Archive - Jan 2011 - Page
January 20th
LINCOLN — Lincoln voters on Tuesday narrowly defeated a proposed $2 million bond to fund repairs and upgrades at Lincoln Community School.
Despite the snow and slush that covered county roads on Tuesday, residents came out in large numbers with by some estimates about half of possible voters casting ballots.
The final tally was 222 votes in favor of the bond, and 237 votes against.
ADDISON COUNTY — As cell phones become an integral part of cultural, social and intellectual life, county schools are re-evaluating their approaches to student use of the electronic gizmos — and coming up with some very different policies.
While administrators at Vergennes Union High School this week temporarily instituted new, stricter cell phone rules, Middlebury Union High School was getting ready to loosen its rules at the end of a lengthy evaluation process.
VERGENNES — Vergennes Union High School board members have adopted a 2011-2012 budget for Town Meeting Day approval that would drop spending from the current level by almost $94,000, or 1.06 percent.
Their $8.8 million proposal is the second in two years that would drop spending. The current year’s spending plan of about $8.9 million came in almost $11,000 lower than the previous year’s.
MIDDLEBURY — An ad hoc committee is putting together plans for a major makeover of Middlebury’s fire stations, and local fire officials are scheduled to update residents on those plans at town meeting in March. A bond vote could follow later this year.
“My hope is we would have something to the voters by this summer or fall,” Middlebury Fire Department Chief Rick Cole said on Monday. “We don’t want to rush into anything, but we want to keep things moving.”
ADDISON COUNTY — Addison County dairy farmers may stand to receive some cold, hard cash, pending the U.S. District Court of Vermont’s approval of a settlement agreement submitted in late December.
The Dean Foods Company and representative dairy farmers are waiting for court approval on a $30 million settlement that the two parties signed last month, which would conclude one part of a months-long class-action suit that accused three companies of price-fixing and illegal monopolizing of the Northeast dairy market.
MONTPELIER — Members of the Vermont Farm Bureau meeting last week in Montpelier to outline their five legislative priorities for the 2011 sessions, said they are looking to a new governor and a refreshed legislature to address the most pressing agricultural issues in the state.
MIDDLEBURY — The Middlebury College women’s hockey team on Tuesday defeated visiting Holy Cross, 4-1, a result that followed a split of a crucial weekend NESCAC series at Amherst that allowed the Panthers to hold onto first place in the league.
The Panthers are 9-3-1 overall, 7-1-1 in NESCAC, while Amherst is 7-4-2, 6-1-1 NESCAC.
What a coincidence!
I was in Maine visiting family last Saturday when the Middlebury basketball teams just happened to be in Lewiston to play against Bates College. So I decided to take in the men’s and women’s games (I actually watched Bates play Williams the night before, too).
Bates plays their basketball games in Alumni Gymnasium. Constructed in 1928, it’s the oldest New England college gym still hosting varsity basketball, and indeed one of the oldest such arenas in the country.
