Williston Observer

Dec. 22, 2010

Driving under the influence

Following a motor vehicle stop on Dec. 13, Lara L. Wilbur, 42, of South Burlington was cited on a charge of driving under the influence, according to police reports. Wilbur’s blood alcohol concentration was .153, according to the report. The legal limit for driving in Vermont is .08. It was her third DUI charge, the report notes. She was cited to appear in court on Dec. 30.

Theft

• A woman shopping at Wal-Mart had Oxycontin pills stolen from her purse on Dec. 13 after she accidentally left the purse in a cart in the parking lot, according to police reports. Wal-Mart employees found the purse and returned it to the woman, who discovered that 25 to 30 pills were missing, according to the report. No other information was released.

• Employees of Washburn’s Autobody on Boyer Circle “arrived to find a truck in the yard with its tires removed” on Dec. 20, according to police reports. The tires and wheels were stolen, the report notes. Anyone with information is asked to call Williston Police at 878-6611.

Wanted person

Deborah Lynn Stilwell, 45, of South Barre was arrested on an outstanding warrant from Florida on Dec. 20 after employees at PetSmart reported her “suspicious” behavior to police, according to police reports. She was processed as a “fugitive from justice,” and taken to Chittenden County Correctional Center, according to the report. She was expected to be extradited to Florida, the report notes. No information on the nature of the warrant was released.

Multiple charges

On Dec. 16, William Adams, 45, of Colchester was cited on charges of driving with a suspended license and violating conditions of release, according to police reports. He was cited to appear in court on Feb. 7.

Driving with suspended license

Robert O. Ives, 51, of Graniteville was cited on a charge of driving with a suspended license on Dec. 17, according to police reports. He was cited to appear in court on March 7.

Holiday cookie variety

Dec. 22, 2010

Here’s a new thought that daughter No. 2 shared with me: there should be 13 desserts on Christmas to represent Christ and the 12 apostles. I never heard this before, but you could display a variety of cookies on a tray and add wrapped Christmas candies to make 13 desserts. Add some of the following cookies.

Ting-a-Lings

(These were made during the Depression years by an Iowa woman)

1 pound German Sweet Chocolate

2 squares of bittersweet chocolate

Melt over hot water or in microwave. Stir in the following:

2 cups Rice Krispies

2 cups Corn Flakes

1 cup coconut (unsweetened)

1 cup nuts, chopped

Drop by teaspoon onto a greased cookie sheet and put in the fridge to cool. Store in tight container in cool place.

Chocolate Caramel Graham Crackers

12 double graham crackers (each 4 1/4-by-2 1/2 inches)

1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (I use 2 tablespoons less)

1/2 cup light brown sugar

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup nuts, chopped

Line a 15-by-10-by-1-inch baking pan with foil. Place graham crackers on pan (may be tight fit). Melt butter and add brown sugar and cook until smooth, approximately 1 minute. Pour evenly over crackers. Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 10 minutes until bubbling and golden brown. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over the crackers. Put back in oven and bake about 1 minute to soften chips. Remove from oven and carefully spread chocolate over crackers with spatula. Sprinkle nuts evenly over all and cool in pan on rack for 30 minutes. Freeze until chocolate is firm, approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Carefully remove foil from back of crackers. Break into serving pieces. Can store in airtight container, with wax paper between cookies, in a cool place for up to 2 weeks.

Vanilla Cookies

(These are buttery rich and melt in your mouth)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup confectioners sugar

1 1/4 cups butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

Beat together sugars and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla and gradually beat in flour until dough forms. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead lightly until dough is smooth. Divide dough in half and roll each half into a log shape, 1 1/2 inches thick. Roll logs in granulated sugar. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours. Slice each log evenly into slices about 1/4 inch thick. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets at 275 degrees for about 30 to 40 minutes until just colored (you can add few drops of food coloring to the granulated sugar before rolling logs in sugar). You can decorate slices before or after they are baked using candies or icing — or make sandwich cookies with a jam or icing.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

Ginger Isham lives with her husband on a fifth generation family farm on Oak Hill Road.

Before we help others, help ourselves

Dec. 22, 2010

A bill has been proposed that would provide legal status to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant students living in America. It’s called the DREAM Act, and it lost its chance for 2010 as the Senate voted 55-41 on Sunday, five votes short of the number required to pass the bill.

The bill would allow children of illegal immigrants to become citizens through either two years of college, two years of service in the American military or a clean criminal background check. This sounds appealing and relatively harmless, and it’s a nice idea — I will give it that. I don’t doubt that it is well-intended.

This is, however, not the right time for a bill like the DREAM Act to pass in the United States. A common argument I hear from people who oppose Arizona’s immigration law and tightening security on our borders is this: the lives of the foreigners are far worse, and they could do better here. I won’t argue that some may be able to do better here than their native country.

While estimates fluctuate, the number of homeless Americans, according to a 2009 study by the National Coalition for the Homeless, is between 2.3 million and 3.5 million — 3.5 million! With a national population of about 300 million, that’s approximately 1 percent. Our jobless rate is still stuck in the 9-point range, according to the Financial Forecast Center. This means that we still have work to do at home before we start opening our doors to immigrants.

One thing I admire about America is our feeling that we need to take care of everyone else. It’s also something that can be, and often is, one of our biggest setbacks and flaws. Yes, a lot of immigrants want to come here for a better life, but with 3 million homeless Americans and a jobless rate near 10 percent, how can we possibly let them believe they will be any better taken care of here?

The bill that was proposed was too broad and would have made it too easy for immigrants to come here. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t allow immigrants. That is, legal ones. But I do have a problem with people sneaking into America and working under-the-table jobs, while there are thousands of Americans who are legitimately entitled to those jobs. What concerns me about this DREAM Act is not the fact that it would give citizenship to immigrants, but that it would make it too easy for too many immigrants to come here before we are back in a healthy economic place.

Employers are not stupid. Given the chance, they would much rather hire the person willing to work for lower wages. It’s more important for us to focus on getting our own people back to work, fixing that jobless rate and finding Constitutionally acceptable solutions to our approximately 1 percent homelessness rate. If we don’t do that and continue to spend so much time on other issues, we aren’t going to help ourselves. The faster we get back on track, the faster we can get back to helping those immigrants.

The United States has the potential to be what it used to be … it will just take a lot of work to get there. We can still be that place where everyone sees opportunity and prosperity. But if we don’t zero in on getting ourselves back on track before we pass bills like the DREAM Act, then we are only digging ourselves in deeper. It isn’t fair to Americans if the government tries to take care of illegal inhabitants before it tries to help its own people. It’s like the advice that is given to missionaries traveling to countries with starving children: don’t give all your food away; you aren’t of much help if you start starving too.

Williston resident Kayla Purvis is a senior at Champlain Valley Union High School.

Get a lawyer!

Dec. 22, 2010

I, dear reader, watch an almost embarrassingly large amount of television. It is one of my vices. There are worse things.

One of the types of shows I enjoy the most involve the police in some way. If you’ve watched almost any television in the past 20 years, you know the type. There are classics like the “Law & Order” franchise, “Homicide: Life in the Streets,” and “Hill Street Blues;” there are variations on the theme like the CSI franchise; and newer shows like “Medium,” “The Mentalist” and “Blue Bloods.”

If you’ve watched almost any television in the past 20 years, you’ve also heard the Miranda warning. The warning, which the Supreme Court has ruled must be given to suspects of crimes before they are questioned, goes like this:

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.”

The verbal warning is kept relatively short, so that police can recite it quickly (which is good, for television), but there is a much longer version — almost three times longer — that is more comprehensive and is usually given in written form.

The key components of the Miranda warning, spoken or written, are these: the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney and the fact that your own words can be used against you.

The point of all this is the dismay that I feel when watching some of these favorite police shows of mine. You might think, with my build-up above, that my problem is that police in these shows tend to forget the Miranda warning. Actually, to my memory, most television cops are very good about giving the Miranda warning, and many scenes end with a suspect being carted off in handcuffs for questioning as the arresting officer starts reciting, sometimes in a rote monotone, “You have the right to remain silent ….”

No, it is not the TV cops’ treatment of the Miranda warning that causes me dismay. It is that most suspects seem to forget all of their rights as soon as they step into a police station.

I certainly understand the need to move the story along, and watching a suspect sit and wait for a lawyer is hardly compelling television. In fact, a lawyer-supervised interrogation is also hardly compelling — much more TV-friendly is the tearful or angry confession, caused by a detective asking just the right question or a suspect being caught in a lie. And I have to admit a certain degree of schadenfreude when a smug suspect, whom the audience is well-aware is guilty, slips up and realizes they’ve just confessed to the crime.

What I’m afraid of, what my dismay is all about, is that as people watch these shows, and see these suspects spill their guts with a lawyer nowhere in sight, they will begin to think nothing of it — that should they ever find themselves in that situation, the best or perhaps only option, the Miranda warning be damned, is to confess and take their punishment.

As a civil libertarian, I want everyone to know their rights and exercise them to their fullest extent. But don’t get me wrong — in the end, with their rights intact, I want the guilty to be punished to the fullest extent. What I wish is that these shows could figure out a way for suspects to be represented by counsel and still get their just rewards.

Perhaps it is too much to ask — that a suspect exercising his right to counsel can still be compelling drama. But there has to be a way, and I issue a challenge to the writers of Hollywood to not only write such story lines, but to make them the majority rather than the minority. Unfortunately, I don’t know any Hollywood writers.

What I have, dear reader, is you. God forbid you should ever find yourself as a suspect in a crime. But if you do, don’t go down the route taken by too many TV characters. Exercise your rights and get yourself a lawyer; don’t answer any questions without that lawyer present; and for goodness’ sake, follow your lawyer’s advice.

Steve Mount has been a Williston resident since 1996. He is a software engineer at GE Healthcare and is devoted to his family, his country and his Constitution. You can reach Steve at [email protected] or read his blog at http://saltyrain.com/ls.

Dec. 22, 2010

Clear the rec path

At 7 a.m. on Dec. 17 I went out to get my newspaper and watched a man, carrying a large briefcase and another bag, struggle in the slush of the southbound travel lane of North Williston Road, heading toward the bus stop, presumably to catch the 7:05 a.m. commuter CCTA run.

Why, you might ask, was this man not walking on the nice, new, safe rec path we have along this stretch of road? Because the rec path has not been cleared of snow and is therefore not available for use. To find the reason for this oversight, I went to speak with Bruce Hoar, Public Works director, on my way to work. Bruce showed me minutes from a Selectboard meeting I attended in the fall of 2008 when I petitioned the Selectboard to keep the new rec path maintained and clear for use year-round for the general health, safety and well-being of all users. At that meeting, the Selectboard voted to approve this request.

What I heard from Bruce the morning of Dec. 17 is that the Selectboard “tabled” future clearing of the rec path (although it was kept clear for most of the 2009-2010 winter season). My understanding is that the equipment for clearing the rec path of snow is in place and the cost is small in the greater scope of town expenses.

I asked the Selectboard to tell me and my neighbors what we need to do to have the rec path kept clear for the health and safety of our residents, many of whom use the path regularly for exercise and for commuting by foot and via the CCTA bus system.

Editor’s note: Kerstin M. Hanson sent a slightly modified version of this letter to the Williston Selectboard on Dec. 17.

Recognizing great school leaders

Most of us have heard the expression, “It’s lonely at the top” when difficult or unpopular decisions have to be made. Applying the expression to Vermont’s school principals today, it is fair to say that they have certainly had a lonely year contending with budget targets, declining enrollments, adequate yearly progress expectations for all students and the possible loss of their jobs if their school is labeled as “persistently low-achieving.”

Although some say, “I wouldn’t ever want your job,” the principalship still remains one of the most important positions in education today. A recent Wallace Foundation Report, “Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning” (July 2010), said that exemplary leaders make a huge difference four ways: by setting a direction for their schools, by developing the people in their organizations, by redesigning their organizations (providing workplace conditions to let motivation and capacities grow) and by managing the instructional program. It goes on to state, “We have not found a single case of a school improving its student achievement record in the absence of talented leadership.”

The Vermont Principals’ Association seeks the public’s help in identifying and nominating exemplary school leaders. At our Summer Leadership Academy, we celebrate their successes with an awards ceremony. If you know a leader who has the above qualities, now is the time to act. We appeal for you to nominate your exemplary school leader (principals, assistant principals and tech center directors). The nomination forms are available at vpaonline.org, by calling 802-229-0547 or by e-mailing [email protected]

The ripple effect of this is that good leadership leads to improved results for our kids. Won’t you please take the time to nominate a great leader for a VPA Leadership Award? Many thanks in advance for supporting our school leaders.