the bridge, march 21, 2013

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• MARCH 21–APRIL 3 , 2013 THE BR IDGE

THE BR IDGE MARCH 21–APRIL 3 , 2013 • PAGE 3

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HEARD ON THE

STREETComp Law Deep-Sixes Twin City Taxi

With a 4.5 star Yelp (customer) rating, Twin City Taxi has ceased operation. Their phone says “the decision was imposed on us by the Vermont State Department of Labor, and

there is no recourse.” Reached by phone, Dave Pecor, principal, explained that the depart-ment shut him down abruptly Wednesday in a dispute concerning the definition of employees versus contractors. Pecor says all Twin City’s drivers leased the vehicles for 12-hour shifts, made lease payments for the time, and, as contractors, kept all proceeds. It’s a business model that, said Pecor, is common to “98 percent of taxi companies.” Saying he’d researched before he started in, Pecor claims that if he were to follow an employer/employee model, he’d have to triple his rates and pay minimum wages to the drivers, and “we’d be out of business in a month.” Steven Freihofner, spokesman for the Department of Labor, says it comes down to workers’ compensation law: “The definition of employee is a broad one . . . The department determined that the driver or drivers were employees for the purposes of the workers’ compen-sation law.” Workers’ comp insurance compensates workers who are injured “or even killed,” he noted. Three drivers are now out of work.

Farmstead Raising Funds after Barn Fire

Good Heart Farmstead, located in Worcester, suffered a major barn fire on March 9. Owners Edge Fuentes and Katie Spring anticipate costs of $20,000 to rebuild and re-

place their lost equipment and have turned to the crowd-funding site gofundme.com to raise rebuilding funds. They’ve already raised more than half their goal, according to the website.

Torres Becomes Director of OCE

According to Vermont Business Magazine’s Vermontbiz e-news, Montpelier’s own Lars Hasselblad Torres, founder of Local 64 (see profile in The Bridge, September 6, 2012),

has been hired as director of the Department of Economic, Housing and Community Development’s Office of the Creative Economy (OCE), created in 2011 by the legislature (supplanting and expanding the role of the former Vermont Film Board). The OCE, accord-ing to the Vermont Agency of Commerce, “provides support to remove barriers to economic growth, fosters networking opportunities and provides guidance on funding and permitting for creative enterprises in Vermont.”

New Film Faculty at VCFA

Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) continues to add founding faculty to their master’s degree program in film arts. The most recent appointees include Terence Nance (feature

films), Dan Schrecker (animation and visual effects) and Tammy Marie Dudman (anima-tion). Nance is also a musician and music video director; Schrecker is the creative director and visual effects supervisor at Look Effects; and Dudman is a 12-year senior critic in the film, animation and video department at Rhode Island School of Design. VCFA’s first film class begins this October.

No Lilies for Kitty, No Bonbons for Pooch

No Easter lilies for your cat. Vermont’s Veterinary Medicine Association claims that nearly half of Vermont households have a cat and advised that “[a]ll parts of the lily,

including pollen, are toxic to cats and cause sudden severe kidney failure and death, if not treated promptly. Even cats with seemingly minor exposure such as biting a leaf or getting pollen on his or her whiskers or hair coat can be fatally poisoned. We don’t know why cats are attracted to lilies, but cats of all ages are affected. . . . Signs of lily toxicity occur within 24–72 hours of exposure and include vomiting, depression, anorexia, and dehydration. Cats treated within 18 hours of exposure generally have a good prognosis.” And, of course, no chocolate for dogs.

Hop Over to Nutty Steph’s on Bunny Thursday

Chocolate’s OK for people, though. Combining politics and pleasure, Nutty Steph’s pres-ents Bunny Thursday March 28, 6 p.m.–12 a.m. The event will celebrate Nutty Steph’s

Chocolate Shop with guests Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who will inaugurate the “first official permanent Stamping Station for ‘Stamp Stampede,’” Cohen’s initiative to “Stamp Money out of Politics.” A bunny costume competition judged by the ice-cream giant’s found-ers will follow inauguration of the “Stamp Stampede.” Guests may have their cash stamped with “Not to be used for bribing politicians” and “Stamp money out of politics.” Costume winners will win giant chocolate bunny prizes by category, but proprietors Josie Green and Jaquelyn Rieke warn they may turn away anyone not in costume and insist on a dress-code minimum of bunny ears.

Deadline Extended for FEMA Applications

FEMA officials announced Wednesday that the deadline for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) applications related to Irene has been extended to September 1. Ver-

mont will establish its own deadlines for municipalities and other eligible applicants to meet FEMA’s deadline. The extension allows better use of available funding, according to Irene recovery officer Dave Rapaport. HMGP is administered by Vermont’s Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. Only state and municipal governments and certain nonprofits can apply, and they’re responsible for a 25 percent match. Projects can include flood-proofing structures or buying out flood-prone properties. HMGP applications can be downloaded at vem.vermont.gov/mitigation, or contact Vermont’s Hazard Mitigation Offi-cer, Ray Doherty, at 800-347-0488 or [email protected] for assistance in applying.

—Bob Nuner

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

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Copyright 2013 by The Montpelier Bridge

March snowstorm! I’m in bed with a nasty bug, lying at window level watching and listening to what looks and sounds like a hundred redwing blackbirds and

grackles. They are raucously, joyfully cleaning up every bit of cracked corn and seed we’ve put down for them, faster than the snow can cover it. Yesterday in the high pres-sure proceeding the storm, we got the full force of the equinox sun. Three minutes gain of sunlight a day, that’s 21 minutes a week, and hmmm . . . an hour and a half gain in a month, before it slows down. And now, like the woodchuck that emerged briefly last week from his hole under the trees that border our yard, I’m going back to sleep.

—Nona Estrin

Nature Watch

Food & Farming IssueCOMING UP APRIL 18! Don’t miss your chance to advertise in one of our most popular issues of the year. Color ads available. Contact Carolyn or Ivan, 223-5112, ext. 11, [email protected] or ivan@montpelier bridge.com.


by Ivan Shadis

More than 100 citizens assembled at a little-publicized Montpelier Parks Commission meeting on

February 21 to add to the recent howl about Hubbard Park. The drama surrounding a recent Parks Commission survey concerned with dog aggression in the park continues to unfold as questions emerge about the park’s fair use. Has one group, specifically dog walkers, grown too large and unruly, and are they in danger of pushing out others who would use the park?

The broad interest in this seemingly minor inquiry is, perhaps, indicative of a watchful and questioning relationship between the townspeople over the fate of their park—a relationship that stretches back to the park’s first days.

As the story goes, John Hubbard left 134 acres of land for the park in a final bid to re-deem himself in a town that had condemned him. His crime was stealing a fortune left to the city, and in recompense, he gave a fair chunk back upon his death. “Hubbard left a handsome sum . . . to convey the message that [he] was a man profoundly human and profoundly misunderstood” writes Cynthia Mills in her book Dying Well in Montpe-lier: The Story of Hubbard Memorial, about the man whose self-commissioned likeness sits cast in bronze in Montpelier’s Green Mountain Cemetery. “They say if you sit on its lap it will take your soul away. That’s what everyone says,” quips Montpelier resi-dent Suzannah Mullikin, indicating that the man, though having left behind a well-loved park, may have, nonetheless, been unable to unruffle all the town’s feathers.

At the February 21 meeting, the question of propriety once again stirred the waters as matters of fair and proper use were raised be-tween a dog-walking majority, who seemed almost surprised to be singled out, and a discontented minority, who begrudged their marginalization. Parks director Geoff Beyer said that there had been a wide range of re-sponses to the survey, from “people attacked

by dogs” to “dogs attacked by kids,” before opening the floor to public comment.

“I have a Bernese mountain dog. I am a former parks commissioner. My dog lives for the joy of running with other dogs. Please make the most minimal changes possible,” began Representative Warren F. Kitzmiller in defense of the status quo.

The meeting minutes, available on the Parks Commission website, go on to detail a happy-go-lucky population of dog walkers being brought to task and a measure of self-awareness by an indignant group who, hith-erto, could only be heard grumbling on the sidelines while unruly packs of dogs romped to their hearts’ content.

One comment from the meeting’s minutes expressed the discomfort and fear that chil-dren, the elderly, the disabled and working

animals experience in the face of a, perhaps, too-exuberant community of dog walkers who seem to be unaware: “I experienced two dog-related incidents recently that were very unnerving. I was walking with two friends who are blind and use seeing-eye dogs. A pair of exuberant dogs came barrel-ing down the path. This caused my friends a great deal of fear, because the seeing-eye dog of one of my blind friends had been bitten while on leash on Main Street. Also, I am a grandma, and I can relate to what an earlier commenter said about kids feeling threatened. My grandchildren are fearful of dogs, and that has prevented me from using the park.”

At the end of the meeting, it was de-cided two volunteer subcommittees would look into amending the parks’ dog policies

(Dog Waste Committee and Dog Policy and Communication Committee). Beyer warned, “When people assume, or have the attitude that they have a right to walk their dogs off leash is when we often have prob-lems. More and more often, in public places, leash laws are required. When people under-stand it is a privilege to walk dogs off leash, we are less likely to have problems. We must have conversations and dog owners taking responsibility to ensure that privilege to walk dogs off leash will continue.”

All Parks Commission meetings are open to the public. The next meeting to organize the volunteer committees is on March 21 at the Montpelier Police Station Conference Room. Following meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month.

Of Dogs and People: City Residents Discuss the Rights of Canines in Hubbard Park

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by Ivan Shadis

After observing the recent Parks Com-mission meeting, I could not help but

wonder about parks and dogs. They share an interesting paradox in their domestica-tion. A park we think of as a place to contact wil-derness, the stuff of our primal origin and unmo-lested nature, yet it ex-ists at the behest of civic authority to be engaged with per regulation. Likewise, a dog we think of as our friend, another being, whole in itself. But down to the very shape of its body (after centuries of breeding for temperament, use, curiosity), the dog is an expression of our whim.

How much may we regulate before we have sapped our domesticated wildernesses of the spirit that refreshes us? How much will we allow ourselves to develop, police and delineate within the parks boundaries before using the park becomes merely an exercise in following the approved policy,

which may include submitting to ordinances that retract earlier privileges? But walking dogs off leash did not use to be a “privilege,” any more than walking in the park is—until the development of municipal leash laws, which created the precedent of leashed dogs

in public space. The Montpelier city

ordinance concerning the lawful condition of dogs not on private property requires they be “under

control by means of a chain, rope, or cord of sufficient strength to control the action of such dog (or such other personal presence and attention as will reasonably control the con-duct of such dog).” Doesn’t the parenthetical addendum suggest that the master’s voice and the chain are interchangeable (so long as they exercise the same ability to maintain order)? But a voice is not a chain. The two meth-ods of control are crucially different in that leashes use physical manipulation while voice commands use language, the same way peo-ple communicate with one another. Among

dog walkers there is a desire to include dogs as autonomous agents, socializing on equal terms with humans and other dogs.

The park, with its many dogs, faces the same issues as other public spaces that be-come the gathering places of undesirables and displaced populations. The fact that these dog walkers have assembled here en masse and that there are ensuing safety and control concerns does not necessarily show so much irresponsibility on the part of dog owners as it does a refusal to accommodate the population of dogs and dog owners. En-acting ordinances and regulations to chase the dogs out of the streets and out of the parks may eventually have the effect of making our town completely safe from dogs and solve the problem for everyone involved except one population: the dogs, who will find that their scarce autonomy is a privilege entirely suspended (on a leash).

As local arborist and stone mason Padma Meier chimed upon walking into The Bridgeoffice during a discussion of this topic: “When dogs run free, so will we.”

When Dogs Run Free

OPINION


by Bob Nuner

With city hall access still only by stairs, City Council met at the high school. Newly elected coun-

cilors Jessica Edgerly Walsh and Anne Wat-son were sworn in by Clerk John Odum, and the council elected officers. City Manager William Fraser introduced the new assistant manager, Jessie Baker, who starts April 1. In addition to assisting the manager, Baker said her duties include communications.

Committee assignments were reestablished, including the nongovernmental committees on which councilors serve, such as the Kel-logg-Hubbard Library and the senior center.

Mayor John Hollar voiced concern about potential conflicts of interest if council mem-bers are full-fledged board as well as council members and questioned a council mem-ber’s statutory obligations when serving on a board. Councilor Alan Weiss suggested that councilor board members should advise but not vote, but Councilor Tom Golonka lob-bied for a voting presence, particularly when boards vote on budgets that enjoy taxpayer support. (Two council reps serve on the li-brary board: one councilor and one council-appointed member.)

Among numerous committee assignments, Councilor Anne Watson will join the capitol projects committee and the energy advisory committee; Thierry Guerlain, the infrastruc-ture committee; Edgerly Walsh, the housing task force; and Golonka, the trust fund com-mittee. Guerlain will remain on the Kellogg-Hubbard Library board, Golonka on the recreation board, and Guerlain and Golonka continue on the water rate study committee. Weiss noted the more than 20 committees where citizens appointed by the council serve the city.

Under general business, the council heard a request for fuller budget presentation in the annual report, rather than the truncated

version currently offered. District 2 resident Tom Weiss urged that missing audit reports, while available at city hall, should appear in the printed report. While it was estimated that this would add another 50 pages or so to the book, he argued that there were citizens who lack online access. Fraser said the deci-sion to delete some report sections was an effort to save space and expense.

Taking an initial step toward regional ser-vices integration, the council moved to con-tract with Barre City to handle Montpelier’s ambulance billing when the fire department’s administrative assistant position was elimi-nated. Fraser said, “We use the same insurers and codes as the Barre fire department” and argued that billing needn’t be handled by Montpelier. Barre offers this service to other towns, has “received high marks for their ser-vice,” and it’s an example of regionalization. Golonka asked, “What about dispatch?” noting that that cost represented another $250,000. Fraser said they were “working on it.” Golonka pointed out this was another op-portunity to jump-start regionalization.

The council then heard a report from en-gineering consultant Jeff Tucker on the bike path, Carr lot and Winooski River Flood Plain (ice jam) projects. Two of these projects appear intertwined.

The Carr lot and its multimodal transit center would connect with the bike path project, and the state has an interest in con-structing a welcome center in association with the multimodal facility. Associated with the bike path projects are changes in property use on the east side of the North Branch River, namely the M&M Beverage Center; the proposed bike path outlet will be located at Barre Street, with a connecting bridge to the Carr lot.

Much of the bike path engineering was previously done, but delays have plagued the project: The bike project no longer involves Berlin in a partnership; the two towns are

now on separate paths. Montpelier is looking at the project as it extends from Taylor Street to Old Country Club Road, at the end of Barre Street. Bike path engineering was well along when Vermont Railway reactivated its railbed, so plans became obsolete. The new plan is that the path will parallel Barre Street on a 12-foot shoulder, with a five-foot separation between it and the street. At Old Country Club Road, the road would upgrade to Americans with Disabilities Act compli-ance and become dual use. To cross the river, plans once included reerection of the former Pioneer Street Bridge trusses, but those plans depended on Berlin’s now-separate bike path plans, which are cloudy at best.

Reacting to Tucker’s estimate of comple-tion in 2016, Hollar allowed, “It seems like an eternity.” Tucker answered, “We will be pushing it but following a process.” After right-of-way acquisitions, easements, engi-neering, permitting, construction and sig-nage and after renegotiating with the state as a partner (now that Berlin is no longer part of the agreement, the state requires confirmation anew that Montpelier wants to continue alone), the state will pay 90 per-cent of the cost. Noting Hollar’s undisguised frustration, Fraser, pointing good-naturedly at him, said, “My instructions from Monday morning meetings [with Hollar] are that we do everything on our side to be ready for the state” and suggested that bikers had an advo-cate in the mayor.

As to the flood plain project, it, too, seems to be, in the words of Tucker, “a process.” Fraser said the city had budgeted three years of study work. Ice modeling has occurred through the Cold Regions Research and En-gineering Laboratory, and at some point, there’s a prospect to construct ice control piers to induce ice jams upstream of town. Reconstruction on the Pioneer Street dam could assist similarly.

In other construction news, Weiss ques-

tioned timing of the state’s repaving of State Street, but received assurances from Fraser that the state would repave after district heat project completion.

The council then entered executive session. Exiting executive session, according to draft minutes courtesy of Odum, Golonka “moved to authorize the Mayor to finalize and sign an agreement with the State regarding Dis-trict Heat with the key items as follows:” The minutes note that district heat won’t be available by October 1, but that a temporary oil boiler should be in place by late October, with the wood-chip boiler operational by December’s end. As to flood plan permitting, it is to be handled “ideally through admin-istrative approval assuming that meets legal standard.”

On district heat cost overruns, the council agreed to contribute $408,000, to be paid after the city has paid for the distribution system and all project costs, by using up to half of surplus project funds remaining and by adding “to the price of future capacity.” Discussing the overruns, the fourth term of the motion reads, “The State and City agree that the current estimated cost of the Heat Plant is $18,360,208. This represents an esti-mated cost overrun of $3,312,883 from prior State estimates . . . Of this amount $732,288 represents costs not related to the City. Of the remaining $2.5 million, the parties agree the City will reimburse the State for the cost of the thermal conversion unit (gener-ally referred to as the “City Room”) in the amount of $408,000. This reimbursement is the full City contribution towards the current estimated Heat Plant cost overruns and is not based on a percentage of project costs.”

The evening ended with another 40 min-utes or so of executive session on the Carr lot and firefighter public records litigation, but minutes report no action taken on those subjects.

Council Discusses Bike Path, District Heat on March 13

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Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on the past, present and future of Berlin Pond.

When it comes to strong feeling and conviction, our hearts and minds may crave resolution. But

in the case of Berlin Pond and the future of its several recreational uses and its protection both as a natural habitat and as a drinking water supply, it appears that two neighboring municipalities—the city of Montpelier and the town of Berlin—see different values at stake and are making different choices and pursuing different paths.

According to a town of Berlin history pub-lished in July 1992, the city of Montpelier “first used Berlin Pond water for residen-tial and commercial purposes on October 7, 1884.” That use has continued ever since, and according to Geoff Wilson, who is chief operator of the Montpelier Water Filtration plant, the city extracts an average of about one million gallons of finished drinking water each day from Berlin Pond and, ac-cording to an October 2011 supreme court document, serves “about 9,000 users includ-ing most residents and businesses within the City.”

From 1884 until a landmark (2011) Ver-mont Supreme Court decision, at least in Montpelier, it was pretty generally assumed that Montpelier had the right “to prohibit boating, fishing, and swimming” and, in-deed, other recreational uses on Berlin Pond. Again, according to the 1992 history of the town of Berlin:

On August 1, 1909, K.W. Morse went swimming (in the Pond) and was promptly arrested. Morse, who had leased a summer cottage on the pond on the southeasterly end, a mile and a half from Montpelier’s intake pipe, knew nothing about the regu-

lation. Morse was convicted in the City Court of Montpelier on August 20, 1909. He appealed this decision to the Wash-ington County Court, where he was also convicted, fined $10.00 and costs amount-ing to 21.49 and ordered to spend 93 days in the county jail at Montpelier. Morse appealed the decision to the Vermont Su-preme Court, which heard the case in November of 1910.

But as the town history relates, the Ver-mont Supreme Court was not convinced by Morse’s appeal, and Morse lost his case and went to jail for 93 days.

One thing is clear. In ruling against Morse, the supreme court had paid careful attention to a 1903 Vermont State Board of Health order that prohibited swimming and other recreational uses of the pond. The writer of the Berlin town history (the editor of the history was attorney and writer Paul Gillies) observes:

The Morse decision is one of the first cases in Vermont’s judicial history in which a regulation of a state agency is upheld as a legitimate exercise of police power. From Morse’s swim in the pond, that state has come a long way toward regulating the use of land, water and air for the sake of the environment, but in large measure the power the state exercises today began back in 1909, when Morse was arrested for swimming in Berlin Pond.

The city of Montpelier began buying land along the shoreline of Berlin Pond in 1901, but Montpelier purchases of property around the pond accelerated after the Morse decision in 1910 and continued through 1924. Today, the city owns all the land that surrounds the pond except for an 85-foot access strip on the easterly side of the pond. This land along Paine Turnpike South was purchased by the

Supreme Court Decision Changed the Balance of

Control over Berlin Pond

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town of Berlin from Ethel Tobin in 1954 for $90.

The Berlin town history informs us that the board of health issued an additional pro-hibition against boating and fishing on the pond in 1926, but that regulation didn’t pre-vent individuals from attempted recreation. According to the history, “(in 1926) Josepeh Quattropani was arrested for fishing in the pond. He, too, took his case on appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court. Like Morse he lost his fight against the Health Board order.”

However, the town history notes that these court cases with their convictions and pun-ishments never really stopped people from testing the limits of recreational pursuits. As the history observes:

Berlin Pond has always been used for fishing and swimming by local scofflaws, including some of the most notable figures in the town, in open (or not so open) defi-ance of the State Board regulation and the city’s property rights.

Fast-forward to the near-present moment. In 2009, Cedric and Leslie Sanborn, owners of the sporting goods store R&L Archery in Barre, along with R&L employee Richard Barnett decided to test Vermont’s public trust (state waters) doctrine by using Berlin Pond for recreational purposes. On September 6, 2009, the Sanborns ventured out on the pond with kayaks. In another move, Barnett obtained a permit from the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department to hold an ice-fishing derby on the pond and began circulating advertisements for the competition.

But back to the two kayakers Cedric and Leslie Sanborn: When they were stopped, indeed arrested, by Corporal Jennings of the Montpelier Police Force on September 6, ac-cording to a subsequent court case affidavit, the following conversation ensued.

Officer: Do you know why I’m here, I guess?

Defendant: A difference of opinion on use of the water.

Officer: Well, you’re aware that it’s posted?

Defendant: Well it is and it isn’t.Officer: What way would it not be?Defendant: Because it is a public water

supply, but the statutes you cite were re-

pealed twenty years ago, so they don’t count. But looking at state statutes anything over twenty-five acres is public water, belongs to the state, health and trust for the public, all those arguments. So I can’t be trespass-ing, because I’m on public water.

If the Sanborns and their codefendant Bar-nett were looking for a test of the law, that’s what they got. Early in 2010, the city of Montpelier went to court against them, seek-ing a declaratory judgment “that boating, fishing and bathing is prohibited” on Berlin Pond. When the Washington (County) Su-perior Court ruled in favor of the city, the defendants appealed.

In October 2011, in a tightly argued (29-page) ruling, the Vermont Supreme Court handed the defendants a victory. No, wrote the court, the city of Montpelier does not have the authority to prohibit recreational uses on the pond. And no, the city does not own or control Berlin Pond. Yes, the court noted that the city owns most of the land that surrounds the pond. And wrote the court, “The City may strive to prevent indirectly the recreational use of Berlin Pond by deny-ing access to its lands that surround the pond but it may not directly regulate the use of the pond itself.”

And here the court was repeatedly clear. Yes, regulations and prohibitions could be placed on recreational uses on the pond. But the city of Montpelier would have to ask for such regulations and prohibitions, and the place to ask was the state, notably the state legislature. Said the court in conclusion, “We determine that the City’s current powers are limited to preventing trespass upon its prop-erty.”

Then came the final pronouncement (un-derlined for emphasis and her in italics): The judgment enjoining defendants “ from boat-ing, fishing and swimming in Berlin Pond” is reversed.

In it its October 2011 decision, after more than 120 years of Montpelier’s dominance over Berlin Pond, the Vermont Supreme Court dramatically altered the balance of control. The state’s power was ascendant. The town of Berlin had gained an advantage. And the city of Montpelier found itself with diminished authority and control.

compiled by Nat Frothingham and Ivan Shadis

Where is Berlin Pond located? Town of Berlin.How large is Berlin Pond? 260 acres of surface area.What depth? 59 feet at its deepest and with a low of 3 feet.How many miles of shoreline sur-rounds the pond? About 5 miles.How much total water does the pond contain? 1.5 billion gallons.What produces water in the pond? 10 main inlet streams that drain ap-proximately 13.2 square miles of land, also rain and groundwater.Who owns the pond itself? The state of Vermont as a public trust.Who owns the land around the pond? The city of Montpelier almost entirely except for an 85-foot (Berlin-owned) ac-cess strip.How much drinking water is with-drawn daily by the city of Montpelier? About 1 million gallons per day; under its permit, the city can withdraw an ad-ditional 700,000 gallons.How many users are served by Ber-lin Pond water? 9,000 users includ-ing Montpelier residents, businesses, National Life Insurance Company and Central Vermont Medical Center.What species of fish are found in the pond? Large and smallmouth bass, chain pickerel, brown bullhead, yellow perch and pumpkinseed.What wildlife can be found in the pond wetlands? Nesting wetland birds include loons (an endangered species), pied-billed grebes and osprey; also the

American bittern and the least bittern and, among the small wading birds, the Virginia rail and the sora rail. Reptiles include the common snapping turtle, wood turtle, midland painted turtle and the northern water snake; among am-phibians are the red-spotted newt, the northern dusky salamander, the eastern American toad, the northern spring peeper, the gray tree frog, the bullfrog, the green frog, the pickerel frog, the leopard frog (and possibly) the mink frog. Mammals depending on the water habitat include beaver, muskrat, river otter and moose.How many lakes or ponds of 20 acres or more are there in Washington County? 24 and these are concentrated in the towns of Woodbury and Calais.What about development around Berlin Pond? There are 181 private resi-dences in the pond’s watershed, but only a single building, a pump house, at the water’s edge. Interstate highway 89 runs within sight of the pond. No other pond of its size is in Washington County, and only two other ponds within the Win-ooski River watershed (and these ponds are in Chittenden County) have less shoreline development.

Acknowledgments: For information about Berlin Pond, thanks are due to Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department personnel John Austin, Lands and Habitat program director, and Rich Kirn, fisheries biologist; city of Montpelier personnel Bill Fraser, city manager, and Geoff Wilson, chief operator of the water filtration plant; and these publications: The Berlin Pond Wa-tershed Conservation Project (2002) and Berlin Pond Natural Area: Geography, Human History, Natural Resources.

Berlin Pond at a Glance

Selected Declarations from the October 2011 Berlin Pond Decision

by the Vermont Supreme Court “After careful examination of state statutes and the City’s charter, we are unable to

find any direct or indirect authorization for the City to regulate recreational use of Berlin Pond.”

“According to the City, human activity in and around the pond threaten an increase in trash and waste including petroleum products that cannot be removed through fil-tration; the introduction of invasive plant and animal species including zebra mussels, which are not currently in the pond and which can block water intakes; and an increase in turbidity because activity stirs up dirt and silt in the water.”

“Thus, the State may, compatible with holding Berlin Pond in public trust, delegate certain authority to regulate its use to another body, in this case the City of Montpelier. A main question before us is whether such a delegation has occurred here.”

“We conclude that the 1926 Board of Health order ceased to be valid in 1989 when the Legislature repealed both the authorization to create such orders and the prohibi-tion on violating such orders.”

“We thus conclude that the Legislature’s intent in the 1989 changes was to entirely replace the old regulatory scheme—including the old board of health orders—with a new permitting scheme. As a result, the 1926 Board of Health order no longer operates to prohibit boating, bathing, or swimming in Berlin Pond.”

“The Constitution affords citizens a right ‘to fish in all boatable and other waters (not private property) under proper regulations, to be made and provided for by the General Assembly.’”

“Our decision reflects the fact that, under the laws of this state, the recreational use of Berlin Pond is a matter of state concern requiring a resolution at the state level.”

“The disposition of this case leaves a state of affairs that admittedly represents an awkward intermediate result. The City may strive to prevent indirectly the recreational use of Berlin Pond by denying access to its lands that surround the pond, but it may not directly regulate the use of the pond itself.”


Hands-On Gardenerby Miriam Hansen

I’ve got onions, celery, parsley, dahlias, dianthus, foxgloves and snapdragons, as well as lettuce, arugula and tomatoes for

the greenhouses, up and growing under grow lights. With lows around zero and a wallop of snow predicted, even I am feeling a bit ahead of the curve. Last year at this time, we were a couple of weeks into harvesting from the greenhouse. This year, the lettuce, spinach and mesclun mixes are hunkered down looking a bit like squashed toads. But hey, it’s the middle of March. Don’t be fooled by these frigid temperatures. Every year for about 30 years I’ve been starting the bulk of my seedlings between mid-March and mid-April. Spring really is just around the corner.

I always have to fight my tendency to plant too liberally. Seeds are so tiny; it’s easy to get overambitious. Still, it’s fun to have extra to trade, sell or give away. This year I organized an annual flower club with some neighbors. We divided up a list of annuals we all want, including cleome, zinnias, snapdragons, ni-cotianas and cosmos. Each of us will grow extras of the few we’ve chosen and trade six-packs of the others when they’re ready to go outdoors.

If you want an accurate idea of how many vegetable seedlings to grow for the garden space you’ve got, Johnny’s has a handy on-line tool available at johnnyseeds.com/Seed Calculator.aspx. You fill in the crop and the number of feet you want to plant, and they instantly calculate the number of plants you’ll need.

I’ve noticed that beginning gardeners have a hard time knowing how deep to plant their seeds. Aside from the fact that some seeds like lettuce and snapdragons actually need light to germinate and some require dark-ness, depth of planting pretty much depends on the diameter of the seed. Most gardening experts will tell you to cover seeds two to four times their thickness. Or they provide a chart with recommended depths of one-quarter inch (lettuce), one-half inch (bras-sicas and tomatoes) or one inch (sunflowers). If you’re anything like me, it can be pretty tough to know the difference between an eighth inch, quarter inch and half inch. Take a look at a ruler. Half an inch is less than the length of my thumbnail. If you’re not sure; just make a shallow furrow with a pencil, your finger or any blunt tool. It is better to sow seeds a little too shallow rather than too deep. If they are tiny balls like arugula or need light like lettuce, a sprinkle of growing mix is enough to cover them. Tomatoes can be sown a little deeper and so can broccoli and cauliflower. Some flower seeds like snap-dragons are so small they resemble dust. You should just scatter those across the surface.

Once you’ve planted the seeds and covered them (or not), always tamp them down with

your fingertips or the flat of your hand. This ensures that when the seeds germinate, the tiny emerging roots have something to push against. Have you ever surface-sown lettuce and seen the seedling struggling to gets its root planted? Now it is true that lettuce needs light to germinate. But if you plant it one-quarter inch deep, light still penetrates. I’ve been growing lettuce for 30 years, and I never surface-sow, though many experts recommend you do. Lastly, I water everything in. I continue to use large soda bottles to water. If I want more water, I pour from the neck. If I want to sprinkle, I put my hand under the water, palm up, and let the moisture trickle through my fingers. I know there are more elegant and certainly more expensive watering techniques, but this one works for me.

Looking back at former March columns, I noticed there were some things I said I’d try but never reported back on how they worked. I said I’d stagger plantings of cab-bage a couple of weeks apart so they wouldn’t all mature at once. That didn’t really work. Planting lettuce at two-week intervals works well because it germinates and grows very quickly. But two weeks doesn’t make that much difference in the life of a cabbage. So this year, I’m going to just start spring cab-bages early April and fall cabbages late June.

Last year I tried the variety ‘Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomato.’ I was not impressed. They were too small and not that flavorful. This year I’m trying ‘Lucia Grape Tomato.’ They’re described as the red grape equivalent to ‘Sungolds.’ If that’s true, I’m sold. The sweet potato crop was not wildly successful, due in part, I suspect, to the fact that the ninja woodchuck favored the leaves. Still, the results were so creamy and delicious, I’d be tempted to try them again if I wasn’t starting to devote more space to commercial crops.

Among the pepper varieties, ‘Carmen’ is still my favorite but I’ve added ‘Revolu-tion,’ ‘Anaheim’ (for pickling), ‘Stocky Red Roaster’ from High Mowing Seeds and Johnny’s green-to-orange bells. I’d like to say a word about varieties. It’s taken me a long while to learn that just because someone else swears by a particular variety doesn’t mean I will like them. I encourage you to experiment and try different kinds. Once you’ve tried them, if you don’t like them or they don’t grow well for you, then it’s time to turn your back.

Pay no attention to the white stuff falling from the sky. It is time to start the seeds that need 10 weeks, end of March eight weeks and so on. Happy gardening!

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].

Middle of March, People!

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

229-5721

Takeout and full- service restaurant

15 Barre StreetMontpelier, VTangelenospizza.comSince 1982


by Lisa Masé

Cornerstone Pub & Kitchen in downtown Barre is bustling at din-nertime on a Saturday. Its popularity

endures: after five months of being open, both dining rooms are full every night. Al-though loud, the atmosphere is simple yet refined, the service friendly and professional.

This fine-tuned operation is the product of many years of food service experience. Keith Paxman and Rich McSheffrey, who are Barre natives and seasoned restaurateurs, opened the establishment with the motto of “helping to rebuild Barre, one pint at a time.” In-deed, the beer choices, from Breakfast Stout to Fiddlehead IPA, are both intriguing and reasonably priced. The same can be said for the wine selection, which pleases my Italian sensibility.

The menu is well crafted by a skilled chef, who can be found talking with regulars at the end of dinner service. Pub fare ranges from fish tacos and clam chow-der to pot roast flatbread for $10 and three kinds of burgers, served on a brioche bun with fries. Entrées feature both comfort food, like barbecued pork mac and cheese for $20, and refined dishes, like seared scallops with butternut squash risotto and duck-leg confit. Vegetarian fare includes an edamame burger with corn, red pepper and spicy slaw for $8 and mushroom ravioli with Vermont goat cheese and portabella sauce.

Beer and cheese may be the most local aspects of the menu. Paxman explains that most of his customers are not requesting local food. Hence, it will never “overtake the menu,” but the chef is developing a rotating local special for every night of the week. Des-sert features the unique “pie in a jar” made by high school students from the Culinary Arts Program at Barre Technical Center.

Open Tuesday through Saturday for lunch and dinner, the Cornerstone strives to pro-vide an eating experience that’s “second to none.” The restaurant is hosting a chili cook-off to benefit Vermont Cancer Survivors on Sunday, March 24, from 1 to 4 p.m. Call 476-2121 if you would like to attend the cook-off or enter your favorite version of chili. Website: cornerstonepk.com.

The Vermont Thrush Restaurant, a stone’s throw from Montpelier’s State House, changed ownership this past November. Cameron Moorby and Sarah Moos hope they’ll be there for the next 15 years, always adding new elements, like intriguing desserts of white chocolate cheesecake with a hint of lime. “The menu is eclectic, just like us,” they explain.

Truly, I was pleased to discover tantaliz-ing dinner options, artfully prepared with a host of local ingredients. Moorby and Moos are forging partnerships with “no-name farms” who can serve as dedicated suppli-ers of seasonal meats and produce. Orders from Black River Produce fill in the gaps as needed.

The new owners, Vermont natives, decided it was time to take their extensive experi-

ence, which includes Ariel’s Restaurant and Chef ’s Corner, and open an eatery of their own. A meeting place for lobbyists, lawyers, legislators and journalists for 36 years, the tavern

still offers prime-rib specials every Wednes-day night and its signature Thrush Burger: ground beef from Vermont Family Farms, topped with cheddar and bacon and served with fries or local mesclun greens.

The menu’s new Asian flair stems from Moorby’s first job at A Single Pebble, where he worked alongside Steve Bogart, the Chi-nese restaurant’s then chef-owner. From ap-petizers of potstickers for $7.75 and Momo Fuku, Korean barbecue, for $8.75 to entrées of Szechuan chicken and black bean salmon for $17.95, the menu boasts successful and well-priced flavor combinations. The veg-etarian options are extensive: try the zucchini feta pancakes with creamy bulgur croquettes for $14.50 or the stuffed peppers with house-smoked tofu and vegan cashew sauce for $14.50.

Visit the eatery for signature lunch sand-wiches with house-made sauces and chut-neys, or enjoy dinner with a $5 glass of house wine from California’s Canyon Road Winery or a $5.50 pint of red ale from Mid-dlebury’s newest brewery. Stop by for Sunday brunch to sample the smoky eggs Benedict. Contact the Tavern for details: 225-6166 or vermontthrush.com.

After one month in business, Asiana House is busy on a Thursday night. Every seat at the sushi bar is filled with eager cus-tomers, chopsticks in hand, and the 50-seat restaurant is humming with conversation. Owners Sandra Tan and Gary Ma are walk-ing the floor, serving chilled sake to those who request it. Sushi chefs are busy behind the bright counter, as the wait staff delivers countless orders of vegetarian, traditional and house-special maki.

The retro décor, which highlights the old bank safe from the building’s original incar-nation, reminds me of a French bistro. Asiana House matches this elegance with its simple presentation of beautifully crafted sushi and steaming bowls of spicy kimchi noodles. The menu and prices are essentially the same as the owners’ restaurant of the same name in Burlington: vegetarian, raw and cooked fish sushi and a long list of specialty maki rolls with amazing names like Alligator, Pink Lady and Rainbow Maki. Tan and Ma told me they source their fish from Hawaii and Boston.

Maki is a Japanese shortening of the word makizushi for rolled, sour-tasting rice and fish. This sour taste, originally from the Me-kong River region of China, refers to sushi’s traditional preparation, which involves fer-menting rice before rolling it. This flavor is now achieved by adding rice wine vinegar to the rice as it cooks. At Asiana House, some maki rolls are torched before they are served, enhancing the rich, spicy-sweet flavor of their teriyaki glaze. The Snap Dragon Maki, for example, features tuna and onion rolled in-side then flash-fried, topped with white fish and torched with teriyaki sauce and sweet miso sauce for $12.95.

Specialty dishes range from Bi Bam Bap, a rice and marinated beef entrée served in a stone pot for $16.95, to Supreme Duckling with homemade gravy for $18.95. Vegetarian options range from egg-and-tofu sushi to cu-cumber-and-avocado rolls. Unique combina-tions include Green Mountain Maki with as-paragus, cucumber, avocado, seaweed salad, tofu skin and mixed greens for $12.95.

The miso soup, which started my meal, was perfectly balanced and swimming with seaweed, just the way I like it. When my friend ordered a specialty drink, it came to her quickly, bright orange and served in a martini glass. With comfortable booth seat-ing in the back corner, we were hard-pressed

to leave at the end of the evening. Contact Asiana House to hear about daily lunch specials, place an order for takeout or make a reservation: 225-6180 or asianahouse.com.

Tom Moog and Jason Jack opened Moog’s Place in Morrisville to feature local musi-cal talent every night in a safe and friendly atmosphere. Based on their success, they are opening a sister venue in Montpelier. Sweet Melissa’s, named after Jason’s wife, will wel-come musicians and fans alike in the former Langdon Street Café location starting this May. The owners plan to offer wine, local beer and cocktails such as cosmopolitans garnished with fresh blueberries, peaches and raspberries and pomegranate margaritas.

In the tradition of the Morrisville kitchen, the menu will feature rotating dinner specials, including fish tacos, pulled pork enchiladas, rub-down chicken wings and sandwiches. Local food will definitely play a part in the menu offerings, and they hope to expand to lunch offerings in time. Visit Sweet Melissa’s for drink specials, small plates and local mu-sical talent featured each night. For a preview of what’s to come, stop by Moog’s Place in Morrisville or visit moogsplace.com.

Asian Fare, a Gastropub and New Life for Langdon Street: Local Restaurant Reviews and Previews

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

City Center building, 89 Main Street, Montpelier

Skinny Pancake presents an evening with Foghorn StringbandSunday, March 24Reserve your spot in advance at Eventbrite.com!

Now open at Burlington International Airport!Proud to bring the most locally sourced airport eatery in the country to our community

Food Poised for sushi rolls at Asiana House. Photo by Lisa Masé.


Summer Camps 2013

Musical Theater

Summer ProgramJuly 15–26, 2013

Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–3 p.m.with a Final Performance

on Saturday, July 27Sing, dance, act, and have fun on the stage and behind the scenes

this summer! For ages 9–13. $500.

NEW ENGLAND CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVALAugust 11–24, 2013Andrew Eng & Angelia Cho, Artistic Directors

A two-week intensive cham-ber music program for string students. Each participant will receive individual les-sons, chamber music coachings, perfor-mance opportuni-ties, and master classes by world-renowned artists.

Montpelier, VT • 802-229-9000 [email protected]

by John O’Brien

As shoppers, why do we pick one prod-uct over another? If we know the product and like it, that’s one thing,

but what makes us select, when given the choice, unknown A instead of unknown B?

Looking through the 16th Annual Green Mountain Film Festival’s catalog of coming attractions, I circled the films that looked promising and I crossed out the red flags. Going over my picks, I attempted to analyze why I was sold on one film and turned off by another.

What compels or repels me? The first thing that hits me is the title. Then the thumbnail photo accompanying each listing. Next, the synopsis. Finally, I look at the credits: Who is the director? What country was this made in? What’s the running time? What’s the genre?

I narrowed my list to seven films I would like to see, and seven films my instincts tell me to avoid. Remember, this is a preview, not a review. This is not meant to be a thumbs up or a thumbs down on any of these films; it’s just a confession of what pulls me in or pushes me away.

Yes, please:

1. 5 Broken Cameras—A Palestinian farmer/photographer, an Israeli codirector/editor, and olive trees getting bulldozed. This documentary sounds more heartbreak-ing than polemical, more humanist than righteous.

2. Breakfast with Curtis—The director,

Laura Colella, has just been hired to head the Vermont College of Fine Arts’ film program. Her film, shot at her house in Providence, Rhode Island, was cast with nonprofessional actors. Right up my alley.

3. Caesar Must Die—Maybe it’s because I liked the Taviani brother’s Kaos, or maybe it’s because I was browsing through this catalog on the ides of March, but I’d take a chance on this.

4. Neighboring Sounds—The description sold me: This Brazil is neither “The Girl From Ipanema” nor City of God. Also, one of the joys of movie-going is being an arm-chair traveler, and being transported, in late March, from Vermont to Recife is a trip worth taking.

5. Pierre Etaix Retrospective—Evidently, Etaix was a French clown who wrote gags for Jacques Tati and made a string of comedies in the ’60s. Whenever I begin to think I know everything there is to know about film history, my ignorance is exposed. I’d never heard of Pierre Etaix before now. This could be a revelation.

6. The Savoy King—Found footage of Har-lem in the ’30s; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the voice of Dizzy Gillespie; jazz critic Gary Giddins blurb: “One of the great musical documentaries of our time.” Sold.

7. Sister—This Swiss-French film sounds like it could have been made in the Mad River Valley. It also reminds me that the French films I’ve seen at previous GMFFs—The Girl from Paris and Conversations with My Gar-dener, to name two—were rewarding.

To View or Not to ViewA Preview of Promising Films

Starting this Friday, March 22, for 10 days through Sunday, the 31st, the

16th annual Green Mountain Film Fes-tival (GMFF) brightens Montpelier and brings together an influx of film buffs. GMFF’s program guide lists 82 films from 30 countries with 127 total screenings at three venues: The Savoy (both upstairs and down) and the Pavilion auditorium.

In his program introduction, new festi-val director Terrence Youk thanks found-ers and predecessors Rick Winston, An-drea Serota and Donald Rae for laying the foundations for this festival, as well as the hundreds of sponsors and volunteers that make the festival a community event. New this year is a street-level ticket office at 44 Main Street (formerly Capitol Video), courtesy of the Jacobs family. The office is open from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m., seven days a week. Tickets are $9 ($8 for seniors 65 and over). Ten-pass punch card tickets are $80, and a “Full Montpelier” ticket allows an individual access to all the events for $150 (nontransferrable). Tickets may be pur-chased at the GMFF ticket office, online (gmffestival.org, online buyers can print tickets at home) or by phone (802 262-3423). Tickets should ideally be picked up at the storefront office but can be picked up at the “will call” window of the film venue, a half hour ahead of screening.

Publicity hand-outs offer a quick glance at some of the festival’s thematic offerings, which include films about the Middle East; films on music, dance, photography

and art; films from central and eastern Eu-rope and China; and classic films—among others. The program also offers animated films for children, comedy, shorts and documentaries. Seven visiting filmmakers and invited speakers are featured, along with nine festival events, including an opening night by-invitation gala at city hall auditorium.

For a third year, GMFF is hosting a 48-hour film slam competition. Starting opening night at 6 p.m., teams write, stage, shoot and edit short films, which are then presented, according to the GMFF website, “in order of arrival before a live audience” on Sunday night, the 24th, at the Pavilion. As the films are presented, they’ll be discussed and judged by Sonia Rae, Margot Harrison, Mary Arbuckle and David Giancola.

The festival’s new feature this year: Au-dience-voted awards. Viewers will be able to vote for their favorite films in the cat-egories of feature, documentary and shorts using the voting ballot printed on their ticket, with winning films announced on the final Sunday and on GMFF’s website.

Reflecting the event’s community in-volvement, festival patrons are reminded to keep their ticket stubs and use them in area stores and restaurants where discounts and deals await them. It’s easy to see why the festival can enjoy its reputation as a top Vermont winter event.

—Bob Nuner

Maybe It’s Mud Season, but Now’s When Montpelier Celebrates the Art of Film


Summer Camps2013

Half day and full day available Multicamps discount Family discount Gymnastics, tumbling, swimming, games, crafts

Exhibition at the end of every week of the camp Spring floor, foam pit, in-ground trampoline, rock-climbing wall Fully air-conditioned

654 Granger Road, suite 2, Barre, VT 05641 223-0517 [email protected] SunriseGym.com

June 17–Aug. 16

The Mountaineers’ Baseball Camps will be held at the Montpelier Recre-ation Field and will be run by the Mountaineers’ coaching staff and play-ers. Campers will receive general baseball instruction in all aspects of the game. In addition to camp instruction, every camper will receive two game tickets, a team yearbook and a Mountaineers t-shirt. The campers will also take the field with the Mountaineers prior to a home game.

The campers will be divided up by age groups so that all will receive instruction that is beneficial to improving their skills. Our professional staff of experienced coaches and dedicated players will provide an opportunity to learn the game as it should be played.

The camps will be coordinated by Mountaineers’ Manager, Joe Brown, who serves as Head Coach at Cortland State College and has the high-est winning percentage of any collegiate baseball coach over the last ten years! Coach Brown will be assisted by coaching staff and players from the 2013 Vermont Mountaineers.

The cost is $95 per session. Participants should bring a glove, bat (op-tional) and sneakers.

Please register in person at the Montpelier Recreation Department or mail the enrollment form to Mountaineers Baseball Camps, Montpelier Recreation Department, 55 Barre Street, Montpelier, VT 05602. Call 223-5141 for more information. Our Employer ID# is 06-1393688.

Youth Baseball Camps

(802) 446-6100

July 8–12 and July 15–19 (come for one or both weeks)

9 a.m.–3 p.m. (drop-off as early as 8:30 a.m.)

Open to children age 7–14

Vermont's premier summer art camp, on the Vermont College of Fine Arts campus

Call 262-6035 for details

No, thank you:1. Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and the

Farm Midwives—This sounds like a hippy hagiography with recipes for placenta. The New York Times’ Jeannette Catsoulis declares it, “A granola ode to natural childbirth that makes you want to hop in a tub of warm water and start pushing.” Which reminds me to ask around: Are there any male midwives out there?

2. A Fierce Green Fire—A shining example of circular hype: Robert Redford narrates the doc, which his own Sundance Institute pro-claims is “shaping up to be the documentary of record on the environmental movement.” And why “fierce”? Resplendent adjectives are an invasive species and should be destroyed. Is Senseless Crime and Robust Punishment a better title for Dostoyevsky?

3. Like Someone in Love—Director Abbas Kiarostami may be a genius, but I’m tired of movies about call girls. Or hitmen. I don’t know any prostitutes or assassins. Why not make movies about people who have real jobs (like the ones in wedding notices)— a revenue management division specialist at Fletcher Allen or a geographical information systems planning analyst for the state of New Hampshire’s Department of Environmental Services?

4. On the Road—Kerouac’s dog-eared novel gets the Walter Salles’s Motorcycle Diaries facial. It will be beautiful, tasteful, dreadful. To get at the heart of the book, the movie would have to be experimental—maybe animated or made on a shoestring in

another country. I’ll wait for the Kyrgyzstan On the Road.

5. Orpheus—Has anybody noticed that Peter Shumlin is a dead ringer for Jean Cocteau? Could our governor be Cocteau’s

accidental spawn? Contemplating such paternity, I don’t think I could con-centrate on this mas-terpiece of French cinema.

6. The Thieves—A Korean Ocean’s Eleven. I’ll wait for the Kyr-gyzstan Ocean’s Eleven.

7. Unfinished Song—Another enduring male fantasy—grumpy, old man de-grumped by lovely, young woman. Which reminds me of the time that Fred Tuttle confided to me, after receiving a full-body hug from a volup-tuous fan, “John, John—I felt a tingle where I haven’t felt a tingle in years!”

Those are my yeas and nays. Truth be

told, I’d be quite happy watching any of the nays. It’s often the unexpected choice, the plan B after plan A was sold out, that takes your breath away, that worms its way into your memory. And it’s not the pitch that makes the movie, it’s the execution. I may grouse about all the movies about call girls, but that doesn’t mean the story can’t be told anew and well: When the GMFF is over, go watch Shanghai Express, or almost anything by Mizoguchi, or McCabe and Mrs. Miller, or Klute.

John O’Brien, a Vermont filmmaker and sheep farmer, directed Tunbridge Trilogy.

Essay


by Joyce Kahn

Martin Pincus is a lucky man. He is lucky to be alive and walking.

In October 2012, Martin, a 74-year-old longtime local yoga teacher who lives alone in Middlesex, awoke during the middle of the night, headed for the bathroom and suddenly experienced himself flying through the air. In the few seconds before he landed, several thoughts crossed his mind. The first was reality kicking in: “This is really hap-pening, and it’s not going to be good.” The second was, “I’m a yoga teacher. Maybe that will help.”

Martin crash-landed at the bottom of a long flight of stairs with his head resting on his outstretched arms, while his legs trailed behind on the upper steps. His head was undamaged, but his left leg was dangling and badly shattered. He remembers thinking, “I’m surprised this doesn’t hurt more” and “I’ve got to somehow make it to a phone.”

What Martin in his state of shock had for-gotten was that his good friend, Bobby Alba, was visiting for a few days and was sleeping in an adjacent room. Awakened by the noise of the fall, Bobby rushed to Martin’s side, care-fully moved Martin to a comfortable chair and called 911. When Martin drifted back to consciousness, he remembers being put on a stretcher and asked a lot of questions by a

kind and competent rescue team. Martin awoke the next morning in a hos-

pital bed at Central Vermont Medical Center (CVMC) with his leg in a temporary cast. He had fractured both his tibia and fibula, the two bones comprising the leg, and his ankle. Martin’s tibia had an oblique distal fracture with comminution, which means there was an angled fracture line and pulverization of bone. In addition, the interroseous mem-brane, which binds the two leg bones, had sustained major damage.

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Christian Bean, who had initially put Martin’s leg in a tempo-rary cast because of the swelling and to allow time for observation, performed the surgery. Martin speaks in glowing terms about Bean and credits him with saving his leg. After a week in the hospital, Martin was taken to the Pines Rehab & Health Center in Lyndon-ville, where he spent the next six weeks.

Martin’s badly injured leg was the im-mediate problem when he arrived by ambu-lance at CVMC Hospital, but another health problem he had been experiencing with his prostate became obvious to the medical staff, and Martin was evaluated by urology. Bobby convinced him to have a second major sur-gery, which followed during the next few weeks. Martin is thankful to both his friend for encouraging him to have the surgery and to Dr. Armando Lopez, the urologist who performed the surgery.

Martin had been grappling with another serious problem, however, before he fell. He had been experiencing lapses of memory and confusion, symptoms of mild dementia. Cer-tain types of mild dementia are sometimes reversible when the underlying causes are addressed, but mild dementia can also be an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease. While Bobby was not optimistic about Martin’s prospects, echoing conventional thinking that dementia cannot be reversed, Martin’s neurologist, Dr. Deborah Black, advised him that no doctor would ever tell him that this condition was irreversible.

Martin was determined to see if he could slow or reverse his dementia by using the tools in his tool bag: yoga and herbs. In addi-tion to his longtime postretirement career as a Kripalu yoga teacher, Martin is well versed in herbs and vitamins and has studied with renowned local herbalist Rosemary Gladstar. One evening on the television, he heard an infomercial about a primarily herbal supple-ment for memory loss and asked Black about it. While she was unfamiliar with it, she encouraged him to try it, in addition to the Arocet prescribed for his dementia, because the herbal ingredients were not dangerous.

Martin also practiced a yoga position, which had been easy for him but now made him dizzy, until he was able to do the pose without dizziness. Martin believes that he has made gains with this combination of Arocet, vitamins, herbs and yoga, and he continues to practice yoga, each day, doing what he is able. His goal is to be able to teach yoga again. Martin is an example of someone pro-active in his own care, working together with physicians who are willing to honor that and partner with him in his treatment.

What did Martin learn from all this and what does he want to share with readers? First, he wants people to know that he re-ceived excellent care from the emergency ambulance staff to the doctors, hospitals and rehab facility. In addition to showing pro-fessionalism, they showed great kindness. Martin gives even the “bad” providers a 90 percent rating, while he rates the good ones with a whopping 98 percent.

Second, Martin urges people to develop a good relationship with their medical provid-ers and read everything they can about their own conditions so they can be informed partners in their own care. Martin related how his own primary care provider, Dr. Kristopher Jensen, has always been open to a positive collaboration. Next, Martin wishes he had known more about services available in our area. The Vermont Council on Aging in Barre is a fountain of knowledge about re-

sources for elders and would most likley have directed him to Central Vermont Home, Health & Hospice, which has a vast array of services for elders. A call to one of those agen-cies might eliminate the need to hire a private caretaker and thus save money.

Lastly, Martin would caution against lis-tening to the naysayers, those who are pes-simistic about one’s medical condition. Some conditions believed to be irreversible may indeed be reversible and trying alternatives may work for you. Mild dementia is not an automatic sentence of Alzheimer’s.

An Interview with Martin PincusMedicine at Its Best and Proactive Self-Care

St. Augustine Church16 Barre StreetMontpelier223-5285

Saturday, March 30: Vigil Mass at 7pm

Sunday, March 31: 8:30am and 10:30am

St. Monica Church79 Summer StreetBarre479-3253

Saturday, March 30: Vigil Mass at 7pm

Sunday, March 31: 7:45am, 9:30am, and 11:15am

I will give you a joy which no one will take from you.—John 16:22

Come and receive that joy this Easter

Passover SederBeth Jacob Synagogue, 10 Harrison Ave., MontpelierSecond night of PassoverTuesday, March 26, 2013 | 6–9 p.m.

Rabbi Shana Margolin will lead the seder. Join in retelling the story of the Exodus with singing and traditional foods.

Cost: $18/adult, $9/child under age 12 | Advance reservation required: bethjacobvt.org

Easter & Passover Services

Tell them you saw it in The Bridge!

Martin Pincus. Photo by Joyce Kahn.

What Dr. Bean Did

In a recent phone conversation with The Bridge, Dr. Christian Bean of

Green Mountain Orthopedic Surgery talked briefly about helping Martin Pin-cus. When Pincus was admitted, one of the first things Bean did was “to get him comfortable and put him in a long cast” to keep the leg up so that the swelling could go down. In the operating room, Bean inserted an 18-inch rod from Mar-tin’s knee to his ankle.

According to Bean, who performs 500 to 600 separate surgeries each year, Mar-tin was ready to leave the hospital for rehab after three days. Complimenting him, Bean said, “He’s a trooper and worked at it [rehab] and did well.”

Bean came to central Vermont in 1995 where he opened Green Mountain Orthopedic Surgery: “The area has been good to me, and I like it here.”

Addendum: After writing the above about Bean, I shared it with Martin Pincus and he added: “Martin has read what Dr. Bean wrote and approves of everything he said. If I ever needed an orthopedic doctor again, I would run, if I could, to Dr. Bean.”

—Nat Frothingham

137 Main Street, Montpelier • 229-9158 • trinitymethodistvt.orgAll are welcome to come experience the drama and power of the Easter season.

Holy Thursday, March 28, 7 pmCommunion & Prayer Stations for all ages

Good Friday, March 29, 7 pmSilence & Prayerful Reflection

Easter Sunday Breakfast, March 31, 8:30–9:30All are welcome. Free & open to all. Donations accepted.

Easter Sunday Service, March 31, 10 amCelebration of new life — Christ is Risen!

Trinity United Methodist Church


Faculty Recital Unitarian Church, Montpelier Saturday, March 23, 2013 | 6:00 p.m.

Faculty members Ron Thompson, Raymond Karl Malone, Mike Close, Erick Kroncke, Mary Jane Austin, and Eliza Thomas will perform a va-riety of music including works by Beethoven, Satie, Bach, Tchaikovsky, and more. Free.

PoemCity 2013: Off the Page and into the Streetby Max Shenk

April is National Poetry Month, and for the fourth year in a row, Montpelier will be celebrating all month long

with a series of events that designates the capital as PoemCity.

PoemCity, cosponsored by Montpelier Alive and the Kellogg-Hubbard Library, brings poetry off the printed page and puts it in front of people through a monthlong series of events and downtown displays.

One of the most visible elements of Poem-City is the poems that downtown stores display in their windows. “The participation keeps increasing every year,” said Montpelier Alive executive director Phayvanh Luekham-han, “so some day we’ll be running out of storefront windows!”

This year, according to Luekhamhan, “we had about 200 poets from throughout Vermont submit their work.” That number, notes Luekhamhan, “doesn’t include student work,” which came in from Norwich Univer-sity and from numerous public and private schools in the area. Participants in Write Monday also submitted poetry.

The student work is exciting, says Lu-ekhamhan, “because it not only brings poetry into the schools, but then takes it out of the schools and puts it back into the city.”

The events on the calendar range from poetry readings and performances to work-shops and discussions involving every facet of poetry writing, reading and publication.

“Last year, we had an event a day, which was pretty ambitious,” Luekhamhan said. “We don’t have an event a day this year, but there are still a lot of events planned for the whole month.”

PoemCity officially kicks off on Monday, April 1, with a 7 p.m. reading at the State House by Cabot poet Ellen Bryant Voigt. A reception will follow in the Cedar Creek Room of the State House.

For poets who want to read their own work, at least three events are scheduled. Bear Pond Books presents a poetry open mic night on Tuesday, April 2. The event is open to the public but is one of the most popular events of PoemCity, so poets need to sign up in advance. That same week, on Friday at 7 p.m., poet Geof Hewitt hosts an all-ages poetry slam in the Hayes Room at Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Each

slammer gets to perform three poems up to three minutes in length. Prizes will be awarded. Finally, a brown bag lunch on Friday, April 12, at Kellogg-Hubbard gives readers a chance to share their favorite poems by other poets.

In addition, the Summit School is presenting a Summit Songs program on April 20 at Kel-logg-Hubbard. Students will present a showcase of poems set to music. If you have a poem you’d like to have set to music, contact the Summit School ([email protected]).

For those who are interested in getting their work published, there are two April 27 workshops on poetry chapbook publishing: Reading and Writing the Slender Book, at 10 a.m. at the Vermont Historical Society, will give an overview of chapbooks from assembly to publication, and a Chapbook Publishing Roundtable will be presented at Kellogg-Hubbard at 2 p.m. Then on April 28, April Ossman will present a workshop entitled Think Like a Poetry Editor: How to Be Your Own Best Critic. Participation space in all these workshops is limited, and advance registration is suggested.

Several discussion groups are scheduled during the month, including an April 10

discussion of five poems by Robert Frost, led by Peter Gilbert at the Vermont Humanities Council, and an April 4 program in College Hall at Vermont College, entitled Poems to Bear the Unbearable. Led by VCFA alumni Mary Fillmore, this discussion will examine the healing ways in which poetry can help people to bear trauma: “not necessarily to change or resolve anything, but to put it into words and explore its deeper resonance.”

Finally, PoemCity presents numerous free readings by a range of Vermont poets, includ-ing Stephen Cramer, Pamela Harrison, Cleopa-tra Mathis, Neil Shepard, Tony Magistrale, George Lisi and Kate Fetherston. There will also be a group reading by writers at the Mont-pelier Senior Activity Center and a reading of work by faculty poets from Goddard College.

“The schedule is still being finalized,” said Luekhamhan, “so there will probably be many more events and activities in addition to these.”

PoemCity has a blog site, which will be updated throughout the month with detailed event information, as well as poems from contributing writers. Go to poemcityvt.wordpress.com.

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SUGAR ON SNOW Every Friday, Saturday & Sun-day in March, noon –4 p.m.

Maple Open House Weekend, March 23–24• Annual pancake breakfast

Saturday, March 23, 8–11 a.m. Served with maple syrup, maple sausage, coff ee & juice.

• Sap-boiled eggs and hot-dogs March 23 & 24, noon–3 p.m. Proceeds benefi t the Vermont Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ninth-generation sugarmaker Mary-Caitrin Morse—along with her dad, Tom, and grandpa, Burr—invites you to Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks!

200 Years of Maple Experience1168 County Road, Montpelier • morsefarm.com • 802-223-2740

9 am–5 pm, seven days a week

by Bob Nuner

Several years ago, Stone, Lost Nation Theater’s production about the Barre granite industry, acknowledged the ani-

mosity that greeted French Canadians who’d immigrated into the area. People who’ve lived here a while may well recall hearing old-time Vermonters use the word Frenchman derisively, or spin a narrative that involved a Frenchman as the butt of a joke. We also may recall ac-quaintances with Anglicized French names. (I think of a former coworker named Centerbear who said the name had been translated into English by the fam-ily’s priest, then noted the way we pronounce the names of DuBois Construction, Hebert and the truck dealership in Colchester, R.R. Charlebois.)

Against that background comes Abby Paige’s one-woman play Piecework: When We Were French, an expansive and engag-ing exploration of Franco-American culture, initially commissioned by Jay Craven and

Burlington City Arts for the 400th anni-versary of Samuel de Champlain’s arrival. The play is the result of “nearly a year dig-ging into books, listening to oral histories at the Vermont Folklife Center, speaking with members of her extended Franco-Vermont family, and meeting North Country com-munity leaders who keep in touch with their French Canadian roots,” according to Lost Nation Theater (LNT).

But Paige says the piece has also been a voyage of self-discov-ery. Paige’s Vermont French roots go back at least to the early 1800s, and her work on the theater piece profoundly recon-

nected her to her own family heritage. An ac-complished playwright (cowriter of The Voices Project theater musical and Shout It Out film script, produced and directed by Kingdom County Productions’ Bess O’Brien), essayist, scholar and poet (she’s just published a book of poems in Ottawa), Paige has created a wide-ranging, multicharacter portrait of life.

Area theater fans will remember Paige’s compelling performances in LNT’s 2010

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Preview

Piecework: When We Were FrenchAbby Paige’s Play Uncovers Treasure


WinterFest production of Piecework: When We Were French as well as her appearances in Judevine and Tartuffe. She also was a regular on Vermont Public Television’s Windy Acres series.

In a return engagement, she brings this Franco-American culture exploration back to LNT’s theater at city hall, assisted by the sponsorship of Alliance Français of the Lake Champlain Region. She’s also raised funds through the online Indiegogo site to enable filming of the piece by Jeff Farber for distribution in CD format. She’ll shoot and perform this multifaceted, multicharacter portrait for three days: March 28, 29 and 30 at 7:30 p.m., with an additional matinee performance at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 30. The show is a 70-minute, single-act celebration of French culture in the North Country, followed by a talk-back with the creator after each show.

Describing the show’s development, Paige has said, “Piecework: When We Were French began with a series of interviews, a dozen or so generous Franco-Americans sharing their stories and memories with me, and the life of the show on the road has continued to be collaborative. One of the greatest rewards of continuing to share the show with audiences has been the sense of community created in each performance. I expected a solo show to feel a bit lonely as I stepped onto the stage

all by myself, but again and again audiences have picked up where my original interview-ees left off, sharing their heartfelt responses and their own memories through postshow talk-backs, sidewalk chats and thoughtful e-mails. I have learned so much from these interactions, and they are, in fact, why I keep the word piecework in the show’s title.”

Indeed, in a Canadian interview primar-ily focused on her poetry (rhinopoetry.org/2011/08/05/inventing-a-hybrid-tongue-interview-with-abby-paige), Paige observed, “Probably like a lot of descendants of immi-grants to the U.S., I was raised with a certain sense of displacement, a sense that the ances-tral home is somewhere else. But that sense is different for Franco-Americans, especially in New England, because our ancestral home is so close. I’ve lived 40 minutes from the border for most of my life; it’s very close, and when you cross it, things look mostly the same. Also, in Vermont and other places in northern New England, there are towns that literally straddle the border, where the town is half in one country and half in the other, and those towns right now are driving Janet Napolitano and the Department of Home-land Security completely bananas, because they defy this fiction that they’re trying to impose that the two places are separate, when they’re not. They’re completely inter-twined. So, it’s both as a Vermonter and as a Franco-American that I feel this skepticism toward the border.”

In the same interview, Paige, reflecting on her writing, said, “Dichotomies are so seductive, and I’m always trying to see what gets lost when we give in to that seduction. You start to see that most dichotomies are

false. They’re conveniences, but convenience always has a price. In Quebec the dominant dichotomy is between francophones and an-glophones, and those two words are used in a way that obscures that there is enormous overlap between those two groups and also that there are lots of other languages float-ing around that people feel allegiance to. In the U.S., we talk about black and white as race categories as though those are discrete groups, which masks a much more complex ethnic landscape.”

Of Piecework, Paige observes, “The show gave me an amazing opportunity as an artist, and personally, it gave me the chance to look at some of the issues I was preoccupied with:

What [is] a Franco-American? Am I one? How are we different from the Quebecois? How are we the same? And why did it take me 30 years to notice this about myself? I had been wrestling with this stuff, but cre-atively I had been largely ignoring it.”

The show caught her off guard, she says, unexpectedly moving her deeply, just as it moves audience members. As a result, Paige, having been raised in Vermont and nur-tured by French American family roots that predate the industrial Revolution, brings a loving appreciation to the sustenance—and the travails—this community has provided to those who spring from it.

Abby Paige performing Piecework. Photo by Barbara Leslie; courtesy Kathleen Keenan.

Montpelier Senior Activity Center Healthy Aging & Lifelong Learning

TRAVEL WITH US TO ITALY! October 4–13, 2013: Rome, Florence, Venice. Info/slides: Thurs., Mar. 28, 6 p.m.

Did you know you only need to be 50+? Join now to access new SPRING CLASSES: Films of the ’60s with Rick W., book group, French and Span-ish Conversation, Life Mapping with Montpelier Chamber

Orchestra, Chess, Zumba and added Yoga and Living Strong!

Continuing classes: Clay, Jewelry, Painting, Rug-hooking, Facebook, French, iPhone, Italian, Spanish, Writing, Poetry, Tap Dance, Tai Chi, 10 Yoga options.

SUCCESSFUL LIFE CHANGES FOR SENIORS: A five-part speakers’ series on learning, us-

ing our brains, downsizing, work, and housing options. Free and open to the public, alternating Tuesdays, 6– 7:30 p.m., starting April 2.

58 Barre Street, Montpelier, montpelier-vt.org/msac, or 223-2518.

Piecework: When We Were FrenchAbby Paige’s Play Uncovers Treasure


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Upcoming EventsFRIDAY, MARCH 22Learn About Time Banking. Chloe Budnick of Onion River Exchange will be available to chat about local time-banking pro-grams, where members trade services and everyone’s time is valued equally. 9 a.m.–noon. Lobby, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street. 223-2518.SymphonyKids: Galactic Brass. The Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s Fanfare Brass Trio play a variety of musical styles for local kids and demonstrate how their instruments produce sound and how each one has changed since its beginnings. 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. Barre Town Elementary School; 1:15 p.m. Woodbury Elementary School. Eleanor, 800-876-9293, ext. 14, or [email protected] a Vision Board. With Marianne Mullen, life-em-powerment coach. Create a fun and creative tool to focus your intentions and maximize your motivation. 5:30–7:30 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop community room, Montpelier. $7 co-op mem-ber-owners, $10 nonmembers. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected]’ Gathering for the Hardwick Community Garden. Potluck and workshop overview. Beds available for the April 22 opening date. Contact 472-5362 or [email protected] for more information.

Night Sky Viewing Party. Get a close-up view of the moon, Jupiter and the remnants of a supernova in the Crab Nebula with the library’s telescope. 7 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library,135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-4665 or kellogghubbard.org.

SATURDAY, MARCH 23Lake Champlain Waterfowl Watch. Visit waterfowl hot-spots with other central Vermonters in search of migrating ducks and other water-loving birds. 7:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. $25 members, $30 nonmembers, free for teens. Call North Branch Nature Center to arrange carpooling: 229-6206.Catholic Daughters’ 23rd Annual Flea Market. An-tiques, jewelry, collectibles, crafts, white elephants and books, plus food concession and food fair. 9 a.m.–2 p.m. Central Vermont Catholic School, 79 Summer Street, Barre. $1 adults, free for children under 12. Patti, 249-7780.Tree Pruning Workshop. With John Snell, cochair of the Montpelier Tree Board. Learn the basics of tree pruning. All skill levels welcome. Bring questions and any basic tools you’d like to practice with. Dress for the weather. 10 a.m.–noon. Meet outside Hunger Mountain Coop, Montpelier. Free. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected] to the Land: A Facilitated Workshop on Suc-cession Planning. Learn about ways to keep family forests and farms in the family. 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Brown Public Library, Northfield. Free, but registration required: contact Lisa, 388-3880 or [email protected]. Cosponsored by the Northfield Conservation Com-mission and Vermont Coverts: Woodlands for Wildlife. River Rock School Mud Season Auction. Silent and called auction. Preview and silent auction 1 p.m.; called auction 1:30 p.m. Unitarian Church, 130 Main Street, Montpelier. List of auction items at riverrockschool.org or call 223-4700.Historic Women as Sleuths. A talk with Vermont writers Nancy Means Wright and Beth Kanell, who both write historical mysteries featuring resourceful women unlocking clues and figur-ing things out. 2 p.m. Joslin Memorial Library, 4391 Main Street, Waitsfield. 496-4205.Craftsbury Community Care Center Sugar on Snow Party. Randi Calderwood’s maple syrup drizzled over fresh snow, plus Chinese auction, baked goods and raffle. 2–4 p.m. Craftsbury Community Care Center, 1784 Craftsbury Road. 586-2414.Neighbors for Healthy Communities of Barre Town: Benefit Dinner and Silent Auction. 5–8 p.m. Old Labor Hall, Granite Street, Barre. RSVP with Lori or Marc, 479-1355 Guided Full Moon Snowshoe Dinner Tour. Dine at the Lareau Farm Inn and explore the Mad River Valley by moonlight. Meet at 5 p.m. at Clearwater Sports, Waitsfield. $95, includes guide, equipment and dinner. Register at 496-2708. clearwatersports.com. Event repeats Sunday, March 24.Monteverdi Music School Faculty Recital. Ron Thomp-son, Raymond Karl Malone, Mike Close, Erick Kroncke, Mary Jane Austin and Eliza Thomas perform works by Beethoven, Satie, Bach, Tchaikovsky and more. 6 p.m. Unitarian Church, 130 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 229-9000 or monteverdimusic.org.Voices Across the Valley. Local musicians—including Elisa-beth von Trapp, the Waitsfield Church choir and the Stay Tuned a cappella women’s barbershop quartet—perform to benefit the Community Meals Program. Refreshments follow. 7 p.m.; doors open at 6:30 p.m. Waitsfield United Church of Christ, Route 100, Waitsfield. $10 suggested donation. Traditional New England Dance. Will Mentor calls squares and contras to tunes by the Homegrown Chestnuts. No partner or experience necessary; all dances taught. Family friendly (recom-

mended for age 9 and up). Bring clean shoes and a snack to share. 8 p.m.; instruction/refresher 7:30 p.m. Capital City Grange, 6612 Route 12 (Northfield Street), Berlin. $4–$8. Merry, 225-8921.

SUNDAY, MARCH 24Energy Medicine Yoga with Lauren Walker. Learn how to maximize your yoga practice with an understanding of the body as energy. Boost vitality, immune function, flexibility and joy. 1–4 p.m. Geezum Crow Yoga, 37 Elm Street, Montpelier. $40. [email protected] Spring Plant Walk. With clinical herbalist Rebecca Dalgin. While new green most likely won’t be poking up yet, there are plenty of wild plants to see and learn about. Tea served after walk. 1–2:30 p.m. Meet outside the Wild Heart Wellness office, Goddard College, 123 Pitkin Road, Plainfield. $4–$10. 552-0727 or wildheartwellness.net.An Afternoon of Folk Dancing. With Israeli and folk-dance teacher Portia Arthur. Dances will be mainly Israeli with a touch of international. Beginner and family friendly. All dances taught; no partner needed. Dress comfortably and bring soft-soled shoes with clean tread. 3:30–5 p.m. Beth Jacob Synagogue, 10 Harrison Avenue, Montpelier. $5 adults, $2 for children age 10–15. Register at bethjacobvt.org. Emily, 279-7518 or [email protected] Full Moon Snowshoe Dinner Tour. See Saturday, March 23, for description and information.Live and Silent Auction. Fine arts and crafts, useful items for your home or car, services and recreation and entertainment opportunities. Cash bar available. Benefits Chandler’s Burn the Mortgage Campaign. 5–8 p.m. Chandler’s Upper Gallery, 71–73 Main Street, Randolph. $10; chili, bread and dessert included. Reser-vations at 728-6464.

MONDAY, MARCH 25Adult Book Group. March’s book is The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. Copies of the book available at the library. New mem-

TheaterA MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAMShakespeare in the Hills and Echo Valley Community Arts present a twist on Shakespeare’s most easily understood play by inverting ages in casting: teen actors play the older char-acters in positions of authority and middle-aged actors play the teenage lovers. Through March 24. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Haybarn Theatre, Goddard College, Plainfield. $15 adults, $12 seniors and students, $5 kids undee 12. Tickets at 229-4191.

PIECEWORK: WHEN WE WERE FRENCHIn an original show, comedian and actor Abby Paige sketches 10 unpredictable Franco-American characters in stories drawn from the immigrant experience of Vermonters. March 28–30. 7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Lost Nation Theater, 39 Main Street, Montpelier. $20 adults, $15 students/seniors, $10 children age 6–11. Infants and toddlers not admitted; children under 6 admitted at discretion of theater. Tickets at 229-0492 or lostnationtheater.org.

Live MusicBAGITOS28 Main Street, Montpelier. All shows 6–8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 229-9212 or bagitos.com.Every WednesdayBlues jam with the Usual Suspects and friendsEvery SaturdayIrish/Celtic session, 2–5 p.m.Friday, March 22Daniel ZuraSaturday, March 23The Summit of ThievesSunday, March 24Brunch with Eric Friedman, 11 a.m.-–1 p.m.

CHARLIE O’S70 Main Street, Montpelier. All shows 10 p.m. unless otherwsie noted. 223-6820. Every MondayTriviaEvery TuesdayKaraokeEvery SaturdayAll-request dance party with Blue MoonFriday, March 22Sails with Jake Machell (punk)

Wednesday, March 27Dan Zura and Pete Rahn (country/Townes Van Zandt tribute), 8 p.m.Thursday, March 28Ask, Tell comedy night platoon benefit, 8 p.m.Friday, March 29Cellular Chaos, Vicious Gifts (punk)

CIDER HOUSE RESTAURANTRoute 2, Waterbury. 244-8400.Saturdays through March 30Dan Boomhower (jazz piano/popular standards), 6 p.m.–close

FRESH TRACKS FARM 4373 Route 12, Berlin. 223-1151 or [email protected], March 22D. Davis (instrumental), 6–9 p.m.

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

POSITIVE PIE 222 State Street, Montpelier. 229-0453 or positivepie.com.Friday, March 22Barika (African/psychedelic/funk), 10:30 p.m.

RED HEN BAKERY & CAFÉRoute 2, Middlesex. redhenbaking.com.Saturday, March 23Dan Liptak and Greg Evans, 1–3 p.m.Saturday, March 30Bob and the Troubadours, 1–3 p.m.

SKINNY PANCAKE89 Main Street, Montpelier. All shows 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 262-2253 or skinnypancake.com.Every SundayOld-time sessions with Katie Trautz and friends, 4–6 p.m. (intermediate to advanced players welcome to sit in)Sunday, March 24Foghorn Stringband (old-time)Sunday, March 3190 Mile Portage (Americana)

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, March 22Big Hat No Cattle (Texas swing), 7–9:30 p.m.Saturday, March 23The Usual Suspects, 7–9:30 p.m.

see UPCOMING EVENTS, page 18

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bers welcome. 7–8 p.m. Jaquith Public Library, Old Schoolhouse Common, Marshfield. 426-3581 or [email protected]. Event happens every fourth Monday.

TUESDAY, MARCH 26ServSafe Class and Certification. Hardwick. $130, includes instruction, book and exam. Class size limited to 8. Contact 472-5362 or [email protected] for more information.Vermont Women in Journalism. A discussion on the progress and challenges of women journalists in Vermont with historian Marilyn Blackwell, Rickey Gard Diamond of Vermont Woman, Kristin Carlson of WCAX, Anne Galloway of VTDigger.org, Terri Hallenbeck of the Burlington Free Press and Nina Keck of Vermont Public Radio. Bring lunch; beverages and dessert pro-vided. Noon–1:30 p.m. Snelling Room, Vermont History Museum, 109 State Street, Montpelier. Free. Amanda, 828-2180 or [email protected]. Cosponsored by the Vermont Historical Society and the Vermont Commission on Women.Medicare and You. New to Medicare? Have questions? We have answers. 3–4:30 p.m. Central Vermont Council on Aging, 59 North Main Street, Suite 200, Barre. Free. Register at 479-0531. Event happens every second and fourth Tuesday.Vermont Women’s Business Center Business Wisdom Circle. Theme: Everything Financial. A lightly structured network-ing and mentoring opportunity for women in business or aspiring to be in business to learn and share with each other. 4–6 p.m. Quarry Grill and Tavern, 210 North Main Street, Barre. $10, includes refresh-ments. Register at 479-9813 or [email protected]. vwbc.org.Improving Your Lipid Profile: Cholesterol and the Role of Nutrition. With Akshata Nayak. Learn about choles-terol and how modifications in diet and exercise routines can help maintain the intended balance between different types of cholester-ol, resulting in a healthier lifestyle. 5:30–7 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop community room, Montpelier. Free, Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected] Tuesdays. Get help with any computer or Internet ques-tions, or learn about the library’s new circulation software and how to use ListenUp to download audiobooks and more. Bring your iPod, tablet, phone, laptop or other device. 5:30–7 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-3338 or kellogghubbard.org. Event happens every second and fourth Tuesday; additional help every Wednesday: see Weekly Events for more.Business Building Blocks: Right on the Money. Learn about cash flow projections and financial statements. 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]. Series continues every Wednesday through April 10.Author Reading and Signing: Guido Mase. The clinical herbalist and cofounder of the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism presents his new book, The Wild Medicine Solution, blending traditional herbal medicine with history, mythology, clinical practice and recent findings in physiology and biochem-istry. 7 p.m. Bear Pond Books, 77 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 229-0774.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27Preschool Discovery Program: Nature’s Shapes. Na-ture-based activities, crafts and guided outdoor explorations with nature center naturalists for children age 3–5 and their families. 10–11:30 a.m. North Branch Nature Center, 713 Elm Street, Mont-pelier. $5 members, $8 nonmembers. 229-6206.Complimentary Nutrition Evaluation. With Alicia Feltus. Learn how Nutrition Response Testing can detect food sensitivi-ties, immune challenges and chemical and metal toxicity that may be interfering with optimal nutrition and health. 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Tulsi Tea Room, 34 Elm Street (upstairs), Montpelier. Free. Cedar Wood Natural Health Center, 863-5828.Lunch & Learn: An Introduction to 19th-Century Nor-wich Artists. Norwich alumnus Robert Guptill introduces the work of several early Norwich alumni, including William Brenton Boggs and Truman Seymour. Light lunch served. Noon–1 p.m. Sullivan Museum & History Center, Norwich University, Northfield. Free. 485-2183 or norwich.edu/museum.Learn About Time Banking. See Friday, March 22, for description; note change in time. Noon–3 p.m. Lobby, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street. 223-2518.An Introduction to HeartMath. With Sherry Rhynard, health and stress management coach. Find out how emotional nutrition for your heart can help you feel better and live the life you want. 6–7:30 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop community room, Montpelier. $5 co-op member-owners, $7 nonmembers. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected] Together. Presentation by urologist Dr. Richard Graham and gynecologist Dr. Ellamarie Russo-DeMara for couples on

changing sexual health. Refreshments provided. 6–7:30 p.m. Conference center, Gifford Medical Center, 44 South Main Street, Randolph. Free. Register at 728-2284.Public Forum on the Decriminalization of Marijuana. Speakers offer pros and cons, followed by a Q&A with the audi-ence. 6 p.m. Milne Room, Aldrich Public Library, Barre. Free. Mari-anne, 476-4185. Sponsored by the Greater Barre Democrats.Film Discussion Series: Bride of the Wind. A biopic of Alma Mahler, the wife of composer Gustav Mahler (as well as Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel) and the mistress of Oskar Ko-koschka. Discussion with library director Richard Bidnick follows. 7 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library,135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-3338 or kellogghubbard.org.Workshop on Solar Net Metering for Single or Group Systems. Learn about different financing models and meet other people interested in group net metering. 7 p.m. Jaquith Public Library, 122 School Street, Marshfield. Free; preregister at 426-3100. Cosponsored by the library and the Marshfield Energy Committee.

THURSDAY, MARCH 28Informational Talk: Travel to Italy. Learn more about the senior center’s trip with Globus Tours in October, touring Rome, Pisa, Florence, Verona, Venice Island and Ferrara. Italian language classes available at the senior center this spring. 6–7 p.m. Montpe-lier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street. Free. 223-2518.Bunny Thursday and Stamp Money Out of Politics Stampede. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerry’s, judge a bunny costume contest and mark cash with “not to be used for bribing politicians” stamps. Full costume participation encouraged; attendees must be wearing at least a pair of bunny ears to get in. 6 p.m.–midnight. Nutty Steph’s, Route 2, Middlesex. nuttystephs.com.Musica Borealis: Mouthharp and the North. In Siberia, the portable instrument has attained very high status, as seen in this film about award-winning musicians Klavdiia and German Khatylaev. 7–8:30 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-3338 or kellogghubbard.org. Presented in col-laboration with the Center for Circumpolar Studies.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 second and fourth Thursday.Green Mountain Dog Club Monthly Meeting. Learn about the club and events. All dog lovers welcome. 7:30 p.m. Commodore’s Inn, Stowe. 479-9843 or greenmountaindogclub.org. Event happens every fourth Thursday.

FRIDAY, MARCH 29Christian Science Lecture: Prayer That Works. Norm Bleichman talks about how prayer can be a potent and effective means of meeting daily challenges. 7 p.m. College Hall, Vermont College of Fine Arts, 36 College Street, Montpelier. Free. 479-1236, 223-2477 or prayerthatworksvt.com.

SATURDAY, MARCH 30Walk with the Montpelier Section of the Green Moun-tain Club. Easy, historic road walk in Maple Corners with birds and flowers. About 5 miles. Contact leader Nona Estrin, 223-7745 or [email protected], for meeting time and place.

UPCOMING EVENTS, from page 17

Support GroupsBEREAVEMENTBereavement/Grief Support Group. For anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one. Every other Monday, 6–8 p.m., through April 15. Every other Wednesday, 10–11:30 a.m., through April 10. Central Vermont Home Health & Hospice, 600 Granger Road, Barre. Ginny or Jean, 223-1878.Bereaved Parents Support Group. Facilitated by Central Vermont Home Health & Hospice (CVHHH). Second Wednesdays, 6–8 p.m. CVHHH, 600 Granger Road, Berlin. Jeneane Lunn, 793-2376.

CANCERKindred Connections. For anyone affected by cancer. Get help from Kindred Connections members who have been in your shoes. A pro-gram of the Vermont Cancer Survivor Network. Call Sherry, 479-3223, for more information. 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 anyone affected by cancer. Third Tuesdays, noon– 1 p.m. Cancer Center resource room, Central Vermont Medical Center. 225-5449.

Cancer Support Group. First Wednesdays, 6 p.m. Potluck. For location, call Carole Mac-Intyre, 229-5931.Man-to-Man Prostate Cancer Support 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 Re-covery Workers. Get peer support 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 Children’s Children. First Wednesdays, 10 a.m.–noon, Barre Presbyterian Church, Summer Street. Second Tuesdays, 6–8 p.m., Wesley Method-ist 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 Family Support Group. Support group for families and friends of indi-viduals living with mental illness. Fourth Mon-days, 7 p.m. Central Vermont Medical Center, room 3, Berlin. 800-639-6480 or namivt.org.Celiac and Food Allergy Support Group. With Lisa Masé of Harmonized Cook-ery. Second Wednesdays, 4:30–6 p.m. Confer-ence 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 pro-gram for physically, emotionally and spiritually overcoming overeating. Fridays, noon–1 p.m. Bethany Church, 115 Main Street, Montpelier. 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, Mont-pelier. 229-0093.Families of Color. Open to all. Play, eat and discuss issues of adoption, race and multicultur-alism. Bring snacks and games to share; dress for the weather. Third Sundays, 3–5 p.m. Unitar-ian Church, 130 Main Street, Montpelier. Alyson, 439-6096 or [email protected].

Detail of an illustration by William Brenton Boggs, one subject of a talk on 19th-century Norwich University

artists on Wednesday, March 27.

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Easter Egg Hunt. For children 12 and younger. Arrive at 9:45 a.m.; hunt starts at 10 a.m. Hubbard Park, Montpelier. Free. Mont-pelier Recreation Department, 225-8699.Leaks, Lies and Lawyers: Statewide Parade and Rally. Central Vermonters travel to Brattleboro to join with other anti-nuke activists and mark one year of illegal operation by Vermont Yankee. Parade (begins at Harris Place parking lot) 3:30 p.m.; 4:30 p.m. rally at the Latchis Theatre, 50 Main Street, Brattleboro. To carpool with other central Vermonters, call 476-3154. safeandgreen campaign.org.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.Debo Band with Underscore Orkestra. An 11-member group led by Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen and fronted by charismatic vocalist Bruck Tesfaye. 8 p.m.; doors open at 7 p.m. Haybarn Theatre, Goddard College, 123 Pitkin Road, Plainfield. $15 in advance, $20 day of show. Tickets at Buch Spieler in Montpelier or goddard.edu.

SUNDAY, MARCH 31Easter Morning Breakfast. 8:30–9:30 a.m. Trinity United Methodist Church, 137 Main Street, Montpelier. Free; donations welcome.

MONDAY, APRIL 1Parents’ 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.PoemCity Kickoff with Ellen Bryan Voigt. 7 p.m. House chambers, State House, Montpelier. 223-3338 or poem-city.org.

TUESDAY, APRIL 2Flower Essences for Joy. With Fearn Lickfield, certified flower essence practitioner. What prevents you from claiming your innate happiness and pleasure? Explore your unique ob-stacles and begin the process of transforming them with guided meditation and the power of flowers. 6–8 p.m. Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, 252 Main Street, Montpelier. $15 VCIH members, $17 nonmembers. Preregistration required: 244-7100 or [email protected]. vtherbcenter.org.Women’s Circle. Women and mothers discuss all things related to the childbearing years. Women only, please; children are wel-come. 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.Wildlife Tracking. With John Jose, environmental educator. Learn to decipher the rich narratives written by late-winter-

active animals in a hands-on workshop, using plaster casts of animal tracks and sand-filled trays. 6:30–7:30 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop community room, Montpelier. $10 co-op mem-ber-owners, $12 nonmembers. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected] Through Aging. With panelists Pam Chisolm of Community College of Vermont, Carol Milowitz of the Kellogg-Hubbard Library and Cathi Cody-Hudson of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Reception precedes program. 6:30–7:30 p.m.; reception 5;30 p.m. Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street. Free. 223-2518.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3Complimentary Nutrition Evaluation. See Wednesday, March 27, for description and information.When We Were French: Portraits of Franco-American Vermonters. Presented by writer and actor Abby Paige. 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. 223-1736 or [email protected]. Series continues every Wednesday through May 8.Enjoy the Wonders of Fungi. With Eric Swanson of Vermush. See Swanson’s recent pictures and projects and learn how to culture and grow mycelium into fungi. Everyone will

bring home their own oyster mushroom spawn. 5–7 p.m. Hunger Mountain Coop community room, Montpelier. $10 co-op mem-ber-owners, $12 nonmembers. Register at 223-8000, ext. 202, or [email protected] Building Blocks: Pricing for Profit. Learn what to charge for your product or service. See Wednesday, April 27, for description and information.First Wednesdays: Recognizing Vermont’s Built Trea-sures. Middlebury College professor Glenn Andres considers what makes Vermont’s historic buildings so significant. 7 p.m. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-3338 or kellogghubbard.org. A Vermont Humanities Council Program.

THURSDAY, APRIL 4Grief: The Price We Pay for Love. Community mem-bers and hospital chaplains share their experiences with grief and loss. 5–6:30 p.m. Conference center, Gifford Medical Center, 44 South Main Street, Randolph. Free. 728-7100, ext. 7.Northumbrian Ranters. Ensemble of 37 young musicians playing traditional music from England, Ireland, Scotland, Nor-way and Spain. 7:30 p.m. Chandler Music Hall, 71–73 Main Street, Randolph. By donation.

Art & ExhibitsBIGTOWN GALLERYSmall Great Art Wall, works by BigTown Gallery artists. 99 North Main Street, Rochester. Through March 30. Hours: Wednesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday, noon–5 p.m. 767-9670, [email protected] or bigtown gallery.com.

BLINKING LIGHT GALLERYNew Work: Landscapes and Heads, paint-ings by Janet Wormser. 16 Main Street, Plainfield. April 4–May 2. Reception Sun-day, April 7, 3–5 p.m. Hours: Thursdays, 2–6 p.m.; Friday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. blinkinglightgallery.com.

CHESHIRE CATJewelry by Sylvia Gaboriault, blending metal, lava, agate and beads. 28 Elm Street, Montpelier. April 1–30. Reception Friday, April 5, 4–8 p.m. 223-1981 or cheshirecatclothing.com.

CITY CENTERPhotos and watercolors by sisters Cherie Staples and Marilyn Wingersky. 89 Main Street, Montpelier. Through April 6. artresourceassociation.com.

CONTEMPORARY DANCE & FITNESS STUDIOSeasons of the Year, color- and light-themed acrylic paintings on board by Barbara Leber, followed by Captured Mind Wanderings, photography by Montpelier High School students Zivah Solomon and Nathan Burton. 18 Langdon Street (third floor), Montpelier. Seasons through March 30; Wanderings March 31–May 30. 229-4676 or cdandfs.com.

GODDARD ART GALLERYThe Nature of Things, installation by seven artists: Thea Alvin, Khara Ledonne, For-rest White, Robyn Alvin, Gowri Savoor and Bruce Hathaway. 54 Main Street, Montpelier. April 5–May 11. 322-1685 or goddard.edu.

GOVERNOR’S GALLERYEye of the Beholder, pastels by local art-ists Anne Unangst, Cindy Griffith and Marcia Hill comparing the same scene in their different styles. 109 State Street (fifth floor), Montpelier. Photo ID required for admission. Through March. 828-0749.

GREEN BEAN ART GALLERYLiberata, digital photography by Sanam Erfani mixed with cardboard, ink and pen. Capitol Grounds, 27 State Street, Montpelier. Through March. [email protected].

KELLOGG-HUBBARD LIBRARYAnimals Are Figures, Too, mixed media by Wendy Hackett-Morgan. 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Through April 26. 223-3338.

MONTPELIER SENIOR ACTIVITY CENTERStill Learning to See, photographs by Montpelier resident and senior center member John Snell. 58 Barre Street, Mont-pelier. Through April. Hours: Monday–Fri-day, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. 223-2518.

OLD MEETING HOUSE GALLERYStencil art by Martha Kinney. 1620 Cen-ter Road, East Montpelier. Through April 4. Hours: Tuesday–Thursday, 9 a.m.– 2 p.m.; Sundays, 9–11:30 a.m.

RED HEN CAFÉEmployee art exhibit. Route 2, Middlesex. Through April 1. redhenbaking.com.

RIVER ARTS CENTER

Looking at Landscape, an exhibit of paint-ings and drawings by Peter Fried (above), plus new sumi-e paintings by Alex Angio. 74 Pleasant Street, Morrisville. March 28–May 13. Reception Thursday, March

28, 5–7 p.m. Hours: Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. 888-1261 or riverartsvt.org.

SHIFTING GEARS ART GALLERYGarden of My Heart, still-life photographs by Cynthia Frantz exploring the sacred feminine. Auto Craftsmen, 326 State Street (Route 2), Montpelier. Through March. Closing reception March 30, 2–6 p.m. Hours: Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–5;30 p.m. 793-7654 or cfrantzphotos.com.

STOREFRONT STUDIO GALLERYDrawings, paintings, sculpture and more by artist Glen Coburn Hutcheson. 6 Barre Street, Montpelier. Hours: Monday–Friday, 3–6 p.m. 839-5349 or gchfineart.com.

STUDIO PLACE ARTSMold Makers, group show of artwork made from and related to the mold-making process; 5 Years of Lo-fi, works by Norwich University students; and Hidden, paintings and sculpture by Theodore Ceraldi. 201 North Main Street, Barre. Through April 6. Closing reception Saturday, April 6, 2:30–4 p.m. 479-7069 or studioplacearts.com.

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

TULSI TEA ROOMShades of Pussy, delicate flowers in water-color by Fiona Sullivan. 34 Elm Street, Montpelier. Through March 31. fiona sullivan.net.

VERMONT HISTORY MUSEUMFreedom & Unity: One Ideal, Many Stories, experience a full-size Abenaki wigwam, a re-creation of the Catamount Tavern, a railroad station complete with working telegraph, a World War II living room and more. 109 State Street, Montpe-lier. $5 adults, $12 families. 828-2291.

VERMONT SUPREME COURT

Underwater, oil paintings by Strafford artist Micki Colbeck. Above, Underwater Trees. 111 State Street (first-floor lobby), Montpelier. Through April 30. Hours: Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. 828-0749.

Easter/Passover Services BETH JACOB SYNAGOGUE10 Harrison Avenue, Montpelier. 229-9429 or bethjacobvt.org.Passover Seder. Led by Rabbi Shana Margolin. Story of the Exodus with singing and traditional foods. Tuesday, March 26, 6–9 p.m. $18 adults, $9 children under 12: reservations required.

OLD MEETING HOUSE1620 Center Road, East Montpelier. 229-9593 or oldmeeting-house.org.Maundy Thursday Service. Tenebrae worship. Thursday, March 28, 7 p.m.Good Friday Service. Friday, March 29, 7 p.m.Easter Sunday Service. Intergenerational worship. Sunday, March 31, 9:30 a.m.

ST. AUGUSTINE CHURCH16 Barre Street, Montpelier. 223-5285.Vigil Mass. Saturday, March 30, 7 p.m.Easter Mass. Sunday, March 31, 8:30 and 10:30 a.m.

ST. MONICA CHURCH79 Summer Street, Barre. 479-3253.Vigil Mass. Saturday, March 30, 7 p.m.Easter Mass. Sunday, March 31, 7:45, 9:30 and 11:15 a.m.

TRINITY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH137 Main Street, Montpelier. 229-9158 or trinitymethodistvt.org.Holy Thursday Service. Communion and prayer stations for all ages. Thursday, March 28, 7 p.m.Good Friday Service. Silence and prayerful reflection. Fri-day, March 29, 7 p.m.Easter Sunday Service. Celebration of new life: Christ is risen. Breakfast precedes service. Sunday, March 31, 10 a.m.

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Afternoon Brilliance, by Nathan Burton, showing at the Contemporary Dance & Fitness Studio March 31–May 30.


Weekly EventsBICYCLINGOpen Shop Nights. Have a bike to donate or need help with a bike repair? Visit the volunteer-run community bike shop. Tuesdays, 6–8 p.m.; Wednesdays, 5–7 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.

COMPUTERS★ Tech Help at the Library. Get help with any computer or Internet questions, or learn about the library’s new circulation software and how to use ListenUp to download audiobooks and more. Bring your iPod, tablet, phone, laptop or other device. Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m., through mid-April. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-3338 or kellogghubbard.org. Additional help on second and fourth Tuesdays: see Upcoming Events.

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. Dance your heart awake. No experience necessary. Sundays, 6–8 p.m., Christ Church, State Street, Montpelier. 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]. ★ Ballroom Dance Class. With instructor Samir Elabd. For beginning to intermediate dancers. Tuesdays, April 2–30. Foxtrot 6–7 p.m.; Latin line dancing 7–8 p.m. $14 per class; walk-ins welcome. Register at 225-8699; information at 223-2921 or [email protected] Coast Swing Dancing. With Scott Chilstedt and Kristin Rothaupt of Green Moun-tain Westie. Thursdays, 7–9:30 p.m., through March 28. Studio room, Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street. Students: $8 drop-in, $25 four-week series; adults: $12 drop-in, $35 series. [email protected].

FOODFree Community Meals in Montpelier. 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.Lenten Fish Dinner. Baked fish, soup, salad, vegetable, potato, beverage, dessert; fish sticks and mac and cheese available. Weekly raffles of gift certificates to local businesses. Benefits Cen-tral Vermont Catholic School in Barre. Fridays, 5–6:30 p.m., through March 22. Parish hall, St. Augustine’s, 16 Barre Street, Montpelier. $10 adults, $6 students in eighth grade and younger, $29 family of four; free for kids 3 and younger. 793-4276 or [email protected].

GAMES Apollo Duplicate Bridge Club. All wel-come. Partners sometimes available. Fridays, 6:45 p.m. Bethany Church, 115 Main Street, Montpelier. $3. 485-8990 or 223-3922.

HEALTHPowerful Tools for Caregivers. Learn tools to help reduce stress, communicate effectively, take care of yourself, reduce guilt, anger and depression, make tough decisions, set goals and problem-solve. Wednesdays, through April 24, 5–7 p.m. Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street, Montpelier. $20 suggested donation to help defray cost of The Caregiver Helpbook. Register with Jeanne, 476-2671. Presented by the Central Vermont Council on Aging.Free HIV Testing. Vermont CARES offers fast oral testing. Thursdays, 2–5 p.m. 58 East State Street, suite 3 (entrance at the back), Montpelier. 371-6222 or vtcares.org. Affordable Acupuncture. Full acupuncture sessions with Chris Hollis and Trish Mitchell. 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 montpelier communityacupuncture.com.

KIDSStory Time at the Waterbury Public Library. Mondays, babies and toddlers. Fridays, preschoolers. 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, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 223-4665.Story Hour at the Aldrich. For babies, tod-dlers and kindergarteners. Mondays and Tuesdays, 10:30 a.m., through mid-May. Aldrich Public Library, Washington Street, Barre. Adrianne, 476-7550.Story Time with Bill and His Critters. Story and craft. Wednesdays, 10 a.m., through April 17. Ainsworth Public Library, Main Street, Williamstown. 433-5887, [email protected] or ainsworthpubliclibrary.wordpress.com.Story Time and Playgroup. For children age 0–6. Story with Sylvia Smith, followed by play-time 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.Dads’ and Kids’ Playgroup. For children 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.Write On! For aspiring authors age 6–10. Drop in once or come for the whole series. Fri-days, 3:30–4 p.m., through March 29. Children’s library, Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. Linda, 223-4665.Cub Capers Story Time. Story and song for children age 3–5 and their families. Led by Car-rie Fitz. Saturdays, 10 a.m. Children’s room, Bear Pond Books, 77 Main Street, Montpelier. Free. 229-0774 or [email protected].

LANGUAGEEnglish Conversation Practice Group. For students learning English for the first time. Tuesdays, 4–5 p.m. Central Vermont Adult Basic Education, Montpelier Learning Center, 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. Thursdays, French. Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, 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] Fiddle Orchestra Rehears-als. Prepare for the orchestra’s 10th anniversary celebration. All ages and levels of string players welcome, as well as intermediate 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.Monteverdi Young Singers Chorus Rehearsal. New chorus members welcome. Wednesdays, 4–5 p.m. Montpelier. Call 229-9000 for location and more information. Friday Night Community Drum Circle. Open drumming hosted by the Unitarian Uni-versalists 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 possible with advance notice: 503-724-7301.

PARENTINGMamas’ 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.

RECYCLINGFree Food Scrap Collection. Compost your food waste along with your regular trash and recycling. Wednesdays, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturdays 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, engag-ing text study and discussion on Jewish spiritu-ality. Sundays, 4:45–6:15 p.m. Yearning for Learn-ing Center, Montpelier. Rabbi Tobie Weisman, 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. Instruc-tion 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. Free. 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.

TAXESTax Return Preparation Help for Se-niors. Volunteers from AARP assist with the preparation and filing of 2012 federal and Ver-mont income tax returns. Mondays and Fridays, 9 a.m.–3:15 p.m., through April 12. Montpelier Senior Activity Center, 58 Barre Street, Montpelier. Free. Call for a 45-minute appointment: 223-2518.

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.Homework Help for Teens. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 3–5 p.m. Aldrich Public Library, Washington Street, 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.★ LGBTQQ Youth Group. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning youth age 13–22 enjoy free pizza, soft drinks and con-versation. Facilitated by adult volunteers trained by Outright VT. Fridays, 6:30–8 p.m. Unitar-ian Church, 130 Mian Street, Montpelier. Free. outrightvt.org.

YOGAYoga with Lydia. Build strength and flexibility 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 karmi-connection.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. By donation. 223-5302 or yoga-mountaincenter.com.

★ indicates new or revised listing for this issue

Submit Your Event!Send your listing to Dana Dwinell-Yardley, calendar editor, at [email protected]. The deadline for our next issue, April 4, is Friday, March 29.

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 are also welcome for possible use.

Have a class series you’d like to advertise? Get it in the classifieds: call Carolyn, 223-5112, ext. 11, or Ivan, 223-5112, ext 12.


ClassesAIKIDOSPRING ELIXIRA fi ve-week beginning aikido course to cultivate energy, harmony, and well-being. Geared to the physical abilities of adult participants. Starts 6 p.m., Th ursday, April 4, at 1 Granite Street in Montpelier. $50. For more information, call Robert Lamprey, 757-3722, or visit aikidoof-montpelier.org.

DANCEARGENTINE TANGO FOR BEGINNERSCreative, passionate, playful! Learn Argentine tango at Contemporary Dance and Fitness Cen-ter, 18 Langdon Street, Montpelier. No partner or experience required. Sundays, 5–6 p.m. Ses-sion 1: March 3, 17, 24, April 7. Session 2: April 21, 28, May 5, 19. $48 per session. Preregistra-tion required at tangowise.com/community-classes or contact instructor Elizabeth Seyler: [email protected] or 658-5225.

TAI CHITAI CHI CHUAN IN MONTPELIERBeginners class. Cheng Man-ching simplifed

yang-style. Taught by Patrick Cavanaugh of the Long River Tai Chi Circle. Begins Tuesday, April 9. 7–8 p.m., Bethany United Church, 115 Main Street, Montpelier. For more information, contact Patrick, 490-6405 or [email protected]. Registration open through May 7.

LEADERSHIPTHE MIRROR OF NATURE: LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONS April 19–21. Th e natural world can teach us about ourselves as leaders, the qualities of leadership and the dynamics of organizations. Collaborative coaching and nature experiences help participants identify new possibilities for personal leadership and organizational situations encountered each day. 247-7377 or vermontwildernessrites.com.

WRITINGSPRING WRITING CLASSESIntroduction to Memoir, Crafting the Story Within: 10 Mondays, April 8–June 17, noon–2 p.m., $200. Guided Writers’ Group: fi ction, memoir, creative nonfi ction: 10 Fridays, April 5–June 7, 10 a.m.–noon, $200. Classes meet at Christ Church, 64 State Street, Montpelier. Maggie Th ompson, MFA, instructor. To register or for more information, call 454-4635.

ClassifiedsEMPLOYMENTSENIOR CENTER OFFICE ASSISTANTPart-time. Member services; management of phone, mail, offi ce supplies; data entry, reporting and fi ling. Qualifi cations: relevant experience, superior customer service, computer literacy, effi ciency, interest in working with diverse

populations. Apply by April 10 with resume, letter and contact info for three references to [email protected].

DRIVERS: CDL-BGreat pay, hometime. No forced dispatch. New singles, Plattsburgh, New York. Passport/en-hanced license required. truckmovers.com or 888-567-4861.

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

PERSONAL CARE PROVIDERReliable, 10-plus years experience as nurse’s aid/personal care provider. I have worked with a variety of clients, including Alzheimer’s. Among my responsibilities: providing transportation, accompanying clients to the doctor, assisting with daily personal chores, preparing meals and maintaining household. References on request. Ed Norstrand: [email protected] or cell 718-864-0073.

PRUNINGEarly-spring pruning of apple, crabapple, pear; selective pruning and thinning of deciduous stock, including lilac, burning bush, viburnum, most others. Andy Plante, 223-5409.

STUFF TO SELL?Wish you could have a yard sale, but it’s too cold to hold one outside? Call us at T&T Repeats Th rift 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 STORETuesdays, Th ursdays, 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].

TRAVELTRAVEL TO ITALY IN OCTOBER!$4,373, including air. Rome, Pisa, Florence, Verona, Venice Island and Ferrara. Italian language classes starting April. Info/brochures at Milne Travel or Montpelier Senior Center, 58 Barre Street, Montpelier. montpelier-vt.org/msac or 223-2518. Informational talk and slides on Th ursday, March 28, 6 p.m. at MSAC. Askabout September Montreal/Quebec trip, too.

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

Thinking Spring?Tires or maintenance, we have you covered.We work on more than just Fords, too!

Locally owned and operated by Ford specialistsWhy pay dealer prices when we can fi x it for less?

Monday–Friday, 8am–5pm102 Belknap Street, Northfield

The Center for Leadership SkillsBUSINESS & LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Lindel James coaching & consultingTaking You from Frustration to Enthusiasm

802 778 0626 [email protected]

DOT HELLINGATTORNEY AT LAW

CLIENTS: please make contact for referrals, file pickup, etc

(802) 223-1555 or [email protected]

29 East State Street, MontpelierThank you for 30 wonderful years

serving Central Vermont!

ANNOUNCEMENT: CLOSING APRIL 30, 2013


Spring Is Here

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

by William Fraser, city manager

This edition of The Bridge is published just as the calendar turns to spring. We Vermonters know that this date does not mean green grass and flowers just

yet, but it is a sign that we will soon be moving into new and different activities.

I’d like to thank the citizens for approving the city budget and bond items on Town Meeting Day. We will do our best to reward your support by providing excellent services and getting projects completed. We welcome Councilor Jessica Edgerly Walsh and thank Angela Timpone for her service to the community.

The biggest news related to projects is that work on the city’s portion of the district heat project is slated to begin on or around April 17 if the weather cooperates. We will be providing very regular information updates about work schedule, location, traffic disruption and related concerns. Additionally, the city has reached agreement with the state about their heat plant cost overruns and expect them to begin working at some point in April as well. We expect to be providing heat in October, although the wood-chip-burn-ing portion of the system may not be functional until late December or early January.

More good news related to the district heat project is that the Vermont Agency of Transportation has provided funding for the city to pave State Street from Main to Bailey after the heat pipe construction is completed. This street badly needs improvement, and we look forward to having it resurfaced this year.

City Council is also busy with their priorities. They will begin updating their annual goals at their meeting of March 27. The council is also addressing current priorities by creat-ing two new citizen committees to address both parking and pedestrian issues. Those committees will be appointed on April 10.

I am delighted to announce that Jessie Baker will begin her duties as assistant city manager on April 1. Jessie is a Waterbury Center native and has considerable experience in municipal government and performance measurement. Her skills and background offer a wonderful complement to the existing city staff. She will be deeply involved in many city projects, services and activities in a very short time.

One favorite Montpelier spring activity is spending time in our parks. The following is from Parks Director Geoff Beyer about some of the current issues and initiatives before the Parks Commission.

Montpelier Parks: Dogs and Volunteers

by Geoff Beyer, parks director

Over the last few months, the Parks Commission has begun examining policy relating to dogs in Hubbard

Park. Currently, dogs are allowed off leash in Hubbard Park if they are under control and follow the Canine Code of Conduct. In the North Branch River Park, dogs are required to be on a leash.

Over the last few years, Montpelier park staff has noticed an increase in complaints regarding incidents with dogs being walked in Hubbard Park. As a result, the Parks Com-mission decided to gather more information. A survey was drafted last spring and summer and made public last fall. Around 330 responses were submitted by mail or through a web-based survey site. Over 100 people made written public comments about this issue via the survey, by e-mail or at Parks Commission meetings. The comments ranged from “I walk my dogs two to three times a day at the park, and I have never witnessed a dog attacking or menacing a person.” to “I think dogs should be leashed in the park. Some dogs are well behaved and under control, but many are not.”

The majority of the comments were very thoughtful and reflected the love this community holds for the park. It is not surprising that different members of the community have different visions for the park. The Parks Commission welcomes continued public discussion about this issue as we analyze the many different suggestions that have been received.

While this issue certainly needs attention, I also don’t want the issue to become exaggerated or misconstrued. The majority of dog owners use the park thoughtfully and with great respect of others. Given the heavy use of Hubbard Park, however, a small percentage of inattention to off-leash dogs can create problems for others. One of the main goals of Montpelier’s parks is for people to enjoy the park in an atmosphere where they feel safe. Comments from people who feel nervous or threatened in the park are dishearten-ing. We need to maintain an environment where all feel safe and welcome.

Thankfully, the vast majority of people understand the issue and are responding gracefully, thoughtfully and help-fully. When this same issue arose about 12 years ago, people responded positively, and reports of incidents were greatly reduced. That potent community response greatly enhanced

everyone’s park experience. The Parks Commission recently decided to establish the

following citizen committees to address specific issues.• Dog Waste Committee.• Dog Policy and Communication Committee. This group

will review the Canine Code of Conduct and all written suggestions offered and propose changes to the code or park policies. One of the outcomes might be more signage.

Dog owners may also be creating their own group to engage in problem solving about positive actions. All of this effort will hopefully lead to community consensus that will help protect the type of park experience most residents appreciate. The Parks Commission prefers to address this issue through communication and cooperation rather than regulation and restriction. Safety for all, though, remains the primary goal, regardless of the method used.

As a reference, there is a Canine Code of Conduct cur-rently in place, which is posted in the park. It reads as fol-lows:

Canine Code of ConductThe Goal of the Code: Protect peaceful park experiences

for all park visitors.• Do not allow your dog to charge on others, or jump on

them, whether they are friendly or not.• Dogs must have their rabies vaccinations up to date. • Assume others do not want to interact with your dog (if

there is any doubt).• Scoop the poop (remove poop) from trails, meadows or

other traveled areas. (Understand that you will miss your dog’s “movement” at least occasionally, so help take care of others.)

Concerns have been expressed about this decision-making process, including wording and timing of the survey and the number of people proposed for citizen committees. I do not doubt that some things could have been done better to achieve fairness for both the dog-walking community and other park users. At this point in the process, however, it is essential that people understand the real problems and share in a willingness to protect everyone’s experience in the park.

The park has long maintained a “watching each other’s back” atmosphere. This has been exemplified from many dog walkers being thoughtful of others to people putting lost items in places where others can find them, picking up trash others have left, returning tools left by volunteers groups, and letting us know about hazards—plus countless volunteer hours spent working in the parks. The atmosphere of car-ing has made the park a great place. The commission and I remain ready to work with all community members who wish to build on that wonderful and positive atmosphere. Thanks again to all who have already contributed so much to that effort!

Volunteers for Peace in Our ParksEach year, for most of the last 17 years, the Montpelier

Parks Commission has hosted a Volunteers for Peace group, usually consisting of seven to 11 mostly college-age volun-teers for three weeks. These volunteers pay for their own transportation here; we provide room and board. They work for about 32 to 34 hours a week for three weeks and help build and restore numerous trails in our parks, including most of the trails in the North Branch River Park. They helped build the State House path and the Mill Pond Park and have done major work at the Peace Park. Clearly, our community is a better place as a result of their efforts.

In order to have these volunteers help in the park this summer, we need a place for them to stay for three weeks. Traditionally, they have stayed in a church and used the church’s kitchen to cook. There are space conflicts with each of the three churches that have helped in the past. If anyone is aware of a space that might be available where the group could stay and cook their own meals, please let me know.

Thanks! And happy trails!

* * *Thank you for reading this article and for your interest in

Montpelier city government. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 223-9502 with questions, com-ments or concerns. For parks issues, you can contact Geoff Beyer at [email protected] or 223-7335.

ALE

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by Jeremy Lesniak

One of the toughest issues for Win-dows users is upgrading. Windows 8 has brought lots of questions and

concerns for people. The prime question many ask is: Should I upgrade? Answering the question in a professional setting can be a little more cut and dry than at home. Here’s some advice for those home users wondering about a Windows 8 upgrade.

If your office is running Windows 8, you may want to use it at home. It’s different enough that having the same thing at home and work can make you more productive. Less time adjusting between home and work can translate into real productivity.

If your computer has a touch screen, be it an all-in-one desktop or laptop, you should get Windows 8. The new touch interface is a core component to the operating system, rather than an addition as in Windows 7. This improvement means touch is a much better experience now.

If you use programs that love RAM, and you run a computer that can handle it, Windows 8 can use more memory. Even the 64-bit release of Windows 7 maxes out at 16 GB of RAM. Windows 8 can use at least 128 GB, depending on version. Video editors and CAD workers would certainly benefit from this.

If you have a Windows Phone 8, Surface tablet or another computer with Windows 8, you might want to unify your experience. Similar to the work-home justification above, having a single log-in with synchronized data is great.

Most computers with current hardware

will see improved performance running Windows 8, especially with a solid-state drive (SSD). You probably fall into this category if your computer is less than two years old.

If none of these seem compelling to you, then you may just want to wait until you re-place your computer. For more information, please visit windows.microsoft.com

It’s All MarketingThe Internet can be a strange place, and

there are a lot of people that don’t fully un-derstand it. Social media has changed mar-keting dramatically, but not in the way most people think. The major change is that now all of us are marketing, all the time. Are you conducting yourself accordingly?

Most business owners know that every-thing they do with their business will affect public opinion. With social media, every-thing you post on Facebook markets you, the individual. Most of that online marketing isn’t going to affect you professionally, but it can. What if you’re looking for a new job and a prospective or current boss sees your questionable antics from last weekend?

In Vermont, nearly everyone is an acquain-tance. Forget six degrees of separation, most of Vermont is hovering around two or three. It’s because of this proximity that your on-line life can be so damaging. That political rant, for good or for bad, could greatly affect your next job application.

My advice is to operate your online life as if you were a business. Recognize that ev-erything you do will affect others’ opinions of you. Strive to build your personal “stock” with your friends, family and acquaintances. Be open, but recognize that there’s a limit to what people want to know. If I had to boil it down to one guideline, it would be this: Don’t post anything that you wouldn’t say to a stranger’s face while your grandmother is sitting in the chair next to him.

This advice can be applied to any website or community, online or off, professionally or personally. You never know when you’ll need to rely on your reputation, so it’s best to start building it now.

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 of 2003. He also serves as managing editor for aNewDomain.net. He resides in Moretown.

When Should You Upgrade to Windows 8?

Tech Check

I’m tired of my dark wood paneling. Is there any way I can paint it?Absolutely! I would recommend you scour the paneling with Brillo or SOS pads. Th is should clean it of any wax or old furniture polish that may have been applied to the surface. Be sure to rinse with fresh clean water and allow time for the surface to dry. Now you can prime. We recommend Californa Paint’s Grip Coat urethane modifi ed acrylic primer which can bond to just about any surface, including fi berglass, vinyl, and even glass. Once the primer has dried for four hours, it can be painted. You can now paint the paneling virtually any color you like. We suggest

using Super Scrub, Fresh Coat, or even zero-VOC Elements. Th ese products are available in matte, eggshell, satin, or semi-gloss fi nishes.

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

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Repairs • New floors and walls Crane work • Decorative concrete Consulting • ICF foundations

114 Three Mile Bridge Rd., Middlesex, VT • (802) 229-0480 [email protected] • gendronconcrete.com

SELLER BUYER ADDRESS DATE PRICE TYPEHudson, Constance Silverman, Alice & Samuel 179 North Street 8/17/12 245,000 Single Eight Summit Holding Corp. Bradley, Timo & Savard, Brigitte 8 Summit Street 8/20/12 262,000 Multi (2)Strauss, Camilla & LaPoint, Douglas Jarvis, Sarah R. 76 Terrace Street 8/20/12 299,000 Single Semprebon, Jean M. Robinson, Kevin & Ogrodnik, Kelly 3 Pleasant Street 8/22/12 245,200 SingleGoncharov, Paul Trust Meiklejohn Revocable Trust 212 Cityside Drive, Unit 53 8/24/12 190,000 CondoKeck, Eric & Beth Muller, Scott & Edisa 26 Woodrow Avenue 8/28/12 370,000 SingleGarcia, Manuel M. & Mary W. Liu, Zeng Hang & Zheng, Yan Fang 273 Berlin Street 8/29/12 178,000 SinglePartridge, Alison R. Grutchfield, Lee & Merrick H. 10 Hubbard Park Drive 8/30/12 305,000 SingleChandler, Don & Lamagna, Alison Lougee, Adam & Larrow, Claudia 17 George Street 9/4/12 185,000 Single Carruth, William & Carol M. Lamagna, Alison & Chandler, Don 17 Deerfield Drive 9/4/12 243,400 SingleBrooks, Karen & Forcier, Richard Butler, Caroline & Geoffrey 3 Winter Street, Unit 2 9/4/12 195,000 CondoLynch, James & Margaret H. Andreoletti, Brent C. & Jody H. 318 Westwood Drive 9/4/12 482,500 SingleDayton, Paul J. Kuskowski, Victoria M. & Taylor, Thomas F. 12 Hillside Avenue 9/14/12 220,000 SingleReardon, Christopher W. & Coleman, Elizabeth B. Herz, Jonathan A. & Herz Casagrande, Carolyn C. 5 West Street 9/14/12 470,000 Single Taylor, Thomas F. & Kuskowski, Victoria M. White, Christopher & Dorr, Heidi 184 Towne Hill Road 9/14/12 226,000 Single Smart, Christopher J. & Julie M. Strauss, Camilla S. 10 Liberty Street 9/17/12 343,300 Multi (4)Munno, Nancy S. Beard, Courtright T. 136 Murray Hill Dr., Unit 24 9/14/12 190,000 CondoStanley, R. Jeffrey Clifton, Caroline J. 23 Independence Green 9/21/12 159,900 CondoBrousseau, Peter L. & Claudia H. Clar Property Management LLC 1 First Avenue 10/3/12 245,000 Multi (4)Cooper, Maureen R. Marangelo, Paul 1 Pinewood Road 10/9/12 207,000 SingleBond, Lisa M. et al. Zahirovac, Aldin & Amela 1 Dunpatrick Circle 10/15/12 218,000 SingleGoss, Arthur J. Revocable Family Trust Evans, Christopher S. & Duff, Lori A. 3238 Elm Street 10/17/12 275,000 SingleHoskins, Wilburn C. & Edith M. Gendron, Lucas R. & Amy L. 4 Hillcrest Drive 10/19/12 317,500 SingleWalka, Dorothy A. Estate Robechek, Elizabeth W. 32 School Street, Unit 1 10/23/12 133,000 Condo

Real Estate Transactions


Please Join Us for Dinner!

A lot of things are now coming together as we plan for and organize what I hope will be at least a memorable and at best a delightful community dinner on Thursday evening, April

11 at 6 p.m. at the brand-new Montpelier Senior Activity Center at 58 Barre Street.Anyone in the Montpelier community is free to join us. Just show up. Or if you have a mo-

ment, phone us at 223-5112 and tell us you’re coming and how many people will be coming with you. You don’t have to phone us and say you’re coming. Just come. But phoning will help us keep track of numbers and how much food we need to lay on.

Already, and the list is growing, a great many people are pulling together to make this din-ner a great success. Joyce Kahn has played an indispensable organizing role in working with restaurants, food stores and the like to pull together a great dinner. Nancy Smith and her daughter, Lily, will be offering music—Nancy playing the guitar and singing and Lily singing with her. A handful of Bridge stalwarts will remember the early days when the paper was left in a garage and we worked out of our houses from cardboard boxes.

Believe me, we’ve seen everything, including having some pages of the paper printed upside down and having to drive the whole she-bang all the way back to our printer and wait ’til the paper got printed again. That’s just the leading edge of the fun we will be remembering.

At a given point, perhaps after dinner, we’ll ask you to help us figure out what’s right with the paper, wrong with it, missing from it, and how we can make it a whole lot better. And once we’ve got a grip on that, we’ll introduce our guest speaker, Paul Gillies, a Montpelier lawyer and writer who was for many years Vermont deputy secretary of state.

We are not asking people to bring food, but if some people want to bring food, we won’t turn them away. But this is a free dinner. There’s no admission. Anyone can join us. And we hope that everyone does join us.

Here’s our latest annual campaign update. Received in contributions to our annual campaign to date: $12,435. Our goal is $15,000, which means we need to raise $2,565 to complete this campaign. We have a return envelope with this issue of The Bridge. Please use that envelope to help us complete our campaign. But if the envelope has become separated from this copy of the paper, here are the essential details.

Please write a check made payable to “The Bridge” and mail that check to: The Bridge, P.O. Box 1143, Montpelier, VT 05601. Or stop by our office in person. We are located at the lower level of Schulmaier Hall on the campus of the Ver-mont College of Fine Arts. If you need more de-tailed instructions about how to find our office, please phone us at 223-5112.

And please join us for the community dinner on April 11.

LettersThe Trouble with Tasers

To the Editor:The research regarding Tasers, including

the manufacturer’s own publications, caution that this weapon not be used on “vulner-able populations,” unless no other means are available to control a grave danger. The many categories of vulnerable populations include: serious mental illness or cognitive disorders; pregnancy; medical problems including car-diac and pulmonary conditions, pacemakers, epileptic seizures and sickle cell; drug or alcohol intoxication; and severe agitation, as well as those who are deaf, hard of hearing or slight of build. Nor should they be shot at the chest. Yet, the research further shows that it is precisely at members of these vulnerable populations that Tasers are usually fired.

When the police seek to acquire this weapon, they reassure us with “Trust us, we’ll be well trained and very careful.” But after they use it against a vulnerable indi-vidual, they take cover with, “Oops, sorry, but how could we know?” This “oops” de-fense is what the attorney general and state police are presently using to explain the death last year of Macadam Mason, an unarmed Thetford man who died immediately after he was Tasered. Mason was a member of the vulnerable populations in not one but several ways: He was in the throes of a severe mental health crisis and was threatening suicide. He had a history of epileptic seizures and had experienced seizures just the day before he was shot. He was also thin and was shot in the chest. Law enforcement can’t have it both ways, and they lose the public trust in trying. To the extent we permit the police to carry this weapon, Tasers should only be deployed under the same standards as a firearm, which is to say, when there exists “an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.” That way, they will only be used when there is truly no other public safety choice. Under such a standard, Macadam Mason would be alive today.

Tasers are too dangerous a weapon for public relations’ games. State law and police policies should allow Taser deployment only when no less-lethal weapon will meet and prevent a grave danger. That restraint on the use of Tasers means they will only save lives, not unnecessarily take them.

—Jeffrey Dworkin, chairman of Montpelier City Council’s Committee on Tasers

Help a Neighbor: Donate to GMUW

To the Editor:At this time of year, I think we are all

looking forward to something other than winter—even mud season would be welcome. Spring is a time of new life when we all feel revitalized to move ahead with new projects.

This is also the time of year when Green Mountain United Way (GMUW) wraps up its annual fundraising campaign so it can continue to help people in our area become more financially stable, to provide them the knowledge they need to live healthier lives, to assist families with early learning opportuni-ties for their children and to maintain a com-mitment to your neighbors with basic needs.

The goal set last fall was $600,000, and as usual, people in our area have continued to be generous. But, that $600,000 has not yet been reached, and we need your help. As

of today, the amount donated and pledged is $418,774, leaving $181,226 yet to raised by the end of April.

Have you made your contribution yet? Remember that all donations stay local and address local needs. Help your neighbors and community by sending your check today to Green Mountain United Way, 963 Paine Turnpike N #2, Montpelier, VT 05602-9163, or visit gmunitedway.org, where you can do-nate online. Any questions can be directed to Executive Director Nancy Zorn at 229-9532. We look forward to hearing from you.

—Wendy Rea, branch president, Merchants Bank, Barre

Legislation Protects People with Disabilities

To the Editor:The Vermont Center for Independent Liv-

ing (VCIL) was excited when it learned the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA) has passed Congress. VCIL commends Vermont’s own Senator Leahy for cosponsoring this very important legislation.

According to statistics from the U.S. De-partment of Justice, people with disabili-ties among ages 12 to 15 experience violent victimization (including rape/sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault) at least twice that of persons without disabilities. In addi-tion, persons with disabilities are more likely to be attacked by persons well known to them or who were casual acquaintances of the vic-tim than persons without disabilities.

In addition to the updates in the reautho-rization around inclusiveness of the LGBTQ community, immigrants and Native Ameri-cans, money will be now be provided for accessible shelters and technical assistance to first responders and law enforcement and shelter staff for working with people with disabilities.

VCIL applauds the efforts of allies from the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services for their work advocating for VAWA’s expanded capabil-ity to protect people with disabilities from violence.

—Sarah Launderville, executive director, VCIL, Montpelier

Support End of Life Choice BillTo the Editor:I’ve already lived longer than anyone else in

my family—although that was certainly not the goal. It just happened. Nonetheless, I’ve always felt that the quality of one’s life was far more important than the quantity—which is why I support the End of Life Choice bill.

We’ve been quite successful at extending lives, although sometimes we have gone too far and ended up simply extending the pro-cess of dying. That really scares me. On that note, the decision of when and how to die gracefully (when that option exists) should absolutely belong to the individual—not the government, not the state, or anyone else.

I sincerely hope that our legislators will support this bill when it comes. It’s the best way. It’s the sensible way.

—Ann T. Stone, Montpelier

Editorial

see LETTERS, page 27

Five, Four, Three Days Left to Help Pitz Quattrone

Montpelier musician and the champion of didgeridoo is raising money on Kickstarter so that he can cut his own four-song CD with a budget of $4,500. Already, Pitz has 32

backers, has raised $2,275 and has five days to raise the needed $4,500. The window of light on this project shuts down on Tuesday morning, March 26, at 7:48 a.m. If he gains the sup-port he needs, the $4,500 will pay for recording, mixing, mastering, producing, duplicating, manufacturing and promoting. Here’s how Pitz describes his music: “Overall my music is fun, serious, cutting, bouncy, thought-provoking and nakedly honest.”

SELLER BUYER ADDRESS DATE PRICE TYPEHudson, Constance Silverman, Alice & Samuel 179 North Street 8/17/12 245,000 Single Eight Summit Holding Corp. Bradley, Timo & Savard, Brigitte 8 Summit Street 8/20/12 262,000 Multi (2)Strauss, Camilla & LaPoint, Douglas Jarvis, Sarah R. 76 Terrace Street 8/20/12 299,000 Single Semprebon, Jean M. Robinson, Kevin & Ogrodnik, Kelly 3 Pleasant Street 8/22/12 245,200 SingleGoncharov, Paul Trust Meiklejohn Revocable Trust 212 Cityside Drive, Unit 53 8/24/12 190,000 CondoKeck, Eric & Beth Muller, Scott & Edisa 26 Woodrow Avenue 8/28/12 370,000 SingleGarcia, Manuel M. & Mary W. Liu, Zeng Hang & Zheng, Yan Fang 273 Berlin Street 8/29/12 178,000 SinglePartridge, Alison R. Grutchfield, Lee & Merrick H. 10 Hubbard Park Drive 8/30/12 305,000 SingleChandler, Don & Lamagna, Alison Lougee, Adam & Larrow, Claudia 17 George Street 9/4/12 185,000 Single Carruth, William & Carol M. Lamagna, Alison & Chandler, Don 17 Deerfield Drive 9/4/12 243,400 SingleBrooks, Karen & Forcier, Richard Butler, Caroline & Geoffrey 3 Winter Street, Unit 2 9/4/12 195,000 CondoLynch, James & Margaret H. Andreoletti, Brent C. & Jody H. 318 Westwood Drive 9/4/12 482,500 SingleDayton, Paul J. Kuskowski, Victoria M. & Taylor, Thomas F. 12 Hillside Avenue 9/14/12 220,000 SingleReardon, Christopher W. & Coleman, Elizabeth B. Herz, Jonathan A. & Herz Casagrande, Carolyn C. 5 West Street 9/14/12 470,000 Single Taylor, Thomas F. & Kuskowski, Victoria M. White, Christopher & Dorr, Heidi 184 Towne Hill Road 9/14/12 226,000 Single Smart, Christopher J. & Julie M. Strauss, Camilla S. 10 Liberty Street 9/17/12 343,300 Multi (4)Munno, Nancy S. Beard, Courtright T. 136 Murray Hill Dr., Unit 24 9/14/12 190,000 CondoStanley, R. Jeffrey Clifton, Caroline J. 23 Independence Green 9/21/12 159,900 CondoBrousseau, Peter L. & Claudia H. Clar Property Management LLC 1 First Avenue 10/3/12 245,000 Multi (4)Cooper, Maureen R. Marangelo, Paul 1 Pinewood Road 10/9/12 207,000 SingleBond, Lisa M. et al. Zahirovac, Aldin & Amela 1 Dunpatrick Circle 10/15/12 218,000 SingleGoss, Arthur J. Revocable Family Trust Evans, Christopher S. & Duff, Lori A. 3238 Elm Street 10/17/12 275,000 SingleHoskins, Wilburn C. & Edith M. Gendron, Lucas R. & Amy L. 4 Hillcrest Drive 10/19/12 317,500 SingleWalka, Dorothy A. Estate Robechek, Elizabeth W. 32 School Street, Unit 1 10/23/12 133,000 Condo

Don’t Feed the Bears

According to the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, hungry bears are now emerg-ing from their winter dens and looking for food. “We highly recommend taking

down bird feeders and not feeding birds until December 1,” says a department advisory. “Bears often eat seeds in the wild, so a bird feeder chock-full of high-energy seed is a concentrated source of what a bear considers natural food.” For further information, phone Colonel David LeCours, chief game warden at Vermont Fish & Wildlife Depart-ment, at 583-7161.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Read something you want to respond to? We welcome your letters and opin-ion pieces. Letters must be 300 words or fewer; opinions, 600 words or fewer. Send your piece to [email protected].

Deadline for the April 4 issue is Monday, April 1, at 5 p.m.

Progress Report on Our Search for a Graphic Designer

The Bridge thanks everyone who has responded to our recent advertisement for a graphic designer. We have reviewed about a dozen applications, we have met with a number of

uniformly good candidates, and the interview process is continuing. At this point, we are no longer accepting additional applications for this position.

Here’s our latest annual campaign update. Received in contributions to our annual campaign to date: $12,435. Our goal is $15,000, which

ed to raise $2,565 to complete this campaign. We have a return envelope with this issue of The Bridge. Please use that envelope to help us complete our campaign. But if the envelope has become separated from this copy of the paper, here are the essential details.

Please write a check made payable to “The Bridge” and mail that check to: The Bridge, P.O. Box 1143, Montpelier, VT 05601. Or stop by our office in person. We are located at the lower level of Schulmaier Hall on the campus of the Ver-mont College of Fine Arts. If you need more de-tailed instructions about how to find our office, please phone

And please join us for the community dinner

ILLU

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by Morgan Brown

Macadam Mason, 39-years-old and a resident of Thetford, Vermont, was experiencing a mental health

crisis and had reached out for help by call-ing an area hospital on Wednesday, June 20, 2012. It has been reported that during the phone call, he expressed that he was suicidal and might possibly harm others as well. The hospital, in turn, called the Vermont State Police. It has also been reported that after the state police showed up at his residence, he was inside the house, and when they tried to talk with him, he would not respond.

After state police called family members to the scene, reportedly to learn more about Mason in an attempt to deescalate things, and they arrived, he fled the house and took off into the woods outside the house. It has been reported that family members told state police about Mason’s disabilities, including epilepsy, and that he had experienced a sei-zure the night before. It appears there was no mental health crisis response team called to the scene to potentially aid in deescalating the situation.

Reports have stated that Mason was gone for two hours or so in the woods and could not be located. Since state police had con-

cerns that Mason might have had access to firearms or other weapons, when Mason finally returned, the officers on the scene confronted him with their firearms drawn and aimed at him. It is reported he did not comply fully with their commands, includ-ing that he lie belly down on the ground; instead, he assumed a squatting position. After noticing that Mason was unarmed, one of the officers put down his firearm and took out his Taser.

Although there is a dispute about exactly what occurred next, apparently when Mason rose from a squatting position and was per-ceived to be approaching the officer with an

intent to harm, the officer then shot him in the chest area with his Taser. Mason was un-responsive shortly afterward despite several attempts at resuscitation. He was transported to the same hospital he had earlier called for help and was pronounced dead.

There is great concern among some within the cross-disability and advocacy commu-nities and others that a pattern of exces-sive force has been used against people with disabilities and other vulnerable populations by the Vermont State Police and local law enforcement agencies. Some believe that of-ficers resort too quickly to using Tasers and other so-called non- or less-lethal weapons on unarmed persons who do not pose any actual risk of danger. Therefore there is a great need, along with a growing sense of urgency, for independent public inquiries to be held—outside either state or local govern-ments—to investigate these matters and not wait for yet another needless and preventable death to occur.

For this reason, I created and signed onto an online petition that will be sent to both the Vermont Human Rights Commission (HRC) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Department of Justice (U.S. DOJ), District of Vermont. The petition calls on both the Vermont HRC and the U.S. DOJ “to each perform separate independent public inqui-ries of their own into the death of MacAdam (Lee) Mason of Thetford, Vermont as well as into whether there has been a pattern of excessive use of force by Vermont State Police and also certain local law enforcement agen-cies against people with disabilities and other vulnerable populations, including in the quick resorting of Tasers and other so-called non or less lethal weapons by police officers in cases of noncompliance or other reasons on unarmed persons not posing any risk of danger and when deadly force would not oth-erwise be warranted and in violation of their civil rights. In addition, the undersigned pe-titioners also call for the public disclosure of the autopsy report, as well as related records and documents, regarding the death of Mac-Adam Mason as well as the circumstances leading up to and directly causing his death.” The online petition is available at signon.org/sign/call-for-an-independent.

Morgan Brown is the author of the blog Montpelier Matters. He lives in Montpelier.

Independent Inquiry Needed to Investigate the Taser Death of Macadam Mason

by Emily Peyton

We need reform of the election process. Elections are public af-fairs, yet today, our election pro-

cess has been privatized. Private organiza-tions and corporations assert an ill-founded claim to present the status party candidates and discriminate against any others, despite the signatures that validate those others for presence on the ballot. Our Vermont Constitution states in articles 6–8 that all citizens have a right to be elected into office, that elections ought to be free of corruption, that government should be for the benefit of all people and not be for the benefit of a subset of the people, and that people have a right to alter their government. What happens these days is far from what our

constitution describes. In the next two months, the Vermont Sen-

ate Government Operations Committee will be focusing on election reform. Please join me in calling for a Level Playing Field Bill. If put into practice, this bill would counteract money in politics and benefit the process enormously. Our Level Playing Field Bill calls for the following mandates:

Polls must include all balloted candi-dates. No private or-ganization can hold debates for public of-fice without inviting all balloted candi-dates. Eight debates

over four months must be held that are open to all candidates. These debates shall be con-ducted in public spaces, and the questions must be framed by the public. These debates must take precedence to other election func-tions, and should the candidates fail to ap-

pear at more than three, their balloted status will be removed.

This last element is important to ensure that the status candidates do not ignore these debates or render them insignificant. Status candidates must subject their platforms to all their challengers’ proposed platforms in a rigorous and thorough manner. Today in the gubernatorial process, they do so at merely one token appearance, which perpetuates corruption. It is this point that the lawmakers will squirm about the most. Provisions will be made to accommodate candidates who cannot be physically present to provide for full participation, such as remote access.

Lastly, the candidate profile publication distributed by the secretary of state needs to be available at the very beginning of the elec-tion season and not a week before the actual event. This profile is currently published after absentee ballots have begun as another method of maintaining status quo elections and supporting corruption.

As some of you may know I have run in gubernatorial politics for two cycles. In the last cycle, I believe I received the support of some 5,800 people. I have met numerous people subsequently who never heard of me who would have supported my platform. All I am describing is a process of fair elections that do not discriminate for or against any legitimately balloted candidate. When I col-lect signatures to get on the ballot, peoples’ prevailing comments are in support of my capacity to be present and speak on behalf of my proposed reforms. Although I was present at the door of every debate, the debates have been privatized, and I am currently barred from participation in all but one. That is wrong. That violates our constitution.

When we enact meaningful reform in the Level Playing Field bill, together we will take a healthy step toward positive change.

Emily Peyton is a resident of Putney.

Level the Playing Field: Support Election Reform

Opinions

Local Team Wins Regional Hockey Championship

Central Vermont Skating Association’s Bantam A/B State Champion Hockey team won the Tier III Northeast Sectional Hockey Tournament against teams from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut. Pictured are back row:

Coaches Randy LaGue and Chuck Eldred, Conor Barrett, Ryan Andreoletti, Austin Burrell, Zach LaGue, Nicholas Grace, Lucas Eldred, Matt Hynes, Coach Craig Marineau; front row: Tyler Cain, Brendan Marineau, Zander Dyson-Lyon, David Woolaver, Rory Hynes, Griffin O’Neill. Photo by Lori Lyon; courtesy of Veronica Eldred.


by Peter Sterling

Tropical Storm Irene made headlines when it tore apart communities and families across Vermont. “Vermont

Strong” became a rallying cry for how pri-vate citizens, businesses and state government came together to rebuild and reinvigorate places that were nearly destroyed.

Now, another storm is threatening to de-stabilize and displace thousands of Vermont-ers, albeit one that does not make headlines in quite the same way. But its impact is just as devastating to every town and city. What is this current storm? The debilitating effect of eight straight years of budget cuts to state programs that help keep Vermonters healthy, with food to eat and a roof over their heads.

For most of us, a sudden expense like a car repair or a doctor’s bill is a costly nui-sance. But for thousands of Vermont’s work-ing families who are just barely getting by, an unexpected bill can lead to homelessness, hunger or a lifetime of poor health. That’s why Vermont invests in programs to help working Vermonters, and those who want to work, to get through a rough patch and avoid deep poverty.

Governor Peter Shumlin articulates the right priorities to continue this tradition, but his funding mechanisms are deeply flawed. For example, his proposed budget rolls back years of progress on affordable health care by asking upward of 30,000 low- and middle-income Vermonters to start paying thousands of dollars more a year in premiums, deduct-ibles or both.

Why does this matter? First of all, these people are our friends, family members and neighbors. Ask yourself: Do you know some-one who enrolled in Catamount or VHAP after they lost their job, graduated from col-lege or just couldn’t afford their employer’s insurance anymore? I’m willing to bet many Vermonters know these people and know they don’t have piles of money in a savings account somewhere waiting to pay BlueCross BlueShield or MVP Health Care several thou-sand dollars in deductibles and premiums.

And when access to affordable health care is denied, people either go uninsured or stay insured but can’t afford the charges that come with actually having to see a doctor. In fact, the state’s 2012 survey found over 94,000 Vermonters said someone in their family was contacted by a collection agency about owing

money for unpaid medical bills. Secondly, these increased health care costs

for low-income Vermonters aren’t happening in isolation. Governor Shumlin also proposes drastic cuts to other successful antipoverty programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Reach Up.

EITC helps 45,000 low-income working Vermonters keep a roof over their heads and food on the table: It’s a “year-end bonus” for low-income Vermonters to reward hard work. The Reach Up program is vital for its 6,400 families working low-wage jobs—mostly single moms with kids who are surviving on $13,000 a year or less. The monthly benefit for a family of three is only $640 per month.

It’s possible to find the revenue to ad-equately fund these programs; it’s simply a question of priorities. The legislature has already studied numerous tax loopholes that could easily be closed and is currently debat-ing a tax on sugary beverages. What makes more sense: Asking people to pay 12 cents

more for a can of soda or asking low-wage workers to pay thousands of dollars more for their health care?

Taken together, the combination of pro-posed cuts amounts to a massive “tax in-

crease” on those least able to afford it. I be-lieve most Vermont-ers would like to join with Governor Shumlin and every member of our leg-islature to keep Ver-mont strong. Let’s

find a fair way to raise the revenue necessary to stop the harsh budget cuts to health care, Reach Up and other programs vital to keep struggling Vermont families from teetering over the edge of self-sufficiency and into poverty.

Peter Sterling is the director of the Vermont Campaign for Health Care Security, a non-profit organization that works to educate Ver-monters about and assist them in enrolling in Vermont’s public health care programs: Cata-mount Health, VHAP and Dr. Dynasaur.

Put People First: Austerity Measures Not Needed

To the Editor:The governor’s budget proposal address

states that we are in fiscally better shape than most of the other states and continues to say what every other governor says, “more tough choices and restraint, as we confront continued uncertainty about the fiscal crisis in Washington.” In other words, because we don’t know how to change our budget pro-cess, we need to impose austerity!

While many things about Vermont may

be better than other states, we are identical in these perceived challenges because we continue to create a budget using archaic budgeting methods. The Vermont Workers’ Center has been asking that our vision to create a budget be participatory by allow-ing continuous community input to set the goals for what people need and to create the budget based on those needs. It should be transparent. How many people understand the current process or the final outcome? Ultimately, the Vermont Workers’ Center is concerned that Vermonters will continue to be forced to scavenge for what is left after austerity is applied to the public sectors. The Vermont budget should be accountable to

Vermonters, not to Washington, D.C. or to the profit-driven private sector.

Instead of cost shifting, we want the bur-dens to be shared equitably so that Vermont-ers’ fundamental needs are met. What I am asking is that our legislative body step outside their comfort zone and pay attention to the Workers’ Center’s people’s budget, which addresses the human rights of the residents of Vermont. In other words, put people first.

—Sharon Racusin, Norwich

Kellogg-Hubbard Library Thanks Taxpayers

To the Editor:On behalf of the Kellogg-Hubbard Li-

brary board and library director, I would like to thank the taxpayers of Montpelier, Calais, Middlesex, Worcester and East Montpelier for supporting our annual funding request. As we do not receive any financial backing from the state of Vermont, your support is very much appreciated in helping to sustain this incredible community resource. Thanks to your generous support, all members of our community, from the youngest to the cente-narian, can continue to take advantage of the many diverse offerings of the library.

—Michael Katzenberg, Montpelier

Zero-Point Energy: The Silver Bullet That Saves Humanity

To the Editor:We need to fight the present fossil fuel

battles, but wouldn’t a prudent course of ac-tion also include winning the war so that we stop burning fossil fuels in time to save us from unnecessary destruction? Bill McKib-ben states we need to reduce CO2 emissions and develop alternative energy resources. I agree. But imagine a future of windmills, solar panels and wave generators encroaching upon our land and waterscape, while we are

still drawn into Kunstler’s “reality mandated economic contraction.”

McKibben declares, without the incum-brance of research, that there is no energy sil-ver bullet to replace fossil fuels. Fortunately for humanity, he is profoundly mistaken. If he bothered to look around, and not worry about his current career and social standing, he would see there is compelling evidence to the contrary. If you approach the subject of extraterrestrials and zero-point energy with an honest look at the evidence, you’ll be hard pressed to find a valid reason to be derisive. Go to the website disclosureproject.org to read about the Disclosure Project, which is working to fully disclose the facts about UFOs, extraterrestrial intelligence and classified advanced energy and propulsion systems.

The earth has been visited by people from other worlds who are not malicious but in fact concerned for the future of humanity. A cabal of military, industrial and financial interests have kept this contact and what we have learned from it secret for over 60 years. Their secrecy is meant to suppress the knowl-edge that can liberate the world from the yoke of oil, gas, coal and nuclear power and replace the current world order with one of new energy and true freedom. Remember: If the people will lead, the leaders will follow.

—Kevin Goslant, Plainfield

Opinion

Keep Vermont Strong: Don’t Cut EITC and Reach Up

LETTERS, from page 25

Second Community Meeting on Sabin’s Pasture

The Montpelier Planning Commission will be holding the second of its current round of community meetings to share the commission’s proposed Sabin’s Pasture

map and zoning ordinances and to invite public discussion and comment. That second meeting will be held on Monday evening, March 25, at 7 p.m., in the College Hall Cha-pel on the campus of the Vermont College of Fine Arts. The full draft of the Planning Commission’s proposed maps and ordinances can be found online at montpelier-vt.org/page/462/Work-in-Progress-Draft-and-Sample-Zoning.html.

JOIN US AT A

community

dinnerThe Bridge invites you to join us at what more and more looks like an awesome community dinner with great food, live music by Nancy and Lily Smith and a chance to meet almost everyone who works at The Bridge, including writers, editors and the people who deliver the paper. Part of our hope for the evening is to listen to read-ers and friends of the paper as we try to figure out what we’re doing right, or not doing at all, or could be doing better.

You can just show up on Thursday evening, April 11, at 6 p.m., at the brand-new Montpelier Senior Activity Center at 58 Barre Street. But we’re trying to figure out roughly how many people are coming so that we can save you a place and make certain we are right about the amount of food we need. If you are coming—or if you have any questions about the event—please phone 223-5112, ext. 13, and tell us how many people to expect in your party.

Correction: In an apparently extreme case of changing the time, The Bridge mistakenly published a letter from David Abbott in our March 7 edition, a letter submitted and printed over a year ago. Our best guess is that its reappearance was the result of a clock malfunction in one of our computers. We regret the error (and have returned to 2013).

the bridge, march 21, 2013

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