Brattleboro Town Offices will be closed from 7:00am to 10:00am on Friday, December 13, 2024 for an employee event. Impacted offices include: The Municipal Center, the Gibson Aiken Center and Public Works offices. The Brooks Memorial Library will open at 10:00am.
The Historical Society of Windham County located in Newfane, Vt is selling West River Railroad Books at a discounted price in time for Christmas. The West River Railroad ran from Brattleboro to South Londonderry for the period of 1880 to 1936, the Historical Society has purchased the Newfane Depot which was one of 10 stations along the route. The depot has been refurbished and is now a museum for the railroad.
Next Stage Arts presents a double bill of good-time swing blues music from the 1930s from The Smack Dabs, and Gypsy jazz from Rhythm Future Quartet, on Saturday, January 11 at 7:30 pm at Next Stage
The Smack Dabs specialize in good-time Swing Blues music from the 1930s, featuring the songs of Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy, The Harlem Hamfats, and many others. This delightful and timeless genre features a rich variety of musical styles, ranging from mournful blues to joyful celebrations, setting the stage for incredible solo and group improvisations and delighting audiences and dancers alike.
They are proud to feature some of Boston’s most compelling improvising musicians in their lineup, bringing a fresh and unique sound to each performance. The core band includes Mark Earley on guitar, vocals, and kazoo; David Sparr on piano; Jim Gray on upright bass Mark Berney on cornet; Kit Buckley on saxophone and clarinet; and Jon Kraus on washboard.
The Town of Brattleboro is announcing the resignation of Brattleboro’s Finance Director, Kimberly Frost, who served in the role since April 2022. Frost will be stepping down from the position on Jan. 3, 2025, to pursue a different opportunity.
“Starting this next chapter was a difficult decision, but I’m grateful to have served my community,” said Frost.
During her tenure with the Town of Brattleboro, Frost was instrumental in re-uniting the Finance Department with the Treasurer’s Office and thereby finding efficiencies to reduce Town staff by one position. She also supported Town departments in the transition to a new financial system through the platform OpenGov. The goal of that project was to modernize and enhance the efficiency and transparency of the Town’s finances including an online publication that provides detailed expenditure information in an interactive format.
Due to the impending icy weather, a decision has been made to hold tonight’s Windham Southeast School District Board meeting as a remote-only meeting, beginning at the regular time– 6:00 pm.
The Zoom link can be found at https://wsesu.org/wsesd-agendas/
I just sent this msg to our Governor. We should start this movement.
Dear Governor Scott,
Please consider doing this for Vermont. We cherish our freedom and our libraries.
“PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law Monday to prohibit public and school libraries from banning books in the state and to enshrine protections against civil and criminal charges for librarians who comply with the law.”
Greg Lesch tells some great stories of Brattleboro’s yester-years, upcoming Holiday events by the Chamber of Commerce, and his many years as a dynamic actor.
The cops could not get their story straight about the weapon &/or “silencer”. At one point it was a farm instrument. They had a Starbucks cup with “latent” prints and came up empty. As a “retired software developer” with keen interest in legal details regarding “expert” technology, the facial recognition concerns me not.
The cops could not get their story straight on what was “meticulously” written using a Sharpie on the three recovered shell casings. They “corrected” once and then “corrected” again. The words–all alliterative, all duosyllabic–could have been quoted from a toddler.
The Windham Southeast Supervisory Union Board will meet in Executive Session at 4:30 PM on Wednesday, December 11. 2024 in the Windham Regional Career Center, Room #198e, 80 Atwood St., Brattleboro, and remotely via Zoom.
Frank gave an overview of the special education budget for our 10 sites including pre-K. The current draft shows an increase of 5.9% driven by student needs (up $1.1 million). The single largest cost driver is associated with tuition costs for students that we are not able to educate in our schools. In the area of salary and benefits, the cost driver is the increase in health insurance costs.
Tate Erickson and his team have been working hard to refine the budget to be lean and efficient but have capacity for new students moving in. He walked through the number of students as well as staff to student ratios. These numbers are expected to be finalized tomorrow and will be posted. Tate discussed both the ratios for both students in our area schools and those requiring out of district placements.
Another thrilling contest at the most critical time; with three games remaining, the Champion Ding needed to at least win once and had two opportunities with the White pieces to do so.
After reaching a perfectly equal opening tableau, a most innocuous-looking positional slip foreshadowed a deeper positional deficiency in Gukesh’s handling of the position–his dark-squared bishop is best returned to its original square where it does not interfere with its fellow pieces and functions perfectly fine. This came to light with a blunder on move 16 that led to a strong advantage for Ding which he confidently converted to victory, ending with a flourish that forced resignation in the face of checkmate.
This spectacular clash featured world-class preparation and skillful, combative play providing all manner of complexity: characteristics that makes chess beautiful if useless.
From the outset White challenges Black’s preparation of little-explored territory, and while a technical advantage did not come of it the demands it made of Black created the conditions of the time scramble where Gukesh’s accuracy triumphed over Ding’s imprecision.
Gukesh came with a prepared and atypical opening that caused Ding to take enormous amounts of time early. Gukesh in turn took a full hour to find his 13th move, and the position became quite complex and demanding of precision.
After Black’s 13th both players had to adjust to a much more restrictive approach to time management, and in such a complicated position the conditions were ripe to test the excellence of the talent at the board. After precision mixed with mild inaccuracies, Ding failed to find the necessary defensive move on move 26 and followed it with a game-losing blunder that gave Gukesh a victory which further is considered a miniature as it lasted less than 30 moves.
Enjoy the interactive game viewer below, no chess knowledge required.
In a terrible day for chesslovers young and old, Ding made no move that took advantage of White’s primacy due to the advantage of the first move. A fully-equal endgame was reached and after barely using half their time the players repeated the position. This was a non-event marketed as a world-class sporting competition.
Perhaps Ding, knowing that Gukesh’s rating in Rapid and Blitz is far lower than at the much slower Classical time control, is content to draw the remaining games with the intent of keeping the Classical Championship by triumphing at shorter time control. This was explicitly–and in my view, cynically–done by Carlsen years ago.
Games like this one are a stain on the sport. People pay good money to go and see the contests for the World Championship–as a child, Gukesh saw for himself Anand-Carlsen ten years ago in Chennai and it’s part of his motivation.
Enjoy the interactive game viewer below, no chess knowledge required.
After the presidential inauguration the entire press machine of the United States will probably come under attack. This is a battle we all need to fight and, no matter what our point of view, we have to make sure that the media can operate unencumbered by threats from an aspiring dictator.
Some newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times have already succumbed to possible threats by taking the cowardly position of not endorsing a candidate in the November election, fearing later retribution. This is clearly a sign of what is to come and it is especially troubling because the press has decided to self-censor in advance of any real threat.
The first amendment to the constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” It does not say that the President cannot try to muzzle the press with intimidation and threats and that is what is so scary.
The newly opened General John Stark Memorial Bridge connecting Hinsdale, N.H. to Downtown Brattleboro has altered traffic patterns on Vernon Street and lower Main Street.
To improve traffic flow in both directions, the Town of Brattleboro and the Vermont State Agency of Transportation are working to create efficiencies. Traffic light engineers will be working on adjustments during the next few weeks. We appreciate your patience and cooperation while this work is underway.
The Brattleboro Human Services Committee will meet on Tuesday, December 10, 2024 at 6:00pm in the Selectboard Meeting Room at the Municipal Center (230 Main Street, Room 212).
Dec. 9 Teriyaki Chicken
Vegetable lo Mein
Brussels Sprouts
Brownie
The new bridge for New Hampshire/Vermont Route 119 is now open. Motorists should use caution while navigating the new traffic pattern. Pedestrians should continue to use existing accommodations on the old bridges as the new bridge will remained closed to pedestrians until Spring of 2025.
On days when the weather is good enough to work on the bridge deck, crews will be working under a shoulder closure. Otherwise, no interruptions to NH/VT 119 and Vermont Route 142 traffic are planned for next week.
United States Senator Bernie Sanders and U.S. Senator Peter Welch and Congressperson Becca Balint are showing total disrespect for Rockingham, Vermont people in Windham County including the village of Bellows Falls, most of whom are just regular hard working Vermonters living in a typical small town in southeastern Vermont along the Connecticut River who definitely need a local health care clinic!
In by far the least combative game thus far, both Champion and Challenger elected to go do well-worn territory. Once the few queenside complications came to a close moves were made without much import.
Enjoy the interactive game viewer below, no chess knowledge required.
