Riptonite wins House job

Riponite Willem Jewett won a major Vermont political position this month. He is now the House assistant majority leader, or whip.

Willem launched his drive for the job last month. Congratulations, Willem!

School Board Meeting Cancelled

Due to hazardous weather, the Ripton School Board meeting tonight has been cancelled.

The windstorm, day 3: progress

It's day 3 of the December 2010 windstorm, as we see some progress.

The Ripton school has both power and electricity, as of this morning. So no more dark classrooms.

According to CVPS, only 7 households are offline, as of this writing. 3 problems remain - remember, a "problem" means a tree down, or a crackling line. Either way, it also means hard-working CVPS crews on the job.
Here's the map:






Tell us about your experience, in comments!


Previous posts on this storm: day one, day two.

Day 2 of the December 2010 wind storm

It's the day after yesterday's storm, and power is still out across much of our area. More than two-thirds of Ripton is without electricity, according to CVPS. 245 Ripton customers are hit, and 6 separate "problems" (line breaks, trees down) remain.

Here's a glimpse of the CVPS outage map:

Windstorm rips into town

A huge windstorm hit Ripton today, knocking over trees and blacking out most of the area. It's still going on now - I'm writing this from down in the valley.

One CVPS report offers this alarming picture:

"The winds really started howling around noon, and then the outages started
ramping up, especially along the western side of the Green Mountains," said
spokeswoman Christine Rivers. "There are wires down everywhere, and we urge people to use extreme caution. This is the most serious wind event we've seen in since this past summer. Crews have repeatedly had to take refuge in their vehicles as trees were coming down all around them as they were attempting to make repairs today."

Be safe, friends and neighbors!

Ripton resident to join Shumlin administration

Riptonite Lawrence Miller was named to a state government post in the new Shumlin administration.

Shumlin on Monday named Ripton resident and Otter Creek Brewing founder Lawrence Miller to serve as his secretary of commerce and community development at the forefront of what he called his “job creation team.” That came a week after Shumlin selected Ferrisburgh resident Beth Robinson to serve as his general counsel.

Shumlin told the Associated Press that in choosing the top leadership for his administration he is looking for “competence, vision and the ability to get tough things done.

“The decisions we’re making in the next two weeks will determine how successful we are over the next two years,” he added.

Miller, 44, currently CEO for Middlebury-based Danforth Pewter, said he is looking forward to his new job.

“Wrestling through it was tough, but as I thought my way through it, it became easy,” he said during an interview with the Addison Independent. “There are very few opportunities to ‘return the favor’ that come along in this way. I have benefited from the support of a great many people in developing Otter Creek and in the other businesses I have worked on … and when I thought about where that has brought me, I could not refuse.”

Congratulations, Lawrence!

Riptonite Andrea Chesman's holiday recipe

Riptonite Andrea Chesman has two Thanksgiving recipes featured in the Burlington Free Pree. They are cider-braised sweet potatoes with apples and crunchy roasted Brussels sprouts. Read on and enjoy!