Berlin Community News

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This  communication is put together and distributed on a volunteer basis by resident Corinne Stridsberg simply in an effort to share information and build community, it is not from the town of Berlin.

Please share this with your Berlin friends and neighbors.  If you're not already receiving this news directly by email, send an email to request this to corinnestridsberg@gmail.com.

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Check out the Berlin, Vermont Community News page on facebook to find bits of current news: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Berlin-Vermont/205922199452224

FREE EVENING ENTERTAINMENT AT THE STATE HOUSE

BERLIN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NEWS

WINTER TRAILS FESTIVAL FEBRUARY 1st AT GREEN MOUNTAIN CLUB

SCHOOL BOARD CANDADITE CARL PARTON

BERLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY MEETING JANUARY 29

VERMONT HOMESTEAD DECLARATION

OPTION TAX IDEA ARISES AGAIN IN BERLIN

FROM FRONT PORCH FORUM - TOWN BUDGET "EXECUTIVE SUMMARY"

BERLIN SELECT BOARD NEW POND ACCESS OPTION EYED

FREE EVENING ENTERTAINMENT AT THE STATE HOUSE

Have you attended Farmers Night events at the State House before?  There is a lot of Wednesday night fun to come this season.  Check out the schedule at this link:

http://www.leg.state.vt.us/schedule/Farmers%20Night%20Schedule%202014.pdf

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BERLIN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NEWS

Winter concert at Berlin Elementary School will be on Thurs., January 30th at 6:30pm. 

The monthly Parent Teacher Neighbor Association (PTNA) meeting will be Wednesday, February 5th at 6:30pm. 

Monday, February 10th from 5pm - 6pm will be a community and parent forum to determine the skills, knowledge and traits that Berlin needs in its next principal.

Thursday, Feb 13th at 6pm is Community Bullying Education Night

There will be a Talent Show on February 14th at 9:15am.

More details on these events can be found in the current school newsletter or by calling the school at 223-2796 http://berlinschool.org/images/stories/pdfs/Current%20Newsletter.pdf

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WINTER TRAILS FESTIVAL FEBRUARY 1st AT GREEN MOUNTAIN CLUB

An event for all ages - snowshoe demos, guided snowshoe tours, educational workshops, face painting, crafts for kids & adults, naturalist walks, dog sled demo, winter camping/cooking clinic, S'mores, winter animal tracking, outdoor gear displays, raffle prizes and food!  More details including a schedule at www.greenmountainclub.org Location: 4711 Waterbury-Stowe Road, Waterbury Center  Registration 8:30am - $10 general public and kids with adults get in free.

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SCHOOL BOARD CANDADITE CARL PARTON

Carl has turned in his petition to be on the ballot for one of the board of director positions at Berlin Elementary School and submitted this to be shared:

My name is Carl Parton and I am running for Berlin Elementary School Board.  I have two children that attend Berlin Elementary School.  I am running for School Board for several reasons but I do have core motivations for wanting to serve.

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VERMONT HOMESTEAD DECLARATION

Annual Vermont Homestead Declaration "This form must be filed EACH YEAR by ALL VT residents who own and occupy a VT homestead on April 1 even if a claim for property tax adjustment is not made."

http://www.state.vt.us/tax/pdf.word.excel/forms/income/FAQ%20Homestead%20Declaration.pdf

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BERLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY MEETING JANUARY 29

Good news!  There will be a meeting of the Berlin Historical Society this month.  The meeting will be held at the Berlin Town Office on Wednesday, January 29 at 7:00 PM.

     The agenda for this meeting will include:

-Traditionally the January meeting has been the time for election of officers for the coming year.  This may be delayed until a later date.

-A review of Chapter 7 of  A Place to Pass Through - A Look at Farming in Berlin: 1850-70.

-Review of the 2013 BHS Annual Report to be published in the Berlin Town Report.

-Update on our scrapbook project.

-The prospect of our receiving a donation of two more fire files.

-Our upcoming potluck dinner meeting in May.

-Our participation in the 2014 Vermont History Expo in Tunbridge.

Richard Turner

Secretary

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OPTION TAX IDEA ARISES AGAIN IN BERLIN

Pub 1/25/14 Times Argus by David Delcore

   BERLIN — The Select Board in business-friendly Berlin wants to know what local voters think about an alternative tax they have rejected once before and which has typically inflamed the area business community.
   However, with the town courting customers it needs to launch a municipal water system, board members were told during a special meeting Friday that now is not the time to call for a public vote — even a nonbinding one — on a local option tax.
   “I think there is work that needs to be done first,” said Patricia McDonald, a former board member who is active in town affairs and is assisting efforts to persuade customers to commit to buying water from Berlin.
   According to McDonald, the prospect of a new tax could complicate those conversations at a crucial time — particularly given the limited public discussion of the tax idea that has occurred.
   “I would be opposed to it for sure,” she said, suggesting the proposal is premature, the public is ill-informed and the concept — a 1 percent local sales tax as a new revenue source — isn’t going anywhere. “Do it at some point when it makes more sense,” she said. “There is a lot of education that needs to happen first.”
   Board members initially balked, noting the idea of putting a nonbinding question on the Town Meeting Day ballot was intended as a springboard for a public conversation. According to the ballot question crafted by Selectman Jeremy Hansen, the tax would create a new funding source for the local police and volunteer fire departments.
   “(Town meeting) is the right place to initiate the conversation,” Hansen said.
   However, after listening to McDonald and Town Administrator Jeff Schulz, the board agreed to scrap plans for a nonbinding vote in favor of bringing the idea up under other business, along with a proposed regional public safety authority and discussion of a state bank — both initiatives the board opted not to include on the warning.
   Despite the change of plans, board members are hoping town meeting provides a forum for them to explain the merits of a 1 percent sales tax that, according to Hansen’s estimates, would generate roughly $380,000 a year in new revenue. Based on their limited public discussion, board members don’t believe the local sales tax, which is already being charged in nearly a dozen Vermont communities — Burlington, Williston and Rutland Town among them — would drive businesses or shoppers away.
   Given the history of past alternative tax proposals in the Barre-Montpelier area, there are those who vehemently disagree. Over the past 13 years, the idea has been rejected by Berlin and Barre voters and twice defeated in Montpelier — most recently in 2012.
   However, a lot of time has passed since Berlin voters shot down a 1 percent local option tax by a nearly three-to-one margin in March 2001. Though the vote was decisive, the idea was revived by officials in Berlin, Barre and Montpelier in 2004 and considered by voters in the two cities in November of that year.
   The results of those votes prompted the Berlin board to abort its plans to seek voter approval of a 1 percent additional tax on sales, rooms, meals and alcohol on Town Meeting Day in 2005.
   Montpelier voters defeated the package of taxes 2,475 to 2,023, and Barre voters were far more emphatic: 2,871 to 781.
   In each of those cases the business community, largely through the Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce, vehemently opposed what it argued was a regressive tax that would hurt existing businesses, discourage others from locating in the Barre-Montpelier area, and potentially alienate shoppers.
   Those arguments resurfaced two years ago when Montpelier separately asked voters to consider a 1 percent local retail sales tax and a 1 percent local rooms and meals tax. The sales tax was handily rejected, 1,739 to 827, on Town Meeting Day 2012, while the rooms and meals tax was defeated 1,376 to 1,197.
   Things have been comparatively quiet in Berlin — possibly because the board hasn’t spent much time publicly discussing an initiative that has appeared on its published agenda only once. That was Jan. 6, when resident Bob Wernecke — a former board member — predicted the under-the-radar proposal needed to be thoroughly discussed.
   “I think you need a lot more public input on this,” he said, sounding very much as McDonald did Friday.
   “In the past we have talked about it, and it’s been a pretty negative response,” he said.
   david.delcore @timesargus.com

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FROM BERLIN FRONT PORCH FORUM

Below is a recent posting .... there have been many more about a variety of topics, looking for services, garage sales, meeting announcements, events, etc.  Membership is free - to join go to: http://frontporchforum.com

Jeremy Hansen • Selectboard Member, Berlin

Posted to: Berlin

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BERLIN SELECT BOARD NEW POND ACCESS OPTION EYED

pub. 1/24/14 Times Argus by David Delcore

BERLIN — Town officials have all but concluded that the city of Montpelier doesn’t own as much land as it is posting around Berlin Pond, but they aren’t sure what to do about that. On a night when they again tabled action on a long-running request that they impose new parking restrictions on Mirror Lake Road adjacent to the pond, Select Board members turned their attention to a triangular property on the opposite end of the pond — a parcel some see as a potential access area despite the “No Trespassing” signs currently posted by Montpelier.

Proponents of that idea were buoyed by reports from the town’s attorney, Rob Halpert, and Paul Hannan, a surveyor from Calais. Both men said their research indicated that, due to transactions that date back to the construction of Interstate 89 decades ago, Berlin owns perhaps half an acre of once-condemned property that could be developed into a formal access area.

The land is a grassed-over portion of an old road that the state relocated when the interstate was built and then relinquished to the town after that work was complete. The land is generally located between a parking area on Brookfield Road and a nearby concrete culvert that funnels water from the pond under both the interstate and Paine Turnpike South.

Based on his research, Hannan said it isn’t a question of whether Berlin owns the posted parcel but how large it is.

“It may be a little more than the old road that you’re entitled to,” he told the board and several interested residents.

At a minimum, Hannan and Halpert agreed that records strongly indicate the relocated section of what was once the original Brookfield Road belongs to Berlin and could easily be isolated — both on the ground and on a map — without a formal survey.

Halpert suggested that would be the prudent next step for the board — one that he said should involve the state Department of Fish and Wildlife given the department’s standing offer to develop an access for outdoor enthusiasts who want to get out on the pond. Before a 2012 Vermont Supreme Court ruling, the pond had been off-limits for more than a century.

According to Halpert, before incurring costs associated with his drafting a certificate of title for the property and paying Hannan to conduct a formal survey, the board should first confirm with the state that the location is workable.

“The goal line here is to build a fishing access, and where that fishing access goes depends … (on) where physically on this parcel that folks are going to actually access the water,” he said, describing it as a logistical concern that could likely be inexpensively addressed more than a legal issue.

“I think it would be a pretty poor boat access if you couldn’t access (the pond) by boat,” he said.

Hannan said in an interview Thursday that answering that question would require some surveying but not an actual survey. He added that a review of maps on file in Berlin and Montpelier made him pretty confident the parcel has some shoreline.

“I’m pretty sure they’ve got some water,” he said, echoing an opinion he expressed at Monday night’s board meeting.

Berlin does own a separate parcel on Paine Turnpike South that goes all the way to the pond. Representatives of the Department of Fish and Wildlife have indicated the north end location could be more easily and inexpensively developed provided the town could verify that it owned the property.

Halpert did suggest the board initiate the process to re-establish and reclassify the abandoned section of road, which he maintained is an “unidentified corridor” under the state’s ancient roads law. Barring action by the town before July 1, 2015, the old road would revert to adjacent property owners — in this case Montpelier, which purchased most of the land around the pond in an effort to protect its public drinking water supply.

As has been the case since the Vermont Supreme Court struck down long-standing recreational restrictions on use of the pond, opinions among residents about the prospect of a second access were mixed.

Some urged the board to aggressively pursue an access area at that location even though one of the proponents suggested it probably wouldn’t be much good during the winter because the pond rarely freezes in the vicinity of the outlet.

However, Phil Gentile wondered whether it was worth pursuing what was described as an improved access given the town’s inability to regulate the informal entry point near a culvert on Mirror Lake Road at the south end of the pond.

“If we develop one on this end (of the pond) there are two access points,” Gentile said. “Don’t think they won’t use the south end. They will.”

Gentile said board members should consider that reality before acting. He also worried that the shallow nature of the north end raised environmental questions that should be evaluated and wondered whether voters should be asked if they are interested in expending money for survey and legal work associated with a possible north end access.

Board Chairman Brad Towne said voters spoke 2-to-1 in favor of gaining access to the pond over town property last year. And while the town probably couldn’t stop people from getting into the pond off Mirror Lake Road, he said, that access is “not ideal.”

“The least we can do is try and make it safe,” Towne said.

The board, which has been asked for nearly a year to impose parking restrictions on Mirror Lake Road, tabled action on a proposed solution it was told may no longer be needed and probably didn’t make sense.

david.delcore @timesargus.com

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Notes:

On January 13th, Berlin Elementary School did approve the budget to go to the voters with the cuts noted in the Times Argus article on January 7th which included reducing the hours of five staff positions at the school (two in preschool, art, PE, and the school nurse).  Only one guest attended the meeting on the 13th.

Have you seen the YouTube video of the student who did an experiment with sweet potatoes and had trouble finding one that would sprout?  It sure gives more reasons to buy local.  I had never heard of Bud Nip before.  Here is some more information and there is a link to the girls experiment on this page also:

http://tunnelgarden.com/potatoes-treated-with-bud-nip/

SELECTBOARD MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 20TH

TOWN REPORT GOING TO PRINT

U-32 ANNUAL REPORT

U-32 PRINCIPAL SEARCH

BERLIN PRINCIPAL

"A LIFETIME OF HELPING CHILDREN TO LOVE BOOKS"

BROOKFIELD ICE HARVEST JANUARY 25TH

LATIN DINNER AND DANCE FEBRUARY 1ST

DANCE/DINNER AT CAPITAL CITY GRANGE HALL FEBRUARY 9TH

BALLOT OR FLOOR VOTE?

PETITIONS

AT U-32, COURSES TO BE DROPPED; 4.5 JOBS CUT

SELECTBOARD MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 20TH

The agenda is posted on the town website

The working draft of the town budget can be found at:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhZtU7wXy0r4dE55b0VlNHlSUS1tTDRLNWgxQzY1cXc&usp=sharing#gid=0

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TOWN REPORT GOING TO PRINT

The Town Report heads to the printer this week and is expected back by February 14th

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U-32 ANNUAL REPORT

This reports includes some introductions to some past and current graduates which is fun to read.  http://www.wcsuonline.org/images/pdf/wcsu_annual_report_2013.pdf

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U-32 PRINCIPAL SEARCH

U-32 has started the search for a new Principal. There is a Community Forum on January 23rd at 6:30 in the Cafeteria. Please consider attending so that you can give the Search Committee feedback on what skills and traits we want our next Principal to have.

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BERLIN PRINCIPAL

Chris Dodge has a message to Berlin Families on the school website:

http://berlinschool.org/

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"A LIFETIME OF HELPING CHILDREN TO LOVE BOOKS"

Be sure to take the time to go cut and paste this link

http://www.ourherald.com/news/2014-01-09/Front_Page/A_Lifetime_of_Helping_Children_To_Love_Books.html

to find out what being the "Youth Services Consultant for the VT Dept. of Libraries" has meant to all the libraries and all the youth during the past 28 years... thanks to Berlin's Grace Greene.  Congratulations on your upcoming retirement Grace!

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BROOKFIELD ICE HARVEST JANUARY 25TH

Coming up the last Saturday of January, the annual ice harvest in Brookfield. I believe the start time is 10:30am although I'd get there a bit early. Happened to find a YouTube video of it when mentioning it to somebody, be sure to check it out if you haven't been or even if you have! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNgGoBqfCW4

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LATIN DINNER AND DANCE FEBRUARY 1ST

If you enjoy Mexican Food and Latin Music please join us on Saturday, February 1, 2014 at U-32 for the Latin Dinner and Dance. Dinner served at 6:30 followed by salsa dance lessons and live music!
Adults $15 Students $7 Family (immediate only) $35
Tickets can be purchased at the door or in advance from music students or by contacting Sara at 229-0321 x5179 or swolf@u32.org

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DANCE/DINNER AT CAPITAL CITY GRANGE HALL FEBRUARY 9TH

Sunday, February 9. Heat up the dance hall to benefit the Friends of the Capital City Grange as they work to fund fire code improvements. Bring friends and little ones to the family dance from 3:00pm – 4:30pm with music by Mikaela Moore and Dana Hartshorn. Stay for an amazing Thai dinner from 4:30pm – 5:30pm. Follow it up with a contra dance, 5:30 pm - 8:30pm with music by Maivish (Jaige Trudel and Adam Broome) and calling by Mary Wesley.

No partner needed, bring clean, soft-soled shoes. Capital City Grange Hall, 6612 VT Route 12, Berlin. Adults: $10 to dance, $10 to eat. Children under 16: $5/$5. A fantastic event for beginner and advanced dancers alike!

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BALLOT OR FLOOR VOTE?

Ballot or Floor Vote? (Town and School Budgets)

By: Carl Parton- School Board Member

The issue of whether to have Berlin Town and School Budget votes on the ballot or on the floor during Town Meeting Day is bursting with strategic importance for budget supporters and budget adversaries.

I am of the opinion that budget supporters want the budgets to be voted on the floor because it is more difficult for most people to speak out against or even openly vote against the budget with all of their neighbors scrutinizing and judging them on their vote.  The tendency for most people is to go with the majority vote, which historically has been to approve most budgets with few or no changes.  The budget supporters can typically rally supporters to attend the votes on Town Meeting Day and they have time during debate to justify the budget with presentations given by budget supporters and administrative officials that have facts and figures and abundant preparation time to make a convincing defense.

The primary advantage for a floor vote that both supporters and opponents might agree on is that changes or amendments to the budget can be proposed and made during the discussion of the budget within the floor vote process.  Because of this, the voters that are able to attend Town Meeting can have a lot of direct influence on budgets.

Budget opponents, taxpayers that want more fiscal restraint shown, prefer an Australian ballot vote where they can vote with anonymity and without any pressure of social repercussions for their vote.     Budget opponents feel that a more free and honest representation of public sentiment is displayed in a ballot vote.  They also present the fact that more voters get to participate in the voting process in a ballot vote that lasts from 10 AM to 7PM and could be voted on with an absentee ballot rather than a floor vote within a day time meeting that one must attend in order to enjoy enfranchisement.  Many voters are unable to attend Town Meeting due to vacations, work, daycare limitations, health issues or a number of other impediments.

I think allowing the maximum number of voters possible to make the decision regarding the method of the Town and School budget votes is the most fair and just approach.   If the majority of voters want a floor vote or a ballot vote than their wishes should be honored each year.

I propose that each year the School budget ballot and the Town budget ballot have ballot articles offering the option of which type of votes (floor or ballot) they want for the following Town Meeting election cycle.  Every year voters would be empowered to decide how they will celebrate the democratic process for the following year, thus maximizing the influence of public sentiment on how we as a Town govern and decide important issues that affect our lives.

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PETITIONS

In addition to the petitions mentioned previously that are out with signatures being gathered:

Jeremy Hansen who is running for re-election to the selectboard. 

Ture Nelson who is running for re-election to the selectboard. 

Rosemary Morse who is running for re-election to the Town Clerk position. 

the following folks also have petitions:

Pete Kelley who is running for re-election to the selectboard

Carl Parton who is running for election to the school board (he was appointed to the seat he is now in when a board member resigned)

George Gross who is running for election to the school board

Note there are four school board seats up for election in March. There is still time to pick up a petition and get the required signatures to become a candidate for any of the positions up for election.  Personally, I always appreciate it when there are multiple candidates for a position in order to give people a choice and to have some discussion as to what the people running would bring to the position.  Nineteen valid signatures are needed and the petition must be turned in to the Town Clerk by January 27th.  Feel free to stop by the Town Clerk's office if you'd like to pick up a petition to gather signatures on, or to sign any of the petitions.

If you're a candidate for one of the positions and would like to share any information about yourself and why you're running / what you can bring to the position.  Please feel free to send it along to me.

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AT U-32, COURSES TO BE DROPPED; 4.5 JOBS CUT

Pub. 1/10/14 Times Argus by David Delcore

   EAST MONTPELIER — The ax fell in the dimly lit auditorium at U-32 Junior-Senior High School on Wednesday night, and while the cuts weren’t as deep as originally proposed, four people will lose their jobs, two courses will be dropped, and a librarian’s salary will be cut in half.
   It took three hours, split the school board down the middle and ultimately required Chairwoman Adrienne Magida to cast a tie-breaking vote before stating the obvious.
   “We have a budget,” a visibly drained Magida declared immediately after the board voted 4-3 to approve nearly $280,000 in staff-related cuts to a budget that voters in Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester will be asked to approve in March.
   When the meeting began the budget stood at $15.1 million, an administrative proposal to cut more than $450,000 in personnel was on the table, and a decent-sized crowd — some teachers, some taxpayers, some both — was gathered in the auditorium.
   What followed was a spirited debate, a good bit of second-guessing, some compromise, and the narrow adoption of a budget with a $14,833,463 bottom line that required a brief recess to confirm.
   Business Manager Lori Bibeau, who spent much of the evening tapping the keys of her calculator with one hand while holding a flashlight with the other, didn’t want to take any chances when it appeared the board was lurching toward a divided but decisive vote. Sensing Bibeau’s concern, Superintendent Bill Kimball requested a brief break and left the auditorium with her and Principal Keith Gerritt before returning to announce the impact of an amendment that was proposed by board member Emily Goyette and approved 6-1.
   That vote, on Goyette’s request to restore $12,430 for two chronically under-enrolled advanced foreign language courses, represented a rare moment of consensus. The board, like the audience, clearly was of two minds when it came to cutting a budget that at the outset of the meeting reflected an increase of just over $1 million, or nearly 7.2 percent.
   While most agreed that those numbers, and an accompanying 4 percent spike in taxes, were excessive and none liked the prospect of cutting staff, they were split over how to respond to a proposal that would do just that.
   Crafted by Gerritt at the board’s request, the proposal contemplated the elimination of four full-time teachers, the equivalent of a fifth, a special educator, a paraprofessional and 50 percent of one of the school’s two librarian positions.
   Gerritt, who announced midmeeting that he will be retiring at the end of the year, said he didn’t like the proposal any more than the board and many in the audience did, but didn’t see the point in kicking the can down the road.
   “There’s no more blood in the stone, folks. Whatever you decide, it’s going to hurt,” he said, predicting if he was tasked with coming up with an alternative it would attract a different room full of equally disgruntled people.
   “I don’t really have any other good recommendations,” he said.
   Gerritt’s observation came on a night that saw some question whether it was really worth cutting staff to save the average taxpayer $30 per $100 of assessed property value, notwithstanding the fact that all five towns are facing sharp increases that are beyond the U-32 board’s control. Others openly worried that failing to make a meaningful cut would accelerate what they perceived as eroding support for the high school budget and potentially lead to its failure.
   Though Gerritt proposed cutting four middle school teachers, he began nudging the board toward compromise when he suggested they consider keeping two of them and restoring some of the under-enrolled high school courses he’d targeted for reduction.
   Board member Conrad Smith embraced that proposal, offering a motion that the board cut two of the four middle school teachers in question, a special educator, a paraprofessional, half of the librarian position and four high school courses — marine biology, metalsmithing, French 5 and Spanish 5.
   Though board members Kari Bradley, Jonathon Goddard and Katie Winkeljohn said they could not support what they viewed as a premature plan to cut staff, fellow member Mike Law said the cuts were regrettable but necessary.
   “I’m not comfortable cutting any positions, but I don’t see us sustaining this year after year,” he said.
   Goyette joined Law and Smith after her amendment to spare the two foreign language courses passed.
   Bradley urged the board to defer the recommended staffing cuts until after it had been presented with a plan to restructure the middle school program. He suggested the board cut $89,000 in newly proposed expenses, as well as $100,000 from the capital budget for the school as a stopgap measure.
   Bradley further suggested the board could buy time by adopting a reduced budget and deciding what to actually cut at a later date.

Magida said that would be a mistake.
   “I think we owe it to the public to make the final decision on our budget tonight,” she said, citing the looming deadline to get the details of the budget published in the annual reports in all five towns.
   Those reports, Magida said, were a valuable way to communicate the content of the budget with voters, and missing the publishing deadline would be a mistake.
   “It is in our best interest to make a decision tonight and get it out there,” she said.
   That’s what the board did, approving a $14.8 million budget that reflects $732,389 in new spending — an increase of 5.2 percent. Based on the board’s subsequent decision to use $200,000 of $300,000 in available surplus funds as a source of revenue in the budget, the net tax impact of the spending plan is an increase of $455,491, or 3.94 percent.
   david.delcore @timesargus.com

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PETITIONS

TOWN MEETING

BERLIN SCHOOL BOARD OKs BUDGET WITH CUTS

U-32 SCHOOL BOARD SHARPENS THE AX

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PETITIONS

Please note there are several petitions currently circulating in town.  Some folks have asked to have a copy available on the counter at the Town Clerk's office for your convenience.  At the moment there are ones for:

Jeremy Hansen who is running for re-election to the selectboard. 

Ture Nelson who is running for re-election to the selectboard. 

Rosemary Morse who is running for re-election to the Town Clerk position. 

There is one petition asking for funding requests for four agencies be added to the warning.  These four agencies are: Prevent Child Abuse Vermont; Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice; Just Basics, Inc.; and Montpelier Senior Activity Center

There are also petitions to have the Town and School District budgets go back to a floor vote.  Please note that this vote will be a floor vote since it's not a budget item.

Are there any other petitions circulating?  I would be glad to share that information with others.  To date no petitions have gone out for anybody to run for the open Berlin Elementary School Board of Directors positions.  Four of the five seats will be on the ballot.

TOWN MEETING

Wednesday, February 26^th, 2014 is the final day to register to vote in order to be able to participate in Town Meeting.  The Town Clerk’s office is open Mon.– Thurs. 8:30am – 3:30pm.  Registering to vote can be done at the Town Clerk’s office.

Town Meeting is Tuesday, March 4^th 10am at Berlin Elementary School.  Australian Ballot Voting 10am – 7pm.  

Absentee ballots are available from the Town Clerk, these can be requested by phone or mail.   Any absentee ballot request to be mailed needs to be made by the Thursday before Town Meeting and must be received back no later than when the polls close Tuesday evening (received in the mail on or before 3/4/14, or delivered to the Town Office or to polling officials located at the school that day). 

Petitions for Town Meeting which is on Tuesday, March 4th:

Petitions asking for a funding amount to be on the Warning must be submitted to the Town Clerk with the required signatures by 3:30pm on Thursday, January 23rd.  For funding petitions, 5% of the registered voters must sign the petition.  The checklist has about 1900 people on it, which makes the current requirement  95 signatures.  Please get more signatures than required in case there are any duplicates or otherwise invalid signatures.

Petitions that are for candidates running for an office or to be on a board must be submitted to the Town Clerk with the required signatures by 3:30pm on Monday, January 27th.  Candidates need just 1% (or currently 19) of registered voters to sign their petition.  Please get more signatures than required in case there are any duplicates or otherwise invalid signatures.

If you decide to become a Write-in candidate, you need to be a registered voter and you must receive a minimum of 30 votes or 1% of registered voters whichever is less.  When there are multiple people with write-in votes for the same position, to be elected the candidate must receive at least the 1% minimum and then it's whoever receives the most votes.  If nobody has received the 1% minimum, nobody is elected.

Meetings are held at the Berlin Town Office on Shed Road unless otherwise noted:

Select Board                                        1^st and 3^rd Mondays, 7pm

Sewer Commission                               2^nd and 4^th Mondays, 7pm

Development Review Board                 1^st and 3^rd Tuesday, 7pm

Planning Commission                            2^nd and 4^th Wednesday, 7pm

U-32 High School Board                      2^nd and 4^th Wednesday at U-32, 6pm in Room 131

Emergency Mgmt Team                        2^nd Thursday, 6pm at fire station

Water Supply Committee                      Currently meeting as needed

Cemetery Commission              Currently meeting as needed

Capital Budget Committee                    Currently meeting as needed

Economic Dev. Committee                   Currently inactive

Meeting dates are subject to change.  For meetings where a large turn-out is anticipated, those meetings are apt to be scheduled to take place at the elementary school.

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NOTE: Next Board meeting is Monday, January 13th 6pm

BERLIN SCHOOL BOARD OKs BUDGET WITH CUTS

Pub. 1/7/14 Times Argus by David Delcore

   BERLIN — The School Board has unenthusiastically endorsed a $3.2 million budget proposal that includes surgical cuts to five positions at Berlin Elementary School.

Though board members won’t formally adopt the budget request that will appear on the Town Meeting Day ballot in March until their regular meeting Monday, they have reluctantly signed off on an administrative proposal that targets portions of five positions without eliminating any of them.
   The spread-the-pain approach preserves the full range of services currently provided at Berlin’s pre-kindergarten-through-6 school while generating just enough savings — nearly $85,000 — to bring the net tax increase of the proposed budget below the 4 percent target the board set last month.
   Chairwoman Vera Frazier credited Superintendent Bill Kimball and Principal Chris Dodge for doing precisely what the board asked, while expressing misgivings about how they trimmed the budget’s tax increase, which now stands at 3.96 percent.
   “This wouldn’t be my preference for cuts,” Frazier said of position-specific reductions to the preschool, physical education and art programs, as well as to the school nurse’s position.
   Frazier wasn’t alone.
   Board member Carl Parton said the proposed staff cuts were troubling.
   “It’s a loss to our kids to make those cuts,” he said. “It’s a loss to the people who deliver services to our kids.”
   Fellow School Director Amy Brewer was even more blunt.
   “It really sucks,” she said.
   Kimball didn’t argue, assuring the board that he had combed through the budget with Dodge in an effort to find money to restore one or more of the staffing cuts and concluded that, while it was mathematically possible, it probably wasn’t responsible.
   “You probably wouldn’t have paper through the year,” he said, suggesting the board would have to cut a lot of supplies to offset forgoing any of the proposed reductions.
   The plan advanced by Kimball would require modifying the preschool program to reflect a 40 percent reduction in the full-time instructor’s position and a 30 percent reduction to a support staff position.
   The combined savings would be just over $36,000.
   Both the school nurse’s position and the physical education teacher’s position would essentially be reduced from five to four days a week for a savings of $18,644 and $16,400, respectively, and the art teacher’s position would be reduced from four to three days a week for a savings of $13,331.
   Based on those cuts and several previously approved budget adjustments, the board is prepared to ask voters to spend $3,264,790 to operate the local school system. That’s an increase of slightly less than $99,000, or about 3.1 percent, over the $3,166,235 budget that voters approved in March. Voters rejected a supplemental request for $100,655 that same day.
   The result of the latter vote wasn’t lost on board members, who complained about what they characterized as frustratingly low parent turnout on Town Meeting Day and acknowledged the budget-building process was a balancing act.
   “We feel like we’re threading the needle with a long chain, and it’s tough to do,” said Chris Rice.
   Rice said the staff reductions were regrettable but necessary to bring the tax increase associated with the proposed budget below 4 percent.
   “Given what we saw last year and what we all hear anecdotally at the grocery store … I think that (4 percent) is as good a target as any,” he said. “I hope it passes.”

Board members and teachers who attended the special meeting brainstormed about what they might do to boost turnout and agreed to explore the possibility of registering voters at a school concert this month.
   However, Parton suggested school boosters might be better served by focusing on “inspiration not registration.”
   “(Parents) are on the voter checklist. They’re just not voting,” he said.
   @Tagline:david.delcore @timesargus.com

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NOTE: board meeting tonight Wed. Jan 8 at 6pm)

U-32 SCHOOL BOARD SHARPENS THE AX

pub. by Times Argus on 1/6/14 by David Delcore

   EAST MONTPELIER –— The U-32 School Board is poised to consider an administrative proposal to cut as many as four full-time teachers, the equivalent of a fifth, a special educator, a paraprofessional and 50 percent of one of the school’s two librarian positions when it meets Wednesday night.

   The proposed staffing cuts total just over $450,000 and would represent a net savings of more than $390,000 once revenue that would be lost, if some of the positions are eliminated, is factored into the equation.
   The board has already made a series of cuts, trimming the 10 percent spending increase reflected in the first draft of the budget for the junior-senior high school, which serves students from Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester, to just over 7 percent.
   That’s where things stand heading into Wednesday’s 6 p.m. meeting.
   The budget’s bottom line now sits at $15.1 million — $1 million more than the $14.1 million figure that voters in the five-town union high school district collectively approved last March. Barring further reductions the tax impact of the proposed budget would be an increase of about 4.1 percent
   That’s higher than school officials would like, prompting the prioritized list of staffing reductions that was prepared for the board’s consideration.
   Most of the proposed cuts involve a junior high school program that, due to declining enrollment, has unusually low class sizes.
   According to school officials there are 12 students in the average seventh- and eighth-grade classes at U-32. That number, they said, would jump up to 19 if the board approves all of the staff reductions that have been proposed.
   Those cuts include one of six junior high school math teachers, three of nine “core” teachers responsible for students in seventh and eighth grades, as well as a special educator and full-time paraprofessional.
   Only some of those positions — the math teacher, one of the core teachers, the special educator and the paraprofessional — are included in the top tier of cuts that would result in a net savings of about $175,000 and bring the tax impact of the budget just below 3 percent.
   The administrative proposal suggests the board consider cutting half of a librarian’s position ($31,075) and the equivalent of a full-time teaching position by targeting high school classes with low enrollment ($62,150), before cutting an additional two core teachers from the junior high school ($124,300).
   If all of the cuts are approved the U-32 spending increase would drop just below 4 percent and the tax impact of the budget would be an increase of roughly 1.3 percent.
   That would shave between 2.6 and 3.2 cents off projected tax rate hikes in all five communities. Based on soon-to-be-finalized elementary school budgets those rate hikes range from a low of 10.7 cents in Berlin to a high of 24.8 cents in Calais.
   East Montpelier is looking at an 18.2-cent rate hike if nothing changes at U-32 Wednesday night, while the increase in Middlesex and Worcester have been tentatively pegged at 15.5 cents and 17.8 cents respectively.
   Those figures are based on soon-to-be-finalized elementary school budgets and were recently adjusted to reflect changes to the common level of appraisal (CLA) in all five communities.
   Though the CLA, a calculation the state uses to equalize the tax burden in all Vermont towns, remained relatively stable in East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester, it rose nearly 3.4 percent in Berlin and dropped almost 6 percent in Calais.

The overnight effect trimmed roughly 5.2 cents from the projected rate hike in Berlin and added 10.9 cents to the projected rate increase in Calais.
   david.delcore@timesargus.com