Hinesburg PD chief takes job in Richmond
BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
Last Wednesday, Jan. 8, Chief Anthony Cambridge resigned as police chief for the Town of Hinesburg and accepted a position as the chief of police in Richmond.
For the last two years, as part of an agreement between the towns over shared police services, Cambridge has acted as chief for both towns. His resignation effectively cancels that contract.
Although members of both selectboards said they are interested in continuing to
share police services under Cambridge’s direction, his resignation adds another layer of confusion to the discussions over police staffing and budgets.
The towns came to the original agreement a couple of years ago when Richmond experienced a police staffing shortage and Hinesburg stepped in to provide coverage. Since then, Richmond has been paying Hinesburg for services. However, earlier this year, Richmond hired an officer of its
See CAMBRIDGE on page 2
Hinesburg’s planning, zoning director leaving after 22 years
BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
Alex Weinhagen, Hinesburg’s planning and zoning director, has been appointed to the new state Land Use Review Board. The appointment is full-time, and Weinhagen will be leaving his current position on Jan. 24.
Weinhagen has been with the town for 22 years. In his tenure, he’s overseen zoning changes that expanded development in Hinesburg’s historic village and helped to rework how the town considers land use in its rural areas. He also connected with residents and neighbors, helping them to enact the changes they wanted to see in their community.
“He is an ace in the field,” Paul Lamberson, Hinesburg selectboard member, said of Weinhagen. “I’m sorry for Hinesburg, but boy, I’m sure excited that the state’s going to pick him up instead, and that his vast skill set will be applied at a statewide level instead of just at a local level.”
Weinhagen initially started with the town in 2002, pivoting away from his previous work as a wildlife biologist. At the time, Hinesburg was in the process of reworking its town plan.
“It was a good time to come in as a new planner,” Weinhagen said, “I got to reach out to community and say, ‘What’s your
See WEINHAGEN on page 13
PHOTOS BY TYLER COHEN A
Clay time
Charlotte selectboard adopts declaration of inclusion
LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
The Charlotte selectboard has officially adopted a declaration of inclusion — a decision that received a round of applause from the packed town hall room on Monday night.
The declaration, which mirrors the statewide statement that’s been adopted by 159 Vermont cities and towns — about 80 percent of the state’s population, according to the Vermont Declaration of Inclusion initiative — is meant to encourage and reinforce a message to all visitors that Vermont is a welcoming community made of people who will treat strangers fairly, provide encouragement and support their interests.
The original initiative was conceived by a group of grassroots organizers in the Rutland area in 2020 and asks towns to publicly condemn discrimination in all of its forms, commit to fair and equal treatment of everyone in the community, and strive to ensure that all the town’s actions, policies, and operating procedures reflect that commitment.
When the group championing the statewide campaign came before the selectboard last August asking the board to sign on, it spurred a larger and contentious conversation over inclusion in town.
Some residents opposed to signing a declaration said that it might set a “terrible” precedent down the road. Other residents said the entire conversation highlighted much-needed change within a town made up of residents who are mostly rich, white and old.
After hearing those split opinions, the selectboard created a subcommittee tasked with recommending whether the original declaration of inclusion — or an alternate one drafted by the group — should be brought to a townwide vote.
But after two meetings with the three-member working group, spearheaded by selectboard member Natalie Kanner, participants couldn’t reach common ground. With no resolution in sight, the committee
voted to dissolve itself, placing the issue back before the selectboard, which at the time, had balked at making any concrete moves forward.
That is, until a petition asking the board to bring the issue to voters on Town Meeting Day forced the issue again.
“I felt like a petition was the one sort of matter recourse we had,” resident, and petitioner, Rachel Daley told The Citizen earlier this month. She said she felt the democratic process was being maligned when the selectboard didn’t make the decision put it before the voters.
But the petition was always meant to be a backup plan if the selectboard ultimately decided to take no action.
“For me, the ideal situation is that the selectboard takes a vote on the current declaration of inclusion statement and votes to just adopt it. Period,” Nina Regan, another resident spearheading the petition and a member of the working group, told The Citizen.
The selectboard had a relatively short discussion before board chair Jim Faulkner made the motion Monday night to adopt the statement. He assured residents who voiced concern about the board dragging its feet that it didn’t take immediate action because board members wanted time for the town’s attorney to assess whether residents would be on the hook for any sort of payment or programming after signing.
“If you want to wonder why it took us a while to get this done, I was not interested at all in burdening the taxpayer for another program,” he said. “That was clear, that was trying to protect the taxpayer.”
Board member Lewis Mudge said some residents asked him whether a clause about political affiliation could be added to the statement.
“I have gotten calls from people who feel bullied and feel they can’t speak up,” Mudge said.
Kanner, who has been actively involved in the process as the lone selectboard member who spearheaded the working group, said she posed that question to Al
Island Memorial
Wakefield, the head of the Vermont Declaration of Inclusion initiative, and ultimately said she would not be in favor of adding that language.
“He did mention that every other condition in the declaration is about marginalized populations,” Kanner said. “So, I think we’d have to decide if we were making an argument that political affiliation can marginalize people.”
There was no comment from the public Monday night, other than an unidentified voice from the back of the room who threw
one final jab into the conversation saying, “We already have this in the Vermont constitution.”
The board ultimately voted 4-1 to adopt the declaration, with vice chair Frank Tenney casting the lone vote against the motion.
The room erupted with claps while Kelly Devine shook her head to residents who were technically violating the meeting’s rules of procedures.
“I can take my bulletproof vest off now,” Faulkner said with a laugh.
continued from page 1
own and communicated plans to redirect its funds towards filling out its own police staff.
As a result, Hinesburg faced a $166,000 deficit in law enforcement revenue and planned to reduce its police staff from five officers to four while maintaining a shared chief with Richmond.
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When Cambridge’s departure was initially brought up by a Hinesburg resident during last week’s selectboard meeting, board members and the town manager were quick to point out that they expected a new contract with the roles of the towns flipped, and that they didn’t foresee Cambridge’s employment with Richmond as having any further impact on the budget.
“It’s a wash. We have budgeted 100 percent of the chief’s salary and benefits as well as revenue for half of that. So, if it flips, and we’re not paying 100 percent of his salary and getting revenue for half, we’re paying for half.” Odit said.
However, a definitive agreement has yet to be determined. Merrily Lovell, the Hinesburg selectboard chair, said she would like to set up a meeting to start a new contract as soon as possible.
“I think everybody is really invested in having this police collaboration. Everybody says that this is where the future needs to go. Small towns need to collaborate on services,” she said.
Cambridge’s move to Richmond has been on the table for months. Richmond initially sent him a conditional offer for the position in mid-October and then performed a background check. According to Todd Odit, they originally considered the change in response to impending budget constraints in Hinesburg, but after he received a call from the background investigator, the idea seemed to go away.
“It had been discussed as a possibility, and then kind of was radio silence for a while, and then came back kind of abruptly,” he said.
According to Josh Arneson, Richmond’s town manager, Cambridge’s personal residence in Richmond was the driving factor behind his choice to seek official employment with the town.
“He was mostly interested in working for and being employed by the town in which he resides, which is Richmond,” Arneson said. “So that’s why he approached us and wanted to try to make that change, even though he’s been on a contracted basis here.”
Cambridge did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.
Cambridge will be receiving a $3,000 stipend from Richmond for living in
Gomer & Gunther
CAMBRIDGE
FILE PHOTO
Anthony Cambridge
Legislators share their first days of 2025 session
TOMMY GARDNER STAFF WRITER
Legislators serving Charlotte and Hinesburg settled into their seats in the Vermont Statehouse last week to start the new legislative session. The vibe was generally convivial, as is typical in the early days, before the hard work really begins. The election of House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, by secret ballot promised some drama, but even that 111-35 win over Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, proved less dramatic in the end.
Here’s a snapshot — and some snapshots — of the local delegation’s opening days, including how they voted in the Speaker election, if they shared.
Senators, Chittenden
Southeast district
Kesha Ram Hinsdale D-Shelburne
Senate Majority Leader Committees: Member, Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs. Member, Senate Education.
Seat number: 8, between
Sens. Lyons and Chittenden.
Contact: By email at kramhins dale@leg.state.vt.us.
Quotable: “I will be focused on economic growth, cost of living, and solving the education finance challenges we face.”
Thomas Chittenden
D-South Burlington
Committees: Vice chair, Finance. Member, Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs.
PHOTO BY GINNY LYONS
Chittenden Southeast Sen. Ginny Lyons snapped this photo of the Statehouse last week, during the opening days of the 2025 legislative session.
Vermont U.S. Attorney Kolo Kerest steps down, with Trump to name his succesor
MIKE DONOGHUE
CORRESPONDENT
Nikolas “Kolo” Kerest, the U.S. Attorney for Vermont for the past three years, submitted his resignation, effective Jan. 20.
Kerest told his office last week that he had sent his resignation to both outgoing President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Kerest, a Shelburne resident, has been a federal prosecutor for more than 14 years and was selected by Biden, a Democrat, for the political appointment three years ago.
Kerest has no immediate future professional plans.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael P. Drescher of Hinesburg will serve as the acting U.S. Attorney starting Jan. 20. Drescher has spent more than 22 years in the office handling both civil and criminal cases, including several high-profile prosecutions.
Drescher was a finalist to become a federal judge in Vermont last year, but the job went to public defender Mary Kay Lanthier of Orwell.
The post of U.S. Attorney is a presidential appointment, and the office is filled as the political party
changes at the White House. President-elect Donald J. Trump, a Republican, will be responsible for finding a permanent replacement.
Kerest was the replacement for U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, who was named by Trump in his first term as president.
Since the November election, Nolan’s name has been among a handful that have been floated to be the new federal prosecutor, but it is unknown if she would be interested in returning to the office.
When Kerest took over the office, it had 53 employees, including 26 lawyers.
Kerest was one of at least five Vermont lawyers interviewed by a local screening committee for the federal post in 2021. The others were assistant U.S. Attorneys Eugenia A.P. Cowles and Owen Foster, former assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Doherty, and prominent defense lawyer and former state prosecutor Brooks McArthur of Burlington.
The U.S. Attorney is the top-ranking federal law enforcement official in Vermont. The office is responsible for prosecuting federal crimes in the state, including those related to firearms, narcotics, illegal immigration, exploitation of
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children and older adults, terrorism, public corruption and civil rights.
In civil cases, the office represents the United States and its agencies in affirmative fraud cases, defends the United States in civil cases, and collects debts owed to the government.
Kerest began as an assistant U.S Attorney in Vermont in 2010, initially in the civil division, representing federal agencies in defensive and affirmative litigation. He served as the civil division chief from 2014-2019.
In 2019, he moved over to the criminal division, prosecuting a variety of cases, including drug trafficking and gun offenses, violent crime and immigration fraud.
He clerked for former Judge Fred I. Parker of Burlington when he sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 2000 to 2001.
Kerest majored in math as an undergraduate at Williams College and graduated from Cornell Law School in 2000.
Kerest’s wife of 24 years, Susannah, has been the development director and communications director at the King Street Youth Center. Both have been active in the Shelburne community.
Kerest, a runner, has been involved in coaching youth sports, while his wife has done stints on the Pierson Library Board and town Planning Commission. They have two children.
Total incidents: 28 Traffic Stops: 4 Arrests: 0
Jan. 7 at 7:00 a.m., an officer investigated a report of a vehicle off the roadway on Route 116.
Jan. 7 at 8:55 a.m., an officer responded to a single-car motor vehicle crash on CVU Road.
Jan. 7 at 12:08 p.m., an officer responded to a single-car motor vehicle crash on Texas Hill Road.
Jan. 9 at 7:55 a.m. an officer responded to a single-car motor vehicle crash on Pond Road.
Jan. 9 at 9:00 a.m., police investigated report of a fraud.
Jan. 9 at 10:21 a.m., police investigated a two-car motor vehicle crash on Ballard’s Corner Road
Jan. 9 at 11:48 a.m., police investigated a report of a hit and run with property damage on Mechanicsville Road.
Jan. 9 at 1:19 p.m., an officer responded to a single-car motor vehicle crash on Route 116.
Jan. 9 at 1:37 p.m., police assisted a motorist with a disabled vehicle on Pond Road.
Jan. 10 at 11:11 a.m., police investigated suspicious activity on Ballard’s Corner Road.
Jan. 10 at 3:00 p.m., police investigated an alarm activation on Ballard’s Corner Road.
Jan. 10 at 6:26 p.m., police conducted a welfare check on North Road.
Jan. 10 at 7:32 p.m., police assisted a motorist with a disabled vehicle on Route 116.
Jan. 11 at 12:11 p.m., an officer responded to a single-car motor vehicle crash on Pond Road.
Jan. 11 at 2:57 p.m., police served court paperwork to a citizen on Hollow Road.
Jan. 11 at 4:38 p.m., an officer responded to a single-car motor vehicle crash on Lincoln Hill Road.
Jan. 12 at 7:57 a.m., an officer attempted a traffic stop on North Road in which the vehicle fled from police. That incident is still under investigation.
Jan. 12 at 12:21 p.m., police investigated a report of an assault.
Jan. 4, Michael Kenyon, 47, of Vergennes, was cited for home improvement fraud after investigators alleged Kenyon received an upfront payment for several months of pool servicing and weekly maintenance for a 77-year-old Charlotte resident, but never completed the work. Jan. 11 at 7:55 p.m., Mike Gibbons, 61, of Colchester, was arrested for driving under the influence on Pond Road in Hinesburg after crashing his Tesla Model 3. Police did not report any injuries.
OPINION
You hit the trifecta, MAGA, and it’s your country now
Guest Perspective
Walt Amses
First and foremost, I want to congratulate my MAGA adversaries on their sweeping victory in November. No landslide but you still managed to run the table, taking control of the presidency and both houses of Congress.
Your team fought long, hard and dirty to make America great again mainly by “owning the libs,” presumably a worthy goal. Whether it’ll be enough to pay the rent or buy a house, manage monthly bills, put food on the table or provide a better life for your kids is still debatable.
Slogans, no matter how catchy, don’t necessarily translate to viable policy initiatives. And the giddy joy of owning us may fade dramatically when you realize we’re not especially marketable and begin depreciating the moment we leave the showroom.
But, just for the sake of argument, let’s explore some of the implications of your big win after the heady exuberance fades away like an inch of snow on a sunny March afternoon.
The first priority of the “promises made, promises kept” public relations scenario, facilitated by the reemergence from the shadows of Stephen Miller to set the ship right, will be deporting the 12 million or so “illegals” running rampant throughout the country eating dogs and cats while stealing jobs rightfully yours.
I’ll bet you can’t wait to begin picking fruits and vegetables under a blazing sun, emptying bedpans and changing Depends in nursing homes and working the slaughterhouse disassembly line for $7.25 an hour.
You’re likely thrilled Joe Biden has gone the way of the passenger pigeon and will no longer be redirecting disaster funding from hurricane victims in North Carolina to the Haitian immigrants and get that money headed in your direction where it belongs — after expenses, of course, which might be a little more than you expected.
Estimates on the price of such a relocation range from $300 billion up front to nearly $1 trillion over a decade, stemming from expenditures on detention facilities and staffing to ensure security and safety as well as the complex logistics of an endeavor of this magnitude.
Not to worry though, MAGA, I’m sure a chunk of that cash will be headed your way, as long as you have substantial investments in privately owned prisons or detention centers where migrants will be warehoused as they await their ultimate fate.
No detention centers? No problem. We’ll just build ‘em and make some favored contractors fabulously wealthy in the process. Capitalism at its best.
After Jan. 20, we’ll finally have a government based on biblical teachings as the founders intended — except for the traitorous Thomas Jefferson, who in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association declared, “When the American people accepted the establishment clause (of the Constitution) they built a wall of separation between church and state.”
Unfortunately, though, when Christian nationalism determines the law of the land, we’re gonna have to dump Jesus too.
Feed the hungry? Heal the sick? Damn the rich? The son of God would certainly monkey wrench the Project 25 agenda,
being the wokest dude in history, even woker than Oprah.
Nope. There’s no place for either Thomas Jefferson or Jesus Christ in the MAGAverse going forward. They’ll be methodically excised from history books like the Civil War, or revised like January 6th, which as we’ve learned in the last four years was nothing more than a “a day of love.”
I’m sure you’re ecstatic about the J6 Prison Choir being pardoned “on day one,” free to spread the love, perhaps near a federal facility, post office or government building in your neighborhood.
We’re also going to be a nation in physically fine fettle beginning in just a few short weeks: MAGA, meet MAHA — the Make America Healthy Again initiative that promotes raw, unpasteurized milk and denounces those poisonous vaccine mandates.
The MAHA movement is about the freedom to “do your own research” and ignore the deep state medical establishment’s so called “science.” If red staters want to die at twice the rate of the rest of the country in the next pandemic, that’s their right.
In the future, you’ll be able to ignore the lie that raw milk drinkers are 840 times more likely to contract a food borne illness; you’ll be free to believe whatever anti-vaccine rhetoric and Covid conspiracy theories you like; and without government intrusion, telling you can’t benefit from medicines designed for barnyard animals or injecting cleaning fluids, you can live your life in freedom, however short it may be.
I’ve got to admit I’m a little envious, MAGA. While I’m still struggling to
put this new normal into some kind of palatable perspective, you can anticipate a future where all unpleasant history is wiped clean and new narratives of American Exceptionalism will emerge. You’ll only hear the news you want to hear, no more far-left lunatics “fact checking” every statement looking for misinformation, propaganda or outright lies. Freedom is in the air; you can almost smell it.
Even Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, is falling into line, announcing earlier this week that it would effectively end its fact-checking, originally designed to filter out the propaganda that permeates cyberspace, and instead rely on its users to police false or misleading information.
The company, according to global policy chief Joel Kaplan wants to “undo the mission creep that made the rules too restrictive and prone to over-enforcement.” As we’ve learned — or soon will — over-enforcement of information accuracy is a vile restriction of free speech.
In these next few, heady years, our American exceptionalism may very well blossom into a new era of American territorial expansionism — call it MAGAfest Destiny — as we consider absorbing Canada as our 51st state “through economic force;” purchasing Greenland for “national security reasons” despite it not being for sale; and refusing to rule out military force in retaking the Panama Canal.
You hit the trifecta, MAGA and it’s your country now: total control; no one to interfere; no one to rock the boat; and no one else to blame if it goes off the rails. I wish you luck.
Walt Amses lives in North Calais.
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
continued from page 3
Seat number: 9, in between Sen. Ram Hinsdale and Sen. Tanya Vyhosky, D-Essex.
Contact: by email at tchittenden@leg.state.vt.us.
Quotable: “I look forward to continuing the hard work of improving our education finance formula and I welcome the change for my morning committee to dive deeper into opportunities to grow Vermont’s economy, housing stock and opportunities to attract more people to want to live here, work here, stay here and thrive here in the Green Mountain State.”
Virginia “Ginny” Lyons D-Williston Committees: Chair, Finance. Member, Senate Appropriations. Third member of the Committee on Committees, which, along with the Lieutenant Governor and President Pro Tem, appoints each senator to standing, joint legislative, and or statewide committees. “I am the first woman to be elected to this position for a full biennium,” Lyons notes.
Seat number: 7, an aisle seat, with Sens. Ram Hinsdale and Chittenden right next to her.
Contact: By email at vlyons@ leg.state.vt.us.
Quotable: “Providing adequate resources for programs supporting Vermonters is critical. At the same time, property taxes, housing, health care and other costs challenge each of us. It is critical that experienced legislators are there to work on these and other issues.”
CAMBRIDGE
continued from page 2
town, although his salary will be $99, 958 — that’s less than the $105,622 Hinesburg had budgeted for the position in the coming year.
Other financial considerations remain in question. During the discussion at the Hinesburg selectboard meeting last Wednesday, board member Paul Lamberson brought up the matter of Hinesburg’s police station. Hinesburg built an entirely new facility for the police after a vote in 2013, which budgeted over $1 million for the project.
Odit said that while he expects that Cambridge will not operate solely from the Hinesburg facility, the town may need to monitor the use of its station and consider
Local House members
Chea Waters Evans D-Charlotte, Chittenden-5 Committee: Ranking member, Government Operations and Military Affairs. “I love my committee and the work we do there, so I’m excited to be back and in a leadership position,” Evans said. Caucuses: Women’s Caucus and Vermont National Guard Caucus.
Seat number: 2. On her left is House Speaker Jill Krowinski, “but she doesn’t sit there very often because she’s busy running the House,” Evans said. She sits to the right of “my friend and colleague,” Rep. Daisy Berbeco, D-Winooski.
Speaker vote: “I don’t feel comfortable disclosing my speaker vote because it was conducted by secret ballot,” she said. “I will say though that I always vote the way I believe my constituents want me to vote, and in their best interests.”
Contact: By phone or text at 917-887-8231 or by email at cevans@leg.state.vt.us.
Rep. Phil Pouech
D-Hinesburg, Chittenden-4 (did not answer questions by press deadline, but we will include them online at thecitizenvt.com if possible)
Committee: Ranking member, Transportation.
Seat number: 130
Contact: By email at ppouech@leg.state.vt.us
addressing the financial implications.
Additionally, both residents and selectboard members at the meeting expressed a desire to provide Cambridge with a parttime administrative assistant whose role would be funded by both towns. It is uncertain whether that position will be included in a new contract.
“Whether it works as well in reverse as it did with it being a Hinesburg employee that we were contracting out to Richmond, I don’t know,” said Odit. “It’s kind of, let’s have to wait and see.”
Chief Cambridge will begin as Richmond’s chief of police on Feb. 18.
COURTESY PHOTO
Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale with her family at the Statehouse last week. With her are her mother, Michelle Jacobson, a new South Burlington resident, and kids, Mira (21 months) and Wesley (4months). See story on page 2.
Sprouts: The superfood you can grow at home
ANDREA KNEPPER UVM EXTENSION
Sprouts are a versatile, dramatic addition to foods that go far beyond the basic bean sprout. Sometimes seen as an addition to sandwiches, toppings on salads and garnishes on entrees, sprouts add crunch, flavor and vibrant color to a variety of dishes.
Adding sprouts to meals also enhances the nutritional value. Sprouts typically contain much higher nutrient levels than their full-sized counterparts. While typical nutrient level varies by plant, sprouts continuously deliver a generous nutritional boost.
You can easily grow fresh sprouts at home in a few days with minimal supplies. Start by gathering materials you may already have around your house, or stop by your local garden supply or hardware store for a few inexpensive items.
A wide-mouth mason jar with a specially designed sprouting lid is a popular choice for growing sprouts. This type of lid allows for proper drainage between waterings, which is essential for healthy sprout growth.
If you don’t have a sprouting lid, there are plenty of alternatives. For example, you can use a colander set on top of a bowl and cover it with a towel or securely cover a jar with a piece of cheesecloth. Once you understand the process, you will be able to confidently experiment with sprouting setups.
Sprouts need to be kept in a dark spot, so keep them in a cabinet. Or you can cover the sprouting container with a towel to block the light.
Sprouts are grown from the same seeds used to grow full-sized versions of the same plant. Popular seeds for sprouting are mung beans, alfalfa, broccoli, radish, peas, mustard and sunflower. Legume and grain seeds like lentil, soybean, wheat, rye, buckwheat and millet are gaining in popularity.
Seed companies are starting to market
seeds specifically for sprouting. These packages often include sprouting instructions and contain a larger quantity of seeds.
To get started, make sure your sprouting containers are very clean. Wash with hot, soapy water to prevent contamination.
Soak one tablespoon of your seeds according to the package directions. If you’re using regular garden seeds, and this information is not available, estimate soaking time according to seed size. Soak small seeds like alfalfa and broccoli for six to eight hours. Large seeds like mung bean and peas should soak overnight.
Put your soaked seeds in the container and rinse. Drain thoroughly. The mason jar with sprouting jar lid can be left upside down in a bowl to continue to drain. The goal is to have the seeds damp but not sitting in water.
The sprouts need to be kept in the dark, in a cabinet or under a towel. This rinsing and draining process should be repeated twice per day for three to six days. The sprouts are ready to eat when they have leaves and the seed hulls start to fall off.
Not all batches of sprouts will be successful. Discard sprouts if you notice black spots, brown discoloration, sliminess or anything else that seems off with your sprouts. The most common issues are poor airflow or insufficient drainage and can be resolved with small adjustments to your setup.
After you’ve checked that your sprouts are in good health, give them a final rinse. Pat dry, removing as much moisture as possible, and store in the refrigerator. Most varieties of sprouts will last about five days when refrigerated.
Experiment with different seeds to explore the possibilities of this easy-to-grow superfood.
Andrea Knepper is a UVM Extension Master Gardener from Bolton.
COURTESY PHOTO
Fresh sprouts typically contain much higher nutrient levels than their full-sized counterparts although both can be grown from the same seeds.
State opens ice to all anglers for one day, license or not
Community Notes
Richmond Knights of Columbus hosts French-Canadian supper
Those looking for an opportunity to taste authentic French-Canadian food without having to journey to Quebec can partake in the Richmond Knights of Columbus’ annual French-Canadian Supper.
The supper is Feb. 1 at 5 p.m., Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church, 64 W. Main St., Richmond.
Dinner is $15, with proceeds benefitting the various charities supported by the Knights of Columbus Rosary Council 4684.
This is a dine-in or take-out dinner. Featured food items include such traditional French-Canadian favorites as pea soup, meat pie, or “tourtiere,” mashed potatoes, green beans, dessert, and beverages.
Reservations can be made online at tinyurl.com/KnightsMeatPieDinner2025.
Questions: call or text Ron at 470-5885515 or email KK1Lron@gmail.com.
Exploring the digital offerings at the Carpenter-Carse Library
Many think of library collections as physical items like books, magazines, or DVDs. However, the Carpenter-Carse Library also offers an extensive range of digital content through various free services for library cardholders. These include eBooks, audiobooks, movies, TV series, and more. With these digital services, patrons can access content anytime — no need to wait for library hours or waitlists on most platforms.
Last year, over a third of library cardholders used at least one of these services. To get started, one needs a library card number and password. While free to users, Carpenter-Carse pays subscription or usage fees for these services.
Borrow eBooks, audiobooks, and digital magazines through the Libby app or a web browser. Enjoy content on almost any device, including Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, and e-readers. Unique to Libby is a selection of Vermont Golden Doom children’s literature award winners.
Or use the Biblio+ app to stream unlimited movies, documentaries, and TV series without ads. This newest addition to CCL’s offerings has no holds or waitlists. Foreign film aficionados and anglophiles will enjoy the wide selection of movies and BBC series. Available during a trial period in 2025, Biblio+ adds fresh content monthly. The hoopla app provides access to a wide variety of digital content, including movies, TV shows, music, audiobooks, eBooks, and comics. Stream instantly or download titles to your device. Hoopla lets you enjoy content on your computer, phone, car, or smart TV. Pro tip, there is a collective daily borrow limit so make your selections early in the day.
Library staff are ready to help with recommendations and technical support. Stop by the library or email library@ carpentercarse.org.
Ski and read at Mad River Glen story tour
The seventh annual StorySki at Mad River Glen takes place Feb. 22. This beloved Stark Mountain Foundation tradition invites young skiers and their families to enjoy a unique reading of our featured book, “Wake Up Moon!” by Lita Judge, as participants ski through Mad River Glens’ woods.
As children and families glide down the
See COMMUNITY NOTES on page 11
DIRECT CREMATION SERVICES
PHOTO
Vermont’s state-wide Free Ice Fishing Day is Saturday, Jan. 25. The day is geared toward giving new ice anglers an opportunity to try ice fishing before purchasing equipment or a fishing license, but any angler may ice fish on any body of water open to ice fishing statewide without a license on that day. “Ice fishing is one of the most accessible forms of fishing and can be a great way to introduce people to how much fun fishing can be,” interim Fish and Wildlife commissioner Andrea Shortsleeve said. “It’s also a great way to spend some time outdoors with friends and family. You can skate, sled, make a snow fort, and have a cookout — all while waiting for the flags on your tip-ups to signal when you’ve caught a fish.” For more information, visit vtfishandwildlife.com.
and Addison Counties, add $500
COURTESY
ILLUSTRATION BY ADELAIDE MURPHY TYROL
Bohemian waxwings: Intrepid winter wanderers
The Outside Story
Meghan McCarthy McPhaul
Walking along a dirt road last winter, I heard a collection of pleasant, sputtering trills coming from a stand of conifers and hardwoods nearby. I’m used to the winter conversation of chickadees around feeder and woods, the cawing of crows and blue jays in the yard, and the high-pitched calls of golden-crowned kinglets sounding from the trees in winter, but I didn’t recognize this sound.
Although I typically keep my phone tucked away on walks, I was glad to have it with me now. My Merlin Bird ID app told me the twittering I heard was Bohemian waxwings. A few days later, just around the corner from the spot where I’d heard them before, a huge flock — more than 100 — rose from a giant white pine tree as I passed along the road, then alit in another tree and nearby snag.
I’d seen these birds before, during two different winters, when a much smaller group descended on the highbush cranberry in our yard and gobbled up all the fruit. Then, I’d mistaken the birds for their cousins, cedar waxwings. While cedar waxwings are yearround residents in most of the Northeast, Bohemians, as their name suggests, are wanderers. Typically, if they show up in winter — or any time of year — it’s because they’re on the hunt for fruit and berries that linger into the coldest season.
“As their name implies, Bohemian waxwings are among the most intrepid of the winter wanderers,” Pamela Hunt, senior biologist for avian conservation at New Hampshire Audubon, said. “They show up in the Northeast
irregularly, roughly every two years, but usually at least a few birds most years — and the nearest place they breed is the western edge of Hudson Bay. They’re more likely to show up here in years when fruit, especially mountain ash, is scarce in their breeding grounds.”
While many of our summer songbirds fly south for the winter, for Bohemian waxwings, the Northeast is, in fact, south. This species breeds in the open evergreen and mixed forests of areas far to our north, in central Alaska, western Canada, Scandinavia, and northern Russia.
Cedar and Bohemian waxwings both eat fruit in winter, and both species tend to gather in flocks, sometimes with each other, along with robins and other frugivorous winter birds.
Bohemians are slightly larger than cedars, but the two waxwing species exhibit similar behavior, and males and females within each species look alike. Both species have crested heads, yellow tips on their tails, and distinct black eye masks.
So, how can you tell one waxwing from another? There are a few ways, but you’ll have to look closely.
While cedar waxwings have yellow-hued bellies and brownish breasts, Bohemians have gray breasts and bellies, with rufous coloring on the undersides of their tails. Bohemian waxwings also have distinct yellow markings on their otherwise black wings, a feature their cedar cousins do not have.
Because they don’t generally return to a specific breeding area or defend breeding territories, Bohemian waxwings don’t have a true song, only the twittering calls
I heard from high in the trees last winter. Breeding pairs may form as early as January and remain monogamous through the breeding season.
Without the benefit of singing, male Bohemian waxwings have other ways to make a good impression. A male will fluff up his feathers and raise and lower his crest to attract a female’s attention. Once she takes notice, he’ll pass her a bit of food. If she’s interested, she’ll pass it back, and they’ll carry on this way for a while.
“The gift isn’t always even edible,” Hunt noted, “So this is a more ritualistic than practical behavior.”
Come springtime, Bohemian waxwings will expand their diets to include sap dripping from maple or birch trees, and they’ll eat insects during the warmer months. But in winter, it’s an all-fruit diet, and they’ll eat apples, crabapples, juniper berries, mountain ash berries, and — lucky for me — highbush cranberries.
Bohemian waxwings will stay in one winter area only as long as it takes to consume the fruit there. The year they appeared in our high-bush cranberry, they stayed only a couple of days, stripping the branches of what had been a bountiful crop of berries. This winter, that broad shrub is again adorned with numerous red fruits. And I’m keeping a lookout for waxwings, both cedar and Bohemian.
Meghan McCarthy McPhaul is editor of Northern Woodlands magazine. Illustration by Adelaide Murphy Tyrol. The Outside Story is assigned and edited by Northern Woodlands magazine and sponsored by the Wellborn Ecology Fund of New Hampshire Charitable Foundation: nhcf.org.
SPORTS
Redhawk teams keep making big strides this winter term
Alpine skiing
Coach: Steve Francisco
Last year: Girls: Division I state champions. Boys: Division I state champions.
Returnees: Girls: Rachel Bialowoz, junior; Addie Bartley, junior; Carly Strobeck, senior, Elizabeth Nostrand, senior; Whitney Butnor, sophomore. Boys: George Francisco, senior; Ray Hagios, senior; Jacob Sternberg, senior; Sebastian Bronk, junior; Kai Schultz, junior; Sawyer Lake, sophomore.
Newcomers: Girls: Too early to tell. Boys: Theo Skapof, first year.
Outlook: After coming home with three trophies at last year’s Vermont state championship competition — the Division I boys, Division I girls and combined state titles — the Champlain Valley alpine skiers have set a high bar. Lucky for them, they are returning some key pieces from those winning teams on both the boys’ and girls’ sides.
For the girls, five new skiers join the talented roster, although they will take some time to figure out who will step forward. On the boys’ side, first-year student Theo Skapof joins a deep bench that regularly places five skiers in the top seven.
“It’s kind of a luxury having the strength in numbers of our team and the talent pool on my team is so deep,” coach Steve Francisco said. “I’m super opti-
See PREVIEW on page 11
WHY GO LOCAL?
Redhawks hoopsters keep on winning
LAUREN READ CORRESPONDENT
Girls’ basketball
Champlain Valley 54, Burr and Burton 31: The Champlain Valley girls’ basketball team rebounded from its first loss of the season with a win over Burr and Burton on Saturday.
Zoey McNabb had 31 points to pace the Redhawks, who moved to 6-1 with the win. Rose Bunting added 10 points and
eight rebounds for CVU, Kaitlyn Jovell chipped in with eight points.
Boys’ ice hockey
South Burlington 8, Champlain Valley 0: Champlain Valley moved to 1-6 this season with a loss to South Burlington on Saturday.
Tommy Barnes made 35 saves and Frankie Menard stopped four shots for the Redhawks.
Boys’ basketball
Rice 62, Champlain Valley 42: The Champlain Valley boys’ basketball team fell to Rice on Saturday, losing by 20 points to the Green Knights.
Champlain Valley grabbed its first win of the season on Wednesday, beating Essex 3-2. Jack Bryan scored with 20 seconds remaining in the game to lift CVU to the win. Brady Jones had a goal and an assist for the Redhawks, while Teigen Holmes also scored. Jesse McCray made 21 saves to earn the win in goal.
Owen Scott had 17 points for the Redhawks, who fell to 4-4 with the loss. Jacob Armstrong grabbed 10 rebounds and Brady Gangl added eight points.
Girls’ ice hockey
Essex 4, Champlain ValleyMount Mansfield 0: Champlain Valley-Mount Mansfield fell to Essex on Wednesday.
Ella Gilbert stopped 26 shots in goal for the CougarHawks. CVU-MMU dropped to 2-5 with the loss.
The business next door donates nearly twice as much as big-box stores and online retailers to local non-profits, events and teams.
PHOTO BY AL FREY
The Champlain Valley girls’ ice hockey team fell 8-0 to nearby rivals South Burlington over the weekend.
COMMUNITY NOTES
continued from page 8
slope, they’ll follow the story page by page, immersing themselves in an unforgettable journey of adventure and imagination.
The event will take place on from 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. For more information and to register, bit.ly/StorySki2025. Note: lift tickets are required.
Shelburne Age Well February Luncheons
St. Catherine of Siena and Age Well are teaming up to offer two luncheons, Feb. 11 and Feb. 18, for anyone 60 or older, at the St. Catherine of Siena Parish Hall, 72 Church Street, Shelburne.
Check-in time is 11:30 a.m. and the meal will be served at noon. There is a $5 suggested donation.
Feb. 11 menu: wheat spaghetti with meatballs, marinara and parmesan cheese, spinach, wheat roll, mandarin oranges in orange Jell-o and milk.
PREVIEW
continued from page 10
mistic in terms of the outlook for the season because of the strength in numbers we have.”
Nordic skiing
Coach: Sarah Strack
Last year: Girls: Division I state champions. Boys: Third in the Division I state championships.
Returnees: Girls: Charlotte Crum, Annalise Wood, Lilyanna Mittlestadt, Annika Johnson, Senja Erickson, Maeve Parker Clark. Boys: William Wallace, Luke Buehler, Brian Simkins, Dylan Elders.
Newcomers: Girls: Alexa Davis, Kate Sayre, Martha Odachowski, Fia Cook. Boys: Charlie Schramm, Axel Macik, Jack Biunno, Story Holmes.
Outlook: The Champlain Valley Nordic ski team will be looking to rebuild this season with a smaller roster, but the girls’ team returns many of the skiers who won the Division I state championship last season. Skiers like Crum, Wood
and Mittlestadt will lead the Redhawks as they look to claim yet another state title.
On the boys’ side, CVU will be looking to improve on last year’s third place in the D-I state championship and will use some of the first part of the season to develop the younger skiers.
“We are in a rebuilding year and have a smaller team this year,” coach Sarah Strack said. “Our goals are to remain competitive for the season.”
Up next: Tuesday, Jan. 14, at South Burlington, after press deadline
Indoor track and field
Coach: Dave Kogut
Last year: Girls: Division I state champions. Boys: Fifth in the Division I state meet.
Returnees: Girls: Alice Kredell, senior; Claire Kim, senior; Audrey Neilson, junior; Lydia Donahue, junior; Izzy Gravina-Budis, junior; McKenna Rettew, junior. Boys: Treson
Feb. 18 menu: Swedish meatballs with sauce, rotini noodles, sliced carrots, green beans, wheat dinner roll, pineapple tidbits and milk.
Deadline to register is six days before each meal.
For more information, contact Molly BonGiorno, nutrition coordinator, at 802-662-5283 or mbongiorno@agewellvt.org.
Tickets are also available at the Age Well Office: 875 Roosevelt Highway, Ste. 210; Colchester. Restaurant tickets will be available for distribution for a suggested $5 donation.
Sign-ups open for state chess championships
The 38th annual Vermont State Scholastic Chess Championships will be held Saturday, March 29 at Lamoille Union High School in Hyde Park.
This is the selection tournament for Vermont’s nominees to the national Denker, Haring, Barber and Rockefeller Invitationals and is open to Vermont students in grades K-12. Participants must be Vermont residents or be enrolled in a Vermont public or private school — resident home school students are eligible.
Chessboards, pieces, and clocks will be provided. No prior tournament experience necessary. High school and 8th grade sections will be U.S. Chess Federation-rated. Sections for grades K-7 will be unrated.
Individual and team prizes will be awarded. All players must pre-register for the event. No walkins allowed. Registration closes March 23 but may close prior to then due to space limitations.
Online registration only. Complete rules and registration information at vermontchess.org.
McEnaney, sophomore; Ben Holoch, sophomore; Charlie Garavelli, senior; Quintin Fortier, junior; AJ Sicard, junior.
Newcomers: Girls: Bea Taylor, first year; Alenna Makris, sophomore; Olivia Neilson, first year; Maddie Deyo, first year. Boys: Charlie Meisenzahl, first year.
Outlook: After capturing the program’s first Division I indoor track and field last year, the Champlain Valley girls’ track and field team will look to make it two in a row.
The Redhawks will be led by a strong returning group of distance runners, with Kredell, Neilson and Donahue coming off a great cross-country running season, and they will look to carry that success into the indoor track season.
On the boys’ side, CVU will look to its relay teams and individual performances to improve on last year’s performance in the D-I state championships.
Be
PHOTO BY AL FREY
CVU and South Burlington girls’ hockey team players fight for the puck during Saturday’s game.
CVU art celebration back after long hiatus
BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
Despite the snow, the hallways of Champlain Valley Union High School were packed with parents and students last Thursday night for Celebrate the Arts, the school district-wide student art show.
Teachers from every school had set up student work throughout the halls and classrooms, from pencil drawings to sculpture to work with paper cutouts and crayons. There were also musical and theatrical performances throughout the night and live student skill demonstrations.
It was the first time in six years the schools put on Celebrate the Arts.
“What makes me so excited about tonight is that I feel like it pulls together the strength of so many of our different groups of folks who work for CVSD into one big event,” Sarah Crum, the district’s director of learning and innovation, said as she took a break from handing out free pizza in the cafeteria.
In August, a group of art teachers approached Crum about bringing back the event after it had fallen by the wayside due to COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing. Together, over the last few months, they coordinated with other teachers across the district to collate pieces, performances, and exhibitions.
In addition to some more traditional artistic media, the student work on display was inclusive of skills that some may not always think of as art, although they involve creativity or a knack for design.
The RoboHawks, who design and build robots for competition, put on a demonstration of their remote-controlled robots in the cafeteria. There was student welding, video editing and engineering work.
In the engineering shop, teacher Olaf Verdonk drew a small crowd as he presented 3D printed and laser cut objects the students made.
“Has anybody ever thrown a boomerang that didn’t come back?” He said, holding up a tri-pointed boomerang students had laser cut from a recycled Cheerios box, “What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?” A child watching provided the answer: a stick. Verdonk then successfully sent the boomerang floating in a circle around the group, catching it in his hand to a smattering of applause — it was decidedly not a stick.
Down the hall, student ceram-
icists sat at their wheels throwing clay and the CVU band played in the theater. Later, the high school drama department performed scenes from their fall musical, “Footloose,” and the jazz band played in a hallway while people stopped to listen.
Crum said the district took the opportunity to try to connect people with services they might need.
“We have solicited all of these different community organizations that might be helpful. So, we worked really closely with (the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity), but there are folks coming who can provide housing assistance, fuel assistance, scholarships for childcare,” she said.
The district also chartered buses from each of the community schools to make transportation easier and provided free meals and childcare.
However, the focus remained on the young artists. Throughout the evening, AP Art students stood next to some of their pieces in the school’s gallery space to talk about their process and the inspiration behind their work. For Clark Clark, a senior from Shelburne, that inspiration ranged from conversations with their mother about her sense of self to a critique of American self-glorification.
“I was inspired by a lot of the classic illustrations from the ‘50s and the ‘60s,” Clark said, pointing to an interactive piece they made that allows an observer to pull on part of the work to move the figures in the image. “It’s like the Coca Cola ads and the grilling and all the nuclear families are so happy that, like, there’s something off about it.’
Clark, like other AP Art students, plans to study art in college, and some of the work they displayed was part of the portfolio they sent with their applications.
Another senior, Kate Silverman, who stood next to her black and white photographs, is considering a future in photojournalism and submitted school artwork as part of an application portfolio.
Presenting artwork from all the schools exhibited how students can grow as artists throughout their school years — from learning how to combine colors to make new ones to making detailed pieces of social and personal commentary.
“I am hopeful that this is the beginning of an annual event that just keeps growing and growing and growing,” Crum said.
PHOTOS BY TYLER COHEN
Top: A Champlain Valley Union RoboHawk adjusts the team’s robot during a demonstration at Celebrate the Arts.
Middle: The celebration included a display of student welding work. Bottom: The CVU band plays in the theater.
continued from page 1
vision? What do we get this town to look like and be?’”
A few years later, he put some of that vision into action as he spearheaded the rezoning of Hinesburg village in 2009.
While a controversial process at the time, Weinhagen said this remains one of the greatest successes of his time as planning and zoning director, not just because the town doubled the size of the village from 250 to 500 acres, but because of the way he and the planning commission handled communication with the community, bringing in professionals to run scenarios and painting a picture of what an expanded
village would feel like.
“There was a lot of angst and fear in the community about, like, wait a minute, what is that going to look like? How is that going to impact us? Are we really going to still be Hinesburg if we go down that road? And I felt like we didn’t have all the answers, but we had a really good conversation, and a lot of people were involved,” he said
According to Weinhagen, the village zoning project was in line with what the state has been promoting since the 1990’s as “smart growth,” of which there are two sides: promoting growth within villages and downtown
areas with access to transit while containing sprawling development into rural and agricultural zones.
In 2013, his office moved to the other side of the coin: agricultural and rural zoning.
In another tough process, Weinhagen worked on convincing rural Hinesburg landowners that restricting growth to one house per every 12 acres, rather than one per two or three acres, would benefit the town. Making this change, Weinhagen said, would prevent development akin to companies buying up farmland and developing it into 50-unit subdivisions.
Area school data breached
in cybersecurity attack
LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
Superintendents at South Burlington School and Champlain Valley School districts notified parents and staff last week that data at both districts was compromised due to a cybersecurity breach of PowerSchool, a national information software used by nearly half of Vermont school districts.
According to a PowerSchool media relations spokesperson Chelsea Le, the company became aware on Dec. 28 of a potential cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to certain PowerSchool SIS information through one of the community-focused customer portals, PowerSource.
“PowerSchool is not experiencing, nor expects to experience, any operational disruption and continues to provide services as normal to our customers,” Le wrote in an email.
As soon as the company learned of the incident, Le said, the team engaged cybersecurity response protocols and mobilized a cross-functional response team, including senior leadership and third-party cybersecurity experts.
While not all school districts that use PowerSchool may not have been subject to the data breach, superintendent of CVSD Adam Bunting told families on Jan. 8 that the district’s own information technology and data departments confirmed that student, faculty and staff data was, in fact, part of the information that was compromised.
“Most Vermont schools also had their data compromised,” he wrote.
South Burlington superintendent Violet Nichols sent a similar message to the community last Wednesday.
“We have been in constant contact with PowerSchool today to ascertain how our district was
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Weinhagen also pushed for integrated agriculture: farms and natural resource areas hosting activities like weddings or community nights. The zoning changes passed in 2013. Weinhagen plans to apply everything he’s learned in Hinesburg to the state board. For him, the town embodies a balance between maintaining the character of a town and landscape and the kind of growth necessary to address the housing crisis.
“We can’t dip ourselves in amber,” he said.
affected,” she wrote. “We do not know the extent of this breach at this time but rest assured that our data team is working to provide a clearer picture of this incident.”
Bunting told families that the Vermont Agency of Education is actively working with PowerSchool to determine the next steps and assess the damage the breach may have caused.
“We understand that the situation is concerning and will keep you informed as we learn more,” he wrote.
In the meantime, both school district’s information technology and data teams have been working to determine the extent of the incident.
“PowerSchool is committed to protecting the security and integrity of our applications,” Le wrote. “We take our responsibility to protect student data privacy and act responsibly as data processors extremely seriously.”
commission about providing support staff, they may only have the capacity to help the town with the redistricting and not the plan update. He plans to have a draft of the update done for the commission before he leaves.
The town manager has not yet advertised the soon-to-be open position.
Alex Weinhagen
As much as he’s looking forward to working at the policy level for the state and helping to enact the changes to Act 250, Weinhagen said that leaving Hinesburg is bittersweet.
“Part of the joy of working in local government is that you’re close to everything. And you’re working with community members to accomplish small goals or even big projects.”
Unavoidably, Weinhagen is leaving amid a couple of ongoing projects. Notably, the planning commission is updating the town plan this year, along with ongoing discussions over rezoning the Rural Residential-1 district.
Although Weinhagen reached out to the regional planning
One of the projects Weinhagen regrets he won’t see to completion is the creation of the town common. A few years ago, Weinhagen and selectboard member Maggie Gordon attended a workshop about creating third spaces in communities: places where people can gather and feel at home outside of their living or work spaces.
They immediately thought of the town green behind the police station. Now, there’s a committee dedicated to the plan that a landscape architect helped design and hopes for a grant and donations to help begin planting trees.
Weinhagen plans on being the first person to donate.
“I don’t anticipate fully disconnecting from Hinesburg ever,” he said. “I’ve spent too much of my life working for this community to not continue to check in and donate and, you know, help out in small ways.”
7:05
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(Translation services are available)
Additional rebates may also be available from your electric or gas utility. All rebates are subject to availability and eligibility. For the most up-to-date information, visit: www.efficiencyvermont.com/rebates