The Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office will be emailing out a poll to Representative Town Meeting Members regarding their interest in Town provided childcare for RTM. This email will come from executive assistant Jessica Sticklor (email address: jsticklor@brattleboro.org). Please be on the lookout for this email and please return the poll as soon as possible, especially if you are interested in Town provided childcare for RTM.
The Brattleboro Town Clerk’s office would like to notify the public that on January 24, 2023, our land records system will be down for maintenance, both on-site and remote. This will impact all recording and land records searching capabilities through the system. We will be back up and running on Wednesday, January 25, 2023. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please reach out with any questions – 802-251-8157 or townclerk@brattleboro.org
We took some time to ask Brattleboro’s new Town Manager, John Potter, a few questions about his return to New England and thoughts about the town and his new job.
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Welcome to Brattleboro! It’s always fun to catalog initial impressions. When you look around Brattleboro, what do you see and how does it look to you?
The last time I was in Brattleboro before interviewing for the Town Manager position was around thirty years ago when I came to town to buy a couple of draft horses for a woodlot operation I was running in Massachusetts. When returning this winter, the town looks very similar to what I remembered from years ago — a classic Vermont river town with kind and welcoming people who really care about their community.
1. Call to order
2. Approve minutes
3. Review existing charter with town attorney
4. Follow up discussion
In case it is of interest, fyi:
Advocacy Retirement:
BCTV Channel 1078 Weekly Schedule for 1/16/23
Monday, January 16, 2023
5:00 am Brooks Memorial Library Events – The Buddha’s Politics as a Religious Leader 11/16/22
6:40 am Brattleboro Literary Festival – Janice Nimura & Allison Gilbert
8:00 am Democracy Now! – Democracy Now! Daily Broadcast
9:00 am The Talk, Vermont – Hopes and Challenges of Black Democrats
WHO IS HIDING AMONG THE VARIABLES?
G-D, IN PLAIN SIGHT HIDES RIGHT THERE
What if someone of consequence and world attention, difficult for US monopolized and controlled media to ignore, reminded us that one year before receiving a bullet to his brain, King had made bold print headlines in newspapers worldwide reading,”KING CALLS US “GREATEST PURVEYOR OF VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD..”[1]
Would it not weaken US deep state media credibility as it tried to explain how this world shaking event in the life of Martin Luther King had not been known by millions who celebrate his birthday on a national holiday for a great civil rights leader? – the only American, so honored.
NOTICE OF BOARD MEETING
The Windham Southeast School District Board will meet at 5:00 p.m. on Monday,
January 16, 2023 remotely via Zoom. Purpose: 1VSA §313 (a)(4)
Note: The Zoom link for this meeting will be provided by a separate party to those
involved in the Executive Session.
1. Minutes – November 17, 2022
2. Public Participation
3. Monthly Report on Pedestrian, Bicycle, and Traffic Incidents– For November and December
4. Monthly Report on Traffic Data Collection – for November and December
5. Street and Sidewalk Safety Policy Safety Action Requests
(a) Poor Lighting at intersection of Spruce and Western Avenue – David Sullivan
The Brattleboro Selectboard will take an almost-final look at the proposed FY24 budget at their next regular meeting. Items of interest – the FY23 budget may be overspent, the Town Attorney gets a raise to $120,563, construction of some sort of public bathrooms might get approved, and more.
You can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation.
PUTNEY, VT— 1/12/2023 — Next Stage Arts Project presents an evening of global music with Cecilia Zabala and Eugene Friesen at Next Stage on Saturday, February 11 at 7:30 pm.
Cecilia Zabala of Buenos Aires, Argentina is a rising star on the global music scene. With 10 CDs and close to 20 years international touring experience to her credit, Zabala’s music embodies the deep soul of the acoustic guitar, from its Iberian and North African roots, to its versatility as a worldwide voice of modern musical expression.
Cecilia Zabala’s distinction as a performing artist is multi-dimensional. From a technical perspective, she is a master singer and instrumentalist, conservatory trained, and a respected guitar instructor in the cosmopolitan center of Buenos Aires. But her musical vision is far from staid. Her music bridges genres from the European classical guitar tradition to Brazilian bossa nova and MPB, from Chilean Nuevo Cancion and its Argentine relative, Nuevo Cancionero, to global jazz. Her music combines many elements of global folkloric music, in a synthesis that bridges so many styles and genres that it can fairly be described as “sui generis,” or without comparison. In one respect, the essence of her artistic identity is as a singer songwriter, but with a poetic rather than narrative character that seems distinctly South American. Her music is dreamlike, and steeped in the deep soul of her native Argentina, and by extension, Spain. In performance, whether solo or with an ensemble, Zabala is mesmerizing, from start to finish. As an instrumentalist, her performances are hypnotic. As a singer and presenter, she’s both seductive, and a bit of a sorceress, or as they say in Argentina, a “bruja.”
Gordon Hayward will give an illustrated talk for just over an hour on the design elements shared by the painter and garden designer. This talk comes out of Hayward’s 2008 book Art and the Gardener (Gibbs Smith). Admission is by donation, and all proceeds will directly benefit Next Stage Arts and Sandglass Theater. Tickets may be purchased at nextstagearts.org or at the box office on the day of the event.
Juxtaposing an image on the large screen of a fine painting (Van Gogh, Monet, Magritte, Derain, Renoir, Klimt, Rousseau….) next to a garden image, Hayward will explore a variety of elements of composition: straight lines vs. curved lines in paintings as well as paths and planted beds; the itinerary of the eye; positive and negative space (as in the positive space of planted beds and the negative space of adjacent lawn); color, light and shadow, the role of background, placing easels to paint as being akin to placing garden chairs to sit.
The Town of Brattleboro will vote on a ban to No Cause Evictions in a referendum on March 7, 2023. Landlords and managers of rental properties are strongly opposed to this ban.
The term “No Cause Evictions” is a bit of a misnomer. There is always a cause when a property owner or manager does not renew a lease. And these are not exactly evictions, they are non-renewal of leases at the lease terminations. Tenants are able to leave at the end of a lease, why should the owner or manager not be allowed to ask the tenant to leave?
No Cause Evictions are a tool used by property owners and managers to ensure the safe and quiet enjoyment of rental properties by all tenants. Taking a tenant to court for a “For Cause Eviction” is extremely costly ($5,000 to get started), take many months and offer no guarantee of results.
It may be a case where we should be thankful that there is at least a recognition that the mouth needs insurance coverage as much as the rest of the body. According to a recent article in Health Affairs, “Medicare Parts A and B will begin coverage of dental treatment to eliminate oral infection prior to solid organ transplant and select cardiac procedures in 2023, and prior to head and neck cancer treatment in 2024. CMS will also generate an annual review process for coverage of other medically necessary dental treatment.”
This is extremely narrow coverage that will not affect a lot of people but it is a start. In 2019 and 2021 the U.S. House passed a Medicare dental benefit bill but the U.S. Senate did not adopt it. The Build Back Better Act originally included Medicare dental coverage but that was removed because of lobbying by the American Dental Association.
The Board of Library Trustees of Brooks Memorial Library seeks an enthusiastic and dedicated library user to fill a two-year position on the Board.
Candidates should have an interest in maintaining a strong, dynamic and visionary library in Town. Trustees must be residents of Brattleboro.
The Board, which numbers nine trustees, meets at the Library at 4:45 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month. Members are asked to chair or serve on two or more committees that convene as needed.
AGENDA
I. Call to order
II. Welcome members and guests
III. School Board Update (5 min)
o Policies: dress code and volunteer/chaperone policy
o Tax rate possibilities
AGENDA
I. Call to Order
II. Agenda Additions (if needed)
III. Approval of Minutes from January 10, 2023
IV. Discussion/Vision for Final Document Outline
For Immediate Release:
In observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, all Brattleboro Town Offices will be closed on Monday, January 16, 2023, with the exception of emergency services.
Parking is free at all metered spaces and in the pay-and-display lots on Monday, January 16. All other violations will be enforced.
This is all from memory and after 45+ years it is not all that good but:
It was January 1976, and I was on Christmas break from VTC at my parent’s house here in Brattleboro. I drove an old Dodge Dart and was able to get it started on cold mornings by putting a drop light under the hood overnight to keep the battery warm. During the first week or two of January we went for a spell of 4 or 5 days with the daytime high temperature staying below zero. I think it was 5 days. I remember this because my friend Mark was living in Putney and called me each morning for help to get his car started. Each morning I would start my car, drive to Putney and jump start his car. I think an old VW Beatle.
