Speed zone
History lessons
Schools forced to rethink lower speed limits
Clemmons Family Farm offers teacher tutorials
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South Burlington’s Community Newspaper Since 1977
the SEPTEMBER 14, 2023
SB school board faces new shakeup
otherpapersbvt.com
VOLUME 47, NO. 37
Strong start
Board member Bryan Companion resigns LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
Following a contentious few weeks for the South Burlington School Board, its newest member, Bryan Companion, resigned his seat effective Sept. 11 citing a “lack of respect and civility” at board meetings for his departure. Companion was elected to the two-year seat on Town Meeting Day, beating former South Burlington board chair Travia Childs by just 26 votes. Companion confirmed in a phone call that he dropped off a letter of resignation Monday morning at the district’s central office addressed to board chair Kate Bailey but declined to answer any further questions See SCHOOL BOARD on page 13
PHOTO BY AL FREY
South Burlington’s Sabina Brunet drives up the field away from Bellows Falls’ Eryn Ross during the Wolves’ 3-0 win over the Terriers on Friday afternoon in South Burlington. The Wolves are 2-0. More on page 11.
What’s in a name, South Burlington? Clearly not SoBu COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER
It was a quiet change. South Burlington’s monthly “night out” event, SoBu Nite Out, was last month advertised with a slightly more direct and slightly less nuanced name: SB Nite Out. This reporter has made a similar change in practice. Headline writing is hard work — work I generally let my editor deal with — and fitting South Burlington into a headline is generally impossible. So, SoBu was a nice little moniker to get the point across. Then the letters came in, with all the grace and cordiality of an artillery shelling.
SoBu is “childish, disrespectful, lazy, and more,” Loretta Marriott wrote. “It is time for The Other Paper to give up this ill-advised nickname.” “It’s ridiculous sounding,” Heather Morse wrote. SoBu “is neither hip nor cool” wrote Tony Basiliere, a 70-year-old second generation resident of the city, who said he found the term “to be an ill-advised attempt at relevance and branding.” “Please do not attempt to promote the entire city as hip and cool,” he said. The debate even bled into the ongoing work the charter committee is doing to evaluate and possibly change the city’s governing
structure. In a community-wide survey on its work, one reader added a postscript. “SoBu is a stupid name!! We are south Burlington, not some midwestern honky tonk!!” Noted, South Burlington. Or whatever you want to call yourself. The good news is that city officials have heard the message loud and clear. “We have gotten away from using it,” said city manager Jessie Baker, who noted the nickname’s adoption came before she joined city government in 2021. “There’s not been any proclamation that we’re never going to use it. But we’re not using it was a communication tool or technique in our offi-
cial communication anymore.” This certainly isn’t the first spate of letters. They go back to at least 2019, when Brenda Withey asked if there was “anyone else who winces a little every time they see the name ‘SoBu?’” Once upon a time — in 2014, in fact — the city of South Burlington hired Arnett Muldrow & Associates to create a “consistent identity package” for South Burlington, following what city officials deemed a “community identity issue,” The Other Paper reported in 2019 after similar rain of hail fire See SOUTH BURLINGTON on page 13