Park here
Beds for kids
Beta scales back parking for airport project
Church teams up with group to make sure kids sleep well
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PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT #217 CONCORD, NH ECRWSSEDDM
South Burlington’s Community Newspaper Since 1977
the APRIL 28, 2022
otherpapersbvt.com
Millions could kickstart regional dispatch center
VOLUME 46, NO. 17
CLIC-ked
Some officers still anxious over changes AVALON STYLES-ASHLEY STAFF WRITER
Community leaders in Chittenden County have been trying to regionalize emergency dispatch for 50 years, but for the most part 911 calls are still routed to a constellation of local centers. Studies, reports and committees over time have brought hope for the effort but never fruit, to the point where many public safety officers on the ground have given it Circ Highway status, in reference to the state’s decades-long attempt to build a circumferential highway around the county. A four-mile remnant of the failed highway still stands in South Burlington. Now, funding from various federal and state sources might just drag regionalization efforts across the finish line. “Having kind of a front windshield view on the project, it looks like the capital is going to fall into place and there’ll be some investments made, and once that happens, I believe that the project will take off,” South Burlington police chief Shawn Burke said. “But I think if you were to poll a variety of public safety employees, they would kind of chuckle and say, ‘Yeah, they’re going to build a circumferential highway, as well.’” Federal money in an omnibus appropriations bill, shepherded by Vermont’s congressional delegation, will provide $750,000 for regional dispatch, in addition to $252,744 in state homeland secu-
rity grants. But the biggest source of potential funding could come in an $11 million bundle in a current state budget bill, H.740. Rep. Maida Townsend of South Burlington, who sits on the House Committee on Appropriations, helped fight for the money, which is in conference as representatives and senators reconcile differences in spending. While Townsend is optimistic the $11 million will remain intact, how that money is broken out between different regional centers throughout the state and when it will be available is still up for debate. “I have great hopes, because both chambers address the issue,” Townsend said. “I can’t imagine either body wanting to just throw up their hands and put it in the trash.” The gist of the bill is to create a task force to study long-term funding models for regional dispatch centers, timelines and transition funding needed to get centers up and running. Both allot $11 million but they diverge from there. The Senate version allows $6.5 million of the total to be distributed to four dispatch facilities as grants before a task force delivers its report, but the House version keeps the total funding in reserve until the task force work is done. Townsend said she realized, after working on this portion of the See DISPATCH CENTER on page 10
COURTESY PHOTO
Vermont Day School students took an all-school field trip to BETA Technologies, an electric aerospace company in South Burlington, during CLIC week — Create, Learn, Innovate and Celebrate. As students rotated to different stations, they saw the company’s Alia aircraft up close, visited a charging station, learned how electric energy is created and sat in the flight simulator. BETA then challenged students from the school to design and create a book that can teach other children about their work.
Call of the wild
Southeast quadrant wildlife studies show differing results AVALON STYLES-ASHLEY STAFF WRITER
According to Chittenden County forester Ethan Tapper, our ecosystems are difficult to quantify. While those who study them, by nature, deal in hard science, evaluating and quantifying the environment is not so exact.
Take the southeast quadrant in South Burlington, one of the last rural spaces in the city, characterized by grasslands, the Great Swamp, wildlife and few houses. The area was at the heart of a 2020 study by environmental consulting firm, Arrowwood Environmental, which was contracted by the city to analyze forestland for
use in the planning commission’s work overhauling local land development regulations. The firm’s analysis extended to evaluating habitat beyond forested areas and the creation and ranking of “habitat blocks,” now a major point in the city’s new environmental protecSee WILDLIFE on page 13