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Former Rice High hoops star named to Vermont sports hall of fame
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the FEBRUARY 27, 2025
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VOLUME 49, NO. 9
After years, city renames park for Underwood family
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LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
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South Burlington High School Nordic skier James Langan, a freshman, recently qualified to compete at the 2025 Junior National Championships next month in Utah.
City council signs off on property settlement for old Pizza Hut spot LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
The South Burlington city council signed off on a settlement agreement that could see three dilapidat-
ed buildings on a Shelburne Road lot torn down by May 1. Two of the buildings were once home to a Pizza Hut and Shell Gas station. Two iterations of the property
renovation plan have been circulating in the city for years, but the original plan before the city’s See PIZZA HUT on page 13
The South Burlington City Council has honored Richard Underwood, the city’s former tax assessor for nearly three decades who died in 1998, and his family by renaming the 1.7-acre green space at Overlook Park to The Overlook at Underwood Park. The renaming effort, first reported by The Other Paper in 2023, spans decades of city history and revealed how city officials, after purchasing property now known as Hubbard Recreation and Natural Area from the Underwood family in 2013, reneged on promises extended to the family to name the park after Underwood. At the time, the purchase represented the city’s single largest land buy since it acquired Wheeler Nature Park in the early 1990s. Before the land was sold to the city, it was part of a large 270-acre dairy farm owned by John and Aurora Nowland and later cared for by Richard Underwood. The land included both Overlook Park and the Hubbard Recreation and Natural Area, as well as several housing neighborhoods, including those on Four Sisters and Nowland Farm roads.
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The family asked for the parcel to be named after their father, The Other Paper reported, but years later, the city named the park after longtime deputy city manager Tom Hubbard, who retired in 2021. “We were disappointed and felt disrespected when it happened,” Patricia Hubbard Weaver said at the time. Adam Matth, the city’s director of recreation and parks who drafted the resolution approved by the council Monday night, said discussions with city staff and the Underwood family in 2023 regarding the renaming mostly focused on the area that encompasses Overlook Park. “I think we are happy to get what we can,” Weaver told the council. “We’re worried that if we postpone it any longer, we might lose what we have. And Overlook was where my grandfather’s barn was, so that was a very big part of the farm. But I think at this point we would be happy with The Overlook at Underwood Park.” The topic, which has come before the city council three times in the past year, has brought up even larger discussions. See PARK on page 12
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