Thursday, February 27, 2014
News to Know February 25, 2014
BERLIN February
25th, 2014
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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
*
Check out the Berlin , Vermont
Of note:
Below you will see a few stories from a bit further away... RUHS
architect students are getting out into community to work on a project made me
think about how more students, not just those who go over to the Barre Tech
program could use some hands on experience.
Also at RUHS it caught my attention that a large donation to use as a
scholarship has been made. This will
likely help kids get to college that might not otherwise or and also help so
that students will not has as much debt when they get through - which is a
difficult if not overwhelming burden to start out any career with. There are two stories regarding school
lunches, which makes one ask how should lunch programs be run and locally, do all
students have access to a school lunch?
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Included below please find:
LUNCH AT TOWN
MEETING
ABSENTEE
BALLOTS
PAT MCDONALD
FOR SENATE
OTHER NEWS OF
NOTE
SCHOOL LUNCHES; REAL LIFE CHALLENGE; $100K DONATION
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It was just a
matter of time before WCAX Super Seniors would be interviewing Ray Burke here
in Berlin
http://www.wcax.com/category/166239/video-landing-page?clipId=9865026&autostart=true
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In addition to picking up a copy
of the town report up at the town office, you can find the reports online:
Town & School Annual Reports
Auditor report which was not
included in Town Report this year
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LUNCH AT TOWN MEETING
Berlin
Volunteer Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary will be offering lunch again at Town
Meeting this year. $5 for soup & sandwich (always a choice of each) along
with a beverage. Seems like there is usually pudding also. Food is always good
and it's a great opportunity to support the Ladies Auxiliary who help out when
the fire department is out on a fire scene. The part I enjoy is the chance to
visit with friends, neighbors, and even meet some new folks. Come down to Town
Meeting and linger awhile if you can!
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ABSENTEE BALLOTS
If you don't
think you'll be able to make it to Town Meeting on Tuesday, March 4th (meeting
at 10am, polls open 10am - 7pm ) be sure to request an absentee ballot.
Easy to do, either give a call to the Town Clerk's office (229-9298), drop a
note (108 Shed Road , Berlin ,
VT 05602 7pm to be counted.
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PAT MCDONALD FOR SENATE
Dear
Friends and Neighbors,
Last Thursday evening, February 19th at a
Legislative event, I announced my run for #VT Senate in Washington
County
Thank you.
Pat McDonald
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Berlin School
Board vice chair Chris Rice has narrated a powerpoint presentation about the
Berlin Elementary School Budget which you can find at this link: http://youtu.be/MYD1FZ-P03g. At
the Pre Town Meeting on Monday, March 3rd at 6 pm the School Board of Directors will be available to discuss
this presentation at an informational meeting to be held at the school.
People who are
on the ballot running for a seat on this board on encouraged to be at the Pre
Town Meeting to introduce themselves to the public. Meanwhile, if you would
like to send out some information on yourself and why you're running for school
board I would be happy to share it in the News to Know.
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Pub 2/21/14 Times Argus by David
Delcore
Ward Joyce, who lives in
“The
It is also, Joyce said, the spot where those employed in both city and state government converge in the capital.
“I think it’s a perfect place to have a public amenity developed on a trial two-year basis,” he said.
Joyce said he’s already raised two-thirds of the money needed for construction, persuaded his employer to cover the cost of insuring it, and is working on a plan to have downtown merchants take turns maintaining it.
“It’s not for a business,” Joyce stressed. “It’s purely a public space.”
Or it will be, if and when Joyce obtains approval from Montpelier Alive for a seasonal structure that would fill two parking spaces but won’t need a thumbs-up from the city’s Development Review Board. Montpelier Alive is spearheading a process to establish parklets downtown.
Due largely to parklets’ temporary nature, city officials have concluded they won’t require zoning permits and aren’t subject to the city’s design review standards.
They will require a $50 application fee and be subject to an annual “parking replacement” charge of $810 per parking space.
Given the public nature of his proposal, Joyce asked councilors to waive those fees in exchange for what he described as a gift to the city.
Councilors did as they were asked, though they warned there is no guarantee Joyce’s proposal will be awarded any of the six parking spaces the council has provisionally agreed could be occupied by parklets during the summer months during a two-year trial period. That decision, they said, would be made as part of a competitive process that is in limbo pending voter approval of a package of charter changes on Town Meeting Day.
One of those changes would give the city the authority to do what it was advised it couldn’t last year: allow private businesses to set up shop in parklets in the public right of way.
However, City Manager William Fraser said it is unclear whether that change is needed to go ahead with the parklet Joyce proposed.
“This would be a public use of a public space,” Fraser said, suggesting it was different from three private proposals that stalled despite the city’s endorsement last year.
Councilors asked Fraser to seek a clarification from the state on that point. But they indicated their desire for Joyce’s proposal to be considered as part of a process that will be spearheaded by Montpelier Alive if the charter changes are approved.
Councilor Alan Weiss warned that even if the voters support the proposed changes to the city charter, there is no guarantee they will be approved by the Legislature this session.
“If it’s not (approved by the Legislature), I’m not convinced the city could go ahead with this plan,” Weiss said.
Weiss, who expressed lingering concern that parklets — public or private — run afoul of the conditions for issuing permits for “outside seating in the public right of way,” noted the site Joyce selected was already a popular gathering spot for local youth.
“Understand, we’re not building these for the general public, we’re not building these for our visitors, we’re building these for the teenagers who enjoy sitting in that warm sunshine,” Weiss said.
There’s nothing wrong with that, according to Councilor Thierry Guerlain.
“I know there’s going to be days when it’s too noisy and it’s too rowdy, but these are our kids,” he said, noting local youth have never taken to the plaza in front of City Hall and have been discouraged from congregating in front of
“I like the idea we’re going to have a place where kids can hang out,” he said.
However, Guerlain did worry that parklets — particularly public ones — could become attractive nuisances.
“I like the idea, but I’m wondering how we monitor what’s going on in the parklet,” he said, suggesting he wouldn’t want people sleeping in them.
Guerlain predicted the two-year trial period the council proposed would give city officials and residents an opportunity to decide whether parklets add something worth keeping to downtown
Councilor Anne Watson said she was pulling for the former.
“I hope that they’re safe and they’re beautiful and they enrich the town,” she said, suggesting it was important for the council to establish criteria for evaluating the experiment in advance.
Mayor John Hollar agreed.
“Not everybody is going to love these,” he predicted. “There’s been some push back already.”
That said, Hollar noted the parklet concept enjoys the near-unanimous support of the council — at least to give it a try.
“If it doesn’t work we’ll reconsider it,” he said.
david.delcore @timesargus.com
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OTHER NEWS
OF NOTE:
Posted 1/30/14
on www.buzzfeed.com
As many as 40 children at Uintah Elementary in Salt
Lake City had their lunches seized and thrown away on
Tuesday because their parents had fallen behind on payments.
“It was pretty traumatic and humiliating,” said Erika Lukes,
the mother of an 11-year-old whose lunch was taken away. Lukes told the Salt
Lake City Tribune that as far as she knew, she was up-to-date with her
payments. “I think it’s despicable. These are young children that shouldn’t be
punished or humiliated for something the parents obviously need to clear up.”
The large number of students with zero or negative balances
at Uintah Elementary prompted the Salt Lake City school district to send a
child nutrition manager to the school on Monday to resolve the issue. According to a statement on the district's
website, school officials spent Monday calling parents to let them know that
their children owed money for lunches. On Tuesday, although calls to parents
continued, the district nutrition manager decided to withhold lunches from
students who didn’t have enough money in their accounts. “Unfortunately,
children are served lunch before they get to the computer for payment” and
students with a negative balance were forced to hand over their trays and watch
as they were thrown away (district policy dictates that once food is served to
one student, it cannot be served to another). Instead of Tuesday’s meal of
pizza and salad, the students whose accounts were in debt were given milk and a
piece of fruit.
Fifth-grader Sophia Isom told KSL TV that the nutrition
manager was checking each student’s account as they went through the lunch
line. “She took my lunch away and said, ‘Go get a milk,’ ” Sophia said. “I came
back and asked, ‘What’s going on?’ Then she handed me an orange. She said, ‘You
don’t have any money in your account so you can’t get lunch.’” According to the
Salt Lake City school district
website, elementary school lunches cost $2.00 per meal and parents are able to
make payments towards their children’s accounts online.
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GOOD
SAMARITAN PAYS OFF ALL NEGATIVE BALANCE LUNCH ACCOUNTS AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (IN TEXAS
by Jonathan Wolfe 2/7/14
After hearing of
the Utah school officials who
threw away the lunches of children with unpaid balances, he decided to see
if children in his area were having problems paying for lunch as well.
"I'm like,
'Wow. I know that's probably a situation at my school, and the school my son
goes to, and the other schools I mentor at.' So I came in and inquired about
it," Thompson said.
Sure enough,
children at the school had the same problem.
Thompson discovered
that many of the children were forced to eat cold cheese sandwiches while their
peers had full trays of hot food.
“It was horrifying,
it broke my heart,” Thompson
said. “These are elementary kids. They’re not bankers, and not
responsible for the financial issues in the household.”
Thompson, a child mentor of ten years, was so bothered by
the situation that he decided to do something incredible.
He went to Valley
Oaks Elementary School
"When I left
the building knowing that they were getting fed, they didn't have that
stress," said Thompson. "The best money I ever spent."
Thompson’s kindness
looks to be contagious. He told Houston
station KPRC that he heard reports of a woman going into another
school and offering to pay off delinquent lunch accounts just like “the man on
TV.”
“They say
everything is bigger in Texas ,”
Thompson said. “That means our hearts too.”
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A REAL -LIFE CHALLENGE FOR STUDENTS
Pub. 2/20/14
Herald of Randolph
Joslyn House in Randolph received
an unusual visit last week Tuesday: a visit that might have long-term
consequences. Both the visitors and the Joslyn House residents enjoyed it.
The visitors were
13 students in grades 9-12, a new elective at Randolph
Union High School
The focus of this
project, explained the instructor, Ken Cadow, is to look at some of the
unrented rooms at the Joslyn House and envision how they can be made more
inviting to prospective residents.
“This is a very
real problem,” Cadow said. “The kids understand that a viable operation like
the Joslyn House needs to rent as many rooms as possible in order to remain
healthy. Empty rooms cost money.”
To that end, Cadow
invited Norwich designer Ann
Shriver Sargent to meet the students at Joslyn House so that they could
witness, firsthand, how a designer looks at a space.
She explained to the students that their first impressions
of a space are likely to be the same as those of a prospective tenant. She
brought attention to aspects of the rooms that designers take into account—how
the natural light falls into a room, how the doors affect the use of the room’s
floor space, and the positioning of furniture.
Her visit, Cadow
said, ”brings to the students both the practicalities of honing an eye for
design, and also how intention in design can lead to a better quality of life.”
Interaction
The instructor
noted he was greatly impressed by the visiting that happened between the
students and the residents.
“The seniors opened the doors to their rooms that were their
beautiful homes, filled with a life’s worth of memories. They discussed changes
they’d made to suit their tastes and shared the stories. The kids were
respectful; they were highly attentive.”
Meanwhile, in the
empty rooms, the students were measuring walls, distances between outlets, the
swing of doors, and the height of windows.
The next step, Cadow said, will be for students to put their
measurements and findings onto paper.
Bill Bonsignore of
RACDC (which owns Joslyn House) is providing old blueprints of the house. That
will help students get a sense of how the other systems--electric, plumbing,
etc.--run through the walls and might affect design decisions.
The students will
even be asked to price out different approaches to making the empty rooms more
inviting, and will submit those proposals to RACDC.
“My hope is that there
will be momentum there to carry the plans out in some form,” the instructor
said.
When the students
left, each was served a cupcake.
“It reminded me of
visiting my grandmother’s house!” Cadow commented.
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ANONYMOUS
DONORS OFFER $100K IN SCHOLARSHIPS (IN RANDOLPH
They hope the community will add to fund
Graduates of the
class of 2014 at Randolph Union
High School
Two retired
educators from Middlebury, who recently relocated to Brookfield to
be near family, have donated $100,000 to start the Randolph Community
Scholarship Fund.
That amount will be
distributed to this year’s graduates, and the donors plan to give the same
amount annually for the next few years to the scholarship fund.
The donors hope to
spur more Randolph area individuals
and organizations to contribute to the Community Scholarship Fund and help it
grow, said director of student services, Carolynn Parker.
The donor couple
would rather not have their names identified, she said.
While they are
initiating the fund as well as developing the selection criteria and selection
process, they hope that eventually the scholarship can continue without their
involvement.
“I am blown away by
the generosity of this gift, and I hope our students fully appreciate how
fortunate they are to live in a community where two people would make this
possible,” Parker said.
“Our benefactors
understand how college costs have skyrocketed, leaving many college graduates
with extraordinary debt. They do not want any student to not attend college
because they feel they can’t afford it. This is an incredible gift.”
Qualifications
To qualify,
students must demonstrate financial need and plan to attend a Vermont
State
The range of awards
is broad, and can go upwards of $10,000 a year. Students may re-apply for up to
three additional years of continued funding.
Students will be expected to repay a small portion of their
award after they have completed college, Parker said. This money will go back
into the fund to help support future graduates.
The Community Fund
involvement will not end with the passing of a check. The process requires the
student to interview with a committee and also to meet again midway through
their first year of college.
“Being former
educators, our benefactors are aware that students can gain acceptance to
college fairly easily, but following through and doing the hard work to stay in
school can sometimes be the most difficult part,” Parker explained. “They want
to provide encouragement as well as financial support to the students chosen
for this scholarship.”
Distribution of
this scholarship fund will begin with the class of 2014, and applications will
be available in early April, she said.
Any community
individual or organization interested in donating to the Community Scholarship
Fund may contact Parker at 728- 3397.
“The founders’ real
hope is that people and organizations from the area will contribute to make
this a sustaining fund,” Parker stressed.
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# posted by Corinne's blog of Berlin and area happenings @ 4:42 PM 
