This story by Matthew Thomas was first published in The Bridge on Sept. 9, 2025.

After past programmatic moves that it acknowledged can disrupt student learning, The New School of Montpelier is setting down solid roots on the college green in Montpelier. 

With last year’s purchase of Bishop-Hatch Hall at 41 College Street and Alumnx Hall at 45 College Street from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, The New School can create “stable places” for students, according to Elias Gardener, the school’s executive director. 

Gardener noted that The New School’s students “often are diagnosed with autism or have experienced trauma and are extremely dependent on predictable consistency.” 

The New School of Montpelier, a worker co-operative, is a Vermont Therapeutic School approved by the State Board of Education, Gardener said, with its tuition set by the Vermont Agency of Education. The school was founded in 2005 for 16 children with “complex challenges in central Vermont foster care homes,” whose educational needs the local public schools could not meet. “All of our students receive special education services identified on Individual Education Programs and placed by public schools.” 

The school has occupied the lower floors of Bishop-Hatch Hall since 2009 and Almunx Hall since 2013, Gardener said. He added that currently there are three programs running on the college green. The purchase and renovation of these buildings will allow the school to expand enrollment, which is very much needed, he added, because the school has more referrals than it can accommodate at the moment. 

“Both are historic buildings,” Gardener said, noting that Bishop-Hatch was built in 1958 and Alumnx Hall in 1932 and that each had “significant deferred maintenance needs.”

The New School started its restoration with Bishop-Hatch Hall. The extensive project, reviewed by the Vermont Division of Historic Preservation includes stabilization maintenance, such as replacing the roof and the original steam heat system. In addition, there will be safety updates, such as removing asbestos and installing new ventilation and sprinkler systems.

To increase student space, Gardener said the two lower floors are being renovated to make classrooms, which, upon completion, will allow The New School to add an additional program with the capacity to take up to ten more students. “We consistently have a multi-year waiting list with staffing and space being the two primary barriers to meeting the needs of the public schools,” he said. 

Gardener anticipates renovations to Bishop-Hatch Hall to be completed in March, 2026. 

The New School is planning a future fundraising campaign to restore Almunx Hall, which needs a new roof after having shingles sheared off in high winds and leaks in the cupola, he said, adding that the school hopes to make this repair in 2026. In addition, Gardener said the steam heating system needs to be replaced. The school also does not have the funding to restore the upper two floors of Bishop-Hatch Hall. “We are considering various options including conversion to housing, but for now they must be mothballed until they can be brought up to code,” said Gardener. 

“The New School is proud to be a steward of these historic buildings, particularly Alumnx Hall,” Gardner said. He added that it is important to the school to keep the hall open for community events and that the school uses the auditorium as a gymnasium and also a “vocational learning opportunity” for students involved in event set up and support, such as weddings. 

“There are so many exciting things the new owners of various buildings on the college green and Montpelier are doing,” Gardener said. “I love being a part of it.” 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier’s New School expands space for students with complex needs.

This story by Matthew Thomas was first published in The Montpelier Bridge on Aug. 19, 2025.

At a time when Montpelier is overwhelmed by increasing numbers of people experiencing homelessness — and President Donald Trump has decreed that homeless people be removed from public spaces — the Montpelier City Council discussed amendments to the city’s public camping policy at Wednesday’s city council meeting. 

The amended policy proposed by the City Manager’s Office passed along with two amendments during the meeting: one, proposed by Councilor Pelin Kohn, stipulated that the policy be reviewed again in six months; the other, by Councilor Cary Brown, removed the language from the city manager’s amendment designating all city parks as “High-Sensitivity Areas,” passing with help from the mayor’s tie-breaking vote.

“The city’s approach to camping in the city has not changed, and we’re not suggesting it would at this time,” said Acting City Manager Kelly Murphy. Murphy added that while the city does not allow public camping, it is also not looking to roust those who camp who aren’t causing a disturbance. So long as they are not doing so in “High-Sensitivity Areas,” a hot topic during discussion of proposed amendments to the city’s encampment policy. 

Among the particulars of the amended policy are removing the Montpelier Police Department from tasks such as triaging the city’s response to moving an encampment. The Fire, EMS and Parks departments will now be part of the group notified by the City Manager’s Office of an encampment. The city manager will now coordinate the response, relieving the beleaguered police department from such responsibility. 

Murphy said that her proposed amendments were not intended to be transformative. Rather, she said, they sought to bring the policy in line with de-facto city practice and also to account for current staff capacity. For example, Murphy cited the current practice of storing items cleared out of unattended encampments for 90 days; her office proposed the time limit be amended to 30 days so as to line up with the city’s actual storage capacity. 

Councilor Adrienne Gil said she’s not interested in talking about changes until the city’s partners have also reviewed current policy and had a chance to offer input. “We need guidance in enforcement,” Murphy said in response. To which Gil replied, “We need an emergency meeting with our partners to go through this policy to have an understanding about what we want in our community. … Just having one side of the story, updating a policy, is not sufficient.” 

Councilor Cary Brown agreed with Gil. “If we’re going to review this policy, it does need to be with everyone involved,” she said. “I think it’s a good idea to pull this policy out, to dust it off, take a look at it, because we went through a lot to put it in place.”

Brown did take issue with one of the proposals, which she deemed an “extremely substantive change,” a line in the notification letter affixed to the policy, which was amended to designate all city parks as “high-sensitivity areas,” and, therefore, subjecting any encampments within them to removal. According to Brown, this change negates the spirit and meaning of the entire original policy. 

Contained in Murphy’s response was the paradox that has flummoxed the city for years and would return throughout the meeting: If public spaces are increasingly off limits to camping, where are unhoused people supposed to go?

Councilor Sal Alfano said the policy has “many inconsistencies” and suggested the whole thing be scrapped and the city start over. As an example, he noted where the policy states that shelter will be offered when moving campers out of prohibited areas. The problem is that the city has no shelter space to offer. 

Members of the public weighed in as well. 

Richard Sheir, of Montpelier, suggested that matters related to the parks fall under the jurisdiction of the elected Parks Commission, and perhaps not the city council. 

Montpelier resident David Kitchen spoke about the encampments by the river near where he lives, and said he has instructed his son to no longer ride his bicycle on the bike path near the transit station but instead ride in traffic, as it’s “safer,” according to Kitchen. 

“I rode through there the other day,” Kitchen said, “and two individuals blocked the path and they could tell I wasn’t going to stop. They split. One guy gives me the ‘finger gun,’ pulling his trigger. The other guy mentions something about ‘destruction,’ that he’s going to ‘destroy’ me.” 

Montpelier residents Stan Brinkerhoff and TJ Poor both said that they do not allow their children to use the bike path by themselves. Poor said his daughter is afraid of using the bike path, and when she is downtown often crosses the street many times to avoid confrontation. 

Bonnie Robertson, a 30-year resident of Montpelier, described her experience of using the bike path, citing broken glass on the ground, litter down by the river, fighting, and “half-naked” people relieving themselves by the river, among other examples of disorder. While noting that she does not want to see people moved, Robertson said “I would like to see the law being enforced,” a sentiment that was echoed throughout the meeting. 

“I don’t have a solution for homelessness,” Robertson said. “But I don’t see why we can’t enforce the laws that are already on the books.” 

Multiple residents, while expressing empathy for the unhoused, also registered their discontent with what they characterized as lawlessness by some members of the city’s homeless encampments, prohibiting use of public spaces by the larger public. Poor said the problem is bigger than Montpelier and should be tackled by the state. 

“The empathy and compassion that was well intentioned with the policy has really enabled entitlement,” Poor said. “Entitlement that these public places belong only to a small portion of those who are unhoused, really, and not to the rest of the community. We’re making a choice without policy. We’ve devoted our priority. We’ve done it away from our children, done it away from the economic vitality of the community, and that really needs to change. Our town is unwelcoming now.” 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier amends public camping policy.

This story by Matthew Thomas was first published in The Bridge on July 9.

The long search for the right site for a homeless shelter in Montpelier may be over. If all goes as planned, the former Central Vermont Solid Waste Management office at 137 Barre Street may soon house a new, permanent 18-bed emergency shelter.

In a June 21 press release, Good Samaritan Haven (central Vermont’s shelter network, also known as “Good Sam”) announced that it has signed a purchase and sale agreement for 137 Barre Street, a building that has gone up for sale because the solid waste management district has found a new home in Berlin. The building — a large blue Victorian style house — shares a driveway with Another Way, a “sanctuary for those with psychiatric disabilities,” according to its website, and an organization that, like Good Sam, offers an array of services to those without housing. 

Good Sam plans for a “partial soft opening” this November and to be fully operational in January 2026, the release noted.

Julie Bond, Good Sam’s executive director, said the organization provides services to 475 to 500 people annually through direct shelters, along with its community-, street- and motel-outreach program. 

The property will become a semi-congregate (“dorm-style”) shelter serving adults aged 18 to 80 plus, Bond said. Similar to Good Sam’s 17-bed flagship shelter in Barre, the Montpelier shelter will have multiple beds in each sleeping room, several common rooms, shared bathrooms, and a kitchen, along with laundry and staff offices, Bond
added. 

The new shelter will also provide housing case management and some community health case management onsite, said Bond. “These services will support and connect guests with housing opportunities, job training opportunities, connection to social services and medical and mental health partners in the area,” she added, along with visiting service providers from community partners. 

Aligning with Montpelier’s housing plan, the city has been “wonderfully supportive,” of the new shelter, Bond said. “We’ve been providing seasonal/winter shelter for the last several years, and it’s very intense and resource-heavy to ramp up, operate, and ramp down each season versus operating a shelter year round.” 

In order to create a more grounded and settled environment, Bond said, “Guests will not have to leave during the day … allowing folks to heal, settle, and have the time, space, and peace to meet their housing and other goals.” 

Another important feature of the Barre Street site, Bond said, is that it sits well out of the floodplain. Two of their current shelters are flood-prone, and safely sheltering guests is an organizational priority, she said.

Good Samaritan is a 90-day program, said Bond, although longer-than-average stays may happen because of the state’s housing crisis. During this time, guests receive assistance meeting their housing goals. The program has a standard intake process and is not a drop-in shelter. None of its shelters currently serve families, she said.

“With the motel exodus this week,” said Bond, “we will be supporting many more people who must leave the motels after their 80 days have run out and they have nowhere else to go but to tent outdoors, exposed to the elements.” She added that most are living with major medical, cognitive, developmental, or mental health challenges. 

Along with the city of Montpelier, Good Sam is working with the state of Vermont’s Office of Economic Opportunity and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and has hired Evernorth, a nonprofit focused on helping low- and moderate-income people across northern New England create affordable housing and make community investments. Together, Good Sam and Evernorth are working to secure the funding to acquire the property, Bond said. 

While still in the early stages, Bond said she looks forward to connecting with future neighbors of the new shelter to share plans of what she called a “steppingstone in this community.”

Of those experiencing homelessness in Vermont, Bond said, “The situation continues to be dire and we need more creative solutions while keeping people sheltered in place until those solutions are fully realized.” 

Those needing assistance can contact Good Samaritan Haven at 802-479-2294.

Read the story on VTDigger here: New homeless shelter to open in Montpelier.

This story by Tom Mckone was first published in The Bridge on June 18.

Katherine Paterson is sitting in her Montpelier living room, doing what she does best — telling stories. Unlike the fiction she writes for children and young people, she recalls a true story about a furious woman who confronted her at a meeting. 

“These books are not for children,” the woman said. “They’re too intense.”

But intensity and her refusal to write down to children are two qualities that have made Paterson a great writer. She has published more than 40 books, and she’s won even more awards than that, including two National Book Awards and two Newberry Medals. The Library of Congress named her a living legend, and she is one of only six Americans who have won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition given to an author or illustrator of children’s books.

In awarding Paterson the Children’s Literature Legacy Award, and in citing “Bridge to Terabithia” in particular, the American Library Association said, “Paterson’s unflinching yet redemptive treatment of tragedy and loss helped pave the way for ever more realistic writing for young people.”

“I received a letter from a teacher who enclosed the book report of ‘the bad boy’ in her class, who had read ‘The Great Gilly Hopkins,’” Paterson says. “He said, ‘This book is a miracle.’ Miss Paterson knows exactly how children feel.”

“I carry my child self around with me all the time,” she says. “A lot of people don’t remember how intensely they felt as children.”

Asked about her favorite Paterson book, Jane Knight, children’s book buyer at Bear Pond Books, selected the same book that the challenging student wrote about.

“Gilly was the first character in whom I could recognize myself — both my inner and outer selves,” Knight said, “someone who could be mean and crabby and full of great sorrow and longing, and also someone who could grow and change. Gilly gave me the agency and permission to be a whole human, warts and all.”

“The Day of the Pelican” and “Bread and Roses, Too,” are past Vermont Humanities Vermont Reads selections, and “Lyddie” and “Jacob Have I Loved” are perpetual favorites. However, the most popular remains, hands-down, “Bridge to Terabithia,” Paterson’s 1977 novel about two best friends, the imaginary world they create, and the tragedy one of them has to deal with.

The book has been translated into more than 25 languages, and the publishers have lost track of how many copies have been sold; Paterson says it’s “in the millions.” A 50th anniversary special edition is scheduled to come out in 2027.

During a talk at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in March, Paterson shared how the death of her son’s friend, who was killed by lightning, sparked the story.

“I was supposed to explain to my kid why his best friend had died,” she said. “I couldn’t explain it to myself — how such a terrible tragedy could happen to this bright, funny child. But I know a story has to make sense. I began to write this story to try to make sense out of something that made no sense to me.”

From China to Japan, and eventually to Vermont

Paterson’s parents — George Raymond Womeldorf and Mary Elizabeth (Goetchius) Womeldorf — were missionaries in China, and that’s where she was born, in 1932. Living in China for most of her first 8 ½ years and growing up bilingual, she was reading in English by the time she was four. She went to two seminaries and did missionary work in Japan.

During a stretch back in the United States, she met her future husband, John Paterson, a minister. Years later he would take a position at a Barre church, and in 1986 they would become Vermonters. After his death in 2013, Paterson moved from the large house they had needed while raising their four children into a smaller place in Montpelier.

Paterson’s Christian faith has always been important to her and to her writing.

“If you’re a person of faith, it’s going to come out in your books somehow or other,” she says during our conversation in her living room. “You don’t put it in. It’s who you are that comes out on the page.”

For many years, “Bridge to Terabithia” was one of the most-often banned books. Those challenging the book objected to Paterson’s treatment of death, religion, and fantasy. Some said the portrayal of some religious families was disrespectful and that the use of the word, “lord,” outside of prayer was sacrilegious. She was accused of promoting secular humanism and atheism.

“People who banned my books were all my Christian brothers and sisters,” she says. “The problem is that they think what I should be doing is writing propaganda, and not a story. Stories are open-ended and there for the reader to interpret if there’s a lesson.”

She says banning her books is no longer a priority, since she is “straight and white,” and book banners now focus on people of color and the LGBTQ+ community.

Life experiences inspire stories

During our interview, she shares many stories, like how seeing a black-and-white photograph on the wall at the Old Labor Hall in Barre led to “Bread and Roses, Too,” the story of the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, during which children were sent out of harm’s way to temporarily live with foster families in Barre.

She says that “Jacob Have I Loved,” which she wrote at a very difficult time in her life, is the book she is most proud of. She wrote it while her mother was dying, her husband was busy with a new job, and their four children were unhappy about a family move. They lived in a small house, so her writing space was an enclosed front porch which was “freezing in winter and boiling in summer.”

While she is grateful for the “richness” of having had loving parents, when she was growing up, she experienced “what it feels like to not have enough money to do the things many people around me were doing.”

Never speechless

At the beginning of Paterson’s memoir, “Stories of My Life,” her fellow writer and longtime friend Nancy Price Graff (who is also a regular columnist for The Bridge) wrote an introduction in which she tells how for many years she and Paterson had weekly lunches at the Wayside on the Barre-Montpelier Road.

“Over the course of our friendship,” she writes, “I have seen Katherine whoop with laughter and I have seen her cry. I have seen her playful, sad, wistful, tired, thoughtful, and most often hopeful and happy, which seems to be her natural disposition. But I have never seen her speechless. Every week there are more stories.”

During Paterson’s talk at the library, she said, “Writers now are much more in touch with children’s feelings, and much more appreciative of the intelligence of children.” What she didn’t mention is that worldwide, she is credited as one of the writers who made that happen.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Prolific children’s book author Katherine Paterson finds tragedy and redemption across Vermont.

This story by Cassandra Hemenway was first published in The Bridge on June 24.

Overshadowed by the recent detention of two migrant workers in Vermont, the annual mobile Mexican Consulate event at Christ Church in Montpelier brought at least 132 people from around Vermont to the capital city on Saturday, June 21. Notably fewer people attended compared to last year, when over 200 attended.

Organizers and participants alike were palpably aware of the June 14 detentions of the two members of Migrant Justice (a sponsor of the event). In prior years, the event would spill into the Christ Church courtyard, with food, tables for eating and socializing, music, outdoor health checks and up to three entrances into the building. This year — because of heightened awareness of raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Border Patrol that have increased under the Trump administration — there was only one entrance and exit, according to Deb Jerard, a Christ Church co-warden. 

Peppy fiddle notes rang from the courtyard, thanks to the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra and Make Music Day, a local event happening at the same time, but organizers decided to keep everything else inside the building.

Asked if the church felt like it needed extra precautions this year, Gerard responded “Yeah, we were more concerned, definitely.”

Nonetheless, Gerard said, the Boston-based Mexican consulate, which holds mobile events throughout New England, “kept reassuring us that they have not had any problem with these events.”

Security was also on hand, according to a staff member from Migrant Justice, and there were a couple of incidents that made people jumpy. One volunteer at the event told another that someone had been in the building “taking notes” — then realized at least two reporters had stopped by. Another told a Mexican consulate worker about a “suspicious vehicle” — a large black SUV with dark tinted windows — that had been idling behind the church for 30 minutes. (It turned out not to be an issue).

One participant, Olga (who asked that The Bridge not use her last name), noted that the risk of an ICE detention is on everyone’s minds right now.

“Given the current political situation, there’s nowhere that’s safe, whether we’re at home in bed, or here at the consulate, there’s always the risk of detention,” Olga said, through a translator.

Olga said she came to the event to update some documents, and while there, also got a blood glucose test from Bridges to Health, a migrant health program through the University of Vermont Extension.

“I also come in to help share information about Migrant Justice and knowing your rights with my communities,” she said.

Bridges to Health had three medical providers on hand, and was joined by the People’s Health and Wellness Clinic (a free clinic in Barre), which offered vaccinations, noted Naomi Wolcott-MacCausland, who oversees migrant health programs with Bridges to Health.

“When the consulate comes to this area, I coordinate the health there, which is an opportunity for people to get health screenings, consult with a doctor, or get vaccines while they’re waiting for their documents with the Mexican government to get processed,” Wolcott-MacCausland said. The program also helps people coordinate with their local health clinics and figure out health insurance, she noted.

After talking about her experience with the mobile Mexican consulate, Olga asked if she could say one more thing.

“I wanted to mention that as a community right now, we’re fighting against the detention of two of our leaders, Jose “Nacho” Ignacio De La Cruz and Heidi Perez, a father and stepdaughter. That’s something I want to make sure everyone’s aware of. And for my part, I’m a mother and I’m putting myself in the position of Heidi’s mother and Nacho’s partner who’s still here, free, but crying and heartbroken. It’s devastating.”

Olga said she is asking for community support to help free them and suggested visiting migrantjustice.net for updates and more information.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Despite fear, migrant community gathers for vital services in Montpelier.

This story by Cassandra Hemenway was first published in The Bridge on June 24.

A planned 31-lot subdivision on Isabel Circle in Montpelier that’s been in the works for nearly three years has been suspended. The “Stonewall Meadows Phase II” project, which is fully permitted with ground-breaking originally expected this year, is now on hold according to Gabe Lajeunesse, one of four partners invested in it.

“The partnership has determined that due to rising costs and the current economic uncertainty, we must suspend work on this project for now. The financial risks have become highly speculative, making it difficult to proceed in a market-based approach,” Lajeunesse wrote in an email to The Bridge, which also went out to Montpelier city officials.

“It’s maybe a five-plus-million-dollar project with no guarantee of any money coming back,” Lajeunesse told The Bridge in a June 20 interview. He pointed to a partnership with the city that fell apart as one of the reasons for pausing the project.

The four partners on the project are Lajeunesse, his brother Jason Lajeunesse, Barre City developer and mayor Thom Lauzon, and Pat Malone of Malone Properties in Montpelier.

The group bought the 72-acre wooded parcel just off of Isabel Circle for $3 million in 2024 and clear-cut a large swath of it in November of that year, preparing the site for housing lots. The four partners had planned to take advantage of a new city policy under which the city might pay for the project’s infrastructure — roads, water pipes, and sewer pipes — funded by a bond of $1.5 to $1.7 million that voters would be asked to approve. Aacred would have to guarantee that enough homes be built to pay the bond back via increased property taxes and water and sewer fees.

The plan never reached voters. In January 2025, city councilors cancelled a vote about proposing a bond for the Stonewall Meadows project after learning taxpayer investments might not be fully protected from the risk of loss.

In his June 12 email to The Bridge, Lajeunesse wrote: “We initially moved forward following early discussions with Montpelier that indicated potential financial support. However, efforts to secure a Strategic Partnership Agreement did not advance past city council to the voters. While we had hoped to continue solely through market-driven solutions, current conditions cast significant doubt on that path.”

Lajeunesse was careful to say the development is paused, not stopped. He pointed to new legislation signed by Gov. Scott, which creates a new financing tool for infrastructure that supports housing construction, but the timing and mechanism for that tool is not yet clear.

“We would love to see some public support that would make it more feasible,” he said, “… (and) we’re open to reengaging with the city and seeing if there is a strategic partnership.”

Lajeunesse ended his email with “Montpelier’s support would not only create much-needed housing but also set a precedent for future large-scale projects like the Country Club Road and Sabin’s Pasture projects.” He then thanked the city staff for their support, and said he “remain(s) open to creative solutions that could help make this project a reality.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Isabel Circle housing development in Montpelier halted over financing dispute.

A bill that would establish a doula certification program is making its way through the state Senate. Sponsored by Sen. Martine Gulick, D-Chittenden-Central, S.53 would create a certification process and provide Medicaid coverage for community-based doula services, starting in July 2026. 

A doula according to the bill’s language is “a nonclinical, nonmedical individual who provides direct emotional and physical support and educational and informational services to birthing individuals before, during, and after labor and childbirth.”

Doulas also offer a consistent relationship and are advocates for perinatal women. Sarah Teel, a doula herself, and a member of the Doula Association of Vermont and the research director for Voices for Vermont’s Children, said that doula care covered by Medicaid would emphasize community building. The idea is to have doulas “embedded in the community,” she said, and to build trust as they work with the whole family leading up to the birth. 

Pregnancy has the potential to be isolating. One out of seven women experience depression during pregnancy or up to a year after giving birth, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Teel said the proposed plan developed by the Vermont Department of Health Access could potentially cover up to $2,100 dollars for doula care per client. The money could be divided up as the patient chooses to cover prenatal visits, labor and delivery support, and postnatal support. 

Teel pointed to research that shows an association between doula care and fewer cesarean sections, less use of the labor-inducing drug Pitocin, fewer newborns admitted to special care nurseries, less pain relief medication, and an increased chance of a spontaneous vaginal birth. 

Asked about the most powerful experience she has had as a doula, Teel said it was “Someone experiencing something (labor and giving birth) that is very, very difficult but coming out of it and saying ‘that was OK. That wasn’t traumatic.’”

Jaimie Martin, the co-director of the Doula Association of Vermont, is not a doula herself, but represents the client perspective. Martin wrote in an email to The Bridge that she comes from — and has not escaped — generational poverty. 

She shared the harrowing birth story of her fourth child, which involved medical complications and was compounded by her inability to advocate for herself and her child. She contrasted the story to her last birth, also difficult, but during which she had doula support thanks to The Doula Project. With the help of grant funding, The Doula Project, when possible, provides doula support to Medicaid recipients in and around Washington County. 

“My doula inspired me to advocate for myself and was there to advocate on my behalf whenever the medical establishment that I was up against was not readily respecting my rights as a patient,” wrote Martin. “For me, having a doula meant safety. It meant being respected and treated like a human being who mattered.”

Martin wrote that she joined the Doula Association of Vermont “because we all matter, and those of us who do not live lives of privilege have been denied access to receiving care that truly reflects this.” 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Doula certification and Medicaid coverage advance in Senate.

This story by Jenny Blair was first published in The Bridge on March 10.

State lawmakers introduced a bill that would require the state government to spend more of its advertising money with Vermont news organizations. House Bill H.244, “An act relating to State contracting standards for advertising,” would direct more state ad dollars to local print, digital, radio, and television outlets.

“We are asking only that the state of Vermont practice what it preaches and buy local,” said Paul Heintz on Feb. 26 in testimony to the House Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs.

Heintz, VTDigger’s former editor-in-chief, spoke from his new role at the University of Vermont Community News Service, and represented a coalition of Vermont news organizations, including The Bridge.

The ads in question relate to the lottery, unclaimed property, sports betting, and health advisories on topics such as extreme temperatures, COVID, or smoking. 

The state may be sending millions out of state for such ads, including to tech giants Google, Facebook, and X, according to Heintz.

“Why would Vermont spend its limited resources on these Silicon Valley corporations when it could invest that money instead in news outlets in Milton, Manchester, and Randolph?” Heintz asked.

He called H.244 a modest, Vermont-scale solution that wouldn’t radically reshape the state advertising process.

The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Chea Waters Evans (D-Chittenden 5), a former local journalist, and Barbara Rachelson (D-Chittenden 14), who called it a win-win — in part because it lacks a price tag.

“It’s spending our money wisely,” Rachelson said.

Seven Days deputy publisher Cathy Resmer noted in her testimony, “Vermonters understand why it makes sense to buy food from local farms or products from local businesses, and we need that to extend to local advertising channels as well.”

Greening news deserts

When the state wants to reach Vermonters, Heintz said, local news organizations are best positioned to help.

“Vermonters listen to our stations on the road. They watch our newscasts at night. They read our papers when they arrive in the mail or at the local store. Some, including probably some people in this room, even hit the refresh button on our websites multiple times a day,” Heintz said. “We are the ones prepared to deliver life-saving information during floods. We’re the ones fact-checking information, covering local select board meetings, and letting folks know what’s up for discussion on Town Meeting day.”

But the industry faces a decades-long crisis of revenue and job losses. The nation’s newspapers have lost over half of newsroom employees since 2004, according to testimony by Lori Henson of the nonpartisan nonprofit Rebuild Local News.

In the last 25 years, Vermont has lost 75% of its newspaper jobs, according to Heintz. Four Vermont newspapers closed between 2023 and 2024 alone, according to a Northwestern University study.

“When a news organization closes, voting rates decline, municipal borrowing costs go up, government waste increases, citizens tend to feel less connected to their communities. Political polarization goes up when everything in the news is nationalized,” Henson said.

“Knowing that, as we lose journalists and local news outlets, more and more people will turn to Facebook and TikTok for their news is definitely of concern,” Rachelson told the committee.

Surviving outlets struggle with inadequate resources to cover local and statewide issues such as taxes, healthcare, and schools. Capturing ad dollars that would otherwise leave the state would help.

“On its own, H.244 will not solve the crisis facing local news,” Heintz said. “But we believe that every dollar counts, and we don’t have any time to waste.”

A look at state ad spending

State government ad spending in fiscal 2024 was roughly $7.5 million, estimated April Barton of UVM’s Center for Research on Vermont, who said she requested detailed information with limited success. So the total was likely an undercount, Heintz said.

Vermont vendors accounted for about $4.5 million, or 61%, Barton said. The rest of the money left the state.

The bill would require that the in-state percentage rise to 80%. To enable that accounting and to improve transparency, it would also require the state to report annually how it spends ad dollars. 

Out-of-state spending could continue for ads aimed at faraway audiences, such as for tourism.

If H.244 becomes law, Vermont would lead the nation in adopting this approach, according to Henson.

“It recognizes local news as an essential public good,” she said. “It’s an innovative and I think a very hopeful policy approach.”

Disclosure: VTDigger, along wither other Vermont media outlets, has been involved with the effort to ask the state to advertise more with local publishers.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont news media ask the state to buy local.

This story by Carla Occaso was first published in The Bridge on Feb. 24

Montpelier’s City Council, after unanimously voting earlier this month to cut ties with longtime City Manager Bill Fraser, upheld the vote last week in a contentious 4-2 split decision, authorizing a roughly $236,000 severance package stipulated in his contract.

If Fraser had been allowed to retire — as two councilors at the special meeting on Feb. 19 said was widely known to be his near-future plan — the roughly quarter of a million dollar severance package and attending costs triggered by ending his contract could have been avoided.

The current iteration of the city manager’s employment agreement was entered into on Feb. 23, 2022, and was valid through March 1, 2026, according to the contract posted online. It was approved without discussion as part of the consent agenda, according to meeting minutes. Councilors at that time were Dona Bate, Conor Casey, Jack McCullough, Jennifer Morton, Lauren Hierl and Jay Ericson. 

The agreement, which was a successor to a prior contract that ran from March 1, 2019 through March 1, 2022, stipulated the triggers and apportionments of a severance payout. First, the severance package would be due if the manager’s contract is ended even though he or she is willing and able to continue work. Fraser would have been entitled to a lump sum of cash equal to five months of employment (defined as 22 weeks), “plus one additional week per year of completed employment up to a maximum total of 52 weeks aggregate salary.” 

Since Fraser’s involuntary nonrenewal happened in February 2025, he is entitled to the maximum full year payout, according to the contract’s obligations.

Therefore, Fraser is scheduled to receive $236,775, of which “$161,255 is for one year’s salary, $41,160 for one year’s health insurance, and $1,000 for waiver of any age discrimination claims,” a cover sheet for the contract states. And, “the total of $203,415 will cost the City an additional $33,360 in mandatory payroll contributions to Social Security, Medicare, and Vermont Municipal Employees Retirement System.” 

The funds are set to be drawn from the general fund reserve unless otherwise directed. Additional itemized expenses include fees for attorneys, including Sarah Buxton and Michael Tarrant from Tarrant, Gillies, and Shems as well as attorney Ed Adrian from Monaghan Safar. The attorneys are tasked with reviewing “the manager’s contract as well as prepare and negotiate the separation agreement with the city manager,” the cover sheet states. The new agreement, which was signed by Mayor Jack McCullough and Fraser on Feb. 14, has an end date of June 30, 2025 instead of March 1, 2026.

Per the contract, if either Fraser resigned at the council’s request or the council failed to renew his contract upon expiration, Fraser would have been allowed to collect severance if his employment is sharply curtailed or terminated, including if his salary and benefits were reduced below an across-the-board reduction of unclassified employees,. However, Fraser would not have been allowed to get the payout had he been convicted of committing a crime or if he resigned on his own terms.

This council action has caused lively public discourse on Front Porch Forum. Tory Rhodin, for example, wrote that they were concerned about the amount of money to be spent on the payout, and that there is no guarantee the next city manager would be better. Tina Muncy wrote that she trusts the city council to have made the best decision, and thanked them for their courage. Eve Jacobs-Carnahan wrote she believes it is time for a change, and said she was grateful to the city council for making the decision they made. Sari Wolf urged voters to find out who voted to end Fraser’s contract early and “vote in accordance.” Cathy Gram wrote that she believes Fraser has become a scapegoat for the city’s problems and that a new manager would do no better.

Before voting to ratify the separation, Mayor McCullough said that every council member has the right to speak in public and to state their reasons for their vote. He also said he feels it is their duty to explain why they voted the way they did. And thus, he opened discussion to councilors.

“I don’t wish to see Bill terminated and I never have. … I have always been in favor of giving Bill the respect of retiring on his own terms, which we knew he was working on,” Councilor Cary Brown said. “I never thought that forcing him to leave by not renewing his contract was reasonable, necessary or appropriate. But it became clear to me that I was in a minority on the city council on that opinion and so I tried to focus on creating the best plan for his departure as possible,” Brown said. She further explained she had voted for the termination because she wrongly believed “council unity” would be better for the process, but now she thinks it was a mistake. Brown went on to praise Fraser for doing an outstanding job, his depth of knowledge, integrity, and dedication to the people of Montpelier. 

Councilor Lauren Hierl expressed similar sentiments by saying, “We have a city manager who has served for close to 30 years, and in my six years on council I found Bill to be an engaged, thoughtful, and caring manager who took really seriously the problems in our community and worked diligently to recommend solutions.” She said Fraser had told people he would be retiring soon, and had been discussing it for years. She explained she had voted to terminate his contract to show the city and Fraser had agreed to terms, but that she was disappointed in how the process played out.

But those were the opinions of the minority. 

Adrienne Gil spoke with a sharp tone of voice, saying she had run on a platform of new leadership, and that she strongly believes in term limits. She drew a parallel between Montpelier’s government and the U.S. federal government. 

“We look at our supreme court. We look at how that has ended up and where we are right now,” she said, adding that term limits prevent entrenched power and stagnation, and encourage innovation. “30 years in my opinion is too long,” she said. “This is not a personal decision. It is a business decision.” She also criticized the “divisiveness that has happened” because of her and three other council member’s choice to not renew Fraser’s contract, and attributed the divisiveness to lies and “misfacts” that really hurt the city.

Gil also criticized the terms of Fraser’s agreement that give him a year’s salary plus benefits and other remuneration. “We were handed this contract,” she said of herself and other new members on the council, and called the separation agreement severance terms a “golden parachute.” She said she was “very much” in favor of not renewing, and added that she had previously unfairly been kept out of conversations mentioning Bill’s planned retirement, which prevented her from making an “educated, data-driven decision,” but that she will still vote to not renew the contract. Having such a contract for a city manager is not uncommon, she said.

Councilor Tim Heney, while not stating his reasons for supporting an end to Fraser’s contract, said the council had to make the decision to renew, extend, or terminate by March 1, 2025. The contract gives Fraser a year’s notice on an agreement that would have ended March 1, 2026.

“The decision that the council needed to make was one of those three choices,” Heney said. “This contract provides the employee with a severance package in several circumstances including nonrenewal or termination of the contract, so we were working with a contract that has been in place for a number of years and we didn’t create.”

Councilor Pelin Kohn said she had no choice other than to vote to not renew the contract, saying, “I have been working over 20 years in the public sector. Now I started to work for a public college, and I have never seen a contract like that. … This contract didn’t give us too much choice to do differently.” She went on to thank Fraser for his service and his commitment to Montpelier.

Councilor Sal Alfano said he was not surprised about the confusion out in the public, but that he was surprised about confusion among council members. “We had three attorneys review this and I think we all know the severance would be paid one way or the other whether the contract was terminated or not renewed.” He further said he supports nonrenewal and will support ratification even though he had a good experience working with Fraser.

A few members of the public spoke as well. Steve Whitaker said the council has been negligent for years by allowing this contract to stand. He also listed several big projects he felt Fraser “bungled.” Marc Gwinn said the number one priority for the next council must be to find a new city manager. Jacob Sargent said Fraser was not doing his job and asked the council to stop giving “people like him” a golden parachute. Zack Hughes said he was deeply concerned about the decision in light of the “brutal” budget cutting process and asked, “Are you telling me you could not wait and let Bill retire? This is wrong,” he said. Stan Brinkerhoff asked if council terminated the agreement or if it was a nonrenewal.

Fraser responded to Brinkerhoff’s question from a remote location because he had a “medical thing going on.” He said it is not true that he would have been paid money no matter how this played out. “If I choose to retire or leave voluntarily, I would not be paid severance,” he said. “I get paid for involuntary leaving service whether you call it a nonrenewal or a termination or something else, it is still all the same and that is what occurred. The words are semantic. The reason for that is, in Vermont law for public employees, (the) council would have to establish there was just cause.” 

Fraser went on to say there is “nothing approaching” just cause in this case. “A termination could be done at the complete discretion of the council. The money is only spent if the council chooses to spend it,” Fraser said.

Jim Sheridan, a former council member, said he was on the council that gave Bill the severance agreement, and that he had voted against it at the time. He added that he was excited for a new leader.

Then, after public comment, Heney moved to ratify the separation agreement and a general release of claims as presented, which he approved, as did Alfano, Kohn, and Gil. Brown and Hierl voted against it.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier council split on city manager’s exit, still approves ‘golden parachute’ payout.

This story by Carla Occaso was first published by The Montpelier Bridge on Feb. 12.

The Montpelier City Council decided against renewing City Manager Bill Fraser’s contract on Wednesday after 30 years on the job. He was hired to serve as city manager in 1995.

The parliamentary action started right out of the gate with councilor Tim Heney moving immediately to terminate Fraser’s contract, with a quick second coming from Councilor Adrienne Gil. But Councilor Cary Brown asked to put on the brakes, saying she did not feel comfortable voting before discussing the matter in executive session. 

The question to be discussed was whether to renew, extend or terminate Fraser’s contract, according to Mayor Jack McCullough. Additionally, McCullough said they would discuss the terms of separation if one were to take place. Attorneys were present to advise the council about the city’s “obligation to city manager,” McCullough added.

Lawyer Ed Adrian spoke up to introduce himself and offer to help the City Council “say the magic words” if they go into executive session. He did not explain what, exactly, the “magic words” were that he was referring to. 

He also said he had been retained to work with the town’s usual attorneys to review this matter. Adrian works for the Burlington-based law firm Monoghan, Safar, and Ducham.

With that, Brown moved to table the motion to not renew Fraser’s contract, which was seconded and approved, leading to more than two hours of secret discussion. When they came back into public session, Heney withdrew his motion, and Councilor Sal Alfano made a motion to not renew the city manager’s contract and to direct the mayor to draft a separation agreement that addresses severance pay and other matters as required by law.

Following the motion, McCullough opened the meeting to public input. Resident Steve Whitaker suggested somehow capturing Fraser’s 30 years of knowledge to pass on to the new city manager because “Bill has a wealth of information,” and Whitaker would like that “intellectual property” preserved. 

Anthony Iarrapino spoke next, saying the city manager’s job is the most important in the city and that the future of the city would be best achieved by having new leadership. Problems in Montpelier include lack of housing, crumbling streets and sidewalks, lack of flood resiliency, affordability, and environmental problems, he said. 

Peter Kelman said 30 years of Fraser being city manager is enough, and that a new, younger person in the role would fit the bill to fix the problems of Montpelier. 

McCullough then called the vote, during which it appeared to be unanimous to not renew the contract. 

Irrapino spoke again, saying he felt the City Council wrongly discussed the city manager’s contract in executive session since the manager himself was involved in talks. How could such talks cause a disadvantage to the city if the manager himself attended? Iarrapino asked. 

“The only one who was at a disadvantage was members of the public who heard a 30-second vote without discussion,” he said.

Fraser spoke next, saying he accepts the decision made by the council to terminate his contract, even though it was distressing. 

“I find myself filled with gratitude for serving as city manager for 30 years,” he said, describing how he had worked with 52 council members and mayors during a mostly productive tenure. He also praised his “capable team” of city service members and staff. 

After some talk about the breadth of the city manager’s job, Fraser expressed gratitude for his family — wife Anne, and children Olivia, Patrick, Claire and Angus. He said he owns a home in Montpelier and his children attended the “excellent” Montpelier schools. 

“I love you, honey,” he said to Anne, and later added, “I love this city.” He then said it was his goal to leave the city greater than he found it, and that when he leaves, on his last day, he will hold his head high.

McCullough then spoke in support of Fraser. Calling the decision to end his agreement “misguided.” McCullough said Fraser provided “outstanding and ethical guidance” during his tenure. 

Fraser was not only recognized by city staff and department heads, but also by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. “We have benefited greatly by having Bill as our city manager, and I wish this had come out a different way,” McCullough said.

Fraser’s tenure included dealing with the flooding and devastation of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, the damaging floods of 2023 and 2024, and other crises such as the aging infrastructure in Montpelier causing frequent water main breaks, PFAS pollution, a surge in homelessness cresting this year and a general housing shortage.

Fraser has also experienced ups and downs with his relationship with the city’s mayors and city councils. The City Council and then-Mayor John Hollar recognized Fraser in March 2015 at his 20-year anniversary as city manager, according to a March 14, 2015, article in the Times Argus. 

Hollar said Fraser is the longest serving city manager in Montpelier’s history and commended him on his dedication to the community — calling it unmatched. Hollar also said one of the most important benefits Fraser gave to the community was stability and a deep understanding of how the city works. Additionally, Hollar further told the Argus he appreciated how Fraser had consistent leadership and brought in predictable budgets each year.

But a year later, Hollar joined a group of council members voting to terminate Fraser’s employment, citing a need for new leadership, but without stating what Fraser had done wrong. At that time, Hollar said Fraser “has not done anything that would lead to an immediate termination, ‘but the general view by the city council was that the city could benefit from new executive leadership,’” according to an Oct. 27, 2016, VTDigger article.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier City Council votes to not renew City Manager Bill Fraser’s contract .

This story by Cassandra Hemenway was first published in The Bridge on Jan. 21

Amid frigid temperatures this week and growing concern about funding for housing under a new presidential administration, Good Samaritan Haven will participate in an annual national point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness on Jan. 22. This year’s count is happening across the U.S. and comes as central Vermont continues to grapple with an unprecedented homelessness crisis.

Good Sam (as it is known locally) conducted a local count Nov. 1, 2024, at the request of the Vermont Agency of Human Services. That count revealed a staggering 312% increase in central Vermont homelessness compared to 2020. It found 592 individuals without stable housing, including 40 children, according to Meredith Warner, Good Sam’s deputy director. Warner said her agency counted in 14 central Vermont towns, and the process was “very expensive” and “the most extensive count we’ve ever done.”

Meanwhile, below-zero temperatures in the past several days prompted officials in Barre City to open an emergency shelter in coordination with the state of Vermont, the Red Cross, and local volunteers at the Barre Auditorium. The shelter is operating on a limited schedule, open at 4 p.m. on Sunday and from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Monday through Thursday. Meals will be provided, and staffing will consist of city personnel, volunteers, and state medical reserve corps members.

The Unitarian Church in Montpelier has been providing a volunteer-run emergency cold weather shelter from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. on nights when temperatures drop below 10 degrees Fahrenheit and will likely be operating all week, said Beth Ann Maier, a retired pediatrician and co-coordinator of the shelter. 

Funding for affordable housing could drop

Housing advocates fear the crisis will deepen in coming months. Warner pointed to anticipated reductions in federal funding for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the newly inaugurated Trump administration. Such cuts could result in fewer affordable housing units, exacerbating an already dire situation, she said.

“Right now we’re kind of bracing for the possibility of some challenges that trickle down from the national political environment,” she said.

The concerns come while lack of affordable housing is already contributing to the growing crisis of homelessness. “We have a huge amount of pressure from a loss of housing units over two years of floods,” Warner said. “We have an increase in the cost of living and the cost of housing in central Vermont. Somebody’s going to fall out the bottom in that system. On top of that, the state modified the rules last year to shrink the motel program,” resulting in fewer rooms and fewer people eligible to stay in them.

The people who “fall out the bottom,” Maier noted, are those who require “some kind of supportive environment,” be it from aging or a physical or intellectual disability. Good Sam’s four shelters in Barre and Berlin, plus its emergency winter overflow shelter in Montpelier, remain perpetually full. So, for some, the only thing keeping them from sleeping in subzero temperatures is the temporary winter overnight shelter at the Unitarian Church of Montpelier and the (also temporary) recently set-up shelter in Barre.

Montpelier’s emergency shelter

Community volunteers have been instrumental in filling gaps where government resources fall short, and Maier is quick to point out that she sees this as a statewide problem that requires resources from the state. For now, though, about 40 people have volunteered to cover the overnight shifts at the Unitarian Church (each four-hour shift requires two people, for a total of six for the night). Last year, Maier said, only about a dozen people volunteered for the program. So far this winter, the church has operated for 15 nights when it’s been below 10 degrees outside, with an average of 10 to 11 guests per night, she said.

“It’s daunting and discouraging,” Maier said. “We believe it’s the responsibility of state government to ensure everyone has shelter, but the administration has not recognized this as a priority,” she said. She added that shelter organizations lack the capacity to rapidly expand services without significant state intervention.

Despite these efforts, weekend warming spaces remain scarce. Christ Episcopal Church operates a weekday warming space from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. under a memorandum of understanding with Good Samaritan Haven, but finding additional weekend space has proven challenging. In fact, Maier noted that the warming space at Christ Church is not guaranteed to keep going; it was originally intended to move to the Trinity Methodist Church after damage to its electrical system caused by the 2023 flood was repaired, but those repairs may not be completed for another month or longer. The Christ Church vestry (its governing body) is voting on it this week. 

Warner said she continues to look for a more permanent warming space that can remain open on weekends.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Central Vermont faces soaring homelessness as annual count begins.

This story by Fiona Sullivan and Cassandra Hemenway was first published in the Bridge on Dec. 17.

Excess rain caused by climate change could be linked to challenges with growing Christmas trees in Vermont. 

“The soil has been saturated for a year or more,” said Steve Moffatt from Moffatt’s Tree Farm in Craftsbury. With saturated soil, Moffatt said, there is a “lack of oxygen, so roots can’t breathe. … when it’s warm and wet in June you get more foliar disease, and the soil is wetter so you get more soil-related diseases.” Moffatt said a “noticeable percentage” of his trees are dead or dying because of soil saturation. 

Will Sutton, who co-owns Balsam Acres Christmas Tree Farm in Worcester along with his wife Sue Sutton, said their farm lost 300 trees in the July 2024 flood, and 150 trees were lost in the 2023 flood. As of Sunday, Dec. 15, they had just two trees left for sale.

“We lost a whole year’s worth of trees in the flood,” Will Sutton said, noting that they typically sell about 300 trees at their “choose and cut” location on Elmore Road/Vermont Route 12 each year. “There’s been so much moisture that it’s taking (the soil) longer to drain out, so we’re finding more and more damage to other trees. We culled out 300 trees because of the flood, but we’re now seeing trees that are turning yellow even this late in the season.”

The Suttons have two other fields uphill from their choose-and-cut location, which sits adjacent to the North Branch of the Winooski River. Those fields are not seeing the kinds of tree damage the wetter Route 12 trees are having.

In fact, a study by Trace One notes that Washington County farms are expected to lose a total of $137,148 per year to natural disasters; it goes on to note that “the worst type of natural hazard for Washington County agriculture is riverine flooding, which can inundate farmland, damage crops, and disrupt planting and harvest cycles.”

Back in Craftsbury, Moffatt said he notices a decline in the trees sooner than most people would because his livelihood depends on it. There are “subtle hints,” such as declining color, lack of growth, and a “general look that it’s not that happy.” 

Moffatt said he currently grows balsam fir and Fraser fir and has had a similar amount of tree loss between the two species. 

Although Fraser fir is more sensitive to cold and has done better with the warmer winters, he said, it is also more sensitive to wet conditions and easily damaged from wet soil. Moffatt also noted that overall there are fewer trees available now compared to 40 years ago. There are fewer people growing trees and planting trees, and, he said, the average age of the tree farmer is 80. 

Not all growers have had difficulty growing Christmas trees. Thomas Paine from Paine’s Christmas Trees in Morristown said the effects of climate change are “minimal,” and “the only year we had significant problems [with excess rain] was two years ago.” Much of his soil is gravel and sand, which allows for easy drainage. 

Jane Murray from Murray Hill Farm in Waterbury said that although their driveway is muddier than ever before, they have mostly avoided water damage to their trees because they planted on slopes. She said people who planted in valleys have issues, and that most of the damage caused by flooding has been in the Northeast Kingdom. 

The Wesley United Methodist Church in Waterbury has stopped selling Christmas trees, at least in 2024. The church’s answering machine states, “We will not be selling Christmas trees this year due to the scarcity of trees and also the higher cost.” 

Moffatt maintained “It’s not just me, a lot of people I talk to are having this issue.” He said, “I have to look 10 years down the line.” And with native timber, such as ash, balsam fir, and beech not doing well, he’s considering planting red oak in his other timber lots, he said. 

As far as Christmas trees, he is now considering planting trees such as Noble fir and Korean fir, trees that, he said, “I wouldn’t have even considered five years ago.” 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Flooded fields, dying trees: Vermont’s Christmas tree farms grapple with changing climate.

This story by Carla Occaso was first published in The Bridge on Nov. 20

The Montpelier City Council is bracing for budget cuts when the first draft budget will be presented on Dec. 11. Initial figures to run the city in fiscal year 2026, without cutting current expenses, would cause taxes to go up over 24%, according to Montpelier Finance Director Sarah LaCroix.

LaCroix emphasized during the Nov. 13 city council meeting that her “budget discussion” report is not a proposed budget, but rather a compilation of costs at current service levels.

LaCroix wrote in her report, “I expect that the FY26 budget process will be the most difficult in recent history. The preliminary budget you see attached contemplates a 24.1% tax revenue increase. That percentage increase equates to $2,858,674 or 21.77 cents on the tax rate; this demonstrates the difficult task ahead for both Council and City Leadership.” She blamed increases on inflation, staffing costs, restoring items that were cut last year, and increasing the capital improvement plan.

LaCroix said all collective bargaining contracts end June 30, adding to a somewhat unknown expense bundle. Additionally, she reported that the Blue Cross Blue Shield Health insurance premium renewal is going up 22.2% for the first six months of the year. And, a bond vote asking to fund a tower truck for the fire department, at a cost between $1.9 and $2.6 million is coming up as well. She said she added back $900,000 that had been cut from last year’s budget, which included some positions in parks and recreation and other items. Therefore, her office is asking for guidance on any cost targets or goals on which to base the first budget proposal, the report states.

City Manager Bill Fraser said asking councilors to weigh in on the budget before seeing the first draft is a different process from prior years, but he and LaCroix wanted “you all and the public to know how daunting the choices are.”

Council member Lauren Hierl asked if there are other ways to raise money, such as through a local options tax. Council member Pelin Kohn asked for a list of personnel needed to provide core services such as police, fire, and public works. Council member Tim Heney noted that 75% of the budget appears to be labor and associated costs. “I’m thinking we really can’t go into this process saying we can maintain our whole labor force,” Heney said.

Council member Cary Brown said she agreed the 24% tax increase is “not something we can do” and talked about really prioritizing needed services such as emergency, fire, and police, but also trying to keep funding the capital plan and the paving plan.

“It got pretty dark for me as I was reading this,” council member Sal Alfano said. “We need to look at personnel. It’s a pretty hard thing to do but we need to see what the options are.”

Heney suggested looking at a 3.5% consumer price index increase as a target to aim for. He asked LaCroix how much money would be needed to reach that goal, and LaCroix said it would be about $2.5 million. Heney also suggested considering the senior activity center, the justice center, the recreation department and administrative staff as areas to look at cutting. LaCroix said the Community Justice Center is 100% grant funded.

Council member Adrienne Gil said she had been reading the budgets of other cities and noticed that she sees 30% going toward public works; 30% toward police, fire, and EMS; 10% toward central office staff; 10% toward parks; 10% toward rec; and 10% toward economic planning and development. Fraser said more detailed information would be provided with the first budget presentation.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier council eyes job cuts to avert 24% tax increase next year.

This story by Tracy Brannstrom was first published in The Bridge on Nov. 11

After several months of discussion, board members of the Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools (MRPS) will be voting on whether to keep the Roxbury Village School for educational programming or to offer a $1 sale of the building to the town of Roxbury. The board will take it to a vote at its Nov. 20 meeting.

The Roxbury school was closed last fall and remains mostly unused, with the district paying $145,000 to maintain it and run an after-school program in part of it. The building is also used as the Roxbury Town Hall.

The school district recently distributed a survey among Montpelier and Roxbury residents to better understand what community members want to see happen with the building. Although just 293 people responded, the majority said they’d like to see the district offer a sale of the building to the town to save money for the district, as well as potentially decrease taxes and provide a community space for Roxbury residents.

The survey also included two options for district ownership, including use of the building for various educational purposes, which the board discussed in some depth during recent board meetings, or to simply keep running a part-time after-school enrichment program in the building.
All three options are still on the table, said MRPS Superintendent Libby Bonesteel.

Per the merger agreement, the school district can keep the building if it identifies a financially feasible educational use for it. If it cannot, it must offer it to Roxbury for $1 — the same amount the district paid the village of Roxbury for the building during the 2017–18 merger of the Roxbury School District and the Montpelier School District under Act 46.

The Roxbury select board said at its Nov. 4 meeting that if the town received an offer, it would put the decision to voters on Town Meeting Day in March.

A real estate transaction between the school district and town of Roxbury would take some time, and most likely the district would need to budget for upkeep of the building in the coming year, according to Bonesteel at the board’s Nov. 6 meeting.

The board will vote on how to proceed at its Wednesday, Nov. 20 meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the Montpelier High School and also virtually.

Read the story on VTDigger here: School board weighs $1 sale of Roxbury Village School to town.

This story by John Dillon was first published in The Bridge on Nov. 7.

The city of Montpelier has shelved an ambitious but expensive plan to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant with technology that would remove hazardous “forever” chemicals from its sewage sludge.

Faced with cost estimates that jumped from $16.4 million to $32.4 million, the city council on Oct. 23 opted to proceed with just the preliminary phase of the project. This option allows the public works department to install equipment to dry the sludge, reduce odors at the plant, and to make other improvements. But councilors delayed the plan for more advanced equipment that would superheat the waste to virtually eliminate levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

The option chosen by the council will cost about $21 million. Mayor Jack McCullough noted that the city could install the more expensive technology at a later date. But with another bond vote needed to pay for the escalating cost — and the city’s budget already under strain — delaying the project “all adds up to almost a no brainer,” McCullough said.

The decision means the city still has a PFAS problem. Its sewage treatment plant is the only one in the state that accepts PFAS-contaminated leachate from the Casella landfill in Coventry.

Public Works Director Kurt Motyka said an experimental pre-treatment system installed in Coventry has reduced the levels of five different PFAS compounds in the leachate by 89% to 94%. Yet because the chemicals are pervasive in a range of consumer products, some PFAS still ends up in sewage sludge, even without the Casella leachate.

Currently, the city ships its sludge to the Coventry landfill but pays a reduced rate because it also accepts Casella’s leachate. Motyka told the city council that without the more advanced treatment the city’s options for disposing of the sludge remain limited.

The PFAS group of chemicals was used in a range of consumer products from cosmetics, to carpets, to Teflon non-stick cookware. State and federal regulators have moved in recent years to restrict the use of PFAS as new evidence emerges that they are virtually everywhere in the environment.

Indeed, a 2019 study done for the state of Vermont found minute levels of PFAS in every soil sample tested from 66 sites around the state. Researchers believe these background levels are likely due to atmospheric deposition as chemicals released by industry are carried long distances by the wind.

The compounds are known as “forever chemicals” because they break down very slowly in the environment. They are linked to a number of health concerns, including cancer, low birth weights, high cholesterol and damage to the immune system.

“This stuff is so ubiquitous,” says John Brabant, a former environmental regulator with the Agency of Natural Resources who now works with the advocacy group Vermonters for a Clean Environment.

Sewage sludge has been a major source of PFAS contamination. The sludge — known in the waste industry as “biosolids” — was routinely applied to farm fields as fertilizer. The state of Maine has banned land application of sewage sludge after fields and farms were contaminated. Vermont still allows land application of sludge but has strictly limited its practice. Massachusetts and New Hampshire are also considering banning land application of sludge.

Since 2019, the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation has required testing of the soils where sludge has been applied as well as the groundwater near the sites. The state found PFAS levels exceeding state standards in 31 of 138, or 23%, of the groundwater monitoring wells. But officials say that to date no drinking water supplies have been affected by PFAS from sludge applied to land.

Montpelier’s sludge is not spread on farm fields. Public Works Director Motyka said the first phase of the project to dry the sludge would cut disposal costs because the volume of the material would be reduced. Drying the sludge could also give the city other options, such as spreading the sludge on land, he said.

“By doing just the dryer without doing the secondary advanced thermal treatment — that’s the component that breaks down the PFAS — we would have the potential to land apply (the sludge). But we would still have to go through the permitting process for that,” Motyka told the council.
Whether the city would get approval to spread the sludge without the system that breaks down the PFAS is another question. The state has drafted rules that would limit land application to sites where the sludge being applied does not exceed background levels in the soil.

“Pretty much all our sludge is going to have PFAS,” said Eamon Twohig, manager of the Vermont’s Residuals and Emerging Contaminants Program. “The goal is to basically keep Vermont soil levels at those — quote unquote — ‘background’ levels and not to increase those levels.”

The advanced thermal treatment breaks apart the carbon bonds in the PFAS chemicals and reduces PFAS to non-detectable levels, Motyka said. The state had promised a $2 million grant to pay for the technology. But Motyka told the council that much more state funding was needed to help the city handle what is essentially a statewide issue. He noted that the city wastewater plant treats two-thirds of all Vermont’s septage — that’s waste pumped from septic tanks — as well as septage from out-of-state sources.

“It’s a regional problem,” he said. “We’re trying to solve a PFAS issue that is well beyond Montpelier, so my hope is that there’s an opportunity to get a lot more grant funding to make this project more feasible.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier delays costly PFAS solution for wastewater plant.

This story by Phil Dodd was first published in The Bridge on Oct. 29.

A new, expanded growth center approved in Montpelier? Not for long. A city move to ease the way for more housing was deflected this week. On Oct. 28, the state’s Community Investment Board unanimously voted to revoke the board’s recent conditional approval of Montpelier’s growth center expansion application. The city will be required to submit a more complete application if it wants to continue to pursue the expansion, a process that would be quite time-consuming and that the city may choose not to pursue.

The Community Investment Board decision — prompted by a conflict between state statutes and the board’s internal policy to which local resident Stephen Whitaker had called attention, along with shortcomings in the application — is a setback for Montpelier’s efforts to develop housing on the Country Club Road property it purchased in 2022.

City Manager Bill Fraser said the board’s decision was “not what we expected, and considering the emphasis the state government puts on housing, it was really disappointing.” He said the revocation “could cost us a full year before we get to construction, though I don’t want to raise an alarm before we have a chance to figure out what we will do now.”

Local man provokes the revoke

Whitaker, who maintains that he supports the idea of building housing on the property but objects to the way the city is handling the project, participated in the first investment board hearing about the growth center application on Sept. 23, and later filed a motion for reconsideration that questioned, among other things, whether the Montpelier application was consistent with the growth center statute.

In an Oct. 21 memo posted on the board’s website, Jacob Hemmerick, planning and policy manager at the Department of Housing and Community Affairs, wrote: “In anticipation of a possible reconsideration, staff has provided an additional review of the Growth Center Amendment application requirements. This review notes potential deficiencies in the application based on the required findings of the Five-Year Review Process Amendment Policy and additional potential deficiencies when applying the full breadth of the statute.”

The memo said the staff was withdrawing its recommendation for approval of the Montpelier application and instead recommending that the board “revoke its Sept. 23, 2024 boundary amendment approval of the growth center.”

Fraser told the board the city’s amendment application was designed to satisfy what the state had requested. “To massively change the rule and revoke a boundary adjustment application in the middle of the game” is something he said he had not seen before, “and I’ve been in government a long time,” he said.

Board chair Alex Farrell said that in light of the problems the staff review had turned up, revoking the permit was “the most responsible way forward so we can make sure that everybody’s doing the diligence that’s really required,” and that the decision would allow the board to maintain its “credibility.” He also said he and the board supported the city’s vision for more housing.

Growth centers help with housing

Growth centers are meant to promote development in already built-up areas. Development in growth centers is excused from Act 250 review and gets priority consideration for state grants, among other things. A growth center designation also makes it easier to apply to get state approval for a Tax Increment Finance district that helps municipalities pay back bonds used to build infrastructure for new projects.

Montpelier currently has a growth center that covers a significant portion of the city, including Sabin’s Pasture, which was added in 2019 through what now appears may have been a flawed state process. The city had recently applied to expand the growth center to cover more properties on the eastern side of town, including the Country Club Road property.

At an Oct. 15 board meeting, Hemmerick recommended Montpelier complete its on-going master plan update before the growth center expansion approval could be finalized. The board put the entire application on hold and asked for more information. Staff members conducted a review of the situation that led to recommending the initial amendment approval be revoked.

Whitaker had contended that Montpelier needs to submit a more fully developed application with maps, infrastructure design, and a capital budget, not the abbreviated application which the state initially allowed pursuant to a policy passed in 2012 covering five-year growth center reviews.
That policy, Whitaker argued, conflicted with the growth center statute, which says amendment requests should be handled “according to the procedures that apply in the case of an original application.” The staff members on the board apparently now agree with Whitaker that a longer application is needed for amendments.

The memo also says that the application did not meet the reduced standards outlined in the 2012 policy: “there is no evidence of the adoption of a capital program and budget that identifies investments to implement the ‘actionable [concept] plans’ for the Country Club site.” The lack of a capital plan was something Hemmerick only recognized upon later review, he said later.

The Tax Increment Finance district the city wants to help pay for infrastructure bonds on Country Club Road is easier to apply for with a growth center designation, but does not require one. Planning Director Mike Miller has said that without the growth center designation, the Tax Increment Finance application would be more work and more expensive.

After the board’s revocation decision, Fraser said city staff members would have to “huddle up” and confer with the state to decide next steps. But Miller said filing a complete application for a growth center boundary amendment would be a “big lift” and might not be worth the effort, especially since growth centers are scheduled to eventually disappear under Act 181, a land use reform law passed earlier this year. The biggest advantage of expanding the growth center would have been the ability to avoid Act 250 review, Miller said. If the city wants to apply again for an expanded growth center, an application must be submitted by August or September 2025, according to the memo.

If the city chooses not to apply again for a growth center expansion, the memo states, “the City can work with the regional planning commission to implement its municipal plan and development goals under the modernized framework established by Act 181, which provides a pathway for modernized designation benefits and Act 250 exemption.” Fraser noted that some of Act 181’s changes don’t take effect for a couple of years.

Whitaker’s criticism and Fraser’s rebuttle

Whitaker’s participation in the investment board process is not the only time he has criticized the city over its approach to the Country Club Road property. Most recently, at the Oct. 23 city council meeting, he said he thinks the city is “barreling forward seeking a developer” for the County Club Road project without doing the proper testing, research and planning.

Whitaker, a frequent critic of city government, contended that “the engineering due diligence has not been done … What are the prime ag(riculture) soils? What are the geology issues? What are the water/stream/flood issues? The cost of new roads or bridges?”

“We may still have to sell it if you finish that due diligence and show the public what the costs of getting that ready to develop are going to be,” he said. “But my point is that we have run off track on what we need to be doing to get these questions answered.”

City Manager Bill Fraser responded to Whitaker’s comments at the meeting, saying his staff is negotiating the final details on contracts to do design work on the property — contracts that could be before the council as soon as its next meeting.

“So that is in the works,” he said. “That is designing all the water, sewer line, storm, road — all of that — to get that laid out. So that we will know what it costs. And it will actually be designed, not just estimated.”

Fraser told The Bridge that this design work would include road and sewer and water lines going to a location near the old Elks Lodge, not throughout the rest of the property. A second design phase would look at the rest of the property after the city and developers have agreed on what should be built and where it should be built, he said. The city will seek grants that it hopes will pay for some or all of the phase one infrastructure work, he said.

If a TIF district is created covering the property, the city would ask voters for bond approval for infrastructure work in phases one and two that is not paid for by grants and hope to see enough development that the bond could be paid off over time through property taxes and water and sewer fees from the new development.

The city’s “actionable master plan” for the Country Club Road project includes a preliminary estimate of $15.3 million for new roads, sidewalks, a second access road, water and sewer lines, a new traffic signal, and pump station, on top of the $3 million purchase price and $500,000 for “due diligence.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier growth center expansion approval revoked by state board.

This story by Phil Dodd was first published in The Bridge on Oct. 23.

The Washington Central Unified Union School District will not be closing two of its elementary schools after all.

During a contentious three-and-a-half hour meeting on Oct. 1, the district board voted 8 to 5 not to pursue a recommendation of its Finance Configuration Committee to close the Calais Elementary School and the Doty Memorial Elementary School in Worcester, a move that proponents of the change argued would be better for students and would save money.

Residents of the two affected towns turned out in force for the meeting, with almost all expressing opposition to the closures, which would have sent Calais students to the East Montpelier School and Doty students to the Rumney School in Middlesex. The Berlin Elementary School is also part of the district.

Under the articles of association governing the district adopted when Act 46 forced the towns to form a union district, closing the schools would have required affirmative votes from both towns if the board had embraced the configuration plan, approval that might have been hard to get.

Double digit tax increase?

With the closure decision behind it, at least for now, the school board will be focusing on next year’s budget, which looks to be a challenging one. According to Washington Central Superintendent Steven Dellinger-Pate, an initial draft shows that inflationary pressures in health care, wages and other expenses will push the local education spending baseline budget up by 12.5% next year, without any changes from last year.

The problem is this increase would subject the district to the state’s recently revived “excess spending penalty,” which Dellinger-Pate said subjects districts to double-taxation above a certain spending level per pupil. Washington Central will have to cut $2.4 million from its budget to avoid the penalty, reducing the budget increase to 5.4%, he said. By coincidence, the amount that administrators said could be saved by closing the two schools was about $2.4 million.

Even with budget cuts, school taxes could rise. The preliminary word from the state Tax Department is that school property taxes could be going up 10% to 15% next year, on average. Last March, Washington Central’s budget was defeated on Town Meeting Day, but passed a couple of months later after the board cut more than $2 million from the original budget proposal.

Student numbers dropping

The discussion in Washington Central was sparked in part by a decline in student numbers, which creates a challenge because the state funds education on a per-pupil basis, weighted for various factors. The pre-K to grade six student population in the Washington Central district dropped from 1,588 in fiscal year 2015 to 1,365 this school year.

Calais now has 87 elementary students in a building with a capacity of 134 to 186, while Doty has 68 students in a building with a capacity of 104 to 144, according to district statistics. The smallest grades this year include five students at the Rumney kindergarten, seven students in the Doty fifth grade, nine students in five other grades at Doty, and nine students in the Calais third grade.

Discussion about possibly closing some district elementary schools dates back over a decade. A bit over a year ago, the board created a committee to come up with a plan. The suggestion that the board took up was to close the two smallest schools — Calais and Doty — and send 83 sixth graders to U-32 high school, which has room for them because it has lost 100 students in the last three years.

Community uproar

School Board chair Flor Diaz Smith, who supported the proposed configuration plan, told The Bridge she thought larger classes would provide a better education. “I am for doing what is best for the kids,” she said. At the Oct. 1 meeting, Dellinger-Pate said that without the closures, “our resources are going to be stretched thin and staffing will be both underutilized and overburdened.”

Parents and other residents of Worcester and Calais made several arguments against the plan at the meeting: that the schools were the heart of the community and closing them would negatively affect the towns, that young people wouldn’t move to the two towns if there was no school, that not enough information was provided by the board and that other creative solutions should be explored.

The plan to move sixth graders to U-32 was criticized by one parent, who said his three sons were exposed to marijuana as soon as they got to U-32 as seventh graders, so he thought sending sixth graders there was inadvisable. One son, now an adult, told this father that “by ninth grade, 60% of the kids — his math — were smoking pot; by tenth 80% were smoking” he said.

Diaz Smith said at this point, with school closings off the table, any decision on whether to move the sixth graders to U-32 will be made by school administrators, not the school board. Dellinger-Pate said such a change was unlikely for next year.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misquoted a school district parent and Steven Dellinger-Pate 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Board votes against closing Calais and Worcester schools, as tough budget cuts loom.

This story by Phil Dodd was first published in The Bridge on Oct. 10.

Giving up its independence after 150 years, Montpelier casualty insurance company Union Mutual will be “affiliating” with a group of Massachusetts insurance companies known collectively as the N&D Group. The affiliation was approved by the state Department of Financial Regulation on Sept. 25.

Affiliation is the term used when mutual insurance companies combine but operate separately, so this is not technically a merger and no payment is involved. But the expanded group of companies will be governed by a new board of directors that will have eight representatives of the N&D Group and four from Union Mutual, effectively giving the Massachusetts firms control over Union Mutual.

In the approval order, the state said the N&D Group and Union Mutual agreed “there will be no layoffs or separations of employment as a result of the agreement unless for cause.” Union Mutual employs just under 100 people, and is the third largest insurance company in Montpelier, after National Life and Vermont Mutual.

The approved agreement also states that the principal office of Union Mutual will remain in Montpelier for a period of not less than ten years from the closing date. However, if the combined surplus of the companies ever declines by more than 30%, the offices could be moved to “an alternative location in or near Montpelier,” the order says.

The N&D Group is made up of three mutual and casualty insurance companies: Dorchester Mutual, Fitchburg Mutual, and Norfolk & Dedham Mutual. The N&D Group “is rated A (Excellent) by A.M. Best,” the order notes.

Union is a Vermont domestic mutual property and casualty insurance company located at 139 Main Street, Montpelier. Union, which is owned by its policyholder members, was first issued a certificate of authority in Vermont on Jan. 1, 1875.

The Union affiliation is the latest of three recent local affiliations or mergers. In 2022, by a very close vote, members of the Vermont State Employees Credit Union, which was based in Montpelier, approved a merger with New England Federal Credit Union, with the merged credit union run by a CEO from New England Federal. The merged credit union, which is seeking to expand its business outside Vermont, recently announced it was renaming itself as EastRise Credit Union.

And in a 2023 affiliation agreement approved by regulators, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont became part of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan enterprise family of companies. The Vermont organization remains headquartered in Berlin, Vermont.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Union Mutual ceding control to Massachusetts insurance companies.

This story by Cassandra Hemenway was first published in The Bridge on Oct. 9

The Good Samaritan Haven and others who work with unhoused people are sounding the alarm: As hundreds of people throughout Vermont continue to lose eligibility to stay sheltered in state-funded motel rooms, there won’t be enough space in its shelters to handle those in need.

And that means even more people are likely to be camping out or living in vehicles.

Good Samaritan opened its emergency winter shelter at the former Montpelier Elks Club on Oct. 1. But its three other year-round shelters are continually full, and the 20-bed Elks Club winter shelter has seen six to nine guests a night since it opened, according to Good Samaritan executive director Julie Bond.

She expects it to fill soon, as a second wave of people are forced out of state-funded motel rooms this week and she is seeking community donations to help people remain housed in motels.

Doing Triage

“This is an emergency,” said Bond in an Oct. 4 press release. “We’re doing triage to ensure that people with the most urgent and complex needs, who have nowhere else to go, remain sheltered and supported. For many, this isn’t just about having a roof over their heads — it’s about staying connected to critical services that are only accessible with stable housing.

A visiting nurse can’t come to bathe you or dress your wounds if you are unsheltered. A person on oxygen cannot plug into electricity in the middle of the woods.

The emergency is created, Bond said in a telephone interview with The Bridge, because of new  restrictions to the state’s General Assistance Emergency Housing program (also called the motel program). The Vermont legislature last year tightened eligibility criteria for the program, limiting the number of rooms it will fund from 1,400 to 1,100, and capping the number of days an individual can stay in a motel at 80. 

In the meantime, Vermont now has the second highest number of unhoused persons per capita in the country according to a 2023 Homelessness Assessment Report published by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

And this June a new count showed the number has increased from 2023, to 3,458 people, a 5% increase over the year prior, and a 300% increase over pre-COVID levels, according to a 2024 report from the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance and the Housing and Homeless Alliance of Vermont.

The state’s new motel restrictions went into place at the start of the fiscal year, July 1. Eighty days later, in mid-September, the first wave of people who lost their motel rooms because of the new restrictions had to move. About 100 of those were in central Vermont.

Of those who lost their motel rooms in September, Bond said most found some alternative either in one of Good Samaritan Haven’s shelters, or elsewhere. But, in the Barre/Berlin/Montpelier area, 25 of those people ended up either camping outdoors or living in vehicles; and among those, Bond noted, nine are children who attend local schools.

Now, the next wave of people losing motel eligibility is about to hit, Bond said.

On Monday, Oct. 7, and again on Friday, Oct. 11, more people will lose motel rooms, and Bond said her focus is simply keeping people alive. Motel room eligibility loosens up for “adverse weather conditions” starting Dec. 1.

Raising Money

In the Oct. 4 release, Bond put out a call to the community to help.

She pointed to a $25,000 seed gift that will provide short-term shelter for nine rooms for high-risk individuals and families.

“However, much more support is needed to protect lives and sustain this effort until the state’s winter exception begins on Dec. 1, which will reinstate funding for motel rooms through March 31, 2025,” she said.

Bond noted that some of the people who stand to lose motel shelters include “pregnant individuals, families with children, insulin-dependent people, those relying on life-sustaining devices requiring electricity, elderly adults and individuals with severe physical or mental health conditions.”

“There are a lot of situations that need electricity, physical supports … in order to stay well, stay alive,” she said. Local faith groups have been “offering mutual aid” with Good Samaritan Haven, the press release noted.

“This is clearly not a long-term solution, but for now, we can help reduce harm and provide a measure of stability for some of our neighbors,” said Rev. Joan Javier-Duval of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier.

Legislators and service providers have been appealing to the administration of Gov. Phil Scott to address the homelessness crisis in Vermont, including local leaders in Montpelier and Barre in a September press conference.

“What we’re trying to do right now is to extend the stays of those who are inordinately complex in their care needs,” Bond said. “It’s a life safety thing. It’s trying to keep those people alive. We’re hoping the community can rally with us to help our neighbors to stay housed.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘This is an Emergency’: Good Sam Seeks Donations to Keep People Sheltered; Winter Shelter Opened at Elks Club Oct. 1.

This story by Tracy Brannstrom was first published by the Montpelier Bridge on Sept. 11.

What to do with the Roxbury Village School building is on the minds of board members for the Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools, following the board’s decision to close the school earlier this year. 

At its Sept. 4 meeting, Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools Superintendent Libby Bonesteel presented a handful of hypothetical educational uses for the mostly unoccupied building. 

These include a magnet-type school, such as a sustainability or STEAM program for kids or a bilingual program for elementary students; a regional center for students in need of mental health support; a community center that could include childcare for employees and senior care; a remote site for Central Vermont Career Center; or a site that houses all central office employees. 

Bonesteel said that these ideas are preliminary and would require more research and discussion. 

The school’s closure, as a budgetary decision, came six years after voters in Montpelier and Roxbury decided to merge the Roxbury School District and the Montpelier School District under Act 46. Roxbury middle school and high school students started attending Montpelier schools in 2018, while elementary students from RVS joined Union Elementary School in Montpelier this school year — a decision that Bonesteel said saved the district $1.5 million. 

The district can keep the Roxbury Village School building if board members determine it could be used for educational purposes, a requirement outlined in the articles of agreement that created the merged district. In such a scenario, board members said they would need to better understand future operating costs, human resource needs, and a timeline for moving forward. 

“To just say ‘It’s not an elementary school, therefore there’s no educational value,’ I think, is a little short-sighted,” board member Rhett Williams said during an Aug. 21 board meeting. 

Bonesteel, in her Sept. 4 presentation, said that while some of the options would require a one-time monetary investment for renovations like the community center, central office relocation, and rented use by the Central Vermont Career Center, other options would require a more significant, ongoing investment with staffing, transportation, curricular resources, and other elements. 

A magnet school, Bonesteel said, would require the district add an estimated $2 million to its annual budget. While a board member said during the Aug. 21 board meeting that the district could theoretically collect around $20,000 in annual tuition from families, the program would need to be “really quite something” to achieve that kind of financial success. Bonesteel said it would be a risky decision to make with taxpayer dollars. 

Bonesteel told board members that, in addition to new staff hires being costly, finding new staff members to hire is difficult in itself. “Those particular unicorns are really hard to come by right now,” she said. 

Cost limitations aside, some of the options presented are simply not ideal because of the location of the school, Bonesteel said. 

She told board members that regional superintendents already stated that turning Roxbury Village School into a mental health support center for students — based on New York State’s Board of Cooperative Educational Services model — is not feasible. Some students would need to be bussed to RVS for up to an hour each day for a period of weeks, she said, and these would be students experiencing mental health crises. 

Using the building as a central office location, too, would mean longer commute times for staff members. And as for renting it to the Central Vermont Career Center, although that could bring in more revenue for Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools, not only is the location not ideal, but the career center has yet to express interest. 

Bonesteel said she didn’t feel comfortable commenting on which option might be best. “I think any of these scenarios would cause a significant veer in the direction of the district,” she said. 

If the district is neither able to keep or chooses not to keep the property, the board is obligated to sell it to the town of Roxbury for $1 — the amount the district acquired it for in 2018 from the town. 

Bonesteel said the Roxbury select board has discussed using the Roxbury Village School and that board members recently asked Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools about testing for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at the building

The town’s use of the property would be stipulated for “community and public purposes” for a minimum of five years. At an Aug. 21 board meeting, board members said they wanted further clarification on what that entails, as well as on how it would be monitored and by whom. 

If the town decides to sell the property before the five-year period is up, it would be required to compensate the district for capital improvements the district made to the property. 

The board could also sell the building to another potential buyer were the school board or town not qualified to take it on. The board questioned whether it could be sold to a school district beyond MRPS.

At the Aug. 21 board meeting, board member Tim Duggan pointed out that the building is valued at $2.5 million. “While I think it’s important to approach this [decision] in partnership with Roxbury, I also think that as stewards of an asset that’s worth that much, we have to think about how to maximize value for the district, consistent with our legal obligations and fair partnership,” Duggan said.

Whatever they decide, board members said they need to figure out what to do with the building by early December because the decision has implications for the district’s fiscal year 2026 budget. 

The school building is currently being used for Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools after-school programming. Bonesteel said that Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools will maintain the building for the coming year, spending $60,000 on building upkeep and $85,000 on after-school programming. 

The board plans to invite the district’s lawyer to the board’s upcoming meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 18 in order to weigh options and obligations under the articles of agreement — a discussion that would likely be in a closed session since it deals with real estate, board members said. 

The board will also likely host a public forum at its Wednesday, Oct. 2 meeting, followed by a period for additional public comment. All regularly scheduled board meetings start at 6:30 p.m. and are held at either Roxbury Village School or Montpelier High School.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated when the school board decided to close the Roxbury Village School.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Board considers what to do with Roxbury Village School building.

This story by Cassandra Hemenway was first published in the Montpelier Bridge on Sept. 4. 

Melissa Casto-Gordon is one of 100 people in Washington County who will be forced to leave state-funded motel rooms at the end of September as new eligibility restrictions take effect. 

Casto-Gordon said she has lived in the Montpelier area for over 20 years, 10 of those in a $750-per-month North Montpelier apartment. In the years before losing her housing, she worked at the Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital as an emergency room technician, at Price Chopper in Berlin and — briefly — at a sandwich shop in the Berlin Mall. 

But in the last couple of years, two events left her homeless: a bout with shingles that resulted in a disability and the death of her longtime landlord. 

“Up until his death, we paid rent; everything was good and secure,” she said. But the new building owner asked Casto-Gordon and her 20-year-old son to leave through a no-cause eviction. Her son found housing in another town. Casto-Gordon ended up in motels.

She is one of the 250 people temporarily housed in motels in Washington County, about 50 of whom are children, according to Rick DeAngelis, former co-executive director of Good Samaritan Haven. 

The latest restrictions on the state’s four-year-old pandemic-era General Assistance Emergency Housing program (also known as the motel voucher program) went into effect at the start of fiscal year 2025, on July 1. New rules passed by the legislature last year cap the number of state funded motel rooms at 1,100 (although DeAngelis noted there are 1,400 households in the program). 

The new rules restrict motel stays to 80 days per year and establish a list of categories that prioritize who can use the program based on their vulnerability. DeAngelis said priority categories include those with documented disabilities, families with children, people over the age of 65 (it was 60 before July 1), those who have lost housing due to floods or disasters and others.

“The legislature created the 80 days with this room cap under the idea that there are less people using the hotels … but that hasn’t been true in the last few years,” said Brenda Siegel, executive director of End Homelessness VT. “This is no plan to keep people sheltered.”

DeAngelis noted a particular concern for children in motels. 

“One of the tragedies,” he said, “is there are a lot of children involved. … You have kids in the school system right now who are living in the (Economy Inn), who I’m sure are going to be impacted by these changes. They may retain their ability to continue going to school in Montpelier, but it could be highly disruptive.” 

According to a Feb. 9, 2024 newsletter from Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, “Vermont is a ‘shelter-first’ state. This means that people seeking refuge are first referred to the closest available shelters. When there are no shelter beds available, motel rooms are the backup.” 

DeAngelis, however, said Good Samaritan Haven’s three central Vermont shelters remain perpetually full. 

The state will relax motel program restrictions in December through March, 2025, for winter. That  leaves October and November, when hundreds of Vermonters currently in motels may end up on the streets.

In the meantime, DeAngelis said, Good Samaritan Haven is among the many organizations helping people find alternative housing, including — as a last resort — providing camping gear.

One Medical Illness

Sometime before the eviction, Casto-Gordon contracted shingles, a painful rash caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox. That led to Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which paralyzed one side of her face, affecting her vision, and has caused periodic week-long migraines, among other symptoms.

The disability put her into one of the priority categories for emergency motel housing, but because of the 80-day rule, her voucher runs out in September. 

“It just shows that one medical illness or one catastrophic event can put somebody in my situation,” Casto-Gordon said.

She said she’s been on waiting lists for affordable housing for two years. Unlike many of her contemporaries at the Hilltop, Casto-Gordon considers herself lucky because if she can’t find housing in Vermont before Dec. 1, she can go to South Carolina to stay with her mother and step-father. It’s not her first choice; the weather is hot and humid, she said, and her step-father is “high-strung,” both factors that aggravate her medical conditions.

Long Waits for Housing

An Aug. 30 story in VTDigger reported that “Vermont would need to build between 24,000 and 36,000 new housing units to meet estimated demand over the next five years, according to the latest Vermont Housing Needs Assessment.”

That fits with Jennifer Armbrister’s experience as an outreach case manager at Good Samaritan Haven. Almost everyone in the motel program is on a list for housing, Armbrister said. Those interviewed for this story said they had been on the housing waiting list for as long as a year, or, as Casto-Gordon noted, even two.

The long wait also fits with the experience of Annette Parry and her daughter and caretaker Donna-Jo Newton. The two have been living at the Economy Inn in Montpelier (formerly the Econolodge). Both have documented disabilities, including, in Newton’s case, severe anxiety and depression exacerbated by the stress of homelessness. They have been on every housing waiting list they can find for a year. In Parry’s case, the disabilities list is long and includes scoliosis, early dementia, “emotional hoarding,” and severe anxiety.

Mother and Caretaker

Parry’s roots run deep in Barre. Her maternal grandfather built the family house in Graniteville and worked in the granite industry, and her father comes from Spencer mountain in Orange, she said. The mother-daughter team has seen a lot of loss in the past few years, starting with the death of Parry’s 25-year old son, of cystic fibrosis, in 2017, and followed by the death of both Parry’s parents and Newton’s 54-year-old  father. Newton said she doesn’t allow herself to feel the grief so she can get through each day in the hotel.

Despite the local ties, Parry and Newton, like Melissa Casto-Gordon, found themselves homeless about a year ago after a no-cause eviction from the affordable apartment they’d been in for six years in Barre City. The mother and 29-year old daughter were separated for eight days after the eviction; Parry, who insists that Newton is the only person who can care for her, refused food and medication until they were able to be together again, prompting Newton to get official recognition for the 24/7 caregiver work. The state now pays her $522 per month for that work, she said. Combined with her mother’s $926 in disability pay, the two live on just over $1,300 per month. 

Every day brings a new complication, the latest one being a delay on the waiting list from the Barre Housing Authority over an eight-year-old past due bill of $3,921 — BHA’s  legal fees from a court dispute, which Parry and Newton say they won. Any delay on the housing list means the pair face the very real possibility of living on the streets.

Newton said she is painfully aware that one outcome could be living in a tent, but she doesn’t want to see that happen to her mother. At the same time, her mother, Parry, said her therapist told her that she may have to go into a nursing home when her motel eligibility runs out.

“If that happens, I’m just giving up,” she said in an interview in her room at the Economy Inn last week. 

Depression and anxiety are not an uncommon outcome for those without housing. In an interview with The Bridge, homeless advocate Brenda Siegel said, “The data shows us that within three weeks to 30 days of living outside you will develop some kind of mental illness or disability.” That’s if you didn’t have one — or several — to begin with.

Sleeping in a Van

Cheryl Stearns considers herself “one of the lucky ones,” because she has a vehicle.

As of Aug. 29, she had 26 days left at the Hilltop Inn, she said. It won’t get her through until the winter eligibility opens on Dec. 1, but she’s got a backup plan: she’ll sleep in her van. 

The van is not retrofitted for camping. Stearns said she’ll lay one comforter on the floor in the back and pile on two more for the cold nights in October and November before the adverse weather program kicks in.

“I checked with all my relatives and everybody I knew here, and nobody has any room for me to stay with them,” she said. 

Like most of the other people who are unhoused and living in motels, Stearns is on several wait lists for housing. But unlike most, her wait may be brief.

“I have been lucky enough to get on a couple of short lists because I’m 65 and disabled,” she said. “So I’m keeping my fingers crossed. … What I hope is that it doesn’t snow before November, December.”

Matthew Oldershaw was living in Keene, New Hampshire in 2014 when he was assaulted in the streets and thrown into a granite fountain. As a result, he suffered several broken bones and, he says, a brain injury. Ultimately, Oldershaw said, his doctors prescribed two ounces a month of medical marijuana, but the limit a person can have on hand in New Hampshire is three-quarters of an ounce. For that reason, he said, he crossed the border to Vermont, where both medical and recreational marijuana use is legal. He ended up in the motel program.

Oldershaw and his wife Kimberlin Gowell both have disabilities, he said, which they manage while raising their 8-year-old autistic child. They have just enough disability pay and food stamps to get through each month, while supplementing their 80 state-paid motel days with about a week per month that they pay for themselves.

If they have to, Oldershaw said, they can wipe out their bank account and pay for the hotel rooms out of pocket for the interim between when their voucher runs out and the winter program starts, but it doesn’t leave anything for other expenses and medications. 

Before he got into the motel program, Oldershaw said he and his family spent a night in the woods, without camping gear or sleeping bags. He doesn’t want to do that again.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Motel program restrictions mean 100 people in Washington County to be ousted.

This story by Jenny Blair was first published by the Montpelier Bridge on June 11.

Montpelier’s street trees often live short lives. Roots hit impenetrable compacted soils once they outgrow their planted space, often a meager 4-foot-by-4-foot square. But now, new trees taking root under downtown sidewalks should grow tall and survive to old age, thanks to a new planting method that lets them thrive in tough urban environments. 

This month, the Montpelier Parks Department plans to plant two saplings on Main Street in front of Walgreens and the American Legion. Workers will prepare beds under the sidewalk using the Stockholm tree pit method, which balances the need for structural support with the trees’ needs for airy, spacious, and nutrient-rich soils. 

“What we’re trying to do is basically grow a goldfish inside a shot glass,” said Parks and Trees Director Alec Ellsworth of the city’s longtime approach to tree planting.

“We were replacing trees every five to seven years,” added John Snell, chair of the Tree Board.

Enter Structural Soil

Several years ago Montpelier tree officials decided to try an innovative approach. Developed in Stockholm, Sweden, the method involves digging out a generous pit, or tree well, along 500 square feet of sidewalk, then filling it with 3- to 5-inch-diameter stones that can support compression from above. 

Spaces between the stones are then filled with a mix of compost and biochar, a carbon-rich, charcoal-like substance, allowing space for roots to grow and find nutrients and air. 

On top of that, a thinner layer of small stones will provide what Ellsworth explains is a natural air barrier, one that prevents roots spreading up into overlying pavement while still letting air into the pit. 

Called structural soil, the pit materials bear the weight of sidewalks while giving roots space to grow and plenty of air, water, and nutrients.

Nearby, small circular grates also direct water toward the root zone rather than into storm drains, reducing rainfall runoff. (The tree wells will not prevent extreme flooding, however.)

Four young trees were planted downtown in 2021 using the Stockholm method, including an American elm in front of Mad Taco and another in front of Yankee Wine and Spirits. 

The new trees — which also include a Freeman maple and two honey locusts — are thriving. Last summer, the one near Mad Taco grew by as much as 47 inches, Ellsworth estimated.

Snell said this year’s new trees will likely be a Princeton elm and a white oak. 

Costs and Benefits

Each tree costs about $10,000, according to Ellsworth. Of that, approximately $7,000 pays for the cast-iron grate and cylindrical tree guard — the prices for which have approximately quadrupled since 2019, Snell and Ellsworth estimated.

But what the city is paying for amounts to much more than a leafier, more aesthetically pleasing streetscape. Trees are crucial tools for climate adaptation, beginning with their ability to improve stormwater management. Large trees also cool cities thanks to shade and the release of water vapor during photosynthesis, which in turn can reduce air conditioning costs in addition to creating more pleasant outdoor conditions.

Using a thermal imaging gun on a hot day, Ellsworth said, “the pavement might be 110 degrees. The air might be 85 degrees. And then you point at a bench in the shade [and it] might be 72 degrees.” 

Urban trees also improve air quality by filtering out fine particulate matter, such as the Canadian wildfire smoke that fouled Vermont last summer. The strongest effects on air quality and temperature occur within 100 meters of the tree, according to the Nature Conservancy’s Planting Healthy Air report.

Snell also points out the economic benefits. 

“There’s a direct connection in studies between having greenery in downtowns and how much money people spend in stores,” Snell said.

Research by the U.S. Forest Service has found that shoppers are willing to spend more time and pay more for products and services in business districts lined with trees. That includes paying more to park in the shade. 

A Leafier Future

City officials aim to plant many more street trees with the Stockholm method, not only because the traditional method often dooms young trees, but also because many of Montpelier’s older street trees are expected to die as well.

As the emerald ash borer beetle advances, Ellsworth said, the city’s large downtown ash trees, like the one in front of Bethany Church, will succumb. 

“We’re treating them to keep them alive as long as we can, but we know that they’re not going to survive,” he said.

East State Street is among the sites being eyed for a future planting project, according to Snell. 

“We’d love to have that whole row of trees, which is right along the first block, end up being one long bed underground,” he said. 

Funding streams for the plantings have mostly come from tree organizations, but demonstrating success might open up new sources of support, Ellsworth said. 

“There’s way more funding in stormwater, downtown improvement, and that kind of thing,” he said. “If we can tap into different funding streams because we’re providing multiple benefits, then it will really help us pull this off in a more comprehensive way.” 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier grows trees in stones.

This story by Phil Dodd was first published by the Montpelier Bridge on May 21.

To bring it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Amtrak train platform at Montpelier Junction is in the midst of a $3 million upgrade that will include raising the platform to eight inches above the top of the rails — making it easier to get on and off the train — and installing an electric snowmelt system. The Montpelier station remains in full operation while the platform work is being conducted.

The project is one of 123 station ADA-related upgrades that Amtrak has paid for since 2011 at a cost of $860 million, according to Amtrak public relations manager Jason Abrams. This fiscal year, Amtrak expects to complete 35 station upgrades with a forecasted investment of $165 million, he said.

The Montpellier project began last summer, was suspended for the winter, and is expected to be completed by October or November, according to Randy Wood of Banton Construction, who is overseeing the project. Banton is based in Connecticut, but Wood said that most of the work is being conducted by local companies, including S.D. Ireland Concrete.

Wood said the new 300-foot-by-13-foot platform is being supported by 100 helical piers that are 35-feet long and have been drilled into the ground. The computer-controlled heating system kicks in when the temperature, humidity and moisture reach certain levels, ensuring there is never ice on the platform and avoiding “slips, trips, and falls,” Wood said. He noted the prior platform was in bad shape after years of plowing and sanding.

The project also will involve adding LED lighting for the platform and parking lot and repaving the parking lot so it is ADA-compliant. That means leveling the lot so it has no slopes greater than 1.5%, making it easier for people in wheelchairs, Wood said. The station’s small building will only undergo minor renovations, but new signage will be erected.

Passenger traffic at the Montpelier station has been climbing back after taking a big dip during the Covid-19 pandemic, figures supplied by Abrams show. In federal fiscal year 2019, the station saw 7,909 people get on or off in Montpelier. That number dropped to 3,791 in FY 2020 and 1,609 in FY 2021. Montpelier passenger traffic bounced back to 6,292 in FY 2022 and 6,992 in FY 2023, which ended on Sept. 30, 2023.

The sole Amtrak passenger train stopping in Montpelier is the Vermonter, which runs between St. Albans and Washington, D.C.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier Amtrak platform undergoing $3M upgrade.

This story by Phil Dodd was first published by The Montpelier Bridge on April 16.

Downtown Montpelier businesses that survived the pandemic and the flood have been facing a continuing aftershock from both catastrophes: a decline in foot traffic that is being attributed to remote work, a closed hotel and post office, and fewer open businesses.

“This is a huge concern,” said Katie Trautz, executive director of Montpelier Alive. “Since COVID and then the flood, Montpelier has experienced quite a decrease in visitors to shops and especially restaurants and cafes. These businesses depend on regular foot traffic to succeed. There has been such a drop-off in business this winter that I know there are a couple of businesses thinking of closing, even after bouncing back from the flood.”

Melissa Bounty of the Central Vermont Economic Development Council has been tracking the finances of 12 local businesses, nine of them in Montpelier. “These businesses have allowed us to see their finances today and for the past five years,” she said. “In January of this year we found that the net revenue of these businesses was off 50% on average compared to January 2019.”

Downtown Montpelier has been continuing to bounce back from the flood in many ways, with more stores and restaurants opening all the time. The recent reopening of the Capitol Plaza Hotel should give a boost to downtown, and events such as the solar eclipse and the return of the Green Mountain Film Festival have brought more people to town.

But overall, business has not been good in recent months, according to Trautz and others. Brian Lewis owns the Yellow Mustard sandwich shop and the recently opened Filibuster Café in Montpelier. He also owns restaurants in Middlesex and South Burlington. 

“I am running $800 per day in labor and bringing in $1,200 a day in sales in Montpelier, but I also have to pay for utilities, rent, food, and insurance,” he said. “If I am not making money in Montpelier, what is the point of being here? I have other locations and opportunities.”

Lewis and others feel a big part of the problem is that most state workers are working remotely most of the time. Some of that is because state buildings are damaged, but even when workers can come in — such as at the space the state leases at National Life — most desks are empty, Lewis said.

Trautz said she has been in touch with the state and was told that worker schedules are set by their supervisors. Anecdotally, it appears many state workers are choosing to work remotely.

State Rep. Conor Casey, D-Montpelier, pointed out that there is a workforce shortage, which may make it hard for the state to force workers to come to the office if they like working from home. “There are lots of vacancies in state government,” he said. “Last I heard there were 1,100 job openings.” Union contracts also come into play when it comes to work requirements, he said.

Capitol Stationers co-owner Eric Bigglestone is one merchant who wonders what is going to happen to the state’s buildings and workers long term. “I know people who work for the state who have been given a choice of where to work,” he said. “A lot of them choose to work at home. We may have to find other ways to get people to come into town, like tourism.”

Trautz said downtown merchants are hoping for a good summer, but she is not sure tourism can make up for the lack of downtown workers. “We have heard from the governor that he supports downtown revitalization,” she said. “The worker policy is something he should consider as part of that picture.”

State workers are not the only people missing from downtown. Private businesses and nonprofit organizations are also moving to the remote working model. At the Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT), which has about 50 employees, only between three and 12 workers come to the office per day, according to VLCT Executive Director Ted Brady. The VLCT has sublet some of its space in City Center to the Montpelier Food Pantry and the U.S. Post Office.

Some local businesses have been moving to a hybrid model, with workers required to come into the office part of the workweek. Both National Life in Montpelier and Vermont Creamery in Graniteville now expect office workers to come into the office Tuesdays through Thursdays. They can work from home Mondays and Fridays. It is unclear if the state will ever consider such a plan, which would partially restore downtown foot traffic.

Legislators Casey and Rep. Kate McCann, D-Montpelier, were recently invited to a meeting with about a dozen Montpelier business owners to discuss the problems facing the downtown. The group was organized by Brian Lewis, and intends to keep meeting. They are currently trying to set up a meeting with the county’s three state senators and plan to reach out to Gov. Phil Scott, Lewis said.

“We can’t have downtown limping along for four or five years while the state figures out what it is going to do with its building and workers,” Lewis said. “If state workers are not coming back, we need to get other businesses or new housing downtown to replace the people who are no longer coming to Montpelier.”

Lewis was disappointed the Vermont House recently declined to add money to the state budget to help businesses recovering from the flood. Statewide, flooded businesses were given $20 million last summer and fall, and there were hopes another $40 million could be added via the budget to the state’s Flood Recovery Assistance Program.

Businesses say they could use more help. “I personally took on $330,000 in debt to reopen Filibuster and Yellow Mustard,” Lewis said. “So far I have only received $40,000 in state aid and local grants. Some people borrowed against their homes to reopen, and they could lose their homes if they can’t repay those loans.”

Casey noted that studies have shown the flood caused $300 million in economic injury in central Vermont. He said that although it appears no more state funding for flooded businesses is likely to materialize this year, he would like to see the state set up an organization or program that could seek grants and federal funds for these businesses. However, an effort to do this failed in the House recently. Casey retains hope the idea might be revived in the Senate before the legislative session adjourns.

Read the story on VTDigger here: After a flood and a pandemic, Montpelier businesses continue to struggle.

This story by Cassandra Hemenway was first published by The Montpelier Bridge on March 19.

At a time when surrounding downtowns are still recovering from the July 2023 floods, Berlin is about to launch its new town center on a hill, well out of the floodplain, starting with an affordable housing complex next to the Central Vermont Marketplace, also known as Berlin Mall.

Downstreet Housing and Community Development expects to begin construction of Fox Run, 30 units of “workforce housing,” this June, according to Angie Harbin, Downstreet’s executive director. 

Renters could move in as soon as September 2025, she said. The apartment building will be built on 2.3 acres across the road from Chestnut Place, a 98-unit privately owned senior housing facility next to Walmart. The purchase from Berlin Mall LLC is expected to close sometime in May or June, Harbin said.

A Starbucks, a restaurant and a store will eventually join the new housing development. The town of Berlin has granted a zoning permit for Starbucks to proceed with construction next door to Fox Run. The town also expects an as-yet unnamed restaurant and a retail outlet to request building permits in April, according to Tom Badowski, Berlin’s assistant town administrator. All of this is on a wooded lot owned by the Berlin Mall, Badowski said, but it’s part of a larger town center plan that’s been in the works for 25 years.

When talking about Berlin’s new town center, Badowski regularly mentions partnerships. There’s the partnership between the town of Berlin and the mall, which will soon include a land swap so Berlin can build an administrative building there. There’s a partnership with the Central Vermont Medical Center, a major employer nearby, and partnerships with the state of Vermont and three nearby car dealerships.

Berlin’s new center

In 2022, Berlin became the third municipality in the state — and the only one outside of Chittenden County — to receive the “new town center” designation from the state of Vermont, Badowski said. 

“To me, that’s significant,” he said.

With a population of just 3,000, Berlin is home to some of central Vermont’s major employers, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, several car dealerships and the Central Vermont Medical Center. 

To date, Berlin has not had a town center, despite having a retail center. The idea for a new town center dates back 25 years, when residents developed a plan that sat on a shelf for more than a decade, Badowski said. It was dusted off about 10 years ago, he said, which is about when the town decided to proceed with it. 

By the time town officials completed a new town plan, “it went from this dust-gathering 500-page small-font to large font, lots of pictures, friendly, easy to use … and won plan of the year (from the Vermont Planners Association) in 2018,” Badowski said.

One project that laid the groundwork for the new town center is building a $10 million water and sewer system where one had never existed. The town drilled four wells, Badowski said, and laid nearly 40,000 feet of pipe to connect businesses and homes to a central system. 

“It’s a system we totally built from scratch,” said Ture Nelson, interim town administrator and a selectboard member.

Badowski is quick to note that the cost of the water and sewer system was covered in part by a $2 million grant and user fees, and has connected some of its major businesses like Blue Cross and the hospital.

The town recently updated its zoning to allow for more housing, Badowski said. Now, the town has no limit on how many housing units can go onto a lot.

“The Planning Commission has a vision of 350 to 500 (more) units,” he said. “… We are a small town, 3,000 people. We want to be 5,000 people and have people come live here and make central Vermont their home.”

Walkability

Badowski and Nelson are quick to point out that siting housing so close to the mall, the car dealerships, the hospital and the school, creates an environment where people can walk more and drive less.

“The more services you have right there, you can do your clothes shopping, your grocery shopping … it’s good for the environment,” Nelson said.

Regarding the 30-unit Fox Run, Harbin said: “From that site you can walk to the school. Also there’s sidewalks to the hospital and medical center that’s right there. Creating all of those connections right there really does make sense.”

In fact, Badowski said walkability is a big part of the new town center plan. Just last week, he said, the town heard it was likely to receive a $1.6 million grant to build a multi-use path situated away from the busy road and parking lot.

Read the story on VTDigger here: 30-unit housing project is 1st step toward Berlin’s new town center.

This story by Avi Zimet was first published by the Montpelier Bridge on March 7.

About 60 people have found a place to sleep at the Elks Club Winter Shelter on Country Club Road, a refitted office space used as an emergency overnight shelter this winter, said Good Samaritan Haven co-executive director Rick DeAngelis. “Good Sam” — as DeAngelis calls it — has operated the shelter and leased the former Elks clubhouse from the city of Montpelier since November. 

“The number of unsheltered homeless has steadily risen in this area in recent years and was estimated by Good Sam as 80 individuals during the fall of 2023. ‘Unsheltered’ is defined as living in a place not fit for human habitation and could include in campsites, under bridges or in vehicles,” said DeAngelis.

“We’ve operated overflow shelters over the years in various locations, most notably church basements. And this is the best space we’ve had,” said DeAngelis. “I’ve heard positive comments about it being a comfortable, safe space,” he said. “We allow folks to leave their stuff here overnight, which is a huge advantage.”

“I think it’s a success,” DeAngelis added. The shelter has been operating close to its permit maximum of 20 per night. About a third are women, with “a lot of older folks too.”

The shelter had co-located in the same building as the Sweet Clover Nursery for young children for a few months. DeAngelis said “there were some tense moments,” while co-locating, but “we made some accommodations, at their request, that helped them feel safer, and we’ve been without incident. And they’ve actually been quite supportive.”

The Bridge reached out to staff at Sweet Clover, but did not hear back from them as of press time.

In addition to the emergency shelter at Country Club Road in Montpelier, Good Sam operates shelters in Barre, Berlin and Montpelier, as well as a street outreach program. 

“It takes a long time to pull a small facility together,” DeAngelis said. Good Sam “started looking in March, or April, because we knew there was going to be a severe problem this year.”

Bethany Church was an initial choice, where Good Sam operated winter shelters in 2017, 2018 and 2019, DeAngelis said. Then, the July 10 flood badly damaged the building. “So that was completely off the table.”

The city’s recreation center on Barre Street was also considered, but “needs so much work, you would have never got it within that time frame. It was just impossible,” DeAngelis said. “We were interested in a conversion of the basement, which has never really been investigated.”

“It was actually the city of Montpelier that said, ‘hey, have you ever thought of utilizing the Country Club?’ They deserve a lot of credit.” DeAngelis also referred to the city as a “great partner,” noting their interest in addressing homelessness and contributing to Good Sam’s street outreach team for the past two years. 

“Thanks to manager Rhonna Gable and all the staff at the Elks for their excellent service this winter,” said DeAngelis.

“It’s modern, decent office space, really.”

“This was an office, and each of these individual offices had doors on them, which we took off,” said DeAngelis. “You have to do that for fire safety,” he said. Sprinklers were already installed, and the office “is laid out well … we didn’t have to do much.”

Rooms can be monitored but have a reasonable amount of privacy. Up to three people can sleep in each room, and a common area connects them, with a microwave and refrigerator. 

“People can heat up stuff. It’s important to have, because not everyone has eaten,” DeAngelis said.

The shelter is two miles from downtown, so Good Sam operates a van twice a day, to get people to and from the shelter, stopping at Barre Street, Main Street and the transit center.

“You have to take the van. There is no other way you can get here. We just don’t allow it, because we want to make sure it’s a safe environment,” said DeAngelis. “This is a challenging element but it has gone relatively smoothly.”

“There’s always at least two staff people here,” plus the driver. “Some of the people work with Washington County Mental Health also.”

Having a daytime partner is essential, especially “if it’s zero degrees outside,” said DeAngelis. Both Another Way and the transit center have been available as warming spaces during the day. Another Way also has a shower, computers and a meal often provided by an interfaith group.

Statewide Housing Crisis

In 2023, Vermont had the second highest rate of homelessness in the U.S. on a per capita basis, almost doubling after the pandemic, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. However, Vermont also has the highest rate of sheltered homeless, through emergency shelters and the state hotel program.

On March 1, the Vermont Department for Children and Families announced the continuation of the state hotel program, saying “it is important to note that no Vermonter lost their room due to these negotiations.”

It would take a $1 billion investment to produce 2,000 housing units, far from filling the 6,800 housing unit gap in Vermont, according to a Nov. 2023 post from Gov. Scott’s office.

“We can’t solve the problem that the state as a whole has,” said DeAngelis. “It’s complicated, too. It’s not just building the unit,” he said.

“I’ll tell you something else that’s more of an intangible, but to me it’s very very important. A lot of people are lonely. They’re disconnected from others. They’re on their own. They’ve been traumatized. They want to live someplace where there are other people. And sometimes, you know, maybe they think, well, hey I’m living on the street but at least I have this crowd around me right here of people that I hang out with during the day. And it’s better than being by myself.”

“We want people to feel accepted and valued, and that we care about them, and I just know it, because my office is in the shelter. It’s home for a lot of those guests, and it may not be perfect, but they’ve got some element, level of community there.”

The Elks Club seasonal overflow shelter is “only funded through April,” and then the process of finding funding and a location continues. With the four shelters Good Sam is running, DeAngelis said they worry they might “stretch a little too far right now … I mean, we’ve grown three-fold over the past three or four years.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier’s Elks Club shelter serves many this winter.

This story by Cassandra Hemenway was first published by The Montpelier Bridge on March 7.

The cosmos has aligned for Capitol Plaza Hotel’s spring opening. Eight months after the July 2023 floods, and $4.5 million in repairs later, Montpelier’s Capitol Plaza Hotel on State Street plans to open in April. The hotel is already booked solid for April 7-9, when Montpelier falls in the path of totality for a solar eclipse on April 8. The hotel’s in-house restaurant, J. Morgan’s Steakhouse, is scheduled to reopen in May.

Three days before the flood, the hotel changed hands from the Bashara family to the Hilton and became part of its “Tapestry Collection.” On that day — July 7 — Steve Merrill came to town. Merrill is the vice president of operations at Jamsan Hotel Management, which now operates Capitol Plaza among dozens of other hotels throughout New England. 

The hotel’s revival comes months after most downtown Montpelier businesses reopened their doors post-flood. Capitol Plaza’s repairs took a long time, in large part, because of the size of the building, which fills up about one city block. Another factor is the sheer volume of materials needed and the scarcity of products like heating systems, electrical circuits and transformers while everyone else needed replacements, too. Along with that, Merrill said, once the flood repairs started, his crew kept finding other things to fix inside walls, ceilings and floors. 

The combination of massive flood damage and accelerated upgrades to the building strung the construction project out for eight months, and counting. The place remains abuzz with 25-40 people working daily to ready it for the April opening.

Merrill said Hilton has spent more than $22 million on the hotel, in purchase price, flood repairs and upgrades intended to “get the building to the Hilton brand.” Since the flood, he said, more than 10,000 hours of work have gone into fixing the building, from dredging out the giant basement and landfilling 30 years of stored stuff, to replacing all its systems. That doesn’t include $4.5 million in lost revenues from canceled reservations. 

“I was surprised that (Hilton) ended up keeping the hotel, in all honesty,” Merrill said.

The hotel should bring in about $6 million annually from reservations alone, Merrill said. But that is not its only economic impact. A full hotel benefits other downtown businesses, said Katie Trautz, executive director of Montpelier Alive, especially after a significant dip in foot traffic after the flood, followed up by a mediocre skiing season.

“I believe once we have more visitors here staying more than just for the day, we’ll have more people eating out at night, more people needing to buy food for lunch, more foot traffic in our small shops,” Trautz said. “… If the hotel were nearly full it would be very significant for our downtown.”

The eve of the flood

On the eve of the flood, during the heavy rain, Capitol Plaza had been fully booked. Some people were able to leave “organically,” Merrill said. They left early or got rides to somewhere out of the flood zone. But nearly 80 people stayed, a combination of guests, staff and locals who had nowhere else to go. 

“We could’ve shut off reservations,” Merrill said. “We didn’t. We were not able to recoup any revenues, and we knew that that was going to happen because all the systems went down. We (booked) rooms through paper and pen because we knew they needed a place to stay.”

That night, before flood waters filled the lobby, Merrill — a chef “in a former life” — cooked spaghetti and meatballs for everyone and served it in the ballroom. He had gas for the stove, but no electricity. A generator powered emergency lighting while he cooked.

“There was no place open to eat, so we had to figure out a way.” he said. 

The next day, rescue boats shuttled some of the guests out. At that point, the lobby had flooded and guests and staff were officially stranded on the upper floors. 

A construction crew was already on site — prepared to make what they then thought would be some minor upgrades to the otherwise turnkey operation. The crew rigged a box with pulleys for getting supplies up to guests. One of Jamsan’s “sister properties,” a Marriott Delta Hotel in Burlington, brought over snacks and water. They were able to fill the box and Merrill’s crew hoisted it up to the second floor where he set up a space in the administrative offices for guests to pick up their meals.

The extent of the damage

At upward of 20,000 square feet, with a maze of corridors and small rooms, Capitol Plaza’s basement housed 14 electrical transformers, the boiler, internet network systems, all the spare tables and linens, and hundreds of parts for one of its popular quirks: the toy train that used to chug around the dining room at J. Morgan. (The train will be back, Merrill said, but it won’t be running for a while.)

Dozens of construction workers have been on site at any given time for the entire eight months since the flood, Merrill said, many of them living in the hotel rooms. Of those, 14 have been dedicated to replacing the transformers, getting them out of flood range and fixing the entire electrical system, said Frank LeValliere, of LaValliere Electric in New Hampshire, who is doing the job. LeValliere had been staying in one of the hotel rooms. He was ready to go home when he spoke to The Bridge in February, but the drive was long, so his trips home were few and far between.

Other major damage includes the elevator, which had to be replaced, Merrill said. Water damage on the first floor soaked through the walls and wicked up to the ceiling, he added, requiring total replacement. 

2,000 canceled reservations

After the flood, Capitol Plaza staff went from 80 associates to four, Merrill said. Thirty-two are returning for the reopening. The sales team went from two people to one person — Sales Manager Anna Bruce. Bruce can be found in her office on the second floor of the hotel, busy with the thousands of details of reopening, including replacing all the linens, tables and chairs that were ruined in the flood.

But back in July, she had a tougher job. With a skeleton crew remaining on staff, everyone’s jobs changed, she said. One of her new duties included handling the 2,000 reservations that had to be canceled while the hotel had closed indefinitely.

With internet and landline phones down, she did not have the usual system to deal with cancellations, so she sent out an email blast, and then went about the tedious business of making 2,000 phone calls — on a cellphone — with a little help from one other employee. By the time she finished, the hotel’s network was running again, and now she had the equally daunting task of refunding all those cancellations.

“It’s been crazy,” Bruce said. “We do a weekly meeting, and I take the meeting minutes for it. I was reading them yesterday and I was like, it’s so wild for me to look back.” 

Bruce also noted the systems do-over that changed up time-consuming practices like bringing linens to the Launderama on Barre Street (and back) rather than washing them in house. New on-site washers and dryers will make the task simpler and take up less staff time, she said 

“Moving forward, we’re in a much better place if something were to happen again,” Bruce said. 

Having the hotel open again “will feel like we’re turning a corner in terms of our downtown opening back up after the flood. The Capitol Plaza is a really big business. I think it will feel like we turned a page,” Trautz said.

Capitol Plaza is currently hiring for 30 positions, including servers, bartenders, dishwashers and cooks, Merrill said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: After millions in repairs, Montpelier’s Capitol Plaza plans to open in April.

This story by Savannah Yefchak was first published in the Montpelier Bridge on Feb. 8. 

On Feb. 14, 2002, Montpelier woke to a surprise. Photocopies of asymmetrical red hearts were plastered across windows of local shops and businesses, blanketing the town in love and inviting a sense of mystery.

The community reacted with delight, surprise and an immediate desire to figure out who did it, but those with the intel weren’t talking. 

No one knew whether or not this was going to be a one-time thing, but the hearts showed up again the following year, and the year after that, and every year since, even during the blizzard of 2007 and throughout the global Covid-19 pandemic. There was one year when it almost didn’t happen, but Montpelier High School students pitched in (with a lot of help from Capitol Plaza Hotel), and the magic continued. In fact, the event has grown to include local students, school staff members, community members, and businesses. It’s become enough of a tradition to warrant a Wikipedia page, news reports in Seven Days and on WCAX-TV, NBC5 TV, WDEV radio, (in The Bridge, of course) and a Facebook page. 

“I don’t want to know who makes the magic happen and I hope no one ever spills the beans on the Phantom!” said Linda Hogan, a local artist who said she looks forward to that “Phantomness” every year. “I like to think that it has remained a secret because we all love and honor the mystery and magic of our beloved Valentine Phantom and want to keep alive the ‘Phantomness’ of such a special day.”

Rumors spread about who might be behind the annual act of love, but nobody knew if it was one person or a group, and how or why the hearts showed up seemingly everywhere. 

Today’s phantom

Twenty-two years after it started, I got some of that top-secret information in an interview with the current lead Phantom (also known as the Montpelier Valentine Phantom, or “MVP”), who has been actively involved in the mystery for the past 13 years.

“The mission has always been to bring creative joy and love to the people as a way to build a healthy, resilient community,” the Phantom told me. 

The Valentine’s Day Phantom was “always a secret, not a prank,” the MVP said. The hearts represent hope, the Phantom said, because each year the community has hope that the magic will return, and almost every year since 2002 the hopes of children, families and the community have been granted. 

It’s become a much-anticipated Montpelier tradition to awaken on Valentine’s Day morning to see red hearts covering almost every window, door and wall downtown. One Montpelierite who has been involved since year two tells us that when the hearts first were put up it was a smaller quantity of just about 500, and throughout the past two decades that number gradually increased exponentially as the amount of “Phans” increased. 

“The MVP feels huge love and gratitude that the tradition matters to the people in the community and that, in turn, the community pays forward the love it experiences on Feb. 14,” the Phantom said.

How the magic happens

The Phantom has a number of “Phantom Phans” who work on various steps of the Valentine’s Day magic that Montpelierites have come to expect. The MVP said they will not say who the Phantom Phans are, but noted there is a “lot of love” from many local teachers, staff members and administrators across the Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools district, along with the city and several local businesses. These helpers are very involved in the process, but the Phantom remains a mystery, even to them.

I asked the MVP who helps with the process, and got the concise reply: “Phantom cannot disclose the ‘Who’<3.”

Two major components go into getting ready for Valentine’s Day, according to the Phantom: prepping the hearts and the display process (which includes a surprise thrown in each year to keep the town on its toes). It takes about seven weeks of preparation, and about 6,000 hearts go up each year. But that wouldn’t happen without another mystery presence: the printer. 

Eric Bigglestone, co-owner of Capitol Stationers, remembers the first year the hearts went up. 

“It sure was a treat and surprise that first year, as nobody in town had any idea who was behind it. We had a photocopy service back at that time, so many folks would ask us if we knew, but we didn’t do color copies so it certainly wasn’t us doing the printing. That led to inquiries at Mailboxes Etc (which soon after became Capitol Copy) and Minuteman Press, both of which did color copying in town. If one of them did provide the printing, they were keeping it close to their chest, as it still remained a mystery as to who was behind it, as it still is a mystery.”

A blizzard can’t stop love

The hearts have kept coming, even when the 2007 Valentine’s Day blizzard struck and most people assumed there would be no hearts that year.

“It crippled the state but yet the hearts in downtown Montpelier were out in full force, specifically, giant red hearts on the Statehouse lawn as well as banners. The huge red hearts hung on the tower of City Hall, which was pretty spectacular to see as well,” says Bigglestone.

The current MVP also recalled the Valentine’s Day blizzard of ’07, as did Linda Hogan.

“My favorite memory was seeing the first very large heart banner in 2007 that the Phantom had hung at the front entrance of the Statehouse,” Hogan says. “It is a reminder from the Phantom that all you need is love. Each year I pick one up that has blown off a window and give it to my son. It is our tradition.” 

Pandemic schmandemic; hearts prevail

The COVID-19 pandemic that caused global shutdowns and mass isolation didn’t stop the Phantom, either.

Maureen Dwyer, of Barre Town recalls: “One of my favorite memories is from three years ago, and it was the first year having a COVID Valentine’s Day. I remember seeing everyone look so happy and cheerful seeing all the hearts everywhere. It made me very happy to see everyone look so joyful.” 

In 2021 — two years into the ongoing pandemic — Phantom Phans spread the hearts up the hill to the Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin, “hoping to bring light and love to sick patients.”

The MVP wants readers to know, “There is a commitment to making the magic every year and Phantom Phans are always needed. The MVP Facebook page, the Montpelier Valentine Phantom Phan page, is a great way to let the Phantom know you want to be a part of the magic, or email the Phantom at montyphantomhearts@gmail.com. 

I grew up in Montpelier and remember being in kindergarten and seeing the hearts and being so excited the first year I fully understood what the hearts were. Every year after that, I wanted to know who did it and why, but little 5-year-old me couldn’t pull a “Nancy Drew” and figure out who the Phantom was, so I decided to collect a heart each year as a keepsake, hoping one day I could solve the mystery.

Savannah Yevchak is a Montpelier High School student who recently completed an internship at The Bridge through the MHS community-based learning program. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: The untold story of Montpelier’s Valentine’s Day phantom.

This story by Will Lindner was first published in the Montpelier Bridge on Jan. 24. 

Sweet forgiveness brings redemption

Heals the things we dare not mention

Separates us from our tension

Like water from a cloud

When Mark LeGrand conceived those lyrics he’d been playing music for 15 years; he’d worked in bands in southwestern Vermont where he grew up, and in central Vermont and Burlington after migrating northward. He had pondered everything Greg Brown, Rodney Crowell, Willie Nelson, and others had to say in their lyrics, and how they said it. But he’d never written songs himself.

And then his life changed. He had been playing in a trio called Nightingale with his first wife, making ends meet because, as a couple, they could claim two-thirds of every paycheck.

“But that era came to an end, pretty much,” Mark recalled recently, propped up on pillows in his bed as he recovers from major cancer surgery. It gives him plenty of time to think.

“Gail and I had divorced, a lot due to my alcoholism. I was playing in bands all the way up to when I got sober, which was 37 years ago, in 1987. Sarah (Munro, his partner for 36 years and wife for 26) and I had gotten together and had a child, and when that child was 9 months old was when I got sober. I was still playing in bars, but I’m praying to God … I got one foot in recovery and one foot in the bar scene where people are drinking like crazy.

“And that’s when I started writing songs. And I start to process my life through my music, the way I’d heard these other people do it, like Greg Brown, where it’s just getting into the real person, yet universal stuff. And get a little humor in it, maybe twist it a bit. I knew what the kind of art I wanted to create was, and I just went to work on it for 30 years.”

The passage, above, that offers the concept of “forgiveness” bringing “redemption” was the first verse of “I Know What Makes the Rain,” the first song he ever recorded. A hundred or more were to follow, but none has eclipsed that first one in terms of its meaning to him.

“That’s like everything I ever try to write. It’s, like, try to put a spiritual white light around something.”

The “something,” he knows more than ever now, is life; it’s community; it’s family.

It’s music.

Which isn’t to say that all his songs gleam with moral clarity and insight. There are plenty of cheatin’, lyin’, drinkin’, kickass, lovesick songs as well. Because music is about life, and life is about trouble. (In fact, one of his songs is titled “Don’t Trouble Trouble.”)

He got started in music while still in high school, down in Bennington County. He taught himself the electric bass and played pop music with a band called The Herd. They were pretty busy, and one particular memory sticks with him for its sense of validation.

“I’d made 10 bucks playing at a high school dance and left it on the kitchen table. And my dad said, ‘Did you make that playing music?’ My dad was an old World War II disabled veteran and he didn’t express a lot. But I saw something when he realized I had made that money through art. As opposed to labor. It was a great moment.”

He moved north in 1975 to attend Lyndon State College, although he only lasted one semester; then he caught on as a sales rep at Silo Music, a distribution company in Waterbury that specialized in folk and acoustic music. The music scene here was different from anything he had experienced before.

“There was Rachel Bissex, the Whitehearts 9a vivacious commune-slash-string band from Marshfield), and you guys (this writer played with Banjo Dan and the Mid-Nite Plowboys). I was really attracted to roots music. So I sort of left Led Zeppelin and The Who and all this stuff from high school, and embraced that.”

Basically, he went country, in a New Age sort of way: think “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down” (Kristofferson) and ”You Were Always On My Mind” (Willie Nelson). “It sounds old and new at the same time, and tells a great story. And the lyrics are killer.” 

It was an intense time for music in central Vermont. There was the Country Cuzzin in Barre, the Rustic Lounge in Northfield, and a handful of bars in Hardwick with live music.

“Here I was, this semi-educated kid from Arlington, and all of a sudden I’m playing in bands, and most of the people are better than I am. Which is perfect.”

Until it wasn’t. 

Creativity didn’t arrive gift-wrapped and beribboned when he got sober. His self-esteem was virtually nonexistent, and to tap into one’s vision of the world and of existence and then express that vision with a sense that it’s valid and valuable, one needs a measure of confidence. A resource LeGrand found for getting to that place was Julia Cameron’s book, “The Artist’s Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self.” 

He also made the decision — not an easy one for a musician accustomed to leaving the limelight to others — that he would perform under his own name, whether playing solo, in a duet, or fronting a band. He thinks of it as “building equity.”

And it has worked. He has created — again, his term — a “brand.”

Colin McCaffrey, who has helped bring Mark’s songs to life at his recording studio — The Greenroom — in East Montpelier, identifies signature elements of that LeGrand brand.

For one, there’s his sparseness. He pares his lyrics down to the essentials, which makes his songs relatable and also provides space for accompanists to decorate with their instruments and vocals. (McCaffrey credits LeGrand for inspiring “creative democracy” in the studio to allow this to happen; LeGrand, in turn, considers McCaffrey “a genius.”)

Then there’s the content of LeGrand’s songs. There are some joyful tunes (admittedly, the minority), and songs that explore spirituality, the earth moon and stars, and — mostly — human emotion.

But there are also the traps we’re born or fall into and struggle to escape.

“Mark is not afraid to stare into the deep, ugly side of addiction and the tough parts of human existence,” says McCaffrey. “Many of the characters in his songs convey that on a visceral level. And there’s a level of beauty because of that willingness to look right at it, to lay it out.”

Their most recent collaboration, a six-song CD released last summer, titled “Angel With a Broken Wing,” is particularly important to LeGrand, for it shines the spotlight on Sarah’s vocals. While she’s been a partner on many of his recordings — and, as a gifted visual artist, has adorned many of his album covers — this one, he says, is about her. Ironically, it’s now Sarah who is tending to the one with a broken wing.

But of course, this isn’t all about the music — by a long shot. It’s about Mark and Sarah as people and neighbors, and very much about community. In Montpelier right now there’s a heightened appreciation of community in all its manifestations.

Cindra Conison owns The Quirky Pet on State Street. Before his illness she frequently encountered Mark LeGrand on her morning walk to the store in the company of her shaggy dogs. “He is,” she says, “my definition of a really nice person. We would ‘chit-chat’ in such a positive and refreshing way, absolutely no snark, no cynicism.” It would set her up for a day of kind interactions with her customers. 

After her store was virtually destroyed by floodwaters last July, she commenced digging out. “But that never would have been possible without the incredible generosity of scores of people stepping forward to literally stand beside me. Many had never even been in my shop, but Montpelier was there with me when I needed them the most.”

She sees a similarity now. 

“Mark’s present moment of need dwarfs mine,” says Conison, who is pondering ways The Quirky Pet can participate in fundraising for one whom she cherishes. “I’m really hoping our community collectively demonstrates the same generosity of spirit they showed me and others with shops downtown. I’m honored to be standing alongside one of my most valued ‘casual’ friends, and I hope that all who read this do the same.” 

Over on Langdon Street, across from Bent Nails Bistro, Juliana Jennings, who owns J. Langdon Antiques and Art, similarly connects community spirit and human compassion. On the weekend of the benefit concert she has decided to contribute 20% of all her sales to the cause. She’ll be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day (Friday, Jan. 26 through Sunday, Jan. 28).

“I don’t know Mark personally,” she says. “I’ve heard him sing many times, and after the way the community reached out to everyone who was affected by the flood, I want to be proactive in giving back. And clearly, he’s kind of beloved around here.”

LeGrand has a holistic view of the event being organized for him. He thinks it speaks of something larger than himself.

“It’s amazing. And I’d be lying if I said ‘Oh, I’m too humble for that.’ No, I like the attention, I love the support.

“But that’s the part about me. What I like even more is it could be any of us. We were never meant to be on our own. It’s tribal, and the music brings it into this tribal place. That’s how humans are supposed to be — interdependent on each other. 

“That’s what I think the real story is.”

He leans his head back on the pillows. His hair is whiter than it used to be, and longer. He’s lost weight, and his face, neck, and shoulders are leaner.

But guess what? He looks pretty good! He sounds good, too. His eyes are bright and he speaks with quiet, confident energy.

“We’re all characters in this story,” he says. “I happen to be the character in the bed. Would I prefer not to be?

“YEAH!”

And he laughs and laughs.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Musician Mark LeGrand talks the art of songwriting, Vermont music scene.

This story by John Dillon first appeared in The Montpelier Bridge on Jan. 10. 

The future of a huge tract of publicly owned forest north of Montpelier will soon be decided as the state develops a 20-year management plan that includes timber harvests at lower elevations.

The land encompasses the Worcester Range, the geographic backdrop to our central Vermont community, where Mt. Hunger, Mt. Worcester, and Mt. Elmore shape the rugged ridgeline. The 18,772 acres in the state’s “Worcester Range Management Unit” includes Elmore State Park, Moss Glen Falls, Stowe Pinnacle, and Perry Hill, a popular mountain bike area in Waterbury.

But it’s the wild, roadless nature of much of the range that makes it unique. Unlike Mt. Mansfield to the west or the Lincoln Peak and Mt. Ellen sections of the Green Mountains above the Mad River Valley, the Worcester range is free of ski areas or second-home development. The property serves as both a reservoir of rare and endangered species and an internationally important wildlife corridor, where animals can move east and west, south to the Green Mountain National Forest, or north to the highlands of the Northeast Kingdom and Canada. 

For humans, it’s an untrammeled mountain paradise. Hikers on the Skyline Trail from Mt. Hunger to Worcester Mountain can go miles without encountering anyone except the occasional porcupine or moose. Backcountry skiers can carve fresh tracks and find steep, deep stashes of powder within miles of the state capital. 

Staff at the Agency of Natural Resources have worked for several years on the 20-year plan for the property. Yet despite those years of hard work, and a public outreach process that began in 2020, the plan has come under fire.

Critics say the plan sidesteps changing societal and ecological needs for wilderness. They argue that the state lacks the rules necessary for such a broad planning process, and that the plan fails to follow a new state law aimed at protecting biodiversity.

Missed opportunities?

“I think this is an opportunity that the state really shouldn’t lose. There just aren’t these kinds of wild places in Vermont,” said Bodo Carey, a retired middle school science teacher who has written an extensive critique of the plan. 

“I’ve never been so passionate about something in a long time,” he said. “I’m going to make as much noise about it as I can.”

Carey has lived in Worcester since 1987 and has explored the land for over three decades. The plan designates upper elevation tracts and mid-elevation forests as off limits to logging, more than half of the 18,772 acre tract. But Carey said even more needs to be protected. He’s called for lower elevations of the property — land that could be logged under the state’s plan — to be set aside as an ecological reserve and allowed to become old growth forest. 

“Let it be resilient just on its own. This is just such an amazing piece to have,” he says. “It’s so unfragmented and undeveloped.”

State officials counter that none of the logging will involve clearcuts, and that the planned timber harvests are designed to enhance the forest ecosystem. The plan says 1,935 acres — or about 10% of the total — could be selectively harvested in 13 timber operations over 20 years.

 “Over 50% of the parcel is slated not to be managed at all,” said Danielle Fitzko, the commissioner of the state Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation. “In many cases, our management is thinking about how to build a more resilient, healthy forest in the future.”

She said the state is not trying to make money off the parcel by harvesting valuable timber. “We’re not driven by the markets. But we do have a responsibility to manage the land,” she said. 

Public meetings held

The state has held two public meetings on the plan, one in Worcester, the other in Stowe. At the packed Worcester meeting in December, many residents were skeptical. 

Early in the meeting, Stewart Clark, a former member of the Worcester planning commission, raised his hand. “I have a basic question,” he said. 

Jim Duncan, state lands manager and the official acting as MC, tried to deflect. “Is it a process question?” he asked, noting that various experts — wildlife biologists, fisheries experts, ecologists, and foresters — were assembled around the elementary school gym and would be available later.

“Yes,” replied Clark. “Why do we need this plan?”

“That is a great question, and I encourage you to go around to all the resource stations and talk about the specific piece,” said Duncan. “But this is not the time for questions.” 

The brush-off rankled more than a few at the meeting. And the short answer to Clark’s question is there isn’t a long-range plan for the property. Yet the pressures on it, from climate change to invasive forest pests, to managing expanding recreation, are growing.

“There never has been a real management plan for the Worcester Range, that alone is remarkable,” said Zack Porter, executive director of a Montpelier-based organization called Standing Trees, a group devoted to forest protection. “There are very few patches of land anywhere in Vermont that have been kind of given this blessing of ignorance … It’s really a blank canvas.”

At the Worcester meeting, state lands forester Jack O’Wril had a throng around him, peppering him with questions. Residents wanted to know how lands were selected for logging, how they could weigh in before harvesting occurred, and why logging was needed in the first place. State stewardship forester Bradley Greenough waded through the crowd to provide back-up to O’Wril.

“I felt like I was trying to get to the front of the stage at a concert,” Greenough said.

I caught up with Greenough and O’Wril later for a phone interview. They explained the state’s reasoning for the planned timber harvests.

First, they said the plan has expanded the amount of land designated as “highly sensitive” areas and thus off-limits to harvesting. This expansion includes more mid-elevation parcels and means 53% can’t be cut. 

Second, any tree cutting will be done selectively, meaning no clearcuts. As foresters mark trees for cutting, they’ll also focus on the ones that will remain to form a healthy forest, they said. 

“Timber harvests can be used as one of our tools. And we use it to enhance wildlife habitat and forest diversity,’” O’Wril said.

“We’re really trying to do the best for the resource,” added Greenough. “We’re kind of in the middle. We’re not trying to do nothing. And we’re not trying to do everything we possibly can by building more trails and cutting all the land. We think we’re doing a good job with the appropriate amount of harvesting in this plan.”

Greenough said that the harvests will be reviewed by state ecologists and wildlife specialists to ensure sensitive areas are protected such as vernal pools or deer wintering areas.

 “Even though it’s all in the plan that it would be approved [for harvest], we just don’t go ahead and do that when the time comes to do the harvest,” he said. “We go in and re-evaluate really with a fine filter and we stay out of those areas.”

Conflicts with state law?

Bodo Carey, the retired teacher and passionate advocate for the Worcester woods, said it’s time to re-evaluate the whole planning process for the property. 

Carey said the state and the public have a once in a lifetime opportunity to preserve this unbroken forest and its valuable ecosystems. He said the state’s plan for the Worcester Range apparently disregards Act 59, a state law passed last year that spells out broad land conservation goals. 

The law, which Gov. Phil Scott allowed to go into effect without his signature, sets a goal of conserving 30% of the state by 2030. Act 59 says the state needs to develop a plan for reaching that goal and it spells out three conservation categories for preserved land. The most highly protective of the categories — “ecological reserve areas” — are designed to “to protect highest priority natural communities and maintain or restore old growth forests,” the law says.

Carey said the lower elevations of the Worcester Range, where logging is now planned, should be designated as “ecological reserve areas” and allowed to return to old growth forest. He questioned why the state seems to ignore Act 59 and its mandates in the Worcester range plan.

“They should be using the language and meeting the charge in that law,” he said. “And they’re completely ignoring that. There’s nothing about that [Act 59] in there.”

The public has until Feb. 2 to comment on the 20-year plan. Noted climate change activist and author Bill McKibben decided to weigh in after Carey sent him his detailed critique on the state plan. McKibben noted his background in the science and policy of climate change. He said recent research shows that encouraging old growth forests is key to sequestering “maximum amounts” of carbon.

“We used to think that planting new trees was the fastest way to sequester carbon, but new data makes it clear that this isn’t true, and that keeping standing forests standing is the key to achieving this target,” McKibben wrote, pointing to his recent New Yorker article that covered this new science.

McKibben said the Worcester Range should be protected as an ecological reserve area. “Given Vermont’s strong commitment to reducing climate impacts, this seems an easy step to take,” he said. 

State response

Act 59 is not mentioned in the plan, but Danielle Fitzko, the forest commissioner, said the state follows it as officials draft a “community resilience and biodiversity plan” called for in the law. She said the plan is due in July of this year. 

Zack Porter, the forest protection advocate with the Standing Trees environmental group, agreed with Carey that Act 59 should be applied now, in the current plan for the range. He’s a harsh critic of both the planning process and the logging component of the draft plan. 

 “There’s no reason that wood fiber needs to come from these public lands,” he said, noting that Vermont has extensive, privately held timber lands suitable for harvesting. “Why don’t we look at these public lands differently?”

Porter also charged that the state needs to develop rules first to guide major plans like the one for the Worcester Range. The rules would spell out how the public gets involved and what the plans should contain. 

“They’re doing it without the transparency and the accountability that should be in place for a plan like this,” he said. “And I would argue it’s simply unlawful to issue this plan with the rules that should be in place beforehand.”

Porter’s organization raised similar arguments in a lawsuit that tried to block logging on Camel’s Hump State Forest. A judge dismissed the case last fall. 

Commissioner Fitzko said her department is working on the rules, although she said they weren’t prompted by the Standing Trees lawsuit. “We don’t have to go to rulemaking to do long-range planning,” she said. “We want to improve the process. We want to get land under management quicker without losing that robust science assessment and public engagement process.”

Bodo Carey said the public was engaged in the initial phase of the plan, which included a survey. He noted that 85% of the respondents said the highest value for the property should be natural resources protection, versus 49% whose top priority was sustainable forestry.

Conservation design

Carey added that the plan also overlooks other state guidance on land and habitat protection called “Vermont Conservation Design.” This concept, spelled out in an extensive paper published in 2018, outlines a science-based conservation “vision” based on public and private land conservation efforts. The document, published by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Vermont Land Trust, recommends the state work toward a goal of allowing 9% of the forests in the state to become old growth, compared to the less than 1% that exists now.

“Here’s something they published; it has the ANR [Agency of Natural Resources} logo on it,” Carey said. “Yet they’re completely ignoring that move to old forest.” 

In response, Commissioner Fitzko said the state does follow the precepts of Conservation Design in the Worcester plan. One example, she said, is that about half of the management unit “will be managed to promote the development of structurally complex old forest conditions” to meet the old growth targets in the state’s Conservation Design.

Carey argued that the best way to encourage old growth is to let the forest grow old, not to harvest it. He is worried that the plan will go through as written. 

“I say pause the process and align it with the law from its inception,” he said. 

Managing recreation

For anyone who loves to hike, bike, or backcountry ski, the Worcester Range Management Unit offers ample opportunities to get outside.

The challenge for the state is how to prevent certain areas from being overused to prevent trail erosion, for example, or mitigate impacts to wildlife. A more recent concern is unauthorized clearing of trees for backcountry ski routes.

“This is a special place; we all know it. A lot of other people know it too,” said Walter Opuszynski, field recreation specialist with the Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation. “With that use comes the need to manage, and we have work to do.” 

Perry Hill in Waterbury is not part of the range itself but is a separate 547-acre piece with an extensive 10-mile network of mountain bike trails. The area is also an important deer wintering area. Fat tire winter biking has surged in popularity, so the state faces challenges balancing the competing human and wildlife uses. 

The recreation pressures are more intense on the western, Stowe side of the range, Opuszynski said. For example, the state wants to disperse hiker traffic around Stowe Pinnacle, which can get very crowded. The state plans to add a trail to make a loop “so we can disperse all that use that’s coming to that location,” he said.

The plan calls for improved parking facilities at a number of trailheads. It also mentions the need “to consider options for improved human and pet waste management at all trailheads.”

Backcountry skiers are often found exploring the chutes and glades of the range. But Opuszynski said some are cutting trees and underbrush without permission, which is illegal on state lands. “We want to talk to the people who are doing that [and] figure out is this the best place to be doing that,” he said. “If so, how do we manage it together?”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Logging versus old growth? Plan for Vermont state forest debated.