GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, cold, a little blustery. Clouds have disappeared as high pressure edges into the region, along with a cold air mass that will keep temps in the teens today, maybe getting to 20 by early afternoon. Still, it’ll be brilliantly sunny all day, though we’ll be back into the single digits after nightfall and into the minuses by dawn tomorrow. Moderate winds today from the northwest.
Light show. The annual holiday show created by DB Lights moved this year from Leb to Huse Park in Enfield, and it opened on Saturday night. Drone artist William Daugherty was there to catch the colors and the town all around.
Lebanon school board mulling cuts amid proposed budget increases. All in all, reports the Valley News’s Clare Shanahan, school administrators have proposed nearly $4 million in new spending—due mostly to boosts in employee wages and benefits—to bring the district total to $58.66 million. If left intact, that would bring about a 9 percent jump in school taxes. At its meeting Wednesday, the board will consider $216K in cuts “with no practical impact” that would bring the budget below a 7 percent increase, but its options get tougher after that, Shanahan writes, including eliminating positions or reducing tuition payments to Ledyard Charter School.
As Killington steps into “luxury arms race,” it confronts VT’s realities. Those include worker shortages, a lack of workforce housing, and “development-shy state and local officials,” writes longtime VT journalist David Goodman. In the NYT (gift link), he goes into detail on the ski resort’s big plans for a new base area with luxury homes, a couple of public squares, spa and fitness center, and lots of retail and dining space along a pedestrian promenade. Great Gulf, the developer, is considering housing in Rutland, but that city is already facing a housing shortage. One issue Goodman doesn’t raise: how locals will feel about even more traffic racing up Route 4. (Thanks, JF!)
SPONSORED: An Optical Worthy of Prue Leith and Iris Apfel! Progressives, prescription sunglasses, a computer pair… is it time to expand your eyeglass wardrobe? Artisan Eyewear is holding a Buy Two, 3rd is Free Sale Dec 30–Jan 3. A perfect chance to use up expiring Flex Spending Dollars before the year is out. Open New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day! Artisan Eyewear in Norwich is a carefully curated "hidden gem" full of bold, fun, and uniquely artistic frames. You'll find us at 309 Main Street in Norwich. Preview some of our more remarkable frames on our website before your visit! Sponsored by Artisan Eyewear.
In WRJ, reliving the Videostop experience. JAM’s Chico Eastridge remembers the old West Leb video store, which closed in 2013, as “a place to hang out, steal stuff, break things and ignore customers,” he tells Ken Picard in Seven Days. No need to steal at Videostop II, the VCR-laden pop-up (thru Dec.) in the back of JAM, where Eastridge and his collaborators have curated over 1,000 old movies, built on the back of the tapes Eastridge began buying up as video stores shut down: borrowing them is free. Among the sections: “Dracula,” “non-Dracula vampires,” “non-vampire blood suckers,” “a guy with a sword” and “I can’t believe it’s not Star Wars.”
New AVA director plans more exposure for gallery’s campus. Lars Hasselblad Torres was “wondering what the universe was going to throw at me next,” writes Susan Apel in the new winter issue of Image mag, when the AVA executive director job listing popped up on his computer screen; the application deadline was the following day. Now he’s several months into the job, and in a profile, Susan reports that he wants to boost community involvement with AVA’s exhibitions, extensive education efforts, and above all, its campus, which Torres says “deserves to be seen widely and known affectionately as a platform for creative connection, learning, and expression.”
SPONSORED: Donate to the Holiday Book Angels, and give local kids the gift of reading this Holiday Season! Each holiday season, the Holiday Book Angels help get books into the hands of Upper Valley kids. This program is organized by the Norwich Bookstore and some amazing local volunteers, and supported by donations from our community. Check out the burgundy link or visit the Norwich Bookstore to learn how you can help by picking out a kid to shop for, buying pre-selected books, or donating funds. Your contribution will make a huge difference to young readers in our community this season! Sponsored by the Norwich Bookstore.
Just ten weeks in, NH’s new veterans campus in Franklin beset by turmoil. Four members of the leadership team of the Easterseals Military and Veterans Campus have resigned, reports NHPR’s Annmarie Timmins, and some veterans living there contend that Easterseals has ignored their needs as it focuses on the site’s money-making hotel and conference center. “Veterans are being leveraged as a means to secure financing, publicity, and institutional accolades,” wrote the conference center’s sales director in his resignation letter. Timmins details the controversy and talks to vets living there, some of whom cite problems, while others appreciate what they’ve got.
NH state rep: “We’re getting things in the mail saying people want to kill us or have us kill ourselves, and its really evil.” That was Republican James Thibault, a 19-year-old who represents Franklin and Northfield, talking with other young state legislators last week in a forum hosted by the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy. In the Concord Monitor, Charlotte Matherly reports that the four lawmakers—two Republicans and two Democrats—cited a more isolated and “meaner” civic culture, and lauded the effect of face-to-face interaction. One fix, Democrat Jonah Wheeler suggests: returning to a mixed seating chart in the state House, with legislators of different parties sitting next to each other, rather than isolated in their caucuses.
Up north, a “stunning band of chiseled granite towers” has become a climbing mecca. “As soon as you reach the cliff, your jaw drops,” Mischa Tourin, executive director of the Climbing Resource Access Group of Vermont—or CRAG-VT—tells VTDigger’s K. Fiegenbaum. “It all is perfect 90-degree angles, like it was built by rock climbers with rock climbing in mind.” Tourin’s talking about Black Mountain, set a half hour south of the Canadian border in the middle of the 132,000-acre Kingdom Heritage Lands, where the cliffs are made of granite with what Tourin calls “perfect” parallel cracks. One big challenge: getting there, including 6 miles on a power-line access road.
The Monday Jigsaw: 1909 survey map of the confluence of the White and Connecticut rivers. Last week, the Norwich Historical Society’s Cam Cross highlighted an old photo of the area; this week, it’s the map—though over on his Curioustorian blog, he annotates the photo and offers up an aerial view of what it looks like today.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from Friday’s Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
THERE'S SOME GREAT DAYBREAK SWAG! Like Daybreak tote bags, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies, t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
And for today...
Australian multi-instrumentalist Oren Ambarchi, Swedish bassist Johan Berthling, and Swedish percussionist Andreas Werliin, with the free-flowing groove of “Yek” (“one” in Farsi), which opens their latest album. Just let it carry you along.
See you tomorrow.
Looking for all of the hikes, Enthusiasms, daybreak photos, or music that Daybreak has published over the years? Go here!
And always, if you’re not a subscriber yet:
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on the Daybreak Facebook page, or on Daybreak’s homepage.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to visit daybreak.news to sign up.
Thank you!