Veterans Day
Weed tree?
Shelburne turns out to honor its own
Box elders provide year-round food source
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Volume 53 Number 47
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November 21, 2024
Shelburne dedicates, opens long-planned pedestrian bridge PATRICK BILOW STAFF WRITER
The Falls Road pedestrian bridge over the LaPlatte River was officially unveiled Saturday morning after 14 years of planning and fluctuating project costs. A group of cyclists and walkers met at LaPlatte Circle, a nearby trailhead, before the unveiling and paraded to the bridge on a series of trails and sidewalks. They were joined by a swelling crowd of locals who came out to celebrate the long-awaited bridge on a sunny fall morning. “There were numerous times throughout the 14 years where we
thought this was going to die on the vine,” said Kevin Boehmcke, member of the Bike and Pedestrian Paths Committee in Shelburne, who addressed the crowd Saturday. “But with persistence and community support, we were able to make this happen.” The effort to build a bridge on Falls Road over the LaPlatte River dates to 2010 when a handful of new developments in the neighborhood were ushering in new residents and families. There was a lack of pedestrian connection to downtown ShelPHOTO BY PATRICK BILOW
See BRIDGE on page 12
Shelburne residents gather at the new Falls Road pedestrian bridge Saturday morning for an unveiling ceremony that was 14 years in the making.
Democrats elect Hinsdale as Senate majority leader SARAH MEARHOFF VTDIGGER
A week and a half after Vermont voters eviscerated their supermajority, Senate Democrats convened Saturday to reflect on their election losses and chart a new course ahead of the 2025 legislative session. They voted to retain one top leader — but jettisoned another. Saturday’s caucus at the Statehouse was the first time Democrat-
ic senators-elect had gathered after what Sen. Becca White, D-Windsor, called “an exceptionally difficult, tragic election night.” Republican candidates flipped six Senate seats, ousting four incumbents, and established a new partisan breakdown in the chamber of 17-13 — the narrowest margin Democrats have held in nearly a quarter-century. Seeing a need to change course, the caucus on Saturday voted out
its incumbent majority leader, Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, who has held the post for four years. In her place, they elected Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D/P-Chittenden Southeast. All the votes Saturday were conducted by secret ballot. Democrats elected Hinsdale their new majority leader by a vote of 9-7, with one member abstaining. In his nominating speech for Hinsdale, Sen. Andrew Perchlik,
D/P-Washington, echoed what had already become a common refrain in the room Saturday morning: that on the campaign trail, Vermont Democrats failed at messaging and communicating to voters and combatting criticism from their Republican challengers and Gov. Phil Scott, also a Republican. Perchlik said of Hinsdale, “I don’t think there is anybody in this room that’s better at communication and messaging.”
He said he would also be “honest” about “the criticism that I heard of Sen. Hinsdale, and one that I’ve had myself, and that is that she’s a bit of an overachiever, and she’s ambitious.” “I think that maybe there’s positions where you don’t want those characteristics in a person,” Perchlik said. “But I think we’re talking See HINSDALE on page 2
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