Selectboard Meeting Notes: PAYT, Union Hill, Low Bids, And The End Of An Era

There will be no mailing of Selectboard concerns regarding the Charter change proposals. The media, it was deemed, will be enough of a loudspeaker for the board’s concerns.

Much of the upcoming Pay As You Throw system was voted into being, though the issue of who will be educating the public remains to be decided, while Moss Kahler and Waste Zero discuss the possibility working together.  

The Department of Public Works has a plan to save significant funds by doing the Union Hill intersection improvements in-house, a question of local-but-not-lowest bids delayed the awarding of a bid for a snack bar, and the calendar of events will no longer be read by the board.


Winterpills and Rusty Belle at Next Stage on Saturday, February 21

Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present indie/folk/chamber-pop quintet Winterpills, plus roots-rock/junk-folk trio Rusty Belle at Next Stage on Saturday, February 21 at 7:30 pm.

One of the most exciting bands to emerge from Northampton, MA in recent years, Winterpills plays haunting, delicate, dynamic music with shimmering melodies and aching lyrics. Critically praised as a mirror of sorrows and a beacon of hope, the music of Winterpills – true to the band’s name – is medicine for weary hearts.


Come to the Write Action Open Read, Third Friday at 7:30

Do you write poetry?  Or perhaps you write prose ? Either way this Friday you will have a chance to read your work in front of an audience. 

This Friday, February 20th, is the third Friday of the month, and at 7:30 PM on every third Friday, Write Action hosts the Open Reading.

We meet at the Blue Dot Studio, in the Hooker Dunham Building to share our poems and stories. Each person gets about 7 minutes


Seminar Series About Money

What: Arriving Together At the Power of Mutual Credit – offered by John Root jr of Just Abundance, Common Good Finance and rCredits.

Where: 15 Grove St, Brattleboro, VT 05301 (Behind the Stone Church)

When: Wednesday night, Jan 18, 6:30-9pm and subsequent Wednesday eves.

The first two sessions are historical and conceptual: First, the history of money and control of the banksters, with the emphasis on American history of money.  “Why is the almighty dollar the basis for the American Empire?”


Proposed Charter Amendment Fact Sheet

The Brattleboro Selectboard has drafted and is considering adopting and mailing the following “Fact Sheet” related to the proposed Charter changes on the upcoming March ballot. The mailing to all residences will cost under $3000.

Below you’ll find an attachment that included the draft text being considered, as it appeared in the Selectboard meeting materials for their February 17 meeting, to be held later tonight. If approved, you will also get a copy in the mail.


Sandglass Theater Presents Do Elephants Dream of Eclectic Sheep?

PUTNEY- On February 20th and 21st Sandglass welcomes the puppet artist, Amanda Maddock, with a new collaborative work, Do Elephants Dream of Eclectic Sheep? In this piece the audience is invited to visit the bedroom and mind of a slumbering elephant whose dreams are just beginning to unfold. The elephant begins to question her fate as the contents of her room and mind reveal messages either fraught with meaning or frivolous…or perhaps both…or neither? Time, scale, character transformation, creatures and objects will be awakened, unpacked, and opened to interpretation.

This piece will be presented as part of Sandglass Theater’s New Visions Series, which serves as a laboratory for new works by artist in the field of puppetry and movement-based theater.


Welch Announces Legislation To Spur Use of Modern Wood Heating Systems

Bipartisan initiative would boost Vermont’s biomass industry

Burlington, VT—This afternoon in Montpelier, Rep. Peter Welch announced bipartisan legislation that would make it more affordable for Vermonters to install wood heating systems in their homes or businesses.

The Biomass Thermal Utilization(BTU) Act would expand the existing renewable energy tax credit to include wood, or “biomass thermal,” heating systems. Welch made the announcement at National Life Group’s Montpelier campus. The company installed a wood heating system in 2010 that has reduced its carbon footprint by 45 percent and heating costs by 50 percent.


Public Invited to “Trail Talk” to be held for I-91 Brattleboro Bridge Project

The PCL+FIGG Team will conduct the next on-site “trail talk” for the Public on Saturday, February 21, 2015. There has been a lot of progress at the I-91 Brattleboro Bridge project site, which will be shared with attendees. The talks will originate at the West River Trail near the marina. The trail talk will be led by Caleb Linn, Project Manager for PCL (lead contractor) and Garrett Hoffman, Design Manager for FIGG (bridge designer).


Brattleboro Snow Removal Continues

The Town of Brattleboro would like to remind everyone that the snow emergency ban is in effect.

Snow and ice will be removed from Western Ave this evening. If they have enough time then they will work on Main St and the North Bridge Down.

Parked vehicles in the downtown area must be removed by 10:30pm or they will be towed at the owner’s expense.


Singers Needed for Nautical Program on June 13

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 49th year of producing concerts and stage projects in the region, is looking for a few more singers to participate in its A Cappella à la Carte season finale on Saturday, June 13.

The Guilford Chamber Singers are being directed for a third season by composer/arranger and instrumentalist Tom Baehr, of Putney, who sings tenor in several regional choirs and choruses. With a nautical theme this June, the Chamber Singers will reprise “Crossing the Bar,” Rani Arbo’s setting of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem.


Brattleboro Time Trade – Week of February 15

Brattleboro Time Trade:

Exchanging services, creating connections, strengthening communities, one hour at a time.

See below for exciting Upcoming Events and learn what Time Trade is all about!

This week’s fabulous listings, brought to you from a sunny beach day in Northern Quebec:

OFFERS:

Calligraphy Lessons
Reading Instruction
Cooking Lessons
Walk Dog
Dog Walking / Puppy Obedience


“Light & Variable: Music to Defy February” Features Variable Winds Quintet

If February didn’t exist, who would dare to invent it? But since it does, Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 49th season, has chosen the 21st of that unloved month to present LIGHT AND VARIABLE: Music to Defy February featuring the woodwind quintet Variable Winds in a program designed to take your mind off it.

“Light” may not be the first word you’d connect with Gustav Mahler, but the settings he made early in his career of poems from the folk collection “The Youth’s Magic Horn” are exactly that: tuneful, witty, and charming. Arranged by Trevor Cramer for wind quintet are three songs about music, “Rhine Legend,” “Who Thought Up This Little Song?” and “In Praise of Higher Understanding,” in which a singing contest between a cuckoo and a nightingale is judged by a donkey. (Think “Bavarian Idol.”)


Brattleboro Snow Removal Tonight

The Town of Brattleboro would like to remind everyone that the snow emergency ban is in effect.

Snow and ice will be removed from the parking lots in the downtown area this evening.

Parked vehicles in the downtown parking lots must be removed by 10:30pm or they will be towed at the owner’s expense.


February Tax & Utility Payments Due in Brattleboro

The third installment of the 2014 Real Estate and Personal Property Taxes will be due on February 17th, 2015. Payments made after February 17th, 2015 will have an additional 1% interest added to the unpaid balance.

The utility billing is also due on February 17th, 2015. Payments made after February 17th, 2015 will have an additional 1% interest, as well as an 8% penalty added to the unpaid balance.

The Treasurer’s Office will be closed on February 16, 2015 in observance of President’s Day.


Homelessness Marathon Tuesday Night on WVEW

WVEW-lp, Brattleboro Community Radio (107.7fm or wvew.org), will once again air the annual Homelessness Marathon, starting at 7pm Tuesday evening (Feb. 17th) and running until 9am the next morning. For those not familiar with the broadcast, it is not a fund-raiser, it’s a conciousness raiser. This will be the 17th time the marathon has set up outdoors on one of the coldest nights of the year to talk to people who are homeless, housing advocates, workers at crisis centers, and occasionally a poitican or two willing to discuss the issue. This year the marathon will broadcast from Sarasota, Florida. (Last year it originated from Brattleboro using a booth set up in front of the Baptist Church.)


BCTV Channel 8 & 10 Schedules for the Week of 2/16/15

BCTV Ch.8 schedule for the week of 2/16/15

Monday, February 16, 2015

12:00 am Senator Sanders’ Annual State of the Union Essay C

1:35 am Coming Clean on Lake Champlain 1/29/15

3:00 am UVM Comm Med School: Keeping Blood Pressure in Check

4:42 am TED Talks: Barbara Natterson-Horowitz: What Veterinarians Know that Doctors Don’t

5:00 am Do Vaccines Promote Health?


Can You Hear Me Now?

Wait a second!

Hold on!

Did Tom go rogue?

Did he have an epiphany? 

First a little background :

Tom Wheeler, was appointed by Obama, to be the FCC chairman. He could not be more of a corporate insider. Prior to this post Tom was the CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association for 12 years. Before that he served as president of the National Cable Television Association, a cable lobbying shop. “He’s beloved in the telecom industry.”


Brattleboro Selectboard Agenda and Notes – February 17, 2015

The Brattleboro Selectboard will take action on a number of issues related to the implementation of Pay As You Throw at their next regular Tuesday meeting. The decisions were delayed to this meeting in part to give the public time to weigh in.

The board will take up the matter of their special mailing to all residents in opposition to proposed Charter change amendments on the March ballot, learn about the Union Hill improvements at the Western Ave intersection, approve homeland security and terrorism prevention grants, and more.

You can attend in person at the Municipal Center, even participate in the meeting, or watch on BCTV and read about it here when it is over. If you are really ambitious, you can do all of those things.


5:45: 2/13/15

Kia Bailey returns to the news desk for a Friday the 13th Valentines Day Harris Hill weekend edition of BCTV’s weekly news round-up that breaks down the board’s special PAYT meeting from Thursday, TransCanada’s plan to cash out on tax obligations all up and down the CT river, and much much more.
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