News and information sections, from near to far
The Brattleboro Selectboard is holding a special meeting to take care of the business not attended to at the last meeting. It looks like a short agenda, but who really knows?
You can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation.
Brattleboro Energy Committee
Monday, July 13, 2020
5:00 PM
NOTE: Per the “Stay Home – Stay Safe” order issued by Governor Scott, this meeting will be held with no physical location using GoToMeeting.
The Brattleboro Selectboard didn’t get to new business until after 11 pm. Old business of Representative Town Meeting scheduling, second thoughts on an already-approved budget, and competing proposals for police reforms filled the lengthy meeting.
In the end, no new RTM was set, the board was told the budget cannot be changed but can be ignored selectively, and competing proposals for police reforms will fill a new meeting schedule for July 21.
In observance of the July 4th holiday, all Town offices will be closed on Friday, July 3, 2020, with the exception of emergency services.
Parking is free at all metered spaces and in the pay-and-display lots on Saturday and Sunday, July 4 and July 5, 2020. All other violations will be enforced. Parking enforcement will resume on Monday, July 6, 2020.
Brooks Memorial Library curbside service will be closed from Friday, July 3, through Sunday, July 5, 2020.
The Brattleboro Selectboard will consider a re-imagined, two-part Representative Town Meeting at their next regular virtual meeting. The plan calls for an online portion on one day, and voting by Australian ballot on another.
A “police review” process is being proposed to look at funding and whether social services might be able to relieve the police of some responsibilities, new bike lanes and pedestrian safety measures will be discussed for Putney Rd., a new Exit 2 to downtown bike lane possibility will be studied, the board will offer up thoughts on the rebuilding of Rt 9 to Wilmington, and you can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation.
AGENDA
Meeting Called to Order (Planning Commission Chair)
Announcements (Planning Commission Chair)
Public Comment (Planning Commission Chair)
Approve Minutes of June 22, 2020 Meeting (Planning Commission Chair)
The Brattleboro Parking Department would like to remind everyone, starting July 1st, 2020, payment will once again be required at all street meters and kiosks in parking lots in the downtown area. If anyone has any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Carol at 257-2305.
Montpelier, Vt. – As state data and expanded testing and tracing capacity continue to support reopening, Governor Phil Scott today announced he will expand the number of states covered under Vermont’s county-by-county quarantine-free travel policy, which allows direct travel from designated counties without a 14-day quarantine requirement.
In early June, the Governor, in close consultation with the Vermont Department of Health, opened up travel to and from counties in New England and New York with less than 400 active cases of COVID-19 per one million residents without a quarantine requirement. Effective July 1, this policy will be expanded to counties below this threshold in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia. Quarantine requirements remain in place for those traveling to and from other regions.
Brattleboro Development Review Board
July 15, 2020
7:00 P.M.
NOTE: Per the “Stay Home – Stay Safe” order issued by Governor Scott, this meeting will be held with no physical location using GoToMeeting.
June 23, 2020 Montpelier, Vt. – Governor Phil Scott and the Vermont Department of Labor today announced changes to the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program that will reduce employers’ UI tax rates and increase the maximum weekly benefit amount for UI claimants.
“This tax relief will help reduce the burden on employers who’ve had to make difficult decisions to protect the health and safety of their workers and help limit the spread of COVID-19 in Vermont,” said Governor Scott. “We know Vermonters made a tremendous economic sacrifice in order to respond to this virus, and we will continue to pull every lever we can to help workers and employers recover from this pandemic.”
There are moments in your life and in history that one never can forget. They change the course of your life, of the planet’s history. We are living in such days right now in June of 2020. For me ,as I was watching my carrots grow in Walden, Vermont, a wake up call came to my life on June 22nd 1984. The State of Vermont conducted an early morning raid on a peaceful community of Bible believers. The search and detention order had no names of the children to be seized, no names of accusers and the clear charges that they were making on that day against those parents. When Judge Frank Mahady saw all those parents and children in Orleans County Court, Newport, Vermont that day he is quoted as saying,”In all my years as a family and child judge I have not seen such a close bond between parents and children as I do today! There is something deeply wrong with how these people and the way they choose to live their faith is being viewed by the State of Vermont”.
This document presented to the Brattleboro Selectboard by the Civilian Police Review Board Steering Committee in April 2004 is part of a long process to create a CPB in Brattleboro, Vt. Information on CPB is drawn from www.nacole.org, and leading researchers on the issues of CPB.
Brattleboro Civilian Police Review Board Proposal
Presented by the
Steering Committee for the Brattleboro Civilian Police Review Board
Montpelier, Vt. – As state data and expanded testing and tracing capacity continue to support reopening, Governor Phil Scott today announced the state will raise occupancy limits for event venues, arts, culture and entertainment venues, as well as restaurants.
Beginning June 26, these venues can expand capacity for events and dining to 50% of approved occupancy size or one person per 100 square feet of customer facing space. This change will allow for indoor events of up to 75 people and outdoor organized events of up to 150.
It’s summer. It’s Brattleboro. Time to list the little things that grab your attention and share them with others.
Parklets are being set-up for some restaurants in town to serve outdoors. Cement barriers have been dropped in parking spaces to mark boundaries.
The Brattleboro Citizen Police Communications Committee (CPCC) will meet on Monday, June 22, 2020 at 5:30pm via GoToMeeting. In keeping with Governor Scott’s “Stay Home – Stay Safe” order, this meeting will be held with no physical location using GoToMeeting. A copy of the agenda is attached and it contains information about how to access the meeting remotely.
The Town of Brattleboro is looking for citizens to serve on the following committees and boards:
ADA Committee
Arts Committee
Cemetery Committee
Citizen Police Communications Committee (CPCC)
There were many big issues at Tuesday’s meeting of the Brattleboro Selectboard but the biggest of them all was an extended discussion about dismantling a racist system by defunding the Brattleboro Police. Citizens were rather clear and consistent in asking that the General Fund budget be voted down, and that funding for the police be reassigned to social services.
The system moves slowly, they were told, and their attention should be placed on next year’s budget process. The board committed to making a re-evaluation of community safety a priority in the near future, but passed the budget by a 3-2 split vote.
The Town of Brattleboro will resume Parking Enforcement operations on July 1, 2020. Parking meters and kiosks will once again require payment for parking in the downtown. This includes all regulated surface parking lots and all on-street metered parking spaces.
Parking enforcement was halted on March 17, in response to Covid-19. Now that Vermont is beginning to reopen for business, it is time to resume regular parking enforcement activities. To protect the public health, all meter and kiosk push buttons will receive a regular wipe down two times each day, Monday through Saturday, to disinfect the frequently touched surfaces.
Proposal: Motioning contracting a Space Force base in Brattleboro by direct democratic public vote
Reasoning: In empathetic awareness to both the current local populaces’ needs and sensitive to futures’ quality of life benefits from now initiating negotiations on how to ethically manage a Municipal Space Station for universal peace, travel, resource sharing, and developing Earth conservation sciences which are conscientious of and cooperative with world interests. People employed by the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation would be appropriate business liaisons mediating between the military, government, and labor unions. Base investors will comply by funding planting for 1 and 1/5 edible (non apple) trees into orchards for every tree cut down for base & orchard construction.
Montpelier, Vt. – Governor Phil Scott today signed an executive order to update and extend the State of Emergency in Vermont to July 15. The latest order reflects all current re-openings and eased restrictions, which have been underway since late April to account for the State’s low case counts and continued slow growth rate.
State data and modeling shows overall spread of COVID-19 continues to be limited, even as the state has seen an isolated outbreak with 84 related cases in the Winooski area.
Governor Scott also detailed how a robust testing and tracing program; better knowledge of the virus; greater public awareness of, and adherence to, preventive measures; health and safety requirements across sectors; and increased stock of critical healthcare supplies, the state is much better positioned to track, manage and box in outbreaks and slow spread, which is critical to managing this virus until there is a vaccine.
