December 28, 2017 • The Essex Reporter • 1
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{ Thursday, December 28, 2017 }
2017
A year in review
By COLIN FLANDERS
It's a strange feeling, looking back, a reflection of time we rarely indulge. We here at the The Reporter understand well: After all, news rarely does sleep. But how many words to sum up a year? How many photos to capture a place? How can the two weave a story worth telling? We juggle questions like these as we strive to report the world around us fairly and honestly, week in and week out, because we believe we're all better off for it. This year filled our pages with experiences, both good and bad. We met new people, went new places, told new stories and learned a bit about ourselves along the way. Each is a small reminder of what fills our communities with so much life. And while newsprint fades and bylines change, our focus remains on you, our readers. So take a minute to look back with us, on all the stories that defined 2017. We'll try to be brief. We know there's so much ahead.
Inside Our top 10 stories
The Reporter recaps some of the biggest issues from 2017. 2
People we met
We look back at some of our favorite interviews. 11
What you said
A brief digest of some of the year's most notable quotes. 14
Got books?
Hunker down with the Brownell Library's most popular reads. 14
A civic duty (and a grade to go with it) ADL eighth-graders theorize a new governing structure for the town and village By COLIN FLANDERS Local officials may have some electoral competition from a group of civic-minded individuals in the coming years — once they’re of age, that is. For now, they can simply take note of the advice from students in Amanda Eldridge’s eighth-grade classes who dug into an ongoing question between Essex’s two legislative boards: What would it look like if one governing board covered both the town and village? The project, as part of a civics unit on local government, prompted a three-week long investigation that forced students to consider how governance structures best serve a community, the purpose of government and the princi-
ples required for doing it well. Among the popular: accountability, transparency and equity, plus a desire to spark more participation from constituents. It’s a way for students to engage in “authentic” learning, Eldridge said, connecting lessons in the classroom to the outside world. “They're very excited about the idea that what they're saying matters to the adults they're talking to, and it's not theoretical,” she said. “There’s a different sense of seriousness to it when they know that it's a discussion that's happening with grown-ups.” Her classes started out by learning about the history of Essex, the structures of local governments and the current scenario in the town and village.
They each explored one of six Vermont towns — Barre, Bennington, Burlington, Colchester, Montpelier or Rutland — in which they spoke with local officials about the pros and cons of their varied forms of government. That included city councils, managers, mayors and a mix of all three. Students also had to interview a few other adults, including parents, to learn more about how citizens navigate different governing structures. They then created a town profile that identified a form of government, election system, number of representatives on the legislative board and how long they would serve. The most common form during one session last Thursday was the council/manager system — surely welcome See CIVICS, page 2