News & Information

Brattleboro Citizens’ Breakfast       
April 17,  2015
Gibson-Aiken Center

Remember the Brattleboro Selectboard? It’s been a while.

At Tuesday’s meeting Brattleboro’s PACE district was finally set into action after nearly two years of contract questions and negotiations. The program allows for new ways of financing energy improvements to homes in town.

A Local Emergency Operations Plan was endorsed, rules and goals were approved, the Ebola truck was acknowledged, and many grants and grant applications were approved or accepted.

Brattleboro will adopt the PACE program, if all goes as planned, at the next (ir)regular Selectboard meeting on Tuesday at the Municipal Center. Issues between the Town and Vermont Energy Investment Corporation have been worked out and documents have been revised.

The rest of the agenda is a mix of liquor license approvals, grant applications, and items postponed from their previous meeting. Falling somewhat by the wayside for the moment are the previously scheduled presentations about comprehensive reviews of town operations and presentations about the changes to Brattleboro’s land use regulations. 

You can attend in person, or watch on BCTV. Feel free to bring up other items not on the agenda during Public participation.

Time for another installment of “what have you noticed in Brattleboro recently?”

Here are a few to get us started:

– Brattleboro Savings & Loan is building a new branch office at Black Mountain Square, near their ATM and next to the Radio Shack.

The Brattleboro Citizen Police Communications Committee (CPCC) will meet on Monday, April 27, 2015 at 5:30pm in the Brooks Memorial Library community room.

Jan Anderson
Executive Secretary
Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office
(802) 251-8100

The Brattleboro Traffic Safety Committee will meet on Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 8:30am in the Selectboard meeting room at the Municipal Center.

Jan Anderson
Executive Secretary
Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office
(802) 251-8100

Strolling of the Heifers has announced its 2015 theme: “Love Your Farmer.”

The annual Strolling of the Heifers Parade takes place on Saturday, June 6 at 10 a.m. It is the centerpiece of a weekend full of events including a Friday, June 5 evening street festival, the 11-acre Slow Living Expo on parade day, and on Sunday, June 7, the Tour de Heifer dirt-road cycling rides, a Farmers Breakfast at The Marina, and a Farm Tour. 

The mission of Strolling of the Heifers is “connecting people with healthy local food, encouraging and facilitating innovation and entrepreneurship in the farm/food sector, and supporting the development of stronger local food systems and healthy, sharing, connected and resilient communities.”

Founder and executive director Orly Munzing said, “We’ve grown from a small-town parade and festival into an organization that has a year-round set of programs related to that mission. But if you take away everything else, it all comes down to just those three words, ‘Love Your Farmer.’”

The following dates have been scheduled for Brattleboro’s curbside Spring Leaf Collection. Whereas in the past leaf pickup was determined by scheduled day of rubbish pickup, all locations will be picked up each Friday:

Leaf Pick Up Date

ALL RESIDENTS Friday, April 24, 2015

ALL RESIDENTS Friday, May 8, 2015

All leaves and clippings must be in brown paper leaf bags and at the curb by 7:00 a.m. on scheduled leaf collection days. Acceptable waste…leaves, grass, clippings, garden waste, twigs, no branches larger than 1″ in diameter and 2 feet long. No other household trash is to be included.

NO PLASTIC BAGS or other containers will be accepted as the materials collected will be used for compost.

The benefits of local food go well beyond energy savings and local economics, say organizers of the fifth annual Slow Living Summit, a unique conference taking place June 3-5 in Brattleboro, Vermont.

“When people connect with healthy local food and with farmers and food producers, they also build stronger, more resilient communities.” says Shanta L. Evans-Crowley, the conference coordinator. “It’s about being mindful, and strengthening the connections between food, body, mind, spirit, and community.” 

Subtitled “Food, Mindfully,” the Summit will explore “the journey of food”, with topics including nourishment and wellness, food entrepreneurship, food systems, food justice and food policy.

Evans-Crowley said “the Summit aims to bring together experts, policymakers, entrepreneurs, educators, students, farmers, artists and concerned citizens, in order to foster cross-sector conversations and collaborations.”