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CALEDONIAN Black Cyan Magenta Yellow
TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2015
CALEDONIANRECORD.COM
ESTABLISHED 1837
SPORTS
Gary Moore:
Spring Will Come
75 CENTS
ST. JOHNSBURY
ST. JOHNSBURY
Relay For Life Prepping
For Big Changes
Bruce Corrette
Retires
PAGE B2
PAGE A3
PAGE A3
Two Large Maple Companies
Setting Up Operations
In Small NEK Town
DANVILLE
PRINCIPAL RESIGNS AMID
EMBEZZLEMENT ALLEGATIONS
By JennifeR heRSey Cleveland
Staff Writer
By tayloR Reed
Staff Writer
DANVILLE — Ed
Webbley,
the
Danville School coprincipal accused of
embezzling $1,500
from student activities funds last month,
has resigned.
The
Danville
School Board of Directors on Monday
accepted his resignaFILE PHOTO
tion following a seEd Webbley
cret session about a
“personnel matter” during a special 5 p.m. board meeting
at the supervisory office on Route 2. Webbley, who did
not attend, earned $94,000 annually plus benefits and
Island Pond is slated to become the maple capital of Vermont, with two
new large sugaring outﬁts setting up operations here.
Sweet Tree LLC plans to produce some syrup this season and will
have 200,000 taps sucking sap from sugar maples on 7,000 acres in
Avery’s and Warren’s Gores by the time the sap starts running spring
2016.
And Les Industries
Bernard
and
Fils
(Bernard and Sons for
the U.S. side) is seeking
Sweet Tree
out farmers to build its
– Setting up operations in former
network of producers
Ethan Allen Plant
here with the possibility
– Plans to tap on 7,000 acres in
of a processing plant in
Avery’s and Warren’s Gore
the future.
– 200,000 taps by 2016, with total
Sweet Tree has set up
plans for 500,000 taps
operations in the former
– Could become largest maple sugEthan Allen plant, while
aring operation in North America
Bernard is working out of
Bernard and Sons
the former wood-workers
– Quebec company leasing former
plant.
wood-workers plant in Brighton
While Sweet Tree is
– Purchasing ﬁnished syrup from
ready to hit the road runlocal producers
ning as soon as the sap
– Bought 22,500 gallons from U.S.
ﬂows, the Bernard operaproducers in 2014
tion is in the ﬁrst phase of a
– Hopes to buy 45,000-90,000 galmulti-year project.
lons this year from U.S. producers
Before considering the
possibility of a processing
plant in Island Pond, the company will secure a network of farmers
who already tap their sugarbushes.
“It’s a business where you have to learn to walk before you run,”
according to CEO of the Island Pond Maple Factory, Jacques Letourneau, which is part of the Bernard and Sons.
If Sweet Tree hits its ultimate goal of half a million taps, it will
easily be the largest producer in New England, if not the world.
The Details
Creating A
MAPLE
MECCA
See Webbley, Page A6
ST. JOHNSBURY
SUPT. HELPS SCHOOL BOARD
CHAIRWOMAN’S CAMPAIGN
In Island Pond
By tayloR Reed
Staff Writer
Ranny Bledsoe, the superintendent of St. Johnsbury School,
served as a campaign worker in School Director Becky Baldauf’s bid for a 3-year term against a write-in candidate.
Elections are today from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at St. Johnsbury
School.
Bledsoe last week helped Baldauf, the board chairwoman, design a campaign advertisement and arranged for its placement
in The Caledonian-Record newspaper. Baldauf paid for the advertisement.
Bledsoe said Monday, “I made the calls for her because she
works. Becky is my boss. She asked me to make calls. That’s
my job … . I’m not sure what’s unusual.”
See Maple, Page A6
ST. JOHNSBURY
MILLIONS IN SPENDING PROPOSED, FEW QUESTIONS FROM PUBLIC
Bruce Corrette Honored
See Campaign, Page A6
By RoBeRt BleChl
Staff Writer
LANCASTER,
N.H. — Melanie Nash,
arrested last year on
charges of enlisting
three others to help her
dig up her father’s
Colebrook grave in
search of the “real
will,” will plead guilty.
Her plea now resolves the case that
saw two others take
Melanie Nash
pleas of guilty and a
third acquitted by a jury after ﬁghting his charges at trial.
Nash, who police said felt shorted of her share of the inSee Grave, Page A6
VOL. 177, NO. 175
PHOTO BY TODD WELLINGTON
MONTPELIER
NCSU SUPERINTENDENT TRIES TO DEBUNK SMALL SCHOOL ‘MYTHS’
John Castle Testifies Before
Senate Ed Committee Friday
Supervisory Union, sought to debunk widely held beliefs in Montpelier that all small schools spend
too much and all consolidation
MONTPELIER — John Castle,
ideas will save money.
superintendent of North Country
Castle testified Friday after-
© T HE C ALEDONIAN -R ECORD
Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . B6
Entertainment. . . . . . . B4
For the Record . . . . . . A2
Opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . A4
Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1
Television . . . . . . . . . . B5
HIGH: 27
LOW: 21
See Meeting, Page A6
St. Johnsbury Assistant Town Manager David Ormiston presents the
proposed town budget at the St. Johnsbury School Monday. Behind
him are Town Manager John Hall and Moderator David Reynolds.
TODAY: Sun early, snow
showers late, 2-4”
INSIDE
total of five questions.
The proposed budgets were
presented Monday at a pre-town
meeting information session held
in the St. Johnsbury School Auditorium featured lengthy presentations by St. Johnsbury School
Superintendent Ranny Bledsoe,
Details on Page A2
NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK
By RoBin SMith
Staff Writer
Vermont Program Combines Classes,
Work, Leading To Degree And Job
–––––
Maine: Ice Slows Business, Traffic
On Northeast Waterways
–––––
Massachusetts May Offer Thousands
Early Retirement; Layoffs Possible
$
18,159,000,110,737
Population: 320,110,108
Your share: $56,727.36
“The budget should be balanced; the
treasury should be refilled; public
debt should be reduced; and the arrogance of public officials should be
controlled.” –Cicero, 106-43 B.C.
Page A5
Black Cyan Magenta Yellow
noon before the Senate Education
Committee, which is preparing to
craft an education reform bill to
tackle the increasing costs of education in Vermont.
Castle urged the committee to
not take at face value the assumptions behind a large education bill
that came out of the House Education Committee last week.
NATION
NASH DAUGHTER TAKES DEAL
ON GRAVE ROBBING CHARGE
St. Johnsbury’s government
leaders presented plans Monday
to spend $26 million dollars over
the next year and a half to town
voters.
The public responded with a
REGION
LANCASTER
By todd WellinGton
Staff Writer
And he called a comment by
the House Education Committee
Chairman David Sharpe, that
small school districts that don’t
seek to merge with others should
not get small school grants, “ignorant and irresponsible.”
The House bill includes requirements that school districts
See Myths, Page A6
Mikulski, Longest-serving Woman In
Congress Won’t Seek 6th Term
–––––
Netanyahu In Washington, Assails Iran Deal,
Touts US-Israel Ties Ahead Of Congress Address
Page A7 & 8
Go
Mobile
Scan and visit us
on your handheld
device.
VOTE Nancy Blankenship
LTS School Board
Paid for by Nancy Blankenship
CALEDONIAN Black Cyan Magenta Yellow
A2
THE REcORD • TuESDAY, MARcH 3, 2015
FOR THE RECORD
OBITUARIES
ANDREA MAUREEN COLE LAWSON
Andrea Maureen Cole Lawson
passed away peacefully on Feb. 24
in Bethesda, Md. with her loving
husband Bill and her parents,
Kevin and and Bonnie at her side.
She fought a short but courageous
battle against cancer.
Andrea went to Barnet School
for her early years of education
then graduated from St. Johnsbury
Academy in 2001. Andrea was a
member of the National Honor Society and truly loved to learn. One
of her passions was the study of
the Japanese language and culture.
Andrea then went on to college
at St. Michael’s in Winooski, Vt. where she studied political science
and continued her study of Japanese. In her junior year of college she
did a semester abroad in Tokyo, Japan. After graduating from St.
Mike’s with high honors the once seemingly timid Andrea moved to
Japan to teach English to Japanese students for two years. It was in
Japan that she not only found herself but her loving husband Bill.
She returned to the states where she earned a law degree at Catholic
University in Washington D.C. While studying law at CUA Andrea
was on the prestigious VIS Arbitration Moot Team. Andrea proved to
be a top rated arbitrator as she led her team to many victories as they
competed against other law schools throughout the world.
Andrea also worked for the State Department under Hillary Clinton
for a year and a half. She then went on to pass the bar and take a job
with a small law ﬁrm in Washington D.C.
On Oct. 9, 2011 Andrea married the love of her life, Bill Lawson.
Bill is a teacher at Bethesda Elementary School in Maryland where
the couple resided.
When their son Lance William was born on June 17, 2014 Andrea
gave up her career in law to give him a healthy and happy start to his
life. Andrea was a loving wife and mother and for reasons we will
never be able to understand her life was cut short in her prime.
Andrea leaves behind her husband, Bill Lawson, her son Lance,
her loving brother Ben Cole and his partner, Carrie Bunnell and her
parents Kevin Cole and Bonnie Bashaw Cole. Aside from the immediate family Andrea has several aunts, uncles and cousins, as well as
her paternal grandfather John Cole of Massachusetts and her maternal
grandmother, Audrey Bashaw of Vermont.
Andrea was loved by all the people she ever touched so there are
so many friends who will miss her.
There will be a reception on Saturday, March 7 from 2 to 4 p.m. to
honor Andrea. It will be held at 49 Perkins St. St. Johnsbury, Vt. In
lieu of ﬂowers donations may be made to Andrea’s Army on gofundme.com.
NEWS BRIEFS
REV. DR. BUDDY R. PIPES
1931-2015
Rev. Dr. Buddy R. Pipes passed away peacefully in the Hughes Care
Unit of Harvest Hill, Lebanon, N.H. on Feb. 28, 2015, after a prolonged
illness. He was born in Marion, Va., on June 15, 1931, the son of Fred
and Hattie Virginia (nee Grinstead) Pipes.
He grew up and attended schools in Howard County, Md. After working on his father’s farm for ﬁve years, he was called to the ministry.
Buddy received his BA from Western Maryland College in 1957. The
day after graduation, he married Grace Janet Fletcher. He received his
Bachelor of Divinity and Master of Divinity from Boston University
School of Theology in 1960, and his Doctor of Ministry from Drew University in 1980. He served as pastor of United Methodist Churches in
the Baltimore – Annapolis area from 1960-1992. In addition to his ministerial duties, Buddy was active in Kiwanis for many years. In 1994 he
and Grace retired to their home in Barnet, Vt. They moved to the Woodlands in Lebanon, N.H., in 2011.
Buddy is survived by his wife Grace of Lebanon, N.H.; son James
David Pipes of Columbia, Md.; son Col. Daniel Fletcher Pipes of Fairﬁeld, Vt.; and their spouses; daughter Miriam Janet Pipes of Biglerville,
Pa.; a sister, Betty Sue Dixon; a brother, Harold Lee Pipes; and their
spouses, all of Sykesville, Md.; as well as seven grandchildren.
A memorial service honoring Buddy will be held at the Church of
Christ at Dartmouth College in the spring. In lieu of ﬂowers, those who
wish may send a contribution to the Lake Sunapee Region VNA & Hospice, P.O. Box 2209, New London, NH, 03257-2209; or the Green
Mountain Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, P.O. Box 1139, Montpelier, VT 05601.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
ConCord
Select board, Thursday, March
5, 5 p.m., municipal bldg. Reorganization of board, citizens’ concerns, old, new, other business,
executive session.
————
Planning /zoning board, Thursday, march 5, 6 p.m. Town plan
and regular meeting.
newport
NCUHS curriculum & instruction
committee, Thursday, March 5, 5:30
p.m., room 316.
Sutton
School board, Wednesday, March
4, 5:30 p.m. CNSU report, ﬁnance,
board reorganization, principal
search update, discuss 8th grade class
trip, anticipated executive session
The Numbers
GIMME 5 (Monday)
1-3-6-15-19
DAILY PICKS (Monday)
Day Draw — Pick 3: 2-5-9; Pick 4: 8-9-8-4
Evening Draw — Pick 3: 7-8-0; Pick 4: 5-4-4-5
LAURA E. O’DONNELL
1920-2015
Laura E. O’Donnell, a longtime
St. Albans area resident, passed
away peacefully early Thursday,
Feb. 26, 2015, at the St. Johnsbury
Healthcare and Rehabilitation
Center. Laura was 95 years old.
She was born on Feb. 4, 1920,
in Sheldon, the daughter of the late
Akin B. and Zeldia (Goodman)
Babbie.
On Jan. 4, 1941, in Swanton,
Laura married Lawrence R. O’Donnell, who preceded her in
death on March 24, 2004.
Laura was a former communicant of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic
Church and a life member of Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary. She
was known by all for her generous, cheerful, caring nature.
She is survived by her sons, Patrick Michael O’Donnell and his wife,
Kathleen, of North Hero, and Brent Anthony O’Donnell and his wife, Jan,
of Barnet, as well as her eight grandchildren, Roxanne Corrow, Donald
Cota, Scott Cota, Karen Shaneberger, Kevin O’Donnell, Kelly Bruneau,
Jordan O’Donnell and Ruth O’Donnell. Laura is also survived by her
nephew, Alan Barber and his wife Sally and niece, Marsha Weber, 11 great
grandchildren, one great great grandson and several nieces and nephews.
In addition to her parents and her husband of 63 years, Laura was preceded in death by her daughter, Judith Ann Cota on Sept. 2, 1980; her
brother, George Babbie and sisters, Clara Benjamin, Dora Barber, and Florence Skinner.
Relatives and friends are invited to attend calling hours on Friday,
March 6, between noon and 1 p.m. at the Heald Funeral Home, 87 South
Main St., St. Albans.
A funeral service will be held on Friday, March 6 at 1 p.m. in the Heald
Chapel with Father Brian J. O’Donnell ofﬁciating. Interment will happen
this spring in the Babbie family lot in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Swanton.
Those planning an expression of sympathy are asked to consider the
American Cancer Society (in remembrance of Laura’s daughter and father), 55 Day Lane, Williston, VT 05495. Messages of condolence to
Laura’s family are welcome at www.healdfuneralhome.com.
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Periodicals postage paid at St. Johnsbury, VT,
Post Office, 05819. Published daily except Sunday,
New Years, Thanksgiving and Christmas by
The Caledonian-Record Pub. Co., Inc.,
P.O. Box 8, 190 Federal St., St. Johnsbury, VT 05819,
Tel. 802-748-8121. Publication (USPS-083020).
Postmaster send address changes to:
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Local Forecast
Today: Sun increasingly ﬁltered
through high clouds. A rising chance
of snow late. Highs in the mid 20s.
Light south winds.
Tonight: Cloudy with snow likely,
accumulating 2 to 4 inches. Lows in
the mid to upper teens, steady or rising late. South winds 5 to 10 mph,
gusting to 20 mph.
Tomorrow: A brief snow shower or
rain shower possible, mainly in the
morning, then partly to mostly
cloudy. Milder, with highs in the
upper 30s to lower 40s, steady or
falling in the afternoon. South to
southwest winds 10 to 15 mph, becoming west.
Extended Forecast:
Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy,
slight chance for snow showers.
Lows in the lower teens.
Thursday: Becoming partly cloudy.
Highs in the mid to upper teens.
Thursday Night: Clearing. Lows
zero to 10 below.
Friday: Partly cloudy. Highs near
20.
Friday Night: Mostly cloudy. Slight
chance of snow showers. Lows near
10 above.
Saturday: Mostly cloudy. Slight
chance of snow showers. Highs in
the mid to upper 20s.
Daily Weather Highlights
Surface high pressure sits centered
near New Jersey this morning, extending a ridge northward well into
Québec. This should allow for at least
some ﬁltered sunshine today. But the
surface high and its clear skies will be
on their way out today, as low pressure rapidly moves eastward from the
Great Lakes. Our next round of snow
will be moving in mid to late afternoon.
Two to four inches appears likely by
tomorrow morning, with a few locations perhaps getting as many as 5
inches. A brief period of wintry mix
could set in late tonight, mainly across
southern parts of the state, before the
precipitation ends. Much more mild
conditions, with temperatures perhaps
surpassing 40 degrees, will come in
the scene very ﬂeetingly, early in the
day tomorrow, but temperatures will
likely start to fall by afternoon. What
follows for Thursday and Friday will be
a familiar theme, as circulation around
low pressure over Labrador drags in
well below-average temperatures, with
highs in the teens to around 20. Temperatures will moderate over the
weekend, but remain slightly below average., says Chris Bouchard of the
Fairbanks Museum weather station.
CONDITIONS AT4 P.M. YESTERDAY
Mostly Cloudy
TEMPERATURE
Temp. at 4 p.m. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
Maximum past 24 hours . . . . . . .27
Minimum past 24 hours . . . . . . . .19
Yesterday’s average . . . . . . . . . .23
Normal average . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Maximum this month . . . . . . . . . .28
Minimum this month . . . . . . . . . .-11
Maximum this date (1949) . . . . . .66
Minimum this date (1901) . . . . . .-16
HUMIDITY
63%
DEWPOINT
13
WINDS
22 mph, 25 max . . . . . . . . . . .WNW
BAROMETER
29.93 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Rising
PRECIPITATION
New . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0.04 in.
Total for Month . . . . . . . . . . .0.04 in.
Normal Total . . . . . . . . . . . . .0.16 in.
SNOWFALL
Past 24 Hours . . . . . . . . . . . .1.1 in.
Monthly Total . . . . . . . . . . . . .1.1 in.
Season Total . . . . . . . . . . . .84.0 in.
Season Norm To Date . . . . .68.6 in.
Snowpack . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16.7 in.
ALMANAC
Sunrise today . . . . . . . . . .6:22 a.m.
Sunset today . . . . . . . . . . .5:38 p.m.
Length of day . . . . . .11 hrs. 16 min.
DEGREE DAYS
Average temp. difference below 65°
Yesterday* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
To date since July 1 . . . . . . . . .6313
To date last year . . . . . . . . . . .6206
* calculated for the day before yesterday
All Other: 4 wks. $22.00, 13 wks. $65.00,
26 wks. $120.00, 52 wks. $235.00
Back Issues: $1.00 each, Mailed $5.00
RIGHTS TO ADVERTISING COPY
Rights to layouts of advertising placed with The CaledonianRecord which are the creative effort of its staff and printing material supplied by The Caledonian-Record rest with The
Caledonian-Record and may not be reproduced by photographic or
similar methods without specific authorization of The CaledonianRecord.
The Caledonian-Record assumes no financial responsibility for
typographical errors in advertising but will reprint that part of any
advertisement in which the typographical error occurs. Advertisers
will please notify the management immediately of any error which
may occur.
Black Cyan Magenta Yellow
Ice shanties must be removed
before ice weakens
MONTPELIER, Vt. — State law requires that ice ﬁshing shanties must
be removed from the ice before the ice becomes unsafe or ice loses its
ability to support the shanty out of the water, or before the last Sunday in
March (the 29th this year), whichever comes ﬁrst.
The same law requires the name and address of the owner to be on the
ice shanty.
“Ice conditions can deteriorate quickly with warmer weather, so we
urge owners of shanties to get them off the lakes while it is still safe to be
on the ice,” said State Game Warden Col. Jason Batchelder. “The law exists to help ensure that shanties don’t become a boating hazard and create
debris that will wash up on shore.”
The ﬁne for leaving your ice ﬁshing shanty on the ice can be up to
$1,000, and shanties may not be left at state ﬁshing access areas.
Man sentenced in federal court for
stealing 32 guns from Hardwick store
A man who stole 32 guns from the Rite Way Sports Shop in Hardwick
in April 2014 was sentenced in federal court to serve 30 months in prison.
The United States Attorney for Vermont stated Monday that Larry Garrow, Jr., 27, of Richford, Vermont was sentenced on Friday to 30 months
of imprisonment on a charge of possession stolen ﬁrearms.
Chief Judge Christina Reiss also ordered that Garrow pay $8,000 in
restitution to the Rite Way Sports Shop, and serve a three-year period of
supervised release following his term of imprisonment.
In his plea agreement with the government, Garrow admitted he stole
32 ﬁrearms from Rite Way Sports Shop on April 19, 2014. The ﬁrearms
consisted of .380 caliber and 9 mm handguns. He provided approximately
20 of the ﬁrearms to another individual. Those ﬁrearms have not been
recovered. Law enforcement recovered nine handguns and two pellet
guns on April 23, 2014, when Garrow’s father located them in the defendant’s bedroom and turned them over to the Vermont State Police. He
has remained in custody since his arrest on April 23, 2014.
This matter was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives, with the assistance of the United States Border
Patrol, the Vermont State Police, and the Hardwick Police Department.
DUI stop in Irasburg ﬁnds
large amount of marijuana
On Feb. 28 at approximately 1:58 a.m., state police stopped a vehicle
operating erratically on Route 5 in Irasburg. They found a male passenger
slumped over in the passenger seat. The operator, Haden Hebblethwaite,
22, Beebe Plain, told police that the unnamed passenger had passed out
after consuming a signiﬁcant amount of alcohol. Local EMS was called
for the passenger.
State police also smelled marijuana and other intoxicants in the vehicle.
Hebblethwaite said he had also consumed alcohol and had smoked marijuana. After performing ﬁeld sobriety exercises at the barracks (due to
weather conditions), Hebblethwaite also told police there was a signiﬁcant
amount of marijuana in the vehicle which he intended to sell. State police
executed a search warrant of the vehicle on Sunday and located a total
weight of 27.2 grams of marijuana, a scale, and plastic sandwich bags.
Most of the marijuana was contained in individual packages ready for
sale.
Hebblethwaite was processed for suspicion of DUI and driving with a
suspended license. Hebblethwaite is scheduled to appear in Orleans
County Court on March 24 at 8:30 a.m. to answer to the charges.
Vt. lawmakers take week
off for Town Meetings
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — It’s the traditional Town Meeting Day
break, when Vermont lawmakers head home to report to their constituents
at annual municipal meetings and rest up for the second half of the legislative session.
This year’s week off comes after lawmakers made progress on child
protection, education, and renewable energy — but are voicing increasing
worries about the state budget.
This past week, the Senate approved legislation designed to strengthen
the state’s system for protecting children from abuse and neglect. The
legislation follows the deaths of two toddlers last year.
Efforts to reform school governance and slow education spending
growth reached an early milestone with approval of a bill Thursday by
the House Education Committee. And the full House endorsed a renewable energy bill.
Community trying to cope
with fewer police ofﬁcers
SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The police department in South
Burlington, Vermont, is trying to cope with some vacancies.
The Burlington Free Press reports (http://bfpne.ws/1K8b2g4) since
December, the department has had three ofﬁcers leave their posts for other
opportunities in law enforcement.
Chief Trevor Whipple said the department is authorized to have 42 ofﬁcers. Currently, there are 39, the lowest ever.
But Whipple says a brand new ofﬁcer with no experience wouldn’t be
able to start working until 2016.
He says the department probably gets 30 or 40 applications each week,
but only one or two of those applicants is usually qualiﬁed.
Man charged with manslaughter
in stabbing due in court
WESTMINSTER, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont man charged with
manslaughter in the weekend stabbing death at a Westminster home is
scheduled to be in court.
Police said 38-year-old Lonnie Place of Westminster was expected to
answer the charge Monday afternoon. He was held without bail following
his arrest.
Police said they found 37-year-old Michael Johnson of Bellows Falls
lying on the ﬂoor at one of the residences at the Shady Pine Mobile Home
Park in Westminster early Saturday. Johnson was unresponsive and police
saw he was suffering from a chest wound. He was later pronounced dead.
The Associated Press sought comment on the charges from Place, but
could not immediately verify whether he had a listed phone number or
an attorney.
Gov. Shumlin says he’ll stand by
Vermont veterans’ home
BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Gov. Peter Shumlin says he’s going
to stand by the Vermont Veterans’ Home in Bennington.
The governor’s comments come even though closing the home is
included on a list of proposed budget cuts released last week by his
administration.
The list of possible budget cuts, designed to save $29 million if
enacted, also include closing the 100-bed prison in Windsor, divesting some state parks and eliminating funding for the state historical
society and arts council.
The cuts are designed to close a $113 million budget gap in the
next ﬁscal year.
The Bennington Banner reported Shumlin says he believes veterans deserve respect and just because closing the home has been suggested, it doesn’t mean it will happen.
CALEDONIAN Black Cyan Magenta Yellow
THE REcORD • TuESDAY, MARcH 3, 2015
A3
LOCAL
THANKS BRUCE
ST. JOHNSBURY
PLEA DEAL FOR N.H. MAN WHO FLED STATE WITH TEEN
By todd WellinGton
Staff Writer
cOuRTESY PHOTO
Retiring St. Johnsbury School Director Bruce Corrette, left, shares a laugh with former School
Board Chairman Werner Heidemann at a reception held at the St. Johnsbury School Monday
night. Corrette was honored for his 23 years of service on the board.
ST. JOHNSBURY
ST. J RELAY FOR LIFE PREPPING FOR BIG CHANGES
Switching To A
Single Day Event
By tayloR Reed
Staff Writer
The 11th annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life in St.
Johnsbury on June 6th is poised for
a radical procedural change expected to draw far more participants.
“This year it’s very different because the relay is going to go from
noon to midnight,” said lead organizer Fred Laferriere. “It is not
going to be an overnight affair.”
The 10 preceding relays began
on a Saturday afternoon and concluded Sunday morning. Partici-
pants often camped in tents or
RVs.
Last year’s relay raised approximately $170,000 and included
700 participants, Laferriere said.
He predicts attendance in June will
far surpass that considering the
time change and this year’s elimination of a $10 registration fee.
“So, with no registration fee and
the new hours, it’s just going to be
a bigger relay,” Laferriere said.
“I’m really excited about that.”
Traditionally, relays around the
world were overnight events, Laferriere said. The cancer society
though is permitting single day
events this year, he said.
Local relay planning begins this
week. An annual kickoff meeting
is scheduled for Saturday, March
7, at 5:30 p.m. at the Elks Lodge
on Western Avenue in St. Johnsbury.
It includes the meeting and festivities.
“We let everybody know what’s
going on,” Laferriere said. “Then
we make a party out of the kickoff.
We have music there. We’re all
about partying.”
Relay captains are invited to attend the kickoff. Everybody is welcome though.
“Anybody interested in coming
can be there,” Laferriere said.
The June relay occurs at the St.
Johnsbury Academy track. This
year’s theme is “Relay All Year
Round.”
As such, the relay will include
theme hours. That means hourlong themes like Christmas and
Halloween, Laferriere said.
A New Hampshire man accused
of ﬂeeing the state with an underage
teenage girl last year reached agreement with prosecutors to resolve the
charges against him.
Judge Robert Bent approved the
plea deal for Matthew Keene, 24, of
Stark, N.H. in Caledonia Superior
Court Friday but did not issue a sentence yet because he wants Keene to
undergo a pre-sentencing investigation and psycho-sexual evaluation
ﬁrst.
Caledonia Superior Court
Police said a records check
showed Keene was convicted of sexual assault on a 12-year-old girl in
December 2009 in Connecticut and
is listed on the Connecticut sex offender registry.
“I want a PSI and a psycho-sexual,” said Bent. “Just given the history.”
The plea deal also resolves two
other cases pending against Keene
including simple assault by striking
Samantha Billings in the face on Oct.
19, 2014, in St. Johnsbury and violating conditions of release on Oct.
11, 2014.
Keene pleaded guilty to simple assault, unlawful restraint, false information to a police ofﬁcer and
violating conditions of release in exchange for a sentence of 1-5 years,
all suspended except for six months
with credit for time served. The state
dismissed charges of failure to com-
PHOTO BY TODD WELLINGTON
Matthew Keene, right, in Caledonia Superior Court with defense attorney Doug Willey Friday.
ply with the requirements of the sex
offender registry and unlawful sheltering as part of the plea agreement.
Before reaching an agreement
with prosecutors Keene had been
facing a possible sentence of up 10
years and six months in prison if convicted on all the charges against him.
According to court documents, the
mother of a 16-year-old Kirby resident called police on the morning of
March 29, 2014, saying her daughter
was missing and that she believed the
girl had climbed out of her bedroom
window overnight and was now with
Keene.
The girl’s mother also told police
that she had forbidden her daughter
from having a relationship with
Keene due to their age difference.
Investigators tracked Keene’s cell
phone signal as he drove through
Connecticut, Virginia and North Carolina until police in Chowan County,
N.C., stopped his car later that night
and reported back to Vermont authorities that the girl was with him.
Keene waived extradition and was
brought back to Vermont for arraignment. A North Carolina law enforcement ofﬁcial told investigators that
Keene’s ultimate destination was an
undisclosed location in the state of
Florida.
ORLEANS VILLAGE
ST. JOHNSBURY
ARREST WARRANT ISSUED 11 DAYS AFTER ESCAPE
By todd WellinGton
Staff Writer
Police are looking for a Hardwick man who ﬂed his court ordered furlough residence in
downtown St. Johnsbury.
Caledonia Superior Court
An arrest warrant was issued in
Caledonia Superior Court on Thursday for Daniel Steven Shea, 41, 11
days after he was ﬁrst reported
missing from the Covered Bridge
Therapeutic Community at 184
Pearl St. in St. Johnsbury. Shea had
been living at Covered Bridge after
being released from prison on furlough to continue serving a sentence
for burglary and violating conditions of release in the community.
Bail was set by Judge Robert Bent
at $250.
According to an afﬁdavit ﬁled by
Department of Corrections Community Corrections Ofﬁcer Scott
Melvin, he was contacted by Covered Bridge Staff Member Jay
Mello at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 15 and
advised that Shea had left the premises and told no one where he was
going. Melvin reported Shea’s disappearance to (probation and parole
supervisor) Lynn Bushey and issued
a “Be On The Lookout” notice for
Shea to the St. Johnsbury Police Department.
Melvin said Shea had still not returned to Covered Bridge the following afternoon putting him in
violation of his court ordered 6 p.m.
to 6 a.m. curfew.
“I called CPS Bushey and it was
decided that if I had not heard from
Shea by 5:30 p.m., I would assem-
ble escape paperwork,” wrote
Melvin in his report. “At approximately 5:45 p.m., I called the Northeast Regional Correctional Facility
and they advised they had no one by
the name of Daniel Shea. I called
SJPD (St. Johnsbury Police) and
they advised they had not encountered Shea. I began assembling the
escape paperwork on Daniel Shea.”
According to the afﬁdavit,
Melvin then checked the furlough
answering machine and log book at
the St. Johnsbury probation and parole ofﬁces about 8 p.m. and found
no messages from Shea.
The escape charge was ﬁled by
prosecutors in Caledonia Superior
Court on Feb. 19. If convicted of
felony escape Shea faces a possible
sentence of up to ﬁve years in prison
and $1,000 in ﬁnes.
PHOTO BY JENNIFER HERSEY cLEvELAND
Kimball Johnson got a zoning permit to set up a light manufacturing and fabrication business
in the building currently occupied by the Vermont Highland Cattle Company (foreground). In
the background is the Vermont Beef Jerky plant on Industrial Park Lane in Orleans Village.
MANUFACTURING PLANT GETS ZONING PERMIT
By JennifeR heRSey
Cleveland
Staff Writer
ORLEANS VILLAGE — The
Barton Planning Commission and
Zoning Board of Adjustment gave
a thumbs-up to a plant on Industrial Park Lane in Orleans Village.
Kimball Johnson of KPC Hold-
Black Cyan Magenta Yellow
ings, LLC, sought the permit for a
light manufacturing and fabrication plant at the existing Vermont
Highland Cattle Company meat
processing plant.
Johnson, of Westmore, was contacted by phone, but declined to
comment on the project.
According to the notice of decision, the single-story building
comprises 5,600 square feet on
2.89 acres. The business will use
existing waste water and electric
through the village and has its own
drilled well.
Johnson expects to employ nine,
but might expand, and expects two
trailer trucks per week loading and
unloading. The parking and turnaround areas were deemed sufﬁcient by the commission and
board.
CALEDONIAN Black Cyan Magenta Yellow
A4
THE REcORD • TuESDAY, MARcH 3, 2015
Todd M. Smith, Publisher
OPINION
Dana Gray, Executive Editor
Editorial Comment …
Turn Out For
Town Meeting
Today is Town Meeting Day in Vermont. The tradition is the oldest,
most democratic political process in our country – dating back to the
ﬁrst meeting, in 1633 Dorchester, Mass.
It’s a brilliant and simple process. State your name. Speak your mind.
Discuss. Debate. Vote.
The tradition is as near to Madisonian democracy as you’ll ﬁnd anywhere in the world. As Professor James Mayerfeld, of University of
Washington, explains:
‘Madisonian democracy’ is an engagement to hold one another accountable in a shared project of crafting and enacting policy – understood not as an ‘invisible hand’ mechanism for channeling self-interest
toward the common good, but as a means of harnessing moral impulses
that are distributed among the citizenry at large. Checks and balances
are the core of a civic ethic that extends beyond inter-branch relations
and federalist arrangements to the construction of civil society and the
activity of voting. Popular political participation is essential, but not
on the voluntarist grounds that have come to dominate democratic theory. For Madison, as for the ancient Athenians, participation is put into
the service of accountability. In democracy rightly understood, citizens
reinforce and enhance one another’s efforts to comply with justice.”
The process requires participation and provides accountability. Henry
David Thoreau pretty well summed up the wonder of it when, in 1854,
he said:
“I am more and more convinced that, with reference to any public
question, it is more important to know what the country thinks of it than
what the city thinks. The city does not think much. On any moral question, I would rather have the opinion of Boxboro than of Boston and
New York put together. When the former speaks, I feel as if somebody
had spoken, as if humanity was yet, and a reasonable being had asserted its rights — as if some unprejudiced men among the country’s
hills had at length turned their attention to the subject, and by a few
sensible words redeemed the reputation of the race. When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town-meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing the land,
that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is
ever assembled in the United States.”
In that spirit, get out there and get governing.
Ann Coulter
For death by
ISIS you have
to go out;
illegal aliens
deliver!
You can always tell the media
are hiding something when they
obsessively focus on Muslim
atrocities someplace else in the
world. Cable TV could cover
Muslim atrocities 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, from 632 A.D.
to the end of time, without repeating themselves.
For at least a year after 9/11, I
used to turn on the TV, and if I saw
a “Survivor” contestant, I’d think,
“Good. No news.” These days, I
turn on the TV, and if I see former
U.N. ambassador John Bolton, I
think, “Good. No news.”
By now, the public knows more
about ISIS than they know about
the Kardashians. But it has no idea
that the very same Senate Democrats who claimed to oppose
Obama’s amnesty when they were
campaigning are currently ﬁlibustering a bill to defund it, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell is ready to cave.
ISIS has killed four Americans
— in Syria. We’re not exactly
talking about another 9/11. Here’s
a tip: If you don’t want to be killed
by ISIS, don’t go to Syria.
Meanwhile, illegal aliens have
killed, raped and maimed thousands of Americans — in America. If you don’t want to be killed,
raped or maimed by illegal immigrants in your own country, I have
no tips for you. There’s nothing
you can do. You’re on your own.
Good luck.
Our politicians don’t care. They
are obsessed with cleaning up the
rest of the world, while we’re getting our clock cleaned at home.
Americans are at greater risk of
being killed by Joran van der Sloot
than by ISIS, since a lot more of
us vacation in Aruba, as Natalee
Holloway did, than in Syria. So
why doesn’t Sen. John McCain
drone on, day after
day, Joran van der
Sloot is winning.
We’re neither degrading nor destroying Joran van der
Sloot.
With the media’s
Soviet-style censorship about immigrant crime, unless a member
of your immediate family has
been killed by an illegal alien, you
might not have noticed the growing death toll, but here are some
small, below-the-fold local news
items just from the last two weeks.
On Monday of this week,
Jaime Balam, an illegal alien from
Mexico, appeared in court in San
Francisco to face charges that he
shot three American college students, one fatally, because they
happened to be wearing the wrong
colors. “I would never expect
something like this to happen in
my life,” the murder victim’s father said. “These guys, they destroyed my life, me and family, for
nothing.”
Also this week, Juan Javier
Mejia was captured in Mexico and
returned to the U.S. to face
charges that he and his halfbrother, Abram Daniel Palacios,
gunned down Ivan Carrillo in San
Jacinto, California. Mejia has previous convictions in this country
for rape and assault with intent to
commit rape and burglary, while
his half-brother Palacios has prior
convictions for narcotics possession, criminal threats and spousal
battery.
Also just this week, jury selection began in the trial of illegal
alien Dora Ramirez, who, along
with her illegal alien husband,
Ulises Arturo Reyes Mercado, is
alleged to have lured her lover to
a rural area of Alabama, where
they shot him in the head, execution-style, then ﬂed back to Mexico. Ramirez later returned to live
in Decatur, Alabama, with her illegal alien parents, while Mercado
is presumably still in Mexico, eagerly awaiting his “family reuniﬁSee Coulter, Page A5
In My Opinion…
REALITY CHECK FOR THE DO-EVERYTHING STATE
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees are struggling valiantly to report a balanced
General Fund budget for Fiscal
Year 2016. The presently estimated shortfall is about $130 million, eight percent of the proposed
General Fund budget. This is a result of the chronic tendency of legislatures to ﬁnd ever more things
to spend money on, and state revenues currently coming in well
under the projections of funds
available.
Raise taxes? It was eight years
ago that the present governor declared, repeatedly, that “Vermont
has no remaining tax capacity.”
This year Gov. Shumlin’s proposal
for a 0.7 percent payroll tax is getting a “less than lukewarm” reception in House Ways and Means.
Even some of the Legislature’s
most liberal members are gun shy
about levying any signiﬁcant tax
increases.
With no ability to print money
to cover looming deﬁcits, no realistic prospect of “stimulus” payments from Washington, and little
or no prospect for increasing the
tax burden, it is now crunch time
in Montpelier.
The appropriators are always
tempted to raid funds and revenue
ﬂows to get to the goal of a balanced budget. The most tempting
targets are the annual contributions
to the state employees’ and teachers’ retirement funds. But these
two funds are now $3.2 billion out
of actuarial balance – the result of
years of legislative underfunding.
Raiding another tempting target
formed?” Some easy an– the $300 million earswers are: payment of
marked for transfer to the
interest on the state’s
Education Fund – clearly
debt, maintaining a Legmeans higher school
islature and an indeproperty taxes. But the
pendent
judiciary,
Legislature and governor
holding biennial elechave raised the two
tions, preventing the
school property tax
spread of infectious
rates four years in a
By John
diseases, and bringing
row, and taxpayers are
MCClauGhRy
lawbreakers to justice.
howling about it.
This question imSo the appropriations committees are now in plies that some limits must be put
“shave here, squeeze there, post- on what state government sees itpone here” mode. That calls forth self as responsible for achieving.
Gov. Shumlin has installed a
urgent lobbying pressure from
every interest dependent on tax- “Results Based Accountability
payer funding, chanting: “not us, System” under a very capable
not now”. Among the loudest is Chief Performance Ofﬁcer. But it
the state employee’s union, which is not that ofﬁcer’s job to decide
has already told Gov. Shumlin that what the sprawling agencies of
it won’t accept any reductions in government are supposed to do.
She will press them to adopt
pay or beneﬁts.
The likely result of all this is a strategic plans and choose measurshakily “balanced” budget, where able indicators (“metrics”) for
the statutes still require state agen- needed outcomes. That’s to the
cies and their galaxy of nonproﬁt good.
But a perusal of the Act that cresatellites to run the same programs
and enforce the same laws, but ated her position (Act 186 of
2014) shows the limitless breadth
with less money.
There is always some prospect of desired outcomes. The state
of doing that by “streamlining” must see to it that “Vermonters are
agency operations, but those “low healthy. Vermont’s environment is
hanging fruit” opportunities have clean and sustainable. Vermont’s
shrunk. One can’t help but sympa- families are safe, nurturing, stable,
thize with state employees who are and supported. Children succeed
told they must do as much but with in school. Youths choose healthy
behaviors,” and on and on.
less.
Every imaginable interest seems
What should – but never does –
happen is for the governor and to have pushed its concerns into
Legislature to address the underly- this law’s long list of outcomes
ing question: “which functions and and metrics. Can the Chief Perservices of state government must formance Ofﬁcer produce these rebe maintained and effectively per- sults? Of course not. She can only
press the agencies to organize and
work effectively to get the required results. Unlimited outcomes
require
unlimited
resources.
Legislators should use this
budget crisis to initiate a full scale
Performance Review, conducted
by public spirited appointees independent of the interests at stake. It
would propose that the Legislature
adopt a short list of essential core
functions, and jettison the present
long list of open-ended and unattainable outcomes. We simply
can’t raise enough tax dollars to
assure that all “youths choose
healthy behaviors.”
The Vermont Democratic Platform of 2004 boldly pledged a
“top-to-bottom ‘performance review’ of the functions of state government… to ﬁnd creative, smart
new ways to make government run
more efﬁciently on the resources
we have.” (The Democratic candidate didn’t win the election, so
they promptly shelved the idea.)
That kind of review, courageously performed over three to
ﬁve years, is the only hope for reducing state government to a level
that Vermonters can actually pay
for without crippling their economy, endangering the state’s bond
rating, driving out the most productive people, and absorbing Vermont’s once-free citizens into the
embrace of an increasingly less
solvent do-everything State.
John McClaughry, a former
member of the House and Senate,
is vice president of the Ethan Allen
Institute (www.ethanallen.org).
Letters to the Editor…
22 cents a week
to the editor:
Twenty-two cents a week. Remember that number.
The Littleton Public Library
Board of Trustees, which was
elected to determine the needs of
the library and present them to the
Town, has proposed three Articles
on the 2015 Town Warrant for
Town Meeting.
Article 30 would cost the average Littleton residential taxpayer
$1.95.
Article 31 would cost the average Littleton residential taxpayer
$6.75.
Article 32 would cost the average Littleton residential taxpayer
$2.85.
The annual cost to the average
Littleton residential taxpayer of
all three articles combined is
$11.55 - or 22 cents per week.
Twenty-two cents a week is
what it would cost the average
Littleton household to replace the
library’s 106-year-old sewer connection and restore the basement
restrooms, to restore a full-time librarian position eliminated in previous budget cuts, and to add a
modest amount to our emergency
repair fund in anticipation of inevitable costly repairs, such as re-
placement of our aged heating
boiler.
How small a cost is 22 cents a
week? 22 cents is one-seventh the
cost of a small Dunkin Donuts
coffee. You would have to save 22
cents per week for seven weeks to
have enough money to buy a
small regular coffee at Dunkin
Donuts! Twenty-two cents is not a
large sum.
Library staff and trustees have
pared expenses to the bone. The
library needs your help to continue to provide the valuable services it brings to the people of
Littleton.
Twenty-two cents a week. For a
whole household.
Please vote “YES” on Articles
30, 31 and 32 on March 10.
Jan Edick, Trustee
Littleton Public Library
Littleton, N.H.
Not even close
to the Truth!
to the editor:
The title of the Caledonian editorial on Feb 12 was correct. The
Internet already is neutral. But
things went downhill from there.
For anyone who finds the issue of
Net Neutrality confusing, there is
an excellent article in a recent Sci-
Black Cyan Magenta Yellow
entific American, “Net Neutrality
in a Nutshell,” which explains it
very clearly. The editor’s assertion
that President Obama and the
FCC are trying to take over the Internet is so off base, it’s laughable!
In 2011, the FCC ruled that Internet providers must treat all Web
traffic equally and give consumers
equal access to all lawful content.
In other words, the Internet would
be treated as any public utility.
Verizon sued the FCC in 2011,
and argued the rules are an excessive, “arbitrary and capricious” intrusion which violates the
company’s right to free speech,
stripping it of control over what
its networks transmit and how.
Companies like Verizon, AT&T
and Comcast want to create Internet “fast lanes” because that
would (surprise!) increase profits.
President Obama and the FCC
are NOT trying to take over the
Internet. They are trying to keep it
“neutral” as it currently is so that
everyone has equal access. No
special treatment (fast lanes) for
large corporations that can afford
to pay extra.
Here’s an example most of us
can identify with. We have public
schools. All children have the
same access to public education.
Parents cannot decide their children deserve better and pay teachers an extra few thousand dollars
to put them in “fast lanes.”
The Caledonian editor says “we
trust free market sources to guarantee an open web far more than
we trust the government. To argue
otherwise is to ignore the history
of both.” Oh, yes, those wonderful
free-market sources. So he trusts
the tobacco industry that denied
for 50+ years that smoking cigarettes had any harmful effects. He
trusts the fossil fuel industry that
denies their carbon emissions
have adverse environmental and
health effects. He trusts General
Motors which decided that settling a bunch of wrongful death
suits would be cheaper than fixing
their steering column problem. He
trusts HSBC which admits it laundered money for drug cartels.
These examples don’t even
scratch the surface in terms of the
shenanigans his beloved free-market sources have pulled.
If we want everyone to have
equal access to the Internet, we
need to rely on the government
and not Verizon, AT&T and Comcast who vehemently oppose Net
Neutrality.
Marion Mohri
Wheelock, Vt.
CALEDONIAN Black Cyan Magenta Yellow
THE REcORD • TuESDAY, MARcH 3, 2015
A5
NEW ENGLAND
VERMONT
Program Combines Classes, Work, Leading To Degree And Job
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A
new apprenticeship program aimed
at helping students join the workforce full time while earning credits
toward college degrees is getting underway.
The Institute for American Apprenticeships is the creation of
Burlington College, a small liberal
arts college with about 215 students,
and Vermont HITEC, a nonproﬁt
group that works to ﬁnd and train
unemployed and underemployed
people from Vermont and New
Hampshire. It’s funded by employ-
ers and through grants.
Programs in information technology, advanced manufacturing, allied
health and business services are the
initial focus due to employer needs.
Students begin their educations
with intensive HITEC academic
programs followed by full-time registered apprenticeships, earning
credits and certiﬁcates. Students become full-time employees of the employer-sponsors.
Students are awarded certiﬁcates
after completing 24-30 credits of the
academic programs and are awarded
an additional 21 credits during the
apprenticeships. The students must
then work on their own to earn the
remaining 15 credits that will lead to
associate’s degrees.
Burlington College spokeswoman Coralee Holm said college
ofﬁcials are talking with employers
to see if they’d be willing to help the
students get those ﬁnal credits. If not,
she said, students would have to ﬁnance those credits through traditional sources.
“One of our hopes is that ... an
employer might be willing to take on
those 15 additional credits,” Holm
said.
Vermont HITECH works with
employers to design the job training
programs, which begin periodically.
It screens the students, and then the
companies make the ﬁnal choices
about who will participate in the programs and get full-time jobs if they
successfully complete the programs.
In the 15 years Vermont HITECH
has been in existence it has trained
about 1,500 employees, said Julie
Hegle, one of its principal instructors.
MAINE
Ice Slows Business, Traffic On Northeast Waterways
By PatRiCK Whittle
Associated Press
PORTLAND, Maine — Waterways around the Northeast and the
Midwest are beset by ice more than
a foot thick in some places, making
life miserable for people who make
their living on the water.
Portland resident Scott Werner
said this winter has been “a horror
show” for him and other lobster ﬁshermen. He said the ice has prevented
him from getting his boat out to ﬁsh
in recent weeks, cutting into his ability to make money in the already
slow winter lobster season.
“I’m not going to risk it. I don’t
want to break anything,” Werner
said. “It’s been brutal, but what are
you going to do?”
Iced waterways are a problem in
other Northeast locations, such as off
Boston, where a commuter ferry car-
rying more than 100 passengers got
delayed by about 45 minutes by the
coastal ice pack on Feb. 20. A blanket
of thick ice also has spread across the
Great Lakes for the second consecutive winter, posing hardships for
shippers and crews aboard Coast
Guard icebreaking vessels but creating spectacular scenery along shorelines.
In New York, the Coast Guard is
cutting ice on the Hudson River so
barges carrying heating oil, gasoline
and jet fuel can reach their destinations. The thickest ice is in the area
of Germantown and Hudson, north
of New York City. In some spots the
ice is a foot and a half thick, Coast
Guard ofﬁcials said.
“The barges traveling from New
York City to Albany have the most
difﬁcult time transiting through that
one area, so that’s where the Coast
Guard is devoting its effort to keep
clean,” Coast Guard Lt. Ken Sauerbrunn said.
As of Sunday night on the Great
Lakes, 88.3 percent of the inland
seas’ surface area had frozen, according to the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Laboratory in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. The ice cover topped out
at 92.2 percent last winter, narrowly
missing the record of 94.7 percent set
in 1979.
It was the coldest February on
record in Portland, according to National Weather Service records that
go back to 1940. The frigid temperatures froze more than 10 lobster ﬁshing boats in ice off Portland, said Bill
Needelman, the city’s waterfront coordinator. Fewer ﬁshermen have
been able to pursue key food ﬁsh
such as haddock and pollock, which
has cut into landings at the city’s ﬁsh
pier and lessened activity at the Portland Fish Exchange auction, he said.
The ice also is causing damage to
piers and could contribute to erosion,
Needelman said. He said this year’s
ice likely will take a heavy toll on
waterfront infrastructure in the city.
“It’s a highly destructive force,
and we can anticipate that there will
be a lot of maintenance needs and repair needs,” he said.
The Coast Guard experienced two
weeks in February when its ice-cutting tug, Shackle, was out cutting ice
every day, Chief Warrant Ofﬁcer
Bob Albert said. Cutting was needed
in Portland Harbor, the Fore River
and parts of Casco Bay to allow for
petroleum deliveries and for commuter ferries and ﬁshing vessels to
traverse the waterways, he said.
“The demand for ice breaking this
year has exceeded any demands that
have been placed on the Coast Guard
at any time in the last 10 years,” Albert said.
MASSACHUSETTS
State May Offer Thousands Early Retirement; Layoffs Possible
By BoB SalSBeRG
Associated Press
BOSTON — Thousands of state
employees could receive incentives
to retire early under a proposal Gov.
Charlie Baker hopes will help plug
a sizeable deﬁcit in the next state
budget, the administration conﬁrmed Monday.
The governor’s ofﬁce is hoping
about 4,500 workers will opt for
early retirement, saving the state
about $178 million, according to
Kristen Lepore, secretary of Administration and Finance. Those eligible for the program would be
required to sign up between April 6
and May 29.
“We need to get to this number
quickly,” Lepore said, adding the
alternative to a successful early retirement program would be layoffs.
Baker planned to ﬁle a bill on
Wednesday, the same day the Re-
Coulter
continued from Page A4
cation” under Obama.
Last Friday, Feb. 21, Margarita
Garabito was convicted in the brutal
beating death of her 10-year-old stepdaughter. When the girl was found,
she had an open 7-inch wound on her
skull, all her ribs had been broken
and her body was covered with
bruises. Or, as Garabito said —
through a Spanish interpreter —
“God knows I have a good heart.”
Well, I think that goes without saying, Margarita.
The day before that, on Feb. 20,
Bassel Saad, the Lebanese immigrant
who killed John Bieniewicz at a soccer game in Livonia, Michigan, last
year, pleaded guilty to involuntary
publican submits his proposed
budget to the Democratic-controlled Legislature for the ﬁscal
year beginning July 1.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation, a budget watchdog
group, has said that a gap of about
$1.5 billion likely exists between
anticipated revenues and the spending that would be required to maintain current program levels in the
budget.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo
sounded a skeptical note about the
early retirement proposal when
asked about it Monday following a
private meeting with Baker and
Senate President Stanley Rosenberg.
“I can remember there have been
a number of early retirement plans
… that we have looked at in the
past and decided that it was not in
our best ﬁscal interest to do this,”
said DeLeo.
He did not, however, rule out
consideration of the governor’s
plan, saying the House would wait
to see the speciﬁc details of it.
Lawmakers would have to act on
the bill within the next several
weeks for it to take effect in time for
sign-ups to begin in April and the
savings to be realized in the next
ﬁscal year.
The program would be available
to executive branch employees who
are at least 55 or have accrued 20
years of service. But workers could
also qualify by adding ﬁve years to
age or length of service, or some
combination of those two factors,
Lepore said. For example, someone
who is 52 with 18 years of service
could apply.
The administration estimates that
about 20 percent of the jobs that become vacant through early retirement would be reﬁlled, resulting in
the net $178 million in savings.
One potential concern was how
the program would affect the state’s
pension system.
“I look forward to reviewing the
details of the governor’s proposal,
keeping in mind the impact it will
have on our unfunded pension liability and potential effect on the
state’s bond rating,” said state
Treasurer Deb Goldberg, a Democrat who oversees the state retirement board.
Baker has ruled out new taxes,
but Lepore said the budget would
include other approaches toward
closing the projected shortfall.
“This is one of many new tools
and spending solutions that we will
be announcing,” she said, adding
the administration hoped to avoid
cuts that would impact core state
government services.
One proposal calls for an
amnesty program for taxpayers
who have tax obligations in Massachusetts but have never ﬁled in the
state. Baker anticipates the measure
to generate $100 million.
manslaughter.
Last Tuesday, Feb. 17, illegal alien
Juan Ramon Garcia tried to run over
a U.S. Border Patrol agent with his
car, according to authorities. Garcia
had ﬁve more illegal aliens in his vehicle. He’s charged with assault on a
federal ofﬁcer, human smuggling
and impersonating Suge Knight.
The previous week, on Feb. 11, illegal immigrant Ricardo Picasso was
sentenced to 139 years in prison for
murdering 25-year-old Eric Reyes at
a house party in Lindsay, California.
His lawyer is pretty sure he can get
that down to just a century.
On Feb. 6, the same day that ISIS
killed Kayla Mueller — the most recent American to be killed in a country thousands of miles away from
here — 17-year-old Jacob Koffman
was stabbed to death in a residential
area of Sherman Oaks, California.
Police arrested Ennio Avolio and are
still looking for two other Hispanic
men who were seen ﬂeeing the crime
scene.
ISIS is not at our doorstep. Illegal
immigrants are not only at our
doorstep, but millions of them are already through the door, murdering
far more Americans than ISIS ever
will.
Sometimes people don’t want to
be cleaning up the rest of the world.
Lenin seized power from Russia’s
provisional leader, Alexander Kerensky, in 1917, because Kerensky
would not stop ﬁghting wars. By
promising peace, Lenin won such
widespread support from exhausted
Russians that the Bolsheviks were
able to overthrow the government in
less than a day.
That’s what a lot of Americans
thought they were voting for last November. Couldn’t we please focus on
Americans for a bit? Can’t a Republican Congress do anything to stop
the surge of foreign criminals,
viruses and parasites crossing our
border? Will politicians ever stop
gassing on about what’s happening
7,000 miles away and worry about
us?
But politicians and the media only
want to give us war, while aiding the
enemy in the war we’re already in,
here at home.
© 2015 ANN cOuLTER
REGION
BRIEFS
Vermont VA to make some
veterans’ stories part of record
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, Vt. (AP) — Vermont’s only veterans’ hospital is going to be joining six other Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals in making the life stories of some veterans a part of their medical
record.
The program, called “My Life, My Story,” was started by the VA Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, two years ago. The program is being expanded
with help from a grant from the VA Ofﬁce of Patient Centered Care.
Madison VA therapist Thor Ringler says the stories are a way to connect
providers with veterans over something that’s real and meaningful.
Project staff and volunteers conduct the interviews. They then review it
with the veteran and, with veteran approval, add the story to the veteran’s
medical record.
Group that encourages education,
jobs, honors Shaheen
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is being honored
by the New Hampshire Jobs for America’s Graduates.
The group encourages the success of young people in the state by reducing school dropouts and promoting educational success.
The group is giving its leadership award to Shaheen on Monday in Concord for her dedication to improving the lives of New Hampshire Youth.
Jobs for America’s Graduate’s goal is to assist students with completing
their high school diploma or GED and provide skills to be used in the workplace.
N.H. bills would increase, eliminate
domestic violence funding
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire lawmakers are considering
competing bills to either increase or eliminate funding to help victims of
domestic violence.
A marriage license currently costs $45, with $7 going to towns and cities
and $38 to a domestic violence grant program.
The House Ways and Means Committee is holding a public hearing
Monday on a bill that would increase the fee to $50 and send $43 to the
grant program.
Meanwhile, the full House will be voting Wednesday on whether to send
the $38 that now goes to the domestic violence program into in the general
fund instead. That bill also would allow the state to accept grants and donations to help domestic violence victims.
The House Finance Committee recommends killing that bill, saying it
would leave vulnerable victims less protected.
Report: climate change to have
increasing effect on Maine
ORONO, Maine (AP) — A University of Maine report about the effect
of climate change on the state of Maine says environmental changes due
to a warmer climate will accelerate here in the coming years.
Professor Ivan Fernandez of the university’s plant, soil and environmental science department is one of the authors of the report.
He says the next 35 years will likely bring as much change to the state’s
climate as the last 100. Fernandez says those changes included about three
degrees in temperature warming, two weeks longer of a growing season
and a sea level rise of about six-tenths of a foot.
Maine Public Broadcasting Network says the report comes ﬁve years
after an initial climate change assessment done at the request of former
Gov. John Baldacci.
Woman: Ex-beau charged in Facebook
killing told me he did it
BANGOR, Maine (AP) — The ex-girlfriend of a man accused of using
Facebook to lure a 15-year-old to her death testiﬁed Monday that he confessed to committing the killing.
Prosecutors accuse Kyle Dube 21, of Orono, of using a phony Facebook
account to kidnap Nichole Cable, of Glenburn, and kill her in May 2013.
Dube and Nichole knew each other, and he intended to stage a kidnapping
of her so he could “ﬁnd” her and look like a hero, police have said. She
died of asphyxiation.
Dube’s ex-girlfriend Sarah Mersinger testiﬁed Monday that he told her
he killed Nichole, WZON-AM reported. She also said Dube covered up
Nichole’s body with leaves and sticks “so they couldn’t see her from the
sky.” Nichole’s body was found in woods after an eight-day search. Prosecutors have said DNA evidence ties Dube to Nichole’s disappearance. His
attorneys have said someone else killed the high school sophomore.
The murder and abduction trial began Feb. 23 and is expected to last a
few more days. Detectives, friends and family members testiﬁed during
the trial’s ﬁrst week.
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St. Johnsbury Registered Voters
The Athenaeum asks for your support.
VOTE FOR BECKY A. BALDAUF
School Board – 3 Year Term
• Four years on St. Johnsbury School Board
• School Board Chair for the last two years
• Parent of four children currently educated in the
St. Johnsbury schools
• Registered Nurse
• Volunteer nurse for St. Johnsbury Rodliff Raiders
• Resident of St. Johnsbury since 2001
I proudly work for our town and our schools and seek
your support to continue to serve on the Board.
Paid for by Becky Baldauf
Town
support
provides
approximately
20%
of our
budget. Wetax
aresupport
extremely
frugal with
The
Athenaeum
relies
on the town
of St.
Johnsbury’s
to provide
these generous
funds.
We
are
here
for
you
and
because
of
you.
Come
and
visit.
approximately 21% of the revenue needed for operations.
Please vote “YES” for our appropriation on Town Meeting Day and help us
Please vote “YES”
for our appropriation on Town Meeting Day and help
to continue to inspire lifelong learning. Thank You.
us to continue
our mission to inspire lifelong learning. Thank You.
Bob Joly, Athenaeum Director; Elinor Levy, Trustee Chair.
PAID FOR BY ST. JOHNSBURY ATHENAEUM
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THE CALEDONIAN-RECORD
A6
webbley
continued from Page A1
started the job this fiscal year.
Webbley had been on administrative leave without pay since
Feb. 17, but school officials did
not publicly divulge that until
Monday. The school board’s
chairman and spokesman Sandy
Hauserman ignored repeated requests for Webbley’s employment status following Webbley’s
Feb. 23 citation to appear in
Caledonia Court on March 23 to
answer the embezzlement
charge.
Webbley has retained St.
Johnsbury attorney David
Sleigh.
School directors on Monday at
the special meeting also appointed co-principal Kerin Hoffman as “interim head of school.”
Hoffman initially uncovered
Webbley’s alleged crime, alerting Superintendent Mathew Forest to suspected thefts from a
school safe.
“I’ve been very impressed
with Kerin Hoffman’s leadership
and her integrity during her time
in Danville,” Forest said.
Based on information from
Hoffman, Forest stationed a surveillance camera in the school
office on Feb. 11, according to
Meeting
continued from Page A1
School Board Chairwoman
Becky Baldauf, Town Manager
John Hall and Assistant Town
Manager David Ormiston.
Bledsoe and Baldauf started
the show by talking about how
things have really improved at
the St. Johnsbury School.
“Things are really moving forward,” said Baldauf.
“I feel there’s a lot of new
ideas, new energy,” said Bledsoe.
Bledsoe said that while the
proposed $15,931,198 spending
plan is up about $317,000 most
of the increase is due to the addition of the new Universal Pre
Kindergarten.
“$240,00 of that is because we
are an early adopter of Universal
Pre K,” said Bledsoe.
Voters will also consider establishing a $100,000 capital improvement reserve for the
Myths
continued from Page A1
across Vermont work toward
merging over the next few years
into large school systems or get
a waiver from the Vermont
Board of Education.
The House bill includes a
statewide cap of 2 percent in perpupil spending, which would
sunset on July 1, 2018, and
would continue small school
grants only for districts that
merge.
The Senate Education Committee reviewed the House bill
Friday. According to VtDigger,
the chairman of the Senate committee, Sen. Ann Cummings,
questioned the complexity of the
bill.
“I just wonder if we’re making
this too complicated,” Cummings said.
On Monday, Castle said he received positive feedback from
the committee, reiterating the
feeling that the House bill is too
convoluted. He said that the state
Agency of Education and the
Board of Education aren’t
staffed or set up to oversee a
massive consolidation envisioned by the House bill.
The Senate committee was
also concerned about unintended
consequences of major overhaul,
Castle said.
In his testimony, Castle talked
about his own supervisory union.
“I wish to debunk the ‘rural
legend’ that schools receiving
small schools grants are always
more expensive than other
schools in Vermont,” Castle testified.
He pointed out that most
school districts in NCSU qualify
for small school grants, and
come in under the statewide av-
Maple
Vermont State Police. On Sunday, Feb. 15, the camera captured Webbley stealing about
$1,500 in cash and checks written to “Danville School,” states
a police affidavit filed as part of
a search warrant request.
The court documents state,
Forest was notified of the theft
by co-principal Hoffman on Feb.
16, reviewed the camera footage
and on Feb. 17 confronted Webbley. Forest placed Webbley on
immediate administrative leave
without pay, he said Monday
night.
School officials notified state
police, which conducted an investigation that included a Feb.
18 search of Webbley’s home in
Danville and his Ford pickup
truck. Police uncovered an envelope labeled “$51-Student Council” inside the truck, indicates
court documents.
Police describe the allegations
in the affidavit used to secure the
search warrant.
“Det. Sgt. Petersen advised a
male subject walks into the office,” it states. “He peeks
around. He then opens the safe.
There are numerous bags on the
top shelf of the safe. The male
subject takes out a bag, looks in,
and puts it back. The male subject does this several times. The
male subject takes a blue bank
bag out of the safe. He turns
slightly so his back is to the
camera. You can see a wad of
bills. He stuffs the wad of bills
in his right pants pocket. His
hand comes out of the pocket
empty. He puts the bag back in
the safe. He closes the safe. He
puts his hand in his right pocket
and leaves.”
School officials between now
and April will develop a plan to
restaff or restructure following
Webbley’s resignation, said Superintendent Forest.
“There will be lots of discussion,” he said.
Otherwise, Forest hopes to
place the case in the past. He
said, “The next step for us is to
really move forward with the
programming in the school and
make sure we don’t miss a beat.”
Webbley formerly worked at
Vergennes Union High School.
In 2011 he was named principal
of the year by the Vermont Principals’ Association.
Webbley is also a former St.
Johnsbury Academy employee,
where he taught English and
coached wrestling from 19871995. Webbley for 3 years during
that
time
coached
Superintendent Forest, a former
Academy wrestler.
Webbley grew up in Passumpsic.
school.
School Director Tony Greenwood said that with the school
getting older the money would
be needed eventually for maintenance and improvements.
“We have to maintain this
place,” said Greenwood.
The school portion of the
meeting ended with the school
board honoring outgoing school
director Bruce Corrette for his
23 years of service.
Corrette told the gathering
that public service had been a
great pleasure for him over the
years.
“The only thing I want to say
is I enjoyed, I enjoy the kids and
I enjoy everyone in the town,”
said Corrette.
St. Johnsbury School Business
Manager Kathy Ducharme was
also honored for her financial
leadership with the school district.
“She is the reason we have
had clean audits for the past couple of years,” said Bledsoe.
Ormiston began the town portion of the meeting by warning
the public to not get the wrong
idea about the proposed budget
which tops $10.5 million but
will be the first town budget to
cover 18 months of services instead of 12 months.
“It’s important to remember
this is an 18 month budget,” said
Ormiston.
Hall briefed the voters on two
bond votes. The first totals
$1,350,000 to replace two
“screw pumps” at the sewer
treatment plant off Bay Street
and the second totals $800,000
to replace and rebury a primary
water main submerged in the
Moose River near Fairbanks
Scales.
“They’re both things that
could go at any time,” said Hall.
“It’s better to deal with them continued from Page A1
with a plan than if we had to go
Despite aiding Baldauf’s camdo it on an emergency basis.”
Voting by Australian ballot is paign, it does not represent an enTuesday at St. Johnsbury School dorsement of Baldauf, Bledsoe said.
“That’s not my job,” Bledsoe said.
from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
“The board is my boss.”
Bledsoe though said Baldauf has
been an excellent school director.
Bledsoe also said she can work efthose who want fewer school fectively with write-in candidate Bud
boards, making it easier to over- Stevens if he wins today.
see education in Vermont.
Baldauf, like Bledsoe, sees no
“The testimony of some harm in securing campaign assisshould be met with a level of tance from a superintendent.
skepticism as they have a per“I had to work and I can’t be on
sonal interest in having fewer the phone doing stuff,” Baldauf said
meetings, fewer board members Monday. “I’m at work. I asked her if
to manage, fewer Annual Statis- she could call the paper and ﬁnd out
tical Reports and fewer audits to their prices for me. She’s not helping
manage. The goal should not be me at all. I don’t even see why this is
fewer units for the sake of fewer an issue.”
units,” Castle said.
Baldauf said she also requested
A consolidated school district Bledsoe help design the campaign
in northern Orleans County with
a $48 million budget, the sum of
all the local budgets, could face
a voter revolt, he warned.
A consolidated school board
would see small schools as “low- continued from Page A1
hanging fruit” to be cut to keep
heritance, made the plea deal at
the rest operating, he said.
He said that there is a “deep Coos Superior Court Monday
failure” to understand Vermont morning during what had been intended as a pre-trial management
and its communities.
conference
for a trial scheduled
“In 1934, in the midst the Delater
this
month.
pression, the Resettlement AdInstead, Nash, who in June
ministration came to Vermont
made
a written confession to poand offered to purchase homelice
that
her attorney in January
steads considered ‘submarginal.’
unsuccessfully
tried to suppress,
Though tempting, this concept
was summarily rejected by Ver- will plead guilty to felony counts
mont leaders of the day,” Castle of interfering with a cemetery or
burial ground, conspiracy to intertestified.
“I do not believe we consider fere and criminal mischief as well
Vermont a submarginal place to as a misdemeanor count of abuse
live. Please do not be too quick of a corpse.
Coos County Attorney John Mcto consider small schools subCormick
was unavailable for commarginal. Please don’t make
them submarginal by starving ment Monday afternoon and it was
undetermined what he will recomthem.
mend
as her sentence.
“Please don’t force goverSentencing
is scheduled for
nance consolidation that will result in closing them. Please May 5.
On Monday afternoon, Melanie
value them as you value this
Nash’s
sister, Susie Nash, who
State and support them. Schools
runs
Nash
Equipment, said she is
are crucial to our communities
and their governance central to relieved the case is at last resolved,
promoting our democratic val- but said the effects will linger.
“It still leaves an impact on
ues,” Castle stated.
you,” said Susie Nash. “Every
time I visit the cemetery, I will be
thinking of this.”
On the night of May 11, 2014,
police said Melanie Nash, 53, of
Beecher Falls, and Michael Day,
38, of Colebrook, were driven to
Colebrook Village Cemetery by
Ginette Dowse, 72, of Columbia,
to dig up the grave of Eddie Nash,
founder of Nash and Sons Equip-
erage for per pupil spending.
North Country Union High
School, a large school, comes in
27th out of 28 union districts
when it comes to per pupil
spending.
He protested the idea that
school districts in rural areas can
easily merge, closing some
schools or consolidating grades.
“Being on a bus for over an
hour is not the kind of equity of
opportunity we need to promote,” Castle said.
“And, without any construction aid to support renovations or
additions, how do schools incorporate substantial numbers from
another community? We have
actually lost ground in recent
years when it comes to cost sharing or state aid for construction.”
Castle noted that two of the
poorer communities, Troy and
Holland, went ahead without
school construction aid to make
needed school renovations.
“Turning small schools grant
into merger grants is a false inducement. The House Education
Committee chair’s comment, ‘I
don’t think any of them should
get a grant if they haven’t made
an effort to merge with their
neighbors’ is ignorant and irresponsible,” Castle said.
Castle called the 2 percent cap
on education payments “a kneejerk” reaction, timed to be heard
at town meeting.
A cap on spending “makes no
sense to reward those who are already spending at high levels
while limiting any of us who
need to spend more to ensure equity of opportunity. It is further
evidence of the lack of understanding of the impact on districts and desire to push
consolidation,” Castle testified.
Castle said the pressure to
consolidate districts is from
TuESDAy, MARCH 3, 2015
continued from Page A1
Sweet tree
Bob Saul, CEO of Sweet Tree
LLC, which is owned by Wood
Creek Capital Management of
Delaware, said his company chose to
set up shop in Vermont because the
state has the best brand of any state
in the nation. Customers recognize
the Vermont brand as being positive,
he said.
“We’re in Vermont, we’re going to
stay in Vermont, and all our sap will
come from Vermont,” Saul said.
Saul spoke with the Orleans
County Record from Massachusetts
Monday, where he said the temperature almost felt like the sap could run
for an hour, at least.
Sweet Tree will have two types of
maple business – producing its own
syrup as well as processing sap from
private sugarbushes that are certiﬁed
to be organic.
Even if the company reaches its
goal of 500,000 taps, the plant will
still have plenty of capacity to boil
sap for other producers, Saul said.
A major upside of working with
Sweet Tree is that the company will
also market the products.
The rumor mill has been active
about this operation, Saul said, but
contrary to what people may have
heard, Sweet Tree is all about helping
producers succeed and make money
off their products. Saul said the company has no interest in monopolizing
and ﬂooding the market and driving
the price down.
Also contrary to rumor, the operation will not be run by a computer.
Saul said they made sure everything
ran mechanically. “The last thing we
would want is a software problem
when you are producing maple
syrup,” Saul said.
The company has 24 full-time employees now, who have already installed tubing to all taps for this
year’s run, but come May and June,
Saul said the company will be hiring
another 16 to 20 people to run more
tubing for next year.
When asked for an estimate of the
number of gallons he expects to pro-
FILE PHOTO
The former Ethan Allen plant in Brighton is the new home of
Sweet Tree, LLC maple syrup products.
duce, Saul said since they haven’t
produced even an ounce yet, he
wouldn’t hazard a guess. But he said
the system is set up to be very efﬁcient, so he’s hoping for a relatively
high yield per tap.
Saul said that depends on the
weather, among other unpredictable
factors. “We’re completely aware of
that.”
Saul is not sure what it would take
to be the biggest producer of syrup in
the world, but he said, to his knowledge, the biggest operations are in
Maine – 300,000 taps – and Vermont
– 140,000 taps. Canadian operations
are smaller, he said.
Saul is no stranger to the Northeast
Kingdom. He’s worked in timberland management and owns land in
several gores himself. Plus, he’s been
visiting the area for at least 30 years.
“I love the place,” Saul said.
Les Industries Bernard and Fils
The Bernard family has been
making maple syrup for more than
200 years, and the company is
owned by ﬁve brothers in the ﬁfth
generation versed in the art of sugar
making, according to its web site.
In Canada, the company has a network of about 2,000 farmers, which
it has maintained more than 50 years,
Letourneau said Monday.
On the U.S. side, the company is
looking to secure the promise of ﬁnished syrup from between 100 and
150 “good-sized” sugar makers in
the Northeast for trucking to its
“maple complex” in Saint-Victor,
Quebec, which is about two and a
half hours from Island Pond, Letourneau said.
That plant, which is the most
modern in the world, according to
Letourneau, has the capacity to send
out four full truckloads of syrup a
day.
Bernard staff gets to know the producers, Letourneau said, and they
have a very good idea of the amount
each farmer will produce each year,
which makes its bulk purchasing easier to manage.
Once the network is secure – and
the Quebec plant hits capacity – the
company is “strongly considering”
locating its U.S. processing plant in
Island Pond, Letourneau said.
Last year, the company bought
250,000 pounds of ﬁnished syrup (or
about 22,500 gallons) from U.S. producers. This year, Bernard hopes to
buy between 500,000 and 1 million
pounds from the U.S. (about 45,000
to 90,000 gallons).
The company is leasing the former
wood-workers plant from the town
of Brighton “for the moment,” Letourneau said. If Bernard chooses to
base U.S. processing in Island Pond,
the company would prefer to purchase the building and then make alterations.
But investments in the building
are probably about ﬁve years off, Letourneau said.
Rather than buying land, tapping
trees and boiling syrup in the Island
Pond area itself, Bernard will offer
long-term purchasing contracts to
farmers.
“If you own something, you take
much better care of it,” he said.
If farmers wish to expand, banks
should ﬁnd less risk involved with a
company like Bernard, which
“moves an awful lot of syrup,” backing the farmer, Letourneau said.
The company, which already services several of the top 20 supermarket chains in the U.S., buys syrup
from farmers year-round, not just in
the spring, Letourneau added.
Campaign
advertisement. Baldauf said it was
motivated by inexperience.
“I’ve never put an ad in the paper
before so I went to somebody who
had that experience,” Baldauf said. “I
used her as a resource because I’ve
never put an ad in the paper and I
knew she had done it in the past.”
Baldauf said she did not seek
Bledsoe’s endorsement.
Stevens, the write-in candidate
challenging Baldauf, is unsurprised
the superintendent assisted a candidate. It is “a little odd,” he said.
“I thought it was interesting but
not surprising,” Stevens said Monday. “Of course Ranny is going to
support existing folks because she’s
used to them. Ranny doesn’t want to
upset the applecart.”
Stevens thinks school directors
allow the superintendent to steer the
school ship. He also thinks the board
needs new blood.
“There hasn’t been enough
change,” he said.
Stevens, if defeated at the polls
today, plans to seek ballot placement
next year, and following years if need
be. Stevens plans to regularly attend
school board meetings as well.
“I will be in that room as much as
possible,” he said.
Stevens has ﬁve children and
works from home as a business development manager for Teradyne in
North Reading, Mass. The company
manufactures and sells semiconductor test equipment.
Stevens announced his write-in
campaign last week.
“There is no underlying attack or
agenda I have to go after anybody,”
he said at the time. “I just want to
help.”
His new wife Jen Hulse works at
St. Johnsbury School as the director
of student support services. Hulse recently resigned and departs June 31
at the ﬁscal year’s close.
Grave
ment.
Melanie Nash held the ﬂashlight
while Day and another man, using
hand tools and bars, smashed the
700-pound concrete lid to the vault
housing the casket, lifted up the
casket and broke it open, damaging the vault and casket beyond repair, said Colebrook police.
Melanie Nash, searching for the
will, then riﬂed through the casket
and clothing of her father and took
from the casket a bottle of vodka,
pack of cigarettes and other items,
said authorities.
The next morning, Colebrook
police found the casket, with Eddie
Nash inside, damaged and with a
hole in the bottom and sitting on
top of the ground between piles of
dirt.
No will was found, said police.
Eddie Nash, who died in December 2004 at the age of 68, has
two daughters, Melanie and Susie,
and two sons, Scott and Chris.
Of Melanie’s quest for the “real
will,” Susie Nash, who was the executor of the will, said, “My father
did the estate planning in 1995 and
the will was part of that estate
planning. Any lawyer will know
that. It says ‘last will and testament.’ All four of us saw a copy of
that when he died, but she would
not accept that. All she had to do
when my father died was sit down,
so it would be all four of us, but
she wouldn’t do it.”
The remains of Eddie Nash have
since been re-interred at the cemetery.
In early January, Dowse pleaded
guilty to a felony count of accom-
plice to criminal mischief and to a
misdemeanor count of conspiracy
to abuse of a corpse. She is scheduled to serve a four-month jail sentence beginning April 1.
Day has also pleaded guilty – to
interfering with a cemetery, conspiracy to interfere, criminal mischief and abuse of a corpse – and
is scheduled to be sentenced this
morning. He faces 2 to 4 years in
N.H. State Prison.
On Feb. 20, after a four-day
trial, jurors acquitted David Grey,
54, of Colebrook, who police
charged with the same three felony
counts and abuse of a corpse
charge for what they alleged was
his involvement in digging up the
grave with Day.
Although implicated by Day,
who took the stand as a state’s witness at Grey’s trial, and by Nash,
who named Grey in her confession
to Colebrook police, Grey’s attorney told jurors there was a fourth
person involved, but it wasn’t
Grey and there was no physical evidence linking him to the grave site
and no confession.
Susie Nash said she is glad the
perpetrators were caught, though
she said she still believes Grey was
part of the foursome and was pinpointed, but didn’t get what he deserved.
In addition to time behind bars,
those pleading guilty will be required to pay $9,200 in restitution,
although Susie Nash said no
amount of money can make up for
what she and her mother, Shirley
Nash, have gone through emotionally.
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A7
NATION & WORLD
Mikulski, longest-serving woman in Congress
and pugnacious advocate, won’t seek 6th term
BALTIMORE (AP) — Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a tough and dogged
daughter of working class Baltimore who rose to become the longest-serving
woman in the history of Congress, said she had one question as she weighed
seeking a sixth term: “Do I spend my time raising money, or do I spend my
time raising hell?”
The 78-year-old Maryland Democrat, who led the powerful Appropriations Committee, announced Monday that she’d decided on the latter approach and would not seek re-election next year when her ﬁfth term ends.
“I don’t want to spend my time campaigning for me,” she said at a news
conference in Fells Point, the now-trendy waterfront neighborhood where
her parents had a grocery store and her immigrant grandparents ran a bakery.
It’s also where Mikulski got her ﬁrst taste of politics leading an effort to stop
an expressway from coming through. “I want to campaign for the people.”
Her announcement opens the way for what could be a raucous ﬁght next
year to replace her in Maryland’s ﬁrst open Senate seat in a decade. Potential
candidates include former governors — Democrat Martin O’Malley and Republican Bob Ehrlich — and current House members, among them Republican Andy Harris and Democrats Chris Van Hollen, Donna Edwards and
Elijah Cummings. Democratic Rep. John Delaney, a wealthy former businessman, made the ﬁrst move, announcing over Twitter that he would explore
the race.
Although Maryland voters lean heavily Democratic, especially in presidential election years, the state elected a Republican governor last fall and
Republicans insist they will compete hard in the Senate race.
Nasdaq Now and Then: As index tops 5,000,
nearing dot-com peak of 2000, what’s changed?
NEW YORK (AP) — The last time the Nasdaq was this high, Bill Clinton
was president, your Internet connection was probably still dial-up and the
iPod, iPhone and iPad didn’t exist.
Fifteen years later the Nasdaq has again closed above 5,000 and is close
to topping its record from the dot-com boom. The index has clawed back,
riding a six-year bull market, and is now 40 points from its all-time closing
high of 5,048.62 reached March 10, 2000.
But this isn’t the Nasdaq of Pets.com and Webvan, when companies were
valued on “cash burn rates” and “eyeballs.”
“Certainly, the Nasdaq at 5,000 conjures up images of a tech bubble,” said
Jack Ablin, chief investment ofﬁcer at BMO Private Bank. “But we’ve had
time for business proﬁts to grow into those crazy expectations 15 years ago.”
As the tech-mania took hold, investors pushed up the prices of all kinds
of internet-related stocks. Some were never proﬁtable and disappeared. Others, like Priceline.com and Amazon, have survived and prospered.
Georgia prepares ﬁrst execution of a woman
in 70 years; inmate had husband murdered
JACKSON, Ga. (AP) — The only woman on Georgia’s death row will
become the ﬁrst female to be executed in 70 years in the state Monday unless
the U.S. Supreme Court or the state parole board steps in with a last-minute
reprieve.
Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, is scheduled to die by injection of pentobarbital at 7 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson for the February 1997 murder
of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner.
The courts found she plotted the stabbing death of her husband by her
boyfriend, Gregory Owen, who will be up for parole in eight years after accepting a life sentence and testifying against her.
Gissendaner would be only the 16th woman put to death nationwide since
the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume in 1976. About 1,400
men have been executed since then, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, the only entity authorized to
commute a death sentence, denied clemency last week, but her lawyers urged
them Monday to reconsider and “bestow mercy” by commuting her sentence
to life without parole.
WORLD BRIEFS
Toronto police: 2 men who built mysterious
tunnel wanted man cave, had no criminal intent
TORONTO (AP) — Two young men who built a mysterious tunnel in
Toronto had no criminal intent, police said Monday. They just wanted a man
cave.
Const. Victor Kwong said tips from the public helped them identify the
two men in their 20s responsible for building the underground chamber near
a Pan Am Games venue. News of the tunnel’s discovery set off a social media
frenzy, with theories of its purpose ranging from zombie hide outs to affordable housing. Kwong said the two men just wanted to have fun and there
was never any danger to public safety.
“It was a place for them to hang out. They started out as goal to make a
cool place and that’s what they did,” Kwong said.
He said investigators checked out their explanation and the case is now
closed. He said the men will not be charged, though they could face a ﬁne.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking to lower tensions, Benjamin Netanyahu
and U.S. ofﬁcials cast their dispute over Iran as a family squabble on Monday,
but the Israeli leader still claimed that President Barack Obama did not —
and could not — understand his nation’s vital security concerns.
“American leaders worry about the security of their country,” Netanyahu
said as he opened a controversial trip to Washington. “Israeli leaders worry
about the survival of their country.”
Netanyahu’s remarks to a friendly crowd at a pro-Israel lobby’s annual
conference amounted to a warm-up act for his address to Congress Tuesday,
an appearance orchestrated by Obama’s political opponents and aimed
squarely at undermining the White House’s high-stakes bid for a nuclear deal
with Iran.
Netanyahu tried to paper over his personal differences with Obama, insisting he was not in Washington to “disrespect” the president and saying
that any reports of the demise of U.S.-Israel ties were “not only premature,
they’re just wrong.”
Still, Netanyahu made clear that he would not hold back in criticizing the
U.S.-led nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Iraq launches large-scale military operation to
recapture Tikrit from Islamic State group
BAGHDAD (AP) — Backed by Iranian-supported Shiite militias, Iraqi
forces launched a large-scale offensive Monday to retake Saddam Hussein’s
hometown from the Islamic State group, the ﬁrst in a series of campaigns to
try to reclaim large parts of northern Iraq from the Sunni extremists.
Previous attempts to capture the symbolic city have failed, and hours into
Monday’s operation, the military said it still hadn’t entered Tikrit, indicating
a long battle lies ahead. Retaking it will help Iraqi forces secure a major supply link for any future operation to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city
which has been under militant rule since June.
State-run Al-Iraqiya television said that forces were attacking from different directions, backed by artillery and airstrikes by Iraqi ﬁghter jets. It said
the militants were dislodged from some areas outside the city, but several
hours into the operation, it gave no additional details.
Tikrit, the provincial capital of Salauhddin province, 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad, fell to the Islamic State group last summer, along
with Mosul and other areas in the country’s Sunni heartland.
U.S. military ofﬁcials have said a coordinated military mission to retake
Mosul will likely begin in April or May and involve up to 25,000 Iraqi troops.
But the Americans have cautioned that if the Iraqis aren’t ready, the offensive
could be delayed.
Feds Want Boat Panels Brought To Court To Show Tsarnaev Note
BOSTON — Prosecutors want
panels of the boat in which Boston
Marathon
bombing
suspect
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found hiding to be brought to court to show jurors what they say is his written
confession, but his lawyers want
them to see the entire bullet-ridden
boat.
Prosecutors have said Tsarnaev
scrawled the motive for the deadly
attack inside the boat. They say he referred to U.S. wars in Muslim countries and wrote, “Stop killing our
innocent people and we will stop.”
Tsarnaev’s older brother had been
killed hours earlier during a shootout
with police, but Tsarnaev escaped
and was captured, bloodied and
wounded, inside a boat parked in a
backyard in suburban Watertown.
During a ﬁnal pretrial hearing
Monday, Tsarnaev attorney William
Fick objected to the plan to bring
pieces of the boat to court and suggested instead the whole boat. He argued the jury would be seeing the
writing out of context if the panels
were brought into the courtroom. To
see the whole boat would allow the
jury to imagine Tsarnaev lying inside
“much like someone lying in a crypt
making those writings,” Fick said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William
Weinreb argued it would be impractical to bring the boat to the courthouse and there are photographs of it
that can be shown to the jury. He sug-
gested the defense wants the jury to
see the boat, which contains bullet
holes, blood stains and broken glass,
to gain sympathy for Tsarnaev.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers also asked
Judge George O’Toole Jr. to exclude
autopsy photos of the three people
killed in the bombings, which injured
more than 260 others.
“These are highly sensitive, highly
disturbing images,” said attorney
Miriam Conrad.
She said the defense will not dispute how the victims died.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadine Pellegrini said prosecutors have
to prove the victims died from the
use of a weapon of mass destruction,
among the charges against Tsarnaev.
She said the full-body autopsy photos are necessary because they show
all the wounds.
The judge did not immediately
rule on the motions.
The defense later ﬁled a fourth
motion to move the trial, asking the
court to stop jury selection, which is
expected to be completed Tuesday.
The lawyers acknowledged their
three earlier requests have been denied but said they want to complete
the record of their opposition now
that 75 people have been potentially
qualiﬁed.
The defense said 48 of those qualiﬁed said on their questionnaires they
believe Tsarnaev is guilty and/or
have connections to the marathon
bombing. Prosecutors countered the
defense characterization of the questionnaire data was “erroneous” and
said many of the connections jurors
TOWN OF DANVILLE
REQUEST FOR BIDS
WINTER FIREWOOD
The Selectboard of the Town of Danville is requesting bids for 24 cords of log length
firewood. The wood must be delivered to the Town Garage at 448 Peacham Road in
Danville before 6/1/15. Wood must be Northern Hardwoods with no Aspens or White
Birch included. Wood must not exceed 24 inches in diameter. Bids can be mailed to
Town of Danville, PO Box 183, Danville, VT 05828 attention firewood bid or hand delivered in a sealed envelope to the Town Clerk’s Office on or before 3:00 pm on
Thursday, March 5th. Bids will be opened at the regular meeting of the Selectboard
at 6:00 pm. The Board has the right to refuse any or all bids. Questions can be directed to Keith at 684-3362.
CAIRO (AP) — Three British schoolgirls believed to have gone to Syria
to become “jihadi” brides. Three young men charged in New York with plotting to join the Islamic State group and carry out attacks on American soil. A
masked, knife-wielding militant from London who is the face of terror in
videos showing Western hostages beheaded.
They are among tens of thousands of Muslims eager to pledge allegiance
to the Islamic State group. An estimated 20,000 have streamed into the territory in Iraq and Syria where the group has proclaimed what it calls a
“caliphate” ruled by its often brutal version of Islamic law.
But how rooted in Islam is the ideology embraced by this group that has
inspired so many to ﬁght and die?
President Barack Obama has insisted the militants behind a brutal campaign of beheadings, kidnappings and enslavement are “not Islamic” and
only use a veneer of Islam for their own ends. Obama’s critics argue the exSee Briefs, Page A8
Netanyahu in Washington, assails Iran deal,
touts US-Israel ties ahead of Congress address
MASSACHUSETTS
By deniSe lavoie
AP Legal Affairs Writer
How rooted in Islam is the Islamic State
group’s ideology? Not very, most scholars say
listed were trivial.
During Monday’s hearing, Tsarnaev’s lawyers made it clear they will
portray him as an adoring younger
brother who was coerced by his older
brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, into participating in the bombings.
Although defense lawyers had indicated they planned to argue
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, then 19, was inﬂuenced by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, then
26, they used their strongest language to date to describe how they
will depict the brothers’ relationship
and each of their roles in the attack.
Tsarnaev attorney David Bruck
said prosecutors are trying to show a
“completely distorted” picture of his
client by asking the judge to limit the
kind of evidence they can present
during the initial phase of the trial,
when the jury will be asked to decide
whether Tsarnaev is guilty of 30
charges.
Bruck, arguing the defense should
be entitled to present evidence of
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s role, called him
the “lead conspirator … but for
whom the Boston Marathon bombing would never have occurred.”
He said the defense should be allowed to present evidence the motive
“may well have been the defendant’s
domination by, love for, adoration of,
submissiveness to … his older
brother.”
“That is fair game,” Bruck said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Aloke
Chakravarty argued the defense
plans to try to include mitigating evidence during the guilt phase of the
trial, when that should be reserved
for the second phase of the trial,
known as the penalty phase, when
the jury will be asked to decide
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s punishment:
life in prison or the death penalty.
Opening statements are scheduled
for Wednesday. The trial is expected
to last three to four months.
WARNING
LUNENBURG FIRE DISTRICT NO. 2
SPECIAL MEETING
MARCH 17, 2015
The legal voters of Lunenburg Fire District No. 2, Vermont are hereby notified and
warned to meet at the Gilman Senior Center, in the Town of Lunenburg on Tuesday,
March 17, 2015 between the hours of ten o’clock (10:00) in the forenoon (a.m.), at which
time the polls will open, and seen o’clock (7:00) in the afternoon (p.m.), at which time
the polls will close, to vote by Australian ballot upon the following Article of business:
ARTICLE I
Shall general obligation bonds of Lunenburg Fire District No. 2 in amount not to
exceed Five Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($550,000), subject to reduction from
available state and federal construction grants-in-aid and other financial assistance,
be issued for the purpose of constructing sewer system collection, transmission and
treatment improvements, such improvements estimated to cost Five Hundred Fifty
Thousand Dollars ($550,000)?
The legal voters and residents of Lunenburg Fire District No. 2 are further warned and
notified that an informational hearing will be held at the Gilman Senior Center in the
Town of Lunenburg on Tuesday, March 10, 2015, commencing at seven o’clock (7:00
p.m.) for the purpose of explaining the subject proposed sewer system improvements
and the financing thereof.
The legal voters of the Lunenburg Fire District No. 2 are further notified that voter qualification, registration and absentee voting relative to said special meeting shall be as
provided in Section 2484 of Title 20, and Chapters 43, 51 and 55 of Title 17, Vermont
Statutes Annotated.
Adopted and approved at a duly convened meeting of the Prudential Committee, of
Lunenburg Fire District No. 2 held on February 3, 2015. Received for record and recorded
in the records of Lunenburg Fire District No. 2 on February 4, 2015.
Attest: Janis Bradbury, Acting Fire District Clerk
Lunenburg Fire District No. 2
Donal Hallee • Gibb McLain • Philip Harris – Prudential Committee
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THE REcORD • TuESDAY, MARcH 3, 2015
Briefs
Boston Just Short Of Season Snow Record ... For Now
continued from Page A7
tremists are intrinsically linked to Islam. Others insist their ideology has little
connection to religion.
The group itself has assumed the mantle of Islam’s earliest years, purporting to recreate the conquests and rule of the Prophet Muhammad and his successors. But in reality its ideology is a virulent vision all its own, one that its
adherents have created by plucking selections from centuries of traditions.
Los Angeles police chief says man killed in Skid
Row struggle had reached for ofﬁcer’s gun
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police fatally shot a homeless man on Skid Row
during a “brutal” videotaped struggle in which a rookie ofﬁcer cried out that
the man had hold of his gun before three other ofﬁcers opened ﬁre, the Los
Angeles police chief said Monday.
Chief Charlie Beck said video showed the man reaching toward the ofﬁcer’s waistband. The ofﬁcer’s gun was found partly cocked and jammed with
a bullet in the chamber and another in the ejection port, indicating a struggle
for the weapon.
“You can hear the young ofﬁcer who was primarily engaged in the confrontation saying that ‘He has my gun. He has my gun,’” Beck said. “He says
it several times, with conviction.”
Beck’s narrative of the shooting, including photos showing the condition
of the gun, was rare 24 hours after an ofﬁcer-involved shooting. It comes
amid heightened attention to killings by police ofﬁcers that have led to
protests, some violent, across the country.
Also Monday, activists called on Gov. Jerry Brown to appoint a special
investigator to examine the killing. Earl Ofari Hutchinson, head of the Los
Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, called on the city Police Commission to
hold a special hearing on use of force by ofﬁcers in Skid Row, which is home
to a large population of street dwellers.
Woman who was with slain Russian opposition
leader says she did not see gunman
MOSCOW (AP) — The 23-year-old Ukrainian model who was with slain
opposition leader Boris Nemtsov tearfully recounted Monday their last dinner
in a chic Red Square restaurant and their walk onto a nearby bridge — but
said she did not see the gunman who pulled the trigger.
The emotional account by Anna Duritskaya came amid a swirl of speculation about who was responsible for the high-proﬁle assassination and what
it means for Russia. While state-run and Kremlin-controlled media focused
on a theory that the killing was a provocation aimed at staining President
Vladimir Putin, his critics are holding the Russian leader responsible for creating an atmosphere that encouraged the crime by fanning nationalist, antiWestern sentiments and vilifying the opposition.
Duritskaya said she has been questioned extensively by authorities. The
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said she has ﬂown home to her native Ukraine,
the Interfax news agency reported late Monday.
In her ﬁrst public comments since the killing, Duritskaya said in an interview with Russia’s independent Dozhd television that she waited for
Nemtsov to meet her Friday night at the Bosco Cafe, a pricey restaurant in
the former GUM department store on Red Square. He had just given a radio
interview in which he had slammed Putin’s “mad, aggressive policy” on
Ukraine.
Bostonians fear rising tensions as city removes
lawn chairs and other parking-space savers
BOSTON (AP) — Bostonians have another reason to be steamed about
this winter of epic snow: The city is starting to remove the lawn chairs, milk
crates, coolers and other stuff that people put on the street to reserve the parking spaces they’ve dug out. Garbage haulers began collecting the “space
savers” Monday after Mayor Marty Walsh declared an end to the longstanding practice — at least until the next major storm.
Boston has been slammed with more than 8 1/2 feet of snow this season,
including about 3 inches Sunday night, and more is on the way later this
week. The city is just a few inches away from its snowiest winter in history.
In South Boston, the working-class neighborhood where the wintertime
battles over parking spots are legendary, some complained the ban on space
savers is coming too soon. Southie residents fear the nasty parking disputes
that have pitted neighbor against neighbor will only get worse.
“Some people think they own these spots,” said Heidi Labes, who keeps
her family’s two spots reserved with trafﬁc cones.
NEWBURGH, Ind. (AP) — It has
topped more than 100 inches of snow
this season, but Boston is just short of
surpassing its 20-year-old snowfall
record — for now.
Sunday’s snowfall brought the
city’s total to 103.9 inches. It needs
3.7 inches more to break the 19951996 record of 107.6.
Two small snowfalls, Tuesday
night and Wednesday into Thursday,
could do it, said Frank Nocera, a National Weather Service meteorologist
in the Taunton, Massachusetts, ofﬁce.
Elsewhere, rain and mountain
snow dropped Monday on droughtstricken Southern California, on the
heels of a storm that brought downpours, thunder and hail over the
weekend.
In Alaska, a weekend blizzard featured winds of about hurricane levels.
The National Weather Service
recorded a gust of 76 mph — just into
hurricane territory —at Point Thomson, the Alaska Dispatch News , an
Anchorage newspaper, reported.
More heavy snow was forecast
across Colorado’s mountains, where
several feet of snow have already
fallen in the last week. A ﬂood watch
was in effect until Monday evening
for east-central and south-central Arizona, including Phoenix.
reCord CoLd
February 2015 was one for the
record books in the Northeast.
The Northeast Regional Climate
Center at Cornell University says
Buffalo, Syracuse, Binghamton and
Ithaca, New York, shivered through
their coldest months ever.
The average temperature was 10.9
degrees in Buffalo, beating the 1934
record of 11.4. The monthly average
was 9.0 in Syracuse, 12.2 in Binghamton and 10.2 in Ithaca.
February record lows were also set
in Hartford, Connecticut, at 16.1;
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at 20.9; and
Portland, Maine at 13.8.
In Rhode Island, Providence set a
record with 31.8 inches of snow for
the month.
SCHooL CLoSInGS
And deLAYS
In the West, public schools closed
Monday in Flagstaff as a winter
storm dropped snow in Arizona’s
high country and rain in the deserts.
In northern and east-central Arizona, the National Weather Service
issued a winter storm warning for
Flagstaff and other areas of the
Mogollon Rim region. A ﬂash-ﬂood
watch was issued Monday for the
Phoenix area, while snow was forecast for southeastern Arizona mountains.
In Colorado, weather forecasters
issued blizzard and avalanche warnings. The storm was expected to last
through Monday, with another storm
expected Tuesday.
In Southern California on Sunday,
crews cleaned up a mudslide that shut
down a stretch of the Paciﬁc Coast
Highway northwest of Los Angeles
early Sunday. The area received between a quarter-inch to half an inch
of rain.
In the East, a number of school
districts delayed opening for up to
two hours Monday, providing some
melting time for a coating of ice that
blanketed states from the Mid-Atlantic northward.
weAtHer-reLAted
deAtHS
Authorities reported four people,
including one child, died in weatherrelated incidents in Missouri.
Two passengers were killed when
a driver lost control on a snow-covered highway in Lebanon on Saturday.
A 25-year-old eastern Missouri
woman was killed Sunday morning
on a snow-covered stretch of Interstate 70 when she collided with a
tractor-trailer, state police said. In Nevada, Missouri, a boy died after
falling through an ice-covered farm
pond.
In New Bedford, Massachusetts,
state police said a 22-year-old
woman died after being ejected from
a car that overturned while the driver
was trying to avoid snow in the roadway.
tot HoSpItALIZed
Police say a 3-year-old Lansing,
Michigan girl is making a good recovery after suffering critical hypothermia when she got stuck
overnight outside her family’s apartment.
Capt. Daryl Green said Monday
that the girl “is still hospitalized and
listed in stable condition.” Green says
in a statement that a family member
“reports the child is recovering well.”
Police say a relative found the girl
on a sidewalk in front of the apartment complex about 8:30 a.m. Saturday. The temperature was 5 degrees
at the time. Police say investigators
think the girl got out of bed, opened
the outer door of the family’s apartment and went outside.
HorSeS InJured
Fifteen horses, some of which suffered superﬁcial injuries, have been
rescued from a Norwell, Massachusetts, barn after a portion of the roof
collapsed.
Ethelene Devers, owner of the
Norwell barn, says the collapse was
discovered at about 7 a.m. Monday
when several people went to feed the
horses and clean the barn. Devers
said snow had been removed from an
older portion of the roof, but the collapse occurred in a newer area. There
were no human injuries.
In southern Indiana, authorities say
one horse drowned and another was
saved after the animals fell through
an icy pond. The Warrick County
Sheriff’s Ofﬁce says the accident
happened Monday. Ofﬁcials say the
horses wandered from their fencedin area and found themselves on top
of the pond before falling through the
ice.
GOP Senators Pledge Help If Court Bars Health Law Subsidies
By alan fRaM
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Three leading Republican senators are promising to help millions of people who
may lose federal health insurance
subsidies if the Supreme Court invalidates a pillar of President Barack
Obama’s health care law.
But in a Washington Post opinion
article posted online late Sunday,
GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, John Barrasso of Wyoming
and Orrin Hatch of Utah provide no
detail on how much assistance they
would propose, its duration or how
they would pay for it. Nor do they
address how they would overcome
GOP divisions or Democratic opposition to weakening the law.
The article appeared days before
Wednesday’s oral arguments in a
case brought by conservatives and
Republicans that could upend the
functioning of the 2010 health care
law by invalidating the subsidies that
help millions afford required health
coverage. A decision is expected in
June.
The senators’ article is the latest
political salvo that seems aimed as
much at the court’s nine justices as at
the public. Last week, Health and
Human Services Secretary Sylvia
Burwell said nullifying the subsidies
would cause “massive damage to our
health care system.”
Congressional Republicans unanimously opposed the law’s creation
and have long worked on plans to
weaken and replace it. They have not
united behind a speciﬁc proposal.
In their column, the three senators
acknowledge that if their side prevails in court, 6 million Americans
could lose subsidies and many would
no longer afford coverage. They call
the case “an opportunity” to reshape
the law and say they “have a plan to
protect these people and create a
bridge away from” the statute.
“First and most important, we
would provide ﬁnancial assistance to
Folks in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and the North Country of New
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about yourself... your staff... your business... your experience... your strengths!
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this issue will surely build real trust and
recognition for you and your business.
help Americans keep the coverage
they picked for a transitional period,”
they wrote.
Without saying how, they wrote
that they would also give states more
ﬂexibility to create their own health
insurance marketplaces. And they
blame the health law for problems
like forcing many Americans to surrender their previous insurance and
doctors.
“People do not deserve further disruption from the law,” they wrote.
Democrats say the law has forced
insurers to cover more beneﬁts and
cite ﬁgures showing a dramatic reduction in the number of uninsured
Americans.
Jeb Bush Distances Himself From Family
By Ken RitteR
and Steve PeoPleS
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — Former Florida
Gov. Jeb Bush distanced himself
from his family on Monday as he
courted senior citizens in Nevada, the
ﬁrst stop in a national tour aimed at
key states on the presidential primary
calendar.
Taking questions in an early voting state for the ﬁrst time this year,
the leading Republican White House
prospect declared that each of his
family members is different and
challenged a questioner who suggested otherwise. Bush is the son and
brother of former presidents who
were unpopular when they left ofﬁce.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” Bush asked his questioner at a
gathering of roughly 300 senior citizens at a Las Vegas retirement community. “Are you exactly the same?”
The crowd applauded the answer.
Bush has not shied away from
tough questions about his policies or
family name as he ramps up for a formal 2016 presidential bid.
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Plaintiffs in the case say the
Obama administration has unlawfully given federal tax credits to
Americans who have bought health
coverage from federal insurance
marketplaces serving 37 states,
which are mostly run by Republicans. They say the law as written
only permits that aid in the 13 states
running their own marketplaces.
Democrats say people in all states
qualify for assistance.
Alexander chairs the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, Hatch heads the
Senate Finance Committee and Barrasso is in the Senate Republican
leadership.
The appearance comes days after
he defended controversial policies on
immigration and education at a conference of conservative activists in
Washington. It marked a new phase
in Bush’s early campaign strategy,
which has been focused almost exclusively on raising money behind
closed doors in the two months since
he declared serious interest in a presidential bid.
Monday’s appearance was his ﬁrst
in an early voting state since the January announcement. He’s scheduled
to appear in Iowa, New Hampshire
and South Carolina in the coming
weeks. Along with Nevada, the states
represent the ﬁrst four on the presidential primary calendar.
Asked about immigration, Bush
reiterated his support for a pathway
to citizenship for immigrants in the
country illegally, so long as they pay
ﬁnes, learn English and have jobs.
The policy would allow such immigrants to “come out of the shadows,”
said Bush, a ﬂuent Spanish speaker
whose wife is a native Mexican.
The city is home to several prominent Republican donors, including
Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson, who was in Washington on Monday to attend a speech by
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bush said he monitored Netanyahu’s speech, which Bush described as “classy.”
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