GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
These fronts just keep rolling through. Today will start out nicely, and it'll be calm into the afternoon, with highs getting into the 70s. Chance of showers starting in the late afternoon, growing to a likelihood by early evening. Also a chance of thunderstorms before midnight, with serious winds, maybe lightning, possible hail -- though you'll be relieved to know that low relative humidity "will limit tornado threat." This system is moving eastward pretty quickly, so whatever we get will clear out in rapid order. Dartmouth has three sites in mind for biomass plant. At a public forum last night, the college unveiled its plans to replace its current downtown oil-burning plant with a wood-chip plant. Two of the proposed sites are just north of campus: behind Dewey lot and at the south end of the golf course. The third would be at Trumbull-Nelson's former home on Route 120. Audience concerns centered around the 14-16 fuel deliveries a day the new plant will require--compared to 3-6 now--and the potential impact on the golf course.People in the Mascoma Valley are tired of waiting for progress on fixing up the old Grafton meeting house on Route 4. A group called Mascoma Valley Preservation is launching a petition drive to save the historic building, which burned three years ago and has been caught in a set-to between the town and the church that owns it. "We've been working on a deal for a while, but we are stalemated by distrust and grudges and the Valley News caught wind of our efforts, so we are releasing the news far in advance of where we are comfortable," the group said on FB last night.Vital Communities' "Heroes and Leaders Dinner" is a week from tonight, and the list of honorees is out. There's no earth-shattering news here, but it's a bracing reminder of how much we owe the people who sink energy and creativity into making this region so vibrant. JAG Productions' Jarvis Green, the Norwich Bookstore's Liza Bernard and Penny McConnel, Claremont Savings Bank Community Center's Ivy Condon, West Leb Feed & Supply's Curt and Sharon Jacques, Edgewater Farm, Granite United Way's Prudence Pease, Sunrise Farm's Chuck Wooster... and half a dozen more. You should go read about all of them.Wrong-way crash driver found guilty. After 11 hours of deliberation, a jury in Burlington found Steven Bourgoin guilty of the 2016 crash that killed a student from Kimball Union Academy and five students from Harwood Union High School. The jury rejected the argument that Bourgoin had been insane at the time. Afterward, as parents held photos of their children, the mother of one of them told the press, "We’d like it to be about the kids now and no more about Steven Bourgoin."With developer fraud indictments, things could get ugly. The indictment yesterday of former Jay Peak owner Ariel Quiros and its former CEO, Bill Stenger, may set the stage for revelations about state officials' involvement in their development scheme. According to VTDigger, Quiros' lead attorney says that "documents released in discovery could reveal the involvement of the state’s congressional delegation, former employees and past governors." Boston Fed launches "Working Communities Challenge" in VT. For the last six years, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has been running a competitive grant program in MA, CT, and RI aimed at encouraging mid-sized post-industrial cities to build collaborative economic development efforts. It's now rolling the program out to Vermont, in hopes that what it learns about rural communities will help it expand to NH and ME. The state and a variety of private partners will also help fund it. Details are unclear. "We’re kind of building the plane while flying it,” says the Boston Fed's president.Speaking of flying, Burlington Airport has grown to the point where it's now urging passengers to arrive two hours early. Seriously. The addition of Frontier Airlines and nonstop service to Denver are driving passenger growth, 130,000 more this fiscal year over last. Isn't avoiding all that why you go to small airports?And speaking of crowds... NH is cracking down on highway-side parking at Franconia Notch. If you've ever hiked there, especially on a weekend, you know the deal: People park all up and down I-93. The state doesn't like this, so it's putting up bollards to block the shoulders, and then beefing up shuttle service from Cannon Mountain. “We don’t want to just say ‘You can’t park!’ and then have 500-600 cars up there trying to figure out what to do,” says a state DOT guy. Thoughtful of them....The beer industry produces $294 million in wages in VT, $603 million in NH. That's according to a new 50-state study by the National Beer Wholesalers Association and the Beer Institute. They look both at wages and total economic impact from everything associated with brewing and distributing. The interactive report lets you chart jobs, wages and activity by state, congressional district, and state house and senate district. Hmm, wonder what they compiled it that way for?If voters in NH are asking presidential candidates pointed questions, there may be a reason: They were trained. NPR is up with a story about the efforts by advocacy groups to help voters frustrated by non-committal answers to pin candidates down. It's called bird-dogging, and the idea is to learn how to get called on, then ask a question so specific that it reveals a candidate's actual position on a given issue. What bird-doggers have in common, says NHPR reporter Jason Moon, "is a frustration with canned political responses and a desire to...out-manipulate the manipulators."USA Today is out with its list of the 10 best small towns for shopping, and the only New England town that makes the grade is Montpelier. Towns were picked by popular vote from a list of 20 finalists. Montpelier's #3, right there between Dahlonega, Georgia and Ponchatoula, Louisiana. Other towns around New England must be green with envy. (Thanks for the tip to the person who pointed it out, who added, "Montpelier? It's two streets. You think they meant to say Montreal?") OKAY THURSDAY NIGHT, WHAT'CHA GOT FOR US?Well, you might think about Counterpoint, the Montpelier-based professional a cappella ensemble founded by Robert De Cormier, in Fairlee. They're doing a joint performance with the Adventure Kids Choir of "Six Degrees," a music/video/narrative piece about climate change. Music from across the globe, in observance of the fact that not only are we all connected, but we all face the changing climate's effects. At Fairlee Town Hall, starting at 7 pm.There'll be a showing of Downstream: The Effects of Parental Incarceration at the Briggs in WRJ. The film is by Corinth filmmaker Brad Salon and mental health counselor Tricia Long, who works with kids who have a parent in prison. It's about the struggles that families--and especially children--face when a parent is sent away. The film focuses on Vermont, but of course the problems are hardly unique to one state. Hosted by Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, and there'll be a panel conversation afterward with some of the film's participants. Starts at 6:30 pm.You know how sometimes on a long drive you pass a bunch of roadside historic markers and wonder what it would be like just to stop and read each one? Michael Bruno did it. At least, he did for 255 of the 257 you'll find in New Hampshire, and then wrote a book about them: Cruising New Hampshire History. (Two were added after the book came out). Bruno will be at the Fiske Library in Claremont talking about the state's history as told through its markers. His research even generated a petition drive to create a marker for Frances Glessner Lee at The Rocks Estate in Bethlehem, where she created miniature crime dioramas that were (and still are) used as a police forensics training tool. Starts at 6 pm.Doesn't that just make you want to hit the road and see what you can learn? See you tomorrow.
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