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A reckoning for Redhawks basketball JANUARY 19, 2023
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
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CVU picks up the pieces after social media misstep BY JASON STARR Observer staff
The Champlain Valley Union High School girls basketball team is piecing its season back together after a racially charged lapse in judgment by one of its players on social media made it a pariah in its league. In December, a Redhawk captain made a video with a family member that followed a trend on Tik Tok, lip-syncing a mock advertisement that uses a racial slur. Within an hour of posting it, she heard from her teammates. “‘We understand you think this is being funny but it’s not,’” she was told, according to CVU Principal Adam Bunting, who has a daughter on the team. “‘People
The CVU girls basketball team gathers before a game against South Burlington on Jan. 3 in Hinesburg.
‘Back to the good old days’
Town Meeting will return to WCS auditorium BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Williston residents will be invited back to an in-person Town Meeting on March 6, the first since 2020. “Back to the good old days,” Town Manager Erik Wells quipped Tuesday after the selectboard finalized the Town Meeting Day ballot and annual budget proposal that will be up for voter consideration. The Town Meeting will begin
at 6 p.m. in the Williston Central School auditorium, where town and school administrators will detail their budget proposals and voters will weigh in on four pro-forma questions. Voting on the budget will take place the following day at the National Guard Armory next to Town Hall on Williston Road. Voters wishing to vote early can request a ballot from the Town Clerk. The ballot will have a $13.9 million budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year — a 6.3 percent increase (roughly $830,000) over the current year. The increase will result in an estimated 3.23 percent
increase in property taxes, according to Wells, which amounts to an additional $32 for every $100,000 of assessed property value. The budget includes the use of $493,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for the purchase of a second sidewalk snowplow and the continuation of police officer retention incentives. The town will have about $1.8 million remaining in ARPA funds to be spent by the end of 2026. Also on the ballot will be a question about whether the town should purchase the solar array on the roof of its public works
OBSERVER PHOTO BY AL FREY
building for $125,000 using unexpected bond revenue from the construction of the facility, and a bond question on the funding of a new ambulance that Williston voters previously voted in favor of purchasing. Three selectboard seats are also up for election, including the seat recently vacated by Gordon St. Hilaire. Petitions for a candidate to appear on the ballot are due to the Town Clerk’s office by Jan. 30. Other available seats are Champlain Water District representative, library trustee, school board member, lister and town clerk.
Town Meeting day will return to the WCS auditorium for an in-person meeting for the first time since 2020 on Monday, March 6.
are going to be hurt by this.’ She took a step back and realized the error she made in thinking that because a family member is a person of color that it made it OK. She took it down right away when she got that feedback from her team.” But a social media wildfire was already ablaze — the video had been recorded and was circulating among her varsity peers around Division 1. Rice Memorial and Burlington High School both cancelled their games against CVU, and other teams were considering similar protests. Then, last Thursday, Bunting wrote and distributed online an “Open Letter to Vermont Students.” The letter acknowledges the harm the video caused in the community, explains the punitive and restorative consequences the player is facing and asks the basketball community to trust CVU’s see REDHAWKS page 2
ON THE BALLOT The following positions are up for election at Town Meeting Day in March: • Selectboard seats (3) • School board seat • Town clerk • Lister • Library trustee • Champlain Water District rep Petitions to run are due to the town clerk by Jan. 30.
OBSERVER FILE PHOTO