Cabot Historical Society

← From the Cabot Chronicle

The community record for this issue of the Cabot Chronicle, extracted from the original pages. Reprinted with permission from the Cabot Chronicle.

• USPS in Cabot — 372w
• Anne of Green Gables Coming in May! — 443w
• Show and Tell — 45w
• HILLTOP AUTO BODY — 206w
• Fire Department — 484w
• Enters Its — 393w
• Town Meeting — 72w
• News Service on March 6, 2024 — 338w
• Heats Up — 321w
• Jane L. Green — 271w
• By Karen Mueller-Harder — 99w
• EMORIALS — 352w
• Contra Dance — 73w
• Consulting and Gardening — 228w
• for Birds — 228w
• Total Solar Eclipse — 347w
• from NASA — 364w
• By Jennifer Miner, President — 155w
• Ambulance — 119w
• Seletboard Reorganization — 285w
• Post Office Status — 689w
• Possible Property Buyout — 227w
• Old Firehouse Site — 478w
• Plan — 175w
• Emergency Transport — 394w
• Emergency Transport — 122w
• Service (Part 1) — 368w
• Service (Part 2) — 378w
• Emergency Transport Service — 499w
• (Part 3) — 271w
• Emergency (Part 3) — 62w
• Fire Station Discussions — 322w
• EXPIRES — 204w
• Appointed by Selectboard: — 100w
• EXPIRES — 164w
• Cabot School: Looking Back, — 512w
• Looking Forward — 414w
• Education. Their Funding — 326w
• is Drying Up. — 455w
• Community Schools — 46w
• Cabot: A case study — 891w
• Coordinator for Cabot Afterschool — 326w
• Youth Council — 192w
• Let’s Grow Kids — 462w
• 76 — 244w
• ABC and LOL Child Care Center — 57w
• About Vermont's Child Care Cam- — 62w
• Board of Directors — 135w
• Cabot Tree Warden — 252w
• U PDATE — 167w
• T REE W ARDEN — 185w
• Youth Program - Pinhole Projectors — 46w
• Storywalk - Starting April 6 - Cabot — 166w
• Ongoing - Tuesdays, 3:30 - 5:00 pm. — 51w
• Teen Game Night & Food (ages 12-18) — 108w
• L IBRARY N EWS — 50w
• Workshops - Using Everyday Materi- — 191w
• Stranger in the Woods: The Extraor- — 64w
• Yoga for Everybody! Sundays 10:30- — 228w
• Test Pilot’s Daughter . Right away we — 503w
• Storms, Culverts and — 519w
• Road Ditches — 526w

USPS in Cabot

(continued from page 1) became a route carrier from Montpelier to the Canadian line. His route followed the County Road from Montpelier over Cabot Plain to Danville, Barton and Lyndon. He returned by a different route that took him through Craftsbury and Hardwick, picking up and delivering packages, letters and newspapers on the round trip that took about 10 days. If a town had no post office, he left mail at designated residences, taverns, or stores along the way. Local newspaper offices vied to be the drop-off location so they would have the news before anyone else. After Henry Denny, Mr. Cate of Plainfield carried the mail on the same route, also on horseback.

Nickerson Warner, in about 1810, became the first appointed postmaster in Cabot. The postmaster usually maintained an office in his home, but because he lived too far off the postal route, Warner hired Lenord Orcutt, who lived on the route, to distribute what mail the carrier had not already handed off along the way. Mr. Orcutt found it most efficient to take the mail to church with him (at the Center of Town Meeting House) and distribute it there. In 1814, Jeremiah Babcock became postmaster. He lived close to County Road, so kept the post office in his home. When he resigned in 1820 his son, Harvey, became postmaster and moved the office to a store in Cabot’s Lower Village, where it remained for several years. Route carriers traveled on horseback until Deacon Adams initiated a horsedrawn stage that carried passengers as well as mail. His stage was a wagon with hay for passengers’ comfort, but with rough roads and no springs on the wagon, hay was an ineffective cushion. After Adams, Deacon Kellogg ran the stage. George Dana became postmaster in 1834. By then most of the town’s business had moved from the Plain and Center of Town to the valley where Cabot Village is now, so Dana established the post office in Elijah Perry’s store in Cabot Village. This caused friction between the upper and lower village communities, but the office remained there except for one year when Cornelius Smith of the Lower Village was

DEADLINE: 15th of the month prior to production

Coordinator: Jeannie Johnson

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Anne of Green Gables Coming in May!

by Karen Mueller-Harder

Please join appointed postmaster. After that year, it Cabot returned to the upper village and has reCom-

munity Theamained there since. ter for our fullThe stage to Montpelier took two days length – one day over and one day back – so stage

production of there were mail deliveries three times a Anne of Green week until about 1860 when roads were Gables, Lucy better and mail could be delivered daily Maud from Montpelier. In the 1870's, rail serMont-

gomery's timevice to nearby Marshfield and Walden less story of a resilient and imaginative greatly improved Cabot’s postal service. young girl, and her adventures in Stages carried mail and passengers daily Avonlea, a small farming town not ento and from the train stations. tirely unlike Cabot! The show, featuring a Earle J. Rogers had served as Cabot’s huge multi-generational cast of commupostmaster for nearly 30 years when he nity members, will enchant you and died in 1951. His son, Edward J. “Jack” warm your heart. Rogers, was appointed to the office on The play will be performed one weekDecember 31, 1951. Mr. Rogers kept the end only: Thursday through Saturday, post office in his store, Wells & Rogers. May 2-4, at 7:00, and Saturday and SunThe original building burned in 1935 and day matinees, May 4-5 at 2:00. Performwas replaced by a new structure which is ances will be at the Cabot School Performnow the Cabot Village Store. ing Arts Center, behind the main school Warren L. Barnett became postmaster building at 25 Common Road, in Cabot. in 1954. A small self-contained post office Cabot Community Theater is dedicated was built north of Roger’s store, and the to keeping our ticket prices low, to be acoffice has remained there ever since. cessible to the whole community. AdmisWhen Warren retired, his wife, Helen sion is only $10, or $5 for kids/students/ became postmaster. elders/low income; you may pay with cash, Stephen Webster became officer in check, or Venmo at the door. We strongly charge of the Cabot post office in 1983, recommend making a reservation, howuntil Nancy Houston was appointed postever, as most of our performances do sell master in 1984. Sandra Curtis held the out! We have moved our reservations office for about a year before Claudette

McAllister came on board. The post office online this year: just go to tinyurl.com/

cctanne and fill out the short form there!

Seats are general admission, unless

you need special accommodations. Thea-

ter and bathroom are wheelchair accessi-

ble. The play is appropriate for all ages,

but requires a decent attention span, so

may not be a good fit for really young chil-

dren.

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Show and Tell

Post Office became a Level 6 (6-hour) office under the direction of the Danville Cabot Visual Arts' Show and Tell folks will gather Post Office. There is no longer a postmaster in Cabot’s post office; there now is an Officer-In-Charge. in the Willey Building on

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HILLTOP AUTO BODY

Jeger, to work out of Marshfield. While some customers are inconvenienced by TIM TIM and and JENNIFER JENNIFER GOCHEY GOCHEY having to go to Marshfield for service, rural carriers still travel the same roads Ray Peck and those before him did, proving daily that "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Professional Professional collision collision repair, repair, associated associated with with all all insurance insurance companies, companies, we’ll we’ll handle handle your your claim claim from from start start to to finish finish including including rental rental cars. cars.

The Cabot Chronicle is published monthly and is provided locally free of charge.

No part of this paper may be reproduced without express written permission from The Cabot Chronicle . Publisher is not responsible for typographical errors. Acceptance of advertising is contingent upon publisher’s approval and agreement by advertiser to indemnify publisher from loss or expense on claims based upon contents of advertising. Publisher does not assume liability for errors in any advertising beyond the cost of space occupied by individual item in which the error appeared.

The Cabot Chronicle is a home-delivered newspaper devoted to telling the story of the Cabot community.

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Fire Department

By the time you read this article, Cabot Fire Department (CFD) should just be settling into a temporary building next to the recreation field on South Walden Road. After nearly 9 months without a centralized space to store equipment and train our members, it’s safe to say our crew of more than 30 volunteers couldn’t be more excited! At Town Meeting and thereafter community members have posed a number of great questions about how the temporary building came to be and what is next with the permanent Public Safety Building. We heard you when you asked for more information, and we hope the Q&A below provides a great place to learn more about the next era of CFD – Q : Why was a building built on the Recreation Field? A : The new building is a federally owned, temporary building that will house the town’s firefighting apparatus, equipment, and training spaces until the permanent Public Safety Building can be built. Q : Who decided the old fire station could not be used, and why? A : After the July floods the bank behind the station became unstable and the building was stressed (internal beams were noticeably askew) Department of Public Safety first “yellow tagged” the building (restricting use) during a townwide inspection of all damage within the Town of Cabot. Equipment was permitted to be removed ASAP at that time, but later “red tagged” by the State (denying all entry /use) following a study by the State Geologist, Department of Public Safety, and a team from UVM Q : When will the Fire Department move into the temporary building? A : By the time you are reading this article we hope to be fully moved in and operating out of the temporary building! Q : Who will pay for the new Public Safety Building? A : FEMA will pay for the majority of the new building, currently 90%. It is expected that State contributions will assist in offsetting the remaining 10% of the cost. The Town of Cabot is incurring some costs for the planning– namely in the form of interest on the post-flood line of credit secured by the Town until reimbursement by FEMA. It is important to note that these costs are modest in comparison to what was being studied by a joint Fire Department and Cabot Ambulance "building committee" established by the Select Board before the July floods that would have fallen 100% on the taxpayers. Q : When will the new Public Safety Building be finished? A : The goal is for the building to be completed before October 2026. The process of constructing a temporary building was expedited to 115 days to immediately address the need for a temporary fire station for the town of Cabot. The speed of construction and temporary nature allowed for State and Federal officials to “temporarily” waive regulatory requirements knowing that a full

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Enters Its

properly constructed public Safety Building was in the works. , for example, to have a sprinkler system installed, or to have a dedicated decontamination area. The site at the rec field limited some of these options – and a properly permanent building will take between 18 to 24 months to construct due to the major infrastructure required within. Q : What/Who will occupy the Public Safety Building? A : Current occupancy plans include the town 30 plus members of Cabot Fire and three large trucks, the FAST Squad and their supplies for service, decontamination equipment for service calls within a specialized bay as well as spaces for the Town Constable and. Forest fire Warden, and training space. Q : Why does the planned Public Safety Building need to be bigger than the old fire station? A : The old station was not large enough to meet the needs and safety requirements of current fire department best practices and State requirements. This building is intended to serve multiple generations of Cabot residents, comply with all relevant State and Federal rules and regulations, as well as the standards of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). When the permanent building is finished, FEMA will offer the temporary building back to the town (at a greatly reduced rate or “fully depreciated” rate) for purchase. If the town does not purchase the building, FEMA will remove the temporary building. In closing: As our time without a station concludes, Cabot Fire Department extends its thanks to the road crew for working with us to store two of our three apparatus in the Town Garage. This has been a hardship on their operations, but has ensured that our equipment and readiness have not suffered. We also thank the department's members and community members who opened their yards and garages to us in the aftermath of the flooding and Conner Contracting for the wonderful dedication and professional crew as well as for placing us at the top of their job schedule to get us under a roof. It has been a long road to recovery, but as we settle into the temporary building we are looking forward to what is next and will share more about our future plans and goals of how to best serve the Cabot community and our mutual aid partners Respectfully, Dean Deasy: Chief Cabot Fire Department

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Town Meeting

Editor’s Note: In early January, Cabot Cabot Chronicle editor about sharing Chronicle zette . Sandy has long been active with the profit, community-based newspaper. To electronic pages of the Gazette will be emailed hardwickgazette.org). At it’s next meeting, the Cabot Community wick Gazette access to articles in the Chronicle has access to Cabot-related stories and this is one of them. This article first appeared in the March online.

by Line-Marie Eichhorst, Lucia

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News Service on March 6, 2024

Several months ago, in July 2023, dark muddy water filled the basement of Cabot’s historic Willey Building. Tuesday, the building hummed, not with rushing water, but with the activity of community members gathering for Town Meeting Day in the third-floor auditorium.

photo by Catherine Morrissey The crowd gathered in Town Hall for Cabot’s Town Meeting on March 5. Flooding was on residents’ minds, though, as the day’s discussion began. The most heated debate arose over a topic that wasn’t even up for a vote: construction of a new fire department building to replace a temporary structure. Cabot’s previous fire station flooded in July and was condemned, forcing the town to build a new temporary building on the site of a former basketball court adjacent to the town recreation field. That interim site cost almost $1.3 million. Most of the cost for that will be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and some state funds, with little burden on taxpayers, said Cabot Fire Chief Dean Deasy. Deasy said. staff plan to move into the temporary station March 29. When the department moves to a permanent location, the temporary facility “will be offered back to the town for basically pennies on the dollar from FEMA,” The permanent firehouse is slated to go up at 2466 Main St. in the residential Lower Cabot area, next to the organic produce grower, Nama Farm. FEMA money will likely cover the ultimate cost for that building, though the price tag is still to be determined. Several residents argued that they have had little say in the town’s selection of the final fire station location and have no idea of the ultimate cost. Some are worried about the proximity of the fire station to Nama Farm and the possibility that toxins used in firefighting could wash off equipment and taint the farm’s produce. “What are we doing here?” asked Larry Gochey, a former road commissioner and select board member, referring to the farm. “Are we just going to shove this down their throats?”

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Heats Up

resident Sandy Atkins contacted the articles with the Hardwick GaGazette, and as of January 2 it is a nonbegin with the January 10 edition, the free to anyone who signs up (https://

Association voted to give the HardCabot Chronicle . In return, the Cabot written by Hardwick Gazette writers,

13 issue of the Hardwick Gazette

photo by Catherine Morrissey Resident Ama Peyman speaks to Fire Chief Dean Deasy and the crowd on Town Meeting Day. Ama Peyman, 56, who owns Nama Farm and moved to Cabot in 2019, had a more tempered response to the proposal. “I’m really interested in how we can be good neighbors to each other, with the safety building going on next door,” she said. “The issue indicates that residents should pay more attention to officials’ decisions” said Connie Hourihan, 72, in an interview after the town meeting. Further, she offered that, “We, including myself, have been a little bit apathetic to the town government, and they have just been doing what they want.” Nathan Smith, a 10-year Cabot Fire Department volunteer, said improvements planned for the proposed permanent fire station will improve both the morale and recruitment of fire department volunteers. One such improvement is a decontamination room where fire fighters can clean their equipment after being out on calls. “It’s also about the safety of our volunteers,” said Kerri Moll, 39, a Cabot Fire Department volunteer, social worker and therapist. “Right now, we don’t have anywhere to decontaminate our equipment, so we go home, possibly with carcinogens.”

photo by Catherine Morrissey Michael J. Hogan fields a question from a Cabot resident on Town Meeting Day. Flood damage across Cabot has cost the town $3 million, most of which it has had to borrow, said Michael Hogan, chair of the select board. FEMA has pledged to reimburse the town 90% of the money, and the state will put up 5%, (see ‘Fire Station Discussion’, page 8)

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Jane L. Green

Jane L. Green, 75, passed peacefully on March 9, 2024, at her home in Marshfield where she lived with her daughter and sonin-law, after a battle with cancer. Jane was born on July 6, 1948, in Burlington, the daughter of the late Converse and Mary (Riggs) Barnes. She Lisa Lisa Ann Ann Hebert Herbert

Lisa Ann Hebert, 49, of South Burlington, VT, passed away peacefully at home on February 20, 2024, surrounded by her family. Diagnosed four years ago with ovarian cancer, she fought courageously and chose not to be defined by her disease. She did not lose her battle to cancer but beat it in the way she responded. Lisa continued to lead an active and full life, including running and finishing the historic Boston Marathon in fall 2021 during chemotherapy, which raised over $21,000 for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Lisa was more than willing to volunteer her services to any cause and was on the board of several South Burlington PTOs, the Milton Artist Guild, the Vermont Swim Association and the Joe’s Carl Carl Vieth Vieth

Carl Vieth passed (Charlie) of Cabot away on March 19, 2024, at Barre Charlie Gardens. was a quiet and private man who lived an amazing 102 years. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, but moved to Brooklyn, NY, when he was just three years old. As a young man, he worked as a tool maker, but when he was drafted soon after WW ll began, Charlie was sent to Ohio to be trained as a boilermaker for railroad steam engines and subsequently went to Europe during the war. At the end of the

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By Karen Mueller-Harder

Celebrate the arrival of spring weather (hopefully!) by coming to the Cabot Community Contra Dance on Friday, April 12, featuring the wonderful calling of Luke Donforth, a favorite of our dance community! The dance takes place in the lovely third floor space in the Willey Building (Cabot Town Hall, 3084 Main Street), from 7:30-10 pm, with a short intro session for new folks at 7:15. Live music is provided by a great group of local musicians--feel free to just come and listen if you prefer! All dances are taught, and don’t require any special skills or level of coordi-

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EMORIALS

graduated with the last class of WHS in 1966 in Waterbury, Vermont. Jane is survived by her children, grandchildren, siblings, and extended family. A celebration of life was held on Saturday, March 23, 2024, at the East Barre VFW, 527 US Rte 302, Barre, VT 05649. For those who wish memorial gifts would be appreciated to the Central Vermont Home Health & Hospice 600 Granger Road Barre, VT 05641, or visit www.cvhhh.org/donate. To send online condolences please visit www.perkinsparker.com. Pond Association. She also was an assistant professor at Champlain College, teaching a tax course. Lisa had a fondness for water, as she grew up spending the summers on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, and after moving to Vermont, she enjoyed spending time during the summers on Joe’s Pond. In 2020, while gazing across Lake Champlain, Lisa mentioned to her soulmate Chris that they should buy their own home on Joe’s Pond. As usual, Chris agreed. During the past four years, she loved entertaining her friends and family there and making the new house

For more information, go to https:// www.sevendaysvt.com/life-lines/obituary -lisa-ann-hebert-1974-2024-40267322. Arrangements have been entrusted to the care of Ready Funeral & Cremation Services, South Chapel, 261 Shelburne Rd., Burlington, VT. To send online condolences to the family, please visit readyfuneral.com. war, he was sent to Germany because of his knowledge of the German language. There he met and fell in love with Rose, the love of his life. They married in 1948 after Rose was able to come to America through Ellis Island. Around 1988, the couple moved to their home on Cabot Plains in Cabot. Together, they raised beautiful vegetable and flower gardens. Rose passed away in 2014. Charlie lived a private life filled with work in his house and gardens. He kept copious notes on everything from music to nails in his tool boxes. He was also a generous man. Near the end of his life, he gave away his house and his new car to benefit others. In accordance with Charlie's lifestyle, a small gathering in remembrance will be held in the spring when his wife’s flowers bloom.

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Contra Dance

nation. Everyone is welcome, and anyone can dance with anyone (the dances don’t rely on gender), generally changing partners with each dance. You can come to the dance alone, with a friend or sweetheart, or your whole family! Admission is on a sliding scale, $5-10 suggested, but nobody is turned away. Masks are welcomed but not required, and we’ll provide water and a delightful ning! eve-

Hope to see you at the dance!

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Consulting and Gardening

It’s migration time! By now you’ve likely heard Canada geese calling. And many other birds are making their annual journey from their overwintering grounds to their nesting territories. Spring is an exciting time for all of us who love to watch and hear birds. This is a great time of year to think about how we can help birds to thrive. Usually what comes to mind is spending a ton of money on feeders, seed, and bird baths. But one of the most effective things we can do costs nothing: turn off outdoor lights at night. Birds migrating at night are thought to navigate using both the magnetic field of the Earth and the visual cues of the moon and stars. Artificial lights, especially in densely illuminated urban areas, can cause confusion for birds, leading them to collide with buildings, or circle light sources till they are exhausted. Birds will also be nesting soon. Nighttime lighting interferes with their main food source for hatchlings: insects. An incredible 96% of land birds feed their nestlings insects. There’s a good reason for this: insects are excellent food, rich in protein, fat, and carotenoids. Among the most nutritious are caterpillars, and many bird species prefer them for their babies. According to Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, chickadee parents need about 7500 cat-

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for Birds

erpillars to raise ONE nest of young. These caterpillars are the immature forms of moths, most of which are active at night, and very susceptible to outdoor lighting. Reducing artificial light allows insects to thrive, and a more bountiful insect population means more successful rearing of chicks. So what can we do? At the individual level, homeowners can turn off nighttime lighting, or reduce the impact of nighttime lighting with motion detectors or timers. Consider replacing old outdoor fixtures with ones with shields or shrouds to help direct light downward where it is needed, rather than spilling it ineffectively in all directions. At the level of towns and cities, we can work to implement “dark skies” policies, which will not only benefit insect and bird populations, but have also been shown to improve sleep and health for people. Some cities are using weather satellite data to track waves of migrating birds, and encouraging businesses and residents to turn off lights during the heaviest migration days. It’s migration and nesting season; thanks for doing your part to support the birds!

This garden article is brought to you by Susan Socks, aka the Garden Goddess. Stay tuned for upcoming articles on green lawn care, pruning, garden tools, edible landscapes, and more. For gard e n i n g h e l p , v i s i t www.SocksFamilyFarm.weebly.com or

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Total Solar Eclipse

Except during the brief total phase of a total solar eclipse, when the Moon completely blocks the Sun’s bright face, it is not safe to look directly at the Sun without specialized eye protection for solar viewing. Viewing any part of the bright Sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury.

A crowd uses handheld solar viewers and solar eclipse glasses to safely view a solar eclipse. Credit: National Park Service When watching the partial phases of the solar eclipse directly with your eyes, which happens before and after totality, you must look through safe solar viewing glasses (“eclipse glasses”) or a safe handheld solar viewer at all times. Eclipse glasses are NOT regular sunglasses; regular sunglasses, no matter how dark, are not safe for viewing the Sun. Safe solar viewers are thousands of times darker and ought to comply with the ISO 12312-2 international standard. NASA does not approve any particular brand of solar viewers. Always inspect your eclipse glasses or handheld viewer before use; if torn, scratched, or otherwise damaged, discard the device. Always supervise children using solar viewers. Do NOT look at the Sun through a camera lens, telescope, binoculars, or any other optical device while wearing eclipse glasses or using a handheld solar viewer — the concentrated solar rays will burn through the filter and cause serious eye injury. If you don’t have eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer, you can use an indirect viewing method, which does not involve looking directly at the Sun. One way is to use a pinhole projector, which has a small opening (for example, a hole punched in an index card) and projects an image of the Sun onto a nearby surface. With the Sun at your back, you can then safely view the projected image. Do NOT look at the Sun through the pinhole!

The circular holes of a colander project crescent shapes onto the ground during the partial phases of a solar eclipse. Joy Ng

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from NASA

You can make your own eclipse projector using a cardboard box, a white sheet of paper, tape, scissors, and aluminum foil. With the Sun behind you, sunlight will stream through a pinhole punched into aluminum foil taped over a hole in one side of the box. During the partial phases of a solar eclipse, this will project a crescent Sun onto a white sheet of paper taped to the inside of the box. Look into the box through another hole cut into the box to see the projected image. Do NOT use eclipse glasses or handheld viewers with cameras, binoculars, or telescopes. Those require different types of solar filters. When viewing the partial phases of the eclipse through cameras, binoculars, or telescopes equipped with proper solar filters, you do not need to wear eclipse glasses. (The solar filters do the same job as the eclipse glasses to protect your eyes.)

A woman looks at the Sun through binoculars that have been fitted with solar filters. Binoculars and telescopes can only be used to look at the Sun when used with solar filters specially designed for that purpose. NASA/Ryan Milligan Seek expert advice from an astronomer before using a solar filter with a camera, telescope, binoculars, or any other optical device. Note that solar filters must be attached to the front of any telescope, binoculars, camera lens, or other optics.

A solar filter is attached to the Sun-facing end of a telescope. Carolyn Slivinski Here are some important safety guidelines to follow during a total solar eclipse.  View the Sun through eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer during the partial eclipse phases before and after totality.  You can view the eclipse directly without proper eye protection only when the Moon completely obscures the Sun’s bright face – during the brief and spectacular period known as totality. (You’ll know it’s safe when you can no longer see any part of the Sun through eclipse glasses or a solar viewer.) As soon as you see even a little bit of the bright Sun reappear after totality, immediately put your eclipse glasses back on or use a handheld solar viewer to look at the Sun.

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By Jennifer Miner, President

The members of Cabot Emergency Ambulance Service would like to express sincere gratitude for the 493 voters that came out in support of Cabot Ambulance being the primary emergency transport service for patients in the town of Cabot. As you may know, this ballot item was determined by the Selectboard to be nonbinding and to be taken as an advisory vote. This means we now know without a doubt that many of the community members support the services we have provided for over 50 years. It also means, that there is no guarantee that Cabot Ambulance will continue to be the emergency transporting service in the future. In the past, Cabot Ambulance has been allowed to request an appropriation total eclipse, the Sun will be very bright. If you are watching an entire eclipse, you may be in direct sunlight for hours. Remember to wear sunscreen, a hat, and protective clothing to prevent skin damage.

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Ambulance

to support their services for over five decades. This was approved as part of the general fund, and Cabot Ambulance has provided these services without a contract in an unwavering manner. It was recently brought to the attention of the Selectboard and the Ambulance that this would no longer be applicable because it would be a violation of the Town’s purchasing policy which has been in place since the 1980’s. We are following the Town process carefully and navigating this uncharted territory for our service with a focus on where it can take us in the future. Cabot Ambulance meets the 4 th Thursday of each month if you are interested in volunteering, please contact Jennifer Miner or willowreignsnana13@gmail.com.

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Seletboard Reorganization

by Frank Kampf, Staff Writer The Selectboard met for the first time after Town Meeting on March 12. The first order of business was to swear in the newly re-elected members of the board. Betty swore in Mike Hogan and Skip Bothfeld, who both ran unopposed in the Town Meeting election. The next order of business before the board was to elect the officers, and Mike Hogan was unanimously re-elected chair. Likewise, Fred Ducharme was reelected vice-chair. Karen Larsen was elected clerk of the Selectboard. The board then re-adopted Robert's Rules of Order for Small Boards. Then the board got to business appointing town positions that were up for reappointment. For the most part, everyone currently serving was reappointed to their current seats. On an unusual note, there was a change to the arcane position of fence viewer. Laura Knowlton expressed interest in the position, and Ruth Goodrich said that Glenn Goodrich would be willing to step down. Thus the board appointed Dave Pike and Laura to the fence viewer positions. Lynn Rockwell joined the Trails Committee and the board did leave the position of Master of Colors vacant and expressed the desire to discuss it with Jeanne Johnson. The Emergency Management Coordinator position was also left vacant. Mike expressed the desire to have a member of the fire department involved with that position, either as the primary or as the backup. R.D. Eno suggested Nate Smith. They agreed to revisit the position at a future meeting. The board then discussed the position of Treasurer. At Town Meeting, the voters of Cabot approved the article changing the position from an elected position to one appointed by the Selectboard. Mike presented the board with a cover

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Post Office Status

by Frank Kampf, Staff Writer

R.D. Eno reported at a meeting on March 12 that the post office was suddenly closed on March 5. He said the premises used to belong to Helen Barnett but was sold in 2022 to a company called Postal Realty Trust Incorporated. He explained their business is to own properties and rent them to USPS. There was a malfunction of the furnace and some structural shifting, possibly due to the flooding. When a technician looked at the heater, vermiculite was seen falling from the ceiling. Vermiculite can contain asbestos. R.D. has been trying to get in touch with the CEO of the company. Next, R.D. explained that all postal operations have been shifted to Marshfield. He added that he has been in touch with U.S. Representative Becca Balint’s office, and they have been in contact promotes their mission to enhance is to empower Cabot residents to participate writer to cover selectboard and other meetings, able to attend. Most meetings are available are posted regularly on Front Porch available on the Town website, CabotVT.US

letter that he wanted to advertise for the position, and proposed the board have an executive session to interview the applicants. He added that Michelle Leclerc would help as much as she could, but it was dependent upon her duties at Danville. At a future meeting on the 19th, Betty passed along a request from Michelle regarding payment for her services. The request was for $35 an hour, plus mileage, and she would work two nights a week and Saturdays, depending upon the demands of her job as Danville Town Clerk. The board approved the request. Mike suggested that if Betty needs another assistant, or the town Treasurer needs an assistant, the board should allow them to hire people. The board then discussed the issue of the missing School Board position on the Town Meeting day ballot. The chair of the school board sent a request to the Selectboard asking the town to pay for the ballot. Mike recommended that the town pay for it, and noted that in government things are missed all the time. Betty Ritter noted that the primary is in August, and Mike said that the town was going to pay for that election anyway. The board approved paying for the election to the open School Board seat on primary day. At the end of the meeting, Karen reminded the board they had talked about youth representation on the board sometime in the late spring of 2023. She noted after the flood occurred they had not talked about it again. She proposed the board revisit the topic. She said a corporate model would involve inviting applicants to the board. The board briefly talked about some things a youth representative could do, and Karen noted the applicant could come from any part of the community, not necessarily a Cabot school student.

with our U,S. Senators’ offices. He added that Becca’s office is trying to contact USPS. At the meeting on the 19th, R.D. provided an update. After re-describing the situation, he told everyone that a representative of the company that owns the building called him. He said the representative assured him they would not allow the Cabot post office to be closed permanently. R.D. then described the processes going forward. There will be an asbestos mitigation assessment, after which an asbestos mitigation project and some interior reconstruction will be conducted. R.D has also been in touch with USPS through Becca Balint’s office. He concluded that he has every expectation the post office will reopen but doesn’t have a firm date. He guessed it would be the middle of May. He said there could be one potential the quality of community life for those in the governance and management for the purpose of keeping community via Zoom for those who would like Forum, or you can call the Town Clerk's by clicking on "Selectboard Meetings.

roadblock. He mentioned that a hazard mitigation plan must be submitted to USPS, and USPS has to sign off on the plan. He has been told that has been an impediment in the past.

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Possible Property Buyout

by Frank Kampf, Staff Writer Mike Hogan introduced the possibility of a property buyout due to the flooding of July 2023 at the March 12 Selectboard meeting. Mike said after the flood they realized where the choke points are, and one place is the double culvert behind Cabot Garage. He mentioned that a task force had been put together to develop projects to alleviate future flooding, and the previous week they had conversations with the State regarding the Currier property and a possible elevation project, as well as the double culvert behind Cabot Garage. R.D. Eno said the new owner of Cabot Garage, Greg Moore, has been part of the discussions. He said they are considering buying the building and relocating the business to another location in the village. He added that “we don’t want to lose such a vital business.” R.D. said the buyout can be financed by federal grants, and for the relocation the town may have to step up and play a big part. He added that he hoped part of the relocation could include the reestablishment of gas pumps. Discussion has just begun, and Greg is participating and open to the possibility. Mike added that this would be a multi-year project. The board returned to the subject of a buyout of Cabot Garage at the March 19 meeting. R.D. discussed the process in

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Old Firehouse Site

by Frank Kampf, Staff Writer The old firehouse has been torn down to its foundation and at the March 12th meeting, Mike Hogan asked Dean Deasy, the fire chief, to describe the plans for the site. Dean explained that the paved area is going to remain and be additional town parking. He then said that after the building footprint is removed, there will be six inches of gravel placed into the hole, and then it will be covered with top soil. Dean went on to explain that there will be a fence erected from the telephone pole back to the river, and then over to Elm Street. He said it will basically be a safety fence. He added that FEMA requires the site to be brought back to a natural state, and that is why the foundation needs to be removed. He then explained that electrical service will be installed so they can set a pole and put the siren back up at that location. He mentioned the siren will be remotely activated. He said the pole will be located towards the back residing, doing business, and visiting of our town. members informed about issues to listen in person. Instructions for

Maria Acchione-Goodrich spoke from the public in attendance and added that mail in the blue box out in front of the Cabot post office will still get picked up, so the mailbox can still be used while the post office is closed.

more detail, describing it as a two-phase project. He said the first phase would be a municipal buyout of the property. He said the board would need to resolve to enter into the buyout program through the Flood Resilience Community Fund. He said it would not involve FEMA because that would prove to be practically impossible. Mike added that the problem has to be fixed, and removing the building would enable placement of a box culvert or a bridge. He said the location can’t be used for anything else. R.D. then described phase two involving the Town helping Greg move the business to another location in the village. He said that this may be one of the areas to which he recommends the board designates CCIF funds. R.D. added that the effort to relocate the business would have to proceed in tandem with the buyout. He said the state would provide the funds for the buyout. Ben Vitale made a public comment and asked if there are any sites that are suitable in the village. Mike responded that they have thoughts on a few. R.D. said the Town may be on the hook for a site evaluation for contamination, and if there are contaminants present, they would have to be remediated before it could be a green space. Mike noted they could apply for a grant, as they are doing for the Sawmill Dam site.

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Plan

side of what will be the grass area. He also mentioned that he has no idea what the State intends to do about the river bank. Karen Larsen said that the old station had been a bit of a barrier for lights and sounds coming down from the creamery. She said that residents recommended a tree screen be planted. She noted that it was the light coming from trucks exiting the creamery onto Main Street, and trees would mitigate the noise. Dean responded that he will look into it and reach out to FEMA. He added that if FEMA will not pay for it, then it will probably be a town expense. The board also discussed the status of the temporary firehouse. Dean said the garage doors are on and the building is secure. He mentioned tahere had been problems with individuals coming in after hours and causing issues. He said currently they are finishing up the sheetrocking, and the plumbing has been inspected. Dean said they were looking to move in on March 29.

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Emergency Transport

by Frank Kampf, Staff Writer

At the first Selectboard meeting after Town Meeting, on March 12, the board reviewed a request for proposal (RFP) document drafted by Karen Larsen. Karen described how they looked at other towns in Vermont to develop a tenpage document. She emphasized that an RFP is to host a conversation and the document needs to be detailed enough to host that conversation. Karen went on to say they pulled details from a variety of RFPs, and built a document so people know what they are getting into. She described the document in three parts, the first part stating the call volume, and number of transports, as documented by the state. She said the second part is basically boilerplate and contains a proposal for the term of the bid. And she said what follows is boiler plate from other RFPs. Mike Hogan asked if the initial contract would be for one year, and Karen said that was the initial thought, but it was open for conversation. She said that starting with a one-year contract would allow them to measure and evaluate. Then Karen described that the latter part of the RFP contained the contract parameters and more details such as response performance and setting the expectation of service. She said the response time to the emergency site is a maximum of 25 minutes, adding the expectations set are what will work with a FAST (First Aid Stabilization Team) squad. She expressed that those expectations are probably a reasonable place to start and talk about. Mike commented that 25 minutes is standard. Karen added that right now mutual aid from East Montpelier to the center of the village is 21 minutes from the tone. She said that if Cabot responds, it’s five to ten minutes. Jenn Miner, Cabot Ambulance president, said it all depends on which side of the community the site is located, but it’s evening out to five to ten minutes. Karen stated that it’s a question about how we get care there at speed in a consistent fashion, so 25 minutes is a starting point. She added that this is criteria that must be met for 90% of the calls. She explained that all of the RFPs she looked at state an expectation of service of 90% to 100%. Karen then went into other details of the RFP regarding

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Emergency Transport

by Frank Kampf, Staff Writer At the March 19 meeting, the room was full of people with seats all the way to the door. The board was to discuss the request for proposal (RFP) and it became evident that many were there to share their opinion. Karen Larsen started the discussion by stating the RFP needed to make requirements on any service to be not an undue project. She said R.D. Eno had made suggestions to pull out things that would best be in a contract document. She expressed that a ten-page document may seem overwhelming, but they are talking about tens of thousands of dollars and the document is a guide to the transport service. Karen said the board’s consensus is

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Service (Part 1)

data and information required from the bidding transport agency. Mike asked if April 15 deadline was realistic, and he pointed out that next Tuesday the board is meeting again. He wondered if the board would be done by then. He said his initial thought if the board can come to an agreement, how much time is reasonable to advertise and give bidders enough time to respond. R.D. Eno said the timeline seems a little tight. He added that this is a huge document to go through, and there may be some edits and rewrites. He wasn’t sure they could accomplish this by the next meeting. Mike mentioned the following board meetings were on April 2 and 16. R.D. postulated that a completed RFP could be done by the first meeting in May. The board could send it out and advertise, and he suggested they could have the bids in by the first week in June. He said they could call a special meeting to open and examine the bids, and then award the bid in early June. Kris Schmitt spoke regarding the FAST squad, and said that she cannot get the FAST squad licensed without a transport agency. Kris explained the process, which involves having an agreement with a transport agency. R.D. then asked about the timeline for the FAST squad obtaining its license and starting. Kris said that it's really the Town’s call when they would start. What followed was a discussion about affiliation and agreement, with the language being interchanged, but having distinct meaning, which left many confused. The conversation returned to the timeline for the RFP, and Karen said the challenge of offering an RFP is complicated and we have to get it right. The board then mentioned they have an arrangement with Cabot Ambulance to provide service until July 1. The question was posed, if the timeline extends past the current arrangement, would Cabot Ambulance be willing to consider an extension? Jenn explained that she would want to meet with the executive board, and then bring it to the membership, after which she would be better prepared to speak to the question. She said she would not speak for the members of the service.

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Service (Part 2)

they are moving in the right direction. She then went on to describe the major changes in the draft. She said the one major shift was to remove the required response time and replace it with a percentage response rate. She explained that the RFP requests response time estimations to five different points spread around Cabot, with two including dirt roads. She recalled from a past meeting that Glenn Goodrich had described a “golden hour” to access and transport a patient to the hospital. The response rate, Karen emphasized, is what “we want as a community, when you dial 911 and a transport service shows up.” The RFP set the expectation at 90% as the percentage of time a full transport crew responds in a threemonth period. She then suggested that if the rate fell below 90%, an action plan would be required, and if it fell below 80% there was a possibility of penalties. Karen then reviewed some minor changes, and R.D. added that he proposed a number of strikeouts for language that is related to the ultimate contract. He stated that he had reservations about the length of the document, but not its content. Skip Bothfeld said he thinks it reads pretty good. At this point Fred Ducharme spoke at some length. He said that everybody thought the vote on the ambulance was binding. He stated that people have asked him why the Selectboard is soliciting other services in an area where there is a limited number of services. He repeated that people are questioning why it was on the ballot, if their vote wasn’t counted. Fred continued by saying Cabot is lucky to have ambulance service because there are a lot of towns without one. He wondered out loud, why can’t the Selectboard work it out with the Fire Department and Cabot Ambulance so they can play nicely together. He concluded by saying he doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize Cabot Ambulance, and asked if the board thinks they know better than the people of the community. Mike Hogan responded by saying the statute allows for advisory votes. He said that article wasn’t very well written, and that less than 50% of the town voted on Town Meeting day. He said it was more

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Emergency Transport Service

by Frank Kampf, Staff Writer

The discussion regarding the RFP for an emergency transport service on March 19 went on for almost two hours. The latter half of the discussion centered around how Cabot Ambulance has been getting an appropriation from the town for 57 years, and members of Cabot Ambulance asked why the Selectboard isn’t supporting Cabot Ambulance. Karen responded by saying she is confused by the question. Karen went on to describe how the board invited Cabot Ambulance to become a municipal entity and said Cabot Ambulance voted twice to reject the offers and remain as an independent organization. She added that they had been in discussions since last September. The discussion centered around what had been previously offered to Cabot Ambulance, which led to R.D. mentioning his “now notorious motion” to bring Cabot Ambulance into the municipality. The lengthy motion made by R.D. is described in the November 2023 edition of the Chronicle, and after the board voted 3-2 against the motion, R.D. asked for the motion to be tabled before Mike certified the vote, and the motion was tabled. Ben Vitale asked the board when the current arrangement ends, and Mike said June 30. With regard to the RFP, Mike added that they do not have to accept any bids, nor do they have to accept the lowest bid. The meeting got a little heated with Dean and Ruth both recalling when the other’s agency was delayed in responding to an incident. Amanda Legare relike a straw vote and the board is under no obligation to respond to the vote. Karen added that anyone can submit a ballot initiative and that when the board reviewed the article they all agreed that the wording didn’t direct the board to do anything. She said the board reached out to the leadership of Cabot Ambulance to ask about the wording and the response was not to change it. Mike then stated that in both the informational meeting and the town meeting he made it clear that the article was an advisory vote. He went on to reiterate that he called the president of Cabot Ambulance and she did not want any wording changes. Glenn Goodrich spoke at this point and said that is “about the lamest excuse I ever heard.” He stated the reason they couldn’t change the wording was because the people signed the petition, and if it was changed, they’d have to get signatures on the wording change, and they were up against the deadline for submission of petitions for Town Meeting. Jenn Miner confirmed that Mike had reached out to her and that the deadline prevented any wording changes. Fred said if the wording needs to be changed, then the town can have a special vote with the wording exactly how it needs to be so the board can know exactly how the community feels. Mike suggested if there is a special vote, he would recommend they do it in conjunction with the August primary.

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(Part 3)

called when Cabot Ambulance assisted her and how she was never charged, unlike her friend who was billed $1000 by Danville. Amanda then asked if Mike, Karen, and Skip would recuse themselves because of their affiliation with the Fire Department. Mike said he would not recuse himself because his son is in the fire department. Karen reacted by questioning how someone would think she lacked the intellectual abilities because she is engaged to a firefighter. Skip, former fire chief, did not respond. During the meeting, members of Cabot Ambulance also questioned the penalty defined in the draft RFP. Earlier in the meeting Glenn had given an example involving the ambulance only getting two calls in a quarter, and if they miss one of those calls, that would be 50%; he wanted to know if the RFP wording meant the fine would be $30,000. Karen had responded that there is a dialog process, and the RFP is just a draft. She wanted to know why there is resistance to engaging in the process. Ruth said that Cabot Ambulance has had zero input. She added that other services she has talked to would never put themselves in a place to get fined. Some people in the audience questioned why Cabot Ambulance isn’t part of drafting the RFP, and Karen said it would be inappropriate to have them draft the RFP they are responding to. She added that feedback is always welcome. Allison Hogan questioned if the board has the authority to override the town purchasing policy which requires contracts over $20,000 go out to bid. R.D. (see ‘ Emergency (Part 3)’, page 8)

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Emergency (Part 3)

(continued from page 7) responded in the affirmative. He said that it is a policy that was adopted by the Selectboard, and they can break it. He added that he is not in favor of violating the policy. Linda Savoca asked if Cabot Ambulance should win the contract, would the Fire Department work together with them. Dean responded that the fire de-

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Fire Station Discussions

(continued from page 3)

photo by Catherine Morrissey Town Moderator Jeanne Johnson addresses the gathered Cabot residents. Cabot resident Miranda Hunt, though, spoke during the meeting about a family member who had a medical emergency. Cabot’s four-wheel-drive ambulance managed to navigate the difficult terrain of her driveway to deliver help, she said. “It’s in the best interest in this community to keep it local,” Hunt said. Since the fire station flooded, the ambulance has lacked a permanent home, though officials say it’s in a safe location. partment would work with any transport agency that shows up at an incident. Linda then stated that even though it was an advisory vote, the majority of Cabot voters stated their wishes, and the Selectboard should take that into consideration. Mike concluded the conversation by saying he felt they had a good sense of the state of things. R.D. made a motion for the board to resolve to issue an RFP, and the board approved it.

Under FEMA regulations, the volunteer organization couldn’t be housed within the new fire station, because it’s not a public entity. It’s a private organization that operates independently of the town. “The Cabot ambulance was asked if they would like to merge with the fire department,” said Ruth Goodrich, treasurer of the Cabot Emergency Ambulance Service. “That was a question that has come up in the past, that has been declined in the past.” Goodrich has worked for 20 years as an emergency medical technician for the local service, as well as in other towns. Despite budget constraints, she said, “We’ve always given the best quality care that we absolutely possibly can to the citizens of the town of Cabot.” Line-Marie Eichhorst and Lucia McCallum reported this story on assignment from The Hardwick Gazette. The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.

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EXPIRES

Moderator Jeanne Johnson 2025 Town Clerk Betty Ritter 2026 Town Treasurer Betty Ritter 2026 Collector of Lease Land Rentals Betty Ritter 2026 Selectpersons Michael Hogan, Chair 2027 Fred Ducharme, Vice Chair 2026 R. D. Eno, Clerk 2025 Walter (Skip) Bothfeld, Jr. 2026 Karen Larsen 2025 Listers Jeanne Johnson 2025 Jacqueline Lumbra 2026 Brittany Butler 2026 Delinquent Tax Collector Susan Carpenter 2025 Grand Juror David Pike 2025 Cemetery Commissioners Cedric Alexander 2025 Deb Bothfeld 2025 Melvin Churchill, Chair 2027 Ruth Goodrich 2026 Angela Ward 2025 School Directors Ellen Cairns, Chair 2026 Erica Fucello 2025 Jason Monaco 2026 Chris Tormey, Vice Chair 2025 Vacant 3-year term (August 2024 election date) Library Trustees Grace Hoffman 2025 Nial McCallum 2025 Angela Ogle 2026 Erin Ruddell 2026 Kurt Steinert 2027 Recreation Committee Brandy Goodrich, Secretary Non-term Cameron North, Vice Chair Non-term Jessic North, Coordinator Non-term Shannon Smith Non-term Courtney Thompson Non-term CCIF Committee Greg Burtt, Chair Appointed by Selectboard Jack Daniels Appointed by Selectboard Chris Tormey, Vice Chair Appointed by School Board Melvin Churchill 2025 Jason Monaco 2026 Alex Underwood 2024 Willey Building Committee Dana Robinson Appointed by Selectboard Dan Dunham Appointed by Library Brad Alexander 2026 Fred Ducharme 2027 Constance Hare 2027 Betty Ritter 2025 Paul Wade 2025

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Appointed by Selectboard:

Water/Wastewater Administrator Town Clerk Selectboard Pound Keeper Cheryl McQueeney 2025 Animal/Dog Control Officers Ruth Goodrich 2025 Cheryl McQueeney 2025 Fence Viewers Laura Knowlton David Pike Inspector – Coal, Wood, Lumber, Shingles Anson Tebbetts 2025 Tree Warden Roland Payne, Jr. 2025 Fire Warden Andrew Luce March 2027 Health Officer Jennifer Miner October 2027 Town Energy Coordinator Zoning Administrator Planning Commission

Development Review Board

Conservation Committee

Trails Committee

Flood Resiliency Task Force

Master of Colors Road Commissioner Town Attorney District Representative

Regional Planning Commission Representative Emergency Management Coordinator Newspapers

Northeast Kingdom Waste Management District Representative Northeast Kingdom Waste Management District Alternate Representative

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EXPIRES

Michael Socks Brittany Butler Dawn Andrews Kate Chatot Glenn Goodrich Peg Elmer Hough Bobby Searles, Chair Brittany Butler, Secretary Brad Alexander Susan Carpenter Larry Gochey Stephen Hogan Amy Hornblas, Chair Jeanne Johnson Jennifer Miner Betty Ritter, Secretary Cedric Alexander Dawn Andrews Christopher Duff Gary Gulka Roland Payne, Jr. Dana Glazier Gary Gulka Lynn Rockwell Kris Schmitt Michael Socks Chuck Talbert Paul Wade Dawn Andrews Michele Braun, Friends of Winooski River Brittany Butler Karen Deasy Christopher Duff Thomas Dunbar R. D. Eno Gary Gulka Peg Elmer Hough Roland Payne, Jr. Chris Tormey William Walters Selectboard Tarrant, Gillies & Shems Representative Henry Pearl

Brittany Butler

TBD

Barre Times Argus & Caledonian-Record Betty Ritter

R. D. Eno 2025 July 2025 2027 2027 2025 2026 2026 Non-term 2025 2026 2026 2026 2025 2027 2025 Non-term 2027 2025 2026 2026 2025 2025 2026 2027 2026 2026 2027 2025 Non-term

Non-term Non-term Non-term Non-term Non-term Non-term Non-term Non-term Non-term Non-term 2025 2025 2025 CaledoniaWashington District

2025

Cabot Chronicle

2025

2025

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Cabot School: Looking Back,

by Ellen Cairns, Cabot School Board

First and foremost, we need to start with a HUGE thank you to the voters of Cabot! Your support of our very special school means so much to the teachers, the administration, and the students. This was a challenging budget year for almost all schools in the state, and we are proud to live in a town that supports its school. It was wonderful hearing from so many of you in the weeks leading up to town meeting - your feedback and ideas will not be forgotten. So now, the ‘looking back’ part of this article. As some of us recently discovered (though many of you already knew), Cabot has been fighting to keep a high school in town longer than many of us have been here (both in Cabot and on earth!). The article that was published in 2017 in the Caledonian Record and shared on Cabot Connects Facebook page by Amanda Legare was really interesting. Did you know that when Twinfield was being planned, the Cabot School Board wanted us to be a part of it? The town members overwhelmingly rejected the idea, and the whole Board resigned. That was back in the late ‘60s. So, this is not a new conversation by any means. In the more recent history, Cabot residents voted to keep our high school in 2013, 2017, 2019, and this year. It is very challenging to have these votes so often, and our hope is that we can come together as a community now to figure out a plan for the future, a roadmap to ensure we don’t have these disruptive votes every few years. Now for the look forward. A majority of voters indicated that they would like to maintain a high school in Cabot. As with just about everything, there are pros and cons to doing that. One ‘con’ is that it is expensive to operate a small school - although, looking at per pupil costs across the state, perhaps not as much more costly as one might assume. Our administration has done a lot to make our school more affordable while still maintaining quality. On the other hand, the buildings need work, and that will be expensive. So, as we stated repeatedly over the last couple of months, we need to have an open and honest accounting of what it will cost to maintain the school over the next five-toten years. The State will likely be pushing or incentivizing us to merge as it has done over the past decades. We don’t know what incentives or legislation will be coming to regulate education spending, so we can’t make a 100% iron-clad plan, but we can plan. Let’s put our collective time and energy into making the school stronger, or, if we (the town, not the board) determine that it is not sustainable, then let’s work together - including our teachers and students - to figure out what a potential merger or union high school should look like. We want to stress that the board has neither the

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Looking Forward

wish nor the authority to merge with another school without a thorough conversation and a vote. There were some posts during the past couple of months that stated that the board had a plan to merge with another school. That is not the case. Our goal is to consider all available options and then, once we have had robust community conversations, make a plan for the future. We represent all of you, and we want to hear your voices. Our plan moving forward is to work on three issues: the first is addressing the current needs. We believe that ‘flipping the campus’ will help with some of the issues that have been brought up, but we want to meet with families that have students in the school to hear your concerns and work with the administration to address them. We also plan to continue to find ways to collaborate with Danville and Twinfield high schools so that our students have more opportunities socially, academically, and athletically. Three school prom? Cross-registration of courses at the other schools? What other ideas do you have? We’ll also be asking our teachers and students to see what they would like to see. The second thing we want to do is meet with families who have schoolaged children who don’t currently attend Cabot School. What can we do to make the school more attractive to them? We know the school won’t be perfect for all families, but we want to hear why people are choosing not to send their children to Cabot. As you probably know, the more kids we have, the more funding we get from the state, so this is an important initiative for that reason, as well as to better serve the families of Cabot. Also, having more kids in the school allows for more opportunities for socialization and additional programming. The third plan is to do more outreach to our neighboring school choice towns. We have something special here with our project-based learning, and bringing in more students would also increase revenue and opportunities for our kids. We have already had one meeting with our incoming superintendent, Matt Foster. Matt is currently the principal of Craftsbury School - also a small PreK-12 school that has undergone its own challenges. We believe his experience there will be a help to us as we navigate our next steps. We will keep you posted and welcome your feedback, suggestions, and involvement in this process. Thank you again, Cabot!

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Education. Their Funding

This story by Ethan Weinstein was first published by VTDigger on March 14, 2023, with permission from the publisher to reprint in the Cabot Chronicle. Tired kids don’t do their best learning. So when Samantha Stevens, community schools coordinator at the North Country Supervisory Union, finds out that a student is sleeping without a bed at home, she buys them a mattress. “On a home visit, we might discover that there are no mattresses on the bunk beds,” she said in an interview, noting the supervisory union has bought six mattresses since January. “That’s a time when we’ll be like, ‘Okay, we’re going to go to Walmart right now.’” The money North Country uses to meet students’ immediate and basic needs comes through Vermont’s Community Schools Act, an innovative grant program that takes an expansive understanding of the role schools serve in the lives of students and their families. But now, amid the skyrocketing cost of education in Vermont, the future of community schools looks tenuous. As the source of the funding — federal Covid-19 aid — runs dry, lawmakers must decide whether state funding should be dedicated to keep the community schools grants alive. In 2021, the Legislature passed Act 67, also called the Community Schools Act. The competitive three-year pilot project was endowed with about $3.4 million in federal funds and overseen by the state Agency of Education. The money supported five recipients — Vergennes Elementary School, Cabot School, Hazen Union High School in Hardwick, the White River Valley Middle School, and the entire North Country Supervisory Union — all of which served communities with at least 40% of students meeting the income-based eligibility for free or reduced lunch. A closet full of toiletries supports for students who need them at the North Country Supervi-

sory Union. Photo by Ethan Weinstein/ VTDigger The community schools philosophy seeks to address new challenges facing students across the country, such as increased social and behavioral needs and

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is Drying Up.

decreasing community connectedness. At the same time, the program acknowledges the changing role schools play in the present day, often serving as social service hubs for everything from psychiatric services to nursing and dentistry. The overall model is reduced to five not-so-catchy pillars: integrated student supports; expanded and enriched learning time and opportunities; active family and community engagement; collaborative leadership and practices; and safe, inclusive and equitable learning environments. In practice, though, community schools are far less bureaucratic than they sound. Educational leaders work to get kids into school to do their best learning. Parents lack transportation? Community school leaders drive kids to school. Interested in engineering but the regular curriculum doesn’t support it? Community schools can create robotics programs after school, or place kids in internships to meet their interests. The framework has gained traction in urban areas such as New York City and Los Angeles, but leaders say Vermont is on the cutting edge of education by introducing community schools in a rural setting. And at a time in which the ballooning cost of public school is top of mind in Vermont, advocates point to a growing body of evidence showing that community schools provide a significant return on investment, approaching problems from a proactive rather than reactive perspective. Now, in the final year of the grant program, the Agency of Education says the number of community schools is growing, serving more than 5,200 students in 28 different schools, up from 16. The agency has also partnered with the University of Vermont to study the effectiveness of the community schools philosophy, with the long-term goal of designing implementation guides for schools across the state. The preliminary data is encouraging. In Hardwick, school leaders say 9th grade absenteeism is down 50% over three years. They also believe the community schools model helped them retain or attract 40 to 50 more students than they’d expect based on the broader community demographics. But without action, the dedicated funding will dry up. In an eleventh-hour push, the House Education Committee is considering whether to appropriate $1.9 million to keep the program going. That amount is the same as what funds a specific high school completion program lawmakers are recommending be moved out of the education fund into the general fund. Thus, advocates say, the move would not create a net impact on the already overburdened education fund. Opponents in the committee — largely the three Republican members — don’t contest the success of the Community Schools Act. But amid education property tax increases above 20% in some towns, they say now’s not the time to spend more money. “I like the idea of the community schools,” Rep. Casey Toof, R- St. Albans (see ’Community Schools’, page 11)

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Community Schools

(continued from page 10) Town, told his fellow committee members in House Education. “I just don’t like the funding part.” Even if the funding ekes out of the divided committee, community schools face a more uncertain future before the rest of the Legislature and the governor.

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Cabot: A case study

Rebecca Tatistcheff, principal of Cabot School, which serves about 160 students, had participated in community schools work in New York City. Cabot is a rare K-12 school, and its community schools ethos “really is why I came to Cabot,” Tatistcheff said. Cabot, which recently survived a vote to close its high school, was among the five grant winners as part of the threeyear pilot, using almost $400,000 to expand project-based learning, build out a senior internship program and increase after-school programming. Upward of 75% of Cabot’s 1st through 6th graders have been enrolled in the after-school programming led by older students, who are paid to contribute, according to Tatistcheff. Some of the programs, such as an after-school art class, are open to all ages, drawing in older community members, as well, she noted. Cabot has also used its Community Schools Act money to support projectbased learning — funding field trips and paying to bring community experts into the classroom. The school’s philosophy allows teachers and students to cater classes to the present, or to class-specific interests. Thomas Dunbar, a science teacher, is learning alongside students about aquaponics, which combines raising fish in tanks with soilless agriculture. “I’ve used an aquaponics system, but I’ve never run one. I’ve never built one,” Dunbar said. “And so it is 100% like, I’m guiding (students) through it, but we are collectively doing the research.”

At the Cabot School, students are building an aquaponics system. Photo by Ethan Weinstein/VTDigger The style of teaching contrasts with what Dunbar called a “sage on the stage” approach. Rather than talking down to students from a place of expertise, he functions as a “project manager” and collaborator, with students themselves driving the work. On days in which a class project experiences a major setback, Dunbar admitted he sometimes wishes he could just teach from a textbook. But in the project-based format, students are far more engaged, he said. “You don’t have to be the one who tells them whether or not they did well,” he said. “We’re designing an aquaponics garden as a class. We are going to know whether or not we met that goal.” During a recent spring break, signs of students at work sprouted everywhere in Dunbar’s classroom. A rack of dayglo tie-dyed shirts hung, created by students in his chemistry of color class. Students had crafted cardboard prototypes of toys, which may ultimately reach a finalized form, showing off their physics skills. And in the center, the aquaponics tank bubbled, fish and all. ‘I do not see another funding source’ North Country Supervisory Union, which serves more than 2,700 students in the Northeast Kingdom, was thinking like a community school long before it received a grant, Stevens, the supervisory union’s community schools coordinator, said. But the five pillars of the Community Schools Act ”reinforced a way of thinking,” among district staff, Stevens said. With the funding, North Country was able to support three staff members devoted to community schools work. As part of her previous job, Stevens drew on federal funds devoted to helping students who fit certain criteria of homelessness. “There were so many kids that couldn’t access (the federal funding) because they weren’t homeless,” Stevens said. As part of her current team’s work, she focuses on the barriers preventing students from coming to school, or preventing them from doing their best learning. Oftentimes, that means meeting basic needs. The team of three has also focused on community engagement as part of its grant work, hosting mobile after-school programming across North Country’s broad range of rural Northeast Kingdom towns. “ We’d really shut our door to community” during Covid-19, Stevens said. So North County began drawing in community members with events such as Van Go community art events — mobile arts and crafts nights — and STEAM nights, which engage families in science, technology, engineering, art and math. The programs have targeted North Country’s more rural schools, further from area hubs such as Newport, and the nights always provide dinner, an added draw for families, Stevens noted. On a STEAM night in Charleston, kids and their families worked around a bonfire, learning about how different chemicals produced different color flames. While there, Stevens said she met a parent new to the community who’d driven a distance from Coventry and also happened to be a chemical engineer. Students made tie-dyed shirts as part of

a chemistry of color class at the Cabot School. Photo by Ethan Weinstein/ VTDigger “He’s out there meeting completely brand new people,” Stevens recalled, highlighting one of the program’s goals: making connections between adults, not just their kids. Stevens, who grew up in the district, said she’s never seen the community’s immediate needs so great. In addition to mattresses, the Community Schools money helps pay for sheets, backpacks and winter clothes for students who need them. In a resource room in North Country’s office, a large cabinet is stocked with necessities such as soap, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste. In the next room over, families can access a washer and dryer. “Today, this student told me there’s nothing in the refrigerator at home,” Stevens said, so she planned to go to the food shelf or supermarket, delivering the groceries in the “least stigmatized way.” That usually entails getting to a student’s home before they arrive and leaving groceries on the porch, she said.

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Coordinator for Cabot Afterschool

During February, we held the vote for the proposals we’d created for the Vermont Afterschool grant funds. With the help of Jessica North, Amelia Blume, and Sonia Scherr, I had students at Cabot School vote. I also posted links to the voting form on Cabot Connects and emailed the form to contacts in the homeschooling and private-schooling communities, as well as hung fliers with a link around town. Eighty-five Cabot young people (ages 10-22) voted, which is an excellent participation rate for the town! Youth could vote for four options, and two of the options won–the Rec Field proposal, which came in first, and the CSPAC teen-led arts proposal, which came in second. Both of these projects will be fully funded. We'll have to wait a bit until things thaw out and more of the temporary fire station work is completed to use the Rec Field’s grant funds. This spring and summer, keep your eye out for more games, more benches and picnic tables, exercise bars, a bike rack, a small bike repair kit, and more. Since the town has voted to keep the high school, I am working with Jonny Currently, North Country’s threeperson community schools office is “selfsustaining,” according to Stevens, braiding together the grant funding with other federal dollars and a congressional earmark. But without the grant program, Stevens said the district will lose the flexibility to meet immediate needs for students who aren’t homeless. With a small team, if any one person devotes time to grant writing and grant reporting, the overall support work will diminish, Stevens suggested. And though Vermont’s education system is currently in a financial crisis, Stevens called the three-person community schools team a “remarkable” investment. The team fields calls from staff across the district, helping them troubleshoot for families trying to access services like Reach Up and 3Squares. “If we lose Community Schools, I do not see another funding source that’s going to make that possible,” she said.

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Youth Council

Flood and Rebecca Tatistcheff on plans for the CSPAC teen-led arts programming. I’ve already started ordering some of what will be needed for this programming, like up-to-date sound equipment. I’ll be bringing together youth to help with the ordering of other items, like comfortable seating, and to help planning the programming. Once again, I’d like to extend huge thanks to community partners who worked on proposals or who provided other support to the Cabot Youth Council – Cameron North, Cabot School (especially Sonia Scherr, Anthony Christiano, Amelia Blume, Jonny Flood, Jessica North, and Rebecca Tatistcheff), Elizabeth Vitale, everyone in the town clerk’s office (who let the youth council use the Willey Building meeting space), the selectboard (who were so supportive of the proposals we discussed with them), Neighbors in Action, Amy Hornblas, Dean Deasy, Stef Burtt, Amanda Otto, and Kathleen Hoyne. The Cabot Youth Council continues to be open to anyone interested. We still have work to do as we buy the things in the proposals and set up all that’s been planned. Anyone who wishes to get involved or anyone who has questions or concerns can contact me directly at laura@vermontafterschool.org.

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Let’s Grow Kids

ABC and LOL Child Care Center and Preschool recently announced its expansion and opening of the Cabot Children’s Center, providing 15 new child care slots and four new jobs for the Cabot community. The Cabot Children’s Center, which was able to open as a result of new state funding from Act 76, the child care law passed in 2023, serves infants and toddlers up to age three out of the renovated ground floor of the Cabot Church. ABC and LOL currently operates child care, PreK, afterschool, and summer camp programs in St Johnsbury and Peacham, employing 65 staff and serving over 200 children. “I had families in Cabot reaching out to me, asking us to open a child care center in their town. Thanks to new state funding from Act 76, we were able to finally say yes and make this expansion possible,” said Heather Smires, owner of ABC and LOL and Cabot Children’s Center. “We’ve been seeing this across the state for years – there just aren’t enough programs or enough spots to meet the demand for child care. But now, thanks to Act 76, not only are we opening a new center, we’re also able to provide our staff with the compensation increases and health benefits they need and deserve.” Act 76, the child care law passed in 2023, is in its initial stages of implementation. In the fall the state rolled out the first phase, readiness payments to help programs stay afloat and expand capacity. Beginning in January, child care programs began receiving greater reimbursement rates from the state – which Smires said were used to rent, renovate, and furnish the new program space in Cabot. ABC and LOL also used new funds to increase wages for staff and, as of March 1, to begin offering health insurance to program employees for the first time. Like many programs throughout Vermont, ABC and LOL has benefitted from Act 76, but has also received support from statewide organizations like Let’s Grow Kids and First Children’s Finance (FCF), which provides business and technical assistance to child care programs in Vermont. Erin Roche, Director of FCF’s Vermont office, expressed optimism around the new program in Cabot: “It’s so exciting to see the Cabot Children’s Center and other programs throughout the state opening to provide much needed child care for their communities. At First Children’s Finance, we will support these programs every step of the way with business resources, so that they can continue to thrive and meet the demand for affordable and excellent child care in our state.” Aly Richards, CEO of Let’s Grow Kids, the advocacy organization leading Vermont’s child care movement said: “Act 76 is a monumental step forward for Vermonters as it infuses an additional $125 million annually into the

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76

child care sector, which will allow us to address many aspects of the child care crisis, from program capacity to early childhood educator retention, to the cost of child care for families. The crisis is not solved yet, but stories like this one from Cabot are proof that Act 76 and continued public investment in child care can truly transform our state.” In April and then again in October, Act 76 will expand income eligibility for child care tuition assistance, helping more Vermont families pay for child care. By the end of 2024, over 7,000 additional Vermont children and their families may become eligible. The Cabot Children’s Center is also being celebrated by employers in the area, including Vermont’s Cabot Creamery, which, after many years without sufficient child care options in town, now has access to a local, quality program for some of its employees’ children. Nick Managan, Chief of Staff for Cabot Creamery said: "The lack of child care in the area has been a challenge for the Cabot Creamery workforce and the broader community. The town of Cabot was considered to be in a vast 'child care desert,' meaning parents didn't have viable child care options in the area. That created a problem for parents, kids, and local businesses. Having a quality program like Cabot Children’s Center open in our community is a game-changer. It's a great resource for our whole community and will help both current and future Cabot Creamery employees."

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ABC and LOL Child Care Center

and Preschool ABC and LOL operates child care, PreK, afterschool, and summer camp programs focusing on exploration, discovery, creative expression, exciting adventures, and social as well as emotional well-being. It currently operates programs in St Johnsbury, Peacham, and Cabot, employing 65 staff and serving over 200 children in and around Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Learn more at www.abcandlol.com.

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About Vermont's Child Care Cam-

paign Vermont's Child Care Campaign is led by Let’s Grow Kids, a nonprofit organization on a mission to ensure affordable access to quality child care for all Vermont families by 2025. With nearly 40,000 supporters, Let’s Grow Kids, in partnership with Let’s Grow Kids Action Network, is empowering Vermonters to advocate for sustainable child care policy change. Learn more at www.letsgrowkids.org .

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Board of Directors

Twin Valley Senior Center in East Montpelier continues to add new programs and services while continuing with their already full agenda. About 9,400 meals were cooked and delivered to seniors in Cabot, Calais, East Montpelier, Marshfield, Plainfield, Woodbury and part of Montpelier through their Meals on Wheels (MOW) program. Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings start by packaging the homemade, nutritious meals, loading them into cars and the drivers personally handing them to the recipients. All of this is by volunteers. This year's events included a craft fair & flea market, two cribbage tournaments, a free veterans day luncheon and two pie sales that sold out and a traditional St. Patty's Day meal. These events were in addition to the health clinics, tax preparation assistance, twice monthly sing alongs, exercise classes, bingo, mahjong and sing-a-longs with

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Cabot Tree Warden

Spring has arrived; with spring it is time to look forward to another season of planting flowers, shrubs, and trees in our yards and gardens. There are many sources available for the plants you purchase this year, please consider native plants from a local nursery as you choose where to make your purchases this year. Beyond the obvious economic benefit to the local economy, local purchase of native plants also reduces the risk of introducing unwanted invasive pests and plants into your yard. The unfortunate reality is that through global commerce, many new invasive pests are now present throughout the northeastern region of the country. Spotted Lantern Fly, Jumping Worms, and Wandering Broadhead Planarian are a few examples of the invasive pests which can easily be introduced into your yard when purchasing plants from other areas of the northeast. If you do purchase from outside our area, please make purchases from a certified nursery that inspects plants before shipping. As invasive pests and plants become more widely spread throughout the northeast, shopping locally is our best defense in slowing the spread of invasive pests and plants. The same holds true for the choices you make on plants to purchase this year; please do research on the plants prior to purchasing, preventing choosing plants which will cause headaches down the road. Websites such as “the native plant database” can assist in researching answers to your questions on native plants, helping you make informed choices about good plant selections for your garden and yard.

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U PDATE

lunch being offered three days a week at noon. We also offer takeout and grab & go meals. People come to socialize, play cards, eat lunch and enjoy the company of others. While all this was happening Northern Basements Systems donated labor and materials to waterproof our basement, including installing a sump pump, so if the floods come again, we will not lose precious food and supplies. Twin Valley Senior Center is located at 4583 US Route 2, East Montpelier and open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 am till 2 pm. A small paid/part-time staff of two and a team of about 40 volunteers do all of this to serve citizens of central Vermont and enrich their lives. All are welcome, no matter what age. Stop in for a visit and enjoy lunch. Check our website at https:// www.twinvalleyseniors.org/ to see a calendar of activities and what's on the

You might also consider volunteering for this vital part of your community. Hope to see you soon.

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T REE W ARDEN

The giant hogweed planted on Elm Street is a good example of a bad plant choice. The woman who planted the giant hogweed over twenty years ago thought it was a beautiful plant, so she planted it without considering the consequences. She was correct about it being a beautiful plant when flowering, but it is also extremely dangerous if the giant hogweed’s sap contacts human skin. Giant Hogweed, as with most invasive plants, pushes out native plants by growing faster and producing more seeds to propagate the plant. Giant Hogweed produces white flowers that are on a large umbrella-shaped head and can be up to two-and-a-half feet in diameter. The flower heads produce the seeds, with each flower head producing up to 1500 seeds annually. Fortunately, after approximately 15 years of remediation, the Giant Hogweed on Elm Street is almost eradicated. I urge you to take the time to fully research the plants you select for planting. Please consider native plants which will provide for the needs of our birds and pollinators, while providing beauty in your yard you can enjoy throughout the summer months.

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Youth Program - Pinhole Projectors

with Amanda Otto - Wednesday, April 3, 2:30 - 4:00 pm - Ages 8 & Up Join Amanda Otto and Paul Wade to create your own pinhole projector that lets you watch the solar eclipse safely and easily from anywhere. All materials provided - preregistration appreciated.

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Storywalk - Starting April 6 - Cabot

Rec Field Pavilion - Take a stroll while you enjoy the story with your family. Enjoy A Few Beautiful Minutes: Experiencing a Solar Eclipse by Kate Allen Fox while you walk. Description: "What happens during a solar eclipse? The sun vanishes. Light becomes dark. Day animals sleep, and night animals wake. The moon takes over the sky. People stop what they're doing and together, they look up. The whole world changes for a few beautiful minutes." All Ages Program - Eclipses in Art March 18 - April 22 . Throughout history, people have made art to try to make sense of this unexpected and mysterious natural phenomenon. Come to the Cabot Public Library to view a selection of printed images that show how different cultures presented and interpreted the solar eclipse in art. Come back to the library the week of April 8 to create your own piece of art inspired by this once in a lifetime event! An assortment of 2-D media will be available.

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Ongoing - Tuesdays, 3:30 - 5:00 pm.

Join Losada Stoddard as DM for our newest D&D campaign. Learn how to build a Dungeons and Dragons character, and then set out on your Adventures. No experience necessary! Snacks provided. New members are welcome anytime! Story and Activity Time (ages birth - 5) - Wednesdays 10:30 - 11:30 am –

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Teen Game Night & Food (ages 12-18)

- Thursday, April 18 - 6:00 - 7:30 pm. Come play classic and new board and card games. Bring friends or come solo and make some new ones. From 6 - 6:30 pm we'll make some simple and tasty snacks (savory and sweet popcorn, tortilla pizzas, etc.) together in the kitchen. Games start promptly at 6:30 pm! Many thanks to the Wiswell Foundation for their generous donation! Funds will be used to employ one teen to help with summer programming and libraryrelated projects. Additional thanks to Betty Jones and Paul Wade for their help with eclipse programming and to Losada Stoddard for facilitating our D&D Program for kids!

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L IBRARY N EWS

you're a visible-mending newbie or have been repairing your clothes for years, come join us at The Cabot Public Library for an afternoon of mending and connecting with your neighbors. Just bring your clothes in need of fixing, and we'll supply instructions and materials. Tea and snacks will be provided!

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Workshops - Using Everyday Materi-

als in Poems - Samn Stockwell – April 17, 6:30-8:30 pm. A message from Samn: A friend of mine said that not enough poems had anything about Walmart in them. In thinking about that, I looked at the ways poets incorporate everyday materials and actual junk. We will create poems using found and recycled objects, in addition to looking at examples of intriguing pairings and odd associations. How does surprise influence creation? I will have some examples of poems that incorporate everyday items. Then, I’ll hand out some slips of paper, on the slips will be some grand words and some concrete litter. Your task will be to weave the litter in with your grand words. At the end of the workshop, people will have an opportunity to share their poems. Needed materials: participants should bring pen and paper. Bio: Samn Stockwell has published extensively. Her new book, Musical Figures , is published by Thirty West Publishing House. Previous books won the National Poetry Series and the Editor’s Prize at Elixir . Recent poems are in Ploughshares and others. She teaches at Community College of Vermont and Montpelier Senior Activity Center.

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Stranger in the Woods: The Extraor-

dinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel. “…Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality—not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his

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Yoga for Everybody! Sundays 10:30-

11:45 am. Seize the potency of a fresh year by making a commitment to your vitality with a weekly practice of yoga! Classes are a playful invitation to meet yourself while gaining strength, flexibility, balance, alignment, and attunement to the rhythm of your breath. All are welcome, beginners especially encouraged. Mats and props provided. Donationbased ($10 suggested). Sundays at the Willey Building, ongoing 10:30-11:45 am. Special thanks to Grace Hoffman for her many years of service as a Library Trustee – thanks, Grace for your hard work, dedication, and bright spirit you brought to all our meetings – you will be missed! And a warm welcome and thanks to Taeryn Robbins for joining the Trustees – Many thanks to Christina Sacalis for the Darning and Patch Mending workshop and to Christyn King for weekly Yoga sessions. Thanks also to the Library Trustees and Student Representative for their dedication and hard work: Niall McCallum, Angela Ogle, Kurt Steinert, Taeryn Robbins, Erin Ruddell and our student representative, Ila Steinert. See you at the library! Kathleen Hoyne – Library Director Amanda Otto – Youth Librarian by Janet Van Fleet This month I’m writing about a writer! Rebecca Wallick has lived on a dirt road in Cabot for about three years now. She published her first book ten years ago, Growing Up Boeing: The Early Jet Age through the Eyes of a

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Test Pilot’s Daughter . Right away we

had common ground, as my father was a test pilot too, who died testing a Navy jet in 1954. Wallick, who is retired following a career as a family law attorney, says it took her about ten years to write the book. She had interviewed her father before he died, then conducted many more interviews with his friends and colleagues, and did lots of research about Boeing and the airplanes her father flew. The book is highly engaging and readable about the history of a fascinating period in American aviation as well as in personal reflections about family

life that were formative for the author. In my last column, I promised I’d make sure to talk about the financial aspects of making art, so: when Wallick realized that she needed a stretch of uninterrupted time to bring the manuscript into final form (and also needed to hire help with editing, formatting and cover design), she made a Kickstarter appeal that won the substantial funding she’d requested. Six months later, the book went to press. Now she’s spent another ten years on her second book, Wild Running , about dogs (particularly Malamutes), trail running, wolves, and a love of wilderness and wildness. The book should be available this month and can be purchased on Amazon. What advice does Wallick have for other writers? The first is stick-toitiveness, and next she recommends that aspiring authors interact with other writers. Reading the work of other authors – and having them read yours – helps hone your skills, gets you feedback, and provides useful contacts. Wallick recommends the Burlington Writers Workshop (BWW), whose members cover all the genres – poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. BWW produces an annual publication called Cold Lake Anthology and also Mud Season Review , published six times a year online. Oh, and another thing, she says you need a strong ego if you’re going to be a writer because there will be lots of rejections when you submit your work for publication. Right here in Cabot, Wallick organized a series of author readings at the library starting in the spring of 2023, with Vermont authors she found through BWW. And beginning this month, she’s organizing a series of three workshops, one of which is with poet and memoirist Sean Prentiss on Writing About Place, Tuesdays 6:30-8:30. Visit or call the library for more information. With two books under her belt, Rebecca Wallick is now thinking about what might come next. She says she sees memoir as the home-base for her writing, as “inserting myself into the narrative is the only honest way.” With her legal background as a guardian ad litem , she’s imagining a book that will describe cases she’s worked on and also educate people about the needs of children caught up in the legal system. Stay tuned. Another local writer, Sarah Spletzer, has recently published a book called make a list – a book of prompts , available on her website movementum.space and at Harry’s & The Den. This ele-

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Storms, Culverts and

by Tim McKay Note: The following article in the September 2023 North Star Monthly is reprinted with the author’s permission. The Cabot Flood Resiliency Task Force supports the suggestions in this article and the little things we can do. After the historic flood of 2023, following the historic floods of 2011, any Vermonter who pays the slightest attention now knows the overwhelming power of flowing water. Several times in this column I have discussed various aspects of the dynamics of streams. They fascinate me. I spent much of my professional career dealing with the ever present conflicts between humans’ desire to live and work near streams, and the undeniable reality of Mother Nature’s power. Aside from the infrequent (?) major flood events, streams are working every day doing their job of moving water and sediment downstream. A gentle, slow moving stream is benign on most days, a pleasant environment for us to recreate or farm. Even a steep, fast mountain stream offers swimming holes and rock hopping on a nice summer day. But sooner or later, hard rain comes or the snow melts fast and water becomes a force to be reckoned with. Back on the evening of May 26, 2011, Peacham, Barnet, and Danville had severe damage from a sudden, torrential thunderstorm. Betsy was at a friend’s house and I was home listening to the Red Sox game on the radio when the Emergency Broadcast Warning blotted out Joe Castiglione’s play-by-play. It was a tornado warning for Groton and Peacham! Torrential rain and high winds swept in from the west, and little brooks quickly became dangerous torrents. Betsy made it home just as roads were starting to wash away. No tornado developed, but four to six inches of rain fell in a couple of hours, and the next morning we awoke to the worst damage in anyone’s memory. Of course, a few months later the irate Irene paid a visit, dousing us once again, but causing less damage hereabouts. This July 10 we got six inches of rain over a span of 36 hours, and Peacham had relatively little damage. Why does six inches of rain cause heavy damage in one storm but little damage in another? When it comes to our hilly back roads, damage usually comes from a culvert failure. A sudden torrential rain like the May 2011 storm can quickly overwhelm a culvert that is not big enough to take the flow, causing it to back up and overflow the road. More commonly, sticks and other detritus picked up by fast rising water blocks the culvert with the same result. We learned from the storms of 2011, and it is thanks to a lot of improved infrastructure that damage wasn’t worse this time. Towns have been steadily increasing the size of culverts, giving them more capacity to carry sudden increases in flow and making it less likely that gantly-designed book gives you a series of prompts that you can write in the form of lists, right in the book! So here’s an opportunity for you to start writing in a low -stress format. Good luck.

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Road Ditches

sticks will catch on the inlet and cause a blockage. Culverts often need to be doubled in size, and some larger round culverts on brooks are being replaced by rectangular concrete culverts that keep the brook bed intact and provide plenty of space for water, sediment, and sticks to flow through. These are a big investment, but well worth making. The State has been subsidizing the building of rock lined ditches on town roads. The idea is that flows from heavy rain will run off the road and down the stone-lined ditch, thus minimizing erosion. For this theory to work, water has to run off the road into the ditch rather than continuing down the road, washing it out anyway. That means the road needs to be well crowned and there cannot be the little berm that we often see between the road and the ditch. Water runs from the crown toward the ditch but hits the berm and runs down along the edge of the road, quickly starting a gully. There is a stone ditch right next to it, but the water never makes it to the ditch. The other situation where roads erode on hills is where water runs past a turnout. Turnouts are the diversions that the road crew has dug with a backhoe to direct water running down the ditch away from the road, typically off into a field or the woods. Turnouts prevent the road ditches from getting overloaded, and are vital to preventing erosion of the road. Unfortunately, maintenance is sometimes lacking. The grader goes by and leaves a little berm that prevents water from entering the turnout. It takes only a few minutes for a person with a shovel to make sure the way is clear for water to run out into the turnout, but often that step is never done. Turnouts sometimes do not have a good outlet, in which case they get overwhelmed in a storm, and water finds its way back into the road ditch and on down the hill. Once again, it may take a shovel to open up the outlet. And turnouts fill up with gravel and need to be dug out. What can you do to help prevent road erosion? If you are walking a gravel road and notice that a culvert has sticks caught at the entrance, take a minute to clear them away. The road crew has hundreds of culverts to maintain, and simply won’t get to every one. Likewise, if you go by a turnout that should be opened up, stop with a shovel and do it. With a few minutes work, you can easily keep a load of gravel out of the brook and save the taxpayers the cost of hauling another load in. Make it a habit to notice all the culverts and turnouts near your house and do your part. We can be sure that 2023 won’t be the last big storm. Let’s pay attention, keep learning, and upgrading all the drainage structures. That’s what it will take to be resilient when the next one hits. Tim McKay is a conservationist, woodworker, and tree Peacham. farmer in

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← From the Cabot Chronicle