GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, warming into the 20s. We started out below zero this morning, but with clear skies and light winds from the northwest, we'll climb all the way into the low or mid 20s. There's a warm front coming in late, bringing scattered clouds ahead of it overnight. Lows tonight in the mid single digits.Welcome to the week! A sun halo over Jefferson Hill in Newbury, VT, by Samantha Eagle.Lebanon may be looking for a new city manager. Over the weekend, the Valley News's Clare Shanahan reported that Shaun Mulholland, who has held the post for the past seven years, has notified the mayor and City Council that he's a finalist for a similar position in Londonderry, NH—where the town council is due to vote today on whether to hire him. He describes the potential move as an “opportunity," Shanahan writes, noting that Londonderry has population of 26,700, compared to Lebanon's most recent estimated population of 15,300.Plus, you get a cool reflective vest! What you learn when you're a recycling volunteer. In particular, Liora Alschuler was stationed between the cardboard and paper dumpsters, across from the plastics, at Thetford's recycling center. And in a letter to Sidenote, she details what she learned: either screw plastic bottle caps on or stuff them inside the bottle; how to "soothe the anxious and relieve the harried" who are new to the whole bewildering set of protocols; and maybe most of all, "a profound appreciation for the volume of stuff that Thetford can discard in the space of a week."Here's a state championship you won't read about in the sports pages. Hanover High's Mock Trial team is only two years old, but last week in Concord, before US District Court Judge Joseph LaPlante, the eight-member team prevailed over a team from Phillips Exeter Academy—whose teams have been perennial winners in the past. "During each round of arguing the case at tournaments, the team is assigned either the Plaintiff or Defense side, and each trial takes between three and four hours to argue," writes social studies teacher Pamala Custer at the link. They move on to nationals in Phoenix in May.A quick look at two school board elections. Hanover's is tomorrow, Lebanon's is next Tuesday, March 11. Neither has contested races.
In Hanover, current school board chair Benjamin Keeney and Carrie Russell are on the ballot for two seats, and the informal group at Kendal that in past years has checked in with school board candidates did it again this year—asking the two to describe their priorities. Their answers at the link above. Voting will take place tomorrow from 7 am to 7 pm at the Richmond School gym (moved from Hanover High because of a basketball playoff game).
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, three candidates are running for three seats. As Clare Shanahan writes in the VN, there are actually five people on the ballot, but two dropped out last week. That leaves Dartmouth College student center director Joseph Castelot, nurse practitioner Kerry O'Hara, and Hanover Street School PTO member Laila Volle; all three have kids in the Lebanon schools. Shanahan talks to all three about their goals.
The 8,000-square-foot skatepark that the town's Parks & Rec Committee wants to build in Elizabeth Park "cleared two hurdles" during town meeting on Saturday, Alex Nuti-de Biasi reports in today's
Journal Opinion
newsletter. "In what amounted to a referendum on the proposal," he writes, "residents voted 120-50 in a paper ballot vote to permit the project to move forward. In the next article, voters then approved a $195,000 appropriation in surplus funds stemming from federal pandemic relief aid."
There's a lot of proposed infrastructure spending on ballots and in floor voting around the state tomorrow, writes Kevin O'Connor in VTDigger. He surveys the landscape, including Killington's $11.2 million bond for water system upgrades, Sharon's proposed $7.1 million bond to expand its elementary school, and Bethel and Royalton's hopes for $6.17 million for additions and improvements to the White River USD's buildings. In addition, Bethel, Hartford, Royalton, Springfield are voting on 1 percent local option sales taxes. And there's more.
The measure she signed last week, writes Ethan DeWitt in
NH Bulletin
, is aimed at making it easier to municipalities and both private and non-profit developers to secure loans for energy-efficiency features in new construction or upgrades. It's actually a revamp of a 2010 law with the same goal, which in the 15 years since it was passed has had no takers. That law
was unworkable for most towns, the head of the state's Business Finance Authority tells DeWitt.
With an eye on controlling deer population, VT wants to revamp some hunting regs. Actually, reports VT Public's Brittany Patterson, the state Fish and Wildlife Board is proposing a slew of changes, including expanding moose-hunting season by three days and expanding fall archery season for turkeys. But the big change would be to allow hunters with rifles and shotguns to kill antlerless deer in the fall; at the moment, they're restricted to bucks. “Under our current regulations, we cannot harvest enough antlerless deer each year to control the deer population in some areas,” deer biologist Nick Fortin explains.A beaver family revitalizes a VT wetland—and helps keep phosphorus out of waterways. The beavers in question took up housekeeping in Geprags Community Park in Hinesburg a few years ago, and not only have plant life and fish flourished as a result, writes Briana Brady for The Citizen, but "the surrounding wetland is now abating phosphorus at a rate higher than some human interventions." That's based on measurements by Bob Hyams, a river ecologist: “I think the majority of people that take out beaver dams think they’re doing it as a public service,” he says. “I just want the state once, one time, to pay landowners for the phosphorus reduction values that beavers created.”The Monday jigsaw. As the Norwich Historical Society's Cam Cross writes, "With spring training underway and the Hopkins Center construction heading toward completion this fall, here's a look back at the spring of 1959, showing intramural baseball against the backdrop of the girders of the rising Hop."
Today's Wordbreak. With a word drawn from an item in Friday's Daybreak.
Heads UpAt the Lebanon Opera House, a celebration of Lauren "Duff" Cummings' life. As you may have read last week, Cummings—who served as LOH's stage manager for over half a century, died on Feb. 21. Today at 5:30, the Opera House is throwing a gathering in his honor, with poetry readings, live musical performances, and multiple chances to share memories of a man who worked with everyone from world-class touring musicians to local student-artists and, as his obit ran, "treated them all the same and made sure their moment in the spotlight was truly special."Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra dress rehearsal. The DSO's winter concert in Rollins Chapel tomorrow evening is sold out, so the Hop is hosting an open dress rehearsal in Rollins this evening at 8 pm. Under the baton of Filippo Ciabatti, they'll be performing Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin and De Falla's El Amor Brujo, featuring a solo by Venezuelan mezzo-soprano Ana Mora. You'll need to get tix in advance—there are no walk-up sales for public tickets.
And driving us into the week...Tommy Crawford, the local actor, composer, and musician, has a new song out. "Come In From the Rain" was originally part of a play, Nia, that was a retelling of Euripides' tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis he created with Jessica Kahkoska and Sarah Wansley. That trio also happens to be the team behind the Vermont Farm Project, the indie musical about farming in the state that premieres in May at Northern Stage. A string band version of "Come In From the Rain" dropped on Friday, with Jen Freise on fiddle, Ben Kogan on double bass, and Marcus Copening on drums joining Crawford on guitar and vocals.See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Associate writer: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
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