Seven Days, July 1, 2020

PRIMARY PUSH Candidates stump at a safe distance PAGE 12

HAPPY TRAILS

V ERM ONT ’S INDEP E NDE NT VO IC E JULY 1-8, 2020 VOL.25 NO.40 SEVENDAYSVT.COM

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WEEK IN REVIEW JUNE 24-JULY 1, 2020

FILE PHOTOS: OLIVER PARINI

COMPILED BY GILLIAN ENGLISH, SASHA GOLDSTEIN & MATTHEW ROY

LIBERAL BIASED?

MARKED UP

After complaints that Black Lives Matter messages were removed, VTrans will allow certain street art on roads, bridges and signs. Racial justice protesters, rejoice!

WRONG ANSWER

Sarah George

Abdullah Sall

The Vermont Human Rights Commission found “reasonable grounds to believe” that Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George discriminated against a former employee “based on his national origin, race and color.”

The HRC released the finding June 25, more than three years after Abdullah Sall first filed his complaint. The parties have six months to settle, after which the commission could decide to take the case to court.

The decision named the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs and the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office as respondents. But much of the report focuses on the actions of George, a progressive prosecutor who favors criminal justice reform.

George fired Sall in early 2017, just eight days after she became state’s attorney.

In his May 2017 complaint to the Human Rights Commission, Sall, who is from Liberia, alleged that he was subjected to a hostile work environment and was harassed about his accent. He claimed George fired him because people couldn’t understand what he was saying. Sall’s attorney, John Franco, told Seven Days at the time that his client faced “disparate treatment” because he’s a Muslim immigrant.

Though the investigation didn’t find enough evidence to support Sall’s hostile workplace claim, the commission concluded that Sall was treated differently based on his race — specifically because George terminated Sall but let two white employees with similar performance issues stay on the job.

COURTESY OF CHARLIE WHITNEY

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Desi Hong at his yard sale

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George said she fired Sall because he made numerous mistakes, such as misfiling paperwork so that arrest warrants were never issued. George told investigators that even as a deputy prosecutor, she’d been frustrated by his performance.

The report acknowledges that new supervisors commonly terminate employees hired by their predecessors, but it concludes that George didn’t give Sall a chance. She could have counseled him, explained her expectations or otherwise “hit the reset button.”

“She chose not to,” the report says. “This reflects her biases.”

“This case is really important because it really reflects what people of color have always known to be true about racism,” said Bor Yang, the HRC’s executive director. “It isn’t always the white supremacist. It shows up in very subtle ways.”

George told Seven Days that her decision to fire Sall had nothing to do with his race, national origin and color.

Speaking generally, she wrote in an email that managers sometimes fire workers “for operational integrity and efficiency; and to ensure that we are serving the citizens, as taxpayers, to the best of our ability.”

Should the matter go to court, George said, she believes that she can prove Sall was fired lawfully as an at-will employee, which means she could terminate him at any time, for any reason.

Read Courtney Lamdin’s full report at sevendaysvt.com.

Vermont’s response rate to the U.S. Census is among the worst in the country. In the end, it could mean fewer federal dollars.

EXIT POLL

Vermonters have requested nearly seven times as many absentee ballots as they had at this time during the 2018 primary, VTDigger.org reported. COVID concerns.

REVVED UP

A limited number of people can attend Thursday’s races at Thunder Road in person, the track announced. On your mark, get set...

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That’s how many miles per hour a Barre man was driving before he was stopped on Interstate 89 north in Williston; he’s charged with grossly negligent operation.

TOPFIVE

MOST POPULAR ITEMS ON SEVENDAYSVT.COM

1. “Rock Point Offers Rustic Rentals to Vermonters for the First Time in 89 Years” by Alison Novak. Summer camps at Rock Point in Burlington have been canceled, so the school decided to rent out a few lakefront properties.

They sold out almost immediately.

2. “Vermont Eases Travel Restrictions With Seven More States” by Kevin McCallum.

Residents of low-risk counties in seven states stretching west to Ohio and south to Virginia will no longer have to self-isolate for 14 days when visiting Vermont.

3. “An Old North End ‘Legend’ Dies, and the Public Pays Tribute” by Alison Novak. Scores of people gathered in Burlington’s Old North End to remember Russell Worthen, a 30-year-old man who died after crashing a motorcycle into a tree.

4. “How the Pandemic Propelled King Arthur Flour Into the National Spotlight” by Melissa Pasanen. During the shutdown, millions of new bakers turned to King Arthur for advice — and for flour to fuel the new national pastime.

5. “Three New Vermont Breweries Work to Open During the Pandemic” by Jordan Barry. The shutdown has altered timelines and business plans, but these three new breweries are trying to get started.

tweet of the week @teejVT My neighbor made a pool with a tarp in the back of his pickup and lounged during the heat wave. This tweet is to say I respect him. #btv FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @SEVENDAYSVT OUR TWEEPLE: SEVENDAYSVT.COM/TWITTER

WHAT’S KIND IN VERMONT

TOYS FOR COTS

Mary Hong and her 7-year-old son Desi were driving through Burlington’s Old North End earlier this month when the boy spotted a man holding a sign that read, “Homeless, anything helps.”

Desi wanted to give the man his snacks, he recalled during an interview last week, but his mom had a better idea: What about raising money to donate to an organization that helps the homeless?

Desi settled on a yard sale featuring many of his old toys and some household items. His mother suggested they donate any proceeds to the Burlington-based

Committee on Temporary Shelter, which offers services for the homeless, including families.

So Desi and his mom and dad gathered the older toys — “trucks, dinosaurs, a backpack,” Desi said — at their Hinesburg home and hauled them up to Desi’s grandmother’s house in Colchester. During a two-day sale on June 19 and 20, they brought in a grand total of $473.51. Among those who stopped by was a man who recounted the time he’d been homeless, Mary said.

The experience has inspired Desi, who says that when he’s older, he wants “to be a builder and build houses for homeless people.

“Because, well, homeless people — they’re homeless,” Desi explained. “They

might have a few bucks, but not enough to buy a home.”

After Desi donated the cash to COTS, the organization invited him to come by for a tour once COVID-19 restrictions are loosened.

Becky Holt, COTS’ development and communications director, also offered to arrange for him to talk to folks from Habitat for Humanity, an organization that builds homes for families in need.

“Not everybody can do everything, but everybody can do something,” Holt said of Desi’s donation. “Just do the one nice thing you can do, and it can make a big difference.”

Desi said this could be just the first sale.

“I need to do it again,” he said. “Because Mom forgot to bring some toys.”

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DISCLOSURE: Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly is the domestic partner of Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe. Routly abstains from involvement in the newspaper’s Statehouse and state political coverage. Find our conflict of interest policy here: sevendaysvt.com/disclosure.

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FEEDback READER REACTION TO RECENT ARTICLES

NOT ALL ‘WARM AND FUZZY’

[Re “Rising Stars,” June 24]: The article states: “Driscoll emphasized that the company has avoided layoffs by redeploying workers to meet both business and community needs.”

This is not true as a blanket statement. A number of King Arthur Flour employees who worked in the prepared foods division are taking severance agreements since their positions have been eliminated, and many can’t or won’t work in other positions where they could be “redeployed” because they do not want to undertake the personal risk of working in warehouse conditions or cannot make childcare arrangements to do so. They are required to sign nondisparagement agreements in order to receive their severance.

They are officially being laid off. King Arthur recently bulked up its HR team to facilitate this process.

When reporting on a company, no matter how warm and fuzzy the idea of a B Corporation makes you feel, try not to just carry water for their PR effort.

Jacob Elliot

PHILADELPHIA, PA

Editor’s note: When the story was reported and published, the statement that King Arthur had avoided layoffs was accurate. The company has since confirmed that, due to ongoing reduced workload at its café, store and schools, it has been obliged to lay off some employees.

BLM WRONG ABOUT BPD

[Re “Cut the Police,” June 17]: Ignorant statements about the Burlington Police Department by Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington have no place in shaping police policy. They say, “As the police officers of the BPD have shown an inability to de-escalate and an instinct of violence, their presence does not promote safety in our community.”

On April 23, rookie BPD Officer Luz Winters put her life on the line to subdue an African American male who fired a gun into Champlain Farms. She did so without a weapon, after witnessing him fire three rounds into the store. From my office, I’ve repeatedly watched BPD de-escalate mentally ill individuals violently acting out.

Twice I saw BPD officers calm men with long hunting knives threatening people. I watched BPD nonviolently subdue a man

WEEK IN REVIEW

TIM NEWCOMB

who was screaming he was going to murder someone in City Hall Park as a group of kindergartners approached on a field trip.

I know officers who have been spit on, punched and screamed at without retaliating. I know a trooper who went to arrest a man for impregnating his 13-year-old sister; when the perpetrator tried to stab him with a hunting knife, the trooper disarmed him without harm.

In the wake of the horrific murder of George Floyd and similar injustices by law enforcement, people are justifiably angry.

All police brutality matters, and it must stop. However, BLM’s false claims are a slap in the face to Officer Winters and to all good officers in Vermont who daily put themselves in harm’s way to protect our community. Reform, yes. Cuts, no.

Ben Luna

BURLINGTON

BLUE-LIGHT FLASHBACK

[Re “Cut the Police,” June 17]: I was arrested and then abused by the Burlington police 10 years ago. I was taking a left in my car on South Winooski Avenue from Main Street next to Kinko’s when the police stopped me. I waited in my gray Peugeot for 15 minutes, after which time I got out and stood next to the car. That was a mistake, but what occurred after that was unnecessary. The policeman shouted at me, and then proceeded to come over and shove me repeatedly against my car. I told him to stop, but he continued. I yelled over to people on the sidewalk to observe the policeman’s behavior. That seemed to rile him up even more.

The next thing that happened is that the officer asked if I was Latino. I told him what he said was racist and discriminatory and I

was just some old white guy. He eventually called for other police. They placed me in a paddy wagon, where I was put in a cell at police headquarters for an hour and then let go. The charges were eventually dropped.

I went before the Burlington Police Commission and told my story. The members looked quite indifferent. The police chief at the time, Alana Ennis, showed no interest in what I had to say.

After, when I would see a police car, my blood pressure would rise. In some small way, I felt what it must be like to be a person of color, fearful of the police. This was a new experience for me — one I have never forgotten. Any time there is an incident of abuse by a police officer, I think of the time I was stopped by the flashing blue lights.

We need more than a police commission in Burlington; we need a review board that can make decisions on police intimidation.

Hopefully the recent protests and discussion by the city council will bring swift action for major changes to the Burlington Police Department.

Ron Krupp

SOUTH BURLINGTON

ON RACISM

I would like to address my hastily written vote explanation quoted in [Off Message: “VT House Republicans Decry Reference to ‘Racist’ Trump Tweets in Juneteenth Resolution,” June 19], in which I describe my great-grandfather, who belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, as being “known for being lazy and mean, which fits the model of what I have seen of racists.”

To avoid perpetuating the myth that only mean, lazy people are racist, the word “overt” should have preceded “racists.” Racism is innate to our culture

through ongoing implicit and explicit biases that make doctors less responsive to Black patients and job applicants with “Black” names less likely to be chosen.

From the way news outlets represent crime suspects based on skin color to the lack of accurate, comprehensive data in our textbooks to Confederate statues erected during the Jim Crow era…

Those statues eclipse and dishonor the history of the strong, resilient Black people who survived the deprivations and cruelties of the forced march and Middle Passage and who built the early foundations of our nation’s wealth and infrastructure that allowed us to quickly become a world power. Those of us with the best intentions cannot avoid having racial bias because we are products of a culture that neither fully acknowledges our history nor embraces the discomfort required to move forward. I hope we can make some important progress now.

Charen Fegard

BERKSHIRE

Fegard is a Democratic state representative from Berkshire.

FACT-CHECK, PLEASE!

When you publish letters to the editor without verifying their accuracy, you are doing a disservice to the readers and perpetuating false narratives.

James Leas is incorrect [Feedback: “Cops Have Too Much Power,” June 17] when he states that George Floyd was “one of 1,000 unarmed Americans murdered each year by killer cops.”

From the Washington Post crime data: “In 2015, police shot and killed 94 unarmed individuals, a number that fell to 51 in 2016 before rising to 68 in 2017. This year, police have shot and killed 18 unarmed people, eight fewer than at the same time last year.”

In 2018, there were seven unarmed black men and 10 unarmed white men killed by police in the U.S. That’s way too many but quite a few less than the 1,000 Leas mistakenly claims.

To say they were “murdered” is also wrong.

One should read the entire article closely before citing incorrect data.

Paul Young

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Editor’s note: Young is right. The headline on the Washington Post story boldly claims “1,026 people have been shot and killed by police in the past year” — and more than 5,000 since 2015, which works out to be 1,000-plus per year. But that number includes armed individuals. The five-year total for unarmed victims is 353.

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contents JULY 1-8, 2020 VOL.25 NO.40

COLUMNS

SECTIONS

28 30 32 41 48 69

20 40 46 49 51

Hackie Bottom Line Vermonting Side Dishes Album Reviews Ask the Reverend

Life Lines Food + Drink Music + Nightlife Classes Classifieds + Puzzles 64 Fun Stuff 68 Personals

FOOD

Getting in Early Market Report: Isham Family Farm Farmers Market in Williston

PAGE 40

ON THE COVER

Spice of Life First Bite: A Burlington restaurant shares treasured flavors from the Himalayas

12

NEWS & POLITICS 11

PAGE 42

From the Publisher In-Person Pols

As the primary looms, some candidates emerge from isolation to stump

42

Checks, Unchecked?

STUCK IN VERMONT

Burlington loses partner in enforcing livable wage ordinance

Online Now

Show Me the Money

How Vermont lawmakers spent $827 million in federal aid

24 COVER IMAGE MICHAEL TONN • COVER DESIGN DON EGGERT & DIANE SULLIVAN

ARTS NEWS 22

FEATURES 34

Word for Word

First Contact

Vermonter Nick Charyk and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor collaborate on “Ethan Alien”

Dartmouth librarian Laura Braunstein works to diversify the world of crosswords

Outside the Box

The 2020 Vermont Pride Theater Festival goes virtual

A group of St. Johnsbury Academy students calling themselves NEK Girls for Equality organized a candlelight vigil and a protest in Lyndonville to honor Black lives lost to police brutality.

We have

A Most Mysterious Portal Solo Spotlights Villages of the Damned Couch Cinema: “Curon”

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FROM THE PUBLISHER

Join the Facebook Ad Boycott

Verizon Communications, Coca-Cola, the North Face, Levi Strauss & Co., Honda, the Hershey Company: Starting July 1, all of these global brands are pulling their ads from Facebook and Instagram.

More than 120 companies have signed on to the Stop Hate for Profit boycott, launched on June 17. Organized by a coalition that includes the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, Color of Change and Common Sense Media, it demands that Facebook do more to stop the spread of hate speech, misinformation and conspiracy theories on its platforms.

I’m all for the boycott. For the past 10 years, publishers like me have watched as Facebook sucked up a larger and larger percentage of online advertising revenue. Last year, the company made close to $70 billion from advertisers, many of whom used to market themselves in media outlets that fund local journalism — like Seven Days.

The result is not only fewer journalists in Vermont and elsewhere responsibly reporting on their communities; money that was once used to inform the public and foster democracy is now being used for just the opposite.

We’ve known for years that the world’s largest social network is used and misused by bad actors. Russian operatives ran ads on Facebook targeting Americans during the 2016 election. White nationalist organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., recruited participants via a Facebook event page. The man who killed 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019 livestreamed the massacre on Facebook.

Despite the company’s numerous apologies and promises of change, new issues keep popping up. In the past few weeks, false rumors about antifa activists have proliferated in Facebook groups. A June 22 New York Times story explains how false reports of antifa violence reached 41 different towns, inundating law enforcement with calls and inflaming tensions around otherwise peaceful demonstrations against police brutality.

Critics point out: It’s almost impossible to hold Facebook accountable. Unlike traditional publishers, who are bound by libel and discrimination laws, social media companies are not liable for what users post on their platforms. Because they are viewed as public bulletin boards, not publishers, Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act absolves them of all responsibility. Law enforcement and federal regulators have been slow to address the spread of the resulting hate speech online.

Could the boycott finally force Facebook to clean up its act?

Last Friday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged to remove posts that incite violence and to label hate speech from politicians, neither of which he’d been willing to do previously. But the boycott organizers want much more.

Stophateforprofit.org lists 10 demands, including that Facebook find and eliminate groups that promote white supremacy, anti-Semitism and “violent conspiracies”; stop the site’s algorithms from recommending content or groups that promote hate, misinformation or conspiracies; and give victims of severe harassment the ability to talk with an actual, live Facebook employee — something that’s virtually impossible today.

It also demands that Facebook provide an audit and refund advertisers’ money if their ads are shown next to content that violates Facebook’s terms of use — for example, if their brand appears alongside a video allegedly exposing cannibalism and pedophelia in Hollywood. Yes, that’s an actual example documented by the Anti-Defamation League.

Zuckerberg’s promises weren’t enough to satisfy Unilever, which owns both Seventh Generation and Ben & Jerry’s. The company announced last Friday that it would stop advertising on both Facebook Want to help Seven Days and and Twitter through the end of the year, according local journalism? Become a Super Reader. to the Wall Street Journal. On Sunday, Starbucks Look for the “Give Now” buttons at the top stepped up, too. The coffee company spent of sevendaysvt.com. Or send a check with $95 million on Facebook ads last year. your address and contact info to: Luis Di Como, Unilever’s executive vice president of global media, explained his company’s SEVEN DAYS C/O SUPER READERS decision: “Based on the current polarization and P.O. BOX 1164 the election that we are having in the U.S., there BURLINGTON, VT 05402-1164 needs to be much more enforcement in the area For more information on making a financial of hate speech,” he told the Journal. “Continuing contribution to Seven Days, please contact to advertise on these platforms at this time would Corey Grenier: not add value to people and society.”

VOICEMAIL: 802-865-1020, EXT. 36 Advertising with local media outlets like EMAIL: SUPERREADERS@SEVENDAYSVT.COM Seven Days, we’d argue, most certainly does.

Paula Routly

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

11

news

MORE INSIDE

WHERE CORONA CASH IS GOING PAGE 14

POLITICS

Leahy Absent From Vermont, Sanders From the Senate

BTV COUNCIL CUTS COPS PAGE 17

JAMES BUCK

2020

ELECTION

Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman addressing supporters in a farm field

In-Person Pols

As the primary looms, some candidates emerge from isolation to stump B Y K E VI N MCCA LLUM

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t a farm in Williston on Sunday, Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman gazed out over a field, not of cows or corn but of more than 100 vehicles lined up neatly, as though attending a rural drive-in movie.

The organic farmer and gubernatorial candidate spoke — with a mask hanging around his neck — from a wagon festooned with fan-shaped red, white and blue flags.

He made a point about the importance of building more affordable housing, then paused and smiled.

“By the way,” he told his supporters. “It’s really cool to look out over this crowd, I have to say. This is awesome.”

Tired of telephone town halls and Zoom calls — and with absentee voting already under way for the August 11 primary — some political candidates in Vermont are emerging from their COVID-19 isolation in search of more direct connection with voters.

Thomas Chittenden, a three-term South Burlington city councilor running in a crowded Democratic primary for a state Senate seat in his namesake county, had been campaigning via mail, phone and Zoom.

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

It’s been tough to build momentum from a keyboard. “For newer voices, it’s harder to get out there and reach people,” he said.

To boost his visibility and encourage supporters to patronize struggling Burlington businesses, Chittenden stood outside Church Street Tavern on June 21, distributing campaign literature and face masks.

Even with COVID-19 infection rates rising sharply elsewhere in the country, Chittenden said he felt he wasn’t putting himself or others at risk because the interactions were brief, optional and outdoors.

He said he plans similar outings in coming weeks.

“I like to tell people, ‘Democracy is an essential service,’” Chittenden said.

Molly Gray, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in her first bid for public office, is similarly seeking to raise her profile through in-person events she considers safe.

During the pandemic, she’s leaned into social media and videoconferencing tools to connect with voters — for example, by staging a virtual concert with five local

musicians to raise money for the Vermont Foodbank.

Nevertheless, Gray said she sees face-toface interactions as something candidates need — and Vermont voters expect — so she’s begun some in-person campaigning.

She was one of several politicians, including fellow LG candidates Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) and activist Brenda Siegel, who attended Zuckerman’s event.

“There is no substitute for understanding what a person’s environment is like and what their daily experience is,” Gray said.

The Newbury native and assistant attorney general held a “mobile meet-andgreet” in Burlington’s South End in late May. Several Democrats, including Tiff Bluemle and Gabrielle Stebbins, candidates for the Vermont House in the Chittenden 6-5 district, rang cowbells, carried signs and talked to receptive voters. Last week, Gray staged her first in-person press conference on the Statehouse lawn.

IN-PERSON POLS

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B Y PAU L H EIN T Z

Not long before U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) was unseated in a primary election last week, the veteran member of Congress faced intense scrutiny over his absence from New York during the coronavirus pandemic. The Atlantic reported in May that Engel hadn’t visited his district in the Bronx and Westchester County — one of the hardest-hit districts in the country — since March.

Vermont’s senior senator, it turns out, has been hunkered down in the Capitol even longer.

According to spokesperson David Carle, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has not set foot in Vermont since January 4.

“Never in my life have I been gone this long. Both Marcelle and I are homesick,” Leahy said in an interview, referring to his spouse.

So what’s kept him from his native Green Mountains? Leahy, who is 80, cited a busy congressional schedule, Marcelle’s health concerns and, most of all, a dearth of broadband at his house in Middlesex.

“Some of this time I might’ve just spent at home, but the internet service — even though we pay for the premium one — in Middlesex is not reliable and [is] extraordinarily slow, and I’m doing Zoom calls and meetings,” he said.

In ordinary times, many members of Congress fly home every weekend and stay longer during recesses. The pandemic has scrambled that schedule for all three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation, though each has handled the situation differently.

Since the coronavirus prompted him to cancel his last scheduled presidential campaign rally on March 10, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has spent most of his time at his Burlington home.

After returning to Washington, D.C., in late March to vote for a major coronavirus relief package, he skipped town until June 9, missing 33 consecutive roll-call votes. According to spokesperson Keane Bhatt, Sanders resumed flying from Burlington to D.C. each week in June.

Since suspending his presidential campaign on April 8, Sanders has missed 75 percent of all roll-call votes. In that same period, Leahy missed 25 percent.

U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) hasn’t missed a roll-call vote since February 13, though House rules have made it easier for him to legislate from his Norwich home. When the House approved the coronavirus relief package in late March, it did so by voice vote — and Welch remained in Vermont. He flew to D.C. once in April and once in May, according to spokesperson Lincoln Peek, and he has been able to vote by proxy from Vermont during the six weeks since — a system the Senate has declined to adopt.

Leahy’s six-month absence from Vermont may soon come to an end.

“We’re coming up this weekend,” he told Seven Days. “We’re going to drive up.”

Creative Community Imagine dining each night with your neighbors who are writers, musicians, professors, environmentalists, and artists. These are just some of the people who live at Wake Robin. Join a community that dances, debates, writes and publishes, works with computers, practices carpentry, and makes music.

Checks, Unchecked?

Burlington loses partner in enforcing livable wage ordinance

We would love to share with you all the new and exciting changes that are happening throughout the community!

BY C OURT NEY L AMDIN

T

he spring of 2013 was a turning point for Burlington’s livable wage ordinance. The local law — which mandates a minimum rate of pay for city employees and people working on a city contract — had been on the books since 2001.

But Mayor Miro Weinberger wanted to know how the rule had been enforced after a city council committee granted a controversial waiver for the Skinny Pancake, which operates three restaurants at the Burlington International Airport. He asked City Attorney Eileen Blackwood to investigate.

She found that there had been no real oversight. Of the 160 municipal contracts covered by the ordinance, only 23 were in full compliance. The report sparked a monthslong process of rewriting the ordinance, which resulted in an important new clause: The city would hire a “designated accountability monitor” to help enforce the rule since the public didn’t trust the city to do it on its own, Weinberger recalled.

The third-party outfit would visit work sites, operate a hotline for complaints, and refer any credible tips to the city attorney’s office for follow-up and possible fines. City attorneys and the city’s chief administrative officer would also conduct random compliance checks.

The Vermont Workers’ Center, a Burlington-based nonprofit that advocates for fair working conditions, was the only bidder for the contract in 2014.

This spring, the contract was nearly cut from the budget as Weinberger attempted to close a $12 million deficit caused by the coronavirus pandemic. City councilors convinced the mayor to fund the $24,000 annual expense, but soon after, the Workers’ Center announced it would not renew the agreement. Its services ended July 1.

The center’s departure leaves a hole in the city’s wage enforcement just as the construction season enters its busiest months. Blackwood has directed her staff to take on the responsibility this summer

LABOR

until the city can hire a new accountability monitor — though she worries that few, if any, organizations will apply.

Blackwood and Weinberger acknowledged that the lack of a dedicated oversight agency could lead to lapses in compliance with the law. But the mayor is optimistic that a signature policy initiative of his tenure can survive a changing of the guard.

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EILE E N B L AC K W O O D

“We gotta try to find a way, at least in the short term, to do it in-house, and I think we can,” Weinberger said. “I am committed to making sure we don’t go backwards.”

Burlington’s livable wage is calculated each year based on what a member of a two-person household must earn to support his or her basic needs. The fiscal year 2020 rate is $14.44 an hour for workers who have health care benefits and $15.83 for those who don’t. Most of the city’s 800-plus employees are covered, including seasonal and temporary workers who put in at least 10 hours a week and have worked at least four years for the city.

Though the ordinance applies to any business or group — including lawyers and architects — that performs taxpayerfunded contract work, enforcement has focused on employers such as construction companies. The ordinance kicks in if the contractor will be paid in excess of $15,000 in a 12-month period. It also requires that these companies provide their full-time workers 12 paid days off a year. If contractors are found in violation, they can be fined up to $500 and blacklisted from receiving city contracts for up to two years.

CHECKS, UNCHECKED?

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

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news

Show Me the Money

STATEHOUSE

How Vermont lawmakers spent $827 million in federal aid B Y AN D R EA SUO ZZO & PAUL HEINT Z

A

s they neared adjournment last Friday afternoon, Vermont legislators were doling out federal coronavirus relief at a dizzying speed.

“My head is spinning trying to keep track of where the different pieces of money are,” Rep. Francis “Topper” McFaun (R-Barre Town) said on the virtual House floor.

“I think we’re in the land of spinning heads right now,” confirmed Rep. Michael Marcotte (R-Coventry).

By the end of the evening, the House and Senate had sent Gov. Phil Scott seven bills appropriating a total of $827 million to Vermont businesses, hospitals, schools and other organizations in dire need of financial support. Combined with the $182 million that Scott and the legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee had already spent — largely on emergency public health needs during the first stage of the outbreak — lawmakers

1

had used up just over $1 billion of the $1.25 billion Vermont received from the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund.

“Together, we got over a billion dollars out the door for Vermonters,” House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) told her members late Friday before gaveling out for two months.

Lawmakers plan to spend the remaining $241 million — and any additional federal aid that arrives — when they return in late August to complete next year’s budget. In the meantime, the Scott administration will have its hands full moving the $827 million out the door.

So where is it going?

By far the largest chunk of change will be distributed to the state’s hard-hit health care sector. The Agency of Human Services has been charged with divvying up $275 million, through a newly established Health Care Provider Stabilization Grant Program, to

Vermont received $1.25 billion from the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund.

Here’s how the state has spent it so far.

hospitals, doctors, dentists, long-term-care facilities and other providers, based on need.

The House also agreed late in negotiations to provide $28 million in hazard pay to workers in the health care arena — a compromise

MY HEAD IS SPINNING TRYING TO KEEP TRACK OF WHERE THE DIFFERENT PIECES OF MONEY ARE.

R E P. F R ANC IS “TO P P E R ” M C FAU N

with the Senate, whose members had hoped to distribute $60 million to essential workers in many sectors.

“This is one area where we’re trying to do something for the workforce,” Sen. Jane Kitchel (D-Caledonia) said.

Emergency spending approved by Gov. Phil Scott or the Joint Fiscal Committee $182.2M

Remaining $241.1M

Appropriations $826.7M

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Lawmakers approved a total of $152 million in direct grants to businesses that experienced major revenue declines. That doesn’t include a variety of appropriations to specific types of enterprises, such as $25 million for dairy farmers and processors, $5 million for women- and minorityowned businesses, and $5 million for arts and cultural nonprofits.

Other major recipients? The state’s K-12 schools received an initial appropriation of $50 million (lawmakers expect to provide more in August), while the Vermont State Colleges System picked up $35 million and the University of Vermont $28 million.

And organizations fighting homelessness received $48 million.

To keep your head from spinning, Seven Days pored through every line item in the seven appropriations bills and sorted them by sector and recipient. Here’s where Vermont’s federal aid is going. m

Before adjourning last Friday, the Vermont legislature appropriated $826.7 million of the federal funds. Here are the sectors that received the most.

Housing & Food Assistance: $95M

Health Care $314.9M

Business $171.9M

Ag, Forestry & Conservation: $41.7M

Education $138.1M

Broadband/ Connectivity: $30.2M Other: $19.4M Judiciary/Law Enforcement: $15.6M

0

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400,000,000

600,000,000

800,000,000

3

The legislature made roughly 70 different coronavirus relief expenditures across seven pieces of legislation. Here’s how the appropriations break down by recipient.

Business $171.9M

Education $138.1M

Housing & Food Assistance $95M

Ag, Forestry & Conservation $41.7M

Broadband/ Connectivity $30.2M

Other $19.4M

Judiciary/Law Enforcement $15.6M

Health Care $314.9M

Hospitals, doctors, dentists, nursing homes, pharmacies, home health organizations: $275M Hazard pay for health care and human service workers: $28M Emergency medical service organizations: $3M Public health expenses for state lands: $3M Adult day providers: $2.4M Vulnerable populations: $2M New Americans: $700K Organizations addressing health disparities: $500K Support line for those in distress: $200K

Business grants: $152M Nonprofit arts and cultural organizations: $5M Women- and minority-owned businesses: $5M Restart Vermont marketing campaign: $2.5M Technical assistance to businesses: $2.5M Secretary of state’s business portal: $2M Outdoor recreation businesses: $1.5M Microbusinesses: $1.4M

Education costs and air quality improvements at K-12 schools: $50M Vermont State Colleges System: $35.3M University of Vermont: $28M Summer camps, afterschool programs, childcare, parent-child centers: $12M Vermont Student Assistance Corporation: $10.1M Municipal borrowing to cover education property tax shortfalls: $2.7M

Housing for the homeless: $32M Eviction protection: $25M Rental assistance for the homeless: $16M Redevelopment of blighted or vacant housing: $6.2M Foreclosure prevention: $5M Restaurants and farmers feeding the hungry: $5M Vermont Foodbank: $4.7M Legal and counseling services for the homeless: $850K Counseling and assistance for landlords: $250K Dairy farmers and processors: $25M Forestry businesses: $5M Nondairy farmers and processors: $5M Working Lands Enterprise Fund grants: $2.5M Sanitation for Agency of Natural Resources public facilities: $2M Working Lands Program: $1M State fairs: $500K State park refunds and cancellations: $500K Aid to farm and food businesses: $192K

Broadband, connectivity and telehealth: $20M Utility ratepayer arrearages: $8M State government cybersecurity: $2M Enhanced 911 Fund: $200K

Local government: $15M Legislature’s extended session: $2.8M Statehouse health and safety: $750K Joint Fiscal Committee: $600K State auditor: $100K Technology training for the blind and visually impaired: $100K State director of racial equity: $50K

Judiciary: $7.5M Department of Corrections: $3.1M Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs: $2.8M Defender General: $1.2M Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services: $1M

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

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TIM NEWCOMB

news Checks, Unchecked? « P.13 Contractors are not required to submit payroll information to the city unless asked, and the city doesn’t check each of the nearly 100 contracts on the books in any given year. Instead, the Workers’ Center depended on tipsters and the city attorney’s office to conduct payroll checks to enforce the ordinance.

In the six years of the partnership, about half the contractors investigated were found in violation of the ordinance.

Forty-five workers have received more than $6,000 in combined back pay, center director Kate Kanelstein wrote to the mayor in announcing the group’s decision to step away.

In 2017, for example, a tip to the Workers’ Center revealed that two employees at the temp agency Westaff were owed more than $2,000 in wages. And a random check found that S.D. Ireland, the concrete construction company, owed 11 workers a total of $2,155 and 42 employees additional paid time off.

The city also wrote its first tickets for violating the ordinance that year: ADA Traffic Control was slapped with a $1,000 fine, or a $200 ticket for each of the five workers the city found were owed money. The city decided the penalty was warranted because ADA had underpaid 15 flaggers the year before.

Some aspects of monitoring compliance with the ordinance made it challenging, Kanelstein said in an interview, but that’s not why the group is giving up the work. Rather, she said, her staff needs to focus on statewide organizing efforts, including the push for universal health care.

Kanelstein does hope the city will improve some of its practices so that missed wages don’t go unnoticed.

The city should perform more random audits and start investigations as soon as the monitor flags a potential violation, she said. The current process is often slowed by bureaucracy, she said.

“Ultimately, those workers will still get back pay if there’s found to be a violation, but that could be a long time,” Kanelstein said. “That worker could have moved on to another job.”

Kanelstein suggested that the city require companies to submit their payroll records before being awarded a contract. Currently, contractors sign a form promising to pay a livable wage and only submit payroll records if asked. “Real-time monitoring” would weed out underpaying companies from the start, Kanelstein said.

Blackwood, however, said that method would remove the element of surprise.

“We’re really trying to figure out if somebody’s a bad actor [and if ] you’re trying to hide it,” Blackwood said. She questioned whether contractors would be honest about their wages if they knew the city only checked their first payroll on the job.

Blackwood has asked her staff to conduct more random audits this construction season. City attorneys have performed an average of five compliance checks per year since fiscal year 2018. Blackwood said she plans to ask Kanelstein which companies to check first.

Best-case scenario, the city would have another partner on board by August, she said.

“It’s a work in progress,” Blackwood said. “We’re going to do our best to make sure things don’t fall through the cracks, but will it be a challenge? Yes.” City Councilor Brian Pine (P-Ward 3) wonders whether another city department might be better suited to work with the next watchdog. Assigning city attorneys to check 16

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

pay stubs is a practice akin to “using a chain saw to cut the butter,” he said.

Pine added: “On a billable hourly rate, it’s just not a great use of a lawyer’s time.”

Pine suggested employees in the clerk/treasurer’s office could be a natural fit since they work with numbers.

Or maybe a staffer in the city’s Community Economic Development Office, which enforces a similar wage law for city projects that use federal money.

Weinberger said he’s open to discussing the best arrangement for the next accountability monitor, though he shares Blackwood’s concerns that the city may attract few interested parties.

He’s also given some thought to Kanelstein’s recommendation that the city extend the livable wage to the 140 seasonal and temporary employees who are not eligible under the current rule. Councilors decided in 2013 to exclude these workers because it was too costly and because many of them weren’t relying on the income for living expenses, according to Blackwood. A December 2019 study by the city’s human resources team concluded that covering the extra workers would cost the city about $290,000 a year.

“Given what we’re facing, it would be an extraordinarily challenging year to do that, but I’m open to an expansion in future years,” the mayor said. For now, he added, “it’s been working the way it’s supposed to on paper, and I’m committed to keeping it that way.”

Weinberger isn’t so sure about Kanelstein’s other suggestion: that the ordinance cover everyone who works on property leased by the city, such as the airport. Those workers were previously covered by the ordinance but were removed after the airport struggled to find vendors who would adhere to the wage requirements, Blackwood recalled.

One of those was the Skinny Pancake. Owner Benjy Adler convinced the city’s Board of Finance in 2013 to issue his business a waiver since paying his workers a livable wage was not sustainable, he said then. But times change: This week, Adler told Seven Days that he plans to

pay his workers a livable wage once his eateries reopen later this month.

“It turns out we were way closer than we realized,” he said. “We bumped everyone up.”

Pine said he suspects city councilors might have paid more attention to the loss of the city’s livable wage monitor if recent budget discussions hadn’t focused solely on policing. In a typical year, “this would be generating some interest and some concern,” he said, adding that the council would be trying to quickly fill the gap.

And Pine hopes the vacancy is filled soon. He thinks a carefully enforced livable wage ordinance can ensure that workers are paid what they are owed and also put pressure on area employers to raise their pay rates across the board.

That’s what happened with ADA Traffic Control, the first company fined under the Queen City ordinance.

After underpaying its Burlington employees in 2017, the company bumped its starting pay from $11 to $16 an hour, a rate just over the city’s livable wage.

“We just said, ‘We are gonna set a new bar. We’re no longer going to be a company that just takes anybody that can hold a sign paddle in the roadway,’” said company vice president Patrick Murphy. “‘We are going to set a new standard.’”

ADA made the change in the middle of the 2018 construction season and lost a lot of money in the process, Murphy said. ADA’s contracts that summer paid the company enough to cover its workers’ $11 hourly wage but not the higher livable wage, so the firm had to cover the difference. It also lost potential jobs in other communities because Murphy had to bid higher to account for his workers’ higher pay.

He has no regrets. Murphy said the company has recovered, and he’s proud “we no longer are seeing our people in poverty.” The city’s ordinance woke him up.

“We took our punishment. It is what it is, but the philosophy [of a livable wage] is not wrong,” he said. “It’s not 1993 anymore. People need to be paid a wage they can live off of.” m Contact: courtney@sevendaysvt.com

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Burlington City Council Votes to Cut Police Force Through Attrition

BY C O U R TN E Y L A M D I N

The Burlington City Council voted early Tuesday to reduce the police force through attrition to 74 sworn officers and reallocate the money for those positions to programs that support people of color.

The resolution, which also includes a wide range of police reforms, was sponsored by nine councilors, all of whom voted to approve it; only councilors Ali Dieng (I-Ward 7), Chip Mason (D-Ward 5) and Joan Shannon (D-South District) voted no.

It’s unclear what impact, if any, the resolution will have on the budget for the next fiscal year, which began Wednesday, July 1. During a Board of Finance meeting on Monday, Mayor Miro Weinberger said the city doesn’t know when officers will leave or retire, which makes it difficult to calculate how much the police budget would be reduced in the next year.

“It is possible there will be savings beyond the cuts already assumed in the budget, but I don’t believe those cuts are bankable as of tonight,” he said.

The department is budgeted to staff up to 105 sworn officers, but Burlington currently has 90 active cops on the force.

In search of ways to trim police spending, Weinberger has proposed leaving 12 officer positions vacant while otherwise keeping the department’s staffing levels intact.

Given that the discussion surrounding the resolution went until 1:45 a.m., councilors agreed to postpone a vote on the mayor’s budget until Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. The budget meeting was still in session as Seven Days went to press.

The vote is the culmination of weeks of activism calling for police reform.

Hundreds of people had called in to recent public meetings to demand that the city cut police spending in favor of social services. The Burlington protests and speak-outs were sparked by the death of George Floyd — a Black man who was killed by Minneapolis police in May — and by Queen City cops’ own violent interactions with young Black men.

Introduced by Councilor Zoraya Hightower (P-Ward 1), the resolution was driven by the advocacy of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, a group led by people of color who have demanded the city cut the department’s maximum police force by about 30 percent, or about 30 officers. The alliance had asked for an immediate cut, whereas the resolution passed early Tuesday achieves the goal over time.

“The resolution has flaws — one of them being that we are still overfocused on police reform rather than holistically addressing systemic racism ... but I think we have a solid plan for moving forward,” Hightower said.

The resolution: • directs the city to terminate the school resource officer program by spring 2021; • declares racism a city health crisis; • forms a joint committee of the council’s Public Safety Committee and the Police Commission to assess police department operations and evaluate alternatives for public safety; • requires city staff to receive training on systemic racism twice a year, or three times “for members of our criminal justice system”; • establishes a task force to consider an apology or reparations for the city’s role in chattel slavery; • allows the Police Commission to view all formal complaints about police officers; • asks the council’s Charter Change Committee to consider giving the Police Commission authority to approve or alter the police chief’s disciplinary decisions in use-offorce cases; and • urges the city to negotiate for additional accountability measures in the next police contract.

The vote was preceded by a lengthy debate in which councilors unsuccessfully attempted to amend parts of the resolution.

Councilor Jane Stromberg (P-Ward 8) attempted to make even deeper cuts to the police department. Her amendment would have reduced the current force of 90 by more than 30 percent, to 63 officers by fiscal year 2023.

Stromberg’s proposal failed 9-3.

Weinberger spoke against Stromberg’s resolution, saying the additional cuts would be dangerous without a robust community conversation and study about the right level of reductions.

Police department brass have agreed with Weinberger’s analysis. Prior to the meeting that began on Monday evening, acting Chief Jon Murad issued a memo that said reducing the force to 74 officers would trigger an “emergency staffing” clause in the police contract that effectively eliminates special police assignments such as its domestic violence prevention officer. The cut would result in 22 percent fewer officers on patrol, Murad wrote.

“The BPD cannot provide the same patrol services” at that level, he wrote.

“Twenty-two percent of our current call volume is approximately 6,270 calls. For which of these 6,270 calls do our neighbors not want or need police response?” m Contact: courtney@sevendaysvt.com

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news In-Person Pols « P.12

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

hold three COVID-19-focused press conferences a week. The events ensure that the media spotlight remains on the governor, whether there’s much news to report or not, she said.

“When you’ve got one person with a megaphone, there really isn’t a lot of room for other conversation,” Holcombe said.

She disputes Scott’s assertion that he is not campaigning.

One of Scott’s challengers in the Republican primary, Brookfield farmer and attorney John Klar, agrees that the pandemic has

throughout — people still could have listened from their cars as the event was broadcast over FM airwaves.

Most chose to sit next to or atop their cars, enjoying the fresh air, live music, gourmet food, and ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s, whose founders, Jerry Greenfield and Ben Cohen, were on hand.

They urged attendees to support Zuckerman financially ahead of a key campaign finance deadline. Making that face-to-face pitch for cash is another reason some candidates feel the pressure to attend

worked to the two-term governor’s political advantage.

“It has put my opponent in the limelight, ad nauseam for some people,” Klar said.

The first-time candidate has held in-person events in the past several weeks, something he said he started doing after Scott said limits on outdoor events did not apply to Black Lives Matter rallies.

Klar’s outdoor gatherings have attracted a decidedly smaller, more conservative crowd, and masks are generally not seen outside Chittenden County, he said.

“I don’t wear a mask. I generally spittle on the people in the front row,” Klar quipped.

That wasn’t much of a risk at Zuckerman’s event, where the candidate spoke at a distance of more than 30 feet from the front row of cars.

Most attendees wore masks and were encouraged to stay close to their vehicles, spaced a socially distant six feet or more apart. Had it rained — dark skies threatened

events in person.

Zuckerman’s event seemed to energize attendees due to both its size and novelty.

Car horns honked in support, and the audience whooped its approval when the candidate called for steps toward social, economic and environmental justice.

Nan Reid sat in a folding chair in front of her car and beside a Zuckerman campaign sign that she was encouraged to take home and plant in her yard. The event, she said, was deeply gratifying.

“I’m lonely,” said Reid, a 63-year-old early education teacher from Burlington. “I needed something to make me feel like I’m still part of a community.” m

JAMES BUCK

Not all candidates are comfortable with engaging voters in person during the pandemic, and many have no plans to push that boundary, according to Spencer Dole, House campaign director for the Vermont Democratic Party.

“There are candidates who do not feel like it’s the right time yet,” Dole said.

Most have beefed up their websites, focused on internet marketing, and recorded Zoom calls and debates to help them spread their messages on social media, he said.

Despite the state’s low COVID-19 infection rate, the “worst-case scenario” for a campaign would be for a candidate or someone they’ve come in contact with to contract the disease, Dole said.

The risk is not one Rep. Dylan Giambatista (D-Essex Junction) is willing to take as he, too, seeks a Chittenden County Senate seat. A former member of the popular Burlington punk-rock band Rough Francis, Giambatista had hoped to publicize his run with edgy concerts.

COVID-19 quashed that plan, so Giambatista has been sending supporters vinyl records of his campaign song and links to his music video.

While he stressed he’s not criticizing other candidates for their decisions to campaign in person, Giambatista believes it’s better to model good behavior than to put anyone at risk.

“I think any organization or individual contemplating holding in-person events has to balance human health with their own personal ambition,” Giambatista said.

While Democratic LG candidate Siegel attended Zuckerman’s event, she has not yet planned similar rallies. The only in-person campaigning she has done has been to attend Black Lives Matter protests. “Some things are worth risking your life for,” she said.

Ashe said he has taken tentative steps, attending small campaign events at private homes in recent weeks. “It really is very unusual, looking at people at what is an intimate gathering but spaced out,” Ashe said.

Sen. Debbie Ingram (D-Chittenden), also a candidate for the Democratic LG nomination, handed out campaign literature at a Juneteenth event in Burlington but has no in-person events of her own planned.

Rebecca Holcombe, the former Vermont education secretary seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, echoed Giambatista’s safety concerns.

The sharp spike in national infection rates makes her hesitant to green-light any in-person campaigning, let alone large gatherings.

“We’re not through the woods on this,” Holcombe said. “I think we just have to be extremely careful.”

Holcombe has taken a hard line on social distancing. When she and her campaign manager, Cameron Russell, met to file her candidate paperwork at the Secretary of State’s Office in late May, they hadn’t seen each other in three months, she said.

She has criticized Republican Gov. Phil Scott for what she calls inconsistent messaging on the importance of wearing masks in businesses, a position that may make it harder for Holcombe to pivot to in-person events and perhaps reach voters who haven’t focused on her campaign yet.

I LIKE TO TELL PEOPLE,

“DEMOCRACY IS AN ESSENTIAL SERVICE.” TH O MAS C H IT TE ND E N

Supporters keeping their distance at Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman’s campaign rally

The lockdown is even more of a challenge for a first-time candidate competing against an established figure such as Zuckerman, who served in the legislature for 20 years before being elected lieutenant governor in 2016.

“It makes it more challenging, yes.

Name recognition is a huge issue for me,” Holcombe said.

The real challenge, though, is not a lack of opportunity to march in parades or speak at block parties. It’s the media and the public’s preoccupation with the daily drumbeat of more pressing news, she said. On top of the pandemic, calls for criminal justice reforms have led newscasts in recent weeks.

She is an outsider calling for change when most voters have more change than they can handle right now.

“What COVID has done is, along with shutting us up in our homes, it has shut down any discussion of ideas,” Holcombe said.

“That’s not a criticism. That’s just a reality.”

Holcombe chafes as she watches Scott

Disclosure: Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. Find our conflictof-interest policy at sevendaysvt.com/ disclosure.

Contact: kevin@sevendaysvt.com

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lifelines

OBITUARIES, VOWS, CELEBRATIONS

OBITUARIES Diane H. Leyden AUGUST 28, 1949JUNE 18, 2020 SOUTH HERO, VT.

Diane H. Leyden, 70, of South Hero, Vt., passed to the other side on June 18 with her husband and daughter by her side channeling messages of love from family and friends.

Her five-year battle with frontotemporal dementia ended with a seven-month stay at the Residence at Shelburne Bay. Born on August 28, 1949, in Rockville Center, N.Y., Diane grew up in Long Island with her two sisters, Jan and Barbara; and brothers, Joe and Jerry. “Big brother” Joe passed at an early age before Diane was born, but his life story and memory were always a part of her growing up. Diane was raised by two hardworking parents who prized respect, activity and getting outdoors (walks on the beach even during the winter!), and maintaining family connections. Her father, the chief of police, would come home from a day’s work, and then her mother would leave for her overnight shift at the phone company, leaving the kids to prepare the dinner meal.

All this in order to raise enough money to send their three girls and two boys to college. After graduating from St. Agnes High School, Diane attended college at Marquette University and State University of New York at Stony Brook, achieving a BA in education. She later achieved a master’s degree in library science through a distance-learning program with Syracuse University from her home in Vermont.

Diane was first a student teacher from SUNY (Stony Brook), and then later hired

by Dick Leyden as a fulltime teacher at a progressive ungraded school, the Bay Community School in Bellport, Long Island. Diane and Dick were married on December 23, 1972, during a winter school recess in an old colonial church in Bayport, N.Y., made famous

20

by Daniel Webster. After three years of teaching together on Long Island, they moved to Vermont. Diane was employed at South Hero’s Folsom Elementary (1975 to 1977) and Georgia Elementary and Middle School (1977 to 2008).

Diane was hired by South Hero because they needed someone who could be both kindergarten teacher as well as the combined school and town librarian; after three years at Bay Community School, she was uniquely qualified for this job description. After three years at Folsom School, Diane was recruited to be the librarian of the largest elementary/ middle school in Vermont.

She held that position in Georgia until her retirement.

In the early Vermont years, Diane and Dick rented and worked in the Champlain Islands during the school year and traveled, camped and fished across the United States and Canada during the summer months. In 1978, conversations with local friends in South Hero led them to a special pasture overlooking Lake Champlain where (pregnant with their

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

first daughter) they camped and built a passive solar house for themselves and children Erica and Geoffrey.

South Hero has been home ever since.

Words cannot convey how fully Diane embodied the role of teacher in her personal and professional life. She was an artist at marrying stories and facts and information to impart a lesson. She would always seek to use hands-on experience, her goal always to leave the world a better place than she found it for future generations. In the library, she worked hard to create a vibrant library space for curious minds by bringing in live animals; bringing in elders from the community to be mentors, readers and aids; and ordering the best of books from across the globe.

Outside of the library, her tenacity for seeding lessons and learning was no less far-reaching. Family trips (often made with dear family friends the Wheelers) were well planned to visit historical sites. Sexist comments were always addressed (with her kids present), and children were always encouraged to ask questions and to always

order for themselves at restaurants!

Diane was a fierce believer in maintaining connections and traditions. Inspired by her own mother’s request, Diane, with her brothers and sisters, vacationed together every two years with their children and grandchildren. The Hoffmann “family reunion” ended up in Destin, Fla.; Hawaii; St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands; Cape Cod, Mass.; and Yosemite, Calif., among other places. Diane started the tradition of the family calendar to memorialize the growing treasure trove of family photos and milestone dates as we grew and gifted it to each family member for Christmas, until her dementia made the task too difficult and it was passed on to her nephew and niece. (“Family is important.”

“Traditions are meant to be passed.”)

Diane’s joyous curiosity and dedication to family fit perfectly with Dick Leyden’s side of the family (the Faulkner family centered in Stoddard, N.H.) where she loved to jump in to participate in their traditions.

Diane first went fly-fishing in 1972 on a camping trip

to the Canadian Rockies. In those early years, it was a challenge to embrace the traditions and history that were on the surface elitist and male-dominated. Diane’s father-in-law, a nationally known fly-fishing historian, went out of his way to make her feel included and taught her “to cast a tight line.” Things got even better when she was introduced to the conservation group Trout Unlimited and met so many female anglers. Diane, whether she was fishing from a kayak or casting from shore, would always find a way to hook the largest salmon, tarpon, red fish or striped bass of the trip. And she would do it with her way of casting, thank you!

Diane had a strong sense of adventure, and she looked for people to share it with. In 1984, she found a tight circle of female friends, “the Ladies Group,” with whom she hiked.

They supported each other through careers, children and her death. From 1985 to 2002, Diane was an organizer and member of the Green Mountain Volunteers dance group, performing traditional New England folk and contra dance locally (at Shelburne Museum) and traveling to international festivals in New England; Spain; Ecuador; Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia; Belgium; France; and Cornwall, Ontario.

Diane’s focus shifted immediately to grandchildren as soon as she had the chance — retiring as soon as possible to be with her two grand-girls, Alex and Clara. Her grin when sharing the latest stories and photos of her time with them was broad and wide — absolutely beaming. She watched the girls each week until they started school and would bring a new bag of inspiration each day to guide their time together.

Diane’s life included struggle, but she always found the beautiful moments of human connection only realized by imperfect situations to stabilize her. A favorite saying from her father she often quoted: “It’s easy enough to be pleasant when life goes along like a song, but a man worth his while, is one who can smile, when everything goes dead wrong.”

Diane’s energy touched the lives of so many, and she will be remembered uniquely in the heart and mind of each.

She will be remembered each time we find courage to advocate for others instead of being popular, each time we put the health of our future above the convenience of the present, and each time we tell a child a story so they may grow their own character informed by the past yet excited by the future. As a final gift, Diane donated her brain to the Mayo Clinic via the Brain Support Network to arm her family with information about her illness and to help researchers learn more about dementia and frontotemporal dementia.

Diane is survived by her husband of 47 years, Dick Leyden; son Geoffrey; daughter Erica; son-in law Ben; grand-girls Alexandria and Clara; sisters Jan and Barbara; brothers Joe and Jerry; and fabulous nieces and nephews and their children. She will join the deceased, parents Dorothy and Joe Hoffmann; in-laws Donald and Marian Leyden; and sister-in-law Lois Hoffmann. We look forward to hearing more stories through her tribute page, which we can secure in a bound book to span the distance between now and a celebration of life next year. Please share what you would put forward about Diane to our tribute page at mykeeper.com/profile/ dianeleyden.

There will be no public services. A private celebration of life with family and friends will be held in Vermont sometime next spring/summer. The family would like to thank Kathrine Acus and the multitalented care team at Bayada Hospice, and Lydia Raymond and her care team at the Residence. In lieu of cut flowers, consider a donation in Diane’s honor to Central Vermont Trout Unlimited, 522 Harbor View Dr., St. Albans, VT 05478 to support the Trout in the Classroom program.

Arrangements are entrusted to the care of the Cremation Society of Chittenden County, a division of the Ready Funeral Home.

Please visit cremationsociety cc.com to place online condolences.

READ, POST, SHARE + COMMENT: SEVENDAYSVT.COM/LIFELINES

OBITUARIES Carl F. Ettlinger II

MAY 26, 1943-JUNE 19, 2020 UNDERHILL CENTER, VT. On June 19, 2020, Carl said goodbye to his family and ascended to heaven. He died peacefully at home with his family. Carl grew up on Staten Island, N.Y., where he attended Curtis High School, going on to graduate from the University of Vermont with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.

Carl was a researcher and mechanical engineer who worked collaboratively to promote Alpine skiing safety. His knowledge, his intelligence, his grit, his courage, his principles and his passion never wavered. Carl authored or coauthored over 200 technical articles and over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Carl’s achievements in establishing standards for Alpine skiing equipment remain steadfast. Carl was recognized by the American Society of Testing and Materials with the honorary title of Fellow for “meritorious and dedicated leadership of the ASTM International Committee F27 and for conducting the seminal research that provided the technical basis for standards that have materially improved skiing safety worldwide.” Carl also received the Carson White Golden Quill Award for Outstanding Contributions to

Elizabeth Colman JUNE 1942-MAY 26, 2020 SHELBURNE, VT.

Elizabeth Arlene Colman, age 77, passed away on May 26 peacefully surrounded by family and the emerging flowers of spring in Vermont.

Born in June of 1942, Betty lived much of her life in Los Angeles, where she attended Dorsey High School and graduated from University of Southern California. A proud Tri-Delt and member of Phi Beta Kappa, she enjoyed a memorable tour of Asia after college, spending a particular amount of time in Japan, where she exercised her knowledge of the language and culture. It was this interest and familiarity with Japan that provided immediate kinship with her future husband, Harvey Colman, who had also spent time there.

Together, Betty and Harvey had three children, who were raised in Pacific Palisades, Calif., and North Oaks, Minn. Following retirement, Betty and Harvey moved to Orr’s Island, Maine, where they spent

the Advancement of Snowsports by the North American Snowsports Journalists Association.

During his high school years, he shined as an athlete and student.

He was awarded the Lou Gehrig Award for sportsmanship and courage, as well as most valuable player of his football team. He continued to play football as a starting fullback for the University of Vermont.

At UVM, Carl joined the ROTC program. Upon completion of his undergraduate degree, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army and, soon after, deployed to Vietnam. He served as a combat engineer officer in the 25th Infantry Division with distinction and received the Bronze Star and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. His

many happy years exploring the Maine coast and enjoying their home and expansive gardens. Later, they settled in Shelburne, Vt., where they were closer to family.

Throughout her life, Betty was active in her community, church and local schools, generously contributing her energy and passion for teaching and learning to all she met. She will be remembered by many for her broad knowledge of plants, a love she inherited from her parents and passed down to her children.

Elizabeth is preceded in death by her husband and survived by her brother and his wife: Robert and Susan Knox; her three children and their spouses: Erin and Thomas Lamb, Shauna and Oliver Sanidas, and Jennifer and Devin Colman; and grandchildren Matthew Lamb, Luke Sanidas, Thomas Colman, Katherine Lamb, Ella Sanidas and Lucille Colman.

Betty will join Harvey in the House of Hope Memorial Garden in St. Paul, Minn. Donations may be made to Shelburne Museum in her memory.

innovative engineering in tactical land clearing and bridge building were highly recognized by his commanders. Upon his discharge, Carl joined the Vermont Army National Guard and retired with the rank of captain.

After completing graduate school at UVM, Carl taught as an instructor in the mechanical engineering department. He made the decision to establish his own company, Vermont Ski Safety Equipment, in 1971. He believed he could influence skiing safety with products and services to test Alpine binding functionality, train ski binding technicians and provide research. Carl’s tireless efforts to promote skiing safety are highly recognized, and his research-based contributions

have influenced the decrease in risk exposure and injury to Alpine skiers.

Carl was known by family, friends and colleagues as both a roaring and compassionate larger-than-life titan of a man. His love of adventure stayed with him throughout his life. Regardless of the season, and mostly during the winter months, Carl would persuade family and friends to voyage with him on his Westsail 32 down the Atlantic East Coast. He was a skilled seafarer no matter the conditions at sea.

He settled in Underhill with his wife, Trudee, and raised three children: Heidi, Carl and Kristopher.

His children carry fond memories of working in the garden; taking care of sheep, geese and horses; sailing adventures; skiing adventures; and helping at their father’s business.

Carl will be dearly missed by many. He is survived by his daughter Heidi; son Carl and his wife, Natalia, and his grandson Alexander; and Kristopher and his wife, Priya; as well as by his best friend and wife, Trudee. Carl is also survived by his brothers Todd (wife Mary), Gary, and Mark (wife Lisa); his sister Doris (husband Mike); and many cousins, nieces and nephews. From everyone who knew this wonderful man, husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend and colleague: “Castle Charlie 26, May You Sail the Stars on Fair Winds and Following Seas.”

There will be a graveside service for Carl on June 27 at the North Underhill Cemetery. A celebration of life is planned for May 2021.

BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT Leighla Mae Williams On June 23, 2020, at Porter Medical Center, Desiree Cary and Zachary Williams welcomed a girl, Leighla Mae Williams.

Mark your family’s milestones in

lifelines. sevendaysvt.com/lifelines SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

21

arts news

Word for Word

CULTURE

Dartmouth librarian Laura Braunstein works to diversify the world of crosswords B Y M AR GA R ET GR AY SON

T

he crossword puzzle dates back to 1913 — but ironically, given its predominance now, the New York Times was the last major paper to begin running a regular crossword. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, it took the Times until 1942 to adopt the puzzle form, when Americans needed something to distract them from World War II. Margaret Petherbridge Farrar, who would become the first crossword editor at the paper, wrote to the Times editors, “I don’t think I have to sell you on the increased demand for this type of pastime in an increasingly worried world. You can’t think of your troubles while solving a crossword.”

By the same logic, a crossword puzzle is a perfect pandemic activity. Solvers no longer even need a physical paper or book of puzzles. The Times crossword app delivers a daily puzzle straight to your phone and offers a huge archive; the Washington Post, Slate and Merriam-Webster are in the online crossword game, too. There are blogs and podcasts in which dedicated solvers review puzzles, and forums in which they post the exact time it took to solve a certain puzzle.

“Constructors” — the people who write and design crosswords — often form communities to share ideas and collaborate.

Still, crossword constructors like Lebanon’s LAURA BRAUNSTEIN have noticed disparities in who, exactly, creates them. Simply put: “There just aren’t a lot of women or people of color in the crossword world,” she said.

Together with Tracy Bennett, a Michiganbased copy editor and crossword constructor, Braunstein founded the Inkubator, which publishes two puzzles a month — soon to be three — by women and nonbinary people and offers mentorship for beginner constructors.

The Inkubator, now in its second year, raised more than $30,000 on Kickstarter from 800 backers and currently has about 1,300 subscribers.

“We’ve really tried to be different than mainstream newspaper crosswords, I think, in centering women and also in being frank about things that are important to women,” Braunstein said.

An example? A puzzle titled “Period Piece,” themed with menstruation-related wordplay.

WORD FOR WORD

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

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Outside the Box THEATER The 2020 Vermont Pride Theater Festival goes virtual B Y C H ELSEA ED GA R

T

he virtual landscape has had last winter, after Dickson performed in the some unexpected perks for the world premiere of Citrus, a choreopoem VERMONT PRIDE THEATER FESTIVAL, written by Dartmouth College alumnus which begins its 10th year at Celeste Jennings, at NORTHERN STAGE in Randolph’s CHANDLER CENTER FOR THE ARTS White River Junction. on July 17. According to producer SHARON Boston-based actor and director RIVES, a Chandler board member who Dayenne CB Walters, who made her cofounded and has been organizing the Vermont Pride Theater debut last year as LGBTQ-focused festival since its incep- an actor, is directing the Chandler’s virtual tion, going online has enabled her to recruit production of Immediate Family — which performers beyond the Vermont bubble. also features performers from Boston and “Because we’re virtual, we’ve been New York City.

“We’re all going to be in different rooms able to cast actors from all across the country,” she said — although a number of all around the country,” said Walters. “I can the actors are from Vermont, as never convince people that we’re well. “We’re trying to use the all in the same room, and I constraints of the virtual don’t think I need to.” world to our advantage.”

To minimize the potenThe festival will tial for technological follow the format of nonmishaps, the two perforpandemic years: Each of mances of each play will its three plays will run be recorded in advance, then streamed via Zoom twice over three weekends, from July 17 through during their scheduled August 1, with Zoom talkshowings — a sort of metabacks after each showing.

Zoom. (“We’ve learned in Above: Dayenne CB Walters The festival also the last few months that Below: Rachel Hemphill Dickson includes an exhibition of these glitches occur more images by Hanover, N.H., often than we’d like in our photographer JON GILBERT region!” said Rives).

FOX, a career retrospecFor Walters, that tive titled “At the Right means losing the realPlace at the Right Time.” time connection that It opens online on July defines live theater.

9 and in the Chandler’s “The breath from Main Gallery for real-life the audience, from viewing on July 11. fellow actors, won’t be This year’s festival marks there,” she said. “In a way, the East Coast premiere of this requires more stamina, two of the plays. Immediate Family because the audience isn’t in front tells the story of a gay Black man, raised of you, giving you life.” in a conservative Chicago household, who But Zoom, if nothing else, represents a brings his Swedish boyfriend to a family new artistic frontier, and Walters is focused wedding; Cloudburst is about a lesbian on subverting the audience’s expectations couple in their eighties who go on the lam of a two-dimensional medium. “I’m really (the Thelma and Louise-esque plot involves excited about finding ways to get out of an escape from a nursing home and a young the boxes we’re all in,” she said. “If there’s male hitchhiker) to get married in Canada. a scene where someone has to pass a bag of The third play, The Homosexuals, about potato chips, how can we use the framing to a gay man from small-town Iowa who our advantage? I think we have to lean into moves to Chicago to find community, is the strangeness of this.” m a reprisal from the 2012 Vermont Pride Theater Festival.

Contact: chelsea@sevendaysvt.com Thanks in part to the Zoom-enabled flattening of the world, this year’s lineup INFO stars Rachel Hemphill Dickson, an actor Vermont Pride Theater Festival, Friday, from Houston, Texas, in Immediate Family. July 17, through Saturday, August 1, online.

In 2013, Dickson appeared in a Houston $10 per play. Full performance schedule production of the play; she and Rives met at chandler-arts.org.

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3/24/20 5/4/20 12:57 1:50 PM PM

arts news A Most Mysterious Portal

JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR

Monica Callan SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

“Portal” installation in Burlington’s New North End

on the Facebook group Sensi-Babeington.

In response, CINSE BONINO of Burlington wrote: “I do, but I’m not telling.” Via Bonino, the artists (apparently, more than one was involved) told me that they “are choosing to keep the mystery, and [to] let the portal

speak for itself.” Narnia’s PR team would applaud this communications strategy.

CH ELS EA ED GAR

Contact: chelsea@sevendaysvt.com

Solo Spotlights

THEATER

24

ART

CHELSEA EDGAR

Bummed about not being able to travel this summer? Consider the transportive possibilities of the humble portal, which can pop up virtually anywhere (the way to Narnia, after all, was through a closet filled with mothballs) and requires only that you completely disconnect from reality in order to obtain safe passage to your personal beyond.

Am I kidding? I don’t know anymore, which is sort of troubling. But recently, I learned that a mysterious doorway had appeared in the woods behind the Cambrian Rise apartment complex in the New North End of Burlington. On a sweltering afternoon, I found it, about 100 yards down a trail that leads to the Lake Champlain waterfront.

Two trees, wrapped in vines and branches and adorned with bits of birch bark, formed the sides of the doorway; about 10 feet off the ground, a bough of branches, tied together with hemp rope, connected them to create a sort of arbor.

(If you’re having trouble visualizing this, google “fairy wedding Pinterest,” and you’ll get the idea.) The opening between the trees was slightly wider than an adult wingspan and could easily accommodate

several hobbits. (I waited for Frodo to show up but, tragically, he did not oblige.)

Partially obscured behind one of the trees, atop a plinth fashioned from a log, was a slightly cursed-looking wooden box; someone had scrawled in pencil across the top, “I’m in the kitchen, I’m making it FUNK,” which killed the vibe a little.

In the box was an assortment of writing utensils and paper tags, hole-punched and tied with string so that passersby could respond to the prompt on the inside of the lid: “What’s getting you through?”

The arbor was festooned with dozens of tags, fluttering in the breeze like tiny ghosts, on which people had anonymously shared their coping strategies for being sentient in the year 2020.

Plenty of normier ones — “family,” “friends,” “nature” — were basically kale salad for the soul. Scattered among them were a few bolder prescriptions, such as the admirably hedonistic “video games and cheese” and that ancient folk remedy, “walking, dreaming, and masturbation.”

Other notes were heavier. On one tag, devastatingly punctuated with a period: “I have myself.” Someone else wrote: “Suicidal vets have no access to treatment.

No martial arts, no face to face therapy.

The ones who don’t off themselves are just waiting to die.”

I felt as if I had tuned in to a secret radio frequency, a whisper network of private thoughts.

I attempted to track down the architect of this shrine to persistence with a post

When it comes to theater, sometimes it’s best to go it alone.

Through August 15, performing artists can apply for a slot in the 2021 One & Only Series, the fifth annual succession of solo shows presented by Waterbury Center’s GRANGE HALL CULTURAL CENTER and MOXIE PRODUCTIONS. “As a performer, you are so often dependent upon other people in order to do your work,” copresenter MONICA CALLAN told Seven Days, regarding the series’ focus on one-person performances. “With a solo show, really it comes down to you getting it done, so it puts the power in the performer’s hands.”

Callan, who is cofounder and artistic director of Grange Hall Cultural Center and artistic producing director of MOXIE Productions, has copresented the One & Only Series with her husband and center cofounder, PETER HOLM, since 2017.

Since its inaugural year, the series has featured works such as the autobiographical Who Made Me? by Burlington theater artist DENNIS MCSORLEY; the wordless A Show With Cookies by Rochester, N.Y., performer Katherine Marino; and HEDY! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr by New York City actor and writer Heather Massie.

For the 2020 series, which ran from January until the center closed its doors due to the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March, the presenters opened the submission process to a wider range of performance styles. They’re doing the same for the upcoming series, seeking dance, burlesque, performance art, music and more in addition to theater.

Callan encourages BIPOC, LGBTQ and differently abled individuals to apply, as well as all Vermont artists. “I can pull people from other parts of the country, but I want to make sure that Vermonters have access to getting an audience for their work,” she said.

As she selects shows, Callan looks for works with intention. “I like to see a driving force behind [a piece], like there’s a passionate reason why this needs to be the story this person tells,” she said.

Shows should be 45 to 90 minutes long (or a group can apply collectively with separate solo shows of 15 minutes or more, totaling up to 90 minutes) and complete in dramatic form, with a solid story structure. While a show may still be in development, “It has to have gone through some process,” Callan said. She welcomes emails from artists who wish to discuss whether their work is suitable for the series.

In years past, the One & Only Series kicked off in January, with weekend shows running into spring. Shows for 2021 have yet to be scheduled, but Callan estimates they’ll start early in the year.

What she knows for sure is that she wants to stage them before live audiences. “Theater is, at its core, an experience — an in-person experience — so my goal is absolutely to have it in person and have all the precautions that we need to have in place,” she remarked. “I’m not going to ask any actor to put themselves at risk.”

As Vermonters grapple with a public health crisis, and protests mount against racial- and gender-based inequality, Callan believes the performing arts are vital. In her words, they “have the power to change minds, to see new points of view, to [help people] find commonality, even for a moment.”

K R I S T EN R AV I N

Contact: kravin@sevendaysvt.com

INFO Submit proposals to grangehallcc@gmail.com by August 15.

See grangehallcc.com for application requirements.

GOT AN ARTS TIP? ARTNEWS@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

Word for Word « P.22

Now on

invariably sneak in when picking words or writing clues.

Sexism and racism in crosswords, particularly the Times, has been well documented. In 2019, women constructed just 18 percent of the Times’ crosswords. In April this year, more than 600 crossword constructors and writers signed an open letter calling on the newspaper to diversify its crossword at all levels of construction, citing names such as Marie Kondo, bell hooks and Flavor Flav, which the letter writers allege have all been “deemed too ‘niche’ for mainstream puzzles.”

The work of Braunstein and Bennett — and many other independent crossword publishers, such as Queer Crosswords — can help diversify crosswords’ content and bring wider swaths of people into the puzzle form’s enthusiastic fan base. After all, Braunstein said, crosswords are for everyone.

“We stereotypically ascribe some kind of prestige to filling it in the first time and not making any mistakes,” she said.

“There’s zero shame in, say, googling a clue … The biggest myth is that it’s some specialized thing that you’re born with.

Anyone can learn.” m

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COURTESY OF ELI BURAKIAN

Or, when a puzzle includes a last name, considering whether there’s a woman who could be used as a clue to that answer instead of a man.

Inclusivity and avoiding heteronormativity — the belief that heterosexual relationships are the default — are important to the Inkubator’s founders, too. “Trans women and nonbinary people find our environment a welcoming one for their work,” Braunstein said.

Braunstein, 50, a digital librarian at Dartmouth College, has been solving crosswords since childhood.

“My grandfather was an immigrant,” she said. “He used to tear out a puzzle from the local paper wherever he lived and use puzzles to practice his English. When I was a kid, he used to ask me to help him.”

When Braunstein went to college and graduate school, she would solve crosswords with friends between classes and studying.

She published her first crossword with the American Values Club in 2017 and her first solo Times crossword in 2018. Constructing a crossword, she says, often starts with a theme — a handful of longer entries that have something in common — and involves some kind of wordplay, such as the puzzle Braunstein collaborated on with Erik Agard in 2017.

It included actors whose names contain a body part and was titled “Full Body Cast.” Puzzles without themes usually have a few longer entries that are interesting words or phrases.

After the longer answers are in place, the constructor fills out the rest of the puzzle. It can take quite a bit of trial and error before the entire puzzle is completed without too many obscure words or awkward combinations. These days, Braunstein said, constructors are aided by computer software but often make many custom changes.

“It can take days, and you can sometimes put a whole grid together and then discover that you have a duplicate,” Braunstein said.

“It’s a craft. If the theme is something that takes inspiration and creativity, then the filling is the craft.”

The clues themselves come last, and Braunstein said she likes the opportunity for creativity that writing them offers.

As a librarian, she’s interested in many different things. “[It helps] to be just as interested in, say, women hip-hop artists as I am in 18th-century Australian history,” Braunstein said, “to have a voracious appetite for knowledge.”

Why does representation in crossword constructing matter? The person who writes the crossword and the person who edits it become the arbiters of what is or isn’t common knowledge. Their biases will

Check out the Champlain Valley’s new SUPER station! station!

PARENTING ISN’T EASY — ESPECIALLY RIGHT NOW. As you tackle the tough topics, we’re here to help. Inside the July issue of Kids VT you’ll find tips, resources and stories that will hopefully make your job a little easier.

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Find the July issue inside next week’s Seven Days.

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arts news

Villages of the Damned Streaming video review: “Curon” B Y MA R GO T HA R R ISON

NETFLIX

Federico Russo and Margherita Morchio in “Curon”

W

here do we find entertainment these days? On our laptops and in our living rooms. The streaming options are overwhelming — and not always easy to sort through. So, in this weekly feature, I review a movie or series that might otherwise be easy to overlook.

forbidding, reluctant to let them stay even a night in his hotel. Mauro begins to suspect why when he makes a chilling discovery in one of the vacant rooms.

THE SERIES: “Curon” (2020) WHERE TO SEE IT: Netflix

The top of a bell tower pokes bizarrely from a lake in Curon, Italy, part of a village that was drowned beneath the sparkling waves. The tower’s bells have been removed, but sometimes, locals say, people still hear them ring. Then bad things happen.

Something bad happened to Anna (Valeria Bilello) when she was a teen — a nightmarish experience that ended with her mother dead. Now an older Anna returns from Milan to the hotel her father owns in Curon, fleeing an abusive husband with her teenage twins, Daria (Margherita Morchio) and Mauro (Federico Russo).

Their grandfather is cryptic and THE DEAL:

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

Meanwhile, brash Daria tries to impress her country-mouse classmates, inadvertently setting in motion a chain of events that will spell disaster for at least three families in Curon.

WILL YOU LIKE IT? I’m a sucker for a subgenre of streaming TV that I call “haunted Euroburgs.” Inspired to a greater or lesser extent by “Twin Peaks,” these Europeanmade dramas combine supernatural doings with soapy revelations in highly scenic rural locales. All abound in mysteries, secrets,

impossibilities, portentous speeches, magic light and trance-y music montages.

Arriving in the wake of two previous haunted-Euroburg dramas that deserved all the acclaim they received (see below), “Curon” feels a bit like a network knockoff of a cable hit. Don’t look here for the intricate plotting of “Dark” or the powerful characterization of “The Returned.” Viewers may find themselves regularly a step ahead of the plot, and even groaning at familiar tropes. (What does a badseed character do? Harm a pet.)

Predictability aside, “Curon” is a perfectly serviceable watch for fans of these shows. There’s some teen flirting, some bloodshed, spooky caves and bunkers, symbolically freighted wolves, and the occasional reflection on what it really means to posit that everyone has a light and a dark side. (What if the two sides aren’t so easy to tell apart?) With any luck, a second season will take those ambiguities further.

And that clock tower in the lake? It’s such a striking image that I initially assumed it was CG, but it’s a real South Tyrol tourist attraction. Post-pandemic travel goals!

IF YOU LIKE THIS, TRY...

•“The Returned” (2012-15; two seasons on Amazon Prime Video): In this French series, people who have been dead for years or decades stroll back into their small mountain town with no memory of any afterlife. How? Why? Most importantly, how will their loved ones, who already adjusted to their loss, adjust to their return? Bypass the American remake and watch the eerie original (“Les Revenants”) with subtitles.

•“Dark” (2017-20; three seasons on Netflix): A father’s suicide. A young boy’s disappearance. These events in a small German town usher us into an ever-morecomplex narrative involving time travel, secret societies, the Nazi legacy and a looming nuclear power plant. Unless you take notes and make diagrams, you may soon be lost, but you can still enjoy the moody montages.

•“Black Spot” (2017-19; two seasons on Netflix): The titular setting is a forest so deep, remote and spooky that it has no cell coverage, yet it somehow boasts a murder rate six times the national average.

In this French drama, more episodic and procedural than its peers, the local police chief and a big-city prosecutor attempt to find out why.

Contact: margot@sevendaysvt.com

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COURTESY OF JERNIGAN PONTIAC

Clearly Organic.

Jernigan Pontiac

See You Down the Road A farewell message from the author of Hackie

A

fter 23 years and some 600 stories, I’m calling it quits. The Hackie story appearing in this issue of Seven Days is the very last one.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you. This transition fills me with sadness. But mostly I’m overflowing with gratitude.

Penning these stories and seeing them published in Vermont’s premier newspaper has been one the great joys of my life. So, heartfelt thanks to Paula Routly and Pamela Polston, the two amazing women who founded and continue to guide Seven Days. Their support of me has been steadfast from the beginning, and that has buoyed my confidence more than they know.

Thanks also to Rick Kisonak, who somehow knew I was a writer before I did when he approached me to contribute to Burlington Magazine in the early ’90s.

And thanks to Shay Totten, who as then-editor of Vermont Times published Hackie for its first three years, 1997 to 2000.

To Ruth Christine Solomon, my brave companion of the road: Thank you for all the years serving as first reader/editor of these stories. More so than anyone, Ruth intuitively grasped the Hackie “vibe” and never hesitated to set me straight if I veered off course.

Thanks to my old pal Don Sander. As I wrote in the acknowledgments of my second book, “When this man is in your corner, you feel like you’re Muhammad Ali.” I’m not exaggerating when I say that, absent Don’s unfailing support, the Hackie column would never have seen the light of day.

There are many other people, too numerous to name individually, who have been kind and generous in their encouragement of my writing career. I’m grateful to each and every one of them.

Of course, none of this would have been sustainable without the enthusiastic support of you, the readers. I’ve been touched by all the notes you’ve sent me through the years.

And meeting so many of you at my public readings, especially at my annual First Night gigs from 2004 to 2017 — well, I felt the love and carry it with me to this day.

So thank you all, and namaste — the soul in me recognizes the soul in you.

What matters to you, matters to us.

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Peace and love,

Jernigan Pontiac 5/26/20 2:37 PM

HACKIE

A VERMONT CABBIE’S REAR VIEW BY JERNIGAN PONTIAC

Halfway House

S

“

o, Grayson, how long have you lived on Isle La Motte?” I asked my customer.

“Just over a year now,” he replied from the back seat. “I moved up from Baltimore.”

Grayson Benton had just undergone a medical procedure at the UVM Medical Center, which is where this taxi fare originated. We were en route to that most northern and remote section of the elongated archipelago formed by the three largest Lake Champlain islands: Grande Isle (aka South Hero), North Hero and Isle La Motte. Sewn together by a series of causeways and bridges, this island chain is referred to by the locals as simply “the islands.”

I took the opportunity of the pause in our conversation to take a gander at Grayson in the rearview mirror. I saw a wiry, handsome man in the mold of the late actor and playwright Sam Shepard.

He had Sam’s inquisitive, intelligent eyes, as well. As to Grayson’s age, I put him in his mid-forties.

“Is that where you grew up? In the Baltimore area?” I asked.

I’ve always been genuinely interested in the lives of others. In my experience, most people like to talk about their lives when given the chance. And, if they’d rather not, I get the message and don’t push.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I’ve grown up yet,” Grayson replied, chuckling. “Let’s just say I grew tall in Rutland. I was adopted when I was 2 by my parents, who were from there.”

I took a moment to absorb that piece of Grayson’s earliest history before asking, “Do you know much about your biological parents, if it’s OK to ask?”

“Oh, sure. My mother was just a girl herself when she got pregnant with me.

This was in Nova Scotia. Shortly after my birth, she ran into problems and was in and out of rehab. I ended up in an orphanage, and that’s where my adoptive parents found me. I was lucky — they’re good people.”

“How about your father?”

“My birth father is a full member of the Micmac, a First Nation tribe. They traditionally occupied what are now the Canadian Maritime Provinces — Nova

“Well, the remoteness is just what I need in my life now. But to answer your question specifically — it’s where my two kids live. My daughter, Mindy, is 13 and Sam is 17. I’m committed to living close to them until Mindy makes it through high school. My son is graduating this year. He’s a great kid. Wants to be a welder.”

We were passing through Sand Bar State Park. On this steamy Saturday in June, it was heartening to see so many vehicles in the parking lot and families

I CONSIDER THE NEXT FEW YEARS IN ISLE LA MOTTE

MY TIME OF MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL PREPARATION. Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Also, I believe, the northern Maine coastal region. At different points in my life, I’ve spent time at the various tribal reservations. Mostly on Lenox Island in P.E.I. — that’s where my dad’s from. The entire island is tribal land, and it serves as, like, the cultural center for the tribe as a whole.”

“The Micmac — I don’t think I ever heard of that tribe. Have they remained culturally cohesive?”

“Yes, they’re known for keeping up the traditional ways, which are based around fishing and especially lobstering.

The Micmac invented the technology for lobster pots, which is still used to this day.”

“So, why’d you relocate to Isle La Motte? That’s pretty remote. What’s that expression again? Oh, yeah — ‘off the beaten path.’”

out grilling, fishing, paddleboarding and just enjoying life. The COVID-19 crisis has given me, and I expect many people, a new appreciation for the simple joys of life we had taken for granted just a few short months ago.

“Grayson, you mentioned that the remoteness of Isle La Motte is something you needed in your life now. What exactly did you mean by that? Again, I’m sorry if I sound like I’m prying.”

“Hey, no problem, man. Here’s the deal. I’ve lived in a few places in my life, but only on the Micmac tribal lands do I truly feel like I’m home.”

I noticed a change in Grayson’s tone of voice, and it was striking. It felt as if he had downshifted to a deeper place in his being.

“It’s my goal — my dream, actually — to move up there permanently,” he continued. “But even putting aside my

commitment to my kids, at this point I’m not in the right head space to live as a tribal member. I’ve grown, like, way too citified. It’s an entirely different frame of mind up there — or maybe you can call it a different heart space. So, I consider the next few years in Isle La Motte my time of mental and spiritual preparation.

Also, I’m studying the Micmac language online.”

“I think I get it,” I said. “It’s like your place in Isle La Motte is kind of serving as a halfway house.”

“That’s a great way of putting it,” he said, smiling. “Another cool thing: Sammy, my son, wants to move up there with me. I told him that the tribe operates a fleet of 65 lobster boats, so there’s always plenty of work for a good welder.”

What a beautiful guy, I thought after I dropped Grayson off at his Isle La Motte halfway house and began the drive back to Burlington. I was genuinely touched — I would even say honored — that he shared his life story with me. I had no doubt he would make it to his true home among the Micmac people.

Godspeed, brother, I whispered into the invisible world. Though in all likelihood we would never meet again, I was squarely in Grayson’s corner.

Back at my house later that night, I googled the Wiki entry for the Micmac tribe. Two things I learned have stuck with me: The preferred spelling is “Mi’kmaq,” and their word for lobster is jagej. m All these stories are true, though names and locations may be altered to protect privacy.

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BOTTOM LINE

BY ALISON NOVAK

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TODD BALFOUR/BALFOUR STUDIOS

The Beau Ties crew in their Middlebury factory

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A Middlebury bow tie company sews up the market for natty masks

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S

croll through the website for Beau Ties LTD, a men’s accessory company in Middlebury, and you’ll find 139 different patterns of cloth masks, from paisley to polka dot. Before COVID-19, the 27-year-old company sold primarily bow ties — plus neckties, cummerbunds, ascots, dress shirts, socks and shoes — to dapper customers across the country, online and through catalogs.

Since early May, Greg Shugar though, Beau Ties’ biggest seller has been cloth masks with adjustable ear loops and a built-in flexible nose wire, for both kids and adults, at $12 apiece. The company has sold tens of thousands through its website in just a few months.

The best-selling style is one that speaks to our current time: a black mask with the words “I can’t breathe” emblazoned across it. It’s a reference to some of the last words spoken by George Floyd, a Minneapolis man who was killed by the police in May,

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020 11/18/15 12:06 PM

setting off a wave of calls for racial justice and police reform across the country.

The company is donating all proceeds from these masks to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons.

Beau Ties introduced the “I can’t breathe” masks on June 12 and sold 800 of them in the first three days, said the company’s CEO and creative director, Greg Shugar, a South Florida entrepreneur who acquired Beau Ties in April 2019. He’d cofounded menswear company the Tie Bar in 2004 and built it into a multimillion-dollar company before selling it to a private equity firm in 2013.

Shugar decided to market the “I can’t breathe” mask after a meeting with others in the company. “We felt like this was an important time that we needed to recognize and be a part of,” he said.

Despite that mask’s popularity, some customers “very much took the messaging

the wrong way,” Shugar said. The day the mask was introduced, the CEO fielded angry emails from 9:30 a.m. until past midnight.

Some people were civil, but others were not, he said. “If they were rude to me, I [gave] it right back … I stand by our values.”

Shugar’s foray into selling masks started back in mid-March, during the early days of COVID-19 — a time when, he said, “no one was thinking of buying bow ties.” When he heard about the national shortage of personal protective equipment, his first thought was, There’s no way that the United States should be struggling getting this stuff.

Shugar reached out to contacts in China. They helped him identify several reputable mask factories that could make KN95 masks, a Chinese version of N95 respirator masks. Shugar posted on LinkedIn that he was able to procure masks. His phone started “blowing up” immediately, he said, with calls from physicians, senior living facilities and emergency service providers all over the country looking to purchase them.

In what he calls a “crazy” three-week period, Shugar sold half a million KN95 masks. Appalled by price gouging that was taking place in the market, “I barely

charged any more than I was buying them for,” he said. “We didn’t make much on the masks, but we bought ourselves enough time where I could keep my employees on the payroll for a little bit.”

Prior to the pandemic, Beau Ties had 23 employees, including 15 seamstresses who worked in the company’s Middlebury factory.

Though the factory closed on March 17, those seamstresses didn’t stop sewing.

They volunteered their time to make and deliver masks for essential workers and senior living residences in Addison County with fabric the company donated, said Beau Ties president of sales Lizzie Smith.

The company began emailing customers weekly about these initiatives and received dozens of inquiries daily about when they would start selling cloth masks.

With the factory still closed, Shugar determined that the best way to keep costs down for customers and meet the high demand for masks was to contract with a Chinese factory that makes fabric for Beau Ties to produce masks.

In mid-April, Shugar ordered a batch of 600 masks from China in six different patterns. Before the company was able to introduce the new collection via email, all of them had sold out on the company’s

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website. “I don’t know how it happened,” Shugar said.

After refining the design and adding more patterns, he ordered 2,000 more. The masks went up on the company’s website at midnight, and by the next morning they, too, were almost sold out. “We were sleeping,” Shugar said. “Who’s ordering masks at three in the morning? At that point, I realized we got something here.”

company was able to reopen its factory.

Stationed six feet apart, five seamstresses at a time can work in the factory sewing bow ties and other accessories, but at a slower rate than before the pandemic.

Several haven’t been able to return because of health issues. Those who have take turns working 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. shifts.

A few times a week, mask shipments from China arrive in Middlebury, and the

WE’VE KEPT PEOPLE’S JOBS.

WE’RE ACTUALLY SELLING SOMETHING THAT’S USEFUL. LIZZIE SMITH

The next step was to expand the company’s offerings and bring seamstresses back to work. Shugar and Smith came up with the idea to create matching bow ties and masks for customers looking to make a fashion statement. Said Smith, who has worked for the company for 22 years: “I was convinced that, having sold to the bow tie community for a long time, they’re unique. They’re going to want their masks to match.”

As Gov. Phil Scott began allowing businesses to resume operations in May, the

company has hired two new employees to keep up with shipping and fulfillment; it now employs 19 people. On average, said Smith, they send out about 300 packages a day. On May 21, the company had its biggest sales day on record: roughly 1,000 orders for more than 5,000 masks and hundreds of bow ties.

The Vermont-based workers wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand for masks, Shugar said, so the company plans to continue manufacturing them in China.

But the matching bow tie orders have kept

the Vermont factory humming and the seamstresses busy.

Prior to COVID-19, only a handful of orders per month came from Vermont.

“We’re not a ‘dress-up’ state,” explained Smith. But the company’s entry into the mask market has attracted buyers from Cornwall to Winooski — about 20 local orders per day — who may not be enticed by the formality of bow ties but can get on board with the practicality of masks.

“I finally feel like the state of Vermont knows who we are,” Shugar said.

Though neither he nor Smith is sure how long people will be masking up, both think Beau Ties will be offering the facial coverings for the foreseeable future.

They’re speaking with private schools about making masks with logos and have recently introduced “Vote” masks — available in both blue and red.

“We’ve kept a company going. We’ve kept people’s jobs. We’re actually selling something that’s useful,” said Smith. “I think, at the end of the day, all of us feel good about that.” m Contact: alison@kidsvt.com

INFO Learn more at beautiesltd.com.

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VERMONTING

BY SALLY POLLAK

HELLO, VERMONTING Even as Vermont opens up from the pandemic shutdown, Gov. Phil Scott still encourages residents to stay home as much as possible. And so this summer is a good time to explore our home state. Its diminutive size makes a multitude of short trips accessible, whether for a few hours, an overnight or a longer getaway.

This series, running nearly weekly through mid-October, presents curated excursions in every corner of Vermont, based on the experiences of Seven Days reporters. The idea is to patronize the state’s restaurants, retailers, attractions and outdoor adventures — after all, we want them to still be there when the pandemic is finally over.

Happy traveling, and stay safe.

Looking west from Mount Independence to Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Defiance

IF YOU GO Check websites for COVID-19 guidelines.

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Pondering the birth of a nation at Mount Independence

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

A gravestone at Mount Independence

SALLY POLLAK

n July 1777, British soldiers dispersed colonial troops stationed at MOUNT INDEPENDENCE in Orwell. During my visit 243 years later, deerflies routed me.

The insects buzzed me and nestled in my scalp. I pulled dying bugs from my hair as I walked on the rise above Lake Champlain that was the site of an encampment during the American Revolution.

Still, a trip to the state historical site in Addison County is worth swats, bites and tangles for Vermonters who have an interest in state and U.S. history — and for those who enjoy a gentle (if occasionally itchy) walk in the woods. A six-mile network of trails on the roughly 300-acre site traverses hardwood and conifer stands and leads visitors past artifacts of the settlement.

I drove from Burlington to Mount Independence last week to take a walk and think about its history as Independence Day approaches. Located about 50 miles southwest of Burlington, the mount is situated at the end of a dirt road in rolling farm country.

The sloop-shaped visitor center comes into view almost abruptly as you round a sharp, uphill curve. The center and the surrounding trails, along with Fort Ticonderoga across the lake, tell the story of the fortress.

The site was settled in the summer of 1776, when thousands of American troops

497 Mount Independence Road, Orwell, 759-2412, historicsites.vermont.gov/ mount-independence.

D.A.R. STATE PARK

6750 Vermont 17, Addison, 759-2354, vtstateparks.com.

SALLY POLLAK

History on a Hilltop

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MOUNT INDEPENDENCE STATE HISTORIC SITE

began building an encampment at a place then called Rattlesnake Hill. The men cleared the land, constructed huts and a large hospital, and sited their cannons on the cliffs above Lake Champlain.

They built a floating bridge to connect this installment to Fort Ticonderoga, which was constructed on the New York side of the lake during the French and Indian War. On the narrows of Champlain, where a quarter mile of water separates the two shores, the forts were positioned to choke off the British in a potential attack from the north. Together, the two installations were temporary homes to 12,000 to 14,000 troops in the early years of the Revolutionary War. On July 28, 1776, the men assembled on the Orwell promontory to listen to a colonel read a document that had arrived 10 days earlier by boat and horse from Philadelphia: the Declaration of Independence.

From that day forward, the rise above Lake Champlain was known as Mount Independence. (Site administrator Elsa Gilbertson told me by telephone that she’s uncertain why officials waited 10 days to read the declaration aloud.)

The visitor center, which opens July 1, houses tools, a cannon wheel, wine bottles, sections of the floating bridge and other artifacts. It was closed when I visited, so I stuck to the trails and limited my walk (because of the deerflies) to a 1.6-mile loop called the BALDWIN TRAIL and a short spur path.

The handicap-accessible Baldwin loop passes a gravesite, relics of the hospital and building foundations. An offshoot path leads to the edge of the promontory, which affords

SALLY POLLAK

COURTESY OF MOUNT INDEPENDENCE STATE HISTORIC SITE

Tools used to build Mount Independence

a view northward of the lake and westward of Fort Ticonderoga and the 893-foot Mount Defiance rising behind it. The location was a strategic vantage point, but the Americans had failed to secure the high ground.

A sign at the lookout describes the scene in early July 1777: “[A]s Americans celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” the British built a road up Mount Defiance, placed two cannons on top and seized control of the site. According to the sign, American Col. Alexander Scammell “called the predicament ‘a perfect mousetrap.’” The Americans

Mount Independence, at which the Declaration of Independence is read. The event usually takes place on a weekend date near July 28.

“It’s neat to hear that document read under the same conditions that it was done in 1776,” Barbieri said. “To hear it on the same ground, the same words, that’s special.”

(It’s unclear whether the event will be held this year due to COVID-19.)

I left Mount Independence and drove east about seven miles to the village of Orwell. My destination was BUXTON’S STORE, a grocery and deli owned by Orwell native

AMERICAN COL. ALEXANDER SCAMMELL

Andy Buxton

“CALLED THE PREDICAMENT ‘A PERFECT MOUSETRAP.’” Andy Buxton. Three years ago, he purchased the store that his grandparents, Dick and Thelma Buxton, opened in 1968 and operated for almost 40 years.

Buxton’s was offering a lobster roll special, so I ordered one. The roll was filled to overflowing with shellfish, sourced from Maine, along with chopped celery and onion, lettuce and tomato. I paired it with a Lawson’s Finest Liquids Super Session #6 and a big bag of Cheetos. I brought my food across the street to the school grounds and ate at a picnic table under the shade of a tree.

On my way back to Burlington, I turned off Route 22A in Addison and headed west to D.A.R. STATE PARK. But the gate was locked; the park was a day away from opening for the season.

I was about to leave when I saw a park ranger and asked him if it was OK to walk in for a swim. Sure, he said. I skirted the gate on foot and walked to the lake. The water was as welcoming as his answer. m Contact: sally@sevendaysvt.com

Lobster roll from Buxton’s Store in Orwell

SALLY POLLAK

retreated. (There’s more to the story, including a blaze that illuminated the retreat; check it out at the mount.)

I took a last look at Mount Defiance, turned back to Baldwin Trail and followed it to the visitor center. At the back of the parking lot, I spotted a short path that led downhill to a clearing on the lake. The beach was bug-free and pleasantly breezy. I found a rock to sit on and stayed for a bit, alone at the bay except for a slow-moving boat with three fishermen aboard.

I thought about a phone conversation I’d had the day before with Mike Barbieri of Wallingford; he’s been taking walks at Mount Independence for 40 years. “I go up looking for signs of occupation, of human use, and I note them,” Barbieri, 74, said.

In April, walking in the woods there before foliage could obscure his view, Barbieri came upon a cannon site. He noted the features that led to his find — a stone wall, a gulley, a rock platform — and plotted them on a map.

Barbieri participates in reenactments at

Find more information on Vermont day trips and adventures from the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing at vermontvacation.com/staytripper.

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n the annals of Vermont’s Magic Hat Brewing, there was never a more spectacular misfire than Ale of the Living Dead. Brewed in 2001 for the annual Night of the Living Dead Halloween party that the company used to throw at its brewery — originally in Burlington and later in South Burlington — the ale featured a piece of raw garlic in each clear bottle. It was every bit as revolting as it sounds.

“That was the great debacle,” Magic Hat cofounder and original brewer Bob Johnson said of the garlic beer, giving credit/ blame for the potable abomination to cofounder Alan Newman.

“I fought that one tooth and nail,” Johnson recalled. “I was like, ‘This is not a good idea.’”

Newman recalled that, within hours of the first delivery of garlic beer to Pearl Street Beverage in Burlington and Beverage Warehouse in Winooski, he was called to come take the cases back.

“They said every bottle they’d sold had come back to them,” Newman said. “It was undrinkable.”

Ale of the Living Dead became the stuff of legend. In later years, when curious customers asked about it at the Artifactory — Magic Hat’s retail store at the brewery — employees were encouraged to explain that it was meant for cooking, not drinking. (It wasn’t.) A secret back stock of the concoction was sometimes used to settle high-stakes bets among brewery staff: You lose, you chug.

Ale of the Living Dead is undoubtedly Magic Hat’s most infamous, and funniest, failure. Yet its very existence testifies to the craft brewing innovation — whether reckless or fearless is open to debate — that the company has engaged in since its founding in Vermont in 1994.

Now Magic Hat approaches a milestone that puts the future of that tradition of innovation in question. Since 2012, Magic Hat has been part of FIFCO USA, which is a subsidiary of Florida Ice & Farm Co., a publicly traded conglomerate based in Costa Rica that operates in more than 15 countries.

On June 16, the brewing conglomerate announced that it will move all Magic Hat production to its Genesee Brewing headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. As of July 1, the grand Magic Hat experiment in Vermont is officially over — though some would argue that it ended at least a decade ago.

INNOVATIVE AND POLARIZING, MAGIC HAT LEAVES BEHIND A TRANSFORMED CRAFT BEER INDUSTRY IN VERMONT

BY D AN BO L L E S

The news of Magic Hat’s departure from Vermont after 26 years made local and national headlines. Some of that interest is a product of the brewery’s national profile and uncommon longevity. For others, the move is an opportunity to reflect on how much has changed in the booming craft beer industry since 1994 — and whether those changes ultimately left Magic Hat behind.

From Jinx (a peat-smoked Scotch ale) to Wacko (a beet beer) to Braggot (a braggot), Magic Hat’s creations have routinely stood out in that industry like, well, a sore Thumbsucker (a barrel-aged Russian imperial stout). Especially in the company’s independent early years, the brewers were willing to try pretty much anything.

“When it totally missed, they had laughs about it,” author and Yankee Brew

News columnist Adam Krakowski told Seven Days. “They embraced experimenting and an acceptance of failure, because they were so groundbreaking and experimental that every one can’t be a home run.”

Many of Magic Hat’s offbeat offerings were home runs, though — so many, in fact, that by 2009 it was the eighth-largest craft brewery in the country. The most notable hit was its apricot-tinged flagship beer, #9, a revolutionary brew in its time. While the company’s eight-pointed star — a dingbat in its logo between “Magic” and “Hat” — has fallen over the years, especially among beer enthusiasts in its home state, it was once among the most successful craft breweries anywhere.

Magic Hat’s insistence on doing things differently was fundamental not only to

brewing but to every aspect of the company. Its tap handles and packaging were curious and eye-catching, its distribution strategies forward-thinking and provocative. Whimsical, Lewis Carroll-like wordplay colored everything from sales sheets to the sayings on the underside of bottle caps.

“Bob and Alan always looked at Magic Hat as this blank canvas where they could really paint outside the lines,” said Lisa Kelly, who worked for the company from 1995 to 2017.

Creative expression and individualism were not only encouraged, she continued, but considered essential to the brewery’s entrepreneurial ideology and its success. “It was our personalities that created this brand,” Kelly said.

Forty-three of Magic Hat’s 46 Vermont employees will lose their jobs when the brewery moves to Rochester, though Burlington’s Zero Gravity Craft Brewery is in talks to rehire some of them, according to Justin McCarthy, Zero Gravity’s director of brewing operations and a Magic Hat alum. That company plans to expand from its Pine Street quarters into Magic Hat’s longtime facility on Bartlett Bay Road in South Burlington.

And, just like that, all that will remain in Vermont of one of the largest and most influential craft breweries in the state’s history will be a unique and complicated legacy. Unless perhaps someday, tucked away in a dark corner, Zero Gravity employees find a 20-year-old bottle of garlic beer.

Atheist Ale

Newman is befuddled by the swell of well wishers who’ve approached him to eulogize Magic Hat and offer condolences.

“In my mind, Magic Hat died in 2010,” he said flatly. That’s the year he sold Magic Hat to North American Breweries in Rochester, a company established by the New York City investment firm KPS Capital Partners.

“They’re a private equity company, and they make money by stripping out expense and flipping,” Newman, 74, explained. That’s exactly what happened.

Through North American Breweries, KPS gutted Magic Hat, decimating its sales and

marketing forces in particular. In 2012, North American Breweries was sold to FIFCO. Newman recounted the sale to KPS in unflinching detail in his 2011 autobiography, High on Business: The Life, Times, and Lessons of a Serial Entrepreneur. As he tells it, it’s a lurid tale filled with dramatic double crosses and deceit, as well as bad actors taking advantage of a company that had over-leveraged itself at the worst possible time — just before the stock market crash of 2008. That’s when Magic Hat purchased Pyramid Breweries, a financially troubled Seattle company, and formed Independent Brewers United, or IBU. A KPS spokesperson called Newman’s version of events “absurd,” noting that in meetings with KPS he “negotiated for himself, among other things, a free annual keg of beer for life.” In Newman’s telling, his hands were tied in selling Magic Hat, and he Magic Hat brew staff made “far less money than people assume I in the early 2000s did — and far less than some other people did.” Worst of all, he added, “I lost control of a company I spent 17 years building.

“To me, it was dead. And I mourned it; I grieved back in 2010, 2011. I moved on,” Newman continued. “But I’ve been shocked … because a lot of the people expressing sadness and appreciation [now] are the people who just fucking hated us back in the day.”

His words reflect the fact that, while Magic Hat was once one of the nation’s top craft breweries, it was also one of the most polarizing.

“Craft is fascinating,” Newman observed, “because they ’ve always had a thing where success means you’ve sold out, and therefore you shouldn’t be doing this.”

Over the years, AL AN N EW MAN some Vermont beer aficionados have traded their Blind Faith and Fat Angel for soughtafter brews from celebrated local microbreweries, such as the Alchemist’s Heady Topper or Hill Farmstead Brewery’s Edward. But even beer snobs acknowledge that Magic Hat is important to the history of beer in Vermont for reasons well beyond the number of barrels it could pump out in a given year — 185,000 at its peak in 2011.

For starters, if there hadn’t been a Magic Hat, Vermont might not currently have the most breweries per capita in the nation — 14.2 per 100,000 people and counting, according to the Brewers Association.

Magic Hat bottling line at the “Their legacy is a very important one,” Bartlett Bay Road brewery said Krakowski, the beer columnist. He’s From left: Lisa Kelly, Alan Newman and Stacey Steinmetz

We brought craft beer into the modern age.

authored or coauthored several books on brewing history, most recently last year’s Burlington Brewing: A History of Craft Beer in the Queen City, with Jeff S. Baker II. “Magic Hat laid a lot of unacknowledged groundwork in making Vermont where it is today in craft beer,” Krakowski said.

“We brought craft beer into the modern age,” Newman declared.

When he and Johnson founded Magic Hat in 1994, there were just a few production craft breweries in the state, most notably Otter Creek Brewing, Long Trail Brewing and Catamount Brewing.

Vermont brewing legend Greg Noonan opened Vermont Pub & Brewery in 1988, and a smattering of smaller breweries could be found in the Green Mountains.

But the state’s craft beer industry was a long way from puberty, let alone the explosive mature growth it would eventually achieve. At press time, the Vermont Brewers Association’s website listed 61 members. That doesn’t even include three new breweries that are “work[ing] to open during the pandemic,” according to Jordan Barry’s June 24 story in Seven Days, which suggested that “It might take an apocalypse to stop new breweries from opening in Vermont.”

In 2018, Vermont’s beer industry produced nearly 350,000 barrels, making an economic impact of $362 million.

Nationally, those raw figures put the state at or below the middle of the pack in terms of production and revenue. But per capita, Vermont’s beer industry ranks first in gallons brewed per adult and second in economic impact.

“At the time, I really thought the industry was crowded,” Newman confessed, tossing up his hands, as he remembered back to 1994. “I know that’s laughable now, and even I can’t say it with a straight face. But it’s true.”

Newman’s beer baron contemporary, Otter Creek founder Lawrence Miller, had the opposite opinion. He, Newman and Johnson, as well as the heads of Catamount and Long Trail, formalized the Vermont Brewers Association in 1995, building on groundwork laid by Noonan.

“I imagined there would be room for probably 20 more breweries,” said Lawrence, who sold Otter Creek in 2002.

Since 2010, Otter Creek has been owned

by Long Trail, which itself was sold to a private equity firm in Massachusetts, Fulham & Co., in 2006.

While Newman’s concern seems quaint in 2020, given that seven new breweries probably opened in Vermont while you were reading this sentence, it did provide him and Johnson with something of a guiding principle: Brew for the people, not just the aficionados among them.

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Vanishing Act « P.35 Newman, who is famously eccentric and outgoing, and the more reserved Johnson were something of an odd couple, at least on the surface. But they shared a philosophy around beer. Both were turned off by the dogma of the budding craft beer industry. “We felt that craft beer was too precious,” Newman said. He mimicked a beer ad, “Using only the finest, all-natural ingredients…”

“We wanted to be complementary and be respectful to beer styles to a certain degree,” said Johnson, who was a certified beer judge and brewed briefly at Otter Creek before starting Magic Hat. “But, at the same time, we weren’t brewing for the Great American Beer Festival. We weren’t brewing to get medals. We wanted to brew beer that was delicious.”

Johnson also aimed to brew beer that complemented food, such as his first creation, an Irish-ish red ale called simply Bob’s 1st Ale. “I always said that beer needs to be at the table as much as hanging out with your friends at the bar,” said Johnson, who left Magic Hat amicably in 2003. He now co-owns Scratch Baking in Portland, Maine.

“I was in beer for economic development, mission and values,” Newman said.

“I learned to love beer, don’t get me wrong.

But beer was not a religion to me. And at the time, for everybody in the industry, it was about religion.”

Before opening Magic Hat, Newman and Johnson took a fact-finding tour of 33 breweries from Seattle to California and realized that “everyone was doing the exact same thing,” Newman said. “Everybody’s labels looked alike. Everybody’s tap handles looked alike. All the beers

A Performance in Every Bottle

Magic Hat’s full official name is the Magic Hat Brewing Company and Performing Arts Center. The Night of the Living Dead parties were one manifestation of that latter, lesser-known designation. But for New Englanders, the annual Magic Hat Mardi Gras parades in downtown Burlington were the company ’s defining showcase, in more ways than one.

From 1995 until 2019, when it morphed into a stationary party, Magic Hat Mardi Gras just kept growing, becoming one of the biggest annual events in New England.

At its pre-FIFCO peak, the parade drew more than 30,000 visitors to Burlington to catch beads in the dead of March and drink metric shit-tons of Magic Hat beer.

The cold may have put a damper on New developing symbiotic relationships. While Orleans-style nudity, but the level of boozy those businesses and organizations benedebauchery often rivaled that of Saint fited from the parade’s exposure, Magic Patrick’s Day in Burlington.

Hat gained a presence all over downtown The weekend-long festivities were a Burlington. And the bars made a killing. boon to local restaurants in a traditionally Steinmetz recalled that her husband, quiet season. Over the years, the parades Glenn Walter, owner of the Burlington raised more than a quarter million dollars brewpub Three Needs, used to say that for charities such as Planned Mardi Gras “marked the day Parenthood and Vermont when the students decided CARES. they’ve worked hard The Mardi Gras enough for the semester celebration was and now it’s time to also a shrewd bit party again.”

The first of marketing.

But, like all good parade featured marketing, it 15 floats on didn’t feel like it.

Church Street.

The parade Steinmetz was the brainchild “beseeched” of Stacey SteinMagic Hat’s best CARRI URANGA metz, who became customers to Magic Hat ’s first build floats and devise employee in Septem“stupid-clever ideas” ber 1994. Technically, she for each, she recalled. For was hired as a sales rep. But, Nectar’s, the downtown especially in the company’s early nightclub famous for live music and years, her duties spilled over into many gravy fries, that meant tossing frozen French facets of the business, from cleaning fries from the float. draft lines in the morning to selling beer “Which didn’t go over terribly well during the day to running bar promotions with the Church Street Marketplace,” at night.

Steinmetz conceded, referring to the “Then I had the genius idea of doing merchants’ association responsible for the events like Mardi Gras,” Steinmetz said pedestrian thoroughfare. “But the birds with heavy irony. were happy.”

She explained: The first Night of the As was Newman, who admitted he was Living Dead, held at the brewery HQ, upset initially skeptical of the idea of a Mardi Burlington bar owners because Halloween Gras parade in March in Vermont. was traditionally one of their most lucra“When we started,” he said, “nobody tive nights of the year. So Steinmetz devised [in the craft beer industry] understood the Mardi Gras as a way to “create a new holi- concept of event marketing.” day in Burlington to give back to the bars, The success of Mardi Gras offered a but it could be for everybody.” blueprint for some of Magic Hat’s most She schemed up ways of getting local important marketing innovations. While merchants, media and nonprofits involved, the company’s event planning started at

It was sort of like a cult, but not an unhealthy one.

Original Magic Hat sign at the Bartlett Bay Road brewery

Todd Haire

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were named after a geographical location or a person. So we decided that we were going to do everything different.”

“Very pointedly, they did not use the Vermont brand,” Miller said. In his view, Magic Hat’s contrarian approach to marketing and beer style “upped the game for everybody and showed us what was possible. They were the inspiration to color outside the lines.”

“We didn’t have any great clarity on what ‘different’ meant,” Newman said.

“But one of our great strategies was that, when everyone was going down one path, we’d say, ‘OK, we’ll go this [other] way.’”

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home, it would eventually lead Magic Hat into a controversial growth and distribution strategy of prioritizing markets outside Vermont at the expense of its home turf, Newman acknowledged.

Magic Hat became a fixture on the East Coast music festival scene; most notably, it was the first craft beer to have a significant presence at the massive Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Tennessee.

“People asked us all the time why we wasted energy and money at Bonnaroo, when Tennessee was so far from Vermont or anywhere we distributed at the time,” Newman said. His answer: “All those people come from somewhere. And when they go back to wherever that is, they’re gonna look for Magic Hat.” And they did. From its inception, Magic Hat grew with uncommon speed. By the late ’90s and early 2000s, as it expanded throughout the Northeast, the company was growing at the phenomenal rate of 25 to 30 percent nearly every year, according to Newman.

“We felt that we should always be able to do that,” Newman said. “Unless something went terribly wrong.”

Through the Looking Glass

When Carri Uranga interviewed for a job at Magic Hat in 2000, she sat across a table from Johnson and longtime general manager Steve Hood (she thinks; memories made at breweries tend to be fuzzy, especially two decades later).

At the end of the interview, Johnson posed a simple but crucial question to Uranga: Do you like beer?

“I was like, ‘Do I like beer?’” Uranga recalled. She then lifted up her shirt to expose a modest beer belly.

Uranga worked at Magic Hat for six

years, first as the “curator of tchotchkes,” aka the retail manager, and then as the “voice,” answering phones and managing the Magic Hat offices. Many brewery employees received fanciful job titles. Steinmetz was the “supreme dreamer and schemer.”

Accountant Sue Dorey was the “evil accounting lady.” Sales and marketing director Michele Noonan was alternately the “manager of mumbo jumbo” and “high priestess of peddling.”

CEO Martin Kelly was the “potentate, pilot and primary prestidigitator.”

Magic Hat’s graphic design was even more fantastical.

With molten churns of red and orange, the label of #9 had a hypnotic effect. Ditto the icy black and blue swirls of Blind Faith. For its HI.P.A. label, Magic Hat commissioned the San Francisco artist Stanley Mouse, famous for his psychedelic rock posters in the 1960s. Jinx featured a winking amoeba composed of a trio of interlocking hearts.

“We saw packaging as a way to tell a

story,” said Lisa Kelly, Magic Hat’s “lead creationary cultivator,” or creative director.

(She’s no relation to Martin Kelly, though she did meet her husband, Chris, when they worked together at Magic Hat.) “We wanted the customer to really work to be in on the secret.”

From its silly job titles to its eye-catching design aesthetic, Magic Hat projected an aura that distinguished it in the craft beer industry, especially in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Uranga said that air of singularity was evident inside the brewery, as well.

“I always felt like we were different,” she said. “One of our taglines was about being unique and distinctive, and I felt like that was true.”

Magic Hat employees

were an exceptionally close-knit community. “Everybody was in a band,” Lisa Kelly said.

“It’s almost like our whole lives revolved around Magic Hat,” Uranga recalled. “It was sort of like a cult, but not an unhealthy one.” She paused, then added, “Well, maybe sort of.”

If Magic Hat was “sort of like a cult” internally, externally it cultivated a kind of benign fanaticism, too. That made the Artifactory something like holy ground. Magic Hat disciples made frequent pilgrimages to Bartlett Bay Road, including Krakowski, who in the early 2000s would regularly travel from college in New York to the Artifactory.

“Magic Hat was really the gateway to craft beer for me and a lot of others,” he said.

The company’s original Flynn Avenue brewery was hard for such visitors to find, tucked away in back of an old industrial complex. Newman recalled, “We had a sign that got stolen so often, we finally stopped replacing it.”

The act of seeking out Magic Hat became central to the company’s identity.

Magic Hat moved to its South Burlington location, a former lumberyard, in 1997.

With the rebranding of the on-site retail store as the Artifactory in 2003, Newman and the brewery’s other creative heads sought to replicate that sense of mystery and discovery in the new location.

When you entered the Artifactory, it took a few minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, while the aroma of malted barley tickled your nose. Long and cavernous with high ceilings, the room offered no natural light. Instead, colored floodlights revealed corrugated steel walls VANISHING ACT

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Vanishing Act « P.37 bathed in curious hues and T-shirt racks made from old culvert pipes. Especially for the uninitiated, the effect was disorienting, which was exactly the point.

“When people came in, they were like, ‘Oh, yeah. This is Magic Hat,’” Newman said. “It was what their fantasy was like.”

With a steampunk aesthetic, the Artifactory was more demented fun house than staid tasting room. It hid a treasure trove of sometimes-bizarre merchandise alongside T-shirts and coozies — such as condoms. (“Magic hats,” get it?) A long, tunnel-like tour ramp wound up through the guts of the building. As visitors climbed, white light beckoned from the darkened hall to a bright platform overlooking the entire brewery, as if they were Dorothy stepping into Oz. “It was like the living, breathing entity of this brand we had created,” Steinmetz said. “It was like you were traveling somewhere. It was an event in itself.

“We wanted to create experiences for our customers,” she continued. “That was our intent with everything that we did.”

The Artifactory, said Newman, “taught me the value of having a home for a brand that really speaks to what that brand is about. I would argue that we really helped start the [craft beer] tourism business.”

That might sound like a bold claim, but Krakowski, for one, agrees.

“I think Catamount, Vermont Pub & Brewery, Otter Creek and Magic Hat were the ones that had name recognition outside of Vermont and were drawing people to craft beer,” he said. “Now it’s escalated to the point that the craft beer is drawing people to Vermont.”

Revolution 9

Newman believes the explosion in craft beer tourism that he helped create is, ironically, at least partially responsible for torpedoing Magic Hat. A prime example of how the company may have become a victim of its own success is the history of its enduring but polarizing flagship brew, #9.

Johnson, 60, finds the common perception of #9 as a “fruit beer” amusing, though he acknowledged that it was inspired by a beer from Seattle’s Pyramid Breweries that contained apricot essence, just as #9 would.

“But it was a straight-up wheat beer,” Johnson said of Pyramid’s brew. “And I always thought they used too much apricot essence.” He wanted to see how that essence would work in a lighter, cleaner style.

Essence, Johnson explained, is a pure extract with barely any flavor or sweetness. Its effect is almost entirely aromatic.

He devised a recipe for a pale ale that brought sweeter malt characteristics 38

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regional breweries like Magic Hat and toward microbreweries — defined as breweries that produce fewer than 15,000 barrels per year.

In 2018, microbreweries represented 80 percent of the growth within the entire craft brewing industry — which encompasses regional breweries, microbreweries and brewpubs. In 2019, craft beer accounted for more than a quarter of the $116 billion U.S. beer market, according to the Brewers Association. Regional breweries still comprise most of that, but microbreweries are clearly ascendant.

Put another way: In 2010, the year North American Breweries acquired Magic Hat, there were 1,800 breweries in the U.S. In 2019, there were more than scorn by 8,300 — 1,600 offending of which had brewing opened in the past two years tradition alone. That or simply growth reflects aroused consumers’ jealousy with L AW R E N C E thirst for local its success is M IL L E R over regional beers. a fair question.

So do Magic Hat’s “From 1995 to numbers — which, 2010, 15 years, it was according to Newman, double-digit growth took a nosedive over that for #9,” Lisa Kelly said. “I same decade. remember clearly, someone FIFCO doesn’t release sales or asked me that when NAB bought us: ‘Were production figures to the public, but you guys really growing double digits?

Newman has seen them and said they’re Because we’re not doing that now.’”

“I never liked #9,” said Bill Mares, dire — though a nondisclosure agreement who considers himself an “emotional with FIFCO prevented him from divulggodfather” to Magic Hat and co-owns ing specifics. the small Burlington “beer blendery” Kelly confirmed anecdotally that sales the House of Fermentology with Todd of #9, in particular, dropped precipitously Haire of Burlington’s Foam Brewers. “But after 2010 as customers moved on to what did I know? It went on to make up 40 newer beers from smaller producers. percent of their sales and really opened Thus the very trends that Magic Hat the whole fruit-flavored beer market.” fostered led to its decline.

Brewers at the time, Johnson said, “I do sometimes wonder if I could have “didn’t take [#9] too seriously.” But, he figured it out,” Newman said of keeping added, “every single one of them would Magic Hat solvent in a drastically shifting have rolled over for the distribution. market. “I’m not quite arrogant enough to “We were in the business to sell beer,” say that I would have. But I do wonder.” he continued. “#9 turned into a very sellable beer. And I think it got a lot of people ‘A Culture of Curiosity’ in craft beer, also.”

As a businessman and entrepreneur, Newman described #9 as the gateway Newman, who now co-owns the beer for an entire generation of craft drink- South Burlington music venue Higher ers — including, he suggested, the righteous Ground, has an impressive track record. beer purists who have maligned it, and by Pre-Magic Hat, he cofounded the extension Magic Hat, for two decades. prominent Vermont company Seventh “You know they’re all closet #9 drink- Generation. In 2011, Boston Beer ers,” he said. recruited him to run Alchemy & Science, But about a decade ago, the craft beer a subsidiary brand incubator. Closer to market shifted, and so did the fortunes home, he is reportedly close to a deal to of #9. National sales figures confirm that buy a prominent business in Burlington’s craft customers, many of whom were South End, the details of which were not weaned on #9, are moving away from available at press time.

Todd Haire (left) and Matt Cohen

They were the inspiration to color outside the lines.

forward by reducing hopping. Hence #9’s tagline: “Not quite a pale ale.”

“If you had that beer without the essence, it probably would have tasted out of balance, a little more malt sweetness and asking for a bit more hop,” he said. “But when you add the perceived character, the aromatics, that little bit of sweetness in the beer gave you a perception that it was the apricot that was giving you that sweetness.”

In other words, he said, #9 was “a trick of the mind on the palate.”

Its name was also a mystery, alternately rumored (with the help of Magic Hat staff ) to have been inspired by the Searchers’ “Love Potion No. 9,” “Revolution 9” by the Beatles, and the jersey number of baseball greats Ted Williams and Roger Maris, among other tall tales. The name was derived from the Fiat X1/9 roadster, revealed the car buff Newman.

The beer drew derision in certain brewing circles as “a girlie beer,” Johnson recalled. But whether #9 earned that

So you could have done worse than betting on Newman to save Magic Hat if given the chance. But recapturing the magic would have been a tall order.

Magic Hat employees who worked for the company before and after the sale to North American Breweries in 2010 almost universally point to a drastic change in culture and identity: from freewheeling and fun to, as one former staffer put it, “a company that had to keep telling everyone how cool they were.”

“It was a real and noticeable difference,” Kelly said. She and others stress that not all of the changes were bad. For example, the brewery received needed upgrades, and certain operations were streamlined and facilitated. The company’s brewers were still encouraged, at least in recent years, to experiment, though most of their efforts flew under the radar of beer enthusiasts.

“Some of our experimentation might have been slightly muted by perception challenges the brand has faced,” said current head brewer Chris Rockwood, who has been with Magic Hat since 2007. “But it’s been here.”

Still, there was no mistaking the change in atmosphere before and after 2010.

“Alan walked around the brewery barefoot until the bitter end,” said McCarthy, the Zero Gravity brewer who, in two stints, worked for Magic Hat for 11 years between 2000 and 2013. “You went from that to getting demerits if your safety glasses weren’t on.”

Newman believes that North American Breweries and FIFCO never fully understood what made Magic Hat what it was.

“We built a culture of curiosity, a culture of constant innovation and constant change,” Newman said. “I don’t think they ever really got that.”

If you need an example of the disconnect between the culture and philosophy Newman and Johnson created and what Magic Hat became under FIFCO, look no further than its most recent new release.

Newman was always adamant about avoiding craft brew clichés, one of the most egregious of which, in his view, was naming beers after people or geographical locations. What did Magic Hat unveil in early June? Bartlett Bay, a margarita gose, named for the brewery’s South Burlington address.

However, Newman’s aversion to identifying Magic Hat with its Vermont setting makes it easier for FIFCO to move the company.

Magic Hat staff circa 2000

“This is sort of the natural evolution,” said Otter Creek’s Miller, who is now an independent business consultant and served as Vermont’s secretary of commerce from 2011 to 2014. “Not having used the Vermont brand gives the owner flexibility to move without having to reposition the brand.”

Even as the brewery leaves Vermont, the state’s booming beer scene still reveals samples of Magic Hat DNA everywhere.

Prominent alumni of “Magic Hat University,” as Fiddlehead Brewing founder Matt Cohen calls it, are scattered throughout the local beer industry. The highest concentration of them might be at Cohen’s own Shelburne brewery. Cohen, who brewed for Magic Hat from 1999 to 2010 before opening Fiddlehead in 2011, currently employs seven former members of Magic Hat’s “Bru-Tang Clan” — the brew staff ’s moniker.

“Magic Hat really pushed the envelope of what beer could and should be,”

Cohen said. But he thinks that changed even before 2010. He traces the brewery’s decline to 2008, when Magic Hat acquired Pyramid Breweries.

“It’s like the Grateful Dead,” continued Cohen, an avowed Deadhead. “They wrote some great songs in the ’70s, played the shit out of them in the ’80s, and by the ’90s it was all gone.”

Cohen and Fiddlehead general manager John Ravell, who worked at Magic Hat from 1996 to 2007, said they’ve applied the lessons they learned there to opening and growing Fiddlehead.

“I learned what to do at Magic Hat,” Cohen said. “But I also learned what not to do.”

Perhaps the most important lesson for Cohen is what he called the “art of selling beer.”

“A mistake that a lot of breweries made back then, and that still happens today, is that breweries produce beer for

brewers,” he explained, echoing Johnson. “And that’s not always the type of beer that’s going to excite and energize the base.

“That was Magic Hat’s strength,” Cohen continued. “They did not brew to style to win medals. They made beer for consumers and to teach people what better beer could be.”

Zero Gravity’s McCarthy thinks that aspect of Magic Hat’s legacy endures in the beer made by Magic Hat alums all over the state, from Queen City Brewery to von Trapp Brewing to Foam Brewers and many others.

“The impact on the brewing community is pretty profound,” he said.

“That’s a lot of knowledge to be shared from the amount of time people spent there. And that goes a long way.”

If Magic Hat was a university, then Haire, the Foam Brewers cofounder, was its dean. He brewed at Magic Hat from 1997 to 2011 and became its master brewer when Johnson left. Many former Magic Hat brew staff interviewed for this story specifically credited him with preparing them to succeed in the beer industry.

“He formed my opinion that work could be important, not just something you do,” said Josh Waldman, who brewed at Magic Hat in the early 2000s and is currently the head brewer at Elysian Brewing in Seattle. Waldman implements many practices he learned from Haire, from cross-training brewers to be able to do any job in the brewery to hiring people with limited or no experience who could be trained from square one.

“It was a great brewery to grow up in,” Haire said of Magic Hat. “I think a lot of people worked really hard to build that brewery, and the culture was so good at the time that we would have done anything to make it happen. Magic Hat was a great time before HR got involved.”

Magic Hat’s corporate evolution and resulting cultural decline encourage him to wax philosophical. “They used to say, ‘If we’re not growing, we’re dying,’” Haire recalled. “I still think about that from time to time. Like, where were we going? And was anybody happy when we got there?”

Contact: dan@sevendaysvt.com Disclosure: Dan Bolles worked at Magic Hat Brewing from 2003 to 2007.

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

39

food+drink

Helen Weston and Mike Isham of Isham Family Farm

Getting in Early Market Report: Isham Family Farm Farmers Market in Willston S TO RY & PHOT OS BY J ORDAN BARRY

M

ike Isham did not intend to start a new farmers market during the most challenging year for markets in recent memory.

When he put out a call for vendors in January, we were only wearing face masks to keep warm, and “social distancing” hadn’t yet entered our collective vocabulary. But despite the global pandemic, the weekly farmers market at Isham Family Farm in Williston is up and running — and it almost feels normal.

The Tuesday evening market kicked off on June 16 and will run through August 18.

I stopped by for week two, on June 23, to check it out, stock up on snap peas and the last stalks of rhubarb, and enjoy a beautiful (albeit hot) night on the farm.

Between purchasing produce and eyeing the ice cream, I was curious what drew the vendors to the new market in such a

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tumultuous year. Was joining a new market a risky move with COVID-19 restrictions in place? And how were Isham and his wife, Helen Weston, navigating those evolving guidelines for markets, which the state Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets updated again on June 19?

The new Phase 2 guidance allows farmers markets to function a bit more like farmers markets always have, while still operating safely. On-site consumption of prepared foods and entertainment are now permitted, following the state Agency of Commerce and Community Development’s guidelines for restaurants and outdoor dining.

The space between vendor booths has been reduced to six feet apart — though at the sprawling Isham Family Farm, even the original 12-foot spacing was an easy box to check. (Pets are now allowed at farmers

markets, too, though Isham Family Farm asks that customers leave theirs at home.)

Isham has been reading the state’s updates closely and incorporating them into the market’s plan. “I follow the guidelines very strictly,” he told me — through his mask, from six feet away near the market’s only entrance. “I’m constantly looking on the vermont.gov website, looking for what they’re allowing. We feel it’s important to follow what Gov. Scott is doing.”

Weston agreed. “I’ve been so, so happy seeing everybody doing what is expected in Vermont when they’re coming to the farm for this,” she said, while greeting customers at the entrance with squirts of hand sanitizer from Caledonia Spirits’ Barr Hill.

Isham said adapting his original vision for the market to the current reality has been easy. Based on feedback from the vendors and customers, he said people

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have seemed pleased so far. “Everyone’s said they’ve been really comfortable, but if there’s something we can do to help people feel a little safer, we’re willing to do it,” he added.

A steady stream of masked marketgoers made their way from Weston’s sanitizing station toward the barn. Along the way, hand-painted signs asked them to “Stay Safe and Healthy” and “Spread Love Not Hate.” The signs also read, “Mask Please,” “6 Feet Please” and “Please move through the market in one direction.” Their politeness had me thinking, No wonder people are respectful of their reminders.

Vendors were set up in the gravel lot outside of the barn and spread out inside; the massive doors were open for ventilation and traffic flow. On such a muggy day, the barn’s cool concrete floor and burlapshaded windows offered sweet relief. I was tempted to linger inside, but that was against the rules, and I didn’t want to be the only one breaking them. Thankfully, a gentle breeze blew through the shady lot, too.

The setup was different from the market’s first week; vendors had been down in the field, but with the updated regulations and the heat, the barn made more sense. At the far end, on an elevated stage, musicians took advantage of the relaxed entertainment guidelines. By the entrance, customers stood six feet apart in line for early tomatoes, cauliflower and the late-season rhubarb.

I stopped to talk with Kristen Needham of Needham Family Farm, while her daughter Eileen sold prepackaged produce. “I don’t want people reaching into the peas,” Kristen told me. Farmers markets hadn’t been in her farm’s plan this year, but Kristen said that knowing the Isham family and the “beautiful spot” enticed her to give the new market a try. Even just two weeks in, she considered it a success.

“They’ve done a good job adapting,” Kristen said. “Mike’s been really accommodating, looking out for the vendors. I have a feeling there will be lots more vendors next year.”

Next to the Needhams, Pedro Salas of Bee Happy Vermont was selling his honey, beeswax candles and honey lemonade.

Before we were able to talk, he asked me to watch the stand for a minute while he ran to get his Square reader — the lemonades were $3.50, he said; the change was in the drawer.

He was back before my mental math skills were tested, luckily, and was accepting both cash and cards. Many vendors

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GETTING IN EARLY

» P.44

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COURTESY OF KATHMANDU RESTAURANT

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Henry Mizrahi (left) and Isaiah Palmeri at the Little Gordo Creemee Stand

Choco-Taco TACO GORDO OPENS CREEMEE AND BURRITO STAND IN DOWNTOWN BURLINGTON

What’s better than a creemee stand? A creemee stand that also serves burritos.

TACO GORDO took its takeout business to the next level on Tuesday with the opening of LITTLE GORDO CREEMEE STAND in the former Union Scoops window at 71 South Union Street in Burlington. The walk-up window serves housemade creemees; blended, candy-filled “wizards”; and bulging burritos.

At the stand’s soft opening on Saturday, manager HENRY MIZRAHI described the to-go operation as a “natural expansion” of the popular Old North End taqueria’s pandemic-era takeout model, plus “a whole new world of ice cream and soft-serve.”

Taco Gordo pivoted to takeout and delivery only days before the state’s dining rooms closed in March. Back then, owner CHARLIE SIZEMORE told Seven Days that adapting from a “full-service bar that happened to have a dope taco shop inside of it”

Chana masala and naan from Kathmandu Restaurant

to the to-go model was “like starting a whole new business.”

Mizrahi had pitched the idea of a creemee stand to Sizemore before the pandemic; he lives nearby and noticed that the tiny space beside WILLOW’S BAGELS was available after Union Scoops closed.

“My friends and I would always walk by and think, How cool would it be if we all worked at this ice cream stand?” Mizrahi said. “I sent the ad [for the space] to Charlie kind of as a joke.”

The more they thought

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HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! Tiny Thai will be closed July 4 - July 7. tinythaiwinooski

about it, Mizrahi said, the better the idea seemed.

When the landlords mentioned recently that other businesses were interested in the space, they jumped on it.

“It seemed like, if any business was going to flourish in a takeout-only environment, it would be a hole-in-the-wall with no indoor seating,” Mizrahi said.

Little Gordo Creemee Stand is open Tuesday through Saturday from 2 to 9 p.m. to start, with late-night hours planned for the future.

Jordan Barry

Double Down INDIAN FOOD COMES TO ST. ALBANS, MONTPELIER

Two Indian restaurants, both from owner KRISHNA PAUDEL, are adding to the global food scene in Vermont this summer.

In St. Albans, Paudel opened KATHMANDU RESTAURANT at 133 North Main Street on June 8.

She plans to open her second business, INDIANNEPALI KITCHEN, at 100 Main Street in Montpelier on July 13. The Montpelier location is the former site of Down Home Kitchen, the Southern-style restaurant that closed at the end of 2019.

The restaurants are (or will be) open daily for lunch and dinner. Their similar menus feature traditional Indian fare, including curries, lamb korma, tandoori chicken, dumplings and vegetarian dishes.

Paudel, 35, who owns the restaurants with her husband, RANDEEP PAUDEL, is the original owner of EVEREST INDIAN-NEPALI RESTAURANT in South Burlington, which she opened in 2018. After selling the restaurant

to relatives in 2019, she decided to expand the cuisine she offers to other parts of Vermont.

“I went to St. Albans because I saw who used to come in my Everest from St. Albans,” she explained. The diners from that area told her they’d appreciate a similar restaurant at home.

Paudel’s chef in St. Albans, PREM KUNWAR, moved to Vermont from California to open Kathmandu, she said.

Pandemic-related business closures had cost him his cooking job.

“Oh, my God, he is a very good cook,” Paudel said. Kunwar’s experience includes running a restaurant in Japan for many years before moving to the U.S., she said.

Opening a restaurant amid a pandemic is difficult, Paudel said, citing factors ranging from the expense of procuring Indian spices to staffing concerns.

Still, she said she’s excited to bring Indian food to “the heart of Montpelier.”

Sally Pollak

SIDE DISHES

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Interested parties should apply by letter to: Kim Walker, Director of Retail Operations Vermont Department of Liquor & Lottery Division of Liquor Control 13 Green Mountain Drive Montpelier, VT 05620-4501 Applications can be found at liquorcontrol.vermont.gov Further information can be obtained by calling 800-642-3134 (In VT) or 802-828-4923 and ask For Kim Walker, Director of Retail Operations or email kim.walker@vermont.gov

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

41

6/23/20 9:13 AM

Spice of Life

FIRST

BITE

A Burlington restaurant shares treasured flavors from the Himalayas B Y M E L I SSA PASANEN

42

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

PHOTOS: JAMES BUCK

D

uring a recent interview at a coffee shop in Essex Junction’s Five Corners, Dan Raut said matter-of-factly, “I know everyone.”

Raut is a Nepali native who has lived in Vermont since 2011 and remains deeply involved in the local Nepali-speaking community. Besides working as an interpreter, he leads a weekly worship service in Nepali that was hosted by the First Congregational Church of Essex Junction prepandemic and is now online.

When asked how he landed in Vermont, Raut responded simply, “It’s God plan, so I am here.”

As for his role as co-owner of the 11-month-old Red Panda restaurant on Burlington’s lower Church Street, Raut described it as a natural next step for him and his business partner, Lakpa Sherpa.

“We have such good spices,” he said.

“Every day we cook at home, and when our friends visit us, they like it. We thought, Why don’t we provide this in our community? We decided to form a small restaurant.”

Raut and Sherpa opened Red Panda in late July 2019 in the space that was most recently Thai Dishes. They describe the restaurant as Indian, Nepali and IndoChinese. The extensive menu includes dishes common at Indian restaurants, such as tomato-based curries and creamy kormas; handmade Nepalese- and Tibetan-style dumplings known as momos; and Nepali specialties, such as thukpa noodle soup.

“We have the best cooks,” Raut said, although he declined to name them. “They are experienced. They are Nepali but come from New York City. My friend Lakpa brought them here.”

Red Panda closed for a month during the pandemic lockdown and reopened on April 19 with takeout and delivery service only.

Last week, the restaurant began offering indoor dining in accordance with current reduced-capacity guidelines. For now, Red Panda has no sidewalk tables like its neighboring restaurants, but Raut said he is working on that.

While travel can be hard on restaurant food, my two recent takeout orders delivered much to enjoy. The spices Raut mentioned were very much in evidence in two vegetarian dishes: whole cumin seeds in the eggplant and tomato curry (baingan

Vegetable korma, chicken momos and chicken tikka masala

WE HAVE

SUCH GOOD SPICES. D AN R AUT

Lakpa Sherpa

bharta) and black cardamom in the not-atall-slimy fried and then stewed okra (bhindi masala).

“Spices are so important,” Raut said.

In the Himalayan region, he continued, “People climb the mountains high and low. They do not have medicines; they eat spices. Spices are helpful for the heart.

They make us healthy and strong.”

The owners order some of the harderto-find spices from Nepal. “We are proud of that,” he said. His business partner, Sherpa, grew up in the eastern part of Nepal near Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. Later, he worked as a trekking guide throughout the mountains.

“He knew that tourists liked the authentic spices,” Raut said.

The two vegetarian dishes are among those I’ll definitely order again. So is the Cauliflower 65, which I’ve already had twice.

The crowd-pleaser of twice-fried, spiced and battered florets is finished with a sticky, slightly sweet red chile-yogurt sauce. According to Raut, the prep method was invented at a South Indian restaurant and originally applied to chicken; the number 65 refers to its spot on that restaurant’s long menu. Though the dish is really good as takeout, I imagine it’s even more compelling served fresh and crisp right out of the kitchen.

Other dishes on my repeat list include the mellow, delicately spiced lamb korma in a rich cashew-and-coconut milk sauce. The tender nuggets of lamb make a nice counterpoint to the more assertive, but also delicious, tomatobased goat curry with chewy morsels of bone-in meat.

I ordered dishes with both mild and medium heat levels and appreciated the warm burn from the spicier dishes. A friend who likes his food very spicy said that Red Panda has more than met his

food+drink expectations. Raut confirmed, “If you order hot, we will give you real hot.”

On the less successful side, we found the vegetable momos a little bland, although we liked the mushroom version.

Our order of tandoori chicken was under-seasoned and disappointingly dry, perhaps not at its best as takeout.

Some ingredients come from Raut’s own backyard in Essex Junction. Over four acres, the family grows abundant crops of cilantro, mustard greens, onions, spinach, corn, beans, eggplant, okra, tomatoes and chile peppers.

“But, honestly,” Raut said, “we don’t grow enough for the restaurant.”

He proudly showed off phone photos of last year’s peak-season productivity, which he credited largely to his wife, Sadhana Raut. Raut also praised her cooking abilities, saying she invented some Red Panda recipes.

The menu contains a traditional thali section that exemplifies how the Rauts cook for themselves: a platter of small bowls of assorted dishes. “When Nepali eat at home, this is how we eat,” Raut said.

Because of the challenge of packaging thali, though, it’s not an option for takeout at Red Panda.

Keeping the restaurant going through the pandemic has been difficult, Raut acknowledged. “We are challenged with the virus,” he said. Although business has

been OK since reopening, Raut said that third-party delivery services take a large cut, usually 30 percent of each order.

He hopes to do more large catering orders while the restaurant industry continues to cope with reduced capacity due to safety guidelines. Raut emphasized that the cooks prepare vegetarian and vegan orders carefully in a separate section of the kitchen.

The business partners appreciate their loyal customers. “The American community likes so much our food,” Raut said. “They have encouraged and supported us.”

The good relationships he hopes to maintain are reflected in the name of the restaurant. The red panda is native to the Himalayan mountain range, Raut explained, and “is very friendly and very kind when trekkers come near. It represents how our community from the Himalayas have become friends with the local American community.” m Contact: pasanen@sevendaysvt.com

INFO

WINE | MARKET | WINE BAR

Red Panda, 161 Church Street, Burlington, 489-5479, redpandaburlington.com. The restaurant’s online ordering system does not currently work. Call the restaurant to order directly, or order delivery via Grubhub, DoorDash, Delivery.com or Uber Eats.

802.865.2368 388 Pine Street dedaluswine.com Untitled-23 1

6/22/20 6:17 PM

COURTESY OF HEATHER KRAEMER

Side Dishes « P.41

Arts and Craft Beers KRAEMER & KIN TO OPEN TASTING ROOM AT GREENTARA SPACE IN NORTH HERO

When KRAEMER & KIN opened as the first brewery in the Champlain Islands in February, coowners CHRISTIE, LEVI and HEATHER KRAEMER hoped to establish a tasting room within a year. Despite the global pandemic, it took them only five months to achieve that goal.

On Friday, July 3, the family-owned microbrewery will open a tasting room inside the GREENTARA SPACE art gallery and community center

DISCOVER OUR AWARD-WINNING COLLECTION.

The Kraemer & Kin tasting room at the GreenTARA Space

at 3275 Route 2 in North Hero.

“All of the work that’s been put into this space is incredible, and we are absolutely stoked to collaborate,” Heather told Seven Days. “This space provides an opportunity for us to sell direct-to-consumer, and it brings this community element that we’ve always been seeking but didn’t know quite how it would manifest.”

Open Friday through

Sunday, noon to 6 p.m., the tasting room will offer small samples of beer and packaged sales for takeaway. Eventually, the family hopes to establish a farm-based “forever home” for the brewery and taproom, Heather said. In the meantime, Kraemer & Kin is also available at local retailers and both weekly CHAMPLAIN ISLANDS FARMERS MARKETS.

373 Blair Park Rd Williston Essex Junction - Coming Soon www.thescalevt.com 11 am- 8 pm daily

J.B.

CONNECT Follow us for the latest food gossip! On Twitter: Sally Pollak: @vtpollak.

On Instagram: Seven Days: @7deatsvt; Jordan Barry: @jordankbarry.

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6/22/20 8:27 AM

Kristen (left) and Eileen Needham of Needham Family Farm

Becky Castle (left) and Lula Andrae of Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream

Getting in Early  P.40 accepted multiple forms of payment, but, per the state’s guidance, cashless payment is still required whenever possible. In addition to impulse lemonade purchases at the market, Salas also takes preorders online — an adaptation many vendors have been getting used to this summer.

Salas said he decided to attend the market at Isham Family Farm because he’s free on Tuesdays. “So far I like it,� he said. “There’s good traffic.�

Across the way, Sue Coffrin of Adirondack Yarns also commented that the turnout was great. Coffrin moved to Williston recently from Lake Placid, N.Y., and said she hopes her presence at the market will help get the word out that she’s here. “It’s so close to home; it’s the easiest show I’ve ever done,� Coffrin said. Plus, after a spring filled with virtual trade shows, “It’s so nice not to be talking to myself,� she said with a laugh.

The market had a wide array of vendors selling CBD products, soaps, distilled products, Isham Family Farm’s own maple syrup and even organic bedding.

On the one-way path around the market, the prepared-food vendors were CSWD ScrapFoodWaste-QTR-H-7Dsnap.pdf

the last stop. My husband (who did our shopping while I interviewed vendors) and I got a pizza from American Flatbread to share. In the separate designated dining area in an open field, we found an

American Flatbread pizza

Sisters of Anarchy originally had 220 events on the calendar for this summer, but everything except this market, the Stowe Farmers Market and three weekly markets in Boston was canceled. Instead,

WE WANT TO PUT

THE FARM BACK INTO FARMERS MARKET. MIK E IS H AM

open picnic table that must have been a hundred feet from the next closest group of diners.

After dinner, we joined the well-spaced line for Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream.

Becky Castle and Lula Andrae carefully scooped our flavors into a compostable bowl and handed us a pair of spoons.

Company co-owner Castle was busy on such an ice cream-friendly night, so we caught up later in the week by phone. She said the first two markets at Isham Family Farm had been “amazing.� “Mike and Helen are awesome people,� she continued. “Isham Farm is such a bucolic setting. It’s quintessentially Vermont.�

1 6/17/20 3:10 PM

they’ve had robust mail-order sales — what Castle called “a COVID bump� — and have focused on selling ice cream at their own farm in Shelburne.

As a prepared-food vendor whose product needs to be eaten quickly on a hot day, Castle was pleased with the updated guidance that allowed her to hand over the spoons. “We can actually scoop cones now, which is fantastic,� she said. “Until the recent rule changes, we could only provide cups with lids on them.�

Now, things feel “almost normal,� Castle said. “If you had talked to me in May, before any markets started, I would have been very gloom and doom, because it was so frustrating to read the market guidance,�

she explained. “But now it’s definitely opened up.�

As we headed toward the exit on Tuesday night, full of ice cream and pizza and with a bag full of early summer delights, I thought of that normalcy, too. It doesn’t get much better than hanging out on a farm on a summer evening, buying and eating food directly from farmers and producers.

That’s what Isham and Weston envisioned and what drove them to host the market in the first place.

With a smile evident even through his mask, Isham said, “We want to put the farm back into farmers market.� “We’re at a place in our lives, kind of at the end of our careers, that we want to give back,� Weston added. “This is one way that we can give back and support our local farmers and craftspeople and community.� m Contact: jbarry@sevendaysvt.com

INFO Isham Family Farm Farmers Market, Tuesdays through August 18, 5 to 8 p.m., 3515 Oak Hill Rd., Williston, 872-1525, ishamfamilyfarm.com.

FOOD SCRAPS

LET’S

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SARAH PRIESTAP

music+nightlife

N

ick Charyk was halfway through a Segway tour of Savannah, Ga., during a family vacation in March when he had an extraterrestrial encounter of sorts. The leader of one of his favorite bands, Old Crow Medicine Show, had made an out-of-this-world proposal on his own group’s Instagram page.

Singer and fiddler Ketch Secor wrote: “y’all gotta cool vibe. let’s cowrite a song. I’m gonna give you the title and u take from there: Ethan Allen Wuz An Alien.”

As Charyk’s friends noticed the post, the Sharon resident recalled, “My phone started blowing up in my pocket.” He quickly responded to Secor: “We’re game.

How ’bout we call it Ethan Alien??” For the rest of his vacation, Charyk imagined an alternative history in which the Green Mountain Boys leader was actually a little green man.

He also pondered how collaborating with Secor — a Grammy Award-winning member of the Grand Ole Opry — might launch his career. “Ketch is a big deal in my music world,” said Charyk, a 34-year-old former political operative. “I was like, I gotta land this one.”

Four months and one global pandemic later, the track is set to be released on Saturday, July 4, as part of Back in the Saddle of a Fever Dream, the sophomore album from Charyk’s Upper Valley-based alt-country outfit, the Western Terrestrials.

The up-tempo tune features Secor sharing vocal duties with Charyk and providing frenetic accompaniment on blues harp.

Band member Asa Brosius’ pedal steel is suitably prominent, and there’s even a bit of yeehawing.

“I was so happy with the song,” Secor said. “It really captured the weirdness and wiliness of a UFO sighting.”

Weird it is, and surprisingly catchy. On first listen, references to other apparent “Ethan aliens” who have made Vermont home might suggest a novelty song: “Ben and Jerry? Ethan aliens,” Charyk sings. “Snowflake Bentley? Ethan alien. Neko Case and a band called Death? Ethan aliens.”

But the tune has a political message, too, which is unsurprising given Charyk’s professional pedigree: He managed former state senator Matt Dunne’s 2016 gubernatorial campaign, served as political director of the Vermont Democratic Party and ran Planned Parenthood’s Vermont super PAC. “It was immigrants from outer space [who] helped to make this country great,” Secor sings, conjuring up an alternative to President Donald Trump’s red-hatted brigade. “In the parts of the galaxy where we came from, visitors are always welcome,” 46

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

First Contact Vermonter Nick Charyk and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor collaborate on “Ethan Alien”

BY PAUL H E INTZ

Nick Charyk of Western Terrestrials

GOT MUSIC NEWS? JORDAN@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

Charyk adds later. “And from outer space, y’all are all aliens.”

Charyk’s message of Vermont as “a sanctuary state for weirdos and aliens and other outsiders” is, he conceded, a bit aspirational. He cited the opposition to resettling Syrian refugees in Rutland in 2016 and 2017 as evidence that the state isn’t always as welcoming as Vermonters would like to think.

The fusion of humor and progressive ideology in “Ethan Alien” would be familiar to fans of Old Crow, who are as likely to sing about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Iraq War as corn whiskey and conjugal visits. In the last few months, the band released both the somber “Pray for America” and the riotous “Quarantined.”

The latter features the mostly masked band performing at a social distance. “I long to hug you and to hold you tight, but I gotta wait 14 nights,” Secor sings.

The origin story of “Ethan Alien” is about as strange as the song itself.

After buying his first smartphone last winter, Secor recalled, he was poking around on Instagram and encountered the Western Terrestrials, whose debut album The Clearlake Conspiracy came out in September 2019.

“I listened to those guys play, and I was like, Oh, man, they’re like a new-wave cow-punk band from my favorite state in the union,” Secor said. “They’re odd … And yet, they look like they’re going to play at the next, you know, baked bean supper in Vershire.”

The Western Terrestrials’ roots were definitely part of the appeal, Secor said. The native Southerner fell in love with Vermont while attending Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He recalled one memorable trip that he and his then-girlfriend took to Burlington when he was 16.

“It was the dead of winter, and we were too young to rent a hotel room … so we ended up at the homeless shelter,” said Secor, now 42. “I think it was the first shelter I slept in, and it was the beginning of sleeping in shelters for me.”

A year and a half later, while his girlfriend attended a writers’ program at the University of Vermont, Secor forked over $6 at Burlington City Hall for a permit to busk on Church Street.

“I thought that Vermont was the coolest place up north,” he said.

The Western Terrestrials aren’t the only musicians Secor has randomly pitched via Instagram. “Just the other day, I was trying to get it on with some kid in Colombia,” he said. “But Nick was the only one that took my bait.”

Secor likened the collaboration with Charyk to his work with one of his own musical idols, Bob Dylan. Secor wrote Old Crow’s breakout tune “Wagon Wheel” around a song fragment a bandmate

discovered on a 1973 Dylan bootleg. After Darius Rucker’s cover of the fully realized “Wagon Wheel” topped the charts, Dylan sent Secor another song fragment from the same era, called “Sweet Amarillo,” and asked him to complete it.

Secor said his collaboration with the Western Terrestrials “felt like it was a continuation of that same kind of spirit.”

After Charyk sent him an early version of “Ethan Alien,” Secor offered the same advice that Dylan had given him. “I said, ‘Kill the second verse and go straight to the chorus.

We don’t need all that information. Just give us one good, strong verse and then take us into the hook.’ That’s what Bob said to do.”

THEY’RE LIKE A NEW-WAVE COW-PUNK BAND

FROM MY FAVORITE STATE IN THE UNION. K E TC H S E C O R

According to Charyk, Secor provided more key input. “When I sent the first draft, he said, ‘Pretty good, but you forgot Fred Tuttle,’” referring to the late dairy farmerturned-Senate candidate and star of the John O’Brien film Man With a Plan. “He has an amazingly detailed knowledge of obscure Vermont popular culture,” Charyk continued. (“I had a ‘Spread Fred’ bumper sticker on my journal when I was 16 years old,” Secor explained.)

When Secor first contacted the Western Terrestrials, they were already scheduled to record their second album in Nashville, his hometown. Charyk hoped they might persuade Secor to sit in with them, but he was preparing for a European tour. Then, two disasters struck. A week before the Western Terrestrials arrived in Nashville, a tornado battered the city. Three days into their session at Cinderella Sound Studios, the coronavirus pandemic forced an early return to Vermont.

Charyk later sent Secor a rough cut of “Ethan Alien,” the last track the band had recorded in Nashville, and he agreed to provide vocals and blues harp accompaniment.

“It’s really quite a challenge to paint yourself into a canvas that has the kind of esoteric and idiosyncratic styles of this particular band,” Secor said. “I mean, they didn’t leave a whole lot of room to do what it is that I’m known for doing, and so I sort of put on my own triangular alien mask and just sort of freaked out somewhere between the margins.”

If strange, “Ethan Alien” fits in with the rest of Back in the Saddle, which features

the similarly themed “Space Cowboy’s Got the Blues” and “Flying Saucer Rock N Roll.”

Produced by Dean Miller, son of country music legend Roger Miller, the album also includes odes to Miller père and George Jones; it also features a duet with Jones’ and Tammy Wynette’s daughter, Georgette Jones.

Charyk is only recently back in the musical saddle. The cofounder of Pariah Beat, a Boston- and Upper Valley-based Americana collective, had turned to politics a decade ago and worked his way up the Vermont Democratic campaign ladder.

“One of Nick’s greatest strengths is recruiting and inspiring other young people into a cause, whether it is about political change or creating a new sound,” said Dunne, who now works at the Center on Rural Innovation with Western Terrestrials keyboardist Alex Kelley.

Charyk, who most recently was a spokesperson and lobbyist for AllEarth Renewables, said that Trump’s election had soured him on his political career path. “It led me to question how effective pushing for incremental change in Vermont was going to be at this moment,” he said.

So Charyk decided to give music another go, recruiting two Pariah Beat alums — bassist Jason Pappas and drummer Jared Croteau — along with Kelley and Brosius to create the Western Terrestrials.

“This was something I missed and something that was fundamental to who I am,” he said.

State Rep. Dylan Giambatista (D-Essex), a former member of Rough Francis, has known Charyk since the two played in punk bands as teens. They reconnected at the Statehouse and, for a time, attempted to start a band covering the Clash. Giambatista said he’s not surprised to see Charyk reengage in music.

“Nick was always a performer, and his skill set deserves an audience,” he said. “He is very talented, and political opportunities are always there, but you have to kick down the doors to make it in music.”

Charyk and Secor still haven’t met in person, but the Old Crow bandleader said he was thrilled to add to the cosmic endeavor.

“Let’s just sing and, hell, let’s collaborate with people that we don’t know. It’s a big world, but let’s make it a lot smaller by loving on one another and making friends out of strangers,” Secor said. “And maybe that’s the message here. Like, let’s look even beyond and look for an interstellar, interspecies kind of collaborative love affair.” m Contact: paul@sevendaysvt.com

INFO Back in the Saddle of a Fever Dream is available July 4 on major streaming services. westernterrestrials.com

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music+nightlife

REVIEW this Ryan Sweezey, Meadowlark Sessions, Vol. 1

Williston. Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 are forthcoming in August and November, respectively.

The album opens with “Bartender,” sung from the viewpoint of a guy attempting to drink away heartbreak.

I’m not sure that strategy ever really works in real life, but singing along to this upbeat pop-rock number might

offer four and a half minutes of reprieve to the brokenhearted.

In “God’s Country (Miramichi),” Sweezey finds beauty and faith in nature and place. Fortunately, any similarity to Blake Shelton’s “Dixie”-referencing No. 1 country hit “God’s Country” is in the title alone.

Sweezey’s melodies and delivery are stronger than his lyrics, which can be overly simplistic and, frankly, not very poetic. In the chorus of “If You Fall,” a ballad of support for a loved one spreading their wings, Sweezey sings, “If you fall, you can fall on me.” The image this evokes is less than graceful, but it’s a nice sentiment nonetheless.

A stronger lyric stands out in “Water’s Getting Closer (The Ossipee Song),” a breezy tune in which the singer recounts an annual buddies’ camping trip in which friendship keeps problems at bay, at least for the weekend: “The water’s getting

closer / But the tide’s not coming in.”

Meadowlark Sessions, Vol. 1 is Sweezey’s first completely acoustic offering, and his formidable pop voice, honed during four years in Northeastern University’s male a cappella group the Unisons, and spirited guitar playing take center stage.

Music snobs and gatekeepers of cool might write off Sweezey’s inoffensive pop rock as too mainstream, but this is the type of music memories are made of. I still remember my 10th-grade boyfriend belting out Lifehouse in the hallway of our high school and, to this day, “Hanging by a Moment” hits harder than any obscure Radiohead track ever could.

Meadowlark Sessions, Vol. 1 is available on Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming platforms. Ryan Sweezey performs July 3, 5 and 6 at the Essex Culinary Resort & Spa in Essex Junction.

rhythm and churning power chords, is based on the murderous notes left by the infamous Zodiac killer. Featuring such tender overtures as “You’ll be my slave in the afterlife,” the record gets you in that “eww” headspace pretty much right off the bat.

“New Jersey” hits next. The music starts just as dark and sludgy as the opening song but features some cookiemonster-metal growls that really could have been left on the cutting-room floor.

(I want to be the producer who says, “You know, guys, maybe don’t make vomit sounds into the microphone on this song?”) It’s especially confounding when you consider that Wolf has a rather impressive set of pipes, capable of delivering baritone-leaning melodies.

He showcases that voice on “Riverside,” an acoustic, almost-folk number. Over delicately played notes on his guitar, Wolf croons about raindrops and dirty fingernails, creating a proper mood. The song serves as an interlude of sorts, leading out of the sloppy aggression of the first two tracks and bringing things to a more nuanced heaviness with “THC 1138” a stoner-sly nod to George Lucas’ preStar Wars dystopian film THX 1138.

“The unity humanity claims to want is only attainable in a mass grave,” Wolf proclaims. Careful what you wish for in 2020, my dude.

“Dreambird” stretches the margins of the record even further as the band leans into indie rock and jazz. I’d be lying

if I said the broad-ranging nature of the album forms its own kind of flow — it doesn’t. Bored Under a Bad Sign has pretty much zero continuity or musical theme to be traced. It’s more like a splatter of paint on the wall, at times inventive and artistic, and at others a bit of a mess.

There is a beauty to that kind of record, though. As the band lurches between heaviness and atmosphere, and Wolf alternates animalistic growling and singing, it creates a sense of excitement.

Anything can happen.

Bored Under a Bad Sign is truly an ADD sort of record: all over the place in style and quality. As a debut, it shows potential, though it risks being no things to no people — a downside of leaning into eclecticism.

Listen for yourself and download Bored Under a Bad Sign at zodiacsutra. bandcamp.com. All proceeds from the album go to Campaign Zero, an organization dedicated to ending police violence.

(SELF-RELEASED, DIGITAL)

In a June Instagram post, Burlingtonbased singer-songwriter Ryan Sweezey revealed that he had injured his voice while preparing for a livestream Counting Crows cover set. Sweezey’s commitment to doing Adam Duritz justice is impressive and shows his loyalty to the pop-rock bands he cites as influences, such as Augustana and Matchbox Twenty.

Sweezey’s latest release, the fivesong EP Meadowlark Sessions, Vol. 1, hit streaming services on May 15. Made with the studio time he earned as the winner of Advance Music Center’s 2019 Singer/ Songwriter Contest, the EP was recorded and mixed at Meadowlark Studios in

Zodiac Sutra, Bored Under a Bad Sign (SELF-RELEASED, DIGITAL)

Eclecticism is often a positive quality for musicians. Think about how many albums you’ve bought after hearing a song you loved, only to discover the band basically just plays the same tune over and over (looking at you, Beach House).

You want a good album to bring you somewhere — that’s the alchemy we’re all hoping for when we hit play.

Zodiac Sutra’s debut LP, cheekily titled Bored Under a Bad Sign, is nothing if not eclectic. At times meditative and brooding, at others bombastic and morose, the record follows the adventures of singer/songwriter/ guitarist Wolf over two years. Based on his lyrical content alone, those years were slightly less than formative, nurturing times.

Opening track “Sick of Living,” a psych-metal number built around a jerky

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ARE YOU A VT ARTIST OR BAND? SEND US YOUR MUSIC! DIGITAL: MUSIC@SEVENDAYSVT.COM; SNAIL MAIL: MUSIC C/O SEVEN DAYS, 255 S. CHAMPLAIN ST., SUITE 5, BURLINGTON, VT 05401

classes

CLASSES MAY BE CANCELED OR MOVED ONLINE DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS. PLEASE CHECK WITH ORGANIZERS IN ADVANCE.

Be a Tourist in Your Own State!

THE FOLLOWING CLASS LISTINGS ARE PAID ADVERTISEMENTS. ANNOUNCE YOUR CLASS FOR AS LITTLE AS $16.75/WEEK (INCLUDES SIX PHOTOS AND UNLIMITED DESCRIPTION ONLINE). SUBMIT YOUR CLASS AD AT SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POSTCLASS.

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TINY HOUSE ‘GARDENEER’: In class: tool type and use, materials, parts of a house, lumber list, cut list. In field: We will frame a floor, deck it, get a rafter pattern and put up two walls, framed for window and door. Forestry walk: cruising timber, dropping, limbing, chunking, splitting, stacking cord wood. Garden tour: tools, layout and utilities.

Creating a “destination CSA” for progressive share cropping. vermonttinyhouses.com. Jul. 4-5. Cost: $250/weekend; sliding scale; on-site camping avail.; preregistration req. Location: Bakersfield, Vermont. Info: 9336103, vermonttinyhouses.com.

SELF-DEFENSE BENEFIT FOR BLM: This three-hour seminar aims to equip people with the skills needed to keep themselves safe. We will cover situational awareness, common types of violent encounters, boundary setting, deescalation, patterns of physical assault, practical counter-striking and escapes.

Payment is donation based, and all proceeds are being donated to BLM organizations. Jul. 11, 3-6 p.m. 3-hour workshop. Location: ONTA Studio, 373 Blair Park Rd., Williston. Info: ONTA Studio, 6838539, ontastudio@gmail.com, ontastudio.com.

ASIAN BODYWORK THERAPY PROGRAM: This program teaches two forms of massage: amma and shiatsu. We will explore oriental medicine theory and diagnosis, as well as the body’s meridian system, acupressure points, and yin-yang and five-element theory.

Additionally, Western anatomy and physiology are taught. VSAC nondegree grants are available.

FSMTB-approved program. Starts Sep. 2020. Cost: $6000/625-hour program. Location: Elements of Healing, 21 Essex Way, Suite 109, Essex Jct.. Info: Scott Moylan, 2888160, scott@elementsofhealing. net, elementsofhealing.net.

yoga

drumming DJEMBE & TAIKO: JOIN US!: Digital classes! (No classes on-site for now.) Taiko: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Djembe: Wednesday. Kids and Parents: Tuesday and Wednesday.

Private digital conga lessons by appointment. Let’s prepare for a future drum gathering outdoors! Schedule/register online.

Location: Taiko Space, 208 Flynn Ave., Suite 3G, Burlington.Info: 999-4255, burlingtontaiko.org.

kids VSC SUMMER YOUTH VIRTUAL ART CAMP: Art with Arista Alanis: Painting, Drawing & Sculpture.

Ages 6-14. To sign up, please email aalanis@vermontstudiocenter.org. Parents must pick up art supplies before July 7, coordinated with Arista. Students need reliable internet. Sessions are live through Google Meet. A free gmail account is required for access. Limited space available.

Jul. 9-10, 13-17, 9-11 a.m. Cost: $25/scholarships avail. Location: Vermont Studio Center, Online.

Info: Arista Alanis, 535-1646, aalanis@vermontstudiocenter.org,

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LAUGHING RIVER YOGA: Increase confidence and decrease stress.

Enjoy inspirational teachings, intelligent alignment and focused workshops through daily virtual and live yoga classes. Check out our virtual library and practice with us outdoors at the Burlington Surf Club and limited capacity indoors at the Chace Mill. All bodies and abilities welcome. Daily classes, workshops, 200- & 300hour yoga teacher training. $5-$15 single class; $44-$99/mo. unlimited. Location: Laughing River Yoga, Chace Mill and Burlington Surf Club, Burlington. Info: 3438119, laughingriveryoga.com.

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LEARN SPANISH LIVE & ONLINE: Broaden your world. Learn Spanish online via live video conferencing. High-quality affordable instruction in the Spanish language for adults, students and children. Travelers lesson package. Our 14th year. Personal small group and individual instruction from a native speaker. See our website for complete information or contact us for details. Location: Spanish in Waterbury Center, Waterbury Center. Info: 585-1025, spanishparavos@gmail.com, spanishwaterburycenter.com.

VERMONT BRAZILIAN JIUJITSU: Brazilian jiujitsu is a martial arts combat style based entirely on leverage and technique. Brazilian jiujitsu self-defense curriculum is taught to Navy SEALs, CIA, FBI, military police and special forces. No training experience required.

Easy-to-learn techniques that could save your life! Classes for men, women and children.

Students will learn realistic bully-proofing and self-defense life skills to avoid becoming victims and help them feel safe and secure. Our sole purpose is to help empower people by giving them realistic martial arts training practices they can carry with them throughout life. IBJJF and CBJJ certified black belt sixth-degree instructor under Carlson Gracie Sr.: teaching in Vermont, born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A five-time Brazilian National Champion; International World Masters Champion and IBJJF World Masters Champion. Accept no Iimitations! Location: Vermont Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, 55 Leroy Rd., Williston. Info: 598-2839, julio@ bjjusa.com, vermontbjj.com.

EVOLUTION YOGA: Now offering live online and recorded classes.

Practice yoga with some of the most experienced teachers and therapeutic professionals in Burlington, from the comfort of your home. Sign up on our website and receive a link to join a live class; a class recording will be sent after class. Pay as you go or support us by becoming an unlimited member. Join us outside this summer for Yoga on the Lake and Yoga in the Park. Registration is open for our 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training for Health and Wellness Professionals. Now offering flexible pricing based on your financial needs. Contact yoga@ evolutionvt.com. Single class: $0-15. 10-class pass: $100. $55 student unlimited membership.

Summer unlimited pass Jun.Aug.: $195-275. Scholarships avail. for all pricing options.

Location: Evolution Yoga, 20 Kilburn St., Burlington. Info: 8649642, evolutionvt.com.

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LOOKING FOR WORK? Meet the area’s top employers at:

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

COURTESY OF KELLY SCHULZE/MOUNTAIN DOG PHOTOGRAPHY

Humane

Society of Chittenden County

Blitz AGE/SEX: 4-year-old neutered male ARRIVAL DATE: May 19, 2020 REASON HERE: Blitz was brought to HSCC due to behavioral concerns in his previous home.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS: Blitz is deaf.

SUMMARY: A unique-looking pup with a fun-loving personality, Blitz’s favorite things include treats, butt scratches, doing zoomies in the grass and more treats (seriously, this boy loves his snacks!).

Blitz is also deaf, but that certainly doesn’t stop him from having a great time going for walks and racing around the play yard. He’s eager to please, typically greets strangers with a slobbery kiss, and could be a great companion for hiking or jogging. Since he can’t hear people approaching, he can sometimes be startled by sudden, fast movements. This, combined with his exuberant personality, may make him a better fit for a home with older children and adults. If Blitz sounds like the right dog for you, visit hsccvt.org to schedule a meet and greet!

DID YOU KNOW? Dogs who are hearing impaired are still trainable and able to communicate! Many people use hand signs adapted from American Sign Language or develop their own unique signals, and they use lights, vibrations and physical touch. As with their hearing counterparts, dogs who are deaf require time, energy, patience and consistency to be their best selves. Blitz is looking forward to continuing his learning with a new family!

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DOGS/CATS/KIDS: Blitz has some experience living with another dog but would likely be most successful in a home where he is the only dog. He has no known experience living with cats. He may be most successful in a home without young children.

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Showroom condition.

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3842 Dorset Ln., Williston

802-793-9133

housing

FOR RENT BURLINGTON Single room, Hill Section, on bus line.

No cooking. Linens furnished. Call 802-8622389. No pets. $659-1,175 IN VERGENNES Brand-new mixedincome 1-, 2-, & 3-BR apts. in Vergennes.

Info & applications at addisontrust.org/ vergennes-communityapartments. Income restrictions apply.

Accessible units avail.

TDD 711. Equal housing opportunity.

2-BR & 3-BR NOW, BURL. Avail. now on S. Willard St. in Burlington,

CLASSIFIEDS KEY

sm-allmetals060811.indd 7/20/15 1 5:02 PM

appt. appointment apt. apartment BA bathroom BR bedroom DR dining room DW dishwasher HDWD hardwood HW hot water LR living room NS no smoking OBO or best offer refs. references sec. dep. security deposit W/D washer & dryer

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY All real estate advertising in this newspaper is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 and similar Vermont statutes which make it illegal to advertise any preference, limitations, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, handicap, presence of minor children in the family or receipt of public assistance, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation or a discrimination. The newspaper will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate, which is in violation of the law. Our

52

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

housing ads: $25 (25 words) legals: 52¢/word buy this stuff: free online services: $12 (25 words)

Vt. Laundry on site, off-street parking. We pay heat. 802-318-8916 3 BURLINGTON APTS. AVAIL. Pet-friendly. Freshly painted, HDWD floors, natural light. On bus line. Near Battery Park.

Large 1-BR, $1,175/mo.

2-BR, $1,425/mo. 2-BR w/ an office, $1,525/mo.

Call 598-9877.

3-BR APT. AVAIL. 122-124 Intervale Ave. Completely renovated.

3-BR, 2-BA 1st-floor apt., $2,200/mo. New kitchen, BA, flooring, etc. W/D hookup avail.

Housing vouchers accepted. 954-295-5850.

AFFORDABLE 2-BR APT. AVAIL. At Keen’s Crossing.

2-BR: $1,266/mo., heat & HW incl. Open floor plan, fully applianced kitchen, fi tness center, pet friendly, garage parking.

Income restrictions apply. 802-655-1810, keenscrossing.com.

KEEN’S CROSSING IS NOW LEASING! 1-BR, $1,054/mo.; 2-BR, $1,266/mo.; 3-BR, $1,397/mo. Spacious interiors, fully applianced kitchen, fi tness center, heat & HW incl.

Income restrictions apply. 802-655-1810, keenscrossing.com.

PINECREST AT ESSEX 9 Joshua Way, Essex Jct. Independent senior living for those 55+ years. 2-BR, 2-BA corner unit avail. 8/1/20. $1,520/mo. incl. utils & parking garage. NS/ pets. 802-872-9197 or rae@fullcirclevt.com.

PINECREST AT ESSEX 9 Joshua Way, Essex Jct. Independent senior living for those 55+ years. 1-BR avail. Jul. 15, $1,240/mo. incl. utils. & parking garage. NS/ pets. 802-872-9197 or rae@fullcirclevt.com.

PINECREST AT ESSEX 7 Joshua Way. Independent senior living, must be 55+ years. 2-BR, 1-BA avail.

readers are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis. Any home seeker who feels he or she has encountered discrimination should contact: HUD Office of Fair Housing 10 Causeway St., Boston, MA 02222-1092 (617) 565-5309 — OR — Vermont Human Rights Commission 14-16 Baldwin St. Montpelier, VT 05633-0633 1-800-416-2010 hrc@vermont.gov

display service ads: $25/$45 homeworks: $45 (40 words, photos, logo) fsbos: $45 (2 weeks, 30 words, photo) jobs: michelle@sevendaysvt.com, 865-1020 x21

8/1/20. $1,400/mo. incl. utils. & underground parking. NS/pets. rae@fullcirclevt.com or 802-872-9197.

TAFT FARM SENIOR LIVING COMMUNITY 10 Tyler Way, Williston, Independent Senior Living. Newly remodeled 1-BR unit on 2nd floor avail., $1,185/mo. inc. utils. & cable. NS/pets.

Must be 55+ years of age. cintry@fullcirclevt. com or 802-879-3333.

TAFT FARM SENIOR LIVING COMMUNITY 10 Tyler Way, Williston, independent senior living. Newly remodeled 2-BR unit on 2nd floor avail., $1,390/mo. incl. utils. & cable. NS/pets.

Must be 55+ years of age. cintry@fullcirclevt. com, 802-879-3333.

HOUSEMATES NEED A ROOMMATE? Roommates.com will help you find your perfect match today!

(AAN CAN) SMALL ROOM DOWNTOWN, NOW In stylishly Clorox-clean, remodeled house.

Respectful living w/ others in this new normal (wash hands prior to entering building; disinfect bath, kitchen & common areas after use). Wi-Fi, cable, W/D on-site, back porch, garden. Tobacco outside only. Inside: 420-friendly. Mo.-tomo., $600/mo. + $100 dep. Incl. all utils. Don Shall: 802-233-1334.

OFFICE/ COMMERCIAL

print deadline: Mondays at 4:30 p.m. post ads online 24/7 at: sevendaysvt.com/classifieds questions? classifieds@sevendaysvt.com 865-1020 x10

off w/ coupon 86407!

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services

BIZ OPPS BECOME A PUBLISHED AUTHOR! We edit, print & distribute your work internationally. We do the work; you reap the rewards! Call for a free Author’s Submission Kit: 844-511-1836. (AAN CAN)

COMPUTER COMPUTER ISSUES? Geeks On Site provides free diagnosis remotely 24-7 service during COVID-19. No home visit necessary. $40

CREATIVE WRITER FOR BOOK Looking for serious writer to collaborate w/ about ideas for society’s problems & solutions based on history, psychology & philosophy. David: 881-5769.

EDUCATION TRAIN ONLINE TO DO MEDICAL BILLING! Become a medical office professional online at CTI! Get trained, certified & ready to work in months. Call 866-243-5931. Mon.-Fri., 8 a.m.-6 p.m. (AAN CAN)

ENTERTAINMENT DISH TV $59.99 for 190 channels + $14.95 high-speed internet. Free installation, smart HD DVR incl., free voice remote.

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FINANCIAL/LEGAL HEALTH/ WELLNESS AUTO INSURANCE Starting at $49/mo.!

Call for your fee rate comparison to see how much you can save. Call 855-569-1909. (AAN CAN)

BOY SCOUT COMPENSATION FUND Anyone who was inappropriately touched by a Scout leader deserves justice & financial compensation!

Victims may be eligible for a significant cash settlement. Time to file is limited. Call now.

844-896-8216. (AAN CAN) NEED HELP W/ FAMILY LAW? Can’t afford a $5,000 retainer? Low-cost legal services: Pay as you go, as low as $750-1,500.

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It’s a seller’s market!

Thinking of selling?

Now is the time!

Contact me for a free market analysis.

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STRUGGLING W/ YOUR PRIVATE STUDENT LOAN PAYMENT? New relief programs can reduce your payments. Learn your options. Good credit not necessary. Call the Helpline: 888-670-5631.

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GENTLE TOUCH MASSAGE Specializing in deep tissue, reflexology, sports massage, Swedish & relaxation massage for men. Practicing massage therapy for over 14 years. Gregg, gentletouchvt.com, motman@ymail.com, 802-234-8000 (call or text).

1-STOP SHOP For all your catheter needs. We accept Medicaid, Medicare & insurance. Try before you buy. Quick & easy.

Give us a call: 866-2822506. (AAN CAN) PERSONAL TRAINING & MORE Bliss & Fitness personal training & self-defense instruction. Training to nurture, develop & maintain fi tness, the fi ttest state that is safely & realistically attainable. Please check 7D online or my website for details: petedoonis. com. 802-497-8953.

Homeshares

COMMERCIAL KITCHEN 16t-robbihandyholmes070120.indd 1 SPACE Avail. in Waitsfield, Vt. Fully avail. now; shared space avail. after adjoining restaurant reopens. Incl. much equipment. Contact anaxdan@gmail.com or 614-581-7575.

OFFICE/RETAIL SPACE AT MAIN STREET LANDING on Burlington’s waterfront. Beautiful, healthy, affordable spaces for your business. Visit mainstreetlanding.com & click on space avail.

Melinda, 864-7999.

6/26/20 9:42 AM

ESSEX

Share home w/ bright woman in her 90s, seeking housemate for nighttime “just in case” presence & evening meal prep. Private BA, shared kitchen. No rent, just a share of utils in winter. No pets!

BARRE Woman in her 60s who enjoys piano, VPR & growing veggies, seeking cat-friendly housemate. Shared BA. $400/mo.

SOUTH BURLINGTON Share a compact condo w/ woman in her 70s who loves literature, history & classical music. No rent in exchange for meal prep, errands, tech support & dog-walking.

No add’l pets. Private ½ BA.

Finding you just the right housemate for over 35 years!

Call 863-5625 or visit HomeShareVermont.org for an application. Interview, refs, bg check req. EHO Homeshare-temp2.indd 1

6/19/20 11:16 AM

SEVENDAYSVT.COM/CLASSIFIEDS

Show and tell.

»

Calcoku

PSYCHIC COUNSELING Psychic counseling, channeling w/ Bernice Kelman, Underhill. 30+ years’ experience. Also energy healing, chakra balancing, Reiki, rebirthing, other lives, classes, more. 802-899-3542, kelman.b@juno.com.

READY TO SHIFT? Coaching services by donation or free of charge at this difficult & challenging time.

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Alice S. Kitchel, PhD. pumaconsultand coach.com, alice@ pumaconsultandcoach. com. Contact me w/ questions, to book a session (about an hour) or a demonstration (about a half hour). I have an office but for now connect on the phone or Zoom. All conversations are confidential.

m

HOME/GARDEN BLUE STORMWATER EVALUATION Free for Vermont residents, thanks to the BLUE program!

An evaluator visits your property & offers solutions to manage your stormwater. Improve your water quality to help protect Vermont’s watersheds. Book now: blue.stormwater@ outlook.com, 802-8256392, salix-solutions. com.

Using the enclosed math operations as a guide, fill the grid using the numbers 1 - 6 only once in each row and column.

24-

BUY THIS STUFF »

4-

Sudoku

9 5 8 4 7 8 1

108x

5 2 6

7 3-

2 6

50x

4 2 8 1

3-

CALCOKU

9 3

3 9

5+ 3÷

There’s no limit to ad length online.

Complete the following puzzle by using the numbers 1-9 only once in each row, column and 3 x 3 box.

11-

Extra! Extra!

Post & browse ads at your convenience.

1-

2÷

buy this stuff

MOVING SALE IN FAIRAX Huge moving sale Jul. 3-5, Fri.-Sun., 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Furniture, collectibles, clothing, household items, antiques, tools, bikes skis, rototiller, garden tractors, more.

609 Cherrierville Rd., Fairfax.

15+

2-

3÷

GARAGE/ESTATE SALES

Open 24/7/365.

View and post up to 6 photos per ad online.

2 Difficulty - Hard

BY JOSH REYNOLDS

4

5

No. 643

SUDOKU

BY JOSH REYNOLDS

DIFFICULTY THIS WEEK: ★★★

DIFFICULTY THIS WEEK: ★★

Fill the grid using the numbers 1-6, only once in each row and column. The numbers in each heavily outlined “cage” must combine to produce the target number in the top corner, using the mathematical operation indicated. A onebox cage should be filled in with the target number in the top corner. A number can be repeated within a cage as long as it is not the same row or column.

Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each 9-box square contains all of the numbers one to nine. The same numbers cannot be repeated in a row or column.

5

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ANSWERS ON P. 55

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2

3

1

6

2

3

5

4

3

4

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2

5

ANSWERS 2 ON 1 P. 558 9 7 3 5 4 6 ★ = MODERATE ★★ = CHALLENGING ★★★ = HOO, BOY!

6 9 3 5 7 1 4 8

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8 1 7 2 5 3 6 4

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

53

JUST ADD YOUR STYLE!

PICTURE PERFECT VT SETTING

BURLINGTON | 40 COLLEGE ST UNIT 209 | #4805426

BROWSE THIS WEEK’S OPEN HOUSES: sevendaysvt.com/open-houses REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS: List your properties here and online for only $45/ week. Submit your listings by Mondays at noon to homeworks@sevendaysvt.com or 802-865-1020, x22.

Relax and enjoy all BTV has to offer in this bright & cheerful, freshly painted, and move-in-ready 1 bedroom, 1 bath Condo just steps from the waterfront and Church Street Marketplace. A prime location in the heart of Burlington!

Views from your own covered patio.

Deeded parking spot! $359,500

RARE INVESTMENT

hW-nedderealestate062420.indd 1

buy this stuff [CONTINUED]

MISCELLANEOUS ATTENTION, VIAGRA & CIALIS USERS! A cheaper alternative to high drugstore prices!

50-pill special: $99 + free shipping! 100% guaranteed. Call now: 888-531-1192. (AAN CAN)

SPORTS EQUIPMENT NORDICTRACK PRO SKIER Ski machine in excellent condition.

54

Manufactured in the USA in 1994. Oak & steel construction.

Completely refurbished. $95. Text/call 802-999-7660.

music

INSTRUCTION BASS, GUITAR, DRUMS, VOICE LESSONS & MORE Remote music lessons are an amazing way to spend time at home! Learn guitar, bass, piano, voice, violin, drums, flute, sax, trumpet, production & beyond w/ pro local instructors from the Burlington Music Dojo on Pine St. All levels &

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

8.5 acre lot near the village on a gentle hillside with space for a building site near the newer Greystone development. Power and septic available. Over 200 acres of conserved land nearby.

Views throughout the Winooski River valley. $260,000

Krista Lacroix

802-846-9578 CindyFeloney.com

ADIRONDACK-VIEW COLONIAL

FERRISBURGH | 246 ATKINS FARM ROAD | #4811227

MONKTON | 295 CHURCH ROAD | #4807131

One level home in Monkton on ten acres with mountain & pastoral views. 3 BR/2 BA, newly renovated kitchen, open floor plan and three season sunroom.

2 car attached garage, 30x40 Morton outbuilding, workshop, rolling hills, gardens, blueberry bushes, and dozens of apple trees are part of the beautiful setting. $425,000

Margo Plank Casco and Bill Martin

STUDIO/ REHEARSAL REHEARSAL SPACE Safe & sanitary music/ creative spaces avail. by the hour in the heart of the South End art district. Monthly arrangements avail., as well. Tailored for music but can be multipurpose. info@

Gorgeous country retreat surrounded by flowers, fields, and woods. Beautiful interior finishes include bamboo flooring, maple cabinets, and breakfast bar. Bonus room, jacuzzi, deck, and large garage make life easy and enjoyable!

All so close to Burlington and Middlebury. $425,000

Lisa Sargent 802-349-8880 lisa@acrevt.com

802-453-6387

styles are welcome, incl. burlingtonmusicdojo. absolute beginners. com, 802-540-0321.

6/23/20 hw-GreenTree062420.indd 10:21 AM 1 Come share in the music! burlington musicdojo.com, info@ burlingtonmusicdojo. com.

GUITAR INSTRUCTION Berklee graduate w/ 30 years’ teaching experience offers lessons in guitar, music theory, music technology, ear training. Individualized, step-by-step approach.

All ages, styles, levels.

Rick Belford, 864-7195, rickb@rickbelford.com.

Cindy Feloney

802-846-9551 Krista802RealEstate.com

MINI ORCHARD

BURLINGTON | 55-63 HARRINGTON TERRACE

55-63 Harrington Terrace is a rare investment opportunity located in a neighborhood in Burlington’s desirable hill section. Harrington Terrace runs north off Maple Street and is Fernando Cresta conveniently located within walking distance to fcresta@neddere.com Champlain College, The University of Vermont 802-651-6888 and downtown Burlington. The building is nedderealestate.com 10,400 SF wood frame and brick masonry structure that was constructed on or about 1901 with an addition constructed around 1932, and freestanding eight car garage. The structure has been improved onto nine two-bedroom apartments and has been used as a multi-unit rental. $1,950,000

RICHMOND | 65 HIGHLAND DRIVE | #4797507

art

CREATIVE SPACE ARTIST STUDIO AVAIL. 187 sqft. artist’s work studio (not living space). $210/mo. All utils. & Wi-Fi incl. Beautiful location. Converted dairy barn w/ art community of 12 artists in situ. Plenty of free parking. 20 minutes to downtown Burlington.

Ward 5S) Old Home

CITY Place, LLC HW-246AtkinsFarm070120.indd 1 OF BURLINGTON 6/18/20 3:22 PMRemove and rebuild garage

BURLINGTON DEVELOPMENT REVIEW BOARD Tuesday, July 21, 2020, 5:00 PM PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE REMOTE MEETING Zoom: https://us02web.zoom. us/j/86993344896?pwd =S3o5TjIwWWhKL1hPRX JORlF6aFAvUT09 Webinar ID: 869 9334 4896 Password: 842557 Telephone: 1-301-7158592 or +1-312-626-6799 or +1-929-205-6099 or +1-253-215-8782 or +1-346-248-7799 or +1-669-900-6833 1. 20-0939CA/CU; 6 Catherine Street (RL,

Plans may be viewed upon request by contacting the Department of Permitting & Inspections between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Participation in the DRB proceeding is a prerequisite to the right to take any subsequent appeal. Please note that ANYTHING submitted to the Zoning office is considered public and cannot be kept confidential. This may not be the final order in which items will be heard. Please view final Agenda, at www. burlingtonvt.gov/dpi/ drb/agendas or the office notice board, one week before the hearing for the order in which items will be heard.

IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND TWENTY AN ORDINANCE IN RELATION TO B.C.O. STREETS AND SIDEWALKSEXCAVATION AND OBSTRUCTION PERMITS- PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCIES; ACCOMMODATING BUSINESS ORDINANCE 5.23 (was 6.04) Sponsor: Department of Public Works, Ordinance Committee Public Hearing Dates: _ First reading: 06/01/20 Referred to: Ordinance Committee Rules suspended and placed in all stages of passage: _ Second reading: 06/15/20 Action: adopted Date: 06/15/20 Signed by Mayor: 06/26/20 Published: 07/01/20 Effective: 07/22/20 It is hereby Ordained by the City Council of the

City of Burlington as follows: 6/29/20 11:09 AM That Chapter 27, Streets and Sidewalk s, Article II, Excavations and Obstructions, Division 1, Permits, of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Burlington is hereby amended by adding Section 27-39, Public Health Emergencies; temporary suspension of obstruction requirements to accommodate economic stability, as follows: Section 27-39, Public Health Emergencies; temporary suspension of obstruction requirements to accommodate economic stability. (a) Purpose. The purpose of this ordinance is to preserve the public health and safety and, in particular, to provide for safer dining. shopping. and recreational opportunities for Burlington residents and to ensure the continued economic

throughout the City as available for short-term pick-up of prior placed orders with a business, occupying a space for up to 15 minutes at no charge; (2) Businesses may contact the Department of Public Works to request that a designated spot be located near their business; (3) The location of the designated spots will be determined by the Director of Public Works as authorized by the Public Works Commission; and (4) Proper temporary signage will be posted by the Department of Public Works. (e) Community And Economic Development Office, Church Street Marketplace Department To Identify Streets For Closures For Economic Stability Programs During Public Health Emergencies.

(1) Upon activation, the Community and Economic Development Office, to provide areas for businesses to expand their operations, may identify streets for temporary closure to host evening, one-day, or weekend-long on-street outdoor dining and retail opportunities.

The Church Street Marketplace Department may identify streets within the Church Street Marketplace District for temporary closure for the same purpose.

The Community and Economic Development Office and the Church Street Marketplace Department together will publish program guidelines and a process for businesses to submit requests to have streets proximate to be temporarily closed.

(2) Authority to Close Streets for Economic

FROM P.53

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FROM P.53

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Using the enclosed math operations as a guide, fill the grid using the numbers 1 - 6 only once in each row and column.

Calcoku

PUZZLE ANSWERS

2

a. To Display and market goods outside; b. To relocate seating from inside a business to outside or add additional seating; c. For the drop-off and pick-up of food, beverages, and goods; and d. For other activities consistent with the regular functions of the business.

(4) Affected Sections.

The following sections of Chapter 27 are suspended or temporarily superseded or amended as follows: a. Time limit for and issuance of permit. Section 27-32(a) is suspended and temporarily superseded by the following: “A permit under Section 27-32 may be issued by the Department of Public Works for the length of the public emergency period, or up to six months beyond the end of the declared emergency period.”

(Remaining parts are preserved.] b. Fees. Sections 27-32(b), 27-32(e), 27-33(b), and 27-33(d) are suspended and temporarily superseded by the following: “There shall be no fee for a permit issued pursuant to this section.”

C. Approval. Section 27-33(b)(5) is temporarily amended to delete “as approved by City Council.” (d) Department Of Public Works To Identify Areas For Short-term Parking Spaces.

(1) Upon activation, the Department of Public Works may identify certain parking spaces to provide additional short-term parking spaces proximate to businesses. Designated parking spaces will be proximate to businesses

6

(1) Upon activation, the Department of Public Works may identify streets. parking spaces, sidewalks, and greenbelts, and issue permits for the use thereof, to provide areas for businesses to temporarily expand their operations:

(3) A permit may be denied or suspended under the following circumstances: a. If permit applicant fails to fully complete the application or provide requested information to the City, including sufficient information to ensure compliance with State guidance to protect the health of members of the public or the permit applicant’s employees; b. If granting the permit would not promote the public health. safety. and welfare; C. If granting the permit for the location or extent of space requested would unreasonably limit the ability of neighboring property owners to utilize their property; d. If permit applicant requests the hours of operation or proposed use that is inconsistent with the character of the neighborhood; e. If the permit holder violates any laws or fails to comply with any local,

state, federal orders, directives, regulations, guidance, advisories, and requests from City personnel relating to public health and safety; f. If the permit holder discontinues use of the City property; or g. If the permit holder breaches any terms and conditions as set forth by the City in the permit application process.

1

(c) Department of Public Works to Identify Areas, Issue Permits for Expanded Business Areas

a. The Department of Public Works will publish program guidelines and a permit application for the use of identified streets, parking spaces, sidewalks, and greenbelts, and to provide additional shortterm parking spaces proximate to businesses. b. For the Department of Public Works to issue a permit to businesses wishing to use identified streets, parking spaces, sidewalks, and greenbelts to temporarily expand their operations, a business will submit an application to the Department of Public Works which will include at minimum: i. Name of business, and detailed contact information: ii. The specific proposed locations on sidewalks, greenbelts, or public parking spots: iii. The proposed use and how public health guidelines will be met by the use, including any health and safety plan developed by the business; iv. Site plans and photographs; v. Maintenance and budget plans; vi. If sought, any plans to enhance barriers or pavement; vii. If table service will be provided as additional seating capacity beyond previously-permitted capacity, a Wastewater Service Permit application to the State of Vermont; viii. If platforms will be constructed. a Construction SelfCertification Checklist; ix. Whether a tent may be used. and if so. a description of the tent including its size; X. Whether alcohol will be dispensed or consumed

on public property; and XI. Proof of necessary licenses and insurance coverages required for the proposed. c. If the Department of Public Works approves an application. a permit under this program will be issued. d. Applicants and permit holders must follow all standards set by the City regarding the design. use, and access for any tents, platforms. structures, ramps. or public areas under this Program. e. Permit holders will post temporary signage and must install proper safety barriers, either in cooperation with the City or independently and following the direction of the Department of Public Works.

4

(b) Activation. Either the Mayor by declaration or the City Council by resolution may activate this Section 27-39 during the period of a public health emergency declared by local, state, or federal officials, and for a period of up to six months after the emergency.

(2) Permitting process.

3

vitality of the City of Burlington during a public health emergency.

The preservation of public health and safety during an outbreak of infectious disease depends upon continued efforts to minimize the spread of infection by avoiding close contact between individuals.

Local businesses may face difficulty avoiding close contact between patrons, keeping their employees safe, and complying with related public health requirements within existing spaces and operations.

Stability Programs during Public Health Emergencies. After consultation with the Department of Public Works or their designee and the Chief of Police or their designee, the Director of the Community and Economic Development Office shall have the authority to close streets or portions of streets to vehicular traffic during and preparatory to any evening, one-day, or weekend-long on-street outdoor dining and retail event as part of an economic stability program during a public health emergency. The Executive Director of the Church Street Marketplace Department shall have the authority to close streets within the Church Street Marketplace District for the same purposes.

(3) A street will not be closed as part of an economic stability program during a public health emergency if the City determines that any of the following circumstances may occur: a. If closing the street would not promote the public health, safety, and welfare: b. If closing the street would unreasonably limit the ability of neighboring property owners to utilize their property: c. If another public event requiring the presence of police officers has been previously scheduled for the time requested, and in the judgment of the chief of police or their designee that additional officers could not be assigned to the street closure event without endangering the public safety and welfare; d. If closing the street would result in severe traffic congestion or interfere with the quiet of a neighborhood during normal sleeping hours.

For purposes of this paragraph, the period between 7:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. and between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. of any one day shall be regarded as periods of severe traffic congestion: and the period between 9:30 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. the following day shall be regarded as normal sleeping hours; e. If closing the street would allow a business to use the street in a manner inconsistent with the character of the neighborhood; or f. If closing the street would conflict with scheduled or planned road work, as determined by the Director of the Department of Public Works or their designee.

(4) Notice. The Community and Economic Development Office or Church Street Marketplace will

Foreclosure: 3BR Farmhouse on 2.1± Acres

Tuesday, July 21 @ 11AM 1784 Bean Hill Road, Glover, VT Open House Thur., July 2 from 1-3PM

Foreclosure: 3BR Home w/ Accessory Building

Wednesday, July 22 @ 11AM 453-471 Church Road, Colchester, VT Open House: Wed., July 8 from 1-3PM

USDA Foreclosure: 3± Wooded Ac. Thursday, July 23 @ 11AM 350 Weaver Rd., Huntington, VT Open House: Thur., July 9 from 1-3PM

USDA Foreclosure: 4BR Home on 1.5± Acres

Thursday, July 23 @ 3PM 2684 Main St. North, Bakersfield, VT Open House: Friday, July 10 from 1-3PM

LEGALS »

THCAuction.com 800-634-7653 SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

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PAGAN PLOOF January 22, 2007-June 23, 2020 Winooski, Vt.

provide the public with seven (7) days’ notice of any scheduled street closure as part of an economic stability program during public health emergencies.

The Community and Economic Development Office and Church Street Marketplace will cooperate with the Department of Public Works to ensure that signage is properly posted at the site of the planned street closure forty-eight ( 48) hours prior to any closure. *Material stricken out deleted. **Material underlined added.

WILLIAM H. MARQUESS late of Burlington, Vermont. I have been appointed to administer this estate. All creditors having claims against the decedent or the estate must present their claims in writing within four (4) months of the first publication of this notice. The claim must be presented to me at the address listed below with a copy sent to the court. The claim may be barred forever if it is not presented within the four (4) month period.

Dated: 6/21/2020 Signature of Fiduciary: /s/ Emily Skoler Executor/Administrator: Emily Skoler, Executor c/o Geraldine E. Stewart, Esq. Jarrett & Luitjens, PLC 1795 Williston Rd., Suite 125, South Burlington, VT 05403 802-864-5951 Name of Publication: Seven Days Publication Date: 7/1/2020 Probate Court: Chittenden Probate Court, P.O. Box 511, Burlington, VT 05402-0511

fsb FOR SALE BY OWNER

List your property here for 2 weeks for only $45!

Contact Katie, 865-1020, ext. 10, fsbo@sevendaysvt.com.

FOUR PAWS INN, $240,000

Located in Barre Town. Established boarding, daycare, and grooming business. Air-conditioned and heated kennel with a secure feeding area with refrigerator. Fenced in play yards, security system, client list, internet. Move-in ready 2-br apt. Please email for more details to FourPawsInnVT@gmail.com or call 802-479-3554

Vermont. I have been My best friend and family member appointed executor of FSBO-FourPawsInn070120.indd 1 passed away surrounded by family HOWARD CENTER this estate. All creditors STATE OF VERMONT If you received services and friends after a short illness. having claims against SUPERIOR COURT from Howard Center the decedent or the esShe loved cuddling, playing ball, PROBATE DIVISION and would like a copy tate must present their CHITTENDEN UNIT going for hikes with her daddy and of your record, please claims in writing within DOCKET NO.: 557-5-20 swimming. She was also a great accontact Howard Center’s four (4) months of the CNPR Health Information first publication of this tress in my short film “Death Meters” In re ESTATE of: Gisele Department at notice. The claim must (YouTube, Channel 15). She came to Dora Caron 488-6000. In be presented to me at NOTICE TO CREDITORS me as a shy, scared puppy and grew order to protect the address listed below To the Creditors of up into a beautiful, gentle girl. She individuals’ privacy, with a copy sent to the Gisele Dora Caron, late the agency routinely court. The claim may be was the most loving companion a guy of Shelburne, Vermont. destroys healthcare barred forever if it is not could ask for. Her unconditional love I have been appointed records after retaining presented within the executor of this estate. helped her daddy through some tough them for the number of four (4) month period.

All creditors having years required by law. times and helped him enjoy the happy claims against the Dated: 6/23/20 times. We were always there for each decedent or the estate Signature of Fiduciary: must present their other. /s/ Reginald R. Bowley claims in writing within NORTHSTAR SELF I will always remember us walking Executor/Administrator: four (4) months of the STORAGE WILL BE Reginald R. Bowley, c/o early morning in the New North End first publication of this HAVING A PUBLIC AND Unsworth LaPlante, in Burlington and getting sprayed by notice. The claim must ONLINE SALE/AUCTION PLLC, 26 Railroad Ave. be presented to me at FOR THE FOLLOWING a skunk. I will always remember our Essex Jct., VT 05452 the address listed below STORAGE UNIT ON hikes and swims and when you got 801-879-7133 carisa@ with a copy sent to the JULY 15, 2020 AT unsworthlaplante.com mad and dumped your toy box, leavcourt. The claim may be 9:00AM ing toys all around the house. I will barred forever if it is not Northstar Self Storage Name of Publication: presented within the will be having a public always remember you being there for Seven Days Publication four (4) month period. and online sale/auction Date: 7/1/20 Probate me when nobody else was. I will never on July 15, 2020 at Court: Vermont Superior forget that you taught me patience Dated: 6/15/2020 615 US RT 7, Danby, VT Court, Probate Division, Signature of Fiduciary: and love, and you are now teaching 05739 (Units D-62) and Chittenden Unit PO /s/ Kathi Monteith at 1124 Charlestown Rd., me about heartbreak.

Box 511, Burlington, VT Executor/Administrator: Springfield, VT 05156 05402 I love you more than printed words.

Kathi Monteith, P.O. (Unit S-108) and online Box 193, Shelburne, VT You were like my child. The pain I feel at www.storagetrea05482 802-448-3735 sures.com at 9:00 am is real. Thank you for the 13 years, my kathi@kjmguardianship.

SUPERIOR COURT in accordance with VT friend. I will see you again. net Name of Publication: CHITTENDEN UNIT Title 9 Commerce and She is survived by her loving STATE OF VERMONT Trade Chapter 098: Seven Days Publication PROBATE DIVISION daddy, Loyal Ploof, sister, Cleo, and her Storage Units 3905.

Date: 6/24/2020 DOCKET NO.: 583-5-20 Enforcement of Lien grandma, Charlene Ploof.

Open 24/7/365.

Extra! Extra!

CNPR IN RE ESTATE OF Post & s no limit to comI browse wantads to thank theThere’ Burlington Probate Court: LORETTA D. HOLMES Unit # D-62, Erika at your convenience. ad length online.

Chittenden Probate munity for helping throughout the Coolidge, Household June 3, 2013, NOTICE TO CREDITORS a person Court, P.O. Box notifies the Commission To the creditors of: years when Pagan was sick. You areINSTRUCTIONGoods; of an issue or issues re511, Burlington, VT Unit # S-108, Barbara quiring the Loretta D. Holmes, late presentation specialMR. people.

ANDY’S MOUNTAIN FOR MUNCH 05402-0511 of evidence at a hearing Lynn-Masure, of South Burlington. I MUSIC or the Commission sets A thank-you goes out to BEVS and MAY 20, 2010 Affordable, accessible Household Goods have been appointed to the matter for hearing instruction in guitar, on its own motion. Any its wonderful staff for providing mymandolin, banjo, more. art administer this estate. hearing request must be All ages/skill levels/ in writing to the address HEwith CAME ONbest A HUNCH. All creditors having dog the care possible. interests welcome!

STATE OF VERMONT below, must state the Supportive, profesclaims against the HE STAYED CRUNCH. criteria or subcriteria SUPERIOR COURT teacher offering Pagan, FOR you THE will always be in my sional STATE OF VERMONT at issue, why a hearing references, results, decedent or the estate AUDITIONS/ WE LOVED HIM SO MUCH. PROBATE DIVISION is required and what SUPERIOR COURT convenience.

Andy heart, my sweet girl. additional evidence must present their Greene, 658-2462, LORD, PLEASE WELCOME OUR MUNCH.

vert me e. with nament. yful, Needs ; 237 g; Ward gp for Real @ rs, llc e tive Y LAB ouse ction , both of 7. Vet ousing, ed, g and ; IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE old.

4t-MrMunch052213.indd 1 OF WASHINGTON IN 202. wed AND FOR THE COUNTY nd OF KING, JUVENILE ANTIQUES ty DEPARTMENT street, Furniture, postcards, pottery, cameras, toys, ween iN Re THe dePeNdeNcY medical tools,ann labBurbo glass, 0 a.m.

Of: Mishaya photographs, slide Thurston

WANT TO56BUY

rights or interest in the children and to all Whom FEST it MayOR concern: BREW BUST! 3 vivacious Boston You arelooking herebyto notified ladies buy that on april 5, 2010, 3 tickets to Brew Festa petition forWe Termination on Jul. 20. miss of Parent-child Beerlington.

Home is Relationship wasare. filed where the hops in the above entitled 617-233-5636.

CASTING

CHITTENDEN UNIT CHITTENDEN UNIT will be presented at the hearing. DOCKET Any hearing NO.: 593-5-20 PROBATE DIVISION CASTING MALE & request by an adjoining FEMALE owner or other DOCKET NO. 640-6-20 propertyCNPR 1 female movement per- interested person must BASS LESSONS W/ In re ESTATE of: Jane A. CNPR former. 2 male actors. include a petition for ARAM For stage w/ live music. party status.

Prior to Boudreau Learn songs, theory, In re ESTATE OF mosaicmond@gmail. submitting a request for technique & more in a com. Be bold & daring, NOTICE TO CREDITORS a hearing, please contact fun, professional setWILLIAM join aH. newMARQUESS company of the district coordinator ting on Pine Street. All To the Creditors of professional quality.

NOTICE TO CREDITORS at the telephone number levels/styles welcome! listed below for more Jane A. Boudreau, late Years of pro playing, To the creditors of: information. Prior to recording & teaching ofa Essex Junction, convening hearing, the experience. College guitboy75@hotmail. com, andysmountainmusic.com.

at the hour of 8:15 credit avail. Learn to a.m., at King county groove! 598-8861, superior court, Juvenile 5/20/13 department, 401 4th 5:05 PM arambedrosian.com, ave North, Kent, Wa lessons@arambedrobefore a judge of the sian.com. above entitled court, at which time you are CLASSICAL GUITAR LESSONS directed to appear and Patient, supportive, answer the said petition

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

music

CREATIVE SPACE

SPACE FOR INSTALLATION ART Studio space avail. in downtown Burlington to show your installation art on Jul. 5 during First Friday Art Walk.

318-6050.

Commission must determine that substantive issues requiring a hearing have been raised.

Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law will not be prepared unless the Commission holds a public hearing.

claims in writing within four (4) months of the first publication of this notice. The claim must be presented to me at the address listed below with a copy sent to the court. The claim may be

barred forever if it is not presented within the four (4) month period.

Dated: June 25, 2020 Signature of Fiduciary: /s/ Launa L. Slater, Esq.; Executor/ Administrator: Craig Creller c/o Launa L. Slater, Esq., Jarrett & Luitjens, PLC 1795 Williston Rd., Suite 125 South Burlington, VT 05403 (802) 864-5951 launa@vtelaw.com Seven Days Publication Date: 7/1/2020 Probate Court: Chittenden Probate Court P.O. Box 511 Burlington, VT 05402-0511

TOWN OF ESSEX PLANNING COMMISSION AGENDA / PUBLIC HEARING JULY 9, 2020 -6:30 P.M. COVID-19 UPDATE: Due to the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic, this meeting will be held remotely and recorded via Microsoft Stream.

Available options to watch or join the meeting: Join via Microsoft Teams at https:// tinyurl.com/ESSEXPC. Depending on your browser, you may need to call in for audio (below).

Join via conference call (audio only): (802) 377-3784 | Conference ID: 590 879 654 # Watch the live stream video on Town Meeting TV’s YouTube Channel.

Town Meeting TV, formally Channel 17, will be moving to Comcast channel 1087.

1. Public Comments 2. Planning Commission to discuss interest in Chair, Vice Chair & Clerk positions 3. Election of Officers 4. Continued Public

Development Area and its status as a PHP. Furthermore, demolition of 101 Main Street has been adequately addressed through review by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation. Finally, under 10 VSA § 6001(3) (A)(I)(ff), demolition of 109 Main Street has been adequately mitigated through a signed Memorandum of Agreement, dated May 14, 2019, setting forth a procedure by which to address the loss of the historic structure under Criterion 8. The proposed project is a down-scaled version of the proposal addressed in JO 4-269, issued on June 3, 2019. Overall, the proposed project does not trigger Act 250 jurisdiction.

Copies of this jurisdictional opinion have been served on all persons specified in 10 V.S.A. 6007(c) and Act 250 Rule 3(C). A copy of the jurisdictional opinion may be obtained Hearing: Minor Site by contacting the Plan: Joseph Bissonette 6/29/20 12:56 PM District Coordinator at & Chad Riley: Proposal the address/telephone to operate a food truck number below. located at 217 Sand Hill Reconsideration Rd in the R2 District. Tax requests are governed Map 50, Parcel 42.

by Act 250 Rule 3(C) 5. Joint Discussion (2) and should be with Village Planning directed to the District Commission: Planned Coordinator at the Unit Developments address listed below.

(PUD) 6. Minutes: June 25, 2020 7. Other Business Note: Please visit our website at www.essex. org to view agendas, application materials, and minutes.

VERMONT NATURAL RESOURCES BOARD NOTICE OF ACT 250 JURISDICTIONAL OPINION #4-269 (REVISED) On June 26, 2020, the District #4 Coordinator issued Act 250 Jurisdictional Opinion (“JO”) #4-269 (Revised) pursuant to 10 V.S.A. 6007(c) and Act 250 Rule 3(C), in response to a request made on June 19, 2020 from Greg Dixson on behalf of Jeff Mongeon and Travis Fitzgerald.

The Jurisdictional Opinion states that the Project consists of the demolition of two existing residences and outbuildings at 101 Main Street and 109 Main Street in Winooski, VT, and replacement with a four-story building that has one commercial space on the first level and 54 residential dwelling units on the first through fourth levels (“Mansion Street Apartments”). The JO also states that the Project, on its own, does not trigger jurisdiction as development because of its location in a Neighborhood

Any appeal of this decision must be filed with the Superior Court, Environmental Division (32 Cherry Street, 2nd Floor, Ste. 303, Burlington, VT 05401) within 30 days of the date the decision was issued, pursuant to 10 V.S.A. Chapter 220.

The Notice of Appeal must comply with the Vermont Rules for Environmental Court Proceedings (VRECP).

The appellant must file with the Notice of Appeal the entry fee required by 32 V.S.A. § 1431 and the 5% surcharge required by 32 V.S.A. § 1434a(a), which is $262.50. The appellant also must serve a copy of the Notice of Appeal on the Natural Resources Board, 10 Baldwin Street, Montpelier, VT 05633-3201, and on other parties in accordance with Rule 5(b) (4)(B) of the Vermont Rules for Environmental Court Proceedings.

Dated at Essex Junction, Vermont this 26th day of June, 2020. /s/ Stephanie H. Monaghan, Stephanie H. Monaghan, District Coordinator District #4 Commission 111 West Street, Essex Junction, VT 05452 802-8795662 stephanie. monaghan@vermont. gov

57 JULY 1-8, 2020

ATTENTION RECRUITERS: POST YOUR JOBS AT: PRINT DEADLINE: FOR RATES & INFO:

JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POST-A-JOB NOON ON MONDAYS (INCLUDING HOLIDAYS) MICHELLE BROWN, 802-865-1020 X21, MICHELLE@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

YOUR TRUSTED LOCAL SOURCE. JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM SCHOOL CHEF/COOK The Mountain School of Milton Academy is looking for a competent and experienced cook to join our team for the fall semester. A full job description and additional details on how to apply can be found on our website.

SATURDAY DROP-OFF CENTER OPERATOR – FLOATER

Recreation Coordinator

CSWD is seeking a highly motivated individual to work at Competitive pay. Some evening/weekend hours. Starts 8/1. various Drop-Off Centers on Saturdays, 7:45am-3:45pm. Must mountainschool.org/chef enjoy interacting with the public, have the ability to operate a cash register (training provided), and be able to keep cool under pressure on our busiest day of service. Moderate to strenuous physical effort is required as is the ability to work2h-MountainSchoolofMiltonAcademy070120.indd 1 outdoors year-round. Customer service experience a plus.

Self-starters and those with a passion for reducing waste, recycling, and composting, are strongly encouraged to GLOBALFOUNDRIES apply. $16.85 per hour. See full job description & download IS HIRING! application form at www.cswd.net/about-cswd/job-openings.

Email a cover letter, along with a completed application form or a resume, to Amy Jewell at ajewell@cswd.net.

Position is open until filled.

GROCERY ASSISTANT MANAGER

4t-CSWD070120.indd 1

We are hiring facilities and equipment technicians, manufacturing operators, and still have openings available in our Paid Apprenticeship program.

6/29/20 4:36 PM

Help schedule, train, support, and encourage an experienced staff in stocking and merchandising a wide variety of food products with a focus on natural, organic and local, including dry grocery, perishables, meat & fish, baked goods, and bulk foods. Provide and support excellent customer service and safety.

Experience as a supervisor in a retail or customer service setting, especially natural foods stores, preferred. We are seeking enthusiastic, customer-oriented people who are passionate about good food and local community. If you enjoy helping others in a dynamic retail environment, we want you to be part of our team.

6/29/20

Learn more at mrvrd.org/jobs

• All positions are full time and eligible for benefits on Day 1!

• All technician candidates must have a high school diploma and at least one year of relevant experience. Associate’s degree in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering strongly preferred.

2v-MadRiverValleyRecDistrict070120.indd 1 6/30/20 10:29 AM

• Manufacturing Operators must have a high school diploma and relevant experience is preferred, but not required.

Visit our careers site: globalfoundries.com/about-us/careers Questions? Email: Melinda.Antonucci@globalfoundries.com

5v-HungerMountainCoOp070120.indd 1

We’re hiring!

CHSLV is a non-profit, Federally Qualified Health Center seeking an

FULL-TIME ACCOUNTANT

4t-GlobalFoundries062420.indd 1

6/23/20 11:16 AM

Work with purpose!

This full-time, salaried position offers fulfilling work, great benefits & the best team in Central VT! For full job description and to apply: downstreet.org/careers

experienced Accounting Manager to join our finance team. This critical, hands-on role oversees our financial management systems and compliance.

FULL TIME • DEGREE REQUIRED

Apply at chslv.org/careers or email Vicki Emerson at vemerson@chslv.org

ADDITIONAL OPENINGS Willing to work as needed? Our substitute workers are part of a thriving natural foods community; earn good pay, a store discount, and more! The Co-op currently needs substitute cashiers, stockers, wine and cheese assistants, and food services workers. Schedules vary. Typical shifts are 6-2 and 1-9, and we are open seven days a week. For additional information or to apply, please visit our website at hungermountain.coop/employment.

Hunger Mountain Co-op is an equal opportunity employer.

Women, minorities, people with disabilities, veterans, and members of the LGBTQ community are encouraged to apply. Hourly employees are represented by UE Local 255.

The Mad River Valley Recreation District is seeking a dedicated and energetic Recreation Coordinator to advance our initiatives and support local partners to provide 1:07 PM recreation opportunities that promote community vitality, physical fitness, appreciation for the outdoors, and high quality of life in the Mad River Valley.

Community Health Services of Lamoille Valley (CHSLV)

downstreet.org

65 Northgate Plaza, Ste 11

We are a mission-driven non-profit organization dedicated to achieving social justice through the power of housing.

6/29/20Untitled-19 6:56 PM 1

We are an equal opportunity employer.

Morrisville, VT 05661 chslv.org • 802.888.0902 © 2020 Community Health Services of Lamoille Valley

6/18/20 3v-CommHealthSvcLamoilleValley070120.indd 11:30 AM 6/29/20 1 5:56 PM

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

58

POST YOUR JOBS AT JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM FOR FAST RESULTS, OR CONTACT MICHELLE BROWN: MICHELLE@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

JULY 1-8, 2020

CAREGIVERS Enhancing the lives of aging adults and their families. Make a world of difference right down the street. Join Home Instead Senior Care and do meaningful work in your area. Work flexible hours to fit your busy life. Must be able to work a minimum of 12 hours per week. No experience necessary! Visit our website to apply today.

Hiring energetic, experienced carpenters eager to join our team.

For information please contact

Great opportunity for hardworking, motivated team players. Vermont Energy is hiring and willing to train the right candidates.

Since 1984 we have been an industry leader in residential and light commercial quality mechanical system design, installation and service.

homeinstead.com/483 Looking for CAREGivers in Stowe and surrounding Burlington area.

4t-HomeInstead062420.indd 1

6/22/20 4:55 PM

LICENSED NURSE ASSISTANT Full-time, part-time & per-diem positions may be available*

The Nursing Assistant is responsible for specific aspects of direct and indirect patient care under the direct supervision of a Registered Nurse.

LEARN MORE & APPLY: uvmmed.hn/sevendays

RN, LPN, AND LNAs Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital (NVRH) has RN, LPN, and LNA openings in our ER, ICU, Med/Surg, Birth Center, and Medical Office Practices.

Full-time, part-time and per-diem positions available.

4/24/204t-NVRH070120.indd 11:16 AM 1

Looking for an opportunity to collaborate with diverse stakeholders and local leaders to help Vermont transition to a clean energy future? The Vermont Natural Resources Council, coordinator of the Vermont Energy & Climate Action Network (VECAN), seeks a motivated individual with interest and expertise in community engagement, communications, clean energy and climate action.

Find out more and apply: https://vhcb.org/ourprograms/vhcb-americorps/positions Applications are due July 19, 2020. VNRC is an EOE.

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Send resumes to:

BARBARA@VTENERGY.COM

***

3v-VTEnergyContractingAPPRENTICE070120.indd 6/30/201 10:35 AM

PUBLIC WORKS COORDINATOR

6/26/207spot.indd 3:05 PM 1

Seeking Community Energy Coordinator AmeriCorps Member

www.vnrc.org

Join a winning team.

Benefits include excellent pay, paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays, medical and dental insurance, retirement plan, and a tool and training allowance.

Start your new career today.

NVRH is proud to offer competitive wages, student loan repayment, tuition reimbursement, shift differentials and per-diem rates. We offer a comprehensive benefits package for full and part-time employees including a generous earned time program, 401k with company match, low cost health plans, low cost prescriptions and more. New Grads welcome!

For more info or to apply visit nvrh.org/careers.

High School diploma or equivalent.

LNA, licensed in Vermont.

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HVAC APPRENTICE

drey@silvermapleconstruction.com

www.vecan.net

10/29/19 12:12 PM

TOWN OF COLCHESTER, VT

The Town of Colchester is seeking a Public Works Coordinator. This position includes various business and financial tasks, data processing and analysis, coordination of facility maintenance, customer service and outreach, and other technical support. Interested candidates must be highly motivated self-starters with excellent customer service, writing, and computer skills.

Please submit a cover letter, resume, and Employment Application. Apply by Friday, July 24, 2020 to Human Resources at colchestervt.gov or email to slabarge@ colchestervt.gov. Position is open until filled. Hourly rate - $21.77-$22.93, depending on qualifications, plus a competitive benefit package. E.O.E.

6/26/20 2:02 PM 4t-TownofColchester070120.indd 1

6/26/20 1:48 PM

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @SEVENDAYSJOBS, SUBSCRIBE TO RSS, OR BROWSE POSTS ON YOUR PHONE AT JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM

NEW JOBS POSTED DAILY! JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM

59 JULY 1-8, 2020

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT To the Superintendent Washington Central UUSD is seeking a motivated, self-confident, excellence achieving professional Administrative Assistant to support the Superintendent and Curriculum Director. Our ideal candidate will be professional, confidential and provide superior customer service. Ability to work independently, prepare board communications, public documents and other daily office duties as assigned.

Proficiency with Microsoft, Google applications and desktop publishing required. Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Public Administration, Communications or related field preferred. Application must include cover letter, resume and 3 letters of reference. Apply via SchoolSpring.com at Job ID #3306636.

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HUMAN RESOURCES ASSISTANT

WE'RE HIRING!

Part-Time Beertender Looking for a Sweet Job?

FINANCE MANAGER

Wake Robin offers an excellent employment package and opportunity to build strong relationships with staff and residents in a dynamic community setting. Email hr@wakerobin.com.

Wake Robin is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

DIRECTOR OF RACIAL EQUITY

management, including financial reporting for federal, state, and foundation grants, balance sheets, and analyses of income and expenses; maintain all fiscal records and files; ensure compliance with accounting standards and regulations; oversee audit and budget planning processes and cash flow.

Must have excellent communication skills to explain complex financial data and 5+ years of increasingly responsible experience which includes grant fiscal management in the nonprofit sector; degree in accounting or finance desirable. 20- 25 hours per week.

Resume with cover letter to HR@vtfn.org or mail to: HR, Vermont Family Network, 600 Blair Park, Suite 240, Williston, VT 05495

1 6/29/204t-VTFamilyNetwork062420.indd 4:48 PM

CVOEO addresses fundamental issues of economic, social and racial justice. The Racial Equity Director will promote equity in staffing, programs, training, and policy throughout CVOEO. They will understand diverse perspectives of stakeholders, represent CVOEO within our community and address systemic change in racial injustice.

A Bachelor’s degree in human services, business or other appropriate discipline – Master’s degree preferred; and two to three years of relevant business experience or community service, or a combination of education and experience from which comparable knowledge and skills have been acquired is required.

To learn more about this position, visit cvoeo.org/careers.

To apply, please send a cover letter and resume to: racialequitydir@cvoeo.org. Review of applications begins immediately and will continue until suitable candidates are found. CVOEO IS AN E.O.E.

MAINTENANCE

Culinary Team

We are hiring for the Red Hen culinary team. This is a full time position with a four day a week schedule, competitive pay, health benefits, employer-matched retirement, and paid time off.

Work will include prep-cooking, working the sandwich line, and working one of our Pizza Nights.

Cooking experience, flexibility, and a committed, professional work ethic are a must. To apply send a resume and cover letter to rob@redhenbaking.com

1 6/23/204v-RedHenBaking070120.indd 11:22 AM

6/29/20 5:31 PM

Full Time

Wake Robin seeks a Maintenance person to join our Staff. Our maintenance team utilizes a variety of technical skills to repair and maintain electrical, plumbing, security, and air quality systems throughout the facility and in resident homes.

Qualified candidate will have well rounded maintenance skills and must have specific training and certification in HVAC systems, as well as a strong aptitude for computer-based operational systems. This is an opportunity to join a stable and talented team of individuals dedicated to doing good work, for great people, in a beautiful setting.

Interested candidates can apply online at Wakerobin.com or email a resume with cover letter to: HR@wakerobin.com. Wake Robin is an equal opportunity employer.

5h-WakeRobin070120.indd 1

4t-CVOEO062420.indd 1

Part-time Night Bread Packer:

If you like going to work when most others are headed home, Our mobile-friendly we've got just the job for you!

Evenings & weekends required. job board is buzzing We're looking for a night with excitement.

For more information visit: owl to fill wholesale bread lawsonsfinest.com/aboutorders three nights a week Start applying at (including both weekend days). us/join-our-team. jobs.sevendaysvt.com Applicants must enjoy physical work, be detail oriented and work well with others as well 6/30/20 2v-jobFiller_workerbee.indd 10:42 AM 1 6/23/20 2v-LawsonsFinest062420.indd 12:31 PM 1 6/23/20 12:24 PMas alone. Basic computer skills a must. Please e-mail a letter of interest and resume to Nonprofit organization is seeking randy@redhenbaking.com. an individual to provide financial

Wake Robin, Vermont’s premiere retirement community, seeks a part time Assistant, 24 hours per week, to provide support to our Human Resources team. This position will assist with billing, supply coordination, data management, HR specific clerical support, and will be the point of contact for staff in a very interactive office. We seek candidates with a minimum of 2-years of related administrative experience, preferably in Human Resources, a strong sense of customer service, and an unwavering commitment to confidentiality. Previous experience with Microsoft office products, including spreadsheets and PowerPoint required.

4t-WakeRobin070120.indd 1

Seeking positive minded professionals dedicated to providing world class hospitality, beer & food.

MIDDLESEX, VT

6/22/20 12:55 PM

6/26/20 12:16 PM

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

60

60

POST YOUR JOBS AT JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM FOR FAST RESULTS, OR CONTACT MICHELLE BROWN: MICHELLE@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

JULY 1-8, 2020

LEAD BOOKKEEPER Property management firm seeking a lead bookkeeper that can work within a fast paced, deadline driven work environment. Applicants must have a broad range of bookkeeping experience & be able to handle the full cycle of accounting duties and other office tasks.

Pay: $45K-$50K (depending on experience) Benefits: • Dental/Health Insurance • Paid Time Off • Vision Insurance Experience (preferred): • Bookkeeping: 5-years Education • A.A or B.A in accounting or finance (preferred) Resume & cover letter to: stephanie@fullcirclevt.com.

3v-FullCirclePropMgmt070120.indd 1

PROGRAM ASSISTANTS

Digital Marketing & Advocacy Manager

Film, Graphic Design, Music Composition and Visual Art

Population Media Center (PMC) has a Digital Marketing & Advocacy Manager role for a creative and tech savvy professional who’s ready to help us achieve our vision of a sustainable planet with equal rights for all.

Our entertainment-education programs empower people around the world to live healthier lives and live sustainably with the world’s renewable resources.

The Program Assistant works with the Program Director to organize materials and arrangements for the program and semi-annual residencies. Typical tasks include copying, filing, data entry, tracking information and forms, among numerous other program tasks. The person will assist as needed with the daily functions of the program’s residencies. The position will average 17.5 hours per week, but this person will need to adapt to a varying and flexible schedule.

The qualified applicant will possess good communication and interpersonal skills, be highly organized and technologically proficient. Job description is available here: vcfa.edu/about/jobsat-vcfa. Candidates are encouraged to consult VCFA’s website to acquaint themselves with our distinctive academic schedule, learning processes, and educational philosophy.

To apply, please send cover letter indicating program of interest: Film, Graphic Design, Music Composition or Visual Art, and CV/Resume to PAapplications@ vcfa.edu. Positions will remain open until filled.

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You: You’re able to analyze and think creatively to turn complex concepts and information from a variety of sources into engaging stories for PMC’s digital channels – everything from acquiring new contacts, to delighting existing donors. You are proficient in HubSpot, MS Office, Adobe Creative Cloud, and WordPress.

Why Work For Us: Our tight-knit team is energized by our mission and empowered with autonomy and creativity in their day-to-day work. PMC offers its employees competitive pay and excellent benefits including paid time off, health and dental insurance, and a generous 401(K) contribution.

Visit populationmedia.org/jobs for full details. To apply send cover letter, resume, and a writing sample to marketing@populationmedia.org. Review of applications to begin immediately and continue until the position is filled.

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6/26/20 11:41 AM

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR The Town of Northfield, Vermont (population 6,100) is seeking to hire an Economic Development Director to support local businesses in their sustainability, growth, and expansion; to build a network within the State and region to attract potential employers and residents to Northfield; and to support the town’s vision for housing and other key development priorities.

The ideal candidate will have knowledge and work experience with municipal zoning and infrastructure, planning programs and processes, economic development tools and programs, and a proven successful record in economic development leadership roles. In addition, that person shall be a capable public speaker, communicate effectively with groups and individuals, engineers, architects, developers, businesses, and the general public, and capable of establishing working relationships and networks with developers, community organizations, and business professionals.

This is a part-time position at 24 hours per week. The salary is negotiable based upon experience. Complete job description at northfield-vt.gov, via the town manager at jschulz@northfield.vt.us or 802-485-9822. To apply, please E-mail cover letter & resume to jschulz@northfield. vt.us or mail to: Northfield Town Manager, 51 South Main Street, Northfield, VT 05663. The Town is accepting applications through July 21, 2020, or until such time that the position is filled. The Town of Northfield is an E.O.E.

Want to join an exceptional organization? Then look no further; NEFCU is hiring for roles in their Mortgage and Retail/Branch sectors!

Mortgage Loan Processors Due to growth, we are recruiting Mortgage Loan Processors! This imperative role is responsible for obtaining the necessary information to process & complete mortgage loan files. Some primary responsibilities of this role are preparing closing packages, auditing documentation for accuracy, managing the compliance tasks associated with the process, scheduling closings, handling disbursements for mortgage loans, preparing loan filings for underwriting & handling inquiries & calls associated with the loan process. Previous mortgage lending, processing experience and/or knowledge of mortgage lending regulations preferred. Proficiency in Microsoft Excel & Word, strong attention to detail & excellent interpersonal, verbal and written skills required.

Retail/Branch Opportunities We have opportunities in our Branch environment for Member Service Representatives and Tellers, and Contact Center Representatives within our Retail department. Member Service Representatives work with our members to understand their financial position, offer information about the product/service that may best suit their need and then assist them by opening that loan and/or account for them. Tellers are responsible for conducting accurate teller transactions for the member. Contact Center Representatives provide direct services and support to our members within a fast-paced call center environment. Each role will provide exceptional customer service to our members and will learn the features of our products and services to best serve our membership.

Each role requires strong computer proficiency and excellent verbal and written skills.

For more detail and qualifications for these positions and/or to apply, please visit the career page at

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FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @SEVENDAYSJOBS, SUBSCRIBE TO RSS, OR BROWSE POSTS ON YOUR PHONE AT JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM

NEW JOBS POSTED DAILY! JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM

Commercial Roofers & Laborers

FLAGGER Now Hiring in VT/NH.

School Nurse

• $16.50 starting pay

Orange Southwest Supervisory District for Braintree and Brookfield Elementary schools has an opening for • Must be 18, have a an elementary level school valid driving license nurse.

Candidates must have a and reliable vehicle Bachelor’s degree, a RN license, • Must have an email and hold or be eligible to hold address and a cell a school nurse endorsement. phone The ideal candidate will have a background in school Apply at adavt.com. nursing, be skilled at forming Or call: 802-923-3074 relationships with children and families and be interested in supporting child health 2v-AdaTrafficControl062420.indd 1 6/22/20 3:10 PM and nutrition.

• $500 SIGN on bonus - restrictions apply

Please send your resume & 3 references to:

VHCB

AmeriCorps Program

Pat Miller, Principal Braintree Elementary School 66 Bent Hill Road Braintree, VT 05060

HVAC INSTALLERS

61 JULY 1-8, 2020

Year round, full time positions.

Good wages & benefits. $16.50 per hour minimum; Pay negotiable with experience.

EOE/M/F/VET/Disability Employer Apply in person at: A.C. Hathorne Co. 252 Avenue C Williston, VT 802-862-6473

Great opportunity for 6/24/19 hardworking, motivated 2h-ACHathorne030619.indd 1 team players. Vermont Energy is hiring and willing to train the right candidates. Since 1984 we have been an industry leader in residential and light commercial quality mechanical system design, installation and service.

Join a winning team.

Benefits include excellent As the luminous Barbra Streisand once famously crooned: pay, paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays, “People, medical and dental People who need people, insurance, retirement plan, Are the luckiest people in the world…” and a tool and training allowance. Start your new career today. Apply at: We like to think she was singing, in appreciation, for a room full of Human Resource professionals. She wasn’t.

BARBARA@VTENERGY.COM But dream with us, won’t you?

6:28 PM

HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR

Currently, we’re on the prowl for a hungry, strategic, AmeriCorps positions in future-focused HR Director to join our five member 3v-VTEnergyContractingHVAC Installers070120.indd 6/30/20 1 10:39 AM locations around the state 3v-OrangeSouthWestSD052420.indd 1 6/23/20 11:02 AM Executive team. Are you a savvy, creative Director-level serving with non-profit HR person who needs people? Then we’re ready for a organizations people-needing HR person like you.

• environmental education MULTIMEDIA AD SALES WHAT YOU’LL DO • home buyer education REPRESENTATIVE • Creatively design, build, and implement tons of cool HR• environmental stewardship We are looking for talented and outgoing sales related programs and benefits for a 300+-strong—and • energy conservation representatives to join our growing team. In this position, growing—workforce (30% mid & management level) you will work with local businesses around Central Vermont • homeless assistance

• SERVE • EXPERIENCE • LEAD Apply now!

vhcb.org/our-programs/ vhcb-americorps

to expand their brand identity and support their future success using our marketing platforms: print campaigns, website and mobile advertising and email marketing.

Email resume & cover letter describing why you believe you are the right fit to steven.pappas@timesargus.com.

ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

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VHCB AmeriCorps offers: • living allowance • health insurance • an education award • training opportunities • leadership development Untitled-7 1

The ideal candidate is an organized and assertive selfstarter who loves working in a team environment to achieve sales goals. Be sure you have strong verbal, written and persuasive interpersonal skills. Sales experience is a plus, but we will consider well-qualified candidates with a passion to succeed.

POST YOUR JOBS AT: SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POSTMYJOB

1 6/25/20 2h_contactinfo.indd 11:11 AM

PRINT DEADLINE: NOON ON MONDAYS (INCLUDING HOLIDAYS) FOR RATES & INFO: MICHELLE BROWN, 802-865-1020 X21, MICHELLE@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

6/30/20

• Own and execute strategies to solidify and strengthen the full shebang of HR operations across the organization • Develop & provide the company & its people with resources required to run a successful & fulfilling operation

THE SKILLS YOU’LL NEED TO SUCCEED • 5-10 years’ HR work experience, with at least 3-5 in HR leadership, at a manufacturing company with 300+ employees • Strong program development and execution skills • Experience planning and building out one, three, and five year goals • PHR/SPHR certification (preferable) or comparable HR 1:08 PM legal training

APPLYING:

To request a complete job description, please email Etienne Morris at etienne@morrisrc.com, and include “Request MSI Job Description” on the subject line.

THE FINE PRINT:

Neither an appreciation for Barbra Streisand, nor even a mild awareness of her recordings, are required for this position.

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ATTENTION RECRUITERS:

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POST YOUR JOBS AT JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM FOR FAST RESULTS, OR CONTACT MICHELLE BROWN: MICHELLE@SEVENDAYSVT.COM

JULY 1-8, 2020

WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPER PCC, a private, Winooski-based healthcare IT Benefit Corporation, seeks web developers to join our team. Bring your problem-solving skills and creativity to the table building web applications in an Agile development framework, assisting in not only extending current products, but also creating new product lines. Our ideal candidate is fast and flexible, great at finding and squashing bugs, and ready to work well with team members in a cross-functional development environment. Our work culture is casual and our employees are clever and dedicated. We strive for client satisfaction and our customer reviews are among the very best in our industry.

Work at CCS to help support, and live, our mission to “build a community where everyone participates and belongs.”

Named a “Best Places to Work in Vermont 2020,” CCS wants you to be a part of our team. Our current openings for Direct Support Professionals offer an opportunity to make a positive impact on someone’s life, and in yours.

While our preferred candidate will have hands on experience with either Ruby on Rails or PHP, we’d love to hear from you if you have any full stack experience utilizing other webbased technologies such as Python or Java.

So why not enjoy your job, receive a comprehensive benefits package, be appreciated by your employer, and feel good about what you do!

Don’t have full stack experience, but have built a career creating responsive front-end web applications using HTML, CSS, Javascript, or any front-end framework such as React, Angular or Vue? We’d also love to hear from you.

Be a part of it and apply today at www.ccs-vt.org.

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E.O.E. 6/23/20

In order to keep our employees and families safe while we continue to develop our software and support our clients, PCC’s employees have been working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect this policy to continue a little longer so there will be virtual 11:09 AM interviews for this position. Once our office is fully open, we will be looking for employees to be on-site at our Winooski office.

As a Benefit Corporation, we place high value on client, employee & community relationships.

Our company offers a friendly, informal, and professional work environment. PCC offers competitive benefits as well as some uncommon perks. To learn more about PCC, this role and how to apply, please visit our website at pcc.com/careers. Position open until filled.

DISTRICT COORDINATOR/ HEAD OF ATHLETICS

No phone calls, please. AA/EOE.

• Can you cultivate student leadership and promote participation in a diverse climate?

• Are you interested in assisting our coaches to see themselves as leaders?

• Do you have the experience creating a blueprint for building strong teams?

• Do you have skills that can help to create a positive parent culture?

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If you do, we want you to consider an exciting opportunity to make a difference at the Burlington School District by applying to be our new District Coordinator-Head of Athletics for our Middle and High School D1 sports programs. It is our goal for this newly developed role to help the District reach maximum participation for all of our students in interscholastic athletics using the safest & most effective coaching and training methods.

Stone Environmental, Inc. is a 100% Employee owned company, seeking highly motivated, enthusiastic, & committed individuals to join our talented team of scientists, engineers, modelers, & project managers.

HYDROGEOLOGIST

Understanding the minds of the 21st century athletes is key to the success of our athletic program. We believe there are untapped opportunities for growth including creating a program implementing e-sports, creating a stronger NCAA pathway for our students, and supporting our middle-school athletes.

Burlington S.D. is a public school that prides itself on cultivating caring, creative and courageous people without barrier to race, gender, or socioeconomic class. The District is committed to a policy of non-discrimination, equal opportunity, diversity & affirmative action. We are dedicated to providing educational environments that value the diverse backgrounds of all students and staff. The District is ideally situated on the edge of Lake Champlain and is flanked by Mount Mansfield which is less than a 30-minute drive to the ski slopes. Burlington offers a thriving cultural center and in only 95 miles away from Montreal, Quebec and 3 hours away from Boston, Massachusetts.

For more information on this great opportunity and to apply to join our team, visit: BSDVT.org/Careers.

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6/16/20 10:04 AM

A hydrogeologist with a strong background in contaminant hydrogeology and environmental investigation and remediation. The successful applicant will provide technical support for a variety of projects; primarily soil and groundwater investigations at hazardous waste sites as a member of our Environmental Assessment and Remediation team.

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER

An environmental engineer with a strong background in environmental investigation and remediation. The successful applicant will provide technical support for a variety of projects such as soil & groundwater investigations at hazardous waste sites, and design & implementation of soil, groundwater & soil gas remediation as a member of our Environmental Assessment & Remediation team.

6/16/20 10:59 AM

Both positions will involve travel for field work throughout Vermont and occasional travel for projects outside Vermont will be required. Please visit www.stone-env.com for full job descriptions and information about how to apply.

Stone is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @SEVENDAYSJOBS, SUBSCRIBE TO RSS, OR BROWSE POSTS ON YOUR PHONE AT JOBS.SEVENDAYSVT.COM

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63 JULY 1-8, 2020

T OW N O F J E R I C H O

Highway Maintenance Worker The Town of Jericho is accepting applications for a Highway Maintenance Worker Level II. This is a full-time position which requires a CDL and the ability to routinely work outside of regular working hours. The ideal candidate will have at least two years of experience in highway maintenance, snow plowing, construction procedures and methods at the municipal level. Equipment operation experience is a plus.

The starting hourly wage is dependent on qualifications. The Town of Jericho offers excellent benefits, including health and dental insurance and a retirement plan.

An application and job description can be downloaded from www.jerichovt.org. They are also available at the Jericho Town Hall, at 67 VT Rt. 15, Jericho, M-F 8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Completed applications can be submitted to Paula Carrier in person, via email at pcarrier@jerichovt.gov or via mail to PO Box 39, Jericho, VT 05465.

New, local, scamfree jobs posted every day!

Position is open until filled.

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Temporary Positions:

LEGAL HELPLINE COMMUNITY ADVOCATE / PARALEGAL STAFF ATTORNEY Vermont Legal Aid and Legal Services Vermont seek to hire several temporary, full-time positions for Staff Attorneys and/or Legal Helpline Community Advocates/Paralegals. We are adding several advocates to our staff to meet the community’s need for legal help resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are equal opportunity employers committed to building a diverse and culturally competent staff to serve our increasingly diverse client community. Applicants are encouraged to share in their cover letter how you can further this goal.

We are seeking staff to fill positions in the following areas: • Housing, Eviction Defense, and Homelessness Prevention (staff attorney position) • General Poverty Law including unemployment compensation, public benefits, consumer law, and family law (staff attorney position) • Providing information, referral, and legal assistance on our Helpline (community advocate or staff attorney position) Temporary hires will be placed within Vermont Legal Aid or Legal Services Vermont. All positions will be on a temporary contract through December 2020, with duration depending on the availability of funding.

We are looking for candidates with the ability to communicate in a diverse range of professional, cultural, and community contexts, strong writing skills, the ability to handle a large caseload, a demonstrated commitment to community engagement and social justice advocacy, and a collaborative work style.

Staff may be asked to work remotely due to the pandemic, however the positions will be based out of one of our offices, which are located in Burlington, Montpelier, Rutland, St. Johnsbury, and Springfield. Some in-state travel may be required.

Starting (annualized) salary is $51,893 for an attorney, $37,902 for a community advocate/paralegal, with salary credit given for relevant prior work experience. Four weeks paid vacation (prorated for length of contract), retirement, and excellent health benefits. Attorney applicants should be licensed to practice law in Vermont.

sevendaysvt.com/classifieds

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. Your application should include a cover letter and resume, sent as a single PDF, and indicate your interest in one or more of the work areas above. Send your application by e-mail to Betsy Whyte at bwhyte@vtlegalaid.org with the subject line “COVID Response Hiring.” Please let us know how you heard about this position.

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8/1/16 4:10 PM

6/22/20 2:23 PM

fun stuff

FRAN KRAUSE

Have a deep, dark fear of your own? Submit it to cartoonist Fran Krause at deep-dark-fears.tumblr.com, and you may see your neurosis illustrated in these pages.

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

CALCOKU & SUDOKU (P.53) CROSSWORD (P.53)

LET OUR EXPERTS

GET YOU MOVING! You’ve found the right home.

Now get the right loan.

RYAN RIDDLE

Christie Mitchell, CMP Mortgage Originator Vermont NMLS #515972 802.318.9135 nbtbank.com/mitchell

Stay healthy,

HONEY

Talk with us or apply online today!

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524-3769

Curbside pick-up available

RAILC IT Y M ARK E T V T.CO M

Member FDIC Member FDIC

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6/2/20 9:47 AM

Feel Good.

Do Good!

Feeling disappointed about the things you can’t do this season? Here’s how to have a feel-good summer: Step One: Explore Vermont.

Step Two: Learn something new.

Step Three: Be a Good Citizen.

Take the Good Citizen Challenge, a youth civics program for young people in grades K-12. Each month we’ll announce new activities focusing on history, community, government, advocacy and news literacy to keep you and your family active and engaged.

Summer

2020 View Activities at

GOODCITIZENVT.COM With support from:

J

Say you saw it in...

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fun stuff JEN SORENSEN

RACHEL LINDSAY

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

HARRY BLISS

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY BY ROB BREZSNY REAL JULY 2-8

CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 22):

Some readers wish I would write more like Cormac McCarthy or Albert Camus or Raymond Chandler: with spare simplicity. They accuse me of being too lush and exuberant in my prose. They want me to use shorter sentences and fewer adjectives. To them I say: It ain’t going to happen. I have feelings similar to those of bestselling Cancerian author Oliver Sacks, whom the New York Times called, “one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century.” Sacks once said, “I never use one adjective if six seem to me better and, in their cumulative effect, more incisive. I am haunted by the density of reality and try to capture this with ‘thick description.’”

I bring these thoughts to your attention, my fellow Cancerian, because I think it’s important for you to be your lavish, sumptuous, complex self in the coming weeks. Don’t oversimplify yourself or dumb yourself down, either intellectually or emotionally.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries author Marge Piercy writes, “The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows.” The Aries people I love best will do just that in the coming days. Now is not the right time to wait around passively, lazily hoping that something better will come along. Nor is it prudent to procrastinate or postpone decisions while shopping around for more options or collecting more research. Dive, Aries, dive!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Calvin and Hobbes” is a comic strip by Bill Watterson. It features a boy named Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes. In the first panel of one story, Calvin is seated at a school desk looking perplexed as he studies a question on a test, which reads “Explain [Isaac] Newton’s First Law of Motion in your own words.” In the second panel, Calvin has a broad smile, suddenly imbued with inspiration. In the third panel, he writes his response to the test question: “Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork.

Chumble spuzz.” The fourth panel shows him triumphant and relaxed, proclaiming, “I love loopholes.” I propose that you use this scenario as your victorious metaphor in the coming weeks, Taurus. Look for loopholes! And use them to overcome obstacles and solve riddles.

GEMINI

(May 21-June 20): “It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves,” wrote philosopher and activist Simone Weil. I’m hoping that this horoscope of mine can help you avoid that mistake. In the coming weeks and months, you will have a stronger-than-usual need to be seen for who you really are — to have your essential nature be appreciated and understood by people you care about. And the best way to make sure that happens is to work hard right now on seeing, appreciating and understanding yourself.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Travel writer Paul Ther-

oux has journeyed long distances by train: once from Britain to Japan and back again, and then from Massachusetts to Argentina. He also rode trains during part of his expedition from Cairo to Cape Town. Here’s one of his conclusions: “It is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places.” I’d like to offer a milder version of that counsel as your metaphor for the coming weeks: The funky, bumpy, rickety influences will bring you the best magic.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Philosopher Miguel de Unamuno declared, “Everything that exalts and expands consciousness is good, while that which depresses and diminishes it is evil.” This idea will be intensely true for and applicable to you in the coming weeks, Virgo. It will be your sacred duty —

both to yourself and to those you care about — to enlarge your understandings of how the world works and to push your awareness to become more inclusive and empathetic.

What’s your vision of paradise on earth?

Now is a good time to have fun imagining it.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): What do you want to be when you grow up, Libra? What’s that you say? You firmly believe you are already all grown up? I hope not! In my vision of your destiny, you will always keep evolving and transforming; you will ceaselessly transcend your existing successes and push on to accomplish further breakthroughs and victories. Now would be an excellent time to rededicate yourself to this noble aspiration. I invite you to dream and scheme about three specific wonders and marvels you would like to experience during the next five years.

SCORPIO

(Oct. 23-Nov. 21): U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has advice that would serve you well in the coming weeks.

She says, “Keep a little space in your heart for the improbable. You won’t regret it.” In accordance with your astrological potentials, I’m inclined to amend her statement as follows: “Keep a sizable space in your heart for the improbable. You’ll be rewarded with catalytic revelations and intriguing opportunities.” To attract blessings in abundance, Scorpio, be willing to set aside some of your usual skepticism and urge for control.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Author Malidoma Somé lives in the U.S. now but was born in the West African country of Burkina Faso. He writes, “In the culture of my people, the Dagara, we have no word for the supernatural. The closest we come to this concept is Yielbongura, ‘the thing that knowledge can’t eat.’

This word suggests that the life and power of certain things depend upon their resistance to the categorizing knowledge that human beings apply to everything.” I bring Somé’s thoughts to your attention, Sagittarius, because I suspect that in the coming weeks, you will encounter more than the usual number of experiences that knowledge can’t eat. They might at times be a bit spooky or confounding but will mostly

be interesting and fun. I’m guessing that if you embrace them, they will liberate you from overly literal and materialistic ideas about how the world works. And that will be good for your soul.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Pioneer Capricorn scientist Isaac Newton is often hailed as one of history’s greatest geniuses.

I agree that his intellectual capacities were sublime. But his emotional intelligence was sparse and feeble. During the time he taught at Cambridge University, his talks were so affectless and boring that many of his students skipped most of his classes. I’ll encourage you to make Newton your anti-role model for the next eight weeks. This time will be favorable for you to increase your mastery of three kinds of intelligence beyond the intellectual kind: feeling, intuition and collaboration.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): When future

writer (and Aquarius) Charles Dickens was 12 years old, his parents and siblings got incarcerated in a debtors’ prison. To stay alive and help his family, he took a job working 12 hours a day, six days a week, pasting labels on pots of boot polish in a rotting, rat-infested warehouse. Hard times! Yet the experiences he had there later provided him with rich material for the novels that ultimately made him wealthy and beloved. In predicting that you, too, will have future success at capitalizing on difficulty, I don’t mean to imply you’ve endured or will endure anything as harsh as Dickens’ ordeal. I’m just hoping to help you appreciate the motivating power of your challenging experiences.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Maybe you feel that the ongoing pandemic has inhibited your ability to explore and deepen intimacy to the degree that you would like. But even if that’s the case, the coming weeks will provide openings that could soften and remedy your predicament. So be extra receptive and alert to the clues that life reveals to you. And call on your imagination to look for previously unguessed and unexpected ways to reinvent togetherness and tenderness. Let’s call the next three weeks your Season of Renewing Rapport.

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SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

LIVE, LOVE, LAUGH Fun, fit, outgoing, active woman who loves to laugh and live every day to the max! Love traveling, fine dining, live music, dancing, kayaking and skiing!

I’m looking for a true gentleman who is educated, fit, and emotionally and financially secure to share similar interests! LightKC, 61, seeking: M

LUCKY IN LOVE AND NICARAGUA I loved being married. Sadly, he died young.

I own gorgeous land in Nicaragua and want a partner to develop it with me as an artist/surfer retreat (as soon as we get rid of the small problem of a dictator killing his own people). A perfect life is Vermont in summer and Nica in winter,but only with a terrific man. W, 72, seeking: M, l

NERDY SNOWBOARDER SEEKS REAL LOVE I’m loving life in Vermont and looking for that someone special to share it with.

Not really interested in casual dating, because I find it to be a waste of time. A secure, committed relationship is what I’m dreaming of. I also need someone who will tolerate my nerdy side and be willing to play a board game with me. ShredBetty, 32, seeking: W, l

ARE YOU SEARCHING, TOO? Seeking kind, adventurous 60ish man who likes camping, fishing, walks, sunsets and Maine. I would like a partner who can surprise me with “Let’s go...” and off we go. I’m a true Vermont gal who needs adventure. Let’s have fun. BoredCat, 57, seeking: M, l

THINKING ABOUT IT...

Probably everyone thinks they’re smart, funny, and reasonably good-looking, so no news there. So, what I hope to find: a reader, thinker — someone who likes movies, theater, museums, travel, music, conversation, and the Oxford comma. Three years into widowhood, I realize I could really use someone to share experiences with. The range of those experiences would have to be explored. ZanninVT, 67, seeking: M, l FEMININE, FIT, FUN-LOVING FOREST WOMAN If the sun is shining, you’ll find me outdoors. If I’m indoors pursuing my artwork or piano, it must be raining.

Silent sports, camping and canoeing.

Swimming every day. Looking for a fit and active outdoorsman. I’d like to see if we can become best friends and then take it from there. Charley, 67, seeking: M, l SLIGHTLY STIR-CRAZY QUARANTINED WOMAN HERE! You: Zoom, dogs, cats, coffee, politics, companionship, early morning walks, sometimes hilarious, well-read, sexy, love good food, good books, outdoors and good women. Me: artist, Zoom, dogs, cats, critters, flowers, herbs, veggies, politics, good conversation, sometimes quiet, sometimes raucous, funny, sexy, love good food, good books, outdoors, mountains, conversation, hiking, skiing, touching. Looking for you. Lisarezz, 63, seeking: M, l REALLY? ME? THANKS! I love to make people laugh, and squirm, and wonder! I carry a six-foot stick to make people wonder ... and squirm. I’m overly fond of punctuation. Widowhood and viruses stink. 2020 was meant to be a year of new beginnings. Wanna suck some coffee through a cotton mask and give it a try? Boodles, 69, seeking: M COUNTRY GIRL ON THE WATER I’m passionate about being outside.

Walking, hiking, snowshoeing, paddling, horseback riding. I love food, going out or staying in. Wood fires on a snowy night.

Family time. Conversation about anything interesting. I’m enjoying renovating my house. I love Vermont but enjoy traveling.

Woodburygirl, 56, seeking: M, l

ENJOY LIFE TO THE FULLEST I enjoy gardening, animals and reading, and I split my own wood (electric splitter).

I love cooking and contra dancing, and I have a new hobby: shape note singing. countrygirl1, 77, seeking: M, l OUTDOORSY, HONEST, HEALTHY MUSIC LOVER Hi there! I’m an optimistic, funny, smart, nature- and animal-loving kind of gal.

Spending time together with someone who makes you smile, and has your back, is a gift. I’m a world traveler who has recently returned to Vermont. I am looking for a friend first to enjoy life and Vermont. If it turns into something more, bonus! Bella2020, 62, seeking: M, l INSIGHTFUL, CREATIVE, ADVENTUROUS Outdoorsy, attractive brunette. Poet, explorer of spirituality and personal growth, lover of nature. I love hiking, paddling, exploring new mountains, towns and ideas with others ... feeling what we’re drawn to along the way, sharing thoughts and impressions. Fairly flexible and easygoing.

Healthy minded; not big into alcohol, not into drugs. Waterpoet, 57, seeking: M, l

MEN seeking...

STRONG, LOYAL, NOBLE, MODEST MAN I’m Brian from Barre, Vt. Just moved back to town after living in Santa Monica, Calif. Loyal is probably the word that describes me best. My word is my bond.

I’m interested in all different relationships with a woman: friends with benefits, casual or serious long term. Let’s meet for coffee and see where it goes from there.

Judeisthe14unow, 60, seeking: W, l WIDE OPEN, ADVENTUROUS, SPONTANEOUS I recently moved back to Vermont, leaving a seven-year relationship that was like dating my mom. I want to be single, meet someone who is cool with a friends with benefits thing, let me spoil them and go home, do my own thing ‘til we meet again. I’m a closet freak. Email me, and let’s see where it goes. Tannerlove35, 35, seeking: M, W, TM, TW, Q, Cp, l HIGH ADVENTURE Adventurous, compassionate, good disposition. Positive (the glass is full).

Highly active. Love life and the great outdoors. Seek sweetness, chemistry and exploration. Mountains, 67, seeking: W

GENTLE MALE NEEDING LOVE Sane, humorous, kindhearted romantic.

Looking for a LTR. No one-night stands.

Companionship is a reality that would be nice. Retired and now relaxing to pursue gentle, sane person. Rutdavevt, 66, seeking: M, TM, TW, Q, Cp, Gp, l DREAMY BOY WANTS A LADY I’m 6’, blond, thin, and I would love to meet and romance a fun lady (age is not a problem; I’ll bring out the girl in you) for one-time or recurring meetings. Please be naughty, eager to please and vivacious.

LetmeEntertainU, 26, seeking: W, Cp TERPSICHOREAN EJECTAMENTA Hello! They say the early bird gets the worm. I’d trade my worm for a sweet female partner who enjoys gardening and intelligent conversation.

Vermonstah802, 46, seeking: W, l LOVING, FUNNY, COMPASSIONATE, HONEST I am not looking to get laid — at least not right away, LOL. I want a friend and maybe a lover/relationship. I’m a foodie and love to cook for others. I am a pro musician, special educator, chef and volunteer. I avoid snobs. I would prefer to hang in jeans and a tee. I love laughing, pranks, spontaneity and irreverence. Nomad, 67, seeking: W, l NEW FUTURE, UNSETTLED/EXCITING! Caring, kind, adventurous, passionate and a little bit funny seeking same (or similar). If you like the outdoors, excellent! If you own a mountain bike, we should be talking! My situation is new and unsettled. A friend to chat with, to hang out with, and who can be open to and patient with my “process” would be really nice.

Maker2020, 47, seeking: W, l MINDFUL MASTURBATION PHONE JO BUDDY Interested in NoFap, semen retention, sexual energy cultivation, edging, healing from porn, meditation and mindful masturbation. I’m looking for an open-minded, discreet phone friend to share this secret side of our lives and possibly stroke together on the phone. If you’re curious or want to talk about your jerk-off habits and relationship with porn, please reach out. spiritbuddy, 45, seeking: M KILLER COUNTRY PIANO MAN Man seeks woman for companionship and property management of large B&B to assuage the wintertime blues. Must like skiing, coffee and Bernese mountain dogs! Get in touch ASAP to learn more! I personally enjoy all kinds of music, food and nature on my 30-acres of wilderness in the NEK. Special preference given to Canadians, but Burl’s OK too. BRB, 35, seeking: W, l BE HAPPY Looking for a woman to date/ friendship that could lead to longterm relationship. I’m an outdoors kind of guy ... hiking, kayaking, gardening, tennis, golf, camping.

Hoping to do more foreign travel (after pandemic calms down). Been to Italy and Greece — would love to return or try a new destination. Try to eat a healthy diet and exercise. activeoptimist, 75, seeking: W, l

FOUR SEASONS MAN LOOKING FOR FUN Hello. I consider myself to be a very open-minded, nonjudgmental, easygoing guy. I’m very well-rounded, a citizen of the world. I’ve been fortunate to travel and experience life. I want to keep experiencing life.

What am I looking for: like-minded people, women or couples who want to enjoy life. Let’s start off meeting and see where time takes us.

Fourseasonsman, 53, seeking: W, Cp, l HANDSOME I am looking for someone who can make me happy and who loves to have fun. I am a loving, caring person. My hobby is woodcrafting. I love to listen to music and sing. Fun things I like to do are camping, fishing, going for walks. I like to listen to classic country music.

StarmanJohnny67, 53, seeking: W, l LET’S HAVE FUN Let’s think about this: We meet up, have a good time, get married and have two children. Five years down the road, we begin to fight, get a divorce and kids are unhappy. Or we meet up, have a good time and hook up. I wear a condom, and one of us does the walk of shame ... Just think about the kids.

Hiprocket69, 49, seeking: W, Gp, l

TRANS WOMEN seeking...

IS THERE ANY HOPE? I’ve been a closeted trans ever since childhood, but just six months into transition now, at 64. So many regrets. Life has not been kind.

Wondering if there’s anyone out there who can love me for who I am, and let me love them for who they are.

I’m legally female now, and never going back. Are you interested?

LaydeeBird, 64, seeking: M, l SUBMISSIVE SEEKING...

Looking to expand my experiences.

I am open to many different scenes and roles. tina1966, 54, seeking: W, TW, Q, NC, NBP, Cp, Gp GENEROUS, OPEN, EASYGOING Warm, giving trans female with an abundance of yum to share (and already sharing it with lovers) seeks ecstatic connection for playtimes, connections, copulations, exploration and generally wonderful occasional times together. Clear communication, a willingness to venture into the whole self of you is wanted. Possibilities are wide-ranging: three, four, explorations, dreaming up an adventure are on the list! DoubleUp, 63, seeking: Cp, l

COUPLES seeking...

COUPLE LOOKING TO PLAY My soulmate/best friend and I are looking to add some spice. He is bicurious; she is bi. We have an open relationship, but anything extra is done together. If you are open to some fun, we’d love to hear from you. For personal reasons, we won’t put a pic, but we will send you one if we talk.

Meandmybestie, 46, seeking: Cp SWINGER COUPLE Couple in early 50s looking to have fun with a male partner. Husband likes to watch but also join in. Wife is a knockout little hottie who likes to cut loose. Looking for a male between 40 and 50 for some serious adult fun. Only well-hung men need apply — at least nine inches, please. Spaguy, 52, seeking: M, Gp

i SPY

If you’ve been spied, go online to contact your admirer!

dating.sevendaysvt.com

LEDDY PARK BEACH We met at the beach with my lady-killer baby bloodhound, and I was falling in love at first sight so I bumbled words and didn’t get your number. When: Thursday, June 25, 2020. Where: Leddy Park.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915080 AMOR (IN THE NIGHT SKY) You are in my dreams almost every night. You slip away from me in every dream, though, just as you did in real life. I so wish you would drift back to me regardless of the past.

Remember the red thread. We’ll always be connected. If you see this, please text me a heart. When: Sunday, June 28, 2020. Where: in my dreams.

You: Man. Me: Man. #915079 PLAINFIELD CO-OP SANSKRIT TATTOO MAN You were 6’ in front of me, waiting outside in line around 7:30. You had a blond braid and gray yoga pants on. I was in brown pants and a black tank top on a motorcycle. You asked about my tattoo, and we talked briefly about MIA book by CT. Talk sometime?

Motorcycle ride? When: Thursday, June 25, 2020. Where: Plainfield Co-op.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915078 RICHMOND POST OFFICE, FRIENDLY NEIGHBOR? You: female, pretty strawberry-blond long hair and glasses, dark flowered dress, friendly smile. Me: male, tall, short dark hair, Yankees baseball cap.

You live down the block from me by the market, and we keep seeing each other at/by the post office and saying hi. Care to meet? When: Thursday, June 18, 2020. Where: Richmond Post Office. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915077

COLLEGE ST., YOU FOLLOWING ME You: beautiful dark-haired woman who was walking behind me on College. We caught eyes as I stopped suddenly to enter a building. I froze and I didn’t say anything, as I was late and trying to find my building. I have regretted it since not talking to you.

Me: dark, curly hair, wearing a hat with big beard. When: Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Where: College St. and St. Paul.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915076 HONEY HOLLOW SMILES Was with my pup doing our thing as we came across you doing your own thing around 12:30. We exchanged glances and smiles a couple times as you climbed up beyond sight, and you’ve been on my mind. Care to do our own thing together sometime? From a socially safe distance, of course. When: Sunday, June 21, 2020. Where: Honey Hollow.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915074 BIKE PATH DETOUR, LAKESIDE Passed you at the Lakeside RR bridge as you were heading for the beach and said hi. You: in a purple bikini and orange fishnet cover. Me: office nerd out for lunch. Want to find a shady spot by the water to chat? When: Thursday, June 18, 2020. Where: Lakeside RR bridge.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915073 DELI CASE CHAT We were both getting sandwiches from Sweet Clover Market. We chatted about what’s good (everything). You recommended the quiche and egg rolls, and I said I like the samosas and peanut noodle salad. I’m intrigued. Care to chat more? When: Tuesday, June 16, 2020. Where: Sweet Clover Market.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915072

MATTY Hey, does anyone know a guy named Matty? Mid- to late thirties white guy? If so, will you please show this to him? Matty, we met on Rose Street last summer while I was walking with my son, but we started smiling at each other from way down the street.

I’m single now. When: Sunday, June 16, 2019. Where: Rose Street.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915071 BRANCHES COVERED STOP SIGN 13:30ish. Not sure if you were South Burlington or Williston. I was too distracted by your ink and your eyes.

And you had black leather gloves on, so I couldn’t tell if there was a ring.

We were driving a small commercial van. The driver would like to buy you a drink. When: Monday, June 15, 2020.

Where: Gregory/Kimball intersection.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915070 USPS SPECIAL DELIVERY You delivered my Amazon package by USPS. We were cordial, but you were the special delivery. I was totally not prepared for company and looked like I had slept for five days. It is quarantine ... but I promise I clean up. Zebra PJs. Purple hair. You are probably 5’8, brown hair, clean cut. Sweet, professional. You can deliver to me anytime. When: Monday, June 15, 2020. Where: Colchester.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915069 NICE MOTORCYCLE You were behind me on the road in front of St. Mike’s driving a silver car and rocking a cute septum piercing.

You yelled “Nice bike” to me and then pulled up alongside me to say it again. I’d like to take you for a ride.

What do ya say? When: Sunday, June 14, 2020. Where: Winooski.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915068 APPLESAUCE...

I gave you my heart, my soul and my life. I would have saved or burned the world for you ... with you. But you’re afraid of the fire, the pain that comes from truly holding another close, and being engulfed. I’ll never stop loving you, but I need to matter ... to you, but also to myself. —Always your waffles. When: Sunday, June 14, 2020. Where: on the shores of another life. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915065

Ask REVEREND Dear Stoner Boner, 

Irreverent counsel on life’s conundrums

Dear Reverend,

I like to smoke pot. It often makes me horny, and I masturbate. The only problem is that sometimes the marijuana makes me paranoid, and I think my neighbors can see me. Am I crazy?

Stoner Boner (MALE, 23)

There’s nothing wrong with a little weed whackin’. Cannabis has been used for thousands of years as a libido booster.

Among other things, it is included in the Indian Ayurvedic philosophy of medicine and is also used in tantric sex rituals.

THC can overexcite your neural pathways and cause anxiety and paranoia. A strain with a higher level of that psychoactive ingredient is more likely to cause that reaction. Perhaps

CITY MARKET EMPLOYEE Petite, blond City Market employee.

Would love to chat, but it’s kind of rude to while you are trying to work.

If you think this might be you, and you are at all intrigued, send me a message. When: Sunday, June 14, 2020. Where: City Market. You: Woman. Me: Man. #915067

SHORT HAIR, LONG SWEATER AT WALGREENS You made me smile a few times under my mask! Almost bumped into you. Maybe we will again. :) When: Tuesday, June 9, 2020.

Where: Burlington Walgreens.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915062

UMALL MAILMAN Saw you at the mall this afternoon with your arms wrapped around some boxes.

I’d like a better look at those gorgeous tattoos you’ve got. When: Friday, June 12, 2020. Where: University Mall.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915064 YOUR NAME WAS ECHO You helped me out on June 9, and you caught my eye (even with a mask on).

Let me know if you are interested in connecting. When: Wednesday, June 10, 2020. Where: at their workplace.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915063 SATURDAY MANSFIELD HIKER GAL You asked my friend and me how far to the top of Mansfield via Sunset trail while we were running down. I joked that it was right around the corner.

Sorry, it definitely wasn’t. :) How about an Oakledge sunset drink sometime?

When: Sunday, June 7, 2020. Where: Sunset Ridge Trail, Mount Mansfield.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915061 OUTBACK BARTENDER You waited on us this past winter. You were so nice and helpful. You had a black Dickies shirt on that held pens.

We never got your name. We just heard Outback is not reopening and thought you might be a perfect fit for an admin job we had. Let us know if you are interested. When: Friday, January 3, 2020. Where: Outback Steakhouse.

You: Woman. Me: Woman. #915060 MR. POST OFFICE VACUUMER You were vacuuming the post office lobby early Monday morning while I was mailing a few letters. We joked that we startled each other.

You seemed very friendly and kind.

Could we meet again for coffee and conversation? When: Monday, June 1, 2020. Where: North Burlington Post Office. You: Man. Me: Man. #915059

you should try switching to something that has higher levels of CBD, which would help relax you. Or you can stick with your preferred kind and mix in some smokable CBD or edibles.

There are so many strains of weed on the market these days, a hybrid could be just what you’re looking for. When properly dosed, indica is known to heighten your sensitivity to touch, while sativa is good

YOU LOVE TO GARDEN… I like cooking it. Waiting in line to get into Middlebury Aubuchon. You showed me pictures of your garden and gave me your address. I forgot it. You are very interesting. Would like to talk again. When: Friday, May 29, 2020. Where: Middlebury.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915058 AUTOMASTER SERVICE BENCH, NOON, THURSDAY You: black Nike hat, white T-shirt, black shorts, tall, killer smile. Liked my silver sports car parked next to your bench while you waited for a ride. Amanda? We chatted about mask protocols, cars, your Civic. You asked where I lived (across the pond) and what my name was. Escape the virus on an ADK convertible tour?

Dogs in the park? When: Thursday, May 28, 2020. Where: Automaster service/parts outside waiting area.

You: Woman. Me: Man. #915057 CITY MARKET CRUSH I’m far too shy to ask you out, it seems, so my best bet might just be writing to you instead. I know you’ve seen me in person in line at CM, at Battery Park during sunset and occasionally on the city streets. You’re just too cute for me to ignore. Look for me next wearing a sequined floral hat. When: Tuesday, May 26, 2020. Where: City Market/Battery Park. You: Woman.

Me: Nonbinary person. #915056 CUTE GUY, CM PARKING LOT To the guy who locked eyes with me in the parking lot and then said “Cute dog”: I froze in the moment and said thank you, but I wanted to say that you were cute. Grab a coffee from a distance sometime? I had the brown Tacoma; you had a white Silverado. When: Sunday, May 24, 2020. Where: South End City Market.

You: Man. Me: Woman. #915055

for opening the mind to new sexual possibilities. Don’t be shy; ask your dealer for suggestions.

As long as you’re not playing fiveon-one right in front of a window, chances are really good that your neighbors aren’t watching you. But you might as well have a little fun with that idea and try out a little reversevoyeur fantasy.

Marijuana and masturbation both have numerous health benefits, so keep on tokin’ and chokin’.

Good luck and God bless,

The Reverend What’s your problem?

Send it to asktherev@sevendaysvt.com.

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

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Internet-Free Dating!

I’m a 38-y/o male seeking a 30to 40-y/o female. I’m looking for love before I turn 40 years.

Could you be the one? I’m into poetry, music, trying new food and drink, deep conversation, and walks by the lake. I hope you’ll give me the chance to be your man. #1410 I’m a 58-y/o SWM seeking female 50 to 60 years old for companionship and fun! I enjoy hiking, biking, skiing, art and photography, good food and drink. Ideal F would be intelligent, compassionate, able to communicate. #L1409

I’m a guy seeking a male or female. Very caring, positive person looking for a running partner for runs. I can adapt and am now doing from six to 13 miles a run. Run on scenic roads. I’m 5’9, 155 pounds.

Middle-aged, politically left creative writer who loves philosophy and poetry, as well. #L1414

Gay white male looking for hookups, maybe more; see where it goes. 5’10 and a half, dark brown hair, good looking, brown eyes, slender. I clean and do windows for a living and run a rescue for animals and give them a forever home, so you have to be an animal lover.

If you replied already, please contact me again. #L1412

48-y/o single male seeking 45- to 50-y/o single female who is kind, creative and health-minded. I enjoy the arts, writing, reading, vegan food, trail running, mountain biking and road trips. Seeking a woman for dating and friendship. #L1413

I’m a 34-y/o simple guy seeking a 30- to 45-y/o male.

Good-looking with a good job. Looking for my partner in crime. Must love pets, going out, chilling at home. But have your life in order. Masculine guys preferred. #L1411

HOW TO REPLY TO THESE LOVE LETTERS: Seal your reply — including your preferred contact info — inside an envelope. Write your penpal’s box number on the outside of that envelope and place it inside another envelope with payment. Responses for Love Letters must begin with the #L box number.

MAIL TO: Seven Days Love Letters

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PUBLISH YOUR MESSAGE ON THIS PAGE!

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We’ll publish as many messages as we can in the Love Letters section above.

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Interested readers will send you letters in the mail. No internet required!

SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

I’m a 31-y/o woman seeking a fun and energetic 31- to 38y/o man. I’m seeking a Godbelieving, Christian faith-based man. I don’t drink or smoke.

I like to go dancing, listen to music, travel. #L1408

Reply to these messages with real, honest-to-goodness letters. DETAILS BELOW. I’m a GWM seeking GWM. Into everything except anal. Many interests including railroading and astrology. #L1405 Dirty old man seeks dirty old lady. Watching dirty movies.

Dirty in bed. Dirty minded.

Love kissing and oral. Alone and single. Age/race, no problem. #1404 59-y/o submissive GM. Looking for someone to enjoy times with. #L1403

I’m a 59-y/o male seeking a male or female age 40 to 80 who is a nudist. Want company in the woods in northern Vermont. #L1407

I’m a 79-y/o retired teacher seeking a mature lady who can help operate a guesthouse together and enjoys gardening, nature walks and traveling. Nonsmoker. #L1402

I’m a 61-y/o woman. Aquarian INFJ Reiki master looking to be part of or create a spiritual, artistic, self-sufficient community further south. Seeks kind, open-minded, gentle kindred spirits, lightworkers, starseeds to explore life’s mysteries and help each other.

Cat lovers very welcome! #L1406

I’m a 58-y/o woman seeking a mature 30- to 45-y/o male who likes a no-nonsense, worldly life “off the grid” and outside the lower 48. Fast and furious or slow and easy.

Nothing in between. Only honest, fun-loving, industrious and adventurous men need apply. #L1401

Spring has sprung. Looking for guys to enjoy the change of season. I’m fun and intelligent, with varied interests. I like everything; mostly sub, but not always. No text/email. I want to talk with you. Central Vermont. Bears are a plus. #L1400 A lady in jeans / prefers meat to beans / in the fall of life / not anyone’s wife / locally organic / not into panic / cooks on fire / Computer’s on a wire / well trained in art / a generous heart / spiritually deep / easy to keep. I’m a W, 52, seeking M. #L1399 GWM in late 60s, very friendly, honest, caring and understanding. I’m retired, home alone, and it is very lonesome. It’s been a long winter. Looking for a friend who can help me out once in a while. I don’t look or act my age at all. I have been recouping from surgery. I can tell you more later if you write.

Should have a car. Live in central Vermont. #L1398

Describe yourself and who you’re looking for in 40 words below:

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THIS FORM IS FOR LOVE LETTERS ONLY. Messages for the Personals and I-Spy sections must be submitted online at dating.sevendaysvt.com.

“One could write a book about why shopping local is so important.

When you shop at one of our bookstores, the money keeps recirculating in the local economy, because our staff patronizes farmers markets, restaurants and many other local retailers. National shopping websites don’t employ any local people, nor do they give back to our vital nonprofit organizations.”

MICHAEL DESANTO OWNER, PHOENIX BOOKS

Take a break from the big guys and support local first.

Vermont merchants have faced mandatory store closures and other challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even as some open back up, others operate online only.

All need your support.

WITH GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM:

PICTURED: PHOENIX BOOKS, 191 BANK ST., BURLINGTON, PHOENIXBOOKS.BIZ (JAMES BUCK)

1T-Register062420.indd 1

Visit the Register for all the info on area shopkeepers who are selling their products online for local delivery or curbside pickup.

Browse by categories ranging from jewelry to electronics, outdoor gear to apparel.

Whether you need something for yourself or that perfect gift for a loved one, shop savvy and keep Vermont strong.

SHOP T HE R EGIS T E R .C OM SEVEN DAYS JULY 1-8, 2020

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