2007 Year in Review [2]

Here's some of what else made news around the area in 2007.

JANUARY

Jan. 2: The state Department of Taxes told Rockingham that its townwide reappraisal, which cost $200,000 and took two years to do, would not be accepted because it contained too many mistakes. It eventually was accepted.

Jan. 5: A group of protesters called attention to the issue of climate change by tubing on the West River. It was 60 degrees in West Dummerston and not an ice floe was in sight. The cold would come 10 days later, when an ice storm in the higher terrain of the county toppled trees and left more than 2,000 people without electricity - some for several days.

Jan. 8: A controversial proposal to build a crematorium in Westminster was rejected by the town's planning commission.

Jan. 9: By a 4-1 vote, the Brattleboro Selectboard approved a zoning change that gave the go-ahead to the Windham Foundation to build a new plant for the Grafton Village Cheese Co. at the Retreat Farm. Two weeks later, Windham Foundation president Stephan Morse announced he was stepping down at the end of the year after more than 24 years in charge. Former University of Vermont provost John Bramley was hired

in July as Morse's successor.

Jan. 10: 1 Cornell Inc., the developers of the Haystack Club, a proposed $450 million private four-season resort, shelved its plans. Slow sales and a weak tourism market were the reasons for the decision.

Jan. 29: Wilmington and Whitingham dropped their four year old lawsuit against the state that challenged Acts 60 and 68, the state's education funding laws. The town boards said the suit had cost too much money and was being ignored by the state.

FEBRUARY

Feb.

9: Andrea Livermore, executive director of the United Way of Windham County, was hired as the new executive director of Building a Better Brattleboro. She replaced Tom Franks, who had resigned in January.

Livermore was replaced at the United Way in April by Konstantin von Krusenstiern, the head of the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center. In turn, von Krusenstiern was replaced as BMAC's head by Danny Lichtenfeld, executive director of the Yellow Barn Music Festival.

Feb. 10: Alan Eames of Dummerston, author of "The Secret Life of Beer" and one of the world's leading experts on the history of beer and brewing, died at age 59. He started up Three Dollar Dewey's in Brattleboro in 1980s and was a consultant in numerous brewing ventures.

Feb. 11: Vietnam veteran Duane Tefft of Putney was presented with the Silver Rose medal by the Vietnam Veterans of America. The decoration is presented to veterans who developed illnesses caused by exposure to Agent Orange, a dioxin-based defoliant that was sprayed on the jungles of Vietnam during the war. Tefft, diagnosed with terminal cancer of the brain, lungs, bone and spleen, died on Feb. 20.

Feb. 12: Businessman Ralph Eames, who died in November 2006, left a $2.6 million bequest to Brattleboro Union High School. The Class of 1933 graduate left the money to create the Eames Award, a scholarship for artistically inclined students to continue their education. It was the largest bequest ever made to the school.

Feb. 14: Winter arrived

with a vengeance in the area with a huge storm that left more than a foot of snow in the Brattleboro area and up to three feet in northern Vermont.

Feb. 16: The American Skiing Co. announced it was selling the Mount Snow resort in West Dover to Peak Resorts Inc.

Feb. 20: George Duke Jr., 72, of Dummerston, a longtime outdoors writer for the Brattleboro Reformer, died in a auto accident. Duke was also a former Dummerston fire chief and a longtime employee with First Vermont Bank.

MARCH

March 1: Terrance Parker, one of the two Brattleboro police officers who shot and killed Robert "Woody" Woodward in Dec. 2, 2001, was fired after 19 years on the force. He would spend the rest of the year battling the town to get his job back, including a eight-hour grievance hearing in June. The board upheld his firing in August, and Parker filed a lawsuit challenging that decision in October.

March 2: Some of the coldest, snowiest March weather seen in years began on this date with a foot of wet snow and rain.

March 4: Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan came to Brattleboro as part of a barnstorming tour of the state in support of town meeting resolutions calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. More than 200 turned out, including a group of Iraq war supporters and hecklers.

March 5: The Rockingham annual town meeting started off with a bang when the Selectboard announced that the town had reached a settlement with TransCanada in the long-running dispute over the assessed tax value of the Bellows Falls dam. In exchange for accepting a $90 million valuation (down from $126 million), TransCanada would pay the town $3.1 million annually through 2009.

March 6: Town Meeting Day saw many surprises around the county:

Audrey Garfield was re-elected to another one-year term on the Brattleboro Selectboard. She was joined by newcomers Dora Bouboulis (one-year seat) and Rich Garant (three-year seat).

Bob Thomson of Saxtons River and Dennis Harty won one-year seats on the Rockingham Selectboard. Tom Salmon took the three-year seat.

Marlboro voted to reject a proposal by state education commissioner Richard Cate to consolidate the state's school districts.

Dover OK'd a 1 percent local option tax by a 71-55 vote. The tax would be added to the state sales tax and the rooms and meals tax.

Putney, Wilmington, Whitingham and Londonderry all approved the use of electronic scanning machines for voting. Marlboro and Newfane rejected them.

Dummerston rejected a move to use the Australian ballot for voting on school budgets.

An impeachment resolution was tabled in Brookline, but it passed in Newfane, Westminster, Townshend, Jamaica, Grafton, Guilford, Dummerston, Marlboro, Wilmington and Putney.

March 13: The Vernon Volunteer Fire Company found itself in a dispute with town officials over its financial records. Town auditors had been requesting the records for years, and the fire company had refused. On this date, they were supposed to deliver the records and did, but took them back hours later after the found out that Reformer reporter Paul Heintz had been given access to them.

March 15: The final blow to a plan to keep a working dairy operation at the Retreat Farm was delivered after the Windham Foundation signed a long-term lease with Stoneholm Farm of Putney to lease 170 acres to grow feed corn. Activists reacted to the deal by calling for a boycott of Grafton cheese, which quickly fizzled.

March 24: Brattleboro town meeting representatives rejected a proposal to change the town's business property tax.

March 27: Maryann Sparks of Brattleboro, who battled cystic fibrosis all her life, died at age 26 after complications from her second lung transplant. She received her first lung transplant in 1996 and needed a second operation in October 2006.

March 30: Former Brattleboro Reformer columnist Judith Gorman died of cancer at age 67. She was as renowned for her culinary exploits at T.J. Buckley's as she was for her prose, which also appeared in The Commons and several other newspapers.

APRIL

April 4: Hinsdale officials announced that Wal-Mart sought to build a 176,000 square foot supercenter near Hinsdale Greyhound Park. The store would replace the existing 97,000 square foot store in George's Field. The proposal was met with almost unanimous approval in Hinsdale and got the town planning board's backing in September.

April 8: A fire early Easter morning destroyed the former Vermont National Bank building in downtown Wilmington. The site of the historic building was later bought by the town for use as a park.

April 11: Douglas Fletcher resigned from the Vernon Selectboard, only a month after he was re-elected to another one-year term. He would later plead guilty to the embezzlement of $230,000 from Merchants Bank during the six years he was the Brattleboro branch manager. In October, Fletcher was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and ordered to pay full restitution to the bank.

April 14: Gary Rosen, 60, beloved children's musician and entertainer, died after a three year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

April 15 and 16: One of the wildest April storms to ever hit Vermont left a foot of snow, followed by torrential rains and 60 mph winds. Miles of roads were washed out in some towns and more than 50,000 people around Vermont lost electricity for days.

April 23: Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin came up with a proposal that made him an instant lightning rod for the rest of the legislative session - a windfall profits tax on Vermont Yankee to pay for a climate change initiative. Although the House and Senate passed the bill, it was eventually vetoed by Gov. Douglas.

April 25: Pressure built on the Legislature to pass a measure to call for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. Finally, after a parliamentary maneuver by Shumlin got the Senate to approve impeached in a matter of minutes, Speaker Gaye Symington reluctantly scheduled a House vote five days after Shumlin's, and it was defeated 87-60.

April 26: Faulty wiring on a oil pump at the Saxtons River Elementary School led to about 500 gallons of fuel oil being spilled. Classes were postponed for three days, but no harm was done to area drinking water supplies.

MAY

It was a turbulent month for the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union. First, Catherine Davignon stepped down as assistant superintendent. Then BFUHS principal Chris Hodsden threatened to resign if the board did not renew his contract on his terms. The BFUHS Board ultimately agreed, but then Marc Caron and Susan Hernon resigned from the board. They were later replaced by Bill Harmon and Matt Guild. A short time later, Bellows Falls Middle School principal Marcy Henry announced her resignation.

May 10: Kelton Miller, longtime publisher of the Brattleboro Reformer and the Bennington Banner, died at age 69.

May 22: Longtime Westminster Town Administrator Glenn Smith stepped down after nearly nine years on the job. Former Wilmington Town Manager Sonia Alexander later took over on an interim basis.

May 25: The ribbon was cut on what was the most expensive school construction project in Vermont history. The $55.7 million renovation and addition to the Brattleboro Union High School, Brattleboro Area Middle School and Windham Regional Career Center was completed on time and under budget. May 26: Dummerston saluted retiring town road foreman Wayne Emery with a pig roast and retirement party. More than 200 well-wishers showed up to celebrate Emery's 28 year career.

May 31: Edward Lashway, 30, of Guilford, died in an accident on Route 30 in Newfane. Lashway, a delivery driver for Barrows & Fisher Oil Co., was killed when his oil truck went off the road and overturned in the West River. The highway was closed most of the day by police.

JUNE

June 5: The Windham Central Supervisory Union Board voted to fire interim superintendent James Peters, despite an outpouring of public support on his behalf. He was later replaced by Wendy Houlihan.

June 11: After its membership dwindled to just one, the Brattleboro Selectboard voted to put the Citizens Police Communications Committee "on hiatus" until the board could figure out what the CPCC's future shape would be.

Mother Earth News selected Brattleboro as one of its "Eight Great Places You've Never Heard Of." The magazine cited the town's commitment to sustainable living, its strong sense of community and its great quality of life.

There was more shuffling in leadership positions in area towns in June. Doris Knechtel, Newfane's administrative assistant since 1994, announced she was stepping down. Dover Selectboard member Traci Fletcher resigned from the board, citing personal reasons. And Julie Lineberger won a special election in Wilmington to fill the seat held by Andrew Polombo, who resigned in April to take a new job in North Carolina.

June 22: For the first time since 1998, the Department of Vermont American Legion Convention came to Brattleboro. The 89th convention drew more than 1,800 Legionnaires and their families to town.

June 26: A 72--year-old Guilford man made medical history following an innovative new procedure that allowed doctors to destroy a pancreatic cyst by entering the body through the patient's mouth. Eugene LaFlam had the surgery done at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass. He recovered quickly and was released from the hospital two weeks later.