Town Meeting preview: Budgets, two Selectboard seats to be voted on in Hartland
Published: 4/20/2021 10:13:29 PM
Modified: 4/20/2021 10:13:27 PM
Hot topic: Hartland residents next month will be asked to approve general fund and highway expenditures of $3.09 million, of which $2.43 million would be raised through taxes. Combined, the budgets are $151,000, or 5.1%, above those voters approved last year.
Also by ballot, voters will be asked to approve a school budget of $9.03 million, which is up almost 4.5%, or $386,000, from the prior year. As a result of the school budget, Hartland’s property taxes are expected to increase 3 cents per $100 of value for an increase of $75 on a home valued at $250,000.
Hartland duplex damaged in fire
Modified: 3/14/2021 6:45:07 PM
HARTLAND A duplex home dating back to 1920 was heavily damaged by fire late Saturday though one unit may still be habitable, according to Hartland fire officials.
Firefighters were called to 9 Gilson Farm Lane around midnight Saturday after the homeowner was alerted to the fire by barking dogs, Assistant Hartland Fire Chief Scott Bowers said.
“When he opened his bedroom door he came face to face with smoke and could see fire,” Bowers said. “He escaped out a bedroom window and then alerted his neighbors, the tenants.”
Nobody was injured in the fire, but firefighters had to return to the scene Sunday morning after it rekindled, Bowers said.
Tuition costs weigh heavily on Upper Valley school district budgets
Weathersfield School Principal JeanMarie Oakman said she is disappointed in the Scott Administration’s decision to let school districts dictate their own plans for re-opening this fall. Students in her district have school choice after attending kindergarten through eighth grade in Weathersfield, the differing schedules have made it hard on parents coordinating transportation and childcare she said. “By leaving it wide open, nobody’s doing the same thing,” said Oakman in Weathersfield, Vt., Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.
Out & About: Talk examines the impact of Black soldiers at the Battle of Bennington
A young Black man believed to be Pompey Woodward sits astride a horse as he leads Tory prisoners of war after the Battle of Bennington in a mural painted by Leroy Williams and housed by the Bennington Museum. (Photograph courtesy of the Bennington Museum)
Modified: 1/9/2021 10:30:59 PM
At the Bennington Museum, there’s a mural depicting the famed Battle of Bennington from the American Revolution; one part shows a Black rider on horseback leading away loyalist soldiers taken prisoner during the battle, which was in Walloomsac, N.Y., about 10 miles from its Vermont namesake.