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Senators Challenge Postal Plan to End Saturday Delivery

Unauthorized proposal would hurt rural communities, cost jobs

WASHINGTON – Twenty-four senators, led by Tom Udall of New Mexico, are challenging the postmaster general’s authority to discontinue Saturday mail delivery later this year without congressional approval.

In a letter to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, the senators acknowledge the financial challenges the Postal Service is facing and urge him to work with Congress to address these problems through bipartisan reform, such as the Senate legislation passed last year.

They also point out that a shift to five-day service could lead to further declines in mail volume and revenues, worsening the U.S. Postal Service’s overall condition.


Gay Jew in Uganda Travelogue/Fundraiser

If you’re free, please please come! (I really want to pack the house…)  -Ken

“TULIBALUGANDA” A BENEFIT TRAVELOGUE PERFORMANCE FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AIDS CHARITIES, AT THE NEW ENGLAND YOUTH THEATRE ON FEBRUARY 20, 2013 at 7:00pm.


River Garden Finances

Does anyone have a comprehensive file on how much public monies were invested in the Robert Gibson River Garden?  At a recent Selectboard meeting, a member of the Town Finance Committee asked the question. After some thought, the Town Manager said the Town probably could not answer that specific question. It could only account for Town funds that went into the property, not all public funds.


Safely Dispose Of Your Medication In An Rx Drug Drop Box Near You

Flushing your prescription medications is not safe for the environment. Medications thrown in the trash or left in your home could end up in the wrong hands. Three Prescription (Rx) Drug Drop Boxes are now available in Windham County. Safely dispose of your prescription medications (pills and patches only) at the following locations:

Brattleboro Police Department: 230 Main St., Brattleboro (24/7)

Bellows Falls Police Department: 170 Rockingham St., Bellows Falls (24/7)

Windham County Sheriff’s Department: 11 Jail St., Newfane (7am-10pm daily)


Brains Matter – Understanding the Developing Adolescent Brain

At BAPC, we’re often asked by parents, caregivers and educators, in our community, to share tips and strateges for preventing youth from experimenting with drugs, alcohol and other substances. Many parents are aware that teens often have a prevelant misconception about the safety of experimenting with substances including marijuana and prescription drugs.


Brattleboro Selectboard Agenda and Notes – February 19, 2013

Barring unforeseen circumstances, Brattleboro’s new Town Plan will be approved by the Selectboard at their next regular Tuesday night meeting at the Municipal Center.

If you attend in person or watch on TV, you will also hear discussions of a new gravity fed sewer line for Black Mountain, an update on progress with Brattleboro’s new skatepark design, talk of taxing your gasoline, thoughts on changing the boundaries for the Downtown Improvement District, and the parking garage committee will be dissolved.

All this and more on Tuesday night, and you can read about it in detail here the morning after.


Near Misses

In the many years I have worried about what disaster could befall Vermont Yankee, I never imagined this one:

“…the area where the meteor exploded was 100 kilometers (60 miles) from
the Mayak nuclear storage and disposal facility, which holds dozens of
tons of weapons-grade plutonium. He said the Russian government has
underestimated potential risks of the region.

A chemical weapons disposal facility at Shchuchye in the Chelyabinsk region
contains some 6,000 tons (5,460 metric tons) of nerve agent including
sarin and VX, accounting for about 14 percent of the chemical weapons
that Russia is committed to destroy.”


Douglas Cox – iBrattleboro 2013 Brattleboro Representative Town Meeting Moderator Interview

This year, two candidates are hoping to get your vote to become Moderator of Representative Town Meeting. As with Selectboard candidates, we’ve sent emails and invitations to use the site to communicate with voters to each.

Douglas Cox is one of those candidates, and his interview follows.

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Tell us a little about yourself…


Photo… Solar Collector…

In Which Doodle Takes Advantage of Some Bright February Sunshine to Fight the Cabin Fever, and I Try to Figure out the New iBrattleboro Image Posting System


Sanders, Boxer Propose Climate Change Bills

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 – Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) today introduced comprehensive legislation on climate change.

Boxer is chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Sanders sits on the environment committee and also is a member of the Senate energy committee.

Under the legislation, a fee on carbon pollution emissions would fund historic investments in energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. The proposal also would provide rebates to consumers to offset any efforts by oil, coal or gas companies to raise prices.


Downtown Brattleboro Sidewalk Project Meeting

Residents and Business Owners:

The Town is planning to install new sidewalks on the east side of Main Street, starting at the Gilbert Memorial Bridge and continuing north to Walnut Street. Some sections of this sidewalk were recently replaced as part of a VTrans project. The Downtown Sidewalk Project will replace the sections that have not yet been upgraded. The project is intended to improve safety for pedestrians and create a more attractive Main Street. Two FHWA Enhancement grants and a local match in the form of a bond fund this project.


Welcome To The New iBrattleboro

After over 46 million page views, 22 thousand stories, and 100 thousand comments on the old site, we give you a new iBrattleboro.

We hope you like it. We’ve been listening to feedback, thinking about how people use the site, and have new features to share.

Our primary goal was to keep it similar to the old site, but also to make everything better. We looked at each of the features of the old site and then for ways to improve them. You can now do repeating events with calendar submissions, add write-in votes on polls, and add images to stories, comments, and events.


Logging In For the First Time

We want you to log in and enjoy all the new features of the new iBrattleboro.

To accomplish the transition to the new site, we’ve set things up here on the new site with your username and email address. 

Here are the steps to take to log in to the new iBrattleboro for the first time.

 

1. Click on Log in using the link in the upper right corner of the site.


Bugs, Problems, and Other Issues

Use the comments below to alert us to bugs or problems you come across while exploring the new iBrattleboro.

Please be patient, too. There are a lot of moving parts and we expect to be busy answering questions and helping people for the near future. We will get to everything as best we can.

High priority will be placed on things that are broken. Lower priority will be assigned to suggestions for improvements. All feedback is welcome and appreciated.


The New iBrattleboro Has Features

Our goal was to keep things similar, but make improvements everywhere. Here are just a few of the many new features you’ll find as you explore the new iBrattleboro.

Enhanced stories – there is a WYSIWYG editor, so you can make story text bold, italic, and so on. Please use it wisely (that is, only if necessary.)

New organization – we’ve cleaned up and condensed site navigation and have some changes to the sections.


A Guide to the New iBrattleboro Navigation

It might be helpful if we showed you around the place, eh? Let’s take a tour of the new iBrattleboro navigation bar at the top of the page.

Note that what you see up there depends on if you are logged in or not.

In this story we’ll discuss the features you’ll see if you are logged in. If a feature is missing for you, you probably need to log in to see it.