Latest News
This year was going to be a challenge
HARDWICK – When I was asked to be town moderator, I immediately said yes. Town Meeting Day is my favorite day of the year, of course I will step up when asked to serve my community. I knew enough of Robert’s Rules to accept the challenge and then spent days[Read More…]
The absurd push for school consolidation
CABOT – Dear Governor Scott, Secretary Saunders and Vermont State Legislators: I am a retired educator, with 40 years’ experience in teaching and leadership roles. I don’t understand how you can continue this absurd push for school consolidation: creating huge districts, closing small schools, mandating class sizes, imposing spending[Read More…]
For whom the bill tolls: property taxes are killing Greensboro
GREENSBORO – Town select boards pore over municipal budgets line by line for weeks. The town budget process is difficult and time-consuming, but it isn’t complicated. There are revenues and there are expenses. School budgets are different. Vermont’s Education Funding Formula has become so complex that most school board members[Read More…]
It was another sobering week
MONTPELIER – It was yet another sobering week at the State House. Below are several facts I learned this week. Each reflects a separate area of concern, yet together they illustrate the challenging times we face. Twenty-five percent of students in our schools are chronically absent. “Chronically absent” means missing[Read More…]
The first 72 hours matter most
HARDWICK – In emergency management, there is a phrase that comes up often: the first 72 hours. It refers to the period immediately after a major event, when outside help may be delayed, systems are disrupted, and communities must rely largely on what they already have. For Hardwick, it is[Read More…]
True Religion
The only possible true religion (if there could be such a thing), would be a whole new way of seeing, which our divine Source, in and through us, would weave in tandem. And through the lens of that re-perceiving, —and re-partnering— could come a re-membering —of our birthright member-ship— in[Read More…]
Heller’s World
Backyard neighbor: the song sparrow
Brookfield – In early March, birds that have been gone all winter begin appearing at my feeder. One of the earliest of these spring migrants is a brown-backed sparrow with a white breast coarsely streaked with brown. The streaks converge in a dark central breast spot, an easy identification mark.[Read More…]
Combat high prices with a garden
CORNISH FLAT, N.H. – It seems to me that the prices of many things have gone up significantly in recent times. One way to combat that, as a gardener, is to start plants by seed instead of buying plants that someone else has started, watered and mothered for months. Many[Read More…]
Spring cover crops for vegetable gardens
SOUTH BURLINGTON – The ground may still be covered in snow, but now is an excellent time to start planning to improve the soil in vegetable gardens for the planting season ahead. Cover crops are effective tools in the gardener’s toolbox for soil improvement. While some are food crops, they are[Read More…]
Helms wins awards in art, writing competition
HARDWICK – The Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union has announced Hazen Union student Will Helms (grade 11) is among 167 young artists and writers from across Vermont who have been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for their exceptional artistic and literary talent. Helms earned a silver key for[Read More…]
