Town meeting and election time!

Tonight is our annual town meeting, including a school board meeting.  Please come and participate.
This Addy Indy article introduces what's on schedule for the evening.

After tonight's meeting, we have elections tomorrow.  So please come vote!

Cold snap this weekend

Temperatures will fall this weekend.  Even the governor is concerned:

The Vermont Division of Emergency Management & Homeland Security is issuing Wind Chill Warnings for most of the state from 4 a.m. Saturday through 7 p.m. Sunday, with wind chill temperatures expected to plunge to between 25 and 40 below zero. 

“Vermonters are used to cold Februaries, but the forecast for this weekend is for frigid temperatures that can be potentially dangerous,” the Governor said.

Pizza bake fundraiser for the Ripton School

Tomorrow, February 12th, is a fundraiser for the Ripton School:"a Ripton Elementary student who was nominated and selected to attend a National Youth Leadership Forum camp in Washington, DC this summer."

Wood Fired Pizza Bake Fundraiser
Where: Ripton Elementary School
When: THIS FRIDAY, February 12th 5-7pm 

Enjoy fresh made pizzas from our wood fired oven!
$12 Cheese
$15 Pepperoni or Sausage & Onion 

Pre-order by 12pm, February 12th by calling 802.598.5607 with your pizza choices and preferred pick up time.

(information received by email)

High speed chase through Ripton

Local police arrested an East Middlebury man for speeding very, very fast, and for attempting to flee.  This involved a high speed chase, which careened through Ripton and ended on our North Branch Road.

Vermont State Police were traveling south on Vermont 116 in Bristol around 1:02 a.m. Sunday morning when a vehicle, later determined to be driven by [Christopher] Shores, drove by in the opposite direction at a speed of 118 mph in the posted 50-mph zone... 

The vehicle failed to stop for police, and police said they pursued the car through Bristol, Lincoln and Ripton. 

Shores stopped on North Branch Road in Ripton after Vermont State Police and Middlebury police surrounded his car, Szarejko said. Shores provided a preliminary roadside breath sample to troopers, which measured his blood alcohol content to be 0.168 percent, police said.

When Riptonites work the late shift

Seven Days profiles a Riptonite in an article about what it's like to work the late shift.

Bryan Smith's 12-hour shift starts at 5 p.m. The Otter Creek "cellar dweller," whom his friends call Bear, is responsible for tending brews from the moment they start fermenting until they're ready to be bottled. It's not an easy job. "There's a lot of work that goes into it, from the time it's brewed to the time it's sealed up in a case box and out the door to the distributor," said 38-year-old Smith, who's been with the company since 2012.

State Board of Education approves ACSU reorganization proposal

The Vermont State Board of Education approved the ACSU's proposal for consolidating seven school boards, including Ripton's, into one.

Unification plans put forward by the Rutland South Supervisory Union, the Addison Central Supervisory Union and the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union were approved by the state board. The mergers will now move into the community engagement phase of the unification process. After that there will be an up or down vote by the affected communities. 

A note on that process:

The SBE approved an accelerated merger plan under Act 46 put forward by the towns of Bridport, Cornwall, Middlebury, Ripton, Salisbury, Shoreham and Weybridge. The communities will be asked to vote on the preferred model that creates a single preK through 12th grade district with a single tax rate on March 1, 2016. If voters approve, they plan to be operational by July 1, 2016, which means they will be able to take advantage of the full package of tax incentives.

There was state praise for local efforts:

Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe said the mergers are a “phenomenal accomplishment.”
“People are really engaged in this conversation,” Holcombe said. “This is a hard conversation. Nobody wants to have this conversation. We have to really hand it to our school boards who have embraced this challenge.”

We blogged about this process yesterday, and will continue to follow the story into 2016 and beyond.

State agency examines ACSU plan for new school board

Today the state's Board of Education is examining plans for a new school governance structure, which would create a single school board for Ripton and the other six ACSU towns, if accepted by the state and passed by voters.  This process is in accordance with Act 46.

VPR quotes State Board Chairman Stephan Morse, who

says he's encouraged by the start, but he understands it'll take a lot more work to have every district in the state sign on to a consolidation plan.

 "This is the first time since the 1890s that there's been a major reform in the governance structure of Vermont's educational system," Morse says. "It's huge. And I think both legislators and the State Board, as well as the agency, can fully appreciate the difficulty that some areas are going to have pulling this together."

We'll blog about the result's of today's Board of Education process as they come in.