By ANDY KIRKALDY

ADDISON COUNTY — The nationwide slowdown in real estate sales has hit Addison County, according to local Multiple Listing Service statistics and real estate professionals, but its impact has not been as deeply felt as in some other areas.

Still, it appears that in most segments of the market the advantage enjoyed by sellers in recent years is slipping away.

“I think we’re going to continue to see things taper off,” said Tom Walsh, owner of Coldwell Banker Bill Beck Real Estate. “We’re going to see things becoming a little more balanced.”

Vergennes real estate appraiser William Benton, also Middlebury’s town assessor, has a similar take. He sees the market remaining strong for homes that sell for less than $200,000, often to first-time buyers, but he expects values in other property categories to level off or even decline somewhat. 

By JOHN FLOWERS

MIDDLEBURY — A group of Middlebury-area parents and youths is vowing to deliver on what a longstanding dream to establish a teen center in Addison County’s shire town.

More than 20 members of the recently-formed Addison County Teens and Friends Committee turned out at Tuesday’s selectboard meeting to describe their efforts to locate, fund and devise programming for a Middlebury-area youth center. They also served notice to selectmen that they would be back to ask for the board’s support — and perhaps some funding — to get the center up and running.

“There’s really a strong momentum to this group,” Friends committee member Dan Beaupre told selectmen. “We think there is enough energy and the time is right to bring this (idea) forward.”

By JOHN FLOWERS

CONRNWALL — Two Addison County men were killed on Sept. 20 when the Ultralite aircraft they were piloting crashed in a wooded area in Cornwall.

Calvin Minor, 63, of New Haven and Mark Reese, 51, of Lincoln, were pronounced dead at the scene of the accident just north of Morse Road in Cornwall, according to a press release issued by the Vermont State Police (VSP) on Thursday.

Police said Reese was teaching Minor the proper techniques in piloting the two-person Ultralite. The craft was a Klaus Cruise 2, trike-style craft. It is a weight-shift controlled aircraft, with a fabric wing, using a Geo Metro four-cylinder engine.

By JOHN FLOWERS

TICONDEROGA, N.Y. — With a final permit now in their grasp, International Paper Co. (IPC) officials confirmed on Thursday they are targeting early November to conduct a controversial, two-week test burn of tire-derived fuel in one of the boilers at the company’s Ticonderoga, N.Y.-based mill.

Vermont officials and environmental groups, meanwhile, vowed to pursue legal action and corporate peer pressure to compel IPC to postpone the test burn until it installs state-of-the-art pollution control equipment at its mill.

“We are prepared to exhaust all available options to prevent this potentially toxic tire burn without… safeguards in place,” Gov. James Douglas, a Middlebury Republican, stated in a press release.