Nixing teens
Pinnin’ it
CVU students rally against Big Tobacco at Vermont Statehouse
Varsity wrestlers grapple with competition at recent meet
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Volume 54 Number 8
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shelburnenews.com
February 20, 2025
Incumbents tackle town, school issues BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
While local Shelburne elections might not involve a lot of competition this year — every candidate is both an incumbent and running unopposed — a recent forum allowed the community to hear where candidates stand on several issues. This year, selectboard members Mike Ashooh and Luce Hillman, school board director Erika Lea and town moderator Thomas Little will be on the ballot. Last week, all four sat down for a candidate forum at the town offices to address questions submitted by residents.
master’s in public administration. She recently retired from 22 years as a facilities manager at UVM and also serves on the town finance committee. Lea is finishing up her first three-year term on the school board. She’s a social worker who works with first year students at Champlain College. Lea also has children at both Shelburne Community School and Champlain Valley Union High School. Before serving on the school board, she was a member of Shelburne’s diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. She currently chairs the school board’s policy committee.
Candidate backgrounds
Housing and O’Brien project
Ashooh has been selectboard chair for three of his six years on the board. He teaches philosophy at the University of Vermont but said, in terms of organizing people and keeping things moving, his most relevant experience to his work on the selectboard was volunteering as a rugby coach. “It is a kind of way to feel like I’m contributing something positive by being involved in our local democratic process. I feel like this is really where it’s happening in terms of democracy in our country,” he said of serving on the board. Hillman has been on the board for four years. She grew up in Maine and attended University of Maine and UVM, receiving degrees in civil engineering and a
In response to a question about the process for the O’Brien Brothers pre-development agreement, both Hillman and Ashooh said how proud they felt of the strategy the selectboard took in leveraging their power over the sewer service area to negotiate with O’Brien over its proposed housing development, which is capped at 375 units. Lea said she took the time to go over the wastewater district and what kind of precedent the selectboard might set by extending it. Her concern, she said, was that if the town challenged the development’s use of Act 47 to plan for denser housing based on their proximity to the sewer system, it See CANDIDATES on page 12
PHOTO BY ADRIAN CRINER OF VERMONT CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
Wish Kids past, present and future gathered Saturday for the unveiling of the new Make-A-Wish Discovery Theater, which offers a space for them to begin to imagine where their wish might take them.
Make-a-wish unveils new wish discovery theater LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
A small group of people at the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory are making dreams come true — and the whole ordeal just got a whole lot more magical.
The Make-A-Wish Vermont team aren’t magical fairy godparents, but they harness just as much of that charming energy. The team has operated out of the factory since 2021, and celebrated its fourth anniversary last week on Valentine’s Day, fitting
New Location! Near City Hall & Public Library!
OPENS MARCH 4
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for the amount of love and dedication the team pours out week after week. The daily tasks are anything but simple: creating life-changing wishes for children See MAKE-A-WISH on page 16
Shelburne Road & Open Soon! Market Street, S. Burlington Maple Tree Place, Williston
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