MONDAY EDITION ADDISON COUNTY INDEPENDENTVol. 31 No. 13 Middlebury, Vermont Monday, August 12, 2019 40 Pages $1.00 State’s last unlined landfill Input sought for a Come hear to stop taking trash Sept. 1 tri-town bike path By JOHN FLOWERS still needs to find a hauler to By JOHN FLOWERS from SE Group of Burlington. Latin jazz SALISBURY — The run a mini transfer station NEW HAVEN — County The company was selected to Salisbury landfill will stop at the landfill. Residents residents on Aug. 15 will be able design the proposed tri-town • Brandon Music will host accepting trash on Sept. 1, thus will then be able to bring a duo that specializes in to shape a newly proposed bike route that, when completed, “will ending its more than 30-year their trash and recyclables route that would link Middlebury, provide a safe and enjoyable rider Brazilian jazz. See Arts run and its status as the state’s there for transport to the Bristol and Vergennes. experience, increase connectivity Beat on Pages 10-13. last operating unlined landfill. Addison County Solid Waste The public meeting, to begin at between communities along the And while closure plans Management facility in 7 p.m. in the New Haven Town route (New Haven, Waltham, are going smoothly, Salisbury (See Salisbury dump, Page 26) Hall, will be led by consultants (See Bike path, Page 27) Beaters battle at Field Days • A big crowd watched on Thursday as two nights of action were crunched into one. See Pages 22-24. ARE WE ON YET? Colin Foster, 15, of Middlebury, anxiously waits with his brown Swiss cow before the 4-H dairy conformation class at the Addison County Fair and Field Days in New Haven on Tuesday. Read about how Independent photo/Steve James Ragtime evolved Field Days: Bovine beauty secrets & more • A Lincoln musicologist studies the roots of some We present here a few snapshots sprayed a few strokes on the side day of the Addison County popular American music. Cow grooming, from the New Haven fairgrounds of her Ayrshire “Cheerio.” Fair and Field Days last week, See Page 19. maple & romance to give you a taste of our annual “This stuff is for the shine,” competitors like Farr were busy agricultural fair. the 18-year-old explained. “You cleaning and grooming their Editor’s note: Last week’s By BENJAMIN GLASS, NORA use it to highlight the cow’s heifers before the showcase. Addison County Fair and Field PEACHIN and GAIL WOOD ribs, kind of like contouring a In an event judged on the Days was filled with a thousand NEW HAVEN — Aislynn person’s face with makeup.” As presentation of their animals, little stories — more than can Farr shook up an aerosol can of part of the 4-H Showmanship 4-H’ers will spend days making be recounted in one newspaper. livestock skin conditioner and Class Competition on the third (See Traditions, Page 15) PAGE 2 — Addison Independent, Monday, August 12, 2019 Vergennes police to hold union vote Officers to decide in a few weeks By ANDY KIRKALDY On this past Wednesday, VERGENNES — According Noonan said he would be reach- to Tim Noonan, the executive ing out to both sides “within director of the Vermont Labor the next day or so” to lay the Relations Board, he will oversee groundwork for an election at an election at the Vergennes Po- the city’s North Main Street lice Department either later this police station. month or in early September. As well as finding a date The vote will determine if the that works for everybody, city officers of the city police force officials will be required to will unionize. supply to the LRB a full list of City officials in July made it all employees eligible to join official they would not oppose the union. The officers will be the officers’ wish to affiliate with required to file union documen- the New England Police Benev- tation, including cards signed by olent Association (NEPBA), a at least 30 percent of possible union that represents many law members showing their support enforcement agencies in New for affiliation with NEPBA. England, including in Given the earlier Vermont. “A good filing with the LRB, Umf! The proposed union number Noonan said that DETERMINATION SHOWS ON includes non-supervi- of police required step would the faces of Ladies Skillet Toss sory personnel only, departments probably be a formal- competitors Nilah Fitzgerald, and not Chief George ity. above, and Ava Mullin at the Merkel. Merkel has in the Noonan will run the Addison County Fair and Field state are Days this past Wednesday taken no position on election, which rep- afternoon. whether his depart- represented resentatives of both Independent photos/Steve James ment should unionize. by a union.” sides have the right to There are currently — Tim Noonan, observe. Officers will eight officers in Vermont Labor vote individually in the department, not Relations Board secret balloting. counting Merkel, but “They’re all going one is funded by a to come into the room grant to serve as a countywide one at a time,” Noonan said. traffic-safety coordinator. Noonan will then count the The officers notified the Labor ballots and announce the results. Relations Board in June of their Noonan said the LRB does intent to affiliate with NEPBA. not have statistics for the In June the city council and percentage of police depart- City Manager Matt Chabot were ments that are unionized, but engaged in a contentious public described it as “significant.” debate on whether to reduce the “A good number of police number of officers in the depart- departments in the state are ment by one or two. Ultimately represented by a union,” he they approved a tax rate and said. accepted a budget from Chabot City officials have been that did not include cuts. advised by their attorney not to Officers have declined com- comment further on the union- ment to the Independent on ization question. their reasons for seeking union But issues that could be affiliation. on the bargaining table have By state statute, Chabot surfaced during recent budget could have opposed the union, talks and related conversations. accepted it as an “appropriate” Chabot confirmed that, like bargaining unit, or sought the Vergennes public works em- election to confirm the officers’ ployees, city police officers are intent. He told the Independent not paid while their status is on in an email he chose the third call for potential duty. course. Health insurance benefits “I have advised the LRB could also crop up. What city (Labor Relations Board) that officials called a 15 percent in- the City agrees to a consent crease in the cost of providing election,” Chabot wrote. those benefits translated to an By state law the city manager additional $94,000 in spending has final say in such personnel in the new budget. decisions, but Mayor Jeff Fritz During budget talks, officials wrote in an email that Chabot said Vergennes pays 100 per- first consulted with Fritz and cent of the cost of those plans, Deputy Mayor Lynn Donnelly. a practice they said might be “We fully support his deci- revisited in the future. Also sion, and he continues to keep us discussed was seeking other apprised,” Fritz said. health insurance providers. Addison Independent, Monday, August 12, 2019 — PAGE 3 Puppet satire draws hundreds An over-flow crowd of several hundred area residents jammed the Marble Works green on the banks of the Otter Creek last Thursday to watch the Bread and Puppet Theater’s Diagonal Life Circus explore the “bewildering, beguiling, and downright funny possibilities and implications of diagonality with the help of state-of- the-art paper-maché weaponry and the riotous Bread and Puppet Brass Band.” The event, held on a flawless summer evening with a cool breeze, was sponsored by Middlebury Underground. For more photos, see a slideshow on the Addy Indy website. Photos by Angelo Lynn and Sam Ostrow Vergennes man convited on sex charge MIDDLEBURY — An Ad- dison County jury on Aug. 7 convicted a Vergennes man of lewd & lascivious conduct with a child under the age of 16. The defendant, 39-year-old Steven R. Desjardin, is sched- uled to be sentenced on Oct. 14. Vergennes police were notified on Oct. 14, 2018, of a possible sex offense reported to have occurred in the city. Following an investigation conducted by Detective Ruth Whitney of the Addison County Unit for Special Investigations, Desjardin was arrested and charged with the lewd & las- civious offense. Police described the victim as a girl between the age of 8-10. The one-day trial took place in the Frank Mahady Court- house in Middlebury. Desjardin was released on conditions pending his sentenc- ing hearing. PAGE 4 — Addison Independent, Monday, August 12, 2019 ADDISON INDEPENDENT Editorial Community discussions: Pros and cons of school consolidation is next In the third of our summer series of discussion points, we’ll launch a one-time discussion into Act 46, the bill passed three years ago that mandated a consolidation of school governance with the expectations that school districts facing declining student counts might find ways to contain expenses. The upshot of that law and process has forced the topic of school consolidation to the forefront. Locally, only the Rutland Northeast Supervisory District, representing the greater Leicester-Bran- don-Pittsford area that comprises Otter Valley Union High School, has pursued school mergers. None of the districts repesenting Mid- dlebury, Bristol or Vergennes have moved to merge or consolidate, though the Addison Central Supervisory Union board (representing the Middlebury-area schools) has launched preliminary discussions.