This story by Randolph T. Holhut and Jeff Potter was first published in The Commons on Sept. 9, 2025.

BRATTLEBORO — The Windham County Heat Fund, with the help of a $20,000 matching grant, is kicking off a major fundraising campaign and a benefit concert to support people who have relied on federal fuel assistance that will no longer be available.

The Heat Fund — founded in 2005 by Brattleboro residents Richard Davis and Daryl Pillsbury — was intended to help county residents who fell between the cracks of this social safety net, and the two friends have prided themselves on keeping the organization small and nimble over the years.

In a typical year, Davis said, the heat fund raises about $50,000, and he and Pillsbury have handled its administration the old-fashioned way — by looking the people in need in the eye, talking with them and connecting them with fuel.

But with federal funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program on the chopping block, the Windham County Heat Fund — which has been a supplemental source of local aid sustained by two volunteers and their force of will — faces the pressure of becoming the primary source of relief for people who can’t afford heat this winter.

“My fear is that people are going to try and sign up for heat assistance, and they won’t get it,” Davis said. And if this happens, he said, “people are going to die.”

He said the match will be used toward the organization’s newest initiative: to launch a GoFundMe page with a goal of $100,000. Every dollar of the first $20,000 donated will be matched by the trust, doubling donors’ contributions.

The heat fund will also hold a concert, “Save a Life,” to kick off the start of the fall fundraising effort on Sunday, Sept. 14, at 7 p.m. at the Heart Rose Club (the former Shriners Building), 11 Green St.

Performers will include Daniel Kasnitz, Jennie Reichman, Stan Davis, Duane Young and the trio of Patty Carpenter, Jeremy Gold and Verandah Porche.

A looming crisis

This year the need is greater because the Trump administration has cut off the ability for the federal government to provide fuel assistance, with LIHEAP caught in the cuts of the first months of Trump’s term.

Congress approved $25 million for the program, despite the administration’s cutting the funding entirely from the Trump budget.

Instead, the federal Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., fired all the employees in the Division of Energy Assistance, which administered the LIHEAP program.

“The money has been allocated (by Congress), but there’s no one to give it out, and no one in the administration seems to be concerned about that,” Davis told The Commons.

Last year, the state of Vermont received $20 million and, according to U.S. Sen. Peter Welch’s office, that funding will most likely not be available this year. Welch, along with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, have been pressing unsuccessfully for reinstating the employees.

The program is administered by the state through its Department of Children and Families, which work with regional community action organizations like Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) in Westminster and with local fuel vendors. Davis has found no sense of urgency at the local or state level.

“Nobody seems to know that there’s a problem,” Davis said. “Normally, the money is released at the end of November. The local fuel companies like Cota & Cota and Dead River say many of their customers are on fuel assistance, and they don’t know what’s happening.”

Davis said he is grateful that the Thompson Trust is stepping up with the matching money for the crowdfunding drive.

The charitable foundation distributes income from the fortune of 19th-century philanthropist and art dealer Thomas Thompson, who established it to help “poor seamstresses, needle-women and shop girls” in Windham County and in Dutchess County, New York.

Courts have loosened those constraints, and the trust more generally funds causes in the two regions, with a special emphasis on health-related projects.

But Davis said that philanthropy can’t fully make up for the loss of federal funding.
“There’s no way we can make up for this loss,” Davis said. “I really don’t know why more people aren’t worried about this.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Windham County Heat Fund braces for loss of federal fuel aid.

This story by Randolph T. Holhut was first published in The Commons on Sept. 9, 2025.

EAST DUMMERSTON — Read and Malah Miller have been running the Dwight Miller Orchard for more than three decades. Their succession plan was to start passing the operation on to his children this apple season.

“This was going be a transition year for us,” said Malah Miller. “We didn’t expect it to be this way.”

A three-alarm fire on Aug. 16 destroyed the orchard’s packing house building that was home to their cold storage and produce coolers, their cider press and apple packing facilities, their retail area and their maple evaporator and sugaring equipment.

“Everything went up in this building,” said Read. “Everything except for the orchard is gone. This building was the brain, heart, and soul of all our functions.”

Also lost were 25,000 gallons of apple cider vinegar, 1,000 gallons of maple syrup and 400 quart jars of pickles that they had just finished making for this season. “You could hear the pickle jars exploding in the fire,” said Read.

But within days of the fire, Malah began making another batch of pickles.

“When life gives you cucumbers, you make pickles,” she said. “You have to keep moving.”

When a fire destroys your business, you find a way to move forward. For the Miller family, they have an orchard full of apples to harvest, and they are finding a way to use this disaster not to mark the end of an eight-generation Vermont farm, but as a new chapter in its long history.

Dividing up a big task

Standing in front of the ruins of the packing house three weeks after the fire, Read talked about how his family has divided up rebuild.

His children, Will and Martha, are busy with running the business and shaping what it will be in future years. Read said he is busy with the difficult task of dealing with the insurance companies and government regulators, cleaning up the debris and documenting the damage.

“It’s huge, the emergency stuff,” Read said. “There are tractor-trailer loads of steel that need to be removed. I have to document and come up with the replacement value for every bit of the building, its contents, and what it was used for. And all that has to be perfect.”

Read said the orchard’s insurance will cover most, but not all, of the losses.

As for operations in the short term, Read said that “we’re going to stick with doing what we are comfortable with doing.”

That starts with the organic orchard’s pick-your-own operation on Miller Road, which began on Sept. 6. It will be open every day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., throughout the autumn.

Apples will continue to show up at the Brattleboro Area Farmers Market, but it may be a while before the farm returns to making organic apple cider and apple cider vinegar.

Read said the family bought a complete cider making setup, which is expected to arrive at the farm this week.

The replacement for the destroyed packing building, which was built in 1962 by Read’s father, Dwight, using timber harvested from the family’s wood lots, will be constructed in a similar manner.

“We have a lot of resources here on the farm, and a lot of people who want to help us rebuild,” Read said. “We have the opportunity to stand on our forefathers’ shoulders to rebuild, but we will need the help of our neighbors to do so.”

Read said the family “has all been affected by the fire,” and the challenge is “finding ways to stay together and be positive. The most important job for us is to come together.”

Malah said that she and Read are making sure that the Miller children are being given “lots of room to make their own future.”

Gratitude for the help

The community stepped up for the Millers in a big way, donating nearly $97,000 to the orchard’s GoFundMe appeal that was started by Martha.

“That was the kids’ idea,” Read said. “Reaching out for help is something I’m not totally comfortable with, but I’m past the age to be embarrassed. But my father always said that when someone offers to help, it’s rude to not accept it.”

Assistance has also been offered by Green Mountain Orchards in Putney and other neighboring farms.

Read said the family is committed to keeping the community informed about the recovery process and will keep people up to date through social media.

And, next Aug. 16, Read said the family hopes to have a gathering to mark the first anniversary of the fire and the progress that the farm has made.

“We’re blown away by the support,” said Malah. “It has been very humbling, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to pay all that support forward.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: With gratitude, Dummerston orchard begins rebuilding after fire.

This story by Brandon Canevari was first published in The Commons on Aug. 19, 2025.

The Windham County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) is attempting to change the way that local law enforcement resources are provided and how they are funded by working with the legislature to make the system more stable.

According to Sheriff Mark Anderson, the Regional Policing Initiative could look to the Legislature to create one governing body to address the needs of the 19 towns in the county that are without their own policing infrastructure. Only Bellows Falls, Brattleboro, Dover and Wilmington have full-time police departments.

Whenever Vermont has attempted to share policing resources among municipalities in the past the system usually breaks down, Anderson said, describing a problem that he said has been documented for almost 70 years.

He noted that those who attended a series of information sessions about these potential changes were positive and optimistic about the need and curious as to how to accomplish it.

The meetings took place in Jamaica, Marlboro, Newfane and Putney in late July and earlier this month.

“Ultimately what we’re working on is approaching the Windham County legislative delegation to propose a pilot project where we can say, ‘Let’s actually stop studying this and talking about the changes. Let’s do a practice run so that we take the things that we believe, the subject matter experts believe, will actually fix the problems that we’ve been talking about for decades,'” Anderson said.

Financial pressure creates a resource crunch

Some towns throughout Windham County have contracts with the sheriff’s office to provide services, a decision that is made by town selectboards. Those contracts are reviewed regularly and whether a contract remains in place is subject to change.

If one town decides to end a contract and another town wants the service, Anderson said under the current structure he moves the service to the other town.

The problem, he said, comes when a town that terminated a contract reverses course and wants the service back in six or 12 months time. At that point, Anderson said, the WCSO doesn’t have the funding to immediately be able to resume the service, and it takes approximately 12 months to recruit, hire, train and deploy a new officer.

“It just becomes this game of a waitlist, of a cycle, all because the selectboards are under pressure to be diligent stewards of funding,” he said.

“I need about 12 months to plan just about anything we do for any town, and they’re making a decision in May or June on what they want in their next fiscal year which starts in July. I can’t operate in that environment,” Anderson said. “They can’t operate in an environment where they’re depending on services. People get frustrated, and we’re just not doing the things.”

Anderson hopes the Legislature can form one governing body to represent the towns in the county.

“Rather than pursue this through 19 different towns in Windham County all with 19 separate decision making processes, what we’re trying to do is align this through the legislative process to say this is representative of the 19 towns through one deliberative conversation,” Anderson said.

Legislators will discuss the plan’s viability

On Sept. 22, Anderson will have a discussion with Windham County legislators to determine whether the concept is viable and, if so, to explore how to begin the legislative process when the new session begins in January.

Whether the change will come to pass will depend on the legislative process, Anderson said, starting with getting support from lawmakers to introduce a bill.

Even if the idea does not survive a journey through the legislative process, Anderson said he does not believe the public dialogue was in vain.

“I don’t see what we’ve done as wasted time. I see what we’ve done as educating our constituents and the community to say, ‘This is what to expect of the services and the government we have,'” Anderson said. “If we can’t get the change made, that’s not a failure, that’s also a decision of the public process, so both are fine.”

The meeting on Monday, Sept. 22 is scheduled to take place at the Windham County Superior Courthouse in Newfane at 5 p.m.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Sheriff explores a new approach to funding regional policing in Windham County.

BRATTLEBORO — Town officials from Brattleboro and Hinsdale, New Hampshire remain at odds over the disposition of the two bridges over the Connecticut River that connect the two states with an island in the middle.

Hinsdale officials resolutely support demolition while the Brattleboro Selectboard has backed longstanding plans for reuse with a community and recreation component.

Despite a July 25 meeting with leaders from both towns and from government agencies in Vermont and New Hampshire, nothing much has changed, with both towns holding to their stances and those attending from Brattleboro remaining hopeful a mutual solution will be found.

“We had a productive conversation with NHDOT [New Hampshire Department of Transportation] and the town of Hinsdale,” Brattleboro Selectboard vice-chair Oscar Heller said, “and I continue to be optimistic about the long-term future for the bridges.”

Bridging the gap

Earlier in July, the Brattleboro Selectboard voted to ask their counterparts in Hinsdale to reopen negotiations in order to preserve the Charles Dana and Anna Hunt Marsh bridges for bikes and pedestrians now that a new bridge is carrying vehicular traffic across the Connecticut River.

Selectboard members Amanda Ellis-Thurber and Heller voted in favor, with Elizabeth McLoughlin voting against and Peter Case abstaining.

After the selectboard’s request was forwarded to Hinsdale Town Manager Katherine Lynch, she responded on July 15 that the Hinsdale board had met the previous day and “decided that they do not want to entertain a joint meeting with the Brattleboro board to discuss the renovation of the bridge/island area.”

“Their decision remained firm,” Lynch wrote. “They wish for the bridges to be demolished instead of spending $9 million of taxpayer dollars to renovate them and the island.”

Lynch went on to note an upcoming meeting on July 25 hosted by commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation Assistant David Rodrigue to discuss the bridge projects.

“The state has measured and is having gates built to install on either ends of the bridges to help reduce the influx of negative behavior on the island, which is a huge tax burden for Hinsdale,” Lynch wrote. “Hinsdale is moving forward and we are very hopeful that the town of Brattleboro will stand with us, as we have always aided each other’s communities when in need.”

The New Hampshire Department of Transportation is paying for the gates, which are estimated to cost $50,000 and will be erected in a few weeks. Federal funding for the bridge rehabilitation has already been received by New Hampshire.

Back to the future

The original agreement between Brattleboro and Hinsdale over the bridges was forged a decade ago. It included a stipulation for pedestrian and bicycle use over the century-old spans that should be economically and recreationally beneficial to both towns.

Hinsdale owns 93% of the bridges and Brattleboro owns the remaining 7%. The island they are on — considered part of New Hampshire — is owned by Great River Hydro, based in Massachusetts.

After the new $62 million General John Stark Memorial Bridge was opened in November 2024 just downriver, Hinsdale Selectboard members voted unanimously to ask the state of New Hampshire to reject the $9.3 million plan to rehabilitate the spans for foot traffic, fearing subsequent maintenance costs and a myriad of safety issues.

However, it has recently come to light that it will take the New Hampshire Department of Transportation several years longer than initially estimated to rehabilitate or raze the spans.

And for the bridges to come down, Brattleboro has to agree. Ellis-Thurber, the Brattleboro selectboard member, still has hopes a meeting of the minds is possible.

“We have a lot of empathy because the public safety responsibility is landing on Hinsdale, and they have expressed they have the financial burden,” she said, noting the cost of installing the gates.

“The way it stands now, without any agreement with Brattleboro, they’re holding the bag,” Ellis-Thurber said.

Town officials plan another meeting with their Hinsdale counterparts in August to see if they would consider new proposals from Brattleboro.

“The answer could be ‘no,’ but that would mean Brattleboro would have to shift to join them [in agreeing to raze the bridges], and I don’t see that anytime soon,” Ellis-Thurber said. “And we have to make a proposal that wouldn’t cost Brattleboro taxpayers anything more.”

For Ellis-Thurber, a big part of the issue is “fundamentally about change.” Reusing the spans for foot traffic, as she sees it, not only offers both residents and visitors access to the river, but also builds community engagement.

“If we take them down, sure, it’s a change, but we abandon the opportunity to rehab an historic bridge as well as the opportunity to link two communities that are connected by the Connecticut River.” Still, she said she understands the pressure of financial worry on both towns, and that those economic stressors can make it difficult for town officials to “to think creatively right now.”

State Sen. Wendy Harrison, D-Windham, who also attend the July 25 development meeting, said she would like to see the original plan to accommodate pedestrians and bicycles succeed.

“The plan, for a number of years, has been to rehab the two historic bridges, and I think we should proceed with that plan,” she said. “It will not only help bring visitors, but there are people who move to places because of the trails. Outdoor recreation is very much prized by young adults, whom we would love to have more of in our community.”

For Harrison, the bottom line — given a four-year wait to do much of anything and what many see as an economic and community-building opportunity in the making — is that “the two towns need to work together.”

“It’s not going to be solved immediately, or implemented immediately, so what we really need is a long-term plan,” Harrison said.

At the July 25 meeting, Harrison read a statement from State Rep. Mollie S. Burke, D-Windham-8.

“I understand the concerns of the town of Hinsdale and my hope is that we can work out a solution that addresses those concerns while also allowing a vision for social and recreational use of the island by both towns that was envisioned in the original bridge replacement plan,” Burke wrote.

“The transformation of the West River swimming hole at the former cornfield in Brattleboro into a family-friendly spot happened after the development of West River Park and its use by numerous citizens and sports teams,” she added. “The same outcome could result with use of the island.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: To reuse or raze? Brattleboro and Hinsdale, NH, remain at odds over fate of two bridges..

This story by Joyce Marcel was first published in The Commons on July 8.

BRATTLEBORO — Much of Windham County depends for its health care services on Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, which has been weathering what already was a financial crisis.

And then everything changed on July 3, when Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The bill, which President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, may cause some 45,000 people in Vermont to lose their health insurance over the next several years, according to initial estimates from the Vermont Agency of Human Services.

And one academic health-care policy study predicts that two other hospitals just over the Vermont state border — one in New Hampshire and the other in Massachusetts — are at risk of closing as a result of the new law.

“I don’t know what to say, except this bill is vicious, and it does, I believe, disproportionately affect rural community hospitals,” said Christopher J. Dougherty, president and CEO of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. “And rural community hospitals don’t need any more help to create challenging financial times. It’s there already.”

Rural hospitals mean a great deal to their communities, and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is no exception.

“This is not just a hospital,” Dougherty said. “We’re also the largest employer in this community, so we add to the economics of this community.”

And for people looking to move to the Brattleboro region, “they want a hospital close by,” he continued. “They want an emergency room. If they’re of childbearing ages, they want labor and delivery rooms.”

Dougherty believes that rural hospitals “are the bedrocks of rural communities — not just as a hospital, but also really as an economic driver.”

As vital as they may be, America’s rural hospitals are struggling financially. The reasons are complex, but they include everything from the constantly rising costs of health insurance, pharmaceuticals, and staffing to the meager reimbursement the federal government offers for Medicaid and Medicare patient services.

Yet on July 3, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest cost estimates, will reduce federal Medicaid spending by $793 billion and increase the number of uninsured people by 7.8 million, according to an analysis from KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation, which describes itself as an “independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.”

The federal program distributes money to states to administer as benefits for residents who qualify, based on family income or disability status. The funds subsidize some or all medical costs for a variety of needs.

Medicaid dollars don’t go directly into the pockets of individuals. Rather, the program funds initiatives like Dr. Dynasaur, which supports Vermont children from prenatal care for the mother to a child’s teen years. Medicaid covers long-term care, supports people with disabilities, prescription assistance and other programs.

The program has been highly politicized, Dougherty said.

“I don’t think the decisions that are being made are based on facts,” he said. “One of the things that is claimed — and I want to say ‘claimed’ — is that there’s all this fraud in Medicaid, $700 billion worth of fraud. I’m sorry, I don’t believe that’s even possible.”

Proponents of the legislation have “tried to take a narrative that this is all about fraud and waste, but I think it’s all about the most vulnerable among us,” Dougherty said.

Meanwhile, the legislation is not only an attack on them. It’s “also going to destabilize hospitals, especially rural community hospitals,” he observed.

Michael Del Trecco, the president and CEO of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems , told The Commons that the sharp cuts to Medicaid coverage in Vermont would challenge the entire health care system.

“First, it would be very problematic for individuals and their families,” said Del Trecco, whose private, member-owned organization is devoted to “improving the health status of communities throughout Vermont,” according to its website.

“And then, second, generally speaking, there are funding mechanisms in the state that would jeopardize organizations’ abilities to care for and treat people,” Del Trecco continued. “We need to be paid sufficiently to manage our operations while we engage in all of the operational efficiency opportunities that are in front of us. It’s a very difficult, continuous situation.”

Hospitals face ‘strong financial headwinds’

Like most rural hospitals, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is already struggling financially; it recently cut six administrative posts as part of an effort to reduce its $119 million annual budget by $4 million without reducing patient services.

Medicaid represents about 20% of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital’s volume and 15% of its revenue, according to Dougherty.

“We are extremely concerned about the impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Brattleboro Memorial Hospital for a number of reasons,” Dougherty said.

First, “all Vermont hospitals are already facing very strong financial headwinds,” he explained. “This bill will make massive cuts to Medicaid. It is estimated that Vermont hospitals will lose $1.7 billion in federal health care funding over the next decade.”

The hospital will face reduced Medicaid reimbursements, loss of coverage for low-income patients, and an increased uncompensated care burden, he said.

Another complication from the bill is that it would reduce the hospital’s provider tax — a $6.6 million burden — by 0.5% each year. While that reduction is welcome, it also means that the state Medicaid program will lose funding from each hospital’s provider tax and the federal matching program for the tax payments.

“This is a substantial amount of funding, and it will have to be made up for somewhere,” he said.

The act does have funds for rural hospitals, clinics, and opioid treatment programs, Dougherty said, but “while these funds will offer the potential for some short-term assistance, the bill does not compensate for the long-term financial damage caused by the Medicaid reductions. This bill exacerbates an already tenuous situation.”

Small hospitals may face staff layoffs, service eliminations and, in the worst cases, complete closure.

Becker’s Hospital Review, a media source for health care decision-makers, estimates that 760 hospitals nationally will be at risk of closure.

It predicts that in Vermont, eight hospitals will be at risk of closing and one is at immediate risk of closing in the next two to three years.

Becker’s reported that across the U.S., 16.1 million people living in rural communities are covered by Medicaid. In nine states, over 50% of the Medicaid population lives in rural communities in Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Mississippi, Vermont, Kentucky, North Dakota, Alaska and Maine. Approximately 47% of rural births in the U.S. are covered by Medicaid.

Since approximately 65% of nursing home residents in rural areas are covered by Medicaid, it also makes no sense to say that a Medicaid recipient should just get a job and pay for private insurance.

Yet Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said on May 25 on CBS’s Face the Nation, “If you are able to work and you refuse to do so, you are defrauding the system.”

According to a letter sent by U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., to Trump, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., “Addressing the crisis in rural health care access is a national, bipartisan priority, and it should be bipartisan to not worsen it. However, if your party passes these health care cuts into law, Americans in rural communities across the country risk losing health care services and jobs supported by their local hospitals.”

Markey appended a detailed list naming all the hospitals he estimates will have to close their doors if and when they lose Medicaid reimbursement, citing an analysis by Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina.

Among them are two nearby hospitals — Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Massachusetts and Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, New Hampshire.

Fighting for survival

According to Owen Foster, the president of the Green Mountain Care Board, which regulates hospital budgets in the state, all Vermont hospitals are fighting for survival in one way or another. He paints a bleak picture.

In most (though not all) of the state’s hospitals, “you have a number of challenges all at the same time, and one is deteriorating hospital finances across the state,” Foster said. “And Brattleboro is one that is facing those challenges right now.”

At the same time, “you also have some of the highest commercial health care costs in the country,” he continued. “And you have no capacity for your patients and your small businesses or your business community to pay more in health care costs. We’ve maxed out our health care costs for our people.”

It’s difficult, he said, for hospital finances to rebound in Vermont with no capacity to increase commercial prices.

“You’ve probably seen the headlines that the commercial insurance costs have been going up [10 to 15%] every single year for the last several years,” Foster said. “Right now, Blue Cross is requesting a 23% rate increase for the individual group insurance market. But people can’t afford to pay 23% more. If people can’t afford to pay 23% more, they can’t afford to pay Brattleboro Memorial Hospital higher prices to solve the financial challenges they have.”

In addition, the coming federal changes to Medicaid will have a large impact.

“If you have uninsured people, it often results in bad debt or free care,” Foster said. “And the subsidies for the qualified health plans change, which could also limit the number of people on commercial insurance.”

Even before the bill, Blue Cross Blue Shield has been threatening bankruptcy.

“The insurer finances are probably more challenged and strained right now than any hospital financials,” Foster said. “Blue Cross Blue Shield has been put under incredible financial stress in the last year. Their reserves have been significantly depleted, so they have no money to pay out, either. And that’s a challenge. There’s really nowhere to get more money.”

All these things combine to put a significant strain on hospital finances, Foster said.

“So the long and short of it is there’s really no horizon that we see where there’s a significant financial injection to solve for the financial challenges people have,” he said.

Cutting costs

Dougherty took on the job of running Brattleboro Memorial Hospital three years ago. According to Foster, he is the right man for the job.

“Brattleboro has had a tough year,” Foster said. “There’s no question about it. But I’m not alarmed, more than I am for any other number of hospitals in Vermont that have challenging financials.

“Part of it is that I’m very supportive of the work that Chris Dougherty is doing. And I think it’s done with the greatest of intention to make sure that Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is there to serve the community in the years ahead. They’re taking a lot of really important steps to try and address their challenges.”

Del Trecco, of the VAHHS, said Dougherty is dedicated to making sure the Brattleboro hospital is “there today and in the future” and believes in budget-cutting and looking for operational efficiencies both in clinical and nonclinical services.

“The work is not easy and often communities can be concerned, as they rightly should be,” he continued. “But we need to make sure we do this work together. For Chris and his team, the goal was to make sure Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is viable and there for years to come, and I think he’s doing a really great job.”

Two terrible things can happen to hospitals, Dougherty said, and one of them has already happened to the hospital: staff cuts.

Dougherty said it was painful to cut the six administrative positions, putting “great people” out of a job.

“It’s not something we’re proud of,” he said. “It’s not something we’re excited about. We’re really sad about any type of layoff.”

The other terrible thing would be closing all or a part of the hospital. Copley Hospital in Morrisville is closing its birthing center because of unsustainable long-term costs and declining birth rates across the region, he said.

“We’re saying we’re not going to do something like that,” Dougherty said. “I’ve got to tell you, we’re fighting to say ‘We can’t go that route.’ We’ve got to do everything up to the point of eliminating a service. It would be devastating to this community to eliminate any of our services. So we’re looking at everything else possible short of that.

“Closure, in our mind, is absolutely not an option, and everything needs to be done to reinvent, because there’s always a fork in the road; it’s either closure or reinvention,” he continued.

As an example, Dougherty cited Blockbuster Video, which had almost 9,100 locations in 2004. After the rise of streaming video and a string of corporate bankruptcies over the years, all that remains is one lone independently owned franchise in Oregon.

“They didn’t change who they were and what they were doing, and they ended up closing,” Dougherty said. “In contrast, if you look at Netflix, they started out by just emailing DVDs. And look at what they’ve done. They’ve revolutionized streaming and things like that, because they reinvented themselves.

“This is what we’re doing. Unfortunately, some of that reinvention is painful. We have to become more cost efficient and more streamlined, and that’s where those layoffs came to be,” he continued.

Everyone deserves treatment

Vermont law states that hospitals have to serve everyone who “walks in the door,” Dougherty said. That means treating people who have insurance as well as people who don’t.

And Brattleboro Memorial Hospital would do that even without the law, according to Dougherty. But add a flood of now-uninsured former Medicaid patients to those already walking in the door of the Emergency Department, and the finances get tricky.

“Somebody has to pay for it,” Dougherty said. “The question is who. […] Well, if it’s the hospitals, we’re struggling already. We don’t need any help to struggle more. We need help in getting out of this. [The One Big Beautiful Bill Act] doesn’t help us get out of this.”

Until July 1, the hospital contracted with Cheshire Medical Center, which “has been staffing our emergency room and doing a tremendous job for quite some time,” Dougherty said. “They have decided that they can no longer extend that coverage to us.” A new provider, BlueWater Health, of Maine, has taken over.

Emergency department staff already live and work in the hospital area, but they now work for BlueWater instead of Cheshire.

Sometimes, the department has more patients than it can safely handle.

“This last week, we’ve been in what is called a surge mode,” Dougherty said, meaning that patients in the emergency department exceeded the number of rooms.

“So it’s not necessarily a staffing problem. Part of the problem is the flow of patients. Last week, for example, we were having days with eight to 10 mental health patients that we couldn’t move out of the emergency room. It wasn’t safe for them to just be discharged home,” he said.

“So then trying to find the right place for them to go to is a problem, not just at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, but in every hospital. We’re not mental health experts. We can’t do a whole lot for them, but there was nowhere else for them to go.

On a recent morning, “we were close to being at surge, but we had some patients who could get to long-term care facilities, or even admitted to our hospital,” Dougherty said.

The future

What the area lacks most is primary care, but a private practice is expensive to open and to operate. Dougherty said that Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is working to expand primary care in the county.

“There’s a federal program that Sen. Bernie Sanders is incredibly supportive of, and it’s called the Federally Qualified Health Center system,” Dougherty said. “There are several around. Actually, every county in Vermont has a federally qualified health center except Windham County.”

Before Dougherty arrived in 2022, Sanders got “some congressionally designated funds to build a federally qualified health center in Windham County. He wants a Federally Qualified Health center in every county in Vermont. So we’re embracing that.”

Hospitals cannot be federally qualified health centers, which provide primary care, dental care and outpatient mental health care.

“So the closest one in Vermont is in Springfield,” Dougherty said. “There’s also a close one in Massachusetts [in Greenfield]. We’re hoping one of them will actually work with us to build a federally qualified health center here and provide those three key things that we need desperately in this community.”

The beauty of the federally qualified health centers is that they focus on taking care of Medicaid patients and uninsured patients first and foremost.

“So everybody has access to primary care, dental care, and outpatient mental health services,” Dougherty said.

“We’re also working with the Brattleboro Retreat to provide the outpatient mental health services,” he continued. “Our hope is that maybe as soon as January, we will actually have a federally qualified health center here at Brattleboro. It may be on campus. It may be in three separate sites.”

No single ‘magic tactic’

In response to the potential of a significant federal cutback in Medicaid, the state has been looking for ways to enhance the Medicaid program, Dougherty said.

“Let’s give a little credit to the state,” Dougherty said. “The state is actually looking at ways of enhancing the Medicaid program, I think because of these concerns of what’s happening with federal dollars.”

The Green Mountain Care Board and the Agency of Human Services are exploring a hospital global budgeting payment for 2026, which will transition hospitals from fee-for-service to a fixed amount to cover a defined set of services. Dougherty said that Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is “evaluating this.”

“It may be this is a good way to approach Medicaid and to prepare us for the future of the way health care is going to be reimbursed,” he said.

“We met with them once to talk about their hospital global budgeting program for Medicaid. We have until October to volunteer to be in that program come Jan. 1. And we may very well want to do that,” said Dougherty, who called it a “win-win.”

“It would be good for the state because it gives them a very specific way of administering the Medicaid program. But it may also be good for us and our community, because it gives us sort of a fixed income for our Medicaid patients,” said Dougherty, adding that the program could become mandatory by 2030.

Dougherty said he also had “about 40 other tactics” he was exploring to cut costs and reduce his budget.

“I wish I could tell you there was one magic tactic that gets us right to where we want to be, but there isn’t,” he said. “So we’re trying everything. And some are small and some are large. Some have no impact on staff, basically, and some have.”

What Brattleboro Memorial Hospital desperately wants to do is avoid cutting any medical services.

“We don’t want that to happen,” Dougherty said.

According to Foster at the Green Mountain Care Board, there is enough money in the health care system to provide a high-caliber, high-quality system.

“The problem is that we have a system that doesn’t work well and doesn’t function well,” he said. “We don’t have many low-cost providers in the state, and we need to make sure that we have those available. Those are often small practices. They are primary care practices, independent practices, generally. Those are the most expensive places to provide care.

“Vermont, as compared to other states, has overwhelmingly concentrated our care at hospitals. And that’s not a recipe for sustainability.”

The state needs more telemedicine, Foster said. It needs to consolidate some services. It needs to reduce discretionary spending. It needs to encourage and support smaller, more affordable practices.

Closing Brattleboro Memorial Hospital ‘not an option’

Could the hospital go under?

“I dearly hope not,” Foster said. “There are some really good people there and some really good providers, and they’re really important to the community.”

Foster said that “a lot of Vermont’s challenges are things that we’ve seen across the country. There have been rural hospital closures by the hundreds across the nation. We’ve had no hospital closures in Vermont.”

“Rural hospital markets have been decimated across the country. In Vermont, we have not yet had that,” he continued. “A big part of it is a lot of people working really hard, but also the commercial market subsidizing prices.”

He added that “there’s always risk to any small rural hospital in America, and Vermont is certainly not immune to that, especially given the potential federal changes and the realities at Blue Cross Blue Shield, and with our people’s inability to pay more in health care costs.”

For Dougherty, closing Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is not an option.

“(The hospital) is fighting,” he said. “We actually do need to be a less expensive hospital than we are. And we are going to do everything necessary to keep this treasured resource in this community.”

Dougherty said that hospital leadership knows “that some of those things are going to be painful, and we’ve started on some of those things that are painful, like reductions in force. But I do believe there are some things that really are very much glimmers of hope.”

One glimmer of hope is new revenue enhancement, and Dougherty points to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital’s new, faster magnetic resonance imaging machine to replace a 17-year-old device that “was way beyond years of obsolescence.”

“We invested in that MRI because it generates a revenue for us,” he said. “This new MRI is a good thing for our community.”

“We are trying to think way out of the box and try and find other revenue streams,” Dougherty said. “There has to be hope.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Brattleboro Memorial Hospital braces for federal cuts to Medicaid.

This story by Joyce Marcel was first published in The Commons on June 10.

BRATTLEBORO — The MicroMoo bus service is being discontinued by Southeast Vermont Transit, which runs the Holstein-decorated MOOver buses, leaving many people unable to get to and from work during hours when regular buses do not operate.

The MicroMoo bus, launched as a pilot project in April 2024, was running weekdays from 5 to 11 p.m. as an on-demand service as opposed to a fixed route, so that riders could go directly from one point to another within the town.

Its last run is scheduled for June 13. None of the other, more traditional MOOver routes are affected by the decision.

The service did not attract the ridership it anticipated, the service’s Chief Executive Officer Randy Schoonmaker told The Commons in May.

On average, 18 riders used the service each day — 64% less than the projected number of 50, according to a Southeast Vermont Transit presentation at a public hearing about the discontinuation in Brattleboro on May 12.

The total cost of running the service for a year was approximately $180,000, according to state Sen. Wendy Harrison, D-Windham, who has taken the issue under her wing.

Originally supported for its launch by the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation via a grant from the Northern Borders Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Dislocated Worker National Reserve Demonstration program, and later with funds from the Thompson Trust and the Agency of Transportation, the service cost $54 per rider, exceeding the state’s limit of $50.

Of that cost, $24,000 was contributed by the town’s Human Services Committee, which made it clear at the time that the funding of the local match would be a one-year-only commitment.

But even so, the state Agency of Transportation, which uses federal funding for the buses, has been facing a $1.5 million shortfall and thus required the seven public transit companies that provide bus services to reduce their budgets.

In the end, the Southeast Vermont Transit board voted to cut the Brattleboro MicroMoo in March.

“We’ve gone from an $18 million budget when I was here 15 years ago, to $53 million,” Ross MacDonald, the Agency of Transportation’s public transit program manager, told The Commons in May. “We know that there’s a lot of service gaps out there. Right now we’re working with all the providers to try and find some level of cost savings so that we can make the 2026 budget work.

“We were hoping, when we put the numbers together last year, that the cost curve would be bending downward. But it actually came up a little bit,” MacDonald said. “So we knew we’d have to make some cuts to make budget. We’re hoping not to make any more cuts, but right now, the cuts that we’ve made are based on general performance and not entirely because of budget restraints.”

Harrison was hoping the town might pick up the bill for the next two years, but this was a tight year for budgeting in Brattleboro and funding the MicroMoo was not high on anyone’s list of priorities.

“It didn’t have enough ridership right now,” Harrison said. “But it usually takes two or three years for ridership to develop.”

‘And now it’s going away’

For the riders who did use it, the service will be sorely missed.

At the public hearing, Micah Ranquist told Southeast Vermont Transit leadership, state officials, and regional planners that he had been using “all the different bus system things” since approximately 2010.

“And this is the first glimmer of hope and a big change, and now it’s going away,” said Ranquist, who is blind and spoke of the potential of the MicroMoo to restore a degree of independence and dignity.

“I heard from one woman who works as a nighttime janitor who took the MicroMoo and now will have to walk miles just to get to work,” Harrison said. “I talked to another person who cannot drive because she has epilepsy. She depended on the bus.

“For people who can’t drive, not having public transportation in the evening essentially keeps them from going to a restaurant or a movie. And businesses benefit from their employees having transportation to night-shift jobs. We need to get the Moover board to support it again.”

One rider, Marie-Claire Rose, circulated a petition to keep the MicroMoo van on the road. She garnered 411 signatures.

“I am frustrated that the amount of public interest you were able to show was not enough to make the change at this time,” Harrison wrote to Rose after the final closing was announced. “I’ll keep looking for ways to extend or resume the service.”

Harrison chaired the public hearing on May 12, where Ranquist and other riders spoke about their need for the service.

“There was a good turnout, and the riders explain how important it is in their own words,” Harrison wrote to the Selectboard. “I also understand that the service is also used by kids staying after 5 p.m. at the Boys and Girls Club and by refugees residing at SIT.”

Public transportation is limited in the Brattleboro area, and the loss of the MicroMoo puts many people at a disadvantage. And those who developed and championed the service acknowledge that the service deserved more time to find its user base. Several users also voiced frustrations about hiccups and frustrations with the mobile app that the service required.

“Being in this situation reminds us why we need to avoid potentially starting up services that we cannot sustain,” MacDonald told the participants at the public hearing.

“There is certainly a place for microtransit in Brattleboro,” said Harrison, who sees the service as “beneficial to connect with Amtrak as well as the work rides and social connection that the existing service provides.”

“I have not been able to find an alternative source of funding but will continue my pursuit,” she said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: MicroMoo transit service in Brattleboro is set to end June 13.

This story by Robert F. Smith was first published in The Commons on March 5.

WESTMINSTER — It’s not a generally known fact of history unless you happen to be from southeastern Vermont, but a strong case can be made that the first armed conflict of the Revolutionary War did not take place at Lexington or Concord in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775.

That first armed conflict was the Westminster Massacre, a historic milestone whose 250th anniversary will be marked by multiple events in town from Thursday, March 13, to Saturday, March 15.

Just three months after the nonviolent protest of the Boston Tea Party on Dec. 16, 1774, the last nonviolent protest of British rule over the American Colonies was held on March 13, 1775, at the courthouse in Westminster, the oldest town in Vermont.

A few hours later, the protestors were back at the courthouse — this time, armed and fueled by alcohol and anti-British rhetoric.

That night of March 13–14 would end up turning violent, with the first shots fired in anger and the first deaths of what would become the American Revolution.

A little over a month later, on April 19, the British would attempt to seize gunpowder from the Colonists, triggering the battles at Lexington and Concord and clearly marking the start of the Revolutionary War.

While there were two deaths at the Westminster Massacre, these battles around Boston led to 122 deaths, with many casualties on both sides and well over 200 wounded. There would be no turning back from war after that.

‘History matters’

Lifelong resident and local historian Jessie Haas is one of the driving forces behind the events commemorating the massacre.

Haas authored the 2012 town history Westminster, Vermont, 1735–2000: Township Number One, for which the Westminster Historical Society won a League of Local Historical Societies and Museums Achievement Award for publications/oral history that year.

Haas is well aware of how the event is mostly ignored in history books, but also defends its ultimate importance in the events that led up to the Revolution.

“Why does the Massacre matter?” Haas writes. “History matters. It tells us who we are and where we came from, so it’s crucial that the stories we tell about our past are accurate.”

Did the Westminster Massacre ignite the American Revolution, Haas asks? “No. It could have, but Lexington and Concord intervened, changing everything. But Westminster was the first place where the people’s struggle for their rights as British citizens met with lethal force from their own government. William French became the first martyr, Daniel Houghton the second. They deserve to be remembered.”

A volatile situation over disputed lands

The events of that March day were written about by a number of people involved in the incident. Vermont, at that time known as the New Hampshire Grants, was territory claimed by both the colonies of New York and New Hampshire. Ownership of much of the land that would become Vermont had been disputed since the 1760s, notwithstanding its original theft from Abenaki and other Native peoples.

The residents of Vermont were mainly working-class farmers, living on land claimed by wealthy landowners in New York, called Yorkers. The Yorkers were moving to the disputed territory in Vermont to keep better track of their land holdings, often forcing the local farmers off their properties.

The action of the Yorkers led Ethan Allen and Remember Baker to form the Green Mountain Boys, an anti-Yorker militia, which focused on attacking and burning the homes of Yorkers in the New Hampshire Grants area.

That volatile situation — wealthy New York Loyalists arresting and evicting Vermont farmers from disputed lands, and in turn the Green Mountain Boys militia attacking the Yorker Loyalists, forcing them back to New York and burning their homes and farms — was happening in the Northeast for the decade prior to the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

The action of the Green Mountain Boys escalated the situation, and anti-British protests would not remain peaceful for long. New York officials retaliated by arresting and evicting the settlers in the Grants.

That is the background for the events at the Westminster Courthouse in 1775.

Tory loyalists and Whig patriots

Haas has probably done as much research on the events of the Massacre as anyone, studying the primary-source materials as much as possible.

“What did the people who were witnesses at the time think happened, and why? That’s where I like to start,” she said.

According to available original documents, the March 13 events at the Westminster Courthouse started with a “riotous and disorderly” — but nonetheless nonviolent — crowd of about 80 to 90 people protesting outside the courthouse against the actions of the Yorkers.

Locals presumed that a New York judge and several settlers from New York’s arrival in the village would lead to legal action and the eviction of local settlers. The protest was an attempt to prevent the court from meeting with the New Yorkers.

Did both sides have weapons? “There’s no trustworthy evidence either way,” Haas said. “The Whigs said they did not have guns,” at first, she said, noting that they would likely have left their guns at their nearby homes.

The protest itself was illegal, and “guns would have complicated” the situation, Haas said — a fact acknowledged in the records about other protests around New England at that time.

Many in the crowd identified as Whigs, protesting against the Tories, who tended to be Loyalists toward the British monarchy. The Whigs, on the other hand, tended to be more supportive of a parliamentary government, or even a constitutional monarchy.

Neither term — Whig nor Tory — was a clearly defined, organized political party at the time of the Revolution. While we often think of times in history in black-and-white terms, that is hardly the case. In much the same way that the nation is torn into various political factions currently, it was similar in Colonial times.

The Whigs tended to be upper-middle class, were in general skeptical of royal prerogatives, and would become the leaders in the upcoming Revolution against British rule. The Tories were often landed gentry, families who had benefited from land grants from the British monarchy, and their loyalty was toward the royal family.

Westminster was a town fairly evenly divided between Whigs favoring a revolt against Britain and Loyalist Tories. Brattleboro, on the other hand, was a Loyalists’ stronghold and, in fact, both Brattleboro and Guilford wanted the New Hampshire Grants to be part of New York state. After the Revolution, many former Loyalists from the Brattleboro area would find it necessary to move to Canada, no longer feeling welcome in Vermont.

Haas said that that did not appear to happen in Westminster, where many families had members who were fierce Loyalists and others who were ardent revolutionaries. She said it seems that somehow, after the war, most Westminster families were able to put their previous differences behind them and live together amicably.

A massacre unfolds

Using all available original sources, Haas has developed what she feels is a fairly accurate timeline of those events in Westminster 250 years ago.

A New York judge and New York settlers arrived in the village, looking to make legal claims on disputed property in the area.

On March 13, a crowd of up to 90 area residents showed up at the courthouse to peacefully protest the arrival of the Yorkers and their attempts to remove the local settlers. It seems that most of these were Whigs opposed to British rule.

The crowd got larger and rowdier and forced its way into the courthouse. The local sheriff, William Paterson, ordered the crowd to leave the building. They refused. Paterson, feeling the need for more help, rode south to Brattleboro to recruit a posse from the large number of Loyalists there.

With an armed posse of up to 70 men, Paterson arrived back in Westminster about 9 p.m. They found that the crowd occupied both the court and the jail.

At some point in the evening, the Brattleboro posse went to a Tory tavern on the nearby Westminster Flats and consumed copious amounts of alcohol. For their part, the Whigs occupying the courthouse, where there was also a bar, drank all the alcohol available there.

After visiting the tavern, the posse returned to the courthouse and demanded that the occupiers leave. They refused, and Paterson told the posse members to fire into the building. The Whigs returned fire, wounding some in the posse.

The posse broke open the doors to the courthouse and fired into the crowd. William French was shot five times and died instantly. Accounts state that the Loyalist posse members also mistreated French’s body.

Hand-to-hand combat ensued, injuring many people on both sides, including Daniel Houghton, who died nine days later from his wounds and mistreatment. Once the firing began, the occupiers quickly started leaving the courthouse for their homes.

The posse reclaimed control of the jail and courthouse for the rest of the night, arresting and jailing seven of the fleeing occupiers.

That this had morphed from a small, local event into a conflict of regional concern was proven when, the next day, a crowd of more than 500 armed patriots from militias in nearby towns and counties showed up in Westminster.

“There were three conventions held in the local region in the month prior” to the March 13 rebellion, Haas said. “The Whigs believed the courts were in the hands of the Tories. They felt that the courts were against them and were taking their lands. Revolution was on their minds.”

The patriots surrounded the courthouse the next day and proceeded to arrest the judges, the sheriff, the clerk, and any other officials or Yorkers they can find. They freed the seven jailed locals, then several hundred of the men proceeded south to continue looking for and arresting Yorkers and Loyalists.

Several Yorkers would be jailed in Northampton, Massachusetts, and five would be charged with the murder of William French.

Captain Benjamin Bellows, from just across the river in Walpole, New Hampshire, commanded the militia from that state who showed up in Westminster. To prevent further violence, he had his men surround the courthouse. In short order, two patriots talked the Loyalists in the courthouse into surrendering, and they were taken into custody without incident.

A few weeks later, members of these same militias, including several men from Westminster, would fight against the British at Concord and Lexington.

The court case that sparked the original March 13 protest was never heard. The court was closed, and it was the last time a Yorker court convened in what would become the state of Vermont.

Read the story on VTDigger here: A spark that ignited a revolution.

This story by Robert F. Smith was first published in The Commons on Jan. 28

BELLOWS FALLS — A complex ownership situation involving two state agencies could derail Rockingham’s plans to purchase and restore the Bellows Falls train depot, but Development Director Gary Fox said these issues can be resolved in time for the town to meet the April 1 deadline for buying the building.

To that end, the town has sent a letter to Gov. Phil Scott seeking cooperation from two state agencies to move the project forward, and the state has affirmed its willingness to find solutions.

The 8-acre rail yard at the north end of the Island, part of the village’s designated downtown historic area, is owned by the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTtrans), while Green Mountain Railroad (GMRR) owns the 1923 depot building in the middle of that land.

Also at issue is who is responsible for cleanup of industrial pollution — and how it will be paid for.

The town wants the restoration of the historic depot to be the focus for development on the Island in the decades to come. GMRR is willing to sell the building to the town for $285,000. Town officials report that while VTrans won’t sell the land the building sits on, the state agency is willing to lease the land to the town.

Some town officials, like Selectboard Chair Rick Cowan, have expressed concern that if the town buys the building and leases the land before resolving environmental mediation issues, the town might get stuck with the environmental cleanup bills, as the proposed VTrans lease assigns responsibility for environmental cleanup to the tenant.

The renovated depot building might include a restaurant — a scenario envisioned in the design work for the $4.3 million project — but Cowan said the lease would prohibit the sale of alcohol on VTrans property, which could drastically impact any future restaurant plans.

Lawyers are involved in discussions to put these issues to rest prior to the purchase.

“There is a lot of ambiguity in the lease language,” Fox said. “But changing one or two sentences in the lease could clear up all of that.”

That is the purpose of current talks with various state departments, and a letter from the town asking the governor to intervene.

“Why not just get these problems ironed out?” Fox asked. “Who wants to go to court over this down the road? Let’s get this all squared away now.”

Town urges state to help resolve issues

The Rockingham Selectboard sent the letter to Vermont Gov. Phil Scott earlier this month asking him to intervene with the agencies and help resolve the issues before April 1.

“We need your help!” the Jan. 7 letter begins.

The letter asks Scott to work with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and VTrans “to achieve a positive outcome for the Island District.”

As a major transportation and industrial hub for two centuries, the soils of the Island suffer from extensive pollution, which either has to be removed or contained.

Rockingham is nearing the end of Stage I of a three-part development plan for the historic train station. Stage II is scheduled to start around April 1.

The stage I predevelopment work involved a survey of the site for structural and environmental issues. The cost of that work was $127,542 from taxes and over $64,000 in grants. An action plan has been developed that will be enacted in Stage II.

At that point, Fox said, “we’ll have a train station that we can work with. It will have been restored to preservation standards.” Importantly for the project, he said, the town already has “100% committed funding for Stage II.”

That funding includes $269,000 raised from taxes, and, Fox said, “You’ve got just under $1 million in non-taxpayer money going into it,” referring to money already raised from grants.

Environmental issues like lead paint, soil gases such as trichloroethylene and contaminated soil will all be addressed by the end of Stage II.

Last June, consulting engineers Sanborn, Head & Associates discovered tetrachloroethylene vapors in the air within the soil beneath the foundation of the depot building and above the water table.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the chemical was widely used in dry-cleaning fabrics and metal degreasing.

The agency describes primary long-term effects of the chemical as neurological, “including impaired cognitive and motor neurobehavioral performance. Tetrachloroethylene exposure may also cause adverse effects in the kidney, liver, immune system and hematologic system, and on development and reproduction.”

Fox said that at the end of Stage II of the project, “we’ll have an Amtrak station that is safe, health-wise, with the environmental issues mitigated through either removal or sealing.”

“The building will have been restored, and it will have all new windows and doors,” he said.

But Cowan said there are still unclear details that have him concerned, and that Fox is trying to resolve. Resolution of those issues, Cowan said, would be necessary to get his approval of the project.

The Selectboard members told Scott that the town must get “a commitment from Vermont DEC and VTrans to address the contaminated railyard in a feasible manner, and minimal VTrans lease modifications, purchase and renovation of the station is not possible due to liability of leasing the land, putting the town at risk of 170 years of rail operations.”

Project planners projections indicate that rail use of the yard will double over the next decade.

Pollution and housing concerns

The rail yard, a local fixture for well over 170 years, takes up the north end of the Island, the 20-acre rail/industrial section of Bellows Falls, formed by the Connecticut River on the north, east, and south sides, and the canal powering the town’s hydroelectric station on the west side.

The railroad has also played a critical role in the history of the region. Rail lines have provided transportation for paper, textiles and other goods produced in the area, as well as milk and other agricultural products shipped to Keene and Concord, New Hampshire, to Boston and beyond. Rail service has transitioned over the years to primarily long-haul freight and one Amtrak passenger train, the Vermonter.

The canal was built in 1801 and helped Bellows Falls become a major transportation hub. In the later 1800s, the canal would be converted from transportation to providing water power for mills. In the 1920s, the canal was rebuilt to power the hydroelectric plant in Bellows Falls.

The Island was home to several factories over the past 200 years, which created extensive ground pollution there.

The advent of rail in the 1840s increased the village’s importance as a transportation center. The rail yard in Bellows Falls was a major Northeast rail hub.

Because the Island is immediately adjacent to Bellows Falls’ downtown, in recent years it has also been designated as part of the downtown historic district. Fox said that redevelopment of the Island for a variety of commercial and housing purposes is a vital part of the village’s future plans.

The town has developed an Area Wide Plan with input from the Windham Regional Commission. The plan proposes several town and private industry projects over the next several years.

These include adding over 100 housing units on the Island in upper stories there, and 45,000 square feet of street-level commercial development.

When asked about the assertion of a few in the community that adding low-income housing increases crime, Fox scoffed at the idea as nonsense.

The village’s history supports him. Over the past several decades, five major housing projects, including numerous apartments for low-income tenants, have been completed in the half-mile stretch of downtown Bellows Falls from the former Armory building on Westminster Street to the recently opened Bellows Falls Garage building on Rockingham Street.

Town officials said all of these projects combined have had zero impact on crime statistics, and that the buildings have a reputation for being well-managed and safe.

On the contrary, Fox said, “The way to fix tax issues in the town is to add buildings back to the Grand List.”

The Island, he explained, is the area where the town has lost considerable buildings off the tax list. Adding to the Island’s appeal for development is that “it already has water, sewer and three-phase power, and it has the most room for growth.”

Cleaning up the pollution on the Island is not only “the right thing to do for the future,” Fox said, but “the most valuable place to add property value back” to the town.

In response to the town’s plea, Scott’s office pledged to “work directly” with the Agency of Transportation and the Agency of Natural Resources and assured the town that the governor’s office is “actively working towards a solution.”

“Who wants to invest in a community that won’t invest in itself?” Fox asked. “There are a lot of places for the federal and the private money to go. If the town runs away scared, private money will go elsewhere.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Concern in the air on Bellows Falls depot project.

This story by Ellen Pratt was first published by The Commons on Jan. 28.

BRATTLEBORO — With night temperatures dipping below freezing and an estimated 80 unsheltered people in the area, community members are calling on the town to open an emergency overnight shelter.

At a Jan. 23 meeting of Brattleboro’s Community Homelessness Strategy Team, Cristina Shay-Onye, a Brattleboro resident, urged the town to develop a plan of action.

“It has now been exactly one month since I sent an email (to town officials) saying we need to open something up tonight,” Shay-Onye told meeting participants. “And the answer was, ‘Well, we can’t do that tonight.'”

“And now we’re one month later, and we need to open something up tonight,” she added.

In the absence of an emergency shelter set up by the town, Shay-Onye and other community members have raised and spent $3,000 on motel rooms to get people off the streets this winter.

‘No one wants anyone to die on the streets’

Community Homelessness Strategy Team members include Brattleboro Town Manager John Potter; Sue Graff, the Agency of Human Services field director for the Brattleboro District; staff from Groundworks Collaborative; representatives from Brattleboro’s police, public works and fire departments; and staff from other human service organizations.

“I think it’s safe to say no one in this room wants anyone to die on the street,” Graff told meeting participants. “We’re doing our best with what we’ve got.”

Established in 2023, the Community Homelessness Strategy Team has been meeting monthly to respond to an increase in unsheltered homelessness caused partly by eligibility restrictions in the state’s emergency housing motel program, which took effect that June with the end of the federally funded Covid-19 program.

Additional cost-cutting measures by the Legislature last session have capped the number of rooms in the program at 1,100 statewide and limited eligibility for those rooms during the winter.

To address the increased need for shelter beds, the Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development opened a temporary 40-bed shelter for families with children at its West Brattleboro location, and Groundworks Collaborative added 12 beds to its downtown overnight shelter during the winter months.

Still, many people are sleeping rough on park benches and in tent encampments in the area.

Graff attributes the “critical mass of unsheltered folks” to a “confluence of conditions.”

In addition to cuts in the motel program, the overnight shelter at Groundworks has been full, she said.

Some people are sleeping outside, exposed to the elements, because they have been prohibited from the Groundworks shelter and other service organizations due to behavioral issues. Other people have complex conditions that preclude them from accessing services provided by these organizations.

Real barriers in a desperate situation

According to Vermont Emergency Management guidance, each town or city’s local emergency management team decides whether to open a local warming or overnight shelter.

Police Chief Norma Hardy, also the town’s emergency management director, identified the lack of a building and staff capacity and security concerns as the most significant barriers to establishing an emergency overnight sleeping shelter.

Hardy said the town attorney would have to be consulted on the legal obligations in setting up a shelter. “We’d have to guarantee the safety of people using the shelter,” she said.

Some meeting participants noted that schools were recently closed due to extremely cold temperatures. They wondered whether the Brattleboro Union High School could serve as an emergency shelter during school closures.

Shay-Onye said that many local churches have concerns about hosting an emergency overnight shelter this winter, primarily related to insurance. However, she reported that the pastor of the Community Bible Chapel in Brattleboro is willing to consider the request. 

“We have not made a definite decision,” Pastor Matthew Paul Miller said.

In the meantime, Hardy plans to work with Potter and other municipal officials to develop an overnight warming shelter plan.

There will be no beds, but “at least there will be chairs and a way for folks to get in out of the cold,” Hardy said.

Barre’s approach to a shelter

The town may be better positioned to access state support if an acceptable emergency shelter facility is identified.

For example, during the recent cold snap, the city of Barre opened a temporary overnight shelter in the municipal auditorium, a designated regional emergency shelter.

“Normally, when the auditorium is activated as a shelter, like with the recent flooding, it’s a decision made at the state level,” City Manager Nick Storellicastro said. “In this case, we saw the forecast, reached out to (Vermont Emergency Management and the Agency of Human Services), and said, ‘Hey, we should treat this as an emergency. We should open up the shelter.’”

“It took some convincing that it was important and needed,” Storellicastro added. “But we demonstrated a need, and we were able to throw a building at it.”

The state’s involvement opened up staffing resources through the Red Cross, which also provided cots and blankets. The state provided additional staffing through Vermont’s Medical Reserve Corps, which is made up of community-based volunteers with specialized skills who support local public health and emergency response efforts. Barre community members also volunteered to help staff the facility.

“This would have been totally unsuccessful if it was just a city initiative,” Storellicastro said. “This was only successful because the state, the city, nonprofits, and volunteers stepped up.”

‘We’re left to our own devices’

“The governor is not declaring a state of emergency because of the cold or homelessness or anything else, and so we’re left to our own devices,” Graff told meeting participants. “Figuring out town by town and community by community, how to deal with this issue is really hard, as evidenced by this meeting.”

In addition to developing a plan for a temporary emergency shelter, the Community Homelessness Strategy Team also plans to search for suitable space to house a shelter that would bridge the gap in services between June, when the Winston Prouty family shelter will close, and late spring 2026, when Groundworks’ new 40-bed shelter at 81 Royal Road is expected to be completed.

Graff said the group can apply to the state for one-time funding to staff and operate the shelter if a building is identified.

In Barre, Storellicastro sympathizes with the challenges Brattleboro faces.

“I think people in municipal governments want to do the right thing,” he said. “State government wants to try to do the right thing. I think sometimes these barriers are real.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: In Brattleboro, with bitter cold comes urgent need for shelter.

This story by Devan Monette was first published in The Commons on Jan. 14

BRATTLEBORO — The only medical cannabis dispensary in the region, CeresMed South on Putney Road, closed its doors on Dec. 12, significantly disrupting access for Windham County’s 235 residents with active state-issued medical cannabis cards.

For customers who relied on the firm to access medical cannabis products, the closure created a gap in access to relief for qualifying medical conditions.

“There are certain products and services that just aren’t available in adult-use dispensaries,” said James Pepper, chair of the state’s Cannabis Control Board (CCB), based in Montpelier.

Cannabis, also known as marijuana, has long been regarded as a legitimate treatment for certain conditions that cause physical and psychological pain. Over the years, while federal regulations have remained ironclad, an increasing number of states have progressively affirmed programs for both medical and recreational use.

While recreational dispensaries now let people purchase cannabis with valid identification, medical dispensaries still require strict credentials and oversight by the CCB.

Medical dispensaries generally offer higher-dosage edibles, the legal possession of larger quantities, and specialized products designed to deliver the pain-relieving properties of THC and other cannabinoids with reduced psychoactive effects, such as transdermal patches and suppositories, according to a guide for health-care providers by the University of San Diego’s Division of Professional and Continuing Education.

In addition, CeresMed South provided counseling services for its customers, staffed with employees who had the background to help patients select products best suited to their needs.

“People who purchased from us were incredibly loyal because we had relationships built on trust,” said Jenny Sault, who managed the dispensary for six years until the end of 2023. “They didn’t just come for our products – they came to us for advice.”

Yet, with adult-use legalization opening the doors to dispensaries across the state in the fall of 2018, it became increasingly difficult for medical dispensaries to compete.

“We were happy [that] patients had more options and no longer had to go through a gatekeeper,” said Sault, “but we lost a lot of business due to adult-use legalization.”

However, the shift also meant that patients were now purchasing cannabis products under the same taxation as recreational users and with diminished access to certain medical-specific items.

Many cardholders opted not to renew their registrations, choosing instead to pay the combined 14% excise tax and 6% sales tax imposed on cannabis products.

The broad decline of a specialized industry

As anticipated, medical cannabis registrations fell significantly starting in 2018.

Within a year of the state permitting recreational cannabis use, “the patient registry dropped by 20%,” said Pepper. “Medical dispensaries had been ringing the alarm with the legislature for a number of years,” reflecting on feedback from the state’s medical dispensaries, which peaked at six.

Pepper stated how the CCB noted that “the economy and the scale of the medical program don’t match up.”

To address this decline, in 2022, the CCB approved three integrated licenses, allowing existing medical dispensaries to sell adult-use products under strict inventory management rules.

CeresMed’s South Burlington location was included in this initiative, but its Brattleboro dispensary did not obtain the licensure.

Still, feedback from dispensary owners to the board emphasized the need to broaden regulations on who is qualified to purchase from Vermont medical dispensaries.

Pepper highlighted several policy suggestions raised in these conversations, such as implementing reciprocity to honor medical cards issued in other states, issuing retail licenses for medical dispensaries, and expanding the number of medical conditions for which a patient would qualify for the state’s medical use program.

“We have one of the most tightly controlled medical programs in the country,” said Pepper. “That’s really been a function of the Legislature keeping a very tight lid on the qualifying conditions.”

Initially, when Vermont became the ninth state to legalize medical cannabis in 2004, only patients with terminal illnesses were permitted to cultivate plants or possess cannabis.

Legislation in 2011 authorized four dispensaries to open in February 2014, including amendments to serve patients with certain “debilitating medical conditions” affirmed by their doctors.

Yet for many Vermonters, the benefits didn’t outweigh the cons.

Nicholas Joseph Luoma, a longtime Brattleboro resident, shared his hesitation about applying for a Medical Cannabis Card in 2016.

At the time, approval of a yearly application, including a $50 fee, permitted a card granting access to a medical cannabis dispensary.

“I had gone as far as filling out the paperwork with my doctor – they completed their portion,” Luoma recalled. “Ultimately, I decided not to send it in because I didn’t want my name on one of those lists.”

Access denied

No one was more familiar with the weight of regulations than the dispensaries tasked with operating under them.

“We had to enforce their ridiculous laws even when we knew they didn’t make sense,” recounted Sault. “If you didn’t have your medical card with you, we couldn’t let you in.”

A lost card could result in weeks of denied access while waiting for a replacement to be processed and shipped.

“We had cancer patients or those with severe pain who we knew needed this medicine, and we’d have to turn them away,” Sault recalled with frustration.

For many patients who could benefit from state-sanctioned access, bureaucratic barriers to obtaining legal cannabis were a significant deterrent, even though its effects could help manage conditions beyond those officially recognized as qualifying.

“I think it’s really important that people have access to this medicine,” shared Luoma, recounting his personal experience. “I use it as a mood stabilizer, but it also helps with diet regulation because I take medication that requires food.”

Another advocate of cannabis, Brattleboro resident Heather Elisabeth, found it transformative in treating PTSD and major panic attacks.

Elisabeth, who stopped usage before legalization, found that daily cannabis use in tandem with therapy was life-changing.

“I just thought I was stuck in hell, and [it was] the one thing that saved my life,” she said.

When Elisabeth smoked it, “I could function,” she said. “I finished college with flying colors, got my degree in vocal performance, started directing choirs, and just started being very successful.”

In 2017, Gov. Phil Scott signed into law a bill that expanded the list of qualifying conditions to include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Parkinson’s disease, and Crohn’s disease.

Understanding the impact

Reflecting on her experience managing the CeresMed locations in both Brattleboro and Middlebury, Sault expressed feeling unsupported by regulators.

“The state decisions were very out of touch with what we were actually doing,” she said.

“It was a huge deal what we did for people, and I often think it was overlooked or viewed negatively by the very people who should have supported it,” said Sault.

Behind locked doors, only a select group of dedicated staff witnessed the profound impact medical cannabis had on patients.

“I’ll never forget an elderly man coming in, all emotional one day, excited to share that he was almost completely off his opiates for pain,” said Sault, her eyes beginning to well up.

“He cried as he told us he was finally able to attend one of his granddaughter’s recitals,” she continued. “He thanked us for giving his life back to him.”

For those with chronic conditions, higher doses of THC and other cannabinoids may be necessary to sustain relief throughout the day, making affordability a critical factor for many patients.

Without insurance coverage – which does not cover medical cannabis, still classified as an illegal Schedule I drug under federal law despite the surfeit of increasingly contradictory state laws – the quantities required for effective relief can be prohibitively expensive.

A case for reform

“Patients are losing access,” said Pepper regarding CeresMed South’s closure. “These are patients who, by definition, are the most vulnerable consumers of cannabis.”

Currently, only three dispensaries maintain active licenses in Vermont: Vermont Patients Alliance in Montpelier, Grassroots Vermont in Brandon, and CeresMed in South Burlington, which has announced plans to close soon.

Pepper noted that Grassroots is offering delivery services statewide to help address the gap in access.

“We’ll keep working for the patients, but the Legislature is the only [entity] that can really make significant changes,” said Pepper.

The CCB has proposed a medical-use endorsement to be reviewed by the Legislature. This would allow adult-use dispensaries to separately serve medical cannabis patients using a segregated inventory.

In addition to the proposed $250 to maintain this permitting, adult-use dispensaries would need to ensure patient confidentiality and uphold an educational standard for employees engaging with patients.

The earliest this legislation could take effect is July 1, 2025.

When asked about her vision for reform in the medical cannabis industry, Sault said, “People should be educated before making decisions that drastically affect others’ lives.”

Reflecting on her time at Ceres, Sault recalled that “the team there was top-notch, and the whole company has a heart of gold.” She noted that she resigned because she moved to Florida.

“Cannabis helps people, and I’d love to see a more mainstream approach,” she added. “It’s the people’s medicine and it should be treated as such.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Windham County’s sole medical cannabis dispensary closes.

This story by Ellen Pratt was first published in The Commons on Oct. 1st.

LONDONDERRY — Vermont has a housing crisis: The state needs up to 36,000 new homes by 2030 to meet demand, and the quintessential single-family house on a large lot on a country road will not be the solution.

“It’s certainly not the future that local Vermonters can afford,” said Chris Campany, executive director of the Windham Regional Commission (WRC).

Instead, multifamily housing will become the standard.

“Without a collapse in land prices or building prices that creates a massive housing surplus – that’s our reality,” said Campany, who spoke to planners, local elected officials, and residents from Londonderry, Jamaica, Weston and Winhall about the results of a regional housing needs assessment for their towns.

The study was part of a pilot project led by the WRC, with the assistance of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Communities by Design Program of the Architects Foundation (a charity of the American Institute of Architects) to assist these towns in addressing workforce housing and affordable housing needs.

Project leaders — including planners, architects and landscape architects — presented their findings during two meetings. At a Sept. 26 meeting at the Flood Brook School in Londonderry, Campany told participants that as the population ages and household size shrinks, a need for smaller units is emerging.

Additionally, the region needs affordable workforce housing for moderate- and low-income households. Multifamily housing can meet these needs and can be built efficiently using less land and on a scale where construction, labor, land, and permitting costs are lower.

“It may not be the pattern of development that we’ve tended to see here. It’s probably going to look very different than what we’ve been accustomed to,” Campany said.

‘It’s not an impossible task’

The multi-town Housing Needs Assessment, prepared for the WRC by the UMass Center for Resilient Metro-Regions and published in July, highlights the need for affordable, year-round housing in the four-town region of the West River Valley, whose economy relies on the nearby ski industry.

The study projects a need for approximately 850 new units by 2040.

It assumes a population increase of 0.8% per year and factors in unmet housing needs by “kids, neighbors, and friends who’d like to move here,” said Elisabeth Infield, professor of regional planning at UMass Amherst’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning and co-author of the report.

Assuming a quarter acre of land for each housing unit, approximately 213 acres will be needed to accommodate these new homes over the next 15 years.

“It’s not that much land,” Infield told meeting participants. “It’s not an impossible task.”

Housing affordability is an issue

Many residents in the four towns earn less than $50,000 per year — in Winhall, almost 40% of households, and in Jamaica and Londonderry, close to 30%.

Weston is relatively prosperous, with a median income of $110,000, well above the state median income of $67,674. Only 20% of residents earn less than $50,000 per year.

Low wages and a limited housing supply mean that many residents are considered housing-cost-burdened, meaning that they pay more than 30% of their household income on housing.

In Jamaica, 38% of rental households fall into that category. In Londonderry, 51% of renters pay up to half of their income on housing. Many Winhall renters are severely cost-burdened, with 39% of renters paying 50% or more of their income for housing.

“An awful lot of people who live and work here are eligible for affordable housing (programs),” Wayne Feiden, director of the UMass Center for Resilient Metro-Regions, told meeting participants. “They’re the people who work at the ski mountains, in the restaurants and the hotels.”

Project researchers propose alternatives for interpreting these data. Each town can work independently to tailor its housing strategies to meet the needs of the current and projected number of low- and moderate-income residents.

Alternatively, higher-income towns, like Weston, could be viewed as having more responsibility to create affordable and attainable housing to do their “fair share” for the region, and to provide workforce housing for those employed there, Feiden said.

Julie Barrett, a consultant to the project, noted that while all four towns call for more affordable housing in their respective town plans, none of their zoning regulations allow for denser, multifamily housing development at the scale needed.

“Multifamily dwellings create choice and are an efficient use of land,” Barrett said. “And they are financially feasible from a developer’s point of view.”

Short-term rentals impact supply of year-round housing

The report finds that short-term rentals (STR) make up a “very significant part of the overall housing stock” of the four towns, especially in Winhall, with its proximity to Stratton Mountain.

Only 2% of Winhall’s rental housing stock is available for year-round rentals, complicating the issue of housing accessibility for permanent residents.

“We have to do something. We have young families that can’t live in our town,” said Julie Isaacs, a Winhall Selectboard member.

“It’s embarrassing that there’s not a place a teacher can buy a house in my town,” she continued. “We have an entire police department, and not one of them lives closer than a 30 minutes’ drive.”

Housing has been on the Selectboard’s agenda, “but the real focus has been on figuring out what to do about short-term rentals,” Isaacs said, referring to the impact of STRs on quality-of-life issues like noise and garbage.

Barrett spoke about STRs, characterizing them as a double-edged sword for towns.

On one hand, she said, “They’re killing our housing market.” But she acknowledged that the income they provide “helps people to stay in their homes.”

She pointed to Londonderry’s new short-term rental bylaw, which requires STR owners to register with the town, as a model for understanding how STRs fit into a town’s housing market.

Barrett proposed that the four towns explore implementing this model regionally.

How to preserve character

Architects on the project team discussed the importance of preserving the character of Vermont’s villages by locating new housing above existing commercial properties, on vacant lots, behind existing structures, and at the edges of villages.

This “gentle infill” approach is also being promoted through the Homes for All Toolkit project, a project of the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD), which aims “to reintroduce missing middle homes to Vermont.”

According to the ACCD, “(missing middle homes) are rooted in Vermont’s pre-1945 development pattern and include a range of neighborhood-scale residential building types like accessory dwelling units, duplexes, small-scale multi-household buildings and small mixed-use/live-work buildings that can accommodate residents of different ages, abilities, lifestyles and stages of life.”

In many municipalities, however, zoning restrictions have made the process of adding such housing units difficult — if not illegal.

In the project’s next phase, researchers will identify potential development sites in the four towns using a basic criteria for development: that they be neither too steep nor at risk of flooding.

In a final report, to be issued later this year, architects and landscape architects will present initial designs for housing types suitable for these parcels.

Housing as a regional issue

Calling the four-town housing project a “bold experiment,” Campany hopes it will spark broader conversations across towns about opportunities for collaboration.

“It could be that as a result of this project, the focus remains within the town, but maybe you get some different ideas from hearing what conversations your neighbors and others are having,” he said.

It can be very difficult to solve the housing crisis town by town, Campany explained in a recent WRC newsletter.

“It could be that the best housing solution for the residents of your town will ultimately be found in a neighboring town,” he wrote.

“Some towns are better suited for housing than others because existing settlement patterns lend themselves to new housing and neighborhood development, land is available for compact settlement that is not likely at risk of flooding, there’s existing infrastructure and the ability to expand that infrastructure, and other very practical considerations,” said Campany.

An advocate for cross-town collaboration, Campany said that in some cases it could even make sense to think beyond state lines.

Campany has proposed engaging with neighboring towns in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, where appropriate, to address more regional challenges — like housing and infrastructure — that don’t disappear at a state border.

Let’s get out of our silos

Winhall Selectboard member Isaacs supports cross-town collaboration.

“We’re all living through the same issues, so being able to talk about it collaboratively, instead of in silos, is nice,” she said.

Laura Gianotti, a resident of Winhall and director of the Winhall Community Arts Center, agreed. “All of these towns are very closely connected in a lot of ways. So I think putting us all together was very natural.”

Feiden, the project leader, encouraged meeting participants to think broadly about housing as they work to promote more of it.

“Think about not only what your own needs are right now, but think about what your needs may be in the future,” he said.

“Maybe you’ll have to downsize, or your parents may have to downsize,” Feiden continued. “Maybe as your kids graduate they want to move here or move out of your house. What is it that your neighbors, your employees, and your co-workers need?

“Too often the fear of change can prevent opportunities,” he added. “That then means we, or the people we care about, can’t live in this place that we love.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Four southern Vermont towns address the housing crisis — collaboratively.

This story by Robert F. Smith was first published in the Commons on Sept. 5.

ROCKINGHAM — The Rockingham Meeting House has been awarded a National Historic Preservation Grant for $750,000 toward current efforts to preserve the town’s first public structure.

The funding is one of 19 awarded in nine states by the National Park Service through its Semiquincentennial Grant Program in honor of the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026.

The town describes the meeting house as “the largest intact [18th-century] public building remaining in Vermont still in its original material form and in active use.”

The Meeting House was built as the government of the United States was also taking shape.

The building’s frame was raised on June 7, 1787, “14 days after the start of the Philadelphia Convention framing of the U.S. Constitution,” Rockingham Historic Preservation Coordinator Walter Wallace told The Commons. “It is a complicated history full of contradiction.”

The grant “breathes life into our town’s, our region’s, and our state’s remembrance of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026,” Wallace said.

Other 2024 recipients include the San Xavier del Bar, a baroque mission church in Tucson, Arizona; the Slarrow sawmill in Leverett, Massachusetts, built in 1774; Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain; and George Washington’s 1782-83 headquarters.

Created by Congress in 2020 and funded through the Historic Preservation Fund, the grants fund “projects that restore and preserve sites and structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places that commemorate the founding of the nation.”

The Meeting House was built from 1787 to 1801 and was also known as the Old North Church and the First Church. It was used for church meetings until 1839, and as a Town Meeting site until it was abandoned in 1869.

The building remained unused until 1906, when local citizens recognized its historic value and began its restoration. It was rededicated in 1907.

The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2000, and is described in its nomination for that designation as “nationally significant as a rare eighteenth century New England meeting house of the ‘second period’ type, virtually unaltered on the exterior or interior.

“With its associated burial ground, and standing prominently on a rural hill within a locally-designated historic district, the Rockingham Meeting House retains to a high degree its integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association,” writes Richard Ewald of Putney, an architectural historian, and Curtis Johnson, a Montpelier historian, in the nomination narrative.

The National Park Service award was obtained through the efforts of Vermont’s Congressional delegation – Sens. Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch and Rep. Becca Balint.

Last year, the town also received a $360,000 Save America’s Treasures grant through the efforts of Sanders. The town had to match those funds, which it did using Covid economic development money, local donations, help from the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation and town tax funds.

The delegation released a statement on the importance of the Meeting House: “It’s critical we preserve, restore, and expand accessibility of our historic landmarks so every Vermonter and people visiting New England can enjoy historic places like the Old Rockingham Meeting House for generations to come.”

The Meeting House, they wrote, “is one of the oldest structures in Vermont and an early site of Town Meeting Day – it’s a symbol of our democratic process.”

The Meeting House is owned by the town of Rockingham and is regularly used for concerts, weddings, memorial services, lectures and civic events.

Restoration goals

Meeting House construction is divided into three phases. Phase I focuses on foundation, drainage, window restoration and roof work. Phase II focuses on the exterior, plaster, interior and pew restoration. Phase III focuses on compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and safety measures.

The project steering committee of the Rockingham Meeting House Preservation Project released a statement listing its vision for the historic building.

The initial goals include preserving and restoring the Meeting House foundation, exterior woodwork, plaster, interior woodwork, and pews — all while adhering to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties.

A second goal is conserving the important art left by the Rockingham School of stone carvers on grave stones in the adjacent Rockingham Burying Ground.

By preserving the Meeting House, the committee said it hopes to develop and bring focus to “a public history narrative of early Rockingham and Vermont that conveys diverse and underrepresented stories, and spurs preservation of this space.”

The committee also wants the preservation work to ensure continued safe use of the building as a museum and for public and private events, and for the community to derive economic benefits from heritage tourism.

The committee also wants to “provide a space to inspire and engage a rising generation to learn and practice architecture, engineering, historic preservation, public history, and the arts of timber framing, traditional carpentry, joinery, and smithing.”

Construction for the project, estimated at $3 million, should begin in the summer of 2025 and continue through to 2027.

Local talent, local pride

“We hope to tap into as much local talent as possible to do the construction work: timber-framers, joiners, smiths, and anyone who knows how to rive a 5-foot clapboard,” said Wallace, who gave an overview of the historic significance of the Meeting House and its restoration.

“Rockingham had a Committee of Correspondence, keeping in touch with Sam Adams and his merry band in Boston. No doubt there was a Liberty Tree where letters were posted to keep up on news of events that led to the Declaration of Independence, located near the first meeting house, a primitive affair, probably standing where the hearse house now sits.

“The local militia turned out in April 1775,” Wallace continued, “to join the Siege of Boston following news of Lexington and Concord. Indeed, the person who donated the land upon which the present meeting house sits – David Pulsipher – was in the militia, mortally wounded at Bunker Hill, never to return to see his vision of the meeting house realized.”

Wallace observed that “numerous Revolutionary War Patriots” are buried at the Rockingham Meeting House graveyard.

“Preserving the Meeting House is remembering why it was built and who built it,” he said. “The Rockingham Meeting House was born in a revolutionary time when the notions of freedom and liberty and democracy were hotly debated, yet to be resolved and settled.”

Discussion in Deerfield

Wallace also noted that the Meeting House’s original paint has been studied in recent years and will be a topic at the Historic Deerfield (Massachusetts) 2024 Fall Forum, “A Rich and Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past.”

One of the animations at the event “includes a fiddle soundtrack of a John Colby tune,” he said.

“Colby was a country fiddler and Free Will Baptist minister who preached – and no doubt fiddled – at the Meeting House around 1802-1803,” Wallace noted.

Clarification: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect title for Walter Wallace.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Rockingham Meeting House gets $750,000 preservation grant.

This story by Virginia Ray was first published in The Commons on August 6.

PUTNEY — Julie Winchester had no desire to get involved in the restaurant business.

What she did want was to bring her community together and show visitors what her town has to offer.

And she had a vision that included making Exit 4 off Interstate Highway 91 a destination — maybe even a food truck spot.

After a while, since no one else was stepping up, Winchester did.

Now, Rod’s Food Truck Park is open every Friday and Sunday, from 4 p.m. until dusk or until vendors sell out of food.

“I didn’t want to be the person to pull the trigger on this, but it was like, OK, I guess I have to do it. For me what’s been a little stressful is I’ve never done restaurant businesses,” said the seemingly ever-sunny Winchester.

Winchester works as a dental hygienist and helps her husband Greg with Rod’s Towing and Repair at 40 Main St., which they purchased last year from Greg’s father.

“For those businesses, people make appointments,” she said.

She asked herself, “Are people really going to come?”

They did. “The park has stayed full for the past two weeks for the entire time it’s open,” she said.

Winchester said that multiple vendors have stopped by the garage asking about setting up food trucks but there wasn’t enough space there.

“We tried to give them other suggestions, but it just kind of kept coming back to us,” she said.

So in January, the couple bought the ⅔-acre of green space between Rod’s and 802 Credit Union.

“We were inspired by what the Retreat [Farm] does with its food truck roundup,” said Winchester. “I thought, ‘If Brattleboro can do it, why can’t Putney?’ So we’ve done it.”

So far the park has been full each week with a maximum of six trucks.

Marcel Maxwell, owner of 802 Soul Kitchen, a pop-up kitchen he started in February, was the first vendor who said “yes” to Winchester.

“It meant the world to me that he believed in this vision and Putney,” Winchester said of Maxwell and his southern soul food.

“I love the park; it’s awesome. And it’s going great, probably my second or third biggest turnouts since I started,” said Maxwell, who brings along his 5-year-old son Little Marcel and his best friend each week. “Putney really comes out to support. It’s just a fun place.”

Other vendors at the park are part of Brattleboro’s Afghan refugee community. “Their food is to die for,” Winchester said.

A new vendor would soon be bringing Puerto Rican cuisine, she said.

“All these vendors put their hearts and souls into their food,” Winchester said. “The diversity in the food we’re offering on the property has been beautiful.”

According to Winchester, approximately 600 people came through in the first two weeks.

“It’s been everything I imagined and more,” Winchester said. “I’ve had this vision, seeing Exit 4 being a destination, and I haven’t wanted our town to give up, thinking Putney has just fallen asleep.”

Winchester and her husband travel through many small New England towns, and she said she always thinks, “Putney has everything this town has; we just need to let people know more about what’s here.”

The spring eclipse showed Winchester how much Exit 4 really was “a destination on steroids,” as folks from across New England traveled there for terrific viewing.

“We’d never seen such traffic and so many people,” Winchester said.

Now she said she’s enjoying seeing her vision become a reality.

“It’s been exciting seeing family, friends, and community visiting for hours in the park,” she said. 

“It really is a positive gift that Covid gave us of getting back to gathering, like the outside restaurant. It’s been lovely, and the food has been happening organically,” Winchester said.

She said that people told her that it would be too late in the season to start the food truck spot. “But sometimes you can’t believe the things people say,” said Winchester, who measures the park’s success by the success of vendors and the happiness of vendors and community members.

The park — almost completely booked for this season — will close Oct. 31 for the winter, though Winchester has some ideas about a winter solstice ice sculpting event.

In the meantime, “I want everyone in this space to just relax,” she said.

“I don’t want it to be about politics, or all the things that are going wrong in our town,” Winchester said. “I want it to be about the things that are going right in our town.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Putney hosts new food truck park.

This story by Virginia Ray was first published by The Commons on June 18.

TOWNSHEND — As fundraising continues for a new rural health clinic, Olivia Sweetnam has been named the new chief executive officer at Grace Cottage Family Health & Hospital.

On July 1, Sweetnam will replace Doug DiVello, who announced plans last December to retire when a replacement was hired.

A graduate of Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, Sweetnam received her master of nursing science and master of public health degrees from Yale University.

The chief nursing officer at Grace Cottage since February, Sweetnam was vice president of hospice quality and clinical practice at Amedisys from 2021 to 2023 and has held multiple leadership roles in quality, operations, and medical staff management at Ochsner Health Systems in Louisiana from 2013 to 2021.

Grace Cottage conducted an extensive search with the help of the national executive search firm WittKieffer. Sweetnam was selected after an extensive review of many candidates and interviews with seven finalists.

The new CEO said she had no idea that DiVello would be retiring when she started at Grace Cottage and that the search for his successor “was well underway.”

Sweetnam lives with her family in Brattleboro, where she serves on the board of trustees for River Gallery School and on the Brattleboro Town Arts Committee.

“Olivia brings so much knowledge and experience to this position and will be able to continue the excellent work that Doug DiVello has done during his six years here,” said Martha Dale, Grace Cottage board president.

“Grace Cottage Family Health & Hospital is a rare gem in the world of health care,” said Sweetnam. “It is a shining example of personal and compassionate care, and I am proud to lead this wonderful organization into the future.”

Sweetnam is a nurse practitioner and is comfortable being on the floor as well as in the boardroom.

“People are always welcome to drop me a line,” she said. “I’m excited for this opportunity. It’s a really exciting time to be at Grace Cottage, and I’m really looking forward to the future and what it holds.”‘

A new vision

Founded by Dr. Carlos G. Otis in 1949, Grace Cottage Family Health & Hospital continues the tradition of healing and caring for the community, with primary care provided in two adjoining houses built in the 1840s.

Offering high-quality health care has become increasingly challenging in the existing two old houses connected by a winding hallway.

In 2018, the clinic saw 21,000 individual patient visits, which grew to 31,000 visits in 2022 — an increase of nearly 50% in just four years.

In response to this increasing demand for health care services, Grace Cottage has risen to the challenge and now has 13 primary care providers in the two homes, along with 50 nurses and other support staff.

“It’s quite clear that these old houses with their narrow hallways, uneven floors, and structural challenges were not built for this kind of use, even with the frequent renovations we’ve made,” said Dr. Tim Shafer, who has been with Grace Cottage for 39 years. “It’s just not sustainable.”

“It’s a set of houses, essentially, that have been stuck together and gradually added on, you know, like a house will have a porch and you’ll close in that porch and then add another porch and closing that porch, and that’s what it’s like,” said Dr. Jeremy Morrison in a four-minute fundraising video at gracecottage.org.

“All the floors are different levels, which is a good test for some of our patients, how they can get around. There’s no natural flow to patient care; we’re always going back and forth.”

“We are literally out of space,” said DiVello in the video, noting that means the clinic can’t hire more providers and there’s no way to expand the existing buildings.

“The time is really now,” he said, adding the architects have designed a “state-of-the-art building that fits into the landscape of the historic culture of towns in Vermont.”

“We’ve been overwhelmed with feedback from people who believe, as we do, that this is the right time to get this thing going and to get it completed quickly and efficiently.”

Fundraising for the future

Thanks to a challenge pledge of $5 million from Joseph and Elizabeth Pollio, Grace Cottage is pursuing a long-held dream to build a new family health clinic on campus.

“Grace Cottage gives wonderful care to its patients,” said Elizabeth Pollio, “but the current clinic facility is inadequate. We wanted to make a significant investment in Grace Cottage to help it meet the needs of its many patients, today and the future.”

With this pledge in hand, Grace Cottage engaged the services of health care architects Lavallee Brensinger.

Incorporating extensive input from Grace Cottage Family Health employees, plans were drawn for a 23,000-square-foot building that will improve patient flow, comfort, and privacy; enhance parking and accessibility; and provide easier access to Grace Cottage’s lab and diagnostic services.

The vision includes tearing down one 1840s building, which has been through many iterations, but keeping the original hospital building, now part of the clinic, which will be used as administrative space.

In fiscal year 2024, the hospital received $1.5 million from the federal government after U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., supported and submitted the request to Congress.

Now, said Senior Director of Development and Community Relations Andrea Seaton, U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., is submitting a Fiscal Year 2025 request for $885,000.

Seaton said this week the hope is to have a “shovel in the ground by April of 2025.” The campaign is currently about 45% of the way to the $20 million goal and is expected to take 18 months to complete.

“Construction costs are going up all the time,” Seaton said. “It’s a 23,000-square-foot building and involves a lot of planning. We’re very optimistic we’ll reach our goal. Our community is very supportive. Every single gift — from $5 to $500,000 — will make this happen, but it will take the entire community to make this happen and help us out.”

“Grace Cottage is such a special place,” said Sweetnam, praising the community for being “so invested in Grace Cottage doing well and continuing to grow and thrive.”

Noting the uncertainty of an election year, Seaton added that “people know this is a once-in-a-lifetime project. We haven’t done another since 1997. This project is just as transformational to the community we serve. There’s a lot of noise in the world, but we just stick to our knitting.”

She called an independent hospital like Grace Cottage “a unicorn.”

“That unicorn needs to be supported, and people understand that,” she said.

“When I came here 27 years ago, people said, ‘Don’t work there, it’s going to close.’ Well, they’ve been saying that for years,” Seaton continued.

“We really are like the little engine that could, with a spirit of compassion and caring and entrepreneurship and defying the odds,” she said.

“It is a great place,” said Sweetnam. “It has a culture like nowhere I’ve ever worked. It feels very different from any other health service I’ve worked at.”

Grace Cottage Family Health & Hospital serves includes a traditional primary care practice, a 19-bed hospital, and a 24/7 emergency department. The medical center also has an outpatient rehabilitation department, a laboratory, diagnostic imaging, and a full-service retail pharmacy. In 2023 and 2024, Grace Cottage was recognized by Vermont Business Magazine as a “Best Place to Work in Vermont.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Grace Cottage welcomes new chief executive.

This story by Virginia Ray was first published in The Commons on June 18.

To date, 149 Vermont cities and towns, home to about 77 percent of the state’s population, have adopted the Vermont Declaration of Inclusion to ensure all residents, visitors and people considering moving to their communities feel welcome, safe and that they belong.

Begun as a grassroots initiative by community members in the Rutland area, the Declaration of Inclusion has gained momentum with the help of Vermont Interfaith Action, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and the Vermont Council on Rural Development.

This year Gov. Phil Scott declared the second week of May as Inclusion Week, his fourth such proclamation.

“The state must and will continue to address the challenges of achieving racial and ethnic equity across Vermont and to nurture the diverse society in which we want our youth to live and prosper,” Scott said.

These groups’ efforts were recognized at a press conference on May 9 at the state capitol, organized by Vermont Interfaith Action.

At the press conference, Rep. Kevin “Coach” Christie of White River Junction, who is a member of the NAACP, wondered: If Vermont considers itself a welcoming state, why do people leave?

“It’s important for our state to grow and ensure that when people come, they want to stay and can stay,” Christie  said.

Willie Docto, a Duxbury innkeeper and chair of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) task force, said that the chamber’s mission is to advance the state economy and that the Declaration of Inclusion is essential to that effort.

“I hope news of what’s happening here spreads far and wide,” Docto said, “and people beyond Vermont know that there are communities across our state that are eager to welcome them.”

Ted Brady, executive director of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, said his organization tries to offer an aspirational vision for what municipal government should be in Vermont.

“And what should it be other than a place where everyone feels empowered, everyone feels welcome, and everyone feels like they belong in Vermont?” Brady said.

Not all on board

In an FAQ document provided by the organizers, those behind the initiative wrote that, “the Declaration of Inclusion is really a pledge by town leadership to urge the citizens to be more respectful and accepting of all people.”

“In addition, this is a statewide effort with far-reaching implications for Vermont and for each town,” the document said. “To make this happen, we need to state our intentions clearly and then our citizens must really live it. For this to happen, a signed statement by the Selectboard will be important as a visible example to follow.”

Not all towns have joined the program.

Eight selectboards – those in Charleston, Eden, Albany, Sheffield, Lunenburg, Bridgewater, Hubbardton and Highgate – have voted not to adopt the resolution. The Hubbardton and Highgate selectboards both initially voted to adopt, then voted to rescind that decision.

Dummerston, Westminster, Chittenden and Tunbridge voters moved to adopt it on Town Meeting Day by wide margins. Voters in Coventry decided not to adopt by a small margin.

Selectboards in Grafton, Whitingham, Morgan, Barnet, Jay, Charleston and Lowell have declined to consider voting.

Initiative representative James “Al” Wakefield says the group of organizations has heard varied reasons for voting not to adopt or declining to vote at all.

“It is our experience that selectboards vote ‘no’ or decline to vote for several significant reasons, the most prominent being a lack of understanding of the spirit and intent of the Declaration of Inclusion, an apprehension or even a fear of outcomes, and ignorance, an unwillingness or disinclination to lead or change,” Wakefield said.

The folks behind the Vermont Declaration of Inclusion initiative have said they will continue to reach out to all municipalities in the state so they can weigh in on the Declaration.

A second phase of the initiative’s work is already underway, assisting communities that have adopted the declaration to implement it.

“Adoption is just the first step,” said initiative founder Bob Harnish. “We then ask our towns to bring it to their residents so true inclusion becomes a work in progress.”

Inclusion in the program, say organizers, requires little or no cost, but implementation is important. The Vermont Community Foundation has established a $200,000 fund from which towns can apply for up to $10,000.

Some towns have used this funding to hire consultants to administer implicit bias training and examine town ordinances for implicit bias.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Declaration of Inclusion initiative reaches new milestone.

This story by Robert F. Smith was first published in The Commons on June 12.

BELLOWS FALLS — It has taken two years since researchers first began accumulating evidence, but on June 7, scientists announced that shortnose sturgeon are living in the Connecticut River as far north as the hydroelectric dam in Bellows Falls.

Sturgeon exist in the fossil record going back 250 million years and, for thousands of years, have been native species in the Connecticut River.

But this is the first time that sturgeon, which can grow up to 4.5 feet in length and live for up to 30 years, have been verified to exist in this portion of the Connecticut River since 1907. Since 2018, sturgeon had been verified only as far north as the Vernon dam.

Among the data that scientists discussed and presented at the June 7 meeting at the Conte Laboratory were fishway count data on fish ladder inspections at the dams on the river and assessment reports on various species in the Connecticut River, including various fishes, American eel, and sea lamprey.

Involved in the study were Micah Kieffer, a research fishery biologist since 1991, who specializes in sturgeon at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Silvio O. Conte Research Laboratory in Turners Falls, Massachusetts; Kate Buckman, the Connecticut River Conservancy’s New Hampshire River Steward, who has a bachelor’s degree in biological science from Smith College and a Ph.D. in oceanography from MIT; James Garner, a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts and an environmental DNA specialist; and master scuba diver Annette Spaulding, who for over two decades has averaged 117 dives a year in the Connecticut River.

Kieffer’s presentation included a video from New Hampshire angler Patrick Dupell, taken during the July 2023 Connecticut River flood. Kieffer reviewed the film in depth and concluded that it showed sturgeon in a flooded cornfield in Walpole, N.H., as far as a mile inland from the main river bed.

Scientists have said that it is not unusual for sturgeon, during heavy flooding, to wander away from a main river into more shallow and protected flood waters.

Most convincing was a video taken in 2022 by a University of Vermont student which shows sturgeon surfacing in Bellows Falls just below the hydro station at the Historical Society’s Riverfront Park.

When the student found out about the sturgeon research in March of this year, he brought his video to the attention of the scientists.

Kieffer said that the video has now been verified. It was taken below the hydroelectric generator run-out in Bellows Falls and shows two sturgeon at the surface of the river, one of them in unmistakable clarity.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a division of the U.S Department of Commerce, published “Recovery Plan for the Shortnose Sturgeon” in December 1998. 

That plan is still in effect, and lays out the operating requirements for dams in the Connecticut River watershed in order to maintain a viable spawning and survival environment for the sturgeon.

NOAA has begun placing Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon information signs at popular river access sites, the first of which were installed at Riverfront Park in Bellows Falls. These show anglers how to identify sturgeon, and provide information on how to return them to the river if they are inadvertently caught.

Sturgeon are protected by law and possession of sturgeon is illegal. However, to aid in the study of this ancient species, anglers and boaters are encouraged to video, photograph, and report sightings of live, injured, or dead sturgeon to the Upper Connecticut River Sturgeon Research Collaboration at 413-863-3817 or mkieffer@usgs.gov; or 413-863-3802 or btowler@usgs.gov.

The input of anglers in this study is vital, Kieffer said. Anglers can often provide the most vital details needed about this species.

The watershed’s hydroelectric dams can affect the sturgeon, the study says, by restricting their habitat, altering river flows and water temperatures, and causing fish deaths in plants’ turbines.

At most of the dam sites in the watershed, the spawning sturgeon were located just below the dams, making them particularly vulnerable to plant operations.

The NOAA sturgeon recovery plan states, “As spawning timing and locations are identified in these regulated rivers, flows that create acceptable spawning conditions should be maintained during the spawning period. Thus, the operating plans for hydroelectric generating facilities and flood storage reservoirs should include special conditions to protect shortnose sturgeon.”

Because of these regulations, the verification of shortnose sturgeon in the river as far north as Bellows Falls is likely to continue to be a factor in the current process of renewing generating licenses for hydroelectric facilities on the river.

Three hydroelectric dams and generating stations that are located on the Connecticut River in Wilder, Bellows Falls, and Vernon, plus two in Massachusetts, control the flow of the river over 126 miles.

The dams have been in the process of renewing their operating licenses since 2012 – a process that was extended for public comment by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission until May 22.

The facilities were last licensed by FERC over 40 years ago, and the five facilities had their licenses expire in April 2018. Renewed licenses are expected to be for a period of up to 40 years.

The Wilder, Bellows Falls, and Vernon dams are owned by Great River Hydro, formerly known as TransCanada. The company was sold to Hydro-Quebec in February 2023. Hydro-Quebec is a corporation owned by the government of Quebec.

The two Massachusetts hydro facilities, the Turners Falls Dam and Northfield Mountain Pump Storage Project, are limited liability companies owned by PSP Investments under FirstLight Power Services LLC. PSP is also a Canadian company.

Read the story on VTDigger here: After more than a century, sturgeon return to Bellows Falls.

This story by Virginia Ray was first published by The Commons on May 29.

PUTNEY — Nearly two months after the fire department collapsed, the town has a plan — and the department is back in action.

On May 24, the Selectboard held a special meeting to discuss the strategies outlined by the town and the interim fire chief and voted unanimously to un-suspend the fire department side of services at noon on May 25.

The town has been without an active fire department since the Selectboard voted on April 3 to suspend activities of the department after a mass resignation by 12 firefighters — the entire department.

Many said the reasons behind the resignations centered on a lack of respect for emergency responders from town officials.

On April 4, those who resigned from the fire department wrote an open letter to the community about their choice, calling it “an agonizing decision, since caring for the community is the top priority for each and every one of the members.”

The letter continued to note that service “requires the trust and support of town government and, unfortunately, the last few years saw an erosion of this trust, culminating in Chief [Tom] Goddard’s resignation after 22 years.

“More recently, a series of poor decisions made by town government, including inappropriate public proclamations occurring at the critical juncture following the Chief’s departure, created an atmosphere that further undermined the members’ ability to fulfill their core responsibility to provide emergency services for the town.”

Those who resigned said in their letter they hoped for a spirit of reconciliation and that they wanted to “be part of the effort to vision, plan, and rebuild the Putney Fire Department in collaboration with the Selectboard and the community.”

At that time, Town Manager Karen Astley started working on the plan — the Putney Fire Department Interim Strategic Model Plan for Fire Service Reactivation — with newly named Interim Fire Chief Brian Harlow.

“The complexity of this situation is multi-layered,” Astley wrote at the time. “Open communications and discussions with the town fire department have been occurring and will continue.”

She said the Selectboard and her office would be “committed to resolving this situation with the assistance of the members of the Putney Fire Department.”

“We are listening to the community’s concerns,” Astley wrote. “We are doing our best to resolve the situation with the least disruption to public safety services.”

Since the suspension, mutual aid coverage for fire has been coming from Dummerston, Westminster, and Brattleboro.

On April 5, Rescue Inc. launched a first response program for the town. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) will stay with Rescue Inc. for now, but the department will help when and where needed, if requested, Harlow said.

EMS will be addressed once the fire department is up and running again.

‘We’re good to go’

“It sounds like we’re comfortable with this,” Selectboard Chair Aileen Chute said of the plan before the vote in the 30-minute meeting Friday. “In general, I think the more things we have in writing, the better we’ll understand what’s going on, and we won’t get to this point again.”

Chute thanked Astley, Harlow, and others.

“We’re good to go,” she said. “Thank you for all your work.”

The board addressed issues that had been raised by Selectboard Vice Chair Peg Alden, who was not present, including the lack of regular reports to the board by the fire department and a job description for the interim chief.

Regarding improving interdepartment communications, Chute said, “I don’t know what I don’t know.”

“Delegating responsibility will be key to build a system where not just one person is doing everything,” Astley said of the plan.

Harlow said he was confident the fire side of the department would be viable by the next day, noting that 10 department members are currently fully certified and a few more are “close.”

Also, the interim chief said the new department had among its ranks “a fair [number] of new folks who are fairly green but I feel they’re going to come up to speed fairly quick.”

Former board member Laura Chapman, speaking during the discussion about the importance of coordinating efforts once a call comes in to provide optimal response time, supported the interim chief’s efforts while noting her concern over the challenges of doing so, particularly through informal communication.

“There’s been a lot of hurt feelings through this process over the past months, if not years […] and I hope you’re finding ways to be really inclusive of everybody and you’re also being inclusive in your speech,” she said.

“I often hear ‘guys’ language being used, and there’s more than guys,” Chapman pointed out. “I hope you can think about that and take it into consideration going forward.”

After the meeting she clarified that while she understands many people use the phrase in a “non-gendered way,” it still “sends a clear message.”

“Addressing language is critical to creating an environment where everyone feels safe and valued,” Chapman wrote on Facebook.

She called on the community “to address these issues to ensure that everyone, regardless of gender, feels included and respected in the fire department, where misogyny has often been not just overlooked, but accepted, and even sometimes condoned in a ‘guys will be guys’ way.”

“This has led to serious issues and is a part of how we got to the point of not having a department,” Chapman continued. “Changing language is the low-hanging fruit in a much broader issue.”

Training, recruitment and a return to the community

The new plan starts by noting the department “has experienced an evolutionary change” with the retirement of former Chief Tom Goddard shortly after a January operations analysis completed by AP Triton, a public safety consulting firm based in Wyoming.

That study outlined areas of deficiency “that can be corrected to ensure safety from risk and liability,” the new plan said, and it recognized the town is “at a crossroad in determining how to move forward” for both short-term and long-term processes.

Like many volunteer fire departments in the state and country, the Putney Fire Department — a town department with an operating budget supported by property tax revenue — is facing challenges in recruiting and retaining personnel, limited funding, and meeting service demands.

“Customer demands continue to increase, while dollars and adequate staff time continue to shrink,” the plan’s introduction reads. “This trend places more pressure on the modern fire service and policymakers to come up with ways to be more efficient and effective.”

At the same time, the plan acknowledges that “the Putney community is accustomed to certain standards of service from the Putney Fire Department.”

The plan — which may well be tweaked as the reactivation process unfolds, town officials say — calls for the focus of the interim fire chief “to achieve basic firefighting, reduce the burden on mutual aid departments, effectively train and recruit members by establishing clear goals, create a level of trust within the system structure, and allow people to be welcomed into the department.”

Regarding the concern prior to suspending operations about “whether or not the current employees are trained properly and what type of training is required,” the plan delineates, in detail, the minimum certification requirements for firefighters and EMS personnel.

Initiatives include:

• Fast-track training for certifications.

• Encouraging current firefighters to register for firefighter certifications.

• Retaining the current list and recruiting new firefighter candidates.

• Reconnecting and communicating with those department members who resigned “to ask what their intent and expectation” is, and scheduling an open house with a recruiting push to the public.

To address “the lack of delegation and training on critical systems within the fire department,” which, the report says, “has left the current personnel and town management in a situation where it may take time to come up to speed with the current systems in place,” the plan offers several initiatives:

• Look internally within the personnel and delegate some tasks to others.

• Hire at least one or two administrative personnel to assist with daily tasks that need to be completed. This person can be part-time.

• Allow training on the platforms needed with the appropriate vendors, including ESO, the department’s software for fire incident reporting.

• Ensure the fire department is connected to the town IT infrastructure for protection and compliance.

Finally, the plan aims to implement response performance objectives and benchmarks for re-evaluation in one month, noting that the Putney department “will require a plan to transition Putney EMS employees.”

Advisory board looks to future priorities, including EMS

The town has also set up a Fire Department Advisory Committee. Alden, who sits on the panel, says the group is working on a medium-range plan.

That plan will address some of the concerns in the AP Triton operations analysis of the department and will engage the community “in determining the priorities for moving forward […] including the model of emergency services that best fits Putney and the role of a new, permanent fire chief,” she said.

The AP Triton report noted 49 issues and recommended actions, ranging from developing a new key policy and long-range financial plan to reallocating the duties of the fire chief, re-evaluating the mission of the department, developing a strong communications plan, and implementing a process for periodic operating guideline review.

“I can’t speak for everyone, but my sense is that the majority of the Selectboard and a majority of people associated with the fire department support moving forward with an eventual solution,” Chute told The Commons about a week ago.

“As far as what caused the current situation, I would say that there have been complicated issues with the fire department since before I was a Selectboard member, and our current situation was perhaps inevitable,” she said. “I am hopeful that we can all learn from this and move forward with a sustainable solution.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Putney fire services return after turmoil, two-month hiatus.

This story by Robert F. Smith was first published by The Commons on March 13.

Plans are falling into place to make sure that a restored and reopened historic diner installed in downtown Bellows Falls 80 years ago heads into its next 80 years on a strong and sustainable foundation. Literally.

More than a year ago, the citizen’s group Rockingham for Progress Inc. signed a purchase-and-sale agreement with former owner Brian McAllister for the Miss Bellows Falls Diner on Rockingham Street. The 1941 Worcester Lunch Car has been closed for more than three years.

Rockingham For Progress, a civic organization formed in 2016, had been mostly inactive the past few years until it decided that restoring and renovating the diner would be a worthy next project. Board members include Bonnie North, Jeff Dunbar, Kristen Fehrenbach, Doug Anarino and Charlie Hunter.

Andrew Dey has been brought on as project manager, and Raphael Rosner, of Austin Design Cooperative in Brattleboro, is the project architect, according to Hunter, who serves as spokesperson for the group.

“No investor was going to take this project on,” he said this past week. “The only way this can happen is through a nonprofit group like ours applying for historical restoration grants. This is not a viable project for a private owner.”

A public meeting on the next phase of the project, revealing the restoration design details, is scheduled for Thursday, March 28, upstairs at the Rockingham Free Public Library at 7 p.m.

Several of the details on the newer parts of the buildings, including rooflines and exterior siding, have yet to be decided. But the group will reveal the design work completed so far, which they say will give a good idea of the general layout and appearance of the restored diner.

Several other public meetings about the project over the past year have allowed for open discussion of the project, offering details of the diner’s history and public input about the restoration.

“This is our chance as a community to get this done and get it done right,” Hunter said. “The idea is to get the diner set up for the next 80 years.”

Restoration plans revealed

Like many a small-town diner, this one is in the village’s historic downtown district and has been a center of community life for decades. 

While a few local people have expressed their opinions about seeing a diner restored to exactly the way it was 40, 60 or even 80 years ago, the restoration’s guiding principle is to honor the building’s history and create a space for a viable, profitable business in the decades to come.

Hunter said that the end goal is to recreate the original diner “as practical and durable” as possible for generations of use ahead while still fitting in with the character of the village and the diner’s important legacy in Bellows Falls.

“We want to get this done so an operator can lease it as a fully functioning, profitable diner without the burden of debt,” he said.

Experienced, potential operators have already become involved in the project.

The proposed design addresses several of these issues. First — and, for many, most importantly — the main diner building will be preserved and restored. Several key elements in the diner, such as the counter, stools, booths and other interior features, are in great shape and can be reused.

As many of the remaining original features and appliances will be reused as is possible or practical. Some, Hunter said, “are definitely worn out.”

But other structural elements need replacing — in particular, the foundation.

When a smaller diner that had sat on the site for a few years was removed and the current lunch car was located in 1944, it was set much closer to the road. The original foundation was too small for the diner from the beginning.

The diner includes the property behind the building, which will allow for expansion of the building footprint about 10 feet into the rear of the property.

So a new basement and foundation will be created, with dry storage, and slabs will be poured to accommodate an additional dining room, bringing indoor seating up to 50 from the original 32 seats.

Also, the entire structure will set 5 feet farther back from the street. That will allow the addition of 15 to 20 seasonal outdoor seats along the front and end of the building.

The classic glass block entrance at the north end of the diner will be duplicated at all the new entrances, including a fully accessible entrance at the south end of the building.

Inside, a new accessible bathroom will be created, along with a larger separate kitchen space with new appliances, separate pass-throughs for food and dirty dishes, and a supply delivery entrance at the back of the building that leads directly to a new walk-in refrigerator.

A preliminary analysis has found that the site is not contaminated and that drainage is good.

“At this point, we are getting prices for materials and that sort of thing,” Hunter said. “Some aspects of the final design, such as surface finishes, will be decided as we get the pricing on materials.”

The diner itself will be removed from the site and brought to a yet-to-be-determined indoor spot where restoration will take place. While that is happening, the new foundation and slab will be completed, along with other site work.

Plans call for the restored diner to be returned to the site, ready to reopen, in 2025.

Fundraising

While original estimates of the restoration came in at around $500,000, it is likely that doing the job right will end up costing close to $1 million, Hunter said.

He anticipates that most of that funding will come from grants.

Rockingham for Progress has raised about $175,000 in 2023, and group members are hoping to reach $200,000 from individual donors by April 1.

The money raised so far has already allowed the group to completely pay for the building and the lot it sits on.

A variety of new fundraising incentives are being offered by the group to community members who would like to be part of the process.

These include items from local businesses, such as diner soap from Grace and Miss Mouse Soaps, diner spice boxes from Halladay’s Harvest Barn, a Miss Bellows Falls Diner pin by Amar & Riley and vintage diner coffee cups. All profits from these sales, with prices ranging from $29 to $99, go toward the diner restoration.

Naming rights for a favorite counter spot, stool, or booth are also available for donations from $2,500 to $15,000. Efforts are already underway to do so in memory of local residents Gary Smith, Ray Massucco and Curtis “Sparky” Caswell.

Details on how to support the effort, purchase Miss Bellows Falls Diner products and more can be found at MissBellowsFalls.com.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Nonprofit seeks to restore, reopen historic Miss Bellows Falls Diner.

This story by Robert F. Smith was first published by the Commons on Feb. 7. 

What was the bustling industrial center of Bellows Falls a hundred years ago has slowly been converted over the past two decades into an exceptional public park.

An area polluted, abandoned and neglected for most of the past century has been the focus of volunteer citizens working to convert the 8-acre former industrial site into an inviting, environmentally safe outdoor space for the community.

But somewhat hidden away and accessed from the village only through the alley-like, narrow Mill Street, even some local folks don’t even know that it exists.

The site of the now-14-year-old Bellows Falls Historic Riverfront Park and Trail System was initially developed in the mid-1800s by the lumber and papermaking industry.

Located on the Connecticut River’s edge below the terraces that the village is built on, the site has been known locally as the “Under the Hill” area for over two centuries.

For well over half a century, Bellows Falls was the major end point of a three-month-long log drive originating in the great rivershed forests of northern Vermont and New Hampshire.

The annual log drive brought millions of board feet of timber down the Connecticut River each spring from 1865 to 1915.

While some of those logs would continue south to mills in Massachusetts and Connecticut, a large percentage were processed in Bellows Falls and across the river in North Walpole, New Hampshire. Timber was milled into framing lumber, furniture and cabinetmaking hardwoods, and interior trim.

In addition, many of the logs — in particular, poplar — became pulp for papermaking, and much of that was done in the mills that once stood in what is now Riverfront Park.

Some paper mills sat along Bridge Street on the southern end of the Island, including the 16-building Moore and Thompson Paper Mill Complex, built around 1880.

While most of those mills are gone, a few of those buildings are still in use, though most remaining are empty and in disrepair.

But the largest industrial complex in the village was built in the Under the Hill area along the aptly named Mill Street by the predecessor of the International Paper Company.

In 1869, William Russell, who would become a founder and the first president of International Paper, leased all the old factories and their water rights, and began construction of this Under the Hill site.

The advent of railroads in 1849 had made the Bellows Falls canal obsolete, so Russell removed the locks and rebuilt the original 1790–1801 canal, which by 1869 was in disrepair. He converted it to power the mills.

International Paper, today the largest pulp and paper company in the world, was co-founded by Russell and incorporated in 1898 when 17 Northeast pulp and paper mills, including the local Fall Mountain Paper Co., merged.

International Paper was actually founded in the Fall Mountain Paper offices in Bellows Falls. The building housing those offices is one of the few remaining buildings at the site, known today as the TLR Building.

In stark contrast to the park’s present configuration, the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of the site in 1896 shows that what is now an 8-acre green space was once completely covered by dozens of factories, lumber mills, lumber sheds, carpenter shops, acid rooms, paper machine rooms, shipping buildings, buildings for coal storage, pulp storage, paper storage, sulfite mills, blowpits, and digesters, as well as the Frank Adams Grist Mill, most of it owned by the Fall Mountain Paper and Robertson Paper companies.

The buildings were often connected directly or by overhead pedestrian bridges.

In 1896, the mills were all operated by water power from the converted canal, which Russell split into covered west and east flumes.

Each flume ran under the factories and emptied into the Connecticut River via two separate tail races, one of which is still visible. The buildings were heated by coal boilers and some wood stoves, so the threat of fires at the complex was a serious ongoing concern.

New papermaking technology, which used a mixture of wood pulp and rags to make usable paper, was installed in the factories. Parts of those original, huge papermaking machines are among the educational exhibits in the Park.

From 1870 to the 1920s, Bellows Falls was one of New England’s major industrial centers, with a population of over 6,000, more than double the current population of 2,800.

By 1902, some 5,000 workers from the area were employed at the mills, which ran continuously in shifts.

Town life centered on the mills. Whistles blown at shift changes and other times of day could be heard around the town. Villagers used the whistles to schedule their days, time their meals, get to school, and set their clocks.

Frances Stockwell Lovell and Everett C. Lovell’s History of Rockingham recorded the results when time keeper “Hosea Parker made the mistake of his life; he blew the noon whistle at eleven o’clock and the town was not the same for days!”

* * *

By the early 1900s, things began to change.

The great northern forests of New England were largely depleted, and the last great log drive down the Connecticut River took place in 1915.

Smaller log drives of pulp wood, disparagingly referred to as “4-foot stuff,” would continue for another 30 years, but the glory years were gone.

In addition, labor unions — at first, the International Brotherhood of Paper Makers and, in 1906, the creation of the International Brotherhood of Pulp Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers — became and remains an important part of the history of the paper industry.

That was very true in Bellows Falls. The local union helped fund a new firehouse in Bellows Falls, which included a union meeting hall on its top floor. Large union parades were held in the village around the turn of the century, and many local union leaders went on to national positions.

Fighting for improved working conditions and better pay, there were several strikes against International Paper for 20 years, starting with a 1907 strike in Bellows Falls.

There were paper mill strikes throughout the East in 1910. In 1919, some 5,000 workers went on strike in Bellows Falls for two weeks.

But 1921 was the beginning of the end when local workers went on strike for several months. International Paper in Bellows Falls laid off 400 workers, and union pickets and marches occurred daily. Union meetings had to be held in the Bellows Falls Opera House because so many attended.

Local union leaders were jailed for “intimidation,” and two companies of the Vermont National Guard patrolled the streets to keep order during the marches. Pulp trucks trying to get to the mills were overturned by strikers.

When strike breakers — often foreign immigrants — were brought in by train to salvage some of the pulpwood, they had to be protected by the National Guard carrying rifles with fixed bayonets. Shots were fired across the river into the campsite of the strike breakers. Nearly all the Bellows Falls stores and businesses refused to serve them. The situation divided the town for months, and mob rule became a political issue.

“It was,” as Lovell’s History of Rockingham understates, “a tense time.”

Finally, in 1922, things came to an end, but not in the way the strikers had hoped. International Paper began shutting down machines and dismissing workers in what newspapers of the era described as a shift in its corporate strategy.

“Recent developments strongly indicate that the International Paper Co., intends to make itself a great hydro-electric company, with paper a secondary matter. If favorable legislation continues, it is very likely the company will follow out its veiled promises to get out of the paper business in the United States and go to Canada for that purpose,” the Brattleboro Reformer reported on May 5 of that year.

That came to pass in March of 1926, with the announcement that almost all of the paper manufacturing operation in Bellows Falls would cease within two months, with plans for demolishing the majority of the mill complex over 3 acres, rebuilding and upgrading the canals to provide electricity for remaining industry.

Most of the Under the Hill buildings came to be owned by a new entity, the International Hydro-Electric Company. Though some paper mills, in particular the Robertson Paper Company, would continue in town for decades longer, the mostly abandoned Under the Hill site would soon begin to be dismantled and demolished.

Thousands of people lost their jobs.

“It was the end of a period of prosperity” for Bellows Falls, Lovell wrote.

* * *

While the great river log drives and the paper mill industrial years have been romanticized to a degree, the truth is that in many ways they created environmental problems that we are still dealing with today.

The great lumber companies often logged without a sustainable plan, deforesting much of their holdings in northern New England. The colorful river drives were an ecological disaster for Connecticut River fish and wildlife.

The huge paper mill complex used vast amounts of water, as well as dangerous chemicals that ended up in the soil and the river. It has taken decades for the Connecticut River to begin to recover. And while the vast complex of factories and mills along the river in Bellows Falls are mostly gone now, the soil there remained contaminated and unused for the remainder of the 20th century.

Now, with the development of the Historic Park and Riverfront Trail System by the Bellows Falls Historical Society, all of that is changing.

* * *

It could be said that in some ways, the Bellows Falls Historical Society owes its very existence to the park. In 1965, one of the last remaining buildings of the Under the Hill industrial area, Adams Grist Mill, was on the docket to be torn down.

The mill, built in 1831, was in continuous operation until 1961. Painted on the second floor of the building, and still visible today, is a message proclaiming the mill’s offerings: “Hay – Grain – Feed – Flour.”

The mill was in dire need of restoration and repair, but it was a diamond in the rough, with grinding machines, old motors, electrical fuse boxes, elevator shafts, storage bins, and transfer pipes all still in place and most of them still in working order.

Not wanting to see this community treasure lost, a group of citizens, spearheaded by locals Bob Adams and Bob Ashcroft, banded together and formed the Bellows Falls Historical Society in 1965.

The Society at first leased the mill from the New England Power Company.

When TransCanada bought the hydroelectric power system on the Connecticut River in 2005, it viewed the polluted site as a financial liability. The new owners donated the land, including the grist mill and the adjacent Wyman Flint Building, to the Historical Society on the condition that the power company be released from any liability to clean up the contaminated region.

In addition, the town of Rockingham eventually ended up also owning the nearby abandoned TLR Corporation building, which put all of the few remaining structures within the industrial complex in local hands.

Other parts of the eventually full 8-acre site that were owned by the town were also donated to the Historical Society, or bought from private owners via donations.

Rescuing and restoring, or if necessary removing some of these remaining buildings, has been a central project of the group ever since.

Acquiring and preserving Adams Grist Mill in the 1960s would evolve into the much larger concept of creating a historical community park, an education and heritage center, and a riverside trail system — a project that is likely to continue on for several more decades into the future.

A former long-term treasurer of the BFHS was the project manager through the grant writing and overseeing of the Riverfront Park project at the beginning. From 2005 to 2009, the group worked closely with the National Park Service, the Windham Regional Commission, Mount Ascutney Regional Commission Brownfields Reuse Program, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and other organizations and agencies to test the site for contaminants.

The soil tested positive for contamination by arsenic, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, and dioxin, all remnants of its use for paper production.

The studies provided the basis for applying for Brownfields Cleanup Grants, which were used for successful pollution remediation work on the site in 2010 and 2012. All the park’s trails have been cleaned up, and contaminated public areas have been capped.

The few areas that still contain contaminants are isolated from public access. The environmentally safe zones in the park are open to public access, and the park’s hiking trails connect to others along the Saxtons River.

Though Bellows Falls has three miles of frontage on the Connecticut River, the village had never had safe public access to the river itself, and no boat access. To remedy that, stairs now offer access to the river, where people can now find a landing for kayaks and canoes.

Industrial artifacts recovered from the mills are displayed throughout the park, and more are being added. Train wheels have been converted to benches, and scenic viewing areas have been created.

On a man-made knoll at the south end of the park offering sweeping views down the Connecticut River valley, a meditative stone labyrinth has been created, along with a stone bench, called the Poet’s Seat. The knoll was initially created when it was used as the dumping spot for dirt and blasted stones during the construction of the nearby hydroelectric station in the 1920s.

A gated, gravel road provides full access to the labyrinth for everyone, including people with disabilities.

Gary Fox, a founder of the Sustainable Valley Group, which has also been involved with the creation of the park and now owns the Wyman Flint Building, said that the next stage of plans for the park involves assessing and deciding what to do with the remaining buildings.

His group is also looking into creating a second, safer access trail or road into the park.

The park was developed with the stated purpose of creating a historical, interpretive park with a Connecticut River heritage center, museum, education space, and emphasis on the arts and recreation.

The significance of the site — dating back to the area’s 10,000-plus pre-European-contact Indigenous times — will also be part of the park’s future development and use.

Fox said that, in 2023, the Sustainable Valley Group had both the TLR and the Wyman Flint buildings assessed for contamination, as well as the Adams Grist Mill. Now that the park’s trails have been cleaned up, what happens to the remaining buildings has to be decided.

“The next step,” said Fox, “is to work with environmental organizations to clean up all the building areas and decide which buildings can be saved.”

He noted that structural issues will have to be considered in deciding what buildings are still viable. A few remaining, but already collapsed, buildings on the site will need to be removed.

Annette Spaulding, a recognized world-class scuba diver, is the volunteer park manager and a member of the BFHS board of directors.

In extensive exploration underwater along the shore of the park, Spaulding has discovered, among other things, remnants of a steamboat dock, underwater springs, and numerous artifacts from the mills, including two pulp milling stones that, with the help of a local construction company, she was able to salvage.

The large mill stones are now part of the park’s displays.

Spaulding said that plans are underway to get permitting to build a 20-by-30 foot roofed pavilion in the park, with picnic tables for both recreation and educational purposes. Compass School and Bellows Falls Middle School frequently bring students down to the nearby park for classes.

In meeting its goals for creating opportunities for the arts, the park was the setting for an outdoor concert this past year, and plans are in the works for other arts offerings this summer, including a Renaissance fair–type event.

* * *

Among the more interesting features of the park is a small, partially human-made pond at the south end of the industrial site. Called Cold Springs Pond in the earliest maps of Bellows Falls, this natural pond was expanded during the industrial era for use in fighting fires. A small shed at the north end of the pond was intended to house water pumping equipment.

What makes this pond unique is that it never freezes over, even in the coldest of winter weather, making it a year-round open water refuge for waterfowl, including a flock of more than 200 Mallard ducks in January.

The never-freezing pond is evidence of the geothermal springs that feed it, and studies have explored the feasibility of using this thermal water source to help heat some of the town’s public buildings. That idea has been abandoned for the time being.

Don’t confuse the idea of geothermal springs with hot springs. As the name Cold Springs Pond indicates, this water is far from warm, but the springs keep it warm enough to never freeze.

The pond’s waters have been tested for contamination, but Spaulding said that in recent years a healthy population of fish, frogs, toads, and crayfish has been closely observed there, leading her to infer that, like the nearby river, the pond is growing cleaner and healthier with time.

The Bellows Falls Historical Riverfront Park and Trail System is in its infancy, a product of the efforts of dozens of mostly unsung local citizens and volunteers.

But with the Bellows Falls Historical Society and the Sustainable Valley Group spearheading the efforts and creating a clear vision for the park’s future, it is likely many generations to come will enjoy this unique and beautiful spot.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bellows Falls project envisions a riverfront oasis.

This story by Ellen Pratt appeared in The Commons on Jan. 24.

On a 25-degree afternoon, about 60 people — some without hats, gloves, or boots — held a candlelight vigil in Pliny Park to acknowledge and grieve the 19 unhoused local people who died last year.

It was Homelessness Awareness Day on Jan. 18, and Vermonters across the state were renewing their commitment to end homelessness.

“In 2023 almost 8,000 Vermonters experienced homelessness, including 2,000 children,” event organizer Fred Breunig told the gathering. “Over the past year, local service providers supported 648 people experiencing homelessness, including 140 children and 42 people over the age of 65.”

“Homelessness is not acceptable,” said Breunig, a member of the Housing Coalition of Southeast Vermont, an organization focusing on housing and homelessness in the region. “It is a crisis. It is a tragedy. And it is preventable.”

Event organizers planted 648 small flags on the lawn of the Municipal Center as a visual reminder of the extent of the need for housing and related services.

“As you contemplate the display, please remember that each flag represents a person with a face and a name,” Breunig said. “They each have a story, and hopes and fears, sadness and discouragements.”

‘I’m not sleeping on a bench tonight’

Lisa Marie, a homeless advocate, told a bit of her story to the crowd.

“I have been homeless for almost two and a half years,” she said. “I’m lucky because I get to live in a hotel. The hotels are not awesome. But every day, I have to keep reminding myself. No matter how scary it is, how dangerous, it’s a roof over my head. And I am not sleeping on a bench tonight.”

Vermont is a “shelter first” state, which means that people experiencing homelessness must first attempt to access local shelters before applying for the state’s emergency motel program.

Groundworks Collaborative, which runs a 34-bed shelter in Brattleboro, has been “at capacity” with about a five-person wait list each night, according to Groundworks’ Director of Shelters Karli Schrade, who said that she could think of at least 10 to 15 people who sometimes sleep outside.

Schrade noted that it is difficult to identify unsheltered people who may not want to be seen. “We’re not entirely sure how many people are unsheltered,” she said.

All but one region of the state have described availability in hotels as either “none” or “extremely limited” as of Jan. 18, according to the Department of Children and Families’ Economic Services Division, which runs the motel program.

As of Dec. 26, 206 households were sheltering in Brattleboro-area motels.

Small gestures help

“What sucks is there’s a lot of hate towards us,” said Lisa Marie at the vigil. “And what people don’t understand is that it could be you tomorrow. It could be your brother, your sister, your daughter, a cousin, a next-door neighbor.”

Even small gestures can have an impact, she said.

“Any little thing, whether it’s a smile, a ‘hello, how are you doing?’ can keep somebody alive for that day,” Lisa Marie said. “Even if it’s a cup of coffee on a frigid day. You don’t have to give money. Give a laundry card, a blanket, mittens, just a conversation.”

“A lot of my friends have died this year,” she said. “Most all of them could have been prevented.”

Kenny G., a local “street minister,” spoke at the vigil about his many friends who have died from overdoses.

“I carry four Narcan with me at all times,” he said. “It’s not difficult to obtain. It’s easy to use, and you’re not going to get sued for using it. You’ll save someone’s life.”

Schrade said that local service providers identified 19 unhoused people who died this year. However, because not all unhoused people access services, she believes that it is likely that more than 19 people experiencing homelessness died in the region last year.

And it is also impossible to generalize the extent to which homelessness can be blamed for their demise, though it can’t help but be a contributing factor in a lot of cases.

“A lot of the causes (of death) are unknown to us,” Schrade said. “We support a lot of people who are navigating really complex medical needs, and their ability to maintain interventions for their health is certainly significantly less (than others’ ability) because of systemic barriers.”

Connecting where people feel the most comfortable

In February, Groundworks will launch an outreach program to provide community-based services specifically for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

“Our four-and-a-half person team will be out connecting with people where they feel most comfortable,” Schrade said. “If people are ready to access support for substance use treatment or mental health treatment or health care, then we will support them in doing that. But if they’re not interested in any of that, then we will find things that they have needs for and we will support them.”

Schrade has worked at Groundworks for six years and described it as “an experience unlike any experience I’ve ever had.”

“The drop-in center is a very, very special place,” she said. “There’s this appreciation for us showing up and for being consistent and for being genuine and for asking questions and being curious and really seeing people as people experiencing homelessness, not homeless people.”

Housing is the issue right now

“There’s a lot of anger and frustration directed towards individuals,” said Josh Davis, executive director of Southeast Vermont Community Action and former executive director of Groundworks, in an interview with The Commons.

“When folks see people on the street asking for money or camping in the woods, the focus becomes about the people as opposed to the system that creates the conditions that folks without housing experience,” Davis said.

“It’s not about fixing people without housing,” he added. “It’s about fixing the system around housing.”

Davis said that “time and again, when we direct resources where they’re needed most, it makes a huge impact and a huge difference.”

Describing homelessness as “a policy choice,” he said that to “really turn the tide on homelessness, it takes political will and it takes action in places like the Statehouse.”

But Davis spoke hopefully.

“I’m seeing housing at the forefront of so many discussions now,” he said. “People really get the housing crunch that we’re in. We’re seeing policy action being directed toward housing, we’re seeing resources being allocated for housing. And that goes across the board, not just for folks experiencing homelessness, but housing in general, across all incomes in the state.”

“It feels like housing is the issue right now. And rightfully so,” Davis said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: In Brattleboro, advocates speak out against homelessness.

This story by Jeff Potter and Fran Lynggaard Hansen was first published by The Commons on Jan. 17.

A paper mill has operated next to Sacketts Brook in downtown Putney for more than 150 years — a tradition that has come to an abrupt end on Jan. 16 with the sudden closure of Putney Paper Mill by its current owner, New-Jersey–based Soundview Vermont Holdings LLC.

According to the Vermont Department of Labor, 127 employees are affected.

Workers expecting to report for duty on Tuesday were notified of the closure when they were directed to stay home. Some employees later reported to the mill to discuss severance pay and other details.

According to a news release from Soundview, the decision “to shut down its papermaking operations, effective immediately, and to wind down its converting operations by the end of the first quarter of 2024” was based on high energy costs.

As of 2017, 50 people worked in the Mill Street facility manufacturing paper, and another 80 people worked a mile away, in Soundview’s Kathan Meadow Road converting facility to “turn parent rolls into finished goods,” according to testimony to the House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish, and Wildlife by then–general-manager Brian Gauthier.

“The high cost of energy in the region has made it unaffordable to keep our doors open,” said Rob Baron, the company’s president and chief executive officer in the news release. “Our top priority moving forward will be supporting our incredible employees and their families throughout this difficult transition.”

According to an industry directory, the company manufactured paper and paper products for packaging and for household use.

The products included “primarily the toiletries and cleaning supplies carrying the Marcal brand,” according to a 2017 recruitment video posted on Soundview’s behalf by Keene, New-Hampshire–based TPI Staffing Group.

In the news release, Baron said that “over the past decade, the company invested tens of millions of dollars to strengthen the mill, but the rising energy costs were too insurmountable to sustain operations. The decision to close the mill comes after careful consideration and a recognition that there was not a viable path forward.”

The recruitment video described Soundview as “a key member of the local economy for generations,” and said that “many employees are following in their parents’, or even their grandparents’, footsteps.”

Soundview purchased the Putney Paper Mill in 2012. According to the town’s 2023 Grand List, the mill is assessed at $1.12 million. Other parcels add $128,000 to the town’s property tax base.

Rapid response from state DOL

State Rep. Mike Mrowicki, D-Putney, called the closure “terrible news” for the employees and their families.

In an email to The Commons on Tuesday morning, he also expressed concern “that the company is not compliant with the federal [Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification] Act and the Vermont Notice of Potential Layoffs Act.”

Jay Ramsey, the Vermont Department of Labor’s workforce development director, confirmed that it received notification from Soundview on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 16.

He said that while Soundview might technically be in violation of the WARN Act — which requires a major employer to provide a 60-day warning of a mass layoff or closure under most circumstances — a company can offset that violation by providing severance pay and benefits.

This scenario is common enough that it is discussed in detail on a page of frequently asked questions on the Federal Department of Labor’s website.

The DOL will be “reaching out directly to the impacted workers to make sure they’re aware of resources that are available to help them land softly,” said Ramsey, who noted that Soundview has started to work with the state to provide a “rapid response.”

“The workforce development team comes in to provide information to the impacted workers about how to file for unemployment, where they can access other state services like health insurance, and to learn how the Workforce Development Division can help them find a new job or access supports for training, if that’s what they decide they want to do.”

Personnel from the Brattleboro and Springfield offices, and DOL managers from Montpelier have begun to work on site to counsel employees through the transition.

Ramsey expected that by Jan. 17, the Department of Labor would be coordinating with the New Hampshire Employment Services Division’s office in Cheshire, New Hampshire.

“We can coordinate across the state lines to have people go to whatever office makes the most sense,” he said. “Each state receives this kind of federal financial support to help people who have been dislocated through no fault of their own.”

Federal funds are available to help employees with “retraining or even upskilling, if people want to do that,” Ramsey said.

The DOL also maintains a job board that, as of Tuesday, reflected 8,833 positions available in the state, he added.

“Not to take the shock away from the impacted employees or the community there, but I think the prospects are good for those impacted to find a new job relatively quickly,” Ramsey said, citing a “very tight labor market” for Vermont employers are challenged to fill available positions.

He anticipates that other employers might reach out to the Department of Labor and seek connections to Soundview workers.

“Not that that’s a consolation to anyone,” Ramsey said.

Multiple generations, multiple businesses

The history of New England is filled with the mills along its many waterways that powered the U.S. Industrial Revolution, but by the mid-1900s, a majority of the paper mills still operating moved their businesses overseas or to the South, where labor and energy costs were far cheaper.

While thousands of paper mills were once located in New England, only 128 remain in the entire United States, according to IBIS World, a worldwide industry analysis company.

Throughout its history, the paper mill in Putney has served as the center of operations for a number of businesses and some manufacturing breakthroughs.

A mill built in 1818 was destroyed when Sacketts Brook flooded 10 years later. The current mill building — the Eagle Mill — was built in 1869.

In 1938, a Polish immigrant, Wojciech Kamierczak, would purchase the paper mill, held in trust by the town, after a bankruptcy and fire left the business empty at the beginning of the 1930s.

The Kazmierczak family included Wojciech’s wife, Sambraska, and his two daughters, Shirley and Gertrude.

According to the Putney Historical Society’s book “Putney: World’s Best Known Small Town,” Kazmierczak, who used the name “John Smith,” “had spent the 20 years since his arrival at Ellis Island from Poland working and learning in the mills of New England, staked all that he had into the burned-out mill.”

He borrowed against his life insurance policy and asked his son-in-law Frank Potash to move to Putney to assist him.

For 46 years, the family ran the Putney Paper Mill. The business “progressed through many phases of growth and expansion,” according to the 2011 obituary for Shirley Kazmierczak Stockwell, who married Earl Stockwell, also of Putney, in 1945.

Putney Paper would remain in the family until 1984, at which point Shirley and her husband, Earl Stockwell, sold it to Ashuelot Paper of New Hampshire.

The plant underwent serious issues through the years, especially during the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, including the pollution of the Sacketts Brook, chemical spills, an unsavory odor in the 1980s which permeated the center of town, along with a significant oil spill.

Newspaper archives through the years describe the back-and-forth of regulatory battles and bitter skirmishes with neighbors in the thickly settled village over such environmental concerns as the sludge that was a byproduct of the paper manufacturing process. Photos of firefighters battling blazes in the plant appeared regularly.

By 2012, when Soundview purchased the plant, it was a subsidiary of Claremont, New-Hampshire–based APC Paper Group.

In his 2017 testimony, Gauthier touted the company’s environmental stewardship, noting that Soundview’s output was created from more than 40,000 tons of waste paper each year and changes to machinery that substantially reduced water consumption and carbon emissions.

“The result is reduced landfill waste, improved water and air quality, and the preservation of the environment for future generations,” Gauthier told lawmakers.

His bold testimony offers not even a slight hint of the shuttering of the plant that would take place this week in 2024, less than seven years later.

“Amid the very sad closing of multiple paper mills across the Northeast in recent years and a challenging marketplace — and after years of uncertainty surrounding our historic and vital business in Putney — we have not only stabilized but grown our business,” Gauthier said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Putney paper mill shuts down, eliminating jobs for 127 workers.

This story by Virginia Ray was first published by The Commons on Jan. 10.

Construction work on a new train station, which will include the first elevated passenger platform in the state, is now set to start in March, said Amtrak Lead Public Relations Specialist Jen Flanagan.

Enfield Enterprises, LLC has been hired to execute the work, which is expected to take 18 months to complete.

The new Amtrak station plan was approved by the Development Review Board in December 2020 and administratively renewed through December 2023.

The Selectboard, on behalf of the town, voted unanimously to allow Amtrak to use a portion of the Depot Street parking lot to build the new station and platform.

At that time, Selectboard Chair Ian Goodnow noted the easement would mean losing about 10 parking spaces, but said also that loss had been anticipated since the project was proposed in 2017.

Parking has since been added to ease the parking situation.

In addition to the easement from the town, Amtrak has had to negotiate a lease with track owner New England Central Railroad and work with the Vermont Agency of Transportation, the State Historic Preservation Offices of the National Park Service and Green Mountain Power.

The new station on the east side of the tracks will include a 36-seat waiting area, a restroom, an engineers’ room and a covered outdoor area with bench seating.

The project includes rebuilding existing siding track and switches and a new, 345-foot-long platform set 48 inches above the rail, a feature that will allow level boarding.

The new facility will also include an electric snow-melting system and new lighting, signage and drainage.

The full station project construction cost has been estimated at $7.4 million. Amtrak has also spent $1.7 million on track work and $1 million on design, so the total will be $10 million by completion, Flanagan said.

It is also expected that a new bike shelter with e-bike chargers will be installed in a covered area as well as a fast charger for electric vehicles in the parking lot, to be paid for with money from the federal Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a bipartisan infrastructure law enacted in 2021.

The law authorizes $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure spending with $550 billion to go to new investments and programs. Money from the Jobs Act addresses energy and power infrastructure, access to broadband internet, water infrastructure, and more. Some new programs paid for by the bill could provide resources needed to address a variety of local-level infrastructure needs.

Currently, Amtrak uses the basement of the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center as its Brattleboro station. The space now used for the waiting room was once the baggage storage area when the building was an active train station from its opening in 1916 until its closure in 1967.

According to data from the Rail Passengers Association, Brattleboro is Vermont’s second busiest station on the route of Amtrak’s Vermonter, with 14,258 riders boarding or de-training in Brattleboro in 2022.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Construction on new Brattleboro Amtrak station set to start in March.

This story by Ellen Pratt appeared in The Commons on Dec. 13.

BRATTLEBORO — The Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) has identified 90 school-aged children and youth in the district who are experiencing homelessness.

This is 10 more than were identified last year and includes about seven “unaccompanied youth” – older teenagers who are separated from a parent or guardian.

Tricia Hill is the district’s McKinney-Vento liaison (named for the federal legislation that funds the position), required at every school district that receives Title I funds. In this position, Hill identifies homeless youth and addresses the barriers to their success in school.

In a recent interview, Hill, who started in the position this school year, and her predecessor, Carole Rayl, who held the position for six years, talked about the challenges and successes of this work.

Because of the stigma associated with homelessness, it can be difficult to identify students who could benefit from the services provided by the district. Hill prioritizes educating the public and school staff about the program so that families can be referred for services.

“Everyone at the school is an essential partner – from the parents to the teachers, to the custodians to the cafeteria workers – anybody can identify a child,” she said.

Across Vermont, precarious housing 

The U.S. Department of Education’s definition of homelessness is more expansive than the definition used by the federal government to determine eligibility for housing assistance.

In this context, children whose nighttime residences aren’t “fixed” (doesn’t change), regular (used on a nightly basis), or adequate (meets the family’s needs)” are considered homeless and therefore eligible for McKinney-Vento program assistance.

This definition includes substandard housing and living situations where families are “buddying up,” or sharing housing that would be deemed overcrowded.

“This definition captures families and students who are precariously housed, not just those who are literally homeless,” said Katy Preston, state coordinator for homeless education in Vermont.

Preston, a Vermont Agency of Education employee, works with the 52 school districts or supervisory unions in the state with McKinney-Vento liaisons.

Many homeless youth are ‘not seen’

In the 2021-22 school year, Vermont school districts identified 1,312 homeless children and youth, up from 1,006 in the previous year. Of those children and youth, 55% were in buddying-up situations.

Of this year’s $322,500 federal McKinney-Vento program allocation to the state, $250,000 was awarded to seven local school districts, including the WSESU. Those school districts that do not receive these grants fund their programs with Title I dollars.

Hill thinks there are “many more” unaccompanied youth in the community than she has been able to identify. Many of these youth are “not seen,” said Rayl.

“What happens with these kids is they are in and out of school,” she said. “Maybe there’s a family fight, or maybe there’s drug use or stress in the family. They’re out for two weeks, then they’re back, and then they’re out again and nobody really sees that.”

Being able to identify and support these older youth is why Hill spends two of her five days a week at the high school. “It was a huge success when one of these students let me know he got his learner’s permit,” she said.

Seeking consistency

Russell Bradbury-Carlin, executive director of Youth Services, a Brattleboro nonprofit, agrees that it’s very difficult to identify unaccompanied youth.

“It’s really hard to get the number of these youth because you don’t see them,” he said. “They do a lot of couch-surfing. It might sound like they’re doing sleepovers, like it’s fun.”

For them, the process of securing shelter “often starts with them staying with a friend or a friend’s family for a short time,” Bradbury-Carlin continued.

“Then they go to another friend for a short time, and then they run out of their close friends. And then it’s friends of friends,” he said.

“And then they stay with someone who knows someone,” Bradbury-Carlin said. “Often those situations tend to become riskier, more dangerous. Some of these youth end up being trafficked in some way.”

Consistency, stability are in their best interest

One of the biggest challenges Hill faces in her position is ensuring that children experiencing homelessness can stay in their school of origin – the last school they attended before becoming homeless.

The McKinney-Vento Act, which authorizes the school district liaison programs, protects a student’s right to remain in the school of origin, as well as the right to receive transportation to and from the school of origin.

In rural Vermont, this can be expensive. When a bus schedule can’t be worked out, the program provides reimbursement for mileage for transportation or funds private transportation.

“If we’re saying that what would be in the best interest for a child is to have consistency and stability, [for the child to remain] where people know them, then they should be able to stay in that school of origin,” said Rayl.

Hill says that the program has also paid for laundry cards and equipment for students participating in school-sponsored sports.

“I’m the person that kind of helps put the family in touch with other resources that they might need to access, like a housing coordinator,” Hill said. “I let them know where they can find food in town.”

“I’m just being a point of contact and partnering with these parents to make sure that they’re feeling supported,” Hill added.

Rayl acknowledges that education may not be a priority for some families experiencing homelessness.

“We’re in the business of providing education, but for some families, it may not be their priority, understandably,” she said. “Whether or not your child is in school, or whether or not you show up for a meeting when your life is nothing but meetings – you know, it’s just hard to imagine the circumstances of some people’s lives.”

Rayl defines program success as “kids coming to school.”

“If they don’t have the school experience, it’s going to condemn them to even more of the instability and insecurity that they’re already experiencing,” she said.

“I’m so proud of this district,” Rayl said, “for its will and intention to support the program and to recognize the need. There’s a massive vulnerability out there and you can never do enough because the problem is bigger than what there are resources for. I am just very proud to be associated with WSESU.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Windham school district tries to reach unhoused students.

This story by Virginia Ray was first published by The Commons on Dec. 13.

Nearly a year to the day after fire destroyed McNeill’s Brewery and took the life of its iconic owner, Reagin “Ray” McNeill, the Selectboard voted on Dec. 5 to authorize Town Manager John Potter to sign a purchase and sale contract to pass the property to the town, pending an environmental inspection.

In return, the town will release its current claim against the estate to recoup expenses post-fire.

Selectboard Chair Ian Goodnow explained the town had been responsible for putting out the fire and demolishing the building, which was deemed a public safety hazard by the day after the Dec. 2, 2022 fire. It was razed on Dec. 3, 2022.

“Through the estate moving forward, there’s a way for the town to potentially recoup some of that loss,” Goodnow said.

Town Counsel Robert “Bob” Fisher noted the McNeill estate is insolvent, meaning its liabilities exceed its assets, which amount to the lot of land and “a couple thousand in a bank account,” Fisher said. The land, according to town assessors’ records, is worth $45,000.

“The town is unlikely — very unlikely — to recover its full claim as against the estate,” Fisher said, adding the proposal to sell the land to the town in exchange for release of the town’s claim against the estate was made by McNeill’s estate lawyers.

Fisher said taking the deal “gives you options,” as the lot is next to the parking garage and the land that wraps around it. The town could, of course, opt to sell the site, ultimately.

The transaction is contingent on the environmental inspection, which could consist of several tiers and which Fisher said is fairly standard in commercial real estate transactions.

The lawyer said he would confer with the town Planning Department about who might perform the inspection and when. He said at present he is thinking it will be several months out.

Fisher also said the first phase of the inspection would be to review the history of the site and neighboring parcels. A second phase of testing, which might require drilling for contaminants/hazardous material, could then be recommended. If a problem is found, the contract could be terminated, Fisher said.

In March 2020, with Covid spreading, McNeill had closed the pub he opened in the late 1990s, but his daughter Eve Nyrhinen told The Commons right after the fire that her father had plans to reopen and had continued to brew.

Fire Chief Leonard Howard explained at the time that McNeill had been told in June 2022 that the building was unsafe and that if a fire broke out, Howard would not put others’ lives at risk to enter the structure.

Nyrhinen also noted that the building had not passed its regular inspection, a fact underscored in a press release from the Brattleboro Fire Department on Dec. 5, 2022 that included both an engineering report from Stevens & Associates from that previous June and McNeill’s acknowledgement of that report.

“Basically, the 200-year-old wooden building was not designed for literal tons of brew tanks and equipment,” Nyrhinen said. “I don’t know if it was officially condemned or all-but-condemned, but he was not allowed to reopen to the public. He was working with a guy named Bill to try to repair and restore the building but he had a limited budget and the work was going much more slowly than he had hoped.

“He was told he needed to move out for his own safety, that if there were a fire, the crew wouldn’t be able to go in to rescue him due to the instability of the building. There hadn’t been a fire in his 30-ish years there and he had an extensive sprinkler system, and he himself wasn’t worried about the structural stability, so he stayed. He was planning on rebuilding with an outdoor patio and a barbecue. A new, better, McNeill’s.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Brattleboro to take McNeill’s Brewery land.

This story by Randolph T. Holhut first appeared in The Commons on Dec. 5.

BRATTLEBORO — As business owners, husband-and-wife team Kate Barry and Bruce Hunt know all about the challenges facing the downtown area.

Barry co-owns the Collective Lounge & Bar on Elliot Street, and together, she and Hunt operate a property management company. Barry also runs the local office of a real estate brokerage, eXp Realty, from the Hooker-Dunham Building on Main Street.

But Barry and Hunt also know all about what makes Brattleboro a place where people want to live and work and play. So when the opportunity arose to buy an iconic and well-loved Main Street business, they jumped at the chance.

Ellen and Pierre Capy opened Mocha Joe’s Coffee House in 1991, in the space formerly occupied by Joe’s Shoe Repair, and they brought gourmet and organically grown coffee to town. The café spawned a successful whole-bean roasting business that now supplies more than 100 stores and restaurants around New England.

In recent years, the Capys have wanted to focus on their roasting operation on Frost Street rather than the coffee shop on Main Street, but they also wanted to make sure that the coffee shop would end up in the hands of someone local who would continue it in its present form.

While the Capys had multiple offers for the café, they went with Barry and Hunt, who officially took over the operation on Nov. 29.

The Capys are not retiring, though. They will continue to run their Frost Street roasting operation, confident that the coffee shop they started more than three decades ago is in good hands.

While it sounds like Barry and Hunt already have their hands full raising a family and running multiple businesses, Barry said she was unfazed by the challenge of adding Mocha Joe’s to their portfolio.

“When you create enough good systems, you can do anything when you have a good team around you and a vision, a plan, and a method of execution,” she said. “The reason we really liked this business is that it is a turnkey operation. All the hard work has been done [by Ellen and Pierre Capy] – they built the brand, they built the customer base, they have the beans and the quality of their products.”

Barry and Hunt also inherit a staff that she describes as “incredible.”

“There’s really not that much for us to do, except put our money into it,” she said of the business.

“They are such an established brand and such a part of Brattleboro for such a long time,” said Hunt. “It’s a lot of value.”

Those factors are why they’re adopting an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it approach. Aside from adding a few new locally produced baked goods to the menu and expanding the café’s social media presence, Barry and Hunt promised that all the things that made Mocha Joe’s successful on Main Street won’t change.

“A lot of the other offers were coming from out of state,” said Barry, who added that in the process of purchasing the business, they learned that other prospective buyers “wanted to change the name or redo the space.”

“It was too tragic, almost,” she said. “Mocha Joe’s is really special to us. We’ve lived, worked, breathed downtown Brattleboro. It’s the first place I ever came to in Brattleboro. It made me feel like, ‘Wow, this is a place I could live and feel comfortable.’ There was just a vibe.”

Not wanting to lose that vibe, she said, is the reason why they are so bullish about Brattleboro.

Falling in love with Brattleboro

Barry grew up in Rindge, New Hampshire and came to Brattleboro in 2010 to work on a master’s degree in sustainable community development at SIT Graduate Institute.

Hunt came to Brattleboro from Hoosick Falls, New York, to work at Echo Point Books, an online book dealer in the former Book Press complex on Putney Road.

They met at the former Mole’s Eye Cafe, not long before the bar was destroyed in the Brooks House fire in 2011.

“It was very cliché,” Hunt said. “I taught her how to shoot pool.”

“And then I left, and said, ‘See you later,’ but there was something about Brattleboro that I just couldn’t get out of my head,” Barry said. “I felt I needed to go back there and be with him and start a family and put my roots down.”

It was, she said, “one of those moments where it was not my trajectory and not the plan.”

“I was coming back to a place where I can’t necessarily use my degree and make any money,” she said. “I had a lot of student loans to pay off.”

So the new trajectory was bar management and catering, along with being a real estate agent.

“All customer service things,” said Hunt, noting that it has taken “a lot of years, a lot of change, a lot of planning and re-planning and pivoting to adjust to change” to get to where they are now.

And they said they are taking what they’ve earned in the real estate field and reinvesting in the town they fell in love with.

“Brattleboro, and the people here, are quite resilient,” Hunt said. “There is a ‘can-do’ attitude.”

“There are so many people moving to southern Vermont because they want to live here, raise their families here, and bring their businesses here,” Barry said. “We do, of course, have an extreme housing affordability crisis on our hands, and I know that’s the top topic in the Legislature right now. People want to live here, and we need to create the supply to meet the demand.”

A downtown transition

Barry and Hunt admitted they’ve had “some sleepless nights” since quietly closing the Mocha Joe’s deal. Not long after the deal was done, Sam’s Outdoor Outfitters announced it would be closing its flagship store at the corner of Main and Flat streets.

She said it was “a holy-crap-what-are-we-getting-ourselves-into moment,” but she also noted that it is just part of an ongoing transition of longtime Brattleboro businesses changing hands.

In just the last couple of months, Robert “Woody” Woodworth sold Burrows Specialized Sports to Peter “Fish” Case, and Nancy Braus sold Everyone’s Books to Red Durkin.

“We know there will be challenges,” Barry said. “It feels more like a changing of the guard, a transition to a new generation downtown, rather than something being lost.”

While the headlines of late are dominated by the ongoing drug problem, Barry said she and Hunt “are extremely aware” of the bad things happening downtown.

“It’s a challenge, but it’s not the whole picture,” she said. “There still are a lot of people here who want the best for our town and are putting their skills and creativity into businesses downtown.”

And both say they been encouraged by the positive response to the transition at Mocha Joe’s.

“It’s people saying, ‘Wow, people are investing in downtown,'” Barry said. “People believe [in downtown Brattleboro] and they want to keep that spirit alive and keep the momentum going.”

She said it’s “easy to nag on downtown and focus solely on the problems. You have to acknowledge them, and they have been acknowledged. But you also have to acknowledge the other half of the picture.”

Saying that most people downtown “don’t have time to complain because they’re too busy working,” Barry feels that if people want to make downtown Brattleboro better, they need to “shop locally, support local businesses, and see what happens from there.”

“This is the time to do something, when everyone seems afraid,” she said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: New owners of Mocha Joe’s see themselves as part of Brattleboro’s ‘transition to new generation’.

This story by Robert F. Smith was first published by The Commons on Nov. 8.

BELLOWS FALLS — The only registered Rosie the Riveter Memorial Garden in the state now has a more prominent location at Hetty Green Park, where it honors the memory of Margaret Clapper Tidd, a Rosie who lived in Bellows Falls from the time she graduated from high school until her death in 2019.

A brief history and dedication of the Rosie the Riveter Memorial, in its new location at the park on School Street, was given by historian David Deacon on Oct. 14.

The memorial was moved from its original location at Riverfront Park, where it was installed in Tidd’s memory in 2019.

Rosie the Riveter was an allegorical icon symbolizing the women who took over factory and shipyard jobs, construction work, and other positions during World War II, filling the abrupt shortage in the labor market left when the men entered military service.

World War II was truly a total war, where entire national populations were asked to respond, doing everything from recycling metals and other materials; growing “victory gardens” to aid with food supplies; rationing food, fuels, and other materials needed for the war effort; and turning manufacturing and factories into supplying materials for the war effort.

Deacon said that, in addition to the war’s battle front and home front, there was also the vital factory front. While 15 million men and 350,000 women went to war as part of the military, one-third of the factory-front workforce were women.

In the military, Deacon said, the women served mainly as nurses, telegraph and telephone operators, and in other non-combatant positions. Many were also trained as pilots, delivering planes to the battle fronts as they rolled off the factory assembly lines.

Of the millions of women working on the factory front in traditionally male jobs, 65% were women over age 35, and many had children. While the sacrifice these women and their families made was great — child care centers were virtually unheard of at the time — these women took great pride in the work they did making munitions, building airplanes, Jeeps, and hundreds of other items essential for the war effort.

The Rosie the Riveter character came from a 1943 song written by John Jacob Loeb and Redd Evans.

One enduring rendition of Rosie the Riveter, with the motto “We Can Do It,” was painted by poster artist J. Howard Miller to boost morale and productivity of the female employees of Westinghouse. The symbol, in her overalls and bandana, became so iconic and such a source of pride that it is still used consistently in advertising and is still a popular Halloween costume, some 80 years later.

In recent years, as a result of a grassroots effort to encourage the creation of memorial Rosie the Riveter rose gardens across the nation, 107 such gardens have emerged, including the one in Bellows Falls honoring Tidd, who came to Bellows Falls to work in a clothing factory after she graduated from high school in 1944.

Son Michael Tidd and daughter Ellen Jones wanted to honor their mother with a Rosie the Riveter engraved stone and rose garden, part of an effort to remember the efforts of women of her generation and their contribution to the war effort.

The memorial and garden in the state was rededicated a week prior to what would have been Tidd’s 97th birthday. Born on Oct. 23, 1926, she died at age 92 on April 17, 2019.

Margaret Tidd, one of Vermont’s Rosies

The former Margaret Clapper grew up in a large family in Bristol, Vermont, and was a member of Bristol High School’s girls’ basketball team, which won the state championship in 1944.

Moving to Bellows Falls following her graduation, Tidd found work with the Lecuyer Brothers, who owned what became known as The Model Press building on Rockingham Street, directly across the street from the Miss Bellows Falls Diner.

The building, which housed H.A. Manning’s business directory printing company and a dress factory on an upper floor, burned down completely in 1977.

During the war, the Lecuyer brothers secured a government contract to supply thousands of sleeping hammocks with mosquito netting for soldiers fighting in the Pacific. Filling this contract necessitated adding dozens of employees, and Tidd was one of them.

Jones is unsure about her mother’s actual position at the plant, doubting that it would have been working as a seamstress, as she never knew her mother to sew in her entire life.

Tidd seldom talked about her life during the war years, Jones observed. When she found out that her mother had been a Rosie during the war, she asked her why she’d never talked about it.

“It’s not anyone’s damn business,” her mother told her.

Despite that, Tidd took great pride in being recognized for that war effort work at the end of her life. She had been in the American Legion Auxiliary for over 50 years and was well known every year for her efforts selling poppies on Veterans Day to honor those who served in the military.

In addition to her factory work, Tidd was also a volunteer aircraft spotter during the war. Springfield’s machine shops produced a massive amount of material for the war effort, to such an extent that it was known to have been listed as a main target if enemy planes ever got close enough to do bombing raids on the U.S. mainland.

So plane spotting in the area was an important work.

Cooperating with the Army Air Force, there were four observation posts arranged at 6-mile intervals in the region, including one at Kurt Hattin Homes in Westminster, one in Athens, and one near Grafton. Tidd volunteered at another on Ski Bowl Road between Bellows Falls and Saxtons River.

The last was moved during the war to Pine Hill behind the St. Charles Church in the center of Bellows Falls. Volunteers worked in three-hour shifts 24 hours a day, reporting any sightings to a central command post in Albany, New York. The Bellows Falls location made it far more convenient for volunteers like Tidd to perform their service.

After the war

Following World War II, Tidd married Jim Tidd in 1946 and started a family in 1947. Around this time they purchased a home on Front Street, where she lived for over 70 years until her death.

A fender-bender incident while she was learning to drive discouraged Tidd, and she never learned to drive or got a license. She lived within walking distance of various clothing stores in the village where she worked, ending her working career at the former Sam’s Army and Navy Store in Bellows Falls.

Family members said Tidd enjoyed her family and friends during her long life. Her daughter said that she remained in excellent health up until a short illness that led to her death.

Her niece, Suzanne Barrow, who helped create a Facebook page about Tidd’s being recognized for her work as a Rosie, said, “We’re very proud of what my aunt did and what the other Rosies did.”

The organizers of the ceremony, in a statement about the event, said that it was in memory of all the women who have served their country.

“Placing the stone next to the Lady Liberty statue in Hetty Green Park is a tribute to all of those women,” they wrote. “The four rose bushes are planted in honor of all the ‘Rosie the Riveters’ and commemorate the important role women continue to play in this country.”

Anyone with family members from Vermont who served as Rosies during World War II and would like to have them added officially to that group can contact the Rosie the Riveter organization at bit.ly/739-rosie.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bellows Falls remembers a ‘Rosie the Riveter’.

This story by Joyce Marcel first appeared in The Commons on Oct. 4.

DUMMERSTON — On his very first try, state Sen. Nader Hashim, D-Windham, passed the bar exam — and did so in an unconventional way.

Vermont is one of the few states where people can still study for the bar exam by using an apprenticeship model, called the Law Office Study Program (LOS) in the state.

The LOS allows participants to “read the law,” studying 25 hours a week for four years with a Vermont attorney or a judge instead of going to law school.

Who studies law that way? Well, Abraham Lincoln did, for one. (And Kim Kardashian is doing so now in California, but let’s not go there.)

It used to be the way most lawyers learned their trade. Now Washington, Vermont, California, and Virginia are the only four states that allow it.

But North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, and Georgia are considering alternate licensure paths for lawyers. So is Maine. They are seeing reading the law as a way for these states to address lawyer shortages, keep young lawyers from moving away after they earn their law degree, and help clear up case backlogs.

It is not an easy or popular method. According to Reuters, of the 7,543 people who took California’s bar exam in July 2022, fewer than 11 studied under an attorney or judge, state bar records show. In 2019, VTDigger reported that 47 people in Vermont were reading the law.

But Hashim, 34, who lives in Dummerston, has experienced the law from a variety of angles — as a state trooper and a lawmaker as well as a paralegal.

And to him, the process makes perfect sense.

“I was considering law school,” Hashim said. “But I also had to keep on making money. And I wanted to keep working. Then I heard about the law study program.”

He described it as “basically four years of doing an apprenticeship and following an attorney around.”

“It’s learning from what they do, and learning how lawyers actually do the work,” Hashim continued. “And after four years of doing that, you have to take the bar exam. Then you’re an attorney.”

On Sept. 15, he posted with glee, all-capital letters, and exclamation points on Facebook: “I PASSED THE BAR EXAM! I AM A LAWYER!”

Hashim studied long hours all summer for the exam and called it “one of the most stressful experiences of my life.”

His sponsor was Evan Chadwick of Chadwick & Spensley, PLLC, of Brattleboro, also an LOS lawyer.

While doing the apprenticeship, Hashim also spent four years as a paralegal at Chadwick’s firm, earning a salary while being mentored.

“I am very proud of Nader and feel he will serve as a great asset to the Vermont bar,” Chadwick said.

Hashim first got to know his employer and mentor during his years as a state trooper.

“Working as a trooper, you end up meeting and learning about different lawyers,” Hashim said. “Evan was somebody I knew and somebody I respected.”

Chadwick’s firm “covers a wide range of different areas of law, and that’s definitely an important thing to keep in mind when you’re doing the program,” he continued. “You want to have as much exposure to different areas of law as possible.”

The program is administered through the Vermont Bar Association, and it requires a bachelor’s degree as well as a mentor.

“You provide the bar association with the paperwork, you have to pay for the license and the fees, and you have to provide updates on what you’re studying,” Hashim said.

Furthermore, “your supervising attorney has to sign off on it. And you have to cover a certain number of subcategories to make sure that you’re fulfilling all the prerequisites – like secure transactions, or criminal law, or civil procedure.”

Chadwick’s firm practices in the areas of criminal defense, divorce, child custody, child support, personal injury, wills, trusts and probates, real estate, and general civil litigation. So Hashim was able to gain hands-on experience in many areas of the law.

For example, if he was asked to draft a motion, he would do legal research, find the relevant Supreme Court cases, and study the legal precedents.

“You learn about things like criminal procedure and what evidence is admissible or inadmissible,” Hashim said. “And it’s that way, really, for many different areas of law. About 95% of the job is reading and writing.”

The first thing an attorney does when they get a case is to send in a “notice of appearance” to the Windham County Superior Court to show that they are representing the client.

“Then we do an investigation to get an idea of what is going on,” Hashim said.

“We do discovery, which is the process of getting all the information from law enforcement and the state attorney’s office regarding photographs, police reports, dashcam and bodycam video footage,” he added.

“And then, depending on what’s in the case, there could be pretrial motions, [and] there could be a suppression hearing — meaning that we’re trying to make certain evidence that we feel isn’t relevant or admissible to not continue forward,” Hashim said. “And then oftentimes cases result in a settlement or a plea deal. And sometimes they go to trial.”

Learning different skills

Hashim said that he learned more than just the law by doing an apprenticeship.

“There’s an additional part that I think you don’t get in law school,” he said. “You learn how to talk to clients and how to do the actual people work.”

In law school, Hashim noted, “you learn a lot of history, which is helpful in understanding the genesis of laws and understanding why certain things are the way they are.”

“Doing the LOS program, you do a lot of legal research, but you also get that experience of learning how to talk to a person who’s going through a really bad divorce,” he said. “Or how to talk to a client who was wrongfully charged with a crime. That’s the type of interpersonal skills that you don’t learn in law school.”

It is useful to learn from many lawyers, Hashim said.

“You tend to stick towards one, but you also work with others,” he said. “Every attorney has their own knowledge that they can provide. And different attorneys have different ways of doing things. So it’s good to learn from a variety of people. You learn what to do, and you also learn what not to do.”

Hashim compared the method to being a state trooper, or a carpenter.

“The analogy that I use is the police academy,” he said. “A police officer spends six months in the academy, but the vast majority of what they actually learn about doing the job is when they’re on the road with a field training officer. They’re watching how it’s done.”

Another example is carpentry or the trades, he said.

“You can go to the classroom and learn how to do carpentry, but nothing beats shadowing the carpenter and having them tell you everything they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and what not to do,” Hashim noted.

In a few months, Hashim will be sworn in as an attorney, and then will undertake a mentorship. He is aiming for a career in family law.

“I feel like I make a good mediator,” he said. “These are very stressful situations that people are in. And my past history on working with domestic violence cases, both as a trooper and in the Legislature, is driving me towards working on family law as my main goal.”

A frugal approach

Considering that some law students graduate with a degree in jurisprudence and $150,000 or more of debt, the LOS program can be a good way for a focused individual to become a lawyer.

“It costs $200 to commence the program, and $100 every six months,” Hashim said.

“If you’re a number of years out of your undergraduate school, and you have a family and bills the way I did, it’s a great way to not incur thousands of dollars of debt, and get paid for the work that you’re doing while also working towards getting your license,” he said.

“It is the traditional way of doing it,” Hashim said. “And I think it makes sense.”

Correction: The caption in an earlier version of this story misidentified Sen. Hashim’s district.

Read the story on VTDigger here: State senator becomes lawyer by taking road less traveled.

This story by Robert F. Smith was first published by The Commons on Sept. 27.

BELLOWS FALLS — A judge’s denial of a motion for a restraining order has likely sealed the fate of yet another independent Vermont pharmacy — but its former owners, who sought the judicial intervention, said they will open a new pharmacy once they regain control of their commercial space.

Greater Falls Pharmacy at 78 Atkinson St. will close at the end of the day Sept. 29, and the current operators will be filing for bankruptcy.

On Sept. 15, Vermont Superior Court Judge David Barra denied a motion by former owner Marc Cote, who sought a restraining order against the pharmacy on Sept. 8 when current owners Michelle and Donald Laurendeau announced the closing.

The Cotes had asked the court to order the Laurendeaus to retract any public statements directing customers to other pharmacies, all public statements about closing the pharmacy, and that they take no further action to close accounts, fire employees, cancel vendor contracts, or terminate the pharmacy’s professional licenses without Cote’s permission.

In a response filed on Sept. 13, Patrick M. Ankuda, the attorney for the Laurendeaus and the pharmacy, sought a 30-day continuance for the Cotes’ motion “so that the Defendants may move forward with their bankruptcy filing and not incur further expenses litigating this case.”

Ankuda cited state regulations governing closing of pharmacies that actually mandate the urgent notification to customers and the public, calling the Laurendeaus’ actions “perfectly legal and required by regulations.”

“In this case, Marc Cote is a creditor of the Defendant, Greater Falls Pharmacy, and he and his counsel know that he is not the only creditor of the Pharmacy,” Ankuda wrote. “The Pharmacy vendors and other suppliers wear the same shoes as Mr. Cote.

“Moreover, Mr. Cote has no controlling interest in the Pharmacy and cannot dictate the terms of closure. The Board of Pharmacy controls by its regulations and Defendant, Greater Falls Pharmacy, is acting in compliance therewith,” Ankuda continued.

He also argued that the court “cannot enjoin Greater Falls Pharmacy from closing and/or filing for bankruptcy.”

In denying the motion, the court stated that to grant a temporary restraining order, it must consider “the likelihood of success on the merits, the threat of irreparable harm to the movant, the potential harm to the other parties, and the public interest.”

The finding also states that a restraining order is an “extraordinary remedy, especially when sought without notice or evidentiary hearing.”

The judge denied the motion for the restraining order, stating that “the court is not persuaded on the pleadings alone that plaintiff has established either that he has a likelihood of success, or that there would be irreparable harm if the defendant is not prohibited from taking the challenged actions to close the pharmacy, apparently as a prelude to bankruptcy.”

A history of litigation

The Cotes opened the pharmacy in 2003 and ran it profitably for 15 years. In 2018, with Marc deciding he’d like to slow down his work schedule, the Cotes sold the pharmacy to the Laurendeaus, both longtime employees.

According to the Cotes, they were willing to finance 100% of the sale under two conditions: that Marc Cote stay involved part time for the next 12 years at the pharmacy to help with the transition to new owners, and that he have access to the pharmacy’s books and records to keep track of how it was performing.

According to the Cotes, the pharmacy collateral — the business, its inventory and the customer base — would return to them if the Laurendeaus failed to keep the pharmacy operating.

That arrangement began to deteriorate very quickly after the sale. Although there had been no formal agreement about how the scrapbooking part of the business, run by Gina Cote, would continue to operate, the Cotes thought they would still be involved with that.

When it looked like the Scrapbook Nook portion of the operation would be changing or perhaps even discontinued, the Cotes took some of the scrapbooking materials from the pharmacy. According to the Cotes, the Laurendeaus used that as a reason for terminating Marc Cote on Oct. 2, 2018, just 45 days after the sale agreement.

Cote said he was terminated by email, without any personal discussion of the situation with the Laurendeaus.

In 2019, the Cotes began their efforts to get access to the pharmacy’s business records. They were unsuccessful.

Beginning in 2020, the Cotes filed court claims, soon matched with the Laurendeaus’ counterclaims of fraud, breach of contract, violation of the Vermont Securities Act, defamation and tortious interference. The court docket has spiraled to 362 entries.

“I wanted my business to continue as a local independent pharmacy, and I wanted to be part of the business,” Marc Cote said in a statement to The Commons. “That’s why I worked out a deal where I could sell and have less responsibility, but continue as the pharmacist in charge part time.”

Cote said he thought that that arrangement would also be helpful to the new owners.

“I would be there to mentor and advise the new owners and oversee the financial health of the business,” he said. “The pharmacy industry is constantly changing and my 30 years navigating these changes was an invaluable resource that could have prevented this extreme measure.”

But that arrangement never worked out.

Since 2018, the Laurendeaus have continued to regularly make their payments on the business loan, as well as staying current on their rent for the pharmacy space to Gina Cote, who owns the building. But they did not allow access to the financial records.

The Cotes say that they were never notified that the pharmacy would be closing or that the Laurendeaus had planned to file for bankruptcy. They found out about it only when they were told that a notice was posted on the pharmacy door on Sept. 8 notifying customers of imminent closing and advising them to find a new pharmacy.

The Cotes filed the restraining order that same day.

A new chapter?

Now that the restraining order has been denied and the bankruptcy action filed, nothing can be done to save the business until the bankruptcy is settled.

But the Cotes have not given up hope.

“As soon as we get our building back, we will get ready to reopen, with a new name, a new business model, and with serving our community with optimal pharmacy care at the heart,” they told The Commons.

The Cotes have made clear that the value of the pharmacy is primarily in its customer base, and have argued that their lawyer should have been notified as soon as the business started losing money.

Now, they hope it’s not too late to build a new business, but they also noted that by the time the bankruptcy is over the customers may very well be gone.

Additionally, the Cotes are still owed a considerable amount of money on the pharmacy sale that they financed, and will likely only be repaid pennies on the dollar from the bankruptcy.

The Laurendeaus declined to comment for this article.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Judge’s ruling clears closing of pharmacy.

This story by Ellen Pratt first appeared in The Commons on Sept. 20.

LONDONDERRY — Short-term rentals, like those listed on websites like Airbnb and Vrbo, are adversely affecting the housing market. That’s according to the town’s “Housing Needs Assessment and Strategy” report, published in April.

The report acknowledges that, while not solely responsible, STRs have contributed to rising housing prices and a decline in the availability of long-term rental housing.

There are more than 300 active short-term rentals in the Londonderry area, an increase of 62% over the past three years, as reported in the needs assessment.

The Selectboard is considering a short-term rental ordinance that would limit the number of short-term rentals a property owner can have.

At the Sept. 18 Selectboard meeting, William Sinsigalli of South Londonderry explained that his neighbor is in the process of subdividing his property with the goal of developing several short-term rentals.

“These ‘Airbnb farms’ are not appropriate for a neighborhood, or the town,” Sinsigalli said. He suggested that the board include language in the ordinance “to show we’re trying to put in place some limits on ownership, how many units are appropriate.”

Meeting participants agreed that the town’s ordinance language requiring short-term rental owners to register their properties with the town and pay a yearly registration fee would be a good first step in understanding their impact.

Many Vermont towns are grappling with how to regulate short-term rentals. At least 20 towns have talked about new rules in the past year, Seven Days reported last month.

One town, Chester, requires short-term rental owners to register with the town, pay a registration fee, and abide by state health and safety regulations. The town is using this registry as a way to collect information on short-term rentals in town.

The town has put a six-month moratorium on new short-term rentals whose owners don’t live on the property. Beginning Oct. 1, this “pause” is intended to give the town time to consider how and whether to move from a registry to regulating short-term rentals, according to Town Planner Preston Bristow.

Seven short-term rentals operate in the Stone Village area of Chester.

“The biggest driver of concern is that the Stone Village would be hollowed out,” Bristow said.

Burlington’s short-term rental ordinance, enacted in 2022, goes further than Chester’s.

Not only do short-term rental owners have to register and pay a 9% tax, but short-term rental units in Burlington must also be on the same lot as the owner’s primary residence, with some exceptions.

The new ordinance also includes enforcement measures not included in the previous law.

A revolving door

Acknowledging the tension between welcoming tourism and preserving neighborhood character and livability — one purpose of Londonderry’s short-term rental ordinance — Melissa Brown, a member of the Selectboard, said that “what we can’t forget is that this town, and all the mountain towns, have a history of seasonal rentals. We’re in the ski business.”

“But it’s changed,” Brown continued.

“It used to be somebody would rent for an entire season. They became part of the community. They became your neighbors. You actually looked forward to them coming back year after,” he said.

“Now it’s a revolving door,” Brown said. “It’s a different person almost every night, and there are no connections being made.”

The Selectboard asked community members to consult with a lawyer and bring suggestions for ordinance language to their next meeting.

Regulating short-term rentals is one part of Londonderry’s larger discussion about housing.

According to the town’s housing needs assessment, Londonderry “faces an immediate need for new, improved, and alternative housing for up to 315 households.”

That number, the report said, includes “nearly 190 households that are struggling with housing expenses and nearly 50 workforce households that are absent from the town because of the lack of attainable housing.”

Addressing that challenge is the charge of the town’s Housing Commission, which was formed to guide the town through implementation of 19 strategies outlined in the report.

Commission members, who first met on Sept. 14, recognize their task is not easy.

“It seems like an intractable problem,” said Paul Abraham, one of seven members of the commission, in a recent interview with The Commons. “It’s a Gordian knot, and we aren’t Alexander with a sword to just cut it.”

‘There are no longer any quarter-million dollar houses’

Like many Vermont towns, Londonderry is facing a housing crisis that is multifaceted and complex.

One fundamental problem: As is the case in larger areas, housing prices there have increased at a much faster rate than income.

“There are no longer any quarter million dollar houses,” said Abraham. The median home sales price in Londonderry in 2022 was $414,500, a 67% increase from 2016.

With a stagnant median household income of $65,166 (compared to the state’s median of $68,916), the typical Londonderry resident could afford a home with a maximum sales price of $257,600 and not be “housing cost-burdened,” — i.e. paying more than 30% of their income on housing.

As thea result of the “affordability gap” — the $156,949 difference — this “missing middle” housing is what’s needed in town, Abraham noted.

Londonderry, home to Magic Mountain and not far from Stratton Mountain Resort, is nonetheless relatively affordable compared to other resort communities. For these reasons, it attracts seasonal residents, who occupy four out of 10 housing units in the town.

According to the town needs assessment, from 2010 to 2020, the number of rentals and homes for seasonal residents increased by nearly 32%.

That leap has upset the balance between seasonal housing and housing that is available and affordable to local households and workers.

Tourism drives the local economy, but many businesses report that they are unable to attract and retain workers due to the lack of housing. As a result, businesses are open for fewer hours, limiting their offerings or moving towards a seasonal approach. Most workers in Londonderry commute from outside the community.

Like what the state is doing to address the homelessness crisis, Stratton Mountain Resort is addressing its employee housing problem by contracting with local motels. According to the Manchester Journal, in the past two years, Stratton Mountain has housed seasonal employees in the Econo Lodge and the Chalet Motel, a Travelodge in Manchester.

Seniors need housing, too

The aging of Londonderry’s population has created what Abraham calls “over housed” seniors, who would downsize or relocate to more suitable housing that better meets their needs if such housing were available.

Almost a quarter of Londonderry’s 1,919 residents are between the ages of 65 and 74, the fastest growing cohort in the town.

When this population of “empty-nesters” and retirees can’t move, there’s less turnover in housing and fewer housing units available for the workforce and families.

High construction costs and a shortage of labor, problems felt throughout the state, also contribute to the town’s lack of housing.

“I can tell you from personal experience, finding a contractor around here is really hard,” said Abraham. “You’re gonna wait months to get somebody to respond. Some of my neighbors have had to reach out to companies in Massachusetts who might have a bit more capacity.”

Tradespeople “can’t afford to live here,” he said.

Housing construction in the village is also hampered by the lack of a community wastewater disposal system, which can handle higher density development. Londonderry is one of 200 villages in the state that lack this capacity.

In 2022 the town was awarded $7.9 million from Vermont’s nearly $30 million appropriated for village water and wastewater initiatives across the state. Grant funds from this program — funded by the American Rescue Plan Act — will be used for project implementation, including property acquisition and system construction.

The Village Wastewater Committee, appointed by the Selectboard, is evaluating potential locations for systems in both Londonderry and South Londonderry.

Abraham noted that siting wastewater treatment facilities can be a problem, given the location of the town center.

“Most communities in Vermont are along roads, which tend to follow the rivers. We’ve got limited space in fragile areas,” he said.

‘How do you fix a problem this complicated?’

Acknowledging that “this is a marathon, not a sprint,” Abraham outlined several strategies the town is undertaking to address the housing crisis.

The Selectboard is in the process of updating the town’s 2009 bylaws. According to Abraham, the revised bylaws will be consistent with the new Housing Opportunities Made for Everyone Act, signed by Gov. Phil Scott on June 5.

This act amends the Planning & Development statute, Act 250, and other laws to enable higher density development in areas served by local sewer and water, and it allows for duplexes in areas currently zoned for single-family housing.

Allowing for the construction of this “missing middle” housing will help to close the affordability gap, according to Abraham.

Several strategies outlined in the town’s needs assessment involve additional funding.

One such strategy is a voluntary deed restriction program, which typically provides a financial incentive to a property owner to sell a restriction on their property. The restriction could ensure that the property could be owned only by someone living in a predetermined location — like the town, for example.

Woodstock’s Local Deeds program, established by the Woodstock Community Trust, does just that.

According to the project website, Local Deeds aims to “protect housing for families and individuals who live and work or will work in the town year-round” by paying up to 16% of the property’s fair-market value in exchange for a permanent deed restriction.

The program, which is in its fundraising stage, will launch in the next few weeks, according to Jill Davies, the project leader.

Creating a local housing fund, dedicated to creating housing in town, is another strategy outlined in Londonderry’s needs assessment. Such a fund could be funded by a portion of the town budget or by establishing new dedicated funding streams.

“If Londonderry does create a housing trust fund, it’s possible that a grant from that fund might ultimately be combined with a “10% in Vermont” loan for a specific housing project,” said Leslie Black-Plumeau, research and community relations manager with the Vermont Housing Finance Agency.

The “10% in Vermont” program allows the state treasurer’s office to invest up to 10% of the state’s cash deposits for economic development and job creation in the form of low-interest loans.

On Sept. 13, State Treasurer Mike Pieciak announced $55.5 million in housing investments from this fund.

“Sometimes communities use housing trust fund money to help close the gap that a local affordable housing developer is facing between the total development costs and funding sources available to the project,” said Black-Plumeau. “The ‘10% for Vermont’ funds administered by VHFA will be one of the funding sources that developers like this might use.”

A plea to sell to locals

With the Selectboard addressing zoning, Londonderry’s Housing Commission will focus on public education efforts, said Abraham.

Such efforts will include developing a web portal with links to housing-related resources and information to find, build, and improve housing in the community.

Public education also will involve “getting the word out to folks” to consider selling to local families as a way to improve the community.

“If the seller has five bids on the table and one of them is a local family, is that something they’d consider?” Abraham suggested.

Musing on the worst-case scenario for a town that doesn’t address its housing crisis, Abraham painted a picture of a community where the next generation is priced out and can’t afford to live there.

“Then it becomes a community of wealthy older folks who, in the end, have to move out because they have nobody to care for their properties,” he said. “And they can’t go to the local medical center because there’s nobody staffing it.”

“That’s a dark, dystopian view, I know,” Abraham continued. “It’s not where we’re at yet, but you can start to see it with the difficulty of getting professionals out here – electricians, plumbers, contractors, roofers.”

But the market makes corrections.

“If you take an economic view of this,” Abraham said, “the pendulum will swing back at some point.”

He pointed to the increase in short-term rentals as an example.

“Folks that are doing STR build-outs on their properties may find themselves with a lot of empty buildings at some point in time,” Abraham said. “The economics would suggest that these property owners would then do something else.”

“But those economic forces take a while to come into play,” he cautioned. “I don’t know that we have the patience to wait for that to happen. Which is why we’re trying to do the right thing here for the missing middle.”

“The solution is to have endurance — to stick with it,” Abraham said. “And not lose faith or confidence in folks’ ability to make a difference.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Londonderry debates short-term rental rules.

This story by Virginia Ray was first published in The Commons on Sept. 6.

BRATTLEBORO — When the Brattleboro Union High School Bears football team took the field in the season opener against Middlebury on Sept. 1 at Natowich Field, and voices singing the national anthem rose to the line “and the rockets’ red glare,” in the sky appeared a small Cessna 182.

Perfectly poised, the plane, piloted by 17-year-old BUHS senior Ben Berg, saluted the team and celebrated the first varsity sports event at the school with its new mascot, the Bears.

“It was awesome,” Berg says of his successful flyover.

He had carefully planned the surprise for days in advance with Athletic Director Chris Sawyer and Interim Principal Hannah Parker.

“It was super cool,” says Parker of the flyover. “Every school should have a Ben Berg in it. Not just because he’s such a good student, but because he cares about the community.”

Berg piloted the plane in which he received his pilot’s license in June and was accompanied by his girlfriend, Caeden Green, who Berg calls “a rock star” who has flown with him numerous times in gliders and airplanes.

The young couple took off from Hartness State Airport in Springfield at 6:20 p.m. for the anticipated 6:50 p.m. flyover.

“One thing about this kind of flying is it’s very comprehensively planned,” says Berg. “A lot of safety and coordination efforts happen way in advance to make sure we’re being safe and following all the rules and can mitigate any risks, so we can also have fun.

“My thought process for the whole flight was, ‘I’m going to do whatever I need to do to be safe, that’s what I’m going to do, and if it works out for the flyover, that’s great.’ But I planned for it to work out.”

To help execute the perfect flyover, Berg’s father Tim was on the ground at the game with a hand-held airplane radio. Singing.

“My cue to turn from my holding pattern was ‘the rockets’ red glare,’ to set me up to be over the field at the end,” Berg says. “He was singing me through the anthem … and we made it happen.”

At about 1,300 feet above the field, maintaining the mandated altitude for optimal safety, Berg said he and Green could see the field and players, although they couldn’t hear the crowd.

But not unlike the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, Berg came over the field and offered “a little wing rock” salute and hello.

“It’s a pretty benign maneuver, about a 15- to 20-degree bank,” says the modest senior.

After the flyover, the couple returned to the airport, put the plane away, and “were at the game for the fourth quarter.”

What was the reaction on the ground?

“The people who knew about it were excited and pleased, and those who didn’t were amazed and happy to have that special thing happen,” Berg says.

An early start in the sky

A flying aficionado since he was a young boy, Berg takes flying seriously. And joyfully.

“It’s been quite a process,” says Berg of his learning to fly.

“My dad was an aviation enthusiast. He never flew planes, but some of his friends did,” he says.

After attending a Rhode Island air show when he was 8 years old, Berg was awestruck by the Blue Angels.

“Seeing fighter jets fly super fast and low and display their capabilities really inspired me and started a real passion for aviation,” he says.

After that show, Berg watched YouTube videos and flight simulations and “tried to absorb how it all works.”

“I played around with basic computer flight simulation, and that taught me about systems and procedures and where to look and not be completely clueless in the front seat of an airplane,” says Berg.

Journey to the cockpit

Berg’s devotion to flying led him to Hartness State Airport and an Aviation Careers Education (ACE) summer camp of young teenagers hosted by the New England Soaring Association (NESA) when he was 13 years old.

The young pilot has a real fondness for Hartness, established in 1919 in just two weeks by James Hartness — who had served as president of Jones & Lamson Machine Company and would go on to become Vermont governor — after he was inspired by the Wright brothers’ Kitty Hawk flight.

Hartness bought three farms, and the airport was officially certified as the first landing field in Vermont. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh stopped here after his successful Atlantic crossing — the first transatlantic flight — to 30,000 fans awaiting him.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation has recently made a video about Hartness — youtube.com/VTransTV — in which Berg appears.

“It’s a very cool spot, nestled in the eastern range of the Green Mountains,” he says. “There’s a lot of topical diversity. It’s a great spot to fly and learn how to fly.”

At the weeklong ACE day camp, Berg was exposed to myriad aspects of aviation, from maintenance to operations, to air traffic control, and to flying.

“That camp gives you an exposure and lets you explore,” he says. “They also give the campers flights in gliders with instructors in the back, and they show you how to go soaring.”

Admittedly, Berg “didn’t even know what gliders were.”

“The cool thing is they don’t have engines, so you’re relying on weather and thermals,” he says. “I was immediately enthralled and addicted to that feeling at the age of 13. The cool thing is also you can start flying them at a super-young age.”

One can fly solo at age 14 in a glider and be licensed to do so at age 16.

So Berg did.

“I was dedicated to that process,” he says. “I could fly now and start what I knew were my aviation goals. That was a really special experience.”

Glider flying led to Berg’s joining the NESA. Then the pandemic came, in the winter of 2020, and he wasn’t able to get back to gliding until July, when he started training in earnest.

He soloed in early September 2020.

“Then it was like, ‘All right, I’m soloing gliding and I’m 14 and I have to wait two years to get my license, but I can still solo,'” he says. “So that left a whole season where I could build time and experience. That really taught me how to fly. Instead of adding energy with an engine, you’re adding energy through the conditions of the atmosphere.”

Berg found engine-free soaring “very pure, and it instilled a deep connection to the environment and a humbling relationship, because when you’re flying a little tiny airplane, the atmosphere is very strong.”

Even at age 14, he was “really dedicated to doing it safely and working hard.”

“It’s not something inherently dangerous, but it’s something you have to be aware of,” he says of flying.

“Flying airplanes is statistically super, super safe,” Berg says. “Making sure you’re dedicated to that safety and situational awareness is important. It’s a big responsibility, but it’s very rewarding.”

At age 15, Berg applied for a youth scholarship from the Soaring Society of America (SSA) and received an award — “very gratefully” — that allowed him to fly in the 2021 soaring season and “build more gliding experience and become even more comfortable in flying in general.”

“That was a great summer, getting to fly with different people in gliders and appreciate soaring and the aviation community and be mentored by people who have had half-century-long careers in aviation.”

In June 2022, when he had turned 16, Berg obtained his glider license, which allowed him to take passengers and “be very independent and not under the supervision of an instructor.”

“It was special to share soaring with my family and friends and show them what aviation looked like and what Vermont looks like from above,” he says. “Then I got into the whole airplane world.”

From gliders to airplanes

At that point, Berg met his “main mentor, flight instructor, and friend,” Bill Batesole.

It was Batesole’s plane in which he received his pilot’s license and flew over the BUHS football game.

Batesole “really helped me and made it possible for me to start flying airplanes,” Berg says.

He calls his first solo in September of 2022 — in a 1946 Piper Cub — “a super-historically special, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Still, Berg was just 16 — a year away from applying for his airplane pilot’s license.

He could, however, and did, with Batesole’s help, “start flying airplanes more and training to the standard of the pilot’s license.”

Berg passed the written test and started the flight training curriculum for his private pilot’s license with his teacher and mentor.

That training included night flying, flying trips of more than 150 miles (called cross-country training), and learning and practicing maneuvers in which he’d have to demonstrate proficiency for the license.

“Bill really mentored me to my private pilot’s license, which I got in June,” Berg says. “I was wrapping up school and training and playing tennis. It was a very busy spring for me, but very rewarding.”

Berg is emphatic in his appreciation of “the generosity of my mentors and the aviation community.”

“Those were the people who saw my passion and made it happen for me and taught me to be safe and have fun,” he says.

He also appreciates “the immense opportunity in Vermont, at any airport, but especially at Springfield, for flying in general.”

Back on the ground, Berg, now 17, was one of the last school year’s student representatives to the Windham Southeast District School Board.

“It was a great opportunity to try and represent my community and constituents with Kaiya Colby, the other rep,” he says. “We worked very well together as a team and were able to be at the meetings and give input and report back to our people and make things happen.”

He says his proudest accomplishment was a group effort — the establishment of the Student Advisory Committee (SAC) — mentored by board members Deborah Stanford and Tim Maciel.

Of that group of “passionate students who are voluntarily dedicating a lot of time to the improvement of their school communities,” he says, the biggest and “most special accomplishment” for him is that “we pulled off a three-hour professional development session for faculty.”

About 100 staff members attended the session, which tackled “the expectations of community and student support in a classroom and damage of racial slurs and unaddressed racial aggression.”

“We had some great conversations and workshopping,” Berg said. “I was super impressed with the attentiveness and dedication of the faculty and staff. It just felt like not only the right thing to do, but also a good thing to do. I’m very proud to be part of that team.”

Future flying

What’s next for Berg?

“I love the whole flying industry; I’m fascinated by the aerospace engineering world,” he says. “I’m also very interested in the service, military academies and the kind of integrity and leadership and service they offer. I’m a big community person, so (post-high school) might look like a university, or a military academy … there are a lot of opportunities.”

Berg says he plans to “synthesize those — when and if they come — and make my decision based on where I think I can succeed and help my community and country and world succeed.”

“The community of Brattleboro and of Hartness and the values of my family have pushed me to pursue my passions and do good by whomever I can,” the senior says.

As to actual flying, Berg clearly plans to continue his love affair in the sky as a lens to contribute to his much-loved world below.

“The perspective is unlike any other,” he says of a pilot’s capacity for “appreciating and admiring and exploring the world.”

“But really,” he says, “Vermont, where I’ve lived and grown up forever, is exciting and beautiful, and really just cool.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: A licensed pilot at 17, Brattleboro senior does a flyover for the football team’s season opener.