The Brattleboro Citizen Police Communications Committee (CPCC) will meet on Monday, April 23, 2018 at 5:30pm in the Brooks Memorial Library Meeting Room.
The Brattleboro Representative Town Meeting Finance Committee will meet on Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 5:30pm at the Brattleboro Tennis Club Meeting Room, located at 202 Cedar Street.
Jan Anderson
Executive Secretary
Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office
230 Main Street, Suite 208
Brattleboro, VT 05301
NOTICE OF COMMITTEE MEETING
The BUHS #6 Teacher Curriculum Committee will meet at 6:00 p.m. on Monday, April 23 in the WRCC Cusick Conference Room.
The BUHS #6 Finance Committee will meet at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 25 in the WSESU James E. Kane Conference Room, 53 Green Street.
NOTICE OF BOARD MEETING
The BUHS #6 Board of Directors will meet at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, April 23, 2018 in the WRCC Cusick Conference Room.
Thursday, April 26: A Room of One’s Own: The Creation of Inner Space
Conversation moderated by Shanta Lee Gander
TIME: 6 – 8:30 p.m. LOCATION: 118 ELLIOT, BRATTLEBORO, VT
*Time range of this event includes networking time. Snacks will be available.*
The Brattleboro Selectboard will receive an update on the skatepark financing and schedule from members of BASIC at their next regular meeting. They’ll also accept a $15,000 challenge grant for the project.
The board will order a new fire truck, discuss dumped tires and clean rivers, consider a letter regarding tax implications of an Act 46 merger, set goals, review rules of conduct, adopt an emergency operations plan, and more. You can bring up other items not on the agenda during Public Participation.
It’s Representative Town Meeting Day in Brattleboro.
Representatives are filing in and getting settled, as are those of us who plan on covering today’s event. I have to say, I’m pretty tired from all the work on the new site, so I especially apologize in advance for spelling errors and such.
Usually, however, as they get into the more interesting debates of the day, this becomes less of a chore and more fun. I’m counting on it today.
I urge support for Article 13, Skatepark funding. The emotional arguments against a skatepark are reminiscent of arguments against dance halls in the 30’s, pool tables in the 40’s and bowling alleys in the 50’s. Kids are going to hang out somewhere. In my neighborhood, it was a 6′ plywood pool table in our basement; mom and dad upstairs; not exactly supervised, but ever-present. A skatepark is a relatively contained area more easily supervised than a dead-end dirt road in the woods.
Brattleboro State Representatives Forum
The next Brattleboro Citizens’ Breakfast will be held Friday, September 16, 2016 at the Gibson Aiken Center, downstairs, hosted by Senior Meals. Doors open at 7:30am.
All State Representatives are up for this November 8th. All of the Brattleboro candidates for the House have agreed to attend this Breakfast, give brief presentations and be available for questions. (Come prepared with questions; I will supply index cards to help organize the question and answer section.)
This Week in Brattleboro History by Joe Rivers and BAMS, et. al., Friday, April 1, 2016, “The Trophies”
Selectboard Candidates’ Forum
The next Brattleboro Citizens’ Breakfast will be held Friday, February 12, 2016 at the Gibson Aiken Center, downstairs, hosted by Senior Meals. Doors open at 7:30am.
Brattleboro Selectboard candidates will give brief presentations and be available for questions:
The Armory and Gibson Aiken Center
The Brattleboro Area Farmers’ Market is now accepting applications for new members to vend their products at the Saturday and/or midweek markets. The Brattleboro Area Farmers’ Market is the region’s largest and oldest open-air market and supports local agriculture, prepared foods and crafts. The market features over 50 diverse vendors from the local area and attracts thousands of visitors annually.
The Brattleboro Area Farmers’ Market is a not-for-profit membership organization and welcomes applications from those who grow and/or create their own high-quality products, especially those working with local ingredients/materials to bring variety to the market’s offerings.
This is Part II of the story of Representative Town Meeting in Brattleboro. You can read Part I: Origins and Adoption here. Representative Town Meeting passed, but not everyone approved of the outcome. One of its critics was Edgar Lawton. Although we don’t hear much about Edgar Lawton today, his name is ever-present in the minutes and agendas of Selectboard and Town Meeting reports throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Why does Brattleboro have Representative Town Meeting? Why not a regular, open Town Meeting like the rest of Vermont? These questions led me on a search through old newspapers and town records to look at Brattleboro’s town meetings in the 1950’s to see if there was some obvious answer. It turns out, there was no single reason that led to the “representative form of government” in Brattleboro. There were many factors, personalities, and coincidences unique to Brattleboro that contributed to its adoption.
Arguments made in favor of representative town meeting were sometimes specific to Brattleboro, such as outgrowing the public meeting hall. Other times they were more lofty, arguing that representative government would be more fair and better able to deal with complex issues, while giving voters a greater say in how the town operates.
