Archive - Mar 2011 - Page
March 24th
ADDISON COUNTY — What’s the big difference between this year’s maple sugar season and last year’s?
The snow.
A burden to some and a blessing to others, local sugarmakers say this winter’s massive snowfall is setting the tone for the year’s sugar season.
“It’s just been a struggle,” said Bill Heffernan of Heffernan Family Sugarworks in Starksboro about tapping 9,500 trees beginning on Feb. 16. “It’s tough in three to four feet of snow.”
STARKSBORO — Elementary school teacher, private guitar tutor and local musician Will J. Parini, 28, of Starksboro was arrested last Thursday, March 17, on a federal charge for one count of distributing child pornography. The arrest came exactly one week after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a court-authorized search warrant for Parini’s Route 116 home in Starksboro.
MIDDLEBURY — As Japan struggles to rebuild following the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, people across the world are following closely the aftermath — and its implications for nuclear power worldwide.
A Monday panel discussion at Middlebury College brought in experts from the faculty to address a wide range of topics — cultural and anthropological, historic and scientific.
Kyoko Davis, a professor of Japanese studies, led off the event, speaking to the four dozen people who had gathered to hear experts speak on the issue.
BRIDPORT — Although the Legislature is primarily occupied with bigger state budget and health care bills, several lawmakers joined farmers and other interested people to discuss agriculture issues that affect the county at the annual ag legislative luncheon at the Bridport Community Hall on Monday.
MIDDLEBURY — Local officials here would like to mark the 100th birthday of the Middlebury municipal office building by putting together a plan to destroy the porous structure and replace it with something more utilitarian and energy efficient.
It was on Nov. 5, 2002, that residents voted 1,443-1,334 against a $6 million plan for a new, 13,982-square-foot, two-story municipal office/police building that would have been attached to a renovated municipal gym at the intersection of College and South Main streets.
BRIDPORT — School directors in Bridport and Ripton are looking for new principals to fill impending leadership vacancies in their respective elementary schools.
Bridport Central Principal Georgette Childs and Marta Beede, leader of Ripton Elementary School, recently confirmed they will be stepping down at the end of this academic year.
BRANDON — The Neshobe Family Practice medical building on the site of the former Brandon Training School had to shut down last week after a sewer problem followed by a water problem.
Brandon Town Manager Keith Arlund said he was alerted on March 10 that a lateral sewer line to the building adjacent to the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union offices was compromised after a clean-out box came apart.
When public works crews were working to fix the sewer line, they discovered a leaking water main, Arlund said.
(Written with Kenn Hastings and Valerie Smith Hastings)
Spring teases, as is her wont in March. Longer days and the pendulum swing of the thermometer can mean only one thing. The sap is rising.
