The Essex
October 5, 2017 • The Essex Reporter • 1 Prsrt Std ECRWSS U.S. Postage Paid Permit No. 266 Burlington, VT 05401 Postal Patron-Residential
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{ Thursday, October 5, 2017 }
EHS launches global learning
Manager search window extended
By KAYLEE SULLIVAN
By COLIN FLANDERS
Sitting in the Essex High School library last Friday, students of the school’s new global leadership program attentively listened and questioned former Gov. Peter Shumlin about the global economy. GLP, an optional academic track, hosted Shumlin to kick off its speaker series. French and Spanish teacher Jill Prado said she created the program based off students’ growing interest in the discipline. “We believe we’ve hit a nerve with this new program,” Prado said. “Our students have become more and more interested in other parts of the world over the last few years. They’ve traveled, they’ve studied languages, they’re fluent in other languages, they take courses with a global focus and they host exchange students.” Students accomplish all of this in a tailored curriculum. Students will also engage in globally focused internships, such as with the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program and Vermont International Film Festival. These experiences help prepare students for an ever-growing global economy post-graduation. Through these exchanges, “we not only build great careers, but also we build world peace and understanding,” Shumlin said. “And that’s more needed today than I think ever before.” Prado said she reached out to Shumlin because of his role as a global leader in sustainability and fighting climate change. In 2015, President Barack Obama
The selectboard and trustees are extending their deadline for municipal manager applications after their recruiter said he was befuddled by the search’s results. In a conference call at a Sept. 26 joint meeting, recruiter Don Jutton said his company has received only 18 applications during the three weeks of advertising the position. Just a week before the deadline, only four candidates show “any fundamental basis” of managerial experience and none could realistically walk in tomorrow and do the job, Jutton said. What’s more puzzling, he added, is not one Vermont manager has applied for the job despite Essex’s ranking as Vermont’s second largest municipality, offering mid-level town managers a chance to climb the career ladder while staying in-state. “I can’t believe that in Vermont, Essex is not one of the two or three primo jobs for managers,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.” The boards agreed to extend to deadline until October 20. Jutton said he doesn’t expect this to throw off the timeline. In his August interview, Jutton warned the two boards may not find the perfect candidate on the first pass-through. He blamed a shallow candidate pool and local characteristics like high state taxes and an expensive housing market, though last week said neither of those make living here prohibitive.
See GLOBAL, page 3
'A' focus on the arts
PHOTOS BY KYLE ST. PETER
Attendees flocked to the first-ever “steAmFest” in Essex Jct. last weekend. Friday, Sept. 29 was billed as a celebration of the arts through an arthop style show with sculptures, multidimensional art and live music. The next day brought a maker-faire, an artists’ market and a women speaker series addressing how art can be applied to the STEM fields. TOP: Oliver Devico checks out a "snake" made by the Essex Robotics Club on Saturday during steAmFest. ABOVE: Pete Sandon checks out a few of the drones on display. See more photos on page 12.
See MANAGER, page 13
Town to consider sidewalk impact fee By COLIN FLANDERS Estimating 2,000 new workers and residents will flock to Essex over the next decade, a consultant is suggesting the town levy a fee on new development to generate funds for pedestrian infrastructure. The town could impose the impact fee as a condition of issuing local permits for both residential and nonresidential development and use those funds to match state and federal grants, said engineer Jonathan Slason of the Resource Systems Group. Public works director Dennis Lutz said the fee would create consis- • Fee would cover all new tency for developers and development allow the town more flexibility. "It doesn't really do • Based on per-bedroom us any good if the ap(residential) and square proval says build a sidefootage (nonresidential) walk out on the end of Old Stage Road,” Lutz said. “Who the heck is • Used to match grants for going to use it? Four pedestrian infrastructure houses and they go off a cliff at the end? It doesn't make any sense. But should they pay an impact fee where we could use that put a path or sidewalk along Route 15 ... that's part of the argument.” Slason joined Lutz at Monday’s selectboard meeting to share findings from a report on the town’s current walkway infrastructure that his firm performed with the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. The village of Essex Jct. was not included. The town owns and maintains about 52 miles of sidewalks and shared paths, the report shows, and budgets an average $40,000 annually – money often leveraged to match grants. The town also budgets $20,000 to maintain the existing networks. Slason said long-range growth forecasts show the town growing by about 600 new residents and 1,400 new See FEE, page 13
PHOTO BY DENISE GREGORY
Four Essex women compete on Malia Mayhem, an over 40 dragon boat team based out of Burlington's Malia Paddling and Racing Club. Last month, the women qualified for the world championships in Hungary next July.
Join the crew
Four Essex women paddle to world championships By KAYLEE SULLIVAN
A
t 68, Essex resident Lynn Coddington is keenly fit, motivated and team-oriented. But that wasn’t always the case. Growing up before the days of Title IX — the 1972 law that mandates gender equity in school sports — organized athletics weren’t available. Yet
now, she’s headed to Hungary, along with three other Essex women, for a dragon boat world championship. All it took was taking a chance 10 years ago and picking up a paddle with Burlington-based Malia Paddling and Racing Club, she said. The over-40 team is encouraging people to do the same now to fill out their roster before the big race.
“Not only is it good exercise, but you’re out on the gorgeous [Lake Champlain] and looking at the Adirondacks, it’s beautiful. I can’t think of a single negative thing. Unless it’s raining,” she joked. “Then maybe it gets a little cold.” Plus, she said, paddlers are in See BOAT, page 4