Proposed
Sharing a home in Hinesburg
“Well, I didn’t buy her a cat. I was given a cat.”
“For the mouse problem,”
Jaida Glessner and Len Duffy make good neighbors. Last week, sitting at Parkside Café in Hinesburg, the two joked back and forth about the cat Duffy had inadvertently procured for her.
“I got her a cat,” Duffy said.
Glessner cut in, laughing. “And then the cat bonded with me.”
“I’m very happy not to have the cat,” he added.
Glessner and Duffy met when they were matched through Home-
Share Vermont, a nonprofit that’s
been operating since 1981 and offers a shared solution to the dual challenges of an aging population and a dearth of housing stock in the state.
The program pairs people together for housing: a host, who
See HOME on page 13
Champlain Valley grapples with AI
BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
Stan Williams, an instructional coach with Champlain Valley Union High School, started a presentation at last week’s board meeting by asking school officials and board members a question:
“Over the course of today, what interactions have you had with AI?”
Williams and three other staff members have started working on the district’s approach to artificial intelligence.
According to Williams, the group first formed a few years ago in an unofficial capacity. He was sharing office space with Charlie McFadyen, one of the school’s digital learner leaders, when ChatGPT was released, and the two began talking about how generative AI might affect teaching and what the opportunities might be. They were soon joined by librarian Katie Mack and media integrationist Gary Lambert, both of whose positions involve helping students navigate technology.
The tone of their presentation to the board was cautious but surprisingly hopeful about the potential changes to education wrought by AI.
While there’s understandable concern about generative AI’s ability to reproduce traditional schoolwork like essays, Williams
and the rest of the group also said it’s becoming essential to educate children in how to use it as a tool. The district’s actions have backed this perspective: last week, the group opened access to the Google AI platform Gemini to high school students.
“You talk to your phone. You get an auto-correction on your paper. We’ve been using AI for a long time, but just without this generative piece,” Williams said.
The growing presence of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives was affirmed in the responses to Williams’ initial question. School board chair Meghan Metzler talked about how her phone, in its most recent update, had started summarizing her texts and emails. Cassandra Townshend, a board director from Hinesburg who works at the University of Vermont, mentioned how she had used AI to pull themes out of interviews she had done with community partners that day.
Williams noted that no one in the district is an AI expert. They are learning alongside everyone else. Necessarily, a certain amount of exploration and tinkering with different platforms has informed the initial guidelines the group has put together for faculty and staff concerning artificial intelligence.
See AI on page 12
COURTESY PHOTO
The gravel trail just behind the ballfields in Charlotte was the starting point for March’s Charlotte Walks event. See story, page 2.
Spring in their steps
BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
Charlotte Walks marks third year of steady steps
LIBERTY
DARR STAFF WRITER
The weather may have been less than friendly last Friday, but that didn’t stop Karen Tuininga and her daughter Katie Devoid from kicking off the first Charlotte Walks event of the season.
Despite the 55-degree days nearly all last week, the ground was still muddy at the start of the trailhead to the Charlotte town link trail off Route 7. The sky had turned from sunny and blue to grey and gloomy as a fine, fresh coat of snow glistened the tops of the trees again. While indicators of spring were all around, it was clear winter wasn’t letting go. That’s part of the reason most people cancelled the planned early morning jaunt with the Charlotte Walks crew last Friday.
faithful treaders who spend the hour — from 8:30-9:30 a.m. on the third Friday of every month — catching up with their neighbors, studying a new plant found along the trail, or maybe even catching a glimpse of a black-throated blue warbler.
People’s reasons for joining may vary, but the effects are ultimately all the same. Taking an hour first thing in the morning to slow down may just help you more intentionally see the world around you, Tuininga said.
— Karen Tuininga
“We threatened to start last month,” Tuininga said, letting out a laugh. The cold temps were no threat to her. She was just happy to be officially commencing the first walk of the new season.
The walks, which run from March through November, typically garner just over a dozen
“It’s also fun, because you’ll see people on the walk that you know from around town but you haven’t seen lately,” she said. “We have quite a few, I’d say regulars, that come very often, and we have others that drift in and out, and then we’ll get new people that just show up.”
Arguably, no group in town utilizes the trails more than the Charlotte Walks crew. And after voters approved a $62,000 appropriation on Town Meeting Day, the trail is set to get a new connector.
To date, the town has shown steady support for the trail’s completion with other appropri-
ations approved in 2017, 2019, and 2021. The money approved March 4 will allow the committee to begin work connecting the boardwalk along the south side of Ferry Road and crossing south to north on Ferry Road west of the railroad crossing to Rail Station.
From east to west, the town link trail is split into three contiguous sections: the State Park Road section, the Melissa & Trevor Mack Memorial Trail and the Co-Housing section. The Town Link Trail master plan calls for eventually connecting East Charlotte to Mount Philo and from there to the Charlotte Town Beach.
Trails committee chair Jack Pilla said the first section of trail
was built in 2010, “and here we are 15 years later and we’re still working on it.
Most portions of the town link trail are gravel, creating prime accessibility for bikers and those who may not be as able to traverse uneven terrain as easily.
“It’s great for older visitors and those who still want to get outside but can’t handle the rocky terrain,” Devoid said.
The trail’s maintenance is no easy feat for the committee of just eight people, especially as flooding and more extreme weather become frequent.
“Where the underpass is, especially heading towards the east that was so wiped out, it had
huge ravines in it,” Pilla said, speaking about the flooding last summer. “That took us 40,000 tons of gravel to fill it. Then we had a volunteer with a tractor who helped move it around. And then we were out there with shovels as well.”
For Tuininga, walking the trail each month, she is reminded of the volunteerism that makes a lot of her favorite things about Charlotte possible.
“Our mission for Charlotte Walks is to get people together, to give folks an opportunity to meet up and chat and connect and also to learn more about the trails that we have available in our town,” she said.
PHOTO BY LIBERTY DARR
Karen Tuininga (left) and her daughter Katie Devoid (right) kick off the first month of Charlotte Walks.
School district eyes Shelburne for new employee housing
BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
The Champlain Valley School District might build workforce housing on a 30-acre plot the district owns off Route 7 in Shelburne.
“It would be dense housing,” school board member Dave Connery said. “Condos and apartments, and a portion of that would be set aside for young teachers to have low-cost housing while they’re first coming into the district.”
According to chief operating officer Gary Marckres, the district has been contemplating what to do with this land for some time.
“There is an idea that we’ve always had about the difficulty of the housing situation in Vermont, and how we might be able to help staff if we had a way to maybe provide affordable housing or be part of a program that provides affordable housing,” Marckres said.
about her take on affordable housing.
“We want the best educators and staff in our buildings and in our central office, and I know that, to remain competitive as an employer, you need to be able to have people be able to live within a 45-minute drive of your schools, which is certainly not easy right now,” Lea said.
In literature put together by Shelburne’s affordable housing task force, the group cites teachers specifically as a group unable to afford the housing prices in town. Under the current contract, the base pay for a new teacher in Champlain Valley School District with a bachelor’s degree is $51,355.
“You need to be able to have people be able to live within a 45-minute drive of your schools.”
— Erika Lea
That increases every year and with further education — if that same teacher earns a master’s degree and stays in the district for 10 uninterrupted years, their salary would become $81,141 under the current contract.
District officials and administrators had been discussing the plot when they discovered a company called Oldivai. The Washington-based company works with organizations to develop workforce housing that’s affordable to their employees.
Susan Gillespie, Oldivai’s chief operating officer, and her partner John Milne, started in the healthcare industry, then they moved into housing, focusing first on building housing for hospital employees like lab techs or food service workers, who don’t necessarily make the same level of income as doctors or hospital administrators. Champlain Valley would mark a move by the company into a new sphere.
“There’s a lot of industries that are having similar issues where their workforce needs to be in person, but they’re not necessarily able to afford housing near where they work,” Gillespie said.
It’s a sentiment that’s been echoed continually in Shelburne’s discussions of affordable housing. Last month during a candidate forum, Erika Lea, one of Shelburne’s school board directors, was asked
However, the median listing price for a home in Shelburne is over $900,000 dollars, out of reach even for more seasoned teachers who are higher on the pay scale.
According to Marckres, developing teacher housing on the plot owned by the district is still very early in the planning process. Oldivai has provided a market analysis, but the company and district still must do a needs assessment and a feasibility study, bringing the town and other stakeholders in the district into the conversation.
Should the project continue, the initial idea is for Oldivai to build between 100 and 130 modular units. Marckres said the district, as the landowner, may become an equity stakeholder in the development and have the opportunity to subsidize the cost of housing.
“We’re not looking at this as a major income generator. We’re looking at this as a partnership to fill a need,” Marckres said. “And potentially some affordable housing that could be part of a of an employment package that would keep us competitive for staffing into the future.”
Hinesburg Police Blotter: March 11-19
Total incidents: 46
Traffic stops: 8
Juvenile problems: 7
March 11 at 6:53 p.m., officers responded to the report of a missing person on Lewis Creek Road. That investigation led to the discovery of the missing person in Williston who was pronounced dead at the scene from what police suspect was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Williston Police Department, which is investigating the case, did not release the person’s name as of press deadline.
March 12 at 12:37 p.m., an officer assisted Richmond police with locating a suicidal female.
March 12 at 3:30 p.m., police investigated a juvenile problem on Hawk Lane.
March 12 at 6:54 p.m., officers responded to an out-of-control juvenile on Commerce Street.
March 13 at 1:03 p.m. a resident reported an animal problem on Jourdan Street.
March 13 at 6:36 p.m., a resident reported an animal problem on Boutin Road.
March 13 at 8:11 p.m., an officer investigated a motor vehicle complaint on Route 116.
March 14 at 11:57 a.m. an officer responded to a two-car motor vehicle crash on CVU Road.
March 14 at 1:56 p.m., officers responded to Baldwin Road for a report of an out-of-control juvenile.
March 17 at 7:00 a.m., police investigated a report of a two-car motor vehicle crash on Silver Street.
March 17 at 7:05 a.m. a resident turned found property over to the police.
March 17 at 9:25 a.m., police investigated a report of fraud.
March 17 at 5:47 p.m., an officer responded to a custody dispute on Green Street.
March 17 at 5:50 p.m., police investigated suspicious activity on North Road.
March 18 at 8:62 a.m., officers responded to a two-car motor vehicle crash on Route 116.
March 18 at 9:08 a.m., police investigated an alarm activation on Commerce Street.
March 18 at 7:14 p.m., police investigated a report of theft of property from an automobile on Richmond Rd.
March 18 at 8:14 p.m., police investigated suspicious activity on Fern Road.
March 19 at 8:24 a.m., an officer responded to Leavensworth Road for the report of an out-of-control juvenile.
March 19 at 11:59 a.m., someone reported an attempted theft of property from an automobile on Route 116.
March 19 at 3:04 p.m., police assisted a resident with fingerprinting for employment purposes.
March 19 at 4:35 p.m., police investigated suspicious activity on Place Road West.
The Citizen
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Covid shuttered Statehouse, then opened it up in new ways
SHAUN ROBINSON VTDIGGER
Five years ago this month, the Vermont Legislature decided to adjourn — for at least a week — as lawmakers’ concerns about the spread of Covid-19 began to mount.
“We’ll see what happens,” then-House Speaker Mitzi Johnson said, as Statehouse staff started preparing to close off the building. “A week or two from now, I can’t imagine where we’ll be.”
It would be far longer than that, of course, before lawmakers got back to business as usual.
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Reported cases of Covid-19 soon exploded across the state, and by May, when the House and Senate would have adjourned for the year under normal circumstances, the virus was sending dozens of people at a time to the hospital and had killed at least 55, according to state data.
Legislators conducted most of their business from home in 2020 and 2021, with staff scrambling to stand up meetings on Zoom and livestreams of those proceedings on YouTube. Lawmakers planned to return to the building in 2022, but then backtracked over concerns about Covid-19’s highly transmissible Omicron variant. It wasn’t until January 2023 that lawmakers gaveled in for a legislative session that would, ultimately, take place entirely within the Statehouse walls.
If an immediate impact of the pandemic was to push legislative work out of Montpelier, though, one lasting impact, five years on, has been the way it jolted a deeply analog institution into the digital
world — and, in many ways, made lawmakers’ process more accessible to the public.
After coming back into the Statehouse for good, lawmakers opted to continue streaming video of their work, prompting a need for new cameras and screens throughout the building.
“When the Legislature returned to some version of in-person operations, it was immediately clear to both legislators and staff that this type of technology, this type of access to the legislative process, was invaluable — and would never go away,” said Kevin Moore, director of the state’s Office of Legislative Information Technology, who helped lead that process.
More people are testifying in committees than before the pandemic — no doubt because they can do so from their homes and offices, sometimes avoiding a long drive from far corners of the state, Statehouse leaders agreed in recent interviews. There are also likely more eyes on each committee’s work, they said, with each hearing streamed and archived on YouTube.
Previously, committee work was relatively difficult for the general public to access. Hearings were audio recorded, but the sound quality was often spotty and tapes hard to come by. Only floor proceedings — again, in audio form — were livestreamed, thanks to Vermont Public.
Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden-Central, who has served in the chamber since 2011, called the changes “one of the real silver linings of the pandemic.”
“I think what we have is a more robust process all the way around, with many more people participating,” he said. “So, it’s an ironic legacy of the pandemic — which was ‘don’t get together’ — that we now have many more people involved in the government process.”
Frustration and flexibility
Remote legislating wasn’t without its hiccups, Baruth said. Some meetings faced technical problems that prevented the public from viewing the proceedings live online, and lawmakers did not always halt their work in the meantime. At least one hearing, meanwhile, was hacked.
First-time lawmakers, especially, were frustrated by the challenges of learning the ropes of the job from home, missing out on the informal conversations with colleagues that are key to political work.
Others, including those legislators who work other jobs during the session, found the remote life offered a newfound degree of flexibility. In the years since lawmakers returned to the building, and concerns over the spread of Covid19 subsided, they’ve kept some form of rules allowing one another to attend or participate in committee hearings or floor proceedings remotely.
In January, for instance, the House approved updated guidelines allowing its members to cast up to three votes remotely in committees, for any reason, for the rest of the calendar year.
House Speaker Jill Krowins-
PHOTO COURTESY OF VTDIGGER
The Covid-19 pandemic ushered in a new era of remote legislating that remains today.
This writer gets knocked off the block, again
In Musing Carole Vasta Folley
Two impending deadlines. I’ve got nothing. If you don’t count an incriminating blank screen, a mocking cursor and the looming doom that the sand in my hourglass is a granule away from Alarm-ageddon. My emotional response to writing paralysis.
Although, mine’s more of a blockage. A constipation of words that, no matter the amount of straining, refuse to come out.
Thoth, her male counterpart, has a better name. He also has the head of a baboon. Another lesson in “We can’t have everything.”
I barely hear Seshat’s whispered counsel, “The universe has had enough of your words, thank you very much, don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
I’m left with two choices. Go back to bed or blame someone. Or something. I’m all about equal opportunity blaming. How about my Covid diagnosis last month? Maybe I have brain fog?
Or maybe it’s my husband, who incessantly clanged a knife inside a barren peanut-butter jar while I yelled out, “It’s empty!”
Or maybe it’s politics? Who doesn’t feel miasmic malaise from all the terrible news? Surely, that’s got to be it.
At a loss, I invoke the ancient goddess of writing, Seshat. First, though, I begin with offerings of commiseration. Who wants a name that ends with the past tense of expelling feces? That’s a bum rap.
That can’t be right! It’s not very goddess like.
But then, I worry, what if it’s true?
As I stare over the cliff of devastation down into the valley of despair, where former wordsmiths slog around with dead laptops saying to no one interested, “I used to write,” I think how easy I had it in the past. Oh, how far away yesterday seems. Back then, words came easy.
I’m not saying the results were Didion, only that the tap of inspiration was a spigot wide open. Words never took a vacation, decided to retire or left me for some younger writer. No. Even when I had nothing to say, my fingers on the keyboard always did.
From there, I’d have pages to edit — for that’s the real work of writing. Everyone says they want to be a writer, but nobody says, “My dream is to write a bunch of gobbledygook and then spend interminable hours
encouraging hemorrhoids and headaches by editing a handful of measly pages I suffered over, to then ask, ‘Who wrote this crap?’ while the rest of life goes to hell, because who has the time to pay bills, wash dishes or change underwear when the Grim Reaper of Deadlines wields a scythe with an embedded stamp that will slash and stomp my freshly edited piece in blood-red ink: ‘Rejection!’” Anyhoo. That’s my writer’s life. And I love it. Maybe I should blame my laptop? Not that I don’t appreciate it. Everyone knows the delete key is more enjoyable than an eraser, especially when entire paragraphs beg to die.
Stephen King advises us to “kill our darlings.” He has no idea the ruthlessness that occurs on my desk. I murder pages of pablum so lackluster I consider quitting to become a plumber. It’d be similar to writing, as there’d still be crappy days, paper jams and laying lines. Plus, a big upside, finally: rationale for my plumber’s crack.
Perhaps I’d name my business Vowel Movement and call myself a “Water Distribution Operator?” Might as well employ creativity somewhere. It’s my fault I dally on my
computer. One minute I’m deep in prose, pausing merely to search online for a synonym of “cheese,” and before I know it, I’m reading a list of every cheese in the world, followed by a viral video of a cheese eating contest, to then find myself watching a clip about the art of pastry-making, which weirdly causes me to bra shop.
I know, I shouldn’t click any links. What do they say?
The road to hell is paved with good… oh, sorry, I was distracted by this monkey in overalls answering a phone. It’s unbelievable! I mean, when’s the last time you saw an old rotary-dial telephone?
I checked back in with Seshat about this plumber business, and whether I should apprentice for The Plumb Eyed Pipers or The Crapper Dappers? After she stops hysterically laughing at me (and reminding me of my fear of drain snakes), she says I misheard. Turns out she was telling me that the universe has had enough blame — thank you very much, don’t blame us, we don’t blame you. Wow. That’s mighty gracious of our universe, especially to a planet of people who created global warming, “The Bachelor,” and Flamin’
Hot Doritos.
Not one to slough off otherworldly advice, I consider her message. What if blame is useless? It’d certainly curtail arguments, like the ones inside my head. I’m a blame-machine when it comes to self-judgment. Sure, first, I look outward for who’s at fault, but that’s a knee-jerk reaction after growing up with a dad who accused me of stealing his toupee. As if a ten-year-old wanted a wig that resembled a dead hamster.
Maybe Seshat is advising me to cool my jets. After all, she’s also a goddess of wisdom who wears leopard print. How can I not pay attention to her?
Seshat’s also known for placing ethereal copies of authors’ work in “the library of the gods,” thus, making “mortal writing” immortal. She’s playing the long game.
Maybe she’s signaling that writer’s block is no big deal? That, without blame, there’s simply returning to work when you’re ready. I feel called to don my leopard pants for a date with my laptop. But first, for her sagacity and loving the written word as much as I do, I’ll give offerings of gratitude.
I wonder if she likes Flamin’ Hot Doritos.
Carole Vasta Folley is an award-winning columnist and playwright. Visit carolevf.com.
Carole Vasta Folley
Letters to the Editor
We must stand together, oppose Trump, Musk To the Editor:
It is time for concerned citizens to take further action to peacefully and effectively oppose the lawless and dangerous direction of the Trump/Musk administration.
The rule of law under the United States Constitution and the basic protections embedded in our Bill of Rights are under an unprecedented assault. There can no longer be any doubt that a constitutional crisis in our country is well underway, one that will sooner or later affect all of us if left unchecked, and one that is even now impacting residents of other countries whose autocrats are emboldened by the power grab of the Trump administration.
Right now, Trump is attacking those who are most vulnerable, but if history is a warning, no one who is seen as standing in the way will be exempt.
So far, Trump and Musk have been deliberately creating chaos in and destruction of federal agencies and the services they provide to regular working Americans, without evidence of fraud or abuse and with the apparent objectives of ending these services or privatizing them and ensuring that all federal funds dispensed for any purpose are firmly under the corrupt control of Trump/Musk.
Basic health care for millions is threatened, and even Social Security, once considered the third rail of U.S politics, is now at risk. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, whose benefits from the federal government are in the billions, is now in the position of literally taking food from hungry people who must resort to food shelves.
This lawless regime is now defying and defaming federal judges whose rulings they dislike. Death threats against the judiciary have increased. In addition, Trump is now issuing edicts trying to prevent lawyers for clients he does not like from practicing their profession and defending those who oppose Trump.
Over the past two months, protests have been growing across this country as outrage over the carnage spreads. We must all pitch in to take our country back before it is too late. Various groups are calling for nationwide peaceful demonstrations of protest on Saturday, April 5. This is something in which we can all participate, whether in our town, our state capital or in Washington, D.C. It is important for all of us who cherish this country and the Constitution on which it was founded to stand together at this time.
Caroline Nickerson Hinesburg
Add energy to the list of things to buy locally
Guest Perspective
Paul Lesure
I think about energy a lot. I grew up in a drafty house with cold bedrooms, whereas my best friend lived in a modern, passive solar house that was always comfortable. That contrast put the role energy consumption and efficiency plays into clear focus at a young age.
This idea led me to focus on environmental conservation in college and a career in renewables. It also led me to look into the role energy plays in society.
Many of our leaders and other great thinkers have discussed the role of energy in society. George W. Bush said, in 2006, “Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.”
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As we look to address various energy policies, I encourage our leaders to keep these thoughts in mind. Societally, the idea of energy independence is often viewed through the lens of “drill baby drill.” But I’d challenge that’s not the solution, due to our global markets. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and global natural gas supplies were disrupted, nearly doubling natural gas supplies in just a month, while at the same time, the U.S. had a surplus of natural gas production. So, what happened? Why didn’t our surplus production insulate us from these spikes?
We live in a global market, and many exporters bought up all the U.S. supplies they could to reap the benefits of the high prices in Europe. It’s simple economics: when demand goes up and supply stays the same, the price goes up. With 50 percent of
the New England grid reliant on natural gas, this hit the grid hard.
On the other side of the table, we now have an administration threatening to put tariffs on Canadian energy imports. In 2023, over 25 percent of Vermont’s electricity came from Hydro Quebec. This puts us in a bind with the global markets.
But there’s a path forward to greater energy independence and that’s local energy supplies.
In Vermont, we love our local syrup, local beer and local cheese, so why not show love to local energy?
In Vermont, we love our local syrup, local beer and local cheese, so why not show love to local energy? Vermont has a thriving energy economy with an abundance of companies offering
SURE YOUR PUB TRIVIA TEAM HAS AT LEAST • ONE BOOMER.
solar energy storage and supporting local hydro facilities, and some would love to offer wind if it were allowed still. They provide jobs to our friends and neighbors in many forms: excavators, electricians, carpenters, accountants, project managers, marketers, truck drivers, warehouse managers and so many more. Whereas imported fuels provide jobs elsewhere. Having spent a decade in the renewables industry and as chair of the board for Renewable Energy Vermont, I’m not going to tell you there’s not a cost.
Transitioning our economies is always an investment. The original power grid was costly and the roads were costly, but they provided us a great benefit. Renewables and energy storage provide that, too. It’s not just about climate change; it’s energy independence and resilience for our state. For every project we install, we insulate our state from the fluctuation of the global supply chain. Yes, there’s an upfront cost, but many of these systems are financed with long-term agreements that offer a stable price for 25 years, no matter what happens globally. Now, will the companies who install and own these make a profit? Yes, because that’s how you run any business. But they won’t ship these electrons over-
Why Vermont’s health care costs are highest in the country
Guest Perspective
Gov. Jim Douglas & Lisa Ventriss
Vermonters don’t always agree with each other on important issues: “Who boasts the best woods skiing?” “Which cheese makers produce the best aged cheddar? “Where to find the best maple creemee?”
There is one trend, however, that has bridged our other cultural differences, and that is the gob smacking cost of health insurance premiums in Vermont. At double the national average, publicly available data show that Vermont is out of line with our peers and our hospitals are spending too much on management and administration. Vermonters find their economic growth stunted, many are under- or uninsured, and business and school budgets must cut personnel and services to absorb double-digit insurance increases. So, what is driving this unsustainable trend? Almost half of Vermont’s total health care spending (44.5 percent) is hospital costs, so this is where to look for opportunities for reducing costs, increasing efficiencies, and improving quality. Vermont’s 14 hospitals and health systems range from the largest, UVM Medical Center, to the smallest, Grace Cottage. All have financial challenges, but some perform better than others. Because it is the largest, it’s especially important to dig into the data to understand the drivers of UVM’s financial performance.
When benchmarked against Medicare reimbursements, national data show us that three-quarters of the 107 university-based academic medical centers in the U.S. break even
LESURE
continued from page 6
seas because it’s more profitable. These systems are also distributed energy generation resources. They’re all over the state — on houses, libraries, businesses, town halls, in local fields and in our rivers. These distributed resources provide security to our state through the nature of the decentralized resources. If one system goes down due to an extreme weather event or, god forbid, a bad actor, the others often stay operational. When the grid goes out, these
or make money when treating Medicare patients. UVM Medical Center, on the other hand, loses $119 million a year treating Medicare patients. The UVM Health Network does not dispute these trends, but it does try to explain them away and claim Vermont’s population is the cause. Vermont’s aging population is still younger than that of Maine, yet the Maine medical system is close to breaking even on Medicare reimbursements. What else might it be?
Another disturbing trend is that within the academic medical center cohort, UVM reports the 14th highest non-patient labor costs. These include custodial services, information technology, food services, human resources, and of course, administration and management. To its credit, UVM’s labor costs for direct patient care are on par with their peers, just one percent above the average. However, overall, its non-patient labor costs are 31 percent above their peers. And when we parse out administration and management labor costs, the average for 106 other academic medical centers would have to increase by 73 percent to be as high as UVM.
We need to understand what is driving this anomaly compared to other academic medical centers. And it’s not simple because UVM Health Network finances are consolidated with those of UVM Medical Center, making it difficult to understand the true carrying costs of the network.
Plus, there’s the significant question of UVM Health Network costs to support the delivery of care at the three New York hospitals owned by the network.
As consumers of healthcare
systems when paired with energy storage can also provide backup power.
As our Legislature debates the future of renewable energy policy, the question can’t just be about what’s cheaper or more affordable today. America is the number one producer of oil and gas in the world, but we still face the volatility of the markets. We need to think about the long term, the value of investing in our local economies, and in the stability of our energy costs for
services and Vermont taxpayers, we are literally paying the costs of an inefficient health network. And we should be concerned that quality is slipping too — last year Medicare downgraded UVM Medical Center to four stars, where it previously had five, the highest rating.
We must ask the obvious question: are Vermonters’ health insurance premiums paying for New Yorkers’ health care? And is UVM Health Network leadership tone deaf when forced to reduce spending by the Green Mountain Care Board? After all, the network first sought to eliminate patient services and then handed out $3 million in yearend bonuses. Such a top-heavy, entrenched organization cannot be sustained by Vermonters or the commercial insurance industry.
The coalition members of VT Healthcare 911 support the Green Mountain Care Board in its mission to drive systemwide improvements in access, affordability and quality to improve the health of Vermonters. Currently, there is no audit of hospital budgets that would provide insight into the vagaries of financial reporting by hospitals and health systems. Perhaps it’s time such a thing was standardized in Vermont. Perhaps it’s time for reference-based pricing, which would drive hospitals closer to Medicare reimbursement rates. It is definitely time for Vermonters to raise their voices to call for action in this biennium.
Former Gov. Jim Douglas and Lisa Ventriss, president emerita, Vermont Business Roundtable, are co-chairs of the VT Healthcare 911 Leadership Council.
all our citizens. Again, we support local syrup, local beer, local crafters and so many other local industries. Let’s also support our local energy providers for a more resilient and energy-independent Vermont.
Paul Lesure of Hinesburg was a founding partner at Green Mountain Solar from 2017-2023. He also serves as the board chair of Renewable Energy Vermont.
Community Notes
Red Wagon Plants hosts spring sneak peek
Red Wagon Plants, 2408 Shelburne Falls Road, Hinesburg is hosting its annual pre-season behind-the-scenes event, where visitors can get a sneak peek into the greenhouses and enjoy the scents of spring, March 29, 2025, starting at 10 a.m.
This event is family-friendly, with free kids’ activities from noon to 2 p.m., while supplies last. There are also open spots in Susan Lepple’s trellis-building workshop for children ages 10 and up, starting at 2 p.m. Using gathered wood, participants will build a trellis perfect for growing morning glories or runner beans.
Will Patten to hold book launch at Public House
Vermont author Will Patten will hold a launch for his new book “Rescuing Capitalism: Vermont Shows the Way,” at the Hinesburgh Public House, 10516 Route 116, Hinesburg, on Saturday, March 29, at 3 p.m. There will be book signings, refreshments and lively conversation.
America’s fragile environment is in danger and the social fabric is unraveling. Retired business executive Patten believes Vermont offers the country a way to avoid catastrophe, and he places the blame for the dire condition on the supply-side economics experiment that, for more than 40 years, has encouraged a singular focus on maximizing corporate profits without considering the impacts on natural and human resources.
In his book, Patten recounts that Vermont has never participated in the supply-side experiment.
Instead, Vermont businesses have been thriving financially while innovating solutions to social and environmental problems. He describes a democratic capitalism that still exists in Vermont — a fractious balance between public and private interests that existed in America before the advent of “Reaganomics.”
Patten tells the stories of dozens of Vermont businesses, both manufacturers and farmers, that are innovating solutions to our national dilemma. Now, he concludes, only capitalism — once rescued — has the agility, scale, resources and motivation to prevent human extinction.
The book will be available at local bookstores, Bookshop.org and at rescuingcapitalism.com.
Patten grew up in Rutland County, graduated from a conservative all-male university in 1967 and was accepted into a doctoral program in history at the University of California.
After three years in California, he came back home and looked for ways to keep the revolution he experienced out West alive.
He eventually, in his words, “hooked up with a couple of guys in Burlington who were doing the same thing with ice cream.”
He retired from Ben & Jerry’s in 2007 as director of retail operations, overseeing more than 500 scoop shops in a dozen countries, and went to work for Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and then “unretired again” to open the community-supported Hinesburgh Public House.
Students compete in Iron Chef competition
Fifty teams of elementary, middle, and high school students
from across Vermont will gather Saturday, March 29 at the Blue Ribbon Pavilion at the Champlain Valley Exposition, 105 Pearl Street, Essex Junction, for the 17th annual Junior Iron Chef event, the premiere culinary competition hosted by Vermont Afterschool.
With names like Lettuce Cook, Spice Girls and the Eggsperts, the teams have been busy preparing for the competition, spending their time in afterschool programs researching and testing potential recipes with local and seasonal foods.
On March 29, they’ll work together to create healthy dishes that inspire their school meal programs as part of the Farm to School efforts in the state. Local judges will lend their taste buds to determine winners for the CrowdPlease, Lively Local, and Mise En
Place awards.
“Youth love to cook and show off their skills, but most often, we hear from youth that the program helps them with other skills, including leadership, teamwork, problem solving, and meeting new friends,” Vermont Afterschool executive director Nicole Miller said. “We like to say that Junior Iron Chef VT is a recipe to empower youth.”
Nearby schools and afterschool programs with teams include Cambridge Elementary School; Camels Hump Middle School in Richmond; Champlain Valley Union High School; Christ the King School in Burlington; Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury; FH Tuttle Middle School in South Burlington; Hunt Middle School in Burlington; Lake Champlain Waldorf School
in Shelburne; Shelburne Community School; and Peoples Academy Family-friendly activities for spectators include crepe spinning, a smoothie bike by City Market, seed planting and composting, a photo booth and sugar on snow.
Schedule:
• Morning heat cooking competition, 9:30-11 a.m.
• Afternoon heat cooking competition, 1-2:30 p.m.
• Awards ceremony and photos follow each session.
Fifth Annual Earth Day Essay Challenge
Attorney General Charity Clark wants to hear young Vermonters’ thoughts on the environment. For
COURTESY PHOTO
Red Wagon Plants in Hinesburg will open its greenhouse this weekend for early spring perusing.
Charlotte coalition prepares for new Earth Month events
ALEXA LEWIS
CONTRIBUTOR
Charlotte is preparing to celebrate Earth Month. April will be chock-full of activities and events with something for everyone — contests, speakers, demonstrations, walks and more, all sponsored through coalition of Charlotte’s many civic organizations.
While fully recognizing all the negative trends and challenges — from climate change to pollinators disappearing to invasives moving in — we are taking a month to celebrate the beauty of Charlotte and all the positive local actions being taken. The kids will compete to draw pictures of their favorite trees, volunteers will plant trees and shrubs and wake up our pollinator gardens. There’s a Repair Café for mending and renewing our “stuff,” and a demonstration of how to prune trees to promote their health and vitality.
If you want to go for a walk, there will be a chance to climb Pease Mountain with our Trails Committee and the Chittenden County Forester or take a walk in the park and wildlife refuge with VJ, the Burlington arborist. A beaver walk is planned. There are also opportunities to hear experts speak about the health of our water, the birds of our region and the plants in our gardens.
This will be a month of participation. Folks can meet the committee members who volunteer in our town, have one-on-one conversations and give back, a little or a lot, to the places they love.
Last year I met Julie when I spent a couple of hours helping to clean up her Pollinator Pathway Garden on Spear Street. We talked about her work establishing nine gardens around town and her work with the kids at school. I helped plant trees at the new town garage and got to spend time with Robin, a tree enthusiast and significant donor to the Rutter Family Tree Fund.
And the list goes on, culminating on the Saturday we had our wrap-up celebration with speakers and exhibits on the Town Green. Margaret, our town librarian, made stone soup for everyone, and we gave away bare-root trees donated by Branch Out Burlington for attendees to take home and plant. This year the coalition is going to do it again. There is a fun and informative kickoff event the morning of April 5 at the library with oodles of information about local Charlotte organizations, a talk by Charlie Nardozzi, some fun activities, as well as more info on the month’s events and opportunities for partic-
ipation — not only during the April events, but for the die-hard enthusiasts, longer-term volunteer roles available throughout the Charlotte community. Here’s what you need to know about what’s coming:
• Tree art contest: submissions due Tuesday, April 1, at 5 p.m. at the Charlotte Library.
• Pease Mountain Update: Wednesday, April 2, at 7 p.m. at the Charlotte Library
• Earth Month formal kickoff event: Saturday, April 5, from 9 a.m.-noon at the Charlotte library. Events will include a pruning demonstration at 9 a.m., exhibit tables, a talk by Charlie Nardozzi at 11 a.m. and more.
• Bird Diva program: Wednesday, April 9, at 7 p.m. at the Charlotte Senior Center
• Hank Kaestner: Friday, April 11, at 7 p.m. at the Charlotte Library
• Tree art award presentation: Saturday, April 12, at 4 p.m. at the Charlotte Grange
• Water Matters! presentation by the Lewis Creek Association: Tuesday, April 14, at 7 p.m. at the Charlotte Library
• Book Talk, “The Serviceberry:” Wednesday, April 15, at 7 p.m. at the Charlotte Library
• Charlotte Walks: Friday, April 18, at 8:30 a.m. at Williams Woods
• Beaver Talk & Walk: Saturday, April 19, at 1 p.m. at the Charlotte Library
• Dark Sky Vermont: Monday, April 21, at 7 p.m. at the Charlotte Library
• Pollinator Pathways planting days: Monday-Friday, April 21-25, various gardens around town
• Film showing, “Wrenched:” Tuesday, April 22, at 7 p.m. at the Charlotte Library
• Arbor Day Tree Planting Friday, April 25, 10 a.m. behind the Charlotte Town Hall
• Repair Café: Saturday, April 26, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the UCC Church
• “Trees on Pease” walk: Saturday, April 26, 2 p.m. at Pease Mountain
• Tree identification walk in the park and wildlife refuge: Sunday, May 4, 9 a.m., meet at the lower parking lot
• The following events are happening all month long at the library: flower seed bombs craft and contemporary knitting project. The coalition sponsoring Earth Month includes: Charlotte Public Library; Charlotte Energy Committee; Lewis Creek Association; Sustainable Charlotte; Rutter Family Tree Fund; Pollinator Pathways; Charlotte Grange; Charlotte Land Trust; Charlotte Park and Wildlife Refuge; Charlotte Trails Committee; and the Charlotte Conservation Commission.
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Charlotters really dug last year’s conservation-minded Earth Month. This April, a lot more events will spring up.
COVID-19 continued from page 4
ki, D-Burlington, said changes to allow remote participation also make it easier for legislators who have young children, or are taking care of elderly parents, to serve in Montpelier — which she’s seen as a step forward.
“I think there’s a recognition, that we didn’t have before, that flexibility is really important,” said Krowinski, who’s been in the House since 2012. “I think that is something that’s good, and that we’ve made progress on. And I’m not sure that would have happened if it wasn’t for Covid.”
Easily-accessible video recordings have also changed the way some lawmakers approach their work in committee hearings, according to John Bloomer, the secretary of the Senate. Bloomer said some, in his view, seem less inclined to speak candidly than they were in the past.
“I don’t think you get the exact same debate you used to,” said Bloomer, himself a former senator who’s had his job as the chamber’s top rule-keeper and counselor since 2011.
Before the cameras were in use, “being around a good committee was like being around a kitchen table in a Vermont family. When you discussed things, sometimes you’d say really stupid things, and sometimes you (didn’t),” he continued in an interview. “I think people are a little more hesitant, given all the broadcasting, to actually discuss in front of the live cameras.”
Back in the building
The flip side, Bloomer acknowledged, is that the technology makes it easier for the public to hold lawmakers accountable for what they say. A common scene in the Statehouse includes reporters, as well as lobbyists, hunched over laptop screens watching YouTube recordings of live or past proceedings — sometimes while others are taking place in front of them.
Rebecca Ramos, a lobbyist with the Montpelier-based Necrason Group, called the remote access “amazing” — though said it sometimes discourages advocates from attending hearings in person, where it’s easiest to impress on lawmakers and pick up on their many reactions.
Ramos encourages her clients to come into the Statehouse whenever they can.
After years of Zoom work, “we basically had to retrain our clients,” she said. “Like, no, you don’t get to stay home on Zoom. If you want this change to happen, you have to be in the building.”
The return of in-person legislating brought its own challenges, too. Vermont’s Statehouse is notoriously short on space, with cramped committee rooms that were prone to spreading disease even before
The technology adopted by the Vermont Legislature during the Covid-19 pandemic continues
as during this recent joint meeting of the House and Senate education committees.
considerations over airflow and ventilation were commonplace.
(Officials have been in the process of overhauling the building’s HVAC system in recent years, though those plans predate the pandemic.)
In late 2021, lawmakers ordered the Statehouse’s sergeant-at-arms to impose room capacity limits ahead of their planned return to the building. But those limits later sparked criticism from leaders of news organizations across the state when several reporters were turned away from covering committee hearings in-person, because the rooms had reached their limits.
Legislative leaders increased some committee room limits shortly after in response.
Concerns over disease-spreading also prompted lawmakers to shuffle some committees around the building to rooms that offered more space — including two large rooms on the building’s first floor, Nos. 10 and 11, that were previously used for many public meetings.
Covid-19 also renewed conversations about longstanding proposals to expand the footprint of the Statehouse and create new committee rooms and other public spaces. Progress toward an expansion has been slow, with a legislative panel last fall sending one proposal back to the drawing board over concerns its roughly $11.5 million cost was too high, WCAX reported. It wasn’t until this year that House committees moved out of rooms 10 and 11, after two new committee rooms were built out on the building’s mezzanine level. Baruth, the pro tem, said he thought that returning those rooms to public use also brought back a sense of normalcy.
“To me, that’s really the bookend of the COVID era — is those rooms coming back,” he said.
COMMUNITY NOTES
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the fifth year in a row, the office is holding an Earth Day Essay Challenge for Vermont students to submit essays, and this year, it is expanding to include fourth graders.
“I always look forward to seeing the enthusiasm that young Vermonters have for the environment and the many thoughtful, creative ways they express that in their writing,” Clark said. “These essays provide hope for the future. I also really appreciate the teachers who inspire and support these students in their work.”
The Earth Day Essay Challenge is open to any fourth, fifth, or sixth-grade student in Vermont, including homeschooled students and runs until April 16. Students can submit other types of writing instead of an essay if they would like.
Ideas for topics include things like: What do you love about Vermont’s environment? How do you enjoy Vermont’s environment? What do you care most about and what does Earth Day mean to you? What are your concerns about the future of Vermont’s environment? What do you think we should do to help protect the environment? Participants do not need to cover all these topics — these are just ideas.
All submissions will be posted on the Attorney General Office’s public website for Earth Day 2025 on April 22. Posted essays will include a participant’s first name and school. Please indicate with your submission if you prefer that your essay not be posted.
Participants will receive a note
about their essay from a member of the Environmental Protection Unit and will be entered in a drawing to have Clark speak with their classroom after the essay challenge is over. Environmental attorneys are also available to speak with any participating class about the environmental work of the attorney general’s office during the essay submission period.
For more information on the Attorney General’s Earth Day Essay Challenge, including how to submit your essay, visit tinyurl. com/4f3axrjv.
Scottish pianist Returns to Mahaney Arts Center
Pianist Steven Osborne will perform at the Mahaney Arts Center’s Olin C. Robison Concert Hall on Friday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m.
Osborne’s performances exude an immense depth of musicality and exceptional refinement of expression across diverse repertoire, be it in Beethoven or Messiaen, Schubert or Ravel, Prokofiev or jazz improvisations.
The first half of the concert features classical works, with two pieces each by Debussy and Schumann. After intermission, Osborne pivots to contemporary programming with works by Marion Bauer, Meredith Monk and Frederic Rzewski, plus his own rarely heard improvisations and transcriptions of works by jazz greats Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson.
“My view of classical music has been deeply affected by my improvising experiences: they
helped me feel viscerally how much the mainstream classical repertoire comes out of improvisatory traditions,” Osborne said. “I found that when I opened up to the process of improvising, I suddenly kept seeing implicit spontaneity in the composed pieces I was playing, and that in turn helped me find a much deeper sense of drama, of shape, and of freedom.”
Tickets are $25 for the general public, $20 for Middlebury faculty, staff, and alumni, $10 for youth and $5 for Middlebury College students. More information, go.middlebury.edu/freetickets.
The Mahaney Arts Center is located on the campus of Middlebury College, at 72 Porter Field Road, just off Route 30 South/S. Main Street.
Shelburne April 8 Age Well Luncheon
St. Catherine of Siena and Age Well are teaming up to offer a luncheon on April 8 for anyone 60 or older in the St. Catherine of Siena Parish Hall, 72 Church St. in Shelburne.
The check-in time is 11:30 a.m., and the meal will be served at noon. There is a $5 suggested donation.
April 8 menu: baked ham with raisin sauce, sweet potatoes, Capri blend vegetables, a wheat dinner roll, and Easter cake with icing and milk.
The deadline to register for April 8 is April 3. Contact: Molly BonGiorno, nutrition coordinator, at (802) 662-5283 or email mbongiorno@agewellvt.org.
PHOTO BY GLENN RUSSELL/VTDIGGER
to have a lasting impact on how lawmakers interact with the public and each other, such
Red and Silver: A Tale of Two Maples
The Outside Story
Laurie D. Morrissey
In early spring, a reddish haze appears in the woodlands. With most deciduous trees still dormant, the red maples are living up to their name. Their awakening buds lend color to a gray landscape and signal that spring is coming. I love watching the steady progression of red as I look out my window. A few weeks after the buds redden, they will break into flower, offering bees and insects a critical early source of pollen and nectar.
Red maple (Acer rubrum) is one of the most common native trees in eastern North America. Often called swamp maple, it thrives in wet areas such as bog edges and wetland margins. For this reason, it’s sometimes considered a “sister species” of silver maple (Acer saccharinum), a flood-tolerant species common along rivers. But several characteristics set these two apart.
“climate winner.” These are resilient species that will continue to do well in the future.
“It provides critical ecosystem services like pollinator benefits, wildlife habitat, and soil nutrients from leaf litter, as well as maple syrup and other traditional forest products, so it’s a very important tree species for our northeastern forests and beyond,” Nicole S. Rogers, landowner outreach forester with the Maine Forest Service, said.
Because red maples can adapt to diverse growing conditions and climates, they are likely to become more valuable for syrup production.
Because red maples can adapt to diverse growing conditions and climates, they are likely to become more valuable for syrup production. According to maple scientist Abby van den Berg, they may help ensure the resiliency of the industry. Though red maple sap has a lower sugar concentration than sugar maple sap, it produces copious amounts, and its flavor is nearly indistinguishable from that of sugar maple sap.
Silver maple also breaks bud early in spring.
The reason red maples are so widespread and abundant is that they are generalists. They can establish and grow in a wide range of habitats and site conditions, from urban settings to upland forests to swamps. They are medium-sized trees that are relatively fast-growing and typically reach 40-70 feet. They prefer moist, acidic soils, although they can do well in the compacted soil of urban parks and neighborhoods.
The buds, flowers, emerging leaves and twig stems are red. Even the fruit, the two-winged samara nicknamed “spinners,” are tinged with red. Though the leaves become green soon after emerging, it isn’t long before the red returns: they are among the first trees to show autumn colors, turning red again as early as mid-August.
Red maple is increasing in abundance in the Northeast, and its ability to live in a variety of conditions makes it likely to be a
Stands of silver maple, which can survive weeks-long seasonal flooding, often dominate floodplain forests, with their arching branches forming a dense canopy above a ground cover of sensitive fern, ostrich fern and other herbs growing in the rich, silty soil.
“Some of the most beautiful silver maple forests I’ve ever seen are in the St. John River Valley of northern Maine,” Rogers said.
These forests harbor countless species, including rare and endangered reptiles such as wood, spotted and Blanding’s turtles. The cerulean warbler, which has declined steeply over its entire range, is closely associated with these forests, and the soft wood of silver maples is ideal for cavity-nesting birds such as barred owls and common goldeneyes.
Unfortunately, large intact floodplain forests have become uncommon. Only fragments of floodplain forests remain in areas where they were once extensive. Often, these tracts of land are converted to agriculture or over-
run by invasive species. While red and silver maple have much in common, they are easily differentiated. Silver maple trunks often divide into separate stems close to the ground. The leaves of both species are silvery underneath, but they differ in size and shape. Red maple leaves typically are about four inches in diameter and three-lobed, while
silver maple leaves are about six inches in diameter and have five deeply cut lobes.
Of all our native maples, red has the smallest samara (less than an inch long), and silver has the largest (two inches long). In fall, silver maple leaves usually turn yellow. As I watch the red maples redden, what I appreciate most about this harbinger of spring is
their hue. But then, I’m not a bee. Laurie D. Morrissey is a writer who lives in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. 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.
“Whereas I think initially a lot of schools wanted to go to policy immediately — can you use it or can’t you use it? —the minute you really start to play with it, you realize that that’s almost an impossibility,” Williams said.
Instead, the group has been investigating and researching what AI is good at, and what it’s not so good at, and letting the answers they find to those questions inform how they use it.
This year, Williams and Mack have held workshops with about 100 teachers and staff from across the district where they share resources, play with AI, and puzzle through how they may or may not want to use it in their classrooms.
For Williams, accessibility features like translation or voiceto-text and its ability to organize and summarize information can all be positive and effective uses.
However, generative AI also pulls from the information available to it, often replicating or doubling down on human biases or inaccuracies. Additionally, AI servers use a massive amount of electrical energy and need water to cool their systems, which impacts the environment.
For Williams and his colleagues, those negatives make an even stronger case for instructing students in assessing AI critically — what he summarized as safe, ethical, and effective use.
After drafting their initial guidelines, the group got input and feedback from district leadership and aiVermont, a nonprofit focused on ai literacy. Then, they started redrafting. They’ll probably rewrite them again in the future, as they learn more.
“It’s still going to be fluid, but what we did put out had a lot of eyes on it,” Williams said.
While the guidelines about how they’re using AI in classrooms may be evolving, the district held a hard line when it came to which platforms it would give students access to.
“We don’t want students to log in, because then the data platform is collecting information based on their login, which, even if it’s just their email, it’s who they are, right? It gives their name,” Sarah
Crum, the district’s director of learning and innovation, said.
The federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act prevents schools from sharing any identifiable information about students. Gemini, the Google platform the district just rolled out to high school students and faculty, does not require a login. Crum said teachers and staff are prevented from using any information about students with AI tools.
Beyond bias and privacy, Crum said that the difficulty AI presents to schools is also philosophical. She has talked with teachers grappling with AI’s ability to easily complete the tasks or assignments they’ve given their students, not because of cheating, but because it obscures the value of the task itself.
“If there is now a tool that allows people to do something so much more quickly, what does that open up for us as skill development that we should be prioritizing for students, if we no longer have to prioritize that?” Crum said.
Crum said as schools integrate AI, teachers will need to be transparent with students about when, how and why they may or may not be allowed to use artificial intelligence. For example, teachers could allow students to use AI to create a summary but then put it away for discussion with a partner to focus on critical thinking.
She compared the rise of AI to the invention of the calculator.
“The calculator meant people didn’t have to spend a lot of time laboriously doing adding and subtracting,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that we don’t teach additive reasoning and multiplicative reasoning. Kids still learn how to add and subtract and multiply because conceptually it’s a building block to understanding numeracy and mathematics and mathematical thinking.”
For Williams, this starts with helping teachers and students ask better questions when it comes to the evolving technology.
“What do you ask it to do? How do you critique it? How do you analyze it? How do you judge it? How do you innovate from it?” he said.
CVU Scholars’ Bowl team excels in its trivial pursuits
The team from Champlain Valley Union High School secured the state high school academic championship and the team from Mt. Abraham Union High School took home the small-school state championship on Saturday, March 22, as the Vermont-NEA Scholars’ Bowl held its final day of competition at Montpelier High School.
CVU capped a run of four comfortable wins at the March playoffs with a 420-265 victory over South Burlington. The Redhawks also swept through the first set of playoffs in January, meaning they secured their second straight state championship and fourth overall without needing to play a championship match.
Competing members of the CVU team were Jacob Graham, Zoe Mui, Charles Redmond, Leah Rauch, Wylie Ricklefs and Grace
Warrington. The team is coached by John Bennett and Kiran MacCormick.
Mt. Abraham also successfully defended its crown as smallschool state champion, securing wins over rivals Montpelier and Lyndon to finish highest among eligible schools Saturday. Like CVU, the Eagles finished first on both playoff dates, so a championship game was not required to earn its third overall small-school title.
A state championship match was needed in the JV tournament, however, as South Burlington B went 4-0 in Saturday’s round to force a showdown with January winner CVU B.
South Burlington B claimed the crown by coming out on top in a back-and-forth match that finished 220-215.
Essex High School took home Saturday’s other trophy, claiming the Medlar Cup for showing the most improvement over the January playoffs after coming in third overall.
CVU will participate in the NAQT National Championship Tournament in Atlanta on Memorial Day weekend, while Mt. Abraham will likely attend the NAQT Small-School National Championships in the Chicago suburbs in late April.
Scholars’ Bowl is a question-and-answer quiz competition, similar to “Jeopardy!” but featuring teams of high school students and with a heavier focus on the academic curriculum. The tournament has been held annually since the 1983-84 school year and is sponsored by the Vermont-National Education Association.
The business next door donates nearly twice as much as big-box stores and online retailers to local non-profits, events and teams.
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The Champlain Valley Union Scholars’ Bowl team is headed to Atlanta this spring after winning its second straight Vermont title.
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often owns a home or can take on a larger portion of rent, but who might need a little bit of help around the house, and a guest, someone willing to help with chores or household tasks in exchange for reduced rent.
The average rent for guests in the program is $359 a month, and the maximum rent hosts can charge is $650 for a room or $850 for an accessory dwelling unit. In comparison, typical rent in Chittenden County is about $2,000 for a two-bedroom unit.
Hinesburg has a growing number of home shares set up through the nonprofit. According to the organization’s executive director Connor Timmons, there were nine people in Hinesburg last year who participated. Right now, they have five additional hosts in town hoping to take in guests.
Although the age and needs of participants ranges, Duffy, 83, and Glessner, 32, are a common pairing for HomeShare: a homeowner later in life who has some extra room and a younger person trying to find housing in a difficult rental market.
Duffy initially applied to the program a couple of years ago when his wife got sick. At the time, they thought it would be good to have somebody else around the house. Then, before they could follow through on the home share, she got sicker and was in and out of the hospital. She died last January.
Soon after, Duffy got a call from one of the case workers at HomeShare, checking in on that application they had sent in.
“She, at that point, I think, had Jaida in mind as somebody who might fit my situation,” Duffy said.
Duffy has a separate apartment on his property that they had intended for the guest. He had had informal agreements before where renters took on some chores in exchange for reduced rent, but he liked the idea of having the nonprofit do the screening work.
Glessner, for her part, had moved from Washington state the year before. Previ-
ously, through her work on a farm, she had housing as part of her employment. When she applied to HomeShare, she was in an informal rental situation, doing some gardening work and helping out until she could find something more permanent. She hadn’t even moved her plants out of her car.
“It was not a very comfortable location, and it felt quite strange. So really, I just kept everything in my car. Just felt like I couldn’t truly relax,” she said.
The initial HomeShare application is surprisingly simple. It asks for some basic personal information as well as four references. According to Timmons, after a quick check-in call to applicants to make sure they’re still interested, running background checks and calling those references is one of the first steps the organization takes in their screening process.
After that, HomeShare case workers spend time getting to know applicants – what their needs are, their hobbies, their interests.
“We get as detailed as knowing the kind of reality television people like to watch,” Timmons said.
According to Timmons, the program offers an out at every step of the process — there are multiple moments where either a host or guest could decide the program or a specific pairing aren’t for them, including a two-week trial period.
If they do decide to move forward, guests are limited in both the hours and the kinds of work they’re expected to do. That might mean transportation support, meal preparation, or odd jobs around the house like bringing down the Christmas decorations for a host that has trouble lifting heavy objects.
Timmons said that he views the rent and the services as a kind of scale or balance — both parties need to feel like they’re benefiting from the situation, and that they’re happy to be there.
“I would say a good chunk of the people will have a ‘just in case’ presence. They don’t really have any needs that are immedi-
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, April 23, 2025.
7:05 PM DRB-25-034-CU/SP O’Farrell-Sleeper – Convert existing barn into a child day care facility serving 10 or more children at 435 Dorset Street.
For more information, contact the Planning & Zoning Office at 802.425.3533 ext. 208, or by email at: pza@townofcharlotte.com.
ate, that require someone to help them,” he said. “But they’re starting to get to the point where it would be nice if there was someone else in the house, just in case.”
About a month after Glessner moved into the apartment on Duffy’s property, he started having some eyesight problems and ended up need a couple of operations. During that time, Glessner became that “just in case” presence for him.
“It was just really reassuring to have somebody there at that time, or close by, that, if I had a problem, I could call,” he said.
Mostly, however, Glessner’s been there to help with yard work and caring for the property. As she described rooting out a patch of poison sumac last year, Duffy gestured to a botanical tattoo on her arm.
“That’s how she got this,” he said. They laughed.
This past winter, Glessner moved out of Duffy’s property. She traveled out of the country for the entire month of January — something she doesn’t think would be possible without participating in HomeShare.
“With a higher rent responsibility, I don’t think I would have had the opportunity to save money to be able to facilitate that experience. So, it definitely is helpful in that it makes the next transition a little bit better,” she said.
Now, she’s living in Starksboro and working at Champlain Valley Hops, fulfilling orders in their off season and preparing for the summer farm work. She hasn’t lost her connection to Duffy. He’s still going to be doing HomeShare. His new guest? Glessner’s younger sister.
HomeShare Vermont has a high satisfaction rate — for matches that decide to participate, the organization has received 100 percent positive feedback. Timmons also said that of the people that decide to start the two-week trial period, 95 percent move forward with the official home share.
He chalks part of that up to the work the organization does to match people well. By the time participants are moving in with each other, they already know quite a bit about the other person. Then, Timmons said, it’s like any other roommate or neighbor relationship — it depends on the individuals involved.
Glessner said, as she and Duffy discussed what needed to get done around the property, they also ended up telling stories.
“Len has a lot of travel stories and things that were fun to talk about, and I am interested in travel and the culture, so we were able to just sit, and kind of story tell for a while, which is nice, easy and natural way to get to know each other,” she said.
Town of Hinesburg Final Public Hearing
April 16, 2025 at 6:00pm Hinesburg Town Office
The Town of Hinesburg received $300,000 from the State of Vermont for a grant under the Vermont Community Development Program. A public hearing will be held at Hinesburg Town Hall 10632 VT Route 116 on 4/16/2025 at 6:00pm to obtain the views of citizens on community development, to furnish information concerning the range of community development activities that have been undertaken under this program, and to give affected citizens the opportunity to examine a statement of the use of these funds. The CDBG Funds received have been used to accomplish the following activities:
Construction of Kelley’s Field II consisting of 24 units of service enriched affordable housing for older adults located at 109 Kelley’s Field Road in Hinesburg is complete and occupied. Information on this project may be obtained from and viewed during the hours of M-F 8am - 4pm at Hinesburg Town Hall 10632 VT Route 116 starting on 4/1/2025. Should you require any special accommodations please contact Todd Odit at (802) 482-4206 to ensure appropriate accommodations are made. For the hearing impaired please call (TTY) #1-800-253-0191.
Legislative Body for the Town of Hinesburg
To advertise in the service directory email: Advertising@thecitizenvt.com or call 802-238-4980
/ adamdantzscher@aol.com
Law would help farms recover from weather
SAM HARTNETT COMMUNITY NEWS SERVICE
Farmers would get financial help when extreme weather hurts their business under a bill unanimously passed by the Senate agriculture and appropriations committees.
S.60 aims to set up a fund to provide grants to farmers when floods, fires, freezes and more damage crops, harm livestock or otherwise hurt bottom lines. Legislators were considering a starting pool of $7.5 million for the 2026 fiscal year, though the version of the bill on the Senate floor leaves the price tag to be determined.
“We need to make sure we are taking care of our local farms and food systems,” the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addison, said in a phone call.
The idea for the fund began after organizations representing farmers came together in the wake of extreme weather events in 2023, including a devastating late spring freeze and catastrophic flooding in the summer.
“Ninety-nine percent of our farm was under water, wiping out about $200,000 worth of crops,” Andy Jones of Intervale Community Farm in Burlington said, testifying before the Senate Committee on Agriculture in late February.
While large farming operations may qualify for assistance programs like federal crop insurance, small and medium farms often have no safety net, according to the Northeast Organic Farming Association.
“It’s geared towards the bigger row crops in some of the other states,” Secretary of Agriculture Anson Tebbetts told senators in a February meeting, referring to crop insurance. “Those insurance programs available through the USDA are not really at the scale of Vermont.”
The fund would help farms recover losses or reimburse them for unexpected
costs after severe weather. Those could include wages, wiped-out income from destroyed crops or livestock or repairs to roads and equipment. It would cover up to 50 percent of uninsured or uncovered losses, up to $150,000 per year for any one farm, after officials verify numbers and weather incidents in each application.
A review board would make the final call, with a turnaround coming at most 30 days from officials receiving an “administratively complete application,” under ideal circumstances.
Concerns floated around the Senate agriculture committee last month that the bill may discourage some farms from applying for or purchasing crop or flood insurance because they could rely on the fund instead. Mary White, vice president of the Vermont Farm Bureau, told legislators that officials could curb the issue by requiring farms to show they had applied for insurance.
Freezes, droughts and barn collapses are among other more local events that may impact a community’s ability to produce food. Vermont’s topography often means flash flooding is contained to only some areas, meaning the state or county as a whole doesn’t reach the federal bar for a disaster declaration and the aid that comes with it.
The fund is partially modeled after the Business Emergency Gap Assistance Program, under the state’s commerce agency, designed to help businesses recover after the floods in 2023. Farmers have business models far more susceptible to extreme weather events than most businesses, leading to requests for a separate fund. Months after those 2023 floods, agricultural businesses applying to that emergency fund had hardly received payments, Community News Service revealed at the time.
Farmer advocacy groups were asking for a starting amount of $20 million but weren’t tied to that number. The bill’s supporters suggest the fund could grow during years without many extreme weather events and be used when needed.
Gov. Phil Scott’s budget has some money appropriated for a recovery fund through the Vermont Economic Development Authority, and the money could be used to start the fund, Tebbetts told legislators in a Feb. 27 meeting.
“That could be a nice little nest egg of $2 million to get going,” Tebbetts said.
Many tree fruit growers advocated for the bill, citing the spring 2023 freeze that severely damaged crops. A bill last session, H.813, aimed to create a Tree Fruit Farmer Assistance Program, starting with a “placeholder” amount of $10 million. The bill passed the House agriculture committee but stalled in the appropriations one.
“For a minute we had hope, but just when we were able to project our losses and there was talk of relief … the July floods happened, and we were, metaphori-
cally, swept away with them,” Linda Friedman of Wellwood Orchards in Springfield said via email.
The review board for the proposed program would be made up of state officials, farming organizations and farmers who have received assistance and oversee how the funds are used, including perspectives from farmers and experts around the state.
“This bill is about food security, supporting farmers that have taken on this risk for society and supporting our rural community,” Sam Smith, farm business director at the Intervale Center, said in February testimony to senators. The center leases land along the Winooski River to the Intervale Community Farm and others.
“Farmers across the state are really working hard to be the smart business managers they need to be to adapt, but we need to support them on this level, as a state,” Smith said.
Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.
COURTESY PHOTO
Volinteers help with recovery efforts at Maple Wind Farm in Richmond in July 2023.