100 Years ago in The Hardwick Gazette, May 27, 1926
Commissioner H. P. Sheldon to Speak Here Next Week
State Fish and Game Commissioner H. P. Sheldon will come here next week Thursday evening, a guest of the Hardwick Rod and Gun Club, and a banquet will be given by the Club at the Hardwick Inn, at 8:00 o’clock in the evening.
Mr. Sheldon will speak after the supper and several local men will contribute their share to the talk-feast. Several musical numbers are down on the program. Fish stories, of course, with [sic] predominate during the evening and all members of the Club and others interested in fish and game are invited to come prepared with their big stories. Tickets are being sold for the banquet at $1.00 per plate.
Memorial Day Memories
Memorial Day this year will be a day of sorrow in many Hardwick homes. The Grim Reaper has stalked through our midst in the months that have past [sic] and laid low some of the most beloved of our citizens. For the last few years each Memorial Day has brought vividly to the minds of those of us who have made Hardwick our home for a considerable period, the realization of our loss. Memorial Day did not seem the same for a long time after J.H. McLoud passed on. For many years his duty and pleasure was to read Lincoln’s Gettysburg address at the Memorial Day services. We always looked forward to hearing his voice ring out eloquently in those immortal words, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” There are others who were wont to take their places in the Memorial Day services who have passed on, and whose place in this community will never be filled. On this Memorial Day, 1926, we honor these good citizens who will never walk and talk with us again on this side of Heaven’s gateway. When we place wreaths on the graves of our soldier dead next Sunday, we will place a flower and shed a tear upon their graves, too.
50 years ago in The Hardwickian, May 25, 1976
PROPERTY OWNERS PROTEST APPRAISALS
To the Editor:
We believe it should become public knowledge that the so-called reappraisal done in the Town of Hardwick has met with a greater feeling of injustice than was indicated in the Caledonian Record of May 14, 1976. This interview with the Hardwick Listers presented only one side of the picture. Many taxpayers felt it was futile to ask for a hearing on Grievance Day. Most of the taxpayers that requested a hearing, left with unanswered questions of any definite formula used for the various and divergent increases. Denials for adjustment were reached by the Listers from their office, without an inspection of properties before or after their decisions.
There is the question in many minds of the legality of this reappraisal, coming only two years after the vote to reappraise by the Vermont Tax Dept. It was stated in the papers and on television news that Burlington has not had a complete reappraisal in twenty years. They only pickup new houses, businesses and others from building permits issued each year. No one would object to this procedure.
Thesè figures were taken from the Hardwich [sic] Annual Reports.
YEAR Listers Salaries & Expenses
1972 $ 2,148.04
1973 8,195.08
1974 20,510.60
1975 6,262.44
All taxpayers are still paying their share for the costly errors made in 1974. With the 1975 Listers expenses three times
greater than the year 1972, what will 1976 cost us? How long do you taxpayers want to continue to pay for further mistakes?
Be sure and write your letters of appeal to the Board of Civil Authority and deliver to the Town Clerk by May 29, 1976. Anyone interested in pursuing this matter further by having a meeting with legal counsel, contact 472-5486..
VILLAGE TRUSTEES DECIDE TO BORROW FROM LIGHT DEPARTMENT
By PETER BUKNATSKI
The Hardwick Village Trustees decided last Thursday night to borrow $5,000 from from [sic] the Village Light Department.
The loan is for the general fund, which Village President Ellis Richardson said is “hard up for money.”
Expected cut -backs in federal revenue sharing funds and a mistake which was apparently made by town listers on the anticipation of the town’s highway taxes, were reasons given for the money transfer.
In Richardson’s words, both the Revenue Sharing Office in Washington and the Hardwick Town listers “goofed” in their mathematical calculations.
Rupert Peake, superintendent of the Village Light Department, reported an eight per cent increase in kilowatt output by the Hardwick plant for the first four months of this year.
Peake said that Hardwick and other communities supplied by Green Mountain Power may take their negotiations with Yankee Power to the Federal Power Commission in Washington if an arrangement, is not made through the Vermont Public Service Board.
The trustees also discussed the possibility of keeping a CETA employee now working on bookkeeping in the Village Light Department on for a few weeks after the federal funding runs out next month.
The trustees said that they did not expect the federal government to continue funding the employee’s salary after June.
A complete overhaul of the electrical wiring in the Memorial Building was suggested. The trustees will discuss this with the selectmen.
Village Clerk and Treasurer Carmeline Williams said that village office equipment has not been getting full power and the trustees believe that this is due to the additional electric equipment in other offices at the Memorial Building, causing overload in the circuits.
25 years ago in The Hardwick Gazette, May 30, 2001
Railroad Corridor Decision Put On Siding
by Kelly E. Papke
There may still be a chance to see a railroad running through the Lamoille County Railroad Corridor.
Brian Searles, secretary at the state Agency of Transportation, agreed last week to the Mountain Valley Consortium’s recommendation to turn the corridor into a multiuse, four season trail.
Before the process of blazing a trail can began [sic], however, Searles’ proposal must pass through the state Legislature. The Senate will not look at the proposals until its next session in January 2002, said Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Grand Isle, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee.
“We don’t want anything to happen on that line prior to our own economic study of the advantages and disadvantages,” Mazza said yesterday.
The Senate has not seen any of the proposals made by the three groups wanting to use the corridor, he said.
The consortium reviewed proposals from the Vermont Association of Snow Travellers, the Town of St. Johnsbury, and Vermont Rail Link Inc.
Members did not recommended [sic] the Rail Link’s proposal to re-open the track for railroad use.
“We appreciate comments made by the committee, but we don’t know how they made their evaluation,” said Mazza. “We have to make sure they have looked at every possible decision and have exhausted all the possibilities of ever having a rail.”
According to Catherine Dimitruk, chair of the consortium and executive director of the Northwest Region Planning Commission, the decision to approve the St. Johnsbury proposal was a “nobrainer.”
The town was only asking for 2,600 feet of the trail for a path and funding was already in place through the Vermont Agency of Transportation.
With the other two proposals, the consortium used a ranking system based on technical, financial, and business areas of the proposals. Economic viability played a strong role in the decision, said Dimitruk.
“If a project isn’t economically viable, there will be no benefit,” said Dimitruk. “Based on the committees [sic] ranking system, VAST had a better chance of succeeding.. that’s my opinion.”
Pete Snyder, president of Vermont Rail Link Inc., is not satisfied with the consortium’s recommendation and Searles’ decision.
“Obviously, I am very disappointed by the decision,” said Snyder. “It is a frustration to hear from the consortium that our plan is not viable.”
All three phases – Swanton to Morrisville, Morrisville to Greensboro Bend, from Greensboro Bend to St. Johnsbury – would cost $10,600,000, Snyder gave as an estimate in his proposal. The Rail Link was only attempting to start the first phase and continue with the other two after the beginning 45 mile stretch was a success, said Snyder.
In his financial plan, 12 businesses throughout the first two phases committed letters to Vermont Rail Link, promising to use the line. These included Timber Resource Group, of Farmington, Maine, which wanted to ship logs from Hardwick, to Vermont Brick and Manufacturing in Highgate promising to ship bricks by rail.
If the Swanton to Morrisville phase went through, the Senate was going to allocate $500,000 this session to help the get [sic] train up and running, said Mazza.
“We will re-allocate that money to other rail in the state,” said Mazza.
The VAST proposal’s estimate was for $5,000,000, which is more than half of the Vermont Rail Link proposal, according to Sanford Woodbeck, a VAST official.
Searles was not sure how much the VAST proposal would ultimately cost, according to Dimitruk. The agency of transportation estimated a cost of $23,000,000 to create a trail.
“The $23,000,000 is the estimate by the Agency of Transportation and includes a contractor,” said Woodbeck. “That is more expensive than doing it through a volunteer organization.”
Woodbeck said the renovation would be composed of volunteer work. All the work needed is present in the $5,000,000, he said, including cutting brush, adding wood decks on the bridges, and repairing the washouts.
Woodbeck estimated it would be at least two years before work may even start on the trail due to a combination of passing through the state Legislature and Act 250, the state’s environmental review law.
“If the money is available, we can do it in two summers,” said Woodbeck of his volunteer program.
Searles’ decision was expected earlier this month, but a combination of problems set the public announcement back over a week.
“The secretary was out of town at a national association meeting in Kansas and other staff members have been away, so it took time for the staff to get together and discuss it,” said Nick Marro, assistant to the secretary.
Dimitruk said Searles’ reason for taking the extra time was to look into what the implications were for rail-banking the track.
Rail-banking is a policy that after a track is abandoned or converted, it has to be able to return to rail use within 90 days.
“At this point it is not definite, they will be pulled up yet,” said Dimitruk of the rails and ties.
She said the state may not take them up t but it is a possibility if the proposal moves further.
Snyder hopes the tracks will not be torn up.
“Rail-banking is a convenient legal vehicle in order to turn this into a trail,” he said. “This is a giant blow to economic development in the area.”
According to Woodbeck, the Agency of Transportation has already agreed to taking up the rails. He said the original idea VAST had was to cover the track with gravel. That estimate was $60,000,000, he said.
“It (the proposal) was revised and the Agency of Transportation agreed it would be removed and all the ties were fairly rotten and needed to be replaced anyways for it to go back to rail,” said Woodbeck.
Mazza said he had not heard of that offer, but the Senate would not accept the offer at this time.
“This is a very serious issue,” said Mazza. “There is no hurry for this project. We are currently putting $21,000,000 all over the state into maintaining rail and before we take it up anywhere in Vermont, we need to have exhausted all the possibilities of every [sic] having a rail there again.”
Nothing will happen to the corridor until the Senate goes through all the information plus its own, said Mazza.
