Archive - Dec 19, 2011
VERGENNES — Last March, the Vergennes Union High School board’s level-funded budget of a little less than $8.9 million earned solid support in the five communities the school serves. Now the board is eyeing a third budget draft for the 2012-2013 academic year that could raise spending by 2.47 percent to a little more than $9 million.
ADDISON COUNTY — Despite the ever more chaotic rush for all things new and discounted during the holiday season, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in years: the Thanksgiving turkey dinner.
Tradition held true this year, according to Addison County’s largest turkey producers, Misty Knoll Farm in New Haven and Stonewood Farm in Orwell. They say a sluggish economy hasn’t stifled the demand for Vermont-produced turkeys.
RIPTON — It’s the year of the protester, according to “Time” magazine, and Ripton’s Bill McKibben fits the bill. So well, in fact, that he made it onto the “People Who Mattered” list in the magazine’s annual year-in-review issue.
SALISBURY — Gerry Gossens has collected his share of hardware and accolades for his service in the state Legislature and on the leadership boards of more than a dozen local and statewide nonprofits.
Now Gossens’ volunteer contributions have been recognized throughout New England. The Salisbury resident this month received the New England Healthcare Assembly’s (NEHA) “Trustee Leadership Award,” conferred annually on a hospital trustee in the Northeast who has made exceptional contributions to the health care industry.
BRISTOL — The current Bristol Town Plan, first adopted in December 2001 and readopted in January 2007, will expire on Jan. 15, 2012, almost two years after a proposed rewrite was turned down by voters in 2010.
The fact that Bristol, a town where land development has been the subject of some controversy in recent years, will be without a town plan in effect has some legal and practical ramifications.
BRISTOL — As the Bristol Planning Commission has ground away at a proposed new town plan — a document considerably larger than the current 12-page version — critics have repeatedly asked the question, “Why not readopt the present plan?”
Regional planners and town officials say the current town plan, first adopted in December 2001 and extended in January 2007, doesn’t conform to some state statutes. It also conflicts with other town plans.
MIDDLEBURY — Vermont’s forgotten dams are mostly small structures tucked away on streams and brooks, once used in small-scale milling operations. Most have been dormant for a century.
Students in the Middlebury College Environmental Studies Senior Seminar analyzed these dams and in a recent presentation led by Catherine Ashcraft and Diane Munroe proposed guidelines for removing or developing the existing infrastructure.
MIDDLEBURY — Basketball teams don’t win too many games in which they fail to score a basket in two of four quarters.
But they can if, like the Middlebury Union High School girls’ basketball team did on Friday night against visiting Burr & Burton, they also play tough defense and hit enough free throws.
Despite sinking only free throws in the second and fourth quarters and at one point failing to score a basket for more than 13 minutes, MUHS outlasted the Bulldogs, 41-37.
