The ONE and ONLY Brattleboro
First, let me emphasize that I would not change anything growing up in Brattleboro!
According to the U.S. Census Reports, Brattleboro’s population in 1950 was 11,522; in 1960, it was 11,734 (when I went into the Army); in 1970, it was 12,239 (highest); in 2010, it was 12,046; and in 2022, it was 12,106. So, our population has been pretty unwavering for the last fifty years with no growth.
BCTV Channel 1078 Weekly Listing for 12/4/23
Monday, December 4, 2023
5:55 am BUHS Athletic Hall of Fame – BHS/BUHS Athletic Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony 10/28/23
8:00 am Democracy Now! – Democracy Now! Daily Broadcast
9:00 am Energy Week with George Harvey – This Week’s Energy News
10:00 am Veterans Events – Veterans Town Hall 11/5/23
(December 4, 2023 / JNS)
OFAKIM, Israel—A reverential silence fell on the room as the four American-Muslim women bowed their heads in prayer on Friday for the victims of the Hamas attack on Israel.
Moments earlier, the interfaith crowd in the apartment in this western Negev city, which included Muslims, Jews, a white-turbaned Sikh, a mixed Israeli family and Mayor Yitzhak Danino, stood mesmerized as the Arabic words of supplication for the Israelis murdered in the massacre were intoned.
“Freedom! Justice!” Demand of Generations of Palestinians
Will Not Be Denied All That Much Longer
Israelis are very proud of their Biblical God given cry and order, ‘Let My People Go,’ but never seem to accept, nor hear, nor acknowledge, that ‘Let Us Have Our Freedom’ be the imagined cry of generations of captive Palestinians suffering Israel’s merciless, and very often deadly, illegal military occupation.
An enigmatic Chinese proverb goes something like this: A farmer and his wife have a newborn son, and the neighbors come over to congratulate them. “Now you have an heir to work the field, how great!” The farmer says…”We’ll see.” The child grows to be a strong young man, he indeed was a helper to his parents, but one day he falls off a horse and breaks his leg. The neighbors converge to offer their sympathies, the farmer simply says, “We’ll see.“ Soon thereafter state officials arrive to conscribe all young men of the region into military service. The farmer’s son is deferred because of his disability. The son says to his father, “I guess that was a blessing in disguise.“ ”We’ll see…”
The Esplanade:
Ooops. A “previously overlooked item” will require an estimated base increase in Brattleboro property taxes for FY25 of 3.6%. It’s on the agenda for the next regular meeting of the Brattleboro Selectboard.
The Brattleboro Fire Department would like $3000 a month to pay an outside company for EMS billing services. Doing everything in-house is no longer an option.
The board will also hear about a strategic plan for Brooks Memorial Library, and update on how their housing plan has been going, talk of acquiring the McNeill’s property in exchange for the demolition costs, and another discussion of things that can be done about panhandling.
You can bring up almost anything else during public participation unless it is some issue the Chair doesn’t want discussed in public.
The Brattleboro Human Services Committee will meet on Monday, December 4th, 2023 at 4:00pm and on Wednesday, December 6, 2023 at 4:00pm. Both meetings will take place in the Hanna Cosman Meeting Room at the Municipal Center (230 Main Street).
The Brattleboro RTM Finance Committee will meet on Thursday, December 7, 2023 at 6:00pm in the Hanna Cosman Meeting Room.
The Windham Southeast School District Independent Budget Review Committee Meeting will take place Tuesday, December 5, 2023 at 5:00pm in the Cusick Conference Room at BUHS
Crews will continue to clean out the pipe piles into early next week. Site work for the shoring tower along the riverbank near Pier 1 has begun and will continue. The shoring tower will be a temporary means to support the structural steel while Pier 1 is being constructed. The Pier 1 cofferdam is also scheduled for construction to begin next week along with the water filtration system of tanks that will be used to treat the groundwater at Pier 1 once the excavation has concluded and dewatering can begin. The soil and the groundwater at this location will both need to be managed and mitigated due to known contaminants in the old fuel yard.
A number of years ago there was controversy over the use of food that had been modified by genetic engineering. People believed we were heading into unknown territory and that if we manipulated the genes of the food we eat we might have to deal with dangerous unintended consequences. As a result, some states required the labelling of food that might be considered to be Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s).
I have been making a self-guided educational effort to understand the current revolution of genetic engineering for the past four years. There have been monumental scientific breakthroughs in genetic engineering and they revolve around something called CRISPR, an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. The CRISPR technology allows scientists to alter the genetic makeup of cells. It is a complex process, but the bottom line is that CRISPR has the potential to change our ability to fight disease in plants, animals and humans among other processes.
WSESD Policy and Amendment Committee will meet Tuesday, December 5, 2023 at 2:30pm
in the WSESU Central Office, 53 Green Street, Brattleboro and remotely via Zoom
I. Approval of Minutes and confirmation of next meeting date
The minutes of 11/7/23 meeting approved by assent.
Agenda was amended to correct the date of next scheduled meeting.
The next Policy and Amendment Committee meetings are scheduled for:
The Windham Southeast Supervisory Union Board will meet at 6:00 PM on Wednesday,
November 29, 2023 in the WRCC, Cusick Conference Room, and remotely via Zoom.
I need an occasional handyperson to do some light jobs such as changing smoke detector batteries, overhead light bulbs, etc. – i.e., mainly things that require “ladder work” for a small apartment in Brattleboro. I’d pay per job as needed, but it’s not a job for ANGI (Angie’s List) signup. Any suggestions?
House
435 members
Base pay = $174,000 + benefits
Let’s call it $200,000 each including benefits; Speaker, majority and minority leaders make more.
435 x $200,000 = 87 million
The diesel hammer has finished driving the last pile to bedrock at the Pier 1 location, reducing the noise from the site. Crews have arrived to clean out the piles and remove the spoils from the top 90 feet before the footing can be placed. This clean out operation will continue into next week. Also scheduled for next week, crews will begin construction of the temporary support system for the steel girders that will span from abutment to abutment in the Barrows and Fisher yard near Pier 1.
BCTV Channel 1078 Weekly Listing for 11/27/23
Monday, November 27, 2023
5:20 am Windham World Affairs Council – America & China – From ‘Old Friends’ to The ‘New Cold War’
6:55 am Brattleboro Literary Festival – Missing– Angie Kim & Jean Kwok
8:00 am Democracy Now! – Democracy Now! Daily Broadcast
9:00 am Energy Week with George Harvey – Energy Week #548 – 11/9/2023
Have a question about the history of your house, business or Brattleboro relatives?
Researcher LEE HA can help you discover and explore some of Brattleboro’s best stories, artifacts and photographs. Lee also talks about some very cool community projects that the Brattleboro Historical Society is currently involved with.
The seventh annual Writing to the Light Writing Circle led by writer and educator Deborah Lee Luskin will take place in person on Sunday, December 10 at the Moore Free Library, 23 West Street, Newfane. The workshop will start promptly at 1 pm and end at 3:30.
At this annual end-of-year fundraiser for the Moore Free Library, writers of all kinds and all levels of experience are invited to reflect on the light in their life in a supportive writing circle. We will write to illuminate our inner light, honor our inner voice, and tell whatever stories rise to be told. Prompts and guidance for automatic writing will be provided. Collectively, we will create a safe space for those who wish to read their new words.
I’ve driven a golf cart in a community like this and it seemed like a great pollution-free way to get around. Are golf carts allowed on the streets of Brattleboro? Should they be? I was struck by this quote in the article:
“Peachtree City, Ga., has roughly 13,000 households and some 11,000 registered golf carts.”
