GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Yep. Rain. With both low pressure and an upper-level disturbance moving through on high, there's a chance rising to a likelihood this afternoon and into the evening. Chance of thunder, too. Temps won't really budge, maybe reaching 60. Winds from the east this afternoon, mid-50s tonight.A face only a mother could love. Photographer Lisa Lacasse was out with a birding group recently in Haverhill when they chanced on this wolf spider. "I am rethinking going barefoot in any grass," she writes. (Wolf spiders are venomous, but it's mostly their prey that has to worry; they're not dangerous to humans, though a bite will hurt.)Leb City Council to consider dropping Cape Air this week. Wednesday evening's vote comes after a Lebanon Airport review committee endorsed a bid by Southern Airways to replace longtime carrier Cape Air for service to Boston and New York once its four-year contract ends at the end of November. Cape Air currently flies passengers twice a day to the White Plains airport and four times a day to Boston; Southern's proposal is to fly from Lebanon to Newark Airport, reports Laura Koes in the Valley News.As residents organize on staff concerns, Norwich Selectboard says it needs a second consultant. Amid turmoil over problems staffing the town's police and public works departments, the board just posted a statement saying it's gotten no report from the HR consultant it hired in April; an investigator looking into allegations by employees found "no violations of law or town policies"; and it plans to hire a consultant for "collaborative team building" between staff and elected officials. Meanwhile, a group of residents aim to elect three new board members dedicated to "rebuilding our municipal services."Last week's arrest in that attack on an I-91 construction worker? Wrong guy. The VT State Police on Friday confirmed that Ryan Avery, the 45-year-old arrested Wednesday for allegedly slashing a highway construction worker with a broken bottle, "was recorded elsewhere on surveillance video" at the time of the attack, reports Alan J. Keays in VTDigger. Avery was one of three possible suspects identified by a VSP social worker consulting with local police and mental health workers, and the victim had pointed him out in a photo lineup, Keays writes.Speaking of police photos... Someone stole a catalytic converter out of one of the school buses parked at Hartland Elementary School on Saturday, and the VSP has photos of a gray, extended-cab pickup and a man in a hoodie "suspected to be involved" in the theft. They're looking for the public's help.Cyanobacteria in Lake Morey "the worst in recent memory.” It's been a concern for several years, with phosphorus runoff, leaking septic systems, and other issues feeding algal blooms, but this year, reports Frances Mize in the VN, the combination of drought and higher-than-normal temps has created "thickets of algae" in some sections of the lake that stick out of the water. The town is trying to gather data on which causes are most pressing. In the meantime, the town beach is closed and Fairlee Health Officer Chris Brimmer says that if you do make contact with the lake, "Hose off."Baker's Store in Post Mills, Village Store in Thetford Center for sale due to gasoline clash. Baker's was due to close yesterday and the Village Store has already been shuttered, writes Li Shen in Sidenote, after owner Cameron Gregory was unable to come to terms with Global Partners, his stores' gasoline wholesaler. First, Gregory was forced to negotiate with three different VPs; then Global shut off the card readers on his pumps; then, recently, Gregory saw the latest, highly unfavorable, contract terms. Meanwhile, he'd lost an estimated $60,000 to $100,000 in sales. He's optimistic Baker's will find a buyer.Mobile mental health crisis team shows "promising" early returns. In the VN, Jim Kenyon spends time with Zack Brock, a small-town-cop-turned-mental-health-clinician who's part of West Central Behavioral Health's mobile crisis response team. The team, which serves Sullivan and southern Grafton counties, has been able to intervene early in crises, often helping people avoid trips to the emergency room and sidestep police involvement, Kenyon reports. “It’s a culture shift," says West Central's Bill Metcalfe. (NH's Rapid Response crisis line is open 24/7 at 833-710-6477; the national crisis hotline is at 988.)Community power programs in NH move closer to reality. On Friday, reports NHPR's Mara Hoplamazian, a state legislative committee approved rules by which municipalities around the state can buy electricity on behalf of residents—a move NH Consumer Advocate Don Kreis calls "the best energy news in New Hampshire that I've heard in a very long time." Lebanon's plan was approved by the Public Utilities Commission on Aug. 30—the first in the state—contingent on the new rules, and assistant mayor Clifton Below says programs could start up next spring.Jay Peak sale approved; Burke next. “It's actually a pretty good resolution," a federal judge said Friday after court-appointed receiver Michael Goldberg laid out the details of the three-way, 48-round bidding war Sept. 7 that resulted in Jay's sale to Utah-based Pacific Group Resorts, Inc. Goldberg expects the sale will net about $70 million, which will be returned to investors defrauded in the EB-5 scandal—about 40 cents on the dollar, reports VTDigger's Alan J. Keays. Goldberg added that a sale of Burke Mountain Resort is also in the offing, but did not disclose potential buyers.The Monday Vordle. Based on a word from Friday's Daybreak.
Heads Up
This evening at 6:30 pm, both in-person and online, the Howe Library is hosting a reading by writers who contributed to the new issue of Clamantis, the literary journal of Dartmouth's graduate MALS program. Fiction, poetry, non-fiction...
And at 7 pm, also online, the Norwich Bookstore hosts a reading of new work—mostly poetry—by four authors published by NYC-based Four Way Books: Julia Guez, Nathan McClain, Doug Anderson, and Daniel Wolff.
And some music to get the week going...
On Friday, WRJ-based guitarist, singer, songwriter, and actor Tommy Crawford released his first solo studio album,
Athena and the Moon
,
whose title track he wrote for his daughter, who loves the moon. You may remember him as Paul McCartney in Northern Stage's 2018 production of
Only Yesterday
. Crawford, who moved to the Upper Valley last year, is also the music director and co-founder of the NYC-based band and theater collective, The Lobbyists.
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See you tomorrow.
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Reading Deeper
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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