MONDAY EDITION
ADDISON COUNTY
INDEPENDENT
Vol. 30 No. 48
Middlebury, Vermont
Monday, April 15, 2019
32 Pages
$1.00
After walk, climate activists intensify calls for action Fancy faculty footwork
• Middlebury College dance teachers are choreographing a Thursday performance. See Arts Beat on Pages 10-13.
By CHRISTOPHER ROSS MONTPELIER — At the conclusion of the five-day, 65-mile Next Steps Climate Solutions walk last Tuesday, Ashley Bolger and Clarissa Sprague visited Vermont House Speaker Mitzi Johnson in her Statehouse office and begged her to take action on climate change. Speaker Johnson told them it was great to work in a state where
people “really, really care” about the issue. “I talk to other speakers of other states that are, you know, not even saying the words ‘climate change’ in their chamber because of the denial that’s going on out there,” she said. But it was precisely because those words seem to have inspired so little consideration (to say nothing
of legislative action) from Johnson that Bolger and Sprague had come. Since the speaker’s Jan. 9 remarks opening the current legislative session, in which she insisted “we cannot ignore the opportunity to make progress on an issue that will have lasting impact on generations to come,” the words “climate change” have never once appeared in her office’s posted press releases.
Neri targets opening of Greg’s store for mid-May
Holy Week
• See a directory of religious services at Addison County and Brandon houses of worship on Page 7.
Local rivals meet in early going • The Vergennes baseball team hosted Middlebury on Saturday. See what happened on Pages 19-20.
On March 15, when 150 Vermont students marched to the Statehouse as part of a worldwide Climate Strike, many of them left with the impression that climate change was not a high priority for Johnson or her fellow Democrats, according to the Montpelier-Barre Times-Argus. Author and climate activist Bill McKibben summed up some of (See Climate laws, Page 14)
Little groove
MADELINE SMITH DANCES in the Mary Hogan School gym in Middlebury this past Monday morning during a performance by a quartet of local blues musicians that included a classmate’s grandfather. The preschool staged the dance party to mark “The Month of the Young Child.” See more photos on Page 18. Independent photo/Steve James
By JOHN FLOWERS MIDDLEBURY — Local businessman Tony Neri is targeting May 15 for reopening the longdormant Greg’s Meat Market at 3 Elm St. in Middlebury, and that’s just one of the entrepreneurial irons the 78-year-old currently has in the fire. Neri has also applied for permission from the Middlebury Development Review Board to repair and expand the former Desabrais Laundry headquarters at 55 Middle Road and divide it into as many as four spaces for “mixed-commercial ventures,” including potentially retail stores, a restaurant, or even a small brewery. GREG’S TO REOPEN Few business projects have (See Greg’s, Page 21)
Students tuned into the past ANWSD pupils and teacher win Vt. History Day honors City to replace its old salt shed
• A major grant will help pay for a roof that will keep salt from spilling into Otter Creek. See Page 2.
By ANDY KIRKALDY VERGENNES — Vergennes-area students have a long track record of participation and excellence in the annual Vermont History Day competition under the tutelage of two now-retired teachers, Cookie Steponaitis from Vergennes Union High School and Kathy Douglas from Ferrisburgh Central. But by 2018 only one Addison Northwest School District student, Jarret Muzzy, then a VUHS freshman, placed at the annual competition for middle and high school students. This year ANWSD teams and students — 13 in all — collectively came away with five prizes at the April 6 competition at the University of Vermont, and one, Ferrisburgh 6th-grader Maggie Amerson, qualified to compete in
Washington, D.C, in June for her documentary, “The Pirate Queen: The Story of Ching Shih.” They competed against 400 students from around Vermont. And about twice as many ANWSD students as in 2018 — 19 total — signed up this year to meet once a week at the Vergennes Union Elementary School classroom of 6th-grade social studies and language arts teacher Josh Brooks to prepare projects for Vermont History Day. This year Brooks, who has been working with Vermont History Day students for three years, was joined by VUHS social studies department chairwoman Becca Coffey to co-coach the students in the program, which for the first time was offered by the ANWSD after-school Fusion program. And the students weren’t the only winners: The Vermont Historical Society, which oversees Vermont History Day, nominated Brooks as (See History Day, Page 14)
VUES Teacher Josh Brooks