Archive - May 19, 2011
VERGENNES — It was a chilly Feb. 15, and Rep. Greg Clark, R-Vergennes, knew he shouldn’t be perspiring. But he was.
Clark, 63, had just returned to his room in the Hilltop Inn in Berlin, where he stays during the legislative session. He had just attended a GOP caucus, ironically on the issue of health care legislation, and was starting to feel ill.
BRISTOL — The proposed Bristol Police District budget for the 2011-2012 fiscal year represents a 10.5 percent cut in spending and would require 6.5 percent less funding from taxpayers. Residents of the district, which roughly overlaps with the Bristol village, will vote on the proposal on Monday, May 23, in a 7 p.m. meeting at Holley Hall.
VERGENNES — Vergennes Union High School has won a $137,700 grant from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation to further the school’s effort to require students to demonstrate proficiency in self-designed portfolios before graduation.
VUHS hopes to switch to “Performance-Based Graduation Requirements” (PBGRs) by 2016, according to its grant application to the foundation.
MIDDLEBURY — A Monday morning fire at the Middlebury College biomass plant has forced the facility offline until repairs can be made.
College officials have determined that the fire began around 7 a.m., and fire crews from Middlebury and Cornwall arrived on scene soon afterward. Crews quickly concentrated the fire to one location within the building, extinguished the flames, and left the scene at about 9:30 a.m. No one was injured in the fire, and employees who had been evacuated from surrounding buildings were allowed to return to work.
LEICESTER — The town of Leicester will commence celebration of its 250th year with a community picnic, but that’s just the beginning.
Leicester selectboard chair Diane Benware said Monday that planning is ongoing and more ideas and participants are welcome.
“We’re looking at this picnic as being the kick-off,” Benware said.
I was driving one of my sons to one of his many activities on Monday evening. The thunder I’d heard in the afternoon was no long rumbling, and the rain had subsided from pounding to merely steady. As we crossed the one-lane bridge on Route 116, I glanced down at the New Haven River. It was swollen and murky — too high to invite fishing — but not quite at flood stage. I was surprised. Despite the tapering off of the rain, I’d been expecting the water to be even higher.
MIDDLEBURY — The coach with the most wins and highest winning percentage in the history of the Middlebury College men’s basketball program is staying put.
VERGENNES — “The Very Dickens,” a theatrical production that will be staged at the Vergennes Opera House this weekend, has few props, one actor and no set. Over the course of two hours, however, members of the audience meet some 20 characters and participate in a sing-along.
