Friday, June 14 at 8 a.m.to Sunday, June 16 at 8 a.m.—GOSHEN—A free, fun, off-road ride and campout in the Green Mountain National Forest in Goshen. The event will be based at the Blueberry Hill Outdoor Center, 1288 Goshen-Ripton Rd, Goshen, which has been reserved for the weekend to offer this event free of charge…

Saturday, June 15, 5-7p.m. —POULTNEY—Stone Valley Arts, 145 E. Main St., Poultney announces “Capturing Time: A Neil Rappaport Retrospective,” a major exhibition of the late Pawlet, Vermont based photographer. The show will cover Rappaport’s life’s work including portraits from the Pawlet Community Study, slate industry, farms, Vermont landscapes and rare photos from Comstock Prison where…

Hartford Area Chamber Prepares for Balloon Festival Friday, June 14 at 3 p.m. to Sunday, June 16 at 6 a.m. ­—QUECHEE —The Quechee Hot Air Balloon Craft and Music Festival, Village Green, Quechee, the longest running hot air balloon festival in New England, will celebrate its 44th anniversary in 2024 when thousands are expected to…

Dear Editor, Short-term rental owners are not the evil housing tycoons we are sometimes made out to be. Vacation rentals peppered around our state make up just 2.5% of our housing stock yet contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to our state budget in the form of rooms/meals taxes and consumer spending. I’ve lived in Guilford for…

Dear Editor, In the peaceful farmlands and meadows of Vermont, a silent emergency unfolds. Bees, the heart of our agricultural ecosystem, face unprecedented threats to their survival. Despite Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Market reports claiming that bee populations are thriving, beekeepers around the state emphasize the deteriorating health of their colonies. These adverse…

By Rep. Rebecca Holcombe Editor’s note: Holcombe is the state house representative for Windsor-Orange 2 and member of the Vermont House Appropriations Committee. She also served as the Vermont Secretary of Education 2014-2018. It’s groundhog day. Governor Scott vetoed the yield bill, again leaving Vermont school districts adrift. The reason: all the school budgets voters…

By Ethan Weinstein/VTDigger While studying economics and education at Yale University, Grace Miller found a surprise topic on the agenda: Vermont’s one-of-a-kind school funding formula.  The 22-year-old from Newport and her classmates learned about the Brigham decision, a 1997 Vermont Supreme Court case that found the state’s education finance system was unconstitutional.  In response to the case, the…

Drilling and blasting will continue this week at the intersection of Route 4 and Killington Road in Killington. A detour remains in place via West Hill Road.  As the project approaches the scheduled end date of July 8, work to haul out rock will occur on Saturdays till about noon time going forward, Markowski Excavating,…

By Curt Peterson The Hartland Select Board refined a proposed new Vendors’ Ordinance to replace the original that’s been in effect since 1996. According to Town Manager John Broker-Campbell, “There are minor changes which will hopefully help to clear up any confusion or ambiguity on the applicability of the ordinance.”   The Select Board will next…

Vermont’s vibrant spirit thrives on a network of over 7,000 nonprofits; some 1,500 of them in the Killington-Rutland region alone. Considering that number, it’s not surprising that some of these organizations prompt the question: “Why does that nonprofit exist?” Yet, the ones that tackle tough issues and enrich lives spark admiring comments, like “Imagine how…

By Ethan Weinstein/VTDigger Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the annual property tax bill on Thursday, setting up a veto session showdown on a piece of legislation that must pass for schools to be funded as usual.  “We must provide property tax relief now. This can’t wait for another study before implementing cost containment strategies,” Scott said in…

This weekend, June 14-16, the skies over the Upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire will be filled with hot air balloons during the longest running hot air balloon festival in New England. See page 14  for a full schedule of events for the weekend. 

The Vermont Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors announced June 6 that Amy Spear will be the incoming president of the organization. Spear was selected from a robust pool of applicants following a six-month search committee process that leveraged the expertise of Burlington-based Hawley Consulting Services. The committee’s recommendation was ratified by the full board…

By Bruce Bouchard and John Turchiano Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard is former executive director of The Paramount Theatre. John Turchiano,  his friend for 52 years, was formerly the editor of “Hotel Voice,” a weekly newspaper on the New York Hotel Trades Council. They are co-authoring this column collaborating to tell short stories on a wide…

In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, Alice stumbles upon a large mushroom. She peeps over the edge and encounters a caterpillar “smoking a long hookah, and taking not the slightest notice of her or anything else.” If Alice had touched the creature, she might have been in for an even bigger shock—forked horns,…