Serving the public in a new way

After years of helping other politicians, Kate O'Connor steps out for her first House campaign

House candidate Kate O'Connor has felt amazed by the personal stories that voters have shared during her primary campaign.

Jobs stand at the top of many people's lists. Others have spoken about witnessing more crime in their neighborhoods, some have expressed concern about increasing the town's accessibility, and seniors have talked about facing selling their homes and leaving Brattleboro because they can't afford to remain.

O'Connor calls the conversations “eye opening” and valuable to her as someone looking to represent her community.

Door knocking takes longer than people think, said O'Connor, who has rapped her knuckles against District 2-3 doors for the past month.

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A personal stake in the issues

For Tristan Toleno, an intimate connection with concerns of District 3

Running a business and going door-to-door speaking with voters takes serious multitasking skills. Still, House candidate Tristan Toleno said he enjoys speaking with the residents of District 2-3. Toleno said his life has touched the issues facing District 2-3 - issues like the economy, jobs, and fostering a sustainable...

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Closing the cycle

Rich Earth Institute breaks ground with first-ever U.S. field trial using human urine as a fertilizer

As morning light drew across Still Wind Farm on a late summer day, a group of Brattleboro community members set about marking a grid in the hay field, gathering soil samples, and preparing for the day's unusual labor: dispersing hundreds of gallons of sanitized human urine on the field...

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Komen has many positive consequences

RE: “Komen should be shut down” [Letters, Aug. 1]: My sister Joanie and her daughter recently walked the Susan G. Komen three-day fundraiser in Cleveland. Pledges toward their commitment surpassed their goal, at $4,737. I'm sorry, Steve Morgan, but I know that my sister would not have had 12 birthdays since her diagnosis at age 35 without Komen. Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, in 1982, that she would do everything in her power to end...

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For O’Connor, this is what comprises community

A letter to the editor in last week's Commons [“What exactly do we mean by 'community'?,” Aug. 8] asked me to answer the question, “What is community?” For me, Brattleboro is: • The hometown where my great-grandfather arrived from Ireland at age 20, working as a laborer at downtown's W.H. Vinton & Son paper mill until his death in a plant accident in 1915. • The hometown where my grandfather, who lost his father at age 8 and his mother...

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Forest Moon offers free retreat for cancer survivors

A free weekend retreat for cancer survivors and an accompanying loved one will be held at Stump Sprouts Guest Lodge in Hawley, Mass., on Aug. 24-26. “Renewing the Spirit” is offered by Forest Moon, a local nonprofit organization that provides free or low-cost support programs to cancer survivors and their loved ones in western Massachusetts and southern Vermont and New Hampshire. The retreat – held in a scenic, rustic setting – will provide a place for self-exploration, connection, and healing...

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Obuchowski receives O’Connor Award

Former Speaker of the Vermont House Michael J. “Obie” Obuchowski was awarded the Timothy J. O'Connor Award recently by the Brattleboro Town Democratic Committee. Obuchowski, a native of Bellows Falls, was cited for his impact on state and national politics. A graduate of Bellows Falls High School, Obuchowski attended Harvard University for two years but left at the age of 20 to run for the Vermont House. He was re-elected 19 times and served as Speaker of the House from...

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Parks Place Community Resource Center seeks supporters for ‘Sponsor A Window’ campaign

Parks Place of Bellows Falls, a community resource center dedicated to connecting people to the information, education, and resources critical to strengthening lives, is launching a campaign to raise just under $12,000 to replace its 40 windows, most of which date to when the house was built in the early 1900s. “Given the agency's model and mission, maintenance of the building remains of critical importance to keeping the providers who utilize the space satisfied and in the community to serve...

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Vernon girl helps her AAU basketball team win a national championship

Ari Harrison of Vernon was having a great sophomore year with the Brattleboro Colonels girls' basketball team until injuries cut her 2011-12 season short. Harrison says she's determined to make her junior season on the court more successful. Part of her preparation for the 2012-13 high school season is playing AAU basketball, something she's done since she was in the fifth grade. This summer, Harrison played for the Mass Frenzy team that competed in the AAU College Showcase and the...

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A local legislator needs local experience

As a supporter of Tristan Toleno for state representative in District 3, I was taken aback when I heard that Gov. Peter Shumlin had endorsed Kate O'Connor in the race. There is an unwritten rule that governors and other officeholders and party officials do not intervene in local races, and the governor acknowledged he was breaking that rule. The WTSA radio tape of the endorsement indicates that the reason for the governor's endorsement was a personal one: she has been...

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Milestones

Obituaries • Priscilla A. (Perkins) Barnard, 90, of Brattleboro. Died July 26 at her home, after a brief period of decline. Wife of the late Walter S. Barnard for 35 years. Mother of Sharon A. Barnard of Brattleboro; Alva-Jean Unwin and her husband, Daniel, of Brattleboro; Neal A. Barnard of Springvale, Maine; and the late Warren A. Barnard. Sister of the late Constance Connors. Born in Beverly, Mass., the daughter of the late Emma T. (Raymond) and Harry L. Perkins,

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Community helps Our Place vegetable gardens grow

The vegetable gardens at Our Place Drop-in Center are thriving thanks to the help of several local groups and a grant from the Vermont Community Foundation (VCF). Bellows Falls Rotary Club members Ryan Ostebo and Eric Anderson built raised beds and a handicapped-accessible planter with lumber donated by Carl Mosher of Putney and filled with soil provided by Bazin Brothers and wood chips from Allen Brothers. Young people employed in the Youth Serves program of Youth Services have been tending...

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Annual Estey Garden Party celebrates 10th anniversary of museum

The Estey Organ Museum, which is dedicated to the history and innovations of Brattleboro's reed, pipe and electric organ maker, the Estey Organ Company, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Museum organizers present an afternoon benefit of food, fun, flowers, and flying machines on Sunday, Aug. 19, from 4 to 7 p.m. The event will also celebrate the beginning of the new Estey Labs program at the museum. Hosted by John and Cindy Wilcox, the annual Estey Organ Museum Garden Party...

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Around the Towns

RFPL to close from Aug. 18 until Sept. 3 for construction BELLOWS FALLS - Due to construction demands for the Library's renovation, the Rockingham Free Public Library will be temporarily closed for two weeks, beginning Saturday, Aug. 18, through Monday, Sept. 3. The library will reopen on Sept. 4, with services provided on the main floor. Until then, patrons are encouraged to come in by Friday, Aug. 17, and borrow extra books and other materials to last through the two...

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Taking back the term ‘trust-funder’

Whit Blauvelt Chris Moore has a good chance of earning my vote. But I'd like a qualification here. As a member of Bellows Falls' middle class myself, having moved here nearly a decade ago, I know quite a few other middle-class people, both native and flatlander, who live here without benefit of trust funds. The phrase “trust-funders” is generally used to smear those who have moved into the area with enough savings and income to establish a middle-class life here,

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Windham Regional Commission hosts hearing on new I-91 West River Bridge

The Windham Regional Commission (WRC) will host a public meeting on Thursday, Aug. 16, to solicit input on the aesthetics and design of a new bridge to replace the current Interstate 91 bridge over the West River and Route 30. The meeting will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Community Room at the Windham Regional Career Center at 80 Atwood St. This meeting will take place in response to a request made by the WRC to the...

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Here comes the sun

The definition of insanity, they say, is to keep doing the same thing but expecting different results. For the most part, this is exactly what social movement activists have been doing for decades. What's more, this unfortunate and ill-fated approach blatantly ignores the most valuable lessons of social-movement activism learned in the late-20th-century movement for nuclear disarmament, and its culmination, the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign in the United States. But this is a message of hope. For by integrating these...

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Author of ‘Good Night Irene’ presents stories and photos from storm at Brooks library

The public is welcome to join author Craig Brandon on Wednesday, Aug. 22, at 7 p.m., in the Brooks Memorial Library's meeting room, for a photo show and talk about Tropical Storm Irene. The storm caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, destroyed hundreds of homes, and ruined highways in Vermont, upstate New York, and western Massachusetts. A new book tells more than 300 stories from survivors and first responders. It took three authors and a dozen photographers to...

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Give it up

Recall that the Fukushima reactors were designed with so many redundant safety features that that they “could not” melt down. Howard Shaffer's dangerous fantasy of nuke plants so well designed that they can't fail “In nuclear accident, not everyone would have to be evacuated” [Letters, Aug. 8] is no longer believed by the vast majority of people all over the world. Your lies have been exposed, and statements of nuclear infallibility are no longer accepted. Give it up.

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Crossing cultures, capturing lives

Sixteen year-old Noa Petrie of Brattleboro had never been away from her family for more than five days when she went on the three-week Exposures Summer Program at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota this summer. Although she was uneasy about going on this new adventure, she said, “It turned out to be literally the greatest experience in my life.” She made new friends, learned about a new part of the country, and experienced first-hand a very different culture from...

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Farewell to celluloid

On Tuesday, August 28, the one year anniversary of Tropical Storm Irene and its rampage through Brattleboro's Flat Street, Latchis Arts and the Latchis Theatre will screen Singin' in the Rain, the feel-good classic with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O'Connor, free of charge to the community. Directed by Stanley Donen and Kelly, the movie portrayed the dawn of talkies on the big screen. This screening will also help the Latchis commemorate its conversion from 35mm film to digital...

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Real names, accountability, and a civil dialogue online

We don't receive a huge number of comments on our website - 10 to 15 on a good week, maybe. By some news website standards, that volume would likely be perceived as a failure. I say it's working. The comments that we get are overwhelmingly constructive and well thought out. They've jump-started our letters section considerably. I attribute most of those good qualities to our pretty-darned-strict terms of service. We ask for your real name and where you live -

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The box of rocks

Waste (also known as rubbish, trash, refuse, garbage, junk, and litter) is unwanted or useless material. Wastes are materials that are not prime products for which initial users have no further use in terms of their own purposes of production, transformation, or consumption, and of which they want to dispose. A landfill site (also known as tip, dump, or rubbish dump and historically as a midden) is a site for the disposal of waste materials. A midden is an old...

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Brattleboro Retreat hosts annual ‘Ride for Heroes’ on Aug. 18

The Brattleboro Retreat will host the third annual Ride for Heroes event starting at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 18, with registration beginning at 10 a.m. The motorcycle ride starts at the Brattleboro Retreat and ends with a barbecue lunch at the Retreat campus. This event supports the Retreat's growing Uniformed Service Program (USP). USP was founded in 2009 to offer specialized trauma and addiction treatment for people who are, or have been, active military, police officers, fire fighters, veterans,

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‘All we’re trying to do is plant some seeds’

There are all sorts of experiences one can have on a summer internship. Not many of them involve riding a bicycle all over Vermont, sleeping on church floors, and living on a food budget of $5 a day. A group of young people started a two-wheeled journey in South Royalton in June. They finished it last week in Brattleboro. In between, they've spent a week each in Bradford, Montpelier, Vergennes, Burlington, and Rutland. They are in Vermont as part of...

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Shumlin administration recommends ‘benchmark’ plan for benefits under health care exchange

Shumlin administration officials have recommended BlueCross BlueShield (BCBS) of Vermont as the “benchmark” plan for benefits to be offered under the federally required insurance “exchange.” The state's two other health care insurance companies - Cigna and MVP Health Care - must match the BCBS benchmark for coverage offered in the exchange. The recommendation is another step in the Shumlin administration's long climb toward health care insurance reform under the Affordable Care Act. In a little more than a year, the...

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Something missing in our news

It was too hot to do anything - not even in the basement where I work was habitable. So I decided to sit down and read the news. I do not get the opportunity to do that often enough. I use a pair of news aggregating sites that gather articles from sources all over the world. One of those sites contains multiple sections, all of which I have designed myself by adding preferred sources, preferred topics, and even preferred keywords.

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Next Stage presents singer/songwriter John Gorka on Aug 16

The Next Stage Arts Project presents singer-songwriter, John Gorka live in concert on Thursday, Aug. 16, at 8 p.m. Gorka's musical career spans 20 years and numerous albums, but he got his start at a neighborhood coffeehouse in eastern Pennsylvania. In the late 1970s, he found himself living in the club's basement and acting as resident emcee and sound man, encountering legendary folk troubadours like Eric Andersen and Tom Paxton. Their music inspired him, and before long he was performing...

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission halts nuclear power licensing decisions

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week suspended all nuclear power licensing decisions until it can address environmental concerns regarding long-term storage of nuclear waste. The ruling puts a halt to license renewal applications for nine plants, including Indian Point in New York and Seabrook in New Hampshire. Under the order, the commission, for the first time, will require environmental assessments of nuclear waste now held at the nation's 104 reactor sites. The decision comes in the wake of a June...

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An enduring musical spirit

David Wells, cellist and founder of Yellow Barn Music School and Festival, died at his home on Aug. 7. He had celebrated his 85th birthday last month. On Sunday, friends and family celebrated the life and legacy of Wells at an afternoon service of music and remembrances at Yellow Barn's “Big Barn.” A native of East Chicago, Ind., Wells studied at the Manhattan School of Music with cellists Diran Alexanian and Raya Garbousova. He performed as a soloist and chamber...

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