Williston Observer

Planning commission tackles Williston gridlock

Feb. 23, 2012

By Luke Baynes

Observer staff

The ability of the town to assess transportation impact fees in lieu of a portion of construction costs for several potentially significant development projects was at the crux of Tuesday’s Williston Planning Commission meeting.

Among the projects discussed was a series of grid streets on the west side of Vermont 2A in the Taft Corners Zoning District that would have the desired effect of alleviating traffic congestion in the most gridlocked area of Williston.

The series of proposed grid streets — known in local zoning parlance as the “six-party agreement,” because of the number of interested parties involved — would potentially mitigate the option many locals exercise when exiting the Hannaford supermarket on Marshall Avenue by bypassing the rapidly changing traffic signal at the intersection of Vermont 2A and Marshall Avenue/Maple Tree Place and taking the circuitous route on Harvest Lane to Williston Road and points beyond.

The grid street vision had its genesis in a project spearheaded by J.L. Davis Realty for the development of the “Lot 30” property adjacent to the Ponderosa Steakhouse on Vermont 2A. Among the tenants lined up by J.L. Davis for the non-finalized mixed-use complex are Verizon Wireless and Panera Bread.

Also involved in the grid street discussions is CVS/Pharmacy, headquartered in Woonsocket, R.I., which has entered into a purchase and sale agreement with local business owner Arlo Cota to buy the property on Vermont 2A that has been occupied by Cota’s Imported Car Center Auto Sport for the past 35 years.

The conceptualized street plan would extend the eastern entrance of Hannaford — which currently dead-ends just behind the store — to Wright Avenue. Bishop Avenue would be eliminated and would be replaced with a road more equidistant from Marshall and Wright avenues that would contain traffic-friendly curb cuts.

Longer-term, Trader Lane — currently forming a short connection from the Hannaford parking lot to Marshall Avenue — would be extended north and intersect Williston Road east of the Texas Roadhouse restaurant.

“We’re going to get a dedicated public street,” said Williston Director of Planning and Zoning Ken Belliveau of the Lot 30 proposal, “and here’s the linchpin: we understand the value of that street as being more than just to the benefit of the developer. The developer needs the street because they need to get access.

“However, there’s a benefit that the town gets as well,” Belliveau continued. “It’s going to improve the flow of traffic in the area, and that’s the rationale of why they would get a credit against the impact fees.”

When asked by Planning Commission member Kevin Batson about whether it would be wiser to delay the decision on transportation impact fee eligible projects until the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission has had a chance to present its anticipated regional traffic study, Belliveau responded: “My viewpoint on the grid streets is that the grid streets have been on the town’s radar screen for years. Now’s the time to move forward as best we can, and I think it would be in our interest to do so.”

Also included among the considerations by the Planning Commission for inclusion in the proposed amendments to the town’s improvement projects eligible for transportation impact fee funding are a connector road forming a link between Talcott Road and the Zephyr Road extension to be built as part of the planned Finney Crossing project, and a proposed intersection improvement where James Brown Drive meets Vermont 2A.

The Commission unanimously voted to bring the transportation impact fee eligible projects to a public hearing, which is tentatively scheduled for March 20.

The horrors of hoarding

Feb. 23, 2012

By Luke Baynes

Observer staff

Many of us have areas of the house we wish were less cluttered — the dining room table that doubles as an office space, the Ping-Pong table that hasn’t seen a game in years, the unworkable work den.

Then there are those people whose houses are so packed with stuff that they become unlivable.

Picture a living room that resembles a landfill; or a bathtub so crammed with newspapers that bathing is impossible; or a refrigerator overflowing with spoiled food.

In these cases, the accumulation of material possessions reaches such an extreme that it can threaten a person’s health and create fire hazards or vermin infestations.

It’s called hoarding, and it’s an issue that even health professionals are struggling to fully understand.

“Hoarding is when collecting has gone bad,” said Mark Schroeter, a supervisor with the developmental services department at the Howard Center human services agency in Burlington. “Collectors have a collection that’s on display; hoarders just accumulate and accumulate and can’t stop.”

Schroeter is a member of the Chittenden County Hoarding Task Force, a group formed in 2009 to spread awareness of and help those suffering from compulsive hoarding, also known as pathological collecting.

Mike Ohler, another member of the Task Force, brings to the group first-hand experience working with hoarders through the Burlington Housing Authority.

“It’s not like it’s some new societal problem,” Ohler said of hoarding. “It’s been around for a long time; it’s just nobody’s ever discussed it before.”

Ohler said that while hoarding isn’t an officially characterized mental disorder at this point, it’s moving in that direction.

“We used to think hoarders were eccentric, and now we’ve come around to the point where, my understanding is, when they come out with a new DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), that hoarding is going to be on the OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) spectrum,” said Ohler.

Hoarding can be mentally (and, in extreme cases, physically) debilitating to those suffering from the condition, but it becomes a matter for safety code enforcement personnel to deal with when it begins to pose a health or safety threat to neighbors.

“There are very clear guidelines about when something is dangerous or not,” said Deborah Dalton, a case management specialist with Burlington Code Enforcement. “Even if the person doesn’t believe that the way they’re living is dangerous to them, they often don’t understand that in an apartment/attached dwelling situation that the way that they’re living actually affects everyone in the building.”

Dalton said her participation in the Task Force has taught her to have patience with hoarders.

“It’s been great to work with the Hoarding Task Force, because you really do begin to understand that these issues sometimes take time, so if you can clear up the immediate safety issues, then some of the other things can follow on their own,” Dalton said.

Brooke Hadwen, director of the Community Support Program at the Burlington Police Department, thinks some people hoard because they perceive a potential value to items other people throw away.

“It’s sort of culturally supported,” said Hadwen. “We’re supposed to have a lot of stuff, we’re supposed to go out and buy, we’re supposed to accumulate. We live in a culture in which stuff can bring us financial reward … so if you find that thing, and you can sell it to the right person, you can make money.”

Sara Miller, a case manager with the Champlain Valley Agency on Aging, said hoarding tendencies and the perceived value of worthless items can be particularly acute among the elderly.

“One of the things that fascinates me is I look at something — or society in general would look at something — and say it’s trash,” said Miller, “but eight out of 10 times, (a hoarder) looks at it and sees potential and value.”

Miller said hoarding can manifest itself differently in different people and that one of the difficulties of her job is determining an individual’s self-awareness of a hoarding problem.

“It is extremely difficult,” she said. “Many of the clients are very much aware that there is an issue; some are very embarrassed about it; some are very defiant about it; some don’t acknowledge it at all.”

Schroeter observed that it is often effective to use a “good cop/bad cop” approach with hoarders, by first having a code enforcement officer threaten them with eviction, and then having a social worker assist with the emotional process of dispensing with one’s possessions.

That strategy can work with hoarders living in apartments, but for hoarders who own their own homes a family-initiated intervention is sometimes required.

“A lot of the times when we do an intervention it’s to help move them along to see that (hoarding) is affecting them in a negative way,” Schroeter said. “You have to determine if a person is in a pre-contemplative stage, and if they are, they’re not really seeing that they have an issue, so they’re not really ready to tackle it or try to resolve it.”

Schroeter stressed that a hoarder has to be willing to make a change for the Task Force’s efforts to have a lasting impact.

“One rule that we pass on is: don’t work any harder than the client,” he said, “because you can do all the work, but it doesn’t really change the behavior.”

Hoarding Facts:

• Hoarding behaviors can begin as early as the teenage years, although the average age of a person seeking treatment for hoarding is about 50.
• It seems likely that serious hoarding problems are present in at least 1 in 50 people, but they may be present in as many as 1 in 20.
• Some estimate that as many as 1 in 4 people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) also have compulsive hoarding tendencies.
• Research suggests that nearly 1 in 5 compulsive hoarders have non-hoarding OCD symptoms.
• Signs of compulsive hoarding include:
  • A large amount of clutter in the home that makes it difficult to move around
  • Not inviting family or friends into the home due to shame or embarrassment
  • Refusing to let people into the home to make repairs

Source: International OCD Foundation

Williston company at the forefront of fiber-optics

Feb. 23, 2012

By Luke Baynes

Observer staff

Greg Kelly (above) is president of the Williston-based TelJet Longhaul LLC, a fiber-optics company that offers high-speed data services to many of Vermont’s largest businesses. (Observer photo by Luke Baynes)

With a full-time staff of 10, TelJet Longhaul LLC can hardly be considered a big business.

But with a client base that includes the University of Vermont and Fletcher Allen Health Care, the Williston-based TelJet, founded in 2002, thinks big.

“Anybody’s who’s big is our customer,” said TelJet President Greg Kelly. “We probably have the highest revenue per employee of any company in the state.”

TelJet is a fiber-optics company that offers data transmission speeds through fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks. Unlike DSL (digital subscriber line) services that transmit data electrically through copper wires, FTTP is a photonic technology.

“A signal over copper is an electrical signal, and it can only travel, say, five miles before it has to be repeated,” explained Kelly. “Over fiber, it’s actually light – it’s photonic – and it can travel about 50 miles before it needs to be repeated. Over copper, the most you can transmit is 45 megabits. Today, we are capable of doing 4,000 megabits over a single fiber.”

Although FTTP technologies have hit the open market via Verizon Communications’ “FiOS” branded Internet service – touted as providing faster data speeds than AT&T Inc.’s fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) technology, which uses a coaxial infrastructure to deliver home-based service from a centralized fiber-connected node – TelJet offers faster data speeds than either of the former “Baby Bells.”

“Verizon is using a technology that is called PON (passive optical network), so the speed is limited by that type of electronics,” Kelly said. “We don’t do PON, because PON was designed for more of a residential one-fits-all. … (PON) works great in residential environments, because (basic Internet users) don’t need these kinds of speeds (that TelJet provides).”

In layman’s terms, the fiber-optic connections TelJet offers businesses can be thought of as data-based “hotlines,” comparable to the Moscow-Washington “red telephone” that linked the White House to the Kremlin during the Cold War, or its contemporaneous spoof – the “Batphone” that linked Commissioner Gordon’s office to Bruce Wayne’s study in the original “Batman” television series.

Rather than companies having to rely on the limitations and fickleness of the Internet to interact with business partners, TelJet instead gives them a dedicated fiber network to share data.

The TelJet-owned fiber network forms a rough circle – bisected by Williston – that encompasses the metropolitan hubs of New York City, Boston and Montreal. When clients’ data needs spread outside the Northeast – such as the Williston-based digital media company Subatomic Digital Inc., which routinely sends massive chunks of data to clients in Los Angeles and San Francisco – TelJet partners with other fiber-optics companies to ensure seamless connectivity.

“Is the other end on someone’s fiber network?” Kelly asks prospective clients.

If the answer is yes, they’re in business.

Kelly, 54, was born in Guam to American parents. A resident of South Hero, he formerly served as the chief information officer for Oxygen Media, just prior to the launch of the Oxygen cable television network.

He also holds the patent for a technology that can connect a viewer of specific television content to a related Web site via remote control. The invention would have the effect of blurring the distinction between TV and the Internet – which Kelly maintains is the reason he was never able to market it.

“Say you have Comcast,” Kelly offered, “and you have Internet and TV from the same provider that’s coming through the same box. It’s possible to shift between TV and the Web; the issue is the TV broadcasters don’t want that to happen, and so the cable companies – who need the content – are saying, ‘OK, we won’t do this,’ but technically it’s possible.”

Kelly considers invention a form of relaxation; in his free time away from the office he invented a more durable cover for Adirondack guideboats and a device for rolling a sail on a small sailboat.

In a sense, Kelly’s career has been a form of invention. A college dropout, he created his own path in the business world by anticipating market trends and identifying development opportunities.

“The old adage is find a need and fill it,” said Kelly. “We just keep working to fulfill the needs of our customers, and the fun part is trying to anticipate (those needs). … We love to build things.”

Williston resident organizes knitting project for Special Olympics

Feb. 23, 2012

By Luke Baynes

Observer staff

Special Olympics Vermont employees (from left to right) Kim Bookless, Wendy Kenny, Lisa DeNatale and Chris Bernier model scarves that will be provided to athletes prior to the start of the Special Olympics Vermont 2012 Winter Games on March 9. The goal of the scarf project, organized by Williston resident Patty Pasley, is to collect 500 scarves by Feb. 29. (Observer photo by Luke Baynes)

This year’s Special Olympics will be extra special for the approximately 400 competing Vermonters, thanks to the efforts of a Williston resident and a group of dedicated knitters and crocheters who are handcrafting scarves for every athlete in the competition.

Willistonian Patty Pasley started the scarf project in 2010.

“My mother-in-law and aunts were knitting scarves for the Atlanta Special Olympics, and I wanted to knit too, but I wanted to knit for Vermont,” Pasley said.

The first year, Pasley collected nearly 800 handmade scarves. Last year, she gathered 500 — a benchmark she hopes to equal this year so that there are extra scarves for employees and volunteers.

“It’s not unusual for a knitter to drop off 15 or 20 scarves that she has worked on over the past few months,” said Pasley. “That’s always a surprise to me, since I’m lucky if I could knit one or two in that same time period.”

Chris Bernier, director of marketing and development for Special Olympics Vermont, said the scarves have the effect of unifying the athletes.

“I think it really adds a deeper sense of community for the athletes, because all of the scarves have the same color,” Bernier said.

Pasley agreed.

“The unity that happens when everyone is wearing the same colors is quite empowering, I think, for our athletes, for our volunteers and for our coaches,” she said.

This year’s color scheme is bright red with optional white patterns. Knitters and crocheters are given their choice of pattern, needles and yarn, but washable yarn is preferred. The suggested size of the scarves is 5 feet long by 6 inches wide.

Bernier commented that while the majority of the scarves are locally made, it’s not exclusively a Vermont project.

“They’ve come from really all over the country,” Bernier said. “We just got a note from a group in Italy who’s sending us some scarves. It’s pretty remarkable.”

He added that while Special Olympics’ staff sends out postcards to promote the project and have partnered with some local yarn shops, Pasley deserves the bulk of the credit.

“Patty is really connected in the knitting and crocheting world, so she knows a lot of groups,” said Bernier. “She really deserves all the credit. We just try to help her in any way we can.”

Pasley, who washes all of the scarves prior to the competition, downplayed her role. She said that while she sends flyers to yarn shops and senior centers, interest in the project spreads mainly through word-of-mouth and viral means like Facebook.

She believes the knitters and crocheters are the ones who deserve the credit.

“The handiwork and skill in some of the scarves is astonishing,” Pasley said. “It’s really neat to see these works of art that people give away.”

The Special Olympics Vermont 2012 Winter Games will be held March 9-11 at The Woodstock Inn and Resort and Suicide Six Ski Area in South Pomfret.

Scarves can be mailed or delivered to Special Olympics Vermont, 16 Gregory Drive, Suite 2, South Burlington, Vt., 05403. The deadline is Feb. 29. Questions can be directed to Patty Pasley at [email protected]

Feb. 23, 2012

The following students from Champlain Valley Union High School earned an A- or better in their Burlington Technical Center programs, placing them on the Burlington Technical Center Honor Roll for the second quarter:

Austin LaBerge, Auto Body Repair

Elizabeth Ladd, Honors Medical & Sports Sciences

Sophie Lapointe, Design & Illustration

Jeremy Lerner, Computer Systems

Cody Osborne, Computer Systems