Archive - Aug 2007
August 30th
LEICESTER CENTRAL SCHOOL student Jacob Miner swings across the monkey bars on the school playground during recess on the first day of school Tuesday. Students in the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union started back to school Tuesday, while other Addison County students started on Wednesday.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell
August 30, 2007
By JOHN FLOWERS
EAST MIDDLEBURY — J.P. Carrara & Sons officials have offered to scale back their proposed use of an expanded gravel pit they hope to operate off School House Hill Road, in an effort to address neighborhood concerns about truck traffic, noise and dust their project would generate in East Middlebury.
Neighbors remain concerned about Carrara’s plans, however, and on Monday presented Middlebury’s Development Review Board (DRB) with a petition urging, among other things, that the town call for an “independent, expert evaluation of all impacts to (the East Middlebury) community, related to health, safety, traffic, property values, the environment, aesthetics and quality of life that would result from the proposed expansion of the Carrara gravel pit.”
It was earlier this summer that Carrara proposed to extend its 23.4-acre gravel pit by 15.3 acres to the east. The company also wants to excavate sand and gravel on another 5 acres to the west of School House Hill Road.
August 30, 2007
By JOHN FLOWERS
MONTPELIER — The parents of two children killed in a July 4, 2002, boating accident on Lake Champlain said they are disappointed with the Vermont Supreme Court’s decision last Friday to release the man who was convicted of two counts of boating while intoxicated in connection with the fateful mishap.
The state’s highest court on Aug. 21 ordered that George Dean Martin, formerly of Middlebury, be released at the end of year three of what had been a six-year jail sentence handed down by Addison County District Court Judge Helen Toor in August of 2004.
The court ordered the release pending their ruling on an appeal in the case.
Martin’s attorneys had appealed the sentence, arguing among other things that Martin should have only been sentenced for the single offense of boating while intoxicated — not the two separate counts (each carrying three years) for each child killed during the accident.
August 30, 2007
By MEGAN JAMES
MIDDLEBURY — No one knows exactly what Patrick Dougherty will build on the front lawn of Middlebury College’s Center for the Arts (CFA) next month. Perhaps not even the artist himself.
In residencies at other institutions over the past 20 years, Dougherty has created massive towers of intertwined sticks, cocoon-like structures wrapped around trees and nests spiraling out to cover entire faces of buildings. But since he never works from drawings or plans, the sculptor’s final product remains a mystery until it begins to take shape.
The Middlebury community can be sure of at least two things: the internationally known sculptor will work with silver maple saplings harvested in Weybridge, stripping them of their leaves and weaving them together, and he will enlist the help of community volunteers to get the job done.
August 27th
CASSANDRA CORCORAN AND her son, Liam, peek through corn growing in their Monkton garden. The family has been eating locally for years and will participate in September’s Eat Local Challenge sponsored by the Addison County Relocalization Network.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell
August 27, 2007
By MEGAN JAMES
ADDISON COUNTY — Cassandra Corcoran has eaten and advocated for organically certified food for many years. But if she had to choose between a nonorganic tomato from down the road and an organic one flown in from Italy, she would always take the local, she said.
The Monkton resident considers herself a localvore, someone who tries to fill her diet primarily with foods grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of her home. Corcoran does it to reduce her carbon footprint, she said, though even she makes exceptions.
“We go farther afield for bananas and avocados,” she said.
Next month, she and her family will try to cut out those imported indulgences and live only on local foods.
August 27, 2007
By ANDY KIRKALDY
FERRISBURGH — Ferrisburgh selectmen last week voted unanimously to ask the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) to hold hearings on the Vermont Electric Power Co.’s proposal to use a 24-acre Route 7 parcel near Ferrisburgh town offices for a staging area for its power line project. That site could be in use as soon as next month if the PSB approves the plan.
Selectmen went on record in the spring as opposing VELCO’s use of the site, which is just south of the burned-down Ferrisburgh Roadhouse and across Route 7 from the Little Otter General Store. They said they were concerned about traffic safety, noise, appearance and possible contamination by PCBs, toxic chemicals used in the manufacture of some transformers and capacitors.
Town zoning officials do not have jurisdiction over the VELCO proposal, however. The PSB oversees all public utilities, including the VELCO power line that will run through Ferrisburgh and other county towns, and has the final say over the worksite and other project details.
August 27, 2007
By MEGAN JAMES
WHITING — Since the Agency of Natural Resources last May determined the Whiting Village School’s septic system has failed, the school board is proposing a new mound system to be built on the southern end of the Quesnels’ Holsteins Farm, 4,000 feet from the school.
If district voters approve, the board plans to lease the Quesnels’ village lot for $1,000 a year on a perpetual basis and issue a $100,000 bond for the construction of the system, which would begin this fall.
The board will hold a public meeting at the school on Monday, Sept. 10, at 7 p.m., and district voters will be asked to decide on the $100,000 project by Australian ballot at the Town Hall the following day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The school district may be eligible for a 30 percent reimbursement from the state if the current sewer system is deemed an imminent health and safety problem.
August 24th
John Edwards
Hanover, New Hampshire (Remarks as Prepared for Delivery: August 23, 2007)
This election is unlike any we have faced before. The stakes are
higher. And the challenges we face as a nation are greater than at any
time in memory.
We as a nation must choose whether to do what America has always
done in times like these -- change direction and move boldly into the
future for the sake of our children, if not for ourselves, or wander in
the same stale direction we have traveled in our recent past.
The choice we must make is as important as it is clear.
It is a choice between looking back and looking forward.
A choice between the way we've always done it and the way we could do it if we dared.
A choice between corporate power and the power of democracy.
Between a corrupt and corroded system and a government that works for us again.
