Windham

July Rainfall

by local | Nature

For my location a dry month with 2.27″ measured compared to the NOAA normal of 4.28″.  The moisture we did receive was evenly spread across the month with 4 being the most completely dry days in a row.  You can see the effects of less rain with lawns starting to turn brown in sunny areas.  Within the CoCoRaHs network my location is the driest in the state for July. 

In Windham County there are a couple of stations reporting over 4″ for the month so many locations are not as dry.  Up north it is a different story with near record rainfall.  A station in St. Johnsbury has measured 17.73″ for the month. 

June Precipitation

by local | Nature

June rainfall of 4.23″ compared to a NOAA average of 4.52″.  Just a little below normal.  The first 20 days of the month were quite dry then several days of heavier rainfall brought us to near normal.  For the calendar year still well above at 28.55″ compared to the NOAA average of 22.13″.  Any rainfall we were to receive today would be recorded/reported tomorrow at 7am, the start of a new month.  All numbers are from my location in the SE corner of Brattleboro.

Windham County Delegation Statement on Retreat

by Not Signed In | State News

The Windham County Delegation has been aware of ongoing financial challenges being experienced by the Brattleboro Retreat related to multi-year, inadequate medicaid reimbursements, unexpected census declines, and the increasing cost of contract RNs and MDs due to national and state-wide workforce shortages.

The Brattleboro Retreat is a 150 year old private mental healthcare institution providing quality, compassionate healthcare to the most vulnerable Vermonters.

As we see play out every day across the country and our state, adequate funding for public healthcare remains an unsolved challenge.

Windham School Board Fights Back on Act 46 School Merger

by Lise | West River Valley
Windham Elementary School, Windham, VT

Although most towns across the state voted — in some cases reluctantly — to accept the forced merger of their schools as mandated under Act 46, the town of Windham did not. The Windham School Board continues to fight the merger of their elementary school into the new West River Education District, which they see as unconstitutional seizure of town property and against the best interests of their students.

On May 11, the Windham School Board took the unusual step of writing to all its neighbors in the new merged district to ask that they vote No on the latest school merger articles up for vote. The other towns in the West River district are Newfane, Townshend, Brookline, and Jamaica — all have agreed to merge their schools and have approved the merged budget.

Windham Regional Commission Receives Funding to Launch Forest Connectivity Collaborative 

by Not Signed In | Nature

The Windham Regional Commission (WRC) is pleased to announce that it has received funding from the High Meadows Fund’s Forest Health and Integrity program, for the launch of the project entitled, “Windham Connectivity Collaborative: A scale-hopping approach to conservation planning in southeastern Vermont.”

Emily Davis is the WRC’s natural resources planner and project point person, and she says that, “the Windham Regional Commission has always been committed to sound conservation planning. But recently, we’ve wanted to more systematically unite the many smaller, local, conservation efforts under one comprehensive conservation strategy for southeastern Vermont. These groups, along with our town conservation commissions, have exhibited grassroots leadership.  They do such great work with relatively few resources, and we’re pleased to be able to support their work through capacity-building, project coordination, and strategic collaboration.”

Windham County Childcare Survey

by Not Signed In | Family

Child Care Counts is a task force dedicated to stabilizing and increasing the number of available slots for high quality child care in Windham County. Recognizing that access to child care is a critical economic and workforce development issue, we seek to engage a broad range of partners invested in the issue. We are seeking input from our community members on their experiences as a employers, employees and caregivers.