Charlotte sets tax rate
The Charlotte Selectboard set the tax rate at almost exactly what was expected when voters approved the budget at Town Meeting Day this year.
With a budget of $4.2 million — town spending plus a nearly $1 million Charlotte fire and rescue budget — the municipal tax rate was set at $.1834, slightly up from last year’s $.1804. That number is also still below what residents were paying during fiscal year 2023 at nearly 24 cents.
Some of the larger budget allocations this year came with a 49 percent increase in the town’s debt service, mostly allocated for the new town garage and solar installation, which is expected to power most town buildings going forward.
Still, residents will pay more than they did last year in taxes. This is mostly due to the increase in education tax rates associated with the change in the state’s educating funding formula that went into effect this year. The town’s new education tax rate of $1.292 for residents is nearly 18 percent over what it was last year.
In total, Charlotte taxpayers will pay $1.4755 in combined taxes this year. For a home valued at $500,000, residents can expect to pay $7,378, significantly higher than last year and mostly associated with education costs.
Budget review
Additionally, the town is in a much better position for its yearend budget review than it was last year. In fact, the town built back part of its fund balance that was lost last year.
For fiscal year 2024, the town fared better with revenues, which totaled more than $60,000 over last year.
The big revenue “winners,” town clerk Mary Mead said, were the senior center, recreation programs, interest income and an unanticipated $10,000 Efficiency Vermont grant for the town garage.
Expenses were $160,000 less than expected, she said. The senior center, fire and rescue, assessor’s office and elections all spent less money than was budgeted.
The fire and rescue service
Town planner announces retirement, turns to Statehouse seat
management and planning.
Over the past four years that Larry Lewack has been town planner in Charlotte, he has worked to push the town forward in a variety of ways as it pertains to land use
He has undertaken massive bylaw rewrites and, most notably, began one of the biggest planning feats in Charlotte with the village master planning project, a two-year comprehensive dive into the future of the town’s East and West villages.
Now, he is striking out on a different retirement path than most as he makes his bid for the Statehouse to represent Burlington’s Chittenden 13 House district, where he lives, as a Democrat.
He said the decision to retire
SUMMER
at the end of this year came as other aspects of his life began to converge, and he feels that by finishing the work with the master planning project by year’s end will make it easier to pass the baton to his successor.
“I feel like it’s actually a really
good invitation for me to take time to stop and reconsider a kind of different lifestyle than what I’ve been pursuing with full-time work these past, however many years,
See LEWACK on page 12
PHOTO BY LEE KROHN
A member of Mystic Party Band entertains the crowds at Charlotte’s annual town party at Charlotte Beach on July 13. More photos on page 8.
Party at the beach
LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
‘All Aboard: Railroad in American Art’ debuts at Shelburne Museum
BUSY ANDERSON COMMUNITY NEWS SERVICE
The Shelburne Museum tells the American railroad story in a deep red room where over 40 paintings from around the country hang on the walls.
Landscapes show artists’ first impressions of rail in the 19th century, with unimposing steam engines crawling through the distance. Rising cities and men laboring along tracks depict increased industrialization. Later pieces offer reflections on the railroad as a marvel that transformed from a machine to a vehicle for human interaction.
“Short of the digital revolution in the last 20 years, I don’t think there’s been a moment of
introduction of new technology in American history that rivals the railroad for what it did to the social topography, the cultural topography of the United States,” Thomas Denenberg, the museum’s director, said.
The collection of paintings is part of “All Aboard: The Railroad in American Art, 1840-1955,” an exhibition that opened in Shelburne last month as the first stop on its national tour and will run until Oct. 20. The show is a collaboration between Shelburne and two other museums set to display the collection: the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis and the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha.
“It’s a little bit of a march through time,” Julie Pierotti, curator at the Dixon, said.
The unveiling of “All Aboard” comes as Americans consider the sustainability of automobile culture — and how transportation infrastructure has reconfigured our landscape. Railroads defied physical and social distances in the 19th and 20th centuries, but similarly “they were a doubleedged sword,” said Thomas Busciglio-Ritter, the assistant curator at the Joslyn Museum who specializes in art from the American West.
“It reflected both the best and the worst of its times: mobility yet segregation, speed yet environmental damage, economic growth yet inequality,” he said.
Shelburne is first to see the exhibition before it arrives at the Dixon and later at the Joslyn. The partnership allowed the museums
ANDY DUBACK; LEFT: DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART; BELOW: ART GALLERY OF HAMILTON
“All Aboard: The Railroad in American Art” is now on exhibit at Shelburne Museum.
Left: Charles T. Bowling, “Church at the Crossroads,” 1936, oil on board.
Below: Joe Jones, “All the Live Long Day,” 1939, oil on paper mounted on board.
RAILROAD ART
continued from page 2
to split costs and draw from 37 artwork lenders. The museums even published a book featuring essays on paintings from the exhibition by curators from each. That wouldn’t have normally been possible without collaborating, Denenberg said.
Each of the host cities also carries a special history with its rail lines.
“Amtrak and the freight trains go right through Shelburne and literally split the museum in half,” Denenberg said.
Tracks winding along Lake Champlain first connected Montreal to New York City in the 19th century, replacing waterway travel.
“The reason the town of Shelburne exists is it was the whistle stop” between the cities, Denenberg said.
The railroad also runs through the middle of Memphis, making it a part of everyday life in the Tennessee city, Pierotti said. The Union Pacific Railroad ties Memphis to Omaha, and is central to Omaha’s commercial economy.
“Omaha was chosen as the terminal of the First Transcontinental Railroad, which
eventually connected the Great Plains to California when it was completed in 1869,” Busciglio-Ritter said. Union Pacific remains the most expansive railroad in North America, the company says, spanning 23 states.
“All Aboard” is the first exhibition on the East Coast to look at the relationship between the railroad and American art since the 1980s, Denenberg said. The time was right, the organizers said, as intense conversation about the risk and reward of new technology dominates the public sphere.
“There’s something for everybody, and something for everybody to learn,” Pierotti said.
“All Aboard” will open at the Dixon this November and at the Joslyn in February 2025.
Busy Anderson is an intern with the Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism program, on assignment for the Vermont Community Newspaper Group.
OPEN MON-SAT 10-5 CLOSED SUN
CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART
William Charles Libby, “Lanterns,” 1945, tempera on board.
Hinesburg Police Blotter: July 16-22
Total incidents: 48
Traffic stops: 18
Arrests: 1
Selected incidents:
July 16 at 7:51 p.m., an officer responded to a single-car motor vehicle crash on Lewis Creek Road.
July 17 at 7:41 a.m., an erratic driver was reported on Route 116.
July 17 at 10:02 a.m., officers investigated a dispute on Richmond Road.
July 17 at 2:22 p.m., an officer conducted a traffic stop on North Road. The vehicle was reported stolen in Burlington. The operator, Andrew Germain, 37, of Hinesburg, was arrested for grand larceny and aggravated operation without owner consent.
July 18 at 12:22 p.m., someone reported being harassed on social media.
July 19 at 7:00 a.m., an officer investigated a dispute on
North Road.
July 19 at 9:04 a.m., an officer responded to a singlecar motor vehicle crash on Mechanicsville Road.
July 19 at 5:13 p.m., an officer responded to a single-car motor vehicle crash on Route 116.
July 20 at 6:34 p.m., an officer responded to Starksboro to assist state troopers with an investigation.
July 20 at 10:34 p.m., officers investigated a reported custodial dispute on Major Street.
July 21 at 11:17 a.m., an officer assisted Williston police by serving a citation to a citizen on North Road.
July 22 at 6:10 p.m., officers assisted with a medical emergency on Pond Road.
Note: Charges filed by police are subject to review by the Chittenden County State’s Attorney Office and can be amended or dropped.
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Serving the community of Charlotte & Hinesburg
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Third person arrested in 2019 execution killing in Hinesburg
MIKE DONOGHUE CORRESPONDENT
The boyfriend of a former Monkton woman, who authorities said gunned down her husband five years ago, has been arrested on federal conspiracy charges.
John Turner, 45, of Milton is the third person charged in connection with the fatal nighttime ambush killing of David Auclair, 45, in July 2019.
Auclair’s bullet-riddled body was found at the LaPlatte Headwaters Town Forest trailhead parking lot off Gilman Road in Hinesburg.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Vermont State Police arrested Turner last Wednesday at a Hinesburg golf course where he has worked for many years.
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in the commission of first-degree murder and obstruction of justice.
Her son, Kory Lee George, 36, was sentenced to 18 years to life in prison after admitting to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder of his stepfather in Hinesburg. George, a five-time felon, was convicted separately in federal court for illegal possession of a firearm in connection with the homicide.
At his change of plea hearing, George said his mother fired all the shots into David Auclair. She initially claimed she was home when her husband was gunned down.
Turner faces two federal charges: conspiracy to possess stolen firearms and receiving stolen firearms in July 2019.
Turner appeared in U.S. District Court later that afternoon and plead not guilty to the charges.
His defense lawyer, Karen Shingler, asked for four months to investigate the case and consider filing pre-trial motions.
Turner was released on conditions.
The victim’s estranged wife, Angela M. Auclair, 52, initially pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and was expected to be sentenced to 18 years to life in prison, but she withdrew her plea earlier this year and fired her lawyer.
She is awaiting trial.
Other charges, which were to be dismissed, have been restored against Auclair, including aiding
“It’s about as bad as it gets,” Judge Kevin Griffin told George at his sentencing.
David Auclair was shot 11 times, and no shell casings were left behind from the shooting, Vermont State Police said.
He was the son of a well-known South Burlington family that operated a large farm on Vermont 116 near the Shelburne line.
The victim was lured to the scene of his execution through a pre-paid burner cellphone that was traced to a Milton store where George bought it, state police said.
Auclair tried to crawl under his 2017 GMC pickup truck to get away from the shooting by his wife, deputy state’s attorney Susan G. Hardin said in court when George pleaded guilty.
Turner faces two federal charges: conspiracy to possess stolen firearms and receiving stolen firearms in July 2019.
Vermont State Police had reported earlier that Turner had
driven George to the Colchester home of James Synott on July 10, 2019, one night before the homicide.
George broke into the unoccupied home on Arbor Lane and stole five firearms, according to court records. The home was unattended because Angela Auclair had set up a dinner with Synott and her estranged husband at the Lighthouse Restaurant in Colchester. The three were mutual friends. Turner drove his Chevrolet Suburban to the Spanked Puppy restaurant in Colchester, where he met George, records showed. Turner drove George in his own car to the Synott neighborhood and dropped him off near the home.
George stole five guns, including two 9-mm Beretta handguns, a Davis Warner Arms .32 handgun, and a Llama .380 handgun. The guns were later transferred to Turner’s Chevy Suburban, according to the indictment.
Also with them was George’s then girlfriend, who he later married, state police said.
The stolen guns were stored for the night at a trailer used by the co-conspirators in Milton, and the next day Angela Auclair used one of the stolen Berettas to kill her husband, the indictment read.
The day after the shooting, one of the co-conspirators attempted to dispose of the Beretta used in the shooting and one day later a co-conspirator attempted to dispose of the other handguns stolen from the Synott residence, the indictment noted.
The second count in the indictment charges Turner with possessing four of the stolen handguns.
Before David Auclair’s death, his estranged wife had a romantic interest in Turner, who would visit the couple’s home on Vermont 116 in Williston, records showed.
St. Albans trucker injured in fire on Route 7
MIKE DONOGHUE
CORRESPONDENT
A tractor-trailer containing compressed gas was destroyed after it ignited for unknown reasons on Route 7 in North Ferrisburgh south of the Charlotte town line.
Mark E. Laflam, 64, of St. Albans, was taken to University of Vermont Medical Center with unspecified injuries July 15, officials said.
The trailer was owned by NG Advantage of Colchester, while the tractor belonged to KAG Merchant Gas Group in
Canton, Ohio.
The massive fire and subsequent explosion forced the closure of Route 7 between Greenbush and Dakin roads shortly after the 2:50 p.m. alarm.
The location was about the same place as another big natural gas fire in June 2023 involving a tanker owned by the KAG Merchant Gas Group out of Lansdale, Penn., the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles said.
DMV Investigators reported the Monday fire started for unknown reasons.
After the explosion, the flames soon spread to a nearby small
building on the west side of Route 7, investigators said.
State police said one lane of Route 7 between Greenbush and Dakin roads reopened about 7:30 p.m.
Department of Motor Vehicles
Lt. Matt Nesto, who is heading the investigation, said Ferrisburgh Fire Department received assistance from multiple volunteer fire departments including Vergennes, Monkton, Addison, Shelburne and Hinesburg.
Also assisting were Vermont State Police and Vergennes police. Emergency medical services also came from Vergennes and Bristol.
OPINION
Dressing room reflections
In Musing
Carole Vasta Folley
Letters to the Editor
Recently I went shopping with friends, women I adore, and once again reveled in the magical enclave called dressing rooms. It makes no thread of difference whether the dressing room is in a department or discount store or a boutique or thrift shop, this women-only space creates an intimate one-of-a-kind type of connection I’ve rarely experienced elsewhere.
I’m not sure how to describe the camaraderie that manifests out of thin air in between these mirrored cubicles. Even in a dressing room by myself, I hear kinship all around me. Mothers and daughters, sisters by birth or by heart, and friends of all ages sharing with an ease and authenticity that’s both dynamic and comforting.
Snippets of supportive and congenial conversations drift over partitions, from exclamations of delight and appreciation to offerings of assurance and encouragement. Everyone there is privy to the generosity of women among women.
In that private space, insecurities are shared. How our bodies have changed over time. How our bellies belie our self-worth. We speak in intimacies, revealing ravages left behind from illness, surgery and childbirth or just plain ole life. Baring souls and bodies, we admit how we often dress to
hide when really, we want to twirl and twirl in a rainbow-colored skirt or never again wear an undergarment labeled “supportive.” A misnomer if ever there was one. We laugh too. The best laughter to be found. The healing kind. The kind you never forget because, to this day, it still makes you laugh. Hilarity from the clothes themselves, including their fit — or should I say unfit? Cracking up over ensembles that make you look like Half Pint on “Little House on the Prairie,” or worse, a character on “Gilligan’s Island,” and by that, I mean, Thurston Howell the Third.
Then there’s the ridiculousness of sizes; how a 6 and a 14 in different brands are exactly the same dimensions. Or it could be you can’t take off a dress you tried on. You’re stuck with your arms straight up in the air and the skirt over your head. I’m not saying this happened to me once, because it’s happened repeatedly. I can assure you it gets funnier each time, but only when you’re with friends.
And it’s not just those I know. Women, who are strangers, have shared with me about themselves, their bodies, their hopes, their needs, asking if they look OK for a first date, a job interview, a wedding or a funeral. It’s akin to holding someone’s hand. An opportunity to say something that matters.
enable us to be seen when sometimes we can’t see ourselves. Especially without the lens of societal scrutiny of what we’re supposed to look like.
I saw an article last week that advised women to stop looking in mirrors at themselves in profile. Sure, it’s the quickest way to assess the size of our stomachs. Plus, a lifelong habit for many of us who were taught to critique ourselves from the side or back view because that is how others judge us.
Why
are employee benefits so offensive to some?
To the Editor:
This is regarding the lengthy piece about town employees, their health benefits and their decision to unionize. It really does need an ongoing response. (“Move toward a union will cost taxpayers, now and in the future,” July 11, 2024)
Then there’s the ridiculousness of sizes; how a 6 and a 14 in different brands are exactly the same dimensions. Or it could be you can’t take off a dress you tried on.
Though painful in its practice and impact, sadly, in our culture it’s a valid reality. The shame outside a dressing room is real. We’re told throughout our lives that we women are too big, too small, too much, too over-dressed, too under-dressed, too loose, too tight, too short, too long, etc. Clearly, too evaluated to simply be. But inside that changing room, there are women who believe no such thing. Women who see and praise the beauty, the individuality and the fullness of other women. And, just maybe, this sisterhood of affirmation can help us all get a little closer to being, in Anne Lamott’s words, a constant tender-hearted wife to ourselves. Outside a dressing room.
Maybe that is the magic of women’s dressing rooms. They
Carole Vasta Folley is an award-winning columnist and playwright. Visit carolevf.com.
The overall response, really, is simple: Why is providing our employees and their families the benefits they have so offensive? Is it somehow their fault? Didn’t the people we elected decide they should have them?
And, since there’s always a reason groups of employees turn to unions, what is that reason here?
This episode begins with mythology about last year’s budget defeat. The myth is that the townspeople created a “mandate” that the selectboard cut employee health benefits. Well, the mandate was just a bare majority of those who voted, all of 35 votes out of nearly 1,000. And it is far from clear how many “no” votes on the budget had anything to do with health benefits for employees’ families.
So, now, the selectboard, after a year and a half, are looking at a proposal that would impose on every employee household an average $3,000 hit to their compensation. The easy arithmetic: Property taxpayer savings would average less than $30 or about the price of two small pizzas at Backyard Bistro.
Then there’s a lot of rhetoric about the evils of unionization accompanied by a call to all townspeople to tell our selectboard they’re against it. When the history of this episode is writ-
ten (if ever), it will be plain the move to organize began because, and remains the result, of the selectboard’s failure to meet with employees about all this until … I don’t believe they have even met yet. This absence of simple respect for those who do our work for us is key to understanding why employees are organizing, as, by the way, is simply their right to do.
Resorting to fearmongering about “big, bad” unions adds nothing.
There is plenty to bemoan about the state of our health care system. Its costs balloon all the time. Our access to it when we need it is intermittent. Some insurance provides inadequate coverage. None of that should be laid at our employees’ feet.
Joel D. Cook
Charlotte
Project 25 wreaks havoc on women’s health care
To the Editor:
Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are supporters of Project 2025. If allowed to become the law of the land, Project 2025 will certainly and catastrophically affect women’s and children’s health care in the U.S. The GOP is inextricably entwined with Project 2025, a right-wing manifesto produced by the billionaire-funded Heritage Foundation. (bit. ly/46hhiPK)
It is authored by over 140 Trump loyalists. Project 2025 is the plan for presidential transition if Donald Trump wins the
See LETTERS on page 7
“We can see clearly now the rain is gone!”
Carole Vasta Folley
Assassination attempt: just another day in America
Guest Perspective Walt Amses
Last Saturday evening the Village Harmony Teen Chorus transcended the sparse crowd and sweltering confines of the Unitarian Church in Montpelier for an exuberant celebration of pure joy with a program of music from around the world.
Soul-stirring Georgian harmonies, emotional Russian wedding songs, as well as Bulgarian, Ukrainian, sacred harp and South African traditional choral arrangements offered a wide-ranging meditation on the healing potential of song and the extraordinary power of the human voice.
When fireworks lit the orange, midsummer dusk over the Capitol City as the gathering headed home, it felt part of the show: a near perfect finale to a joyous, two-hour concert. But as we quickly learned, while angelic voices tugged at heartstrings at the Unitarian, pure evil was at work in Pennsylvania where a 20-year-old, would-be assassin
fired into the crowd at a Donald Trump campaign rally killing a man and wounding several others, including the former president.
Thanks to conservatives and the National Rifle Association — weapons of war are easily accessible and shooting people has become just another problem-solving option.
Whether the shock of the moment or his inherent showmanship, ghastly chaos aside, Trump emerged from a heap of Secret Service agents bloodied but unbowed, an American Flag waving behind him, fist pumping and screaming “fight, fight, fight,” the former president had somehow meticulously crafted an iconic photograph: an image that will span generations of T-shirts, coffee mugs and MAGA tattoos, likely winning the photographer a second Pulitzer Prize.
Claiming to be more “spiritual,” Trump claimed, “God alone prevented the unthinkable from happening,” suggesting that he would deliver a message of unity at this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. GOP supporters and Congressional Republicans who normally chastise anyone politicizing gun
violence were suddenly anxious to politicize gun violence. Their go-to bromide of “thoughts and prayers” was nowhere to be seen as they lashed out at Democrats with newly named vice-presidential pick JD Vance leading the charge.
The freshman Ohio senator tweeted almost immediately after Trump’s narrow escape that “Today is not some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Trump’s son Don Jr., quickly leaped in, posting: “Don’t tell me they didn’t know what they were doing with this crap. Calling my dad a ‘dictator’ and a ‘threat to democracy’ wasn’t some one-off comment. It has been the MAIN MESSAGE of the Biden-Kamala campaign and Democrats across the country.”
Slate reported CNN contributor and Republican political consultant Scott Jennings said: “The rhetoric around him over the last few weeks, that if he wins the election our country will end, our democracy will end, it’s the last election we’ll ever have. These things have consequences.”
The consequences the GOP brain trust is hoping for include blunting even legitimate crit-
icism of Trump; redirecting the nation’s focus from Project 2025, the conservative template for a Republican presidential administration; and distracting voters from the stark reality that conservatives have been fetishizing firearms for years, especially the AR-15, the tool of choice for mass shooters and the gun used in Saturday’s assassination attempt.
The GOP would like people to forget that House Republican Barry Moore of Alabama introduced a bill that would enshrine the AR-15 as the “National Gun of the United States.” Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, who tried, through her “Shall not be infringed act,” to repeal or defund almost all gun control, cosponsored the initiative saying, “We must send a message that we will meet every attack on any of our constitutional rights.”
When teenager Kyle Rittenhouse traveled from his Illinois home to Kenosha, Wis., purportedly to “stand his ground” and murdering two people at a Black Lives Matter demonstration, he not only was acquitted of the charges but celebrated as a hero by shameless Republicans who have glorified political violence for years. Rittenhouse was the guest of honor at a GOP rally in Idaho a year ago where he signed an AR-15 auctioned off as part of a fundraiser. Attendees could also buy tickets to Trigger Time,
a Rittenhouse-hosted shooting event at a local gun range.
Although conservatives are using the shooting to blunt criticism of their own agenda and reinforce the acquisition of the Republican Party by Trump as though it’s just another golf course or hotel, the tragedy that unfolded in Pennsylvania fit the agonizing pattern that has become commonplace in the United States. The only thing out of the ordinary was the target. There was no apparent political motivation — the would-be assassin was a registered Republican, unaffiliated with any radical groups or organizations.
Thomas Matthew Crooks was a 20-year-old who lived with his parents, working a low wage job at a nursing home. He was isolated, picked on and bullied in high school. He lived in a country where — thanks to conservatives and the National Rifle Association — weapons of war are easily accessible and shooting people has become just another problem-solving option. Crooks’ decision to pick up a weapon points to the impulsivity of young males, documented in mass shootings and school massacres from Uvalde, Texas to Parkland, Fla. to Newtown, Conn. to Columbine, Colo.
As a newly invigorated Trump waltzed through the Republican Convention amid the cheering multitudes, touting divine intervention to the delight of Christian Nationalists waiting to take over the country, every one of us should unequivocally denounce political violence.
What happened in Pennsylvania was deplorable and easily could have been tragic but shouldn’t give the former president a pass. He remains a serious threat to democracy. He led a coup to overturn the results of a legitimate election, and his chilling 2025 policy agenda provides him with near unlimited power. He is completely unfit for office. He needs to be stopped.
He also shouldn’t have shot. But for that, Republicans have only themselves to blame.
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Walt Amses is a Vermontbased writer.
Let’s set the record straight on education funding in Vermont
Guest Perspective
Rep. Casey J. Toof
What’s the worst thing to do when you are stuck in a hole? Continue to dig. What is the worst thing to do in an affordability crisis? Make things less affordable.
Yet, in the Vermont Legislature, this common sense is foreign to many of elected officials.
With a population of about 645,000 Vermonters, the state’s human services budget serves one-third of that number. With 80,000 students statewide, the state’s education fund serves a dwindling student population. Yet this year, the state’s education fund will outspend the human services budget.
We now spend more to serve 80,000 students in our K-12 education system than we do the 200,000 Vermonters in the human services system. And if we do nothing, this gap is going to grow larger and larger.
Gov. Phil Scott sounded the alarm in late 2023 when the yearly tax letter was sent with news of an average 18 percent increase
LETTERS
continued from page 5
upcoming presidential election. It has been inferred that Trump does not know what Project 2025 is. It is naive to believe this.
As a long-time maternal child nurse, I have helped thousands of women of childbearing years, both here in Vermont, and worldwide, as I had the privilege of being an online medical resource for new mothers for 15 years. I support all families — nuclear, single-parent, LGBTQ.
Women should be able to expect equity, workplace protections and safe health care. With Project 2025, these rights stand to be severely impacted. Basic health care for women and children such as Medicaid is a target to be cut. Also, it seeks to reduce the availability of medication abortion, Mifepristone, a safe and effective medication.
Trump and Vance, his vice-presidential nominee, want to catapult us firmly back into the 1950s. Vance has publicly stated that he supports a ban on all abortion, including in cases of rape or incest. Trump himself was found liable in a civil trial for sexual abuse, and states that women who have abortions should be “punished.”
The implementation of Project 2025’s draconian limitations on women’s health care choices, including a federal ban on abortion procedures and abortion
to education property tax bills. He warned school districts to pay attention to this when developing their budgets.
In late December, Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth assured Vermonters the average property tax increase would be limited to 1.5 or 2 percent. In reality, it is 14 percent, on average.
Yes, Don Tinney, president of the Vermont-National Education Association, the education fund is a beast, as Vermonters continue to have to feed it monetarily without looking at true, structural reform to the education system. If the state was delivering not only topnotch education to students but good test scores that rivaled other states, then I am all in. Our state, however, continues to show an annual decline in both student populations and student outcomes while the cost to educate these students increases each year.
Faced with a $243 million increase over last year’s spending by school districts, the Legislature looked for ways to decrease this amount. The House Ways and Means Committee worked hard and proposed a bipartisan
solution to the education funding bill, which included several of the governor’s initiatives of structural education reform.
Then a funny thing happened. Less than 24 hours later, that proposal was dismissed by the Democratic supermajority and double-digit tax increase with no bipartisan structural reforms was passed instead out of the House Committee on Ways and Means on a party line vote.
In the end, an additional $96 million was infused into the education fund to reduce the tax increase from 18 percent to 13.8 percent. But those were one-time funds to try and plug a recurring budget gap. That’s like using a band-aid on a bullet wound. Every legislator and every Vermonter should be very afraid of what happens next year to our education tax bills when the band-aid falls off.
Put simply, structural education reform is needed now. We cannot continue on this path of tax hike after tax hike. Over the last decade, dozens of reforms have been proposed by Scott and the Republicans in the Legislature. Many of these haven’t even gotten
a hearing in Montpelier. And what is the solution proposed by the Democratic supermajority? Yet another commission and another committee to study how we deliver education.
Since the year 2000, the Legislature has enacted 38 education finance studies. The 2024 yield bill adds study number 39.
We do not need more studies to tell us that a double-digit tax hike is wrong for Vermonters.
The supermajority’s mantra that the governor never offers solutions is simply not true. Cost containment ideas proposed by the Scott Administration, as well as Republican leaders, over the past several years have been dismissed outright. The following are ideas put forth by the governor that have been dismissed:
• Enacting variable growth caps on per pupil spending.
• Tying school spending to student population changes.
• Capping statewide property tax increases.
• Adjusting excess spending thresholds.
• Meaningfully reducing excessive property tax adjustments.
• Asset testing the income sensitivity property for certain earners.
• Making the universal meals program progressive.
reserves to soften rate increases. When people talk about the political environment in Montpelier, let’s be clear: In January, Scott put forth several initiatives. Most notably, a tri-partisan housing bill, which included many of the governor’s initiatives, was introduced the third week in January. H.719, which would have reduced hurdles to building new housing, was sent to the House Committee on Housing and General, where it sat “on the wall” all session long.
As I said on the floor of the House before voting to sustain the governor’s veto on the yield bill, “Not doing anything because the supermajority says we don’t have time is not an option I can support. Sustain the veto and work like heck to get a yield below double digits, that has short-term and long-term solutions that give Vermonters relief from an average property tax bill increase of 13.8 percent. I cannot go back home to my constituency and tell them we didn’t do anything because we didn’t have time. That is unacceptable to me, and it is unacceptable to every Vermonter we serve.”
medication, will cause devastation, illness and death for many American women and children of child-bearing years. Banning safe abortion will not stop abortion, it will cause increased unsafe abortion. Before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land, people with means flew their wives, girlfriends to other places to get abortions. Women of means will always be fine, but not so for
women in poverty and women of color, who suffer disproportionately.
I urge you to become aware of the points of Project 2025 and vote according to your conscience. Please stand up for safe reproductive health care for all women.
Kathleen Bruce Hinesburg
Superior Roofing Solutions
• Aligning student-to-staff ratios to be more in line with peer states through natural attrition.
• Implementing a multi-vote structure for districts with lower student-to-staff ratios.
• Setting statutory boundaries on health care cost sharing.
• Adjusting the funding formula to tighten the connection between spending and taxing decisions.
• Strategically utilizing
The Democrats have chosen the unacceptable path. This election, we have a chance to send a message to Montpelier by rejecting the elected officials who have repeatedly pushed the failed policies of the past.
Let’s make it clear to them that Vermonters cannot afford — and will not tolerate — double-digit property tax hikes and a broken education system. We can and must do better.
Rep. Casey J. Toof, R-Franklin-8, is the ranking member on the House Committee on Education and assistant minority leader.
Charlotte Beach Party
Charlotters turned out in droves for the annual beach party July 13 on a perfect summer day. Picnickers enjoyed gelato and other desserts and other goodies, like this slice of watermelon. Members of the Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue Services are always on hand — Hannah Webber, a volunteer EMS and CJ Webber, a full time AEMT, are shown here — as are Brian and Melissa Fortin of Fortin’s Lawncare & Landscaping, grilling up hot fare.
PHOTOS BY LEE KROHN
Music at the Beach concert rescheduled
The Music at the Beach performance of Skylark, originally scheduled for July 24, has been rescheduled.
The concert will now be held Sunday, July 28.
Other upcoming Music at the Beach concerts, free with park admission, are set for Wednesdays, July 31 and Aug. 7. All concerts are at 6 p.m.
July programs at the Charlotte Senior Center
For more information about any of the programming, go to charlotteseniorcentervt.org.
• “On the Rocks” with Ginny Joyner, Saturday, July 27, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. If you’ve always wanted to try watercolor but were too intimidated, this is the class for you. The cost is $40 plus a $6 supply fee. Registration and payment required by July 24.
• Shape-note singing, Sunday, July 28, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Free.
Traditional a capella, four-part harmony sung for the joy of singing not as a practice for performance. The first hour will be sacred harp singing and the second from an alternate shape notebook. Books provided. For questions or to schedule your introduction to shape notes and scales, contact Kerry Cullinan at kclynxvt@gmail.com.
Here’s the skinny on Charlotte youth sports
Registration is now open for Charlotte fall youth sports.
Soccer practices will be at Charlotte Central School on Saturday mornings for kids in kindergarten or earlier.
For first and second graders, kids will practice once during the week, with a game on Saturday at Charlotte Central School. Kids in grades three to five will practice twice a week, with a Saturday game at the school or in another local town.
To sign up for soccer, go to bit. ly/3ScNWMT.
Tennis lessons are open to kids
Be sure to visit our advertisers and tell them:
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COMMUNITY
in grades one to six and will be held at the Charlotte town beach
Learn more here: bit.ly/4fdswZN.
Sign up for martial arts at bit. ly/3LvZRRY. Sessions are held in the fall, winter and spring at Charlotte Central.
Hospital board hosts community conversation
The Vermont Green Mountain Care Board hosts a discussion on the future of health care in Vermont on Monday, July 29, 4:30-6 p.m., at the South Burlington Public Library.
Despite rising insurance costs, Vermont’s hospitals and health systems face financial pressures and the health system requires revitalization.
Join local community leaders, hospital leaders, legislators, state officials and neighbors in discussing the options your community has for supporting the future of health care in Vermont.
Learn more at gmcboard. vermont.gov/act-167-community-meetings.
Enjoy Age Well meals at Charlotte Senior Center
The Age Well meal pickup for Wednesday, July 31, is from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Charlotte Senior Center. The meal features meatballs with marinara sauce over penne pasta, mixed vegetables with lima beans, wheat bread, pineapples, oranges, and milk.
Community Notes
You must pre-register by the prior Monday at 802-425-6345 or meals@charlotteseniorcentervt. org. The suggested donation is $5. Check the website for last-minute cancellations at bit.ly/3FfyLMb.
The meal on Wednesday, Aug. 7 features baked meatloaf with gravy, sweet potatoes, Brussel sprouts, dinner roll, tapioca pudding with peaches and cream and milk.
The meal on Wednesday, Aug. 14 features roast turkey with sauce, potatoes with ranch dressing, mixed vegetables, dinner roll, date and raisin cookie and milk.
Sign up now for Shelburne grab and go meal
Age Well and St. Catherine’s of Siena Parish in Shelburne are teaming up to provide a meal to go for anyone age 60 and older on Tuesday, Aug. 13. Meals will be available for pick up in the parking lot at 72 Church St. from 11 a.m. until noon and are available for anyone 60 or older. Suggested donation is $5.
The menu features roast turkey with gravy, potatoes with ranch dressing, mixed vegetables, dinner roll, date raisin cookie and milk.
To order a meal, contact Kathleen at agewellstcath@gmail.com or 802-503-1107. Deadline to order is Wednesday, Aug. 7. If this is a first-time order, provide your name, address, phone number and date of birth.
Learn about restaurant tickets to dine at participating restaurants at agewellvt.org.
10th annual Vermont Open Farm Week in August
Do you love local food and farms? Do you want to get to know your farmer better and get a behind-the-scenes look into Vermont’s working agricultural landscape?
During the 2024 Vermont Open Farm Week, Aug. 4-11, meet the farmers, plants and animals that bring your favorite Vermont products to your plate.
Milk a cow and harvest a carrot at one farm, sit on a tractor and take in the smell of freshly cut hay at another and then head over to another for wood-fired pizza night and a garden tour. Events are happening across the state, so it’s a great time to get out and explore.
A complete list of open farm week events will be posted are posted at bit.ly/4d7OITb.
Shelburne church, Age well host July luncheon
Age Well is offering a luncheon on Tuesday, Aug. 20, in the St Catherine of Siena Parish Hall, 72 Church St. in Shelburne. Entertainment will be provided by Gerry Ortego on guitar.
The menu is barbecue chicken sandwich on a roll, potato salad, broccoli salad with Italian dress-
ing, watermelon, pumpkin chip cookie and milk.
You must register by Wednesday, Aug. 14, to Kerry Batres, nutrition coordinator, 802-6625283 or email kbatres@agewellvt.org. Tickets are also available at the Age Well Office, 875 Roosevelt Highway, Suite 210, Colchester.
Check-in time is 11:30 a.m. and the meal will be served at noon. There is a $5 suggested donation.
Enjoy free coffee, muffins at The Grange
On the first Friday of every month through November, enjoy free coffee and muffins, 8:3010 a.m., at the Charlotte Grange Hall, 2858 Spear St.
There will be iced coffee, hot coffee, tea and homemade muffins. Stay for a moment or an hour.
The dates are Aug. 2, Sept. 6, Oct. 4 and Nov. 1.
Dwight + Nicole entertain at Free First Friday
Dwight + Nicole play American soul and blues at the summer’s last Free First Friday at Shelburne Museum, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
It’s the perfect time to visit the galleries, enjoy a picnic on the grounds, stroll through the gardens and take in the splendor of a summer’s evening.
For more information, visit shelburnemuseum.org.
Researchers tie floods to climate change On Lake Champlain
KATE KAMPNER
COMMUNITY NEWS SERVICE
Fair skies last Thursday might have suggested a good day on the lake for boaters. But toward the mouth of the Winooski River, a clear cut of gray across the blue waves was hard to miss.
Flooding last week caused the river to overflow into Lake Champlain and with it came an influx of phosphorus and sediment such as dirt and bits of landscape. Together, fine particles from the debris created a string of murky, chocolate-colored plumes across the water.
The cloudy water will likely take about two weeks to clear up. That was according to several researchers hosting the equivalent of a floating press conference on the lake that morning. The five experts — several affiliated with the University of Vermont — took members of the press on the college’s new hybrid-electric boat to talk about water quality risks to the lake.
The researchers also announced the Lake Champlain Sea Grant was awarded just under $300,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to launch a community-action coalition focused on reducing plastic pollution into Lake Champlain.
A larger trend
One of the indicators of bad water quality can be raised counts of E. coli or chloroform bacteria, which are brought in with river sediment and hazardous if ingested. The plumes also prevent photosynthesizing organisms from getting the energy they need by limiting how much light fully passes through the water.
Matthew Vaughan, chief scientist of the Lake Champlain Basin Program, was surprised how the lake recovered after last year’s catastrophic floods.
“There’s a shorter timescale of recovery where the lake can bounce back, but in the long run we are battling against an increase in flow over time and more nutrients coming downstream,” he said.
Vaughan said last year on July 11, the Winooski River had the highest flow researchers had seen since 1990.
“When we ran the numbers, we determined that half of the annual phosphorus’ (total maximum daily load) was deposited in Lake Champlain in a week’s time from the storm last year,” he said, referencing the highest amount of the mineral the lake can take in a day before exceeding water quality standards.
With the flooding this month, the flow level reached the 10th highest measure
since 1990, Vaughan said. “The flow overall of the lake was about two-thirds of what it was last year,” he said, and he expects the amount of phosphorus in the lake to be lower this year.
“Although we saw infrastructure damage, it was higher up in the watershed and in steeper areas,” he said.
Vaughan noted that this year’s extreme rainfall was a byproduct of Hurricane Beryl, the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record since the 1850s. Category 5 storms feature winds greater than 157 mph.
“This really can be tied to climate change, increasing air and ocean water temperatures, and that’s part of why you’re seeing an increase in flooding here in the Lake Champlain Basin,” he said. “It’s part of a larger trend.”
Devastating cycles
To determine water visibility, UVM researchers use a Secchi disk — a blackand-white disk that is lowered into the water until you lose sight of it.
In some of the most recent tests after the early July floods, disks disappeared at just 0.3 meters in one spot of the lake and 1.7 meters in another. A typical clear water average would be between 3.5 and 7.5 meters, Vaughan said.
Lake Champlain Sea Grant Director Anne Jefferson, a UVM professor, said flows that carry debris into the lake can sometimes be natural.
“Rivers moving things like sediment and wood are natural and good processes; that dynamic landscape is a functioning landscape,” Jefferson said.
But when those flows pass through developed land, they can contort the natural processes into devastating cycles.
“Anytime that we’ve gotten water moving over our urban areas or causing erosion in the rural areas — taking out pieces of buildings or even just flowing over a parking lot in a heavy rainstorm,” she said. “We are picking up all of the human pollution, including trash, and delivering it to our streams and rivers and eventually
Lake Champlain.”
Organisms can struggle to digest plastic, if they can at all, meaning it remains inside them and causes nutrition problems, Jefferson said. Plastics in the water also provide homes for bacteria and algae that otherwise wouldn’t get to set up colonies, she said.
Rebecca Diehl, a UVM research assistant professor, said it’s natural to regularly have a small amount of sediment moving through the watershed, but with extreme weather events, there’s an excessive amount of sediment and nutrients.
In her research, she looks at natural processes in the landscape that help mitigate sediment runoff. “Floodplains themselves when they’re properly functioning.
They can do a lot to slow floodwaters and capture those nutrients and sediments and keep them on the landscape.”
Last year, Vermont floodplains captured about six times more phosphorus than during more routine floods, Diehl said.
“If we open up our floodplains, if we can take advantage and harness that natural function, we potentially can put a dent in the massive amount of sediments that are moving through our landscape,” she said.
Kate Kampner is a reporter with the Community News Service, a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
PHOTOS BY KATE KAMPNER
Above: A plume of sediment and debris floats in Lake Champlain on June 18 after heavy rains caused the Winooski River to overflow.
Below: UVM agroecology fellow Nora Beer holds a Secchi disk, used to measure water clarity, on Lake Champlain on June 18.
The Hinesburg Garden Tour came off without a hitch July 14 as people toured six unique gardens. Here are some scenes of the gardens, courtesy of the Friends of the Carpenter-Carse Library, which sponsored the tour as a fundraiser for the library.
COURTESY PHOTOS
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LEWACK
continued from page 1
and to do something different,” he said.
But with an innate knowledge of land use planning in his blood, he said that it would be impossible to step away from the work entirely. He said he is contemplating working on a part-time contractual basis for other towns that may need to leverage his expertise, especially as the Legislature takes massive inroads into statewide land use planning initiatives.
He said it was important to let the team in Charlotte’s planning office know about his retirement plans sooner than later, as they now must look to fill the seat of one of the most vital role players in town.
“There’s a limited number of people in the Vermont workforce who have the requisite skill set to do what I do every day, not to overvalue or anything,” he said. “There are not a lot of people who are able to step into a full-time municipal planning role with strong background and qualifications.”
years of experience in the nonprofit human services realm, which is also where he performed a lot of advocacy work in the Statehouse.
applied to the village centers over the years. Although the 2018 town plan calls for more development in the villages, the town’s current land use regulations, like a 5-acre lot size minimum in both centers, directly contradict and limit those goals.
“I’m not sure why we never fixed that before I got here, but when I got here, and I realized the effect that had. I decided that we really need to take a couple steps back and attempt a bigger picture fix,” he said.
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Lewack’s planning and zoning experience extends far beyond his past four years in Charlotte. He has experience working in planning and volunteering on planning commissions in other towns like Bolton, Winooski and Burlington.
Additionally, he has roughly 20
“I mostly worked for organizations that provided services and support and advocacy for people with disabilities and supported a variety of different disability types during that time,” he said. He was executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Vermont, and supported individuals living with a psychiatric disability and their families.
His recent work in Charlotte has been mostly focused on the village master planning project, which seeks to remedy some outdated planning methods that have been
CHARLOTTE DEVELOPMENT REVIEW BOARD
Will hold a public hearing at Town Hall, 159 Ferry Rd., Charlotte, VT on the following application during its regular meeting of Wednesday, August 14, 2024
7:05 PM DRB 24-092-SDA Baker – Subdivision Amendment at 150 Pease Mountain Rd
For more information, contact the Planning & Zoning Office at 802.425.3533 ext. 208, or by email at: pza@townofcharlotte.com.
He said this specific planning project has differed from past planning endeavors and other work he has done with other towns in that he and the other planning teams working on this have taken a much deeper comprehensive evaluation of public comment and engagement. This was one of the first initial steps in the planning process that the town undertook.
“Making sure that we’re asking many people in many different ways, in many different settings, what they want to see happen in the village centers,” he said. “Then distilling what we learned through that process into some visual imagery and some core themes and values that would then guide the drafting of specific rule changes going forward.”
The planning commission will likely start reviewing and drafting regulation this fall.
“We’re really good at chopping the countryside up into 5-acre and 2-acre chunks and letting people
See LEWACK on page 13
TAX RATE
continued from page 1
returned nearly $75,000 back to the town before the end of the fiscal year last month.
“The overview is that we continue to run under budget on all our significant expense categories,” president of CVFRS John Snow said. “The major under expense is the fact that we’re running a vacant position in the chief’s position, and that just sort of more or less drops to the bottom line in terms of creating surplus.”
Additionally, Mead noted that employee benefits came in nearly $23,000 less than what was budgeted.
The fund balance for fiscal year 2024 totaled $221,229. Combined with the prior year’s total, the town now has a fund balance of $184,286.
“It’s not enough that we would consider giving any money back to the taxpayers, but we still are in a much better position,” Mead said.
Larry Lewack
LEWACK
continued from page 12
build McMansions across the rural part of Charlotte. That’s where 96 percent of all development in town has taken place since the year 2000,” he said. “But we’ve done almost nothing to actually carry out the smart growth imperatives in our town plan.”
Overall, he said, he feels that the village master planning project is the last best hope for making significant changes to update Charlotte’s village land regulations. He is hopeful that the project will be making significant strides in time for another planner to take over.
“I think time has shown that the town is increasingly out of step with the rest of the world in terms of actually doing things to encourage smart growth planning,” he said.
Campaigning
The decision to run for the Legislature is actually something he has contemplated doing for a few years. But his priority has been his work in Charlotte, which hasn’t allowed the time to seriously consider it.
As he treks toward retirement in December, his schedule should clear in time to join fellow lawmakers in the Statehouse in January, should he be elected.
“Stepping aside from full-time work, it seemed like, in many ways, the timing was perfect,” he said.
Lewack said he’s had the “political bug” in him for a long time, since the presidential election of 1972, when he was 14.
“I always went to downtown DC to
the national campaign office for George McGovern, he was a Democratic nominee for president that year, running against Richard Nixon, and I opened envelopes with checks from little old ladies in the Midwest who were supporting his campaign out of their Social Security income, among other things,” he said.
He’s also worked extensively on the campaigns of senators Bernie Sanders, I-VT, and Peter Welch, D-VT, during different times in their political careers. With his involvement in the Democratic Party and other progressive campaigns, he said he has a relatively extensive understanding of Vermont’s political culture and tradition.
He is focusing his campaign on education funding and tax reform, the state’s landlord tenant laws and paid family medical leave.
While a lot of his free time on weekends has been spent campaigning, he stressed that he remains strictly dedicated to seeing the work with the town through until the very end. While he may not be there to see the entire master planning project come to fruition, he is confident in the work he has done and will keep doing.
RABIES BAIT continued from page 2
“There were many times when I sat in the gallery in the House or the Senate chambers to watch a vote on issues that I worked on or cared about, and thought to myself, looking down into the floor of the Vermont House, in particular, ‘I think one of those chairs has my name on it. I just got to find a way to get there someday.’”
The week-long bait drop is a cooperative effort between Vermont and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services to stop the spread of the potentially fatal disease.
saliva. If left untreated, rabies is almost always fatal in humans and animals. However, treatment with the rabies vaccine is nearly 100 percent effective when given soon after a person is bitten by a rabid animal.
Shop local and please remember our advertisers!
So far this year, 23 animals in Vermont have tested positive for rabies, and 14 of those have been raccoons.
SHELBURNE continued
Rabies is a deadly viral disease of the brain that infects mammals. It is most often seen in raccoons, skunks, foxes, and bats, but unvaccinated pets and livestock can also get rabies.The virus is spread through the bite of an infected animal or contact with its
According to wildlife officials, rabid animals often show a change in their normal behavior, but you cannot tell whether an animal has rabies simply by looking at it. People should not touch or pick up wild animals or strays – even baby animals.
from Shelburne
Shelburne display lead a cemetery dors round from coffee creemees.
Public investment in child care is WORKING.
Dredging is not a ‘sustainable approach’ to widespread flood recovery now that storms are becoming more frequent and stronger, according to the Agency of Natural Resources.
Officials warn against excess dredging
EMMA MALINAK VTDIGGER
State officials are urging locals not to dredge rivers during flood recovery efforts without guidance and permits from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
Dredging has long been used as a strategy to clear debris from streams and rivers after heavy rains, but it “comes with significant risk and so (it) needs to be used thoughtfully,” said Julie Moore, the agency’s secretary.
“Our predecessors used big yellow machines and dynamite to relocate our rivers,” Moore said. “But with our changing climate, this is no longer a sustainable approach, if it ever was.”
Moore added that because Vermont has seen “more frequent and more intense storms” in recent years, it’s necessary to keep rivers as intact as possible so they don’t become more dangerous in future flooding events.
“The most common issue after a flood is over-dredging of rivers or excessive streambank filling,” according to a Sunday press release from the state Agency of Natural Resources. “Over-dredging or over-filling creates a much more unstable river which threatens adjacent property and infrastructure during the next flood.”
Rivers best recover from flooding when they’re left alone or manipulated as little as possible, according to earlier reporting from VTDigger. When river corridors are dredged or forced into new channels, they begin to function more like pipes, making water faster and more powerful as it moves downstream.
But when logs and other debris pile up in waterways, they slow floodwaters, allowing them to spread out into wetlands and floodplains — and dump their silt and sediment there, rather than in other waterways. Leaving rivers untouched is better for wildlife, too, especially for fish that rely on fallen trees for protection against fast, high waters.
But Moore said the agency’s dredging precautions are “not about fish habitat or water quality” but rather “about public safety.”
“How we treat our waterways that flow through our communities has real implications for, and can present real risk to, each of us as well as those who live downstream,” Moore said.
The safety risk of fast-moving rivers, she said, is why the Agency of Natural Resources needs to regulate the “numerous calls and inquiries” it receives about dredging rocks, logs and sediment out of local rivers and streams.
Municipalities can only dredge rivers without authorization if the project qualifies as an emergency protective measure — defined by the Department of Environmental Conservation as work done to “preserve life or protect property from severe damage.” For example, if debris is redirecting the flow of a river toward homes or businesses, work undertaken to clear the river would be considered an emergency protective measure, according to the DEC’s guide to post-flood river recovery.
Emergency measures taken must be “minimized to (those) necessary to protect life and property” and must be reported to DEC officials within 72 hours, according to the department.
If rivers require non-emergency dredging, municipalities must obtain a permit and coordinate projects with regional river managers, according to the Agency of Natural Resource’s press release.
Moore said the agency has approved more than 400 such projects since last July’s floods because dredging is an important river management strategy to maintain rivers’ channel capacity — it’s just not the only one.
“Dredging will not solve flooding, but it is a tool to help alleviate flooding in certain circumstances,” she said.
The larger solution to addressing future flooding, Moore said, is to improve rivers’ access to floodplains across the state, especially in areas hit hardest by river flooding.
Some Vermont communities have already started this work, she said. Northfield’s Water Street Park, for example, serves as an “intentional” space that water can expand into during floods. Tens of thousands of cubic yards of material were removed from the area after more than a dozen FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) buyouts, she said, reestablishing a floodplain that can protect the rest of Northfield from floodwater.
“The most effective way to have room for our floodwaters is by setting aside and restoring places for waters to spread out, as opposed to digging deeper,” she said.
PHOTO BY GORDON MILLER