Archive - Feb 27, 2012
MIDDLEBURY — Late in the third period of Saturday’s NESCAC quarterfinal, the Middlebury College men’s hockey team had a couple monkeys on its back despite the Panthers’ much-improved play of late.
The Panthers (now 13-9-3 overall) had shrugged off a midseason slump with a 5-1-1 surge to seize the No. 3 seed in the NESCAC playoffs with an 11-6-1 league mark. That seed earned them the right to host No. 6 Wesleyan on Saturday.
SHOREHAM — Shoreham residents at their March 5 town meeting will be asked to finally resolve a longstanding debate on how to improve their municipal offices. Specifically, residents will vote on whether to spend $450,000 for a new, larger office building that would be located near the current one on the town common.
LEICESTER/WHITING/GOSHEN — The past two years have seen reduced budgets for schools around the state, but the 2012-2013 fiscal year spending at Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union elementary schools looks to be on the rise once again.
“Over the last few years we’ve done so much cutting that there’s not much left to cut,” said Matt Brush, chair of the Leicester Central School board, which warned a budget with a spending increase of 4.6 percent over the current year.
LEICESTER/SALISBURY — When the last ice melts off, the annual battle for Lake Dunmore will begin again. On one side: an army of volunteers, paid divers and milfoil specialists. On the other: an underwater invasive plant called Eurasian watermilfoil.
The population of milfoil in Lake Dunmore and Fern Lake has grown tenfold since 2009, and is expected to double again this season, according to Jay Michaels, a trustee of the Lake Dunmore and Fern Lake Association (LDFLA)
VERGENNES — City leaders are inching closer to identifying a site for a new Vergennes police station. At their Feb. 21 meeting, aldermen sliced five of 13 potential sites from a working list they had been eyeing.
City Manager Mel Hawley said on Thursday the five sites that did not make the cut met the original criteria set by the council — they fronted on a Class 1 or 2 road, offered at least 1 usable acre, and were not in a residential area — but were the lowest ranked by aldermen on the single basis of location.
VERGENNES — After making a couple of tweaks they discussed in January, Vergennes aldermen on Feb. 21 adopted their first official conflict of interest policy, one that largely follows a Vermont League of Cities and Towns template.
In their discussions in recent meetings, aldermen said they have never known an instance where a member of the council has acted in a manner that would violate such a policy.
But they have also agreed it would clarify for members of the public what guidelines they follow and make public what rules future councils will follow.
MIDDLEBURY — While lawmakers and visitors at the Feb. 20 Legislative Breakfast at Middlebury’s American Legion Hall principally talked about the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, other discussion at the breakfast focused on:
