Five years later
Trivial pursuits
Pandemic ushered in some legislative changes that are still with us
CVU Scholars’ Bowl team wins fourth straight state title
Page 2
Page 12
Volume 54 Number 13
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shelburnenews.com
March 27, 2025
School district eyes Shelburne for new employee housing BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
The Champlain Valley School District might build workforce housing on a 30-acre plot the district owns off Route 7 in Shelburne. “It would be dense housing,” school board member Dave Connery said. “Condos and apartments, and a portion of that would be set aside for young teachers to have low-cost housing while they’re first coming into the district.” According to chief operating officer Gary Marckres, the district has been contemplating what to do with this land for some time. “There is an idea that we’ve always had about the difficulty of the housing situation in Vermont, and how we might be able to help staff if we had a way to maybe provide affordable housing or be part of a program that provides affordable housing,” Marckres said. District officials and administrators had been discussing the plot when they discovered a company called Oldivai. The Washington-based company works with organizations to develop workforce housing that’s affordable to their employees. Susan Gillespie, Oldivai’s
chief operating officer, and her partner John Milne, started in the healthcare industry, then they moved into housing, focusing first on building housing for hospital employees like lab techs or food service workers, who don’t necessarily make the same level of income as doctors or hospital administrators. Champlain Valley would mark a move by the company into a new sphere. “There’s a lot of industries that are having similar issues where their workforce needs to be in person, but they’re not necessarily able to afford housing near where they work,” Gillespie said. It’s a sentiment that’s been echoed continually in Shelburne’s discussions of affordable housing. Last month during a candidate forum, Erika Lea, one of Shelburne’s school board directors, was asked about her take on affordable housing. “We want the best educators and staff in our buildings and in our central office, and I know that, to remain competitive as an employer, you need to be able to have people be able to live within a 45-minute drive of your schools, which is certainly not easy right now,” Lea said. See HOUSING on page 12
PHOTO BY BRIANA BRADY
This area will be closed during the upcoming great amphipian migration near Shelburne Pond.
Why did the frog cross the road? BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
The frogs are coming. Salamanders too. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, there will be what Shelburne natural resources committee member Jon Cocina described as an “overwhelming” number of amphibians crossing Pond Road
in Shelburne as they return from their forest homes to the pond to reproduce. In anticipation of the crossing, the town has agreed to close a portion of the road for one night during the frog-pocalypse in order to grant them car-free passage across the road. Cocina, who has been organizing a community event around
the amphibians’ annual trek, said it’s hard to know exactly when they’ll arrive. The conditions have to be just right — warmer temperatures and wet earth. Cocina’s put together an email list so that he can notify the community on the night it’s happening. See AMPHIBIANS on page 16
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