Williston
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Permit #15 Williston,VT 05495 POSTAL CUSTOMER
JULY 20, 2023
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
Board approves logging contract for Catamount BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Roughly 1,200 trees surrounding Catamount Community Forest’s most popular biking, hiking and skiing trails will be cut down in September as part of a forest management demonstration led by Chittenden County Forester Ethan Tapper. The Williston Selectboard finalized a contract with Tapper and Orleans-based Lafoe Logging earlier this month to do the work. The project will be confined to about 25 acres of the 400-acre town-owned forest. “It’s only 6 percent of the land at Catamount but it’s the 6 percent that is most used,” said John Atkinson, executive director of the Catamount Outdoor Family Center that manages the trails to provide recreational programming for the town. “It’s the area where our most popular trails are.” Tapper said he chose the highest-use acreage partly as a way to increase the visibility of the project. He has already marked all the trees that will be taken, posted signs explaining the project and led public walks in the forest to educate people about it. “There is a massive benefit to showcasing responsible forest management — and what healthy forests truly look like — in a highly-visible area,” Tapper said. “I hope that this will help empower people to better understand our forest and what it means to care for them.” The project is a part of an international forestry research effort called “Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change.” It is an attempt to demonstrate how biodiversity and ecological integrity can be protected on a warming planet. It’s being undertaken with UVM forestry
program chair Tony D’Amato. The idea is that removing older trees will stimulate the growth of new species, increasing species diversity and forest resiliency. In order to enhance the research opportunity, the foresters will compare the area over years to an undisturbed control plot in the forest, as well as a plot at the nearby UVM-owned Talcott Woods. “As this area regenerates,” Tapper said, “it will show people how much more abundant and full of life this forest will become as a result of this work — that nothing is being lost, that as a result of this the forest will be enriched.” The removal of the trees is expected to take less than two weeks. Atkinson and the Catamount Outdoor Family Center Board of Directors hope to keep some of the project area open for recreation during that time if it safe to do so. September is prime mountain biking season at the center. The logger may be able to work half the project area at a time, keeping one half open for trail use, Atkinson said. Another option is to reopen trails in the evening, after logging activity has stopped for the day. “We’re trying to keep the trails open as much as possible,” Atkinson said. “Safety is obviously super important and we’re not trying to ignore that, but if they are not working and nothing is falling then we should be able to be out there.” Atkinson has a lot of confidence in Lafoe Logging due to its previous work in high-use recreational trail networks, such as the Cady Hill Forest in Stowe and at the Trapp Family Lodge. Tapper notes that Lafoe recently won the “Outstanding Logger Award” from the Vermont Forest Products Association and the “Northeast Region Outstanding see LOGGING page 16
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Verizon has proposed to install antennas in the steeple of the Old Brick Church to improve cell phone service in Williston. OBSERVER FILE PHOTO BY SUSAN COTE
Verizon seeks space in Old Brick Church
Historic landmark could be key to improving Village cell service BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Williston Village is a notorious cell phone black hole. Help may be on the way, but it will take changes to the Old Brick Church to make it happen. “People think the only place it happens is out in the country somewhere, but we are here in the Village and we have no cell service,” said North Williston Road resident Carmyn Stanko. Verizon has made a proposal to the town that, according to its representative Andrew Davis of SAI Communications, will greatly improve service in the Village. Plans call for antennas to be installed in the steeple of the church and an equipment storage shed to be built off the back as part of
“It would not be my first preference to choose a historical building.” Andrew Davis SAI Communications
a $24,000-a-year lease with the town. The selectboard has so far been supportive. “I think there are a lot of Verizon users who would be very happy if we get this in,” board member Jeanne Jensen said. Stanko said she would switch from AT&T to Verizon if the project makes her cell phone functional. She currently uses voice-over-internet technology to make calls through her home’s wifi signal. If her power goes out, however, she loses the ability to
make a call — an unnerving reality. The same situation exists at the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston Federated Church and Williston Central School. Communicating with cell phones in these buildings can only be done via wifi. “We work around it but there definitely is an impact,” Library Director Jane Kearns said. The library’s wifi allows patrons and staff to use their phones, but when the library goes mobile, with Dottie the Bookmobile for example, the lack of service comes into play. “There are neighborhoods where we have no service, the ones closest to the library, so we have to do (circulation tracking) manually, then we have to put it into the database when we get back to the library,” Kearns said. At Village Community Park, see CHURCH page 16