All Entries in the "Featured" Category

As storm closes in, towns urge caution Here's some hints and phone numbers you should have
Emergency management officials around the area are warning everyone that this weekend winter storm, which will start Saturday evening, could deliver 1 to 2 feet of snow, and bitter weather of as low as 20 below. This will be an especially difficult weekend since it’s also the national holiday in honor of Martin Luther King […]

GM finance panel deadlocks, sends budget options to full board
By Shawn Cunningham © 2019 Telegraph Publishing, LLC On Monday night, the Two Rivers Supervisory Union board rejected the request of the Green Mountain Unified School District to reopen the SU budget and look for some cuts that would lower the district’s assessment for SU services. So on Tuesday night, the GM finance committee was […]

TRSU won’t to reopen budget for more cuts
By Shawn Cunningham © 2019 Telegraph Publishing LLC The Two Rivers Supervisory Union board of directors, meeting on Monday night, voted 4 to 1 against reopening the SU’s budget. The Green Mountain Unified School District Finance Committee had asked the board to look at reducing the assessment it bills to the district in the committee’s […]

Derry continues to mull future of Williams Dam Changes made to draft Town Warning
By Bruce Frauman ©2019 Telegraph Publishing LLC The future of the Williams Dam in Londonderry continues to be a topic of concern for town residents and officials. At the Jan. 7 Select Board meeting, Emergency Management Director Kevin Beattie said that a grant to study the effects of a breech of Williams Dam is off […]

GMUSD panel asks TRSU to reopen its budget
By Shawn Cunningham © 2019 Telegraph Publishing, LLC For the second time in the two years since its inception, the Green Mountain Unified School District Finance Committee is asking the Two Rivers Supervisory Board to reopen its budget to find savings that will help reduce its funding increase from 4.31 percent or nearly half a […]

Chester board member calls budget increase ‘insidiously dangerous’
By Shawn Cunningham © 2019 Telegraph Publishing LLC Calling the $43,500 increase over last year’s budget “insidiously dangerous,” Chester Select Board member Dan Cote read from a prepared statement at Tuesday night’s special meeting to work on finalizing the town’s spending plan. Referring to “our inability to manage a budget,” Cote called the 1 percent […]

After four months of repairs, CAES opens to a new year
© 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Four months after Chester-Andover Elementary School was set to welcome its 240 pupils in the warm weather following summer vacation, they instead embraced the children with warm welcomes beneath a cloudy, snowy sky. ON THE COVER: 3rd Grade teacher Laurie Birmingham gets her classroom at CAES ready for her students. […]

Magic Mtn. opens lift to mid-mountain
By Shawn Cunningham © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Decades after its construction was begun, Magic Mountain’s Green Chair lift took its first skiers to mid-mountain on Saturday. Just before 2 p.m., resort President Geoff Hatheway christened the lift with a bottle of sparkling wine to the cheers of a patient group of skiers who had […]

Potash Brook home looks to be a total loss
By Shawn Cunningham © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Firefighters are saying that a fire late Friday afternoon destroyed a home at 3 Potash Brook Road in Chester. Eleven fire departments and the Chester Ambulance service responded to the blaze and one minor injury to a firefighter was reported. Chester Fire Chief Matt Wilson said on […]

Afternoon blaze engulfs Potash Brook home
By Shawn Cunningham © 2018 Telegraph Publishing, LLC When Andover Road resident Debbie Richardson arrived home from work just after 4 p.m. on Friday, she noticed smoke at the house across the stream, but thought it might be an outdoor fire. As she got closer, Richardson realized her neighbor’s house was on fire and called […]

News Analysis: Oversight or overreach by TRSU board
By Shawn Cunningham © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC As the Two Rivers Supervisory Union prepares to return to its board on Thursday, Jan. 3 with a level funded budget for FY20, resistance to one item has cropped up over and over and that seems to be telling a larger story with larger questions. Namely, what […]

Troopers, off-roaders team up to help Santa bring cheer to kids at Kurn Hattin Homes
By Shawn Cunningham © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Santa Claus and one of his elves weren’t the only ones in uniform at the Kurn Hattin Homes in Westminster last week as Vermont State Troopers from the Westminster State Police Barracks joined the jolly one to deliver toys and books to the kindergarten through fifth grade […]

Miniature world in store for library visitors Whiting director melds creativity with precision
By Layla Burke Hastings ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Like Jonathan Swift, Sharon Tanzer, director of Chester’s Whiting Library, has created a Lilliputian corner in her world, one that you can visit and marvel over. Just left of the checkout desk at the library sits a surprise under glass. It is a miniature, early 20th century […]

Chester board looks to stem tax increase Asks Town Manager Pisha for department cuts
By Shawn Cunningham © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Staring at a budget gap that amounts to an additional 4 cents on the tax rate, the Chester Select Board sent Town Manager David Pisha back to department heads with the message that cuts would be needed. With most of the town’s revenue in and most of […]

Big kids, little kids pose on last day together at GM Elementary pupils set to move back to CAES on Jan. 3
© 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC On what is expected to be the final day that Green Mountain High School students will share their space with Chester-Andover Elementary students displaced by flooding damage in August, everyone got together in the gymnasium on Friday for the first K-12 photo since who knows when. As each class arrived […]

Vail reverses ski program rate hike for kids on Fed lunch list Reduces lift pass benefit to Snow Sports volunteers
By Cynthia Prairie ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Vail Resorts has rescinded its announced price increase for those local families on the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program whose children want to participate in school ski and snowboard programs at Okemo Mountain, according to those close to the situation. The Chester Telegraph reported the initial rate-hike […]

GMUSD reschedules tonight’s finance meeting Next budget meeting on for Jan. 8
By Shawn Cunningham © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC In an email this morning, Green Mountain Unified School District Board chair Marilyn Mahusky informed members that tonight’s finance committee meeting scheduled for the hour before the full board meeting was being canceled. The full board meeting will go on as scheduled at 6 p.m. at Green […]

Required spending vexes GM finance panel Tasks administration with finding cuts, lowering increases
By Shawn Cunningham © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC After four meetings, the Green Mountain Unified School District’s Finance Committee elected to punt last Thursday night. Staring down a nearly 6 percent increase for the 2020 fiscal year (which begins on July 1, 2019) the board sent the budget back to the administration with the directive […]

Derry board hears Lowell Lake concerns, hires town administrator
By Bruce Frauman © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Even the hiring of a new Londonderry town administrator was overshadowed by the ongoing uproar over the state’s plans for Lowell Lake Park. While the Select Board voted to appoint Shane O’Keefe as the new Town, Zoning, and Floodplain Administrator, former administrator Robert Nied, who left his […]

Ski programs at Cavendish Town, Chester-Andover mount fund-raisers Okemo hikes rates, ends reduced fee for qualifying families
By Cynthia Prairie ©2018 Telegraph Publishing Winter sports program coordinators have scrambled to set up Go Fund Me campaigns to ensure that children at Cavendish Town and Chester-Andover elementary schools can participate, after Okemo Mountain Resort raised prices from $19 to $47 a child and eliminated lower fees for families qualifying for the Federal Free […]