Archive for March, 2011

5 Steps to New Municipal Offices

Having been so critical of the process, I feel the need to offer a detailed, constructive suggestion for how the subcommittee proceed. It’s easy to stand up at a selectboard meeting and be critical, and persuasively argue that $8000 shouldn’t be spent on drawings. The difficult part is backing up that criticism with an alternative […]

WRJ Parking

Last night at the select board meeting several business owners described the problems that have surfaced in WRJ because of the closing of the lot across from the Briggs building. The selectboard explained why they had not purchased the property and stated that the lease offered by the new owner was too much in comparison […]

Live Blogging 22 March Selectboard meeting

Off to a late start as sb waits for tv to be set up Alex DeFelice asks for show of hands on who is here for DISMAS house, Municipal Building, WRJ parking lot. Easily 60 people here maybe 85. Pct are abt 40% dismas, 35% municipal, 25% parking lot First up Dave Briggs presenting 3rd […]

Discussion Group Heats Up

Check out Ken Parker’s terrific email on the Hartford Discussion List tonight: http://lists.valley.net/lists/arc/hartford/2011-03/msg00039.html Anyone can subscribe to this group by sending a blank email message to: hartford-subscribe@lists.valley.net Nope, you don’t need to put in a subject line!

Town Hall – 6 Questions

There are six big questions the Board of Selectmen need to answer before the town will sign off on any new building or major renovation: 1) Rental Options. If working conditions are the only major reason for moving ahead, why not rent space — particularly the empty Saturn dealership or the about-to-be empty Navy office […]

Live Blogging 15 Mar 11 Selectboard Meeting

Alex DeFelice opened the meeting by giving the chair to Sonia so that he could make a presentation on the state of the board’s thinking about the town hall — basically whether to renovate the existing structure or to build a new building on the same spot. Options such as using the WRJ elementary school, […]

DeFelice gets Chair; Knight Vice-Chair

On Wednesday afternoon the new selectboard met and elected officers for the next year. Ken Parker was dismissed as chair, and vice-chair Alex DeFelice was elected chair, with Sonia Knight becoming vice-chair. For Alex, a retiree who was a legend in Hartford High School football history, the sky is now the limit on his ability […]

Why isn’t the Charter being followed?

As I’ve explained in earlier posts, I ran for the select board in order to get public discussion and debate going around the issue of committing to a strategy of regionalization. However, I was stymied by the lack of opportunity to engage in debate and discussions. First, the town made no provision to bring information […]

“Pretty Damn Good for a Flatlander from Quechee”

That was the message a local with deep family roots in Hartford had for me last night after he heard the election results. I laughed, and immediately felt better about losing 513-433. Especially to Sam Romano, who has yet to cast a vote on the Selectboard I disagree with (when I put in my petition […]

Luke Eastman for School Board

I asked Luke Eastman to write up something I could share with my readers. I’ll be voting for Luke on Tuesday. Here’s what he has to say for himself: Hartford schools are under mounting pressure from Montpelier to consolidate.  I will be a staunch advocate for Hartford’s world-class elementary schools and work tirelessly to ensure […]

Improving town – citizen info flow

The town’s website just isn’t delivering what Hartford needs. I just went to look for the minutes of the January board meetings, and they are still not posted. The last set of minutes are from the end of December. Similarly, there’s no discussion of how the audit materials were removed from the printed town report […]