until he doesn’t · 2020. 10. 13. · he inaugurated the acclaimed gypsy-jazz outfit, the will...

Lauzon’s State Street Building Delayed / p.2

Home Improvement Boosts Business / p.11

Uncommon Market to Reopen Soon / p.14

We got the news on Monday, July 13, as we were driving south on Interstate 95 toward Portland, Maine. Vermont and Maine had reached a com-pact whereby residents of “safe” counties could visit without quarantining, and my wife, Nancy, and I had jumped at the chance to spend a few days tucked away with “bubble” friends on the secluded Downeast coastline. Now, as we started home again, the scenery got boring when we reached the interstate, so Nancy resorted to her phone for stimulation while I drove. Her first stop was her email file.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “What’s this?”“What is it?” I asked.“It’s from Irene. It says, ‘So sad about Gordon Stone.’”“Oh no,” I groaned. There are times when you don’t need

much information. I thought then, and often think, of that early dawn of September 9, 1996, when our clock-radio awoke us to WDEV’s morning news program, “Once Around the Clock,” and the first sound was Chubby Wise’s achingly sweet fiddle playing the opening strains of “Blue Moon of Ken-tucky.” I sat up in bed and wept. It could only mean that Bill Monroe had died.

Similarly, I didn’t need to hear what Irene had written. But as Nancy read her message aloud we learned that Gordon had passed away a few days earlier, in Montpelier. Irene Racz, an old friend (and a member of The Bridge’s board), assumed we were at home and already knew. Years — decades — ago, she

Until He Doesn’t . . . Recalling music’s role in a changing Vermont

As archaic as the town fence viewer and as arcane as a presidential tweet, the generally sleepy elec-tions of Vermont’s high bailiffs are at-tracting unusual attention this year.

Competition for the unpaid and gen-erally unperformed county position has sparked a broader discussion following a summer of national protests centered on the killings of Black suspects by police and calls for racial equality.

Strictly construed, the high bailiff in Vermont has a very limited obligation: to arrest the county sheriff if he or she commits a crime and to fill in for that sheriff in case of arrest, death, or early resignation until the governor appoints a successor.

Marc Poulin, who is seeking a fifth term as Washington County high bailiff, said he has not been called upon to per-form any of those statutory duties in his eight years on the job.

Poulin, a Republican who lives in Barre Town and is a lieutenant with the Washington County Sheriff ’s Depart-ment, faces a challenge this year from Asa Skinder, a Middlebury College sopho-more who lives in Montpelier.

High Interest in High Bailiff This Year

F r e e , I n d e p e n d e n t and Local

Free, Independent and Local since 1993 / montpelierbridge.org

see High Bailiff, page 5

see Music, page 4

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By Will Lindner

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Home Improvement & Elections Oct 14–Nov 17, 2020

From left, Pine Island String Band musicians David Gusakov, James McGinniss, Tim McKenzie, Dan Mahoney, and Gordon Stone playing up a storm. Courtesy photo.

• OCTOBER 14–NOVEMBER 17, 2020 THE BRIDGE

Construction of a new three-story office building planned for 105 State Street in Montpelier will not begin until next spring, according to developer Thom Lauzon.

The new 8,000-square-foot building, to be located at the site of the former Gulf service station across Gov. Davis Avenue from the state’s Pavilion office

building, will include a bank on the first floor with a drive-in ATM and pneumatic tube kiosk, plus professional offices on the second and third floors.

The Montpelier Development Review Board had cleared the way for the project on June 15 when it voted 5–2 to issue a zoning permit, but Lauzon had to wait for the decision to be written up and for

appeal periods to pass. The permit did not go “hard” until August, he said,

Two factors that led to Lauzon’s deci-sion not to begin construction this fall or winter were the challenges facing the construction industry during the pan-demic and the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus, he said.

“Because of the health crisis, the con-

struction industry has been extremely challenged,” said Lauzon, who is also an accountant and the former mayor of Barre. “Building material availability and cost uncertainties have made it extremely difficult to plan with any certainty. At one point this summer, windows were nine to 10 weeks out — they’re usually four. A two-by-four-by-eight has over doubled in price.”

In addition, “the tight window here in Vermont, and the possibility of a second wave, even though we pray every day that this doesn’t happen, creates even more cost and uncertainty,” he said.

Lauzon said contractors in central Ver-mont are extremely busy right now, an-other factor in his decision. “While we might have considered accelerating our plans in order to provide them with win-ter work, that simply isn’t necessary given where they’re at,” he said.

“For all those reasons, we plan on pre-paring the detailed construction plans this winter and breaking ground in the spring,” Lauzon said.

New State Street Building Construction Delayed Till SpringBy Phil Dodd

CLASSIFIED ADFirst Class Office Space near Capitol at 149 State Street, Montpelier, VT.Perfect location within a 3-minute walk to Capitol. Beautiful Greek Revival building renovated throughout. Handicap accessible, foyer, waiting room and restroom. Includes off-street parking, office cleaning weekly, heat, AC, hot water, snow removal, landscaping and full maintenance. Suites and single offices starting at $345.00 per month. Call 508-259-7941.

BE SEEN! BE HEARD!Advertise.

Call Rick, 802-249-8666.

THE BRIDGE OCTOBER 14–NOVEMBER 17, 2020 • PAGE 3

Inn at Montpelier SellsAfter being for sale for some time, The Inn at Montpelier changed hands on Septem-ber 30, according to owner Michael Drake. He and his wife also operate Zachary’s Pizza in Waterbury, he said.

The 19-room inn, located at 147 Main Street in Montpelier, consists of the main yellow building and the white Federal-style house next door. The inn has been oper-ating since 1988. An apartment building behind the inn is also part of the property.

The new owners are busy getting up to speed and following the state’s pandemic rules and regulations for lodging establishments, but Drake said they look forward to being involved in and connected to the Montpelier community.

Council Meetings Move Back to City Hall October 14City Hall will be open for the public during regular council meetings starting Octo-ber 14. The public will be able to interact via Zoom with the council meetings in the council chambers. Masks or a face shield and social distancing will be required inside City Hall. Masks will be on-hand with city staff if members of the public do not have any available to them.

Recreation Department Open for Limited UseThe Recreation Department will be opening for limited use rentals only. Folks inter-ested in renting the space can contact the Recreation Department at montpelier-vt.org/838/MontpelierRecreation or 225-8699.

HEARD ON THE STREET

Bridge Community Media, Inc.P.O. Box 1143, Montpelier, VT 05601 • Ph: 802-223-5112Editor: Carla OccasoContributing Editor: Tom BrownPublisher Emeritus: Nat FrothinghamCopy Editor: Larry FloerschLayout: Dana Dwinell-YardleyAd Director: Rick McMahanBoard Members: Phil Dodd, Larry Floersch, J. Gregory Gerdel, Irene Racz, Nancy Reid, Jen Roberts, Mason Singer, Amy Tatko

Editorial: 223-5112 • [email protected]: The Bridge office is located at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, Stone Science Hall. Subscriptions: You can receive The Bridge by mail for $40 a year. Make out your check to The Bridge, and mail to The Bridge, PO Box 1143, Montpelier VT 05601.montpelierbridge.com • facebook.com/thebridgenewspapervt Twitter: @montpbridge • Instagram: @montpelierbridge

The last gold dazzles as beech, poplar, tamarack, and the ancient Chinese tree, ginkgo, have their day. This final color turns my thoughts to Chickering Bog or other wet locations for tamarack, or larch, as it is sometimes called, and has me scan-ning wooded edges and hillsides for that pop of yellow that is likely beech or poplar. When sun and leaves combine there is alchemy. Soon enough we will have time to adjust to the subtle palate of late fall, but for now we are still rich with color!

NATURE WATCHArtwork and Words by Nona Estrin

Then & Now

In 1868 the Bethany Congregational Society built an impressive Gothic-revival church on the site of the first church building in the city. Designed by Boston architect Charles Edward Parker, the new edifice was unusually ornate for a New England Con-gregational church. When pieces of stone began falling off the church in 1954, the congregation tore down the structurally unsound sanctuary and replaced it with a building in a modern style. Stones from the earlier structure were used to help it blend in with the older steeple and chapel that remained.

Historic photos courtesy of Vermont Historical Society;modern photo and caption by Paul Carnahan.


had been a fan of the central Vermont music scene, and had often gone to hear Pine Island, the Burlington-based blue-grass band through which Gordon, play-ing banjo, had launched what became one of the most important and admired musical careers in Vermont. She knew I would have known Gordon because I, in those days, played with my brother, Dan Lindner, in the other prominent bluegrass band, Banjo Dan and the Mid-Nite Plowboys.

It was sobering to learn that I had out-lived him. Inevitably, I recalled meeting Gordon in the dimly lit dining room of the Deer Run Restaurant in Jefferson-ville. It was the early winter of 1972–1973, and we Plowboys had landed our first gig, playing every Wednesday for an all-you-can-eat beef stew-a-thon. Gordon and his housemates in nearby Cambridge sat each week at a table to the right of the cramped stage while we launched our fledgling repertoire and introduced sounds long associated with the Southern Appalachians to the stark, snowy, hard-bitten Lamoille Val-ley countryside.

It was weeks, if not months, before Gordon, who was friendly and funny but slightly reserved, mentioned that he was a musician. He played the piano and had a fondness for Scott Joplin. Meanwhile, other musicians also were showing up for Beef Stew Night. Billy Patton, who was playing bass for the John Cassel Band, introduced himself to me as a fellow mandolin player, and as such, some 25 years later (in 1998), he inaugurated the acclaimed gypsy-jazz outfit, the Will Patton Ensemble. And a young fiddler and bassist named Gene White happened by. Gene would figure into nearly all the prominent bluegrass, country, and country-influenced bands in the region for decades to come. He

and Gordon, who were unacquainted then, probably sat near each other in the Deer Run’s wood-paneled dining room; in later years, they worked together in the Cadillac Cowboys (Gordon on pedal steel) and, for more than a decade, the award-winning bluegrass band Break-away. In fact, Gene joined the Plowboys for a two-week trip to Russia in 2001, then stayed on with us for a couple years.

For a while, Jeffersonville, the après-ski rooms up at the Smugglers Notch ski area, and the nightclubs lining the mountain road between them consti-tuted home base for groups like ours and, even more, the very danceable John Cassel Band. But, by 1975, the scene began to shift to Burlington, where Yoram Samets refurbished an old ar-mory on Main Street and opened the Yankee Pickin’ Opry. In 1977, Samets and his partner, Warren Hardy, renamed it R.W. Hunt Mill & Mining Company. Between Hunt’s, as it was called, and Nectar’s, three blocks away, there were wonderful music opportunities for lis-teners and players alike in the Queen City.

Pine Island was certainly a major rea-son why. By then Gordon had formed the group with guitarist Tim McKen-zie, bassist Jim McGinniss, and Dobro player Dan Mahoney — all Burlington natives. David Gusakov was the fiddler, and in time other players were brought in: Jim Ryan on mandolin; Susan Long-aker on vocals and guitar. We Plow-boys (Dan, me, guitarist Al Davis, and fiddler Pete Tourin), by contrast, were central Vermonters, living in Duxbury, Marshfield, and Moretown (our bass player, Sam Blagden, lived a bit farther, outside Middlebury), so for us the trek home, well-past midnight in a snow-storm, could be an adventure, especially in those days when auto manufacturers hadn’t figured out that placing the heavy engine above the drive wheels would be helpful — except for Volkswagen, with its so-called Beetles; but they invariably

threw a rod at 70,000 miles, and their heaters and defrosters sucked. (I could tell you stories….)

Because we were the two bands most prominently playing bluegrass, albeit with different approaches, there were implicit comparisons and competition between the groups. We wanted no part of it. So, on a memorable night when the Plowboys were playing at Hunt’s and Pine Island was booked at Nectar’s, we hatched a plan: At a specific time, both bands would finish a set, then discreetly pack up and head to the other’s venue for the next set (returning afterward). I re-member walking swiftly up the hill with my compadres and waving across the street to the Pine Islanders as they bar-reled down in the other direction. Every-one — us, the audiences, and the man-agers at both establishments — loved it. It seemed quintessentially Vermont.

It was not often that either group played in central Vermont, because there was less of a bluegrass following here. No matter; music-lovers were well taken care of, with bands such as the rockin’ Throbulators, including Montpelier na-tive Danny Coane (notably, now, of the Starline Rhythm Boys) copping an Elvis routine, and his wife, Kathi Finney, an excellent bassist; and in the country realm, Dick Sicily & the Country Boys and Coco & the Lonesome Road Band. For the latter, the lineup varied over the years but prominently featured lead singer Coco Kallis, Paul Miller (vari-ously on percussion, bass, and rhythm guitar), Mark Greenberg on lead guitar, Rob Hykys on pedal steel, and Gene White (him again!) on bass and fiddle; other local “names,” including Paul As-bell, Mike Yates, and Bill Kinzie, also participated.

The Lonesome Road Band played, as they sometimes said, “up-home country music” — classics from singers such as Merle Haggard and Patsy Cline, with a shot of early rock and soul thrown in. They won awards from regional and

national country music associations for their recordings and compositions, most notably for Coco’s original “New England Song,” which they recorded in Nashville.

But their greatest contribution to their friends and fans in central Ver-mont were the countless evenings of fun and that precious commodity of fellowship, which they generated at local establishments such as the Little Valley House just south of Montpelier, the Zo-diac Lounge in East Barre, the Country Cuzzin’ in Barre City, and Tubbs, out in Plainfield. These were the seminal days of the demographic shift that reimagined Vermont; a culture birthed in a challeng-ing climate, where a family’s livelihood had to be torn forcibly from the soil, was evolving into a generally progressive sanctuary and a refuge from American materialism. Music, though, was a com-mon denominator. Mark Greenberg, holding down his guitar duties for the Lonesome Road Band, watched it un-folding before him at the band’s weekly gig at the Little Valley House.

“We played to a mixture of ‘real’ Ver-monters, legislators and state officials when the legislature was in season, hip-pies, and back-to-the-landers.”

I know the feeling. I saw it, too. And at a bar gig somewhere in Ver-

mont one evening, an elderly man ap-proached me and said that he had played mandolin with a band during the barn-dance days — the late 1930s and into the ‘60s, when marvelous players such as Don Fields (fiddle) and Buddy Truax (guitar) held forth in converted barns, in Grange halls, and in pavilions scattered around the countryside, and performed on the airwaves before recorded music replaced live entertainment. I was fasci-nated. He had lived my life, in an earlier, even harder time.

That man, my forerunner, is surely gone now. And so is Gordon Stone. We take our turns, each of us, and, not in-tentionally, pass the baton to whomever comes next, who drives the roads, and plays the songs, and returns home in the dead of night to get ready for the next gig. Until he doesn’t.

Will Lindner, a freelance writer, still

performs with his brother, “Banjo Dan,” as the Sky Blue Boys and as members, with Danny Coane and Sam Blagden, of the VT Bluegrass Pioneers. He lives in Barre Town.

About five years before “Willy” and Irene knew each other personally, she hired the Plowboys to play at her wedding, held at the Little Valley House in August of 1978. Once the festivities ended in late afternoon, a good number of guests, some of whom got lost on the way, repaired to the Zodiac Lounge to close out the evening dancing to Coco & The Lonesome Road Band.

What are your central Vermont music memories? Send them to The Bridge, and we’ ll publish excerpts in the next issue.

MusicContinued from page 1


Skinder entered the race when he noticed that no Democrat was named on the primary ballot in August. He mounted a write-in campaign and re-ceived about 100 votes, qualifying him to compete in the general election.

Skinder said he understands the con-straints of the office but wanted to run to give voters a choice and, like other progressive candidates for the office in Addison, Orleans, and Windsor coun-ties, sees the potential for the high bailiff to use that platform to discuss the role of police in local communities.

“People should vote for me if they want, as high bailiff, somebody who will listen to the community and believes that we should think critically about how law enforcement exists in our com-munity,” Skinder said.

Poulin said there is no authority for a high bailiff to do anything beyond what the statute describes and he believes that the high bailiff should have a working knowledge of law enforcement opera-tions, though that is not required.

“Those who are saying that the high bailiff has any oversight of the sheriff ’s department are making it up out of thin air,” he said. “Don’t try to say the job is for oversight when it clearly is not.”

Poulin said the office holder should be able to run the department in the event that the sheriff, in Washington County’s case, Sam Hill, is removed, dies, or steps down.

While rare, that actually happened in Washington County in 2004, when the Sheriff Don Edson resigned following a plea deal in a felony fraud case. Bailiff Philip Anthony took over until Gov. Jim Douglas named a replacement.

“It’s a very good reason why you need a trained law enforcement officer in the position,” Poulin said. “For the day-to-day role of doing nothing (as bailiff) you don’t, but in that one case if you are not

a law enforcement officer and you don’t know how the sheriff ’s office runs, func-tions, is funded, all of it, then you are in big trouble.”

Skinder, a strong supporter of Black Lives Matter and the call to examine police funding, said he doesn’t believe the high bailiff needs to be a law enforce-ment expert in order to serve a few days until the governor appoints a replace-ment. He also believes having a member of the department take over for their boss is a conflict of interest.

“The way I see the position is it should be a non-law enforcement citizen holding the position and having mostly what is symbolic oversight of the sheriff ’s de-partment,” he said. “But I think when it comes down to it we shouldn’t have someone associated with, or on the pay-roll of, the sheriff ’s department of their superior to oversee. I think it’s important to have a choice that wouldn’t be a con-flict of interest.”

For Washington County voters who haven’t already cast ballots, polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. November 3.

High BailiffContinued from page 1

Asa Skinder, left, and Marc Poulin, right. Courtesy photos.


While the lockdown brought much of Vermont’s economy to a near standstill during April and May, some sectors remained stable, grocery sales in particular. Oth-ers showed at least partial recovery by June, and for some, business remains below pre-pandemic levels.

Locally, Montpelier Alive has made a consistent effort to encourage residents to shop locally in support of the city’s small businesses. Executive Director Dan Groberg has surveyed local business and provided the following summary:

“In August, nearly 90 percent of retail businesses reported their sales were at least 50 percent of the comparable 2019 sales, with 33 percent seeing sales that were 75–100 percent of 2019 data. Hos-pitality businesses, however, were more likely to report that their sales were down more than half, with 50 percent of re-spondents saying that their business was down between 50 and 75 percent from 2019 sales. Similarly, 60 percent of retail businesses reported that they are cur-rently breaking even, versus 33.3 percent of hospitality businesses.”

Ken Jones, a long-time Montpelier resident who compiles economic impact data for the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, has assem-bled statewide data represented through credit card spending. The data set, which

is representative of about 40 percent of all spending in Vermont, has been one metric in an ongoing study to estimate visitor spending, but this year it pro-vides an overview of trends in resident spending as well, since visitor spend-ing contracted dramatically from March through June.

According to the statewide Vermont credit card data in comparison with the previous year, even the grocery and su-permarket sector suffered a contraction of 44.3 percent during April, when stay-at-home was observed full force. But both May (up 11.1 percent) and June (up 13.1 percent) showed a significant increase in grocery shopping as people were preparing meals at home.

One sector of Vermont’s economy that stands out for growth during the lock-down is home improvement (see graph above). For many people being home with time on their hands was an oppor-tunity to undertake DIY projects around the house. Hardware stores and lumber yards joined grocery stores as the busiest places in Montpelier and many commer-cial centers around the state.

Health and beauty spas is a sector that began making some recovery during May and June (see graph at top right), as shops reopened for customers gradually emerging from the lockdown of March and April.

During a normal year Jones has ap-plied several data sources to provide reli-able estimates about economic activity and the impact of visitor spending in the recreation and hospitality sectors. In addition to the credit card data, the larger analysis includes interstate traffic counts, estimated spending by second homeowners, lodging occupancy and taxable receipts. The most recent pub-lication, a 2017 benchmark is available at accd.vermont.gov/sites/accdnew/files/documents/VDTM/BenchmarkStudy/VDTM-Research-2017Benchmark-StudyFullReport.pdf

Restaurants and Cafes Reopening

While the Tax Department’s pre-liminary report for April 2020 showed Montpelier’s taxable receipts for sales of meals down more than 74 percent, the preliminary report for May 2020 still shows a nearly 60 percent fall in sales year over year. (Jones notes that because tax filing deadlines were suspended from April through June, the tax data for 2020 may be both incomplete and unreliable at this point.)

These percentages are likely to show improvement for the months June through September, as more restaurants

opened outdoor seating or set up meals-to-go services. The Tax Department makes preliminary reports 75 days after the close of each month and updates the reports after 180 days.

Gradual Return of VisitorsA new strategy for measuring visi-

tor traffic into Vermont was introduced by Department of Financial Regulation Commissioner Michael Pieciak at the Governor’s September 18 news confer-ence. The analysis relies on tracking the locations of mobile devices by GPS, the same strategy that is used to provide up-to-the-minute reports on traffic con-gestion in urban areas. The graph at left shows a comparison of out-of-state travel into Vermont during 2019 versus 2020.

The persisting decline in out-of-state visitors means that the survival of local hospitality businesses depends greatly on the support of local residents. Montpelier Alive’s Groberg summed his concerns, concluding, “As we enter into the colder months, with outdoor dining options disappearing, I am most worried about hospitality businesses. If people want a thriving downtown, it’s time to turn those words into action and invest in Montpelier by shopping and dining at Montpelier businesses this winter.”

Montpelier and the COVID-19 EconomyBy J. Gregory Gerdel

Source: Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development


Downtown Barre is a food desert, at least in terms of fresh food and produce, according to Peter Colman, owner of Vermont Salumi. “What we’ve done is unintentionally provide a service by opening a place in downtown Barre where people can buy fresh food,” he said.

He is speaking of his new venture, AR Market, also known as “Alimentari Roscini,” which is the name that ap-pears in large letters over the sidewalk on the building’s marquee. The word “Ali-mentari” roughly translates as “grocery;” “Roscini” is the surname of Colman’s Italian family — he was born in Assisi, Italy, to an American mom and an Ital-ian dad, and it is where he learned how to make salami and other cured meats.

The market opened in September in the former Homer Fitts storefront on North Main Street. The remainder of the space behind the market is occupied by the processing and aging rooms of Vermont Salumi.

The sleek new market gleams with shelves stocked with Italian specialties, fresh meats, wines, cheeses, dairy prod-ucts, coffees, and fresh produce, most of which is locally sourced. And, of course,

there is a large display case with Vermont Salumi products.

Colman started Vermont Salumi a number of years ago, first in a room in his apartment and then using the Food Hub in Waitsfield to produce fresh Italian sausages and artisanal aged salamis. But demand outgrew the space, so Colman moved Vermont Salumi to Barre in 2019.

Colman said he can now produce up to 45,000 pounds of cured pork products a year. He was also able to expand his line into making larger salamis, such as those suitable for deli slicing, and Italian specialties such as capocollo, bresaola, lonza, and maple-cured and smoked cooked hams (called “prosciutto cotto” in Italian).

Part of the reason for opening the mar-ket was to provide a place to showcase his artisanal salamis and other cured meats. Colman knew, however, that he would need to expand his offerings to make the market work, so he added fresh meats, cheeses, dairy products, wines, and fresh produce, all with an emphasis on local.

“For the most part our produce is local, although we do procure some items from California,” Colman said. He reeled off the names of some of his suppliers: Pete’s

Greens, Pebble Brook Farm, Cate Farm. (Colman’s mother, Sally Colman, and her partner Richard Wiswall own Cate Farm in Plainfield.)

“We offer fresh beef, which is from the Northeast, grass-fed, and grain-fin-ished,“ he said. “Our chicken is from upstate New York.” He also pointed out that, just like the pork used in his sau-sages and salamis, all the meats he sells are antibiotics free and humanely raised.

According to Colman, local residents can now get fresh produce and meats without having to drive or figure out the bus schedules to get to Price Chopper, Shaw’s, or Hannaford.

The spacious market only occupies about half the storefront space in the building along the North Main Street sidewalk. The other half is quiet now but is already filled with tables, chairs, and a bar. Colman’s intention is to expand into prepared foods and house-made fare.

According to Colman, people seem to be working more and more, both here in the U.S. and in Italy. “There is not a lot of leisure time in Barre during the day – it’s a working town,” he said. “Nurses, plumbers, electricians, lawyers. They just want to just come in and grab something.

Paninis and things like that. In and out. Easy, light. There are not many places for quick lunches in downtown Barre.”

Colman hopes that as they expand they can provide that service during the day.

He also hopes that down the road people will be able to spend evenings at AR Market. “We already have a liquor license,” he said. “What I envision is a wine-centric menu. No liquor. Light food. Maybe pasta. We’ll see. I’d also like to have a situation where we are post-COVID and don’t have to wear masks so we can host events such as tastings and education pieces.”

But until then, he is focused on slowly expanding the market and its offerings. “We’re still in a learning curve and tak-ing it slow so we can work out our sys-tems and figure out what people want. First and foremost we want to offer good food with an Italian flair.”

AR Market is located at 159 North Main Street, Barre and is open Wednes-days through Fridays from 2 to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Credit and debit cards and EBT cards accepted. For more information visit armarketvt.com.

Vermont Salumi Opens AR MarketBy Larry Floersch

Food & Drink


A lthough gardening season is over for the year, for Dan Jones, food and gardening is a year-round concern.

He has spent a lot of his attention on food security and environmental sus-tainability as executive director of the Sustainable Montpelier Coalition. Jones was also a former managing director of Net Zero Vermont — a nonprofit or-ganization aimed at reducing statewide greenhouse gas emissions. With a back-ground in communications and video production, Jones sounds like he looks at the problem of food insecurity from the perspective of someone who wants to get the word out as widely as possible.

“Personally, I am a gardener,” Jones told The Bridge during a recent inter-view. He said he became aware of the problem of food insecurity with the long lines at Knapp Airport in Berlin back in May, when the Vermont Foodbank teamed up with other organizations to donate food to the public. There were long lines for hours, and some people had to be turned away, according to news reports at the time.

Jones cited a University of Vermont study reporting that around 23 percent

of Vermonters experienced food insecu-rity this summer, up from around 5–6 percent. This sudden change is related to the mass job losses and market loss caused by the COVID-19 lockdown from May to June.

“We’ve been the dairy state for so long. Our food economy has not been working. How do we reimagine it as a way to do things . . . as a way to serve people . . . more locally focussed?” Jones said. “Farm

to plate. This is how we are going to build resilience.”

Jones spoke of how the pandemic seems to have sparked a resurgence in back-yard (and frontyard) farming throughout Montpelier. Those who have previously gardened expanded their gardens, and some people who never gardened before have put in a garden for the first time, or joined a community garden. Community access to gardening is one way for people to get a handle on the local food supply.

“Some people believe we are here in life to take care of other people. That is what a community is all about. The future is built on community,” Jones said of his interest in cultivating (literally and figuratively) more community gardening efforts. He pointed out that this area has resources that could be made available to the public for community use. If people share resources, then more people in need will get what they lack. “It is not built on capitalist competition. The climate crisis is going to get worse. We are privileged here in Central Vermont. That is the core of my belief.” Jones said he has spent many years working on community orga-nizing and working on sustainability and resilience. He pointed to Vermont’s past of self-reliance, with small dairy farmers who could sustain their own families as well as selling milk outside the farm.

The gardening push of 2020 echoes the victory gardens meant to sustain commu-nities at the end of World War II, Jones noted. He said 40 percent of food came from those gardens. Jones further said his organization is working with High Mow-ing Seeds and volunteers to help support

local gardening efforts and create a more robust local food system. His group is also looking at the old Foodworks loca-tion at Two Rivers Farms as a way to create a new community garden. “The city looks at it as a nuisance. We started looking at it and said, ‘There’s some won-derful bottom land,’” Jones said.

He is hoping to find a way to offer small plots and train new farmers in growing specialty crops. It could be a hub for building out a greater Montpelier food economy, he said.

Food Security Coalition Members include: Whitney Shields, clinical teaching fellow, Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School; Allison Levin, execu-tive director, Community Harvest; Sarah Danly, network manager, Farm to Plate; Catherine Lowther, undergraduate sustain-ability director, Goddard College; Scott Hess, council president, Hunger Mountain Co-op; Joseph Kiefer, board member, Just Basics; Jay Ericson, Montpelier City Coun-cil; Jacqueline Huettenmoser, Montpelier Community Services; Alan LePage, board vice president, Montpelier Farmers Mar-ket; Tom Sabo, sustainability coordinator, Montpelier High School; Randy George, co-owner, Red Hen Bakery; Paul Hill, Jr., director of Housing and Community Facilities Programs, Vermont Community Loan Fund; Pat Hinkley, board mem-ber, Sustainable Montpelier Coalition, and author; Peter Burmeister, psychotherapist and Farmers Market vendor; Sustainable Montpelier Coalition staff, Dan Jones, ex-ecutive director, Elizabeth Parker, public engagement, and Laura Brooke, research, CAN Coordinator.

Ending Hunger One Garden at a TimeBy Carla Occaso

Dan Jones in his garden. Photo by J. Gregory Gerdel.


Montpelier has experienced flooding since its inception, with recorded events back as far as July 1830. These included flood events such as the Great Flood of 1927 and ice jam events such as the one in 1992. The city responded in the past by building dams and channelizing the rivers and streams. Today, the city, state, and federal governments use avoidance (keeping people and property away from danger) to keep the public safe rather than engineering the river (building new levees and dams).

The City of Montpelier’s Department of Planning & Community Develop-ment puts out this annual message to help the public stay safe. We have eight tips to help keep you and your prop-erty safe before, during, and after a flood. Before a flood you should know your risk, build safety into your design, buy flood insurance, and make a plan. During a flood you should be aware during flood watches and take action during flood warnings. After a flood you should only return home when safe and then document damage and apply for permits.

1. Know your flood risk. Residents who live along or near the Winooski, North Branch, Dog, or Steven’s Branch rivers may be in a floodplain. The floodplain is a low-lying area adjacent to a waterway that is generally subject to flooding and is often designated by FEMA as an area that has a 1 percent chance of being flooded each year. To help you determine where your property is in relation to the floodplain, please contact the Department of Planning & Community Development. Staff can look this information up for you for free. Flash flooding can also occur along any stream, and many of these streams are not mapped as flood hazards by FEMA. Understand that any quiet brook can become a raging river under certain cir-cumstances and you should plan ahead.

2. Build safety factors into your design. All development in the flood-plain requires permits. Please call so we can determine what will be required. If you are building a new home, you will be required to elevate your home above the design flood elevation in order to prevent flood waters from entering your home. Other than not building in the

floodplain at all, this is always the best alternative. Many of us, though, have older homes, built before floodplains were mapped and regulations in place. For these buildings we have other flood-proofing options to help retrofit your home. For example, you could: • elevate your building above the base

flood elevation; • install closures and sealants around

doors and windows; • construct new watertight walls; • install flood vents in existing walls or

construct floodwalls or levees; • elevate the furnace, water heater, and

electric panel if susceptible to flood-ing;

• replace electrical outlets with GFCI outlets;

• install “check valves” in sewer traps to prevent flood water from backing up into the drains of your home;

• seal walls in basements with water-proofing compounds to avoid seep-age;

• store important documents, insur-ance cards, banking information, and items of sentimental value in a high location so they stay dry;

• replace existing building materi-als with materials less susceptible to damage.

Around your home it is also impor-tant to not dump trash or any other debris, including leaves, into ditches, streams, or rivers. A plugged channel cannot carry water, and when it rains it may cause flooding.

Property owners near waterways should do their part to keep banks clear of debris and make sure to maintain a natural woody vegetative buffer to protect the overall quality, natural func-tion, ecological health, scenic benefits, and recreation potential of the water-way.

Fortunately the city is available to guide you with specifics about projects in the flood hazard area. Development of any type within the floodplain re-quires a permit prior to commence-ment. This will provide the city and state the opportunity to inform you of any requirements needed to meet the minimum standards as well as make any suggested changes that could im-

see Flood Watch, page 22

Montpelier Flood WatchTips to stay safe and avoid damage before, during, and after floods By Audra Brown, Montpelier Planning and Zoning Assistant


Sixteen-year-old Kolby LaPerle is walking on the roof of a 30-foot building. He has a harness as a safeguard, but he moves confidently and without a misstep. Down on the ground, his co-worker, Noah Spaulding, is work-ing with a power saw under the eye of master craftsman Paxton Anderson. Both teenagers are building a “bicycle barn,” which will store mountain bikes used in the PE program at Twinfield High School. The completed structure will pro-vide easy access to the bikes, and a ramp will allow students to glide right out.

The workers are students themselves, but not at Twinfield. They’re part of an alternative high-school program called ReSource YouthBuild, which offers aca-demics and a chance to learn occupa-tional skills. The bicycle barn is the first project that will be completed since the pandemic hit in March. YouthBuilders, however, have also worked with orga-nizations such as the Old Labor Hall in Barre and the People’s Health and Wellness Clinic in Plainfield. They will at times take on projects for individual homeowners, but the focus is on help-ing nonprofits as a way of giving to their community.

YouthBuild was founded almost 50 years ago in Harlem by Dorothy Stone-man, who wanted to “mobilize teenagers to become a positive force for change.” The Havard graduate moved to New York in 1962 and had been teaching in the inner city when she began to envi-sion an organization for young people that would have three goals: community service, job training, and academic ac-complishment.

She asked a group of inner city teenag-ers what they would do for their commu-nity if given some adult help. They told her, “We’d rebuild the houses. We’d take the empty buildings back from the drug dealers and eliminate the crime.” That successful project was the beginning of an organization that would eventually be known as YouthBuild.

There are now hundreds of Youth-Build organizations in this country and 80 in 21 countries around the world. In Vermont, ReSource operates two Youth-Build programs: one in Burlington and one on Granite Street in Barre.

Each YouthBuild center is staffed by a teacher for academic work, a project manager, and a master craftsman for job training. Most of their student recruits

begin as juniors in high school, generally those who have found that the structure of a traditional high school is not work-ing well for them. Spending part of their day learning about a specific craft can open up a new world for a teenager and new job opportunities as well.

Emily MacFayden is the academic specialist with Barre’s YouthBuild, Each student works on an individualized program based on reports from their local high school. MacFayden notes that one of the immediate benefits of joining YouthBuild is that attendance usually improves, sometimes dramati-cally, which gives them more access to academic learning. She has seen that the work itself helps to develop “mental toughness,” a quality that also makes them more employable. They try to keep enrollment small, with eight as a target number, but it may go as high as 12.

YouthBuild has a “special relation-ship” with AmeriCorps. Students are considered to be members of Ameri-Corps while they’re with YouthBuild. While they don’t receive salaries from AmeriCorps, the high school students are entitled to a certificate for partici-pation and financial assistance toward further education when they graduate.

MacFayden says there are only boys in

her Barre program at the moment, but this is not always the case and definitely not the case nationwide or worldwide.

October is a popular time for signing up. High school juniors or seniors who have been unhappy but wanted to give school one more try may decide in early fall that they still feel the traditional set-ting isn’t right for them. If a teacher or guidance counselor recommends Youth-Build, they don’t completely sever ties with their local school. They receive diplomas and are invited to graduation, but MacFayden says they often prefer to plan a celebration with their own Youth-Build group.

The employment rate after graduation is usually 100 percent, and there’s an-other plus. Work in the building trades offers these students a reward many white collar workers in their cubicles may never know, the satisfaction of creating a useful product from start to finish.

No one pretends it’s going to be easy, although former YouthBuild graduates often talk about how much fun the ex-perience was. That’s not hard to believe. Watching Noah and Kolby as they stride across a roof, saw new wood, or scramble up a ladder can leave an observer think-ing that, for some teenagers, this is the dream of what school can be.

Building a Future By Mary Mello

Kolby LaPerle stands on the roof he helped build. Photo by Mary Mello.


Aubuchon Hardware’s downtown Montpelier store — like all of Aubuchon’s stores — has had a “really, really busy year,” according to store manager Gregg McNelis. So busy that weekly Montpelier store sales are up an average of 20 percent over the same week last year, he said, with some weeks up more than that.

“When the coronavirus went nation-wide, things became very hectic,” Mc-Nelis said. “After everyone realized they were locked down, home projects became a source of release. People got stir crazy and decided to do something instead of watching Netflix all day.”

Aubuchon employee Tip Ruggles, who has worked in the hardware business

for decades — first at his family’s now-closed Somers Hardware and for the last 11 years at Aubuchon — said 2020 has been a “really crazy year. I’ve never seen a year like this.”

Indeed, nearly all aspects of home im-provement are booming this year. Even as many homeowners have been working on their own homes and yards, others have tried to line up contractors to do work, only to find that local carpenters, painters, masons, landscapers, electri-cians — just about everyone who works on houses and yards — are swamped with work and are sometimes turning away customers.

McNelis noted that contractors who buy supplies at the Montpelier Aubuchon

store were busy before the pandemic, but are now even busier, and in some cases are buying a greater quantity of supplies. “We’ve faced challenges in getting some things for them, such as personal protec-tive equipment like masks or cartridges for ventilators,” he said.

The simultaneous real estate boom that is occurring in Vermont has also played a part in driving up Aubuchon’s sales. Lots of people have been painting their houses or otherwise fixing them in order to sell and take advantage of the strong market, McNelis said. “Paint has been huge for us this year,” he said.

The real estate boom paired with the pandemic has also led to staggering lum-ber price increases, according to Aubu-

chon customer Ian Gile of Montpelier, who works for Clark Builders in Calais and was waiting to be served on a recent busy Saturday. Overhearing a discussion of business this year, he said that soar-ing lumber prices should be mentioned. “Eight months ago, a two by four by eight cost $2.50, now it costs $8,” he said, while the price for certain sheets of plywood has jumped from $8 to $30.

Lumber is in short supply, he noted. “I have a buddy who’s brother on Cape Cod wanted to build a deck, but he couldn’t find any pressure-treated lumber,” Gile said. “So he ordered some up here and drove up to get it.”

Home Improvement Boom Boosts Aubuchon HardwareBy Phil Dodd

see Aubuchon, page 12


Gile’s employer is booked nearly two years out and is turning away business, he said. “We just started construction on a new house in South Barre, and we have three more lined up after that,” he said.

At Aubuchon, much of the sales boom can simply be attributed to people doing

more things at home, such as gardening. “We’ve sold lots of seeds and other gar-dening products,” McNelis said. “Now we are selling out of canning jars. We are also having a hard time keeping fencing in stock.”

The pandemic-caused boom in home improvement, while undoubtedly profit-able for Aubuchon, has also been chal-lenging, according to McNelis. Business was slow last winter, he said, and the

chain had cut its payroll. But when the boom hit, the store found it was under-staffed.

“Finding people to work was hard when the government was giving an extra $600 a week to those who were unemployed,” he said. “But after that ended, applica-tions started to trickle in and now we are up to 17 employees.” Contractors have also told him they are having a hard time finding workers, he noted.

Operating the store was a different ex-perience in the early days of the pandemic, McNelis said. “At one point we were let-ting only three people into the store at a time, then it went up to 10. Now because restrictions have been lifted we can have 27 people in the store at once.”

Curbside pickup and online ordering were other changes to which the store had to adjust. “Before, we used to get only about seven online orders a week,” McNelis said. “Then in April and May we started getting 50 online orders a day.”

McNelis, who lives in South Burling-ton, moved to Vermont 10 years ago to go to college, attending CCV and gradu-ating from Champlain College. He also came here because he likes to ski. “I love it here,” he said.

McNelis has worked for Aubuchon for five years and has been the manager in Montpelier since December. “This store is great,” he said. “It has a nice home-town atmosphere.”

AubuchonContinued from page 11


I became the owner of a 220-year-old farmhouse in May 2020. The clos-ing was a lonely, lengthy affair with me sitting in the driveway of a lawyer’s office on Barre Street waiting for his masked assistant to bring out stacks of papers on a clipboard. The process was called a “drive-through closing.” Then, more waiting, and a phone call from the lawyer to my cellphone where he talked me through it, page by page, and instructed me where to initial and sign. Finally, the masked lawyer him-self approached my car and retrieved the papers along with my check. It was probably raining.

I went home and took a good look at the house. Broken porch windows boarded up. The outer door had fallen off in 2018. Peeling exterior paint ex-posed weathered boards.

Anticipating this moment a couple of years ago, I took some woodshop classes at the school where I worked during ‘wellness’ afternoons. I needed to learn how to use power tools such as saws, drills, and sanders. I already knew how to use most common hand tools.

Bushes and shrubs had overgrown the front, prohibiting access for painting. I addressed this first using a hand saw, since I do not own a power saw. I gave myself a quota each night after work to remove at least four branches. I took down or greatly pruned three lilac

bushes, a quince bush, and some kind of fir shrub growing up over and leaning against the roof.

Now, ready for painting. By this time it was still a pandemic lockdown. I drove to the Habitat for Humanity in Willis-ton to buy paint, but when I got there, they were only open for curbside pick up to people who purchased ahead of time online. However, since I was there, the man asked what I was looking for. Soon I was headed home with five gal-lons of Local Color brand “Barn Red” and a gallon each of “Mansfield White,” “Maple Cream,” “Granite Grey,” and “Blue Moon” at $11 per gallon. I was a little worried about the red, because there is nothing worse than the “wrong color red” splashed over a whole house or barn. You know, the kind that is too orangey or too bright. But it wound up being a perfect hue and thickness.

As with all home improvement proj-ects, I had two big challenges: time and money. I was working as a third-year teacher (in a remote classroom en-vironment) and as a part-time writer. I couldn’t exactly hire a painting crew or buy hundreds of dollars worth of materi-als. I also didn’t have the youth, strength, and wherewithal to spend all day scrap-ing and painting. I had to work up to it.

I solved it by borrowing the ladder from my good friends Scott and Amy, and using whatever tools I found around

the house. I fixed the broken porch win-dows myself using Plexiglas. There were plenty of scraping tools. I needed to get new paint brushes and buckets, though.

Again, I gave myself a strict quota: I would scrape the old paint each after-noon if I felt like it until I got sick of it. My painting quota was to paint until my

little bucket was empty, and that was it for the night. This went on from May until the end of September. I didn’t get the whole house painted, but I painted the back part by the woodshed where it looked so shabby I got depressed every time I looked at it. I also finished the front of the house, which was my prior-ity. My neighbor, Mark, happened to have a door that perfectly fit the place where the outer door had fallen off. He installed it for me, and fixed the door handle installation I botched. I painted it “Blue Moon” — a drastic change for the house. I painted the weathered old steps that color as well. I painted the door frame and railing “Maple Cream.”

I didn’t get to the other sides or the garage, but I read a home improvement article (one of many) that suggested this strategy for DIY house painting: Paint one side every year. Now that is the kind of schedule I can abide by.

Never mind about the septic tank backing up, the plumbing situation, or the furnace blow-out that all occurred around the time I purchased the house. For now, although they happened re-cently, those homeowner crises are by-gones.

Drive-through Closing and Reality Home ImprovementBy Carla Occaso

Freshly painted door and trim. Photo by Carla Occaso.


Great deals! Fun entertainment and surprises!$5,000+ in prizes and giveaways!

montpelieralive.com/madness

A three-day celebration of downtown Montpelier!

OCT 15–17

Kevin Coughlin and Matt Mc-Carthy, the new owners of the Uncommon Market, have com-pleted the sale and expect to reopen the popular Montpelier deli and provisions shop on November 1.

When The Bridge stopped by the store last week, a record player was spinning as the two owners worked on the shop. There is already a new coat of paint on the walls, new produce display tables, and a new — or rather, old — floor put in. “These are actu-ally the floors from the Calais Town Hall,” Coughlin explained. “They were renovating, so we salvaged them and

got them refinished. The wood is 156 years old.”

The locally sourced flooring is only one of many steps they are taking to bring a sense of community into the shop, located at the corner of School and Elm streets. They plan to stock the shelves with organic products from nearby farms and have a dedicated sec-tion for locally crafted beers. “We want to support local,” Coughlin said. “There are so many amazing farms and farmers [in Vermont], so why not take advantage of that and help them out, while also providing for the Capital City?”

Coughlin and McCarthy will keep

the store’s original name, as well as some of the specialties for which the Uncommon Market is known. Its popu-lar seafood counter and full-service deli will still be there upon reopening, and seating on the porch overlooking the North Branch River will be available to customers.

“Our goal is to create a place where you can come here, get whatever grocer-ies you want, a sandwich and a beer, sit by the river, and enjoy Montpelier as it should be enjoyed,” McCarthy said.

Following social distancing guide-lines, the store will provide curbside pickup. The layout of the store will

also ensure a six-foot distance between customers.

McCarthy was one of the original owners of Three Penny Taproom on Main Street, and Coughlin was an in-dependently contracted photographer before purchasing the market. They look forward to welcoming the Mont-pelier community into their shop soon. Coughlin said he is grateful for the sup-port they have received:

“More than anything, we want to express our thank you to the public for their patience. Everyone has been so understanding, and I really do think it’s going to be worth the wait.”

Uncommon Market Expects to Reopen November 1By Olivia White

H SHOP MONTPELIER MADNESS H


H SHOP MONTPELIER MADNESS H OCTOBER 15–17 H


Get out and vote!Early voting has commenced in Vermont. Polls will be open in Montpelier from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on November 3. Photos by Terry Allen.


By Andrew Nemethy

OpinionThe Way I See It Who Says Nothing in Life is Free?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we appear to have adopted our eastern neighbor’s motto, “Live Free or Die.” With a twist.

Vermont has be-come the “Live Free, not Buy” state.

That’s the only conclusion that makes sense, given that “free” signs, on card-board and plywood or even flimsy paper, seem to sprout these days along our roadsides — sort of like burdocks, except intentionally planned.

This proliferation of signs advertising “free” stuff at the end of the driveway, and along the fence on dirt roads or paved lanes, is now at the level of an ex-traordinary phenomena. Our pandemic-inspired house sprucing up, attic empty-ing, and basement cleaning seem to have turned this offering of the unwanted, the unused, the obsolete and antique into a veritable frenzy of hopeful dispersion. And delusion.

As in, hoping someone will take the stuff I don’t want and I won’t then have to deal with and pay to dispose of it at the waste transfer station.

This aspiration for some miraculous Junkyard JuJu manifests itself in remark-

able ways. Most amusing and baffling are the many fabric-covered couches, left outside along dusty major thoroughfares for months, as if some furniture fairy — a demented cousin to the tooth fairy — is going to come along and pluck it away, leaving a happy empty space (sort of a tooth fairy in reverse).

Now I admit, sometimes there’s a tarp over the couch, but after a week or two, usually the tarping ends. But the couch always remains, perhaps with a rug to keep it from getting lonely. Then the couches sit there, mouldering away, a test of product and material chemistry offer-ing visual evidence of what is biodegrad-able and what is not.

Then there are the disintegrating card-board boxes whose picked-over remains, exposed to the elements for months, now hold old CDs; water-soaked puzzles and books; a motley assortment of plates, cups and utensils; and even electronic devices — the performance of which is likely not enhanced by clouds of dust or clouds that unleash downpours. Basically the stuff no one wants, the dregs and de-tritus of inevitable obsolescence, provide a happy gathering spot for mold spores.

Some folks are “pilers,” their preferred showcase methodology (using the term loosely), offering a pile of stuff spread

out over 10 feet along the road, hoping something will catch a motorist’s eye at 40 mph. A lone tire, say, a couple of rusty bikes, stuff that looks like clothing, or blankets, or a few old window sashes and a screen door, a 50-year-old set of skis, a few tools, and the ubiquitous plastic plant buckets.

Like taxes and monthly bills, many of these are recurring events, with additions every few weeks to lure new eyes and past visitors. I admit this works. I confess that on one of my routine mountain bike routes, there are two driveway piles I’ve stopped at more than once. (And then hidden stuff I’ve wanted in the bushes, so I can come back after my ride to pick them up in the car.)

Who says nothing in life is “free?”Now, you could argue that this is Ver-

montism at its best. It is true, Vermonters have been known as a thrifty sort, adher-ing to Silent Cal’s admonition to “Eat it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

Or today, just pass it along, freely.Of course Calvin Coolidge, native

Vermonter and 30th president of the U.S., died in 1933, and never experi-enced the digital cornucopias of Amazon or aisles of a Walmart or Costco. The resulting excess of stuff we all collect has to go somewhere.

Back in the day, as they say, it went in the Back 40. When I bought my old farmhouse in Calais, it had a classic col-lection of rusted old cars in the woods, plus requisite tire piles, pipes and plumb-ing equipment, old machinery parts, piles of old bricks, galvanized roofing, and concrete blocks. I also know of at least three “dumps” in the woods where I’ve scavenged great old glass bottles, back when that was a thing.

In the hippie heyday of the ‘70s, every self-respecting farmhouse had its old car (or tractor and implements) collection, either in the front yard, by the garage or out behind the house or barn somewhere. No one would ever think of giving away a vehicle or tractor whose parts might be needed some day. Or in the rapture.

But times have changed, as have our environmental understandings. Silent Cal would probably not be so silent upon hearing that a 50-gallon trash can will set you back $5–10 bucks and a car tire $5.

Don’t even ask about what a sofa might cost.

We’re a state of free thinkers now. Longtime writer and journalist Andrew

Nemethy plans to hold an epic yard sale someday. The free pile will be awesome.


(*Apologies to Creedence Clearwater Revival)

OK, I think I’ve made a decision. I am going to refuse to wear pants for the duration of this pandemic. I have a number of reasons for this decision.

First of all, is wearing pants really effective? Am I really better off wear-ing pants? The evidence here is mixed. What do pants really do except cover my bare bottom? Well, okay, maybe sitting on a cold Naugahyde sofa or a vinyl car seat that’s been in the sun for two hours is easier if I’m wearing pants, but what else?

Second, the protocols for wearing pants are kind of fuzzy. What author-

ity says I have to wear pants and why? And those protocols change for different cultures around the world and maybe even different parts of our own country; it might be okay to not wear pants here in Vermont, but it could be a different story in the second first republic, Texas. It’s very confusing.

Third, there is the freedom issue. Just like everybody else, I was born without pants. It was my mother who slapped some pants on me without my consent. Now, as an adult, I can choose not to wear them. Plus, I have the right to not wear them. There is nothing in the Con-stitution that specifically says I have to wear pants, and my right to free expres-sion is protected by the Bill of Rights.

I realize not wearing pants could make some people sick, but nausea is their problem, not mine, and most people recover from it.

Fourth, I can’t catch a cold, the flu, or even the coronavirus from sitting on respiratory virus particles with bare skin. It’s an impossibility. And is a cold, flu, or COVID really that bad? Some people say no. Besides, that has nothing to do with my decision.

Fifth, wearing pants is uncomfortable and restrictive. This is especially true of blue jeans before they have been washed about 30 times. And some of my pants are very tight around the waist, making it hard to breathe. It’s much more com-fortable to not wear them. Nobody likes to wear pants when working out.

Sixth, it’s discriminatory. In the U.S., guys are expected to wear pants, but women can wear pants OR skirts. Where’s the fairness in that? In other parts of the world guys wear other forms of dress instead of pants, and in some tropical places they hardly wear anything at all (the Yali men of New Guinea only wear a thin gourd called a koteka, which they . . . nevermind!).

Seventh, I’m not contagious for any-thing, so my not wearing pants is not a risk for other people, especially if I maintain social distancing. And, believe me, people will tend to remain socially distant if I’m not wearing pants.

Eighth, it’s manly to risk going without pants. Do you remember the locker room in high school phys ed? Going around without pants in the locker room could invite a pop with a wet towel. Neil, the

quarterback of our football team, once got popped pretty good, but he didn’t even flinch and said, “Never touched me!” as he walked away with a big red welt forming on his backside. That, in my book, was manly.

Ninth, wearing pants has become po-liticized. Not so much the wearing of pants, but the type of pants you wear. My grandad wore OshKosh bib overalls every day except to church on Sundays. If that tells you something of where he came from, you’d be right. Nowadays, a lot of guys who wear chinos won’t talk to guys who wear Carhartt pants with a hammer loop and vice versa, and guys who wear Brooks Brothers suits won’t talk to either group. By not wearing pants at all I refuse to be part of that game.

Last, wearing pants, in my estimation, hides some beautiful parts of my body. I won’t go on about that.

So guys, lose those pants and join me. I won’t be hard to spot. I’ll be the one not wearing pants. But I’m not stupid. I will be wearing a face mask. I hope you do the same.

Bad Moon Rising?*

By Larry Floersch

Opinion


I N M E M O R I A M

Placing Obituaries in The Bridge

The Bridge is pleased to offer space for death notices, obituaries, and memorial announcements, all at an affordable price.

The fee is 35 cents a word, with a minimum pur-chase of 250 words at $88. A single photo is free

of charge. Approved submissions will be posted on The Bridge website immediately and appear in the next print edition of the paper. If you are announcing a memorial service and it will take place before the next print edition, please contact us to discuss web-only advertising options.

Send submissions or inquiries to editor@montpe-

lierbridge.com. Please include name, email address, and phone number of the person submitting, and we will touch base with you to arrange payment. The Bridge reserves the right to edit submissions to con-form to the paper’s style or for clarity, in which case we’ll send you an edited version for approval prior to publishing on the web and in print.


Karen Kevra of Capital City Concerts Launches PodcastBy Carla Occaso

Arts

Karen Kevra, Capital City Con-certs’ artistic director, has launched a new podcast called “Muse Mentors,” which is hosted online at Listennotes.com. It debuted Septem-ber 30.

“It is funny,” Kevra told The Bridge. “This pandemic is forcing us to reinvent ourselves. I am going bonkers not per-forming. The thing that has been lovely about this podcast is reconnecting with old friends and others. I am going be-yond musicians.”

Here is a description provided by Capital City Concerts: “Karen Kevra’s life was changed over two decades ago when she

met her mentor Louis Moyse. Out of that relationship grew countless performances, a Grammy-nomination, and a thriving classical music concert series in the capital of Vermont, where friends and neighbors gather to hear extraordinary musicians with impressive bios. What those bios don’t reveal are the personal stories of deep con-nection between student and mentor. With a spirit of camaraderie, Karen invites her guests to recount how a mentor’s approach to the arts spills over into life at large.”

Kevra said creating the new podcast makes her feel as if her world is opening up by reconnecting in this way.

Nancy Reid, president of Capital City

Concerts, said the organization wants to thank the series’ audience and busi-ness supporters and to keep listeners engaged by the podcast. “We are both excited about this and think it will bring a unique and personal angle to our listen-ers,” Reid wrote in an email.

Guests scheduled to be on the podcast include soprano Hyunah Yu, pianists Jeffrey Chappell and Paul Orgel, violin-

ist Nick Kitchen, and Laurie Smukler, flutist Paula Robison, and other artists including Circus Smirkus founder Rob Mermin and the remarkable young il-lustrator Armando Veve.

Capital City Concerts was founded in 2000 by flutist Karen Kevra, who was nominated for a Grammy award in 2003.

Check out the podcast at musementors.com.


prove safety and reduce flood insurance costs. At a minimum new buildings are required to be built above or flood proofed below the design flood eleva-tion. Also, building additions or im-provements that exceed 50 percent of the value of the existing building are treated as new buildings and must be raised above the design flood elevation or otherwise flood proofed, if appli-cable. Always check with the city before you store materials, clear vegetation, re-grade, or fill on your property within the flood hazard area.

3. Buy flood insurance. The most important flood protection device, after prevention, is flood insurance. If your property is located in the floodplain and you do not have flood insurance, talk to

your insurance agent. Homeowner’s and renter’s insurance policies do not cover damage from floods. If your lending in-stitution is requiring that you purchase flood insurance and you believe that you have little or no risk, there are tools available to determine your risk. Please contact the Planning Department for information on what tools are available.

If your property is not within the mapped flood hazard area, it doesn’t mean you are safe from flooding. Prop-erty owners outside of the mapped high-risk flood areas file more than 20 percent of all National Flood In-surance Program (NFIP) claims and receive one-third of federal disaster as-sistance for flooding. Anywhere it can rain, it can flood. Contact the Planning Department to learn about a lower-cost Preferred Risk Policy (PRP).

The City of Montpelier also partici-pates in a voluntary program through

FEMA called the Community Rating System (CRS) and has implemented a number of initiatives in an effort to reduce flood damage. As a result of our participation in CRS, residents receive a 10 percent discount in flood insur-ance rates for the municipality and for individual policyholders. We are always working to improve our rating, which will improve our discount percentage.

4. Make an emergency plan — Build a kit. There are lots of tools online to help make emergency plans, but FEMA has a site at www.ready.gov/floods. Emergencies don’t always give you the time to plan and gather re-sources, so having a plan and kit allows you to act quickly and have a common meeting point or communication plan for when your family is separated.

Montpelier now uses VT-ALERT as its emergency notification system. Sign up for VT-ALERT at www.vtalert.gov.

5. “Be aware” during Flood Watches. When flooding is likely, lis-ten to the radio or television, sign up for VT-ALERT or follow the city on social media for information. Montpelier is vulnerable to flash flooding, and condi-tions can change quickly. Know where to go if you need to reach higher ground quickly by foot. You should get out your emergency kit and make preparations.

Around your home you should bring in outdoor furniture, move essential items to an upper floor, and turn off utilities at the main switches or valves if instructed to do so. You should also disconnect electrical appliances, but do not touch electrical equipment if you are wet or standing in water.

6. “Take action” during Flood Warnings. This may require either moving to higher ground or evacuat-ing if directed to do so. If there is any possibility of a flash flood, move im-

mediately to higher ground. Do not wait for instructions to move. Be aware of streams, drainage channels, canyons, and other areas known to flood sud-denly. Flash floods can occur in these areas with or without such typical warn-ings as rain clouds or heavy rain.

Sometimes evacuation is necessary. If you have to leave your home, remember these evacuation tips:• Do not walk through moving water.

Six inches of moving water can make you fall. If you have to walk in water, walk where the water is not moving. Use a stick to check the firmness of the ground in front of you.

• Do not drive into flooded areas. If floodwaters rise around your car, abandon the car and move to higher ground if you can do so safely. A foot of water is enough to float many vehicles. Finally, two feet of rushing water can carry away most vehicles, including SUVs and trucks. You and the vehicle can be quickly swept away. Turn around. Don’t drown!

7. Return home only when safe. After a flood it is important to listen to the news and to call City Hall to see whether it is safe to return. During a flood a number of utilities and areas may not be safe. For example:• The drinking water supply may not

be safe to drink. • Remaining floodwaters may be con-

taminated by oil, gasoline, or raw sewage.

• Water may also be electrically charged from underground or downed power lines.

• Roads may have weakened and could collapse under the weight of a car.

• Stay away from downed power lines and report them to the power com-pany.

• Stay out of any building if it is sur-rounded by floodwaters. Use extreme caution when entering buildings that had previously been flooded as there may be hidden damage, particularly in foundations.

• Septic tanks and leaching systems may have failed and should be ser-viced as soon as possible. Damaged sewage systems are serious health hazards. Clean and disinfect every-thing that got wet. Mud left from flood water can contain sewage and chemicals.

Flood WatchContinued from page 9

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8. Document damage and get permits. After a flood it is very impor-tant to contact your insurance agent and the Planning Department before repair-ing or rebuilding any damage. This is critical to remaining eligible for federal assistance if it becomes available. Taking pictures of damage and working with the planning office is the fastest way to get moving forward without jeopardiz-ing your assistance.

Although the city, state government, the Army Corps of Engineers, and FEMA have constructed flood mitiga-tion devices, enacted various forms of legislation, and initiated numerous ac-tivities and programs designed to miti-gate flooding and flood damage to the city, the threat of flooding and flood damage remains significant. The Mont-pelier Hazard Mitigation Plan, adopted in 2014, presents strategies to mitigate future flood losses in the event a flood does occur.

It is possible that as the shape of land changes over time or new information becomes available, properties once be-lieved to be in the floodplain might, in fact, no longer be. In March of 2013 new

floodplain maps became effective. Prop-erties that had been in the floodplain may no longer be and properties that hadn’t been in the floodplain in the past may be now. If you have questions about the location of the floodplain please contact the Planning Department.

The City of Montpelier and the De-partment of Planning & Community Development are here to help you with your questions regarding flooding in our community. Multiple staff members are specially trained in floodplain man-agement and receive annual training in this area. We can provide you with in-formation about local flooding hazards; flood safety; flood insurance; property protection measures; and mapping and regulatory assistance. We have many informational brochures and pamphlets here in the office. We can assist with reading and understanding NFIP maps and print them out for you. You can also ask the librarian and the Kellogg Hub-bard Library for the flood information that we have provided for them. Please do not hesitate to call me, Audra Brown, CFM, Planning & Zoning Assistant, 802-223-9506 or email [email protected].

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