By JOHN FLOWERS

MIDDLEBURY — Mary Hogan Elementary School teachers returned to classes this week to find familiar surroundings, new students and a new labor contract.

Middlebury Elementary Teachers Association (META) representatives and ID-4 school district officials confirmed on Monday that both sides have ratified a new, three-year pact that will dictate teachers’ compensation through the 2008-2009 academic years.

Addison Central Supervisory Union (ACSU) Superintendent Lee Sease said he may soon have some more good news to announce on the subject of teachers’ contracts at other schools within his district. It appears as though teachers at the other ACSU elementary schools in Cornwall, Weybridge, Bridport, Ripton, Salisbury and Shoreham have “come to a tentative agreement on a new, multi-year deal,” according to Sease.

By ANDY KIRKALDY

FERRISBURGH — Ferrisburgh selectmen have followed the recommendation of the town’s planning commission and voted, 4-0, to end discussions with The Infill Group about a proposed extension of Vergennes sewer service into the town.

The decision, made at an Aug. 24 meeting, appears to close some options for the future development of a 32-acre parcel near the Ferrisburgh village.

Infill head Bill Niquette has a deal with Vergennes aldermen to pay $1 million for a two-mile sewer extension that could have served the Ferrisburgh village area near the intersection of Route 7 and Little Chicago Road, including the town’s school and existing and proposed town office buildings. The proposed extension had a capacity of 100,000 gallons a day, enough to handle more than 400 homes and businesses.

By JOHN FLOWERS

MIDDLEBURY — As a recovering addict, there were few places Michael Emilio could go in the evening where he wasn’t surrounded by temptation. Bars and concert venues produced strong whiffs of alcohol and drugs — the very substances he was seeking to avoid.

“One of the things they teach you in rehab is you have to change people, places and things,” Emilio said.

Those changes soon will be easier for Emilio and other recovering substance abusers to make thanks to a new gathering place for recovering addicts called the Turningpoint Center of Addison County, which will be established in the Marble Works shopping complex this fall.

The center will rent space formerly occupied by Vermont Magazine in what the Marble Works Partnership refers to as the “stone building” that faces Printer’s Alley.

Political movements that catch the public’s imagination can spread like a prairie fire across the nation. From town to town, state to state, the movement’s idealism is spread by word of mouth — fanned by media coverage and today’s internet — and fueled by millions of people wanting to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

The political movement that most fits this description today is global warming. Al Gore’s book “An Inconvenient Truth,� and the subsequent movie have done much to popularize the issue in recent months, taking off from previous works on environmental issues, including Bill McKibben’s landmark book, “The End of Nature.�

In an attempt to harness the eagerness of people to embrace this issue and make it the number one cause on America’s agenda, a well-publicized five-day walk is scheduled for Labor Day weekend starting in Ripton and ending in Burlington. That the walk starts in Ripton has much to do with the fact that McKibben lives there, that Robert Frost’s writing cabin is there, and that Middlebury College student Will Bates and a few others who helped organize the walk, could imagine no better place to reflect on Earth’s beauty and the reasons why it is so important to protect what is within our ability.