Home & garden
Decisive win
Plan your spring plantings now
Girls’ golf team takes Division I champsionship
Page 8
Page 12
Volume 52 Number 42
POSTAL CUSTOMER
PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT #217 CONCORD, NH ECRWSSEDDM
shelburnenews.com
October 19, 2023
Irish Hill pedestrian bridge makes headway Construction expected for summer 2024 LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
The 100-foot cyclist bridge project over the LaPlatte River at the intersection of Falls and Irish Hill roads is finally making headway in Shelburne. The project officially went out to bid last week — a final step for a project that has been nearly four years in the making. Construction is anticipated to begin next summer. Ideas for the bridge are blueprinted in the town’s 2019 town plan, which places a high priority on making Shelburne a safer and more attractive place for bicyclists and pedestrians and highlights the need for the bicycle-pedestrian
A flipping good cause PHOTOS BY LEE KROHN
Saturday saw the return of the Shelburne Fire Department’s annual pancake breakfast at the Shelburne Community School. At top, firefighter Dwight Mazur flips hotcakes as his son, Ethan, looks on. Below, rescue chief Jacob Leopold waits in line with the throngs of locals who turned out to support the department and enjoy a hearty meal.
bridge as one necessary component to make that happen. “This facility will make it easier to cross the river safely,” town manager Matt Lawless said, noting that it directly connects neighborhoods to the town’s village center. Rising costs, supply chain shortages and rejected grant proposals held up the project much longer than originally anticipated since 2019. Although the town was awarded a grant under the Transportation Alternatives Program in April, going out to bid last summer was an impossible move. “We haven’t yet been able to put it out to bid because these See BRIDGE on page 10
New cemetery building could appear on town meeting ballot LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
As the town of Shelburne prepares for the upcoming budget season, residents could see a six-figure ballot item up for vote at Town Meeting Day to revamp the town’s cemetery building. “It feels important to me to represent both the occupational health and safety element of this and the respect for the cemetery and the work that’s done there,” town manager Matt Lawless said at a selectboard meeting last week. “As part of the capital planning process, this project appears relatively urgent.” The small, 50-year-old, 36-foot by 16-foot building on Falls Road in Shelburne houses all the equipment used to maintain the town’s three cemeteries
— one on Falls Road, a small one on Spear Street and another on the Shelburne Farms property. But conditions of the building for the three cemetery employees and five cemetery commission members have become nearly unbearable in recent years with only one portable toilet, no office space and no heating or cooling systems. “Compared to the other facilities that we have or our other public spaces, it doesn’t compare well,” Lawless said. “I’ve spent more time in it and been able to confirm and sympathize. It’s a small building, which is totally full of equipment. There’s very little available space for indoor work and repairs. No space to sit down. It’s a standing desk configSee CEMETERY on page 10