Don’t Destroy
Our Mini-Green

One of the charming amenities that grace so many of our Vermont villages is a village green. Chelsea, South Royalton, Rochester, to name three of our close neighbors, find multiple uses for their village parks.

Festivals, fairs, concerts, etc. are regular summer events. And every day the parks provide resting and relaxing places for the populace.

Unfortunately Randolph village was built up rather hurriedly along the north-south road from the river (and old Slab City) which became Main Street with the coming of the railroad in 1849. There was no village green as such.

On two subsequent occasions Randolph could have developed a substantial village green: in 1885 when the central business blocks were rebuilt following the great fire of 1884; and more recently a village green could have replaced the old 1911 village school in place of the office block which now rests there.

When the present municipal building was erected in Summer Street in the late 1960s the town fathers caused benches and picnic tables to be placed on the greensward fronting the building, thus creating a public amenity, i.e., a park. People regularly use the park and it is occasionally in use for concerts and public gatherings, including the annual Fourth-of-July celebration.

I hope the present selectboard are not, once again, planning to detroy this little park by building over it in their planning for an extension of the municipal building. It is one of the last substantial green areas in our village center, and there are several other viable sites for an extension of the present building or for additional office space.

Leigh Wright

Randolph