Given a chance to make a statement in favor of Native People’s Day, the Brattleboro Selectboard decided 3-2 that there may be some reasonable opposition to the idea in the community and felt it would be better to have signatures be collected to put the matter before voters or Representative Town Meeting members at a later date. Next Monday officially remains Columbus Day in Brattleboro.

The selectboard also heard much about long term plans for the town, from the review of town operations to financial plans, plans for downtown studies, police and fire facility plans, and more.

Brattleboro’s Town Manager Peter Elwell has graciously agreed to a series of three interviews about himself, towns in general, and the future of Brattleboro. In this first installment, we ask about growing up in Brattleboro, his time away from Brattleboro, and his return to his home town.

Tell us about growing up in Brattleboro…

I had a happy “normal” childhood. So happy that no matter where else I ever lived, Brattleboro was always “home.” There were dozens of kids in my neighborhood (including my 3 older sisters) and we had friends all over town. We rode our bikes everywhere. Although it was the 1970s, it had the feel of an earlier era. In the summers and on weekends, we would leave home in the morning and go out and about, usually with just the admonition to “be back by dark.”

We played a lot of sports, usually in synch with whatever professional sports season was active at that time and only rarely organized by adults. On summer evenings, we played “cops and robbers” (a large scale game of hide+seek played by teams) throughout all the yards (and some of the garages) in our neighborhood. I walked to Green Street School and rode the bus to the junior high (now BAMS) and BUHS.

Those of us who were growing up here at that time definitely had a sense that the Town was changing, becoming more diverse and more artsy, but we were mostly focused on the things any other kids in other settings would focus on … school, friends, music, sports, etc.

The Brattleboro Selectboard will be discussing things at their next regular meeting, They will discuss the Comprehensive Review of Town Operations. They will discuss the Long Range Financial Plan, the Windham Solid Waste District Assessment, the Police and Fire projects, and more.

They also might act to do a few things. They might proclaim Indigenous People’s Day. They will likely loan Cultural Intrigue $70,000, schedule a new process for evaluating Bittersweet Lane, and accept money for the planned dog park at Living Memorial Park.

You can attend, participate, and bring up other items not on the agenda. It’s at the Municipal Center on Tuesday, as usual.

The Brattleboro Energy Committee will meet on Monday, October 3, 2016 at 5:00pm in the Hanna Cosman meeting room at the Municipal Center.

Jan Anderson
Executive Secretary
Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office
(802) 251-8100