Long walk
Safety first
Man crosses America in effort to ‘fix democracy’ for all
Remembering Al Fortin, cop who dedicated his life to helping others
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February 6, 2025
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Hinesburg Center II moves forward without a crossing BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
PHOTO BY BRIANA BRADY
Hinesburg resident Kelsey Pasteris tells her story about taking the 116 Commuter bus.
Storytelling project brings tales to Carpenter-Carse Library audiences BRIANA BRADY STAFF WRITER
“I was raised by people who believed in domination. Parents had power over kids.” That’s how Karen Tronsgard-Scott, Hinesburg resident, began her story to a rapt audience of 30 or so people at a storytelling event at Carpenter-Carse Library in Hinesburg last Thursday. She spun her story from her own childhood to her work at a school for children with develop-
mental disabilities in Sri Lanka in the 1980’s. The audience laughed with her as she described dressing up as Santa Claus for the kids and fell quiet as she recounted an incident in which a student yelled at a staff member who sat calmly while the student released their anger and responded kindly. She shared the lesson she had learned with the people in front of her: in leadership, love is more powerful than domination. The audience clapped enthusiastically as Tronsgard-Scott
finished speaking. She pulled the next name from the hat. Tronsgard-Scott was the first of eight storytellers, all telling true stories from their own lives, no notes allowed. Last week’s event was the fifth of a series put on by Samara Anderson, who aspires to host a storytelling event at each of Vermont’s 185 libraries. She has one planned each month for the rest of year. If you’ve done the math See STORYTELLING on page 9
A sketch for Hinesburg Center II was brought before the Development Review Board on Jan. 21 after getting denied during the Act 250 process last April, and it’s official: the development will not include a crossing over Patrick Brook connecting it to the Haystack development. The crossing, which the review process determined would raise a 300-foot section of the brook’s floodplain by two and three-quarter inches, slightly expanding the area of the floodplain, was the basis for the state sending the plan back to the sketch phase. In addition to the removal of the crossing, the revised sketch eliminates three single-family homes to pull the development further back from the brook. However, the plan includes an additional 18 units in a new mixed-use building, increasing the total number of units in the project. According to Brett Grabowski, the project’s developer, the only way to resolve the floodplain issue was to remove the crossing. The proposal relied on a box culvert to allow the brook to pass through the crossing. To get approval from the Agency of Natural Resources, the development would have to utilize
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a different kind of bridge or crossing with less impact on the floodplain. “The bridge would probably cost as much as the entire project,” Grabowski said. While the plans still include a road where a crossing might one day get built, it won’t be paid for as part of this development. According to Mitchel Cypes, the town’s development review coordinator, the crossing has been in the town plan for four decades. “This is something that everybody has known should be coming and it will have a huge effect on traffic. It will have a huge effect on public safety. It would allow more of Hinesburg to be interconnected,” Cypes said. Board members and residents raised similar concerns about cutting the crossing out of the development during the review process two weeks ago. They had hoped the crossing would divert traffic cause by the development at the intersection of Farmall Drive and Route 116 and open another route for emergency vehicles. Although raising the floodplain by a few inches might violate state regulation, according to Cypes, doing so would pose no practiSee CENTER II on page 9