A LITTLE LATE IN THE MORNING FOR THIS, BUT OH WELL: RABBIT RABBIT, UPPER VALLEY!
Might as well just get used to it. So, there's this large area of low pressure that seems to have nothing better to do this week than knock around between the Great Lakes and New England. The result: rain off and on for the next few days. You should know that smaller waterways are already rising in some spots, though main rivers have been slower to respond. Meanwhile, temps today reaching toward 60 and we'll likely get some sun later before things cloud over again. Winds from the southwest, low 40s tonight.But hey: We also get the occasional rainbow. Like this one, from Dan Bornstein in Norwich.New London Park & Ride closed starting this evening. NHDOT is repaving and striping the large lot off I-89 Exit 12 this week, and all vehicles will have to be removed—any left there today will be towed. They expect the lot to reopen first thing Thursday morning.Cyclist killed in NEK gravel bike race. Richard Wanstall of Marblehead, MA was headed south during the Rasputitsa in Burke on Saturday when, according to VT State Police, he "entered into the northbound side of the roadway" at the same time that a pickup was headed north. The two collided head on. Wanstall was taken by ambulance to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead. "Neither speed nor impairment are believed to be contributing factors in the collision," the VSP says. As Ken Picard points out in Seven Days, this follows less than a year after a fatal crash at the VT Overland in West Windsor.“The amount of independence people have here, the freedom, is surprising for me.” Abdullah Shah spent 15 years fighting for the Afghan military before he became a refugee following the fall of Kabul—and wound up living at the Hotel Coolidge in WRJ and working as a housekeeper at Alice Peck Day. The fact that Shah and other Afghan refugees are resettling here is thanks to the concerted efforts of a corps of volunteers around the Upper Valley, and in the Valley News, Liz Sauchelli talks to them and to Shah about what it's taken. One huge milestone for Shah: getting a driver's license.King Arthur to stop mail-order fulfillment from Wilder facility next year; 19 employees affected. The move comes because of space constraints, staffing challenges, rising costs, and the time it takes the company's VT operation to deliver, reports Fred Thys in VTDigger. The Norwich store will continue its retail operations. In recent years, King Arthur's Carey Underwood tells Thys, the company has been outsourcing online sales to third parties; these days, only about 21 percent of packages are shipped from its facility. The employees affected are being given 14 months to find a new job within the company.“I’m not giving up. All I want to do is get healed up and get back to Vermont.” That's Keith Gokey, the homeless man who was hospitalized in December after a fire broke out in the "mobile shelter" he was inhabiting in Hartford. Gokey is still at a hospital in Boston, reports Jim Kenyon in the VN—with medical bills that are likely to exceed $1 million and no insurance coverage. Lebanon attorney Charlie Buttrey is representing him, and tells Kenyon he expects to hire an independent investigator to look into the fire's cause, which fire officials say remains undetermined. Here's VP's 4/18 story.No Mow May gets some scrutiny. It's on the agenda at tonight's Thetford Selectboard meeting, writes Alex Nuti-de Biasi in today's Journal Opinion newsletter. Proponents argue that not cutting lawns in May gives "bees and other pollinators a wonderful playground of floral resources at a critical time in their lifecycles," as the state of VT puts it. Critics say it promotes ticks—or, as one entomologist tells the WSJ (no paywall), letting grass grow then cutting it just teases pollinators "with short-term snacks followed by starvation." “Even lawns have become politicized these days,” a WI city council member says.Plenty of amphibians made it safely across roads on mid-April Big Night. But plenty didn't. In Sidenote, Li Shen reports on the results of tallies by volunteers who spent several hours on Academy and Tucker Hill roads in Thetford the rainy night of April 17, as salamanders and toads made their way to vernal pools. The volunteers were mostly there to collect data to help planners and others take amphibian crossings into account. "It’s kind of unbelievable that with only 15 or 20 cars we had so many dead salamanders," one volunteer said. "I can’t imagine any survive at all on busier state roads.NH House gap gets one seat narrower. Last week, GOP Rep. Benjamin Bartlett, who represented Nottingham, resigned his seat. The move brings the GOP majority to 200 to 196, pending special elections. Bartlett told reporters at the time that he was stepping down for health reasons—he cast only a single vote this year. But as NHPR's Todd Bookman reports, Bartlett is being investigated by the US Dept of Veterans Affairs, where he works, for a possible violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from holding partisan political office. Steven Porter's more extensive Globe story is here. Ben & Jerry's scoopers make progress in union effort. You'll remember that employees at the company's flagship store in Burlington announced plans a few weeks ago to organize, citing complaints about working conditions and seeking a greater say in the workplace. Now, reported Derek Brouwer in Seven Days on Friday, the company has agreed to a set of "fair election principles," which may allow employees "to form a union more quickly and potentially without holding a formal election." "We are incredibly proud of them for working with us in this manner," says one scooper.“There are so many interesting stories with wine." Which is a big reason that Kelsey Rush, who runs Putnam's Vine/yard in WRJ, tells Patrick O'Grady for his piece on wine in the VN's Enterprise mag, "We want wine with a story behind it." And, O'Grady writes, in both VT and NH there are plenty of possibilities. "Northern New England is developing a following among wine lovers," he writes, in no small part thanks to the work of Dierdre Heekin and her La Garagista winery in Barnard. Today, O'Grady reports, there are about 20 winemakers in VT and 30 in NH using cold-weather varietals.The Monday Vordle. With a word from Friday's Daybreak.
Heads Up
This evening at 6, Upper Valley Young Professionals is holding an all-ages, non-partisan "civic engagement" workshop at the Howe Library in Hanover. The workshop will cover ways of taking action on public issues you care about, how to run for local office, and how to speak publicly on matters of concern. "This session will be focused on New Hampshire, but the strategies will apply for Vermonters too," they write. "No matter how much (or how little) you know about state and local government, you are invited to attend this session." Though you'll need to register.
And to launch us into the week...
Wainright's got a new album coming out next month,
Folkocracy,
with the likes of Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow, David Byrne, Legend, and others. "I just invited all the singers that I greatly admire and always wanted to sing with," Wainright said recently.
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
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