Wind towers
Haunted hikes
Derby Line burglaries
Hotel ruins on Pisgah described.
Getting the big picture.
Neighbors upset about rash of break-ins.
Section B
22
8
the Chronicle THE WEEKLY JOURNAL OF ORLEANS COUNTY VOLUME 37, NUMBER 39
TWO SECTIONS, 64 PAGES
SEPTEMBER 29, 2010
Cows could heat Jay water park
EIGHTY-FIVE CENTS
Falcons take barrel from LI
by Joseph Gresser
JAY — Cows probably won’t be allowed to play at Jay Peak Resort’s new water park when it opens in December 2011. But they will be a important part of the experience, said Bill Stenger, one of the resort’s owners and its president. That’s because 1,500 cattle, living on Doug Nelson’s Irasburg farm and doing what comes naturally to them, will help generate gas to heat the building and the water that flows through the park. On a tour of the construction site Friday, Mr. Stenger said the resort plans to buy methane gas from a digester on Mr. Nelson’s farm and have it hauled, by Troy trucker Bobby Starr, to the new park. Mr. Stenger said the plan is part of the resort’s efforts to build in the most energy efficient way. Although “not all the T’s have been crossed and all the I’s are not dotted,” Mr. Stenger said he really wants to see his plan to use cow power to heat the 35,000 square foot park come to fruition. He said he has been pushing the manufacturers of the boilers that will be used in the building to think in new ways, so the plan works.
Taylor Miller on the left and Adam Pothier on the right open up a hole for Nick LeClair during the Falcon’s 30-12 victory over the Lyndon Institute Vikings Saturday afternoon. The Falcons took back the trophy in the twentieth edition of the Barrel Bowl, and also claimed this year’s Kingdom Cup. For an account of the game and more photographs see page twenty-seven. Photo by Joseph Gresser
(Continued on page eleven.)
Candlepin opens, one more time by Tena Starr
BARTON — The Candlepin Restaurant in Barton is open once again and doing a brisk business. New managers and soon-to-be partial owners David and Barb Prue opened for business on Thursday, September 23. They plan to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week, except on Sundays when they’ll close at 2 p.m. — at least until winter when there’s a snowmobile crowd, and they might increase their hours. The Candlepin has been a fixture in Barton for nearly half a century. A young Steve Brown and his wife, Isabelle, started it when Mr. Brown was just 19 years old. After 46 years, Mr. Brown sold it in February of 2008 to Steve Afromowitz from White Plains, New York. Since then the restaurant has gone through a series of
managers, opening, closing, and reopening several times. None of the previous managers have left happy, and the Prues believe there was some sabotage. They say they found the restaurant a mess when they opened the doors to start cleaning it and getting ready to reopen. Among other things, a $1,200 wide-screen television was broken, apparently punched. The Prues bought a new one on Tuesday. One day, earlier this month, Mr. Prue was working with a crew of cleaners and renovators. They’d found some, by then, very rotten fish fillets stuffed into a wall, he said. Renovators had to take the wall apart to clean up the mess and get rid of the smell. The Prues, who live in Orleans, say they’re putting in 16-hour days. “Right now, we’re here from opening to closing,” Mrs. Prue said. “We want everything to go just right.” Previously, they ran Kingdom Playground in Irasburg, a bar and grill, for seven years. Mrs. Prue said she cooked for the Newport (Continued on page thirty-six.)
Election 2010
Candidates in OrleansCaledonia House race by Paul Lefebvre
The competition for two seats in the Vermont House from OrleansCaledonia is more of a donnybrook this year than a race. Five candidates will offer themselves to voters in the November General Election in what is one of the largest slates for a district that combines five towns from Orleans County and two from Caledonia. The district’s towns are Barton, Glover, Albany, Craftsbury, Greensboro, Sheffield and Wheelock. Representative John Morley’s decision not to seek another term opened the door for newcomers to county politics. Two Republicans and one Democrat are making their first bid for the district’s two House seats. Below is a profile of each of the candidates, appearing in alphabetical order. Linda Johnston of Greensboro, Republican By the number of signs that appear by the roadside or on people’s lawns, Linda Johnston has
been busy. She is also disarmingly direct. When asked during a recent interview who her campaign manager was, she didn’t hesitate to respond. “You’re looking at her,” she said. As a budding politician, Ms. Johnston appears to be having a good time knocking on people’s doors. “People really want to know your position,” she says. She is running because she is dissatisfied with a political climate characterized by “a lot of rhetoric and no action.” Change may be her battle cry. From wanting to see a flat rate 5 percent income tax, to changing the structure of state government, Ms. Johnston believes the state needs to head in a different direction. First off, she would push for term limits for both the legislative and executive branches. She wants the governor and the lieutenant governor to run as a team with a two-term limit not to exceed eight years. The same term limitations (Continued on page thirteen.)
the Chronicle, September 29, 2010
Page Thirteen
Johnston favors term limits for all to be effective, and suggest that the problem with Vermont Yankee lies with regulators. “We have failed to watch over it like we should have,” she says, adding the plant should keep operating once it has been shown to be absolutely safe. Among the issues she is campaigning on is an end to what she calls “welfare for life.” She says that people should be given more of an incentive to get off welfare. “I support a 5-year benefit maximum, a work/school requirement for all recipients and a residency/citizen requirement for all recipients on public welfare,” she writes in her campaign brochure.
(Continued from page one.)
would apply for the Vermont Senate, and while elections for the House would be held every two years, a representative’s length in office would also be capped at eight years. She thinks the present system isn’t in the state’s best interest, as it requires politicians to campaign “for the next election while sitting under the golden dome.”
Nancy Potak of Greensboro, Progressive When it comes to serving as a legislator, Nancy Potak believes there is no substitute for doing the homework. It’s a position that goes well with her affiliation with a party that likes to ride herd on the state’s traditional two-party system. As a Progressive, she says, she can attract both Democrats and Republicans. A legislator should be someone who studies an issue in depth and thinks independently, she says. It’s a description that might apply to Ms. Potak, who comes to an interview about her candidacy with research studies and pages of data. But then again, she’s a scientist — an environmental chemist who has been running her own business out of her home for 20 years or so. It’s a job, she says, “that gives me time to get involved.” While she bristles at allegations that she is a “one issue candidate,” she passionately believes that for legislators health care is “the most critical issue where we can make a difference.”
Linda Johnston of Greensboro, Republican.
If elected she would be flexible. “Term limits are a big thing for me,” she says, but she adds she would be open to compromise on what the outside limits should be. “These are just suggestions to be thought about and talked about,” she says. As for education, she supports public funding for private schools as well as public. It’s a matter of having the right to choose, she says, adding that competition for students would improve the quality of education. She believes commercial wind is too expensive
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Nancy Potak of Greensboro, Progressive.
Without being an advocate for any specific health care plan, she says she would be a strong advocate for bringing change to the present system. She believes that significant changes in health care would allow Vermont “to get ahead of the nation.” “I know people who won’t start a new business for fear of losing their health care,” she says, speaking of insurance plans that lapse when someone changes jobs. Ms. Potak would like to see a health care system that would be publicly financed but privately delivered. Ms. Potak comes to the race with a broad background as a community volunteer. She has worked for organizations such as Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and Orleans County Citizen Advocacy. (Continued on page fourteen.)
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Page Fourteen
the Chronicle, September 29, 2010
Potak favors small-scale energy projects seriously if it were not for the tax credits. “As a businessman I can’t buy machinery that doesn’t pay for itself,” he says, noting that turbines operate only 33 percent of the time.
(Continued from page thirteen.)
She says she entered the race because of the problems “working families are facing.” Ms. Potak favors a shift from the property tax to a flat rate income tax, although at half the 5 percent being advocated by Ms. Johnston. Special education programs, she adds, should get help from the state’s general fund. As far as energy goes, Ms. Potak is a supporter of small-scale renewable systems and conservation. As a member of the Greensboro Energy Committee she favors an idea that would provide financial assistance to individual homeowners to install their own renewable source of power. The assistance could come in the form of a 20-year loan whose payments would be added annually to a property owner’s taxes. “We need to have our tax credits go to those who will benefit people in Vermont,” she says. If there’s a vote to decommission Yankee, she said the Legislature should not allow it to remain idle. Rather, she says, it should be taken apart, piece by piece, creating jobs for those who worked there. John Rodgers of Glover, Democrat Like one of the pieces of heavy equipment parked in his yard, John Rodgers’ campaign is running at a slow idle. As of Thursday of last week, September 23, he had only spent one day on the campaign trail — “throwing candy to kids” at the Labor Day festivities in Sheffield. A four-term incumbent running for his fifth term in the House, Mr. Rodgers is not bashful about touting his experience. He notes that both he and Speaker Chap Smith came in the same year as freshmen, and that he has been able to build a relationship with him, as well as members on both sides of the aisle. “And that’s what it takes to get things done,” he says. He blames the economy for the slow start to his campaign, saying his business as a selfemployed mason and excavator is making more and more demands on him. But if it’s a problem, he doesn’t see it. “All my work is in this community that I serve,” he says. As a legislator, Mr. Rodgers says the most important service he provides is as a “conduit between his constituents and the bureaucracy.” It’s an on-going service, he says, that often revs up during the off-season — those months when the Legislature is not in session. And often it’s personal, as in: Can you help my brother? He’s in jail and didn’t get released on his minimum.
Vicki Strong of Albany, Republican Political campaigning doesn’t come easy for Vicki Strong, who says she always had an interest in politics, “but never threw myself out there.” There was always the worry she might be bothering someone. Perhaps that’s why, when she looks at her campaign, she sees herself as someone who will advocate for people with hardships or who have experienced a tragedy. “I’m taking the personal with me into the
John Rodgers of Glover, Democrat.
It’s the kind question that someone might expect who has served for years on the House committee that oversees the Department of Corrections. Politically, Mr. Rodgers is known in the House as “Freedom Boy.” It’s a moniker he says he’s proud of, pointing to his record as a lawmaker who has stood against bills he feels tread on personal freedoms. “I am adamantly opposed to the primary enforcement of wearing seat belts,” he says. The decision to wear a seat belt, he adds, should be left as a personal choice. As a legislator from the Northeast Kingdom, he describes himself as the go-to guy. When the amendment came up during the Legislature’s last hour to keep Pete the Moose safely ensconced behind the fence at Doug Nelson’s Irasburg preserve, Mr. Rodgers says he was the one who sold the amendment to the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. The amendment sparked controversy throughout the state, but Mr. Rodgers stands behind it. “It’s fine piece of legislation if Doug will do what he agreed to,” he says. “A whole bunch of us stuck our neck out for him.” When it comes to funding public education, Mr. Rodgers says he has more questions than answers. “It’s got to be the best education we can afford,” he says, but he questions if there’s a political will to change the present system. Mr. Rodgers says he has no faith in industrial wind. Wind turbines don’t belong on ridgelines, he argues, and he doubts they would be taken
Vicki Strong of Albany, Republican.
political,” she says. With the death of her son Jesse, who was killed in Iraq fighting as a Marine, she says she came to see the political process in a new light. Initially the loss left her wondering if she would have the “emotional energy” to become an active candidate. But then she realized it also presented her with an opportunity to get involved. “That’s what we’re all about, and that’s what makes us great,” she says, noting that her son died as he was setting up a polling place so Iraqis could vote. “It’s a privilege for us to vote and we shouldn’t take it lightly.” As a conservative, she says her values revolve around church, family, hard work and (Continued on page fifteen.)
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the Chronicle, September 29, 2010
Page Fifteen
Wind power divides communities, Strong says Mr. Young supports the idea of the state getting more power through renewable energy sources. But he favors solar over industrial wind. People choose to live up here because there are no lights in the skyline, he say. Nor he is a supporter of the amendment that allows Mr. Nelson to keep moose and deer captive behind a fence intended for a game preserve for elk. “I think we should kill the moose,” he says, adding that the state is going down a slippery slope by allow one man to possess a public resource.
(Continued from page fourteen.)
community. She believes people in the Northeast Kingdom share similar values by going out of their way to help their neighbors. If she goes off the road, someone will pull her out without caring if she is pro-life or pro-choice. It’s a community, she says, “of drive-by tooting rather than drive-by shootings.” She says her chief priority is to reduce taxes across the board — property taxes, the income tax and the sales tax. “We’re squeezing money out of people” in a state with a sparse population, she says, adding she supports Brian Dubie’s economic plan to cut spending. Nor does she support calls to decommission Yankee. “I think nuclear is okay,” she says, noting that by keeping Yankee up and running, the state will be in a better position to develop other energy resources. The trouble with wind is that it divides communities. “I hate to see the conflict,” she says. Other than that, it’s a tossup. Vermont ridgelines are beautiful and attract tourists, but maybe wind turbines would too, she says. While personal tragedy may have prompted Ms. Strong to enter politics, her ability to campaign comes from her experiences in the community. For 13 years she has run the Weight Watchers program in Orleans. From that experience, she says, she has learned how to stand up and speak to people, how to be compassionate without telling them what to do. “I feel this is a similar role,” she says. As she goes around campaigning, people talk to her about their own lives and problems. It confirms her sense that politics is personal. “They just want to be heard,” she says. Sam Young of Albany, Democrat Two years ago Sam Young got a taste of electoral politics when he ran for governor. He says he was happy that he was able to win 1 percent of the vote. But more importantly, it may have given him an edge as he runs a race in a crowded field much closer to home. At 32, Mr. Young is the district’s youngest politician — a distinction that may have been foretold when he went to the State House as a youngster and served as a page. The experience brought him back to the Legislature as a spectator whenever he was in town. Now he is off and running for a two-year seat in the House, where he was bit by the political bug. Mr. Young brings the skills and the passion of
Sam Young of Albany, Democrat.
his generation into the race. He built the web pages for two candidates in statewide races — including Democratic candidate for governor Peter Shumlin — bringing them up to speed as he went along. “Do we need twitter?” they asked him. “Yes, you need twitter,” he told them. Mr. Young is hoping that youth will be an asset in this election. On the one hand he is hoping it will bring young people out to vote who see a Legislature made up of mainly retirees. On the other hand, it’s an opportunity for him to shine in an area that people twice his age don’t easily understand: Internet technology. If elected, Mr. Young would advocate to implement technology that would enable people to make a decent income while living in an area they love. It’s important for an area to have a workforce, he says, but something has to come along to supplement the diminishing role of traditional dairy farming and wood working industries. There have to be opportunities for small-scale farmers to produce something that will allow them to live comfortably off the land. But most of all, a rural area like the Kingdom needs broadband or a technological infrastructure. The Internet is making people location independent, he says. And Vermont, he adds, is a great place to live if you can tie into the Internet. Per capita, Vermont is second in the nation when it comes to owning second homes, he says. But last when it comes to technology. “Third world countries are doing better than us, and it’s not because we don’t have the resources,” he says.
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