Do drop in
MONTPELIER — It’s hard to keep track of them all, but the steady trickle of flood-damaged businesses reopening their doors continued this week, injecting some missed spice to the Capital City’s diverse food scene.
Earlier this week, the folks at Pho Thai Express started cooking again, and just up Main Street, Namaste Indian-Nepali Kitchen was scheduled to reopen its freshly renovated restaurant today.
We know some loyal customers who have eagerly awaited the return of both restaurants.
Forums for all
BARRE — By this time next week the first of four flood-related forums will be in the books in Barre, and local officials hope to have a significant chunk of feedback from folks interested in helping them to develop a vision for redeveloping north end neighborhoods.
The first of the facilitated forums is set for 6 p.m. next Wednesday at the Old Labor Hall on Granite Street and will provide those with an interest in the north end to participate in a discussion of revitalizing that flood-ravaged gateway.
It isn’t a huge time commitment (the session is scheduled to last 90 minutes), but will hopefully provide the foundation for a cohesive vision that will help the city leverage federal funding for a potentially game-changing project advocated by Gov. Phil Scott.
Can’t make it? There will be other chances, including two the following week (more on them in a moment), and there is an online survey available at barrrecity.org for those who want to weigh in that way.
While Wednesday’s session will serve as a kickoff event, smaller meetings in each of the city’s three wards will be held later this month.
Ward 2 is up first, and residents are encouraged to the session that will be held from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 24, at Brook Street School.
It will be the same time slot the next night for Ward 1 residents, who are encouraged to attend the session that will be held in the library at Spaulding High School on Thursday, Jan. 25.
The final forum will be held Monday, Jan. 29, at the Mutuo Club on Beckley Street. Ward 3 residents are urged to attend that session, which, like the previous two, will run from 5 to 6:30 p.m.
Good call
BARRE — You can add City Hall to the list of places that won’t be open on Monday, because Barre has decided to begin observing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as an official city holiday.
Credit City Manager Nicolas Storellicastro, who was surprised to learn last year that the city was open for business on a day designed to honor the legacy of the slain civil rights leader.
“I’ve never worked for an organization that didn’t observe it,” Storellicastro said of MLK Day.
He doesn’t anymore. Though there is a contractual wrinkle Storellicastro hopes to iron out with unionized members of the fire department, he indicated that Monday will be a holiday for members of the city’s three other labor unions, as well as its exempt employees.
Seeing it’s winter, the public works department will be staffed and so will on-duty police officers and dispatchers, all who will receive a “floater” holiday.
“It was my call,” said Storellicastro, who has discussed the significance of King’s work with his growing boys, and urged employees to remember why they’ll have the day off on Monday, celebrating it in a way they feel best reflects the national day of recognition.
It’s been 40 years since the federal holiday, which this year actually falls on King’s birthday (Jan. 15), was created by Congress and signed into law by then-President Ronald Reagan. It has been 30 years since the holiday was recognized by the State of Vermont.
New Hampshire was the last state to recognize the holiday — observing it for the first time in 2000.
While many communities, Montpelier included, observe the holiday, Storellicastro said he doesn’t know if Barre ever did. He just knows it didn’t the year he was hired, and it does now. That’s a good thing.
Read about it
BARRE — This week, Aldrich Public Library kicked off twice-a-week storytimes that will be a winter-long feature for children, their families or caregivers.
The snow-themed storytimes were held at 10:30 a.m. Monday and Tuesday.
Guess when there won’t be a storytime next week?
That’s right, the library will be closed on Monday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but Tuesday’s storytime is a go for 10:30 a.m.
If you want to mark your calendar, Monday, Feb. 19, will also be story-free at the library, which will be closed for Presidents Day.
Other than that, unless there is a weather-related cancellation, there will be stories, songs and crafts on Mondays and Tuesdays at the library through the end of February.
Road warriors?
WILLIAMSTOWN — A select board that tussled over the reclassification of a short section of Clark Road this week was in complete agreement when it came to a request to name an even shorter private road.
It’s the one that runs between Baptist Street and Rocky Ridge Raceway.
Seems the go-kart track where youngsters like Kaylie Blouin, of Washington, Barre’s Graysen Murphy, and Bryson Boutin, of Williamstown, raced last year, needed an E911 address. It now has one on the VT Shifter Karts Road.
That’s a mouthful for a private road that is less than 70-feet long, and if they post a road sign it could qualify as Vermont’s smallest billboard.
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