Familiar Faces Win Local, State Races

W.R. Valley Incumbents All Keep Their Seats

As of press-time Thursday, the big surprise of Vermont’s 2014 election was the hairthin margin in the governor’s race, where Gov. Peter Shumlin had 88,419 votes and Republican Scott Milne had 85,983. Dan Feliciano, a Libertarian, had 8285 votes. That count came with 96.36% of the precincts counted, and Milne was still declining to concede. Gov. Shumlin, meanwhile, first scheduled […]

Burlington Vigil For Satre on Sunday

Classmates Want Justice in Death Caused by Taser

Friends and former classmates of Randolph native Danny Satre are determined that his story needs to be told. Satre, a 1989 graduate of Randolph Union High School, died at age 43 on Sept. 20 after being Tased multiple times by police in Ballston Spa, N.Y. Now, more than two months later, a vigil and protest is being held at City […]

South Royalton Fire Kills 23 Farm Animals

Property Damage Exceeds $1 Million

Tuesday morning, a pall of smoke continued to drift uphill from the ruins of the historic barn at 222 Sherlock Road, which burned to the ground in an early Monday morning fire. No one was injured in the massive blaze, but 23 animals perished. The barn had been extensively renovated in recent years, and, as a result, investigators estimated the […]

Welch Remains ‘Cautiously Optimistic ’



In Tuesday’s elections across the country, Republicans gained six more seats in the U.S. Senate, giving them a slim majority in the Senate as well as a dominant majority in the House of Representatives. Vermont’s representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, Peter Welch, has been a Democrat all his political life. Now that the entire Congress—Senate and House—is controlled […]

Chelsea OKs $250K Bond For Garage



In a 317-181 vote, Chelsea voters on Tuesday approved their selectboard’s request for an additional $250,000 bond for a new town garage. The board decided to ask for the extra funds this fall, after bids for the garage came in higher than expected. The town has $210,000 in a garage fund, plus $73,000 from a timber harvest. Voters had already […]

Apocalypse Where?

New Yorker Ponders End Times in SoRo

Local readers of the “New Yorker” were surprised this week to find the village of South Royalton to be the setting for a work of fiction in that distinguished magazine. The story didn’t exactly paint a pretty picture either. That doesn’t mean the author had anything against South Royalton, however. In fact, writer Jess Row, who lives in Princeton, N.J. […]

Grange Members Pitch in for Neighbor



When you can help, that’s what you do. That was the no-nonsense mindset evident Sunday in East Bethel, when a small army of Grange members, friends and family turned out to lend a hand to the Dean Conant family. Conant, the third generation to run the Conant family’s Ayrshire dairy farm on the East Bethel Road in Randolph Center, was […]

Assault Alleged in Braintree, Woman ‘Feared for Her Life’



Afterinvestigatinga1a.m.report of a domestic assault in Braintree on Sunday, Nov. 2, state police arrested Brandin Durkee, 26, on charges of first-degree aggravated domestic assault and interference with access to emergency services. Durkee, who was listed in the press release as a Braintree resident, has also lived recently in Sharon and White River Junction. State police said they determined in their […]

Alleged Knife Vandal Is Arrested



State police who responded to a report of vandalism to a vehicle in the early morning hours of October 31 subsequently arrested a Braintree man on multiple charges, After responding to Davis Acres Road in West Brookfield, troopers were told by witnesses that Timothy Blondin, 38, had come to the residence, vandalized a vehicle with a knife, and had also […]

State Police Charge Three With Drunken Driving



State police reported the following arrests for suspected drunken driving in the last week. At 10:45 p.m. on Halloween, state police received a report of a vehicle traveling north on I-89 from Hartford that was “all over the road.” A caller provided plenty of information about the vehicle, including the license plate number, and that it exited I-89 at Sharon. […]