This story by Clare Shanahan was first published by the Valley News on Sept. 7.

WOODSTOCK — Vermont State Police are investigating the Windsor County Sheriff Department’s finances following an anonymous tip.

The Vermont State Police’s criminal division is involved in the investigation into “a financial matter regarding the sheriff’s office,” spokesperson Adam Silverman confirmed Thursday. The investigation started in mid-August because the division was “asked” to look into it. Silverman declined to provide further details.

As of Friday, Windsor County Sheriff Ryan Palmer said he had not been contacted by Vermont State Police about the investigation but suggested that does not seem to be unusual. He confirmed that he learned about the investigation through media reports.

“I’m not hiding anything. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything illegal. There’s nothing to hide,” Palmer said in a Friday interview.

Palmer confirmed in an Aug. 29 Facebook post that he was aware of the investigation, denied any “wrongdoing or criminal behavior” and wrote that he understands the “serious nature of the claims and the public concern this may cause.”

Palmer also suggested on Facebook that the tip Vermont State Police received may have been politically motivated.

“I would also note that these complaints were submitted anonymously, as we approach the 2026 election year,” Palmer wrote at the end of his message.

When asked about this comment, Palmer said he did not know if the tip was politically motivated but said, “I guess we’ll have to wait and see, but it is coincidental at best.” He described the timing as “curious.”

Palmer, 38, was first elected as Windsor County’s sheriff in 2022.

He ran as a Democrat and campaigned on a platform of change for the department, which had been run for 40 nearly uninterrupted years by former Sheriff Michael Chamberlain, a Republican.

After winning the Democratic primary against Tom Battista, a longtime veteran of the department, Palmer prevailed again in November with 15,629 votes to Chamberlain’s 9,824. It was the first time Chamberlain faced a challenger in nearly 20 years.

Since his election, Palmer has grown the department both in staffing and coverage area and he has not shied away from spending money to do so.

As of the beginning of 2025, Palmer had 22 full-time and nine part-time deputies, more than doubling his 2022 numbers and had increased patrols from nine to 15 towns, including four in Orange County.

The expansion kicked off as soon as Palmer’s term began.

In the first four months of 2023, Palmer spent $219,000 on five new cruisers and another almost $150,000 on other equipment through a combination of reserve funds, loans and grants, the Valley News reported at the time.

“My goal coming into this was to really change the paradigm and to change the way Vermont sheriff departments operate, because I felt there was a huge void in rural law enforcement and that has obviously been very expensive,” Palmer said of the investment.

In two and a half years under Palmer’s leadership, the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department has undergone two audits, both within the first six months of his term, according to reports filed with the Vermont state auditor. Vermont law requires that sheriff departments be audited by an outside accounting firm once every two years.

The first was a transition audit that primarily looked at money handled by Chamberlain, the former sheriff. The second audit concerned finances from Feb. 1 through June 30, 2023.

From Jan. 31 through June 30, 2023, the amount of money included in the Windsor Sheriff’s Department bank account decreased from just over $1 million to about $550,000, according to the reports. At the same time, the value of vehicles and equipment increased from about $70,000 to over $450,000.

The Department is about to kick off another regularly scheduled state-mandated audit, Palmer noted in the Facebook post.

Palmer has signed the paperwork to authorize the regular audit but it has not formally started, he said Friday. The last two audits each took about a month to complete.

For now, Palmer said he is focused on continuing his work as usual.

“If you look at where things were before I took over to now, I think that we’ve done a lot of good and that’s kind of my focus in moving forward.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Anonymous tip sparks probe into Windsor County sheriff’s finances.

This story by John Lippman was first published by the Valley News on Sept. 4.

SPRINGFIELD — The 36-year-old man who was shot to death by police last month appears to have gotten caught up in an operation that was targeting another man for arrest, according to people who were at the address when the shooting occurred.

Police claim that, on the evening of Aug. 21, James Crary was in a vehicle when he allegedly “accelerated toward officers” who were “outside their vehicles” during a police response at 78 Valley St. Officers then opened fire, striking Crary multiple times. He was pronounced dead at the scene, Vermont State Police said in a press release.

The circumstances of Crary’s death are now under investigation by the Vermont State Police, which was not involved in the “underlying operation” that led to the shooting. The two police officers who fired their weapons — Springfield police officer Vincent Franchi and Windsor County Sheriff’s deputy Bryan Jalava — have been placed on paid leave and are cooperating with the investigation, according to police.

In interviews, people who said they were present at the time of the shooting described the aftermath.

“The police said, ‘We weren’t even here for James Crary,’” said Khristal Blanchard, a resident at 78 Valley St., who witnessed part of the incident.

According to Blanchard, police told her they had come to apprehend a suspect in a “hostage and kidnapping situation” earlier that day in Springfield.

Springfield police and Windsor sheriff deputies — officials have not disclosed how many — responded to the Valley Street address shortly before 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 21 “as part of an open investigation,” Vermont State Police said in the release. When they arrived, “they encountered a man” — later identified as Crary — “in a vehicle outside the home.”

Police then opened fire at Crary. The Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington conducted an autopsy and concluded Crary died from “gunshot wounds to the head,” according to Vermont State Police.

Investigators are reviewing cruiser and body cam video footage of the incident, including “third party” video of the incident, said Vermont State Police spokesperson Adam Silverman.

Springfield Police Chief Jeffrey Burnham referred questions about the police operation and shooting to state police.

Windsor County Sheriff Ryan Palmer said his department’s deputies were at 78 Valley St. that evening to “help Springfield arrest a suspect on a pretty serious charge.” 

Following the shooting, police apprehended the suspect, who was inside the house, and charged him with assaulting and robbing $300 from a Springfield man whom police say held against his will at a nearby apartment, according to court documents. 

‘I didn’t even know the cops were here’

Crary most recently had been living in Newport, New Hampshire, and authorities have not said why he was in Springfield the night of the shooting. People who were at the address that evening said Crary had come to check up on a female friend who was there.

“It was a pop-in visit,” said Randi Sargent, who was among a group watching a movie in the garage space when Crary had appeared at the door.

He stayed for a little while and “had just said goodbye and left,” Sargent said. Shortly afterward she heard four gunshots.

“I thought it was someone shooting at the house,” she said.

Blanchard said she briefly chatted with Crary in the driveway and then went back up to her room on the second floor of the house.

“I didn’t even know the cops were here,” Blanchard said.

When she got to her room, she heard gunshots and looked outside the window over the driveway.

“I saw James’ head go down and hit the steering wheel,” Blanchard said. “The car started to roll back and was smoking.”

She said she started to scream, and two people with her in the room pulled her away from the window.

Both Sargent and Blanchard said they heard a total of four shots.

Sargent pointed out bullet holes in the wall of the converted garage used as a lounge space that she said came from the police gunfire.

Several people were sitting on the sofa watching the movie when bullets pierced the wall, which barely missed her boyfriend sitting at the end, Sargent said. When they heard the shots, one in the group shut the door to the room.

“We laid on the floor over here and we barricaded the door until (the police) told us to open it,” Sargent said.

Blanchard said after the shooting she heard police yelling to “come down with your hands up” and the people upstairs — including the intended suspect — all came down.

Blanchard said she remonstrated the officers over the shooting: “What was this all about? Like, are you serious? Was this really called for?”

Blanchard said one of the officers responded: “This was not what we meant to happen. We’re so sorry for your loss. We weren’t here for (Crary).” 

Crary’s body lay covered in the driveway for more than 12 hours before it was taken to the medical examiner’s office in Burlington, according to people at the house.

Shooting victim leaves behind a daughter

Kristin Crary said her brother grew up alternating between his mother’s in Claremont and at their father’s in Canaan. He attended Mascoma Valley High School and often had jobs waxing and stripping floors.

Julie Morse, who knew Crary when they grew up together in Claremont and had been his friend for 20 years, said he “would never purposefully been out to hurt anybody ever.”

Morse said Crary liked buffing the floors of Hannaford and Market Basket on the overnight shift because “he could be left alone independently.”

Crary left behind a 10-year-old daughter who “meant a lot to him,” Morse said.

The day after the shooting occurred, Morse went to 78 Valley St. to talk with neighbors and people there about how events had unfolded. She said she suspects that Crary was trying to pull out of the driveway when he became “startled” by the large police contingent that had come to arrest Hewitt.

“James was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Witnesses: Police fatally shot man in Springfield during operation targeting someone else.

After a week detained in a Vermont facility following her arrest in Manchester, Davona Williams vanished from the state Department of Corrections system Tuesday morning, leaving her lawyers and family unsure of her whereabouts for around 24 hours. 

Williams, 42, is originally from Jamaica and has lived in the United States for about 17 years, according to her attorney, Christopher Worth, a visiting assistant professor at the Center for Justice Reform at Vermont Law and Graduate School. Williams was in the midst of a yearslong process to gain legal status and was living in Manchester with her partner and three children, he said.

Wednesday morning, Williams called a family member and told them she had been transferred from the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, Worth said. 

The federal online system is supposed to notify legal representatives of transfers in immigration cases, but Worth said he was not notified. Williams has yet to appear in the federal ICE detainee locator, which reflects an “imperfect system,” he said.

The Bennington Banner first reported Williams’ move to the Michigan facility.

On the morning of Aug. 25, Williams was pulled over by ICE officials in unmarked cars, who were carrying out a prior order to have Williams deported, which was issued in 2013, Worth said. Williams was given time to call a family member to pick up her 18 month old son who was with her at the time of the arrest before she was transported to Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, he said. 

While she remains in Michigan, Williams’ case is being litigated in the Boston Immigration Court. Since taking on the case last Thursday, Worth said filed an emergency stay so she could remain in the country. After a judge granted the motion, Worth said his next step is to argue against the 2013 order with the goal of having it dropped. 

Worth said he did not file a petition to prevent her from being transferred out of state because the most “pressing issue” in a short time frame was to block deportation.

“Davona is staying strong in the face of a challenging legal system that is stacked against her,” Worth said.

Rutland Area NAACP President Mia Schultz said it was scary to learn early Tuesday morning that Williams had disappeared from the system, and that ICE detention has been tough on Williams and her family. But Schultz said the local community has rallied around the family by starting a GoFundMe campaign to help her family pay bills during the immigration proceedings.

“She is beloved by her community,” Schultz said. “We’re trying to ensure the things she built here stay intact.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Davona Williams transferred to Michigan after ICE arrest in Manchester.

This story by Maryellen Apelquist was first published in the White River Valley Herald on Aug. 28. 

In the 1990s, Frank Lamson, a newly credentialed pediatric nurse practitioner fresh off a stint at an urban school clinic in Massachusetts, came home to South Royalton with an idea: that such a clinic “would really be a good thing to have in a rural community.”

He shared that thought with friend and pediatrician Becky Foulk, who just a few years before had opened a private medical practice in town, and with whom Lamson worked. The doctor agreed, and it wasn’t long before the duo teamed with others, including local school nurses, to open HealthHUB, Vermont’s first school-based clinic.

Since then, 1995, the nonprofit clinic, funded with a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant channeled through the state Agency of Human Services, has operated in collaboration with the South Royalton Health Center to provide in-school medical care, mental health counseling, and a mobile dental program that expanded in 2009. What began as care for students in a handful of towns, South Royalton, Sharon, Tunbridge and Strafford, has grown to serve grade-schoolers and their families in a dozen communities across the White River Valley, from Brookfield to Stockbridge.

While all of HealthHUB’s services are in demand — the organization’s leaders report wait lists in some areas, including mental health care — the dental program is perhaps most widely recognized. Last school year, the dental clinic alone had about 400 patient visits.

Its signature silver-gray trailer with a large, smiling tooth on the side, outfitted as a dental office, can be spotted parked throughout the region, from the employee lot at Gifford Medical Center during the summer months to schools throughout the valley.

The hub’s first such trailer, purchased with a $95,000 grant awarded with the support of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., recently reached the end of its useful life as a clinic. It’s now parked in the lot of the town office in Royalton and used for storage.

Its successor, another silver gray unit, has been making the rounds, and Lamson eagerly reported that it is now joined by another vehicle in the HealthHUB fleet, a big rig named “Rosie.”

Tuesday, just one day before the start of school in the White River Valley, the nurse practitioner showed off 42-foot-long Rosie, a shiny motor home named for iconic Rosie the Riveter and built out with an interior to accommodate a comprehensive dental program.

Inside, HealthHUB, which has expanded in the last few years to also provide dental care to adults when school is not in session, provides a long list of services ranging from cleanings and exams to extractions, fillings, crowns, dentures and more.

Lamson himself flew to West Virginia to get Rosie, and drove the rig home to Vermont last fall. It cost $125,000 and came fully equipped with two dental chairs and all necessary office equipment, including a panoramic X-ray system.

“We had purchased that from the health department in Morgantown, [W.Va.],” Lamson said, explaining the branding wrapped around the vehicle that will be soon switched out to HealthHUB’s. “They got a big infrastructure grant from the feds to buy a brand-new one, but they had been using this as a mobile dental office for several years and wanted to sell it. And we were in the right position to acquire it.”

HealthHUB employs a fulltime dentist, dental hygienist, and dental assistant, and Foulk and Lamson are seeking another hygienist and others to join their health care team.

Hiring the full-time dentist, Colleen Anderson, two years ago, “was just a monumental step,” said Foulk.

“When she came onboard, we had been doing a little bit of work for adults with cleanings and stuff in after-school hours and during school vacations and over the summer, you know, that kind of thing. But we really expanded our dental services to offer full-service dentistry. And so we have quite a few adult patients now because there are a lot of adults who also receive benefits either under Medicaid or Medicare, or just are limited in their ability to travel places who utilize our services.”

Thirty years on, Lamson and Foulk’s vision—to provide access to health care services for children and their communities, where they are—remains as simple as it began.

“One of my mantras in establishing this thing has been to keep students in school and their parents at work,” Lamson said, “where kids at school could actually have medical care.”

For Foulk, the key to HealthHUB’s endurance has been its partnerships.

“That’s what this organization has been all about, building partnerships with other organizations to keep it going. So now we’re serving 12 different towns in eight locations,” Foulk said. “For instance, when we go to Randolph, we see kids from Brookfield and Braintree as well. They get bused in. It’s really grown.”

Community partners include Gifford Health Care, Chelsea Health Center, the town of Royalton and the region’s three school districts.

White River Valley nurse Susan Schuhmann, who’s worked at the school for 15 years, has long admired HealthHUB.

“It’s a great service for the community. The child doesn’t need to be pulled out of school early, missing schooltime to go to a doctor’s appointment. It can happen right here, then they’re back to class. And it does help parents who are working or who have transportation issues.”

While there is no celebration planned for HealthHUB’s 30th, Foulk said they could always use additional support, particularly with the uncertainty at the federal level concerning cuts to programs like Medicaid.

“We are trying to plan. It’s hard to know. And it’s hard to know how much the state of Vermont is going to step up and fill in the gaps, how much the state of Vermont will even be able to do that. So it’s hard to plan, but we’re trying to.”

Foulk noted efforts to increase fundraising in the communities served by HealthHUB, including by going, starting in 2026, to each of the annual town meetings “and making requests from every town that we serve, which we haven’t done in the past.”

HealthHUB accepts Vermont Medicaid and is an in-network Northeast Delta Dental provider. Foulk also noted that the team doesn’t “turn anyone away.”

“If somebody can’t pay, they don’t pay. And if they can just pay a little bit, there’s a sliding scale.”

Appointments with HealthHUB Dental Services may be made by calling 802-888-3384.

Read the story on VTDigger here: HealthHUB unveils new dental rig, marks 30 years.

Stuart Hurd — a career civil servant who worked as the Bennington town manager since 1992 and a total of 52 years for the municipality — died Saturday at age 77 from a long-term illness, the Bennington Banner reported. 

Sharyn Brush, who previously served on the selectboard, zoning board and as a town health officer, said Hurd served in many roles in town government and on local boards. She said “his door was always open” to talk to Bennington community members. 

“He wore many hats, and he wore them all well,” Brush said. “He solved problems well. He looked after the town. He was conscious of the budgets, and he really, really loved Bennington.”

State Rep. Mary Morrissey, R-Bennington, said Hurd “went right up the ranks,” serving the town for around 20 years before taking on the role of town manager in the early ’90s. 

“Stuart was highly respected around the state by fellow town managers and heads of communities as well,” Morrissey said. “That says volumes as to who the man was.”

Assistant Town Manager Dan Monks assumed the town manager’s duties when Hurd took extended medical leave on July 8, according to the Bennington Banner.

Town officials declined to comment on Hurd’s life and legacy Tuesday in accordance with family wishes. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Longtime Bennington town manager dies at 77.

An ongoing labor dispute in southeastern Vermont subsided on Labor Day when bus company Travel Kuz ended its lockout of bus drivers and monitors represented by the Vermont Teamsters Local 597 union.

The workers returned to transporting students enrolled in Windham Southeast Supervisory Union’s 10 schools in Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, Putney and Vernon on Tuesday. 

The workers had been on the picket line for nearly two weeks since Travel Kuz locked them out from the company’s Brattleboro headquarters after contract negotiations stalled. The company brought in replacement workers for the start of the school year. 

Travel Kuz accused the union of unlawful picketing and endangering students in a cease-and-desist letter last week. Local law enforcement did not witness any unlawful activity and the Teamsters disputed the characterization. 

A spokesperson for Travel Kuz — affiliated with Beacon Mobility — wrote in a press release that the company ended the lockout because the union is ready to return to the bargaining table. 

“From the start, our hope has been to reach an agreement that is fair for employees and affordable for the town, while keeping the focus on what matters most: children arriving at school safely and returning home with care,” the spokesperson wrote. “We care deeply about our drivers and want to be sure they feel valued and fairly paid for the vital work they do.”

Curtis Clough, president of the Vermont Teamsters Local 597, said the union has “always been available to negotiate with the bus company,” even during the lockout. 

“We’d love to get back to the table with the company,” Clough said. “We’ve already sent the company multiple letters asking for them to come back to the table and negotiate, so hopefully that bears some fruit.”

Lena Melentijevic, spokesperson for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, wrote in a statement that Travel Kuz notified individual drivers and monitors late Monday afternoon that the lockout ended, but the union has not received direct communication from the company about the situation or future bargaining as of Tuesday.

“The company created a stressful situation for our members and the community,” Melentijevic wrote in a statement. “We call on the company to come back to the table and negotiate a fair contract for our members.”

Travel Kuz previously told VTDigger the union’s proposal would cause an “unrealistic burden” by expanding company costs by over 40%. 

At the Aug. 22 meeting held during the lockout, Clough said, the union adjusted its workers’ pay proposal but maintained its benefits request. He said the Teamsters Local 597 is asking for a contract pay package similar to bus drivers represented by the Teamsters in other states, particularly in New Hampshire. 

Clough said the company has repeatedly delayed workers’ pay, retirement matches and health care premiums, and has asked the union to agree to concessions such as limiting family and medical leave, barring drivers from taking on extra hours and canceling bus monitors’ pay guarantees.

The Vermont Teamsters Local 597’s want a fair contract that ensures members have what they “need to afford to live in the community and afford their health care,” Clough said. 

Windham Southeast Supervisory Union’s Superintendent Mark Speno wrote in a Tuesday statement that he is glad the drivers and monitors are able to return to work while a handful of replacement drivers continue to fill in for some routes. 

The supervisory union is hopeful the contract negotiations settle soon and the bus company makes improvements to the routing and communications systems, according to Speno.

“My expectation is that there is a contract settlement that recognizes support and balance within very few days, so we can all move forward,” Speno wrote.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Company ends lockout of Vermont bus workers, contract talks in the works.

Windsor Superior Court Judge H. Dickson Corbett issued a ruling this month preventing the Village of Woodstock from hiring a new police chief. 

In his Aug. 7 ruling, Corbett signaled that the court likely will ultimately rule in favor of the former police chief, Joe Swanson, in his legal action against the village. A separate $5 million civil lawsuit against the village is still pending.  

Swanson sued the village in early May after the municipal manager, Eric Duffy, and the Board of Village Trustees demoted Swanson from police chief to police officer. At the heart of his lawsuit, Swanson claimed that village trustees did not follow state law, by establishing proper cause, when they removed him from office. 

When Swanson filed the suit, he also asked the court to step in and offer a preliminary injunction, an intervention that would stop the village from hiring a new chief pending future court orders. 

To grant Swanson’s request to step in, the court needed evidence that Woodstock’s hiring of a new police chief would cause Swanson irreparable harm — and Corbett reasoned the case met that threshold. Chris O’Keefe has been serving as interim chief and can remain in that post, according to the decision.

In his reasoning, Corbett signaled that the court will likely rule in Swanson’s favor down the line. 

“It appears that the village trustees failed to apply the correct legal standard before removing petitioner (Swanson) from the office of police chief,” Corbett wrote in the injunction ruling. 

While the injunction did not decide the merits or final outcome of the case, it did offer a prediction based on the court’s review of evidence submitted with the request for injunction, Corbett wrote.

“It appears from that review that the decision of the trustees will be reversed because the trustees did not apply the correct legal standard when making their decision,” he wrote. 

Linda Fraas, Swanson’s attorney, said the ruling was a “very promising sign.” 

The saga started in October after Swanson’s husband got into a verbal altercation with another driver during a traffic incident while Swanson was a passenger in the car. A citizen complaint was filed against Swanson regarding the incident. 

Two separate investigations following the incident found that Swanson did not commit wrongdoing. One of those investigations was conducted by the Vermont State Police and the other was by the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, according to court documents.  

Duffy also hired a private investigator to interview police department employees about Swanson’s conduct, said Jeffrey Kahn, vice chair of the Board of Village Trustees. Duffy declined to comment on the case. 

After those interviews, Duffy decided to demote Swanson to police officer. Then, the trustees had a quasi judicial hearing to decide if they would support that decision. The hearing, made public per Swanson’s request, went on for more than 14 hours. 

During that hearing, “there was a preponderance of testimony by both police officers as well as dispatchers that it became clear that the chief did not have support within either department,” Khan said. 

Without that support, the trustees reasoned it was best for the community to remove Swanson as chief, Khan said. 

“The trustees’ interest throughout this has been what’s in the best interest of the municipality,” he said. 

Vermont law offers certain tenure protections to police chiefs — and the village has to meet certain criteria to remove them from office, Corbett wrote. In line with past interpretations of the law, the village would have to prove Swanson was “negligent or derelict” in his duties, engaged in “conduct unbecoming an officer” or was otherwise unable to perform his job, Corbett wrote. 

The trustees reasoned they didn’t need to meet that criteria because they weren’t firing Swanson altogether, they were merely demoting him. 

But chiefs hold a distinct rank, Corbett wrote, and removing anyone from that position requires that the village meet the legal criteria. 

“It validates what we’ve been saying all along, that this process was not correct,” said Fraas, Swanson’s attorney. 

Despite the court’s injunction, and the village’s subsequent inability to hire a new chief, the department is running smoothly with O’Keefe in the interim job, Khan said.

Corbett wrote that from his review of evidence submitted with the injunction, the case will likely be passed back down to the board of trustees. At that point, trustees would decide whether to remove Swanson as chief, within the bounds of state law. 

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated when Eric Duffy hired a private investigator and improperly described Swanson’s two legal actions against the Village of Woodstock. It also contained a photo caption that gave an outdated employment status for Joe Swanson.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Judge bars Woodstock from hiring new police chief amid lawsuit from former chief.

The bus transportation company Travel Kuz sent a cease-and-desist letter Wednesday to the Vermont Teamsters Local 597 alleging the union engaged in “unlawful” picketing practices and put student safety at risk.

The Teamsters Local 597 president denied the allegations, and local law enforcement said they did not witness criminal activity during Wednesday’s demonstration at Brattleboro Union High School. 

The labor dispute began when the company, affiliated with Beacon Mobility, locked out its Vermont union bus drivers and monitors from the Brattleboro headquarters last week after contract negotiations broke down. 

Travel Kuz provides student transportation for Windham Southeast Supervisory Union schools in Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, Putney and Vernon. The union bus drivers and monitors with Teamsters Local 597 typically handle school routes for the 10 schools in the supervisory union, but they have not been allowed to work with their employer Travel Kuz due to the lockout. 

Since the work stoppage by Travel Kuz, the union drivers and monitors have been on the picket line. The company brought in replacement workers to serve Windham Southeast Supervisory Union schools for the start of the school year. 

Travel Kuz claimed that union members picketing Wednesday at Brattleboro Union High School spat on school buses, blocked school bus access, caused traffic disruptions and hazardous conditions and displayed “obscene and aggressive behavior toward students and drivers,” according to a Travel Kuz press release. 

Curtis Clough, president of Teamsters Local 597, denied the allegations of union members spitting, risking public safety or otherwise causing harm to students or drivers. He said the union members did cross the street a few times during the picketing but that is a legally protected activity. 

He said the union is looking into taking legal action against the company and the company’s counsel due to allegations in the letter. He said it is the company’s actions — tapping replacement workers and preventing local bus drivers and monitors who are more familiar with the community and school routes from working — that are detrimental to students, not the union demonstrations. 

“We didn’t put any students in danger yesterday,” Clough said. “They were the ones that put students in danger by locking out the bus drivers.”  

The Travel Kuz company is seeking injunctive relief against the union and claimed to be working with local authorities and legal counsel to “ensure compliance with labor laws and public safety standards,” according to the press release. 

Clough said Brattleboro police were present during picketing and did not issue any citations or tell the union to cease demonstrating. 

Brattleboro Police Capt. Adam Petlock confirmed that officers were present at Brattleboro High School during the picketing because it is customary to have law enforcement stationed at schools during the first week of school. 

Petlock said the role of law enforcement is to respect the right of people to protest and engage in protected First Amendment activities while ensuring the safety of children and the public. 

Officers who were present during picketing demonstrations witnessed “no criminal violations” by union members, Petlock said, and Travel Kuz has not contacted Brattleboro law enforcement to his knowledge.

Brattleboro resident Ian Turner, a parent of two students in the supervisory union, said that the lockout has caused inconvenience and safety concerns for his family as they are forgoing bus transportation for their children during the lockout.

One of Turner’s children enrolled in the 10th grade is nonverbal and needs preparation to use the bus, and was comfortable with the union driver and monitors during the previous year, he said. Turner said he has reached out to Travel Kuz and the company has yet to communicate a transportation plan, and the lockout by the company is disruptive to his child’s education. 

Turner said he talked with the union members picketing outside of Brattleboro Union High School yesterday and did not witness any aggressive behavior. On the contrary, Turner said he has generally seen union picketing garnering positive reactions from parents and he considers the union bus drivers and monitors to be trusted members of the community.

Lena Melentijevic, a spokesperson for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, wrote in a statement many of the drivers are part of the community and have students in the supervisory union. 

“Travel Kuz is failing in its desperate attempts to distract the public from the truth — this company locked out its own workers, preventing them from returning to work since last week,” Melentijevic wrote in a statement. “This lockout could end today if the company chose to end it.”

Clough said the contract negotiations are still active despite the labor dispute, and the Teamsters Local 597 will work to agree on a fair contract.

“We’re gonna be out there on the picket lines until the company gives us a fair contract,” Clough said. “They’ve locked us out. They say they’re not gonna let us back in until we agree to a contract, so it’s gonna have to be a fair one.”

The Windham Southeast Supervisory Union superintendent did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bus company accuses union drivers of unlawful and unsafe picketing at Brattleboro school.

This story by Emma Roth-Wells was first published in the Valley News on Aug. 26, 2025.

NORWICH — Last week, Nancy LeSourd was gardening at her home on Beaver Meadow Road in Norwich Village when a yellow jacket stung her. LeSourd, 81, found herself going into anaphylactic shock. Avoiding calling an ambulance in fear of the bill, she tried neighbors and the community nurse, but no one picked-up.

“I staggered up to Dan & Whit’s,” she said. “I just wanted to be around people. I walked it off for an-hour-and-a-half at Dan & Whit’s.”

On Friday evening, LeSourd, along with a few hundred others, gathered at the Norwich Historical Society for the opening of the exhibit “Dan & Whit’s at 70: Photographs & Memories.” Later, community members made their way up to the general store to celebrate its 70th anniversary. As LeSourd’s experience suggests, all those years of history add up to something more than an ordinary relationship between a store and its customers.

“Dan & Whit’s is family,” Sarah Rooker, the director of the historical society said at the event. “It provides a feeling of belonging.”

Previously Merrill’s, the building Dan & Whit’s is in has been a general store for close to 200 years, Rooker said.

Neighbors Dan Fraser and Whit Hicks began operating the store together in 1955. Hicks retired in 1972 and Fraser purchased the property. The store has been in the Fraser family ever since and about 20 Frasers from four different generations have worked there over the decades.

“My whole family worked there. My mom, dad, siblings, their kids, my kids,” Jane Britton, Dan Fraser’s daughter said.

Britton worked at the store on and off when she was a teenager and then full-time when she moved back to Norwich in 1988. She’s since retired but still lives in Norwich and goes to the store a couple times a week, she said.

“Of course there was drama, and fun, and no secrets,” she said about working with family. “If one of my kids cut a class their teacher would come in and say ‘by the way your son wasn’t in my class today.’ The kids realized they couldn’t get away with anything pretty quickly.”

Britton’s brother George Fraser is currently one of the owners of the store, along with his son Matt Fraser.

“I feel very fortunate that the community has supported the store for so long,” George Fraser, 83, said.

George Fraser ran the store with his brother Howard “Jack” Fraser for decades. (Jack Fraser died in 2019.) He recalled a time when a young employee said he couldn’t make it to work due to snowy weather.

“I said I’ll be there in 10 minutes to pick you up,” George Fraser said. “He was like ‘OK, OK I’m coming in’.”

Matt Fraser is the only one in the family who now works at the store full-time.

“It’s not so much me carrying on, but me doing what I’ve always done,” Matt Fraser said.

Matt Fraser, who’s now in his 50s, started working at the store part-time when he was “old enough,” he said. Fraser helps with grocery, dairy and his favorite: firewood. His least favorite part of working at the store is “dealing with people,” he said. To commemorate the store’s long history, the historical society curated an exhibit with both photos, information and quotes about the store’s past and the present.

As he walked through the historical society, Lebanon resident Daniel Moore took in a room of photographs of the store in its current state taken by Norwich resident Kay McCabe. Moore, who grew up in Norwich, started working at Dan & Whit’s in 1972 when he was 15. “All the people were so good,” he said.

Over the six-or-so years he worked there, Moore remembers staying open until noon on Christmas and Thanksgiving so residents could make last minute purchases.

At the invitation of the historical society, U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, a longtime Upper Valley resident, gave a speech at the event. Welch spoke about stopping in at Dan & Whit’s when he worked at a law firm in the area and then later while on the campaign trail.

“When I first started in politics, I had to come to general stores to try to meet folks, and you and Jack were there, and you had to kind of keep an eye on me, because I was a little bit liberal,” Welch said to George Fraser who sat in the front row of the crowd and chuckled.

“A lot of us are dismayed about what’s going on in the country, but all of us believe deep down, in our soul that what we can do, and what we should aspire to do is build a community, to build that community where we live,” Welch said. “…This gift that the Fraser family has given to the town of Norwich, to each of us, is so vital to the well being of our community.”

At 6 p.m., community members began making the short walk up Main Street to Dan & Whit’s for live music, raffles and free pizza and ice cream.

Approximately 40 current and former employees of all ages gathered in front of the store for a photo.

“The team is phenomenal,” Matt Fraser said. The store struggled to find employees during the coronavirus pandemic but community members volunteered their time to keep it open.

Now, though, “things have been clicking. Everything’s been working in our favor,” Matt Fraser said.

“Dan & Whit’s at 70: Photographs & Memories” is on view at the Norwich Historical Society and Community Center through Dec. 31.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Historic Norwich general store marks 70 years with exhibit and celebration.

Two women were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Monday at their Manchester homes, a local official and an advocate said. 

Jill Martin Diaz, executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, confirmed ICE’s presence in town and said at least one person arrested is a parent of young children.

“There’s been ICE presence in Manchester. They’ve been making arrests,” Martin Diaz said Wednesday. “I understand that people are really afraid.” 

Will Lambek, of the advocacy organization Migrant Justice, said one of the women detained Monday is Davona Williams, known by her nickname Candy by friends and family who called the organization this week. Originally from Jamaica, Williams is a mother and has lived in the United States for 18 years, Lambek said. 

Williams, 42, was checked in to the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility at 5:14 p.m. Monday, according to the Vermont Department of Corrections database.

As of Wednesday, Williams is detained at the state facility and is on federal immigration hold, Department of Corrections spokesperson Haley Sommer wrote in an email to VTDigger. Sommer referred other inquiries from VTDigger to ICE.

The presence of immigration enforcement at the two women’s homes at the Torrey Knoll housing development in Manchester was “unbeknownst to the town or the police department,” said Scott Murphy, town manager of Manchester, in Bennington County.

“It caused some consternation among a lot of people, especially our workers in town,” he said. “We have a lot of workers that are from another country that have been relocated here legally.”

Manchester community members plan to help the family and children of the detained individuals by providing counselors and reaching out to the local food pantry to deliver food, Murphy said. 

Lambek said in an interview that the ICE arrests in Manchester are an “awful situation” and are part of an ongoing pattern of detentions across the state. Since the arrest on Monday in Manchester, Lambek said Migrant Justice has received information about two other possible ICE arrests in Rutland and Winooski on Wednesday. 

“ICE’s actions seek to terrorize immigrant families. This latest detention is part of an escalating wave of attacks from Trump’s deportation agents to detain workers and separate families, both in Vermont and around the country,” Lambek wrote in a statement to VTDigger. “Vermonters must stand up to this violence and protect our neighbors.”

Neither Murphy nor Lambek nor Martin Diaz could confirm the identity of the other individual arrested in Manchester or other information on the arrest. 

ICE officials and the Manchester police chief did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Clarification: A previous version of this story misnamed the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Two women arrested by ICE agents in Manchester.

This story by Brandon Canevari was first published in The Commons on Aug. 19, 2025.

The Windham County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) is attempting to change the way that local law enforcement resources are provided and how they are funded by working with the legislature to make the system more stable.

According to Sheriff Mark Anderson, the Regional Policing Initiative could look to the Legislature to create one governing body to address the needs of the 19 towns in the county that are without their own policing infrastructure. Only Bellows Falls, Brattleboro, Dover and Wilmington have full-time police departments.

Whenever Vermont has attempted to share policing resources among municipalities in the past the system usually breaks down, Anderson said, describing a problem that he said has been documented for almost 70 years.

He noted that those who attended a series of information sessions about these potential changes were positive and optimistic about the need and curious as to how to accomplish it.

The meetings took place in Jamaica, Marlboro, Newfane and Putney in late July and earlier this month.

“Ultimately what we’re working on is approaching the Windham County legislative delegation to propose a pilot project where we can say, ‘Let’s actually stop studying this and talking about the changes. Let’s do a practice run so that we take the things that we believe, the subject matter experts believe, will actually fix the problems that we’ve been talking about for decades,'” Anderson said.

Financial pressure creates a resource crunch

Some towns throughout Windham County have contracts with the sheriff’s office to provide services, a decision that is made by town selectboards. Those contracts are reviewed regularly and whether a contract remains in place is subject to change.

If one town decides to end a contract and another town wants the service, Anderson said under the current structure he moves the service to the other town.

The problem, he said, comes when a town that terminated a contract reverses course and wants the service back in six or 12 months time. At that point, Anderson said, the WCSO doesn’t have the funding to immediately be able to resume the service, and it takes approximately 12 months to recruit, hire, train and deploy a new officer.

“It just becomes this game of a waitlist, of a cycle, all because the selectboards are under pressure to be diligent stewards of funding,” he said.

“I need about 12 months to plan just about anything we do for any town, and they’re making a decision in May or June on what they want in their next fiscal year which starts in July. I can’t operate in that environment,” Anderson said. “They can’t operate in an environment where they’re depending on services. People get frustrated, and we’re just not doing the things.”

Anderson hopes the Legislature can form one governing body to represent the towns in the county.

“Rather than pursue this through 19 different towns in Windham County all with 19 separate decision making processes, what we’re trying to do is align this through the legislative process to say this is representative of the 19 towns through one deliberative conversation,” Anderson said.

Legislators will discuss the plan’s viability

On Sept. 22, Anderson will have a discussion with Windham County legislators to determine whether the concept is viable and, if so, to explore how to begin the legislative process when the new session begins in January.

Whether the change will come to pass will depend on the legislative process, Anderson said, starting with getting support from lawmakers to introduce a bill.

Even if the idea does not survive a journey through the legislative process, Anderson said he does not believe the public dialogue was in vain.

“I don’t see what we’ve done as wasted time. I see what we’ve done as educating our constituents and the community to say, ‘This is what to expect of the services and the government we have,'” Anderson said. “If we can’t get the change made, that’s not a failure, that’s also a decision of the public process, so both are fine.”

The meeting on Monday, Sept. 22 is scheduled to take place at the Windham County Superior Courthouse in Newfane at 5 p.m.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Sheriff explores a new approach to funding regional policing in Windham County.

Bus drivers and monitors for Windham Southeast Supervisory Union schools picketed in Brattleboro Friday afternoon in front of Academy School and Brattleboro Union High School as tense negotiations continue with their private employer. 

The student transportation workers, represented by the Vermont Teamsters Local 597 union, have been locked out of their place of employment since Wednesday by Travel Kuz, which has offices in Brattleboro and northern Massachusetts. According to its website, the company became affiliated in 2023 with Beacon Mobility, a firm with school bus companies nationwide.

“The employer is not letting anybody go to work until they agree to their terms and conditions, so they’ve locked us out to try to put pressure on the group,” Curtis Clough, president of Teamsters Local 597, said in an interview.  

The school year begins for students in Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, like many others across the state, on Aug. 27. In addition to Brattleboro schools, the supervisory union also includes schools in Dummerston, Guilford, Putney and Vernon. 

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters claimed in a press release that if the bar on bus drivers and monitors working continues into next week, its members are concerned it could mean that students enrolled in Windham Southeast schools will not have bus transportation. 

An email from Travel Kuz said the temporary lockout at the Brattleboro office was implemented earlier this week after no agreement was reached with the union, but that the lockout will not affect student transportation routes. 

The email from the company said that the union’s request would result in over a 40% increase in costs to the company, “an unrealistic burden under fixed school district contracts,” and that the company is prepared to meet with the union to find a “fair, balanced resolution.”

In addition to claims it cannot pay workers what they’re asking for, Travel Kuz has held back retirement matches and health care premiums and frequently failed to pay workers on time, Clough said. 

Teamsters Local 597 asked to open bargaining in February and the union’s contract expired in June, Clough said. Between May and July, there was a period of several weeks when negotiations were at a standstill because the company refused to meet with the union. It has been difficult scheduling a time to meet with companies to continue negotiations after their last bargaining session Aug. 7, he added. 

Teamsters Local 597 filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board due to Travel Kuz withholding a revenue contract document that the union requested and the lockout notice. This along with refusing to negotiate for weeks displays the “bad faith bargaining” of the employer, Clough said. 

Catherine Cleveland, a union member, said she was looking forward to her first day of school as a bus driver after receiving her certification in June. She worked as a bus monitor with the company before that, and said that she was injured on the job a year ago and is “still fighting workmen’s comp claims.” Beyond higher wages, Cleveland said she would like the company to demonstrate more appreciation for the work and responsibilities of bus drivers and monitors safely transporting students.

Cleveland said the children will be negatively impacted if the lockout continues even if the company sends out-of-state drivers and monitors to serve the Windham Southeast schools.

“They don’t know the children. They don’t know the schools,” Cleveland said, “A lot of them probably don’t know a lot of the areas, so even just being out driving a route is going to be a challenge.”

The Windham Southeast Supervisory Union superintendent could not be immediately reached for comment.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified Academy School, and misidentified a town within the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Days before the school year begins, Windham Southeast districts’ contracted bus drivers walk the picket line.

This story by Clare Shanahan was first published in the Valley News on Aug. 22, 2025.

A botched robbery led to the shooting early Thursday morning that left a Canaan man dead and his girlfriend injured, according to police affidavits filed in court on Friday.

Witnesses told police that David Labrecque, 65, was shot and killed outside a home on Verna Court when he charged the gunman who had already shot his girlfriend, Jessica Lemay, 36, also of Canaan, according to the affidavits.

Labrecque was pronounced dead at the scence just after 4 a.m. on Thursday morning. Lemay, who was shot in the abdomen and the hand, was transported to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, where she was able to tell investigators what happened.

The alleged gunman, Demtrius Drew, 30, of New Haven, Conn., and his two alleged accomplices, Jeffrey Mullins, 46, and Michelle Mullins, 48, were arrested later Thursday while attempting to leave a residence in a mobile home park off Sykes Mountain Avenue.

Drew entered a not guilty plea on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted assault and robbery with a weapon at his arraignment Friday afternoon at Windsor County Superior Court in Woodstock.

Jeffrey and Michelle Mullins, who the affidavit said until recently lived in Enfield, each pleaded not guilty on charges of aiding in the commission of first-degree murder and accessory to attempted assault and robbery.

According to police, Drew and the Mullinses, who had known each other for just weeks, concocted a plan to rob the home at 34 Verna Court, which they believed contained a significant amount of cash, and split the proceeds.

Around 2:30 Thursday morning, Jeffrey Mullins showed Drew the a path through the woods to reach 34 Verna Court from a motel on Route 4, according to the affidavit.

About an hour later, Jeffrey Mullins dropped Michelle Mullins off at 34 Verna Court with $500 in counterfeit bills with a plan to buy drugs, according to the affidavit.
In an interview after her arrest, Michelle Mullins told police she was outside the house at 34 Verna Court speaking with Labrecque and Lemay when the shooting started, according to the affidavits.

In an interview at DHMC, Lemay told police that the gunman, identified by police as Drew, shot her in the stomach after emerging from behind a tent erected on the property.

Lemay told police Labrecque attempted to come to her aid but was stopped short when he was shot twice and killed, according to the affidavit. She tried to wrestle with the gunman afterward, but he pistol whipped her and shot her again, this time in the hand, she told police.

Michelle Mullins, who fled the scene after the gunfire, gave a similar account of the shootings, according to the affidavits.

The gunman also fled the scene, according to the affidavit. An occupant in the home called 911.

With information provided by witnesses, investigators were able to trace Drew and the Mullinses and their distinctive blue Dodge Charger to the mobile home at 77 Spring Circle, where police believed Drew had been staying.

Using security camera footage from nearby buildings and police surveillance, authorities were able to confirm that Drew and the Mullinses were inside the mobile home.

All three were arrested without incident later on Thursday outside 77 Spring Circle while preparing to depart in the Charger, according to affidavits.

Witnesses and security footage also placed the Charger at the hotel at the time of the shooting, according to the affidavits.

Judge Dickson Corbett ruled in Windsor County Superior Court Friday that there was sufficient evidence and threat to the public to detain the three defendants. Drew and the Mullinses appeared remotely from jail via video conference at Friday’s arraignment.

All three were ordered held without bail pending a full evidentiary hearing. Corbett also upheld conditions that the trio have no contact with each other or with others involved in the incident including Lemay, the property owner at 34 Verna Court and the individual who called 911.

During the arraignment, Windsor County State’s Attorney Ward Goodenough represented the state.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Police: Botched robbery led to fatal shooting in Hartford.

Authorities are investigating after police fatally shot a man Thursday night in Springfield. 

Vermont State Police have released few details about what led to the fatal shooting, stating in a press release Friday morning that the “investigation into the circumstances surrounding this incident is in its initial stages.”

Springfield Police Department officers and members of the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department were at the scene on Valley Street in Springfield when the shooting occurred at about 9:30 p.m. Thursday, the release stated. 

No law enforcement members were injured in the incident. The man, who was not identified in the release, was pronounced dead at the scene. 

The deceased man’s name was withheld pending notification of relatives and further investigation, the release stated. The names of the officers involved will be released 24 hours after the incident, which is standard protocol following a police shooting, according to the release. 

Following its investigation, the release stated, state police will turn over the case to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office and a county attorney’s office for separate independent reviews of the use of deadly force.

No other information was immediately available Friday morning.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Police shoot and kill a man in Springfield, few details provided as investigation continues.

HARTFORD — Three people have been arrested in connection with a fatal shooting Thursday morning, and authorities also have identified the victims, police announced overnight.

David Labrecque, 65, of Canaan, was pronounced dead Thursday morning at the scene off VA Cutoff Road, Vermont State Police said in a news release issued at 2 a.m.

The injured victim was identified as Jessica Lemay, 36, also of Canaan, who police said was being treated for multiple gunshot wounds at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire.

Police identified the suspects as Demetrius Drew, 30, of New Haven, Connecticut , the alleged shooter, and Jeffrey Mullins, 46, and Michelle Mullins, 48, both of Rindge, New Hampshire.

Drew is charged with first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The Mullinses are both charged with being an accessory before the fact.

The news release did not offer any details about the investigation, such as how, when and where the trio was apprehended. All three are are being held without bail and are scheduled to be arraigned at 12:30 p.m. Friday in the Criminal Division of Vermont Superior Court in White River Junction.

Thursday’s investigation began just before 4 a.m. when Hartford police received a 911 call reporting gunshots at a residence on Verna Court.

This story will be updated.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Police arrest suspect, 2 others in connection with deadly shooting in Hartford.

This story by Clare Shanahan was first published by the Valley News on Aug. 21.

HARTFORD — One man is dead and a second victim is receiving medical treatment after a shooting in Hartford early Thursday morning.

Authorities have said there is no ongoing threat to the public, but they have declined to release further details citing the ongoing investigation.

The names of the victims are being withheld pending notification of relatives, Vermont State Police said in a press release issued Thursday morning.

The investigation began at about 3:50 a.m. when a 911 caller reported a disturbance at a home on Verna Court off VA Cutoff Road, according to the release. Hartford Police arrived and found one victim deceased. The victim’s body was still at the scene midday Thursday.

The second victim was hospitalized for treatment and is expected to survive, according to the release.

Police said they have made no arrests nor have they publicly identified a suspect.

An autopsy for the deceased victim was scheduled for Thursday, according to the release.

VA Cutoff was closed from Mill Road to Route 4 on Thursday. Police also blocked off Verna Court, a short residential street off VA Cutoff Road just south of the White River.

Verna Court includes only two residential parcels, according to online property records, and was cordoned off by police tape.

On Thursday morning, two police officers at a time were stationed at the intersection with VA Cutoff Road while other officers occasionally stopped by the scene.

At about 9:50 a.m., a woman in a red vehicle drove past the police barricade at the intersection of Mill Road and VA Cutoff Road. She was stopped by Hartford Police and was told to turn around because it was a crime scene.

She said loudly, “That’s my husband. That’s my husband … Is he alive?” The woman said she had been working the graveyard shift and had been contacted by police. A Vermont State Police detective spoke with the woman, and she turned around and left.

In addition to Hartford Police, several divisions of the Vermont State Police are assisting in the ongoing investigation.

A law enforcement officer was canvassing the neighborhood Thursday morning.

A neighbor, Christopher Delong, who lives in an apartment building up VA Cutoff Road from the scene of the shooting, told the Valley News that he heard arguing around 3:30 Thursday morning after he returned home from work.

Delong said he then “dozed off a bit” and was awoken by gunshots. He tried to go back to sleep but was unable to and then he heard emergency vehicles making their way down the road.

“I’m shocked. It’s crazy to think something like that would happen,” said Delong, who has lived in the neighborhood for about two years.

He did note that there have been some vehicles vandalized on the street, including his own.

He also said that one of the properties on Verna Court is the scene of frequent police activity.

Another neighbor, Karasa Dumaine, said her family had heard “some banging” early in the morning but didn’t notice much commotion because of the hour.

Dumaine said she does not know the residents on Verna Court and said “they just keep to themselves” and “were the type to work on their cars and mind their own business.”

On Thursday morning at least four vehicles in various states of repair could be seen parked along Verna Court.

Chris Druge, who works at R.H. Scales and Co. across the street from the scene, said there was frequent traffic at Verna Court.

“There’s a lot of people that come and go from there,” Druge said.

Earlier Thursday morning, the Hartford Police Department and the Vermont State Police announced on social media that they were investigating an “active incident” in the area of 200 VA Cutoff Road.

Police are asking the public to avoid the area and seek alternate routes. Thursday’s incident was the second fatal shooting in the Upper Valley this week. On Sunday, police discovered the body of 67-year-old William Colao at his home in Canaan. Nor arrests have been announced in that case nor have police identified a suspect.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Neighbor said they heard commotion before fatal Hartford shooting.

Bennington College announced in a social media post Friday it was eliminating 15 staff positions as part of the school’s “ongoing efforts to address budget challenges.”

Ashley Jowett, the director of communications at the college, in a statement called the decision “difficult” but “necessary to place the college on a more sustainable financial path” while ensuring the school’s ability to support returning and incoming students.

“This is a painful moment,” the school’s president, Laura Walker, said in the statement. “Like many peer institutions across the country, we are confronting an uncertain economy and a challenging overall environment for higher education. I remain profoundly grateful to the dedicated staff, past and present, who make Bennington such a singular place.”

The college said it was providing severance proposals to affected employees.

The college employs a total of 90 full-time faculty members and 214 full-time staff members, Jowett said.

The announcement comes just months after the college finalized collective bargaining agreements with three groups that make up Bennington College United. The union is backed by AFT Vermont, an umbrella labor union for higher education and health care workers.

Those agreements increased wages and bonuses for staff and faculty members, and guaranteed tuition exchange and benefits for family of staff, according to previous reporting.

Twelve of the 15 staffers were members of the union and performed work at the school in academic services, institutional research and in the college’s business office.

The union in a statement said members were “very concerned about the ability of the reduced workforce to keep the college functioning and to make sure that students receive the services they need to thrive.”

The union said it has requested information related to the decision “and will be requesting a meeting to discuss alternatives to the layoffs.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bennington College announces layoffs of 15 staff members.

Workers at two United Parcel Service package centers in Vermont are accusing their employer of violating state family and medical leave laws by using their paid time off without their knowledge or consent.

UPS workers at package centers in Brattleboro and Wilder shared documents with VTDigger showing that their previously approved unpaid family and medical leave had been switched with their paid time off. In making the switch, the UPS locations effectively reduced the amount of paid days workers can take off.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act, passed in 1993, entitles workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a one-year period for certain family or medical needs. Vermont law has continually expanded those rights since the 1990s, including giving workers up to four hours of unpaid short-term leave every 30 days for purposes such as taking children to medical appointments or school activities and taking family members to appointments related to their well-being.

Vermont law also states that employees can use accrued paid leave, including vacation and personal leave, in lieu of unpaid family and medical leave “at the employee’s discretion.” However, the UPS workers claim management used their paid leave without their permission.

This accusation has prompted action from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters — a labor union that represents 1.3 million workers globally — and a potential incoming response by the Vermont attorney general’s office.

A UPS spokesperson told VTDigger in a statement on Friday that the company is “aware of the issue,” and is taking “necessary steps to quickly correct the situation and ensure this is not an issue in the future.”

Issues for package center workers in Wilder began in February, after Driver Supervisor Nick Webster allegedly expressed his frustration over drivers using FMLA during a snowstorm in a way he thought was improper, according to a June 9 complaint filed with the Vermont attorney general’s office.

Webster said that after a meeting with the UPS’s labor department, it was decided that anyone attempting to use FMLA would have that unpaid leave swapped with their paid time off, the complaint alleges. It also says  that a union steward told Webster this would be illegal, but that Webster did not seem to care. 

Webster declined comment for this story, and two UPS labor managers covering the Vermont area did not reply to requests for comment. 

Two workers at the Wilder package center who spoke to VTDigger described being confused about how the situation around the FMLA unfolded. Despite the issue being discussed in February, the workers said, it took until late May for them to see their previously approved family and medical leave swapped with paid time off. One worker at the Brattleboro package center also said that the issue began for them in May.

One of the Wilder package center workers, David Kendall, a driver, said that by changing his leave from FMLA to personal and sick days, management left him with fewer days available to spend with his teenage nephew, Jerimiah. Kendall has had full custody of Jerimiah since 2014.

Kendall, who has been with UPS for almost a decade, said he enjoys his route that regularly weaves through the backroads of Springfield and Eastman, a journey so rural that when he’s driving he often doesn’t have cellphone service. 

“When I’m out on the road, I’m essentially my own boss. I enjoy the freedom of not having somebody looking over my shoulder every five minutes, like if I was in an office setting,” Kendall told VTDigger. “I enjoy when I’m delivering a parcel to someone and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, we were hoping for you to be here on time for so-and-so’s birthday or an important event,’ and they’re like, ‘We weren’t expecting you so soon!’ and have a huge smile on their face.”

Kendall said, in interviews with VTDigger, that he first noticed the issue after a previously approved FMLA full-day leave on May 27 was switched to an option day. This is a form of paid time off earned by UPS workers. This switch was made by Webster without Kendall’s knowledge or consent, he said. Since May, Kendall said, he has had six days of paid time off taken without his permission: four of his five sick days and two of his three option days. 

“Now I have no sick days. So if I’m sick, I still have to go to work,” he said. “And, they took the option days I would use to spend more time with my nephew … to attend school events that he wanted me to attend, and stuff like that, ’cause he plays basketball for the youth basketball team.”

Kendall said that until May, he had been allowed to use family and medical leave to take Jerimiah to medical appointments. Jerimiah has developmental and cognitive challenges, as well as mental health issues, Kendall said.

“Whenever we took FMLA, it wasn’t an issue,” he said. “I would go into work and I’d work like four, five, six hours, and then I would take the rest of the day off to get him to his appointments.”

Payroll and insurance documents obtained and reviewed by VTDigger show that six of Kendall’s previously approved family and medical leave days were switched with sick and option days by various members of UPS package center management. 

Kendall is not the only worker alleging that their unpaid family and medical leave was switched without their consent. 

Justin Doubleday, an employee at the UPS package center in Brattleboro, said that in one instance this issue led to a workplace confrontation. He  said he took his 10-year-old son to a medical visit using previously approved short-term family leave. When he attempted to return to work at the Brattleboro package center, he said, he found his truck wasn’t loaded. He said he discovered that management had put him in for a sick day.

“I put in for four hours of short term FMLA … instead they put me in for a sick day. They put in the system that I called out sick, even though I gave them a week in advance a short-term family medical leave form and let them know that I would be into work after. … Everybody there, other management included, were like ‘This is fucked up. This isn’t right. You put in for FMLA.’”

Doubleday said he confronted the supervisor who had put in the sick day without Doubleday’s consent. After an argument and pressure from other members of management, the supervisor reversed the decision, Doubleday said. The supervisor gave Doubleday back his sick day and paid him for the 33 minutes he had spent arguing in the facility that day before going home.

“This is the shit that they do and that we put up with. Isn’t that ridiculous?” Doubleday said. 

Documents obtained by VTDigger show that one of Doubleday’s previously approved short-term family and medical leave was replaced with an option day. 

UPS did not respond to a request for comment Monday on the specific allegations made by the workers. 

Union action

After learning his paid time off had been used, Kendall said, he alerted the union — Teamsters Local 597, a chapter of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Kendall filed multiple grievances with the union, and union officials communicated the FMLA issue directly with UPS management, according to the June 9 complaint filed with the Vermont attorney general. 

On June 26, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters sent a letter to UPS’s counsel, demanding they “immediately cease and desist from requiring our members in Vermont use their accrued paid leave during FMLA-qualifying leave,” further stating that they were prepared to take legal action if they did not hear from UPS by July 4.

“They’re not just violating the law, they’re violating the collective bargaining agreement. So it’s not just a law enforcement issue, it’s also an issue for the international union,” said Curtis Clough, president of Local 597.

The union’s contract with UPS states that the company, “may require the employee to substitute accrued paid vacation or other paid leave,” when a worker is taking FMLA, but that workers are permitted two weeks of paid vacation that cannot be substituted for FMLA. 

However, the contract goes on to say that these provisions, “shall not supersede any state or local law, which provides for greater employee rights,” meaning Vermont’s family leave law supersedes the contract.

Clough, who worked his way up from a seasonal helper at UPS to a full-time driver before leaving to take a position at the union, said the paid time theft is an escalation in what has become a fractious relationship between management and workers. The union does not know why UPS has stood so firmly behind what he sees is a clear violation of the law, he said.

“UPS is pretty antagonistic. … UPS routinely harasses drivers, so it’s hard to pick out a reason why,” he said. “There is no longer a culture where the driver supervisors come up through the ranks.”

According to communications obtained by VTDigger, at least one of the attorney general’s senior investigators has reviewed the alleged violations at the package centers. A representative from the attorney general’s office told VTDigger that the office could not comment on what cases they are investigating.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont workers allege UPS violated family leave law.

KILLINGTON — The Killington Resort is accustomed to hosting fast-flying World Cup racers on its aptly named Superstar trail. But that didn’t stop locals from gawking Wednesday when a helicopter circled higher than the mid-August temperature as part of an even more stratospheric event.

Vermont’s largest ski area used the chopper to install a dozen towers — some up to 58 feet tall — for a new $12 million Superstar chairlift. It’s part of a $38 million improvement project that also will raise the capacity and reduce the energy consumption of the resort’s 9-million-gallon-a-day snowmaking system.

“This is really a milestone moment,” Tait Germon, Killington’s director of mountain operations, shouted over the windy whir of propellers. “It’s exciting to see it start to come together.”

When a 20-something honeymooner named Preston Smith opened the first trails on the state’s second tallest peak in 1958, he was happy to raise $30,000 for a simple shelter and parking lot.

Smith, now 95, went on to create the biggest snow-sport resort in eastern North America before its sale to the Maine-based American Skiing Company in 1996 (the same year neighboring Pico Mountain joined the portfolio), the Utah-based Powdr Corp. in 2007 and local investors who formed the Killington Independence Group last year.

“This landmark purchase represents a commitment to keeping Killington and Pico in the hands of those who know and love it, with plans to increase capital investment while preserving the mountains’ unique character and community,” the current owners said in a statement last August.

The Rutland County resort closed the four-decade-old Superstar chairlift in April for dismantling, leaving its nearby K-1 gondola to transport summer visitors to hiking and biking trails and an 18-hole golf course. 

Killington faced challenges finding a helicopter, as its original pilot left to fight Canadian wildfires. But another crew arrived Wednesday to fly the towers onto recently poured concrete foundations, logging in some 50 trips up and down the 4,241-foot peak from early morning to late afternoon.

“Given the challenging terrain we’re working with — it’s not like you can drive in with a crane — this is the most efficient way to do this,” Germon said.

The new six-passenger chairlift is on schedule for completion in November, Killington officials said. But mindful of potential weather problems, they couldn’t guarantee it would be finished in time for the World Cup, which has drawn up to 20,000 spectators and a national television audience of 2 million viewers annually since 2016.

As a result, the international circuit will move this year to Copper Mountain in Colorado, although “the race is expected to return to Killington Thanksgiving weekend 2026,” the Vermont resort said in a statement.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Killington needed help erecting its new $12 million chairlift. Cue the helicopter..

This story by Alex Hanson was first published in the Valley News on August 10.

WOODSTOCK — The board of the Woodstock-based Mountain Views Supervisory Union voted on Monday to join a Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) with seven other supervisory unions and districts.

The unanimous vote makes Mountain Views the first supervisory union in the state to join a BOCES, a structure that’s in wide use in a majority of states but that wasn’t enabled under Vermont law until last year.

A BOCES allows school units to band together to share services that require greater expertise or that entail extra costs. Mountain Views Superintendent Sherry Sousa has been meeting with her seven counterparts for the past five years, a collaboration that has resulted in both cost savings and better services in special education and professional development.

“The southeast region is an incredibly collaborative group with shared goals and expectations for their students,” Sousa said in an interview.

Now that the region has crafted articles of agreement, officials hope that document can become a template that other parts of the state could use to create their own BOCES, Sousa said. While a state task force is trying to draw new school district boundaries, superintendents and school boards are enacting reforms of their own.

“We want a working model of what a BOCES is in Vermont, and we want to move that to other parts of Vermont,” Sousa said.

There are currently no BOCES in Vermont, but several supervisory unions have met with state Agency of Education officials to discuss what a BOCES might look like, Toren Ballard, a spokesperson for the agency, said in an email.

So far, Mountain Views’ collaboration with other districts has taken the form of improving services for students with special needs and providing professional development for educators, Sousa said. That effort has had the effect of reducing the number of costly out-of-district placements. Special education is a challenge for public schools, which are required by federal law to provide services, but are only partially reimbursed for them with federal money.

With the help of the collaborative, Mountain Views created a program for students at risk of not completing their schooling.

The district has special education programs at every grade level that are supported by the collaborative’s expertise and training, Sousa said.

As a result, the district has relatively few out of district placements, which saves money and also better serves students, she said.

“The collaborative is critical to making that happen,” Sousa said.

Sousa has seen dramatic changes in a 30-year career in special education. New teachers now come out of undergraduate and graduate programs with far less training in special education, she said. That puts the burden on either school districts or the state to provide professional development. The state does much less of that than it used to, she noted.

The hope is that a BOCES can fill that void. Many states enable such structures, which also are called education service agencies, education service districts, education collaboratives or regional education service agencies.

Such collaboration is not particularly new, either.

Hartford School District for many years ran the Hartford Collaborative, and still operates the Hartford Regional Resource Center, for students with developmental delays and multiple disabilities, and HARP, the Hartford Autism Regional Program.

But financial pressures, as Vermont’s student population has declined and need for student services has risen, have led local school officials to seek new ways to deliver common services at lower costs. The threat of a major restructuring of education also has served as a call to action at the local level, Sousa said.

In introducing the BOCES bill, H.630, in 2023, state Rep. Rebecca Holcombe, D-Norwich, testified that BOCES can be used for a wide range of initiatives, from operating alternative schools to improving curriculum, standards and assessment to collective bargaining and negotiating transportation and food service contracts.

“You can’t build and maintain the expertise that you need in individual schools,” Holcombe said in an interview. It can be done at the regional level instead.

Holcombe, who served as Vermont Education secretary from 2014 to 2018, also sits on the task force that’s supposed to draw a new school district map by December. BOCES and other regional reforms hold greater promise for improving teaching and learning and saving money, she said.

If a collaborative can help teachers improve learning in the early grades, then students won’t need as much costly intervention later on, she said.

The Legislature approved the BOCES bill in 2024, and Gov. Phil Scott let it become law without his signature. At the time, all of the talk in education was about a substantial increase in property taxes and the BOCES bill received virtually no public notice. Holcombe said she’s glad to see it bearing fruit.

“I think you really have to give these districts credit for putting this idea together,” she said.

The southeastern Vermont BOCES covers Windsor County from Woodstock south, and all of Windham County and comprises at least 8,000 students.

In addition to Mountain Views, Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union, which comprises Hartland, Windsor, West Windsor and Weathersfield, is also part of the collaborative. Its board is slated to discuss and vote on joining the BOCES on Sept. 22, Superintendent Christine Bourne said.

The collaborative, which has had a director for the past three years, has provided assistance with recruiting and hiring special education staff and with professional development around such subjects as hazing, harassment and bullying and special education law, Bourne said.

“That’s been really beneficial, and provided at a reasonable cost, so staff that want to participate can participate,” Bourne said of the professional development.

“In the future, I think we’ll be able to pool resources,” she said, which could include a program for special education students who need a new placement. “We’re still in development, but the possibility for a lot of cost savings is there,” as well as additional collaborative services.

Asked to quantify how the BOCES has saved money for her district, Sousa could not provide figures, but noted that every student who stays in the district instead of being placed in an expensive program outside the public system is a major cost savings.

“We talk about restructuring education in Vermont,” she said. “This is a real opportunity.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Woodstock, Windsor schools join collaboration that aims to improve special education and save costs.

This story by Emma Roth-Wells was first published in the Valley News on August 11.

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Lea Henderson expected the rent and utilities for the one-bedroom apartment she’s lived in for the past three years to go up 3% as defined in her annual lease.

So when Ledgeworks, the property management company based in Lebanon, sent her a lease renewal agreement in May that included a 20% rent hike for the unit at 112 South Main St. in downtown White River Junction near the Center for Cartoon Studies, Henderson, 26, was confused.

“Looks like there was a mistake here,” she wrote in a May 20 email to Ledgeworks, the company owned by Mike Davidson that manages his more than 300 residential units in the Upper Valley.

“I was expecting to sign a renewal for $1,287/month not $1,500/month. “

Cedar O’Dowd, 27, who’s lived for three years in a unit in 104 South Main St., the building next door to Henderson’s, is in the same position.

Both O’Dowd’s and Henderson’s leases, obtained by the Valley News, state: “the Base Rent shall be increased by 3% over the previous year’s Base Rent or by a percentage equal to the increase of the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U Boston) for the preceding year, whichever is greater.”

The CPI-U Boston was also 3% from May 2024 to May 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But even after Henderson and O’Dowd both pointed out this clause in the lease, Ledgeworks refused to back down.

“The renewal we have sent you is the one we are still presenting to you. Please let us know your intentions,” a Ledgeworks employee wrote to Henderson on May 30.

The two residents reached out to several tenants rights organizations in Vermont and New Hampshire, but none could give a definitive answer as to whether raising the rent more than 3% is legal.

Because there is no binding legal precedent that interprets what the law is in this situation, “unfortunately, there isn’t a straightforward answer,” Rachel Batterson, an attorney at Vermont Legal Aid, said.

Since O’Dowd and Henderson’s leases expired July 31, it is unclear whether Ledgeworks could raise the rent more than 3% after the leases ended.

“I’m just not sure how a judge would interpret the actual situation where the (rent increase) notice was sent during the term of the lease while the 3% limitation was in,” Batterson said.

Ledgeworks put the 3% rent increase clause into the lease because the company tries “to be as predicable as possible for our residents and tenants,” Tim Sidore, Ledgeworks’ chief of operations, said in a Thursday phone interview.

“Typically, we try to keep increases as modest as possible, keeping in line with the cost of living and inflation,” he said. “Sometimes increases are higher than they are in other years.”

This year’s especially high rent increases are due to jumps in the cost of oil, propane, materials and labor, Sidore said.

“Given the dramatic rise of prices and inflation, rents must increase in order to cover costs,” he said.

The increases at the South Street buildings are meant to bring the units to “market rate.”

The units should cost closer to $1,645 a month, Sidore said. That rate would be considered affordable for someone making $61,450 a year, or 80% of the median income in Windsor County, according to the Vermont Housing Finance Authority.

Henderson, who works in the cafe at King Arthur Baking Company, makes about $44,000 a year.

“This apartment is not worth $1,500,” Henderson said in a phone interview last Thursday.

The units that O’Dowd and Henderson have lived in are both about 450 square feet, according to their leases.

“These are not luxury apartments,” a letter some tenants of the buildings wrote to Davidson in June said. “They are homes to low income and working class Vermonters who work in this community and whose labor local businesses benefit from.”

O’Dowd, a coordinator and producer at Junction Arts and Media, makes about $30,000 a year. They’ve lived in the one-bedroom unit with their ex-partner, who studied at The Center for Cartoon Studies when they first moved in. Their combined income is about $45,000 a year, O’Dowd said.

“This is the right apartment for artists in their 20s and it should be a price artists in their 20s can afford,” O’Dowd said in a phone interview last month.

The letter from the tenants also alleges the buildings are not in great condition and the apartments lack some amenities.

“At 112 S. Main St. there is no on-site laundry, and at 104 S. Main St. the laundry is coin-operated and the machines often break-down,” the letter said.

Complaints also included: siding falling off of 112 S. Main St.; fuel issues that led to lapses in heat and oven/stove usage; a shared dumpster often overflows; units do not include air conditioning and are “poorly insulated;” ventilation in the bathrooms is inadequate and ceilings regularly mold, the letter said.

Davidson did not respond to the letter, Henderson said. He also did not respond to the Valley News by deadline.

“We seek to address any reported maintenance issues in a timely manner,” Sidore said in an email to the Valley News.

In recent years, Davidson has renovated the interiors of both buildings, replaced the roof, installed skylights, replaced windows at 104 S. Main, installed a new heating system and fire sprinkler system at 112 S. Main and replaced siding on the front of 112 S. Main, Sidore said.

As a result of the rent increase, Henderson and O’Dowd decided to move out of the South Main Street buildings.

Through Henderson and O’Dowd’s personal connections in the area they found a two-bedroom apartment on Fairview Terrace, about half-a-mile from the South Main Street buildings.

The two signed a lease together for $1,050 a month, including heat and water, but not electricity and internet, Henderson said. It starts in September, O’Dowd said.

“I feel very lucky,” Henderson said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: White River Junction tenants scramble for housing following rent increase.

Max Misch, a Bennington white supremacist, was sentenced Monday to two weeks in jail on charges of possessing high-capacity gun magazines. The court also made incremental progress toward his upcoming court dates involving kidnapping and assault charges.

Misch’s sentencing took all of 10 minutes, with the state’s co-counsel Franklin Paulino requesting that Misch receive 14 to 15 days in jail. Misch’s lawyer, Frederick C. Bragdon did not push back, stating that he and his client agreed to the state’s terms. 

The case, which has been ongoing for roughly six years, tested a 2018 state law regulating high capacity magazines. 

When Judge Jennifer Barrett gave Misch the opportunity to address the court following his sentencing, Misch appeared relatively at peace with the decision.

“I think it’s a fair punishment for the crime. I think it fits the crime,” Misch said, though adding that he didn’t think his actions were a crime. “… I don’t agree with this law, but it is what it is. One day, I will be vindicated and that’s that. That’s all I have to say.”

Misch first gained state and national attention following his racial harassment of Kiah Morris, a former state representative for Bennington, who is Black.

Barrett stated that Misch would have to be held without bail on the remaining kidnapping and assault charges until the defense had an actionable release plan. Barett also scheduled a check-in on Misch’s upcoming case for Sept. 10.

Correction: A previous version of this story mischaracterized the racial identity of Kiah Morris within Vermont’s House of Representatives.

Read the story on VTDigger here: White supremacist Max Misch sentenced to 2 weeks in jail for gun magazine possession.

BENNINGTON — Tucked into a nondescript strip mall downtown, Bennington’s new methadone clinic has seen about 70 patients walk through its one-way glass doors since opening in late June.  

Inside, the building’s four hallways form a loop, offering patients a literal road to recovery. First-timers walk in to their right and visit with doctors in offices along the corridor one by one. They can get their first dose of methadone, a medicine prescribed for opioid use disorder, that day. 

It’s the first time that people who live in Bennington County have access to the medication in their own backyard, which opens up access and provides stability for people, health officials and recovery coaches said. 

With the clinic’s opening, Vermont now has a methadone clinic in each region of the state after building plans were complicated for years, said Kelly Dougherty, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health. The Bennington clinic offers a glimpse of how methadone can help people in recovery.

In past years, it was a job on its own to get on meds for recovery, said Dylan Jonhson, a recovery coach at Turning Point in Bennington. 

One of Jonhson’s clients spent hours each day on the bus to a clinic in North Adams, Massachusetts. That trip would take up most of the client’s day, he said. And if they missed the bus, it could cause painful withdrawals and put their path to sobriety at risk. 

Now, that client goes to the local clinic in town, which has offered them much more stability. 

“They just got a job this week, and I guarantee you it’s because they didn’t have to go to North Adams,” Johnson said. 

Many others also made the trek to North Adams regularly, said Sean Cossey, the clinic’s director. Now, Cossey’s trying to slowly funnel those people to the new clinic to make their lives easier. About 20% of the clinic’s clients so far have never received treatment before, he said. 

“The only thing I can’t do is make them walk in. But if they do walk in, they’ll be met with respect, they’ll be met as a person,” Cossey said. 

The clinic’s opening has been mostly celebrated by the community, Cossey said. About 50 people showed up for a July 23 ribbon cutting ceremony, he said. Then U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., and Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., came to tour the facility on July 29. Their visit sparked a roundtable discussion among local recovery groups about treating opioid use. 

“Success rates in recovery are pretty low,” Johnson said. But methadone is considered the gold standard — and it’s important that people in town have the option for treatment, he said. 

In 2024, 183 Vermonters died from opioid-related deaths, and five of those deaths happened in Bennington County, according to data from the Vermont Department of Health. 

While many embrace the opening, there are still some in Bennington who have a stigma about methadone, Cossey said. He’s confident that stigma comes from a lack of education. 

“We’re giving out medication to people that suffer from a clinically diagnosed disorder,” Cossey said. 

It’s a highly regulated medication. The clinic was built around its pharmaceutical safe, Cossey said. That was just one required specification to follow regulations from The Drug Enforcement Administration. A $3.9 million grant from the state that lasts through July 2026 helped the clinic meet the requirements.

While methadone isn’t the only medication used to treat substance use disorder, many consider it to be the most effective. People who have been using opioids start by taking the medication every day at first, then wane off of it very slowly, Johnson said. 

“It’s basically impossible to quit cold turkey,” Johnson said. 

Methadone significantly reduces symptoms of withdrawal, which helps those prescribed the medication stabilize their life as they begin recovery, Johnson said. That stability can help people find housing, repair relationships in their life or gain employment, he said.

Johnson himself uses his experience in recovery to help others navigate the journey. He tried quitting without medications 15 to 20 times — but each time he “failed spectacularly,” he said with his eyes closed as he raised his hands in the air. 

He then started taking suboxone, another medication to treat opioid use disorder, and it has helped him remain clean for 6 years. Johnson said it helped relieve painful body aches and gastrointestinal issues he suffered as withdrawal symptoms.

Now, he considers himself a success story and tries to help others through their own recovery. Johnson said he continues to take suboxone in small doses and hopes to be able to discontinue the medication completely soon. 

Other facilities in the Bennington area, like small clinics or doctors offices, have offered other medications to treat opioid use disorder for years. But many think methadone has unique potential to help those in the early stages of recovery. 

The stigma comes from the fact that methadone is technically a psychoactive drug, Johnson said. But if someone has used heroin for years, they will not feel a high from the medication, he said. 

Other medications, like suboxone or buprenorphine, have blockers that stop people from feeling high if they continue using opioids while on the medication. With methadone, people can still feel the effects of other drugs. And that’s partly where the stigma comes from, Johnson said. 

Patients at the Bennington clinic are closely monitored and must provide urine samples regularly, Cossey said. Patients prescribed methadone also receive counseling resources and are assigned a case manager, he said. 

Patients take doses in a room about the size of a telephone booth in front of an employee who sits behind a counter. After the medication is ingested patients stay for about 20 minutes while medical professionals observe them. 

Cossey said the facility is still reaching its full potential. There are still a number of staff positions available that are proving difficult to fill, he said. With more staff, the facility will be able to serve up to 400 patients, he said. Whether it’s someone’s second or tenth time in recovery, there’s no judgement, Cossey said. 

“We try to meet them more than half way,” he said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bennington Methadone Clinic offers look at opioid recovery underway in Vermont .

The Woodstock Union High School and Middle School building is in bad shape. Its HVAC, electrical and sewage systems — products of the mid-1960s — are now well past their useful life, according to school officials.

Sherry Sousa, superintendent of the Mountain Views Supervisory Union that operates the school, said the district “can’t guarantee, based on where our systems are now, that our sewage system is going to work.” 

For those familiar with Vermont’s public education system, this sort of story is hardly new. Districts throughout the state routinely deal with general disrepair and disruption caused by aging school buildings.

Over the years, education officials have pleaded with the state to restart a long-dormant state aid fund for school construction, which previously supported up to 30% of construction costs. But Act 73, the new education reform bill Gov. Phil Scott signed into law last month, is creating optimism among education officials that state aid could begin again.

Mountain Views Supervisory Union officials are banking on that. Last week, members of the school board and central administration announced they would press ahead with a new working committee to oversee plans for a new high school and middle school building under the terms of Act 73.

“We’ve decided that we can’t wait. We have to move forward. We need a new school,” Keri Bristow, the Mountain Views Supervisory Union’s board chair, said in an interview. “We have to do something before we have a catastrophic failure.”

‘Cart before the horse’

Vermont’s new education law seeks to address the state’s “languishing” school infrastructure through implementation of a new state aid for school construction fund. Act 73 provides preliminary rules around what schools could be eligible for state aid, and which projects should be prioritized.

The newly created State Aid for School Construction Advisory Board, set to first meet on or before Sept. 1, according to state Board of Education Chair Jennifer Samuelson, will work with the Agency of Education to further develop and finalize those parameters before the School Construction Aid Special Fund is officially created July 1 next year.

The advisory board is one of the first facets of the new law to get off the ground. The School Redistricting Task Force has already started work to consolidate Vermont’s 118 school districts, contained within 51 supervisory districts or supervisory unions, into anywhere from 10 to 25 future districts. The school construction advisory board will work concurrently with that task force.

David Epstein with the Burlington architecture firm TruexCullins has worked with a number of Vermont’s school districts’ on facilities needs. He called the new framework in Act 73 a “positive sign.”

But he and others have cautioned that while the law sets up a framework for a revived school construction fund, the law does not directly address where funding will come from.

“Until a funding source is identified and the scale of that funding source is understood, it’s hard for me to be too optimistic,” Epstein said.

In a press conference Thursday, Scott said school construction is “going to be very important” once new school district maps are drawn and plans for consolidation are considered by the Legislature.

“That’s an appropriate time to talk about school construction,” he said. “We should be prepared for that, I realize that, but I think we’d be putting the cart before the horse in terms of school construction.”

To bond or not to bond

Vermont’s schools are the second oldest in the country and have continued to depreciate since state lawmakers paused construction aid nearly 20 years ago.

The Agency of Education has previously estimated schools will need upward of $6 billion in infrastructure investment over the next two decades.

“The level of investment has not been keeping up with the needs, and so there’s a tremendous amount of need,” Epstein said.

The disrepair in school facilities has forced districts to try and finance fixes through voter-approved bonds. Last year, the Colchester School District put forward a $115 million bond to modernize its aging schools — which, similar to the Woodstock High School, were built in the mid-20th century.

Colchester residents narrowly approved the bond proposal in November, but other districts that have floated bonds have not had such luck.

In March 2024, residents of the Mountain Views Supervisory Union’s seven member towns voted down a $99 million bond measure — throwing in flux plans to replace the Woodstock High School building.

And in 2021, voters in the member towns of the Harwood Unified Union School District sunk a $59.5 million construction bond. Without voter approval, the district is now stuck using general fund dollars to complete patch work repairs.

“We’re spending a lot of money on capital needs for things that really require wholesale renovation, new construction,” said Michael Leichliter, Harwood supervisory union’s superintendent.

Leichliter said the Harwood school district hired TruexCullins to conduct a review of its buildings, which he said should be completed by the end of August.

The Orleans Central Supervisory Union also hired TruexCullins to conduct a facilities assessment of school buildings. Dan Roock, the chair of the facilities committee there, said the district has $108 million in deferred maintenance across its eight school buildings.

Officials there are hoping to begin a community outreach campaign to gauge willingness for any new renovation projects.

Uncertainty over taxpayers’ appetite for million-dollar bond investments has created a tricky calculation for districts that fear catastrophic failure in their school buildings.

The more they wait, the more expensive repairs will cost, Roock said.

“We know we’ve got to do something,” he said. “We know it’s going to cost a lot of money — even if it’s no new construction, just fixing what we have.”

‘We’ve been patient’

For districts with construction plans in the works, like Orleans Central Supervisory Union, the decision whether to proceed with bond votes has been further complicated by the redistricting process underway.

“Some districts are waiting to see what the new districts are like,” Epstein said. “Some districts want to move forward with projects while they still can, while they still have control of their destiny, so to speak.”

Uncertainty around whether state lawmakers will even fund the new state aid construction fund only complicates that decision.

Sen. Seth Bongartz, D-Bennington, chair of the Senate Education Committee, said there is “a general recognition that we have to figure out a way to help with school construction funding.”

“But there’s also a recognition that, right now with what’s happening nationally, we’re in uncharted waters, and we’re really going to have to see where we are come January and see what kinds of immediate crises we may be facing, or not,” he said.

In the Mountain Views Supervisory Union, officials say they can’t afford to wait any longer.

“I think we’ve been patient, and the board has been really responsible,” Sousa said. “Now, we really have to fill in the gray spaces of Act 73. We want to work with the Agency of Education to fill in that gray space and acknowledge, how does this school district move forward?”

Ethan Weinstein contributed reporting.

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘We can’t wait’: Vermont school districts seek guidance from new education law as school construction needs compound.

A proposed Manchester housing development sits at the intersection of two of Vermont’s biggest crises: a shortage of affordable housing stock and the growing threat of flooding.

The proposed 43-unit project on a 8.2-acre field beneath the shadow of Equinox Mountain would include at least nine units of workforce affordable housing, according to the Manchester-based developer Paul Carroccio. The project is sited in a mixed-use zone and a flood hazard overlay district, according to the developer’s permit application. 

Manchester neighbors have voiced concerns at town meetings that the project, located on a flood-prone field, will have negative environmental impacts on future tenants and make flooding worse on their own nearby properties. Residents have also voiced aesthetic, public safety and other concerns with the proposed project. 

But the state’s Land Use Review Board determined the project is exempt from Act 250 — Vermont’s land use and development review process — because it qualifies as priority housing under Act 181 passed in 2024. The project includes at least 20% affordable housing units, is located near Manchester’s downtown and can be served by public water and sewer systems, among other requirements under the exemption. 

Four neighbors with property abutting the project sent a reconsideration request to the state’s review board, but the board upheld its original decision Monday.

One neighbor, Edward Gotgart, said he was concerned about the development increasing impervious surface and exacerbating surface erosion and property damage during future flooding events.

“The issue with placing it on the floodplain is that it reduces the available area for floodwaters to spread out and slow down, which is exactly what that field has been doing the last 100 years,” Gotgart said. 

Land Use Review Board Executive Director Peter Gill wrote in a statement to VTDigger that the decision by district staff was informed by Act 181 interim housing exemptions. 

“This exemption, of course, is based on a number of factors including a local process for review under the town’s zoning and subdivision bylaws,” Gill wrote.

The project is currently being assessed at the local level by the Development Review Board, which decided at a Wednesday meeting to continue discussing the project at its September meeting. 

Manchester Zoning Administrator Peter Brabazon declined to comment while the project is under review. 

Kyle Medash, floodplain manager for the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, said the plan to place fill in the flood hazard zone to raise the building will reduce space for water to flow in the event of a flood. 

Medash advised the town and developer to conduct a water movement analysis to assess if there would be adverse effects like additional flooding in the area due to the project’s current plan and if the development requires a redesign. 

Carroccio told VTDigger he will pursue a water flow study per the state’s recommendation. He said he is following “rules by the book” under the priority housing exemption and seeking permitting through local review, including designing a stormwater system and planning to build one foot above the base flood elevation.  

At the Development Review Board meeting, Michael Fernandez, district manager for the Bennington County Conservation District, said he and his team are opposed to developing a large-scale housing project in the “historic floodplain.”

Fernandez urged that any future hydrological study be based on a 500-year floodplain standard, not a 100-year standard. He said it is a “much more realistic standard, given the current rapid change of our climate and the increasing numbers of these extreme flooding events that we are seeing both here in Bennington County and throughout the state.”

From a planning perspective, it is valuable to site new housing projects in areas that are walkable and have access to services and jobs — but many of Vermont’s downtowns are located in floodplains, Sen. Seth Bongartz, D-Bennington, said. The requirements to qualify for the Act 250 exemption attempted to straddle that “tension” between the need to invest in “healthy downtowns” and prepare for flooding, he said. 

Priority housing projects are allowed in flood hazard areas, which are considered areas of “rising water” that tend to have less severe flooding than areas in river corridors and floodways, Bongartz added.

Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden Southeast, who helped draft the priority housing project exemption, said the legislation is aimed at reducing duplication of permitting and appeal processes at the federal, state and local levels that create cost barriers for building multiunit affordable housing projects.

With many municipal downtowns near rivers and in flood zones, Ram Hinsdale said priority housing projects allowed under the exemption are subject to flood resilience building standards.

“Many new buildings that have been built by our affordable housing community withstood floods in areas where most of the other homes were inundated and potentially destroyed,” Ram Hinsdale said. “We are living in a new reality where we can’t simply make land off limits or we will not have land that people can build multifamily housing on.”

Federal Emergency Management Agency reports indicate that low-income areas with older housing stock were disproportionately impacted by past flooding events in the state.

Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, said the affordable housing crisis has spurred “irrational exuberance” for development without properly considering environmental impacts.

Smith said she is concerned that low-income Vermonters living in affordable housing units built in flood hazard zones without Act 250 reviews will be affected by future flooding and the town will be liable for flood remediation costs. 

She said she would like to see the legislature repeal Act 181 and instead strengthen Act 250. 

“It is disturbing to see that the legislative intent was to allow priority housing in flood hazard areas,” Smith said. “How does it make any sense at all to put people in harm’s way?”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Neighbors worry Manchester priority housing proposal will worsen flooding.

BRATTLEBORO — Two months before the close of its fiscal year, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is still trying to find enough cost reductions and new revenue to balance its current $119 million budget.

“FY25 has been a financially challenging year,” hospital leaders wrote to state health care regulators in a memo shared at a Wednesday review hearing. “BMH currently has a comprehensive financial recovery plan in place; however, we are at risk of failing to fully deliver on some of those initiatives.”

The hospital, one of Brattleboro’s three largest employers, revealed in May it faced a projected $4 million budget shortfall upon the close of its fiscal year Sept. 30. In response, it launched a hiring freeze and let go of six administrators in hopes of lowering its staff count from 543 this fiscal year to 513 in the one that starts Oct. 1.

Hospital leaders still have work to do. On Wednesday, they informed the state that patient volumes and revenues were “generally stagnating or decreasing.” (Regulators didn’t push why, but praised the quality of care.) Brattleboro officials then noted this fiscal year’s losses had totaled as much as $9.5 million and unpaid patient bills had risen as high as $38 million.

“We recognize we are in a bad financial condition,” Laura Bruno, the hospital’s chief financial officer, said during the online hearing. “We have some ways to go.”

Hospital President Christopher Dougherty added in a letter to the state: “BMH must produce a positive margin in the fourth quarter of 2025.”

Brattleboro is one of Vermont’s 14 community hospitals meeting with the state’s Green Mountain Care Board this month as regulators study proposed budgets for the 2026 fiscal year.

Brattleboro’s 2026 spending plan estimates its total operating expenses will rise $2.3 million or 1.9% from the current year’s, while revenues could increase enough to project a surplus of $244,000. 

While hopeful, the hospital foresees several potential problems. It is set to lose $14 million next year with the Dec. 31 end of the OneCare Vermont accountable care organization, although it hopes to replace those funds by joining another system.

It could lose $3.6 million if the federal government doesn’t extend Medicare-dependent hospital and low-volume adjustment support and another $700,000 if dropped from a national 340B drug pricing program that offers financial help. And new U.S. tariffs “threaten to dramatically increase our costs for supplies and drugs,” it said in its memo.

State regulators will continue to review budgets this week and next before ruling on whether to approve, modify or deny proposals by Sept. 15.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Even after cuts, Brattleboro hospital unsure it can balance budget.

A federal judge in Vermont last week dismissed with prejudice a 2023 lawsuit filed by the  American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of John Chinnici, who previously accused Bennington police and town officials of violating his constitutional rights.

The parties to the lawsuit “successfully reached a mutually agreeable resolution of this matter to avoid further litigation,” according to a statement provided by the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union spokesperson Emily Hagan-Howe. 

“The Parties make no admissions regarding liability or the strength or weakness of any claim in reaching this resolution,” the Vermont ACLU statement read. “The Parties look forward to moving past this lawsuit and will have no further comment.”

Court filings did not include the conditions of the mutually agreed upon resolution. The case stems from Chinnici’s arrest and prosecution after two masked men robbed a Bennington convenience store at gunpoint in 2016, according to the ACLU complaint. 

The complaint claimed that Bennington police, including Chief Paul Doucette and detectives Lawrence Cole and Anthony Silvestro, targeted Chinnici despite him not matching witness descriptions of the armed robber. 

The complaint describes police officials using “a variety of coercive and unlawful tactics” to charge him with the crime. Chinnici has maintained his innocence, and his federal conviction in 2017 for the robbery was subsequently dismissed, according to the complaint.

The civil case regarding the alleged violations of Chinnici’s constitutional right to be free of unlawful search and seizure was originally filed in January 2023 in Bennington Superior Court but was moved to federal Vermont district court in March of that year. 

On July 30, 2025, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, town and police officials submitted a request for the case to be dismissed with prejudice, which means the parties cannot bring the suit back to court. The attorneys also asked for the parties involved to bear their own legal fees. The federal Magistrate Judge Kevin Doyle approved the stipulated motion, closing the case last week, as first reported by the Bennington Banner.

Doucette declined to comment. Neither Bennington Town Manager Stuart Hurd nor Michael Leddy, the attorney for the town and police officials, could immediately be reached for comment.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Judge dismisses lawsuit that accused Bennington police and officials of violating resident’s rights.

This story by Alex Hanson was first published in the Valley News on August 5.

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — When he was looking for a theater job close to family in southern Vermont, Jason David Monmaney found one at Northern Stage.

One of the appealing features of joining the nonprofit theater company’s technical staff was that it provided housing. When he was getting ready to move from Rochester, New York, he had enough other things on his plate that looking for an apartment would have been too much.

“It was the only way I could have taken this job,” Monmaney, assistant lead electrician at Northern Stage, said in an interview outside his studio apartment in the first of three new apartment buildings the theater company is opening on Gates Street this year.

With the Upper Valley in the grip of a long-standing housing crisis, Northern Stage has moved to secure its place in White River Junction by purchasing and building housing for its employees. The company opened its first newly built apartments late last month, and two more buildings are nearing completion. The structures comprise 18 apartments that can house up to 24 people. Northern Stage also owns three other buildings within walking distance of the theater that contain another 11 apartments.

A theater company in a rural area is required to provide free housing for members of Actors’ Equity, the union that certifies Northern Stage as a professional theater. Urban areas more often have a population of theater professionals, and a wider range of short-term housing options, if needed. So the company has always had to arrange housing, Jason Smoller, the company’s managing director, said.

“Most other theaters our size are not in a rural area,” Smoller said in an interview. “We had this unique opportunity to develop downtown White River Junction.”

This is no small need. Northern Stage has 31 full-time employees and up to 150 people on short term contracts throughout the year, Smoller said.

The company developed some expertise in construction and fundraising when it built a new theater, Jim Lynch, a longtime member of the company’s board, said in an interview. The Barrette Center for the Arts opened in October 2015. Northern Stage had the opportunity to buy two down the street, which were demolished to make way for the new construction.

Northern Stage endured some criticism for its plan to purchase 160 Gates Street as a vacant lot, after the historic, circa 1880 home there had been torn down. It paid $300,000 for that parcel. The company paid $625,000 in April 2021 for two other Gates Street buildings and $385,000 in 2018 for the Twin State Typewriter building on South Main Street.

The new development replaced the structures at 160 and 178 Gates St., and the company owns the two buildings at 140-146 Gates St., which now house nine employees.

Owning and developing housing was part of a long-term strategy developed under a previous manager, Eric Bunge, Smoller said. The more housing Northern Stage can own through donations it raises, the more it can control its costs, he added. The new development is expected to reduce the company’s housing costs by $200,000 a year.

In addition to reducing costs, owning housing is also essential for recruitment and retention of both long-term employees and the outside talent required to make professional theater, Smoller said. Actors, musicians, designers, directors and other key personnel come in for a show or a season and need a place to stay.

“We are hiring such a specific skill set that it’s hard to hire from the local workforce,” Smoller said. Housing “is a recruitment tool for us.”

In its early days, Northern Stage would rent vacant condos in Quechee for actors and other outside talent. But that meant the company had to provide cars, and with shows ending late at night in the winter, safety was an issue. The company also had apartment buildings on Maple and Barnes streets in White River Junction, a longer walk in cold weather.

“A short commute is such a quality-of-life issue,” Monmaney, 34, said. He owns a car, but now saves “a boatload on gas,” he said. “It is definitely a blessing that not a lot of people have.”

The reduced cost of the housing is another benefit. Northern Stage rents its apartments at 30% below market rate. Smoller declined to say what the rent prices are, but state data put “fair market rent” for a studio apartment in Hartford at $1,039 a month in fiscal year 2024. The figure for a two-bedroom was $1,300 a month. Zillow.com says the average rent in Vermont, which would include houses and apartments, is $2,100 a month.

It’s enough of a benefit to Monmaney that he didn’t know off the top of his head how much he pays in rent. It comes out of his paycheck, and as a career theater professional, he’s never prioritized making money, he said.

Building their own solution

The new construction makes Northern Stage one of a small number of Upper Valley businesses to control some or all of its housing. Dartmouth College is probably the largest example, though most of its faculty and staff still must rely on the open market. The Woodstock Inn also owns housing for its employees.

That arrangement is becoming more common as businesses struggle to maintain a steady workforce. Vermont Glove, a small manufacturer in Randolph, developed housing in recent years, state Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, who chairs the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs, said in an interview. She attended the ribbon-cutting Northern Stage held at the end of July.

“We should be applauding the businesses that are building housing,” Clarkson, a Woodstock Democrat, said in an interview. The state’s economy needs 7,500 new units a year to accommodate its current growth, and is building only 3,000, she said.

Building housing also means that Northern Stage can release 15 apartments it rents in White River Junction to the open market, Smoller said.

Northern Stage’s project was made possible by $8.5 million in private donations. The company received five donations of $500,000 or more from private foundations and individuals, and another 18 donations of between $100,000 and $499,000. A list of donors to the project, titled “Act II Campaign: A Vision for the Future of Northern Stage, White River Junction, and the Region,” is on display in the Barrette Center’s lobby. Elements of the housing development are named for major donors.

Of the donations raised, $6.25 million went toward construction, while another $1.25 million went toward the theater’s endowment and $1 million to an “impact fund” to raise wages and invest in accessible productions, large-scale productions and education programs. The remaining $2 million for construction comes from financing from the state of Vermont in the form of a loan administered by Claremont Savings Bank, Smoller said.

Northern Stage had at first designed a much larger project, a single tall building that would have housed more units, plus an education center. But cost estimates for that plan outstripped what the company’s leadership felt it could raise, said Lynch, a Hanover resident and former hospital administrator.

“Every business does that,” he said. “Their dreams are bigger than their ultimate realities.”

The project was built by Bread Loaf Corporation, a Middlebury-based design-build firm that also handled construction of the Barrette Center and the renovation of the Hartford Municipal Building. The new housing includes a pocket park that wasn’t part of the design at first, Jim Pulver, Bread Loaf’s vice president for architecture, said in an interview.

Theater companies are “really great clients, because they’re a diverse group of people,” Pulver said. “They really want to have a positive influence on the community.”

A ‘campus’ feel

If there’s a model for Northern Stage’s growth, it’s Goodspeed Opera House, in East Haddam, Connecticut, which built a campus around its theater, Smoller said. Northern Stage’s announcement of the new housing called it an “arts campus.”

Living in company housing is a bit like being on a college campus, Abigail St. Pierre, a UNH graduate, said. St. Pierre, 30, is Northern Stage’s company manager, which puts her in charge of arranging housing and transportation for incoming employees and performers. She and her boyfriend, Andrew McPhillips, 31, a counselor at Albert Bridge School in West Windsor, just moved into a studio apartment in the newly opened building from one of the units Northern Stage rents at 241 S. Main St.

Before moving into company housing, she lived with her parents in Charlestown, where she grew up. And McPhillips commuted to West Windsor from Rutland, where his mother lives.

“I think that we are definitely very lucky” to live so close to work, St. Pierre said.

Monmaney moved to White River Junction in fall 2023, and like St. Pierre just moved into one of the new studios from 241 South Main St. It’s a lot nicer, especially the built-in air conditioning, he said.

“I think it’s an invaluable service that Northern Stage offers,” Monmaney said. “It allows people from all over the country to come in and share their talents with us.”

But it can’t solve every housing issue. For St. Pierre and McPhillips, a studio is too small to be more than a stopgap. They’re hunting for an apartment now.

“If we are to leave this apartment, we would have to leave White River Junction,” she said. Rents are more reasonable in Lebanon, so they would likely end up across the river.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Northern Stage builds housing for theater staff in White River Junction amid housing crisis.

DUMMERSTON — The nonprofit Landmark Trust USA makes money to preserve historic properties through short-term rentals of such holdings as the late Victorian-era writer Rudyard Kipling’s former Vermont home.

And soon, his horse barn.

Kipling, born in India and raised in England, was 26 when he visited the United States on his 1892 honeymoon and decided to build a house near his wife’s family in the southeastern town of Dummerston.

The man who’d become the first English-language author to win the Nobel Prize in literature named his 2½-story hideaway Naulakha after a Hindi word meaning “jewel beyond price.” There, he penned “The Jungle Book” and “Captains Courageous” and conceived “Kim” and “Just So Stories,” only to depart after constructing a barn for his horses, Nip and Tuck, in 1896.

The property stayed in local hands, then sat unused for 50 years before Landmark Trust USA — an offshoot of Britain’s Landmark Trust conservation charity — purchased it in 1992.

To generate revenue, the organization rents Kipling’s home and carriage house for short-term stays and small gatherings. This week, it’s announcing plans to convert the horse barn’s loft into a studio apartment.

“The Naulakha stable project furthers our preservation mission, ensuring this remarkable place is accessible for future generations,” Susan McMahon, the trust’s executive director, said in a statement.

The plan is part of a $1.25 million Naulakha capital campaign, which is 85% complete and will also replace several roofs and improve groundwater drainage.

Landmark Trust USA manages six historic properties that include the Naulakha buildings, a nearby Dummerston farmhouse and sugarhouse and the Amos Brown House in Whitingham. It also maintains the 570-acre Scott Farm orchard, which grows 130 varieties of heirloom apples just down the road from Kipling’s home.

“We’re making good progress,” Jeremy Ebersole, the trust’s public outreach manager, said of the improvement campaign. “The goal is to have the stable rental done and ready sometime in the fall.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Seeking a unique vacation rental? Introducing Rudyard Kipling’s Vermont stable..

Updated at 6:08 p.m.

Max Misch, who made headlines several years ago for his racial harassment of a former Bennington representative has been arrested on several charges, including kidnapping, sexual assault and aggravated domestic assault. 

Misch, 42, took part in a hearing Monday afternoon in Rutland County Superior Court’s criminal division by video from the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland, where he has been held since his arrest Friday. 

Zanna Bliss, his attorney, entered not guilty pleas on Misch’s behalf.

The charges stem from an incident on Friday during which Misch allegedly struck a woman on her face, according to a police affidavit. Later, the woman told police Misch had sexually assaulted her and prevented her from reporting abuse.

Judge Cortland Corsones granted a request from the prosecutor to continue holding Misch in custody without bail pending another hearing to determine the strength of the case. That hearing date has not yet been set. 

Bliss tried unsuccessfully to have her client be released on conditions, telling the judge that Misch had significant ties to Bennington County and was not a flight risk.  

Misch was arrested Friday evening stemming from an incident on Pleasant Street in Bennington, according to Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette. 

In addition to the kidnapping, sexual assault and aggravated domestic assault offenses, Misch also faces charges of unlawful restraint and interference with access to emergency services, according to court records.

If convicted of the kidnapping charge alone, Misch faces up to life in prison. 

Bennington Police Cpl. James Macaulay wrote in an affidavit in support of the charges that police responded to a reported fight between two women on the roadway Pleasant Street at around 6:45 p.m. Friday.

While at the scene investigating the fight, according to the affidavit, police saw Misch there with an injury to his hand.

One of the women, who was taken to a police cruiser, reported she was with Misch earlier in the day and he had gotten angry about a late food order from a restaurant. As they drove to a laundromat, the affidavit stated, he struck her on her face.

The woman said she was driving and Misch was in the passenger seat at the time, according to the affidavit. Police reported finding a red mark on the woman’s face and an injury to the knuckle of Misch’s right hand. 

The woman also said that she had tried to report past incidents of abuse by Misch against her but that he locked her in the apartment to prevent her from talking to police, the affidavit stated.

The charges against Misch stated that his alleged criminal actions spanned from July 1 to Aug. 1.

VTDigger does not name alleged victims of sexual assault without their consent.

Misch has been arrested in the past on charges including aggravated domestic assault, a charge of disorderly conduct with a hate crime enhancement and repeated violations of his conditions of release. Later plea deals eventually led to probationary sentences allowing him to avoid jail.

Misch is currently set to be sentenced in a separate case on Aug. 11 in Bennington County for two misdemeanor convictions related to the illegal possession of high-capacity firearm magazines. A jury convicted him of those two charges in April following a trial.

Each charge carries a potential maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $500 fine.

Misch was a central figure in the racial harassment that led Kiah Morris, a former House representative from Bennington, to not run for office again. Morris, who had been the only Black woman lawmaker in the Legislature, announced in summer 2018 she would not be running for reelection, citing, in part, the online attacks. 

Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan, who was in office at that time, investigated the Morris matter, but decided against filing criminal charges against Misch, who admitted to racially harassing Morris. Donovan cited the broad protections of the First Amendment in explaining his decision not to bring charges against Misch.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Max Misch arrested in Bennington on kidnapping and assault charges .