The Brattleboro Department of Public Works announces that the Whetstone Pathway, located adjacent to the Brattleboro Food CoOp and along the Whetstone Brook corridor, will be temporarily closed from Monday, July 21 through Wednesday, July 23, 2025. This brief closure will allow crews to complete necessary resealing work aimed at improving safety, accessibility, and pathway longevity.
The Brattleboro Selectboard set EMS rates and policies, settling on a $1400 cost for a ride in their new ambulance service. Your insurance will pay for most of it, and if you get a bill you can ignore it completely or enter into a payment plan or pay it all at once. It is compassionate, they agreed.
The Town will embark on a search for a new waste management partner, someone who will listen and be responsive, and perhaps take long walks or watch movies together.
The big item for the Brattleboro Selectboard at their next regular meeting will be setting the billing and collection policies for the Town’s new EMS service. The board is setting the rates to be charged and what to do if someone doesn’t pay, among other things.
Also, the Water Treatment Plant’s engineering costs are over-budget and will cost an additional $303k. ARPA funds will be used to cover staff salaries, bids will be accepted for trash collection in town, motions will be assigned for reading at Representative Town Meeting, and you can bring up other items not on the agenda, perhaps, during public participation.
Find attached an early notice for the evaluation of floodplain impacts for the Mountain Home Buyout project. The purpose of the 8 step process is to evaluate floodplain impacts from proposed projects and consider alternatives that would better protect floodplains and public and personal health and safety. This project will develop 26 home sites in Mountain Home Park. The sites will be developed with bulk purchased mobile homes. Twenty six households living in floodways and areas of deep flooding will be relocated to the new sites. Homes, roads, utilities, and foundations for the discontinued sites will be removed and the area will be placed under a conservation easement. More details can be found on the Planning Department page at Brattleboro.org, see “Mountain Home Park Buyouts” in the right sidebar. Please submit comments or questions to this email, Brian Bannon, Zoning Administrator
The Whetstone Pathway Bridge connecting the Whetstone Pathway and the Preston Lot on Flat Street has been reopened. The retaining wall has been replaced and the bridge has been reset. There is more restoration work on the bridge and electrical work on the Pathway remaining.
Thanks to the local residents, patrons and staff of the Brattleboro Food Co-Op for your patience and understanding during this closure.
Water leaks and collapsing walls were part of the first post-Daylight Savings Time regular meeting of the Brattleboro Selectboard. The Department of Public Works reported on a couple of recent and ongoing emergency repairs downtown involving water.
The board heard an update on the work of the Windham Regional Commission, found out more about how poorly parking revenues are going this year, hired a company to do cemetery maintenance, and purchased some new playground equipment. And board members said goodbye to Brandie Starr and Jan Anderson, thanking them for their service.
Effective immediately, the Whetstone Pathway Bridge connecting the Whetstone Pathway and the Preston Lot on Flat Street is closed.
A section of the retaining wall beneath the Whetstone Pathway Bridge has failed. The Department of Public Works is working with engineers, contractors and the State’s Stream Alteration Engineer to develop a plan for repairing the retaining wall. The bridge will be closed until the repairs are made and the safety of the bridge is restored.
A. Call to Order
B. Announcements
C. Approve Minutes of April 30, 2019 and May 28, 2019
D. New Business
Whetstone Brook – Projects and Issues
Before the Brattleboro Selectboard could get to regular business, they heard from many agitated citizens on issues such as the homeless, flowers, and librarians getting paid less than homeless day work program employees. This was interrupted by a climate emergency protest, adding to the list of grievances.
Eventually the board got tho their scheduled business of updates on the DBA and Project CARE, approving of contracts, a short discussion of childcare at public meetings, and more. It was quite an outpouring of interest in local government, from many angles.
Starting on Monday, July 29, the Highway Division will begin installing new wooden deck boards on the Whetstone Path bridge. During this work, the bridge will be closed to pedestrians 7:00am to 2:30pm. The bridge will be reopened after 2:30.
This project is expected to take 5-7 working days to complete. Weather Permitting.
At 12:49p we received a report that there was a large ice jam on the Whetstone Brook near Village Drive and that water was coming into the trailer park. It was determined that an ice jam, approximately 200 yards in length, was diverting the water out of the brook. Eleven homes along Village & Edgewood Drives were evacuated. There were concerns that if the ice jam dislodged it would cause a dangerous, sudden increase in the water levels downstream and for this reason we did a precautionary evacuation of Glen St and Melrose Terrace.
The Brattleboro Selectboard took up FY18, FY20, financial audits, Whetstone hydrology, and many, many grants as part of their final meeting of 2018. January scheduling was also an issue that was resolved, sort of.
On Friday, May 18 the community is invited to explore the floodplain restoration of a 12-acre parcel of land along the Whetstone Brook at a pair of events. At 5:15 P.M., the Brattleboro Conservation Commission and Vermont River Conservancy will host a site walk of the property which is located at 250 Birge Street in Brattleboro. The public is invited to walk the site and learn more about the floodplain restoration project and site conditions from Sue Fillion, Brattleboro Town Planner and Steve Libby, Executive Director at the Vermont River Conservancy.
Time for a summer circus story.
As I was reading some old newspapers, I found an entry that caught my eye. In a report about a flood, the newspaper mentioned that it was hard to believe that the flooded field by the Whetstone was the same place that had been host to P.T. Barnum and Jumbo just a year prior.
I’m a big circus fan, but didn’t know that P.T. Barnum had come to town, let alone that his world famous Jumbo walked about our streets. I dug around some more and found that this circus story began much earlier and was more interesting than I imagined.
