The Brattleboro Home Depot and its vast parking lot have been vacant for 12 years. On December 30, 2019 Home Depot spokeswoman Margaret Watters Smith told the Valley Post her company would like to find someone to rent the building and parking lot. Years ago, another Home Depot spokeswoman told the Valley Post the same thing.
On January 2, 2020, Brattleboro town manager Peter Elwell told the Valley Post he will not try to find a use for the building or parking lot.
Thanks to the labor movement, on January 1 the minimum wage will go up to $12.75 an hour in Massachusetts and $10.96 an hour in Vermont. The New Hampshire minimum wage will remain at $7.25. In the 1930s workers went on strike around the nation, forcing politicians to pass the first minimum wage laws. To this day, unions lobby to raise the minimum wage. One of the most active unions in the Pioneer Valley and Brattleboro has a web site at www.ufcw1459.com. New Hampshire unions have a web site at www.nhaflcio.org.
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On December 6 there will be two climate rallies. One is in Springfield at noon outside city hall. The other will be at 3:30 p.m. at the main entrance to Mount Holyoke College. The organizers of both rallies can be reached via www.facebook.com/SunriseSouthHadley.
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On December 1 in Keene there was a rally to impeach Trump. “There were around 30 people there,” Jim Murphy told the Valley Post. Pat Brady Martin told the Valley Post, “The music at the rally was great.”
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In Brattleboro on November 3 there will be a rally to call on congress to remove Trump from office. Among his likely crimes are sexually assaulting women, failing to pay taxes -- Trump is a billionaire -- and using taxpayer money to bribe leaders of foreign nations to help Trump get re-elected. The rally starts at 2 p.m. at Pliny Park at the corner of Main and High streets. As of October 30 about 30 people had RSVP'd. Details are at:
www.facebook.com/events/2960179400874665
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Sixteen people were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience between August 22 and August 27 at Wendell Massachusetts State Forest near Greenfield, bringing the total number of arrests to 25 since August 6. The goal was to stop planned logging of 80 acres of 110 year old oak trees on publicly owned land.
The USA is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every day. Stopping logging on publicly owned land forces logging companies to buy their own land. If the loggers want to grow new trees after logging, the land can't be paved.
This photo was taken on August 18 in Dummerston, Vermont, which borders Brattleboro. It shows a red eft, which is a young newt, by the side of a waterfall. Red efts live on land for as many as eight years. Then they live underwater. This is the opposite of dragonflies, which first live underwater for up to two years, then fly.
The president of Hampshire College might sell some of the 800 acres of forestland and farmland the college owns so the land can be converted to parking lots, Walmarts, and/or similar sprawl. The land is in the neighboring towns of Amherst and Hadley. The Valley Post asked Kristin DeBoer, who runs the Kestrel Land Trust in Amherst, if her group will try to save the land. On July 30 she said, “Kestrel Land Trust works with willing landowners to find conservation alternatives to development in areas that have important natural resource values.
On June 25 a group that is fighting planned logging on publicly owned land near Greenfield said the logging will likely start soon. “On June 24, the loggers began installing gates on Carlton Road and Dirth Road in Wendell (Massachusetts) State Forest. Installing the gates definitely means the beginning of logging,” said James Thornley, a spokesperson for the group. “Gates are not an independent, unrelated factor. The loggers are paying to have these gates installed — they would not spend this money if they were not about to commence cutting.”
More than 200 people attended a rally in Northampton calling for raises for workers at the city's public schools. At Northampton public schools, starting pay for cafeteria workers is $11.64 an hour; for custodians it's $12.01. Teachers' pay is below the state average. The workers organized the rally. They have a web site at www.nasemta.org. The rally was on June 12.
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More than 100 people were at a Northampton rally on June 15 calling on congress to impeach Trump. The organizers have a web site at www.IndivisibleNoho.com.
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In Springfield, pedestrian rights activists had a win May 30 when construction started on a $4 million project. “It's hard to imagine an intersection that is less friendly to pedestrians,” Stacey Beuttell told the Valley Post on June 3. She works for Walk Boston, a group that, despite its name, works statewide to make walking safer. Beuttell said the Springfield project is a victory. The intersection that will be fixed is at the corner of Alden, Walnut, Hancock, and Ashley streets. The mayor says it will be done by the end of next year.
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