Archive - Jan 2012
January 19th
More than a dozen of us gathered for dinner on a cold Saturday night. Cassoulet simmered on the stovetop, and a fire in the wood stove warmed the room.
Some of us there had been close friends for decades. Others barely knew one another. But we were all united by one thing: We had been in the same college class or had come with someone who was in that class.
VERGENNES — Vergennes Police Chief George Merkel estimated about 100 area residents attended a Jan. 11 meeting that was the follow-up to last month’s forum on drug trafficking and substance abuse in the Vergennes area.
Merkel said those who attended broke into groups to brainstorm what is hoped to be an effort to curb illegal drug use and sales in the area.
Last week, while Congress was in recess, Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., joined eight House colleagues on a trip to France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. This trip was not a junket, but a working visit with officials of the host governments and U.S. diplomats and military personnel stationed in those countries.
MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury police cited Kimber I. Mills, 23, of Middlebury for domestic assault, following an alleged fight at a Route 7 South residence on Jan. 15. Police said the victim alleged that Mills had stabbed him “multiple times” with a pair of scissors.
In other action last week, Middlebury police:
•Received, from an honest person, an endorsed check found in the Merchants Row area on Jan. 9. Police called the person who had lost the check.
•Went to the scene of a vehicle-deer crash on Route 30 on Jan. 9.
ADDISON COUNTY — A Brandon man on Monday night was rushed to the hospital with head injuries he sustained when the car he was driving was struck by a tractor-trailer on Route 7 in Leicester.
It’s difficult not to notice that there is a growing crescendo here at home which appears to be encouraging the United States to attack Iran.
Backers of this campaign, at least until recently, have been limited to the Neoconservatives who would like us to invade everywhere and who got us into the Iraq invasion, parts of the Israeli government, and those American supporters of Israel who never question anything the Israelis do.
It’s practically an indisputable fact of modern life that information is king. And thanks largely to the free flow of the U.S. Internet, we have access to it in unprecedented abundance.
The speed by which citizens of any socioeconomic class are able to access information, the quality of information they’re able to access and the ability to sort through vast layers of up-to-the second news is at an all-time high for Americans.
BRISTOL — The Mount Abraham Union Middle and High School board on Tuesday approved a proposed budget that would level-fund education spending for next fiscal year.
Under the proposal, overall expenses would increase 0.7 percent to $13,542,142, but education spending — the part of the budget that directly affects tax rates — would remain the same as this year at $11,309,068. Additionally, the per pupil spending rate would increase 4.1 percent next year to $13,552.
How might this proposed budget affect property tax rates?
