Daybreak Friday 9/18/20

GOOD MORNING, FRIDAY!

Getting sunny, cooler than normal. With cold air continuing to move in above, temps won't get much above 60 today. On the bright side, this morning's clouds are moving out and skies should be clear for a decent bit of the day. Lows in the lower 30s tonight, frost in the usual cold spots.Hartford considers community gardens, orchards for town parks. The town parks and rec department and Resilient Hartford are looking into ways that public parks "could be used to provide shared food resources" and fresh food for residents who need it—including people living in apartments or mobile homes who don't have the space to grow their own. As an initial step, they're surveying people (at the link) to get a sense of public reaction. The survey's open to residents of nearby towns, as well. Apartment project in downtown Leb moves one step closer. The city council voted unanimously Wednesday night to sell the former public works facility on Spencer St. to the Stowe-based Braverman Co., which plans to put up a 94-unit building, with some retail and commercial space. The parcel has been vacant since 2012. Proceeds from the sale will help fund the city's plans to improve Spencer St., including repaving, new sidewalks, and upgrades to the nearby Northern Rail Trail, the VN's Tim Camerato writes.More Dartmouth undergrads living off campus... and not just in Hanover. They're as far afield as Quechee and Lebanon, reports The Dartmouth's Allison Wachen. Many of them, says one student, "signed leases as soon as they realized that they would not be able to come back to campus in a normal way.” Quarantining is supposed to be the same for off-campus students as for those living in dorms, but in practice, another student reports, “Dartmouth doesn’t keep track of the off-campus students as much as the on-campus students.” VT's Everyone Eats launches in the Upper Valley. Actually, it launched last week, when Maple Street Catering and Global Village Cuisine delivered 1,600 meals to LISTEN. When the state-funded program is at full steam, it's aiming to get 2,500 meals out each week to community meal sites and food shelves. Participating restaurants get $10 per meal, and are required to use at least 10 percent local ingredients so that farms benefit, too. It will last at least until December. Link goes to a Vital Communities FAQ page. One of the best places to eat al fresco in the country? Cloudland Farm. Departures, an online travel mag owned by American Express, lists ten spots. And there, rubbing shoulders with places in Palm Springs and Sedona and NYC that offer fine outside dining, is Pomfret's own hilltop farm-to-table destination—"the stuff of pastoral dreams," the mag writes. "We are very honored," writes Cloudland's Bill Emmons. "So are the cows."Hey, want to buy a ton of pumpkins next year and put on a display? Because a "For Sale" sign just went up in front of the Woodstock house that featured in that Seven Days article about Nikki VanVoorhis and Matt Tashjian's annual stoop extravaganza. Turns out that after they did their interview with 7D's Pamela Polston, their dream home in town came on the market, and they went for it. But they're not leaving for a couple of months, so there's time for one more blowout pumpkin pageant this year.Three NH bear attacks in eight years—all within about 10 miles of Mt. Cardigan. First there was one in Grafton in 2012, then one in Groton in 2018, and most recently the Canaan incident in June when a man unloading an air conditioner was attacked from behind. Matt Hongoltz-Hetling has a new piece in New Hampshire Mag looking into what's going on: a growing bear population (despite NH Fish & Game's efforts to keep it under control through hunting); a fast-growing human population; a shrinking "bench of bear-savvy [state] employees"; and residents who ignore the state's bear-education efforts.Northern Stage becomes third theater in country to get union approval for live theater. With the agreement of the three major theatrical unions, the company will mount It's Fine, I'm Fine starting early next month; tickets go on sale next week. The play is a one-woman show, written and performed by Stephanie Everett, who wrote it while at Dartmouth. After its run, Northern Stage will go on to produce three more virtual plays as part of its Tiny Necessary Theater festival."Performing arts venues were the first to close when the pandemic hit and they will be the last to reopen." It's dire out there, as Vermont Arts Council executive director Karen Mittelman tells Seven Days' Dan Bolles. But even if it's struggling financially, Bolles writes, "the performing arts community is flush with a different sort of capital, one that could light a way through the darkness: creativity." Northern Stage's festival is one example as he surveys the landscape. So's the Hop's programming. And lots of other venues, from comedy clubs to Burlington's Flynn Theater, are reinventing themselves.UNH students, staff criticize beer-swilling, maskless state reps. As you'll remember, the state House met on the UNH campus Wednesday for its veto-override session. A small number of them settled in with beer in hand, and did not wear masks when they went outside, violating both campus and town rules. If the House intends to meet there again, said UNH President Jim Dean, "I don’t think we can have that same behavior in the future.” House Speaker Steve Shurtleff yesterday sent off a letter of apology.NH local election officials plead for more leeway in processing absentee ballots pre-Election Day. They're not allowed to open absentee ballots or start counting prior to Election Day, but they can check to make sure everything's in order. The issue comes with how they can note that a voter's ballot passes muster: the secretary of state's guidelines are quite restrictive, and the kind of checklist notations it has banned "are crucial to ensuring a more efficient absentee ballot process in November," the state city and town clerks association insists, reports NHPR's Casey McDermott.NH Electric Co-op pursues broadband, mails bylaws-change ballots to members. Back in June, a grassroots effort to make broadband part of the co-op's mission fell just short of the two-thirds vote it needed at the annual meeting, after most board members opposed it. Now, however, they've seen the light, and are hoping members will approve the move, which would let them make broadband investments without taking it to a vote every time. The utility hopes to land $50 million in federal CARES Act money to connect properties that have been unable to get online or that have an unreliable connection.Here's an interesting pandemic side-effect: mountains of waste on the Middlebury campus. The college's dining hall gives out individual food items in compostable containers for students to take away. But, Middlebury's sustainability coordinator tells VTDigger, “The amount of compostable containers is overwhelming our composting system and we cannot handle this much waste.” UVM, on the other hand, is handing out to-go food in washable, reusable containers, which students then drop off in bins around campus after they're finished.VT House overrides Scott on global-warming act. The move came two days after the governor vetoed legislation to require the state to meet carbon emission reductions targets and allow individuals to sue the government if it fails. “A vision without a plan is a hallucination,” said Thetford Rep. Tim Briglin, who chairs the House energy committee. “[The bill] moves us from aspiration to accountability.” The vote was 103-47, three votes more than needed. The Senate will take the override up next week. Stay tuned."While we were in having supper, our lead dog got out on her own and finished off a local miniature poodle." Yesterday's item on Dorothy Molter, the Minnesota woman who spent half a century living on her own in the Boundary Waters, brought a reminiscence and photos from Norwich's Chad Finer. In 1971, he and two others became the first to dog-sled through the area, and spent a night in Molter's cabin. She was gracious and friendly, he reports, and leapt at the chance for her first-ever dog-sled ride. The unfortunate incident with the poodle came in a small town on their way back to civilization.

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