The Money Issue April 2013
BTV’s Rising School Budget; How Fundraisers Get to ‘Yes’; Learning Financial Literacy
News Quirks
Curses, Foiled Again Police investigating a nightclub burglary in China’s Yunnan Province arrested a suspect who covered his head with a wastepaper basket to shield his face from surveillance cameras. Police identified him anyway because the basket was transparent, allowing them to make out his face. (Britain’s Daily Mail) David Zehntner was flying over his…
Lawmakers Look to Crack Down on “Current-Use” Abuse
Is the state’s “current-use” program a tax break for rich property owners or a crucial safeguard to prevent Vermont from becoming one big subdivision? It depends on who is assessing the state program that reduces taxes for some landowners of ag and forestlands by an average 88 percent. But many Vermonters agree it’s due for…
Upper Valley’s Harbor Mountain Press Has Global Reach in the Poetry World
Poetry readers will recognize the names of New Directions Publishing in New York, Copper Canyon Press in Washington and City Lights Books in California — all long-standing small publishers that have had a huge impact on contemporary poetry. Now they have a counterpart growing steadily in Vermont: Harbor Mountain Press, based 100 miles inland in…
How Can I Politely Ask My Man to Get Tested?
Mistress Maeve: Your guide to love and lust…
Book Review: Brain in a Jar: A Daughter’s Journey Through Her Father’s Memory
It can be hard to force yourself to read about something as profoundly depressing as Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not even like reading about cancer, which most readers can reasonably assure themselves they don’t have. If you’re over 40 — or younger, in the case of early-onset AD — and you forget something at the grocery…
Lisa Helme, Vermont’s Director of Financial Literacy, Gets People to Broach a Taboo Subject: Money
If a stranger asked you, “Where did you learn about money?” you might furrow your brow and deflect the question. When Lisa Helme asks it, though, Vermonters more often than not open up and share what they consider to be some of their most tightly guarded secrets. As the director of financial literacy for the…
Meet Your Matchmaker: An Interview With Lars Hasselblad Torres, Director of Vermont’s Office of the Creative Economy
Vermont is synonymous with snowboarding, sugaring and farming. But those activities account for a fraction of the state’s economy. Traditional sectors such as manufacturing and health care play a big role, but the Green Mountain State is also home to a large and growing creative economy made up of “knowledge workers” who produce everything from…
Winner Takes All: Should Vermont’s Family Courts Be Allowed to Order Shared Custody of Kids?
Chris Weinberg of Jericho spent more than a half million dollars and two years of his life fighting with his now-ex-wife for equal parenting time with his two sons. If Weinberg, who got divorced in August 2012, had lived across Vermont’s border in New York, New Hampshire or Massachusetts, family-court judges in those states would…
St. Johnsbury Academy’s Culinary School Provides Fine Dining at a Discount
When was the last time you had beef tenderloin at a restaurant for less than $10? Or butter-braised lobster for $11.95? Probably never, or too far back to remember, unless you’re in the lucky minority that’s discovered St. Johnsbury’s Hilltopper Restaurant. How do they do it? Child labor — but in a good way. The…
Gallery Profile: Shelburne Vineyard
Everyone knows you can pair wine with food. But can you pair it with art? Could gazing at a lushly colored pastel bring out the stone-fruit notes of a Gewürztraminer? Or might the cool atmosphere of a seascape make the minerality in a Chardonnay sing? Shelburne Vineyard tasting-room manager Rhiannon Johnson has been matchmaking local…
Five Successful Vermont Fundraisers Reveal the Tricks of Their Trade
Vermont has a lot of nonprofits — more than 6000, according to a list from Vermont Business Magazine — and competition for donor dollars can be fierce. It takes more than phone-a-thons to raise the dough needed to keep the state’s arts, human services, health, educational and religious institutions afloat. Ask Vermont’s best fundraisers for…
Vermont’s Director of the Office of the Creative Economy Wants to Tell a New Story About the State
Vermont is synonymous with snowboarding, sugaring and farming. But those activities account for a fraction of the state’s economy. Traditional sectors such as manufacturing and health care play a big role, but the Green Mountain State is also home to a large and growing creative economy made up of “knowledge workers” who produce everything from…
In Colchester, New American Farmers Raise Meat for the Refugee Community
As refugees from Burma, Bhutan and Somalia made their homes in Vermont’s New American communities, they began searching for a meat that few supermarkets stock alongside the shrink-wrapped chicken, pork and beef — goat. Goat may not be a staple of most Americans’ diets, but these hardy little creatures are widely considered the most consumed…
An Interview With David Lamb of Brown Bird
On their latest record, Fits of Reason, Rhode Island’s Brown Bird take lyrical cues from famed thinkers such as Thomas Paine, Omar Khayam and Christopher Hitchens. Amid hypnotic arrangements of swirling violins, sinister guitars and foot-stomping percussion, the duo of David Lamb and MorganEve Swain deliver a contemplative philosophical treatise of their own. Richly textured…
![Joey’s Sap Opera [305]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/episode305.webp?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
Joey’s Sap Opera [305]
3/28/13: Sugar maker and chef Joey Russo is a busy man. From Memorial Day to Valentine’s Day he runs Joey’s Junction Bakery & Cafe in Highgate Center. His partner El Towle fills the space with eclectic art and Joey provides the maple syrup-fueled food. During sugaring season you can find Joey in Belvidere boiling sap…
Letters to the Editor
Wetlands Needed [Re “Vermont’s Rain-Barrel Project: Lake Saver or Drop in the Bucket?” March 27]: I find it ironic that as I’m making an effort to place rain barrels around my house in order to help protect the environment, my town is planning to place a large storm-water outfall area on the other end of…
