the bridge, january 24, 2013

PRSR

T S

TD

CA

R-R

T S

OR

TU

.S. P

osta

gePA

IDM

ontp

elie

r, V

TPe

rmit

NO

. 123

The

Brid

geP.O

. Box

114

3M

ontp

elie

r, V

T 0

5601

Connecting Montpelier and nearby communities since 1993 | JANUARY 24–FEBRUARY 6, 2013

COSTS OF THE

COMMON GOOD

Can we pay for our care?

4–5

THE DOC TAKES STOCK

Allan Ramsay on Vermont’s health care system

6

BENEFIT EXCHANGE: YES OR NO?

Malek and Sterling offer opinions

9

DEATHLY DECISIONSThe importance of advance directives

14

ILLUST

RA

TIO

N BY

KEN

RU

SSELL

A fter my dad died, my brother and I visited his corpse, as it lay on the platform, in the funeral home in Bran-don. Two days had passed since I had flown back from

California. He seemed at rest, finally. He had avoided hospitals for years, knowing that the doctor would tell him to quit drinking, quit smoking and to lose weight. He would talk with the family doctor, over the back fence.

Dad lived the small-town life. When his dear friend, a true char-acter who served in the Vermont legislature, died, Dad built a pine coffin for him and helped give him a simple burial. The hospital did catch up to Dad. After collapsing on his tractor and being rushed to the Rutland Hospital—it was an aneurysm—he looked up at my mom and said, “It was the creamed eggs, dearie.” He went fast, but with grace. He never did give up scotch or cholesterol.

I try to be healthy, myself. I try to eat well, whole foods without sugar or industrial additives. I could exercise more. I, too, try to keep hospitals at bay. They seem alien, overbuilt, but I’m glad they are there. They saved my grandmother two or three times. They saved me. Born in 1967, at Mary Fletcher, I was one of the last Rh babies, kept alive by the unique research of UVM’s Dr. Lucey, who developed ultraviolet lamps, which helped my blood recover.

As I write, my mom is preparing for day five of a grueling treat-ment that could keep her walking. We just now talked about her experience, about my dad’s death experience and about doctors and health. I do wonder, sometimes, whether this whole push for eternal life is a modern indulgence, but I am grateful to have loved ones around longer.

I moved back to Vermont to be with my family because of a distinct feeling that mortality made more sense here. I remember seeing livestock on my brother’s farm, on God’s green earth, here, in Vermont, and thinking that this made so much more sense than the overbuilt, death-defying culture of California. As I cut my car-rots, meet my local farmer and enjoy the sweet Vermont commons, I count my blessings, glad that I live in this peaceful, enlightened state. I savor a political system that focuses on moral issues and rejects the overreaches of power.

May I live out my final days, peacefully, on the land. May my dear home state continue to lead with common sense. In this issue, we will talk about having it all and keeping it simple. May we find that balance.

— Ken Russell, guest editor

HEALTH+WELLNESSTHE PRICE OF LIFE:

Can We Afford It?IN THIS ISSUEIN THIS ISSUE

• JANUARY 24 – FEBRUARY 6 , 2013 THE BR IDGE

THE BR IDGE JANUARY 24 – FEBRUARY 6 , 2013 • PAGE 3

Subscribe to The Bridge! For a one-year subscription, send this form and a check to The Bridge, P.O. Box 1143, Montpelier, VT 05601.

Name___________________________________________________________

Address_________________________________________________________

City____________________________________ State_____ Zip____________

I have enclosed a check, payable to The Bridge, for :

❑ $50 for a one-year subscription ❑ An extra $____ to support The Bridge. (Contributions are not tax-deductible.)

HEARD ON THE

STREETGoddard Support Staff Votes on Unionization

At press time, Goddard College’s support staff was voting by secret ballot on unionization. If the vote is affirmative, the support staff will be represented by the same union that rep-

resents the Goddard College faculty, United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2322. The college’s administration rejected a UAW request on the support staff ’s behalf in November, saying that they wanted to ensure that all support staff were interested in UAW membership. Sup-port staff members have expressed concerns that the school’s administration has deliberately misled and pressured staff members in an effort to prevent unionization. The college counters that it has encouraged discussion and transparency throughout the process but has also stated fears that the unionization effort might hamper fundraising and development efforts.

Petition Drive Opposing Tar Sands in Vermont

A petition drive to keep the state free of tar sands is being organized by 350 Vermont. The drive seeks town meeting resolutions, in Montpelier and other Vermont communities,

that will officially “express opposition to the transport of tar sands oil through Vermont,” press for a phase-out of tar sand oil use on both local and state levels, and call for environmen-tal impact reviews of tar sands–related pipeline proposals. A crude oil pipeline built in 1950 currently runs through the northeastern corner of Vermont from Portland, Maine, to Mon-treal. Plans to reverse the flow of the pipeline so that it could accommodate tar sands oil from Alberta were abandoned in 2009, but 350 Vermont alleges that the plans have been revisited by Enbridge and the Portland-Montreal Pipeline. The pipeline would be used to transport diluted bitumen (Dillbit), a corrosive material that 350 Vermont likens to “liquid sandpaper” due to its abrasive nature. Dillbit’s viscosity and thickness require it to be conveyed at higher temperatures and pipeline pressures than conventional crude oil, making it more susceptible to pipeline leaks and spills.

Mayors Say No to Guns

On January 14, 2013, Montpelier mayor John Hollar, Barre mayor Thom Lauzon, Rutland mayor Christ Louras and Burlington mayor Miro Weinberger announced

their membership in Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan coalition of more than 800 mayors from big cities and small towns across the nation. The coalition advocates for what it terms broad national gun reforms that will save lives, support law enforcement and protect public safety, while also preserving the cherished Second Amendment rights of Vermonters and Americans. The coalition’s agenda includes legislation that will require every gun buyer to pass a criminal background check, get military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines off our streets and make gun trafficking a federal crime.

Art Gallery Opens on Barre Street

There’s a new art gallery/studio opening at 6 Barre Street, Monday through Friday, 2–6 p.m. The artist is Glen Coburn Hutcheson, who works at Skinny Pancake by day.

Hutcheson studied sculpture at the New York Studio School and painting at Haverford College and will maintain both a studio in the back and a gallery in the front of the space through July.

Grian Herbs and Green Mountain Medicinals Merge

Clinical herbalist Iris Gage has announced that she bought local businesses Grian Herbs and Green Mountain Medicinals and has merged the two to form Grian Herbs Apoth-

ecary. The owner says the apothecary, located at 34 Elm Street (Tulsi Tea Room) will be central Vermont’s source for bulk herbs, herbal supplies and holistic health information. The two businesses have provided herbs to the local community for over 10 years.

Animal Town

Montpelier now has its own producer of dog treats. The new dog “barkery,” Bongo & Blanket’s Bakehouse, produces wheat-free, preservative-free, gourmet dog biscuits.

The bakery says, on its website, that its biscuits are “handmade from human grade, nutrient dense ingredients, free of corn, wheat, soy, added refined sugar or salt. They never contain any by-products, fillers, preservatives or additives.” For more information, visit bongoand blanketsbakehouse.com.

If you prefer wildlife to domestic animals, North Branch Nature Center advises that they’re closing in on 200 bird species sightings in Washington County. (They’re currently at 199.) To help get involved in the bird quest, visit northbranchnaturecenter.org or call 229-6206.

Tree Board in Need of New Members

Montpelier’s Tree Board cochair, Sarah Hoffmeier, let us know that the board could use additional interested community members. Their monthly meetings occur the first

Thursday of the month at 5:30 p.m. in the Memorial Room of City Hall. For more informa-tion, call 522-5840.

—third item by Richard Sheir; all other items by Max Shenk

P.O. Box 1143, Montpelier, VT 05601Phone: 802-223-5112 | Fax: 802-223-7852 montpelierbridge.com; facebook.com/montpelierbridge

Published every first and third Thursday

Editor & Publisher: Nat Frothingham

General Manager: Bob Nuner

Editorial Associate: Max Shenk

Production Editor: Kate Mueller

Sales Representatives: Carolyn Grodinsky, Rick McMahan

Graphic Design & Layout: Dana Dwinell-Yardley

Calendar Editor: Dana Dwinell-Yardley

Bookkeeper: Kathryn Leith

Distribution: Kevin Fair, Diana Koliander-Hart, Daniel Renfro

Website & Social Media Manager: Dana Dwinell-Yardley

Advertising: For information about advertising deadlines and rates, contact: 223-5112, ext. 11, [email protected] or [email protected]

Editorial: Contact Bob, 223-5112, ext. 14, or [email protected].

Location: The Bridge office is located at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, on the lower level of Schulmaier Hall.

Subscriptions: You can receive The Bridge by mail for $50 a year. Make out your check to The Bridge, and mail to The Bridge, PO Box 1143, Montpelier VT 05601.

Copyright 2013 by The Montpelier Bridge

Not so many birds in the yard this winter. I can’t think about it without seeing the history: the too early, rain-scarce heat this spring, combined with the previous

dry winter and no snow melt and a drought all summer, with almost the only rain coming in nonsoaking downpours. Then the continuing record heat all summer. It all added up to no apples, no tree seed, almost no weed seed and no native flowering fruit. There is nothing out there for birds other than insect eaters, and I don’t know what the status of insect larvae is either. Perhaps poor. It’s sad to see. I’d be happy to see a string of less dramatic weather, several years’ worth, and a normal plague of seasonable black-flies and mosquitos to fatten up migrants and feed nestlings. And a normal amount of rain to fill the streams and soften the ground for worm-eating, earth-probing robins, woodcocks and snipe. Bring it on. I promise I won’t complain!

—Nona Estrin

Nature Watch

A New Year’s resolution you can keep:

ADVERTISE WITH US IN 2013!We have lots of great discounts, packages and special issues in store. For more information, contact our sales representatives: Carolyn, 223-5112, ext. 11, or [email protected].

Got More Health? The next issue of The Bridge, February 7, will be the second of two health and wellness issues. The issue will focus on local practitioners. Interested in advertising? Call Carolyn at 223-5112 or e-mail [email protected]. Have a story idea? Call Nat, Bob or Max at 223-5112 or e-mail [email protected].


by Ken Russell

Eternal LifeThe fountain of youth or eternal life has

been a universal theme in the human experi-ence. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote about it; Jesus Christ was said to represent eternal life. In 1513, the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon embarked on a search for the fountain, which led him to discover Florida. Here in Vermont, the quest may be a bit more humble, but the basic urge remains. We want to live a long and healthy life, and the medical system is a big part of that.

We seem to be willing to spend whatever it takes to achieve this, and yet we live in an age of limits. We are becoming aware of the limits of the planet, our shared resources, including our health care dollars, which, in Vermont, take up one-fifth of the economy. According to the Joint Fiscal Office, health care spending occupied 19.1 percent of the Vermont economy in 2009—closing in on $6,000 per person—up from 10 percent in 1992. A report in the 1930s raised the alarm that if health care rose to 4 percent of the economy, there would be a crisis.

In addition, there is a big push to provide health care to all. “Health care is a human right” has been a rallying cry, with a push to treat health care as a common good. As a common good, there is a related need to treat common resources responsibly. It is to that end that we explore the attempts at cost containment in the health care system.

The Stakes

Al Gobeille, who serves on the Green Mountain Care Board, has a very personal understanding of the stakes when it comes to the availability of affordable health care.

“My son almost died. We were at Fletcher Allen. Everything had to go right for him to live. And they were flawless. One hundred years ago, we [would have lost our] son,” said Gobeille. “I’ve described the doctors as magicians and wizards. When you have a loved one who’s very, very ill, and a doctor or other health care professional saves their life—there’s no one else in society who can be that for you.”

Yet, Gobeille represents the business com-munity and is a strong voice on the board for fiscal restraint. The board itself has been tasked by the Vermont legislature to bring

down costs and provide broad access to qual-ity care. It is a powerful body and will be a key player in moving the health care reform efforts forward.

Gobeille thinks the biggest threat to the nation is rising health care costs. “We sim-ply can’t afford these rising costs,” he said. “They can’t be two to three times the rate of inflation. You own a company and it goes up 12, 13, 15 percent every year: It becomes such a driver for your business. That being said, can you imagine life without antibiot-ics, and treatment for things like polio and cancer? Thank God that we live in a time with these treatments.”

Gobeille has raised the alarm about medi-cal costs for business. After pointing out that businesspeo-ple have been the biggest philan-thropists to hos-pitals, he warned, “The day is com-ing at some point where businesses will turn on the hospitals . . . [i]f at some point, the business owner can’t afford to stay in business and the people running the hospitals are driving expensive, foreign automobiles.” He likened health care spending to spending on a wedding: some-body needs to be in a position to set a budget and say no.

At the same time, Gobeille is aware of the importance of health care: “I know the system has to change, but we also never have to disrespect the providers that work in the system because they are the most altruistic people in the system. I’m talking about the individual doctor and the individual nurse.”

The Public Good

Champions of the push to single payer, such as the Vermont Workers’ Center, which has worked for years on this issue, advocate the treatment of health care as a public good, one that is governed by morality and that would adhere to five principles: universality, equity, accountability, transparency and par-ticipation. To them, universality means, for instance, that health care should include the whole body, including adult dental benefits.

The Vermont Health Benefit Exchange is mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the big health care legislation passed at the federal level, known as Obamacare.

The exchange is meant to be a one-stop marketplace for Vermonters in certain cat-egories, providing a uniformity of benefits. For Vermont policy makers, the exchange is a step toward their goal of single-payer health care, which they cannot enact, under ACA, until at least 2017. (See accompanying opinion pieces on page 9.)

“A budget is a statement of priorities,” says Peg Franzen, longtime advocate for single-payer health care and president of the Ver-mont Workers’ Center. She is concerned that the governor has not signaled his inten-tions for financing a single-payer system. She points to a financing proposal offered by the Healthcare Is a Human Right organization, which advocates that financing be equitable,

in that wealthy peo-ple and corporations pay proportion-ately more into the health care system than poor people.

Heather Pipino, also of the Workers’ Center, stresses the need not to view health care as a commod-ity, “Certain things are a common good for society, including health care. Generally speaking, the free market has failed. In the current system, there are incentives to keep people unhealthy, and people wait to see a doctor until things become more severe because of the costs. Under this model, there is a long-term effect on the health of our society. One way to reduce costs is to have everybody in and to share the burden through equitable financing based on your ability to pay. We want to make sure that it’s there when we need it and barriers are reduced so that people can access the health care that they need.”

Walter Carpenter, another Vermont Work-ers’ Center advocate, talked about difficult health care choices that brought home, to him, the seriousness of the health care access situation. Carpenter had no health insurance (this was before VHAP, Vermont’s subsi-dized insurance program) when he devel-oped a liver ailment that was fatal without treatment. He was faced with either losing his life or incurring a huge medical debt. “I had to face the question: How much is your life worth to you?” said Carpenter. “When you face that question . . . you understand what the public good really is.”

When you’re dealing with human life, cost becomes a very secondary issue. Dr. Allan Ramsay, who serves on the Green Mountain Care Board, emphasized that his concern is about quality of care, not cost, especially when it comes to expensive treatments of chronic conditions, such as cancer, lung dis-ease, heart disease, ALS and dementia. In those situations, he said, “It’s never about cost, never.” No one wants to put a price on a human life, and we all want quality care, which makes the budgetary calculus all the more difficult.

The Tragedy of the Commons

While everyone seems to be committed to providing universal access to good qual-ity care, there is a concern that, absent constraints, people may overuse health care resources.

Health care expert Steve Kappel, a primary player in the governor’s health care reform initiative, warns of the hunger for health care spending. “As long as the general economy is growing, and there’s enough money to buy all the other things that we want, we can spend an insane amount of money on health care,” said Kappel. “It’s when people begin to perceive that it’s taking money away from other things, which it’s starting to do [that we will hit the crisis point].”

In economics, the tragedy of the commons refers to the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, who act in their self-interest, without regard to the long-term consequences of depleting a common resource. The phrase comes from cattle, owned by individuals, being allowed to graze freely on commonly owned land—the commons—until the land is overgrazed. For Kappel, this economic theory has much resonance around health care: “Because the costs are distributed, and the benefits are localized . . . [everyone else] pays into [their] insurance plans so I get something I want, which means the classic market restraints aren’t on me.”

Kappel warns that if we treat health care as a right, then the entire fiscal state becomes the commons, subject to reckless depletion. “If there’s absolutely no consequence, if ev-erybody from the bottom of the income scale to the top of the income scale gets, quote, free health care, you ain’t seen nothing yet [in terms of health care costs],” said Kappel.

He mentioned the metaphorical “money

The Money Tree on the Common Trimming Health Care Costs for the Public Good


tree,” popular in fiscal circles: “There’s only a finite amount of money hanging in that tree.”

Containing Hospital CostsAt the January 9, 2013, meeting of the

Green Mountain Board, hospital representa-tives discussed the special challenges hospi-tals face. Hospitals are required to serve cer-tain patients, such as those with psychiatric needs, and they do so, at a loss. Hospital rep-resentatives describe their mission as moral, about how they serve people, such as those with mental health conditions, for no cost, and how they are “downstream” of some of society’s unaddressed challenges.

There was much discussion about provid-ing people with ready access to more appro-priate and less expensive health care, thereby avoiding unnecessary trips to the emergency room (ER). One health care provider talked of social workers intervening with certain members of the “frequent flyer” population, those with mental health problems who use the ER as a place to go, when all else fails. A weekly appointment at a community health clinic can be far cheaper for public coffers than frequent, and medically inappropriate trips, to the ER.

Dr. Deb Richter, who has served as presi-dent of Physicians for a National Health Program and has been a leader, with the Workers’ Center, in the fight for single-payer health care in Vermont, talked of the struc-tural work needed to contain costs.

“[Hospitals are the] best place to start be-cause it is the fastest growing sector in health care. And we are spending much more per person than the national average,” said Rich-ter. “Vermont spends $1,000 more per person on hospital costs than the national average. That alone would save $600 million. We’re not using the hospital more; it’s not a utiliza-tion problem. We have too much expensive infrastructure. Most costs in hospitals are fixed, that is they are staffed for a certain capacity that doesn’t vary if fewer people use that service. So once in place, the costs exist whether patients are in the beds or not.”

The board discussed with CEOs of hos-pitals a hard target of a 3.1 percent rise in hospital budgets. The hospitals want flex-ibility, including consideration of exemp-tions, such as for some capital cost needs. They also asked for a movement on payment reform—a move away from fee-for-service toward global budgeting. At the end of the meeting, the hospitals and the boards agreed that the hospitals would come back with a multiyear plan for beginning to bend the cost curve.

Protecting the Commons

Green Mountain Care Board chair Anya Rader Wallack is working hard, under the legislative mandate, to protect the state’s economic resources. “Health care has a cost . . . We all want it when we need it, and it’s not cheap to make a full array of services and

technologies available,” she said. According to Wallack, switching to a publicly funded system or reducing administrative costs will not magically solve this problem. “It’s like a family budget,” she said. “[We] can’t just pretend we have more money. We have to decide—whether it’s five billion, six billion, or four and a half.”

Wallack discussed the need for a cultural change in the health care delivery system. “We’ve got a HC system that has been built up around fixing problems after they occur, throwing a whole lot of resources at them,” she said. She referred to end-of-life care, where a severely ill individual ends up in a hospital and is put through expensive tests and treatments. “We put them in inten-sive care; we don’t have conversations about, ‘Hey, what do you want, what does your family want?’” said Wallack. “Our whole system is oriented around that rather than what our patients need.” Wallack thinks people need to have a good primary care pro-vider and incentives to remain healthy and to take care of health problems early, rather than wait and rely on technology.

Kappel agrees that getting the population healthier and reducing demand for health care services is a step in the right direction.

“The central care process has to change,” said Kappel. “So I go into the doctor and [say] I saw this really cool test on television, and I want this test. Does the doc spend half an hour to talk me out of this? Or does the doc say, ‘I think it’s a really bad idea but if you really want it, since you’ve got insurance and you’re not actually paying for it, [we’ll do it].’”

Kappel argued that people tend to think more is better, and they’re more concerned about getting too little care than too much. When asked if suggesting to people that they be more conservative about what health care they seek is akin to asking them to wear a cardigan instead of turning up the thermostat (a reference to President Jimmy Carter’s “mal-aise” speech, in which he implored the nation to conserve energy, during the late 70s oil crisis), Kappel replied that “[i]t’s analogous to saying you can’t have everything you want.”

Kappel said that hard choices will need to be made about what services are provided, when and for whom. “Do we want to expend our resources on a 95-year-old to do open heart surgery?” asked Kappel. “I’m not the guy to say yes; I’m not the guy to say no. But if you think about it from a ‘where do we get the most benefit to the most people,’ that’s not a good investment.”

When this reporter suggested that Kappel was crossing a huge line, Kappel responded, “It’s ethics in a whole different way . . . ethics traditionally is about personal relationship . . . [governing] the way you, the doc, and I, the patient, interact. [This expanded ethics] pushes the question to [how] you, the pa-tient, and the rest of society interact.”

Kappel said that we still need to figure out how to distribute our limited resources,

whether it’s the public health care or the market model. “The word that I love to talk about—and everyone else runs from the room shrieking—is rationing. If . . . we’re not going to use a market model, because market models maximize efficiency and are completed amoral, . . . the alternative is ra-tioning,” said Kappel. “You either distribute resources on a willingness to pay or you dis-tribute resources on something else.”

Political Significance

Gobeille and Wallack are in a good posi-tion to enact reforms in the system, and the politics have never been riper for such a change. Governor Shumlin was the first gov-ernor in the nation to prevail on a platform of single-payer health care. The passage of the Affordable Care Act, under the leader-ship of Barack Obama, has been declared “the law of the land” by Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, indicating to many that the political opponents to so-called Obamacare have decided to retreat.

It’s a significant moment, and Vermont is very much in the vanguard. We are laying down systems in preparation for major sys-temic change, such as information technol-ogy, electronic medical records and regulatory systems. The Green Mountain Care Board is described as ascendant in its power and is key to the implementation of this effort.

There are many questions. There is no talk of actually bringing down costs but of only bending the cost curve. Even if the Green Mountain Care Board were to hold the hos-pitals to a hard 3.1 percent rate of increase, that’s still quite a bit of money on top of an already gargantuan piece of the Vermont economy. Insurance rates are still rising at double digits.

There’s also a huge structural concern. The hospitals are consolidating their power. Private medical practices all over the state are merging into larger hospitals rapidly, in part to take advantage of the consolidated infor-mation technology system. Central Vermont Medical Center is now merging with Fletcher Allen Partners. In September, Fletcher Allen

and Dartmouth Hitchock led the creation, with many other health care organizations, including 13 of the 14 Vermont hospitals, into a for-profit entity known as One Care ACO (Accountable Care Organization), to administer Medicaid payments. The forma-tion of an ACO was required by Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the for-profit model ap-proved by the Green Mountain Care Board.

Wendell Potter, a former communications professional for Cigna and Humana, turned critic of corporate health care interests, raised the alarm on OneCare ACO in an October 4, 2012, blog post for the Montpelier-based Public Assets Institute: “What I learned in my career is that for-profit health care or-ganizations know how to do one thing very well: make money. That becomes Job One. Unfortunately, for-profits don’t do nearly so well meeting consumers’ and patients’ needs. If they did, we would not have 50 mil-lion Americans without insurance. And we wouldn’t be trailing the rest of the developed world in most measures of health care qual-ity and outcomes.”

Isn’t this consolidation a step toward sin-gle payer, enacting the political will voters expressed with the election of Peter Shum-lin? Or is this a monopoly, with the same players wearing different jerseys? Indeed, Blue Cross Blue Shield is seeking to be the administrator of single-payer health. Asked whether this is the benign dictator model, Steve Kappel answers, “It’s either the careful planning model or the command economy model. The answer depends on whether you like the outcomes.”

What’s the political future of this ef-fort? When asked whether she sees vested interests lying in wait to torpedo the effort, Anya Rader Wallack answers, “I haven’t seen that as much as I expected. Right now, it’s a pretty cooperative environment. Hospital CEOs are a good example; they know that the current model is not sustainable . . . When you talk about financing single payer, then you’re talking about raising taxes, re-distributing funds. You can’t do that without making enemies, but that will come.”

Winter Yoga Workshop SeriesSaturdays, 6–8 p.m. meditation lessons in each workshopat Studio Zenith, Main Street, Montpelier

Jan. 26 What Is a Bandha? and How Do I Do It??Feb. 2 A Safe Headstand Feb. 16 Chakras: asana, energy, sound & more!Mar. 2 Five Pranayamas Broken DownMar. 16 Couples Thai Massage

Cost & registration: $25 for one, $45 for two, $65 for three, $85 for four, $100 for all five. Preregister for all at fusionstudio.org or 272-8923. Open to barters.

Anya Rader Wallack, chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, left, and Al Gobeille, a board member. Photos courtesy Sam Lacy.


by Ken Russell

Dr. Allan Ramsay is one of two doctors who serves on the Green Mountain Care Board. He speaks

with passion about the innovations happen-ing in Vermont’s medical system and with optimism about the prospects of meaningful health care reform.

“We have this big task, and a lot of it comes down to affordability,” says Ramsay. “In my mind, it’s making sure that my col-leagues are comfortable with the inevitable changes that have to occur in the system and to give them the opportunity to work on new ways of delivering health care that make them feel better at the end of the day.”

For Ramsay, team-based care is key: “Let’s focus on team-based care in a family prac-tice office. That means everybody on the team has the same kind of sense of responsibility for . . . focusing on the needs of the patient. It means that everybody on the team works to the top of his or her ca-pability. For instance, let’s consider the cur-rent flu epidemic. We have the nurse be the screening person, without the doctor seeing [the patient] . . . That’s not going to generate a lot of revenue, but that’s team-based care. That’s going to make the quality of the nurs-ing experience better and going to make the quality of the patient’s experience better . . . It means trusting everyone in the system, breaking down the barriers. It means . . . seamless communication.”

Based on his 32 years of experience in health care, Ramsay believes in setting hard targets for hospital budgets: “I believe that there are efficiencies in the system that can be managed to and can be achieved so that we hit [those targets], so the hospitals soften that rise [in costs] and continue to provide even better care.”

Ramsay concedes that it will be hard work

to contain the costs: “Everybody, the insurer, the payer, has got to be accountable. We have a big stick there in rate review. Hospitals have to be accountable . . . Everyone has to have a willingness to assume some risk and responsibility for how the system has to change. It can’t continue this growth, and we can’t achieve what we need to achieve unless we slow the growth in costs. We’re not going to cut costs out of the system: it’s impossible. But you can make it more efficient.”

When asked why Vermont can’t afford good country doctors, serving the poorer rural population, Ramsay replied that we can, but that the health care system needs to be more integrated: “We just haven’t been unified in our mission. Hospitals, employed physicians, independent physicians, home health agencies, nursing homes—it’s never been an integrated system, and we’ve never

believed, until now, that not only does it have to be integrated, but it has to be unified. [A] unified sys-tem means you get

[health care whether you’re] old or young, sick or well, employed or not employed, mili-tary or not military. Everybody’s in and . . . gets a basic . . . benefit package.” Achieving a unified health care system means setting some clear targets, says Ramsay: “We’re ask-ing hospitals to assume risk. We’re putting a bet on the table, and saying that you can meet this target.”

As for the danger of losing high-priced specialists because of the coming health care reforms, Ramsay offers, “I don’t think there’s going to be a big exodus, I’d be really sur-prised. . . . The [Green Mountain Care] board is doing things to moderate the ad-ministrative burdens that doctors hate more than losing their salaries . . . Vermont’s a great place to live and . . . what we’re doing is so much ahead of the curve. I believe there’s going to be some pretty dramatic rebalanc-ing of salaries everywhere, and I think it will

be less here.”Ramsay also points to the high number of

applications to medical residency programs at the University of Vermont as evidence that Vermont is a desirable place to live. Ramsay says that many students mention the health care reforms in Vermont as a reason for locating here, and he furthermore noted that, in a national survey, doctors expressed a willingness to come to Vermont because

they prefer to work in a more unified health care system.

“Legislators . . . recognize that it is a moral issue,” says Ramsay. “Every other developed country made a moral decision based on a societal system on what is best. It really is a moral issue on what we do best for Vermont-ers. It comes right down to that . . . Hospitals feel a moral responsibility, and that’s the best thing that can happen.”

Getting Under the HoodA Conversation with Dr. Allan Ramsay

Allan Ramsay. Photo courtesy Allan Ramsay.

Next Clinic:Wednesday, Feb. 139 a.m.–noon


compiled by Max Shenk

5%national GDP devoted to national health care expenditures in 1960

17.9%national GDP devoted to national health care expenditures in 2010

Health Care by the Numbers

$4.9 billion total spent by Vermont residents on health care in 2010

19.2% Vermont gross state product devoted to health care expenditures in 2010

$7,876 Vermont per capita healthcare costs in 2010

$7,919national per capita healthcare costs in 2010

50%Vermont hospital spending accounted for by Fletcher Allen Health Care

33%physician spending occurring through hospital budgets

$2.1 billion total payments to Vermont health care providers in 2000

$4.8 billion total payments to Vermont health care providers in 2010

SOURCES: “The Unsustainable Costs of Health-care,” Social Security Administration Board (ssab.gov/documents /TheUnsustainableCostofHealth-Care_graphics.pdf); Central Vermont Medical Center Budget and Financial Information; 2010 Vermont Health Care Expenditure Analysis, Green Mountain Care Board.


NUTRIENT-RICH

HEALTH COACHINGfor workplace wellness

with Marie Frohlichvitalwellness.biz

Design & Build

Custom Energy-Effi cient Homes

Additions • Timber Frames

Weatherization • Remodeling

Kitchens • Bathrooms • Flooring

Tiling • Cabinetry • Fine Woodwork

We Carry the CompleteHair Care Line

28 School Street, Montpelier • 229-0700

• NEW CONSTRUCTION

• RENOVATIONS

• WOODWORKING

• GENERAL CONTRACTING

223-3447clarconstruction.com

Tell them you saw it in The Bridge!


by Peter Sterling

Vermonters should be incredibly proud of our place as national leaders on health care reform—from expanding

access to affordable care through publicly subsidized programs like Catamount Health and Dr. Dynasaur to passing legislation in 2011 that puts us on a path to a universal, publicly funded, single-payer health care sys-tem. These reforms, and the many others our small state has undertaken over the last 20 years, have proven without a doubt that, by investing public dollars, the State of Vermont can ensure people lead healthier lives and have access to high-quality, affordable care when they need it most.

Unfortunately, much of what we have now will change dramatically when Vermont implements the federally mandated Health Benefit Exchange in 2014. I think of the changes on three levels: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The GoodOne of the best parts of the exchange is

that it begins the process of divorcing ac-cess to health insurance from whether or where you work. All Vermonters, whether employed or not, will eventually have access to a comprehensive benefit package, even if their employer doesn’t offer health insurance or they can’t afford it. In addition, in the exchange, all preexisting conditions clauses will be eliminated. No longer will cancer sur-

vivors live in fear of going broke if they lose their insurance and then try to reenroll at a later date. The exchange will also make sub-sidies for premiums and other out-of-pocket (OOP) costs available to about 80 percent of Vermont households. This financial as-sistance from the federal government will undoubtedly help many people, but it doesn’t go far enough. More on this below.

The BadThe exchange only restructures the cur-

rent private insurance system; it does not fundamentally change it the way a single-payer system would. The system we have now has failed to control costs and to deliver affordable care for hundreds of thousands of Vermonters. While the exchange will be more transparent and less predatory, it is still a private insurance market. Carriers, like MVP and Blue Cross Blue Shield, will sell between 20 to 30 insurance products, and they will be regulated by the State of Vermont. Each plan will offer the same common benefit package, with just minor differences. What will differ, though, is the cost sharing of each plan—that is premiums, deductibles, copays and so on. It’s hard to see how any system relying on private insurance will drastically reduce the number of uninsured Vermonters or the number of people who still can’t afford to see a doctor, even if they are insured.

The UglyVHAP and Catamount Health end in 2014

when the exchange starts. The end of these programs means over 30,000 Vermonters will see their OOP costs increase dramatically. These costs (deductibles, coinsurance, copays and so on) are in addition to monthly premi-ums. Those in Catamount Health could see their OOP maximum increase from $1,050 year to as much as $6,400 year per person. The com-bination of pre-miums and OOP costs are about 28 percent of gross in-come for someone making about $34,000 who reaches the OOP maximum.

With OOP limits so high, it can take only one accident or medical crisis to be faced with overwhelming medical debt. Faced with such high costs, Vermonters will not get care when they need it, or simply not enroll and remain uninsured. Vermont is at great risk of going backward on health care reform (more unin-sured and more people insured but who can’t afford to see a doctor), unless action is taken.

What we need is for the governor and the legislature to commit to finding the revenue to fund a state subsidy to bring down the cost of health care for the roughly 30,000 people who are eligible for or are already enrolled in Catamount Health and VHAP and who will be entering the exchange in 2014. Without such a subsidy, many will forgo necessary care or remain uninsured and end up in the emer-gency room seeking care, both of which are

bad for the health of people and the health care system.

In addition, if the exchange proves unpop-ular with the public due to these high costs, it will undermine the support for moving forward with implementing Vermont’s single-payer system, which is set to begin in 2017.

A publicly funded, single-payer sys-tem that provides universal coverage is the only way to guarantee that everyone receives

health care through a system that will control the rising cost of health care as well.

In the best-case scenario, the exchange will serve as a short, three-year transition until Vermont’s single-payer system is up and running. However, given the possibility of shifting political winds in Washington, D.C. (and here in Vermont!), there are many scenarios where the implementation of single payer could be delayed. In either case, it is imperative that the exchange be implemented in a way that ensures that low- and middle-income Vermonters will receive affordable health care.

Peter Sterling is the director of the Ver-mont Campaign for Health Care Security, a nonprofit organization that works to educate Vermonters about and expand access to public health care programs. For more information, go to catamounthealth.org.

The Business of the Health Benefit Exchange

Health Benefit Exchange: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

by George Malek

Vermont’s coming Health Benefit Ex-change is often referred to as a sort of “hotwire.com” for medical insurance

(hotwire.com being a website for discount travel). Unfortunately, the reference is ex-tremely misleading.

The most prominent words on the hotwire .com home page—save and discount—don’t apply to the insurance exchange. There won’t be any savings, and there won’t be any dis-counts. Consumers who pay anything less than the full MSRP (manufacturer’s sug-gested retail price) will do so only because they receive government subsidies.

Although the governmental split of the subsidies is a bit cloudy, does it really mat-ter? Vermont claims (again) to be struggling with a budget gap of tens of millions of dol-lars, and the federal government has, again, arrived at its new debt ceiling of $16.4 tril-lion—a number so huge no one can truly comprehend it.

So health insurance subsidies will come from a state that’s broke or a nation that borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends. Can you say “Bernie Madoff,” or “housing bubble,” or “Ponzi scheme”? Surely, everyone knows how to say “unsustainable.”

Government has had a heavy hand in health care for decades, and many are call-ing for Medicare for everybody. They either don’t recognize or they choose to ignore that Medicare has been kept “affordable” only by shifting an ever-increasing share of health care costs to private insurance. When every-one has Medicare, there will be no private insurance and no place left to shift the costs. To paraphrase: “We will meet the enemy and find that he is us.”

The exchange is the first phase in a pro-gression that goes something like this: Pre-mium rates in the exchange will be higher than they are now. For small businesses that currently have negotiated group rates, 20 and 30 percent rate hikes will be the norm. Since many employees of small businesses will be

eligible for significant subsidies, the majority of these businesses are likely to cease provid-ing coverage for their employees.

Employees who may never have dealt directly with health care premiums in the past will be shocked to find out how much coverage actu-ally costs, even with subsidies. Since nothing has been done to halt the Medicare/Medicaid cost shift, exchange premiums will grow at the same shocking pace that has become routine for private insurance in recent years.

As premiums grow faster than incomes, subsidies will have to increase, and the strapped and indebted governments that pro-vide the subsidies will have to find someone to tax to fund this growth in subsidies. That someone will be business, and the prime sus-pect will be a payroll tax. Faced with the cost of a new tax and recognizing that double-dip savings can be achieved by reducing payroll expenses, employers will automate, stream-line, outsource and otherwise cut payroll. (By the way, at this point in the cycle and amid all the turmoil, say mid-2016, it is unlikely that any more than 90 percent of Vermonters will have medical coverage. That’s about the same percentage as today.)

Of course, the pathway out of this mess will be universal health care. With univer-sal care, the “bubble” will enter its final stage—ultimately leading to collapse and de-fault. Collapse and default of the health care system won’t look quite like the fall of the Madoff empire. It won’t come crashing down over a few short weeks, and no politician is going to go to jail for orchestrating this hoax. The collapse will look more like Am-trak—limited services, ailing facilities, spotty schedules and periodic derailments separated by an occasional upgrade or innovation. In health care, that will mean fewer physicians, long delays, global budgets, limited research, multiple cost-benefit analyses and deteriorat-ing facilities.

The Bowles-Simpson Deficit Reduction Plan would eventually be replaced with the Bowles-Simpson Universal Health Care Re-form Plan and receive the same chilly recep-

tion. Unwinding government health care will be about as simple as unwinding AIG or the national debt—and far less popular. National health care will only seem tolerable because any alternative will be painted as “even worse” by one political party or the other.

However, this has rambled years further than the question at hand. How will the Ver-mont health benefit exchange impact busi-ness?

The majority of Vermonters will be shocked to find that there are no discounts, savings or bargains on this “hotwire” of the insurance exchange.

Those small businesses that continue to pro-vide health care coverage for their employees will pay $1,000 more each year per employee policy or $3,000 more per family policy. After the first year bump, premiums will resume climbing about 10 percent annually.

Businesses that stop providing coverage will pay a relatively small tax or penalty that will grow modestly over time, with a huge spike constantly on the horizon.

Government will need to raise money to fill the steadily growing gap between in-creases in premiums and the increases in incomes of subsidy recipients.

New taxes—almost certainly on business and most likely on payroll—will be imposed, and businesses will reduce costs by reducing employment.

Universal health care will be implemented, and the cycle, with minor modifications, will repeat itself.

Universal health care, having replaced Medicare and Medicaid, will stand alongside Social Security as unsustainable in their pres-ent forms, and no one will be able to garner the political strength to change either of them.

George Malek is president of the Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce and serves on the board of the VACE Insurance program, managed by Vermont’s chambers of commerce for nearly two decades.

Vermont’s Health Benefit Exchange

During this legislative session, the Vermont legislature and the gov-

ernor will be debating the parameters of the Health Benefit Exchange required by the federal Affordable Care Act. This program, which must be up and running by January 1, 2014, is intended to be a one-stop shop for those currently em-ployed by businesses with fewer than 50 employees, for those currently uninsured and without access to affordable and ad-equate employee-based health insurance, for legal immigrants, and for those cur-rently in the individual health insurance market, including the 13,000 Vermont-ers enrolled in Catamount Health. The legislature will consider the scope of the benefits package and the financing.

The federally mandated Health Benefit Exchange is the next phase of health care reform in Vermont and is separate from the governor’s push toward single-payer health care. The single-payer system will be implemented in 2017, assuming the federal government will grant waivers to Vermont for its groundbreaking efforts in health care. The administration is seeking to make the transition into the exchange, and then into single payer, as seamless as possible.

Of particular concern to many is the cut in subsidies to those enrolled in the Vermont Health Access Program (VHAP) and Catamount Health and whether the governor will bridge this gap. Senator Bernie Sanders had at-tempted to allow Vermont to bypass the exchange and move directly toward the single-payer health care system. Some advocates are concerned that confusion over this two-step process will turn peo-ple off to the whole health care reform effort.

The following op-eds present opposing views on the Health Benefit Exchange.

—Ken Russell


by Zachary Beechler

A venerable old New Englander named Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, in an article for The Atlantic Monthly,

“Skill to do comes of doing; knowledge comes by eyes always open, and working hands, and there is no knowledge that is not power.”

Community Connections, a diverse after-school organization offering everything from kayaking to book clubs, provides learning opportunities through doing. In addition to after-school study and adventure-based education, Community Connections offers courses in computer skills, fitness, wellness and nutrition, arts and crafts and natural and environmental science, as well as having a school drop-out prevention program, teen mentoring, summer camps and field trips.

However, the continued ability of Com-munity Connections to provide their services

to Montpelier students in grades 6–12 is at risk unless the after-school program begins to receive funding directly from the school district. The organization’s economic future, along with the rest of the school budget, will be decided by voters in March.

As it currently stands, Community Con-nections’ operating budget for its programs at Montpelier High School (MHS) and Main Street Middle School (MSMS) is approxi-mately $90,000 and $76,000, respectively. At $167,000 total, this includes transpor-tation costs, equipment and supplies, the salaries of the two site coordinators at each school and a proportional share of the assess-ment costs for the Community Connections central office.

While there are many reductions being made across the board, the school district’s proposed operational budget, at $16,986,916, represents an 8 percent increase from last

year. Because of the increase, as well as per-student spending in the district being above the state average in Vermont, the budget must be put forth as two separate questions on the March ballot, in accordance with state law. The first line will be for $16,970,522, the second for $389,132. Money designated by the school board for Community Connec-tions, described in the budget as cocurricular activities at MHS and MSMS, will be part of the second vote.

Community Connections operates both on- and off-site after-school programs at eight different schools in Calais, Berlin, East Mont-pelier, Middlesex, Worcester and Montpelier. In Montpelier, it serves a substantial number of students at both MHS and MSMS, as well as at Union Elementary School (UES).

The program at UES is a licensed child-care center that charges fees and has access to state child-care subsidies for eligible families,

which end at age 12. The availability of such subsidies is why elementary school programs are easier to fund than programs for higher grade levels, according to Community Con-nection’s director, Ginny Burley.

“It is just more difficult to get parents to pay for programs for their tween and teen children when they believe they are okay just going home alone for a couple of hours,” Burley wrote in an e-mail, “and it is especially difficult when those costs represent a higher school budget as well as increased taxes for both parents and nonparents alike.”

Community Connections was started in 2001, with funds from a 21st-century Com-munity Learning Center federal grant, a highly competitive formula grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education. The grant supports the creation of community learning centers to provide academic enrichment op-portunities during nonschool hours. Since then, the programs at MHS and MSMS, along with the rest of Community Connec-tions, has been substantially or fully funded by a variety of other grants, which also has covered the central office costs. However, grant funding for the program ended in June 2012, and according to Community Con-nections staff, there are no new grants on the horizon. U-32 began directly funding the Community Connections program at their school last fall.

Vermont is the only state without a dedi-cated state funding source for after-school programs for middle and high school stu-dents, and it will be up to the voters of Mont-pelier to decide whether or not to keep Com-munity Connections in their community.

“After 12 years of service at no cost to the district, we are asking that they fund these programs that serve a majority of the students in the schools,” said Burley.

Zachary Beechler is a substitute teacher at MHS and MSMS, and a writer and student living in Montpelier.

Make a difference in the life of a child

Encourage the best in a child

New adventures for both mentor and mentee

Teach and model healthy behaviors

Offer opportunities for building confidence

Relate with a young person around shared interests

Girls/Boyz First Mentoringcommunityconnections.us

For more information about becoming a mentor, contact Wendy Freundlich, Program Coordinator, at 229-4798

PRUNING FRUIT TREESand annual pruning maintenanceNeeds to be done before the ground thaws.

call Padma 456.7474 ~ earthwiseharmonies.com

by Bob Nuner

Montpelier Alive, working with the city, has put together the Mont-Polar Frostival, a major new com-

munity festival for the first three days of Feb-ruary. The weekend festival will open Lost Nation Theater’s Eighth Annual WinterFest, a monthlong series of theater performances. The Snow Ball dance party, featuring three different bands, kicks off both festivals on Friday, February 1, at Montpelier City Hall Arts Center.

The MontPolar Frostival will feature over 50 activities, including 40 free events. There will be entertainment both indoors and out. Among the festival’s many activities will be a community dance, art exhibits, exercise

classes, dance lessons and performances, a 5K race, storytelling, a winter hike, a snowshoe obstacle course, ultimate Frisbee and much more. The festival also includes free entrance to the Vermont History Museum on Friday and Saturday, a fundraising casino night and a Parents’ Night Out (Saturday night child care provided by Montpelier High School students)—plus hot chocolate stations at several city sites. Among the many events will be the world premiere, on Saturday evening, of several specially commissioned dance pieces presented by the Montpelier Movement Collective. A complete list of fes-tival events can be found at montpelieralive.org or call 223-9604.

LNT’s WinterFest series will continue on the remaining three weekends of February.

Performances scheduled include: Long Gone, a dance theater production with Lida Win-field and Ellen Smith Ahern; The Vampire Princess and Other Eerie Tales of Love, with storytellers Jennings & Ponder; and Laugh Til You Die, an evening of physical comedy with Tom Murphy. More information on WinterFest events is available at Lost Na-tion’s website: lostnationtheater.org. Tickets for the Snow Ball, the Montpelier Movement Collective contemporary dance premier or a Frostival package deal for both events are offered at lostnationtheater.org/box: click on Winterfest 2013, then select the MontPolar Frostival icon.

The three-day event is underwritten by National Life Group and the Vermont State Employees Credit Union.

Community Connections Organization at Risk in Montpelier

Plenty to Do in FebruaryMontpelier Alive Launches New Festival


by Max H. Shenk

In a recent interview with The Bridge, Montpelier’s library director discussed the library’s budget requests and re-

sponded to concerns about job changes and alleged “union busting.”

Kellogg-Hubbard Library will be request-ing a total of $308,673 from Montpelier at the town meeting in March, which represents a $14,698 increase over its 2012 request. An additional $135,975 is being requested from the five outlying communities that the li-brary serves (Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester). This represents a $24,351 increase from 2012. The library is funded by a combination of public funds and money from the library corporation. Most of the library’s budget—about 60 percent—comes from the corporation. According to li-brary director Richard Bidnick, the requested increase in public funds is due to “inflation-ary pressures” and is based on a new funding formula that the library has adopted.

“The funding formula we had in place [for the five outlying communities] was not equal or fair,” Bidnick said. “[The new formula] is based on per capita usage and the amount of materials that [patrons in those towns] are actually checking out.”

The requested budget increases come at the same time that the Kellogg-Hubbard staff union alleged unfair labor practices at the library. As reported in the January 10 issue of

The Bridge, the union filed a complaint with the Vermont Labor Relations Board (LRB), alleging that the library changed the job titles and duties of three union employees, thus illegally shifting them out of the union. A previously scheduled hearing with the LRB regarding the matter has been rescheduled for January 30.

A former library staffer, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Bridge that the atmosphere at the library was “dispirited” with “union busting and hours cut.” The source also said that short staffing had led to a backlog of unshelved materials, so that “when the catalog says a book is in, a patron can’t find the book because it is unshelved on a cart.” The source further said that new check-in procedures, mainly elimination of date stamping in favor of printed due-date re-ceipts, were leading to patrons inadvertently losing track of due dates, thus increasing the likelihood of patron fines at a time when fine amounts have been increased.

Additionally, the job changes meant that three midlevel management positions were added. “There’s now one manager for every 2.5 employees,” the source said.

The library currently employs eight full-time and five part-time staff people. Messages to the library’s union representatives were not returned. However, Bidnick addressed these concerns.

The installation of a new circulation sys-tem resulted in the changes in date stamp-

ing and due dates, said Bidnick. The new system generates a printed receipt, and while individual items are no longer date-stamped, Bidnick said that patrons can check due dates and renew materials online or renew items over the phone.

As for the charges of union busting, “I’m not even sure what that means,” Bidnick said. “Quite frankly, it’s kind of ridiculous. Never has there been any discussion of anything like that.”

Staff position changes, said Bidnick, were not an attempt to “shift jobs” out of the union but were promotions to better paying positions with more responsibility.

“People were promoted, which I think is a good thing. You take talent from within and you promote them up,” said Bidnick. The new positions were intended partly to remedy what Bidnick called a “flat level of manage-ment” at the library.

Bidnick said that before he came to the library in July 2012, there were two codirec-tors: an executive director and a head librar-ian. These jobs were merged into a single director’s position, said Bidnick, so that when he started at the job, “it was only me and everyone reporting to me.”

Although the three new positions were filled internally by staff, the staff positions those employees previously held have not been cut. “There have been no [positions] eliminated,” Bidnick said. “We have a con-tract that’s going to be coming up, and if there

are going to be changes in job descriptions or removal of a [unionized staff] position, that’s the time that it would be negotiated.”

Bidnick discussed Destiny, the library’s new Online Public Access Catalog system, which has streamlined the check-out and check-in process and aided in refining the library’s budget request for the upcoming year. Bidnick said the new circulation system allows the library to “look at the number of actual borrowers we have from each com-munity, and how many items they’ve been circulating.”

This enabled Bidnick to calculate budget requests for the aforementioned five outlying communities based on per capita usage of the library. Before, some communities were pay-ing significantly more than others; now, a per capita figure of around $25 is the same for all five communities.

This year’s budget procedure will be slightly different, according to Bidnick, because the library is shifting from a calendar year budget to a fiscal year (July 1–June 30) budget.

“This will put us on par with the cities and towns that support the library,” Bidnick said, “which will make our budget planning much more logical and easy. The budget for the first six months of this year is $422,000. As for the 2013/2014 budget, that will be de-termined after the town meeting. The library did an 8 percent cut in 2012, and we are tak-ing a 5.75 percent cut for the first six month’s budget of 2013.”

Library Director Discusses Budget, Union Concerns

QUALITY REMODELING & BUILDING

Conscientious contractingInt./ext. makeovers & paintHealthy whole-home solutionsDeep energy retrofitsKitchens, baths, additionsDoors, windows, roofs

David Diamantisph: 229-8646 fax: 454-8646

Certified Green Professional EMP/RRP • EcoStar Roof Applicator

Attune, Harmonize & RejuvenateACUPUNCTURE • SOUND HEALING • QIGONG

The Wisdom of Health & Well-being Acute & Chronic Pain • Anxiety & Depression • Headaches

Sleep Disorders • Respiratory Problems • Menstrual Irregularities

• 30 years experience • Office hours & home visits • Private & group classes • Serving all of central Vermont

Pamela Brady, MA, L.AC • Breathing Light • 229-1800 1 Blanchard Court, Montpelier • [email protected]


by Steve E. Wright

It is now abundantly clear that the so-called renewable energy industry and its sycophants (the pig in this analogy) has

escaped the poke, the sham of effective cli-mate change action in which this industry has swaddled itself for the past 10 years or so. Let me explain.

The planet has a serious problem: climate change (global warming to some). We are told by the scientific community that the responsibility for such warming (2012 was the warmest year on record) lies in the by-products of burning fossil fuels and cutting of forests. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases contribute to the greenhouse effect by reflecting the sun’s heat back on the earth.

It is a serious problem, and according to scientists worldwide, most notably the In-tergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is irreversible. The remedy has been to reduce the amount of fossil fuels burned and forests cut. Some of the burning occurs in the generation of electricity, so the

call has been made to the electric industry to convert to renewable sources: no more burn-ing things to generate electricity.

Vermont does not generate or import much fossil fuel for generating electricity. The state’s carbon footprint is the lowest of the 50 states. We do, however, burn fossil fuels to generate other types of energy—heat, for example. The sources of 93 percent of Vermont’s car-bon and greenhouse gas emissions are cars and trucks, home and structural heating and agriculture and commercial/industrial pro-cesses. So, to reduce our home-generated emissions, it would make sense to focus on these sources. By the way, electrical gen-eration in Vermont—and that imported—is only responsible for 4 percent of our total emissions, more reason to focus on those other sources. That’s where the benefit lies.

Here’s a simple analogy. If you wanted to pick strawberries, would you go to an auto-parts store or would you go to a commercial strawberry patch in June?

And here’s the problem. The renewable in-dustry—on its face a good thing—has tasted

the dollar and seeks to gorge itself while the table is heavy with federal subsidies. In Vermont, developing the state’s meager wind resource means, literally, blowing up mountains in order to affix turbines on these higher eleva-tions.

And here’s the fi-nale. The wind in-dustry’s sales pitch is that building more renewables in Vermont will reduce carbon emissions and hold back climate change. That is the poke in which they, the pigs, have hidden themselves. Such a claim only serves the industry, not an effective climate change strategy and certainly not the people of Vermont and its Green Mountains. Indus-trial wind is the biggest landscape ripoff in Vermont since sheep and cows denuded the state in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Rather than blow up the landscape (in order to save it from climate change, as wind advocates offer), Vermont must reduce

carbon emissions at their respective sources, mentioned above. Altering our landscape, es-pecially the uplands, is a ticket to even greater

climate change ef-fects. We need this moratorium in order to reassess the exist-ing policy. Senator Benning’s bill, S30, will do just that.

When someone yells, “Jump, jump, jump!,” doesn’t it make you a bit suspicious of his or her motives? You will hear just this sort of rhetoric from vari-ous elements of the renewable folks right here in this newspaper, and it has nothing to do with effective climate change action.

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.”

Steve E. Wright is president of Ridgeprotec-tors, an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization founded in 2002 to protect Vermont’s ridgelines from industrial and commercial development.

The Pig Is Out of the Poke

Editor’s note: What follows is the Washington Electric Co-op (WEC) official statement re-garding the proposed wind moratorium. This statement was adopted by the board of directors of WEC on January 9, 2012.

WEC reaffirms its support for re-sponsible development of renew-able energy generation in Vermont,

including commercial scale wind. Climate change is already affecting our planet and its impact is being felt in Vermont. The Ver-mont Legislature has for many years strongly encouraged and promoted the development of clean and renewable generation sources and set aggressive goals for our state. These goals now also guide and direct Vermont’s State Energy Plan. They cannot be achieved without incorporating some commercial scale wind projects into our landscape at selected and appropriate locations.

We recognize that the siting of large scale wind projects on Vermont ridgelines has en-

vironmental and aesthetic impact, as does the siting of any power plant, major construction or development. These impacts must be con-sidered and weighed along with the benefits a wind project provides to Vermont and our region. Since 2002, three Vermont Governors have each established an open process for discussing wind siting issues, establishing cri-teria and encouraging public input. Although the commission established by Governor Shumlin is still at work, the efforts conducted by the Douglas and Dean administrations have been heeded and respected as projects have been considered. Vermont has now been considering, planning, debating, legislating, implementing and regulating wind genera-tion for well over ten years. Vermont should not and has not “rolled over” for developers of wind projects, and the projects that have been approved have been subjected to tough rigorous review.

It would be a serious, regressive and dam-aging mistake to enact an arbitrary mora-

torium, or to set conditions whose apparent intent is to make sure no wind projects can get built. Climate change is already affecting us, as Vermonters, and as utilities responsible for reliable delivery of power. As Vermont rightly begins to also focus more attention on other uses of energy besides electricity such as transportation, we will see significant new demand for electricity, as much as 30% more for transportation alone. In order to move meaningfully and quickly to a cleaner and sustainable energy future for electricity, thermal and transportation uses, we need to use the full range of renewable generation technologies, small and large. Really tackling climate change is an enormous and urgent undertaking that does call for some indus-trial-scale measures. It means we may have to look at where some of the power actually comes from, rather than expecting it to come from elsewhere, or just not caring where it comes from.

Washington Electric Co-op supports and

will actively participate in efforts to make the siting and approval process for energy genera-tion projects as open and transparent as pos-sible, and to assure that projects that are built meet the highest environmental standards. A moratorium on wind projects is not the way to achieve that goal, or to make progress to-wards a cleaner, sustainable energy future.

Founded in 1939, Washington Electric Cooperative is a consumer-owned electric utility governed by an elected board and serving over 10,500 member households and businesses in 41 towns in Orange, Washing-ton and Caledonia counties. WEC began receiving power from First Wind’s Sheffield project in October 2011. The co-op owns and operates a landfill gas-generating plant in Coventry and a small hydro facility at the Wrightsville Reservoir. Its other power sources include Vermont’s independent power producers, Hydro Quebec and the New York Power Authority (large hydro).

Washington Electric Co-op Opposes a Wind Moratorium

Montpelier Structural IntegrationAchieve greater ease in posture through a series of body work.

FREE DEMO CONSULTATIONFascialbodies.com • [email protected] • 223-7678, ext. 2

Opinions

Wind Power in Vermont: Yes or No?


by Cassandra Hemenway Brush

Hinesburg resident Denise Helen Dunbar has recently released a scholarly text, analyzing institu-

tional racism in Vermont called Black Males in the Green Mountains. She has received ac-colades for the book because it not only ana-lyzes Vermont’s checkered history with race issues, but it also takes on the first-person perspective from many of the subjects about whom she writes.

“One voice . . . that is apparently missing from the social discourse in the area of Ver-mont public schooling,” writes Dunbar, “is the collective voice of what is in many ways a growing demographic: student voice and students of color voice in particular.”

As Dunbar herself describes the book: “Mention the state of Vermont and images of maple syrup, scenic mountains, and progres-sive politics come to mind. But in addition to skiing, farming, and fall foliage, there is also a startling history of racial and religious

intolerance and bigotry.”She opens the book reminding the reader

that “Burlington is known as the birthplace of John Dewey, whose enlightened views about education reached far beyond the Green Mountains to impact schools. Yet there exist many unsavory examples of equitable educa-tion deferred for a small but growing popula-tion. Black males, especially, have not been treated fairly suffering in silence as a dispro-portional number are shunted away from op-portunities such as college-prep courses and instead, into special education, the principal’s office, and out the door due to suspension.”

She goes on to write that her “book seeks to answer the question: What is truly going on for black males in Vermont public schools? Only those who were students in public schools across the state can really answer that question, and their perspectives help shed light on the condition of black males in pre-dominantly white rural spheres experiencing similar shifts in racial demographics across the nation.”

Says Paul C. Gorski, reviewer and founder of EdChange and associate professor of edu-cation and social justice at New Century College, George Mason University, “What makes Black Males in the Green Mountains important is the author’s ability to incorpo-rate contemporary racial equity theory into an exploration of everyday, on-the-ground and place-specific realities, something so often missing from similar works. What makes her book extraordinary is its voice and tone, at once reflective and critical, unset-tling and inviting. I can’t wait to use this book in my multicultural and social justice education courses!”

Dunbar traveled to Vermont in the early 1970s “following the call to join with both nature and progressive thinkers in a somewhat provincial setting” and seeking the touted idyllic lifestyle among the Green Mountains.

“Over a short period of time, however, the utopian mystique that held me captive wore off, opening my eyes, revealing the state’s pretty checkered history, in terms of race re-

lations,” writes Dunbar in Black Males in the Green Mountains. “After many personal hits and misses across the racial divide, I learned rather quickly that there actually exists a uniquely troublesome history, a seamier side of the green mountain state.”

If there were one critique I’d have about this book, it is the price. Published by Peter Lang Publishing in November 2012, the book sells as high as $139 in hardcover but is available in paperback for under $50, fit-ting in with the standard, expensive, pricing structure for academic texts.

Dunbar has 30 years of experience in the field of social justice education, working to facilitate the transformation of equitable communities where all students have oppor-tunities to achieve. A scholar, advocate and consultant, Dunbar founded Just Transfor-mations, an organization dedicated to train-ing educators to successfully foster equity and excellence within their schools.

Black Males in the Green MountainsVermont’s Institutional Racism in the 21st Century

You are invited to attend an opening reception on Friday, January 24 from

5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Studio Place Arts (SPA) in Barre for an on-the-spot demonstration of the “high-teck” magic of artist, thinker and innovator Ben Matchstick’s Random-izojustificator.

The Randomizojustficator: what’s that, pray tell? Well, if you drop an “infused” marble into Cardboard Teck’s ’justificator it will tell you your fortune or, as Match-stick says, “. . . it will justify your life, your profession, your family . . .”

Matchstick says that the justificatory dates back 5,000 years before cardboard.

Let’s say you’re consumed by mad ambi-tion. The justificator will deal with that dangerous passion. Or a genetic anomaly? Drop another infused marble into the justi-ficator. Or you might be suffering from aca-demesia: perhaps you have forgotten every-

thing you once knew about trigonometry or calculus. Not to worry. As Matchstick guarantees, “The limitations are endless!”

The Randomizojustificator is the cen-terpiece of SPA’s main floor gallery exhibit, Thinking Out of the Box, featuring art made from cardboard. Two other shows, featuring collage and photography, will be running concurrent with the cardboard exhibit.

In addition to the January 25 opening re-ception, Matchstick will present additional performances on Saturday, February 2, 2:30 to 4 p.m.; a show for kids on Saturday, Feb-ruary 9, 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.; a show on Friday, February 15, 3 to 5 p.m., with drinks after-wards; and a closing reception on Saturday, February 23, 3:30 to 5 p.m. The events will take place at SPA, 201 North Main Street in Barre. For more information, call 479-7069 or visit studioplacearts.com.

—story and photo by Nat Frothingham

Ta-dah! Gravity-Fed Randomizojustificatorat Studio Place Arts on January 25


January 24–31 is Health and Wellness week at Studio Zenith!! Come try a class, in our beautiful Main Street location, and get one free! Call 802-598-5876, or e-mail Amy at [email protected].

studiozenithvt.com

HEALTH & WELLNESS SPECIAL!Try one class, get one free during January 24–31.

Nina Shoenthal is now welcoming new clients in her Montpelier office.

Fantastic deep-tiue mage/myofascial releasefor lasting pain relief.Inner Sea Healing Arts802.498.3510 Generous new client discount; visit innerseahealingarts.com.

YOU EAT HEALTHY.

NOW YOUR PET CAN, TOO.

HOURS: Mon–Fri, 8–6; Sat 8–5

We carry a variety of super-healthy cat and dog food and treats.

dehydrated food from Honest Kitchen

frozen and freeze-dried food from Primal

treats from Earth Animal

by Ken Russell

When people are faced with serious injury, a terminal illness or any condition requiring heroic mea-

sures to stay alive, such as feeding tubes or intubation, sometimes patients, or their families, choose the cessation, or avoidance, of hospital care.

For over 30 years, Bettina Desrochers has given end-of-life care and has attended hun-dreds of peaceful deaths of old and termi-nally ill patients. For seven years, she ran Elder House, a small hospice and respite care home out of her house.

These days she travels the coun-try speaking on end-of-life issues and works as an end-of-life coach. Desrochers talked about the importance of deciding, be-fore you get sick, what kind of treatment you want and of finding an alternative to dying in the hospital. Otherwise, you, or a loved one, can risk getting caught in the health care sys-tem, receiving unwanted procedures or being in an environment not of your choosing.

“Once you get stuck in the medical field, it’s really hard to get out,” said Desrochers. “It can be a real nightmare. There’s health care and then there’s dying. Sometimes dying has nothing to do with doctors and nothing to do with nurses. Your life is coming to an end. Just being able to go somewhere and die, just being allowed to die, not accepting medical care, making sure the folks around you know what you want and what you don’t want, and having good, honest conversations, long be-fore you even think about being sick. Taking a look at your environment, taking a look at yourself—sometimes that’s the best thing.”

Cindy Bruzzeze, executive director of the Vermont Ethics Network, a nonprofit orga-nization that promotes better understanding of ethical issues and choices in health care, spoke of the need to plan ahead, to decide what medical treatment we want and when to cease it in these difficult situations. She stressed the importance of writing up an ad-vance directive, which can provide a roadmap for health care providers.

This is especially important when a pa-tient is too sick to provide direction. The Vermont Advance Directive combines and

improves upon the earlier forms, such as a living will or medical durable power of attorney, and is meant to be more enforceable and useful for help-

ing to direct decision making during end-of-life situations. Bruzzeze discussed some of the considerations regarding health care near the end of life and in other situations involving serious illness:

“Certainly our technology and our medi-cal capabilities are always improving. We can keep people going, probably longer than they would ever imagine they would want to keep going,” said Bruzzeze. “The medical system is incredibly complex, and I don’t think that everyone fully understands what it means when they say, ‘I want everything.’ If they haven’t thought about it in advance at all, and then they’re in a critical health crisis and health care providers say, ‘So, what do you want to do?,’ and the family says, ‘Well, do everything.’ I don’t know if everybody really knows what ‘everything’ really looks like, what that really means, and that everything isn’t really what they had in mind.”

Like Desrochers, Bruzzeze emphasizes the

need for honest conversations ahead of time.“Often I think it boils down to the fact

that every treatment has benefits and bur-dens, and the individual has to try to figure out what kind of burden they are willing to endure for what kind of benefit,” said Bru-zzeze. “At some point, they’re willing to en-dure quite a bit of burden because the benefit, the payoff, is really good, but at some point, this whole equation kind of flips; the burden begins to outweigh the benefits. So how [do] we [have] these conversations with patients, not when they’re already at the very end of life, but sooner in the process, when they’re beginning to face illnesses that will shorten their life?”

Advance directives, said Bruzzeze, are an opportunity for individuals to share what their goals and values are when it comes to their health care in different situations. She noted that people generally fall in three categories when it come to treating serious ill-nesses. At one end of the spectrum are gener-ally young people who want whatever it takes to help them recover; at the other are often older people who’ve lived a long life, don’t want heroic measures and may feel it’s their time to die. But in the middle is a gray area.

“I see a whole group of people who think, ‘Well, it just depends, depends on what tech-nology’s available at the time, what it’ll take to have my life be better,’” said Bruzzeze.

In deciding how much care you want to receive, Bruzzeze says it helps to think about possible situations and get specific, to think about what makes life valuable and how you want to live the last period of your life.

“If you knew your time were short, would you want all of these things anyway, just to extend it? Even if it meant being unconscious in the ICU, would you want that?” asked Bruzzeze. “I can only speak anecdotally, but I would say that in the majority of the work-

shops that I do, about 100 percent say, ‘If my situation were one I could not recover from, I would not want just to exist, just to depend on machines.’”

For family members and health care pro-viders, it’s important to know what the pa-tient wants. “It’s not a matter of the medical costs,” said Bruzzeze. “It’s: Did we know whether this is what those people wanted? Are we using those resources even though they didn’t even want it? How do we respect those patients’ preferences? How do we give good patient-centered care that respects their goals and values as they move from being fairly healthy, to being sick enough to die, to being terminally ill? People are all along that continuum, and how do we match the appropriate medical care with their goals and values?”

For more information on creating an advance directive, go to starttheconversationvt.org.

Making Decisions: Advance Directives and End-of-Life Care

CO

UR

TESY

DA

N B

AR

LOW


Upcoming EventsFRIDAY, JANUARY 25Goddess Meditation Group. Join Lydia Russell-McDade for a sacred journey of myth, mantra and meditation exploring the divine feminine in the yogic tradition. Free intro class to a nine-week series. Yoga Mountain Center, 7 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 229-6300, yogamountaincenter.com or saprema-yoga.com.Story Time Dance. Kids age 3–6 move it, shake it and sing it during a lively hour hosted by the Waterbury Public Library. 10–11 a.m. Waterbury Congregational Church. Free, but registration required: 244-7036.Art and Author Night: The Grist Mill Guys. Art opening of Michael Schumacher’s work, followed by author Vince Feeney reading from his short story The Peddler and the Priest. Refreshments served. 6 p.m. art; 7 p.m. reading. Jaquith Public Library, 122 School Street, Marshfield. Free. 426-3581 or [email protected] Pathways: Transcending Punishment. Explore ways to foster respectful and harmonious relationships within our school communities. Cohosted by Orchard Valley Waldorf School and Wellspring Waldorf School. 6:30 p.m. First Presbyterian Church, Barre. Free. [email protected] Moon Snowshoe Hike. Explore Montpelier’s hillsides by lunar light with nature center staff. Night activities illuminate how wildlife survives the long nights of winter. Snowshoes and hot chocolate provided. 7–8:30 p.m. North Branch Nature Center, 713 Main Street, Montpelier. 229-6206.

Stand-up Comedy with Jason Lorber. Jason has opened for Joan Rivers, headlined at the Green Mountain Comedy Festival and triumphed at the Vermont’s Funniest Comic Contest (advancing to New England Funniest Comic in February). 7:30 p.m. Chandler Upper Gallery, 71–73 Main Street, Randolph. $12. Tickets at 728-6464.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 26Craft Workshop. Sue Premore shows teens and adults how to make beaded jewelry. All materials provided. 9–11 a.m. Waterbury Public Library. Free, but registration required: 244-7036.Free Women’s Car Care Clinic. 9 a.m.–noon. Auto Craftsmen, 326 State Street, Montpelier. autocraftsmen.com.Central Vermont Seed Swap. Get ready for the gardening season: bring labeled, non-GMO seeds purchased or saved from your own plants and pick out new ones (extras donated by High Mowing Seeds). Potluck soup lunch, veggie slaw demo, kids’ crafts, mini–farmers’ market and more. 11 a.m.–2 p.m. Old Labor Hall. Granite Street, Barre. 279-7518 or [email protected] of the Herbs School Open House. Learn about the school’s unique nature-based experiential programs, eight-month certification program and wild edibles spring inten-sive. 1–3 p.m. Tulsi Tea Room, 34 Elm Street, Montpelier. Free. wisdomoftheherbsschool.com.Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Wear a hat or costume that reflects your love of theater for the annual meeting of the Montpe-lier Theatre Guild. Prizes for best hat or costume, election of new officers, theater games, a bit of business, refreshments and a sing-along. 1–3 p.m. Auditorium, Union Elementary School, Montpelier. facebook.com/montpeliertheatreguild.

Bob and the Trubadors. Bob Murray, Jeremiah McLane and Jim Goss offer up a fertile brew of original folk-based music inspired by archetypal dreamwork, with shades of blues, jazz and world music. 1–3 p.m. Red Hen Café. 961 Route 2, Middlesex. 223-5200.Everybody Wins! Vermont’s Eighth Annual Read-A-Thon. Family fun with entertainment by the Swing Peepers, prizes and refreshments. Help break last year’s record of 990 books read. 1–3:30 p.m. National Life Building, 1 National Life Drive, Mont-pelier. Pledge collecting encouraged (but not required): National Life will match all funds donated. 229-2665, [email protected] or ewvt.org.What Is a Movement? A Community Conversa-tion. Reflections on contemporary social movements, discussion of what we’ve learned, what’s unfinished business and how our movements can flow together. Everyone welcome: labor, civil rights, peace, women’s, environmental, indigenous, gay, occupy, etc. 3–5 p.m. Hayes Room, Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free.Tea Intensive Class: Oolong. Tea taster and importer Matthew Frayer of Stoneleaf Tea House leads an exploration of the wide spectrum of Chinese and Taiwanese oolong teas. 4 p.m. Tulsi Tea Room, 34 Elm Street, Montpelier. $15. Preregister at 223-0043.Yoga Workshop: What Is a Bandha and How Do I Do It? Learn how to engage core energy centers, work with band-has and meditate comfortably. 6–8 p.m. Studio Zenith, 50 Main Street, Montpelier. $25. Katy, 272-8923 or fusionstudio.org.Annual Latin Dinner and Dance. The U-32 High School music department presents a gourmet Mexican meal with live Latin music, followed by a brief lesson in Latin dance styles, such as meringue, salsa and cha-cha, and continuing with Latin grooves into the evening. 6:30 p.m. U-32 High School, 930 Gallison Hill road, Montpelier. $15 adults, $7 students, $35 family. Reserve ticket with Sara, 223-0321, ext. 5179, or [email protected]. Free Movie Showing: Repo Man. Emilia Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton star in this classic tale of young punks caught up in a bizarre hunt for a car with an alien in the trunk. Part of the Punk Movie Nights series. 7 p.m. Sovversiva Open Space, 89 Barre Street, Montpelier.Worst. Song. Ever. Perform a cover version of a bad pop song. Bring your own musical instrument(s) or sing a cappella. Audience voting and trophies for best, worst and more! 7 p.m. Espresso Bueno, 136 North Main Street, Barre. Free. Advance sign-up required: 479-0896 or [email protected] Dinnerstein. Chandler audiences welcome this extraordinary pianist back for a performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. 7:30 p.m. Chandler Music Hall, 71–73 Main Street, Randolph. $32 in advance, $35 day of show. Tickets at 728-6464 or chandler-arts.org.Dance Party. Party with DJ Tater Tachoo (otherwise known as DJ Square-Hip). Animal theme. 8 p.m. Freeride Montpelier, 89 Barre Street, Montpelier. $5 suggested donation; benefits the Freeride Bicycle Co-op.Traditional New England Dance. Adina Gordon calls an “uncommonly good” selection of old and unusual dances to tunes by the Homegrown Chestnuts house band (musicians welcome to

Art & ExhibitsBIGTOWN GALLERYHoliday show of small works by BigTown Gal-lery artists. 99 North Main Street, Rochester. Extended through February. Hours: Wednesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday, noon– 5 p.m. 767-9670, [email protected] or bigtowngallery.com.

BLINKING LIGHT GALLERYPhotographs by Theodore “Teo” Kaye, featuring highlights from his travel and work in Central Asia. 16 Main Street, Plainfield. Through January

27. Hours: Thursdays, 2–6 p.m.; Friday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. blinkinglightgallery.com.

CHANDLER GALLERY20-30 / 2D-3D, juried show of work in a variety of media by Vermont artists in their 20s and 30s. 71–73 Main Street, Randolph. Through March 13. Hours: Friday, 3–5 p.m.; Saturday–Sunday, noon–2 p.m. 431-0204 or [email protected].

CITY CENTERCabin Fever: Love It or Leave It, group show by the Art Resource Association. 89 Main Street, Montpelier. Reception during Art Walk, Friday, February 1, 4–8 p.m. artresourceassociation.com.

CONTEMPORARY DANCE & FITNESS STUDIOEver Moving . . . Ever Changing, digital art photos by Linda Hogan. 18 Langdon Street (third floor), Montpelier. Through February 25. 229-4676 or cdandfs.com.

FESTIVAL GALLERYIntertwined, a collection of innovative work from 12 of Vermont’s premiere fiber artists. 2 Village Square, Waitsfield. Through March 9. 485-9650 or vermontartfest.com.

GOVERNOR’S GALLERYEye of the Beholder, pastels by local artists Anne Unangst, Cindy Griffith and Marcia Hill com-paring the same scene in their different styles. 109 State Street (fifth floor), Montpelier. Photo ID required for admission. Through March. Recep-tion Tuesday, January 29, 3–5 p.m. 828-0749.

GREEN BEAN ART GALLERYNYC 1998–2012, photographs of Manhattan by Amy Lee, followed by Good Eats, playful food-inspired sculpture by Mary Jo Krolewski. Capitol Grounds, 27 State Street, Montpelier.

NYC through February 2; Good Eats February 2–March 2. [email protected].

RIVER ARTS CENTERAbstract paintings by Stowe artist Lisa Forster Beach. Left, Cultural Energy. 74 Pleasant Street (upstairs), Morrisville. February 7–March 25. Reception Thursday, February 7, 5–7 p.m. Hours: Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. 888-1261 or riverartsvt.org.

STOREFRONT STUDIO GALLERYNew, experimental public studio/gallery by

artist Glen Coburn Hutcheson. Drawings, paintings, sculpture and more. 6 Barre Street, Montpelier. Opening during Art Walk, Friday, February 1. Hours: Monday–Friday, 3–6 p.m. 839-5349 or gchfineart.com

STORROW & MANEY STUDIO Works by Missy Storrow. 108 Main Street (above Three Penny Taproom), Montpelier. Open studio during Saturday, February 2, 3–6 p.m. carystorrowart.com.

STUDIO PLACE ARTSThinking Out of the Box, art made from card-board; Winter: 20 Years of Collaged Postcards by Beth Barndt (through February 6: followed by Inspiration by Dennis Hedding); and Accidental

Abstracts by Michael Lew-Smith. 201 North Main Street, Barre. Through February 23. Recep-tion Friday, January 25, 5–7 p.m. 479-7069 or studioplacearts.com.

SULLIVAN MUSEUM & HISTORY CENTERUseful and Elegant Accomplishments, landscape drawings by 19th-century Norwich University alumni and their contemporaries. Norwich University, Northfield. Through June. 485-2183 or norwich.edu/museum.

THREE MOUNTAIN CAFESeen in Vermont, plein air paintings in oils and pastels by Jan Ghiringhelli. 107 Mad River Green, Waitsfield. Through February 3. 496-5470 or 229-5209.

TULSI TEA ROOMShades of Pussy, delicate flowers in watercolor by Fiona Sullivan. 34 Elm Street, Montpelier. Feb-ruary 1–March 31. Reception during Art Walk, Friday, February 1, 4–8 p.m. fionasullivan.net.

VERMONT HISTORY MUSEUMFreedom & Unity: One Ideal, Many Stories, experience a full-sized Abenaki wigwam, a recreation of the Catamount Tavern, a railroad station complete with working telegraph, a World War II living room and more. 109 State Street, Montpelier. $5 adults, $12 families; free admission during Art Walk, Friday, February 1, 4-7 p.m. 828-2291.

VERMONT SUPREME COURTThe Eye of Senator Leahy, Patrick Leahy’s photo-graphs of people both illustrious and ordinary from his insider’s perspective. 111 State Street (first-floor lobby), Montpelier. Through February 28. Hours: Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. 828-0749.

see UPCOMING EVENTS, page 16

CO

UR

TES

Y D

OM

INIQ

UE

GU

STIN

CO

UR

TES

Y G

LEN

CO

BU

RN

HU

TC

HES

ON

CO

UR

TES

Y C

D&

FS

The Montpelier Movement Collective, which will be premiering its new work, Co-Lab 1:

The People Gallery, at the MontPolar Frostival, Saturday, February 2.


sit in). No experience needed. Bring shoes not worn outdoors and dessert to share. 8–11 p.m.; 7:30 p.m. dance instruction/refresher. Capital City Grange, 6612 Route 12 (Northfield Street), Berlin. $4–$8 at the door; $20 family. Merry, 225-8921.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 27Ski for Heat. Trail fees go toward heating-fuel assistance in central Vermont and will be matched up to $5,000 by the WARMTH fund at Green Mountain Power. 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Morse Farm Ski Touring Center, Montpelier. Kate, 793-7674 or [email protected]. skiforheat.org.Feldenkrais: Pelvis Power. Refine your ability to sense and work with the muscles of the pelvic floor and the surrounding muscle structures. Also beneficial for those with hip or lower back pain. 1:30–3:30 p.m. Yoga Mountain Center, 7 Main Street, Mont-pelier. $30. Register at 735-370 or [email protected] on Fire: Winter Festival. A snowy celebration of com-munity: children’s activities, winter games, theater, song and story-telling, food, hot beverages and more. Snowshoes provided; bring cross-country skis and sleds. 2–5 p.m. North Branch Nature Center, 713 Elm Street, Montpelier. $1–$5 suggested donation. 223-0577.New Community Members’ Potluck Dinner. Bring a dish to share (with an ingredient list) and your own plate, bowl, cup and utensils. Plainfield residents of any duration welcome: let’s get acquainted! 6 p.m. Cutler Memorial Library, 151 High Street (Route 2), Plainfield. Free. 454-8504, [email protected], or cutlerlibrary.org.

MONDAY, JANUARY 28Homeschoolers Book Circle. Read The Wanderer, by Sharon Creech, with other homeschooled/unschooled readers age 7–12. Books available for loan at the library. 11 a.m.–noon. Kellogg-Hubbard children’s library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Linda, 223-4665.Herbal Support for Wintertime Sleep. With Rebecca Dalgin, clinical herbalist. Learn about herbal support for healthy sleep while sampling relaxing herbal teas. 5–7 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop community room, Montpelier. $8 co-op mem-ber-owners, $10 nonmembers. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected] Book Group. Copies of the book available at the library. New members welcome. 7–8 p.m. Jaquith Public Library, Old Schoolhouse Common, Marshfield. 426-3581 or [email protected]. Event happens every fourth Monday.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 29Telemark and Alpine Touring Ski Demo. With Clear-water Sports and G3 Ski Company. 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Mad River Glen. Free. 496-2708 or clearwatersports.com.Business Wisdom Circle. Lightly structured networking and mentoring opportunity for women in business to learn and share with each other. 4–6 p.m. Quarry Grill and Tavern, Main

Street, Barre. Register at 479-9813 or [email protected]. vwbc.org. Sponsored by the Vermont Women’s Business Center: Montessori Elementary Curriculum Panel Discus-sion. Montessori educators present an overview of the curricu-lum, the preparation of the child and the practical application of the philosophy and method being used at the Montpelier Montes-sori School. 5:30–7 p.m. Montpelier Montessori School, 89 Karl Circle, Berlin. Free. 223-3320 or [email protected] Essence Clinic for the Winter Blues. With Fearn Lickfield, certified flower essence practitioner. Take home a custom blend of flower essences and tools to remember your radi-ance and resilience. 6–7:30 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop commu-nity room, Montpelier. $10 co-op member-owners, $12 nonmembers. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected] Air Patrol Cadet Program Open House. For youth age 12–18 interested in learning more about aviation, leader-ship and service through the cadet program of the Civil Air Patrol. 6–8:30 p.m. National Guard Readiness and Regional Technology Center, Cram Drive, Norwich University, Northfield. 426-3159 or gocivilairpatrol.com.Business Building Blocks: Finding Your Market. Learn how to get your business known so customers will come to you. 6–8:30 p.m. Central Vermont Community Action, 195 Route 302, Berlin. Free, but registration required: sign up with Margaret, 477-5214, 800-843-8397 or [email protected] Your Lawn into Eden! David Fried, founder of El-more Roots, talks about turning your lawn into a edible landscape and what fruit trees, berries and nut trees are the easiest to grow. 6:30–8 p.m. Hayes Room, Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. Pat, 496-5965. Sponsored by the central Ver-mont chapter of the UVM Extension Master Gardener program.Jews in Early Modern Europe. Historian Lars Nielsen describes the uneven evolution of Jewish hardship and opportu-nity in a European landscape marked by change and continuity. Part one of a four-part Jews in History series. 6:30–8:30 pm. Beth Jacob Synagogue, 10 Harrison Avenue, Montpelier. Free. 279-7518 or bethjacobvt.org. A Vermont Humanities Council program.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30Craftsbury Marathon Waxing Clinic. Swix/Toko rep and expert wax technician Drew Gelinas covers the techniques needed to make your cross-country skis as fast as possible for this year’s race. 6 p.m. Onion River Sports, 20 Langdon Street, Montpe-lier. Free. Matt, 229-9409 or [email protected] Free Movie: Beyond Conviction. The Montpelier Commu-nity Justice Center presents this film about resolution and healing through victim-offender dialogue. Discussion and refreshments follow. 6:30–8:30 p.m. Memorial Room, City Hall, 39 Main Street, Montpelier. 223-9606 or [email protected] Discussion Series: Callas Forever. A homage to internationally acclaimed opera diva Maria Callas. Discussion moderated by film aficionado and library director Richard Bidnick. 7 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-3338 or kellogghubbard.org. Event happens every last Wednesday through May.

Waterbury: The First 125 Years. Kick off Waterbury’s 250th year with a slide show and historical narrative of Waterbury by David Luce and Betty Jones. Winter meeting of the Waterbury Historical Society precedes program. Refreshments served. 7 p.m. meeting; 7:30 p.m. program. Senior Center, Stowe Street, Waterbury. Free. 244-8089.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31 Improving Transportation Efficiency in Central Vermont. Presentation and dialogue on how to improve trans-portation in the region. Hear about business success stories and learn about incentives and free resources to reduce the cost and environmental impacts of transportation. 5:30–7:30 p.m. National Life Cafeteria, National Life Drive, Montpelier. Deb, 658-8487 or [email protected]. Sponsored by Go Vermont.Do-It-Yourself Localvore Body Care Series: From the Neck Down. With Dana Woodruff, community herbalist and health educator. Using pronounceable, familiar and ethical ingredients, learn how to make your own massage oils, deodorant, body butter, scrubs and more. 6–7:30 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop community room, Montpelier. $10 co-op member-owners, $12 non-members, or two Onion River Exchange hours. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected] Life and Training of a Modern Druid. Find out more about the Green Mountain Druid Order, a school of druidry and a vibrant earth-based spiritual community in Worcester, and learn about a new druid class starting in March. 6–8 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. Fearn, 505-8011 or [email protected], or greenmountaindruidorder.org.Film Screening: Wake Up Darkness. A documentary by Sterling College alum Israel Kacyvenski of a Christian fundamen-talist’s personal apocalypse when faced with scientific ideas by 11 of America’s top thinkers on religion, psychology, physics, disease, evolution and humanity’s place and purpose in the cosmos. Fol-lowed by a conversation with the filmmaker. 6:30 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-3338 or kellogghubbard.org.Off Piste in the Alps. Brian Mohr and Emily Johnson present a multimedia slide show of their bicycle-powered skiing adventures in Switzerland and Italy, followed by a raffle of gear and tickets for outdoor adventure. 7–8:45 p.m. Unitarian Church, 130 Main Street, Montpelier. Free; raffle tickets $5. emberphoto.com.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1MontPolar Frostival. Kick off the winter festival with a bluegrass coffeehouse, a jazz dance and concert, Montpelier Art Walk or the fancy-dress Snow Ball. Full schedule on the back cover of this issue or at montpelieralive.org. Festival continues Saturday, Janu-ary 2, and Sunday, January 3.Reiki Clinic. With Lynne Ihlstrom, reiki master. Noon–4 p.m. Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street, Montpelier. $15 for a half-hour session; walk-ins welcome or make an appointment at 522-0045.Kava Kava Cocktail Night. Herbal infusions and elegant cocktails mixed from the kava kava root, renowned for its euphoric and relaxing properties, complemented by raw desserts and confec-

Support GroupsBEREAVEMENTBereavement Support Group. For anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one. Every other Monday, 6–8 p.m., through December 17. Every other Wednesday, 10–11:30 a.m., through December 12. Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice, 600 Granger Road, Barre. Ginny, 223-1878.Bereaved Parents Support Group. Facilitated by Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice (CVHHH). Second Wednesdays, 6–8 p.m. CVHHH, 600 Granger Road, Berlin. Jeneane Lunn, 793-2376.Survivors of Suicide. Facilitated by Cory Gould. Third Thursdays, 5–6:30 p.m. Board room, Central Vermont Medical Center, Fisher Road, Berlin. Karen, 229-0591.

CANCERKindred Connections. For anyone affected by cancer. Get help from Kindred Con-nections members who have been in your shoes. A program of the Vermont Cancer Survivor Network. Call Sherry, 479-3223, for more infor-mation. vcsn.net.Living with Advanced or Metastatic Cancer. Second Tuesdays, noon to 1 p.m. Cancer Center resource room, Central Vermont Medical Center. Lunch provided. 225-5449.Writing to Enrich Your Life. For any-one affected by cancer. Third Tuesdays, noon–

1 p.m. Cancer Center resource room, Central Vermont Medical Center. 225-5449.Cancer Support Group. Third Wednes-days, 6 p.m. Potluck. For location, call Carole MacIntyre, 229-5931.Man-to-Man Prostate Cancer Sup-port Group. Third Wednesdays, 6–8 p.m. Conference room 2, Central Vermont Medical Center. 872-6308 or 866-466-0626 (press 3).

DISASTERHurricane Irene Support Group for Recovery Workers. Get peer sup-port and help processing emotions, strengthen relationships and learn coping skills. Every other Monday, 3:30 p.m. Unitarian Church, 130 Main Street, Montpelier. 279-4670.Hurricane Irene Support Group. Share your story, listen to others, learn coping skills, build community and support your neighbors. Refreshments provided. Wednesdays, 5:30 p.m. Berlin Elementary School. 279-8246.

KIDSGrandparents Raising Their Chil-dren’s Children. First Wednesdays, 10 a.m.–noon, Barre Presbyterian Church, Sum-mer Street. Second Tuesdays, 6–8 p.m., Wesley Methodist Church, Main Street, Waterbury. Third Thursdays, 6–8 p.m., Trinity United Methodist Church, 137 Main Street. Child care provided in Montpelier and Waterbury. Evelyn, 476-1480.

HEALTHBrain Injury Support Groups. Open to all survivors, caregivers and adult family members. Evening group facilitated by Marsha

Bancroft; day group facilitated by Kathy Grange and Jane Hulstrunk. Evening group meets first Mondays, 5:30–7:30 p.m., DisAbility Rights of Vermont, 141 Main Street, Suite 7, Montpelier, 800-834-7890, ext. 106. Day group meets first and third Thursdays, 1:30–2:30 p.m., Unitarian Church, 130 Main Street, Montpelier, 244-6850.NAMI Vermont: Connection. A peer-led, recovery-oriented group for indi-viduals living with mental illness. First and third Thursdays, 6–7:30 p.m. Kellogg-Hub-bard Library, Montpelier. 800-639-6480 or [email protected] Vermont Family Support Group. Support group for families and friends of individuals living with mental illness. Fourth Mondays, 7 p.m. Central Vermont Medi-cal Center, room 3, Berlin. 800-639-6480 or namivt.org.Celiac and Food Allergy Support Group. With Lisa Masé of Harmonized Cookery. Second Wednesdays, 4:30–6 p.m. Con-ference room 3, Central Vermont Medical Center. [email protected] Discussion Group. Focus on self-management. Open to anyone with diabetes and their families. Third Thursdays, 1:30 p.m. The Health Center, Plainfield. Free. Don, 322-6600 or [email protected]. Diabetes Support Group. First Thursdays, 7–8 p.m. Conference room 3, Central Vermont Medical Center. 371-4152.

RECOVERYTurning Point Center. Safe, supportive place for individuals and their families in or seeking recovery.

• Alchoholics Anonymous, Sundays, 8:30 a.m.• Making Recovery Easier workshops, Tuesdays,

6–7:30 p.m.• Wit’s End Parent Support Group, Wednes-

days, 6 p.m.• Narcotics Anonymous, Thursdays, 6:30 p.m.Open daily, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. 489 North Main Street, Barre. 479-7373.Overeaters Anonymous. Twelve-step program for physically, emotionally and spiritu-ally overcoming overeating. Fridays, noon–1 p.m. Bethany Church, 115 Main Street, Montpe-lier. 223-3079.

SOLIDARITY/IDENTITYWomen’s Group. Women age 40 and older explore important issues and challenges in their lives in a warm and supportive environ-ment. Faciliatated by Amy Emler-Shaffer and Julia W. Gresser. Wednesday evenings. 41 Elm Street, Montpelier. Call Julia, 262-6110, for more information.Men’s Group. Men discuss challenges of and insights about being male. Wednesdays, 6:15–8:15 p.m. 174 Elm Street, Montpelier. Interview required: contact Neil, 223-3753.National Federation of the Blind, Montpelier Chapter. First Saturdays. Lane Shops community room, 1 Mechanic Street, Montpelier. 229-0093.Families of Color. Open to all. Play, eat and discuss issues of adoption, race and multi-culturalism. Bring snacks and games to share; dress for the weather. Third Sundays, 3–5 p.m. Unitarian Church, 130 Main Street, Montpelier. Alyson, 439-6096 or [email protected].

UPCOMING EVENTS, from page 15


tions. Coincides with art opening; see Exhibits section for more info. 6–9 p.m. Tulsi Tea Room, 34 Elm Street, Montpelier. Free; cocktails and desserts for sale. 223-0043.Naturalist Journeys Lecture Series: The Geol-ogy of the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Greg Walsh, local geologist with the USGS, transports the audience to northern Africa in his lecture/slideshow. 7 pm. Unitarian Church, 130 Main Street, Montpelier. By donation. North Branch Nature Center, 229-6206.Coffeehouse. Enjoy live music and share your own. Fellowship, potluck snacks and beverages. 7–9 p.m. Trinity United Methodist Church, 137 Main Street, Montpelier (park and enter at rear). Free. Dick, 244-5191, 472-8297 or [email protected]. Event happens every first Friday.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2MontPolar Frostival. A full day of active fun for the whole family—including a snowshoe obstacle course, a 5K race, dancing, fitness classes, sledding, skating, hiking and more—followed by a chili dinner, a contemporary dance premiere by the Montpelier Movement Collective, the Extempo storytelling tell-off, contra danc-ing, a casino night and more. Full schedule on the back cover of this issue or at montpelieralive.org. Festival continues Sunday, January 3.Green Mountain Club Snowshoe Festival. Beat cabin fever with free snowshoe demos, off-campus guided hikes, events for younger adventurers, a bonfire, nature hikes and tracking tuto-rials, dog sledding and live bird-on-glove demonstrations. 8:30 a.m.–5 p.m. GMC headquarters, 4711 Waterbury-Stowe Road (Route 100), Waterbury Center. $8 GMC members, $10 nonmem-bers. Megan, 244-7037, or Nika, 241-8327.Travel Talk: Palestine and Israel. Yvonne and Sandra Lory give a slideshow presentation of the West Bank, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea through firsthand experience of the landscape, healing plants and foods. 1–3 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop community room, Mont-pelier. Free; donations for Herbalists Without Borders are welcome. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected] Spirit Yoga. Join yoga teacher and herbalist Lydia Russell-McDade for a cleansing and clearing yoga practice with the spirit of birch in celebration of Imbolc. Intermediate-level asana class, full of stories, myths and lore. 3–5 p.m. Yoga Mountain center, 7 Main Street, Montpelier. $20. Preregistration required at yogamountaincenter.com. 229-6300 or saprema-yoga.com.Occupy Central Vermont: General Assembly. 3–5 p.m. Guerrilla garden park, next to Charlie O’s, Main Street, Montpelier. Heather, [email protected]. Event happens every first Saturday. Getting Ready to Meet the Future: Transition Town in Vermont. Gail England talks about the Transition Town movement and how it is preparing Vermonters to adapt to whatever the future brings. Potluck follows. 5:30 p.m. Capital City Grange, 6612 Northfield Street (Route 12), Berlin. Free. Marj, 229-0782.Yoga Workshop: Safe Headstands. For those who have been practicing yoga for two years or longer. 6–8 p.m. Studio Zenith, 50 Main Street, Montpelier. $25. Katy, 272-8923 or fusion studio.org. Groundhog Day DJ Dance and Potluck. Potluck din-ner, screening of the film Groundhog Day and dancing to tunes

by DJ Richard Pitonyak. Benefits post-Irene refurbishment of the Moretown Town Hall kitchen. Coffee, tea and hot cocoa provided. 6–10 p.m. Moretown Town Hall. By donation. Pat, 496-5965.Shape-Note Sing. Ian Smiley leads tunes from The Sacred Harp. All welcome; no experience necessary. Event happens by RSVP only: please call or e-mail to confirm. 6:30–8 p.m. Tulsi Tea Room, 34 Elm Street, Montpelier. By donation. Ian, 882-8274 or [email protected]. Event happens every first and third Saturday.Contra Dance. All dances taught; no partner necessary. All ages welcome. Bring shoes not worn outdoors. 8–11 p.m. Capital City Grange, 6612 Route 12 (Northfield Street), Berlin. $8. 744-6163 or capitalcitygrange.org. Event happens every first, third and fifth Saturday.The Last Ride of Buck Corduroy: A Country Music Saga. A tribute to country music and the way it affects our lives. Brought to you by the same folks who created last year’s Blues Brothers performance, this original show features a full band and 22 original songs by local songwriters. 8 p.m. Barre Opera House. $18; four for $54. Tickets at 476-8188.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3MontPolar Frostival. Wrap up three days of winter fun with a winter bike race, contact improv, unicycling, swimming and more. Full schedule on the back cover of this issue or at montpelier-alive.org. Montessori Open House. For children age 3–12 and their families interested in the Montessori approach to education. 10 a.m.–noon. Montpelier Montessori School, 89 Karl Circle, Berlin. Free. 223-3320 or [email protected] Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus: From the Romantics to the Present. Works by Wagner, Beethoven and Schubert, paired with Blue Cathedral by contemporary composer Jennifer Higdon. 2 p.m. Barre Opera House. $15 adults, $12 seniors, $5 for students. Tickets at 476-8188, vermontphilharmonic.org or at the door.Family Circus Sunday. A monthly gathering of folks inter-ested in unicycle riding, juggling and slack-lining. For all ages; beginners invited. Equipment provided; bring your bike helmet. 4:30–6 p.m. Montpelier Recreation Gym, 55 Barre Street. $2 indi-vidual, $5 family. 223-3456. Event happens every first Sunday.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4Parents’ Group and Meet-Up. For central Vermont moms and dads looking to share ideas, advice and information. Kids welcome. Coffee, tea and snacks provided. 10–11:30 a.m. Hayes Room, Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. [email protected]. Event happens every first Monday.Classic Book Club. 6 p.m. Cutler Memorial Library, Route 2, Plainfield. Free. Daniel, 793-0418. Event happens every first Monday.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5Cross-Country Ski with the Montpelier Section of the Green Mountain Club. Moderate outing at Stowe Mountain Resort. Various distances. Pass or trail fee required; come for a full day or a half day starting at 1:30 p.m. Contact leader Fred Jordan, 223-3935, for meeting time and place.

Beating the Sugar Blues for Valentine’s Day. With Marie Frohlich, health coach. Drink chaga chai, learn how to make delicious herbal bonbons and explore ways to help make your digestion valentine-healthy. Bring your own favorite sweet recipe for a healthy makeover. 5:30–7 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop com-munity room, Montpelier. $10 co-op member-owners, $12 nonmem-bers. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected]’s Circle. Women and mothers discuss all things related to the childbearing years. Women only, please; children are welcome. Hosted by midwives Chelsea Hastings and Hannah Allen. 6–8 p.m. Emerge Midwifery and Family Health, 174 River Street, Montpelier.Event happens every first Tuesday.Author Reading and Signing: Sarah Gillen. The Montpelier-based marriage and family therapist introduces her new book, From Hurt to Joy. 7 p.m. Bear Pond Books, 77 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 229-0774.The Abolitionists: Hear the Panelists! Screening of excerpts from the new PBS miniseries The Abolitionists, followed by discussion with local abolition scholars Jane Williamson, Ray Zirblis and Lyn Blackwell. 7 p.m. Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre. Free. Amanda, 828-2180.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6Small-Town Newspaper Challenges in the Electron-ic Dawn. Presented by editor Steven Pappas. Part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. 1:30 p.m.; doors open at 12:30 for brown-bag lunch. Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street, Montpelier. $5 suggested donation. Whole series: $40 single, $70 couple; half price for first-time attendees. 223-1736 or [email protected]. Series continues every Wednesday through May 8.Apples and Honey Family Program: Preparing for Purim. Families with children of all ages experience the joys of being Jewish. 5–6:30 p.m. Montpelier. Suggested donation $22 per family. To register or for more information, contact Tobie, 223-0583.Winter Wellness: Community Herbalism Work-shop. With Shona MacDougall, clinical herbalist. Learn how to keep your whole family healthy with tonic herbs, supple-

see UPCOMING EVENTS, page 18

CO

UR

TESY

KIM

SMIT

H

Parade at the Ice on Fire festival, happening Sunday, January 27,

in Montpelier.

TheaterAUDITIONS FOR THE MARRIAGE OF FIGAROEcho Valley Community Arts seeks singers for leads and chorus. Performance dates are October 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 and 13. Saturday, January 26, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Taplin Auditorium, Christ Church, State Street, Montpelier. For more information or a private audition, call Naomi Flanders, director, at 225-6471.

EDWINA’S FOLLYPlainfield Little Theatre’s premiere production of a new play by Vermont playwright Tom Blachly, in which the matriarch of a small rural community theater in Vermont has died, and her grown childen and the actors are left to pick up the pieces. Thursday–Saturday, 7 p.m., February 7–16. Union Elementary School Auditorium, 1 Park Avenue, Montpelier. $15 adults, $12 students/seniors, $10 children 12 and younger. Tickets at 426-3955 or [email protected].

Live MusicBAGITOS28 Main Street, Montpelier. 229-9212 or bagitos.com.Every WednesdayBlues jam with the Usual Suspects and friends, 6–8 p.m.Every SaturdayIrish/Celtic session, 2–5 p.m.Friday, January 25The Hubcats, 6–8 p.m.Saturday, January 26David Kraus and John LaRouche, 6–8 p.m.Sunday, January 27Brunch with Eric Friedman, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.Tuesday, January 29Michael Jermyn and friends, 6–8 p.m.Thursday, January 31Ken Tonnissen, 6–8 p.m.Friday, February 1Generations, 6–8 p.m. Saturday, February 2Charlie Messing, 6–8 p.m.Sunday, February 3Brunch with Molly Durnin, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.Tuesday, February 5Smooth Jazz, 6–8 p.m.Thursday, February 7Colin McCaffrey and friends, 6–8 p.m.

BIG PICTURE THEATER48 Carroll Road (just off Route 100), Waitsfield. 496-8994 or bigpicturetheater .info.Wednesday, January 30Valley Night with Jacob Green (acous-tic/roots)

CHARLIE O’S70 Main Street, Montpelier. 223-6820. Every MondayTriviaEvery SundayAll-request dance partyWednesday, January 30Abby Jenne (solo acoustic)Thursday, January 31Mr. Yee and Danny Bick (hip-hop)Friday, February 1Starline Rhythm Boys (honky-tonk/rock-abilly), 9:30 p.m.

CIDER HOUSE RESTAURANTRoute 2, Waterbury. 244-8400,Every Saturday, February 2–March 2Dan Boomhower (piano), 6 p.m.–close

NUTTY STEPH’S CHOCOLATERIERoute 2, Middlesex. All shows 7–10 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 229-2090 or nuttystephs.com.Every ThursdayBacon Thursday, live music and hot con-versation, 6 p.m.–midnight

POSITIVE PIE69 Main Street, Plainfield. positivepie.com.Thursday, January 31Open pick night (acoustic jam), 7:30 p.m.

POSITIVE PIE 222 State Street, Montpelier. 229-0453 or positivepie.com.Saturday, January 26Mint Julep (jazz/swing/Latin), 10:30 p.m., no coverFriday, February 1First Friday dance party with DJ Bay 6 and DJ Jah B, 10 p.m., 21+, no coverSaturday, February 2Zach Dupont Band (contemporary folk/ singer-songwriter), 10:30 p.m., 21+, $5

SKINNY PANCAKE89 Main Street, Montpelier. 262-2253 or skinnypancake.com.Every WednesdayJay Ekis (country/blues)Every SundayOld-time sessions with Katie Trautz and friends, 4–6 p.m. (intermediate to advanced players welcome to sit in)

THE WHAMMY BARMaple Corner Café, 31 West County Road, Calais. All events free unless otherwise noted. 229-4329.Every TuesdayTrivia night, 6:30 p.m.Every WednesdayOpen mic, 6:30 p.m.Friday, January 25Big Hat, No Cattle (country/Western swing), 7 p.m.


ments and superfoods. 6–8 p.m. Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, 250 Main Street (suite 302), Montpelier. $10 VCIH members, $12 nonmembers. Preregistration required: 244-7100 or [email protected]. vtherbcenter.org.Classic Film Night. Showing of the 1952 Western directed by Fred Zinneman and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly (call the library for the title), followed by discussion with Tom Blachly and Rick Winston. 7 p.m. Jaquith Public Library, 122 School Street, Marshfield. Free. 426-3581 or [email protected] Coolidge: More Than Two Words. Drawing from Coolidge’s letters, speeches, press conferences and autobiog-raphy, Jim Cooke brings Coolidge to life and helps us understand why Will Rogers said, “Mr. Coolidge has more subtle humor than almost any public man I ever met.” 7:30 p.m. State House, Montpe-lier. Free. 223-3338 or kellogghubbard.org. A Vermont Humanities Council program.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7Summer Reading Program Planning Meeting. Bring your ideas for activities and plans for the summer’s theme of Dig into Reading. 6:30 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard children’s library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Linda, 223-4665.Jewish Genealogy: The Greenbergs of Piater/Lost and Found. Fern Blood shares her genealogy research in present-day Ukraine and her personal quest to research her roots. Diane Sophrin has spent 10 years tracing the threads of her family back to Europe. Both will share information on their sources and recent findings. 6:30–8 p.m. Beth Jacob Synagogue, 10 Harrison Avenue, Montpelier. Free. 279-7518 or bethjacobvt.org. Local Author Series: Book Reading by Robert Belenky. Belenky presents his book Collective Memories of a Lost Paradise: Jewish Agricultural Settlements in Ukraine Dur-ing the 1920s and 1930s, documenting a personal and poignant journey and stories told by people whom time and history would have forgotten. 7 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-3338 or kellogghubbard.org.

Ecumenical Group. Songs of praise, Bible teaching, fellowship. 7–9 p.m. Jabbok Center for Christian Living, 8 Daniel Drive, Barre. Free. 479-0302. Event happens every first and third Thursday.

Weekly EventsBICYCLINGOpen Shop Nights. Have a bike to do-nate or need help with a bike repair? Visit the volunteer-run community bike shop. Mondays and Wednesdays, 5–7 p.m.; Tuesdays, 6–8 p.m. Freeride Montpelier, 89 Barre Street, Montpelier. By donation. 552-3521 or freeridemontpelier.org.

BOOKSOngoing Reading Group. Improve your reading and share some good books. Books chosen by group. Thursdays, 9–10 a.m. Central Vermont Adult Basic Education, Montpelier Learn-ing Center, 100 State Street. 223-3403.

CRAFTSBeaders Group. All levels of beading experi-ence welcome. Free instruction available. Come with a project for creativity and community. Sat-urdays, 11 a.m.–2 p.m. The Bead Hive, Plainfield. 454-1615.

DANCEEcstatic Dance. Freestyle boogie with DJ using Gabrielle Roth’s meditative dance form, 5Rhythms. Wednesdays, 7–9 p.m. First and third Wednesdays: Worcester Town Hall, corner of Elmore Road and Calais Road; second and fourth Wednesdays: Plainfield Community Center (above the co-op). $10. Fearn, 505-8011 or [email protected].

FOODFree Community Meals in Montpe-lier. All welcome.Mondays: Unitarian Church, 130 Main Street, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.Tuesdays: Bethany Church, 115 Main Street, 11:30 a.m.–1 p.m.Wednesdays: Christ Church, 64 State Street, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.Thursdays: Trinity Church, 137 Main Street, 11:30 a.m.–1 p.m.Fridays: St. Augustine Church, 18 Barre Street, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.Sundays: Last Sundays only, Bethany Church, 115 Main Street (hosted by Beth Jacob Syna-gogue), 4:30–5:30 p.m.Noon Cafe. Soup, fresh bread, good company and lively conversation. Wednesdays, noon. Old Meeting House, East Montpelier. By donation. oldmeetinghouse.org.German Brunch: A Community Meal. All-you-can-eat buffet of fresh fruit, bread, salmon and local meats and cheeses. Mimosas and other drinks available for purchase. Sundays, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Nutty Steph’s, Route 2, Middlesex. $10 adult, $5 children 12 and under. nuttystephs .com.

GAMES Apollo Duplicate Bridge Club. All welcome. Partners sometimes available. Fridays, 6:45 p.m. Bethany Church, Montpelier. 485-8990 or 223-3922.

HEALTHFree HIV Testing. Vermont CARES offers fast oral testing. Thursdays, 2–5 p.m. 58 East State Street, suite 3 (entrance at the back), Montpelier. vtcares.org. Affordable Acupuncture. Full acupunc-ture sessions with Chris Hollis and Trish Mitch-ell. Mondays and Wednesdays, 2–7 p.m.; Fridays, 9 a.m.–2 p.m. 79 Main Street, suite 8 (above Coffee Corner), Montpelier. $15–$40 sliding scale. Walk in or schedule an appointment at montpeliercom-munityacupuncture.com.

KIDS & TEENSThe Basement Teen Center. Cable TV, PlayStation 3, pool table, free eats and fun events for teenagers. Monday–Thursday, 3–6 p.m.; Friday, 3–11 p.m. Basement Teen Center, 39 Main Street, Montpelier. 229-9151.Story Time at the Waterbury Public Library. Mondays, age 18–36 months. Wednesdays, age 0–18 months. Fridays, age 3–6 years. 10 a.m. Waterbury Public Library. Free. 244-7036.Story Time at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Tuesdays and Fridays, 10:30 a.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Montpelier. Free. 223-4665.Events for Teens at the Aldrich Library. No-obligations teen book club on Mondays; game night on Wednesdays. 5 p.m. Aldrich Public Library, Barre. 476-7550.Youth Group. Games, movies, snacks and music. Mondays, 7–9 p.m. Church of the Crucified One, Route 100, Moretown. 496-4516.★ Story Time and Playgroup. For chil-dren age 0–6. Story with Sylvia Smith, followed by playtime with Melissa Seifert. Wednesdays, 10–11:30 a.m.; program follows the Twinfield calendar and is not held on weeks when the school is closed. Jaquith Public Library, 122 School Street, Marshfield. 426-3581 or [email protected].★ Baby Play Playgroup. For children birth to age 3 and their adults. Thursdays, 9:30–11 a.m., through June 13. St. Augustine’s Church, Barre Street, Montpelier. Christopher, 262-3292, ext. 115. fcwcvt.org.★ Storytelling Arts and Crafts. Nature-themed playgroup with child educator Ellen Bloom. Recycle household goods into art and bring them to life through story. Thursdays, 10:30–11:30 a.m. Tulsi Tea Room, 34 Elm Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-0043.★ Dads and Kids Playgroup. For chil-dren birth to age 5 and their male grown-ups. Free dinner provided before playtime. Thursdays, 6–7:30 p.m., through June 13. Family Center of Washington County, 383 Sherwood Drive, Montpe-lier. Christopher, 262-3292, ext. 115. fcwcvt.org.★ Cub Capers Story Time. Story and song for children age 3–5 and their families. Led by Carrie Fitz. Saturdays, 10 a.m. Children’s room, Bear Pond Books, 77 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 229-0774 or [email protected] Time at Onion River Kids. Outdoor adventure tales and childhood classics. Sundays, 10:30 a.m. 7 Langdon Street, Montpelier. 223-6025.

LANGUAGEEnglish Conversation Practice Group. For students learning English for the first time. Tuesdays, 4–5 p.m. Central Vermont Adult Basic Education, Montpelier Learning Cen-ter, 100 State Street. Sarah, 223-3403.Lunch in a Foreign Language. Bring lunch and practice your language skills with neighbors. Noon–1 p.m. Mondays, Hebrew. Tuesdays, Italian. Wednesdays, Spanish. Thurs-days, French. Fridays, German. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Montpelier. 223-3338.

MUSICSing with the Barre Tones. Women’s a cappella chorus. Mondays, 6:30 p.m. Alumni Hall (second floor), near Barre Auditorium. 223-2039 or [email protected].★ Vermont Fiddle Orchestra Re-hearsals. Prepare for the orchestra’s 10th anniversary celebration. All ages and levels of string players welcome, as well as intermedi-ate flute players; no audition. Mondays, 7 p.m. Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street, Montpelier. $70 for season. 877-343-3531, [email protected] or vtfiddleorchestra.org.Friday Night Community Drum Circle. Open drumming hosted by the Unitar-ian Universalists of Barre. Everyone welcome. Fridays, 7–9 p.m. Parish house, Barre Universalist Church, Main and Church streets, Barre. Follow your ears, or follow the signs. Accessible venue pos-sible with advance notice: 503-724-7301.

PARENTINGMama’s Circle. Meet and connect with oth-ers experiencing the joys and challenges of new motherhood. For infants up to 1 year old and their mothers (toddler siblings welcome). Snacks, drinks and parent education materials provided. Thursdays, 10 a.m.–noon, through April 19. Good Beginnings of Central Vermont, 174 River Street, Montpelier. centralvt.goodbeginnings.net.★ Parenting Children Age 1–4. Class focuses on the Active Parenting Method, emphasizing open communication and raising confident, cooperative children. Wednesdays, February 6, 13 and 20, 6 –8 p.m. Family Center of Washington County early childhood building, 383 Sherwood Drive, Montpelier. $15 individual, $25 couple; includes the book Parenting Your 1- to 4-Year-Old. Child care available upon request at no extra charge. Register with Christopher, 262-3292, ext. 115.

RECYCLINGFree Food Scrap Collection. Compost your food waste along with your regular trash and recycling. Wednesdays, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sat-urdays 6 a.m.–1 p.m. DJ’s Convenience Store, 56 River Street, Montpelier. cvswmd.org.Dollar Days. Bring in odd and sundry items for reuse, upcycling and recycling, including toothbrushes, bottle caps, cassette tapes, books, textiles, batteries and more. Mondays and Fridays, 12:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. Additional Recyclables Col-lection Center, 3 Williams Lane, Barre. $1 per car load. Complete list of accepted items at 229-9383, ext. 106, [email protected] or cvswmd.org.

SPIRITUALITYChristian Science. God’s love meeting hu-man needs. Reading room: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.; Tuesdays, 5–8 p.m.; and Wednes-days, 5–7:15 p.m. Testimony meeting: Wednesdays, 7:30–8:30 p.m., nursery available. Worship service: Sundays, 10:30–11:30 a.m., Sunday school and nursery available. 145 State Street, Montpelier. 223-2477.Deepening Our Jewish Roots. Fun, engaging text study and discussion on Jewish spirituality. Sundays, 4:45–6:15 p.m. Yearning for Learning Center, Montpelier. Rabbi Tobie Weis-man, 223-0583 or [email protected] Meditation Group. People of all faiths welcome. Mondays, noon–1 p.m. Christ Church, Montpelier. Regis, 223-6043.Shambhala Buddhist Meditation. Instruction available. All welcome. Sundays, 10 a.m.–noon, and Wednesdays, 6–7 p.m. Program and discussion follow Wednesday meditation. Shambhala Center, 64 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-5137.Zen Meditation. Wednesdays, 6:30–7:30 p.m. 174 River Street, Montpelier. Call Tom for orientation, 229-0164. With Zen Affiliate of Vermont.

SPORTSRoller Derby Open Recruitment and Recreational Practice. Central Vermont’s Wrecking Doll Society invites quad skaters age 18 and up to try out the action. No experience necessary. Equipment provided: first come, first served. Saturdays, 5–6:30 p.m. Montpelier Recre-ation Center, Barre Street. First skate free. centralvermontrollerderby.com.Coed Adult Floor Hockey League. Adult women and men welcome. Equipment provided. Sundays, 3–5 p.m., through April 21. Montpelier Recreation Center, Barre Street. $52 for 13 weeks or $5 per week. [email protected] or vermontfloorhockey.com.

TAXES★ Tax Return Preparation Help for Seniors. Volunteers from AARP assist with the preparation and filing of 2012 federal and Vermont income tax returns. Mondays, 7 p.m., Fridays, 9 a.m.–4 p.m., February 8–April 12.Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street, Montpelier. Appointments at 223-2518.

YOGAYoga with Lydia. Build strength and flex-ibility as you learn safe alignment in a nourishing, supportive and inspiring environment. Drop-ins welcome. Mondays, 5:30 p.m., River House Yoga, Plainfield (sliding scale). Wednesdays, 4:30 p.m., Green Mountain Girls Farm, Northfield (sliding scale). Tuesdays, noon; Thursdays, 6 p.m.; Fridays, noon, Yoga Mountain Center, Montpelier. Rates and directions at 229-6300 or saprema-yoga.com.★ Restorative Yoga and Meditation. With Lori Flower. Mondays, 9–10 a.m. River House Yoga, Plainfield. By donation. 324-1737 or sattvayoga.wordpress.com.Community Yoga. All levels welcome to this community-focused practice. Fridays, 5:30–6:30 p.m. Yoga Mountain Center, 7 Main Street (second floor), Montpelier. $5–$20 sliding scale. 223-5302 or yogamountaincenter.com.

★ indicates new or revised listing

UPCOMING EVENTS, from page 17

Submit Your Event!Send listings to [email protected]. The deadline for our next issue, February 7, is Friday, February 1.

50 words or less, please. Listings may be edited for length, clarity or style.

Events happening in Montpelier have priority, then events in surrounding communities. High-resolution photos also welcome for possible use.

Have a class series you’d like to advertise? Get it in the classifieds: call Carolyn at 223-5112, ext. 11.


ClassesLEADERSHIPWOMEN IN LEADERSHIP Where do your skills, knowledge and passion meet the needs of the world? A daylong retreat at All Souls Interfaith Gathering, Shelburne, Vermont. February 2, 8:30 a.m.–4 p.m. Early registration by January 25: $95 (full fee $125). Information and registration: Fran Weinbaum, [email protected] or 249-7377.

ClassifiedsEMPLOYMENTDRIVERS: CDL-BGreat pay, home time. No forced dispatch. New singles from Plattsburgh, New York. Passport/enhanced license required. 888-567-4861 or truckmovers.com.

HELP WANTED: ADVERTISING SALESThe Bridge is seeking a well-organized, detail-ori-ented, friendly and energetic person with strong

communication skills to join our advertising sales team and help us increase our sales. Ideally that person will help us establish solid business and advertising relationships with members of the community. This is a part-time position with potential for additional hours. Interested? Please send us an e-mail message detailing work history and interest to Nat Frothingham, editor and publisher, at [email protected].

FOR RENTHOLISTIC PRACTITIONER OFFICESThree offices for rent at 252 Main Street (Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism), Montpelier. $300–$400/month depending on size. All utilities (except phone) included. Shared reception area, wireless Internet, private phone line if desired. Lease to start February 1. Contact

[email protected] or 224-7100. vtherb center.org.

SERVICESHOUSE PAINTERSince 1986. Small interior jobs ideal. Neat, prompt, friendly. Local references. Pitz Quat-trone, 229-4952.

SNOW REMOVALSmall driveways, walkways, roofs, decks. Care-ful, responsible, insured. Andy Plante, 223-5409.

SOMETHING SEW RIGHTFormerly of 35 Elm Street in Montpelier, has moved to 29 West Street in Barre (left of court house). Serving central Vermont since 1986, owner Patty Morse offers quality alterations and repairs at fair prices. Hours: 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday–Friday and Saturday by appointment. 476-1111.

STUFF TO SELL?Wish you could have a yard sale, but it’s getting too cold to hold one outside? Call us at T&T Repeats Thrift Store. We just may be able to help you out. 224-1360.

THRIFT STOREST&T REPEATSBikes, name-brand clothes, small household furniture and more. At least two free parking spaces for T&T customers. 116 Main Street, Montpelier, or call 224-1360.

TRINITY COMMUNITY THRIFT STORENew hours as of January 8: Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Trinity United Methodist Church, 137 Main Street (use rear entrance), Montpelier. Donations accepted during normal business hours. 229-9155 or [email protected].

Class listings and classifieds are 50 words for $25; discounts available. To place an ad, call Carolyn, 223-5112, ext. 11.

Chevy Voltthe all-new

Piano Lessons in Montpelierperformance ~ ensemble ~ theory ~ composition

Connect with ensemble partners • Subscribe to learn Notation softwareIntroductory lesson at no charge!

Openings now for NEW STUDENTS and TRANSFER STUDENTSMore than 45 years of experience with beginner and intermediate students

Sarah Williams, 223-5307 • active member, Vermont Music Teachers Assoc.


Tiny BitesThinking about planting a garden this spring? Join the Barre Seed Swap this Saturday,

January 26 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Old Labor Hall. Bring non-GMO seeds, pack-aged and labeled with name and year, and a pot of soup to share at the potluck. All are wel-come to attend this family-friendly event, even if they do not have seeds: there will be plenty to share. The swap is a team effort between Food Works, Barre Farmers’ Market and Com-munity Gardens, and Granite City Grocery. These organizations will educate participants about their programs during the event. To get involved, contact [email protected]

Northeast Organic Farming Association’s Vermont Winter Conference takes place February 15 to 17 at the University of Vermont in Burlington. This event

showcases local food growers and consumers and offers learning, inspiration, good food and great conversation. This year, Generations of Innovation features speakers such as Clara Coleman and hosts over 70 workshops with topics ranging from Farming for a Changing Climate to Stretching Your Meat Dollar. For details, visit nofavt.org.

Vermont Technical College’s Institute of Applied Agriculture and Food Systems has been hosting GroundWork, a series on cultivating a sustainable future through education,

applied research and innovation. These conferences address the educational needs of agricul-ture, food production, waste disposal and energy production businesses in the region. Ver-mont Technical College is hosting another event on March 12 called Aligning Needs with Resources. For details and to register, contact [email protected] or call 728-1339.

Food Works sponsors the Good Food Good Medicine Program at Green Acres and Highgate Housing in Barre. This program offers cooking, gardening, food preservation

and medicinal herb education. Participating families assemble a meal from scratch with pro-duce from the community gardens, discuss nutritional qualities of the ingredients, then sit and eat together. To learn more about this program and contribute to Food Works’ mission of helping community build lasting, local food security through farm, food and nutrition education, visit foodworksvermont.org.

Star Dairy in Hardwick is now certified as Animal Welfare Approved (AWA). AWA food labels let consumers know that animals are raised in accordance with the highest

animal welfare standards in the United States, using sustainable agriculture methods on an independent family farm. This farm is home to a small herd of Randall Lineback cows, an endangered native breed of Vermont. Milk is for sale at the on-site farm store. There are 13 AWA-certified farms in Vermont, offering a range of animal products, from eggs to lamb. For farm listings, visit animalwelfareapproved.org.

—compiled by Lisa Masé; send food news to [email protected]

Food News You Can Use

Community Herbalism Workshopsat Vermont Center for Integrative HerbalismClasses cost $10 members/$12 non-members and take place at VCIH (250 Main Street, third floor, Montpelier) unless otherwise specified. Preregistration required. Contact 224.7100 or [email protected]. Class descriptions at vtherbcenter.org.

WINTER WELLNESS with Shona MacDougall, VCIH clinical herbalist. Wed., February 6, 6–8 pm.

APRHODISIAC HERBOLOGY with Andrew Wolf, VCIH graduate. Wed., February 13, 6–8 pm; $8 materials fee.

LUXURIOUSLY HEALTHY HAIR: SIMPLE HAIR CARE RECIPES with Joann Darling, Green Sylk Soap Company. Mon., February 18, 6–8 pm; $5 materials fee.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER: PERSPECTIVES AND STRATEGIES FOR WORKING WITH ANXIETY with Sarah VanHoy, LAc. Wed., March 6, 6–8 pm.

Take a look at our new Short Courses for Self Care, posted on our website!

Healthy foods, healthy ingredients.Vermont fresh, Italian inspired.

229-5721

Takeout and full- service restaurant

15 Barre StreetMontpelier, VTangelenospizza.comSince 1982


Hands-On Gardenerby Miriam Hansen

It is time once again to order seeds, toss old seed packets (three to five years old, depending on the vegetable) and start

planning the garden. I order my seeds in Jan-uary because I don’t want to miss the lower prices Fedco offers on some of the hotter varieties. Even that approach doesn’t always work! This year, in spite of ordering super early, ‘Fortex’ pole beans (a stringless French bean that produces extra long pods) were already sold out. I’ll have to get the more ex-pensive packet from Johnny’s Selected Seeds and pay a second set of shipping charges.

Lettuce, spinach, mesclun mixes and cilan-tro have continued to produce well through mid-January in my single-ply greenhouse and cold frames. We’re slowly working our way through two freezers of frozen veg-etables, and I’ve been converting some of our stored squashes into delicious puréed soup, which I freeze and pair with empanadas for weekend treats.

The beautiful sweet purple onions, ‘Rossa Lunga di Tropea’, are not very good keepers, so I chopped them up when they started sprouting in December and froze them to use when the ‘Copra’ and ‘Varsity’ storage onions run out. The ‘Ailsa Craigs’, arguably the best sweet onion on the market, are just starting to sprout and may go to the end of February. For an onion that doesn’t store well, that’s pretty impressive.

A tip I recently shared with a young friend is to wring out frozen vegetables after you’ve defrosted them. They will be crisper and taste fresher. I run the frozen vegetables under hot water long enough to break them up. Then I just grab a handful over the sink and squeeze hard enough to get a stream of water out but not so hard that they get mushy or disintegrate. It gets rid of the extra moisture, which can make frozen vegetables soggy. I used to only do this with summer squash but have discovered it works equally well with everything from Brussels sprouts to cauliflower, green beans and snap peas.

This year, my seed order reflects how much I have come to appreciate annual flowers, the workhorses of the perennial garden. I’ve spent so many years trying to plan perenni-als to keep the color parade going, forgetting that annuals not only give continuous bloom but will continue to bloom long into the fall. Many flowers, such as poppies, cleomes and nasturtiums, will also self-seed so you can move them around in early spring.

In general, annuals are plants that ger-minate, flower and set seed in one season. Perennials bloom for a short time but come back year after year. Biennials flower the sec-ond year, set seed and die. Foxgloves, lunaria (money plant) and clary sage are biennials that self-seed copiously. With biennials, the trick is to start the plants from seed two years in a row. That way you have blooms every year.

Just when you think you’ve got it all straight, some annuals are described as hardy,

tender and half hardy. Level of hardiness just refers to how much cold they can withstand in the spring. Hardy annuals, like alyssum and violas, can be planted in the very early spring. Half-hardy annuals, like cosmos and petunias, can be directly sown outside when all danger of frost has passed but the ground is not yet warmed up. Tender annuals (most bedding plants) can’t be planted until the ground has warmed up.

Then there are half-hardy perennials like dahlias, geraniums, tuberous begonias and sword lilies that must be planted each spring after danger of frost has passed, and you have to lift their bulbs in the fall before a hard frost. Some folks think this is too much trouble, but if you’ve ever breathed in the fragrance of the white-flowered sword lily, dancing in a breeze with backlit rosy pink Japanese anemones, you might think it’s worth the bother.

Some of the colorful, prolific flowering annual varieties I’ve chosen this year include, ‘Profusion Series Zinnias’, ‘Durango Mari-golds’, ‘Sparkler Hybrid Cleome’, ‘Twinny Snapdragons’ and ‘Chantilly Snapdragons’ to plug into perennial beds for color through the summer and into late fall.

It is reassuring to note that after almost 40 years of gardening, I continue to receive revelations. Last fall, a commercial flower grower explained why my sunflowers did not hold up well in bouquets. Apparently, certain sunflowers are naturally pollenless or male sterile. These sunflowers don’t shed piles of yellow dust, are less apt to be allergenic and hold much better in bouquets. The Sunrich series from Johnny’s Seeds, as well as ‘Soraya’ and ‘Zohar’, are some of the varieties I’ve chosen for cutting.

Of all the books on perennial gardening, my hands-down recommendation is The Art of Perennial Gardening by Patrick Lima. Still, for an education from A to Z, my favorite reading at this time of year is garden cata-logs. When I have a specific gardening ques-tion, I type my question into the computer’s search engine and check out the gardening forums where gardeners share tips, discuss and disagree. For more advanced gardeners, Johnny’s has some very helpful planning, planting and growing guides available at johnnyseeds.com/t-interactivetools.aspx.

Every year, my resolution remains to grow the flowers I truly love and the vegetables and berries that I and my family really like to eat. I’ve begun growing some vegetables commercially, and that adds another layer of complexity to planning the garden. But whether you’re a home gardener or commer-cial grower, Happy gardening in 2013!

Miriam and her husband, David, live in East Montpelier, where they grow most of their own vegetables, berries and meat on less than one-quarter of an acre. Your questions and comments are welcome. You can reach Miriam at [email protected].

Tips, Revelations and Resolutions

Heady Hump Day!

every Wednesday

$5 Heady Toppers . . . $2 off Heady Hotdogs . . . and Live Music with Alec Ellsworth!

City Center building, 89 Main Street, MontpelierHours: 8 am–9 pm, seven days a week262-CAKE | www.skinnypancake.com

NEW!

Power Troupe of Contemporary Folk Music!4Tet: An Evening with Brittany Hass, Jordan Tice, Cleek Schrey and Nic Gariess with special guests Katie Trautz and Michael Roberts.Thursday, February 7 7–10 PM


by John Hollar, mayor

The City Council has approved a budget for FY14 that meets the needs of the city while also recognizing the significant financial

challenges we face. The budget addresses two fun-damental issues that face our community: a tax rate that is very high relative to other communities and an infrastructure that is need of greater invest-ment.

Our median tax bills are the highest in the state. They have risen by an average of 5 percent per year over the past seven years, while at the same time, average household incomes have fallen. The average taxpayer now pays nearly $1,000 more in property taxes since 2007 with an income that has declined by $3,000.

Our budgetary problems are compounded by the fact that our infrastructure has been signifi-cantly underfunded during that same period. The city manager has estimated that we need to spend $800,000 to $900,000 more than we currently spend each year to adequately maintain our roads, sidewalks, storm drains and retaining walls.

In response to these challenges, the City Council directed the manager to propose a budget that pro-vides for an increase equivalent to the change in the consumer price index, with all increased revenues dedicated to infrastructure investments. The bud-get that the council has proposed meets those ob-jectives. The budget would increase by 2.2 percent over this year’s spending plan (requiring a two-cent increase in the tax rate). All of this increase would be dedicated to improvements in roads, sidewalks, retaining walls and culverts.

The budget includes two bonds:One bond for $710,000 would be used for

sidewalks, retaining walls and storm drains and culverts.

A second bond for $670,000 would be used to re-

pair a failing sewer line on River Street. This bond would be paid out of the water and sewer fund.

Because the majority of municipal expenditures are personnel, it was necessary to reduce staffing to meet the city’s fiscal challenges. The proposed budget makes a net reduction of 4.22 full-time city positions, none of which requires layoffs. These positions are in the agencies of fire, police, public works, planning and administration.

While it certainly is not preferable to make reductions in city staffing—and these changes will have some impact on city services—we have received assurances from our city manager and the heads of the police, fire, planning and public works departments that they will not adversely affect the city’s ability to meet basic public health and safety needs.

Finally, the budget provides approximately $100,000 in funding for a variety of nonprofit organizations that provide services to Montpelier residents and $20,000 for arts programs and orga-nizations. These are the same amounts that were budgeted last year. Rather than requiring separate ballot initiatives for each funding request, the City Council has created the Montpelier Commu-nity Fund Board to evaluate requests and approve grants to organizations. Additional details about the budget can be found at the city’s website at montpelier-vt.org.

Response to Firefighter Petition

A group of firefighters has cir-culated a petition seeking

to restore a firefighter position that is proposed to be elimi-nated in the FY14 municipal budget. The person who now holds the position is retir-ing.

The proposed staff-ing change will have a minimal impact on fire responses. The department will move an operations employee (someone who typically does not respond to fire calls) to a shift po-sition (someone who does respond). Both the fire chief and the city manager have said that this staff change will not create an undue risk to the citizens of Montpe-lier. Based on call data from last year, the fire department will have one fewer person on duty for simultaneous, or second calls, about 10 times out of 2,000 calls over the course of

the year, or about 0.5 percent of the total. The argument by some firefighters that this reduction will “put our residents and firefighters at risk” is simply not true.

It is the responsibility of the city manager and council to develop budgets and determine appro-priate staffing levels for city departments. If the council added (or reduced) city staff positions in re-sponse to ballot initiatives, it would undermine the integrity of the budget process. Our staffing levels could become subject to annual petition drives. Moreover, it is unfair to the other city departments that are experiencing reductions—and are doing so without complaint—for the fire department to single out one position for a citizen vote. Argu-ments could be made to restore every position that has been proposed for elimination. This ballot item looks at only one item in isolation and fails to con-sider the larger context of the budget.

The City Council cannot allow individual groups to dictate staffing levels for specific

positions or departments. Citizens, of course, have the opportunity to approve or disapprove the budget in its entirety, but our municipal charter does not allow for line-item staffing changes to be made by referendum.

Municipal Budget Lowers Spending Rate, Invests in Infrastructure

A Message from City HallThis page was paid for by the City of Montpelier.

AN

NIE

TIB

ERIO

CA

MER

ON


by Jeremy Lesniak

Many of you know that, in addition to my position at Vermont Com-puting, I’m the managing editor

for a tech journalism site. This is an exciting time of year for many in the tech journalism industry, as the Consumer Electronics Show recently finished up several days of technol-ogy exhibition in Las Vegas. A number of my colleagues were in attendance.

CES, as many people call it, has historically been the preferred venue for tech companies to announce the products they’ll be releas-ing in the next year. It’s a technology-lover’s paradise, as you get to sample goods that are not only unreleased but, in many cases, unannounced. As exciting as this sounds, I didn’t go. My duties in Vermont kept me here. Maybe next year!

Why should you care about CES? Well, if you’re interested in gadgets, the news that came out of CES will be exciting for you. As a business owner, you should keep your eyes open for new technologies that could improve, or in some cases hurt, your busi-ness. This isn’t some rinky-dink operation, either. Nearly every electronics company you’ve heard of, and a whole bunch you haven’t, were at CES. Over 3,000 exhibitors registered for the event. Some of the an-nouncements will never make it to market. Some of them will be released at the end of this year. In many cases, the announcements will be revolutionary and exciting. You might want to pay attention.

Curious? Here are some of the sites you may want to check out for CES coverage: ces.cnet.com, engadget.com/tag/CES and anew-domain.net. Now that CES is finished, there are some great analysis pieces.

You probably won’t see much from me on CES 2013, as I rarely write about things that I don’t experience first hand. I did follow everyone else’s coverage, though, as it’s my job to know where this industry is headed. After all, people expect it. And I hate to disappoint.

A World Without WiresThere are any number of ways to get In-

ternet access. Depending on where you live, most people have access to dial-up, satellite, DSL or cable Internet providers. You can find wireless Internet access in most homes and businesses. For many people, having wireless Internet access is far more important than speed or which company provides it.

As most of you know, wireless technology allows your laptop or tablet to access the Internet at, for example, a coffee shop. This same technology is used in all manner of devices, allowing them to communicate with you and each other, all without the inconve-nience of running wires.

If you don’t have wireless Internet access, it’s as simple as adding a device called an access point, which costs less than $100, to any Internet connection other than dial-up. Some people prefer to have their main Inter-net device, or router, already outfitted with wireless capabilities. Either way is fine; 99 percent of users won’t detect a difference be-tween these different wireless technologies.

Sometimes, a larger home or business may need more than one access point to ad-equately provide coverage. For most home users, using a wireless repeater is a simpler do-it-yourself solution than adding a second access point. Wireless repeaters do exactly what you think: they grab a weak wireless signal and “repeat” it, sending it along so that other computers can make use of it.

There has been some criticism of wireless technology, with claims that the frequencies can cause harm to people, especially chil-dren. There have been no conclusive studies showing that this is the case. If you’re con-cerned, though, you can purchase network cords in very long lengths.

For more information, please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wireless_network.

Jeremy Lesniak founded Vermont Comput-ing (vermontcomputing.com) in 2001 after graduating from Clark University and opened a store on Merchants Row (Randolph) in May 2003. He also serves as managing editor for anewdomain.net. He lives in Moretown.

It’s That New-Gadget Smell

Tech Check

The Center for Leadership SkillsBUSINESS & LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Lindel James coaching & consultingTaking You from Frustration to Enthusiasm

802 778 0626 [email protected]


SELLER BUYER ADDRESS DATE PRICE TYPECowan, Joffrey D. & Susan B. Glass, Robert F. & Kimberly A. 150 Connor Road 7/18/12 313,500 Single Fish, William W. & Lynne G. Stanton, Ryan & Catherine 168 Northfield Street 7/19/12 230,000 Single Chater, Myles & Lori Murray, Marna & Lofgren, Matthew T. 62 Wheelock Street 7/19/12 168,500 Single Wheeler, Aaron A. & Polly Finney, Sarah E. 230 Sherwood Drive 7/24/12 216,000 Single Welters, Oliver & Jana Guidry, Marguerite L. 4 Franklin Street, #4 7/24/12 112,000 CondoStevens, Thomas D. Karia, Mona 23 Towne Hill Road, #3 7/25/12 110,000 CondoWishinski, Paul R. & Diane M. Congo, Ross W. & Stephanie R. 3 McKinley Streer 7/26/12 299,000 Single Brondyke, Aaron J. & Zachai, Christine A. Ellis, Kevin K. & Hackett, Kimberly 4 Edwards Street 7/30/12 257,200 Single Krajewski,John & Jean Wishinski, Paul & Diane 140 Murray Hill Drive, #30 7/30/12 232,500 CondoAbrams, Alec & Carly Stangel, Peter H. & Jing J. 7 Meadow Lane 7/31/12 265,000 SingleCherson, Debra L. & McSweeney, Edward A. Asay, Bridget C. & DiStefano, Mark J. 12 Pearl Street 8/1/12 232,500 Single Dwinell, Jane & Yardley, Stephen K. Streeter, Daniel J. Trust 1 Bingham Street 8/1/12 275,000 SingleFoster, Raymond M. & Kristina J. J & H Properties LLC 12 Downing Street 8/1/12 330,000 Multi (6)Foster, Raymond M. & Kristina J. J & H Properties LLC 10 Downing Street 8/1/12 235,000 Multi (3)Foster, Raymond M. & Kristina J. J & H Properties LLC 16 Downing Street 8/1/12 235,000 Multi (3)Foster, Raymond M. & Kristina J. J & H Properties LLC Downing Street 8/1/12 25,000 Land 0.31 AC+Kennedy, Barbara J. Heath, Shane R. & Hierl, Lauren A. 20 Deerfield Drive 8/2/12 235,000 SingleLindner, Dan C. & Judith C. Chatterton, Jordan 23 Roberts Street 8/10/12 177,000 SingleKadlec, Peter J. Giresi, Brad C. & Peirce, Robyn J. 95 East State Street 8/10/12 215,000 Single

Real Estate Transactions

How do I go about painting old kitchen cabinets?You may want to take the doors and the hardware off fi rst. Th is way you can lay the doors fl at. Th e paint will level out better and show fewer brush marks. Be sure to number the doors so they can be put back in the same openings. Th e next step is to scour the doors and cabinet boxes. I usually recommend Brillo or SOS pads and hot water. Th e soap in the scrub pads with hot water should dissolve any built-up grease associated with kitchen cabinets. Th e steel wool pads will also scuff up the surface, making it easier for your paint or primer to get a bite on the surface. Be sure to rinse with fresh clean water and allow time for the surface to dry. Now you can paint. We recommend California’s Ultra Plate. Because Ultra Plate is a modifi ed acrylic urethane, there is no need for primer. Two coats will give you a smooth, factory-like, satin fi nish. One more tip: aft er you are done painting, let the paint dry 24 hours. Apply a little baby powder to the shelf surfaces and around the edges of the doors. Th is will break the surface tension. When you put your dishes and cups back on the shelves, the paint won’t stick to them and doors won’t stick

either. It smells good, too.True Colors is Montpelier’s only independent, locally owned paint dealer. We have been making your colors right since 1989!

We make your colors right!

True Colors 223-1616141 River Street, Montpelier, VT

Growing Your Businessby Lindel James

If you are not using a “dashboard” to drive your business, I urge you to start using one this new year.

“What is a dashboard?” you ask. Well, a dashboard is a tool that will help you stay grounded in your business. It becomes the focal point you can count on and go to when day-to-day, week-to-week interrup-tions and distractions begin to play havoc, creating chaos in your mind and causing you to become confused around your priorities. Your dashboard becomes the holder of your vision and your mission. It is the track to run on and the source to help you stay true to your company vision and mission. It is the reminder of your primary responsibilities and of those tasks you should be delegating to others.

Today, we all face immense pressures on a daily basis. Life and business markets are changing rapidly, and clients require and expect more. Competition is stiff, and busi-nesses must excel; there is no room for me-diocrity.

A dashboard keeps you on track and re-sponsive to the work that really matters. It is based on your annual planning for success. It holds you true to your vision and the values you have established for your business. It is also a tool to manage your performance and

your relationships. And it ultimately teaches you how to be most effective in your busi-ness.

I use a 10-step process to get grounded, which includes: crafting a long-term vision; identifying your business’s mission; identify-ing what values mean the most to you; defin-ing your performance indicators; identifying important professional relationships; deter-mining areas for professional development; drafting an initial plan; getting feedback on that draft plan; and finalizing that plan.

When you don’t take the time to set up a dashboard, you can easily lose your perspec-tive. As a business owner or person in a lead-ership position, you need to use tools such as the dashboard to keep yourself grounded, thus creating the ability to stay calm and focused and be prepared for interruptions and change—to be prepared for success! At the risk of repeating a well-worn cliché, I will remind you that most failures “don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.” Get your plan to ac-tion with a dashboard today!

Happy New Year!

Lindel James is an executive coach, leader-ship development and business growth strate-gist, trainer and speaker. She is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and Trainer. James can be reached at 802-778-0626 or centerfor-leadershipskills.com.

Consider a Business ‘Dashboard’ to Set You Up for Success

Build confi dence, courage and direction in work, relation-ships, fi nances, and personal wellness. Coaching packages starting at $99. 50% off six-month Personal Wellness Coaching and/or How to Coach self and others! 229-5256 or [email protected]

Make 2013 an extraordinary year for you and those you love!


Losing a Needed Generation of Younger Vermonters

As part of his inaugural remarks to the Vermont Senate chamber on January 10, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott talked about the state’s current economic crunch. He then went on to describe

the exodus of Vermont’s young professionals.

While campaigning, a recurring message I heard, and I’m sure many of you heard, was the anxiety over affordability. The margins are getting smaller. And with the recent 2 percent rise in the Social Security tax, disposable income has shrunk for all of us in the workforce.

Another problem we face is the exodus of our young professionals. According to state census data, our 25-to-44 age group lost 30 percent of its population in the last decade. That’s 28,000 Vermonters who left our state and took with them their buying power, their innova-tion and their children. Many of our elementary school classrooms echo with their absence. At Peacham Elementary School, outside Washington County but not too far from Mont-

pelier, numbers at the K–6 school now stand at 39 students, and a local petition has been circulated to close the school. In nearby Cabot, there are 59 students in grades 9 through 12. On Monday, March 5, Cabot voters will be asked to consider the following item:

Shall the Cabot School Board be directed to close the Cabot High School prior to July 1, 2013 and to provide for high school education of the high school pupils (grades 9 through 12) residing in the District by paying tuition in accordance with law to one or more public high schools in one or more school districts, to an approved independent high school, or to an independent school meeting school quality standards, to be selected by the parents or guardians of the pupil, within or without the state? Across rural Vermont, public elementary and high schools are at the heart of community

life. Their closing has far-reaching consequences. As a state, it is clear that we can no longer ignore Lt. Gov. Phil Scott’s timely warning about the exodus of the vital generation of young people who ought to be staying here in Vermont in greater numbers and launching themselves into their working, family and civic lives.

LettersThe City’s Budgetary Restraint Appreciated

To the Editor:I’d like to thank Montpelier’s city man-

ager, department heads, the mayor and the City Council for developing and support-ing a proposed municipal budget that holds the line on spending and begins to address Montpelier’s neglected infrastructure needs. Their efforts to limit our proposed municipal tax rate increase to no more than the 2.3 percent rate of inflation, while also spending more on infrastructure, is important in light of the fact Montpelier already has the high-est median residential municipal tax bill in Vermont (see Appendix A of the Citizen Bud-get Review Committee’s report on the city website). It appears Montpelier’s proposed residential school tax rate increase may be four times higher than the rate of inflation, so the city government’s budget restraint this year is doubly appreciated.

—Phil Dodd, Montpelier

Bottle Bill Good for BicyclistsTo the Editor:The Vermont Bicycle and Pedestrian Co-

alition is just that—a coalition. We believe that Vermonters are interested in supporting bicycling and walking for diverse reasons. The same is true for recycling, and in par-ticular the bottle bill: people can view it from many different perspectives and still find something worth preserving and expanding.

In one respect, cyclists are especially aware of the impact of the bottle bill; roadside litter affects our safety. You would be hard-pressed to find a cyclist who has never gotten a flat tire from a stray piece of glass on a road, side-walk or shoulder. And perhaps more impor-tant than flat tires, a cyclist trying to navigate a narrow corridor between a curb and auto-mobile traffic faces a difficult decision, when coming suddenly upon a broken bottle in his or her path, of swerving, stopping short or riding through. None are good options. In the last four decades, Vermont’s bottle bill has reduced litter by over one-third—repre-senting many difficult and dangerous cycling situations that never had to happen.

We all can agree that anything that in-creases recycling is good for all of us in terms of reducing energy use and climate change impacts. But we hope that we, as cyclists, can bring awareness of one more reason to sup-port keeping and expanding the bottle bill. We encourage the legislature, and the Agency of Natural Resources, to consider the many benefits the bottle bill provides to Vermont.

—Nancy Schulz, executive director, VT Bi-cycle & Pedestrian Coalition, Montpelier

Anne Watson Running for Reelection

To the Editor:I’m delighted to report that I am running

for reelection to continue to serve the city of Montpelier on the City Council for District 2. During my time on the council, I have gained valuable experience. I have the advan-tage of knowing how the system works, and yet, as a relative newcomer to the council, I continue to bring a fresh outlook and per-spective to that body.

One of the highlights of my service thus far has been participating in the district heat vote, in which the council voted to complete all of the phases of the project. Not only will this reduce the city’s long-cycle carbon footprint, I believe this project will also be important for our future economic stability.

As you may have read, this year has been a difficult one in terms of the budget. In line with what I heard from many residents, I, along with other council members, asked for a level-funded budget, with a small increase for streets and sidewalks. I know our city staff worked very hard to reduce city spending, while maintaining the quality of city services. I’m thankful for their work and am pleased to support the budget they put forward.

By the time this newspaper is in print, I will have had the honor of attending three meet-and-greets at homes in District 2. If you are interested in discussing city issues, please give me a call or an e-mail (both are available on the city website).

As an honest and hardworking representa-tive, I look forward to the opportunity to serve the residents of District 2, working to make our city a more socially, economically and ecologically healthy place to live.

—Anne Watson, Montpelier

The Last Ride of Buck Corduroy: A Country Music Saga at the Barre Opera House

To the Editor:Community theater is a Frankenstein

jolted to life by the excess energy of your friends and neighbors. In communities all across the globe, theater really is alive and staggering around looking for love. Very often Frankenstein can actually sing and dance and entertain and is just looking for a little attention. At its best, theater is about exploring values, sharing and celebrating in a community. Which is a good thing.

Maple Corner has a long history of com-munity entertainment, and that Franken-stein has long since lurched from the stable. Recently, this time last year, the Blue Barn Players, of Maple Corner, mounted The Blues Brothers: a singular show in that the play-ers attempted to re-create, with no budget, the movie, with a 100-car crash chase scene (among other big-budget considerations). We were granted permission by Dan Ackroyd and Judy Belushi themselves to perform our version of the movie and raise money for a new roof for the Blue Barn in Maple Corner.

This time we don’t have to ask anyone’s permission but our own, which we have graciously given ourselves. That’s because we wrote the thing ourselves. This is our very own monster. We dared ourselves to write something. At first there was a lot of staring out into space and asking “What happens next?” To which the reply would be “I don’t know.” But little by little a (little) story emerged that lent itself to song titles. In our corner of the woods, like in many corners of Vermont’s woods, there are a lot of guitars (and ukuleles). There’s a lot of strumming going on. We had a little creative burst and put some of that strumming to productive

Editorial

Quizzical Expressions

In which we investigate the origins of cu-rious phrases and idioms in the English language.Phrase: “Start from scratch.”Meaning: Begin (again) from the be-ginning; embark on something with-out any preparation or advantage.Origin: In cricket, the batter scratches a crease on the ground to mark out the pitch. John Nyren’s 1833 book Young Cricketer’s Tutor quotes a 1778 work by Cotton: “Ye strikers . . . Stand firm to your scratch, let your bat be upright.” Source: phrases.org.uk

Bill Reinecke of Middlesex contributes Quizzical Expressions for The Bridge.

see LETTERS, page 27

SELLER BUYER ADDRESS DATE PRICE TYPECowan, Joffrey D. & Susan B. Glass, Robert F. & Kimberly A. 150 Connor Road 7/18/12 313,500 Single Fish, William W. & Lynne G. Stanton, Ryan & Catherine 168 Northfield Street 7/19/12 230,000 Single Chater, Myles & Lori Murray, Marna & Lofgren, Matthew T. 62 Wheelock Street 7/19/12 168,500 Single Wheeler, Aaron A. & Polly Finney, Sarah E. 230 Sherwood Drive 7/24/12 216,000 Single Welters, Oliver & Jana Guidry, Marguerite L. 4 Franklin Street, #4 7/24/12 112,000 CondoStevens, Thomas D. Karia, Mona 23 Towne Hill Road, #3 7/25/12 110,000 CondoWishinski, Paul R. & Diane M. Congo, Ross W. & Stephanie R. 3 McKinley Streer 7/26/12 299,000 Single Brondyke, Aaron J. & Zachai, Christine A. Ellis, Kevin K. & Hackett, Kimberly 4 Edwards Street 7/30/12 257,200 Single Krajewski,John & Jean Wishinski, Paul & Diane 140 Murray Hill Drive, #30 7/30/12 232,500 CondoAbrams, Alec & Carly Stangel, Peter H. & Jing J. 7 Meadow Lane 7/31/12 265,000 SingleCherson, Debra L. & McSweeney, Edward A. Asay, Bridget C. & DiStefano, Mark J. 12 Pearl Street 8/1/12 232,500 Single Dwinell, Jane & Yardley, Stephen K. Streeter, Daniel J. Trust 1 Bingham Street 8/1/12 275,000 SingleFoster, Raymond M. & Kristina J. J & H Properties LLC 12 Downing Street 8/1/12 330,000 Multi (6)Foster, Raymond M. & Kristina J. J & H Properties LLC 10 Downing Street 8/1/12 235,000 Multi (3)Foster, Raymond M. & Kristina J. J & H Properties LLC 16 Downing Street 8/1/12 235,000 Multi (3)Foster, Raymond M. & Kristina J. J & H Properties LLC Downing Street 8/1/12 25,000 Land 0.31 AC+Kennedy, Barbara J. Heath, Shane R. & Hierl, Lauren A. 20 Deerfield Drive 8/2/12 235,000 SingleLindner, Dan C. & Judith C. Chatterton, Jordan 23 Roberts Street 8/10/12 177,000 SingleKadlec, Peter J. Giresi, Brad C. & Peirce, Robyn J. 95 East State Street 8/10/12 215,000 Single

WHAT DO YOU THINK?Read something that you want to respond to? Worked up about a local issue? We welcome your letters and opinion pieces.

Letters must be 300 words or fewer; opinions, 600 words or fewer. Send them to [email protected]. Deadline for the Feb-ruary 7 issue is Monday, February 4, at 5 p.m.

We reserve the right to edit all submissions for length, clarity or style. In many cases, we will work with you to make sure your piece meets our journalistic standards.


by Nat Frothingham

Marshfield playwright Tom Blachly describes the critical elements in his new play as “a struggling the-

atre, a dead matriarch” and the dreadfully important question that follows, “Must the show go on?”

The play, Edwina’s Folly, will have its pre-miere run of performances this February at Union School Auditorium, at One Park Av-enue, Montpelier. The show opens Thursday, February 7, at 7 p.m., followed by evening performances on February 8 and 9, plus three more performances the following week, on February 14, 15 and 16.

The play starts with the recent death of Edwina, who, along with her daughter, Julia, has been a key champion of a struggling rural theater. Her death leaves the fate of the the-ater deeply in question.

In the aftermath of Edwina’s death, her family gathers at the theater to figure out what to do. Edwina’s family consists of, in addition to Julia, another older daughter, Marguerite, a TV sitcom artist living in LA; Marguerite’s teenage daughter, Emma; and Edwina’s son, Charles, a Boston banker. But there are others in the mix—a small group of theater camp followers who, by fits and starts, relate and don’t relate, behave and predictably go off the rails as the play ensues.

The ending? Let’s not reveal the end or the on- and off-stage drama that gets us there. Instead, go see the play.

Many readers of The Bridge will recognize one or more of the following local notables who have parts in Edwina’s Folly, among them Patti Casey, Ben Scotch, Brooke Pear-

son and Elizabeth Wilcox. On the poster that promotes the play, Tom

Blachly has added a caution, and it’s a caution that should be heeded, “Adult Subject Mat-

ter.” For ticket information, phone 426-3955 or e-mail [email protected].

Opening Night for Edwina’s Folly on Thursday, February 7

Detail of art from a promotional poster for Edwina’s Folly. Image courtesy Tom Blachly.

by Matt Cota

The recently released Thermal Effi-ciency Task Force Report proposes several ways to raise the cost of heat,

including a carbon tax (10-cents-per-gallon tax on heating oil, five cents for propane), a BTU tax (12-cents-per-gallon tax on heat-ing oil, eight cents for propane) or require homeowners to pay the Vermont sales tax on heat, which would add approximately 20 cents per gallon.

In 1977, the Vermont legislature rescinded the sales tax on residential sales of heat-ing fuel because it agreed that, much like

clothing and food, heat is a necessity, not a luxury. However, there is an influential lobby in Montpelier that supports higher fuel prices by what-ever means necessary as a way to make the fuel we sell unafford-able, thus forcing people to use less. This political phi-losophy is written by those who haven’t had the misfortune of living from paycheck to paycheck—or the responsibility of signing the front of one.

The task-force report fails to recognize the measurable reduction in heating fuel

consumption that has already occurred, without a costly tax or government pro-gram. Over the past 40 years, the average per home consump-tion in Vermont has declined by more

than 60 percent, according to data obtained from the Energy Information Administra-tion. (For more information go to vermont-fuel.com/tax.) The report also fails to rec-

ognize that extracting $276 million in taxes from Vermonters will have a significant ad-verse impact on the state’s economic health. In a letter to the Department of Public Service, Vermont Fuel Dealers Association (VFDA) voiced these and other objections.

On behalf of our member companies, their employees and the more than 400,000 Vermonters that depend on deliverable liquid fuels for warmth, VFDA encourages law-makers to reject the heat tax.

Matt Cota is the executive director of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association.

Vermont Fuel Dealers Association Opposes Heat Tax

by Sandra Levine

Vermont is poised to take a big bite out of the high cost and pollution of heating our homes and businesses.

Slashing a full one-quarter of both lies within our reach. Now is the time to act.

Over the past decade, the cost Vermonters pay for staying warm has more than doubled. This strains our pocketbooks, our environ-ment, our health and our security. It is time to stop seeing our dollars go up in smoke and

stop draining hundreds of millions of dollars annually from Vermont’s economy.

What can we do? Building on the enor-mous success of Vermont’s electric efficiency efforts, which has saved over $775 million since 2000, we can improve the heating ef-ficiency of our homes and businesses. While some efforts have begun, most of the savings opportunity remains on the table. Stepping up our game on affordable heat will save Ver-monters real dollars. It is also the lowest cost and most effective strategy for Vermont to

reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Through-out Vermont, heating efficiency has saved the average homeowner about $1,000 a year. But we are far shy of our goal of weatheriz-ing one-quarter of our homes and businesses (80,000) by 2020.

The new report of Vermont’s Thermal Efficiency Task Force provides a strong roadmap for jump-starting heating effi-ciency and renewable heat for our homes and businesses. The task-force recommen-dations show how Vermont can stretch its heating dollars further and provide over $1.4 billion in direct savings. That’s $1.4 billion that is not going up in smoke, literally leak-ing out of our homes and businesses.

Making heat affordable means lowering bills. Every year, Vermont struggles to fund low-income heating assistance (LIHEAP). With affordable heat, Vermont can reduce the funds needed and can use LIHEAP dol-lars to help more Vermonters. Cutting fuel use by one-quarter means that for every four

homes that are weatherized, help is available for one additional family.

Affordable heat reduces pollution. Every gallon of fossil fuel we don’t burn means less pollution. Whether we are adding solar to our roofs or insulating/weatherizing our

homes, we leave a lasting positive leg-acy for our children by taking seriously our responsibility to tackle climate change and reduce pollution.

The long and short of it is that Vermont—and Vermonters—can’t afford to keep wast-ing energy, wasting money and wasting clean air. Vermont’s commitment to affordable heat is our ticket to more comfortable homes and businesses and a thriving and affordable clean energy economy.

Sandra Levine is senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation.

Opinion

Opinion

The Time Is Right for Affordable Heat

Frostival Volunteers Needed Organizers from Montpelier Alive are seeking volunteers to help with the up-

coming MontPolar Frostival, scheduled for February 1, 2 and 3, a fun-filled weekend of indoor and outdoor doings: dancing, biking, sledding, skiing, swimming, face painting, art, music and more. The Frostival also kicks off Lost Nation’s Winter-Fest 2013.

Volunteers will receive two complimentary tickets to the Snow Ball on Friday, February 1, with the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra, the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra and Sideshow Bob. To volunteer, visit montpelieralive.org, call 223-9604 or e-mail [email protected].


by Jules Rabin

I heard Bill McKibben, the extraordinary Bill McKibben, speak recently at a pri-vate home, a large, well-ordered one, on

a dark, wild hill in Brookfield, Vermont. The occasion was a meeting of the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Vermont, with 50-odd members and spouses attending, to consider the problem of global warming.

McKibben addressed us for an hour, pac-ing between the two tall white posts and under the broad lintel of a double door-way separating the two main rooms of the house, one packed with guests, the other deserted: the doorway defining an informal stage suited to our speaker’s lankiness and restless energy.

McKibben is a tall thin man in his late forties—large-featured and homely in an Abe Lincoln way and charming for that, and he’s vital, informal and immensely lithe of speech. He spoke without notes, outlining and cataloguing the situation, brilliantly, I thought: the science and politics and eco-nomics of global warming. Amazingly, he footnoted detail after detail of our common danger and careless idiocy, down to the tenth of 1 percent, in the case of more than one figure. A display, he was, of one of the best our civilization can produce, combining an exceptional brain, moral concern, crystal language and an easy informality.

So there it was, McKibben’s talk and the gigantic everything that it portended. McK-ibben thinks simply and, at the same time, complexly that the world—the world of our civilization and its delicately poised physi-cal structures, all those wires, pipes, roads, bridges and other connectivities and the myriad structures and machines hooked up to them—may be changing faster than we can manage because of the seemingly unstop-pable rate at which global warming is gallop-ing down on us.

Ten years ago may already have been too late to avert the catastrophe. Now, our awkwardly numbered new century shows us to be helpless, heedless, thumb- and finger-less, and ultimately brainless and will-less in the face of what appears to be our doom: our demonstrated inability—no, refusal—to forestall the global calamities that are cumu-latively being brought about by our mania for combustion of fuels, a combustion that is a colossal magnification, for many of us,

of the elementary powers of our own small-reach bodies—hands and legs, fingers and mouths.

McKibben, it appears, is doing his all for the great cause of saving our necks. He’s all over the place, constantly, with, for example, twice as many citations on Google as our senior Vermont senator and four times as many as our flamboyant junior senator. By that reckoning, we have, in effect, a third senator from our little state to speak for us, to the rest of the country and to the world besides.

And as for the rest of the 50 who attended the meeting that night. There was good food, warmth and light against the winter dark, plenty to drink, plenty of gentility and plenty—more than I, somehow, would have

expected—of informed discussion following McKibben’s remarks.

Leading to where? To good intentions and wistfulness, at the least, from what I could make out. How, after all, do you lay hands on an incoherent beast, a menace no less big than the ev-erything that the developing threat of global warm-ing has become, with its droughts, floods and typhoons; a menace that the evidence and most people now acknowledge to be real and impending, if not already in process?

At the end, after a lot of one-on-one jawing

up and down the room, we shuffled out into the snow and eased down the mud-rutted road in our 40 separate cars—made a little edgy, at the very least, by the example of Bill McKibben’s life and his demonstration that

what may be developing into the greatest prob-lem of our epoch could really, truly, swing our lives right around and do a lot of us in besides.

During the long drive home, I thought: What

fraction, what part, of the whole thing do I, does any of us, take hold of, while there’s still, possibly, time?

That’s McKibben’s implicit question.

by Lori Barg

I agree with Guy Page in his opinion piece (“Prudent Energy Policy Is Key to Vermont’s Future,” January 10–23,

2013, The Bridge) that Vermont has excel-lent prospects for strong and sustained eco-nomic growth and high quality of life. After that good beginning, however, we differ. He states: “Nuclear energy is the only local fuel source.” Has someone been backyard uranium mining recently? He further states: “Prices of energy in the region are double those of some southern U.S. states.”

Page is probably referring to Tennes-see, where cheap, affordable hydroelectric power brings retail rates down to almost a nickel per kilowatt—much lower than Ver-mont’s nearly two dimes. But according to Vermont’s Energy Plan, Vermont’s in-state hydro costs less than four cents a kilowatt. This local fuel source falls from the sky and uses gravity. Hydroelectric power has been the backbone of Vermont’s economy, almost since its inception.

Is there still undeveloped hydroelectric power potential in the state? The short an-swer is yes (see Vermont Renewable Energy

Atlas or Idaho National Lab’s study for estimates ranging upward of 400 megawatts [MW]). Vermont missed an opportunity for affordable electricity when Governor Doug-las decided not to buy the Deerfield and Connecticut River dams. These dams pro-vide over 520 MW of peak hydroelectric power, or the equivalent of over half of Vermont’s peak power load, for only $320 million.

There is some hope. During the 2012 session, the legislature passed a bill for the State of Vermont to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates hydroelectric power. This MOU could make real change and protect our resources. It could give developers a better process with fixed time lines and guidelines. This would interest the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, who found many towns are interested in redeveloping their hydro potential but are daunted by the existing process.

It is time for “new” ideas. Vermont could take some tips from across the big pond and lead the way on this side of the Atlantic. In Scotland and England, the permitting of a

hydro plant takes three to four months. The FERC’s default process (Integrated Licens-ing Process) takes a mandatory five years. Vermont won’t progress without a permitting process similar to England’s or Scotland’s.

I am a river geolo-gist and care about rivers. I know we don’t need more dams (we have over 1,200). I know there are hundreds of vi-able sites that can be redeveloped if we had a process that enabled, rather than dis-couraged, the development of hydroelectric power. Those against hydro development and those who promote environmentally sound hydroelectric power spent months together in 2008, when the legislature con-vened the Stakeholders Hydroelectric Inter-ested Party Process. Many difficult hours of discussion resulted in recommenda-tions and points of agreement that have yet to be implemented. While the legisla-ture has passed several bills that encouraged hydro, real gains are still like molasses in winter.

Here are some opportunities: Vermont’s peak load is a bit over 1,000 MW. The Northfield Mountain pumped-storage hy-droelectric plant in Massachusetts produces over 1,000 MW; Bear Swamp Hydroelec-

tric Power Station, another pumped-storage facility in Massachusetts, just south of Bennington, produces over 700 MW. Vermont has no hydro pumped storage but could de-

velop it at existing quarries.I do agree with Page’s ending, “Vermont

can and should have a bright future . . . We also owe this to our children, so they can find the jobs, quality of life and opportuni-ties here in the Green Mountain State.” But my vision is hydroelectric pumped storage, river hydro at existing dams and at existing drops and a permitting process that protects our resources and enables potential develop-ers to move forward.

Or maybe I should start digging for ura-nium?

Prudent Energy Action Key to Vermont’s Past and Future

Opinion

What Can We Do to Slow Global Warming?

use. Eight strummers actually wrote a total of 22 songs specifically for the show we were creating.

Full disclosure: I am a theater person. I re-ally enjoy the process (my wife keeps asking me dumbfoundedly, “You do this for fun?”). Upping the ante by creating something new is especially fun. The way I look at it is that if I put on a classic, say Shakespeare, and it isn’t spine-tinglingly scintillating, then it is clear who is to blame (and it isn’t Shakespeare). But a brand-new show, well. Kudos for try-ing. As some of the co-creators (Nancy Toulis and Chris Miller), who have an aversion to any kind of pretension, like to believe, “We may not be good, but we are entertaining.”

Indeed, with a band led by Artie Toulis and cameos by Lewis Franco, JC Myers, Dot Singleton, Erin Galligan-Baldwin and many others, there is a lot of entertainment value in the baby Frankenstein that we are presenting on Saturday, February 2, at the Barre Opera House called The Last Ride of Buck Corduroy: A Country Music Saga. Come see if it deserves to live or if we should chase it through the woods with torches.

Come and see if Buck Corduroy can win back the hearts of his ex, Arlene, and his daughter, Terri Plunderwood. Come see his buddies from Nashville, Flem Hawkin, Rad Lavender, Minnie the Pearl and KC Twang, help him to inaugurate the brand new opry at the Barre Opera House for one show

only, Saturday, February 2, at 8 p.m. Tickets are for sale at the Barre Opera House for $18. Call 476-8188 for more in-f o r m a t i o n . You can leave the torches at home.

—Chris Colt, Maple

Corner

LETTERS, from page 25

Opiniononly, Saturday, February 2, at 8 p.m. Tickets are for sale at the Barre Opera House for $18. Call 476-8188 for more in-f o r m a t i o n . You can leave the torches at

—Chris Colt, Maple

Corner

the bridge, january 24, 2013

Documents