this community, want to know that I have safe care that’s being provided by people who are fairly compensated,” Vyhovsky said. The Burlington City Council passed a resolution last month calling on the two sides to settle their differences, reportedly cenSee LABOR, page A3