Williston Observer

College looks at new housing options

May 15, 2008

By Tim Simard

Observer staff

Spring classes may have just finished up and the campus might be nearly empty, but for Brent Sargent, dean of the Williston campus of Vermont Technical College, this is the busiest time of year.

"We're accepting students for next year, finishing up the details for this year and we're under construction," Sargent said Monday.

Sargent said the small campus at Blair Park has gone through rapid growth. By the time the fall semester begins in late August, the college's east wing, which faces Route 2A, will undergo drastic improvements. New classrooms, administrative offices, a new library and machine shop are currently being built or have just been finished. The old chemistry lab already in place will move locations within the building.

The college is also in the process of purchasing a three-story office building, located at 72 Helena Drive, next to its campus. Jack Daniels, the college's dean of admissions, hopes the building will allow for even more classroom and office space, as well as double as a small student dormitory.

Daniels said the college hopes to have a purchasing agreement with J.L. Davis Realty by the end of the month.

Sargent said he hopes the changes will make VTC the premier technical college for residents in northern Vermont.

"We have so much to offer here," he said. "We offer a different option for college and we've filled a need that was missing in the Champlain Valley."

The main campus of VTC is located in Randolph, but in an effort to offer classes to people living in the Champlain Valley, VTC opened a Williston campus in the fall of 2003. That year, it had only 32 students enrolled in four associate programs, said Academic Coordinator Jean-Marie Clark. This past 2007-2008 school year, it had 397 full- and part-time students, with 19 associate and bachelor degree programs.

Students can major in subjects as diverse as business management, dental hygiene, software and computer engineering, and nursing. For full-time, in-state students, tuition next year will be $9,288 per semester. According to Clark, VTC has placed 98 percent of its students in related jobs following graduation.

"We really have a program that has hit home with a lot of people in Chittenden County," she said. "Some people want to live at home and work and still go to college. Some don't want to travel all the way to the Randolph location."

Clark said the college offers only night classes and works for students who have full-time jobs, while the Randolph campus has dorms and schedules many classes during the day, like a traditional college.

"The students we have in Williston are looking for cheaper options," she said. "It was generally an adult student base here, although that is slowly, but surely, changing."

Next year, Clark said the student body in Williston will be well over 400 and the school hopes to double that number in the next five years, mirroring the 800 to 900 students enrolled in Randolph.

Expansion

The larger numbers of students means the need for more space. When the Williston campus started more than four years ago, the college only occupied the current east wing. It has expanded around Blair Park, scooping up retail space as it became available, becoming a 50,000 square-foot campus. Now the original building is being transformed. A new, modest library was completed last month and construction workers are ready to transform the chemistry lab into the Champlain Valley's best machine shop, Sargent said.

"The auto tech program will really be able to use this space," he said. "It's going to be set up like any model or machine shop."

Vermont Interactive Television, which is part of VTC, will remain in its West Wing space, but Champlain Orthodontics, a tenant, will be moving to a newer location in Blair Park.

More students have also meant a need for housing. Although VTC in Williston was designed as a commuter school, Sargent said 17 students were housed in the nearby New England Culinary Institute dorms. He expected more than 30 students would utilize the culinary institute's housing next year.

Daniels hopes the possible new addition to VTC on Helena Drive would allow for close to 30 students to stay at the Williston campus. He also said the current tenants of the building would be able to stay there.

"I have to assume that we'd let them stay until their lease is up," Daniels said. "We try very hard to be good neighbors."

Clark said the school has built a strong community, even though it mainly has evening classes. She hopes to see that community continue to grow as the school grows.

"(Students) really like it here," she said. "They like how we all know them personally. You can't hide in a class of only six people. They love the one-on-one instruction."

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May 15, 2008

By Greg Elias

Observer staff

A former Army officer and a current state legislator will serve as Williston's first-ever representatives on the Chittenden County Transportation Authority board.

Al Turgeon and Jim McCullough were appointed to the positions last week by the Williston Selectboard. They will serve three-year terms.

Turgeon, 50, retired as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army in 2003. He is now an executive assistant to the vice president for finance at the University of Vermont.

McCullough, 63, has represented the town in the Vermont House of Representatives for the past six years. He also co-owns Catamount Outdoor Family Center in Williston.

The town won the right to representation on the CCTA Board of Commissioners when Williston voters approved membership in the organization in March. The town has for years funded the lone CCTA route in Williston, but was not formally a member.

Turgeon said with his children now grown he has the time for public service. He sees the board duty as a chance to get involved in his town after decades of moving from place to place in the military.

Turgeon has both personal and professional experience with transportation issues. He said he coordinated transportation for three years while stationed in Alaska. He also had a firsthand look at another country's public transportation system while stationed in Germany, biking, riding buses and taking subways to get around.

Turgeon has discovered the limitations of public transportation here. The existing CCTA route is miles away from his North Williston Road home, leaving his son, Chris, no easy way to get to his classes at UVM or to return home from his job in Burlington.

"Yes, dad takes him most days," Turgeon said. "But classes start at noon, and dad has to be up by 8 (a.m.)."

McCullough said a long-standing interest in public transportation spurred him to volunteer for the CCTA board. He remembers riding a Vermont Transit bus from his Williston home to Burlington High School when he was a teenager in the early 1960s.

McCullough served on the House Transportation Committee during his first term. He said he has long urged the town to join CCTA.

"The common perception that Vermont is rural and it doesn't need public transportation is totally bogus," he said.

Both men told the Selectboard their first priority would be adding a route in Williston. McCullough said service is needed to the several senior housing developments in town; Turgeon suggested a bus line that serves the subdivisions along U.S. 2, North Williston Road and Mountain View Road.

Five towns are currently represented on the board: Burlington, Essex, Shelburne, South Burlington and Winooski. Milton, which also voted this year to join CCTA, will along with Williston seat two new representatives when the fiscal year starts July 1.

Williston officials proposed joining CCTA after learning it would save $17,000 each year, the cost of a federally mandated service for people with disabilities. CCTA will now pick up the tab for that service. Williston budgeted $188,000 for public transportation in the current fiscal year.

Other appointments

In addition to the CCTA representatives, the Selectboard on May 5 also made several other appointments and reappointments, including:

Joel Klein was newly appointed to the Planning Commission and the Recreation Committee. He will serve a three-year term on the Recreation Committee and a four-year term on the Planning Commission.

Allaire Diamond was newly appointed to serve as a tree warden for a one-year term.

Olivia Loisel was reappointed to a three-year term on the Recreation Committee.

Kevin McDermott was reappointed to the Development Review Board for a three-year term.

Kevin Batson and David Yandell were reappointed for four-year terms on the Planning Commission.

Phil Swett was reappointed for three years to the Historic and Architectural Advisory Committee.

Abbie Bowker was reappointed for one year to the Winooski Valley Park District.

Susan Bishop was reappointed for two years to the Lake Iroquois Beach Commission.

Terry Macaig was reappointed for a three-year term as health officer.

Sue Powers was reappointed for a one-year term as animal control officer.

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Town Planner Lee Nellis announces August departure

May 15, 2008

By Tim Simard

Observer staff

The Williston town Planning Department will look a lot different come late summer. Town Planner Lee Nellis will step down in August, while a new employee will take his place. And, according to Town Manager Rick McGuire, two people have accepted positions soon to be vacated by zoning employee D.K. Johnston and environmental planner Carrie Deegan.

Nellis, who said he's really leaving Williston this time after almost doing so a year ago, will move to Wisconsin to follow his wife as she pursues a doctorate degree in development and regional planning. McGuire said the town is currently accepting applications for Nellis' position and hopes to have it filled before August.

McGuire said Jessica Andreoletti, a natural resources conservationist for the Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District in Williston, will start on May 20 in the new Planner One position, which will encompass much of Deegan's responsibilities.

Deegan is leaving at the end of the month to move with her husband to New Hampshire, but will be available on a consulting basis over the summer, McGuire said.

Matthew Boulanger will start on June 17 as assistant town planner, doing some of the work Johnston did before he resigned from that position last month. Boulanger comes from the Missoula County Rural Initiatives Department in Montana as an associate planner.

McGuire said all three new staffers will work on development review projects. He said the projects would be delegated to the individuals' expertise.

"It makes sense to divide up the parts instead of one person doing it all," he said.

Nellis says goodbye

Nellis said his four years with the planning office have flown by quickly. He's overseen the updates in growth center designation, new unified development and stream restorations in town.

He said much of the development work he's done has yet to become visible to Williston residents. This includes the planning for several hundred housing units and new commercial ventures currently in the works.

"As a result of these decisions, Williston is going to look a lot different in the next few years," he said.

Nellis said he would continue working for the town on a consulting basis, updating transportation impact fees and recreation impact fees, something he hasn't had the time to do.

Nellis was quick to praise the people he's worked with in the town offices and on various boards, calling them "energetic" and "hardworking," something he greatly appreciated. He said he and his family would also miss the friends they've made. Vermont would always be a special place, Nellis said, as it was the birthplace of his son, Henry.

"Williston is a great place to be," he said. "I think we'll miss the quieter pace of things."

New faces

Andreoletti is currently finishing her tenure at the Winooski conservation district, where she's worked for just over two years. Her primary work has been with the organization's urban conservation program, helping to reduce stormwater runoff. She said her work for the district would be very helpful in her new position.

"The most interesting thing to me is that Williston has a lot of open space and is developing quickly," she said. "I want to work with developers and make sure the land is developed correctly, environmentally speaking."

Andreoletti is a Connecticut native with family ties to Vermont. She attended Johnson State College for two years before moving to Washington state, where she got her bachelor's degree in environmental science from Evergreen State College.

Andreoletti is excited about her new position with the town.

"I could see myself doing the job for 25 years," she said. "This is something I've been working towards for a long time."

Boulanger, who grew up in nearby Monkton, currently focuses on rural land-use planning, as well as population, demographic and development trends in rural areas of Montana.

Boulanger said planning is done on the county level in Montana, since there are not many incorporated towns.

"Although the county is big, we spend a lot of time in the communities right on the edge of the city," he said. "They've seen significant growth in the last few years. And most of these communities don't have any zoning laws enacted yet."

As a result, Boulanger coordinated many community council meetings to get rural citizens engaged, he said. He tried to organize them in the New England-style town meetings he was used to from growing up.

Boulanger went to St. Lawrence University in New York, after which he volunteered for Americorps on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, helping with environmental planning. In 2005, he and his wife, Kate, decided to be "adventurous" and move West, where he took the planning job.

He said his job in Montana would be to Williston's benefit.

"My first hope is to hit the ground running and help the office as best I can," he said. "Basically, I want to come in and help with anything and everything."

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May 15, 2008

By Tim Simard

Observer staff

Marion Blumenthal Lazan's favorite time of year is spring, when the air becomes warm and flowers begin to bloom. It's a time of hope, the Jewish woman said, as she remembered back to a spring more than 60 years ago. It was in April 1945 that Lazan felt the warmth of hope again after she was liberated from the horrors of the Holocaust.

Lazan, 73, spoke to a group of more than 50 area residents last Wednesday evening at Williston Central School about her experiences during World War II and how she was able to continue her life after years of confinement in detention and concentration camps. Her talk coincided with visits to Chittenden South Supervisory Union schools, including Williston Central and Champlain Valley Union High.

"Mine is a story that Anne Frank might've told if she had survived," Lazan said.

Lazan talked much about the need for peace in this "troubled world," calling for love, respect and tolerance, regardless of religion, skin color or nationality.

"It's such a simple message, yet so hard to achieve," she said.

Surviving the Holocaust

Lazan was born in Germany in 1934 to Walter and Ruth Blumenthal, around the time the Nazi party had gained control of the country. Seeing the fascist direction in which Germany was headed, the Blumenthals — Walter, Ruth, Marion and her older brother, Albert — escaped Germany for Holland, hoping for safe passage to the United States.

One month before the family was supposed to set sail, Germany invaded Holland and the Blumenthals were imprisoned in a detention camp. For more than four years, they sat stagnant in the camp until the Nazis began transporting thousands of Jews in Holland to the concentration camps in Germany for forced labor. Lazan said at that age she didn't understand the danger when the train boxcars arrived at her camp.

"The adults suspected and somehow knew what was in store for us," she said.

After a cramped and frightening journey, the trains reached the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany, the same camp where Anne Frank died.

It was around this time that Lazan, only 9 years old, witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust.

"Death was an everyday occurrence," Lazan said. "Bodies could not be taken away fast enough. Children saw things no one at any age should ever see."

After nearly 18 months at Bergen-Belsen, the Blumenthals were again placed in boxcars and sent to the extermination camps in Eastern Europe on a 14-day journey. Lazan said one of every five died during the train journey.

The Russian army liberated the train before it reached its destination. Unfortunately, Lazan's father died soon after from typhus contracted on the train.

"I separate myself from the war and the horrors, and that is how I've learned to live with it," she said.

In the end, the Holocaust claimed the lives of more than 6 million Jews and 5 million gypsies, homosexuals, developmentally challenged individuals and political dissidents.

Lazan, her brother and mother returned to Holland, where they were able to use the same tickets they had bought in 1939 to travel to the United States. In America, the Blumenthals settled in Peoria, Ill. in 1948, where Marion Blumenthal started school and quickly learned English.

She married Nathaniel Lazan soon after high school. They've been married for more than 50 years and have three children and nine grandchildren. Her brother Albert lives in California and her mother, at 100 years old, lives on Long Island near the Lazans.

Telling her story

Lazan began speaking about her Holocaust experiences in 1979 and wrote her book, "Four Perfect Pebbles," with author Lila Perl in 1996. A 2003 documentary, "Marion's Triumph," also tells her story. She continues to travel around the country, having spoken to more than 600,000 students and adults.

Carol Grau, an English Language Learning teacher at Shelburne Community School, had the idea of bringing Lazan to CSSU schools after seeing her talk in Burlington a few years ago. She said students in CSSU read Lazan's book and the reaction was well received.

"This is probably the best experience I've had in my teaching career," she said.

Deb Laskarzewski, a world languages teacher at Williston Central School, attended Lazan's talk after seeing part of her earlier presentation for students. They were very appreciative of the talk, she said, with many touched by the stories.

"It was really quiet in (the auditorium) for that many kids," Laskarzewski said.

Shawn Sweeney of Shelburne also attended Wednesday evening's discussion.

"The fact that anybody can come out of that horror and be so optimistic is amazing," he said. "She carries a tremendous message."

Lazan said she tells her student audiences they are the last generation to hear Holocaust stories firsthand.

"When we're not here any longer, it is you who must bear witness for us," she said. "Please share these memories and never forget them."

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Rising oil costs impact road maintenance

May 8, 2008

By Greg Elias
Observer staff

The rising cost of asphalt could reduce the amount of new pavement on Williston roads this year.

The town budgeted $227,150 for repaving projects in the fiscal year starting July 1. The budget would pay for new asphalt on eight stretches of road.

The budget, up 5 percent from the current fiscal year, was based on asphalt costing $53 per ton. But Public Works Director Neil Boyden said the town of Shelburne recently was quoted $64.21 a ton, 21 percent higher than the price Williston anticipated.

It is unclear exactly how far the paving budget will go because Williston has yet to put the work out to bid. But it seems likely that the annual effort to smooth the roughest roads will be scaled back.

"We may not get to all of them," Boyden said, adding that the town will probably use only one layer of pavement instead of two to stretch the budget.

About four miles of roads were to be repaved under the 2008-09 budget. Boyden said the highest-priority projects are Mountain View Road (Old Stage Road to Ledgewood Drive), Industrial Avenue (Vermont 2A to Muddy Brook) and Metcalf Drive. Those roads are in the worst shape.

The repaving effort includes finishing one project left over from last year. Boyden said in the next couple of weeks the town's contractor will complete 1.2 miles of Oak Hill Road between South Road and Sunset Hill Road.

Petroleum is a major component of asphalt. So paving prices are tied to the cost of oil, which has skyrocketed in recent months.

The town's paving budget is also being squeezed by a lack of state funding. Last year, the town received $123,000. This year, Williston did not get a state paving grant.

Paving work budgeted for each fiscal year is usually split between two construction seasons. The town does some projects in the summer and completes the remainder the following spring. That schedule allows the Public Works Department to adjust how much paving is done after accounting for highly variable snowplowing expenses.

Boyden said none of the roads slated for repair have deteriorated to the point that they have to be reconstructed, which is much more expensive than repaving.

"But if we wait another year some will probably be failing," he said. "So we have to cut if off before it gets to that."

Paving schedule

The following roads are scheduled to be repaved this summer or next spring:

Road name                                     Length

McJay/Lyman Drive                         0.6 miles

South Road                                     0.5 miles

Blair Park Road                         0.3 miles

Mountain View Road                         0.3 miles

Metcalf Drive                                     0.5 miles

Industrial Avenue                         0.3 miles

South Brownell Road                         0.5 miles

Maple Road                                     0.2 miles

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