WELCOME BACK TO THE WEEK, UPPER VALLEY!
You've gotta love quiet high pressure (unless your crops need rain, and then just be patient). Any fog or clouds this morning -- and there's none here, but maybe by you? -- will burn off. Then we get a day a lot like yesterday: pure sun, high in the low 80s, low humidity... Do we have to work today? Even better, good sleeping weather again tonight: down into the low 50s by daybreak.College says "Oh, well" on big Thayer hole. Remember the 10-foot mistake that shut down construction on Dartmouth's new engineering and computer science building? After looking at its options, the college has decided to leave well enough alone: It's asking Hanover to approve a new site plan putting the foundation where it is now--about 10 feet south of where it was supposed to be. Fixing the hole itself could harm existing buildings, the college says.Fire in Sharon leaves six homeless. The three-unit apartment on Quimby Mountain Road suffered extensive damage, and one woman was hospitalized after jumping from her second-story window. The fire appears to have broken out on a second-story porch, and marshals are investigating the cause, but say it doesn't appear to be suspicious.Hot on the heels of last week's Globe story, the VN does its own take on WRJ. Writer EmmaJean Holley and photographer Joseph Ressler join forces on a piece that compares old and new: physically, with the United Methodist Church standing between the Barrette Center and The Village, and psychologically, as residents talk gentrification. "[R]ather than (becoming) gentrified in the true sense, it’s actually returning to its former character to some degree," says Matt Bucy. "I would actually say we’re bringing it back to more of the energy of what it used to be here.” (Yep, VN, subscription reqd)Are local bears getting too accustomed to living around people? That's the gist of a thread that popped up on Facebook last night after a Hanover resident asked for suggestions on how to deal with a young bear that visits "throughout the day - coming right up on porch, sitting my kids play area/swing, etc. Not disturbed by people or cars coming and going." Answer: make noise and do whatever you can to scare it away. "If they aren’t afraid, then that’s a problem that needs to be taken care of another way," says one respondent.Norwich town manager proposes higher town tax rate, but overall residential tax rate slated to drop. Chris Katucki, whose Norwich Observer blog digs deep into town affairs, notes that in his proposed budget, Town Manager Herb Durfee is projecting a 2.2 percent increase to the tax rate, even though spending would drop 3.3 percent. However, a drop in the school property tax rate more than offsets the proposed town rise. The selectboard takes the issue up at its meeting Wednesday.By now you may have heard about the Quechee golf course? Someone went free-wheeling at the 10th and 11th holes in the overnight hours Friday night, leaving extensive damage. Hartford police are asking for help finding him or her. The pics tell the story. (This is on the Hartford PD's FB page--if you can't get there, let me know and I'll get you a screenshot: [email protected])VT complied with ICE request to use facial recognition technology to mine driver's licenses. The Washington Post is reporting that "federal investigators have turned state departments of motor vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure." VT, UT and WA offer licenses to undocumented residents, and at least VT and UT agreed to ICE requests for data. In Vermont, "ICE agents only had to file a paper request that was later approved by [DMV] employees," says the NYT in its follow-on. (Thanks for the tip, MT!)East Barnard's Sabra Field has been making prints for 50 years. As a recently divorced mother with two young sons, she moved to VT in 1969 and began making woodblock prints of what she saw around her. As a college student, she'd been inspired by a della Francesca painting: “I saw that great art is composed from what we see,” she tells VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor, “but it is not a replica of what we see.” She'll hold a studio open house this weekend.NH politicians start weeklong "minimum wage challenge" today. Four Democratic legislators, including Grantham Rep. Brian Sullivan, will try to live on $290 this week. That's what someone working 40 hours at the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour would make. The goal: promote the legislature's move to raise the wage to $12/hour, which is on its way to Gov. Chris Sununu's desk. That's $290 for food, housing, transportation... though no one's moving out of their current digs.Somehow, they seem a lot bigger when they bang into your screen at night. Luna moths are one of the gifts of a northern New England summer -- pale, ethereal... and, as this pic on Reddit shows, uncannily good at looking like a running shoe. SO THEN, ABOUT TONIGHT...You could grab a picnic and go hear Turner Round in Leb. Part of the city's Monday Night Concerts in the Park series. The band does mostly '90s hits, sprinkled with classic rock. Joe Mitchell on lead guitar, Shane Walton on drums, Brian Peck on bass, and Chad Gibbs fronts on guitar and vocals. Starts at 7 pm, free.Or you could think about heading to Windsor to hear UVM history prof Amani Whitfield talk about "Dinah, a Vermont slave." In 1783, Stephen Jacob, a Windsor attorney, purchased Dinah in Walpole, NH -- despite the 1777 VT constitution, signed in Windsor, which prohibited slavery for adults. Blind, she was dismissed in 1799 without compensation and became a ward of the town, which sued Jacob for her care. The VT Supreme Court, on which Jacob sat, held in his favor. Whitfield teaches US and Canadian history, and researched the whole sad history for his 2014 book, The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont. At the Farmers Exchange Building starting at 6:30.Daybreak poetry tomorrow. See you then.
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