The Citizen - 2-2-23

Middlebury Players

Actors earnestly take on Wilde’s classic play

Page 7

Hinesburg’s $4.7 million budget tries to keep costs down

Comes with 3.6 percent tax increase

COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER

The Hinesburg Selectboard last week warned a vote for Town Meeting Day on its $4.7 million budget, which includes a relatively low tax increase yet was not approved unanimously by the board.

The town’s fiscal year 2024 budget, totaling $4,798,710, includes little in the way of spending increases — only 0.25 percent, according to town manager Todd Odit — as the town aims to try and

keep expenses stable amid declining non-tax revenues.

“Committees have requested things and we all heard that at our budget meetings, (but) a lot of those were not granted because we’re really trying to keep costs down,” Merrily Lovell, chair of the selectboard, said. “A lot of those were just level funded from last year.”

“We’ve heard from more than one person begging us to keep the budget low and keep the taxes low

See BUDGET on page 10

Charlotte receives $13,600 bylaw modernization grant

Charlotte received a $13,600 bylaw modernization grant to increase housing and affordability within the town’s two village centers.

The town plans to use tte grant to do a deep dive into its land use regulations to identify and remove zoning barriers and evaluate needed infrastructure to enable higher density development — including affordable housing — in its two historic villages, reads the grant application.

The town received an audit of

Climate play

Plays tours all 252 Vermont towns to help environment Page 9

its zoning bylaws from Chittenden County Regional Planning in November that highlighted many obstacles to building housing, “some of which don’t really seem to be tied to anything logical,” town planner Larry Lewack said. “Members of our planning commission decided that we really have quite a bit of work ahead of us. We need help to get through that process of taking those recommendations from regional planning to heart and attacking all the places in our current land use regulations which are, frankly,

See GRANT on page 10

PHOTO BY AL FREY

Alex Montgomery battles for the rebound in the CVU girls’ basketball game against South Burlington Jan. 26. More sports on page 8.

Just out of reach

LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER

Pouech resigns as selectboard to devote time to Statehouse

Library trustee will run for seat to serve out term

COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER

Newly elected state representative Phil Pouech is resigning from the selectboard after 12 years of service.

The former chair of the selectboard, Pouech has served more than four terms on the board, but after being elected to Hinesburg’s House seat in November, said he would not have enough time to dedicate to both bodies.

“Once I started serving as the representative, it became very apparent that I really wouldn’t have the time to be a selectboard member,” he said. “I just need to focus — I just have to put to 100 percent of my time into the Statehouse.”

Pouech, who was appointed to

the House Committee on Transportation, said he will remain on the Green Mountain Transit board — “the commitment is less, and I can support them in both roles, I think.”

He’ll remain on the selectboard until Town Meeting Day.

With one year left in the term, residents will have to vote for his replacement in March, although there aren’t many options for voters to choose from.

Only one person submitted petitions for the vacated seat, and that was after he had discovered on Friday afternoon that no one had yet.

Paul Lamberson’s nine years as a trustee on the Carpenter Carse Library “certainly would have been sufficient” for his public service to the town, but after

discovering no one was running, said he decided to step up because “it’s important that somebody ran for the seat.”

He’s previously served as a school board member and has been a longtime trustee with the library. He plans to run for a fourth term as a library trustee.

Luckily, there is no conflict of interest between the two roles as voters approve the library budget separate from the town’s general budget.

Barring a massive write-in campaign, it seems likely he’ll win and serve the one-year term. But he doesn’t intend to run again. “By all means, if anybody else is interested a year from now, I’ll heartily support them,” he said.

A resident since 1996, he says he’s “maybe missed one town

High levels of PFAs detected near landfill

Phil Pouech

meeting since then and was able to benefit from watching some old timers ask really good questions.”

“I look forward to being able to

provide that same level of scrutiny and professionalism to everything that comes before the selectboard,” he said.

Contamination found at two more homes in Hinesburg

COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER

High levels of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances — or PFAS — have been found in the drinking water of two more residential homes near the town’s landfill on Observatory Road in Hinesburg, town officials said.

A shallow dug well serving two residential properties on Forests

Edge and Beecher Hill roads was found to have a PFAs rate above the state’s 20 parts per trillion, which is considered an acceptable level, town officials said.

The new discovery comes about a year and half after two wells in the same area, serving the town garage and another private residence on Forests Edge Road, were found in July 2021 to have high levels of methtylene chloride

and PFAS — both carcinogens. The latter has been linked human endocrine disruption and kidney and testicular cancer.

“We really need to look at what we’re going to do here,” selectboard member Dennis Place said at the town’s Jan. 18 meeting, suggesting the town reach out to the state or Gov. Phil Scott’s office for assistance. “People are getting very nervous. It’s really serious —

it’s people’s health and the values of their homes.”

The town, since the detection this month, has been providing the two residential homes with drinking water and will continue to do so until water treatment systems are installed, Joy Dubin Grossman, the assistant town manager, said.

The point-of-entry treatment systems, or POET systems, will

cost the city roughly $11,000 to install and maintain on both property’s water lines, she said. Each system will cost the town anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 to maintain, but it is unclear when those will be installed.

The town paid similar amounts for those systems on the town garage and the other residential home last year.

Hinesburg paid Stone Environmental $21,425 in May to conduct monitoring of drinking water, and well and surface water testing at the site to monitor for PFAS, toxic metals including arsenic, cadmium and chromium, and other potentially dangerous substances.

While neither the town nor the state can definitively confirm the source of the contamination, it very likely originated from the closed landfill on Observatory Road, just north of the contaminated wells, state officials have said previously.

See WATER on page 16

Our headline last week about the Charlotte budget should have said spending is going up by nearly 16 percent, not 30 percent.

Lawmakers pursue overhaul of Vermont’s child care system

AARON CALVIN AND LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITERS

Armed with a report offering definitive paths forward and a Democratic supermajority, legislators are searching for the way forward when it comes to addressing problems with Vermont’s child care system.

As lawmakers contemplate options, workers and advocates in the industry are urging them to look beyond temporary solutions and pursue industry-redefining policy changes.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the unsustainable and inadequate child care options available to Vermont families as many parents and caregivers are increasingly required to spend outsized amounts of their income while workers still go underpaid and without benefits.

Along with housing and climate change, child care has been consistently identified as one of the greatest challenges facing Vermonters, with employers from disparate industries consistently citing it as one of the foremost workforce barriers.

Act 45, passed in 2021, called for a financial analysis to determine how much it might cost to reform the child care system so that Vermonters pay no more than 10 percent of their income for child care while also adequately compensating child care workers and potentially expanding the subsidies currently available to low-income families to middle-class earners.

That study, authored by the RAND Corporation, a policy think tank, was provided to lawmakers last week.

Depending on how comprehensive an overhaul legislators decide to pursue — and what kind of new taxes they decide to raise — the report estimated the cost of an overhaul of the child care system to be somewhere between $179 million and $279 million per year.

Closing the initial gap would mean spending $179 million to $193 million per year to retain the status quo of limiting subsidies to families making three and a half times the poverty level or less. The 2022 poverty level for a family of four was $27,750.

Going even further and subsidizing health care expenses for Vermonters and expanding child care subsidies to middle-class earners would cost $256 million to $279 million per year.

Covering the lower cost would require just a single new tax revenue stream but raising the higher amount and expanding child care

services further would require a bundle of taxes.

New tax options laid out by the RAND study include a near 1 percent payroll tax, a 2-percentage-point increase in the sales tax, a new limited services tax of nearly 10 percent or a new expanded services tax of just over 7 percent, with the payroll tax being the more progressive option and the sales tax option being the most regressive tax.

The study asserted that even instituting a mix of taxes to fund the expansion of child care subsidies to middle class earners, or those whose income is five times the poverty level, would have a “small impact on household well-being,” even while acknowledging that parents with young children make up a relatively small segment of the state’s population.

While expanding child care subsidies would only expand employment by a modest amount, the report said, it could potentially allow a greater number of women, who bear the brunt of inadequate child care options, to join the workforce.

On the ground

Loveworks, located in South Burlington, offers year-round programs for children six weeks old through pre-kindergarten with activities that seek to enhance fine and gross motor skills, language development and social and emotional skills.

Tara Brooks, the school’s director of operations, explained that the greatest need for the school is staffing. The South Burlington location is currently at the max capacity of 58 students, with a waitlist of 30 families and nearly 100 families for its centers located elsewhere in the state.

“We did a wage increase in December for all of our staff,” said Brooks. “That range depending on the staff was anywhere from 5 to 15 percent and we’re still struggling to attract and keep employees in our programs and finding substitutes.”

Loveworks costs families anywhere from $1,200 to $1,800 a month depending on a child’s age with nearly 25 percent of families in the schools utilizing subsidies. But Brooks explained that those subsidies still won’t cover 100

percent of the costs for care.

“We’re constantly analyzing our tuition versus what we can pay our teachers and trying to balance,” she said “We know that parents can only afford so much but there’s a need to offer higher salaries in order to entice the best people in the field. We’re constantly competing with public schools.”

Enduring the same staffing shortage struggles is the Charlotte Children’s Center. The nonprofit was founded in 1984 by a group of local parents and serves children ages 12 weeks through five years old. Public education teacher of 16 years and local parent Kelly Bouteiller took on the role of executive director in August after an intense search for the right candidate.

“Despite a fairly intense search, there was no director to be found,” Bouteiller said. “I had a background in education, and I was so compelled by the dedication of the teachers who love the school so much and take their work so seriously.”

The center currently is at max capacity of 56 with nearly 210 families currently on the waitlist.

“We are consistently understaffed, it’s really tight to try to just get through the day and make sure that we have appropriate staffing to meet state ratios and to provide high quality education for the kids,”’ said Bouteiller. “We have been working under shorten hours because we just do not have the bodies right now.”

Although the child care costs families nearly $1,400 to $1,800 a month depending on their child’s age, Bouteiller explained that with the rising cost of everything, there remains a massive disconnect between what it costs to educate a young child and what it costs to pay their teachers.

Only 7 percent of families utilize child care subsidies, and although this system has been improved Bouteiller said that it still has major flaws.

“Sometimes the amount that the state will pay and what they assign the family’s co-payment to be, when you combine those things, they often still don’t match our tuition rate. So, there’s this gap in

What?

Where? CVU High School 369 CVU Road, Hinesburg, VT

When? February 1 - June 3

How? Register online: Google ACCESS CVU or visit our website: www.cvsdvt.ce.eleyo.com

“We know that parents can only afford so much but there’s a need to offer higher salaries in order to entice the best people in the field.”

— Tara Brooks

Hinesburg Police Blotter

Total incidents: 57

Traffic Stops: 11

Fingerprint checks: 5

Arrests: 0

Jan. 17 at 6:54 p.m., officers responded to the Howard Center on Hawk Lane after a report of a client being abusive to staff members.

Jan. 17 at 10:00 p.m., officers responded to a two-car motor vehicle crash on Richmond Road.

On Jan. 18 at 7:03 a.m., a Beaver Pond Road resident reported a theft from their property.

Jan. 18 at 2:38 p.m., damage was reported at a property at Lyman Meadows.

On Jan.19 at 10:25 a.m., officers responded to a residence on Green Street for a juvenile issue.

Jan. 19 at 2:40 p.m., a motor vehicle complaint on Route 116 was investigated.

Jan. 20 at 10:35 p.m., officers responded to a single car motor vehicle crash on Route 116.

Jan. 21 at 11:25 a.m., A citizen dispute on CVU Road was investigated.

Jan. 21 at 1:20 p.m., suspicious activity on Gilman Road was reported.

Jan. 23 at 9 a.m., officers responded to Champlain Valley Union after threats were made on social media directed at the school.

Bronze level certification

Advertising Wendy Ewing wendy@shelburnenews.com (802) 985-3091 x12

Advertising Director Judy Kearns judy@otherpapersbvt.com (802) 864-6670 x21

Managing Editor Dylan Kelley dylan@stowereporter.com

News Editor Tommy Gardner

Staff Writers

Aaron Calvin Corey McDonald Liberty Darr

Production Manager Stephanie Manning stephanie@shelburnenews.com

Jan. 24 at 8:41 a.m., officers responded to a two-car crash on Route 116.

Jan. 24 at 10:30 a.m., an officer investigated the report of property damage on Commerce Street.

Jan. 24 at 6:10 p.m., officers responded to Hayden Hill West for a custody dispute.

Jan. 24 at 10:50 p.m., suspicious activity on North Road was reported.

Jan. 25 at 5:30 p.m., a vehicle was reported stolen on Hidden Pasture Road.

Jan. 25 at 6:54 p.m., officers responded to a single car crash on Route 116.

Jan. 27 at 2:25 p.m., police investigated a report of fraud.

Jan. 27 at 4:10 p.m., a single car vehicle crash on Pond Brook Road.

Jan. 28 at 10:30 a.m., an unruly customer at a business on Commerce Street brought out police.

Jan. 30 at 9:45 a.m., an officer responded to a two-car vehicle crash on Route 116.

Jan. 30 at 1:40 p.m., police mediated a citizen dispute on Kailey’s Way.

Jan. 30 at 4:30 p.m., officers helped Richmond police at a one-car crash on Hinesburg Road in Richmond.

Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m., an officer assisted a motorist with a disabled vehicle on Route 116.

patients.

Animal attack prompts public rabies warning

A rabid raccoon has been found near the campus of the University of Vermont.

On Jan. 15, Burlington Police said someone encountered an aggressive raccoon near South Prospect Street.

University police located the raccoon, euthanized it, and sent it for testing to the health department, which revealed the animal was infected with the rabies virus.

If you are bitten or scratched by any wildlife or unfamiliar animal, wash the wound thoroughly with soap and water and seek medical attention.

Rabies is a viral disease that is fatal to both humans and animals. In Vermont, rabies is usually found in wild animals. The virus is spread through the bite or scratch of an infected animal. Do not touch or pick up wild

or stray animals — even baby animals — or try to make them into pets. While animals are often less active in winter months, rabies can still spread and is not susceptible to cold temperatures. People in the area are urged to report any aggressive or unusual behavior to local officials and the rabies hotline, 1-800-4-RABIES. Learn more at healthvermont.gov/ rabies.

Editor/Publisher Gregory Popa gpopa@stowereporter.com

Billing inquiries Leslie Lafountain leslie@stowereporter.com (802) 253-2101

Advertising submission deadline: Friday at 5 p.m. advertising@thecitizenvt.com classifieds@thecitizenvt.com

Editorial submission deadline: Friday at 5 p.m. news@thecitizenvt.com

Calendar submission deadline: Friday at 12 p.m. news@thecitizenvt.com

Contact: 1340 Williston Road South Burlington, VT 05403 (802) 985-3091

Dems top legislative issues could end up costing us all

Guest Perspective

John McClaughry

Two months ago, I published a column titled “Return of the Johnstown Flood.” That was my metaphor for the flood of legislation that was certain to occur once the Democratic Party commanded a veto-proof majority in both the Vermont House and Senate. It now does, and that flood is proceeding at alarming velocity.

Its foremost component is enacting the clean heat standard bill, vetoed last May by Gov. Phil Scott. That bill, now shamelessly renamed the Affordable Heating Act (S.5), is a complex scheme to subsidize heat pumps, advanced wood pellet furnaces and home weatherization. On Jan. 26 Vermont Agency of Natural Resources secretary Julie Moore announced that the best guess of the cost is $1.2 billion over seven years. That cost will be paid for by jacking up the price of fuel paid by 65 percent of Vermont families to stay warm with heating oil — price increased by 70 cents/ gallon — natural gas and propane. That’s a hidden heating fuel tax.

The most notable change in this year’s version is omitting any check-back provision that would require legislators to vote to put this billion-dollar program into effect. Instead, the bill empowers the Public Utility Commission to launch the program after filing reports with legislative committees that aren’t required to take any action. So much for accountability, which today’s Democrats try to avoid like the plague.

New Senate President pro tem Phil Baruth (D-Chittenden) has said that enacting this bill is the Legislature’s top priority, and that a veto by the governor will be overridden.

The next big-ticket item is an all-out push for child care. The long-awaited RAND Corporation report estimated that a feasible program would cost an additional $258 million every year, to start with, on top of the current $125 million spent for that purpose. The lobby group Let’s Grow Kids is running TV commercials urging early action.

At the same time, the majority will push through paid family and medical leave: 12 weeks a year for new mothers, six weeks for fathers, full-wage replacement up to $1,135 a week, paid for with a payroll tax of 0.58 percent. When asked if both big-ticket programs could be paid for, House Ways and Means Chair Emilie Kornheiser (D-Brattleboro) cheerfully offered this remarkable reply: “We don’t have the capacity to not do them both.”

Single-payer health care crashed and burned in 2014 because for three years the Shumlin administration couldn’t find a way to raise over $2 billion a year to pay for it. Now its advocates are back with a new version: universal primary care. It’s not clear how this partial version would work, or cost, but its advocates will be beating on the Statehouse door to get their pet idea onto the action calendar.

The Vermont teacher’s union has long had an iron grip on the Democratic Party. This time it’s allied with the school boards association and superintendents. The issue will be paying tuition to faith-based independent schools, in compliance with a U.S. Supreme Court decision last June that forbade discriminating against those schools.

Their ally, the American Civil Liberties Union, has recommended the simplest solution: terminate all tuition payments to all independent schools. What the union and its allies will decide to demand is not yet clear, but it may well put parental choice on the road to extinction or force independent schools to yield their independence to become public bodies, which is the same thing.

The Vermont Labor Council AFL-CIO has already come in with its long-yearned-for bill (S.12) to ban the secret ballot in union representation elections. It’s called card check. If the union can convince 50 percent plus one of the employees in the bargaining group to sign cards approving the union representation, the deal is done.

The last time this issue came up, in 2007, I noted that “as recently as 2001 then-Rep. Bernie Sanders, true to a century of Labor doctrine, wrote, ‘We feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.’”

But that was then, and intimidation is back in style.

Finally, Gun Sense Vermont, a favorite ally of Baruth, will work with him to repeal the Sportsmen’s Bill of Rights, the 1988 law that prevents local municipalities from enacting their own, constitutionally questionable gun control laws.

Democratic Gov. Madeleine Kunin and Lt. Gov. Howard Dean strongly supported that act, which passed the House 135-2 and the Senate on a voice vote, but that was then, before progressivism captured the imagination of most Vermont Democrats.

Those are just the seven issues high on the Democratic policy agenda. There are others.

John McClaughry is vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute.

“What the union and its allies will decide to demand is not yet clear, but it may well put parental choice on the road to extinction.”

Circus comes to town as GOP races to bounce Biden

Guest Perspective

Walt Amses

Joe Biden remembers when the measure of a man was his relationship with his car and considering the president’s ride is a revered 1967 Corvette he keeps securely under wraps, why would it matter that the trunk contained a sheaf of classified documents?

Here’s the deal: “Shut up and stop with the questions already.”

Watching the president smash through a gauntlet of reporters, as though on a stiff legged, breakthrough sprint to the end zone, fending off questions with a juke step or straight arm does not provide great optics for a commander in chief with a troubling penchant for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

While supporters cringe at Biden having anything more in common with his predecessor than age spots and bad hair, ill-timed missteps, thoroughly blown photo ops and a general tendency to come off like a doofus consistently set him up as an easy target, seemingly happy to oblige Republicans who depict him as a bumbler of the highest order, unable to do anything right.

One problem with the GOP’s giddy assessment is that it’s totally inaccurate. The president can boast accomplishments that have surprised even some of his staunchest constituents. But that’s not what everyone remembers.

Unscripted moments lie in wait as the White House press corps stalks Biden like hungry leopards on the Serengeti, thirsty for almost any response as aides

encircle the president like anxious wildebeests protecting a vulnerable calf. Federal agents scour offices, residences, garages and storerooms, turning up a daily dribble of classified material, some dating back to when the Vette was nearly new. Several times a week, to the horror of West Wing staffers, 46 will stumble upon a vacant podium, unable to resist the temptation to “set the record straight,” which he generally doesn’t, instigating instead a flurry of “What the president meant was ...”

The newly minted Republican congressional majority that will be holding the country hostage for the next two years can’t wait to pounce, vowing to “investigate the investigation(s)” and impeach everyone from attorney general to the homeland security secretary to the president himself.

Having brutally gelded Kevin McCarthy into a speakership with about as much power as the washroom attendant, Matt Gaetz, purveyor of underaged conspiracy theories, will be the ringmaster of this particular big top, a bevy of clowns at the ready.

One of the new stars in the GOP constellation will most assuredly be Long Island’s George Santos, whose refreshing honesty about performing as a drag queen in Brazil before trashing the LGBTQ community during his campaign, provided a breath of fresh air as McCarthy cited his presumed ability to nod like a bobblehead and push the

Trapping op-ed misleads, distorts Vermont data

To the Editors: Cherry-picking data from surveys to make your point is a common distortion tactic. Cherry-picking surveys themselves takes it to another level.

With that in mind, it is ironic that the author of a recent pro-trapping commentary complained that an earlier commentary opposing recreational trapping supposedly distorted the truth (Jerry D’Amico, “Trapping commentaries seldom right, most always distort truth,” Jan. 19, 2023).

The initial commentary claimed that according to the most recent survey on public attitudes on trapping, paid for by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department and conducted by Responsive Management, 68 percent of Vermonters oppose recreational trapping.

To refute that claim, the

right button at the right time like one of BF Skinner’s pigeons. He will join the whack job caucus as soon as he is cleared of allegations that he defrauded a now deceased dog.

In a country with more gates than a giant slalom course already, house MAGAlites shun fears of redundancy, foisting “Docu-Gate” or “Garage-Gate” or “Whatever-Gate” on an unsuspecting America, unearthing once again the false equivalence — oranges are actually apples — theory, conflating POTUS emeritus’s thievery, perjury and obstruction of justice with Biden’s need to visit Staples.

No matter that it defies what used to be considered logic, it’s enough of a bone to toss a perpetually deluded constituency salivating to believe the unbelievable.

Finally, however much the GOP Brahmins would like to rid themselves of the Mar-a-Lago Misanthrope, there are several complexities involved beyond not having the collective cojones to do it themselves. Ideally, slamming the coffin lid would come from somewhere else, like the Justice Department or the state of Georgia providing Republicans with a sigh of relief as well as another opportunity for fake outrage at the indignity of it all. The other, perhaps greater obstacle is that he’s still as popular with conservative voters as pornography in Utah.

Another improbable wrinkle

Letters to the Editor

pro-trapping author referred us all to the Responsive Management trapping survey done for the department in 2018. However, the most recent survey the first commentator cited was conducted in 2022. The 2022 survey reports exactly what the first commentator claimed: 68 percent of Vermonters oppose recreational trapping.

Compounding this error, D’Amico then attempts to undercut a second survey that showed 75 percent of Vermonters oppose recreational trapping. That study was conducted in 2017 by the University of Vermont’s Vermont Center for Rural Studies, not the Vermont Center for Rural Development, as D’Amico claimed.

He followed that with two more significant errors. He claimed, contrary to available evidence, that the survey was sent mostly to Chittenden County residents and did not represent Vermont overall. The Vermont Center for Rural Studies has a long track record of professionally

is that recent polls found his popularity still strong in the worst possible way for the GOP: Not strong enough to win in 2024 but plenty strong enough to screw his party over as he’s done in every election since winning the presidency six years ago as he grifts his way kicking and screaming into obscurity, raging to no one on his oxymoronic “Truth” Social with “ungrateful” evangelicals looking elsewhere for help imposing their favorite superstitions on the rest of us.

Even his family — except for Melania, who’s under contract — skipped his “very big announcement” at the asylum by the sea launching one more election long con.

All of which leaves Speaker McCarthy in a situation even more precarious than the one he negotiated himself into by striking bargain after bargain with the hostage takers who still refused to release him, further diminishing his already paltry options, and weakening his position to the point a single house member can initiate a no confidence vote. Since it’s far too late to grow a spinal cord, which wouldn’t matter anyway at this point, McCarthy finds himself on the shortest of leashes with his next two years pretty much limited to being an errand boy who won’t even get to decide which way to crawl.

Amses is a writer who lives in North Calais.

conducted surveys of all Vermonters.

D’Amico then asserts that the second survey is suspect because a wildlife advocacy organization that opposes trapping paid for it. That is a reasonable caution to bear in mind. However, D’Amico totally jettisons this reasonable caution when citing the surveys paid for by the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which again, as an organization, supports recreational trapping.

For that reason, it is even more remarkable — and trustworthy — since it goes against bias and interest that the department’s own 2022 survey clearly shows a substantial majority of all Vermonters opposing recreational trapping.

Finally, while there is much else to chew on in D’Amico’s piece, one particular canard stood out — that animals caught in foothold traps don’t suffer but are often found simply sleeping.

Walt

Middlebury Community Players give ‘Being Earnest’ a go

Set in late-19th century England, Oscar Wilde’s play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” pokes fun at the pretentiousness of upper-class Victorian society. That pretentiousness forces two characters, Jack and Algernon, to create fictitious lives to avoid the social repercussions of their less attractive lifestyles. However, their clever tricks become increasingly difficult to maintain when they insist on proposing marriage to the women they love. The Middlebury Community Players presents the classic comedy Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 16-18 at 7:30 p.m. as well as a matinee on Sunday, Feb. 19, at 2 p.m. at Middlebury’s Town Hall Theater. For tickets, visit townhalltheater.org or call 802-382-9222.

Community Notes

Enjoy Age Well meals at Charlotte Senior Center

The Age Well meal pickup for Thursday, Feb. 2, is from 10-11 a.m., Charlotte Senior Center, 212 Ferry Road, and features sliced pot roast with au jus, ranch mashed potatoes, carrots and cabbage, wheat roll with butter, apple pie and milk.

You must have pre-registered by the prior Monday with Kerrie Pughe, 802-425-6345 or kpughe@charlotteseniorcentervt.org

• Thursday, Feb. 9, features stuffed chicken with ham and cheese, mashed potatoes, baby beets, potato dinner roll with butter, applesauce birthday cake and milk.

• Thursday, Feb. 16, features Swedish meatballs with sauce, rotini noodles, Brussel sprouts, French green beans, wheat dinner roll with butter, pineapple tidbits and milk.

• Thursday, Feb. 23, features oven fried chicken, red mashed potatoes with sour cream, Capri blend vegetables with lentils, wheat bread and butter, pumpkin custard with cream, and milk.

The suggested donation is $5. Check the website for more information at charlotteseniorcentervt.org.

Munch is Monday at senior center lunch

The next Monday Munch at the Charlotte Senior Center is Feb. 6, 212 Ferry Road, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The menu is Cornish pasties (potato, carrot, onion and hamburger), cranberry sesame spinach salad, cranberry selzer and ice cream sundaes with choco-

late sauce and homemade sugar cookies. A $5 donation is appreciated.

Hinesburg opens kindergarten registration on Feb. 1

Hinesburg Community School will open kindergarten registration for the coming school year on Monday, Feb. 1. Champlain Valley School District is asking families to register incoming kindergarteners early this year to get more accurate enrollment numbers.

Complete the online forms by Friday, Feb. 24. These enrollment numbers help the district to plan its staffing needs for the upcoming school year and help coordinate site visits for placement in the spring.

Contact Deb Lavalette at (802) 482-2106 or dlavalette@cvsdvt.org. Registration and information is available at bit.ly/3XIi97j.

Special Olympics hosts Vermont Penguin Plunge

The 2023 Special Olympics Vermont Penguin Plunge is coming up on Saturday, Feb. 4, but due to severe weather, the event will now be held remotely.

More than 900 individuals, including students, educators and community members were expected to take an icy dip into Lake Champlain in support of Special Olympics Vermont.

Events include the Cool Schools Penguin

COURTESY PHOTO

CVU girls suffer first loss on the court

27, 51-31.

Sweeney and Provost each had 12 points for CVU.

Girls’ basketball

Shenendehowa N.Y. 52, Champlain Valley 48: Champlain Valley girls’ basketball staged a comeback in the fourth quarter but fell short in a loss to Shenendehowa, N.Y., on Saturday.

Addi Hunter had 20 points to pace CVU, which suffered its first loss of the season and dropped to 9-1. Shelby Companion chipped in with 11 points, while Elise Berger added nine.

Boys’ basketball

Champlain Valley 70, St. Johnsbury 48: Champlain Valley opened the second half with a 15-2 run to pull away from St. Johnsbury on Monday, Jan. 30.

Kyle Eaton led all scorers with 18 points for the Redhawks, who moved to 13-1 with the win.

Alex Provost added 15 points, Tucker Tharpe had 14 points and Sam Sweeney chipped in with 12.

The Redhawks also beat Mount Mansfield on Friday, Jan.

WHY GO LOCAL?

Boys’ hockey

Champlain Valley 3, U-32 3: The boys gave up a late goal and had to settle for a tie with U-32 on Monday.

Zach Vincent, Nic Menard and Connor Malaney each had a goal for the Redhawks, while Trevin Keefe stopped 33 shots in goal. With the tie, CVU moves to 5-6-3.

The Redhawks fell to Spaulding on Saturday, Jan. 28, losing 6-2. Malaney and Devon Fay each had a goal. Ellison Fortin made 22 saves.

Girls’ hockey

Spaulding 4, Champlain Valley-Mount Mansfield 3: The Champlain Valley-Mount Mansfield dropped its second game in a row with a loss to Spaulding on Saturday.

Tess Everett, Hannah Schmid and Samara Tucker each had a goal for the CougarHawks, who move to 10-4-1. Grace Ferguson made 20 saves in goal.

PHOTO BY AL FREY Colby Morehouse takes a shot during a CVU boys’ basketball game against Mt. Mansfield Union Jan. 27.

PHOTO BY AL FREY

A CVU and South Burlington battle for the ball.

Pianist plays community concerts for cooler climate

Vermont celebrates state’s Black experience Feb. 25

The Black Experience 2023 is a holistic celebration of Vermont’s Black-lived experience

The free event takes place on Saturday, Feb. 25, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., at the Flynn Theatre in Burlington.

pants Rajnii Eddins, Harmony Edosomwan, Jolivette Anderson-Douoning, Mikahely, Craig Mitchell and Afrofuturist Toussaint St. Negritude.

Black-led community organizations will also be highlighted.

On Sunday, Feb. 12, from 2-3:30 p.m., pianist David Feurzeig will play a free concert at the Charlotte Congregational Church, 403 Church Hill Road, as part of his project to play a free show in all of Vermont’s 252 towns to spread the joy of music and promote environmentally sustainable touring methods. The choir will sing music of 19th-century Vermont hymnodists, and music director Cameron Brownell will join Feurzeig for a set of songs by Gabriel Fauré. For more information, visit playeverytown.com or contact playevertown@gmail.com.

Vermont Statehouse screens

‘Backlash,’ doc on misogyny

Four years after resigning from her seat as a Vermont representative, Kiah Morris returns to tell her story in a new documentary, “Backlash: Misogyny in the Digital Age.”

The film will have its first U.S. screening at the Vermont Statehouse on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 6:30 p.m. The screening will be followed by a special panel with Morris, who is featured in the film. The panel also features co-director Guylaine Maroist, Vermont House Rep. Taylor Small and Xusana Davis, Vermont’s director of racial equity and inclusion.

The screening will be followed by a U.S. tour.

“I’m thrilled that the people of Vermont are finally able to see ‘Backlash.’ My story, as well as all the others, needs to be heard for cyberviolence to end,” said Morris, who now serves as executive director for Rights & Democracy. “Digital misogyny is a threat to women, and particularly women of color, everywhere. If we are going to build a just, equitable, and truly inclusive democracy in the U.S., we have to put a stop to this.”

“Backlash” was directed by award-winning filmmakers Lea Clermont-Dion and Guylaine Maroist. The film, from Montreal’s La Ruelle Films, probes the depths of hatred against women.

“Backlash” has all the elements of a real-life horror movie, as four women on two continents tell their stories: Morris, who resigned from the Vermont state assembly after severe online harassment; Laura Boldrini, the former president of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies and the most harassed politician in Italy; Marion Seclin, a Paris-based actor and YouTuber, who received over 40,000 sexist messages, including rape and death threats; and Laurence Gratton, an elementary school teacher in Montreal who was anonymously harassed for five years by a man who eventually was discovered to be one of her

colleagues.

The film chronicles how all four women were assailed by waves of hate, how fear crept into their private lives and how they gradually lost their sense of security in public spaces.

The screening is co-hosted by the Vermont Network and the Vermont Commission on Women, in collaboration with Rights & Democracy, the Vermont Women’s Fund and Montreal-based La Ruelle Films and is supported in part by the Vermont Humanities. The film will also be shown at Essex Cinema’s T-Rex Theatre on Feb. 9, 10 and 12.

Summer Camps 2023

GUIDE

Promote your program in our Summer Camps guide for targeted exposure to a local audience of kids and parents as they make plans for the upcoming summer season. This advertising section is a go-to guide for summer camp and recreation researchers, making it the ideal place to outline your offerings and secure more early enrollments.

Publication Dates: February 9, March 9

and April 6

Deadlines: Thursdays before each issue

Contact: Stowe Reporter/News & Citizen at 802-253-2101, Shelburne News/The Citizen at 802-985-3091 or The Other Paper at 802-864-6670 for information or to advertise your camp (ask about multi-paper, half-price color and Burlington Area Newspaper Group deals).

Presented by nuwave, the Flynn and the city of Burlington, the event features performances from local artists and speakers and culminates in a fireside conversation between iconic activist and scholar Dr. Angela Davis and Dr. Tricia Rose, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University.

The evening also includes a performance by Philadanco, the celebrated Philadelphia dance company.

The programming focuses on the three pillars of culture, community and education and features performers and partici-

COMMUNITY NOTES

continued from page 7

Plunge with students and educators, and Burlington Penguin Plunge with community members.

To learn how to participate remotely, go to bit.ly/3wIRVWd.

Hinesburg Fire Department hosts hands-only CPR clinic

To help raise awareness that February is Heart Health Month, the Hinesburg Fire Department is hosting a hands-only CPR clinic.

The clinic will be held at the Hinesburg Fire Station, Route 116, Hinesburg, on Saturday, Feb. 4, 9 a.m. to noon. This will be a drop-in clinic to teach hands-only CPR. This is not a certification class. If you’re inter-

“There is great power in representation,” said Emiliano Void of nuwave, “and we really felt that Black History Month was the perfect timing for an event that showcased the thriving Black communities present here in Vermont. The Black Experience is our small contribution to building and celebrating, a more diverse and inclusive Vermont.”

Registration is encouraged at flynnvt. org.

For information on sponsorships or how to help, remail Emiliano Void at emiliano@ nuwaveco.com. For more information, visit blackexperiencevt.com.

ested in certification, contact fire officials at info@hinesburgfd.org.

Charlotte Fire Department hosts pediatric first aid training

On Saturday, Feb. 4, at 9 a.m., the Charlotte Fire Station will host a Heartsaver pediatric first-aid CPR/AED course.

The course is designed for anyone involved in child care who has a duty to respond to illnesses and injuries in a child or infant until professional help arrives. The class runs for 3.5 hours; the cost is $60 per person. To register visit Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Service at bit.ly/3Y5oR71 or email cpr@cvfrs.org for further information.

The Secret to Your Summer Camp’s Success

To learn more or reserve your space, talk to us today!

COURTESY PHOTO

Assistant Town Clerk and Treasurer - Town of Hinesburg

The Town of Hinesburg is seeking an individual to serve as the Assistant Town Clerk and Treasurer. This position provides administrative, technical and clerical support to the Town Clerk & Treasurer. This position is responsible for maintaining town records, processing and recording documents, issuing licenses, assisting with elections, property tax administration and water & sewer billing and administration. Ideal candidates will be self-motivated, demonstrate a high degree of trustworthiness, attention to detail, customer service skills and the ability to safeguard confidential information.

This is a full-time position with a starting pay rate of $21.50 - $23.50 depending upon qualifications. Benefits include: health, dental and disability insurance; paid time off; pension plan; and 13 paid holidays. To apply, submit a cover letter and resume to Todd Odit, Town Manager at todit@hinesburg.org. A job description is located under “employment” at www.hinesburg.org. Applications will be accepted through February 17, 2023.

The Town of Hinesburg is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion in hiring to create a diverse workforce within the community.

BUDGET

continued from page 1

because our taxes are high and this shows that we really worked on that, we’ve really done what we could to make this a lean budget and not add things that we didn’t feel were really necessary,” she said. But the town still has “a higher budget because we have less revenue than we did last year.”

Approximately 81 percent of the budget’s revenue comes from property taxes, Odit said, and the town last year saw less than expected non-tax revenue.

The town, for example, anticipated running its own ambulance service, which would have generated an estimated $100,000 in patient billing revenue, before scrapping the plan. It also expected a $50,000 cops grant before the size of the police department shrunk, eliminating the town’s eligibility for the grant.

The budget includes a 3.6 percent tax increase, resulting in a $21 increase in the town’s tax bill per $100,000 of assessed property value.

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in the future, and “there seems to be general interest in pursuing that,” Odit said, but would likely not materialize for at least another year or so, given that approval is needed by the Legislature to change the town charter.

The budget’s approval was not unanimous. Selectboard member Dennis Place, who voted no, said, “I just see what’s coming down the pike and I think we do need to cut some services. It just keeps adding up year after year after year. I would like to see something cut but people just keep asking for more and more money.”

“We’re not the only ones having this issue. It’s the whole state,” he said.

expansion of anything — maybe some shrinking of things — until there’s actual ... building permits being pulled,” he said.

“There was a fairly sizable reduction in non-tax revenue, so that meant that the amount raised taxes was going to go up by that amount, even if spending didn’t go up,” Odit said.

The town has discussed the possibility of a local options tax

GRANT

continued from page 1

quite out of alignment with decisions in our town plan.”

Charlotte has the most expensive housing costs in Chittenden County. The average sale price of property was over $625,000 in 2021, with a median home sale price of $534,500. Median gross rent in Charlotte is 30 percent higher than the rest of Chittenden County at $1,794 per month.

According to the application, a 2006 housing affordability study commissioned by the town determined there was an unmet need for 46 units of affordable rental housing and 16 owned units. In the last 16 years since that study came out, Charlotte has added only 14 affordable units.

Over 90 percent of new homes built in Charlotte in recent years have been constructed in the rural zoning district, although the town plan calls for new development to be focused in village centers. But a lack of onsite septic capacity, restrictive zoning bylaws and insufficient water supply pose significant constraints to development of any kind.

“It’s not just enough to have good intentions,” Lewack said. “You have to think about to what extent the rules support that or make it possible. And, of course,

Odit said that the town would have to cut the budget by about $180,000 in order to not raise taxes at all and indicated that the town is “really at its taxing capacity” until new development comes online.

“I don’t see really any significant or really any increases or

you have to have developers who look into the rules as they are and say, ‘this is a place where I’d really like to build some of that kind of housing.’”

Lewack also noted that Charlotte has an aging population that could transition to smaller homes if zoning bylaws and infrastructure facilitated building age-appropriate multi-family housing in town.

“Demographically, I think there’s a lot of reasons to believe there would be strong demand for elderly housing, for example,” he said. “If we made it more feasible by creating those kinds of options, some of those properties could be freed up for purchase by the younger generation or redevelopment with additional housing.”

Lewack cited a combination of problems with high land prices and regulatory rules that simply don’t match up with policies and the town plan.

An additional issue Lewack hopes will be addressed is the 5-acre zoning in both village centers.

“You have to have 5 acres of land to build a single unit of housing and that is just not that type of zoning is not conducive

Some 400 units of housing are expected to be built in the next five to 10 years, but there are no rough estimates of how much more revenue the town will expect when new development is online, “because none of the development is through all of the permitting hurdles, so it’s a little too early to count those chickens,” Odit said.

Dennis

Selectboard member Mike Loner pointed to the public safety study, currently under way, to potentially consolidate the costs of the town’s collective EMS, fire and police services.

“It is a really hard question. Do we want to cut the highway (budget) and just stay home on those snowy days? Do we want to cut the fire and just let the houses burn down? Cut the police — what if someone gets burglarized,” Lovell said. “It’s a very hard question.”

to any type of density,” Lewack said.

The planning commission has attempted to remedy some of these issues in the past but have often been met with objection by residents. Two proposed amendments to the town plan and zoning bylaws in March 2021 that would have enhanced housing opportunities in the East Village were rejected by Charlotte voters.

“What happened is that there were a lot of signs put up saying, ‘if you don’t understand the proposals vote no,’ and accusations of this being an attempt to spot zoning, which it wasn’t,” he said. “It was a fight that was waged, unfortunately, mostly online on Front Porch Forum and social media, actively promoting what I would call misinformation about the nature of the proposed changes.”

Lewack said the experience underlines the need for more intense public outreach and engagement to properly address resident fears over development and hopefully mobilize resident support for aligning land use regulations with affordable housing and density objectives that are

“We’re not the only ones having this issue. It’s the whole state.”

—

Place Hinesburg Selectboard

CHILD CARE

continued from page 3

funding and no one really tells the families that,” she said.

First Roots - Wild Roots — previously known as Annette’s Preschool — has been serving Hinesburg families for over 40 years.

Owner and operator Andrea Sambrook explained that COVID-19 pandemic was a trauma that overlayed many challenges with early childhood. Like the story of many other care centers, Sambrook was forced to raise tuition rates nearly 10 percent in March— something she hasn’t done in over a decade.

“Part of my wish for the new bill is that they have a streamlined birth to age eight system of delivery,” she said “Let’s Grow Kids does a really nice job of helping the community understand that a child’s brain is cognitively on fire from birth to 5 years old. The idea that funding starts at age 5 for public school is really a misalignment with what we know about brain development.”

“I really hope that in the way that they decide to increase the compensation for staff, the way that they look to reduce the cost for families and the way that they are ensuring high quality has a respect for all these diverse learning environments that are unique to what families need.”

Legislative perspective

Despite calls for historic investment in overhauling the state’s child care system, Republican Gov. Phil Scott outlined just $56 million in his initial budget proposal to invest in child care.

This was met with immediate pushback from Let’s Grow Kids, the Vermont child care reform advocacy organization that’s currently pushing legislators to make a substantial investment through lobbying, messaging and advertising.

Aly Richards, the organization’s CEO, called the RAND study the “final piece of the puzzle” in the effort her advocacy group has been working toward for a decade and sees this legislative session as the pivotal moment when real child care policy reform can be enacted.

GRANT

continued from page 10

embedded in the town plan.

The project design outlines outreach and engagement with town residents in a variety of formats that include public meetings and surveys that seek to gauge desired housing and development types.

“People will be asked to talk about what they like about the village centers, what they wish for more of and then some idea of how to get there,” Lewack said. “Some of that’s going to be visual in nature and would show people what a more densely developed rural village looks like with photographs and schematic diagrams.”

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a historic transformation of a sector that will help kids in Vermont in a way that they absolutely need,” Richards said. “The research is in, the testimonials of Vermont families are in. This is what our youngest children need.”

Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Williston, who represents the towns of Shelburne, Hinesburg, Charlotte and South Burlington, among others, sits on both the health and welfare and appropriations committees in the Senate, and she’s currently drafting an initial bill with other House and Senate members to put forward the Democrats’ plan for child care reform based on recommendations in the RAND study.

While she said she recognized that this was the historic moment to invest in child care reform, she also said she favored the more conservative recommendation of a single tax such as a 1 percent payroll tax rather than an expansion of child care subsidies.

“We’re looking to improve access and quality for folks while keeping our costs as low as we can, so that they can meet their needs,” Lyons said. “If we start down that road, we want to ensure that we’re not going to be taking away from this investment in the future.”

Shelburne Rep. Jessica Brumsted, Chittenden-5-2, co-chair of the House Committee on Human Services, spoke to three things that the bill will be looking to address: affordability for families, compensation for our early educators and systems oversight and leadership.

“We really are going to make some changes inside of the Agency of Education and the Department of Children and Families. We want to expand capacity and reduce bureaucracy within the childcare system while maintaining parental choice and a mixed delivery system of home-based, community-based and school-based programs, and refocus the role and funding for public and private entities,” she said.

Full and part-time front desk positions

Apply

Why not have a job you love?

Positions include a sign on bonus, strong benefits package and the opportunity to work at one of the “Best Places to Work in Vermont”.

Service Coordinator: Continue your career in human services in a supportive environment by providing case management for individuals either for our Adult Family Care program or our Developmental Services program. The ideal candidate will have strong clinical, organizational & leadership skills and enjoy working in a team-oriented position. $47,000 annual salary, $1,500 sign on bonus.

Residential Program Manager: Coordinate staffed residential and community supports for an individual in their home. The ideal candidate will enjoy working in a team-oriented position, have strong clinical skills, and demonstrated leadership. $45,900 annual salary, $1,500 sign on bonus.

In addition to the state grant of $13,600, the town has put up a 20 percent match of $3,400, totaling $17,000 for the work. After hearing resident feedback, Lewack does anticipate that the town will hire a consultant to assist in the specific design concepts and buildout scenarios for both villages.

“It’s not a lot of money in terms of what it costs to find and hire topnotch consultants these days, but at least it’s a start,” said Lewack. “We’re going to be applying for other grants to flesh out the work going forward.”

Direct Support Professional: Provide 1:1 supports to help individuals reach their goals in a variety of settings. This is a great position to start or continue your career in human services. Full and part time positions available starting at $19/hr, $1,000 sign on bonus.

Residential Direct Support Professional: Provide supports to an individual in their home and in the community in 24h shifts including asleep overnights in a private, furnished bedroom. You can work two days, receive full benefits and have five days off each week! Other flexible schedules available, starting wage is $20/hr, $1,000 sign on bonus.

Shared Living Provider: Move into someone’s home or have someone live with you to provide residential supports. There are a variety of opportunities available that could be the perfect match for you and your household. Salary varies dependent on individual care requirements. $1,000 sign on bonus.

Join

Make

https://ccs-vt.org/current-openings/

WARNING

TOWN OF CHARLOTTE ANNUAL TOWN MEETING 2023

The legal voters of the Town of Charlotte are hereby notified and warned to meet at the Charlotte Town Hall & Town Office, 159 Ferry Road in said Town on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 to vote on the following articles by Australian ballot to begin at seven o’clock in the forenoon and to close at seven o’clock in the afternoon.

BY AUSTRALIAN BALLOT

Article 1: Will the voters of the Town vote, pursuant to 32 V.S.A. § 4773, to have Property Taxes payable on or before November 15, 2023 and to have payments made to the Town Treasurer as receiver of taxes?

Article 2: Will the voters of the Town approve the Selectboard’s budget of $3,093,908 for the fiscal year July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024 of which an anticipated sum of $1,500,587 will be raised by property taxes and an anticipated sum of $1,593,321 will be raised by non-tax revenues?

Article 3: Will the voters of the Town approve an allocation of $965,806 to Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Services, Inc. for the fiscal year July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, to be raised by property taxes?

Article 4: Will the voters of the Town approve an allocation to the Charlotte Library for the fiscal year July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024 of $324,356, to be raised by property taxes?

Article 5: Will the Town provide notice of the availability of the annual audit report to the voters of the Town by publication in the paper designated annually by the legislative body at least 30 days before the annual meeting instead of mailing or otherwise distributing the report to the voters of the Town, pursuant to 24 V.S.A. §1682(a)(2)?

Article 6: To elect Town Officers.

Article 7: To elect one (1) Champlain Valley School District director for a term of three (3) years beginning March, 2023.

Dated this 23rd day of January, 2023 at Charlotte, Vermont.

Town of Charlotte Selectboard

NOTICE TO VOTERS For Local Elections

BEFORE ELECTION DAY:

CHECKLIST POSTED at Clerks Office by February 5th, 2023. If your name is not on the checklist, then you must register to vote. SAMPLE BALLOTS will be posted by February 15, 2023.

HOW TO REGISTER TO VOTE: There is no deadline to register to vote. You will be able to register to vote on the day of the election. You can register prior by visiting the town clerk’s office or going online to olvr.sec.state.vt.us.

REQUEST EARLY or ABSENTEE BALLOTS: You or a family member can request early or absentee ballots at any time during the year of the election in person, in writing, by telephone, email, or online at mvp.sec.state.vt.us. The latest you can request ballots for the Town Meeting Election is the close of the Town Clerk’s office on March 6, 2023. (Any other person authorized by you who is not a family member must apply in writing or in person for a ballot for you.)

WAYS TO VOTE YOUR EARLY BALLOT:

• You may vote in the town clerk’s office before the deadline.

• Voter may take his or her ballot(s) out of the clerk’s office and return in same manner as if the ballots were received by mail.

• Have ballot mailed to you, and mail or deliver it back to the clerk’s office before Election Day or to the polling place before 7:00 p.m. on Election Day.

• If you are sick or disabled before Election Day, ask the town clerk to have two justices of the peace bring a ballot to you at your home. (Ballots can be delivered on any of the eight days preceding the day of the election or on the day of election.)

ON ELECTION DAY:

If your name was dropped from the checklist in error, or has not been added even though you submitted a timely application for addition to the checklist, you can fill out a new registration form.

!If the clerk or Board of Civil Authority does not add your name, you can appeal the decision to a superior court judge, who will settle the matter on Election Day. Call the Secretary of State’s Office at 1-800-439-VOTE (439-8683) for more information.

If you are a first time voter who submitted your application to the checklist individually by mail and did not submit the required document, you must provide a current and valid photo identification, or a bank statement, utility bill, or government document that contains your name/current address.

If you have physical disabilities, are visually impaired or can’t read, you may have assistance from any person of your choice. If any voters you know have disabilities let them know they can have assistance from any person of their choice.

If you know voters who cannot get from the car into the polling place let them know that ballot(s) may be brought to their car by two election officials.

If you have any questions or need assistance while voting, ask your town clerk or any election official for help.

News from Carpenter-Carse Library

To register, reserve books or for more information, contact Rachel Matthews at rachel@ carpentercarse.org. Masks required indoors.

Hands and needles

Mondays in February, 10 a.m.-noon

Bring whatever project you are working on — quilting, knitting, embroidery, etc. No registration required.

Chess club

Saturdays in February, 1-3 p.m.

Players of any age or experience drop in for a weekly game of skill and wits. Children under 10 must be accompanied by an adult.

Weekly Lego club

Wednesdays, Feb. 8, 15 and 22, 3:15-4:30 p.m.

Students in kindergarten to grade 4. Special weekly challenge for kids.

Folk Jam with SongFarmers of Hinesburg

Thursday, Feb. 2, 6-8 p.m.

NO PERSON SHALL:

Do you play an acoustic instrument or just love to sing along to old time, blues, country and folk music? Join SongFarmers during its monthly gathering and participate in a live music offering. Free and open to the public in the library’s community room. Masks required.

Weekly storytime

Tuesdays, Feb. 7, 14, 21 and 28, 9:30-10 a.m. Stories, songs, rhymes, and crafts. Contact jen@carpentercarse.org to sign up.

Morning book group: ‘My Sister, the Serial Killer’

Wednesday, Feb. 8, 10:30-11:30 a.m.

February’s pick is “My Sister, the Serial Killer” by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Reserve a copy of the book (as available).

Zoom trivia

Monday, Feb. 14, 7-8 p.m. Enjoy three rounds of trivia relating to this month’s theme, Valentine’s Day. The winning individual or team will receive

a swoon-worthy prize. Email for the Zoom link.

Film club: ‘Dr. Strangelove’

Thursday, Feb. 23, 5:30-8 p.m.

Join local film buff Larry Parker for popcorn and a film discussion. February’s screening is “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (1964), directed by Stanley Kubrick. RSVP to rachel@carpentercarse.org.

Game night

Friday, Feb. 24, 5-7 p.m. Friendly competition with cards, dice and tokens galore. Have a favorite game at home? Bring it in to share. All ages welcome.

Evening book talk: ‘The Water Dancer’

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 7-8 p.m. The pick for February is “The Water Dancer” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Reserve a copy of the book and sign up for the link at rachel@carpentercarse.org.

News from Charlotte Library

115 Ferry Road, Charlotte. 802-425-3864. Register at charlottepubliclibrary.org or info@ charlottepubliclibrary.org.

More information and links can be found on the library website.

KIDS

Preschool storytime

Tuesdays, Feb. 7, 14 and 21, 10-11 a.m.

Preschool stories, crafts and activities. Ages 2 and up.

Kinder & first grade storytime

Tuesdays, Feb. 7, 14 and 21, 3-4 p.m.

Preschool free play

Wednesdays, Feb. 8, 15, 22, 10-11 a.m.

Kids explore the sensory table, sorting, playing with blocks, play dough and more. Ages 3 and 4.

ADULTS

Stillwater meditation with Rain Stickney

Saturdays, Feb. 4 and 25, 9-10 a.m.

Beginning and experienced meditators are welcome. No registration required.

Book discussion series: Our Better Nature

Monday, Feb. 6, 7-8:30 p.m.

Grounded in experience and science, “Our Better Nature: Hopeful Excursions in Saving Biodiversity,” presents readers with stories, essays and resources to guide and inspire action in favor of nature everywhere. Preregister. Book available at library.

Men’s book discussion

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 7:30-9 p.m.

Short story selections

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 1-2 p.m.

Join library director Margaret Woodruff to share and discuss short stories old and new. Copies of the stories available at the circulation desk.

Book chat

Wednesdays, Feb. 8, 15 and 22, 3-4 p.m.

Join Margaret Friday on Zoom to discuss new books, old books and books missed.

NOTICE TO VOTERS

! Vote more than once per election, either in the same town or in different towns.

! Mislead the board of civil authority about your own or another person’s true residency or other eligibility to vote.

! Hinder or impede a voter going into or from the polling place.

! Socialize in a manner that could disturb other voters in the polling place.

! Offer bribe, threaten or exercise undue influence to dictate or control the vote of another person.

FOR HELP OR INFORMATION: Call the Secretary of State’s Office at 1-800-439-VOTE (439-8683). (Accessible by TDD)

If you believe that any of your voting rights have been violated, you may file an Administrative Complaint with the Secretary of State’s Office, 128 State Street, Montpelier, VT 05633.

If you believe you have witnessed efforts to commit any kind of fraud or corruption in the voting process, you may report this to your local United States Attorney’s Office.

If you have witnessed actual or attempted acts of discrimination or intimidation in the voting process, you may report this to the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice at (800) 253-3931.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR VOTERS using Paper Ballots

CHECK-IN AND RECEIVE BALLOTS:

• Go to the entrance checklist table.

• Give name and, if asked, street address to the election official in a loud voice.

• Wait until your name is repeated and checked off by the official.

• An election official will give you a ballot.

• Enter within the guardrail and go to a vacant voting booth.

MARK YOUR BALLOT: For each office listed on the ballot, you will see instructions to “Vote for not more than one, or Vote for not more than two, etc.”

• To vote for a candidate, fill in the oval to the right of the name of the candidate you want to vote for.

• WRITE-IN candidate(s). To vote for someone whose name is not printed on the ballot, use the blank “write-in” lines on the ballot and either write-in the name or paste on sticker, then fill in the oval.

CHECK OUT:

• Go to the exit checklist table and state your name in an audible voice.

• Wait until your name is repeated and checked off by the official.

CAST YOUR VOTE by depositing your voted ballot in “Voted Ballots” box.

LEAVE the voting area immediately by passing outside the guardrail.

ARIES

March 21 - April 20

Aries, it’s important to focus on progress and not necessarily on money that can be made. See what you can learn along the path you choose.

TAURUS

April 21 - May 21

You have high hopes that your efforts will be well received this week, Taurus. Before you move full speed ahead, run your ideas by a trusted group of con dantes.

GEMINI

May 22 - June 21

You don’t learn by getting things right all of the time, Gemini. A few mistakes along the way provide an opportunity to grow and gure out new ways to do the job.

CANCER

June 22 - July 22

Cancer, distractions seemingly abound this week and your head isn’t in the game. While you can get away with a few oversights here and there, too many can be problematic.

LEO

July 23 - Aug. 23

Leo, someone in your life is looking for a pep talk and you are just the person to provide one. Listen to the problem at hand and offer this person some solid solutions.

VIRGO

Aug. 24 - Sept. 22

Virgo, you could be at a crossroads in your life. You are pondering many different scenarios, and now is the time to solidify plans for the next few weeks.

LIBRA

Sept. 23 - Oct. 23

If you made a career change recently, you may be discovering that the payoff isn’t quite what you expected. Ful llment is essential, so give some thought to new pursuits.

SCORPIO

Oct. 24 - Nov. 22

Scorpio, it is not like you to feel adrift, but that could be the situation right now. Latch on to one activity or person that brings you joy. Focus on the positives in life.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 23 - Dec. 21

Sagittarius, family members want to spend more time with you, so plan for the extra company. Have a few extra snacks on hand and make sure the house is orderly.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22 - Jan. 20

Your tendency to want to tackle things all on your own could have you pushing others away, Capricorn. Accept others’ willingness to pitch in.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 21 - Feb. 18

Aquarius, there has been a lot on your plate and many thoughts swimming through your mind. A quick getaway could be what is needed this month.

PISCES

Feb. 19 - March 20

Pisces, you have a few offers on the table, but could be having trouble narrowing down your preference. Bring in a third party to help.

CLUES ACROSS

1. Shed tears

5. Luxury jewelry designer

10. Goddess of wisdom

12. Convert into a particular form

14. Working-class people

16. It borders Canada (abbr.)

18. A princess can detect its presence

19. Red-brown sea bream

20. Defunct retail empire

22. Vase

23. Demeter’s equivalent

25. Monetary unit of the Maldives

26. French and Belgian river

27. Small amount

28. High schoolers’ test

30. Animal’s foot

31. Some is red

33. Per __: each

35. Swedish jazz pop duo

37. Plate for Eucharist

38. Train line

40. Russian pop duo

41. Stake

CROSSWORD SUDOKU

42. Plant by scattering

44. Female sibling

45. City of Angels hoopsters (abbr.)

48. Popular cookie brand

Here’s How It Works:

Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve a sudoku, the numbers 1 through 9 must ll each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can gure out the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes. The more numbers you name, the easier it gets to solve the puzzle!

50. Group of Niger-Congo languages

52. A team’s best pitcher

53. Vomits

55. 19th letter of Greek alphabet

56. Men’s fashion accessory

57. Its capital is Pierre (abbr.)

58. Expensive cut of steak

63. Popular James Cameron lm

65. A __: relating to knowledge gleaned from deduction

66. Kids’ snow toys

67. Flip side to yin

CLUES DOWN

1. Global public health agency

2. Snake-like sh

3. Midway between northeast and east

4. Dabbed

5. TV show

6. Folk singer DiFranco

7. Canadian yers

8. Of the dowry

9. Commercial

10. The act of imitating

11. Equipment used to broadcast radio or TV signals

13. Lands of an emir

15. Swiss river

17. Island

ANSWERS

18. Monetary unit of Afghanistan

21. One who surrenders under agreed conditions

23. Gar eld is one

24. A baglike structure in a plant or animal

27. Small boats used in the Black Sea

29. Small savory Spanish dishes

32. Body part

34. Touch lightly

35. Popular grilled foods on a stick

36. __ Hess: oil company

39. Antelope with a reddish coat

40. Pharaoh of Lower Egypt

43. Pink Floyd’s Roger 44. Short and thick

46. Small, sac-like cavities 47. Performer __-Lo 49. Entrails of animal used as food 51. __ King Cole, musician 54. Where construction is done

59. Chap 60. Investment vehicle 61. Often mixed with tonic 62. Holiday beverage egg __ 64. Against

WATER

continued from page 2

The landfill was capped in 1992 with a chemical-resistant plastic sheet sealed to contain contaminants. But a development proposal for the nearby area, as well as a proposal to install solar panels on top of the landfill in 2019, eventually led officials to discover that the landfill was never procedurally closed.

The landfill was capped in 1992 with a chemical-resistant plastic sheet sealed to contain contaminants.

Paperwork for that testing ended up missing — both on the state and town’s end, officials have said. That’s when, as the state was conducting tests into its closure, contaminated drinking water at the well serving the town garage was discovered in the summer of 2021.

Given the proximity of the three contaminated wells to the landfill, questions have

LETTERS

continued from page 6

Exhausted and in deep shock after hours of struggle is more likely. The mortal threat of being caught in a trap is not likely lost on any animal. It beggars the imagination to believe any would decide it is a good time for a nap.

The subject recalls a “gentleman” of Charles Darwin’s acquaintance who was quoted in Darwin’s “Trapping Agony” regarding such traps in 1863. “I know of

arisen concerning other properties in the area. There are several private wells serving residential properties on Forests Edge Road, as well as properties to the west of North Road — south of the landfill.

It is unclear whether the state conducted well or drinking water testing in the surrounding vicinity after the new PFAS discovery.

The Citizen reported in September 2021 that the state had tested water for at least four other homes on Forests Edge and Beecher Hill roads and found that water safe for drinking. An email to a state official involved with the testing was not immediately returned.

no sight more sorrowful than that of these unoffending animals as they are seen in the torture grip of these traps,” he writes. “They sit drawn up into a little heap, as if collecting all their force of endurance to support the agony; some sit in a half torpid state induced by intense suffering.”

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