Author Archive for Shawn Cunningham
This weekend’s ‘buzz’
The Big Buzz is under way. The annual chainsaw carving event started five years ago by Chester carver Barre Pinkse has grown to 40 carvers who work their craft right in front of the crowd. With carvers coming from as far away as Germany and Sweden, the festival has become international. Many bring finished items […]
Chamber bandies local option tax for regional marketing
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph — 2014 The head of the Okemo Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce has approached the Chester and Ludlow town managers asking for their thoughts on a local option tax, saying that it could be used to market the area and hinting that the money would go to the chamber. […]
Chester board eyes shortfall, ‘edging’ toward balance
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph — 2014 Entering the last quarter of the year and with budgeting ahead, the Chester Select Board’s attention at its Oct. 1 meeting was focused on money. With the collection of taxes and water and sewer bills lagging, storm expense awaiting reimbursement and the underpayment of the emergency services […]
Chester wrestles with tight budget; Hearse House planning moves ahead
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph — 2014 During the Chester Select Board’s regular meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 17, town manager David Pisha reported that funds – including property taxes — are coming in slower than last year. Select Board member Derek Suursoo noted that the financial report handed out didn’t give him the detail […]
Objections to zoning changes fail to sway Chester Select Board
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph — 2014 On Wednesday, Sept. 17, about 25 Chester business owners and residents gathered at the Chester Select Board to express their views on several proposed changes to the town development bylaws. Most were concerns about two specific changes — raising a minimum residential lot size and rezoning a […]
Editorial: Chester officials can do more to engage the public
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph — 2014 Tonight, Wednesday, Sept. 17, the Chester Select Board is scheduled to adopt new zoning regulations, and from comments made by board members at the Sept. 3 meeting, Chester residents either don’t have an opinion on the regulations or are not engaged in the process because they have […]
Chester residents take aim at proposed 3-acre lot size, gas sales zone expansion
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph — 2014 Residents who turned up to offer input on Wednesday, Sept. 3 on Chester’s proposed Unified Development Bylaws complained about a suggestion to change the minimum lot size to 3 acres and to extend gasoline sales on Main Street from St. Joseph’s Church to Pleasant Street in an […]
Plan for Chester Ambulance reorganization explained; beautification panel proposes restoration of ‘hearse house’
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph — 2014 At its Wednesday, Sept. 3, meeting, the Chester Select Board looked at a grassroots effort to restore the hearse building at Brookside cemetery, questions about the application for historic site markers and the restructuring of the Chester Ambulance service Back in June, the board had heard about […]
Explainer: In search for fairness, Vermont’s school funding calculations tax the brain
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph – 2014 Whether you live in a Victorian on The Green, an old farmhouse up a dirt road or a yurt off the grid in the hills, you have one thing in common – property taxes. The largest portion of that annual payment is the education tax. It’s also […]
40 listen as state ed experts explain education funding formula
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph – 2014 The first two hours of the Chester Select Board meeting for Wednesday, Aug. 20 was devoted to a seminar on how the state education tax rate is calculated and why Chester’s tax rate took such a jump this year. The program was led by Steven Jeffrey, executive […]
Chester architect wins competition to help design Japanese resort
Chester architect Claudio Veliz has projects in Ludlow, Chester, New York City and now Hokkaido, Japan. Veliz learned over the weekend that he had won one of two spots on a panel that will design a new eco-ski resort in the snowy northernmost prefecture of Japan. According to Veliz, an eco-ski resort has no lifts […]
After a year’s wait, new Chester website caught in a web of uncertainty
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph — 2014 On July 3, 2013, the Chester Select Board voted to have a new town website constructed, using economic development funds to pay $10,000 to a company that had not yet been incorporated and had constructed just one website – its own. Kyle Rogstad, one of the partners […]
After tanker wreck, homeowner keeps his sense of humor
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph – 2014 When Joel Brookes sat down to his morning coffee and looked out the window on Friday, May 16, he had no idea he was about to begin a journey that would stretch two years into the future. After watching the 10,000-gallon P&H tanker turn over and slide […]
Crews work to repair road damage in Andover, Chester
By Shawn Cunningham © The Chester Telegraph 2014 Clickable photo gallery is below the article. Photos by Shawn Cunningham, The Chester Telegraph T own road crews, VTrans and private contractors were busy Tuesday morning as they continued to put local roads back together after Monday’s torrential rains (Click here for Monday’s story.). In Andover, Simmonds […]
Torrential rains wash out Route 11, a number of Andover roads
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph – 2014 A clickable photo gallery is below the article. Thanks to our photo contributors: Mark Burbela, Stacie Goodman Hill, Melissa Ryan and Marc Thomas. The skies opened up over Chester on Monday, and stayed that way, warranting the largest flood response since Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011. […]
Wetlands delay Popple Dungeon repairs; education taxes discussed by Select Board
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph – 2014 Proposed work to the decaying portion of Popple Dungeon Road has been put on hold because the Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Vermont have declared that an area that would be used to straighten the road and pull it away from a hillside is […]
Public questions lot size, noise proposals in Chester zoning regs
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph – 2014 The Chester Select Board reconvened its public hearing on new zoning regulations on Wednesday, July 16 with a much larger crowd than had attended the July 2 meeting, in which only two members of the public attended. At that July 2 meeting, some thought the sparse attendance […]
Select Board hears concerns on raising lot sizes in Chester; sets tax rate; OKs Whiting grant; discusses Open Meetings Law
By Shawn Cunningham ©The Chester Telegraph – 2014 A very small crowd showed up for the Wednesday, July 2 Chester Select Board meeting even though the topics to be discussed – zoning and tax rates – are often hot button issues. While the adoption of new tax rates is more or less proforma, the zoning […]
New water rates pass in Chester as infrastructure problems are highlighted
By Shawn Cunningham After more than six months of discussing the dire need to increase water rates to bring the Water and Sewer Department into the black, the Chester Select Board at its Wednesday, June 18 meeting suddenly – and with relatively little discussion – voted to adopt a new rate schedule for delivering water […]
Residents’ concern over transitional housing continues; Select Board knew about proposal earlier than indicated
By Shawn Cunningham Nearly 40 residents packed into the benches at Chester Town Hall for the Wednesday, June 4 Chester Select Board meeting. Most were there to express their views on the transitional housing proposal put forward by the Springfield Justice Center. And most were from the Gassetts area, where they believed the center intended […]
