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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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 .

Built in 1771 by prominent Bennington resident and Revolutionary War Capt. Elijah Dewey, the Walloomsac Inn is the oldest lodging establishment in Vermont. 

After over 30 years as a private residence, the Walloomsac Inn had fallen into disrepair, but now the ramshackle inn at the heart of Old Bennington is set to be restored and opened to the public. 

The inn was purchased June 25 by Rafe Churchill and Casey Sunderland through a new joint venture called Place in Mind, which aims to restore historically significant properties in the Northeast and across the country. The co-founders are also part of the leadership team for the architecture and interior design firm Hendricks Churchill, and Churchill is an alumnus of Bennington College. 

“Our mission is really to resurrect these historic structures,” Sunderland said. “Hospitality happens to be a really great backbone to do that on, because you can generate revenue and open up the experience to so many more people than if it were just a private residence.” 

The restoration project will be a “significant undertaking,” so there is no set timeline yet for opening, Sunderland said. However, the duo plans to honor the existing property structure during renovations and bring the Walloomsac Inn back to its original glory shown in old postcards and photos from decades past, he said. 

Along with the Walloomsac Inn, Sunderland and Churchill acquired the Mount Anthony Seminary, a former school in Old Bennington. The co-founders plan to rebuild the historic bell tower on the property and open the building as a smaller, six-bedroom lodging near the Walloomsac Inn, Sunderland said. 

Old Bennington is a “beautiful little hamlet of Vermont that is, quite frankly, undiscovered in many ways,” Sunderland said. The duo hopes the projects will help make the Walloomsac Inn, the Mount Anthony Seminary, and, by extension, Old Bennington, into a destination where people can experience the history the area has to offer, he said.

“We’re just hoping that the town, the neighbors, the community continues to feel excited about being able to open up this to not only the Bennington community, but just travelers from far and beyond who want to come see this historic landmark,” Sunderland said. 

Shannon Barsotti, community development director for Bennington, said the Walloomsac Inn will benefit the economy of the town and region by providing a space for people to stay when visiting local notable spots, such as the Old First Church, its historic cemetery and the nearby Bennington Battle Monument — the most visited landmark in the state. 

Bennington Museum Executive Director Martin Mahoney said the Walloomsac Inn is a “long-standing staple of community life” in Old Bennington, and the restoration coinciding with the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations is fortuitous and welcome news for residents.

With a storied history, the Walloomsac Inn, known at the time as Dewey’s Tavern, served as a meeting place for the Vermont Legislature during the state’s time as an independent republic from 1771 until statehood in 1791, Mahoney said. 

The inn also hosted members of the Continental Army before the pivotal victory at the Battle of Bennington, said Jonah Spivak, the town of Bennington’s communications coordinator and chair of the Bennington Regional 250th Anniversary Committee. A member of the Dewey family, Mary Tilden Dewey, baked 80 loaves of bread to feed soldiers in the inn’s kitchens ahead of the battle, he said.

The inn was also visited by Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison through the years. After the Deweys, the inn was acquired by James Hicks who added a third floor and ballroom to the second floor in 1823. After procuring the property in 1848, George Wadsworth Robinson changed the establishment’s name from Hicks Tavern to the Walloomsac House. Another former owner, Walter Berry, added a three-and-half-story extension to the building after acquiring it near the turn of the 20th century.

The 250th Anniversary Committee looked into acquiring the property for historic preservation through a community trust, Spivak said, but noted the project is a “heavy lift” that required people “with the resources and the knowledge to pull it off” — like Churchill and Sunderland.

Spivak said he is glad the restoration of the Walloomsac Inn will serve a “public purpose” going forward and be “an incredible enhancement to the historical experience in Bennington.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the year James Hicks made additions to the inn.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Old Bennington’s Walloomsac Inn to be restored, opened to the public.

The Vermont Supreme Court is set to decide whether the case against Deven Moffitt, accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend, has been too mishandled to see trial. 

For over a year, Moffitt’s lawyer has tried to get the case tossed out for good — claiming the prosecution lacks sufficient evidence to take Moffitt to court. 

Earlier this week, on July 20, Vermont Superior Court Judge Kerry McDonald-Cady ruled to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning Moffitt can’t be tried on those charges again. An appeal of that decision will bring the dispute to the state Supreme Court. 

Moffitt’s lawyer alleged the prosecution made missteps properly confirming the identity of the human remains in the case. The state medical examiner’s office originally identified the remains as belonging to Jessica Hildenbrandt before Moffitt was charged with her murder in the second degree back in 2022. 

But, in the years since, the prosecution failed to run more tests to confirm the original identification of the remains. 

“The state had more than two years to test the discovered remains and obtain additional DNA evidence for trial to confirm they were, in fact, the remains of Ms. Hildenbrandt,” wrote McDonald-Cady in the July 20 ruling. 

Back in January, prosecutors asked the judge to formally dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning they could refile the charge at a later date. In response, Moffitt’s lawyer motioned to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning it could never be brought to court again. 

Deputy State’s Attorney Jared Bianchi argued against that motion. He explained that his office plans to press other criminal charges against Moffitt, and it would be most convenient to resolve them all in one trial, according to the ruling. 

That didn’t convince the judge. Over years, the state’s attorney’s office tried to press a number of additional charges against Moffitt, namely an alleged aggravated assault and multiple counts of obstruction of justice, court documents show. 

But on each count, the Bennington state’s attorney’s office had either failed to press charges swiftly enough, or the crime was committed in another county, putting it out of Bennington’s jurisdiction, McDonald-Cady wrote. 

Unconvinced by Bianchi’s arguments, the judge dismissed the case with prejudice, attempting to put the charge to rest for good.

“This Court recognizes the gravity of this decision for the State, the Defendant, the community, and especially the family and friends of Ms. Hildenbrandt,” wrote McDonald-Cady in her ruling. 

While permanently tossing the case out was an “extraordinary remedy,” she reasoned the prosecution had overstepped by drawing out the case, according to the ruling. 

Later this week, on July 23, Bianchi appealed McDonald-Cady’s ruling to the Vermont Supreme Court. There, justices can decide if Moffitt may be tried again for the same crime. 

Moffitt is still serving a 12 and a half year sentence for federal drug and firearm charges. 

Corrections: An earlier version of this story contained errors related to the date of the ruling and who was serving time in federal prison. It also incorrectly named Jessica Hildenbrandt.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Missteps with evidence bring dispute over murder trial to Supreme Court .

A Superior Court judge dismissed, in part, the Pownal Center Community Church’s complaint against the town in an ongoing property rights dispute.

Through a lawsuit filed in April, representatives from the church aimed to shed light on the property rights of the historic building established in 1790 and connected land, and called for the town to renounce any outstanding ownership claims to the property.  

In the July 2 ruling, Judge David Barra asserted the church failed to demonstrate sufficient rights to the congregation’s site of worship for all but the carriage shed adjoining the property. 

The church has 30 days to amend the complaint to bring forth “factual allegations” and better explain the “‘inherent vagueness and complexities of title to land in Vermont’ that may entitle (the) Church to relief or quiet title,” according to the ruling.

In the original complaint filed April 4 by attorney Evan Chadwick, the church claimed it had rights to the property because it had continuously used the building for more than 15 years.

Chadwick further argued that the church held legal rights to the property going back to 1790, when the church was first established, as the land was set aside as a glebe, or parcel for the Church of England, in 1760. 

The town stopped using the church basement for meetings in 1991 and built a municipal office in 2021. The church has maintained the property since 1951 and held insurance on the property since 1980, according to the complaint. 

Chadwick also pointed to the church trustees’ and Pownal community’s possession of a deed to the carriage shed on the southwest corner of the property since 1905, according to the complaint. The town refused to sign a quitclaim deed for the carriage shed property in 1976, agreeing that the town “held no title interest” in that section of the property.

In the July ruling, Barra wrote that the “Church has only stated a plausible claim for the ‘carriage shed’ portion of the Property.”

Barra ruled that the assertion of the property as glebe land does not mean the church has a legal right to the entire property. The church also did not establish a legal claim under the state’s time limit for land recovery and exemption of public lands from recuperation through continuous use, Barra ruled.

Pownal town officials and Chadwick declined to comment.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Judge partially sides with Pownal in church property rights dispute.

MANCHESTER — Over the decades that Vermont Country Store owner Lyman Orton has amassed what Yankee magazine has called “the largest private collection of 20th-century Vermont art in the world,” the 83-year-old has hung his paintings at home, the office, seemingly everywhere but a single, permanent site.

Then Orton gathered them two years ago for a state tour that began at Manchester’s Southern Vermont Arts Center.

“This collection should end up here,” he recently recalled thinking about the arts center, “so my kids don’t sell it at a yard sale.”

Orton assured he’s just joking about his three sons, the third generation to run the family’s multimillion-dollar retail and catalog business. But he’s serious about wanting a place to share his more than 250 paintings in perpetuity. That’s why he’s breaking ground on a two-story addition to the arts center that’s set to open next summer.

“We are aligned with Lyman on the vision that this should be a public resource,” Amelia Wiggins, the arts center’s executive director, said of showcasing the collection. “We know the beauty of this area is such a draw, and art that captures it compels both locals and visitors.”

The new 12,000-square-foot wing is expected to cost $8.5 million, with related sitework raising the project up to nearly $10 million, according to a state land use permit. The building will be funded by a $14.5 million capital campaign that’s hit 90% of its goal.

“We’re not just constructing galleries, we’re creating space for freedom of expression and bold ideas,” said Bob Van Degna, president of the arts center’s board of trustees and, along with Orton, a top project donor.

‘What’s the story behind it?’

The wing now under construction is a full circle moment for Orton, who was 5 years old when his parents founded the Vermont Country Store in the nearby town of Weston in 1946.

Orton grew up in the unplugged days before the interstate and internet as artists working with oils, watercolors and woodblock ink “came up from down country” to capture the landscape and lifestyles of Vermont.

“They didn’t just pass through,” he recalled in an interview. “They started living here, painted what they loved.”

A group calling itself the Southern Vermont Artists displayed its work on the lawn of Manchester’s Equinox hotel and inside the gym of the nearby Burr and Burton Academy before purchasing the property that would become the arts center in 1950.

Turning 20 a decade later, Orton started his own collection, not knowing he was seeding a lifelong mission to “repatriate” Vermont art sold and scattered over the decades across the country and around the world.

When choosing pieces, Orton has looked for artists such as Luigi Lucioni, whose oils and etchings appear in the Smithsonian American Art Museum; Kyra Markham, an actress, painter and printmaker who was briefly married to the son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright; and Ogden Pleissner, nationally recognized for his Life magazine work and sporting scenes.

But Orton has ultimately focused on the art itself. Take Rockwell Kent’s 1926 depiction of Sunderland’s Union Church. Many see the canvas for its creator, whose works are displayed at the National Gallery of Art. Orton has appreciated it for memorializing the place his great-grandfather helped build.

“I look for paintings that have a ‘there’ there,” he said. “What is it? Where is it? What’s the story behind it?”

‘Art accessible to everybody’

When the collector debuted the traveling show “For the Love of Vermont: The Lyman Orton Collection” in 2023, he grouped both minor and master works into themes such as “Making A Living,” which pictured sugaring, slate quarrying and sawmills, and “Coming Together,” which portrayed families, fairs and ice fishing.

Amid paintings of barns and covered bridges, Orton has an affinity for depictions of clotheslines, be it Leo Blake’s circa 1940 “Summer Laundry” or Mitzi Goward’s “Out to Dry.”

“There is nothing more consistent with a Vermonter’s heritage of practicality, frugality and common sense than hanging the washing outside,” he said of the latter work. “Sunshine and the breeze are free.”

Similarly, Orton traded discreet museum labels for large-print signs more familiar in a school or senior center.

“That makes the art accessible to everybody, not just experts and Chardonnay sippers,” he said.

The traveling show included a postscript requesting “new, corrected or missing information” about the people and places illustrated but not necessarily identified in the art. In response, visitors from Manchester, Vermont, to Manchester, England, offered dozens upon dozens of comments.

“One woman left a card that tells it all,” Orton recalled. “She said, ‘Dear Lyman, I had to drag my husband to the show — and then I had to drag him out.’”

The state tour went on to attract crowds at the Bennington Museum, Montpelier’s Vermont Historical Society and the Manchester Community Library. But each location could only squeeze in a fraction of the full collection.

“It’s 250, 300, 400 paintings,” Orton said of the ever-changing total. “I’m not being coy. I bought 15 paintings in the last two months, just because things happen to come up. But because there’s so much art, it creates the opportunity to have a scheduled rotation.”

The Southern Vermont Arts Center is expecting to exhibit about 75 works in the new wing and keep the rest in a climate-controlled storage space for future viewing.

The addition, designed by the Richmond-based Birdseye architecture and building company, will include a second general exhibition gallery and a patio for outdoor events. But Orton’s collection promises to be the main draw.

“By being the highest bidder on the dozens of artworks of Vermont that Lyman Orton saw go up for sale at local country auctions, he made himself every Vermonter’s heir,” author Anita Rafael wrote in the collection’s 2023 catalog. “By keeping the art of Vermont in Vermont, it is tacitly being passed down to all Vermonters.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Historic trove of Vermont art set to go public in a permanent home.

After 12 years of legal disputes, the town of Bennington agreed to support two controversial solar projects before the state, following lawsuits from the developer that jeopardized a major local revitalization effort. 

Plans for two adjacent solar projects on a forested, 27-acre plot between the Apple Hill residential area and highway have garnered pushback from residents over the years. The main concerns have been that the project locations are in violation of town plan and zoning rules and could negatively affect the scenic hillside and neighboring community.

The proposed Apple Hill and Chelsea solar fields — each designed to produce 2 megawatts of power — have gone through multiple iterations but were repeatedly denied by the state’s Public Utility Commission. 

But solar developer and lawyer Thomas Melone has continually appealed the commission’s decision to dismiss his plans to the courts, though the Vermont Supreme Court struck down his appeals in the past, sending the decision back to the commission in 2019. There are four administrative agency appeals regarding the applications for Apple Hill Solar LLC and Chelsea Solar LLC pending in Vermont Supreme Court.

Thomas and his son, Michael Melone, have also filed lawsuits against state regulators, Bennington residents, the town of Bennington and the Apple Hill Homeowners Association. Even Gov. Phil Scott has been caught in the legal crossfire, according to Vermont Public.

Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, said she views the amount of litigation initiated by the solar developers as unusual and unprecedented in the history of Vermont utilities cases.

Bennington resident Dianna Leazer said at a June 9 Select Board meeting that locals and the town had “successfully defended our beautiful small town from a corporate solar developer who would scar our hillside with a huge commercial size solar development.” Leazer said residents “deserved to know all the factors that led to this decision” to ratify the agreement.

What’s in the agreement?

In a special Select Board meeting on June 3, the board voted 5-1 to ratify the settlement, agreeing to direct the town’s planning commission to consider rezoning the land as rural residential instead of rural conservation. 

“There were a number of factors and risks in either accepting the agreement or rejecting it,” Select Board Chair Tom Haley said at the June 9 meeting. “We want to make clear that after consultation and in consideration of the town’s goals and needs, the Select Board approved the settlement agreement.”

According to the settlement, the town agreed the two projects are in a “preferred area,” are not prominently visible on a hillside, do not violate the town plan or town documents and do not have “adverse regional impact.” The town agreed to support the Melones’ various iterations of Apple Hill and Chelsea solar projects under consideration by the Public Utility Commission and the Vermont Supreme Court, as long as the projects maintain the same footprint or less.

“The town, having had an opportunity to fully review and assess the solar projects, agrees that it is not under any duress (economic or otherwise) and stipulates and agrees that the projects are in a ‘preferred area,’” the settlement stated.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Melones agreed to drop six lawsuits against the town, including an Open Meeting Law complaint and appeals regarding the Bennington High School redevelopment project —  a yearslong plan to transform the vacant building into affordable housing, office spaces and a hub for child care and community resources under a private-public partnership.

The father-son duo also agreed not to file or threaten any lawsuit regarding the redevelopment project or the “validity of the Town Plan” against Bennington. 

The town supported different versions of the solar development plans in 2018 after making changes based on public input in which the Melones agreed to drop the legal challenge to the town’s energy plan, damage claims and allegations of constitutional rights violations. But, the Public Utility Commission rejected those versions of projects.

‘Critical juncture’

Lawsuits the Melones filed against the town regarding the Bennington High project placed pressure on the town to support the solar projects, according to court documents filed by the town’s attorney and local officials. 

In a now-dropped lawsuit, Thomas Melone under PLH Vineyard Sky LLC, challenged the town’s support for the Bennington High School redevelopment, calling it a “municipal waste” due to an alleged lack of site remediation and the funding structure of the project.

The complaint, filed May 2 in the Superior Court, also argued the town’s 10-year tax stabilization agreement for the $54 million project violated the Vermont Constitution’s proportional taxation clause by shifting the tax burden to residents. 

In a May 26 affidavit, project developer Zak Hale said a lead bank investor who was set to provide $15 million was spooked by the pending lawsuit and paused funding on May 21. According to Hale, the lawsuit came at a “critical juncture,” jeopardizing construction just after it began on May 20. Hale wrote that the project could collapse, putting him at risk of bankruptcy and the town at risk of losing $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds. 

Assistant Town Manager Dan Monks wrote in a separate affidavit that Melone had filed repeated lawsuits to pressure Bennington into supporting his solar projects, most of which courts have found baseless. Monks said Melone indicated he would withdraw the complaint if the town backed his plans and the “meritless complaint” threatened the future of the project unless it was resolved. 

On May 20, town attorney Merrill Bent filed an emergency motion to stay discovery in the civil case before the Vermont Superior Court, asserting that the lawsuits challenging the Bennington High School redevelopment was part of a “spate of litigation against the town” to gain state approval of the solar projects.

This litigation waged against the town included seven state court and three federal court actions and “meritless accusations” against the town’s counsel and town officials, Bent wrote. According to the motion filed by Bent, the Melones also engaged in “ongoing, repeat threats to bury the town in lawsuits” under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and the False Claims Act.

“The Plaintiff, along with its counsel, Thomas Melone, continue to weaponize the courts against the Town of Bennington in their singularly focused effort to force the Town to support their solar projects,” Bent wrote.

The community’s response

At the June 9 meeting, Leazer expressed disbelief after learning Bennington settled with the Melones, saying it’s apparent that “the Benn High redevelopment project was the major catalyst to ratification.”

“Essentially, if not ratified, the solar developer would continue to sue the town and delay the Benn High redevelopment project indefinitely, because the solar developer can, because their pockets are deep and they are attorneys,” Leazer said. 

Leazer also expressed concern that the Melones could sue the town again if the agreement is nullified. Under the terms of the settlement, if the Bennington High project falls through or is not finished by the end of the year, both sides would be allowed to sue each other over any unrelated issues.

Smith said the Melones can also sue the town again if the town does not begin the process of reclassifying the parcel as rural residential within 10 days of ratification under the terms of the agreement. The Select Board has referred the discussion to the town’s planning commission, which plans to meet June 18. 

Peter Lawrence, a retired attorney and Apple Hill resident, raised concerns at the June 9 meeting about how the settlement was ratified. He said the meeting violated Vermont’s Open Meeting Law by not disclosing the agreement to the public before ratification and not allowing the public to offer comment at the meeting.

Lawrence urged the Select Board to rescind its decision and hold another meeting “at which the public can be fully informed of all the details of the matter being considered and there be opportunity for public comment.” 

But Monks said at the June 3 meeting that settlements deliberated in executive sessions are exempt from the law and are required to be negotiated outside of the public, so agreement could not be disclosed unless it was approved. Board member Ed Woods added that the meeting agenda was only warned for the ratification vote, not for public comment, so the board could not open the meeting for public discussion.

Thomas Melone said he’s pleased the disputes with the town have been resolved.

“My view is that the open meeting law was satisfied,” he wrote in a statement to VTDigger. “The Select Board took the vote in a public meeting and my view is that with respect to litigation that is all that is required under section 313 (of the Vermont statute).”

Bill Knight, Bennington resident and president of the Apple Hill Homeowners Association, said at the June 9 meeting that the two solar farms will be an eyesore for the town, as the elevation of the plot would make development visible from tourist attractions such as the Bennington Battle monument, the Mount Anthony Country Club and Welcome Center.

Thomas Melone said the last time the Public Utility Commission denied the petition for a Certificate of Public Good, it was due to the project fence’s partial visibility during off-leaf seasons. “That is no longer the case,” he wrote in an email. He added that concerns that the projects will be visible from the Welcome Center are “simply counterfactual.”

State Rep. Mary Morrissey, R-Bennington, said she was concerned the agreement did not stipulate the plans the solar developers could implement. She said the area is contaminated with PFOA, also known as perfluorooctanoic acid, and that previous iterations of the solar development plan included blasting the ledge of the area which would further spread PFOA into the air. 

The Bennington region has the most severe PFAS contamination problem in the state, and PFOA groundwater and soil contamination has spread and increased over time in the area, according to research published this year. 

Melone said he thinks the PFOA issues were addressed in testimony submitted to the Public Utility Commission in 2018 by a senior hydrologist, who studied the groundwater and soil and concluded that the projects were unlikely to cause PFOA levels to rise in Apple Hill’s residential drinking water wells. 

A Public Utility Commission final order in September 2018 recommended the commission find no evidence that the projects would exacerbate PFOA groundwater contamination, but denied the Certificate of Public Good. 

Smith said the commission is tasked with making the final decisions regarding the solar projects. After years of rejections by the commission and the Vermont Supreme Court, Smith said the efforts of the developer to gain town support “does not mean that the projects will ultimately be approved.”

Resident Lora Block expressed concern that the Bennington Select Board and Planning Commission may reclassify the site and that the Public Utility Commission could reverse its stance to support the projects if the zoning is changed. 

“The town has certain aesthetic standards, and this sort of development will be visible from everywhere, from the highway and from the Bennington monument and from the beautiful golf course,” Block said. “The reason why we’re trying to prevent these solar farms is not because we’re against solar, but because the siting of these are against our town plan.”

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the conditions under which the town and solar developer could resume legal action, and the correct title of the Public Utility Commission.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bennington settles with solar developer, sparking community uproar.

After years of groundwork, a treatment center for opioid use disorder is set to open on Depot Street in downtown Bennington this week. 

The opening will be a “real game changer for Bennington,” expanding access to methadone treatment and opioid use disorder recovery services in the region, said Kelly Dougherty, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health.

The department has sought to open an opioid treatment program in Bennington for many years, but the Covid-19 pandemic and challenges finding a provider and location stalled progress, Dougherty said. The department is grateful to work with the Bay Area Addiction Research Treatment program as the operator of the Bennington-based center offering medication-assisted recovery treatments, counseling and other support services, she said. 

The Bay Area Addiction Treatment program runs similar centers in Berlin, St. Albans, St. Johnsbury and Newport.

The Vermont Department of Health provided a $3.9 million grant to help cover startup and operational costs of the program’s Bennington center. The grant will also help cover the cost of treatment for those without insurance through July 2026. The department does not want health insurance to be a barrier to access recovery resources, Dougherty said. 

The center plans to open for clients starting Thursday, assuming its first shipment of medication arrives Wednesday as planned, she said. 

Opioid treatment centers like this one must meet specific federal guidelines and safety measures, such as Drug Enforcement Agency regulations, so the department is glad the team has made it through “all those hurdles” and that the project is “going to be opening very soon,”  Dougherty said. 

Placing the center in downtown Bennington is intended to make  the path to recovery easier and  prevent further loss of lives to opioid use disorder in the region, Dougherty said. According to Department of Health data, rates of opioid-related death of Bennington County residents have fluctuated over the past decade, “but certainly there is a high need in the Bennington area,” she said. 

Vermont’s model for opioid use disorder treatment follows the design of a “hub and spokes,” Dougherty said. Hubs are where people can regularly access methadone to treat opioid use disorder. Spokes are primary care providers, where people can be prescribed buprenorphine and transition to longer-term treatment, she said. 

While Bennington has several spokes or primary care providers, Bennington Town Manager Stuart Hurd said residents have had to travel long distances to Brattleboro, Rutland or North Adams, Massachusetts, to receive methadone treatment. Now, locals can stay in their community while on the path to recovery, he said.  

Lorna Mattern, chief executive officer of Bennington’s United Counseling Service, said health service providers and advocates in the region have been asking for a hub location in Bennington for more than five years. Mattern said the United Counseling Service is glad the community has access to methadone treatment locally.

“With access to treatment in their own community, individuals in recovery can lead fuller, more stable lives — free from the burden of daily out-of-town travel,” Mattern wrote in an email statement to VTDigger. “This means they can stay close to home, maintain employment, and spend more meaningful time with their families, all while receiving the support they need on their recovery journey.”

Bennington Select Board Chair Tom Haley said the new treatment center was a long time coming and can help break down roadblocks to residents receiving necessary medicine. 

“We — like every other town in the country — are struggling with ways to help people with substance use disorder, and this is just one more way that we’re going to be able to do that,” Haley said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Opioid use disorder treatment center poised to open in downtown Bennington.

Bennington College has finalized its collective bargaining agreements with the three groups that make up the college’s union, according to a June 5 press release.

The agreements come after a unionization process that began in 2023, after 150 faculty, staff and campus safety workers formed Bennington College United. The union — which is backed by AFT Vermont, an umbrella labor union for higher education and health care workers — cited concerns about high staff turnover, a lack of policy surrounding raises and a lack of transparency about the college’s finances. 

The agreements, sent to VTDigger by AFT Vermont, detail improved working conditions for union members, including increased wages and bonuses, guaranteed tuition exchange and benefits for family of staff and transparency on the finances of bargaining unit employees.

The Bennington College United bargaining team wrote in a statement that they were proud of the improvements they gained in negotiations, and that their next step was to “fight for a better retirement contribution,” on July 1, 2026.

“This agreement reflects what is possible when institutions and labor come together with mutual respect and a commitment to mission,” Bennington College President Laura Walker said in a press release. “I am grateful to the members of BCU for their dedication to Bennington, and to the College’s negotiating teams for their tireless and thoughtful work.”

“We’re stronger together, always have been and always will be,” Bennington faculty and union member David Bond told VTDigger in a written statement. “With DC missives attacking the public purpose of higher education and many university administrators bending to the bully, it is more important than ever to secure faculty and staff a seat at the table.”

Bennington College United originally planned to negotiate as a collective whole but after discussions with the administration, organizers agreed to split into three different bargaining units. In exchange, the university voluntarily acknowledged the union. 

Although this is Bennington College’s first official union, the school’s dining hall workers are already unionized under the Service Employees International Union, and a “faculty forum” once served as an informal union for faculty members, according to Bennington’s student newspaper, the Bennington Lens.

The collective bargaining agreements come amid a wave of unionization in higher education. The number of unionized faculty in the United States grew by 7.5% between 2012 and 2024, according to research from The City University of New York. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bennington College finalizes collective bargaining agreements with union .

Next week, Benningtonians might catch a glimpse of people suspended in midair, rappelling from the state’s tallest structure, as a crew works to clear away crumbling stone from the Bennington Battle Monument.

Starting Monday, a group plans to scale the 306-foot obelisk to execute the next step in the state’s effort to restore and maintain the memorial to the Battle of Bennington.

Spectators are welcome to gather below to watch the aerial feat of a safety inspection team as they rappel and remove loose stone from the weather-worn monument, said Laura Trieschmann, the state’s historic preservation officer.

The monument has become saturated with an estimated 66,000 gallons of water, causing cracks to form and debris to fall from the structure, Trieschmann said. The problem spans back decades.

“Cracking of the stone occurred almost immediately upon construction,” Trieschmann said. “By the 1920s, we know from primary documentation that materials were falling off, and that was exacerbated by the ineffective and incomplete restoration efforts taken in the latter part of the 20th century.”

This is the fourth annual effort to remove debris from the monument, and the cost of this year’s proactive maintenance is $72,000, Trieschmann said. The company the state Division for Historic Preservation contracts with, Vertical Access, has “already documented every crack and issue on the exterior of the monument,” she said.

After years of deferred maintenance, the division’s study of the monument found that restoration would require at least $40 million. The price tag sparked debate over whether restoration of the state’s historic monument is worth the cost or whether other innovative plans should be considered to commemorate the Battle of Bennington.

An idea to enclose the monument in copper, proposed by state Rep. Shawn Sweeney, D-Shelburne, gained attention in recent months, and Trieschmann said the division would study the impact and cost of the suggestion. 

The monument will close for the team to dislodge loose stone between June 9 and 12, but the site is set to reopen just in time for the annual Vermont Days, a weekend of free entry to all state parks.

During its closure, Trieschmann said the division plans to erect a roadside historic marker to Seth Warner, a Vermonter and a member of the Green Mountain Boys who was crucial in the Battle of Hubbardton and the Battle of Bennington.

Trieschmann said that the division’s maintenance plan and effort to monitor cracks and remove rubble is about the safety of guests, staff and residents who continue to visit the second tallest unreinforced masonry structure in the nation and a key symbol of Vermont’s Revolutionary past. 

“This is our greatest visited monument of the state’s historic sites, and we want to make sure that it remains open, but first and foremost is safety,” Trieschmann said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bennington Battle Monument to close for maintenance in midair.

In a small town in the southwestern corner of the state, the ownership rights to a historic church property are in dispute. 

The Pownal Center Community Church sued the town on April 4 to clarify property rights to their place of worship and associated land. Attorney Evan Chadwick, who represents the church, wrote in the civil lawsuit filed in Bennington Superior Court, asking for any uncertainties of legal ownership be resolved in favor of the church. 

The town’s lawyer Robert Fisher responded with a motion on May 7 to dismiss the lawsuit, stating that the church failed to offer a sufficient argument for its ownership of the property. 

According to the lawsuit, Pownal was first chartered in 1760 by the Province of New Hampshire Gov. Benning Wentworth, and a piece of land — a glebe — was set aside for the Church of England.  

The Pownal Center Community Church, also known as Union Church, was established around January 1790. No town records for the property title exist from that time, the suit states, and the selectboard affirmed the building would be used for worship in 1850.

The town ceased using the church’s basement for meetings by 1991, and erected Pownal’s current municipal office in 2021, according to the lawsuit. 

Chadwick argued that the church has held legal title over the property since 1790, had never relinquished claim to it and has maintained insurance on the property since 1980. 

He said the church should be granted property rights under Vermont’s adverse possession law,   which allows someone to claim ownership after occupying the property for at least 15 years, even without purchasing it.

Chadwick also asserted that the church qualifies for a prescriptive easement, citing the congregation’s continuous use of the building for over 15 years as grounds for legal access and use. 

Chadwick wrote the church congregation and predecessors have occupied the property since 1790 for religious activities, congregational gatherings, maintenance and other uses that lessen the town’s ownership interests.

According to the suit, the trustees for the church and the Pownal community obtained a deed to a portion of the property called the “carriage shed” on the southwest corner of the premises in 1905. The town refused to sign a quitclaim deed for the carriage shed property in 1976, agreeing with the church at the time that they “held no title interest” to the property, according to the lawsuit. 

Chadwick declined to comment on the lawsuit this week, and the church could not be reached for comment. 

Fisher wrote in the May 7 motion that the church has not offered evidence that they hold a perpetual lease, title or ownership interest in the property “by deed or right,” and the church’s claim to the property through adverse possession and prescriptive easement is “clearly barred” under the timeline of Vermont statute on recovery of lands. 

Fisher also asserted that “assuming the property was granted as a glebe land,” the property title would belong to the town. 

Pownal town officials declined to comment on the matter, but the selectboard members acknowledged the lawsuit at a special meeting on April 24. 

“We would like to be clear that the town has never had any intention of dispossessing this church,” Board Member Jeannie Alexander said. 

Correction: The story has been updated to reflect the deed ownership for the carriage shed portion of the property under dispute.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Centuries-old church takes Pownal to court over property rights.

BRATTLEBORO — Great-great-grandmother Shirley Squires is also a great, great fundraiser.

The 94-year-old Guilford resident arrived at Saturday’s AIDS Project of Southern Vermont charity walk with four generations of family, including the newest member born just two weeks ago.

Though rain forced organizers to cancel the annual outdoor stroll, Squires still shined, raising $22,291 in contributions this year to reach a lifetime fundraising milestone of $500,298.

“Your unwavering commitment is nothing short of extraordinary,” U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vermont, wrote to Squires in a letter read at Brattleboro’s Centre Congregational Church.

Squires first learned of the AIDS walk in 1992 when her son — state Rep. Ronald Squires, the first Vermont lawmaker to reveal his homosexuality — spoke at it shortly after winning passage of a statute prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

“We can teach our children how to prevent AIDS or we can sit and watch them die,” the Democratic legislator told the Town Crier at the time.

The 41-year-old died of the disease in January 1993. Five months later, his mother joined the walk to raise money in his memory.

“After the painful loss of my brother, a tragedy that would have broken many, my mom chose to turn grief into action,” Diana Squires recalled Saturday alongside many of her mother’s 74 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

Since starting in 1993, the matriarch has yet to miss a year of fundraising — continuing even this winter, when she broke her shoulder before she was set to handwrite 500 solicitation letters.

AIDS, once considered a death sentence, is now a treatable condition that about 750 Vermonters are living with through help from the Brattleboro-based service organization, along with Vermont CARES and the Upper Valley’s HIV/HCV Resource Center, according to the state.

To honor Squires’ half-million-dollar milestone, the AIDS Project is renaming its annual fundraiser the Ron and Shirley Squires AIDS Walk. Its top finisher promised to be back next year after celebrating her 95th birthday in August.

“I will keep doing this until I’m not here anymore,” she said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: 94-year-old Vermont charity walker reaches $500,000 milestone.

The Vermont-based fly-fishing company Orvis is now facing pressures “at a pace that we haven’t faced in our 170-year career,” company president Simon Perkins said at a roundtable on tariffs hosted by U.S. Sen. Peter Welch.

At Orvis’ flagship rod shop and factory on Wednesday, Perkins said the Trump administration’s shifting policies have not given businesses enough time to adapt their sourcing and manufacturing models to absorb the shock of tariffs. 

“It’s really hard for a business to respond quick enough to make it work,” Perkins said. “That’s when prices for consumers, that’s when American jobs, that’s when American manufacturing, that’s when that gets put at risk.”

Welch said he aims to highlight business leaders impacted by new tariff policies through roundtable discussions around the state. American business owners and consumers will bear the costs of tariffs, which Welch claimed are analogous to the “biggest tax increase in decades.”

The Trump administration has changed course on tariff policies 21 times since February, according to reporting by Forbes. 

Kevin Meyer of Mary Meyer Stuffed Toys, a wholesale toy manufacturer based out of Townshend, said he feels “lots of frustration” with the fast-paced changes to tariffs. He said one of the challenges as a business owner is staying informed and charting a way forward amid the uncertain impact of tariff policies. This sentiment was echoed by many business leaders at the roundtable. 

“How can you have a business that way?” Meyer said. “How can you plan for your new product lines that are coming out, how to price them, where to get them made?”

Vermont is one of 34 states that hold Canada as its top foreign trade partner, and many businesses nationwide are feeling the effects of erratic tariff policy, Welch said. Last week, Welch and four other congressional colleagues met with the Canadian prime minister and other officials to help restore the relationship, but he said “that requires us to get back on track to a mutually beneficial trade regime.”

Tim Miles, the fourth-generation owner of building supplier rk Miles, said his business relies on price stability for wood products sourced from Canada or hardware supplies sourced abroad. He said his customers are often spending large sums to build or renovate their homes and need to plan ahead for costs, but that sudden tariffs are causing “a lot of confusion in the marketplace for our customers.”

David Black and Anja Wrede, who contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and create specialty bikes and mobility equipment for those with disabilities through their company RAD Innovations Inc., said they source specialized components from around the world for their bike designs.

Black said sourcing specialized components locally for bikes designed to fit the needs of each outdoor recreator is “logistically impossible to imagine.” He said the erratic nature of the Trump administration’s tariff policies undermines the company’s dependability and survival. 

Coral Vogel Cutting, owner of Brattleboro-based Back Roads Granola, said the 20 ingredients essential for her organic, non-GMO, vegan granola cannot be grown locally, so the company is forced to bear the cost of tariffs. She said the company does not have much leeway to increase their prices to recuperate costs, as customers already pay “top dollar” for the high-quality product. 

“We cannot source the quantities of ingredients that we need for most of our products within the United States. It just does not exist,” Vogel Cutting said. “We’ve built our brand around making a very clean product, and now we’re being penalized for that.”

Perkins, of the Orvis fly-fishing equipment company, said the continued uncertainty with the Trump administration’s tariff policies will “stall out innovation” because businesses have to plan ahead for pricing and demand before taking a risk on a new product. 

“Innovation starts with strategy and the strategy starts with the customer and understanding the marketplace,” Perkins said. “If that’s unknown, it’s really hard to understand how you’re going to build that pathway to innovation.”

Welch said he is concerned with the Trump administration’s tariff policies using a “very blunt instrument in an arbitrary way.” Although the Constitution gives Congress the power to set tariffs, it allowed the executive branch to take on that role through the Trade Act of 1974.

“It’s been distressing to me that many of my colleagues are accepting the utilization of that limited authority that was given at a time when it was more restrained, and are not insisting that we take back the capacity in Congress to do what the Constitution provides us with the authority to do,” Welch said. 

The same day Vermont business leaders met in Manchester, the U.S. Court of International Trade found the tariffs unconstitutional. The panel of judges ruled that the broad 10% tariff on most of foreign U.S. trading partners and the specific tariff policies against Canada, China and Mexico for national security reasons exceeded the authority of the executive branch. 

But the decision was temporarily halted on Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals, so tariffs will continue to be imposed for now.

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘Lots of frustration’: Sen. Peter Welch, southern Vermont business leaders sound off on tariffs.

The probable cause of a plane crash atop Mount Equinox on Feb. 6  was the pilot’s “improper decision” to continue flying despite poor visibility due to weather conditions, according to a report from the National Transportation Safety Board released May 9.

The pilot, John Murphy, from the Baltimore, Maryland, area, said he has been working with the Federal Aviation Administration to create a plan to prevent future crashes because the “mistakes that I made are correctable with training.” 

“I'm just taking this process with the FAA seriously to identify the root cause of this problem, which was my decision-making in the flight, so that I can happily move forward and fly with my family again, safely and comfortably,” Murphy said. 

Murphy said he has been flying for about 10 years, and his father taught him to love flying, which he passed down to his son, Josiah Murphy, who is an aircraft mechanic. John Murphy said his pilot license is on a medical hold, but he plans to resume flying when his medical paperwork is approved.

There were no mechanical issues with the Piper PA-28-235 plane John Murphy was flying when the crash occurred, according to the report. The pilot attempted to navigate through heavy cloud cover by flying below the clouds, which he said he soon realized was neither “legal nor safe” amid changing weather, according to the report. John Murphy then tried to ascend but noticed a decrease in power and airspeed and ice forming on the airplane.

The plane stalled and spun out, and the plane crashed into trees near the peak of Mount Equinox. The wings of the plane broke off from the body of the plane, which landed in 4 feet of snow, according to the report. 

John Murphy, son Josiah and daughter Cheyenne Murphy all survived. John Murphy had a head injury, whiplash and broke a bone in his hand, Josiah had a head injury, whiplash and chest bruising, and Cheyenne only had minor whiplash.

The family were en route from the Baltimore area to the Rutland Regional Airport for a ski trip to Killington Mountain Resort before the plane crash. John Murphy said his “crucial error” was not waiting to leave the airport until the poor weather in his flight path lifted. 

“I was wanting to go skiing so bad,” John Murphy said. “I wasn't objectively looking at the weather. I was wishfully looking at the weather, hoping Mother Nature was going to accommodate me.”

After the “10 minutes of terror” he experienced while the plane was in descent, John Murphy said he gained a deeper empathy for those who have had traumatic experiences.  He also said he has a “new appreciation for first responders and what they do” following the rescue.

“It just continues to raise my compassion,” John Murphy said. “I have more of an appreciation for others and sympathy for others experiencing it that I didn't have before.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Pilot decided to fly during poor weather conditions before Mount Equinox plane crash, report found.

In a small town in Bennington County neighboring Stratton Mountain, a contentious debate over whether to expand seats in local government came to a resolution Saturday. 

Residents voted to uphold the recent vote to increase the Winhall Select Board from three to five members. The measure to reverse the previous vote was rejected by a narrow margin of 76 to 72 at a special meeting May 3.

Winhall residents voted previously by a margin of 42-27 votes to expand the board on Town Meeting Day, but Town Clerk Beth Grant filed a petition signed by 46 residents to rescind that vote and seek a revote soon after. At the time, Grant said more residents should participate in the discussion before solidifying a significant change to the town government. 

Julie Isaacs, a current select board member, said there will be a selectboard meeting next Tuesday to set an election date for the two new seats and initiate the process for residents to announce their candidacies.

Isaacs noted the significant increase in participation at the Special Town Meeting compared to Town Meeting Day, with nearly 150 residents in attendance to decide the future of the select board.

“I was really grateful for the turnout. I think the more voices that are heard in a democracy, the better,” Isaacs said. “There were people there that I had never met before, so I was really glad for that, and I hope they continue to come to meetings. I would love to see more involvement in town.”

Winhall resident Nancy Yates said she spoke against rescinding the vote at the meeting because she wants more representation on the board. While reconsideration of the vote is legal, Yates said the democratic process functioned properly on Town Meeting Day and residents felt disenfranchised by the revote.

“We talked about how the first vote was free and fair and had no irregularities, and that this was basically a legal loophole,” Yates said. 

Select Board member Bill Schwartz previously told VTDigger in an email he opposed expanding the board at the time the revote was ordered because two select board members would no longer constitute a quorum and would allow two members to discuss town business outside scheduled meetings. That concern was echoed by some residents at Saturday’s special town meeting, which was recorded by Greater Northshire Access Television. 

Select board members Schwartz and Stuart Coleman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Mike Cole — a Winhall resident who started the original petition to expand the board on the Town Meeting Day ballot — said the revote results should bring an end to the debate. Cole said state law does not permit votes to be reconsidered more than once in a year, unless the Legislature votes in favor of a revote.

Jeff Yates, a member of the Winhall Planning Commission, said he is interested in running for one of the new seats.

Grant, the town clerk, also wrote in an email that she intends to run for a newly created seat. Grant said she had already planned to seek a seat on the board at a later date, and has been attending meetings regularly over the past three years to gain insight into the function of the select board. 

“I care deeply for the town and would be happy to have another opportunity to serve the residents, as well as visitors to our beautiful area,” Grant wrote in an email. 

Planning Commission and Housing Committee member Hannah Gianotti said she hopes an expanded select board will encourage younger residents to step forward as candidates. 

“We have an opportunity to build a really strong and resilient Winhall,” Gianotti said. “I just hope that this is the first step in a new chapter for Winhall with more voices.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story included incorrect vote counts.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Revote upholds Winhall Select Board seat expansion.

State regulators signed off on a proposal from Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington to construct a roughly $10 million psychiatric unit for adolescents, overruling concerns from the Brattleboro Retreat and a disability advocacy group.

In a unanimous decision, the Green Mountain Care Board, a state health care regulator, voted March 19 to issue a certificate of need — effectively, a permission slip allowing the project to move forward.

The five-member board wrote that “there is an urgent need for additional inpatient mental health capacity” in a document outlining its decision. 

“The project will improve the quality of health care and improve access by increasing the number of adolescent inpatient mental health beds available in Vermont,” the decision states.

The unit has been in the works since 2022, when the Bennington hospital responded to a state request for proposals to build an inpatient mental health care unit. 

To build the new facility, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center is proposing to renovate nearly 7,000 square feet on a ground floor of one of its buildings. The 12-bed unit will house youths 12 to 17 and “will include spaces for group and individual therapy, sensory mitigation, social service consultation, quiet and active socializing and learning, and staff documentation and support,” according to board documents. 

The unit will be supported with $10.25 million in state funds, $1 million of which is for operations during its first year.

“We thank the Green Mountain Care Board for the careful review and support of this project, which represents an important expansion of adolescent mental health services for Vermont,” Thomas Dee, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center’s president and CEO, said in an emailed statement. “We are grateful to take this next step to support adolescents and their families through this program.”

The proposed unit spent over a year in the Green Mountain Care Board’s certificate of need process, during which it drew concerns from the nonprofit Disability Rights Vermont and the Brattleboro Retreat, a psychiatric hospital that operates its own youth inpatient program.

Disability Rights Vermont argued that the state’s money would be better spent shoring up less-intensive mental health services in the community, such as counseling or school resources. 

And the Brattleboro Retreat said it was unclear exactly how much demand for inpatient treatment existed — and that the new unit in the Bennington hospital could draw patients away and cut into its business, to the tune of $10 million annually.

The board, however, gave the project the green light despite those concerns. If the Retreat’s business is affected by the project, the board wrote, it has the ability to adapt. 

“Mental health needs in Vermont are substantial and the Retreat is in a strong position to assess those needs in order to meet them,” the board wrote.

Kathryn Czaplinski, a spokesperson for Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, said it was unclear exactly when the unit could be completed, but construction should take about eight months once the permitting process is finalized.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Adolescent psychiatric unit at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center gets green light from regulator.

When Laura Martin bought her home in south Bennington seven years ago, she was well aware of the problems of PFAS contamination in Bennington’s private well supply and groundwater.

Based on data at the time, Martin said she thought that her new home was out of the range of contamination from a teflon-coated fabrics ChemFab factory that shuttered over 20 years ago. Just in case, Martin, a professor of environmental studies at Williams College, tested the drinking water well supply for PFAS before purchasing the property, finding no detectable sign of PFAS. 

But a recent round of state tests, done in October 2023, detected PFAS in her home’s well supply, which was particularly troubling for Martin as she was raising her 1-year-old child at the time.

“I had to confront the reality of the fact that PFAS are in the soils in Bennington, and are going to be for decades to centuries,” Martin said in an interview. 

Real-world research

Martin was one of the many residents who attended a presentation Monday to the Bennington Select Board by Bennington College faculty and students and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. The presentation featured new research on PFAS contamination in the Bennington region, conducted through a partnership between the department and Bennington College. 

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of thousands of synthetic, toxic chemicals found in a variety of ubiquitous household items such as stain-resistant fabrics, non-stick cookware and personal care products. PFOA, perfluorooctanoic acid, is a specific type of PFAS that was used in the fiberglass fabric that the Bennington Chemfab factory produced before it closed. 

Bennington’s public water supply is sourced from Morgan Springs, which is free of PFAS contamination, said David Bond, associate director of the Center for Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College. But for those with private wells who were exposed to even trace amounts of PFAS, the impacts could be substantial, as PFAS have been linked to a number of cancers and other adverse health concerns, he said.

Student researchers at Bennington College analyzed data that the state Department of Environmental Conservation has collected from nearly 700 private wells since 2016. They found that spatial factors such as distance to the factory, slope direction in relation to the factory, wind patterns and rock formations of the region impact contamination levels. 

“Working with a real-world environmental issue like PFOA goes beyond just textbooks and becomes a public concern,” said Alejandra Vouga, a junior environmental science major and one of the four Bennington College student researchers. “Science is vital not only to understand PFOA but also to do something about it for our community.”

The research findings come a year after PFAS was detected in more private wells than initially known in the Bennington region, prompting the state to continue retesting and expanding testing wells in southern Bennington.

Tim Schroeder, a professor of geology and lead researcher on the project, looked at the data over time, finding that PFOA levels continue to rise in soil and groundwater in the Bennington region.

“What that ended up showing me was that there’s way more wells where the concentration is still going up than wells where the concentration is going down,” Schroeder said in an interview. “The cause of that is most likely that there’s just a lot of PFOA in the soil that is still aggressively leaching to the groundwater, and that is something that’s likely to continue for a very, very long time.”

The main takeaway from the research is that PFAS contamination has increased and spread in the Bennington region, mostly downwind, so there should be continued commitment to the study of PFAS in the area, said Bond. 

Bond said the research findings contradict the 2017 model put forward by the factory’s owner, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, asserting that PFAS levels peaked in 2016 and would continue to decline.

Bond said that model served to limit the company’s liability before the state and Saint-Gobain reached a final settlement in 2019 for the company to pay the majority of the $25 million cost to connect households with contaminated private wells to the municipal water supply. 

“Our research provides an empirical rebuttal of that model,” Bond said. “We are seeing across the board PFOA levels continue to rise across our region and continue to be found well beyond the area of initial concern, and the takeaways from this research are pretty clear — we need robust monitoring of all wells in the Bennington region for PFOA.”

Community solutions

Richard Spiese, a hazardous site manager with the Department of Environmental Conservation, said that Bennington has the most severe PFAS contamination problem in Vermont due to this groundwater spread. 

The state first recommends that households connect with the public water supply if their private well is contaminated. However, a handful of households in the Bennington region have been unable to connect or opted out of connecting to the municipal water supply, Spiese said. In that case, he said people should use the point of entry treatment (POET) water filtration system or drink clean, non-tap water to minimize exposure to PFAS. 

As an environmental studies professor at Williams College, Martin focuses on environmental justice. She explained that PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” have been shown to build up in the body over time and to persist in the food chain. However, the community harm and individual health concerns related to chronic exposure to industrial pollutants is hard to prove and quantify. 

She added that regulation of chemicals in the United States places the burden of proof of harm on individuals and communities, rather than requiring companies to prove that their products are safe and not polluting the environment.

“There’s a couple of different barriers that rural communities like those in Vermont face when seeking justice for companies exposing them to pollutants,” Martin said. “One of them is the fact that these pollutants like PFOA cause injuries that take years to decades to manifest.” 

Martin noted that Vermont’s limit on PFAS contamination in public drinking water — 20 parts per trillion — is currently less strict than federal guidelines. She believes the state should work to align its policies with federal standards.

Bryan Redmond, director of the state’s Drinking Water and Groundwater Protection Division, said the state has been working to come in line with the EPA regulations set by the Biden administration. But a recent EPA lawsuit filing – from new leadership there under the new administration of President Donald Trump, resulted in the court issuing in February a 60-day temporary suspension of the federal guidelines. 

That has delayed Vermont’s plans to conform to federal maximum contaminant levels by July. The outcome of the litigation will shape the state’s next steps with PFAS regulation, he said. 

While Bennington faces the worst PFAS contamination, Bond said he thinks that the Bennington region’s PFAS problem often gets overlooked. He hopes that this research conducted by student researchers will help develop scientific understanding of how PFAS spreads in the environment and inspire the local community to take action. 

“We’re trying to give the community the best science so they can make sense of the issue and they can come together to seek reasonable solutions and protect their groundwater and environmental resources moving forward,” Bond said. 

Disclosure: Bryan Redmond is married to VTDigger CEO Sky Barsch.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bennington region has the most severe PFAS contamination problem in the state, and new research finds it is getting worse.

After decades of deferred maintenance, the 306-foot Bennington Battle Monument, with its stone sodden in approximately 66,000 gallons of water, is in desperate need of restoration work. 

James Duggan, the state’s director of preservation for state historic sites, said the total cost of the restoration effort — including removing moisture and strengthening the walls and foundation — would amount to $40 million, or even more if action is not taken soon. 

The monument is Vermont’s most-frequented historic site, attracting 40,000 visitors last year with over $275,000 accrued in state revenue, according to Duggan’s presentation to the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions on Feb. 4. 

“Nothing is being done while we’re thinking about how to get some traction and moving forward,” Duggan said during the presentation. “That is going to continue to increase the amount of deterioration, as well as increase the costs and the amount of work that has to be finished later.”

Since the $40 million price tag for the restoration was revealed last month, debate has ensued over whether saving the monument is worth the cost. 

Lyman Orton — a proprietor of the Vermont Country Store and Vermont antiquarian, who has acquired the largest private collection of Vermont art — believes there are innovative, potentially holographic solutions to the monument’s age-old problems. 

In a recent letter to the editor published in the Manchester Journal, Orton suggested tearing down the original monument and erecting a new kind of memorial to the Battle of Bennington.

Speaking with VTDigger, Orton reminisced about his childhood visiting the monument and the thrill of reaching the overlook with his father, who served as chairman of the Vermont Historic Sites Commission at that time. Orton said he also remembered his father grumbling about the problems with the monument’s stone absorbing water and causing continual need for repairs back in the 1950s. 

Orton said he sees history repeating itself and is worried that future generations will be saddled with the monument’s continued maintenance costs due to the ill-chosen stone. Amid federal funding cuts, Orton also voiced doubts that the state could find sufficient funds for the restoration effort.

“How are we going to come up with $40 million to try to patch up a water-soaked bunch of limestone?” Orton asked. “It’s not granite. It’s not even marble. It’s limestone, so it’s not good stuff. It soaks up water.”

Orton floated the idea of developing a hologram of the monument in his opinion piece, but said he hopes to seed a conversation and encourage people to think “outside the box” to imagine other ideas of how to replace the monument as the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bennington approaches in 2027. 

“Youth is not so much constrained by history, so they might be able to think of some things that older people would not conceive of,” Orton said. “Maybe we should do something that’s outrageous, rather than just patch it up.”

But Thomas Scheetz — a first-year student at Harvard College and a Bennington resident who grew up near the monument and wrote a book on the history of buildings in Old Bennington — said he believes restoration is a worthwhile investment. 

The monument’s draw for tourists is an economic boon to the town and the obelisk structure serves as an important symbol to the local community, he said. 

Scheetz said he has observed conversations in favor of removing the monument gaining traction in the past month on social media and in comments posted following a story in Vermont Daily Chronicle. He said he is worried the public discourse could grow and eventually influence  the Legislature’s decision-making regarding whether to restore or replace the monument. 

Taking down monuments would be disruptive to the local community and would not be effective as a cost-saving measure, Scheetz said. He added that there are centuries of history and people’s markings etched into the stone that would be irrevocably lost if the monument was disassembled. 

“I think the community recognizes that there is great potential in the present thing, and great symbolic meaning in the present thing for the community, so I think that might be lost partially by replacement,” Scheetz said. “It’s going to cost a ton of money to take it down and a ton of money to replace, so it doesn’t seem that, if we’re aiming for frugality, that should be the option we take.”

As part of the study of the monument, State Historic Preservation Officer Laura Trieschmann said it was determined it would require an estimated $20 million just to tear down the existing structure. 

Trieschmann said she recognized the water absorption problems with the monument’s exterior, composed mostly of Sandy Hill dolomite, a blue-gray magnesian limestone, but said replacing the monument is not as simple as it sounds. 

“Was it the best stone to use for today’s climate? Maybe not,” Trieschmann said in an interview. “But replacing it would be a lot more expensive, and it would end up being a reconstruction. We’re looking for a restoration.”

Trieschmann said the state is studying the monument to understand how it responds to weather changes to create long-term solutions, adding that the monument will be more resilient to climate change if proper funding is allocated for the large-scale restoration.

“If we do this correctly, we’re looking at another 100 years of this being a really good, solid monument before it might need another check-up,” Trieschmann said during last month’s presentation to the House committee.

The Division for Historic Preservation has received a handful of calls from people around Vermont urging the state not to take down the monument, Trieschmann said, but none that advocated for the monument to be dismantled and replaced. 

Trieschmann said the state is focused on restoration, and the state’s preservation division is looking for piecemeal funding to begin the next phase — to design scaffolding and a dehumidifying system for the structure. 

“Taking it down would require justification that all alternatives have been exhausted, and there is no justification for that alternative at this point,” Trieschmann wrote in an emailed statement. “It is the most visited state-owned historic site in Vermont, recognized for its vistas to three states, construction history, and association with the Revolutionary War.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: With $40M worth of restoration needed, Vermonters debate future of Bennington Battle Monument.

After a plane crash atop Mount Equinox in Manchester on Feb. 26, the three passengers were rescued and brought to the hospital for nonfatal injuries. 

The three people aboard the plane were identified as the pilot John Murphy, his son Josiah Murphy and daughter Cheyenne Murphy from the Baltimore area in Maryland, according to Manchester’s first assistant fire chief Jamie Greene.

After receiving care, the three family members were released from the hospital the night of Feb. 26, Greene said. John sustained a head injury and broke a bone in his wrist. Josiah also suffered a head injury, but Cheyenne emerged unscathed from the plane crash, according to Greene. 

The family departed from Baltimore, Maryland, with the destination of Rutland Southern Vermont Regional Airport, with plans to ski at Killington Mountain Resort, Greene said. 

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have launched investigations into the cause of the plane crash.

Read the story on VTDigger here: 3 people injured in Mount Equinox plane crash identified.

Updated at 9:32 p.m.

Bennington voters reelected an incumbent and picked two new members Tuesday for the seven-member Select Board whose visions align with a faction of the board who want to pursue bold development and growth plans for the town.

Jackie Matts, Jim Sullivan and incumbent Tom Haley won the three seats up for election in the crowded, 10-candidate Bennington Select Board race. 

“The voters of Bennington have spoken clearly about the direction they want the town to be going, and I’m honored to be able to be a part of that,” Matts said on election night. 

“The results couldn’t be clearer,” Sullivan said. “The people of Bennington want people on the board who are positive, who have a forward-looking vision for Bennington and will work collaboratively on making Bennington an even better place to live.” 

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about what voters want to see in the selectboard,” Sullivan said.

“The voters of Bennington heard our message loud and clear,” Haley said. “I’m humbled by the support, and I am looking forward to continuing the work we’ve done.”

The hotly contested election comes after board meetings have grown more acrimonious in recent months. 

Recent disputes on the selectboard have centered on questions of federal funding going toward key projects in the town, namely redeveloping the former Bennington High School into housing and a community hub, and building a skate park. These projects were identified as community needs and pursued by the current board.

The board’s two newest members, Clark Adams and Nancy White, have pushed back against the use of federal funding for the projects underway. They claim the town has been fiscally irresponsible with grant funding and has lacked transparency. But other incumbent members who have shepherded the two projects have expressed concerns about what they say is a lack of understanding of the board’s policies and procedures by Adams and Clark.

The election of Haley, Matts and Sullivan means board members favoring the use of federal funds for development projects will control a majority of the board.

Most candidates gathered at the Bennington Firehouse Tuesday night where they waited for election results. Sullivan garnered the most votes with 1,277. Matts followed with 1,109 and Haley netted 1,104. Beau B. Alexander Sr., Mike Bethel, Kelly Brundige Carroll, Maria Corrales, Jack “Ripper” Hurley, Martha J. Mackey and Jack Rossiter-Munley also ran for the three open seats. 

After the results came in, Matts and Haley headed to celebrate with friends and supporters.

“Frankly, I’m exhausted,” Haley said. He joked about looking forward to finally eating a vegetable after weeks of campaign pizza and cookies.

Matts said pizza was on the menu to celebrate the victory, but “the work starts tomorrow.”

With regard to how he was feeling, Sullivan was succinct: “One word: tired,” he said. 

He celebrated his win at Harvest Brewing in Bennington. “I’m very grateful. I’m looking forward to getting my feet under me,” he said.

The newly elected members will take their seats in April. The current board members will meet twice more in March.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Voters elect Bennington Select Board members who hope to advance development projects.

Updated at 5:01 p.m.

MANCHESTER — Three people whose small plane crashed Wednesday morning near the summit of Mount Equinox were rescued with the help of a helicopter that lowered a basket to pluck the trio from the snowy and remote location.

Jamie Greene, the Manchester Fire Department’s first assistant chief, described the injuries to all three people as “non-life-threatening,” and said each person was “awake” and “aware.” 

Following the rescue, all three were taken to the town’s public safety building. From there, according to Greene, two were transported to local hospitals for treatment and the third person was airlifted to Albany Medical Center in New York for “further evaluation.”

The entire rescue effort, he said, involved roughly 100 people. 

Greene, speaking at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, did not identify those injured in the crash. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Safety Transportation Board would be investigating the cause of the crash and were scheduled to arrive Friday morning, he said. 

“Obviously, the snow helped cushion the fall,” Greene said. Of the pilot, he added, “he was able to guide through a couple trees just perfectly.”

The plane, according to online aircraft tracker Flightradar24, departed the Martin State Airport in Baltimore County, Maryland, a little after 6 a.m. Wednesday.

The tracker service did not list a destination for the aircraft, and Greene said he did not know the plane’s flight plan. 

FAA records indicated the plane with the registration number listed on the online flight track service was a single engine, fixed-wing Piper aircraft.

According to Greene, Manchester first responders received an emergency call from the pilot at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, although he could not confirm the actual time of the crash.

First responders had limited access to the crash site, and needed to navigate through snow up to four feet deep, according to Greene. 

“Obviously, snow was a big factor,” Greene said in an interview, describing the challenge of getting rescue workers to the scene of the plane crash. “Once they got towards the top, it got deeper and deeper.”

That prompted first responders to seek access to the site through a different, unmaintained route, enabling rescue workers, who donned snowshoes, to make contact with the people who had been on the plane, Greene said. 

“It was very rugged terrain, but our guys pushed through and were able to finally contact them,” Greene said. “Then we were able to get all of our manpower down there to help assist and get the medics in there (and) make sure that everyone was okay.”

At the press conference, Greene said two helicopters from a New York State Police aviation unit and one medevac helicopter from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center assisted in the rescue operation.

“We gave them the GPS coordinates of roughly where we were,” Greene said. “There was a lot of tree cover so it was hard to find us on the ground.”   

According to Greene, when he arrived at the scene there was fog halfway up the mountain. “It did lift up a little bit, which actually helped the rescue mission,” he said, adding that the crash site was at an elevation of about 3,200 feet. 

One helicopter, Greene said, “did all the hoisting and lifting,” and another oversaw the operation from the air. 

Along with the Manchester fire and police and Northshire Rescue Squad, firefighters and police from several nearby departments aided in the rescue. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife department and the Vermont and New York State Police also offered assistance on the scene. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: First responders rescue 3 people injured in plane crash on Mount Equinox  .

Verizon’s proposal to construct a new cell tower near a recreational area in the town of Manchester has come up against widespread opposition from residents and town officials in recent months. 

While residents say the cell tower would interfere with people’s enjoyment of natural and recreational resources, Verizon maintains that there are no other viable options for the tower’s location.

Last May, Verizon announced its intent to apply to the state’s Public Utility Commission for approval to build a cell tower on Hunter Park Road. In the months following, residents, town officials and the state’s Department of Public Service have all submitted a string of public comments to the commission, which regulates utilities, voicing objections to the plan. 

On Tuesday, the commission released an order to begin further investigation into the matter, pointing to public comments that suggest the project “raises a significant issue with respect to compliance with the municipal plan.”

In the town of Manchester’s comments, the leading concern cited was that the tower would be in a mixed-use zoning area where cell towers are not permitted based on the town’s land use ordinance. 

The proposed location is also near the Manchester Rail Trail and the Northshire Civic Center, which includes Riley Rink at Hunter Park. Both are popular spaces for recreation and gathering for the Manchester community all year round, according to Karen O’Neill Thomson, head of school at Red Fox Community School, which is less than a half-mile from the proposed site. 

“The rail trail is a beautiful asset that winds through the woods. It’s being used all the time,” said O’Neill Thomson, who submitted a public comment to the commission opposing the cell tower. “The fields are used for lacrosse practice and football practice, and there’s all kinds of festivals that are in the fields, so it’s an incredible public resource.”

The proximity of the tower’s proposed location to those community assets and the potential visibility of the tower have all been concerns raised by residents, said Scott Murphy, Manchester’s town manager.

The proposal has also been “highly controversial” for residents because of potential health concerns of cell towers, Murphy said. But, he said the town cannot use that reason to object to the proposal because Verizon’s application meets the federal minimum health regulations for cell towers. 

This is not the first time the town of Manchester has faced the prospect of a new cell tower, said Murphy. In 2023, AT&T initiated the first steps in the process to construct one, only to back out before submitting an application when residents objected.

The town of Manchester asked Tectonic Engineering to create a report to suggest other locations for Verizon’s cell tower, which was submitted to the commission in early January. Several other locations were proposed in the report, including a site in an office-industrial zone neighboring the current proposed location that was highly recommended.

Verizon’s lawyer, Cooper Hayes, declined to comment because the petition is still under consideration. 

But, Verizon’s consolidated response to public comments — submitted to the commission on Dec. 31 and signed by Hayes — stated there are no other reasonable alternative locations for the proposed cell tower.

“Verizon cannot just ‘turn up the power’ at a distant site to provide coverage to a targeted area,” wrote Hayes in the document. “As customers move throughout the service area, the transmission from the phone or other device is automatically transferred to the Verizon facility with the best reception, without interruption in service, provided that there is overlapping coverage between the cells.”

Hunter Thompson, director of Telecommunications and Connectivity for the Vermont Department of Public Service, wrote in a statement emailed to VTDigger that the petition is inconsistent with the municipal plan and land use ordinance.

“The Department recommended the Commission reject the petition on orderly development grounds because approving the petition would not be consistent with giving substantial deference to the Town of Manchester,” Thompson wrote.

Murphy said the town is not opposed to a new cell tower. Indeed, he said during peak tourism times there have been problems with the limited bandwidth for service in the area. But, Murphy said, this particular cell tower and its proposed location would not comply with the town’s municipal plan and would be detrimental to resident’s experience of outdoor recreation in Manchester.

“Certainly, the town is in need of a new tower,” said Murphy. “We’re hoping that they could find a reasonable spot that covers their needs and also meets our zoning requirements.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Regulators to take a closer look after Manchester cell tower proposal draws pushback.

Bennington resident Jasen Frederickson said what pulled him off the sidelines to speak at local selectboard meetings were the “behaviors, words and tone” he had observed from the board since new members took their seats last spring. He is among several residents who have come forward at selectboard meetings in recent weeks to air such sentiments.  

“As a concerned community member, I see challenges in the current direction and productivity of these meetings,” Frederickson said at Monday night’s meeting. “Disagreements are natural, but even when two people don’t see eye-to-eye, progress is possible.”

A division has emerged within the selectboard in recent months as the two newest members, Clark Adams and Nancy White, have questioned the use of federal funding for two key projects now underway. They claim the local government is being fiscally irresponsible with grant funding and lacking transparency.

Incumbent members who have shepherded the two projects express concerns about what they say is a lack of understanding of the board’s policies and procedures.

The frustrations bubbling up in Bennington have brought what is expected to be a competitive election on Town Meeting Day. Three seats on the Bennington Selectboard are up for grabs. Board chair Jeannie Jenkins and board member Jeanne Conner are not seeking reelection, while current member Tom Haley has confirmed he is. 

Already, seven others have declared their candidacy and more may step forward before the filing deadline at the end of the month. With a crowded field of candidates and at least two new members joining the seven-seat board this spring, there is a potential shake-up of its priorities and direction.

Public-private partnerships  

When Bennington received American Rescue Plan Act funding three years ago, the town engaged in an extensive public process to identify residents’ priorities, Jenkins said. The process revealed two specific community needs: housing and recreation.

Since then, the board voted in 2023 to approve the use of the federal funds to help redevelop the former Bennington High School into housing and a hub for social services and wellness, especially for seniors and families. In 2024, the board voted to use the federal funds to build a skate park.

Jenkins said the town hired two new employees to compile information on the town’s website to chronicle updates on the projects and other town goings-on. 

The two projects and their sources of funding have since been questioned consistently by some board members and residents during meetings, regardless of the meeting’s agenda. The projects have also attracted a deluge of Facebook comments under Catamount Access Television’s postings of selectboard meeting recordings.

Ed Woods, the board’s vice chair, said troubles with public discourse in meetings and online is due to the board having to “continue to repeat the facts” instead of “discussing the issues,” which he called a “terrible time-waster.”

“I think that some of the confusion comes from a handful of people in the public who may disagree with a trajectory or a particular path that the board may be taking up on any particular item,” said Woods. “Rather than just voicing their discontent with the project itself, they’re not willing to accept real information as truth.”

Jack Rossiter-Munley, executive director of Bennington’s refugee resettlement agency, announced his bid for the selectboard last month, running jointly with Martha Mackey. He said he hopes to foster positive participation in local government if elected.

Rossiter-Munley said there has been more engagement in local politics lately, but it is happening under “a cloud of contention” because of the public’s concerns about transparency and confusion over the projects local government is working on. 

“I think it has been hard to match the amount of information that is available with people feeling adequately informed,” said Rossiter-Munley. “Oftentimes, you have totally factual information that’s being shared and reliable information that people can get pointed to in places like the town of Bennington website, but that doesn’t necessarily address the feeling that someone has that they don’t have the information that they need.”

Haley, first elected in 2021, said the communication and transparency issues raised by some are “overblown,” and as the Bennington High School project evolved, the town was diligent in keeping residents informed. He said he is worried the continued questioning of projects already approved will hamper progress. 

“Overall, the communication has been very good. It is an incredibly complex project. It’s the biggest public-private partnership that we’ve ever tried here in Bennington, and it’s got a lot of moving parts,” said Haley. “We’re seeing outside investment in Bennington on a level we haven’t seen in a very long time.”

But Adams, one of the newest members of the board, said he ran for the seat to increase accountability and transparency he thought was lacking. Adams said he is opposed to projects that use American Rescue Plan Act money or other government funding because of concerns over the national debt and residents’ tax burdens. 

“A lot of the projects, when they get federal grants or state grants, come with such conditions that it makes the projects more complicated, more expensive, and they don’t move quickly,” said Adams. “It’s very, very burdensome using grant funding as the basis of some of these projects, and I think that we have to come up with some alternatives.”

Woods disagrees. He said funding from the federal or state government helps the community because “a larger grant list lowers the burden on each individual taxpayer.”

As resident Frederickson sees it, the infighting between selectboard members regarding anything related to public-private partnerships has resulted in slow movement by the town government on issues he would like addressed, namely opening a warming shelter during the cold months. 

‘Vitriol and libel and negativity’

As conversations over town issues continued online, Jenkins said concerns were raised that, if there was not a clear social media policy in place, elected officials may engage in discussions about town issues online, inadvertently violating Open Meeting Law. 

Last year, the selectboard voted to extend the town’s social media policy to elected officials. It states that employees should refrain from using social media to discuss municipal business.

“One of the things that we are all very, very careful about is making sure that the conversations that we have about the town’s work are done in public,” said Jenkins. “One of the areas where individuals can get themselves into trouble is by having conversations through email or on Facebook.”

But at the board’s Jan. 13 meeting, two Bennington residents raised concerns about Facebook comments, including Thomas Scheetz, who said he was “disturbed” by the “vitriol and libel and negativity” in online comments during live video posts by Catamount Access Television. 

At the Dec. 9 selectboard meeting, resident Vickie Lampron made a public comment about “reprehensible behavior,” claiming some board members displayed lack of decorum, yelled at colleagues and the town manager and commandeered meetings with repeated questions. 

Through a public records request, Lampron obtained email exchanges between Adams and a resident that used repeated profanity to characterize fellow board members and challenged their truthfulness in pursuing town projects.

In response to the email chain, Adams said he considers the act of listening and responding to constituents as part of his responsibilities as a selectboard member. Disagreements on the board are part of a democratic government’s function and have been negatively misrepresented as discord, said Adams. 

“The fact that someone is asking questions and is not accepting the information or demanding clarity does not mean that there’s discord. It means the political process is working,” said Adams. “People are supposed to ask questions. Elected representatives are supposed to be accountable to their constituents. The system is supposed to be transparent and open, and if insisting on that is discord, I guess maybe I could be termed guilty as charged.”

‘Huge learning curve’

Woods, the board vice chair, attributes some of the problems to what he calls a “huge learning curve” for new volunteer selectboard members, adding that some of the issues the board has faced reveals a gap in training. 

“I think that the breakdown is based on new members really not understanding the process and knowing where to go for resources,” said Woods.

Ted Brady, executive director of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, said his organization has been training and advising municipal officials and selectboard members for years, but it was only last year that the state mandated training for selectboard chairs and ethics training for municipal employees. 

Conventionally, selectboard members attend a day-long institute hosted by the league at the beginning of their term, said Brady. He encouraged any municipal board members to contact his organization for support and said resources on the group’s website are updated weekly. He noted there have been more inquiries from towns in recent years, with a peak during the pandemic. 

Brady added the history of American politics is actually more rife with infighting than people realize, but good policies and education can help encourage civility in local government. 

“Everyone bemoans the lack of civility and decorum in American politics right now. I always point out, you know, a United States senator beat up another United States senator on the floor during the Civil War,” Brady said, referring to the Brooks-Sumner affair of 1856.

“There’s nothing new to issues with decorum in democracy,” he added.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Jasen Frederickson’s name.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Division or democracy? A monthslong ‘cloud of contention’ over public-private projects besets Bennington’s selectboard.