Williston Observer

March 20, 2008

By Tim Simard
Observer staff

After a year of learning about landmines and landmine victims, Williston Girl Scout Aleksandra Stamper still can't believe there are so many of the deadly weapons in the world.

"I'm just surprised that so many people have put landmines in the ground to kill people," Stamper said.

Tens of thousands of people have been injured by landmines in hundreds of countries and many can't afford medical treatments to help with rehabilitation. That's where the Girl Scouts in Williston Troop 820 and Essex Troop 125 come in.

The scouts are gearing up for a March 28 fundraiser where they hope to raise $6,000 to benefit a landmine victim in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The victim's name is Anita. She lost a limb after stepping on a landmine more than five years ago.

"The $6,000 should cover the costs of medical expenses (for the victim), including prosthesis and treatments for emotional trauma," said Williston troop leader Jennifer Mignano.

According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Bosnia and Herzegovina is "heavily contaminated" with landmines. The Eastern European country formed after the former Yugoslavia was torn apart by war in the 1990s as different ethnic and religious groups fought over land. Now, tens of thousands of acres still hold untold amounts of landmines, and thousands of people have been killed or injured in the country.

An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people are killed by landmines every year around the world, according to the Web site. That's more than 40 people a day.

Based on past fundraising successes the scouts have had, Essex troop leader Chandelle Trahan believes they can reach their goal of $6,000.

"We had such wonderful community support last time, I said why not take it further," she said.

Finding a cause

According to Mignano, the scout troops, looking to do "something with dogs" last year, raised $20,000 for the Marshall Legacy Institute's Children Against Mines Program, or CHAMPS — an organization that purchases, trains and deploys landmine dogs.

The dogs search for mines by smelling for chemicals the buried explosives give off over time, according to CHAMPS director Kimberly McCasland. When dogs discover a mine, they alert their handler immediately.

McCasland praised the Williston and Essex scouts for being the first in the country to raise money for landmine dogs. The girls did so through car washes, festival appearances, corporate and private donations and "lots and lots of bake sales," said Mignano. The money raised by the Girl Scouts sponsored a dog who they named Champlain, after their home lake and valley.

"They have gotten everyone involved in their community," McCasland said. "It's really a community dog they've sponsored."

Champlain is a Belgian Malinois, a common breed of landmine-detecting dog, who will most likely get deployed to Lebanon when it finishes training, Mignano said.

Champlain is the same breed of dog as Utsi, the canine that accompanies McCasland to different anti-landmine events across the country. Utsi is a retired landmine dog who had worked in the African country of Eritrea and has demonstrated her skills several times for the local scout groups.

"These dogs are the heroes of the countries (with landmines)," Mignano said. "They are the countries' greatest hope."

The big event

The fundraising event will happen next Friday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Catamount Golf Club. McCasland will be on hand with Utsi for demonstrations, and the Williston and Essex Girl Scouts will make presentations. A local song and dance group, the Bosnian Lilies, will perform. Sen. Patrick Leahy — a strong supporter of landmine deactivation — and his wife are expected to attend.

Mignano and Trahan said once the $6,000 is raised for Anita, they hope to continue raising more funds for landmine victims around the world.

"We want to keep going with (the fundraising) because the whole thing is going so great," said Mignano's daughter, Maria Mignano.

Trahan said the Girl Scouts have learned a lot through their efforts, including the advantages they have growing up in the United States.

"It's really hit home for our children that they're fortunate to be able to play in the backyard without getting blown up," she said.

For more information on the upcoming event, call Jennifer Mignano at 878-9577 or Chandelle Trahan at 872-8752. Admission is $30.

[Read more...]

Headmaster returning school to core mission

March 20, 2008

By Greg Elias
Observer staff

The town of Williston will continue to scrape by with a small stockpile of road salt for the rest of the snow season.

Public Works Director Neil Boyden said the town has been unable to procure enough salt to handle much more than a single storm. The town, like other municipalities throughout Vermont and the rest of country, has for months been dealing with a salt shortage due to the unusually severe winter.

The situation hasn't improved since the shortage was first reported last month, Boyden said. The town has cut back on the amount of salt it spreads even as a steady stream of storms have marched across the Northeast.

"I've got to hand it to residents, though," Boyden said. "The community has been very understanding. We've had very few calls from people."

Salt this winter has become an expensive commodity. Boyden said under a Vermont Agency of Transportation contract that also helps supply individual towns, Williston pays $49 a ton. But salt at that price is scarce, so Williston has been buying it for as much as $75 a ton, Boyden said.

The town recently found a new supplier. But Boyden said he didn't want to disclose the name lest other towns hone in on the arrangement.

Road crews for the last several weeks have been spreading a half-and-half mixture of salt and sand. Williston is skipping applications altogether on less-traveled roads and concentrating on hazardous areas that include hills, curves and intersections.

The weather this year has shattered records and tested motorists' patience. In February, 43.3 inches of snow fell, exceeding the previous record set in 1958 by nearly 8 inches, according to National Weather Service office in South Burlington. Including last weekend's storm, 112.2 inches of snow had been recorded as of Monday, the seventh-snowiest season on record.

Aside from the sheer volume of snow, this winter has also been remarkable for the number of storms. Since a brief respite in early January, "it was like one day on, one day off or every other day," said Jason Neilson, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.

It all adds up to a budget-breaker for Williston. The town planned to spend $98,700 on salt in the 2007-08 fiscal year. As of last week, the town had spent $113,000.

Williston is still within its overtime budget for plow drivers, Boyden said. Many if not most of the storms have occurred during weekdays, a money-saver for the town, albeit a headache for commuters.

Relief from this seemingly endless winter may still be weeks away. The long-term forecast calls for precipitation in some form by mid-week and a potential snowstorm over the weekend, Neilson said.

Boyden noted the last date plows hit the road varies wildly from year to year. In 2006, snowplows were parked for the season on March 21. Last year, the final plowing took place April 16.

Late winter and early spring in Vermont can bring highly unpredictable — and surprisingly snowy — weather, Neilson said.

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Only four miles of highway built to date

March 20, 2008

By Greg Elias
Observer staff

The Circumferential Highway's price tag now tops $93 million, just a fraction of what will be spent in coming years if the project is ever completed.

The state Agency of Transportation supplied the figure in response to a request from the Observer. The agency reviewed records dating back to 1983, when the project first received federal funding, to calculate total expenditures to date.

As originally planned, the Circ was to carve a 16-mile arc from Williston to Colchester, bypassing traffic-choked roads in suburban Chittenden County. So far, only a four-mile stretch in Essex has been built.

If the remaining segments are never constructed, no other money is spent and none of the land already acquired can be sold, the project will have cost more than $23 million a mile.

"I'd say after spending nearly $100 million the state doesn't have very much to show for all that money," said Sandra Levine, staff attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, which has long opposed the highway as originally designed. "This project has been botched from the outset."

Even some Circ supporters were aghast when told of the total expenditures.

Williston resident Mike Coates labeled the escalating price tag "criminal," saying greater government oversight should have been exercised along the way. But he mostly points a wagging finger at environmental groups' numerous legal maneuvers to block the project.

The original budget for the highway was reasonable, Coates said, "but expenditures after that, to me, were just pouring money down a rat hole. We've got the Conservation Law Foundation and Friends of the Earth to blame for all this."

Levine was unapologetic about her organization's ongoing fight against the highway, saying it was an unnecessary project and the money could be better spent elsewhere. But she did admit her group and other environmentalists have generated ill will among highway backers.

"I think it's difficult to be the person who says the emperor has no clothes," she said.

Essex resident Sylvia Allen said she has long been frustrated by the project's delays. But she said the state must push ahead.

"What are they going to do, throw $90 million out the window?" she said.

Breakdown of the costs

More than half the cost to date has involved things other than road building, the state's numbers show. Slightly more than $39 million has been spent on construction, mostly for the Essex segment.

More money has gone toward acquiring rights-of-way, engineering and permitting. A total of about $48 million has been spent for those purposes.

The balance has funded a court-ordered study of the highway's environmental impact. A consultant has been paid $6.4 million so far to conduct the study.

In all, the project has cost $93,628,284.82, the Agency of Transportation calculates. The federal government has paid for most of the project, with its share ranging from 80 to 100 percent depending on the type and timing of the expenditure, according to Ken Robie, project manager for the Agency of Transportation. The state has picked up the rest of the tab.

State highway officials defended the expenditures, noting that paying for some things up front saved money. Buying most of the rights-of-way in the 1990s, for example, avoided rising land prices, said Agency of Transportation spokesman John Zicconi.

But officials acknowledge that spending so much money in advance represented a gamble. The gamble's success hinges on the outcome of an ongoing environmental study of the Williston portion of the project and potential future legal battles over the remaining segments.

In at least one instance so far, however, taking a chance on the Circ did not pay off.

In 2004, state and federal highway officials decided to move ahead with construction of the Williston segments despite knowing that environmental groups, including the Conservation Law Foundation, intended to sue to stop the project.

The job was put out to bid and construction began. But work had to be halted after a federal judge's ruling effectively mandated that the state conduct a new environmental impact study.

A total of $3.7 million has been spent on the Williston portion of the Circ, including a $1.2 million settlement this winter with J.A. McDonald Inc., the project's general contractor. The company sought compensation after its contract was cancelled.

Zicconi said utility relocation work could turn out to be worthwhile if the segment is eventually built as planned. That depends on the outcome of the ongoing study, called an Environmental Impact Statement.

The study has looked at dozens of alternatives to the original design for the Williston segments. Transportation officials settled on three groups of options: the original design, improvements on Vermont 2A, or hybrid approaches that combine elements of the other options. Selection of a preferred alternative is scheduled for this summer.

The alternatives come with estimated price tags ranging from $50 million to $90 million. The original design would cost $75 million.

The state now estimates that the entire highway will cost $275 million, a number that includes past expenditures. The figure, based on current road-building costs and assuming there will be no more delays, represents almost a 40 percent increase from the estimate in 2004.

It is likely, however, that the actual cost will be higher. Additional legal challenges are thought to be a near certainty. Because of the time elapsed since they were issued, it is likely permits will have to be updated, causing further delay. And road construction costs continue to rise.

Still, officials say they continue to be hopeful that the money spent so far will result in a highway that eases congestion.

"It's not necessarily all lost money yet," Zicconi said. "How much of it was a wise investment and how much of it was wasted due to issues beyond our control remains to be seen."

Circ tally

Expenses to date for the Circumferential Highway:

Engineering and permitting

$26,367,792

Right-of-way acquisition/utility relocation

$21,724,827

Construction

$39,159,486

Environmental impact study

$6,376,180

GRAND TOTAL

$93,628,285

Source: Vermont Agency of Transportation
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Outdoor semester on the Catamount Trail

March 13, 3008

By Greg Duggan
Observer staff

Last Monday night, a school night, nearly a dozen teens sat on the floor of a yurt at On the Loose Expeditions in Huntington, chowing on beans, rice, cabbage, salad and chicken as wind slapped at the canvas walls.

The youths had no intention of taking the bus to school the next morning, or catching a ride with a friend. Instead, they would sleep in the bunks of the yurt — a circular, domed tent — rise before the sun, cook breakfast and begin cross country skiing towards Bolton.

For the past two months the teens had slept in other yurts, a tent or snow caves — snow coffins, the teens called them, because of the shape — turning the forests, mountains and lakes of Vermont and New Hampshire into their classroom.

The 10 students, a teacher and two assistant teachers are cross country skiing along the Catamount Trail, which runs 300 miles from Massachusetts to Canada, and earning high school credit during the trip. Organized by Kroka Expeditions, a self-described “Earth Living Skills School,” the New Hampshire – Vermont Semester: A 600 Mile Journey By Ski and Canoe introduces students to education unavailable in a traditional school.

Once the teens have skied the length of Vermont, they’ll hunker down at the NorthWoods Stewardship Center in East Charleston for a few weeks respite from the nomadic life. But come April, they’ll take to canoes and continue their journey by paddling down the Connecticut River.

“My mom found out about it. She told me about it. I was in a transition between schools and needed something to do,” Eric Hall Reindel, a Williston resident, explained after finishing his meal in the yurt. “I hopped on the bandwagon.”
Hall Reindel plans to return to the Lake Champlain Waldorf School for his senior year in the fall. But for the second half of his junior year, the Vermont Semester made sense. “Eric was needing a break from a traditional classroom,” said his mother, Addie Hall. “He’s a dyslexic student. He’s not a candidate for foreign exchange, because he doesn’t study a foreign language.”

After a trial weekend at Kroka’s base camp in Marlow, N.H., Hall Reindel was sold on spending more than five months in the woods.

“This is a stretch for him. He likes to snowboard, play soccer, but he’s not a diehard outdoors kid, and we’re not a camping family,” Hall said. “To go from zero to winter camping was a big leap for him. I think this is really stretching him.”

Contributed Photo
Taylor Schultz of Portland, Ore. uses flame to
build her own spoon during Kroka's
Vermont Semester.

The learning experience

Since the semester began with almost a month spent in Marlow while getting ready for the trip, Hall Reindel and his fellow students said they’ve been learning how to survive while living close to nature. Before they even left on the trip, they carved spoons and knife handles, slaughtered a pig and butchered a deer for food.

“It’s really basic essential living skills,” said Jesse Cottingham, a student from western Maine.

On the trail, under the guidance of teacher Chris Knapp, students learn biology by studying local plants and animals, and meteorology by tracking the weather. They keep journals for sketches and daily observations.

“There’s a set curriculum, but of course it’s somewhat flexible depending on what they encounter,” said Lisl Hoffer, the semester programs coordinator for Kroka.
More formal lessons come when guest teachers drop in to give classes on drawing, the environment and ecological history of the region.

And as one student said in the yurt, “I think a lot of the learning is not going to happen until we’re home.”

The students admitted that it hasn’t always been an easy, or enjoyable, experience to live so closely within a small group, or to spend long days slogging through rain and snow while carrying heavy backpacks and trying to balance on skinny cross country skis.

“It ebbs and flows like a tide,” Cottingham said of how much he enjoys the trip. “We’re coming together from so many walks of life, learning to be a close family. It takes lot of getting used to. I wouldn’t have necessarily bumped into all you guys walking around, so it’s cool this brought us together.”

As another student said, “Anything worthwhile takes a lot of work.”

For all the challenges the trip has brought, it has also left the students with striking memories, like hiking Mount Abe in 10 inches of fresh powder.

“Stunning,” Celeste Beyer of Montpelier said of the hike up one of the state’s 4,000-foot peaks.
Other students enjoyed building and then spending a night in a snow cave. Others have simply relished the tranquility of nature.

“The silence is pretty amazing sometimes,” said Solina Rulfs of Rockland County, N.Y.

She and her classmates still have plenty of time left to enjoy the wilderness. After leaving On the Loose, the group planned to head to the cross country trails of Bolton, and then to Green River Reservoir in Morrisville. Hoffer said the group expects to reach NorthWoods around March 27.

After a few days of rest, the students will begin preparing for the water portion of the trip by making paddles and building a large canoe that can hold up to seven people.

By late May, the group will return to Marlow. The students graduate from the semester on June 14.

Asked if the outdoor semester beats sitting in a school classroom, the students had an array of responses: “They’re totally different;” “way better;” and “I don’t think you can compare them.”

Said Beyer, “You learn to play while you work.”

The current Vermont Semester costs $12,000, and next year’s tuition will jump to $13,000, though Hoffer said Kroka has scholarships available. The organization also offers a fall semester in Ecuador. More information is available online at www.kroka.org.

[Read more...]

Counting slowed by record turnout

March 13, 3008

By Greg Elias
Observer staff

Voting machine problems and a huge turnout overwhelmed ballot counters at Champlain Valley Union High School last week, delaying the final tally until the next day.

Balloting on the high school's budget as well as funding for school buses and capital projects took place March 4. Each measure passed easily.

But the counts weren't completed until about 2 p.m. the following day, 19 hours after the polls closed and long after other results were released. Officials attributed the delay to voting machine malfunctions, a shortage of help and the large number of ballots.

"Since we had fewer people, one less voting machine and double the number of ballots, it was kind of a nightmare," said Terry Macaig, a Williston Selectboard member and one of several people who helped with the count.

Votes for the high school's budget are cast in Williston, Charlotte, Hinesburg and Shelburne, the towns that fund the school. But unlike balloting for elected offices and town budgets, votes are not tallied where they are cast. Instead, ballots are transported to the high school, where they are commingled and counted.

Ordinarily, the process is completed within three or four hours. But this was far from an ordinary election.

Turnout, driven by widespread interest in the hotly contested Democratic primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, was roughly twice that of a typical March election.

Statewide, 46.6 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the primary, a record. Individual towns reported similar percentages. In the CVU budget vote, there were 9,492 ballots cast.

So volunteers faced a daunting task after all the ballots arrived at CVU at about 8 p.m. The job was made tougher by voting machine malfunctions.

The machines need a pre-programmed card to work. But one machine had no card, said Joan Lenes, who as clerk of the high school district supervised the vote. She said she did not know why the card was missing.

Williston Town Clerk Deb Beckett said vote-counting machines are supposed to be tested well ahead of the election, though it is unclear who is responsible for the tests. Such a test would have revealed the card was missing.

Williston and Shelburne each sent a voting machine to CVU, Beckett said. But she noted that clerks do not deal with the machines' cards, nor do they test the machines.

Lenes did not know why the machines were not tested.

There were also fewer people to count votes than normal. Each town usually provides volunteers who take turns feeding ballots into the machines. But Lenes said this year Charlotte did not send help.

"I think it's the responsibility of every town to be represented when we are commingling the ballots of every town," Lenes said.

Charlotte Town Clerk Mary Mead said in the past there were plenty of people to count ballots. When Charlotte sent volunteers in previous years, they were not allowed to participate because they were not members of the town's Board of Civil Authority.

Mead said her poll workers were exhausted after counting Charlotte's 1,668 ballots by hand. She did not want to waste their time by having then stand around at CVU.

"I'm so sick and tired of this," she said. "They told us we couldn't send anyone but members of the Board of Civil Authority. They are consistently rude to us."

Lenes said she was unaware of the hard feelings.

"If someone feels they were treated rudely, they need to say so," she said.

But Lenes also insisted that Vermont law permits only Board of Civil Authority members to count votes.

The statute is unclear on the issue, said Kathy DeWolfe, director of elections for the Vermont Secretary of State. A section governing union school budget votes requires counters to be members of the board, she said, but another section controlling general voting procedures is less stringent about who participates.

In any case, election workers at CVU continued to feed ballots into the vote-counting machines until about 2,000 remained, Lenes said. Then one of the two functioning machines stopped working. After consulting with Shelburne's town clerk, Lenes decided shortly after midnight to finish the next day.

"We were very concerned about the weather and people getting home safely," she said.

The count resumed at about 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. It was finished at 2 p.m.

It was not the first time there was a problem with the CVU vote. In 2001, Charlotte decided to cancel its vote when a snowstorm made travel treacherous. But the other towns did vote, and the situation created a controversy about whether everyone would have to vote again. Charlotte residents ended up voting the following week, and those ballots were added to the other towns' previous tallies.

Beckett said it is important to obtain timely results. There are deadlines for people to demand recounts, and candidates are supposed to take office immediately.

But DeWolfe said those are non-issues because residents have 10 days to ask for a recount and incumbents continue to serve until a new person is elected. What is important, she said, is that the count is correct.

"I think what matters is accurate results," DeWolfe said. "So if someone felt they were unable to complete the vote count that night and all the ballots were locked away before they left, then it was better to wait."

Vote results

Here are the tallies for the CVU votes:

$20.7 million budget

Yes: 6,373   No: 3,119

School bus funding

Yes: 6,357   No: 3,120

Capital project funding

Yes: 6,302   No: 3,166

[Read more...]