Category: Addison County
ADDISON COUNTY — At sugarbushes around the county, many veteran sugarmakers have kicked into high gear for the season.
And, although cold temperatures in the mountains meant sugaring operations in Starksboro, Lincoln and Bristol were still on hold early last week, the sap was running in the valley at Andy Hutchison’s Mt. Pleasant Sugarworks in Leicester.
Hutchison has 3,000 trees tapped this year. Like many other area sugarmakers, he’s testing the new plastic “check valves” that could potentially boost production at his sugarbush.
ADDISON COUNTY — Addison County voters on Town Meeting Day followed a statewide trend in endorsing the vast majority of their 2010-2011 local school budgets, with Bridport standing out as the lone education spending plan to fall at the polls.
ADDISON COUNTY — Finally!
That’s what many in the area said when they woke up Wednesday morning to the first real snow storm in Addison County in more than a month.
Those looking for a scapegoat when it comes to the relative lack of snow this February can just blame the jet stream, a fast flowing, narrow air current that moves from west to east, and influences much of North America’s weather patterns.
ADDISON COUNTY — Town Meeting Day will bring contested selectboard races in New Haven, Starksboro and Lincoln this year, while most of the other races in the five-town area feature single candidates.
NEW HAVEN
New Haven is fielding one contested race for the selectboard this year: Incumbent Kathleen Ready is running against challenger Michael Dunbar for a two-year position on the board.
ADDISON COUNTY — The number of low-income students in Vermont’s schools is on the rise, and teachers and administrators reacting to these shifting demographics are struggling to close the achievement gap between low-income students and their higher-income peers.
Schools in the Addison County area, like those around the state, are trying different strategies to approach the problem.
ADDISON COUNTY — Budget woes could spell major changes for the state’s Use Value Appraisal Program, better known as “Current Use,” which is credited with preserving millions of acres of Vermont forestland and farmland from development.
Right now, the 32-year-old program is facing a one-year moratorium on new enrollments, higher penalties for landowners who withdraw land from Current Use to be developed, and a new property transfer tax that would be more in line with the rates applied to other property sales in the state.
ADDISON COUNTY — Ten years ago, fast Internet access was more luxury than necessity. Web sites were simpler, people purchased music on CDs instead of online, and YouTube didn’t exist. But times have changed.
Internet access is quickly becoming a necessity of modern life. In the more remote areas of Vermont, this has created problems for people like professional data analyst Ed Nelbach.
“I’m miles behind those with broadband access,” said Nelbach, a Hancock resident.
ADDISON COUNTY — After months of delays, local pharmacies and health care organizations are reporting that more supplies of the seasonal and H1N1 “swine” flu vaccines have finally trickled into the county.
Though public concern over the H1N1 flu seems to have died down in the wake of the October and November surge in illness, epidemiologists are predicting that another spike in illnesses could hit in a few months, and health care workers are encouraging patients to be immunized against both strains of the flu.
