Store manager shot, killed in Brattleboro Food Co-op

Transcription

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Second homicide in the county in two weeks
By Randolph T. Holhut
The Commons
BRATTLEBORO—A workplace dispute turned deadly at
the Brattleboro Food Co-op on
Tuesday morning.
Store manager Michael
Martin, 59, of Dummerston,
was shot and killed inside the
Co-op shortly after 8 a.m.
Martin had worked at the
Co-op for about five years.
Richard E. Gagnon, 59, of
Marlboro, was taken into custody by Brattleboro Police.
Gagnon had been the manager
of the store’s beer and wine department since 1992, according
to a blog (vinofile.typepad.com) that
he wrote for the Co-op in 2006
and 2007.
He was held without bail
on Tuesday at the Brattleboro
Police Department and was
scheduled to be arraigned on
Wednesday.
According to Brattleboro
Police Chief Eugene Wrinn,
personnel from the Brattleboro
police and fire departments and
Rescue Inc. responded to the
Co-op at 8:16 a.m. for a report
of an unresponsive male.
Inside the store, they found
Martin, who was dead from
an apparent gunshot wound.
Gagnon was taken into custody
a short time later.
Unconfirmed reports from
store employees said Gagnon
walked into the store shortly after it had opened for the day,
shot Martin in the head, and
then waited outside for police
to arrest him.
“Currently, the office of the
Chief Medical Examiner, the
Vermont State Crime Lab,
and representatives from the
Windham County State’s
Attorney office are providing
resources toward that investigation,” Wrinn said Tuesday
morning.
Windham County State’s
Attorney Tracy Shriver would
Randolph T. Holhut/The Commons
Workers at the Brattleboro Food Co-op comfort one another in the aftermath of a fatal shooting at the
store on Tuesday morning. Looking on is Alex Gyori, the Co-op’s general manager, and his wife, Dawn.
not give details on Tuesday
about the shooting or what may
have motivated it.
The Co-op and the adjacent
parking lot was closed immediately after police responded to
the shooting. Brattleboro Police
and Vermont State Police conducted their investigation as grief
counselors met with workers at
the Co-op, and off-site, throughout the day.
Construction work on the new
Co-op building continued during
Tuesday’s investigation.
Co-op General Manager Alex
Gyori declined to comment
about the incident. He was meeting with co-workers all morning
outside the store.
The store was also closed on
Wednesday and is expected to
reopen on Thursday.
According to the Co-op’s
Facebook page, a community
n see homicide, page A2
When your world shatters
Community counsellors offer
support after Co-op shooting
By Olga Peters
CRVBl
playoffs
to begin
on Friday
Vermont Independent Media
Store manager shot, killed
in Brattleboro Food Co-op
The Commons
BRATTLEBORO—Plastic
police tape stretches across the
mouth of the Brattleboro Food
Co-op’s parking lot.
Employees gather on the
Whetstone Bridge. Few speak.
Two friends embrace.
Bullets are metal and lead and
inanimate.
But the bullet that suspect
Richard Gagnon of Marlboro allegedly fired on Tuesday morning that killed Michael Martin
reverberated through a community largely accustomed to peace
and safety.
At approximately 8:15 a.m.,
Co-op employee Gagnon allegedly shot and killed Store
Manager Martin at the store.
Town and state police are investigating, and further details have
yet to be made public.
The killing falls on the heels
of the murder of Melissa Barratt
in Dummerston, north of
Brattleboro — two killings, only
weeks apart in a state that experienced on seven homicides in
2009, according to the Vermont
Criminal Information Center.
“What we do know is that our
community has experienced a
great loss. The life of one has
been cut short, and that of another is forever changed — as
are the lives of both families.
And we as a community are
also changed,” wrote Town
Manager Barbara Sondag in a
press release.
Shattering
assumptions
Sudden losses cause a “shattering of the assumptive world,”
said Elizabeth Evans Pittman,
bereavement care coordinator
with Brattleboro Area Hospice.
Communities build expectations and perceptions that help
members move through their
daily lives, she said. And when
the unexpected happens, like a
murder, it uncomfortably challenges people’s worldview.
The fact that the shooting
occurred in the Co-op, an institution focused on health, nourishment, and well-being, only
adds to the community’s shock,
said Pittman.
Humans’ natural response
to trauma can feel scary and
uncomfortable, said Dr. Jilisa
Snyder, clinical director of the
Retreat’s Anna Marsh Clinic.
Traumatic events strike at
many emotional and physical
levels with “varying dimensions,”
Snyder said. “And it just is.”
But humans also have a natural process for recovering from a
tragic event, she said.
“None [of this healing process] should be rushed,” said
Snyder.
The effects that Tuesday’s violent act will have on the community and Brattleboro Food Co-op
employees will have different dynamics, depending on the people’s respective relationships to
the location, the suspect, the
victim, and one another, and to
individuals’ psychological states,
said Snyder.
In places of employment,
“people are really co-existing together,” and the relationships between employees span the range
from indifferent to friendship to
Parade, barbecue
top a big weekend
of fun in Guilford
Highlight of town’s yearlong
250th anniversary celebration
The Commons
GUILFORD—Many
towns in Windham County
received their charters in
1753 and 1754 from Benning
Wentworth, the governor of
New Hampshire.
Guilford was among those
towns, getting its charter in
1754. But in 1961, the town
instead celebrated the bicentennial of the arrival of the first
European settler in the town,
Micah Rice, who set up his
homestead in 1761 with his
wife, Silence, and his infant
daughter, Sarah, on what is
now Weatherhead Hollow
Road.
“We haven’t been able
to find out definitively why
the town chose 1761 for the
200th anniversary,” said Don
McLean, one of the organizers of Guilford’s 250th anniversary celebration.
But the precedent set by the
town in 1961 had a two-fold
purpose, said McLean.
He said that many historians believe the settlement date
of a town is more valid than
the charter date, since many
charters issued by Wentworth
never were used.
The other benefit, he said,
was that Guilford is able to
celebrate its 250th anniversary without the crush of competing anniversary events in
neighboring towns.
It’s not just the date that
separates Guilford’s celebration from that of other towns.
McLean said that organizers
made a conscious effort to
make this a year-long event.
“We wanted to more than
just the traditional three-day
weekend celebration,” he said.
So, the town has had
monthly dances at the Broad
Brook Grange, a series of
walks through different historic villages in Guilford, sledding parties, road races, film
festivals, concerts and more
over the past seven months,
with more events planned
through the end of this year.
But for those expecting a
three-day weekend with a parade, barbecue and fireworks,
the Guilford 250 committee
has taken care of that, too.
The big day
This Saturday, Guilford will
put on its biggest parade ever,
followed by a re-creation of its
biggest barbecue ever, the legendary 1957 Franklin Farm
beef barbecue.
What event organizers are
calling “The Big Weekend,”
begins on Friday night at 6:30
p.m., with a contra dance with
Amy Cann and friends at
the Broad Brook Grange on
Guilford Center Road.
The Guilford Fairgrounds
will be the headquarters for
Saturday’s activities, and will
open at 11 a.m., with food
vendors will welcome early
n see birthday, page A4
n see coping with loss, page A2
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T h e C ommons
• Wednesday, August 10, 2011
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n Homicide
from SECTION FRONT
vigil is scheduled for Wednesday
at 6 p.m. on the Whetstone
Pathway.
In a statement on Tuesday
afternoon, Brattleboro Town
Manager Barbara Sondag said,
The
The
victim
suspect
“I don’t believe any of us will
ever fully understand what hapRichard
Store
pened and why. What we do
Gagnon,
Manager
know is that our community has
the Co‑op’s
Michael
experienced a great loss.
beer
Martin, in a
“The life of one has been cut
and wine
photograph
short, and that of another is formanager,
from the
ever changed — as are the lives
in a 2009
Co-op’s
of both families,” Sondag said. “
advertising
2009 Annual
And we as a community are also
photograph.
Report.
changed. How we respond will
define us. Let us come together
and grieve these losses. Let us
find hope and peace, and let us
take care of each other and those
most closely impacted.”
Gov. Peter Shumlin, a frequent visitor to the Co-op during his years living in Windham
County, also commented on
Tuesday’s shooting.
“If there is any place in
Vermont that represents the best
qualities of our state — a place
where the community comes together to buy local, laugh, make
friends, and celebrate what we
cherish about our lives — it is
the Brattleboro Food Co-op,”
he said.
“My heart goes out to the
family of the victim, the Co-op
employees, and the Brattleboro
community as they deal with
today’s violence and loss,”
Shumlin said.
This was the third homicide
in Vermont in the past three
weeks, and the second homicide
in Windham County in nearly
two weeks.
On July 29, Melissa Barratt,
31, of Bellows Falls was slain in
Dummerston. Frank Carabello,
29, of Holyoke, Mass., has been
charged with the crime.
News of Tuesday’s shootRandolph T. Holhut/The Commons
ing stunned townspeople, who A sign near the entrance to the Brattleboro Food Co-op on Tuesday morning. The store was closed after
searched for answers to an un- a fatal shooting on Tuesday.
fathomable crime. Stunned residents spread updates through
social media like Facebook,
Twitter, and iBrattleboro.
A number of people described
Gagnon as stable and easygoing, including one former restauranteur who declined to be
identified.
“Anyone who knows him
would be surprised,” said the former restaurant owner, explaining
that she worked closely with the
suspect on wine tastings.
“I am shocked and saddened
to hear of the murder at the
Brattleboro Food Co-op, by
a man I considered a friend,”
beer writer Tom Bedell of
Dummerston wrote on Facebook
and Twitter.
Amid dozens of tweets from
shoppers, members, vendors,
and other businesses, especially other cooperatives, one,
from Tony Campos, of Barre,
stood out.
Campos wrote that he and his
wife, Cindy, had “just heard the
sad news that my best man in
our wedding, Mike Martin’s life
was tragically taken,” he wrote.
The news came on the couple’s 25th wedding anniversary.
Vermont State Police Lt. Kraig LaPorte, commander Brattleboro Police Chief Eugene Wrinn briefs
Commons Editor Jeff Potter con- of the Brattleboro barracks, speaks to reporters on reporters Tuesday morning after a fatal shooting at
Tuesday.
tributed to this report.
the Brattleboro Food Co-op.
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n Coping with loss
family-like, she said.
According to 2009 data from
the U.S. Department of Labor’s
Bureau of Labor Statistics, of
4,551 recorded fatal workplace
injuries, 462 of them resulted
from homicide.
Looking for
a reason
When confronted with grief
and tragedy, said Pittman, most
people launch into attempting to
make sense of the violent event.
“But there aren’t easy answers,”
she said.
Pittman also warned that although more facts about the
shooting will emerge in the future, “facts may not fully explain
behavior.”
“Also, there’s randomness in
the world,” she added.
As natural as attempting to
make sense is, said Snyder, the
community will have to remain
vigilant against creating inaccurate assumptions or connections.
“As difficult as it is, we have to
sit with a level of not knowing,”
Snyder said.
From shock to
reconciliation
Snyder said people should prepare themselves to experience
strong emotions that will take
their own time along the path to
resolution.
“There’s so many different
layers,” said Snyder, and these
layers won’t resolve in “the short
term.”
Initially, shock will hit people’s
systems, manifesting for some as
numbness or disbelief.
A “heightened stress response” often walks hand-inhand with shock. People’s “flight
or fight” response may kick into
gear, accompanied by symptoms
like increased heart rate.
Once the shock passes people’s bodies, psyches begin absorbing the event’s impact, said
Snyder.
During this time, waves of
emotions like anger, fear, confusion, sorrow, grief, guilt, or
depression crash over those who
survive such trauma.
It’s like an earthquake, she
said: The intensity and duration of the shockwaves depend
on how close a person is to the
epicenter.
And the process of fully incorporating the event to arrive
at a place of acceptance or peace
will not form a straight road, said
Snyder. Emotions will come, go,
and be unpredictable, she said.
“Really take care of yourself,”
she said. “Your mind and body
are trying to regain their equilibrium in the middle of a trying
situation.”
Just as with any injury, Snyder
said, people should nourish
themselves with food, water and
emotional support.
Snyder stressed that if people feel they need help processing any emotions, they should
from SECTION FRONT
reach out rather than hold feelings in. They should reach out to
friends, counselors, or spiritual
leaders, or they should access an
Employee Assistance Program
(EAP) through their places of
work can provide assistance.
to heal” and return to equilibrium, she said. After a car accident, eventually the driver, in
most cases, will get back behind
the wheel.
A sense of safety
Pittman said to help one another through what for many will
be a trying time, neighbors will
need to balance extending a supportive hand and backing away
to allow privacy.
She said people in all relationships negotiate this balance.
A community vigil is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Wednesday
at the Whetstone Pathway, next
to the Co-op building where the
shooting occurred.
Pittman encouraged community members to attend the vigil
because it can help provide an
outlet for emotions and dissolve
the isolating feelings associated
with shock and grief.
When a body is physically
wounded, the immune system
begins the healing process by
sending white blood cells to the
injury, said Pittman.
And in the same way, people
are also drawn to a “place of
wounding,” an action that ultimately plays a part in the emotional healing process, she said.
“This is a very important
first step for our community,”
she said.
Tragic events like the Co-op
shooting can spark strong
feelings of helplessness, said
Pittman.
People will sometimes respond to such feelings with anger
or guilt, she said. These response
emotions act as a salve over the
helplessness by giving individuals a sense that they could have
controlled an uncontrollable
situation.
“In a small town, for caring
people, everyone is our own,”
Pittman said.
Feeling safe “is primary” for
people’s well-being, said Snyder.
Despite one’s possessing the
rational knowledge that tragedy
exists, said Snyder, a person’s
health and well-being provide
a natural resistance from a constant fear of risks.
She pointed out, for example,
that drivers don’t shake with
fear every time they get behind
the wheel despite knowing they
could end up crashing the car.
Violent or unpredictable
events, however, cause the inner sense of safety to naturally
“become quite porous.”
“It’s also natural to be able
An opportunity to
come together
T h e C ommons
NEWS
• Wednesday, August 10, 2011 A3
TRAGEDY IN DOWNTOWN BRATTLEBORO
What about the children?
By Olga Peters
The Commons
BRATTLEBORO—The
Brattleboro Food Co-op serves
many area families.
Dr. Jilisa Snyder, clinical director of the Brattleboro
Retreat’s Anna Marsh Clinic, offers words of guidance to parents
and guardians looking to support
their children in the aftermath of
Tuesday’s violence.
The two “classic guidelines”
for adults encompass creating a
space for children to ask questions, and for the grown-ups to
provide only the information
asked for, said Snyder.
Like adults, children will respond to violent events in their
own way and on their own timeline, she said.
But explaining a violent act to
a four-year-old is different than
talking with a 17-year-old, she
said, and adults should do their
best to match the information
they give children with where the
child is developmentally.
Let children know they can
ask a question as many times as
they need to “absorb the information,” said Snyder.
Always provide honest answers to children, but do not feel
the need to provide more information than the child can absorb
age-wise or than the child asks
for, she added.
One important role for adults
at this time, she said, is helping
children feel safe. Helping children understand that officials like
the police are investigating the
crime and that other adults are
supporting the victims can ease
any anxieties.
It’s also important for children’s sense of safety to know
that their parents and grownups in their lives are taking care
of themselves and staying safe,
Snyder said.
According to Snyder, if asked,
caregivers can share their own
feelings with children but, here
again, honesty and providing a
framework of security are key.
Telling the child it’s natural to
feel scared, but that adults know
how to help each other, can be
away to approach this question,
said Snyder.
Caregivers should also tell
children to ask them questions
about anything they hear on the
community level.
Emotionally children may
also feel “porous” after a violent
event and so Snyder encourages
parents to “monitor images that
may not typically be frightening”
to children. Previously beloved
movies of books may suddenly
become too scary after a traumatic event.
COUNT Y & REGION
VTel to expand wireless 4G service
to Windham County by November 2012
The Commons
MON T PEL I E R — T h e
Vermont Telecommunications
Authority (VTA) and VTel
Wireless have reached an agreement to provide broadband accessibility within the towns of
Newfane, Westminster, Stratton,
and Wardsboro by November
2012.
Equipment installed to service
those four communities will also
provide expanded broadband
coverage to areas within the
towns of Putney, Townshend,
and Dummerston by November,
according to the VTA.
More than 1,600 addresses
will have access to fourth-generation (4G) wireless broadband
service, according to the VTA. It
will provide broadband service
that supports the delivery of services with an upload speed of at
least one megabit per second and
combined download and upload
speeds equal to or greater than
five megabits per second.
In March, 2011 the Vermont
Telecommunications Authority
(VTA) announced its intent
to award the $2,065,000 grant
to VTel Wireless to provide
broadband in unserved areas in
southern Vermont through its
Backroads Broadband Program.
This week’s announcement
signals the finalization of the
agreement between the state authority and the Springfield-based
company. The grant funding was
made available through a state
appropriation in the Vermont
Recovery and Reinvestment Act
of 2010.
“This project will address gaps
in broadband service in southeast
Vermont that would be very difficult to reach without state assistance.” said VTA Executive
Director Christopher Campbell.
“The communities included
within the project will benefit
from a leading-edge fourthgeneration wireless broadband
network.”
Availability of the VTel service in the selected target communities also will support the
marriage between broadband
infrastructure and SmartGrid
by expanding infrastructure
Vermont electric utilities will be
able to use when communicating
with smart meters.
Recently, Green Mountain
Power and Central Vermont
Public Service finalized an agreement with VTel to use its network to transmit data between
homes and businesses and the
electric utility companies.
The SmartGrid project calls
for the installation of 250,000
high-tech meters in Vermont
households that will automatically collect detailed information
about household or business usage habits. Consumers can use
this data to better control their
energy usage.
VTel will receive an additional
$6.2 million from the two electric
utilities to build 4G wireless towers in remote parts of the state
which don’t currently receive
Internet access; the utilities will
get complete coverage in the difficult-to-serve “middle mile,” or
most rural pockets, of the state.
In August 2010, VTel Wireless
was awarded a federal stimulus
grant and loans through the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s
Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to
build a wireless broadband network that will provide 4G wireless broadband service to wide
areas of Vermont.
While the RUS project will
greatly increase the number of
rural Vermont homes which will
be able to get broadband service,
the network will not cover all unserved locations. The VTA grant
to VTel Wireless will be used to
fund equipment to extend the
new broadband service into adjacent unserved areas.
The VTA-funded facilities will
also increase available broadband speeds available around the
newly funded facilities.
VTel’s $135 million project to
expand broadband to under- and
unserved rural areas of Vermont
is slated for completion in 2013.
Michel Guite, CEO of VTel, said
the Vermont project will be using cutting-edge technology that
is unique in the United States
and is of an international caliber.
Guite wouldn’t say how many
new households his company has
extended service to so far; the
project he said is still in the permitting phase.
“We’re ahead of schedule,”
he said.
Construction will begin in
the next several months. VTel
is seeking permits for about 100
towers right now, he said.
Campbell said in June that the
Shumlin administration’s goal of
providing universal broadband
service is on schedule, thanks
to about $150 million in federal funding that has been made
available to expand access in underserved areas.
Along with VTel’s federally
funded project, SoverNet is using
a combination of federal, state,
and private money to expand
broadband coverage. FairPoint,
Cloud Alliance, and Waitsfield
Telecom all have broadband
expansion projects in progress,
says Campbell.
Approximately 40 percent of
Vermont residences do not have
broadband Internet, according
to a Federal Communications
Taylor Dobbs/VTDigger.org
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NEWS
A4
T h e C ommons
BR AT TLEBORO
GUILFORD
More tweaks planned for
Main Street traffic lights
By Olga Peters
The Commons
guilford250.org
Signs mark the special events of the town’s sestercentennial celebration.
n Anniversary
arrivals. At 11:30 a.m., there
will be youth baseball on adjacent Whittemore Field, and
from noon to 1 p.m., a horse
drill team from Bernardston,
Mass., will be the main
attraction.
The anniversary parade
begins at 2 p.m., starting
from Evans Field, the original site of the Guilford Fair.
One may watch the parade
anywhere from the corner
of Guilford Center Road
to the Fairgrounds, along
Weatherhead Hollow Road,
or may stay at the Fairgrounds
and watch the parade enter,
announced by Tim Johnson
of WTSA.
McLean said that the parade
will have more than 50 units,
and that the organizers tried to
make it more than just “bands
and dignitaries.”
There will be many floats,
representing history, neighborhoods, and town organizations.
A number of family farms will
be represented, including one
dating back to the founding
years, along with such important places as the Mineral
Springs Farm and the town’s
slate quarries.
At the heart of the parade,
said McLean, will be units celebrating the importance of farming and rural life over the past
250 years in Guilford. Various
farm animals, horses with wagons and buggies, riding horses,
and a calf will be featured,
along with farm tractors, including antiques, and trucks
used in agriculture, construction, tree work and all sorts of
commercial work.
As for the bands and dignitaries, the grand marshall is
former state Sen. Stuart Hunt.
Five music groups, including marching bands, fifes and
drums, and pipes and drums,
will be featured, along with a
from section front
half-dozen area fire departments, law enforcement agencies, Smokey the Bear, and a
church choir and band.
After the parade arrives at
the Fairgrounds, each band
will perform several pieces,
and other performances will
take place.
There will also be an informal exhibit of residents’ photos and Guilford memorabilia
in Fitch Hall. Residents wishing to contribute to the exhibit
should drop off their items on
Friday from 2-6 p.m.
For the kids, there will be
games, with prizes, from 4-8
p.m. There will also be free surprises for kids both at the gate
and later on. Inflatables with
obstacle courses for both kids
and adults will be available, and
there will be clowns, face painting, and other activities.
At 5 p.m., members of the
Franklin family will be serving
up barbecue with historically
accurate side dishes prepared
and served by community volunteers to commemorate the
Aug. 11, 1957 barbecue that
attracted worldwide attention.
A 2,140-pound steer named
Samson was the main course
for more than 1,400 people, as
the Franklin family celebrated
the return of their two sons
from military service with what
remains the biggest event ever
held in Guilford.
The Franklins’ plan on serving only 300 people this year,
and if there are any extra unsold tickets, they will be available at the the gate for $15
each. If you can’t get a ticket
for the barbecue, McLean said
plenty of food vendors will be
on hand at the Fairgrounds.
The day ends with a fireworks display at 9 p.m.
Sunday will be a more sedate
day, with all five of Guilford’s
churches open to the public.
The day begins and ends with
special services for the 250th at
two of the churches: 10 a.m. at
Guilford Community Church,
followed by a potluck luncheon
there, and a Choral Evensong
at 5 p.m. at Christ Church.
From 1:15 to 4:30 p.m.,
those two churches, as well
as churches in West Guilford,
Green River, and Guilford
Center, will be open to the
public.
Planning ahead
McLean said that the 250th
anniversary committee started
its planning in 2007.
“We had lots of time to refine the schedule and come up
with ideas,” he said. “There are
so many people with so many
talents in Guilford, we kept
coming up with more and more
things that we could celebrate.”
The goal throughout the
year, McLean said, was to
make the events accessible to
everyone, and to make them
enjoyable.
“I love seeing how we are
able to blend content with fun,”
he said. “The neighborhood
walks we did are a good example of that. People were able to
explore places they never knew
existed.”
Still to come is a chamber music concert with local musicians at the Guilford
Center Meetinghouse on
Aug. 20, a potluck dinner
feature all Guilford-grown
food on Sept. 18, an art show
featuring Guilford artists in
October, a production of poet
Verandah Porche’s Broad
Brook Anthology on Nov.
26, and a Guilford Christmas
Ceremony on Dec. 9 and 10.
More information on the remaining events for Guilford’s
250th anniversary can be found
on its website (www.guilford250.
com).
B R A T T LE B O R O —
Contractors will evaluate
Brattleboro’s traffic signals in an
attempt to reduce traffic snarls
and improve road users’ feelings
about traveling downtown.
The team is expected to arrive
on Aug. 10 and stay for three
days, said Public Works Director
Steve Barrett.
At last week’s Selectboard
meeting, board members and
the public aired feelings of annoyances with the traffic light
signaling project.
Selectboard members uttered
a weary and unrehearsed “yay”
when Town Manager Barbara
Sondag announced that the
board would discuss the downtown’s traffic issues.
The state replaced the town’s
traffic signals last winter as part
of a Route 5 repaving project.
The project met with controversy
in its earliest planing stages 12
years ago. Before the state started
work last summer, residents took
issue with the mast arm traffic
signal design, concerned that
the arms would ruin the town’s
historical character.
Frustrations around the timing
of the signals’ traffic and pedestrian flow have since swamped
the earlier aesthetic concerns.
Selectboard Chair Dick
DeGray said he felt the main
“culprit” was the left-turn slip
lane on lower Main Street leading to Route 142 and Hinsdale,
N.H.
Many of the comments gathered through the town’s website also cited issues with the
five-way intersection known as
“Malfunction Junction.”
Mara Williams Oakes, chief
curator for the Brattleboro
Museum and Arts Center, said
that she has never seen worse
traffic in her 22 years of working downtown. She suggested
that the town relinquish its attachment to the idea of stopping
all the traffic at an intersection
when a pedestrian wants to cross.
Barrett said engineers from
Moulison North Corp. of Maine,
the firm that installed the lights’
control system, know it better
than anyone. The state has also
agreed to add on to its contract
with the town to cover the contractors’ three days.
Representatives from
Moulison told Barrett that new
traffic signals often require
“tweaking.”
“It’s important, because seconds make a difference [in traffic
flow],” said Barrett.
Barrett said the engineers intend to observe traffic flow and
adjust the signal times. All the
traffic lights will be working, including the light at Flat Street,
which engineers had set to flashing yellow.
He also reminded the
Selectboard that the state is
committed to making the traffic signals situation work, and
that engineers with the Vermont
Agency of Transportation had
“warned against” the “exclusive
pedestrian mode,” which stops
all the traffic at the intersection.
“And that’s all okay, but it
took away efficiencies of what
could have been,” said Barrett.
In the future, the town can
contract with Moulison to make
further changes to the traffic
signals once the state hands the
project over to the town. The
engineers cost about $125 per
hour, he said. Barrett added he
has about $500 in his budget.
“Even if it’s not a perfect system, it is a system,” said Barrett.
“At some point, we have to talk
about acceptance.”
Town approves vehicle bids
By Olga Peters
The Commons
BRATTLEBORO—The
Department of Public Works
and the Fire Department have
new vehicles coming their way,
thanks to Brattleboro’s fiscal year
2012 capital improvement plan.
The Selectboard approved
bids for one Fire Department and
five Public Works Department
vehicles.
Fire Chief Michael Bucossi
said five dealerships responded
to the department’s requests
for bids on a new pickup truck.
The bid amounts ranged from
$29,950.25 to $38,575.00, said
Bucossi.
The Selectboard approved
Bucossi’s suggested offer
made by Ford of Brattleboro
for $29,950.25. The Fire
Department had budgeted
$30,000 for the new truck.
According to Public Works
Director Steve Barrett, his department had budgeted through
the capital improvement plan to
replace six vehicles and equipment, totaling $338,503.45.
Upon Barrett’s suggestions,
the Selectboard approved a halfton truck at $22,917.45, a 4x4
compact sport utility vehicle for
$15,090, a sewer jetting machine
for $61,242, dump truck including sander equipment package
for$133,884, and a sidewalk
tractor for clearing snow for
$103,630.
All the bids came in considerably under budget, said Barrett.
During his tenure, former Finance Director John
Leisenring had worked with
town officials and department
heads to develop a capital improvement plan budgeting for
new fleet vehicles at planned
intervals.
TOWNSHEND
Celebrating two milestones
Dover native
returns to
Townshend
for Hospital
Fair, and his
wedding
By Thelma O’Brien
The Commons
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TOWNSHEND—One of the
highlights of the annual Grace
Cottage Hospital Fair is the
Birthday Parade, where those
who were born at the hospital
march to the Common.
This year, one of the marchers returned to the Townshend
Common after a long absence.
James A. Adams was born
June 30, 1950 at Grace Cottage
Hospital. He was the 69th baby
delivered by Dr. Carlos Otis,
the late founder of the 62-yearold hospital.
Adams said he found out how
many babies Otis had delivered
before him at Grace Cottage by
searching birth certificate records
at Town Hall.
The Dover native said that
Saturday’s 61st Fair Day was his
first visit since he was a teenager.
His family moved to Florida in
1974.
“A lot has changed here,” he
said. “Mostly, everything is much
bigger.”
Adams, a cabinet maker, said
he came up for several reasons
— to visit friends and relatives,
to go to the fair, and to get married to his partner of 16 years,
Curt Camp.
They tied the knot on Tuesday
in the gazebo on the Common.
A cabinet maker, Adam now
lives in Rockledge, near the
Kennedy Space Center, where
he said he watched many space
shuttle launches.
“We just go maybe 15 minutes from my house, right on the
banks of the river,” he said. “At
takeoff, we see the water shudder
and the fish jumping around.”
Thelma O’Brien/The Commons
James A. Adams, who in 1950 was the 69th baby
delivered by Dr. Carlos Otis, the late founder of
Grace Cottage Hospital, came up from Florida on
Saturday to attend the 61st annual Fair Day.
T h e C ommons
NEWS
Bike recovered, but fundraisers
seek an upgrade for paracyclist
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The Vermont Department of Public Health has measured strontium-90, a
radioactive isotope, in smallmouth bass samples taken from the Connecticut
River in 2010. Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee has categorically denied that
the radioactivity originated from the plant.
Something fishy?
Radioactive contamination found
in fish in Connecticut River raises
questions about its source
By Olga Peters
strontium-90 as well as cobalt-60, and cesium-137 in soils
surrounding the January 2010
tritium leak. Smith added that
BRATTLEBORO—Routine
strontium-90, unlike tritium,
tests of fish caught in the
does not move easily through
Connecticut River near the
the soil.
Vermont Yankee nuclear power
In an interview with Dave
station in Vernon have revealed
Gram of The Associated Press,
traces of strontium-90, accordPaul Gunter, director of reacing to the Vermont Department
tor oversight for the Marylandof Health.
based anti-nuclear group Beyond
The department said the reNuclear, said that Entergy itself
sults require further investigation
reported strontium-90 releases
because although “the scientific
“in each of the first four years” it
literature includes evidence that
owned Vermont Yankee.
edible portions of fish can retain
Gunter also accused Entergy
strontium-90, this finding in the
of “hiding behind” the theory
Connecticut River requires more Responding
that the strontium-90 in the fish
sample data so we can better un- to the news
Gov. Peter Shumlin was first originated in 1950s and 1960s
derstand what it means.”
Entergy, the plant’s owner, is- out of the gate last week issuing bomb testing fallout.
sued a statement last week say- a statement to the press before
ing officials had “absolutely no the Department of Health had At the source?
The health department agrees
evidence” that the radioactive released its report.
“Today’s troubling news from that recent fish samples do not
isotope came from the nuclear
plant, which has been plagued by the Vermont Department of conclusively reveal the strontritium leaks over the past year. Health is another example of tium-90’s source.
“The human-made radionuWhile scientists agree that Entergy Louisiana putting their
the origin of the radiation shareholders’ profits above the clides [like Sr-90 or cobalt-60]
cannot be pinpointed, David welfare of Vermonters,” he said. come from the fairly constant
“This is further evidence of release of very low quantities
Lochbaum, director of the
Union of Concerned Scientists’ the need for extraction wells that from medical and industrial
Nuclear Safety Project, called I repeatedly called on Entergy users of radioactive materials,
the absolute denial “galling,” Louisiana to set up and keep and from infrequent releases
in light of Entergy’s own re- running last fall. I am asking my such as above-ground nuclear
ported emissions of the radionu- Health Department to keep a weapons testing in the 1950s,
clide to the Nuclear Regulatory close eye on test results moving and the nuclear reactor acciforward to determine the extent dents at Chernobyl in 1986 and
Commission.
According to its website, the of any contamination that has Fukushima in 2011,” said the
Health Department Laboratory reached the environment,” said health department.
And Lochbaum, of the Union
routinely tests samples of fish Gov. Shumlin.
Entergy retorted through of Concerned Scientists’ Nuclear
and other environmental samples
like air, water, milk, soil, and veg- spokesperson Larry Smith, who Safety Project, agreed that the
etation for “most radionuclides” said in a written statement that Sr-90 may not originate with the
as part of the department’s en- the company was “aware that nuclear plant.
“It’s nearly impossible to difvironmental surveillance sur- the Vermont Department of
Health may have detected stron- ferentiate between strontium rerounding Vermont Yankee.
The department also sends tium-90 in some fish from the leased from atomic bomb testing
and that released from Vermont
samples to a commercial labo- Connecticut River.”
“There is absolutely no evi- Yankee and other nuclear power
ratory, which tests for “hard to
detect” radionuclides such as dence to suggest that Vermont plants,” said Lochbaum.
Lochbaum added that one
strontium-90 (Sr-90), iron-55, Yankee is the source for the
strontium-90,” said Smith. “We way to distinguish “old” and
and nickel-63.
According to the department’s have 31 monitoring wells on “new” releases is to study “other
website, the Wadsworth Center site that are tested regularly. No radioactive byproducts that have
Laboratory, operated by the groundwater sample from any different half-lives.”
Strontium-90 has a half-life of
New York State Department of well at Vermont Yankee has ever
Environmental Conservation, indicated the presence of stron- 30 years, he said. But looking at
and the department’s own con- tium-90, or any other isotope radioactive byproducts doesn’t
tract laboratory conducted the other than tritium. We do not work with fish that, like people,
know why the Governor would collect some radioisotopes while
tests.
Health department tests suggest Vermont Yankee is the discharging others.
ad FA11:Layout
10:29 AM Lochbaum
Page 1
but there1is7/7/11
no factual
said a possible way
showed Sr-90 in 13 sam- regsource,
to determine the source of the Srples of fish collected from the basis for that suggestion.”
Smith told The Commons last 90 is to move away from a “snapConnecticut River between
year that plant tests revealed shot” of one data collection and
February and June 2010.
The labs tested for hard-todetect radionuclides in the edible
Greenfield
portions (flesh) and inedible portions (bones, head, scales, and
guts) of the fish collected both
upstream of the nuclear plant,
and near the plant in Vernon
Pond, where the plant releases
water from its discharge canal
and the contaminated groundwater on site.
The department reported on
its website that four of the 13
inedible portion samples did
not reveal Sr-90 above the test’s
lower level of detection. The
other nine samples, however,
contained levels ranging from 28
picocuries per kilogram (pCi/kg)
to 255 pCi/kg.
“The fish in this sample were
caught on June 9, 2010, about
nine miles upstream of Vermont
Yankee. This fish sample also
had the highest Sr-90 concentration in inedible portions (255
pCi/kg),” stated the department
on its website.
The department said the Sr90 in this sample is “notable
because it is the first time strontium-90 has been detected in the
edible portion of any of our fish
samples.”
The Commons
The department “has asked
that additional samples of fish
obtained on June 9, 2010 be analyzed by our contract lab.”
Strontium, in addition to the
radioactive forms, occurs naturally in the environment as a
non-radioactive element, says
the Environmental Protection
Agency. The agency’s fact sheet
calls strontium-90 a “bone
seeker” because the isotope
mimics calcium and can lodge
in the bones and marrow.
Side effects of strontium-90
exposure include leukemia.
PUTNEY—Paracyclist Alicia
Brelsford Dana’s custom-made
“Freedom Ryder” handcycle was
stolen on July 30.
Thanks to an outpouring of
publicity and community concern, Dana got her bike back.
Her friends began a fundraiser
last week to raise money to buy a
replacement — valued at $8,000
— and to help support her training for USA Cycling Paracycling
National Championships next
June in Augusta, Ga.
Dana, 42, grew up in southern Vermont and was a crosscountry ski racer. But in 1986,
during her senior year at The
Putney School, she fell 40 feet
from a tree and became instantly
paralyzed from the waist down.
She tried wheelchair racing,
but when handcycles were invented, she became a passionate racer.
In 2000, Dana handcycled
across the country (Washington
state to Vermont) to raise money
and awareness for disability-related causes including Adaptive
Sports/ Breckenridge Outdoor
Athletic Association; Research
for a Cure for Paralysis/The
Spinal Cord Injury Project; and
disabled women who build their
own wheelchairs in developing countries, called Whirlwind
Women.
After this ride, she found herself in excellent shape and, with
the encouragement of a friend,
began handcycle racing.
Her first season, she beat the
reigning female champion in
the sport, and made her way
onto the U.S.Team, competing in Germany in the World
Championships in 2001. She
also became national criterion
champion in 2001, and won the
“Challenge Alaska,” a six-day
stage race from Fairbanks to
Anchorage.
After marriage and the birth of
her child, she took a long break
from competition, and only recently has she gotten back into it.
This past spring in 2011, she
won the Vermont City Marathon
in Burlington, which inspired
her to compete in the National
Championships in Augusta, Ga.,
in June, just to see where she is
at compared to the current elite
look at samples collected over
many years.
“If the source is largely atomic
bomb testing, the strontium levels would decline as the legacy
material decayed. If the source
were from nuclear power plants,
the continuing releases of strontium might tend to [level], or
even increase, the strontium levels in fish,” he said.
According to the health department, to date, it has “not
measured other nuclear-powerplant-related radionuclides in
fish or groundwater samples.”
Still, Entergy’s response to the
test results does not wash with
Lochbaum.
In Lochbaum’s opinion, the
health department’s results
might not pinpoint Vermont
Yankee as the strontium-90’s
source.
But the results do not exonerate the plant, either.
“I find Entergy’s statement to
be patently false, as has so often
been found in the past. Entergy
generates electricity, not truth.
That’s sad and unacceptable,”
he said.
He described Entergy’s statement that there’s “no evidence”
that Vermont Yankee leaked the
radioactive isotope and cited its
strontium-90-free monitoring
wells as proof as “galling.”
“By its [Entergy’s] own admission, it [Vermont Yankee]
is releasing strontium-90 into
Community College
FALL 2011
REGISTER
TODAY!
Classes begin
September 6th
competition. She found out the
hard way that her equipment
was vastly outdated, and that she
needed to make training a serious
commitment if she wanted to really be competitive again.
A decade ago, there were only
two other women at her level,
and the three of them placed
second, third, and fourth at the
world championships. Today,
there are six U.S. women (including Dana) who are competitive at an elite level, and many,
many more Europeans who are
dominating.
Now a single mom, she
has been training hard since
Nationals, and doing research
into the best choice of upgraded
equipment. While on a training
ride on Westminster West Road
on July 30, she got a flat tire and
was forced to leave her handbike
by the side of the road.
When she went back to get it
the next day, it was gone. It was
eventually returned to Dana by
an unknown Good Samaritan
this week.
The loss of her handcycle had
been a blow, but it was also a
wake-up call that she needed to
find a way to upgrade as soon
as possible.
Dede Cummings, organizer
of the fundraiser, said that the
“Freedom Ryder” is seriously
outdated.
“It’s 11 years old — a 1999
design — and would not serve
her well in top-level competition,
www.giveforward.com/handcycleforalicia
Alicia Dana races in the Challenge Alaska with her
handcycle, which was stolen from the side of the road.
the environment” and therefore
cannot rule itself out of the fish
equation, said Lochbaum.
According to the company’s 2010 Radioactive Effluent
Release Report for Vermont
Yankee filed annually with
the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, the plant released
31,800 picocuries of Sr-90 (at
ground level not through the exhaust stack) in the first quarter.
The NRC requires all plant
owners to file annual effluent
release reports, said Lochbaum.
The releases can go into the water, into the air, and shipped offsite as solid materials.
Lochbaum said that the Sr-90
released by Vermont Yankee in
2010 fell within federal limits.
But, he said, “For Entergy to
omit this known release path and
to only mention the monitoring
wells is deceitful.”
“They are only telling part of
the truth, and by doing so are
telling a lie. Their statement on
this matter is a shameless distortion of the facts. It would be
unacceptable as an isolated case.
Since it’s part of a long pattern of
shameless distortions, it’s pathological — the company seems
incapable of telling the truth.”
Calls to the Vermont
Department of Health, Vermont
Department of Fish and
Wildlife and the Environmental
Protection Agency to obtain
long-term environmental data on
strontium-90 were not returned
by press time.
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A Fine Selection of Local Cheeses
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Cummings said. “The top competitors in the world and national
championships are using cycles
that are newer, much lighter,
more ergonomic and faster. So
we have shifted the goal of this
effort. We want to send Alicia to
the championships with the best
possible handcycle.”
A new handcycle that would
be competitive with the current
standards costs about $8,000.
It is called the Top End Force
R, which is faster, lighter and
stiffer than the original design.
It is more aerodynamic, and has
30 speeds, a totally fixed fork,
and carbon wheels.
People who contributed so
far have been informed about
the change, and contributions
have continued to arrive. As of
this week, more than $8,000 has
been donated.
“We hope everyone will want
to continue to support Alicia’s
training, which is an inspiration
to all of us,” said Cummings.
A special fund raising event,
with raffle prize drawings and
recognition for donors, is being
planned for Sept. 1.
Contributions may be made
online at http://www.giveforward.com/handcycleforalicia, or checks can be mailed to
DCDESIGN, 139 Main St.,
Brattleboro, VT 05301, made
out to “Alicia Dana.” For more
information on the raffle, call
802-380-1121.
www.duttonberryfarm.com
O P E N DA I LY 9 A M –7 P M
Route 30,
Newfane
802-365-4168
Route 9,
West Brattleboro
802-254-0254
Routes 11/30,
Manchester
802-362-3083
NEWS
A6
MILESTONES
Births, deaths, and news of people from Windham County
Obituaries
Editor’s note: The Commons will
publish brief biographical information for citizens of Windham County
and others, on request, as community
news, free of charge.
• Melissa M.
“Wichie Poo”
Barratt, 31, of
Brattleboro. Died
July 29. Sister
of Erica Duby
of Springfield,
S a b r i n a
Kingsbury of Winooski, Michelle
Duby of Texas, Lorraine Duby
and David Barratt Jr. Stepdaughter
of Ronald Duby Sr. of New York.
The daughter of Sandra Duby
and David Barratt Sr., she attended Springfield High School.
M e m o ri a l i n f o r m ati o n :
Funeral arrangements are pending. Donations to Sandra Duby,
119 State St., Apt. 2, Rutland,
VT 05701, to help with funeral
expenses.
• Emmitt Crapo Brown, 86,
of South Londonderry. Died July
31 at Grace Cottage Hospital surrounded by family. Husband of
the late Glenna Benson for more
than 60 years. Father of Ronald
Brown of Dekalb Junction, N.Y.,
David Brown of Londonderry,
Gail (Brown) Sherman of
Londonderry, and Michael Brown
of Londonderry. Born in Newfane,
the youngest son of Albert and
Eskie (Crapo) Brown, he served
in the Army during World War
II. After he returned home, he
worked for Cersosimo Lumber
Co, Kearley Fuel, Smith’s Mill,
and was part of the construction
team that built Ball Mountain
Dam, just to name a few. He enjoyed spending his free time cooking, baking, woodworking and
spending quality time with his
family. His kind disposition, generous nature and sense of humor
will be missed dearly. Memorial
information: A private memorial service will be held in Bondville
at the convenience of his family. Donations to Grace Cottage
Hospital, in care of Dr. Robert
Backus, longtime physician and
family friend.
Johnson, VT 05656.
• James Peter Gembarowski,
63, of San Antonio, Texas. Died
Aug. 3 in San Antonio. Brother
of Charles Jerry Gembarowski of
Satellite Beach, Fla., Mary Jane
Jenkins of Charlestown, N.H.,
Carol Ann Brown of Rockledge,
Fla., and the late Paul Henry and
Michael Joseph Gembarowski.
Born in Brattleboro to Miroslaw
C. Gembarowski and Mary L.
Gouger Gembarowski, he attended St. Michael’s School in
Brattleboro and Hinsdale, N.H.,
Grammar School. He graduated from Hinsdale High School
in 1966. He attended The Hartt
School of Music at the University
of Hartford and majored in the
french horn. An accomplished
musician, Jimmy played the flute
and bodhran with St. James
Gate, an Irish band based in San
Antonio. He was also a professional singer. He was employed
by Southern Music Co. in San
Antonio. Memorial information: A funeral Mass will be held
at Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Catholic Church in San Antonio
in late September, followed by
burial at Holy Cross Cemetery
in San Antonio. More details can
be obtained by emailing cgembarowski@cfl.rr.com.
• Karen Swing Goodlatte,
89, of Putney and Alexandria, Va.
Union High School, attended the
University of Vermont and graduated from Windham College with
a B.A. (cum laude) in Economics.
His working life was devoted to
real estate. He worked with Cooke
Realty and Berkley and Veller
Real Estate, before joining forces
with Frank Martocci and opening
Martocci and Henry Real Estate,
the third largest firm in the state
for a number of years. In recent
years, his firm, Michael D. Henry
& Company, LLC has specialized
in commercial real estate throughout New England and eastern New
York. He loved his dogs and spent
every day on walks in the woods or
around the Spruce Street neighborhood, chatting with friends
and often stopping in at the yellow store. He was a great reader.
He fed the birds and the squirrels, he watered his grass, proud
that he finally had a yard full and
it sometimes appeared he was watering the driveway, too. He enjoyed pitching to his little friends
in the neighborhood and enjoyed
many a vigorous water fight. He
liked people and was a loyal and
sensitive friend to many, enriching
their lives as they did his. Skiing
was a passion he shared with his
children and nothing pleased
him more than sharing a beautiful day in the mountains. Some
of his fondest memories were
of the years he spent coaching
Junior and Senior Pro basketball,
and Small Fry, Little League, and
Babe Ruth baseball. He valued the
friendships of the boys and girls he
coached and tried his best to influence them in a very positive way
that went beyond the rules of the
sport. He volunteered with many
civic and professional groups. He
served as a director of the Vermont
Association of Realtors, president of the Brattleboro Housing
Development Corporation, chairman of the Brattleboro Planning
Commission, umpire for the
Brattleboro Little League, founding member and director of
the American Hirschsprung’s
Disease Association, member of
the BUHS chain gang, chairman
of the BUHS Lights Committee
(raising $200,000 to install lighting on athletic fields), and a member of the Mountain Safety Patrol
at Mount Snow, among others.
A memorial service was held
Aug. 5 at Centre Congregational
Church. Donations to Ability Plus
at Mount Snow, (ski programs for
those with disabilities), 39 Mount
Snow Rd., West Dover, VT 05356,
Attn: Sue Tatem. Messages of condolence may be sent to Atamaniuk
Funeral Home at www.atamaniuk.com.
T h e C ommons
Bellows Falls, the son of Gordon
M. “Shotgun” Sr. and Dorothy
F. (Brown) Jacobs, he graduated
from Bellows Falls High School
in 1967 and attended the North
Dakota School of Forestry. He
served in the Army, and was a
member of the Honor Guard at
Arlington National Cemetery. Was
employed as an industrial electrical supervisor, most recently with
Dartmouth Printing in Hanover,
N.H. He previously worked for
World Color in Taunton, Mass.,
Sonnax in Rockingham, Book
Press in Brattleboro for 12 years
and Jones & Lamson Machine
Tool Co. in Springfield for 10
years. He enjoyed Vermont Public
Radio, watching football, photography, computers, coin collecting, fishing and science fiction.
Memoria l infor m ation : A
memorial service was held Aug.
3 at Davis Memorial Chapel in
Springfield. Burial will be at a later
date. Donations to Vermont Public
Radio, 365 Troy Ave., Colchester,
VT 05446.
• Diane Mar ie Mer ithew,
49, of Brattleboro. Died July 28
at Pine Heights nursing home
in Brattleboro. Wife of Wesley
Moses. Mother of Christina
Moses. Brother of Jimmy
Merithew and Linda Pentes.
The daughter of Beverly (Ryder)
and the late Howard Merithew,
she graduated from Brattleboro
Union High School in 1987. She
was baptized at the Assembly of
God and was a lifelong resident of
Brattleboro. Memorial information: A graveside service was
held on Aug. 5 at Meeting House
Hill cemetery in Brattleboro.
• Janet Putnam Soyer, 90, of
Halifax. She was an accomplished
harpist, talented painter, creative
and energetic spirit, and beloved
wife of the late David Soyer. A
graduate of the Curtis Institute of
Music, she was a member of the
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and
a leading jazz harpist, who can be
heard on numerous recordings
with Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday,
Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, and
Artie Shaw. She left professional
life to support her husband’s career
as cellist of the Guarneri Quartet.
A woman of great beauty, sharp
intellect, keen curiosity, strong
opinions, and a never-failing
sense of humor, she had a gift for
gathering friends and connecting people in circles of caring and
sharing. Memorial information : Gifts in her memory may
be made to the Marlboro Music
Festival, 1616 Walnut St. Suite
1600, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
College news
• Kerri-Lyn Munson of West
Townshend was named to the
President’s List at Morrisville
(N.Y.) State College for the spring
2011 semester. To be named to
the President’s List, a student
must achieve a perfect 4.0 average
for the semester and complete 12
credit hours.
• Daniel S. Elliott of Brookline,
a SUNY-Canton Individual
Studies major and 1993 graduate of Leland & Gray Union High
School, made the President’s List
for the Spring 2011 semester.
• First-year student Nathan
Nichols of Newfane, who is majoring in Physics, and third-year
student Kather ine Derby of
West Dummerston, who is majoring in Business Administration,
were both named to the Dean’s
List for the Spring 2011 semester
at Hartwick College in Oneonta,
N.Y.
• Pe t e r C h i s a m o r e, a
Business Adminstration major from Bellows Falls, and
Er ich Rehbein , a Computer
Information Technology major
from Putney, were both named to
the President’s List for the Spring
2011 semester at Southern New
Hampshire University.
Died May 25. Wife of the late Ray
Goodlatte for 68 years. Mother
of three daughters, Kip, Jill, and
Joyce, and a son, the late Dirk
Goodlatte. Sister of Gene Castillo
Master Gardeners
Workshop on building 802 380-5958 or Emily Peyton
and half-brother Raymond Swing.
802-579-5524 or find regisoffer advice at
with industrial hemp attration
Born to the late Herbert Randolph
forms available online at
Swing and Martha Thompson,
www.hempfullygreen.com.
Farmers’ Market
offered Aug. 16, 17
she grew up in New York City
and France, and attended Olivet
BRATTLEBORO — The
BRATTLEBORO — A workCollege, where she met her husBrattleboro Farmers’ Market shop on building with industrial Registration begins
band. In 1951, the family moved
hosts the UVM Extension hemp workshop, presented by for 11th annual
to Putney, where Karen (as liMaster Gardeners on Saturday, Hempfully Green, will be offered
Aug. 13. Stop by their table to Aug. 16 and 17 at the Vermont Walk for Animals
brarian) and Ray worked at the
get answers for your gardening Agricultural Business Education
BRATTLEBORO — The
Putney School until retirement
questions.
Center (www.vabec.com).
Windham County Humane
in 1982. Enjoyed long walks on
The growing season is at its
The workshop will run from Society announces that the 2011
back roads of Putney, birding,
peak, with tree-ripened peaches, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on each day. Walk for Animals will be held
backpacking, and singing in sevberries galore, tomatoes and Bill Walsh will speak on Sick on Sept. 24 at 10 a.m. on the
eral choruses. She developed an
sweet corn all available, as well as Building Syndrome. Staff of Common.
herbarium at Huntley Meadows
everything you need for pickling Hempfully Green will speak
Local companies and residents
Park in Alexandria, where she voland freezing the bounty.
about the capacity of industrial are encouraged to sign-up and
unteered for more than 20 years.
Music by Peter and Mary hemp to repair our environment, walk the Walk for their favorite
She was interested in languages:
Amidon from will be featured remove toxins, and drastically furry friend.
French, Spanish and German, and
from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. The mar- reduce fuel use, and they will
The Saturday event will start
• Michael Joseph Ellison, ASL, and was a loving presence in
ket’s hours are 9 a.m.-2 p.m., touch upon strategies to legalize with a free breakfast at the
59, of Brattleboro. Died July 23. many people’s lives. Memorial
call 802-254-8885 for more the farming of industrial hemp Common. Following breakfast,
Father of Megan Holt and her information: No information
information.
in the United States.
the parade of animals and those
husband, John, of Port Royal, available.
Information that Hempfully walking the Walk for Animals
S.C. Brother of Murray C. Ellison
• Michael
D e n n i s
Green staff members gathered at will travel through downtown
and his wife, Sandra, of East
Pool closes for
H e n r y, 6 2 , of
the second annual Building with Brattleboro.
Dummerston, Matthew J. Ellison
Hemp symposium in Spain will
The Humane Society is askof Brattleboro, Mark A. Ellison
Brattleboro.
season on Aug. 14
be shared, along with a partici- ing local residents to sign-up as
and his wife, Pamela, of West
Died Aug. 1
BRATTLEBORO — The patory demonstration of casting a walker or walking team. Just by
Wardsboro, Mitchell A. Ellison
at DartmouthBrattleboro Recreation & Parks a wall section.
walking, you and your team can
of Brookline, Morgan E. Ellison
Hitchcock
Department announces that
This workshop is geared for help raise funds for lost, homeand his wife, Jennifer, of West
Medical Center
the Swimming Pool at Living builders, architects, alternative less and abused pets! Plus, you
Chesterfield, N.H., and Marjorie in Lebanon, N.H. Husband of
• Gordon M. Jacobs Jr., 61, Memorial Park will be closing building enthusiasts, and any and your team could win amazL.H. LeClaire of Brattleboro. Betty Halladay Henry for nearly
Stepbrother of William FitzPatrick 38 years. Father of Michael of Rockingham. Died July 31 at for the season on Sunday, Aug. other interested individuals that ing prizes! Teams can be formed
may be building a new home.
with 2-6 people; if you have more
and wife, Deborah, of Putney; and Henry and his wife, Amanda, Springfield Hospital. Husband 14, at 8 p.m.
There will be a $25 registra- than six people, you can form adMichele FitzPatrick of Willow of Bozeman, Mont., Rebecca of Donna Emerson for nearly 33
tion fee for all attendees and a ditional teams.
Spring, N.C. Born in Burlington, Lewis and her husband, David, of years. Father of Gordon Jacobs III
$10 registration fee for students.
Individual walkers are also
the son of Murray J. Ellison and Brattleboro, and Douglas Henry of Rockingham, Brandy Ellison
Lunch will be included.
welcome – and so are dogs (on
Leora Ellen Derby Ellison, he of Carnelian Bay, California. of Rutland, and the late Jamie
For anyone traveling from leashes, of course.) Walkers and
moved to Brattleboro in 1956 Brother of David Henry and his Jacobs. Brother of Susan Colby of
outside the area, The Putney walking teams are asked to get
and resided mostly in Windham wife, Barbara, and Stephen Henry Walpole, N.H., and the late Tyler
Inn (Exit 4 off I-91) is offering pledges as part of their commitCounty most of his life. He at- and his wife, Patricia. Born in Jacobs. Stepbrother of Andrea
a discounted rate for an over- ment. Registration forms can
tended Canal Street School Brattleboro, the son of Dwight and Dunn of Rockingham, Stephanie
night stay and breakfast (802- be downloaded online at wchin Brattleboro, West Halifax the late Florence (Derry) Henry, Wing of Springfield, and Paul
387-5517). Call Tom Simon at s4pets.org.
Elementary School in West he graduated from Brattleboro Palumbo of Springfield. Born in
Halifax, and attended Brattleboro
Union High School as a member
of the Class of 1970. He worked
as a self-employed carpenter until ill health forced him to retire.
Interment will be in the family
plot in North Clarendon on Sept.
18 at 10 a.m.
• Ar nold M. Fisher, 81, of
Rockingham. Died Aug. 1 at Grace
Cottage Hospital in Townshend.
Husband of the late Dorothy
Cormier and the late Elaine E.
Smallheer. Father of Clyde W.
Fisher of Rockingham, Bunnell
D. Smallheer of Framingham,
Mass., Beth Elaine Smallheer,
with whom he made his home,
and Susan M. Smallheer, also of
Rockingham. Brother of the late
Theron Fisher, Laura Mayers,
Thelma Coburn, and Priscilla
VIM members get the paper in the mail and join us for occasional
I wish to become a member.
Clough. Born in Grafton to the
special events. We gratefully accept donations of smaller amounts,
$55–$99
Loyal Reader
late Elfie Mae (Adams) and Clyde
but we cannot mail the paper.
H. Fisher, at the family farm on
$100–$249
Newshound
Fisher Hill, he was a seventh-generation Vermonter. He attended a
$250+
Independent Media Mogul
one-room school in Grafton, was
MY NAME ________________________________________________________
a 1947 graduate of Bellows Falls
I already am a member, and i want to give
High School, and was a graduADDRESS ________________________________________________________
ate of the Vermont State School
an additional gift of $______________.
of Agriculture, now Vermont
Technical College, in 1949,
TOWN/CITY ______________________________________________________
my total donation is $_____________
studying dairy science. He was a
dairy farmer all his life, selling his
Holstein herd in July 2010 because
i will pick up the paper at any of more than
STATE_____ ZIP ___________ PHONE _________________________________
of declining health and low milk
150 locations around Windham County.
prices. His was the last operating
dairy farm in Rockingham. He was
E-MAIL _________________________________________________________
please don’t mail it, but thanks anyway.
happiest on his tractor, baling hay.
A private man, he believed strongly
in the importance of hard work,
I enclose a check.
which he worked hard to instill in
please charge my credit card. You can phone us (802-246-6397) or fax us (802-246-1319) with this information if you prefer.
his children. He was a longtime
maple sugar maker and member
of the Pleasant Valley Grange.
He was a lifelong, ardent Red Sox
NUMBER
3-DIGIT CODE
EXP. MM/YY
fan. Memorial information:
______________________________________________________________
A funeral service was held Aug.
6 at Christ’s Church in Saxtons
CARDHOLDER’S SIGNATURE
River, with interment in the famp.o. Box 1212, Brattleboro, VT 05302
ily plot at the Rockingham Meeting
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please make checks payable to Vermont Independent media.
Fisher Scholarship Fund at the
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T h e C ommons
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Write Action hosts
annual potluck picnic
GUILFORD—The public
is invited to Write Action’s
annual potluck picnic, open
reading and “schmooze fest”
on Sunday, Aug. 14, from 1-5
p.m., at Melendy Hill Farm.
Organizers describe the
picnic as “an opportunity to
encourage one another in the
writing craft, and rejoice in
one another’s accomplishments. It’s a great way to meet
writers you may know only
by their byline or as names
on a book jacket; for writers it’s a way to meet your
readers. If you are new to the
area, it’s a great way to get acquainted with the local writing
community.”
Winners of the 2011 Poetry
and Prose Contest will be publicly announced. The winning
authors are invited to read at
the picnic.
This year’s event will feature a book exchange. Please
bring a maximum of five
books.
Come with writing to share
(readers will have 7 minutes
each) and your best dish! A
grill will be available for those
who wish to cook.
To find the farm, go south
on Route 5 100 yards past
Guilford Country Store and
over the cement bridge, immediate right onto Melendy
Hill Road. Look for a red
18th-century farmhouse with
attached sheds 6/10 of a mile
up the hill from Route 5.
Bring a chair (some will be
provided). Rain date is the following Sunday, Aug. 21. Call
802-254-9586 or 254-9595 or
e-mail (info@writeaction.org)for
more information.
County artists,
organizations receive
Art Council grants
MONTPELIER—Several
Windham County artists and
organizations will share in
more than $311,000 that the
Vermont Arts Council has
distributed around the state.
Fifty-four awards totaling
$215,243 will be funding Arts
Learning, Community Arts,
and Creation projects across
Vermont. In addition, eleven
organizations will each receive
$7,000 and three organizations will receive $6,300 as the
first installment in the multiyear Arts Partnership Grant
program.
Arts Learning grants fund
in-school and out-of-school
educational programs that
enhance student learning
through the arts. The 13
grants awarded total $50,233.
Community Arts grant projects support participation and
engagement in the arts. The
28 Community Arts grants
total $126,010.
Creation grants support
the development and presentation of new work. Thirteen
artists were awarded a total of
$39,000.
Arts Partnership Grants,
totaling $95,900 for this year,
provide operating funds over
a three-year period to help
local arts service organizations maintain, develop and/
or strengthen relationships in
their communities.
Competition for funding remained as stiff as ever;
in the Creation Grant category requests were seven
times greater than the resources available. Of the 91
applicants, only 13 received
funding. Of the 60 applicants for Community Arts
grants, 28 received funding,
and 13 of the 23 applicants
for Arts Learning Grants were
approved.
Applications were reviewed
by peer panels of professional
artists, educators, arts administrators, community leaders
and others with specialized
knowledge in each grant
category.
Windham County recipients included:
• Brattleboro Museum and
Art Center, a $7,000 Arts
Partnership Grant to support
a series of public exhibitions,
lectures with film screenings,
concerts with artist talks, family events, and school-museum
partnerships.
• Building a Better
Brattleboro, a $2,500
Community Arts Grant to
support expenses for travel
and lodging, venue rentals, and marketing of the
Brattleboro Literary Festival.
• Friends of the Brattleboro
Music Center, a $5,000 Arts
Learning Grant to support the
Music in the Schools program.
• Vermont Performance
Lab, Guilford, a $4,650
support a residency with choreographer Victoria Marks for
underserved girls in Bellows
Falls.
• In-Sight Photography
Project, Brattleboro, a $7,000
Arts Partnership Grant to support its programs and partnerships, providing photography
education in schools and in the
community.
• Main Street Arts, Saxtons
River, a $1,800 Arts Learning
Grant to support the afterschool Creative Arts Program.
• New England Youth
Theatre, Brattleboro, a $7,000
Arts Partnership Grant to support theater programs and educational services to youth of
all ages and abilities.
• Rockingham Art and
Museum Project (RAMP),
Bellows Falls, a $7,000 Arts
Partnership Grant to support artists’ activities and to
support activities that create
healthy communities.
• Sandglass Center for
Puppetry, Putney, a $5,000
support the Puppets in the
Green Mountains Festival.
• Vermont Center for
Photography, Brattleboro,
a $5,000 Community Arts
Grant to support monthly exhibitions in 2011 and 2012.
• Vermont Jazz Center,
Brattleboro, a $5,000
support the Center’s concerts and educational
programming.
• Julia Zanes, Saxtons River,
a $3,000 Creation Grant to
support the creation of puppets for the “The Green Gold
Tree.”
Since 1964, the Vermont
Arts Council has been the
state’s primary provider of
funding, advocacy and information for the arts in
Vermont. For more information, visit www.vermontartscouncil.org.
This space for rent
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ham County’s best advertis
ing value. To promote your
business in the next issue of
The Commons, call Nancy at
(802) 246-6397 or e-mail
ads@commonsnews.org.
Concert planned to benefit
Windham County Heat Fund
On Friday, Aug. 19, pianist
Robert Merfeld, cellist Paul
Cohen and Adrian Sahlean, an
award winning literary translator of several volumes of poetry, will present an evening of
music and poetry at 8:00 p.m.
in Ragle Hall, Serkin Center for
the Performing Arts at Marlboro
College. The concert, Heat for
the Body, Heat for the Soul, is a
benefit for the Windham County
Heat Fund and Ann Gengarelly’s
Poetry Studio.
The program will include
Brahms (Sonata Op. 38 in e minor
for cello and piano), Schumann
(Fantasy Pieces Op. 73 for cello
and piano) and a piece for narrator and piano that will create
a unique ambience for a translation of the poem The Legend
of the Evening Star by Romanian
poet Mihai Eminescu.
Eminescu, who lived from
1850 to 1889, was a Romantic
poet, novelist and journalist,
and is often regarded as the
most famous and influential
Romanian poet. Sahlean, a native Romanian, is the founder
and president of Global Arts,
a nonprofit organization promoting Romanian literature, art
and music in the U.S. His rendition of Eminescu’s The Legend
of the Evening Star has been
staged in off-Broadway theatrical productions.
Merfeld’s piano virtuosity is
well-known to local audiences.
He is a graduate of the Oberlin
Conservatory and received a
Master’s degree from the Julliard
School. He is currently on the
faculty of the Boston University,
Dartmouth College and the
Longy School of Music and
has been a guest artist with
chamber ensembles such as the
Mendelssohn, Philadelphia and
Muir Quartets.
Cohen began his professional
career with the Atlanta Chamber
Players in 1982. He has performed extensively throughout
the southeast as well as playing
debut concerts in Boston and
New York. In 1986 he joined the
Apple Hill Chamber Players in
New Hampshire.
He moved to Los Angeles in
1996 and has performed with
ensembles such as Camerata
Pacifica, Pacific Serenades and
the Dunsmuir Piano Quartet.
Cohen has participated in music festivals throughout the U.S.
He is a recipient of the C.D.
Jackson Master Award from the
Tanglewood Festival as well as
an individual Artist Fellowship
from the New Hampshire
Council on the Arts.
In 2005, Daryl Pillsbury and
Richard Davis decided to find a
way to help people struggling to
pay for home heating fuel who
were not eligible for existing
programs. They simply decided
to raise money and then figure
out who was in need and help
those people.
They worked closely
with Southeastern Vermont
Community Action (SEVCA)
and the Windham County HELP
Fund so that they could first try
to connect people with assistance
programs. If they did not qualify, then the Heat Fund could
help them.
That collaboration continues
and, in six years, solid relationships have been created with local fuel dealers and local human
service agencies. Fundraising
has been possible by having two
to three public events each year
and by generating publicity to
solicit individual and business
donations.
To date they have raised
over $160,000 and helped over
500 individuals and families
in Windham County. All donations to the fund are tax deductible and may be sent to:
Windham County Heat Fund,
679 Weatherhead Hollow Rd.,
Guilford, VT 05301.
In a time when money for
the arts has been drastically cut,
creative expression is critical for
nourishment of the spirit.
Hungry for the redemptive
power of art, we find again and
again how poetry creates much
needed bridges between people.
As the Mexican poet, Octavia
Paz suggests, poetry is imperative
for human beings to “remember
who they are.”
For many, poetry is the means
to survive “the emotional chaos,
spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with
being alive,” according to poet
Gregory Orr.
Founded by Ann Gengarelly
in 1995, The Poetry Studio is
located on beautiful grounds
in Marlboro. People of all ages
gather there to write and share
what often remains denied by
ordinary speech. Classes range
from adult evening workshops
to after-school sessions for
young people and a weeklong
August intensive of poetry and
bookmaking.
According to Gengarelly, “In
our fast-paced world, people are
longing to be listened to. We all
have the need to tell our stories.”
Classes at The Poetry Studio
are kept small so individualized
attention and an atmosphere
of intimacy can be realized. All
donations are used to support
scholarships for students who
otherwise could not afford this
experience.
It is The Poetry Studio’s intention to never turn away any
participant because of financial
circumstances. The Studio is located at 242 Piney Brook Way,
Brattleboro, VT 05301.
Brookline to celebrate community
BROOKLINE—ZPots Studio
Pottery, Post Oil Solutions
(POS) and the Southeastern
Vermont Watershed Alliance
(SeVWA) are partnering to
host a Community Creation
Celebration on Saturday, Sept.
10, from noon to 8 p.m., at
the Historic Brookline Church
and the Round Schoolhouse on
Grassy Brook Road.
This will be a day of community with all types of artists gathering to celebrate the power of
creativity while supporting the
Earth.
Area musicians will bring
song, dance and drum circles
to the day’s event. The schedule is filling up, but area musicians are encouraged to inquire
if interested in getting on board.
Just a few of the confirmed performances include Luz Elena
Morey, founder and director of Mahalo Art Center in
Brattlelboro, presenting international folk music and beautiful
original songs, and accomplished
guitar player Jason Sperling with
some of his musical friends.
Other performances will include poetry and dance. Area
artists will be exhibiting various
works capturing the theme of
community, and artists’ works
Staff Pick!
Bring in your own containers
to refill — save money, and
save packaging!
—Dan, Bulk Department
of various mediums will be available for sale as well. For example,
Shannon Herrick of The Spun
Monkey will be spinning and
selling her hand knits and felted
wear, Zachary Stephens will have
his photography on exhibit, and
ZPots pottery will be available.
A variety of guest speakers will
offer their visions and hopes for
our community. Kids of all ages
can partake in activities led by
SeVWA to learn about the health
of our rivers and streams. You
can take away some new skills or
information related to gardening
and putting food by from Post
Oil as the harvest season comes
to its end for this year.
Food and drink will be on sale
by area nonprofits and community groups as a way to help support their work on behalf of us
all. Seitanic Kitchens will have
their crepes or kabobs and more
to support their music collective
On the Ground.
A modest suggested donation
is asked at the gate to help cover
the costs of the day. For more
information, contact Noelle at
802-365-7118 or zpots@myfairpoint.net.
Check out our August specials!
Organic almond butter is on sale for 7.39 per pound.
You grind it yourself, so you know it's fresh! We
have four flavors of sesame sticks on sale, only
1.99 per pound. Great summer snack food, but be
careful, these things are addictive! All of New England
Natural Bakers granolas will be on sale starting next
week, made right down the road in Greenfield, MA.
Going to the drive in? Bring your own popcorn,
because it's only 1.19 per pound this month. Want
something sweet to snack on? Dark chocolate
almonds will be on sale starting next week at 7.29 per
pound. Go ahead and indulge, you've earned it.
Also on sale, 7 different kinds
of organic, fair-trade coffee!
2 Main St, Brattleboro
M–S 8–9, Sun 9–9
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July 27-August 16
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T h e C ommons
• Wednesday, August 10, 2011 VOICES
S E C T I O N B1
B
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 • page B1
OPINION • COMMENTARY • LETTERS
Join the discussion: voices@commonsnews.org
ESSAY
VIEWPOINT
The ‘whiplash,
headline
statements’ of
Peter Shumlin
B LUE B E R R Y
C OMMUN I ON
Why one lawyer thinks the
governor is wrong about the
VY lawsuit — even though
he wants him to be correct
E
South Royalton
ditor Anne Galloway
of the news website
VTDigger.org recently spent a long
day driving around the state
with Gov. Peter Shumlin.
Among her conclusions after 13 hours of meeting and
greeting is that the former state
Senate leader has changed his
ways and “appeared to have
sworn off whiplash, headline
statements.”
Quite possibly, but you
wouldn’t necessarily know that
from the comments Shumlin
made, while Galloway was
watching and scribbling, about
the Vermont Yankee lawsuit.
Please do not misunderstand. I am a fan of Peter
Shumlin; I voted for him, I donated to his campaign, and
I heartily approve of both
the policy initiatives he has
launched and the appointments
he has made.
Maybe I am just getting too
cranky about important public figures aiding and abetting
what I see, as a law professor
and a former government lawyer, as widespread misunderstanding among the general
public about matters of law.
Here is what Galloway reported the governor as saying
in a meeting with editors and
writers from the Valley News:
“Entergy Louisiana has such
a broad case that if it were to
prevail, it would have huge
ramifications for not only
Vermont, but the other 49
states. Basically, it would suggest, or make clear, that energy
policy has been removed from
the states — that’s whether it’s
land use, price, environmental
Taking
Don Kreis works as assis-
comfort in the
tant professor of law at Vermont
Law School and as associate director of its Institute for Energy
and the Environment. He serves
as a member of the board of the
Vermont Journalism Trust, publisher of VTDigger.org.
O
Marlboro
n Sundays, my husband and I stroll up
serenity of a
our dirt road to MacArthur Road. Our walk
is canopied by the lush growth of summer,
until we arrive with the others under the
warm sun at the farm stand, our community chapel.
Each parishioner,
barefoot in the grass,
Kelly Salasin describes hertakes her commuself as a “lifelong educator pasnion from the tray besionate about connection.” This
side the coffee pot
piece originally appeared on her
— a golden scone filled
blog, This Vermont Life (thiswith juicy goodness.
vtlife.wordpress.com).
Today’s choice is raspberry or blueberry; the
latter having just ripened upon the hill in Marlboro.
I am not fit for company, so I tuck my scone into my
basket, and I head out into the field under the netting
where the berries grow.
I cannot pluck a single blueberry without slipping
into the past. I fall in beside my great-grandmother in
Rehoboth, Del., picking and packing and canning and
freezing summer’s bounty to kiss us all winter long.
Today, it seems that I can’t pick at all. Though my
husband works diligently beside one bush, I bob from
plant to plant, taking in the shades of blue and purple
and black, in communion with my Nana.
The dew on each berry lightens the impact of yesterday’s trauma. A diving accident. A CAT scan. Sixteen
stitches. The blood pouring down the face of Lloyd, my
son, as he emerged from the pond.
Lloyd is reborn today, prancing down the stairs in his
Sunday finest, claiming, “I might as well wear something nice since I can’t do anything to get them dirty.”
At 16, my son’s life is temporarily restricted by this
injury, but at 47, I feel undone by what might have happened — and shaken to the roots by what did.
As my husband fills a basket with berries for breakfast, I pick as my son once did — nibbling my way
through the patch, letting the sweetness of life’s offering
soften my soul on this Sunday morning in Vermont.
considerations, or all the other
issues that states consider in
regulating generators of electricity — [and] that they are
abrogating that responsibility to the federal government.
That’s a huge shift in the history of states’ rights, so I just
think we’re in good shape, and
Entergy Louisiana is going to
have to comply with Vermont
laws just like Vermonters do.”
This is so exaggerated and
misleading that it merits the
“pants on fire” rating on the ol’
Politifact truth-o-meter.
The issue in the Vermont
Yankee lawsuit is not whether
all of energy policy is being federalized by judicial fiat. The
U.S. Supreme Court made
clear, fully 28 years ago in its
Pacific Gas & Electric decision, that states are free to
decide whether they want nuclear power plants constructed
within their borders. This is
a choice Vermont made, well
over 40 years ago, when it
granted a Certificate of Public
Good authorizing the construction of Vermont Yankee in
Vernon.
The question in the Vermont
Yankee lawsuit is whether
the state can come along and
shut down your duly permitted business and tell you to
berry patch
on a difficult
Sunday
morning
n see federal power, page B2
VIEWPOINT
Protecting our cells,
protecting ourselves
Can residents of our area take measures
to stave the effects of cumulative radiation?
Marlboro Tamara Stenn (tstenn@
keene.edu) teaches economics and
the surrounding area fair trade as an adjunct professor
is radioactive.
at Keene State College.
According to
the Vermont Department of
Health, Vermont has low-grade closes, hundreds of tons of ralevels of radiation that fall bedioactive, spent fuel rods in unlow the 120 millirem “danger” secured pools will continue to
zone set by the federal govern- emit radiation for millennia.
ment, but are certainly higher
Besides radiation from
than the naturally occurring
Vermont Yankee, the
9-millirem levels.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
An average day in
Commission (NRC) reported
Brattleboro can be accompathat much of our average 310
nied by a sultry 15-20 millirem millirem annual radiation exradiation reading, the maxiposure is from natural sources
mum level allowed annually
such as radon (37 percent),
by the state. This has been go- medical procedures (36 pering on for more than 30 years
cent), and even consumer
now. That adds up to a lot of
products (3 percent).
millirems.
The scientific community is
Even when Vermont Yankee debating the effect and danger
B
rattleboro and
of long-term, low-grade radiation. U.S. military and government sites say there are no
effects.
The German government is
not as sure. Germany has been
studying people affected by the
1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, where low-grade radiation
is present. Researchers in Japan
have also studied the long-term
effect of low-grade radiation in
their country.
Long-term exposure to lowgrade radiation, scientists discovered, is actually more
devastating than a short dose at
the scene of a nuclear disaster.
According to the NRC, radiation affects our cells by producing three biological effects: cell
damage, cell death, and “biophysical change.”
Alice Wiegand/Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA) license
Nori seaweed, which the author suggests as part of a diet that can counter the
effects of radiation on the body.
Each of us has millions of
cells; we make new ones every
day. We can remove the damaged and dead cells from of our
bodies and replace them with
new healthy cells, but not when
we are continually bombarded
with low doses of radiation.
With too many cells
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damaged, day after day, perpetual radiation takes its toll.
Our bodies weaken, and our
immune systems are damaged.
The damaged cells can develop
into cancer.
And it’s not just our bodies;
radiation accumulates in the
bodies of the fish, cows, sheep,
chickens, and plants in our
community, too: the organic
farms, our backyard gardens.
Radiation does not break
down like fats, it stays in our
bodies and the bodies of animals we eat. As we eat higher
up the food chain, eating the
n see radiation, page B2
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THE SMART CHOICE
VOICES
B2
T h e C ommons
VIEWPOINT
The power of the purse
An independent candidate for governor looks toward another run
O
Putney Emily Peyton ran as
an independent candidate for
completely $%#@
Vermont governor in 2010.
up! You know it. I
know it.
So are you going take me seriously, or are you going to say, remedy to the crazed world
“Oh, she isn’t real, only those
situation.
two candidates that rise to top
It is your prayers that have
of the corporate Democrat
brought me into the picture —
and Republican pile are real
too bad you don’t recognize
politicians?”
me for the help that I can proAre you one of those people vide you.
who have a layer of hypocrisy
Don’t worry. I don’t want to
between your inner anguish
be your governor.
and anger, and what politician
Why? Because if I got there,
you will consider? If a politiit would depict major backing
cian doesn’t ride in a fancy car, by corporate government insidand she doesn’t have an expen- ers, where the vote count is not
sive suit, and if she hasn’t been as secure as you think here in
“one of the fold,” then is that
our lovely little state.
politician stupid? If she doesn’t
How do I know this?
have a hairdo, painted nails,
Because I ran for governor in
lipstick, mascara, a pantsuit, at 2010 as an independent withleast nominal heels, and a pearl out asking for any donations. I
necklace, then is she a crazy
saw, and learned, that this is so.
woman and not a leader?
I hear you. I see your body
Running for governor was
language, and I also share your an experiment, because I knew
prayers for an earnest, positive that without experiencing the
ur system is so
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Now in 2 Locations
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system and learning how it creates winners or losers, I would
not know firsthand where the
fairness and unfairness exists.
I knew I wouldn’t want to
have authority over you, anyway. I would have wanted the
authority to stand before the
corporatocracy and speak the
truth about corporations’ lawlessness. I would have wanted
to act to restore the power of
the purse to you and me and all
of us (at least those of us who
are not money addicts).
I absolutely would have
wanted to say to the federal
government:
You have abandoned the
people; your role in representing major wealth endangers
the entire planet. And here in
Vermont, we are going to alter
our relationship to you. We are
going to stop sending you taxes
as individuals, we are going to
create a tax forwarder office,
and everyone’s taxes will stop
inside our border before they
go to your insanity.
We here in Vermont will
support your government, but
only the parts of it that we feel
are not ludicrously perverted
from addiction to power. We
will support only peaceful
means, and remove our funding of violence.
We will support the highway
system, the education funding,
the environmental protection.
As a state, we say you have led
us down the wrong path, and
we have a choice too. We are
not your minions!
We have slaves to free
here in Vermont. You in
Washington, directed by corporate addicts to control, have
abandoned the United States,
and we no longer have any illusion that you are working for
the good of All.
It is for the good of all that
we tend to our freedom from
the enslavement you have
created. Working 40 hours for
a wage that gives less than half
a living? Who are you kidding?
Is this the best you can do? Oil
spills, aspartame, nuclear radioactivity, 9/11, everyone on
antidepressants, and no one
healthy? And you want us to
pay more?
restore our economy? Well, he
has done all he can, but he really can’t do very much unless
he institutes a major public bank within the state of
Vermont.
Here’s a little lesson in economics: Where does money
come from? It comes from the
creation of credit. What hapYou, reader, want to vote
pens when big financial corpofor Peter Shumlin again? Or
rations (the ones that are too
Brian Dubie? We are expected big to fail) are the source of our
to do that, and we will be dicredit, or when we are depenrected to do that in more ways dent upon the crumb handouts
than I can name.
from that corporate federal
I wasn’t running for real last government?
time, because I needed to learn
We owe interest and taxes
what a run would be like, to
and fees up the yin-yang, and
know how I want to call my
we don’t have enough money
own shots.
in circulation to enable the
But this time I am running
amount of exchanges we need.
for real.
Yes, a lot of us are barterI will represent the indepen- ing, and time trading, too; we
dents. Our state has a majority are cutting back and pinching
of independents, but we are not pennies, but we can’t pay our
allowed to have a modicum of bills or even earn enough to do
press, so I have chosen a label, so, correct? There isn’t enough
and a party — the Green Tea
money in circulation, here at
Party — and as a republican/
the bottom, that is.
independent.
So, what is a public bank?
Why? Because only by doWell, what is a public liing this will I get the maxibrary? You understand that
mum exposure, and I intend to concept, right? You take a book
play the game enough to give
out and you return it; if you
you the benefit of a break from don’t, you get fined and a new
tradition.
book is bought. Book sales and
I want to raise $30,000, and so forth, abound there.
because I know how to stretch
If one state in the union —
a dollar, that amount will go
North Dakota — has a budfurther than any normal poliget surplus, job growth, and
tician would imagine. I am an
income growth, and that state
auntie-politician. I like my toes is the only one to have such
next to the dirt and my polia bank, you’d think our poltics clean.
iticians would be all over it,
wouldn’t you.
Enough posturing: we
But Peter Shumlin is not.
have so much to do, it’s hard to And don’t tell me he hasn’t a
imagine where to begin.
clue, because I was with him
I usually begin with the
on the campaign trail last year
power of the purse. Our right
telling him to care enough to
to control our destiny will hap- implement one.
pen only when we have the
He called me the “expert”
power of the purse to ourselves on monetary issues, and he
here in Vermont.
gave me his solemn word that
What has Shumlin done to
if he won, he would meet with
n Federal power
dismantle your facility, at your
expense, on grounds of safety,
even after you have fully complied with a duly enacted federal safety regime.
According to the state of
Vermont, the answer to that
question is “yes” if you are a
nuclear power plant.
Please do not misunderstand. I dislike Vermont
Yankee about as much as I like
Peter Shumlin. I hope the latter gets reauthorized in 2012
and the former does not. But
it remains my respectful contention that because the issue
in Vermont Yankee is nuclear
power, Gov. Shumlin and
other people of good will embrace legal propositions they
would never suffer in other
realms.
Those who believe that
Vermont will prevail in the litigation are now almost certainly
leaping to their keyboards to
rebut what I wrote two paragraphs ago.
They will argue that
Vermont’s assertion of authority is not based on radiological
safety but on economics, environmental protection, reliability of electric service, and just
about every other plausible reason for the state to exercise its
police power.
This, of course, is an open
question that the U.S. District
Court will resolve after next
month’s trial. Based on what
we know, there certainly is a
colorable argument that the
Legislature was regulating radiological safety when, in 2006,
from SECTION FRONT
it ordered Vermont Yankee
closed as of March 21, 2012,
unless a subsequent Legislature
changed its mind and the
Public Service Board agreed.
I would also point out that,
based on what was known in
the time of Ptolemy, there was
a colorable argument that the
Earth was the center of the
universe.
The explanations one reads
for why the state was not legislating about radiological safety
in 2006 have the same inventive character as the explanations offered in the second
century A.D. for the seemingly
bizarre behavior of celestial objects under a geocentric notion
of cosmology.
regulate the electricity distribution network — everything
from the low-voltage side of
substations down to the meter
on the side of your house.
States retain the authority to
make decisions about the siting
of transmission lines — witness
the ongoing fight before state
regulators in New Hampshire
over the so-called Northern
Pass project. (But note that
Congress gave the FERC socalled “backstop” authority
over transmission line siting
a few years ago, an untested
source of FERC authority to
override certain state decisions not to permit transmission lines.)
States also retain the authority to regulate the siting of, and
But I digress. The problem to determine the need for, genwith Shumlin’s comment about eration facilities of any type.
energy law is not just that it of- Hence, among other things, the
fers a vastly over-broad gloss
Pacific Gas & Electric decision
on the federal Atomic Energy
referred to above.
Act. The comment also ignores
the Federal Power Act.
The name of this game is fedAnd the public deserves to
eralism, and our elected offiunderstand that it is not the
cials should work to overcome,
Atomic Energy Act - which,
rather than pander to, wideobviously, covers only nuclear spread public misunderstandpower - but the Federal Power ing of the concept.
Act that truly defines and deThe Supremacy Clause of
limits what is federal and what the U.S. Constitution means
belongs to the states when it
that when Congress legislates,
comes to energy policy.
its enactments are the law of
Basically, the Federal Energy the land and supersede (or, in
Regulatory Commission
legal parlance, pre-empt) state
(FERC) regulates the sale of
laws to the contrary. In some
power at wholesale. The states sense, the Civil War was fought
regulate the sale of power at re- to defend this proposition.
tail. The FERC regulates the
At the same time, other conhigh-voltage bulk power trans- stitutional principles constrain
mission system. The states
what Congress can do.
n Radiation
radioactive cows which ate the
radioactive grass, our ingestion
of concentrated radiation increases, too.
Radiation permeates everywhere, through windows, walls,
roofs, on the breeze, in our
air and our food. And not just
Brattleboro food; nuclear reactors everywhere in the world
contaminate many farm products and ocean foods, too.
No standards set by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture or
the Organic Trade Association
take into account low-grade
radiation in food, but we can
work to strengthen our bodies
and also prevent as much radiation from entering them by
eating a simple, inexpensive,
nuclear-free protective diet.
• Eat low and easy on the
food chain. Eat leafy greens
and cabbages, foods high in
vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin E — all antioxidants that
protect cells by getting rid of
free radicals. Such foods also
build healthy mucus membranes, improve circulation,
and support the immune system. Leafy greens grow quickly
and are not as heavily exposed
to radiation as slower-growing
root vegetables.
• Fiber binds radioactive
substances, so a high-fiber diet
with lots of whole grains helps.
So do beans and nuts. Good
choices include almonds, lentils, check peas, and soybean
products such as tempeh and
tofu.
• Nori seaweed is a great
boost. It floods the adrenal
glands with naturally occurring
iodine that helps prevent them
from filling with radiation. It
has been found that people
me personally to become wellversed and (hopefully) advocate for the public good in this
most powerful way.
Peter and I shook on it, and
I have reminded him since, but
he has blown me off, entirely
without any intention to keep
his word.
He has blown you off too,
incidentally, and it makes me
wonder. Think it through: We
know that Peter has serious political aspirations — he’s got
White House fever running in
his veins. He knows that it is a
corporate rule, and he knows
that a public banking measure denies financial corporate
power moguls the control over
this tiny state that they crave.
I am certain that is why he
has blown me off. It’s not because he is too busy. (Too busy
to spend a couple of hours
learning how North Dakota
has created its own mini-Federal Reserve?) It’s not because
he is too dumb; he is smarter
than most.
Peter has to know that, with
public banking, states can create small business loans, support other banks (the small
commercial banks are healthier in North Dakota than anywhere else in the United
States) and get the benefit of
the interest from those loans to
reduce taxation in their state.
Public banks can issue interest-free loans if they want to,
and still be helping business to
grow.
Don’t you want the power
of the purse here in Vermont?
If you don’t, you can remain a
slave, too.
I hope your chains don’t get
much tighter; it looks like it
hurts.
You will hear more from me,
but when will you listen? I pray
to the Universe it is soon.
The Tenth Amendment
makes clear that unless a power
is delegated to the federal government by the Constitution,
that power is “reserved to the
states . . . or to the people.”
This is why the issue of samegender marriage is resolved
on a state-by-state basis; regulating people’s marital relations is a classic example of
a power not delegated by the
Constitution to Congress.
By contrast, Article
1, Section 8 of the U.S.
Constitution explicitly grants
Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, and
it is this so-called Commerce
Clause that forms the basis
of such federal statutes as the
Atomic Energy Act and the
Federal Power Act.
Here is the upshot.
Energy involves both interstate and intrastate commerce,
and so the constitutionally
grounded concept of federalism means that certain aspects
of energy policy belong to the
federal government while other
aspects repose in the states.
Where shutting down
Vermont Yankee falls, on the
divide between state and federal authority, is a hotly contested but still unresolved
question — one that, hopefully,
the federal judiciary will resolve
in Vermont’s favor.
And that’s what Gov.
Shumlin should have said.
from SECTION FRONT
who consumed nori seaweed
at last once a day were less affected by radiation.
• The preferred animal protein could come from small fish
living in cold saltwater. This is
because the salts in water absorb radiation, and the size
of saltwater bodies are large
enough that radiation concentrations are less. Smaller fish
are lower on the food chain and
have not accumulated many
toxins in their bodies. Farmraised or freshwater fish are exposed to more concentrated
levels of toxins and radiation.
• Fats, including milk and
dairy products and meat,
should be avoided. They tend
to have the highest concentrations of toxins and radiation,
and they take the longest for
the body to digest and process.
So, while we do have
Vermont Yankee contaminating our towns, we can be proactive and build ourselves up.
We can adopt the nuclear free
protective diet, and teach our
family, friends, neighbors, and
children how to do the same.
We can have nuclear
free potlucks, and nuclearfree cooking demos at the
Brattleboro Food Co-op. We
can have recipe swaps, and a
sharing of bulk food purchases.
Do not be afraid to support
your local farm, though choosing farms a bit more upwind
or farther away from Vermont
Yankee would probably be
best.
More information on living healthier in a nuclear town
can be found in the book Diet
for the Atomic Age by Sara
Shannon.
T h e C ommons
VOICES
• Wednesday, August 10, 2011 LETTERS FROM READERS
We have every
right to talk about
nuclear power
W
e are a free people. Our
free speech rights under
the First Amendment were not
revoked by the Atomic Energy
Act. Neither were the rights of
the Vermont Legislature.
So what’s “pre-empted?” We
and our representatives are free
to discuss nuclear safety, if any,
and take it into account in our
decision-making. We are free
to note that the nuclear hazard
is so extreme that (a) we are
forbidden as a state to regulate
it, and (b) no nuclear plant can
buy accident insurance.
That means it’s dangerous.
Whether we appreciated that
fully or not, our Legislature
agreed (by a margin of one
vote) to try a nuke for 40 years.
We had the right and the
power to make that decision,
back when Vermont’s electric
utilities were the primary owners, back when the electricity
was going to be “too cheap to
meter,” and back when the feds
were going to take the waste.
None of that holds true today, and nothing has happened
in the last 40 years to take away
Vermont’s sovereignty. We still
have the power and the right to
make this decision.
The technology is dangerous. (Get a load of
Fukushima!) Yet we are forbidden to regulate safety aspects.
Let’s quit while we’re ahead.
That’s not regulating; it’s opting out. Are our rights preempted? Does the Constitution
give Vermont Yankee or
the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) the right
to make us keep this plant
forever?
Consideration of hazard
can’t be pre-empted, as long as
we don’t seek to regulate it —
and we aren’t. We’re seeking to
cut loose.
There are many other nonpre-empted reasons for getting
rid of this plant.
Nuclear power is so
40-years-ago. It doesn’t match
Vermont’s image — and image is everything here. We depend on tourism and selling
high-quality food to the outside
world. An old nuke plant, especially one that keeps getting
its name in the papers for leaking, damages our brand. Such
economic considerations are
clearly not pre-empted.
Nuclear power is divisive.
We’ve had enough of fighting
with our neighbors, writing letters to the editor, reading letters to the editor. It damages
our community. Pre-empt that!
Nuclear power is boring.
Ever sat through an NRC hearing? Imagine never having to
do that, ever again. Imagine
not needing the Vermont
State Nuclear Advisory Panel
(VSNAP), or a state nuclear
engineer, or evacuation maps
in local schools. Quality of
life — it’s not a pre-empted
consideration.
Nuclear power — we’re just
done with it. We’ve voted that
way again and again, including
in the Vermont Senate in 2010
and in the 2010 governor’s
race. Do we even need to have
a reason?
We voted it in; now we’ve
voted it out. Though I think
this country is in trouble, I
don’t think it’s in so much
trouble that democracy is preempted by the NRC.
Jessie Haas
Westminster
Planning for an
energy-insecure future
O
ur utilities are planning
for an energy-insecure
future in which they will have
to make changes to the way
they produce and distribute
electricity.
Increasing reliance on wind
power, for example, requires
that we allow the frequency of
our distributed electric power
to vary more than it has been
allowed to since the Great
Depression. It will also affect some traffic lights, plugin clocks, timers and anything
that loses the time after a
power outage.
In fact, a test of this change
is planned for this summer
to assess the impact on the
country.
Even rich oil-exporting
countries are planning for energy shortages. Economists
predict that if Saudi Arabia’s
current energy-consumption
growth rate of 7 percent per
year continues, the kingdom
will burn almost all its daily
output of more than eight million barrels a day within 20
years, leaving little or none for
export.
Local, community-based
B3
EDITORIAL
USPS post office plan
shortchanges rural Vermont
I
t’s not news
that the U.S. Postal
Service is on the economic ropes right
now. It has lost billions
of dollars a year as more
people use e-mail instead
of writing letters, and use
electronic payments for
their bills instead putting
checks in the mail.
For the past four decades, the USPS has operated as an independent
government agency that is
supposed to be self-supporting. And because it has
a monopoly on first- and
third-class (“standard”)
mail, the postal service is
obligated to provide universal service six days a
week to every corner of the
nation.
Most post offices in the
country don’t cover their
expenses. That’s why the
USPS is doing a study of
about 3,700 post offices,
mostly in rural areas, with
an eye toward shrinking its
retail network by 12 percent, including 14 post offices in Vermont.
Postmaster General
Patrick Donahoe recently
said that “our customers’
habits have made it clear
that they no longer require a physical post office
to conduct most of their
postal business.” He predicts that nearly half of the
roughly 32,000 postal facilities in the United States
will be closed by 2018.
If that is Donahoe’s vision for the future, we
think that he has no idea
of the importance of the
postal service in a state like
Vermont.
discs to medicine, from
magazines and newspapers
to parcels and packages,
the USPS still delivers
when others can’t or won’t.
Here in southern
Vermont, where broadband Internet service is still
spotty, the post office plays
an important role in people’s lives. For people who,
by choice or circumstance,
don’t have computers or
cars, it is how they interact
with the world.
Despite the competition from the Internet and
private parcel shippers
such as UPS and FedEx,
the USPS delivers 40 percent of the world’s mail to
150 million addresses in
the United States. For 44
cents, you can send a letter
from Brattleboro to any address east of the Mississippi
River and have it arrive in
two business days; it will
arrive in only three business days to an address on
the West Coast.
Conservatives in
Congress have long pushed
for the end of the USPS in
favor of putting your firstand third-class mail service in the hands of private
competitors.
We can imagine what
that would mean for a state
like Vermont. We would
likely end up paying more
money for slower, lessfrequent service. People
would have to drive longer
distances to send or receive
parcels. And it would likely
mean the end of universal
service, as authorized by
the Constitution.
While the USPS says
that retail locations located
in rented-out spaces in local stores, libraries, and
government buildings will
pick up the slack and provide the services most used
by patrons, these will not
be full-service post offices.
Allison Teague/The Commons
Boxes in the Cambridgeport post office, one of
the facilities under review by the United States
Postal Service.
They will sell stamps and
prepaid parcel post boxes,
but do little else.
Yes, many small, rural
post offices are not profitable, but closing them will
do little to hold the USPS’
bottom line. According
to the Postal Regulatory
Commission, closing all
10,000 small and rural post
offices would save only 0.7
percent of the USPS operating budget.
Our nation’s postal system was not designed to
be profitable. It was designed to serve the public. It was designed to
serve all America, all the
time. Under federal law,
the USPS “shall provide
a maximum degree of effective and regular postal
services to rural areas,
communities, and small
towns where post offices
are not self-sustaining.”
The law also says, “No
small post office shall be
closed solely for operating
at a deficit, it being the specific intent of the Congress
that effective postal services be insured to residents of both urban and
rural communities.”
The idea of the federal
government providing a
service for the public good
is not fashionable right
now in Washington. But
universal mail service is a
public good, and in many
parts of America, including
Vermont, it is essential. It
needs to be preserved.
initiatives such as Brattleboro’s
Transition Town and Post Oil
Solutions (POS) have organized in anticipation for a fuIn a small town, the
ture that will have reduced
post office is a commuenergy availability and energy
costs that are unaffordable for
nity hub. It is also essential
much of our population. These
for the delivery of goods
initiatives provide a good way
that you can’t get through
to educate and induce positive
a computer. From Netflix
change.
I suggest that you do what
you can to reduce your energy
Editorials represent the collective voice of The Commons and are written by the editors or by members of the Vermont
usage now, that you keep your
eyes open for local Transition
Independent Media Board of Directors. We present our point of view not to have the last word, but the first: we heartily
Town events, and that you
encourage letters from readers, and we love spirited dialogue even if — especially if — you disagree with us.
elect politicians who are workSend your letters to voices@commonsnews.org, or leave a comment at www.commonsnews.org.
ing to secure our energy future by executing an achievable
plan.
I know I want my lights to
come on when I am retired and
drawing Social Security, but I
also want to be able to pay the
electric bill and have money
left over so I can afford to enjoy
my retirement.
he Windham County econ- license renewal granted to the
Entergy has invested more than year. For the past 19 months,
Chris Bates
omy has been flat for the
nuclear plant earlier this year
$400 million to modernize the extremely close monitoring
Brattleboro past decade, with significant
by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory safety, efficiency, and reliability by the NRC and the Vermont
job losses, little new investCommission.
of the physical plant. The more Department of Health has conThe letter writer is a senior engiment, an aging workforce, and
According to a comprethan 600 men and women of
sistently reported no threat to
neer at the Vermont Yankee nuvirtually no population growth. hensive economic study subthe plant’s workforce, already
public health or safety as a reclear power plant in Vernon.
A few years ago, C & S
mitted to the Vermont Public
regarded as one of the finest
sult of tritium.
Wholesale Grocers, one of the Service Board over a year
professional nuclear operating
It would be a tragedy if
major employers and mainago, Vermont Yankee proorganizations in the U.S. fleet, purely political considerations
stays of the Windham County
vides more than 600 well-pay- have earned top ratings from
cause the needless loss of a
economy, made the decision
ing jobs in the region and puts the NRC. Vermont Yankee is
safe and efficient economic
to move their corporate head$100 million each year into the regarded as being in the top 15 engine like Vermont Yankee,
quarters to Keene, N.H.
regional Vermont economy
percent of all U.S. plants by
particularly in a region with a
This year, Vermont Yankee through payroll, taxes, and the the industry professional “best truly marginal economy like
is facing the possible end of a
purchase of goods and services practices” organization.
Windham County.
40-year relationship with the
from other in-state businesses.
The January 2010 tritium
Nancy LaBeau
n open letter to Karl Rove: compensating for? Were you
Windham County community. Over the 20 years of extended
leak was identified and reBellows Falls
I want to speak to you
not breast fed?
This is based in part upon opoperation, that would amount
paired within a matter of weeks
with a clear and non-emotional
I implore you to seek help.
position by some vocal local
to $2 billion.
and a very successful groundvoice.
You can stop. No addict, inresidents (including Vermont’s
Over the eight years since
water remediation program
You, Grover Norquist,
cluding one addicted to power, new governor) to the 20-year
purchasing Vermont Yankee,
has been under way for over a
Jack Abramoff, Dick Cheney,
has to keep living through his
George W. Bush, and all of
or her personal nightmare.
your cronies and friends have
In this case, you’ve created a
created this horrible, racist
nightmare scenario for all of us.
message that will lead to fasPlease, please think about
“GENUINE PIT B-B-Q”
cism and despair.
your actions. You created this
Why do you hate us? Why do mess. Your parents would
Hickory smoked“GENUINE
pork, beef brisketPIT B-B-Q”
you hate your fellow Americans surely tell you to clean it up.
& ribs, grilled
chicken,
burgers, Rated
so much? Is this some pasBarbara Halliday
2010 Tripadvisor
cajun
& vegetarian
entrees,
sive-aggressive compulsion to
Brattleboro
Hickory
smoked
pork,
beef
brisket
Hickory
smoked
pork,
beef brisket
“GENUINE
PIT
B-B-Q”
#1sides
Restaurant
in
Brattleboro!
dominate left over from being
homemade
&grilled
more chicken,
& ribs,chicken,
burgers,
&
ribs, grilled
burgers,
bullied as a child, a compulsion
cajun
&
vegetarian
entrees,
Hickory
pork,entrees,
beef brisket
cajun
& smoked
vegetarian
that has caused you to become
homemade sides & more
•
Trophy
Winner
&
ribs,
grilled
chicken,
burgers,
bullies?
homemade sides & more
Vermont
cajun
& vegetarian entrees,
Please stop.
B-B-Q • sides
Trophy
What you are creating is upassume that Corey Daniels
homemade
&Winner
more
Vermont
Championship
heaval on the entire planet.
continues to be the shop
• Trophy
Winner
B-B-Q
• •Trophy
Winner:
VT B-B-Q
What will be left for you to
steward of the International
YANKEE
MAGAZINE’S
•Vermont
Trophy Winner
Championship
dominate once your plans
Brotherhood of Electrical
Championship
“Editor’s Pick”
B-B-Q
come to fruition? What are you Workers Local 300. He is a
Vermont • YANKEE MAGAZINE’S
•
YANKEE
MAGAZINE
• Championship
FODOR’S
good man.
B-B-Q GUIDE
“Editor’s Pick”
“Editor’s
Pick”
“Highest
rating”
After the initial “huge”
Championship
• MAGAZINE’S
FODOR’S
GUIDE
release of radiation at
YANKEE
•••FODOR’S
GUIDE
“Highest
Rating”
“Best
B-B-Q”
“Highest rating”
• Voted
YANKEE
MAGAZINE’S
he Democrats are the party that Fukushima, unmonitored due
“Editor’s
Pick”
Brattleboro
•Voted
“Best B-B-Q”
Brattleboro
says government will make you to the electrical outage, a new
“Editor’s
•Pick”
Voted “Best B-B-Q”
smarter, taller, richer, and remove radioisotope was found.
•
FODOR’S
GUIDE
Brattleboro
• FODOR’S GUIDE
I wish to congratulate Mr.
the crabgrass on your lawn. The
Putney
Road,
Brattleboro, VT
“Highest
rating”
“Highest
rating”
Daniels.
The
new
radioacRepublicans are the party that says
Overlooking the West River
government doesn’t work and then tive element has been named
Putney
Road, Brattleboro, VT
••258-9178
Voted
“Best
B-B-Q”
Voted “Best
B-B-Q”
Corium.
get elected and prove it.
April
through
October
Overlooking
the West
River
Brattleboro
Brattleboro
Gary Sachs
—P.J. O’Rourke
258-9178 April through October
Brattleboro
In this economy, closing Vermont Yankee
for political reasons would be a tragedy
T
Karl Rove, were you
not breast fed?
A
TOP of the HILL GRILL
TOPTOP
of the
HILL GRILL
of the HILL GRILL
“GENUINE PIT B-B-Q”
TOP
of the HILL GRILL
Congrats?
I
T
Putney Road, Brattleboro, VT
Putney
Road, Brattleboro, VT
B4
T h e C ommons
arts & community C A L E N D A R
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Third annual Windham
County History Fair
set for Aug. 13
NEWFANE—Windham
County will celebrate its past
with the third annual history
fair on Saturday, Aug. 13, from
10 a.m.-4 p.m., on the historic
Common in Newfane, in front
of the County Courthouse.
The event will feature exhibits by the Vermont Historical
Society, the Historical Society
of Windham County, the
Estey Organ Museum, the
Brookline Round School
House, and Brookline Church
Preservation Association, as
well as eight historical societies in Windham County, including those from Brattleboro,
Dover, Dummerston,
Jamaica, Townshend, Vernon,
Wardsboro, and Wilmington.
In addition to their exhibits,
many of the towns will have their
published town histories for sale
as well as other historic memorabilia (prints, cards, photographs)
of the area.
Renowned Civil War reenactor Bill McKone will be giving talks during the fair. Also,
award-winning local journalist
Becky Karush will be collecting
Vermont oral history.
Antique professionals will appraise your old treasures at the
antique tent for a small donation
fee. Shop for handcrafted wares
Dozens of events around and about Windham County
are online at www.commonsnews.org
BAJC Israeli Film Festival
returns to southern Vermont
B R A T T LE B O R O —
The Brattleboro Area Jewish
Community will once again celebrate the diversity of Israel’s
fast-growing film industry by
presenting its fifth Annual Israeli
Film and Food Festival, offering
four award-winning Israeli films.
The film festival provides a fun
summer activity that gives people
the chance to see the creative film
work coming out of Israel while
raising money for the synagogue
in Brattleboro.
On Sunday, Aug. 21, Blood
Relation and 2048 will be shown
at the Mountain Park Cinema
in West Dover starting at 1 p.m.
Blood Relation tells the story
of a Jewish family’s attempt at
reconciliation when it discovers
that a long-lost member is alive
and living in in the Palestinian
Territories. 2048 postulates
Israel not existing in the year
2048.
On Saturday, Aug, 27, two
documentaries by renowned
Israeli filmmaker Micha Shagrir
will have their New England
premiere screenings at the New
England Youth Theater in
Brattleboro starting at 7 p.m.
Just Like the Queen of New
England tells the story of David
Bergman as he retraces his escape from the Nazis at age 11 in
France, hiding with Christians,
escaping over the border to
Switzerland, and eventually
landing in pre-state Israel and
becoming a founding member
of a kibbutz.
When Israel Went Out retraces
the journey of Jewish Ethiopians
by crafters from the region, including colonial furniture reproductions, old maps of Vermont,
hand woven items and felted
items, wood carvings, pickles,
jams and jellies, and much more.
Join the walking tours of the
Village’s historic district highlighting residences and buildings removed early in the 19th
Century from the old Town
Common on Newfane Hill down
to their current location in the
Shire Village.
Various demonstrations and
presentations will take place
throughout the day. Food, raffles, and live music, including
a demonstration of an Estey
Organ, will add to the day’s
festivities.
The Museum of The
Historical Society of Windham
County will be open all day with
regularly scheduled tours of its
extensive collection of Windham
County artifacts.
The History Fair is sponsored
by The Historical Society of
Windham County. It will take
place rain or shine. There is no
admission charge. For more information, call the Historical
Society of Windham County
at 802-365-4148 or visit www.
historicalsocietyofwindhamcounty.org.
ASPIRE program gets
ready for its 14th year
From “When Israel Went Out,” one of the films featured at this year’s Israeli
Film and Food Festival.
who walked more than 120 miles
though unforgiving desert to
the still-hostile Sudan where secret IDF airlifts shuttled them
to Israel.
At both venues, doors will
open a half-hour before the
films begin. Raffle tickets for interesting prizes from local merchants will be offered, and light
fare of traditional Israeli and
Middle-Eastern desserts and
snacks will be served during the
intermission.
The synagogue of the
Brattleboro Area Jewish
Community, called Shir Heharim
(Song of the Mountains) is affiliated with the Union for Reform
Judaism (URJ), the largest Jewish
movement in North America.
While the synagogue building is
located at 151 Greenleaf St. in
Brattleboro, its members come
from a wide surrounding circle
— from West Dover to Chester
Fri August 12 – Tue August 16
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to southwestern New Hampshire
and northern Massachusetts.
The congregation welcomes
participation from second-home
owners, snowbirds, skiers and
summer visitors in the area.
Information about the festival
and summaries of the films can
be found at the congregation’s
website: www.bajcvermont.org.
Ordered in advance, tickets are
$18 for each day. Tickets purchased at the door are $25 (if
there are seats available).
You can order tickets for either or both days by calling 802257-1959. Checks made out to
BAJC can be mailed to P.O. Box
2353, Brattleboro, VT 05303.
Tickets will either be mailed
when payment is received or held
at the door.
3 Friday Dance at the Womens Club
Fri., Sat. & Sun., Aug. 12, 13 & 14
COWBOYS
& ALIENS
“Yankee Chank” Cajun
8pm, Friday, August 19
Vermont Symphony
PG-13
COWBOYS SHOWN 1ST aT 8:20
Friday, September 30
Info & Events Tickets At
www.bfoperahouse.com
By phone (800) 595-4849
and at Village Square Booksellers
On The Square, Bellows Falls VT
www.bfoperahouse.com
Movie Info - (802) 463-4766
& BRIDESMAIDS
R
www.northfielddrivein.com
(603) 239-4054
Northfield - Hinsdale Rd. (Rt. 63)
Windham & Windsor Housing Trust
is offering a
Homebuyer Education Workshop
Wednesday, August 17 &
Wednesday, August 24
4pm to 8pm
Must attend both classes
To register call 802-246-2102
www.w-wht.org
Thanks to Meeting Waters
YMCA, hundreds of kids in
southeastern Vermont can continue to learn and develop important social skills even after
the bell rings at the end of the
school day.
At least as importantly, says,
Steve Fortier, the organization’s
executive director, that also
means that several hundred parents can work with the peace of
mind that their child is in a safe
and nurturing environment.
“When Sue (Fortier, the Y’s
Program Director) and I created
ASPIRE in 1998, we made sure
that it would meet the needs of
working parents,” said Fortier.
“What we do at ASPIRE is all
about positive youth development. When we do ASPIRE is
all about supporting working
parents.”
Now in its 14th year of operations, the After-School Program
for Inspiration, Recreation
and Education takes place
at Brattleboro’s Oak Grove,
Green Street, and Academy
schools, Dummerston School,
and at Meeting Waters YMCA’s
Bellows Falls facility for students
that attend Westminster Center
School, Saxtons River School.
and Rockingham Central School.
The ASPIRE program runs
after school for each of the 180
school days. It also runs for full
days on all school vacations and
most holidays, as well as for halfdays on teacher in-service and
other early release days. In all,
the program operates for over
210 days during the school year.
Each day of an ASPIRE program includes physical activity,
nutritious snack, assisted study
time and a cooperative group
project. Activities are centered
around monthly themes such
as Different But the Same; Our
Community; and Kindness and
Justice. Through various activities, students in the ASPIRE
program develop “life skills”
such as cooperation, problemsolving, group decision-making
and leadership.
They also learn more about
themselves, their community
and their world. Service learning projects benefit other community agencies as well as the
ASPIRE participants. Monthly
family events focus on family
strengthening and health.
Three other Meeting Waters
YMCA programs complement the ASPIRE program.
Their Kindergarten ASPIRE
program runs during the first
month of school in Brattleboro
and Dummerston. During that
month, kindergarten ends at 1
p.m., which provides a challenge
for working parents.
For the past eight years,
Meeting Waters YMCA has
filled that void. The regional
Y’s Snow Days Program in
Brattleboro provides full day
care when schools are unexpectedly closed due to inclement
weather. And, when the school
year ends, Meeting Waters
YMCA’s Lewis Day Camp —
with busing from Brattleboro,
Putney, Westminster, Bellows
Falls, and five other Vermont
and New Hampshire communities — then kicks in to serve
kids and parents in the summer
months.
Financial assistance for all
Meeting Waters YMCA “outof-school” programs is available
through the New Hampshire and
Vermont Child Care Subsidy
programs and Meeting Waters
YMCA’s Reach Out to Youth
scholarship fund. As in all of
the YMCA’s programs, no one
will be denied access to ASPIRE
for lack of ability to pay full program fees.
For more information and
registration materials, visit www.
meetingwatersymca.org, contact
Meeting Waters YMCA’s main
office at 802-463-4769 or info@
meetingwatersymca.org.
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• Wednesday, August 10, 2011 B5
From the
archives to
digitized
Historic Vermont
newspapers get new
lease on life online
VtDigger.org
The Vermont Digital
Newspaper Project last week
added its first batch of digitized
newspaper pages to a national
database dedicated to providing
searchable digital copies of historic newspapers from all over
the nation.
Tom McMurdo, the project
librarian for the state effort, said
there are currently 25 states involved in the National Digital
Newspaper Project along with
Washington, D.C.
Vermont recently added the
database’s oldest available pages,
some from 1836, the earliest
year within Vermont’s range of
funding. Two Windham County
weeklies that were the ancestors
of today’s Brattleboro Reformer,
the Windham County Democrat
and the Vermont Phoenix, are
among the papers to be digitized.
The $391,552 for the Vermont
project comes from the National
Endowment for the Humanities,
and stipulates that the project
must digitize 100,000 pages of
Vermont newspapers published
between 1836 and 1922.
The earliest page available
from anywhere in the nation,
from Jan. 5, 1836, is from the
Rutland Herald. It features a
follow-up story on New York’s
Great Fire of December 1835.
Federal officials chose 1836
as a starting point in an effort to
extend the realm of public information to before the Civil War,
around which much work has
already been done. 1922 is the
last year of public domain, said
McMurdo, so the project would
have to get special permission
from publishers in order to digitize any content published after
that year.
The work outlined in the grant
is the beginning of a much larger
effort, said McMurdo.
“100,000 pages is just a drop
in the bucket,” he said. “There
are millions of pages of newspapers in Vermont that have not
been digitized.”
McMurdo moved to Vermont
from California, where he had
been working with the California
Digital Newspaper Collection
since the inception of the national project in 2005. He was
hired by UVM as a full-time librarian on the Vermont project.
McMurdo said that as the primary 100,000 pages are completed, the project will seek
additional funding to extend
their efforts.
The process of digitizing the
newspapers is much more complicated than simply scanning an
image, McMurdo said. Because
the digitization effort also involves a searchable database of
pages, the process requires an
additional process called Optical
Character Recognition, OCR
for short.
Optical Character Recognition
is software that analyzes scanned
pages and assigns digital text
values to written characters,
McMurdo said. Once these values are assigned, users can search
the database of pages for specific
terms. The searches will return
a set of pages which contain the
terms searched.
The process, McMurdo said,
is not 100 percent accurate. If
the digital scans are made using
degraded microfilm which was
made using degraded newspapers, OCR accuracy can be as
low as 25 percent. However, using high quality microfilm images, accuracy can be up to 98
percent, McMurdo said.
The National Digital
Newspaper Project publishes
the searchable database at
Chronicling America, http://
chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, a
website where digitized pages
from all over the country are
available.
Vermont’s project is focusing primarily on 12 titles
from all over the state within
the prescribed time period. A
12-member advisory committee of journalists, librarians, and
historians from all over Vermont
decided on the selection of publications, focusing on capturing quality historical content
while at the same time maintaining a good geographic spread,
McMurdo said.
The Vermont Digital
Newspaper Project is contracting out the labor-intensive microfilm scanning process, McMurdo
said, to iArchives, a Utah-based
company. Microfilm from the
state archives is copied and sent
to the company, where they are
scanned and then sent back in
digital form for processing. The
state archive originals, he said,
never leave the state.
Matt Skove/Audio Design
Home Audio/Flat Screen TV’s
Car/Boat Audio
Bluetooth Phone/Hands Free Car Kits
Sales and/or Installation
“I’ll come to you!’’
802-257-5419
Courtesy of Tom McMurdo
EMILY COX AND hENRY RAThVON
ThE COMMONS CROSSWORD
“Ham Writing Analysis”
HAM-WRITING ANALYSIS (globexword@gmail.com) Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
1
ACROSS
1. Goose eggs
6. Not handwritten
11. Piece for a pair
15. Posterior
19. Not exactly bright
20. “Don’t delay!”
21. Nephew of Ishmael
22. Novel set in Tahiti
23. Ham collegian’s fall outfit?
27. Spin-off procedural
28. Former Vegas casino
29. Flavor by soaking
30. Lawyer’s “concerning”
31. Almost no gas?
32. Ritzy properties
33. Habitat for aquanauts
36. Madame Curie
37. Cap-__ (head to foot)
38. Base for Canadian hams?
40. Decent pot for a Hollywood
bash?
45. Publicity
46. Speaker in the Hall
47. Hoyt of country music
48. Parent of PayPal
49. PDQ
51. With 43-Down, jazz singer
52. Toy romantically
53. Benedict III’s predecessor
54. Name on a Queens stadium
56. Totem-carving tribe
57. Quarry for Ness
58. Cyberspace for stewed hams?
64. `Slacker` setting
65. Bret who wrote
66. “Self” starter
67. Prepare to drive
68. French Open champ 1990-92
69. Pend
71. Pesky-sounding DC team
75. At any time
76. Slithered
77. Square rigger’s spar
78. By way of
79. Ham doctor’s order for
heartbreak?
81. Ham radio host of lovesick
blues?
85. Did a pirouette
86. From A to Z
87. Misgiving
88. Hair goo for men
92. Reveille player
93. Audi alternatives
94. New Age institute
95. Early action figure
96. Corrupting inﬂuences
100. Ham’s weekend plans abroad?
103. Furniture chain
104. Adequate, informally
105. Rooster, in Rome
106. Words heeded by Alice
107. Home to some Sargents
108. Mama rabbits
109. Shrek creator William
110. Fantasy
2
3
4
5
6
19
7
8
24
12
13
39
45
46
50
49
59
40
41
47
55
64
62
69
71
70
77
82
86
91
99
84
93
95
96
101
100
83
87
92
94
98
78
81
85
90
74
66
80
89
73
63
76
79
72
57
68
75
44
53
65
67
43
48
56
61
42
37
52
60
18
32
51
54
17
29
36
38
16
26
31
35
15
22
28
34
14
25
30
88
11
21
27
58
10
20
23
33
9
97
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
© 2011 Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
DOWN
1. Brass constituent
2. Earth-orbiting chimp
3. Norah’s sitarplaying dad
4. Eight furlongs
5. Formative
6. Writing assignment
7. Cosmonaut Gagarin
8. Overdo the curiosity
9. Slate-cleaning acts
10. Exciting to watch
11. Owners’ papers
12. Takes advantage of
13. 58-Down, in France
89. Honshu metropolis
72. Running shoe brand
14. Variety of Arabic
90. `Le Fifre` painter
73. Reasons for overtime
15. Nicholson title role
91. Seaweeds, et al.
74. Quench
16. Folding words
92. Thwacks
76. Wiped out
17. Eddic language
93. Haze over
77. Gave a tonguelashing
18. Noggins
95. Binder for luthiers
80. “Bone” combiner
24. Grilling style
96. Dreamscape artist
81. Grazing sea mammals
25. Swamp cypress feature
97. Art Deco designer
82. Tufts mascot
26. Lay to rest
98. Plum tomato type
83. Paraffin-free, as fruit
31. Mononymic Italian model
99. Be derived
84. Tobacco ad claim
32. Orlando theme park
101. Name linked with Lennon
86. Popular apple
33. Branch of Islam
102. Land amid 13- Down
88. `Man on Wire` subject Philippe
34. Billions of years
35. Volcanic Aleutian island
36. Paltry
Last issue’s solution
37. Off course
“Foursquare”
39. Chase in baseball
FOURSQUARE (globexword@gmail.com)
40. Rust, for one
S W A M P
H O O P L E
O B J E T
41. Continues
A B A S E D
T A I L O R
K I L O B A
42. Old Mac laptop
L O R I N G
H U M V E E
A L V E O L
43. See 51-Across
C A V E S
E A R E D
N O
A R P A
44. Yiddish wail
T O L
T I L E S
V A S S A R
P I N
47. Similar
A N E M O N E S
S A L O O N
B A T E
50. Graze area?
I N C
V A L O U R
D O L E D
51. Boston restaurateur Joyce
S E P T E T
R O D E N T
R I G A
52. Extreme diets
P L O T S
D O T I N G
B I V O U A C
53. `Cafe` additive
A V E S
L O
H U G E S T
O R B I T
55. Curling team captain
56. Put on the payroll
R E T
V E
R O B E R T I N D I A N A
57. Guzzle
N E E D L E
T R I
A B B R S
B I R
58. Aquarium contents
A S C R I B E S
P E E L E D
P E N C
59. Spanish omelet need
U S E D
M A S S E Y
E R A S E
60. Buckminster Fuller’s `__ to Be a
S E L
T I N E S
B A R D O T
Verb`
T O T E S
H E R M A N
U N C L E B E
61. `Riverdance` composer Bill
H O W S
I L
M U R R A Y
T R I A L
62. Bill of rockabilly
I L E
F U N G I
S E G E R
W E V
63. Title name for a fish
A C T O N E
G E R B I
S O L O I S T
68. Blood component
G L O W E R
O S I E R
I N V E R T S
69. Berry of `Bulworth`
E
T E T R A
G
E
S
Y
T
M
N
R
V
E
70. Dilettantish
26
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By Taylor Dobbs
University
of Vermont
Cataloging
and Metadata
Specialist
Michael Breiner
performs some
frame by frame
inspection
of a copy of
the Vermont
Phoenix, one
of 12 Vermont
newspapers
that are being
digitized as
part of the
Vermont Digital
Newspaper
Project.
"
T h e C ommons
VT STATE
INSPECTION
$5 OFF THE REGULAR PRICE
VT State Inspection
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Red
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SPORTS
State routed in Shrine game
for the 11th straight year
V
ermont gave it a good
try, but in the end, the
result was the same
as New Hampshire
rolled over Vermont, 45-21,
at the 58th annual Shrine
Maple Sugar Bowl on Saturday
at MacLeay-Royce Field in
Windsor.
New Hampshire holds a 4313-2 edge on Vermont and has
won 21 of the previous 23 contests. Vermont’s last victory in
the game that matches the top
recently graduated senior football stars came in 2000.
Vermont hoped to break the
losing streak with an aerial attack. Champlain Valley’s Jim
Provost, coach of the Vermont
squad, installed a spread offense for starting quarterback
Christian McCormick, who
threw for 2,619 yards and 37
touchdowns in leading Rice to
the Division II title last fall.
As in past years, New
Hampshire had bigger, stronger athletes than their Vermont
counterparts, which made
speed the only option for
the Green Mountain Boys.
McCormick threw for three
touchdowns and completed
22 of 48 passes for 278 yards.
Unfortunately, he also threw
four interceptions.
Vermont trailed 21-14 at the
half, but the Granite Staters
poured it on in the second half.
Three touchdowns in the third
quarter dashed any hopes of a
Vermont comeback.
Salem’s Matt Jacques, who
holds his school’s all-time rushing record with 4,559 yards,
was the star of the game for
Quinton Carr/Special to The Commons
New Hampshire. He rushed
for 265 yards on 26 carries and Putney’s Travis Watson had three hits and threw
two innings of scoreless relief to give the Fossils a
scored three touchdowns. His
5-2 win over the Brattleboro River Rats on Sunday.
performance broke the previous Shrine game record of 206
yards set in 2004
by Plymouth’s
The tourin their home opener at Hadley
Mike Boyle.
nament ends
Field on Saturday, Sept. 3, at
Bellows Falls
on Sunday in
1 p.m.
running back
Walpole. The
The rest of the fall sports beRyan Hayward
second and third gin on Tuesday, Sept. 6, startwas the lone local
remaining seeds
ing with the Brattleboro and
R A N D O L P H T . play at 11 a.m.
representative in
Bellows Falls cross country
HOLHUT
this year‘s game.
The winner of
teams’ first meet of the season
Sports Roundup
These games
that game plays
in Westminster.
may be one-sided,
the top remaining
Boys’ and girls’ soccer also
but the real winseed at 1:30 p.m. opens on Sept. 6. For the boys,
ners are the Shrine hospiFall sports season coming up Twin Valley travels to Bellows
tals in Montreal, Boston and
In the Vermont sports world,
Falls, Brattleboro heads south
Springfield, Mass. The Shrine the Shrine game marks the end to play Monument Mountain
game has raised nearly $5 mil- of summer and the beginning
in Great Barrington, Mass.,
lion over nearly six decades for of preparations for the fall high and Leland & Gray hosts
these three hospitals.
school sports season.
Mount St. Joseph.
Football teams around the
Brattleboro kicks off the
CRVBL roundup
state can begin practice on
girls’ soccer season against
• The Claremont Cardinals
Monday. For soccer, field
Stevens at Tenney Field in a 7
finished the regular season of
hockey and cross country,
p.m. match, while the Bellows
the Connecticut River Valley
the first team practice day is
Falls girls host Fair Haven on
Baseball League in first place
Monday, August 22.
Sept. 7.
with an 11-4 record. They
The high school football seaField hockey also gets going
wrapped up the regular season begins on Sept. 2, when
on Sept. 6, as Brattleboro hosts
son Sunday with a 15-0 rout
Brattleboro hosts Essex at
Monadnock in its home opener
of the Keene Black Dawgs.
Natowich Field for a 7 p.m.
at Tenney Field. Bellows Falls
John Grainger and Paul Felix
game. The defending Division doesn’t open the season unhad three hits each for the
III champions, the Bellows
til Sept. 12, when they host
Cardinals.
Falls Terriers, host Fair Haven Woodstock.
The Chester Pirates maintained their hold on second place without having to
en forget everything; women rememplay a game. They finished
ber everything. That’s why men need
with an 8-4 record after their
instant replays in sports. They’ve already
game with Saxtons River was
forgotten what happened.
cancelled.
—Rita Rudner
That left the Saxtons River
Pirates and the Brattleboro
River Rats tied for third with
7-7 records. The Putney
All environmentally friendly
Fossils beat Brattleboro, 5-2,
chemicals based on citrus,
at Dummerston School. Travis
oxygen, nitrogen
Watson was the winning
and baking soda.
pitcher for Putney, he also had
3 hits and scored 2 runs.
• No residue left behind!
The win put Putney in sole
•
Flat
rate charge! • Fully insured
possession of fourth place with
•
Free
estimates
• Owner-Operated
a 5-10 record. Keene finished
last with a 4-10 record.
The CRVBL playoffs begin
on Friday night. This year’s
format features three, three802-348-7304
game series over Friday and
Saturday with series winners
squaring off for a single elimination championship round on
Sunday.
“The SMALL Credit Union
On Friday, Claremont
hosts Putney at 7 p.m. at hiswith a BIG HEART”
toric Barnes Park, while there
will be two games under the
www.members1cu.com
lights at the new baseball field
10 Browne CT
PO Box 8245
in Walpole, N.H. Keene takes
on Chester at 6:15 p.m., folN. Brattleboro, VT 05304
lowed by Saxtons River facing
NCUA
Tel. (802) 257-5131
Brattleboro at 8:15 p.m.
Insured to
250,000
The playoffs continue on
Fax (802) 257-5837
Saturday morning. Keene
takes on Chester at Vermont
Academy in Saxtons River at
10 a.m. If the series is tied,
Acupuncture
Game 3 will be played at 12:30
Chiropractic
p.m.
General Family Medicine
Game 2 of the Brattleboro/
Lifestyle medicine
Saxtons River series takes place
at Vermont Academy at 2:30
Massage Therapy
p.m. Game 3 is scheduled for 5
205 Main Street
Naturopathic Medicine
p.m., if necessary.
Brattleboro, VT 05301
Nutritional
Putney and Claremont
Phone. 802.275.4732
Assessment/Individualized
square off in Game 2 of their
Programs
Fax. 802.275.4738
series in Walpole at 11 a.m. If a
Physical Therapy
info@biologichealthcare.com
third game is necessary, it will
www.biologichealthcare.com
Psychotherapy
be played 1:30 p.m.
M
100%
GREEN!
D&D Carpet Cleaning
MEMBERS 1ST CREDIT UNION
T h e C ommons
World Learning program helps Mexican
youth seek solutions to violence
By Beatriz C. Fantini
Special to The Commons
BRATTLEBORO—World
Learning played host to nearly
70 Mexican high school students this summer as part of
new exchange designed to promote a more law-abiding culture in Mexico.
They came from all over
Mexico — from small towns
in the green state of Morelos,
from the mining state of San
Luis Potosi, and from Sonora,
Jalisco, Guanajuato. They
also came from cities like
Veracruz, Tijuana, and the
Federal District of Mexico.
Their desire to address social
issues, including substance
abuse, gang violence, bullying,
and community development,
motivated these top students to
apply for the five-week leadership program.
Known as Youth in Action
or Jóvenes en Acción, the
program is sponsored by the
Bureau of Public Education in
Mexico, the U.S. Department
of State, and other private
sector entities. Given its binational approach, its publicprivate partnership structure,
its significant follow-up component, and its concentration
on specific outcomes tied to key
priorities in U.S.-Mexico relations, the program represents
a new model in exchange and
leadership programming.
For two weeks in Vermont,
the students attended English
training and workshops on
leadership, civic education,
and team building. They also
visited local attractions like the
Brattleboro Farmers’ Market
and Circus Smirkus, met local people, and interacted
with other groups at World
Learning — students from Iraq,
Cyprus, Germany, Turkey, and
the United States.
The students are now in one
of five host cities: Baltimore,
Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland,
and Seattle. There they are
living with local families, performing community service,
and learning leadership and
engagement skills relevant to
various social issues.
The program concludes in
Washington, D.C., where the
students will meet government officials and develop action plans for service projects
to carry out upon return home
to Mexico.
When asked about their impressions of Vermont and the
program, most students used
words like “awesome,” “amazing,” “perfect,” “fun,” and
“overwhelming” to describe
their experience.
The students were exposed
to new activities, such as the
ropes course, which they found
terrifying and exhilarating at
the same time.
“This was the most challenging experience I ever had,”
one student said. “To walk on
a rope 33 feet high was something beyond my imagination.”
Others said the most transformative part of the program
was meeting youth from other
countries.
“I never imagined that, in
Vermont, I would learn so
much about Cypriots and
Iraqis,” said one student. “I
did not know that Cyprus is divided, the north with Turkish
Cypriots and the south with
Greek Cypriots. This is better
than a history class.”
Another student found that
Iraqi students are “really openminded” and that they are
“very similar to us. They like
the same things, like American
music, they have the same ideas
about many issues, and they
like to have fun!”
In addition to the Cypriot
and Iraqi students, the Mexican
youth also interacted with
Americans. Together, they
explored issues like conflict
transformation, social change,
public speaking, and networking. They also shared moments
of fun while hiking, canoeing,
and playing drums.
In the end, after all the inspiring lectures, the project
planning, and the challenging
activities, what remains most
vivid in their minds is the opportunity to learn from people
around the world and to share
their culture with others.
This was what Donald
B. Watt intended when he
founded The Experiment in
International Living in the
1930s, which would later become World Learning — to
help “achieve peace through
understanding.”
Thank you for helping to make our
community healthier for young people!
The Brattleboro Area Prevention Coalition would like to thank the many community partners who participated in the “Parents Who Host, Lose The Most: Don’t be a party to teenage drinking” underage drinking prevention campaign. With your support, 96% of parents know there are legal consequences of providing alcohol to underage youth. Adivasi Gift Shop Hooker Dunham Properties Rich & Pam McFadden At the Oasis Clothing Inspire Autism School Rich Hoppe, State Farm Insurance Auto Mall Jason Touchet Richmond Auto Repair Bill Hammond JB Auto Rob Speila Blueberry Haus Jeff's Basement Robin Rieske Brattleboro Bike Shop John McCay's Used Auto Rounds Woodworking Brattleboro Books Kate John Sanel Auto Parts Brattleboro Food Coop Key Bank Saxtons River Distillery BMH Knit or Dye Yarn Shop Schoolhouse Grocery Brattleboro Savings & Loan KOA Campground Sue Graff & The United Way Brattleboro Subaru LiPon Artefacts Silver Moon Adornments Brattleboro Police Dept. Lisa Blake, Grange Hall Windham County Sheriff's Department Brooks Memorial Library MBS Microbrewery Supplies State Police Barracks BUHS Maple Leaf Music Suzie Walker Burrows Specialized Sports Marlboro College Grad Center Taylor for Flowers Burtons Car Wash Massiello Realty TD Bank, Employee Lounge Candle in the Night Mattress Outlet The Hot Dog Stand Carroll Concrete Mayotte's Tree Service The Shoe Tree Cersosimo Lumber Metal Recycling Turn It UP Christopher Ducharme Miller Brother Newton Turning Point Church of Christ Miller Farm Twilight Tea Lounge Cold Brook Stables Mr. & Mrs. Frechette Twombly Financial Curtis' BBQ Mystery on Main St Vermont Artesian Demco Auto Body Nancy Goodhue Vermont RV Service Drop In Center Nationwide Insurance Vernon Library & Rec. Center Dummerston Town Office Planned Parenthood Vernon Union Church Ford of Brattleboro Portland Glass VT Partnership Glenn Herrin Putney Coop Westgate Housing Got Wood? Sawmill Putney Library Windham Flowers Guilford Public Library Renaud Brothers Windham Wines Harlow's Sugar House Renew Salvage Youth Services Hidden Acres Campground Rescue Inc To learn more about BAPC call 257‐2175 or visit our website at www.BrattleboroAreaPreventionCoalition.org

Store manager shot, killed in Brattleboro Food Co-op

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