Time for more holiday fun.
In addition to the iBrattleboro animated interactive calendar, there are some more goodies in the bag to share.
For example, we have the Christmas Calendar at Castle Arcana, and numerous cards to play with, such as Build Your Own Snowman, Trim Your Own Tree, and more at http://www.castlearcana.com/christmas/
For the final regular Brattleboro Selectboard meeting of 2013, the board plans to continue their discussion of a PACE Energy District in town, and the legal and accounting hurdles that remain.
The board will also hear about the cost of Elm Street Bridge repairs, discuss penalties for late Homestead Declarations, consider grants for zoning rewrites and brownfield remediation, and evaluate a request for a Planned Unit Development for Red Clover Commons.
You can attend in person or watch on BCTV. You may also bring up other items for discussion during Public participation.
I’ve been listening to John Coltrane since college, when my pal Everett introduced me to the world of jazz. At first it sounded like a lot of squeaking and noise to my ear. After hearing a new piece, I’d jokingly ask if he was done tuning up.
Ev taught me to think of the jazz sax as a voice, a singer. He wanted me to listen to what Coltrane was saying, not playing.
It took a while to get it. I made a cassette with Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, and John Coltrane’s Love Supreme on the other side, and let it play over and over again.
I was updating our Day in History listings and came across something that might astound and amaze you.
In 1875, according to the Vermont Phoenix, Brattleboro’s total expenses for the year were estimated at about $7,000. To compare, in 2015 our expenses are projected to be just under $17 million.
To be fair, they had just added a major expense to the Brattleboro budget in 1875 – streetlights, at a cost of $1,000 per year. Without them, the amount spent would have been lower.
Residents at the time voted to lay a tax of 40 cents on the dollar of the grand list to cover the cost of running the town.
It appears that spying on citizens is impacting bottom lines. Today, major tech companies released the following letter.
….
Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress,
We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide. The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for a change.
We’ll take a bit of a detour this week and feature the holiday music stylings of singer Andy Williams.
Andy Williams used his weekly variety show for an annual Christmas special on TV each year throughout most of the 60’s and early 70’s. Often the Osmonds would show up. It was a bit like a hipper Lawrence Welk Show, and is was fun for the entire family to watch.
This video is a collection of Andy William’s favorite clips from those specials.
The Brattleboro Selectboard took up issues of farming, energy audits, and downtown improvements at Tuesday’s regular meeting.
The tax stabilization rate for farms was discussed and formalized, but a debate is now brewing over $95,000 in a little-used but popular loan fund for farms. The Selectboard has eyes on it as a way to reduce taxes.
A request to look for ways to save money was tabled, putting the issue of energy audits for municipal buildings on hold for the moment.
Vermont’s downtown program was described in detail, and the BaBB budget and workplan were approved for presentation at Representative Town Meeting.
Building a Better Brattleboro will come before the Brattleboro Selectboard at their next Tuesday meeting to present the downtown organization’s new budget, sans River Garden for the first time.
The board will also take up decades-old Farmland and Agricultural Land issues, look at errors and omissions to the Grand List, consider more energy audits for town buildings, hear about downtown program strategies from a state agency, and more.
If there’s something you’d like to discuss that isn’t on the agenda, there’s time for that during Public Participation. You can attend in person, watch on BCTV, or get the highlights here the day after.
This week we feature Tuba Skinny, a band from New Orleans. I don’t know much about them, other than my dad played me a bit of them from his iPhone this week.
This seems to be recorded in Australia for a live radio program.
Here’s a show from Montreal in 1964. One of the YouTube comments say that it is “a Radio-Canada video of the first night of Ellington’s appearance in the Le Hot Jazz room in Montreal’s Casa Loma, taped Apr. 20 1964.”
So this is what people were doing a few months before I was born.
To keep the town services the same as last year and pay our obligations, the property tax rate would need to go up by 16 cents. It’s a major problem that the Brattleboro Selectboard shared with the public at Tuesday night’s meeting as they pondered how much of a tax increase Brattleboro could handle, and discussed various options for cuts and revenue generation.
The town’s search for a new Town Manager was a bust, and the process will begin again in the near future.
The Plan for Red Clover Commons took a step forward with the board supporting Brattleboro Housing Authority’s need to formally “dispose” (an HUD term) of the Melrose property and buildings to enable the upcoming move to new developments.
Much of the rest of the meeting was dedicated to Brattleboro citizens who like to skate. The skating rink got the go-ahead for a series of improvements to improve the refrigeration and preserve the compressors. And now the Town of Brattleboro has an official skatepark site selection committee.
. The only thing standing in our way, they say, is a dysfunctional political system.
The solution to this big problem is complex: send checks to everyone.
Okay, that’s it.
Let’s visit the Estival Jazz Lugano on July 6, 2012 for a show by David Murray’s Big Band, with guest vocalist Macy Gray.
David Murray has been one of my favorite sax players since his days with the World Saxophone Quartet. He always keeps moving and experimenting, releasing albums with out-jazz trios, quartets, octets, and big bands. he works with great musicians, dabbles in musical styles he’s new to such as music of the Grateful Dead, and has embraced a unique approach to world music through his own style. He reminds me Dolphy and Coltrane, but for this era.
The Brattleboro Housing Authority will make an appearance at the next regular meeting of the Brattleboro Selectboard. They will be presenting plans for the Red Clover Common, one of two new developments planned to relocate residents of Melrose Terrace, and asking the board for support.
The Skating Rink Committee will offer up suggestions for the refrigeration system at the rink, we’ll get an update on the search for a new Town Manager, and the Selectboard will have an easily-watchable discussion of the town budget plan for the first time in many years. If there’s something not on the agenda, you can bring it up during public participation.
Attend in person or watch on BCTV, and check here for the recap.
Somehow y’all broke this week’s poll about where to put the skatepark. Our best guess is that the poor poll software couldn’t keep up people changing their votes and write in options, but it is just a guess.
Before it blew up, the ranked, extremely-informal results were as follows:
This weekend we have good tickets for an interesting show. It’s the summer of 1985, in Union City, New Jersey, and someone classified as punk, new wave, classical, and performance artist. It’s the future wife of Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson,
She made this film much the way the Talking Heads released Stop Making Sense. Her music didn’t translate completely to album format, and the visual elements are captured here for listeners and viewers.
A new Brattleboro Skatepark Site Selection Committee is taking applications. The Brattleboro Selectboard voted Tuesday evening to form the committee at the request of the town skatepark committee, BASIC, but not before ample discussion.
The board announced that Brattleboro faces budget challenges to keep tax increases to a minimum. Expect cuts to services and more discussion of a 1% sales tax as possible solutions being offered.
Brattleboro has new restaurants downtown and in West Brattleboro (with liquor licenses), ALDI opens in January (selling beer and wine), and the town bought a backhoe.
All this in more below the fold.
Howard Weiss-Tisman is reporting that Kate O’Connor has been selected by the Chamber board as the new Director of the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce, replacing retiring Jerry Goldberg (who was recently named “Person of the Year.”)
Let’s set the musical time machine for the end of September in 1986 and head to London’s Town& Country Club for a funky few songs with Trouble Funk.
Yes, it is another Trouble Funk show. Our previous look was in a bigger space, whereas this show takes to a hot and sweaty nightclub, which is more their home turf. Big Tony and his bass lead the band through a handful of their most popular songs at the time for this British TV show.
Safer town roads in Brattleboro will be a major focus of the next regular Brattleboro Selectboard meeting. A traffic calming plan is up for adoption, the intersection at Western Ave will get some attention, and the Safe Streets program will get a small grant.
The board will again take up the issue of the request to reduce the size and scope of the skatepark, and will decide whether to discharge a $150,000 lien between BaBB and the Town for the River Garden. There will be liquor licenses, loans, and grants to deal with, and we’ll get an update on the soon-to-be-ending search for a new Town Manager.
Watch on BCTV or attend in person and participate. You can bring up items that aren’t on the agenda during public participation.
