Sunday, November 09, 2014

 

News To Know October 31, 2014

BERLIN NEWS TO KNOW October 31, 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 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, some not included here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Berlin-Vermont/205922199452224

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NOTE: 
Please take the time to exercise your right to vote on Tuesday.  If you are not yet registered, it's too late to do so to vote Nov. 4th but please still take the time to register so you'll be set to vote at Town Meeting.   Speaking of which, the select board and school boards are already starting work on budgets for next year making it an important time of year to make the time to attend those meetings to better understand the process and share any thoughts on what is included (or not) in the budgets.

Interested in the Bike and Pedestrian Safety Project?  Be sure to attend the meeting to be held at Berlin Elem. on Mon. Nov 3rd.  See details below including a link for more info.

Would love to get some feedback on your thoughts regarding Berlin supporting a community library. 

Below you will find:
ORCA HALLOWEEN COSTUME PARADE
PUMPKIN SHOWS!
TOWN UPDATES
BERLIN ELEMENTARY DATES OF NOTE
12TH ANNUAL BERLIN FALL SCHOLASTIC  CHESS
NO STRINGS MARIONETTE SHOW
BERLIN GROUP PETITIONS TO REJOIN LIBRARY'S SUPPORTERS
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ORCA HALLOWEEN COSTUME PARADE
If you'd love to see LOTS of kids costumes, ORCA is continuing their tradition of a costume parade... live from 4-5:30 today and then repeated on Saturday at 12:30 and Sunday at 11am on Channel 15
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PUMPKIN SHOWS!
Recall when both Settlement Farm and Ellie's Farm Market had pumpkin shows? While Ellie's will not have one this year, there is the possibility of them having another in the future.  
Caroline Scribner has announced one at the Settlement Farm this year! "The Settlement Farm on Route two in Middlesex will be holding a pumpkin show on Thursday and Friday night starting at dusk. We are busy carving and will have at least 200 pumpkins carved. The weather looks promising. We will be collecting donations to Hunger Free Vermont in the farm stand if people want to contribute. Hope to see you there. If you have questions you can call me at 793-8902"
Also down in Williamstown there will be a pumpkin show (about 200) at the Hepburn's on Garden Street which will benefit Youth Sports Assoc. with 7th graders helping to set up and selling refreshments for a class trip.
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TOWN UPDATES
The Selectboard will meet Monday, Nov 3rd. There will be a special presentation at 6 pm by Lucy Gibson from the Engineering firm DuBois and King, and Jon Kaplan from Vtrans. The Bike and Pedestrian Safety Project planned for US Route 302 will be discussed and outlined. This is expected to be a very interesting session. The Selectboard business meeting will follow this session. Please take special note that this meeting will be at the Berlin Elementary School at 372 Paine Turnpike North in the school’s library. 
More info on the Bike & Pedestrian Safety Project can be found in this newsletter: http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=2c39b8cff3e32e7024209f7f9&id=8d78b15e1f&e=[UNIQID]
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The Town of Berlin Highway Department has a position open for an experienced equipment operator – highway laborer. See the Town website (www.berlinvt.org) for details and an application, it’s also posted at the Town office. 
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VOTING - The polls will be open from 8am – 7pm on Tuesday, November 4th at the Town Office.  Please note that the Town Clerk’s office will be closed for regular business that day. 
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The Development Review Board will meet on Tuesday, November 4th at 7pm please note the location will be at Berlin Elementary School
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The Sewer Commission will meet Monday, November 10th 7pm at the Town office. 
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The Second Installment of Property Taxes are due by Saturday, November 15th, 2014.
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BERLIN ELEMENTARY DATES OF NOTE
PTNA (Parent Teacher Neighbor Association) meets Thursday, Nov 6th at 6:30pm. 
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PTNA Family Game Night Friday, Nov. 7th 6:30-7:30pm
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Annual Scholastic Book Fair, November 7th - 15th.  This is a great opportunity to do a bit of shopping while supporting the school.  Hours will be Nov. 7th 6:30-8pm (also family game night taking place); Monday-Friday Nov 10-14 8am - 4pm; Saturday, Nov 15 9am -4pm (also chess tournament taking place)
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Harvest Luncheon Wednesday, Nov 12th
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School Board Meeting, Monday, November 10th 6:15pm
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Did you know the school has gone to a monthly format for their newsletter? It comes out at the end of the month and can be found on their website or you can ask to be on an email list to receive it.  A Calendar of Events listing is updated and available the other weeks.
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12TH ANNUAL BERLIN FALL SCHOLASTIC  CHESS
Saturday, Nov. 15th, 2014 at the Berlin Elementary School.  Organized by Mike Stridsberg, mike@vtchess.info.  Unrated tournament for grades K-12, 4 round Swiss, Game/30.  Great smaller tournament.  The Vermont Chess Information website can be found at:   www.vtchess.info
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NO STRINGS MARIONETTE SHOW
Just days away from The Snowmaiden show with Father Frost hoping you'll join them, Saturday, November 15th at 10 a.m.   This will be at the  Montpelier Senior Activity Center (MSAC), 58 Barre  St, Montpelier.  This show is by donation, and will raise funds for programs at MSAC.  Mark your calendar, these shows are always a lot of fun!  Find "No Strings Marionette Company" on facebook and they have a website www.nostringsvt.com
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BERLIN GROUP PETITIONS TO REJOIN LIBRARY'S SUPPORTERS
Pub. 10/25/14 Times Argus by David Delcore
   BERLIN — A small but committed group of town residents is readying to make some noise about what they perceive as the need to make a reasonable public investment in a local library.
   Concerned, and in some cases embarrassed, by the fact that voters in their community rejected Kellogg-Hubbard Library’s $26,925 funding request two years ago and that a comparable question wasn’t even asked on Town Meeting Day in March, residents who huddled at the municipal office building Thursday night agreed to do everything they can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
   The diverse group, which included more than 15 town residents, is well on its way.
   Getting the library back on the ballot in Berlin will require collecting the signatures of 5 percent of the town’s 1,910 registered voters. After meeting with the library’s new director, Tom McKone, many of those in attendance left with petitions that one of them had prepared in advance.
   Anne Dielensnyder came armed with those petitions. If they are signed by 100 local voters, a vote on the Montpelier library’s latest funding request would be required in Berlin.
   The new ask, according to McKone, is for $28,271. That’s 5 percent more than the figure voters rejected 287-159 two years ago — snapping a five-year string of razor-thin approvals of much lower requests.
   In each of the four years leading up to the failed vote, Berlin voters narrowly approved a $12,557 appropriation for the library.
   Berlin’s support for Kellogg-Hubbard has been soft and spotty ever since library trustees decided two decades ago to ask surrounding communities — Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester — to share in the cost of operating Vermont’s second-largest public library.
   Since 1994, requests ranging from $1,450 to $26,925 (both of which failed) have been on the Berlin ballot 20 times and have passed slightly more often than not. The library’s requests were approved 12 times and rejected eight others — nine if you count a companion request that was part of the 2001 capital campaign that helped finance the library expansion.
   Perhaps most perplexing to some was the fact that they weren’t even given an opportunity to approve funding for the library in March.
   “Why wasn’t the library on the ballot?” one woman asked. “I don’t understand.”
   According to McKone, the board of the nonprofit library flirted with lowering the request of Berlin to $12,557 — the amount Berlin had most recently approved. However, that approach was spiked due to concern it represented a marked departure from the population-based formula used to calculate the contributions of other surrounding towns, all of which are smaller — in some cases significantly — than Berlin.
   “It would have come back to bite us,” he said.
   This year, those community contributions range from $17,525 in Worcester, which has 998 residents, to $36,775 in East Montpelier, which has a population of 2,576.
   Berlin’s population is 2,886, and McKone noted that but for the library board’s decision to cap increases at 5 percent this year, its share of the library budget would be in excess of $40,000.
   “Berlin is getting a better deal than anyone else by far,” he said.
   At the moment, McKone said, Berlin is one of the few Vermont communities that don’t contribute anything to a public library. Of the state’s 625,000 residents, he said, only about 22,000 of them — including the 2,886 in Berlin — can make that claim.
   “That shouldn’t make Berlin proud,” Meredith Dodge said, shaking her head.
   Several residents expressed dismay with what has been lukewarm support at best for library requests that one person described as a drop in the bucket.
   “I think $28,000 (a year) is nothing when you’re talking about as great a library as Kellogg-Hubbard,” said Grace Greene, who conceded the sharp increase reflected in the 2013 request made it an easy target.
   Resident Sally Herring agreed and pointed out that getting the library’s request on the ballot would likely be easier than persuading a majority of voters to support it.
   “It’s going to be an uphill battle,” she said. “We need to sell how small an impact it is.”
   Assistant Town Clerk Corinne Stridsberg gave the group what she viewed as an important talking point. Based on the current grand list, Stridsberg said approving the library’s request would translate into a tax increase of less than $6 for every $100,000 in property value.
   “It’s nothing,” Greene said. “We just need to get out and show people it’s nothing.”
   Stridsberg said Berlin’s location between Barre and Montpelier, and the fact that many folks who live along the Route 12 corridor have strong ties to Northfield, has been part of the problem.
   While Kellogg-Hubbard views Berlin as one of its communities, many of the town’s residents live much closer to Aldrich Public Library in Barre, and others use the Brown Public Library in Northfield.
   McKone said the Kellogg-Hubbard board has discussed that reality in the past and he suspects trustees would entertain a ballot request that contemplated splitting the money between libraries, provided the amount was “appropriate.”
   That concept isn’t reflected in the petition Dielensnyder drafted, although she noted this year 61 Berlin residents paid $12 to become members at Aldrich and 51 paid $40 for a membership at Kellogg-Hubbard.
   McKone said the $40 fee at Kellogg-Hubbard is under review.
   “It doesn’t come close to covering the library’s cost,” he said, noting many families pay for one card and then use it as a group.
   There is no fee for contributing communities, and those that approve the library’s request are guaranteed a seat on the board — something Berlin no longer enjoys.
   According to McKone, Berlin represents 16 percent of the combined population of the six communities — including Montpelier — that have historically been asked to support the library. However, he said, the latest request of Berlin represents 3.2 percent of the library’s $876,000 operating budget.
   The bulk of the library’s funding comes from a combination of proceeds generated by an endowment, annual fundraising and tax revenue from Montpelier.
   Montpelier’s annual contribution to the library would be more than twice the other five towns combined, and represents the lion’s share of the $453,000 that Kellogg-Hubbard hopes to secure in voter-approved community contributions in March.
   Those figures assume the petition drive in Berlin is successful and voters approve the Town Meeting Day request. Although the deadline for filing the petition isn’t until mid-January, Dielensnyder hoped starting early would guarantee library boosters have plenty of time to collect signatures. That wasn’t the case earlier this year when a petition drive fizzled in the runup to the filing deadline.
   david.delcore @timesargus.com

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# posted by Corinne's blog of Berlin and area happenings @ 7:36 PM
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