All Entries in the "Featured" Category
Chester OKs ordinance to seek reimbursement for fighting some fires Update on GM sidewalk plan; traffic calming on the Green
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC A 17 item agenda including a hearing for a new a ordinance and a presentation on alternative designs for a sidewalk to the high school looked daunting, but the Chester Select Board got through all of it – except an executive session – in less than two […]
GMUSD appoints Jerry Ucci new Chester rep
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing Tuck Wunderle told the Green Mountain Unified School District board – on which he served – that he would be resigning to take a fellowship at a graduate school. That was at the board’s April 17 meeting, which, under state law, also started a 30-day clock during […]
Cavendish Board approves new tax rates
By Lorien Strange ©2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC Homestead property tax rates in Cavendish have increased by about 9% this year, according to data released at a Select Board meeting last Wednesday afternoon. The board held a special meeting to sign off on the new rates. The homestead rates increased by 25.66 and 23.53 cents per […]
GM Board finds no Open Meeting violation but agrees to Open Meeting training
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC Last Thursday, five of the 11 member board of the Green Mountain Unified School District assembled in the GM High School Library. A sixth joined by Zoom to make it a quorum. They weren’t there for a regular meeting but rather to answer an Open Meeting Law […]
D.C. chaos finally hits Vermont, TRSU schools
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC School budgets in Vermont begin on July 1 and end the following June 30. Budgets for the 2025-26 year were hammered out in the fall of 2024 and approved by voters beginning on Town Meeting Day in March. Grants and aid from various sources were firmed […]
GM board member complains of improper executive session Telegraph request for public docs only partially fulfilled
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC On Thursday, June 19, when we last spent an evening with the board of the Green Mountain Unified School District, the agenda contained an item to “cure” a violation of the Vermont Open Meeting Law relating to an executive session at a previous meeting. Also on the […]
Newly appointed state school redistricting panel weak in Southern Vermont representation
By Cynthia Prairie ©2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC This week, members of the Vermont House and Senate named appointees to the new School District Redistricting Task Force. But only one of these 10 appointees represents the southern part of the state below Route 4. That one member is Wendy Harrison, a state senator who represents Windham […]
GM track & field alumni athletes go the distance at the collegiate level
By Dan Barile ©2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC The Green Mountain Union High School track and field program has achieved significant success throughout its existence, earning nine state titles on the boys’ side and four more from the girls. Both teams earned their most recent state titles in 2023 when they swept the Vermont Division IV […]
GMUSD board gets PCB update, continues internal wrangling
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC A few years ago, state sponsored testing found that chemicals known as PCBs are present at the Green Mountain High School. Last Thursday, Kassandra Kimmey of the state Department of Environmental Conservation gave a presentation on PCBs to the Green Mountain Unified School District Board that outlined […]
State board orders Julian quarries to cease operations until conditions are fulfilled
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC The Vermont Land Use Review Board, in its administrative order against Julian Materials LLC posted on Monday, June 16, calls on the Julian companies to “stop work” at all three of its quarries in north Chester. The Land Use Review Board administers the Act 250 program. Since […]
Chester board tables American flag issue til fall Sets tax rate, approves zoning office shuffle
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC Before being elected to the Chester Select Board, Tim Roper complained to that body a couple of times about the state of the flags displayed on Main Street. They can be found wrapped around their poles, sometimes tattered and even snared on splinters from the utility poles […]
Live music fills Vermont’s hills this summer From classical to jazz to country, these bands will rock your soul
By Stacia A. Spaulding ©2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC Calling all music lovers. The Telegraph has brought dozens of musical events in the region together in one place so you can plan your summer schedule. Our Calendar of Events contains additional information about several listings. Cavendish Summer Concert Series Concerts are held on Wednesdays from 6 […]
Caps off to the 48 Green Mountain High grads!
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC Weeks of rainy weather made for some uncertainty, but with a forecast of just hazy to cloudy skies on Friday night, Green Mountain Union High School graduated 48 students, with 46 walking for their diplomas. Principal John Broadley told the crowds of parents and friends gathered that […]
No Kings rally in Chester attracts large, peaceful crowd to protest Trump policies
By Cynthia Prairie ©2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC It was just another damp and cloudy spring Saturday, except for the folks that began gathering on the Chester Green short before 10 a.m. to set up tents and a sound system preparing for the 10:30 national No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance rally organized locally by the […]
CAES educators join statewide Friday morning protest of Vermont education reform bill
By Cynthia Prairie ©2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC The educators are concerned. They say that the proposed state law H 454 to remake Vermont’s public education system, which is to be voted on on Monday in the Vermont Senate, has been rushed and filled with too many holes. It seeks to reform the governance, the finance […]
GM board votes down sole candidate; to restart the process of filling Chester vacancy
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC In yet another in a collection of remarkable meetings, the Green Mountain Unified School District Board last Wednesday voted down the only candidate for the open seat representing Chester. Patricia “Penny” Benelli, a longtime Chester resident who holds a degree in education and recently retired from practicing […]
Chester board hears GM appointment complaints, police on immigration enforcement
By Shawn Cunningham 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC As the clock ticked toward 6:30 and the conference room on the first floor of Chester’s Town Hall began to fill up, it looked like the May 21 Select Board meeting would be another long one with multiple comments by residents on several issues currently roiling the public […]
GM school board to hold special meeting to revisit board appointment, complaint
By Cynthia Prairie ©2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC The Board of Directors of the Green Mountain Unified School District will hold a special meeting next Wednesday in part to cure violations of Vermont’s Open Meeting Law regarding executive sessions that occurred at its May 15 meeting and – in effect – to rescind its request that […]
News Analysis: More questions than answers to fill a school board seat
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC The board of the Green Mountain Unified School District has a long history of tackling difficult issues but not resolving them in a timely manner: the on again-off again discussion with the school’s former mascot being the most recent example, until last Thursday night. The board went […]
Chester Fire Department ready to roll with new tanker
By Shawn Cunningham © 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC On Monday morning the Chester Fire Department took delivery of its latest piece of firefighting apparatus. The department had ordered the $500,000 tanker more than two years and two fire chiefs ago, but a number of hiccups delayed the delivery, which had been expected late last year. […]
