SO WE MEET AGAIN, UPPER VALLEY!
Ahhh, summer: warm days, cool nights. Today: Mostly sunny, high grazing 80, down into the 50s tonight. We've got a string of these coming, a bit warmer each day. You never want to say we deserve weather, but... we deserve this weather.Hanover Planning Board gives college go-ahead to keep building right where it is. The board voted last night to let Dartmouth continue constructing its new engineering and computer science building over the existing foundation -- which, as you'll remember, was dug 10 feet south from where the official plans called for it to be. (VN, sub reqd)Co-op activists re-mobilize. Remember Concerned About the Co-op? They'll be at tonight's Hanover Co-op board meeting. The board last month moved to replace the old "Ends" policy -- which guides management -- with language approved by just half the board at a May retreat. Gone is language about employees' well-being and the Co-op's charitable, educational, and agricultural role in the community. In its place: a good shopping experience and shoppers understanding the impacts of their choices. CATC wants more member input.New invasive plant gaining foothold in region. Rhonda Benoit, a volunteer with the Springfield-based Black River Action Team, has found Japanese butterbur in Woodstock. Also known as Giant Coltsfoot, it grows large leaves in dense clumps, especially alongside streams, rivers and ponds. Benoit is working with the Woodstock Conservation Commission to survey the Ottauquechee watershed for more. The only other known population in VT is in Burlington. Pics at the link: plant stalk in April, huge leaves last week.Speaking of Woodstock, it's been a year since the fire that destroyed Pi Brick Oven Trattoria and the offices of the Vermont Standard. The VN's Jordan Cuddemi follows up. The fire, which cause $1 million in damage, was set, but state police haven't identified the culprit. “We have several potential suspects,” Detective Sgt. Steve Otis tells Cuddemi. Meanwhile, the space is still empty, and still in limbo.Phil Hanlon pens open letter to Sununu urging him to sign voting-rights bills. Students "care deeply about state and local policies that directly affect their lives," Dartmouth's president says in yesterday's letter. The NH guv has three bills on his desk essentially repealing GOP-passed measures that require proof of domicile and tighten residency requirements. Give blood, help a stray. D-H is trying to bump up blood and plasma donations in July. It's got a deal going with West Leb Feed & Supply: Every time someone donates, they'll donate a bag of pet food to the UV Humane Society. They're at 59 so far, and are hoping to get to 100.Man seeks re-trial, claiming Leb police officers had undisclosed complaints against them. This is a little complicated. In 2007, Scott Traudt was convicted of assaulting now-deputy chief Phillip Roberts after a roadside sobriety stop. He spent 364 days in prison. His lawyer now says that either Roberts or his partner at the time, Richard Smolenski, had a disciplinary history, contrary to what the state claimed, and that Traudt deserves a new trial. Traudt's now working as a commercial fisherman in RI.Brattleboro, enmired in drug problems, argues over compassion vs. crackdown. The town and surrounding Windham County have less than 7 percent of Vermont's population but account for a quarter of its reported opioid problem. Downtown residents and merchants are fed up. But, writes VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor, "a push by some residents against stigmatizing or shaming people is discouraging others from joining the conversation for fear they’ll be stigmatized or shamed themselves."Emotions run high at health insurance rate hearing. State regulators met yesterday to consider requests from Blue Cross Blue Shield and MVP Health Care for rate increases on insurance they offer through VT Health Connect, the state's exchange. The insurers say costs are rising. “I’m not getting any 10 percent raise this year, my colleagues aren’t getting any 10 percent raise this year, my clients are certainly not getting that raise either,” a social worker responded at the hearing. Warning: This has a sad ending, but... VT Fish & Wildlife officials have had to euthanize a bear after it twice broke into the same home in Underhill. Getting in through screened windows, it opened the refrigerator and snagged cheese, grapes, maple syrup and bread. Officials worried the bear had lost its fear of people, and could become "a potential threat to human safety."Don't try this at home: Guy sets record for hiking all of NH's 4000-footers...12 times. It's called the White Mountains 4,000-footer single-year grid, and to do it you have to summit each of the 48 peaks a dozen times in one year. Only one other person has ever managed the feat -- Sue Johnson, the ultrarunner, who did it in 2016. But this month, Philip Carcia finished up in 319 days, beating Johnson's mark by five weeks. "That adds up to 576 total peak summits in a year, and over 2,700 miles of hiking, with more than one million feet of elevation gain," notes Outside. How do you even have time for a life?SO... GOT PLANS?Well, for starters, it's the diamond jubilee (75 years!!!) of the N. Haverhill Fair. The fair starts today at 4 with youth steer pulling, a classic car show, Rosaire's Racing Pigs, the Michael Vincent Band at 7, a 6 & 8 cylinder demolition derby and mini-van demolition derby. Continues tomorrow-Sunday with ox pulls, tractor pulls, sheep/beef/dairy/goat shows, music every night, and, well, yeah, all the fried dough and fair food you can eat.Or you could head to Randolph, and the Chandler, for a party celebrating last Friday's "Whale Dance" installation. That's the sculpture just installed on land by I-89. The Randolph Community Orchard, Preservation Trust of VT, and VT Community Foundation, which all had a hand in the sudden new addition to the landscape, are hosting. Runs from 5-7 pm, all invited.Every Wednesday during the summer, Loch Lyme Lodge holds a cookout with music. Tonight, it's the Revels North singers. Plus meatball sliders, pulled pork, grilled chicken, local sausages, mac n' cheese, potato salad, couscous and tomato, buttermilk pie.... There's more, but it's bad to drool on your keyboard. Starts at 5:30, reservations required: 603.795.2141.Meanwhile, over in Barnard, historian Howard Coffin will be talking about "1800 and Froze to Death." Or more precisely, 1816. That was the year Vermont and other states had no summer. Frosts every month, mysterious lights in the sky, crop failures, farmers lighting out for the west... Coffin, who's written four books about the Civil War, will be at the Barnard Historical Society filled with anecdotes and the year's place in history. Starts at 7. Have a fantastic day out there. See you tomorrow.
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